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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/29408-h.zip b/29408-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7488b94 --- /dev/null +++ b/29408-h.zip diff --git a/29408-h/29408-h.htm b/29408-h/29408-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f329bc5 --- /dev/null +++ b/29408-h/29408-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1627 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Wanderer of Infinity, by Harl Vincent + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; background-color: #FFFFFF; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +.tr {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; margin-top: 5%; margin-bottom: 5%; padding: 2em; background-color: #f6f2f2; color: black; border: dotted black 1px;} + +.f1 {font-size:xx-large; font-weight:bolder; } +.f2 {margin-left:50%; } + +.sidenote { + width: 20%; + padding-bottom: .5em; + padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; + padding-right: .5em; + margin-left: 1em; + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; + color: black; + background: #eeeeee; + border: dashed 1px; +} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.caption {font-weight: bold;} + +/* Images */ + +.figright { + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-left: 0em; + margin-bottom: + 0em; + margin-top: 0em; + margin-right: 0; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +/* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Wanderer of Infinity, by Harl Vincent + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Wanderer of Infinity + +Author: Harl Vincent + +Release Date: July 14, 2009 [EBook #29408] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WANDERER OF INFINITY *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + +<div class="tr"><p class="center">Transcriber's Note:</p> +<p class="center">This etext was produced from Astounding Stories March 1933. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.</p></div> +<p> </p> +<h1>Wanderer of Infinity</h1> + +<h2>By Harl Vincent</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="sidenote">In the uncharted realms of infra-dimensional space Bert +meets a pathetic figure—The Wanderer.</div> + + +<p><span class="f1">L</span>enville! Bert Redmond had never heard of the place until he received +Joan's letter. But here it was, a tiny straggling village cuddled +amongst the Ramapo hills of lower New York State, only a few miles +from Tuxedo. There was a prim, white-painted church, a general store +with the inevitable gasoline pump at the curb, and a dozen or so of +weatherbeaten frame houses. That was all. It was a typical, dusty +cross-roads hamlet of the vintage of thirty years before, utterly +isolated and apart from the rushing life of the broad concrete highway +so short a distance away.</p> + +<p>Bert stopped his ancient and battered flivver at the corner where a +group of overalled loungers was gathered. Its asthmatic motor died +with a despairing cough as he cut the ignition.</p> + +<p>"Anyone tell me where to find the Carmody place?" he sang out.</p> + +<p>No one answered, and for a moment there was no movement amongst his +listeners. Then one of the loungers, an old man with a stubble of gray +beard, drew near and regarded him through thick spectacles.</p> + +<p>"You ain't aimin' to go up there alone, be you?" the old fellow asked +in a thin cracked voice.</p> + +<p>"Certainly. Why?" Bert caught a peculiar gleam in the watery old eyes +that were enlarged so enormously by the thick lenses. It was fear of +the supernatural that lurked there, stark terror, almost.</p> + +<p>"Don't you go up to the Carmody place, young feller. They's queer +doin's in the big house, is why. Blue lights at night, an' noises +inside—an'—an' cracklin' like thunder overhead—"</p> + +<p>"Aw shet up, Gramp!" Another of the idlers, a youngster with chubby +features, and downy of lip and chin, sauntered over from the group, +interrupting the old man's discourse. "Don't listen to him," he said +to Bert. "He's cracked a mite—been seein' things. The big house is up +yonder on the hill. See, with the red chimbley showin' through the +trees. They's a windin' road down here a piece."</p> + +<p>Bert followed the pointing finger with suddenly anxious gaze. It was +not an inviting spot, that tangle of second-growth timber and +underbrush that hid the big house on the lonely hillside; it might +conceal almost anything. And Joan Parker was there!