The translation accomplished, however, that clothing literally felt apart. The dirt and grime of their long, hard journey and the sticky sap of the hyperplants through which they had fought their way had of course disappeared--being four-dimensional material, all such had perforce remained behind in four-dimensional space--but the thorns and sucking disks of the hypervegetation had taken toll. Now each rent and tear reappeared, to give mute but eloquent testimony to the fact that the sojourn of those two human beings in hyperland had been neither peaceful nor uneventful. Dorothy's glance flashed in amazement from Seaton to Margaret, and she repressed a scream as she saw the ravages wrought by whatever it was that they had gone through. But Seaton's first thought was for the bodiless foes whom they might not have left behind. "Did we get away, Mart?" he demanded, hand still upon the switch. Then, without waiting for a reply, he went on: "We must've made it, though, or we'd've been dematerialized before this. Three rousing cheers! We made it--we made it!" For several minutes all four gave way to their mixed but profound emotions, in which relief and joy predominated. They had escaped from the intellectuals; they had come alive through hyperspace! "But Dick!" Dorothy held Seaton off at arm's length and studied his gaunt, lined face. "Lover, you look actually thin." "I _am_ thin," he replied. "We were gone a week, we told you. I'm just about starved to death, and I'm thirstier even than that. Not being able to eat is bad; but going without water is worse, believe me! My whole insides feel like a mess of desiccated blotters. Come on, Peg; let's empty us a couple of water tanks." They drank; lightly and intermittently at first, then deeply. At last Seaton put down the pitcher. "That isn't enough, by any means; but we're damp enough inside so that we can swallow food, I guess. While you're finding out where we are, Mart, Peg and I'll eat six or eight meals apiece." * * * * * While Seaton and Margaret ate--ate as they had drunk, carefully, but with every evidence of an insatiable bodily demand for food--Dorothy's puzzled gaze went from the worn faces of the diners to a mirror which reflected her own vivid, unchanged self. "But I don't understand it at all, Dick!" she burst out at last. "_I'm_ not thirsty, nor hungry, and I haven't changed a bit. Neither has Martin; and yet you two have lost pounds and pounds and look as though you had been pulled through a knot hole. It didn't seem to us as though you were away from us all. You were going to tell me about that back there, when we were interrupted. Now go ahead and explain things, before I explode. What happened, anyway?" Seaton, hunger temporarily assuaged, gave a full but concise summary of everything that had happened while he and Margaret were away from the _Skylark_. He then launched into a scientific dissertation, only to be interrupted by Dorothy.