"Silence, Earthling!" There was tolerant contempt in Zehru's ringing voice. "I will explain some of the things that puzzle you. There is no reason why I should trouble myself to do so, yet it may while away the tedium of the short wait yet remaining before my apparatus becomes charged to the required point. Listen carefully, Earthling, for at best you will find many of my thoughts beyond the feeble limits of the word forms with which you have provided me. "The world of Xollar, where you now are, is a planet in the island universe known to your astronomers as the Great Nebula of Andromeda. Until a short time ago I was one of its ruling scientists. Then I sinned, and so grave was my sin according to the laws of this planet that the Council of Three decreed my death. That death sentence upon Xollar is irrevocable, and no man has yet escaped it no matter where upon the planet he may be when the appointed time for his execution comes. I was given the usual period of grace in which to put my affairs in order. Instead, I have labored unceasingly here in my laboratory, and my labors have borne fruit. I am the first man in Xollarian history to find a means of escaping the dread death penalty. "Briefly, I discovered a way by which I can flee to your far-distant universe, where not even the powers of the Council of Three can follow me. That way lies through the door of inter-dimensional Space. In Space as you know it, the almost unthinkable distance of a million light years separates Xollar from the dwarf star you call your Sun. Yet, traveling _between_ Space, the two planets nearly touch each other. The same situation of being near neighbors in inter-dimensional Space holds true with Xollar and at least seven other planets located in widely separated parts of your universe. * * * * * "Let me try to illustrate what I mean by traveling between Space. We will assume a nearly two-dimensional universe in the form of a circular piece of paper three feet in diameter. There is a dot in the exact center of each side of this paper. To a two-dimensional creature, forced to travel only on the surface of the paper, the distance between the two dots can never be less than thirty-six inches. Yet by cutting _between_ the two surfaces and going directly through the paper the dots are less than one-hundredth of an inch apart. "Such is the case with Xollar and the planets in your universe which are our immediate neighbors in inter-dimensional Space. In order to reach those planets I had only to develop a method of using sufficient force to cut _between_ the three dimensions of intervening Space. In solving this problem I developed both an inter-dimensional net to bring beings from your universe to mine, and an inter-dimensional gate to permit beings to pass from here back to worlds in your galaxy.