</p> + +<p>The one called Gramp was screeching invectives at the grinning +bystanders. "You passel o' young idjits!" he stormed. "I seen it, I +tell you. An'—an' heard things, too, The devil hisself is up +there—an' his imps. We'd oughtn't to let this feller go...."</p> + +<div> +<img class="figright" src="images/image_001_01.jpg" width="500" height="462" alt="He attacked it in vain with his fists." /> +<img class="figright" src="images/image_001_02.jpg" width="159" height="121" alt="He attacked it in vain with his fists." /> +</div> + + +<p>Bert waited to hear no more. Unreasoning fear came to him that +something was very much amiss up there at the big house, and he +started the flivver with a thunderous barrage of its exhaust.</p> + +<p>The words of Joan's note were vivid in his mind: "Come to me, Bert, at +the Carmody place in Lenville. Believe me, I need you." Only that, but +it had been sufficient to bring young Redmond across three states to +this measly town that wasn't even on the road maps.</p> + +<p>Bert yanked the bouncing car into the winding road that led up the +hill, and thought grimly of the quarrel with Joan two years before. He +had told her then, arrogantly, that she'd need him some day. But now +that his words had proved true the fact brought him no consolation +nor the slightest elation. Joan was there in this lonely spot, and she +did need him. That was enough.</p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p><span class="caption f2">He attacked it in vain with his fists.</span></p> +<p>He ran nervous fingers through his already tousled mop of sandy +hair—a habit he had when disturbed—and nearly wrecked the car on a +gray boulder that encroached on one of the two ruts which, together, +had been termed a road.</p> + +<p>Stupid, that quarrel of theirs. And how stubborn both had been! Joan +had insisted on going to the big city to follow the career her +brother had chosen for her. Chemistry, biology, laboratory work! Bert +sniffed, even now. But he had been equally stubborn in his insistence +that she marry him instead and settle down on the middle-Western fruit +farm.</p> + +<p>With a sudden twist, the road turned in at the entrance of a sadly +neglected estate. The grounds of the place were overrun with rank +growths and the driveway was covered with weeds. The tumble-down +gables of a descrepit frame house peeped out through the trees. It was +a rambling old building that once had been a mansion—the "big house" +of the natives. A musty air of decay was upon it, and crazily askew +window shutters proclaimed deep-shrouded mystery within.</p> + +<p>Bert drew up at the rickety porch and stopped the flivver with its +usual shuddering jerk.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">A</span>s if his coming had been watched for through the stained glass of its +windows, the door was flung violently open. A white-clad figure darted +across the porch, but not before Bert had untangled the lean six feet +of him from under the flivver's wheel and bounded up the steps.</p> + +<p>"Joan!"</p> + +<p>"Bert! I—I'm sorry."</p> + +<p>"Me too." Swallowing hard, Bert Redmond held her close.</p> + +<p>"But I won't go back to Indiana!" The girl raised her chin and the old +defiance was in her tearful gaze.</p> + +<p>Bert stared. Joan was white and wan, a mere shadow of her old self. +And she was trembling, hysterical.</p> + +<p>"That's all right," he whispered. "But tell me now, what is it? What's +wrong?"</p> + +<p>With sudden vigor she was drawing him into the house. "It's Tom," she +quavered. "I can't do a thing with him; can't get him to leave here. +And something terrible is about to happen, I know. I thought perhaps +you could help, even if—"</p> + +<p>"Tom Parker here?" Bert was surprised that the fastidious older +brother should leave his comfortable city quarters and lose himself in +this God-forsaken place. "Sure, I'll help, dear—if I can."</p> + +<p>"You can; oh, I'm sure you can," the girl went on tremulously. A spot +of color flared in either cheek. "It's his experiments. He came over +from New York about a year ago and rented this old house. The +city laboratory wasn't secluded enough. And I've helped him until now +in everything. But I'm frightened; he's playing with dangerous forces. +He doesn't understand—won't understand. But I saw...."</p> + +<p>And then Joan Parker slumped into a high-backed chair that stood in +the ancient paneled hall. Soft waves of her chestnut hair framed the +pinched, terrified face, and wide eyes looked up at Bert, with the +same horror he had seen in those of the old fellow the village. A +surge of the old tenderness welled up in him and he wanted to take her +in his arms.