Adventure stories; Male friendship -- Fiction; Science fiction; Time travel -- Fiction
Vasper nodded. "Yes, that resulted, of course, in the two adventures
to our satellite you called the moon. They were disastrous because
you were ignorant of ether frequencies at the upper end of the cosmic
ray band. But you cannot overtake space by the spiral theory. Always
there would be fractional time, and, therefore, you're always bound by
ordinary dimensions."
"One million--two million--ten million, as Amos would say," Jim Kenley
put in. "How clear you are, Grandma."
"Shut up," Bob told him. "Then how did Taval work his theory, Vasper?
That screen--is it a kind of fourth-dimensional business?"
"It is. But that was worked out later, by a group of his pupils. We
use the same base idea of Taval's, as he perfected it back in 2800.
Discarding time to overtake, or unwind space as you might define it, he
chose to search for a physical way of stopping motion--"
"I've got it," Bob cried, leaping to his feet. "It came to me--the
night--the night of the storm--absolute zero! That's it! Absolute zero
to stop motion, and therefore, eliminate time and space!"
"Sit down," Jim advised. "I'm Napoleon and you're Little Caesar.
Remember? And tomorrow's Mayday.... Absolute zero, huh? Well, I said I
felt like I was in a chunk of ice that night."
"But this screen affair," Bob put in. "It--it's different."
"Our method of transportation entirely," Vasper affirmed. "Yes, we
need no streets. No walks, save for exercise. Throughout Taval there
are outdoor screens, for convenience. Winslow, I said Taval's idea is
unchanged. It is, although refined. You were right about your absolute
zero. We came to you that way. In the only machine we employ today,
save for the manufacture of the skydome, and our laboratory equipment.
With absolute zero stopping motion, there is neither time nor space.
You know that. Well, the first contact, creating new motion, brings one
to the time in which he is revived."
"Freezing like that would kill anybody," Jim protested. "It breaks up
tissue."
"You and Winslow suffered all stoppage of motion in approximately
one-two millionth of a second, my skeptical friend. We brought you to
the portable laboratory, kept you in suspended animation for ten days,
then revived you in another fraction as short as the means we took
possession of your bodies."
"How long did the process last?" Bob asked.
"It was exactly thirty days since you reached Taval."
Jim whistled. "No wonder I was hungry. Thirty days."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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