"Fine," said Jocelyn, unperturbed. "But where are we going?"
"That's what I was coming to— " ("It's been a long time coming," murmured Jocelyn). "We're going to the place whence comes proto. What Art was driving at a while ago is that proto doesn't pull things upward or downward, or backward or frontward or North-by-East-half-a-point-East, for that matter. It pulls them—out. Into another dimension—or so we think."
"Oh," said Jocelyn. "You mean you've got a time machine. How nice. Well thanks a lot for letting me see you fellows, and don't worry about my keeping your secret. I won't tell. And I want ..."
"What's the matter?" asked Gaynor blankly.
Jocelyn stared at him. "You're trying to trick me, that's all. And you're not going to get away with it. Time machines are impossible. And if you think you've got one—I'm going home."
"But stop, Jocelyn," cried Gaynor. "We know time machines are impossible. We didn't say it was a time machine—you did. As a matter of fact, it probably isn't a time machine."
"As a matter of fact," Clair chimed in sourly, "we don't know what it is."
Jocelyn looked up at that. "Sure you're not joking?" They both nodded vehemently. She hesitated, then, "You know," she said, "I think I'm going to like this."
An hour later, Gaynor was finishing the job of explaining things to Jocelyn while Clair finished hooking up connections in the lab in the next room.
"This tube," Gaynor was saying, "is the keystone of our work. The thing inside that looks like a buckshot is composed of what will be Element 99 when the power is turned on. There's a lot of gadgets in here that you wouldn't understand if I explained them to you, but take it from me that I did a fine job in designing this tube. Consider: 99 is artificial, and it's pretty unstable. I had to incorporate the equipment for building it up and sustaining it. 99 is also radioactive, and I had to shield it to keep you, me, and the machine from crumbling into little glowing lumps. Those together ought to mean about five hundred pounds of equipment, but that was around four hundred and ninety-five more than I could get away with, because of the lack of storage space in the Prototype. So I condensed it to this." With which effusion he hefted the article in his hand. It fell to the floor with a crunch, its delicate members battered out of shape and its finely fused tubes shattered into bits.
"I see," said Jocelyn. "A neat bit of human interest. Was that the last one?"
"No," said Gaynor somberly. "We have a couple left." He took another from a locker and as they walked from the storeroom cast a glance back at the mess on the floor. "It looked a little defective anyhow," he said.
In the lab, Clair assigned the girl a place at a rheostat. "When the buzzer buzzes," he said, "open it wide and stand back." The tube was inserted, insulated, and tested, and the three took their various places, Clair gave the signal, and the circuits were closed in perfect order. They stared at the tube. It brightened, glowed, and then—smashed wide open without an apparent reason.
Clair opened the master circuit, looked up. "It did it again," he said wearily. "Why?"
"Yeah, why?" echoed Gaynor.
"Why what?" asked Jocelyn. "Why did it break, you mean?"
"Yeah," said Clair dispiritedly.
"Isn't it supposed to do that? When the proto pulls it?"
Gaynor glared at her. "Sure the proto pulls it, and— Hey! That is what it's supposed to do!"
Clair sat down heavily. "It sure is," he agreed. "Of all the damn fools, Paul, you and I..."
Gaynor was galvanized. "So all we have to do, Art, all we have to do is make the tube strong enough to take the ship with it when it begins pulling!"
"Did I solve something?" asked Jocelyn, a little bewildered. No one paid any attention to her. All of a sudden, they were hard at work.
III. Einstein's Extreme
Physicists generally have swarms of helpers and technicians to do all the rough, tough manual labor required in their work. This is for two reasons: because successful physicists are generally in their nineties and unable to lift anything much heavier than a gavel at an alumni meeting, and because it is considered by the majority demeaning for a mind-worker to use his hands.
That is only one of the many ways in which Gaynor and Clair differed from the Genus Physicist. They were young and strong enough to lift anything within reason and they had cranes for the stuff that was unreasonable and yet had to be lifted.
And they couldn't afford to have anyone but themselves—and Miss Earle—in their lab. If anyone knew then everyone might. An irresponsible writer or reporter would scatter the news broadcast and effectively gum up their immense undertaking.
So Gaynor, Clair, and Jocelyn did every last screw-turn and rivet-spread in the creation of the Prototype.
In about two weeks the job was done. Their ship was ready, a squat but very beautiful object in the eyes of its creators. The installation was complete; it was ready for the test.
Jocelyn took final notes. "Three dozen eggs," she read from a list.
"Check," said Clair, passing them to Gaynor who stacked the boxes neatly in the ship's compact refrigeration unit.
"Six pound of bacon ..."
"And that," she said, "is the last of the food. Now, perhaps, you'll tell me why you wanted enough provisions for a month?"
Evasively, Clair answered, "You never can tell. We may like it so much out there that we'll decide to stay awhile."
Gaynor descended from the Prototype's main port. "Yeah," he said. "The lady's right. I am a physicist, Art, a physicist. Not a porter. And I do not enjoy carrying sacks of sugar and cans of corn. I don't know why I should be carrying this junk, anyway. We're not going to be gone long—presumably. If the gadgets work, two days. If not—not."
Clair chewed his thumbnail. "You never can tell," he said. "Maybe I can have a hunch myself, once in a while." He stood up and said abruptly, "Get your pencils and paper, Jocelyn. I guess we're leaving—now."
Silently, the girl gathered her notebooks up from a table and stepped into the ship. Clair swung home a last switch in the lab and passed through the bulkhead. He slammed and sealed the door. Flatly, he said, "We don't know what to expect in the line of atmosphere out there."
Gaynor took his position at the power receiver. Clair stood at the control. "I'm ready when you are, Paul," he said.
His colleague flipped a switch, a relay clicked, and the indicator arced over to the right. "Power on, Art," he said softly. And Clair closed the prime contact. Slowly the tube warmed up, glimmering with a purplish light. That was the bottle of glass and the maze of wires that was to pull them from one dimension and hurl them into another.
He slowly, s-l-o-w-1-y, pulled over a rheostat, and the tube slowly brightened.
And nothing else happened. That was all. The tube got brighter.
Desperately, angrily, Clair shoved the rheostat all the way over. And nothing, nothing at all, still seemed to have happened.
Gaynor cried sharply, "What's the matter?"
Clair said nothing. There was nothing to say. A half a year of work seemed to be wasted. And the finest chance of exploring ever given mortal men seemed to have been snatched away as a mirage. Suddenly Jocelyn screamed. "Look," she cried. "The window!" The two men turned and gasped at the sight before them.
"That isn't the lab," whispered Gaynor. "Not in a million years. We're outside, Art. We've done it!"
Clair stared through the quartz plate. The scene that met his eyes was incredible—un-Earthly. It was new, he thought. A blankness that had yet to be moulded into a thing more definite. Without shape, dimension or duration, it was—Outside.