</p> + +<p>"Wait," she said, swiftly rising. "I'll let you judge for yourself. +Here—go into the laboratory and talk with Tom."</p> + +<p>She pushed him forward and through a door that closed softly behind +him. He was in a large room that was cluttered with the most +bewildering array of electrical mechanisms he had ever seen. Joan had +remained outside.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">T</span>om Parker, his hair grayer and forehead higher than when Bert had +seen him last, rose from where he was stooping over a work bench. He +advanced, smiling, and his black eyes were alight with genuine +pleasure. Bert had anticipated a less cordial welcome.</p> + +<p>"Albert Redmond!" exclaimed the older man. "This is a surprise. Glad +to see you, boy, glad to see you."</p> + +<p>He meant it, Tom did, and Bert wrung the extended hand heartily. Yet +he dared not tell of Joan's note. The two men had always been the very +best of friends—except in the matter of Joan's future.</p> + +<p>"You haven't changed much," Bert ventured.</p> + +<p>Tom Parker laughed. "Not about Joan, if that is what you mean. She +likes the work and will go far in it. Why, Bert—"</p> + +<p>"Sa-ay, wait a minute." Bert Redmond's mien was solemn. "I saw her +outside, Tom, and was shocked. She isn't herself—doesn't look at all +well. Haven't you noticed, man?"</p> + +<p>The older man sobered and a puzzled frown crossed his brow. "I have +noticed, yes. But it's nonsense, Bert, I swear it is. She has been +having dreams—worrying a lot, it seems. Guess I'll have to send her +to the doctor?"</p> + +<p>"Dreams? Worry?" Bert thought of the old man called Gramp.</p> + +<p>"Yes. I'll tell you all about it—what we're working on here—and show +you. It's no wonder she gets that way, I guess. I've been a bit loony +with the marvel of it myself at times. Come here."</p> + +<p>Tom led him to an intricate apparatus which bore some resemblance to a +television radio. There were countless vacuum tubes and their +controls, tiny motors belted to slotted disks that would spin when +power was applied, and a double eyepiece.</p> + +<p>"Before I let you look," Tom was saying, "I'll give you an idea of it, +to prepare you. This is a mechanism I've developed for a study of the +less-understood dimensions. The results have more than justified my +expectations—they're astounding. Bert, we can actually see into these +realms that were hitherto unexplored. We can examine at close range +the life of these other planes. Think of it!"</p> + +<p>"Life—plane—dimensions?" said Bert blankly. "Remember, I know very +little about this science of yours."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">"H</span>aven't you read the news-paper accounts of Einstein's researches and +of others who have delved into the theory of relativity?"</p> + +<p>"Sa-ay! I read them, but they don't tell me a thing. It's over my head +a mile."</p> + +<p>"Well, listen: this universe of ours—space and all it contains—is a +thing of five dimensions, a continuum we have never begun to +contemplate in its true complexity and immensity. There are three of +its dimensions with which we are familiar. Our normal senses perceive +and understand them—length, breadth and thickness. The fourth +dimension, time, or, more properly, the time-space interval, we have +only recently understood. And this fifth dimension, Bert, is something +no man on earth has delved into—excepting myself."</p> + +<p>"You don't say." Bert was properly impressed; the old gleam of the +enthusiastic scientist was in Tom's keen eyes.</p> + +<p>"Surest thing. I have called this fifth dimension the interval of +oscillation, though the term is not precisely correct. It has to do +with the arrangement, the speed and direction of movement, and the +polarity of protonic and electronic energy charges of which matter is +comprised. It upsets some of our old and accepted natural laws—one in +particular. Bert, two objects can occupy the same space at the same +time, though only one is perceptible to our earthbound senses. Their +differently constituted atoms exist in the same location without +interference—merely vibrating in different planes. There are many +such planes in this fifth dimension of space, all around us, some +actually inhabited. Each plane has a different atomic structure of +matter, its own oscillation interval of the energy that is matter, and +a set of natural laws peculiar to itself. I can't begin to tell you; +in fact, I've explored only a fraction. But here—look!