There was a period of bewilderment, almost panic, in which they both
felt so physically weak that they had to sit down on the concrete and
stare at each other mutely. But this passed and their natural courage
soon reasserted itself. Their first thought was to take stock of what
information they could get on their situation; and their first step
was to venture as close as possible to the queer little horizon which
lay almost at their very feet. It gave them a frightened feeling, as
though they were standing high up on a precipice or tower.
To their surprise, the horizon receded as they walked toward it,
always remaining about a dozen feet away from them. At first they
walked on concrete and then came to a crumbly edge of it and found
themselves stepping on hard, sandy earth. Later there was rock,
sometimes granite-like, sometimes black and shiny. But what they saw
underfoot was nothing, compared with the glimpses of things they got
out in the surrounding emptiness. First there was a vast space in
which a soft light shone, and in which there were countless spheres of
various sizes, motionlessly suspended. The spheres seemed to be made
of wood, a green, sap-filled, unseasoned wood. The scene was visible
for a few seconds, and vanished suddenly as they walked on. This
astonished them; so they stepped back a pace or two and saw it again;
and as they moved on, it disappeared again.
* * * * *
Then there was a great stretch of water in which the backs of huge
monsters rolled and from which a hot wind blew for a few instants
until they passed on and the scene vanished. There was a short walk
with nothing but emptiness, and then there appeared huge, oblique,
cubistic looking rows of jagged rocks in wild, dizzy formations that
didn't look possible; and farther on, after another interval of
emptiness, a tangle of brown, ropey vines with black-green leaves on
them, an immense space filled with serpentine swinging loops and
lengths of innumerable vines. Several loops projected so near them
that they could have reached out and touched them had they wished.
"This is too much for me!" Phil gasped. "Have we gone crazy? Or did
he kill us, and is this Purgatory?"
Ione smiled and shook her little head in which she had a goodly store
of modern mathematics stored away.
"These must be glimpses of other 'spaces' besides our own space. If we
could see in four dimensions we could see them all spread out before
us. But we can only perceive in three dimensions; therefore, as we
walk through hyperspace, past the different 'spaces' which are ranged
about in it, we get a glimpse into such of them as are parallel with
our own space. Can you understand that?"
"Oh, yes," groaned Phil. "It sounds just about like it looks. But,
don't mind me. Go on, have your fun."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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