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">T</span>om's instrument set up a soft purring at his touch of a lever, and +eery blue light flickered from behind the double eyepiece, casting +grotesque shadows on walls and ceiling, and paling to insignificance +the light of day that filtered through the long-unwashed windows.</p> + +<p>Bert squinted through the hooded twin lenses. At first he was dazzled +and confused by the rapidly whirling light-images, but these quickly +resolved into geometric figures, an inconceivable number of them, +extending off into limitless space in a huge arc, revolving and +tumbling like the colored particles in an old-fashioned kaleidoscope. +Cubes, pyramids and cones of variegated hues. Swift-rushing spheres +and long slim cylinders of brilliant blue-white; gleaming disks of +polished jet, spinning....</p> + +<p>Abruptly the view stabilized, and clear-cut stationary objects sprang +into being. An unbroken vista of seamed chalky cliffs beside an inky +sea whose waters rose and fell rhythmically yet did not break against +the towering palisade. Wave-less, glass-smooth, these waters. A huge +blood-red sun hanging low in a leaden though cloudless sky, reflecting +scintillating flecks of gold and purple brilliance from the ocean's +black surface.</p> + +<p>At first there was no sign of life to be seen. Then a mound was rising +up from the sea near the cliff, a huge tortoiselike shape that +stretched forth several flat members which adhered to the vertical +white wall is if held by suction disks. Ponderously the thing turned +over and headed up from the inky depths, spewing out from its concave +under side an army of furry brown bipeds. Creatures with bloated +torsos in which head and body merged so closely as to be +indistinguishable one from the other, balanced precariously on two +spindly legs, and with long thin arms like tentacles, waving and +coiling. Spiderlike beings ran out over the smooth dark surface of the +sea as if it were solid ground.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">"J</span>upiter!" Bert looked up from the eyepiece, blinking into the +triumphant grinning face of Tom Parker. "You mean to tell me these +creatures are real?" he demanded. "Living here, all around us, in +another plane where we can't see them without this machine of yours?"</p> + +<p>"Surest thing. And this is but one of many such planes."</p> + +<p>"They can't get through, to our plane?"</p> + +<p>"Lord no, man, how could they?"</p> + +<p>A sharp crackling peal of thunder rang out overhead and Tom Parker +went suddenly white. Outside, the sky was cloudless.</p> + +<p>"And that—what's that?" Bert remembered the warning of the old man of +the village, and Joan's obvious fear.</p> + +<p>"It—it's only a physical manifestation of the forces I use in +obtaining visual connection, one of the things that worries Joan. Yet +I can't find any cause for alarm...."</p> + +<p>The scientist's voice droned on endlessly, technically. But Bert knew +there was something Tom did not understand, something he was trying +desperately to explain to himself.</p> + +<p>Thunder rumbled once more, and Bert returned his eyes to the +instrument. Directly before him in the field of vision a group of the +spider men advanced over the pitchy sea with a curiously constructed +cage of woven transparent material which they set down at a point so +close by that it seemed he could touch it if he stretched out his +hand. The illusion of physical nearness was perfect. The evil eyes of +the creatures were fastened upon him; tentacle arms uncoiled and +reached forth as if to break down the barrier that separated them.</p> + +<p>And then a scream penetrated his consciousness, wrenching him back to +consideration of his immediate surroundings. The laboratory door burst +open and Joan, pale and disheveled, dashed into the room.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">T</span>om shouted, running forward to intercept her, and Bert saw what he +had not seen before, a ten-foot circle of blue-white metal set in the +floor and illuminated by a shaft of light from a reflector on the +ceiling above Tom's machine.</p> + +<p>"Joan—the force area!" Tom was yelling. "Keep away!"</p> + +<p>Tom had reached the distraught girl and was struggling with her over +on the far side of the disk.</p> + +<p>There came a throbbing of the very air surrounding them, and Bert saw +Tom and Joan on the other side of the force area, their white faces +indistinct and wavering as if blurred by heat waves rising between. +The rumblings and cracklings overhead increased in intensity until the +old house swayed and creaked with the concussions. Hazy forms +materialized on the lighted disk—the cage of the transparent, woven +basket—dark spidery forms within. The creatures from that other +plane!</p> + +<p>"Joan! Tom!" Bert's voice was soundless as he tried to shout, and his +muscles were paralyzed when he attempted to hurl himself across to +them. The blue-white light had spread and formed a huge bubble of +white brilliance, a transparent elastic solid that flung him back when +he attacked it in vain with his fists.</p> + +<p>Within its confines he saw Joan and her brother scuffling with the +spider men, tearing at the tentacle arms that encircled them and drew +them relentlessly into the basket-weave cage. There was a tremendous +thump and the warping of the very universe about them all. Bert +Redmond, his body racked by insupportable tortures, was hurled into +the black abyss of infinity....</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">T</span>his was not death nor was it a dream from which he would awaken. +After that moment of mental agony and ghastly physical pain, after a +dizzying rush through inky nothingness, Bert knew suddenly that he was +very much alive. If he had lost consciousness at all, it had been for +no great length of time. And yet there was this sense of strangeness +in his surroundings, a feeling that he had been transported over some +nameless gulf of space. He had dropped to his knees, but with the +swift return of normal faculties he jumped to his feet.</p> + +<p>A tall stranger confronted him, a half-nude giant with bronzed skin +and of solemn visage. The stalwart build of him and the smooth +contours of cheek and jaw proclaimed him a man not yet past middle +age, but his uncropped hair was white as the driven snow.</p> + +<p>They stood in a spherical chamber of silvery metal, Bert and this +giant, and the gentle vibration of delicately balanced machinery made +itself felt in the structure. Of Joan and Tom there was no sign.</p> + +<p>"Where am I?" Bert demanded. "And where are my friends? Why am I with +you, without them?"</p> + +<p>Compassion was in the tall stranger's gaze—and something more. The +pain of a great sorrow filled the brown eyes that looked down at Bert, +and resignation to a fate that was shrouded in ineffable mystery.</p> + +<p>"Trust me," he said in a mellow slurring voice. "Where you are, you +shall soon learn. You are safe. And your friends will be located."</p> + +<p>"<i>Will</i> be located! Don't you <i>know</i> where they are?" Bert laid hands +on the big man's wrists and shook him impatiently. The stranger was +too calm and unmoved in the face of this tremendous thing which had +come to pass.</p> + +<p>"I know where they have been taken, yes. But there is no need of haste +out here in infra-dimensional space, for time stands still. We will +find it a simple matter to reach the plane of their captors, the +Bardeks, within a few seconds after your friends arrive there. My +plane segregator—this sphere—will accomplish this in due season."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">S</span>trangely, Bert believed him. This talk of dimensions and planes and +of the halting of time was incomprehensible, but somehow there was +communicated to his own restless nature something of the placid +serenity of the white-haired stranger. He regarded the man more +closely, saw there was an alien look about him that marked him as +different and apart from the men of Earth. His sole garment was a wide +breech clout of silvery stuff that glinted with changing colors—hues +foreign to nature on Earth. His was a superhuman perfection of +muscular development, and there was an indescribable mingling of +gentleness and sternness in his demeanor. With a start, Bert noted +that his fingers were webbed, as were his toes.</p> + +<p>"Sa-ay," Bert exclaimed, "who are you, anyway?"</p> + +<p>The stranger permitted himself the merest ghost of a smile. "You may +call me Wanderer," he said. "I am the Wanderer of Infinity."</p> + +<p>"Infinity! You are not of my world?"</p> + +<p>"But no."</p> + +<p>"You speak my language."</p> + +<p>"It is one of many with which I am familiar."</p> + +<p>"I—I don't understand." Bert Redmond was like a man in a trance, +completely under the spell of his amazing host's personality.</p> + +<p>"It is given to few men, to understand." The Wanderer fell silent, his +arms folded across his broad chest. And his great shoulders bowed as +under the weight of centuries of mankind's cares. "Yet I would have +you understand, O Man-Called-Bert, for the tale is a strange one and +is heavy upon me."</p> + +<p>It was uncanny that this Wanderer should address him by name. Bert +thrilled to a new sense of awe.</p> + +<p>"But," he objected, "my friends are in the hands of the spider men. +You said we'd go to them. Good Lord, man, I've got to do it!"</p> + +<p>"You forget that time means nothing here. We will go to them in +precise synchronism with the proper time as existent in that plane."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">T</span>he Wanderer's intense gaze held Bert speechless, hypnotized. A swift +dimming of the sphere's diffused illumination came immediately, and +darkness swept down like a blanket, thick and stifling. This was no +ordinary darkness, but utter absence of light—the total obscurity of +Erebus. And the hidden motors throbbed with sudden new vigor.</p> + +<p>"Behold!" At the Wanderer's exclamation the enclosing sphere became +transparent and they were in the midst of a dizzying maelstrom of +flashing color. Brilliant geometric shapes, there were, whirling off +into the vastness of space; as Bert had seen them in Tom Parker's +instrument. A gigantic arc of rushing light-forms spanning the black +gulf of an unknown cosmos. And in the foreground directly under the +sphere was a blue-white disk, horizontally fixed—a substantial and +familiar object, with hazy surroundings likewise familiar.</p> + +<p>"Isn't that the metal platform in my friend's laboratory?" asked Bert, +marveling.</p> + +<p>"It is indeed." The mellow voice of the Wanderer was grave, and he +laid a hand on Bert's arm. "And for so long as it exists it +constitutes a serious menace to your civilization. It is a gateway to +your world, a means of contact with your plane of existence for those +many vicious hordes that dwell in other planes of the fifth dimension. +Without it, the Bardeks had not been able to enter and effect the +kidnaping of your friends. Oh, I tried so hard to warn them—Parker +and the girl—but could not do it in time."</p> + +<p>A measure of understanding came to Bert Redmond. This was the thing +Joan had feared and which Tom Parker had neglected to consider. The +forces which enabled the scientist to see into the mysterious planes +of this uncharted realm were likewise capable of providing physical +contact between the planes, or actual travel from one to the other. +Tom had not learned how to use the forces in this manner, but the +Bardeks had.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">"W</span>e travel now along a different set of coordinates, those of +space-time," said the Wanderer. "We go into the past, through eons of +time as it is counted in your world."</p> + +<p>"Into the past," Bert repeated. He stared foolishly at his host, whose +eyes glittered strangely in the flickering light.</p> + +<p>"Yes, we go to my home—to what was my home."</p> + +<p>"To your home? Why?" Bert shrank before the awful contorted face of +the Wanderer. A spasm of ferocity had crossed it on his last words. +Some fearful secret must be gnawing at the big man's vitals.</p> + +<p>"Again you must trust me. To understand, it is necessary that you +see."</p> + +<p>The gentle whir of machinery rose to a piercing shriek as the Wanderer +manipulated the tiny levers of a control board that was set in the +smooth transparent wall. And the rushing light-forms outside became a +blur at first, then a solid stream of cold liquid fire into which they +plunged at breakneck speed.</p> + +<p>There was no perceptible motion of the sphere, however. It was the +only object that seemed substantial and fixed in an intangible and +madly gyrating universe. Its curved wall, though transparent, was +solid, comforting to the touch.</p> + +<p>Standing by his instrument board, the Wanderer was engrossed in a +tabulation of mathematical data he was apparently using in setting the +many control knobs before him. Plotting their course through infinity! +His placid serenity of countenance had returned, but there was a new +eagerness in his intense gaze and his strong fingers trembled while he +manipulated the tiny levers and dials.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">O</span>utside the apparently motionless sphere, a never-ending riot of color +surged swiftly and silently by, now swirling violently in great +sweeping arcs of blinding magnificence, now changing character and +driving down from dizzying heights as a dim-lit column of gray that +might have been a blast of steam from some huge inverted geyser of the +cosmos. Always there were the intermittent black bands that flashed +swiftly across the brightness, momentarily darkening the sphere and +then passing on into the limbo of this strange realm between planes.</p> + +<p>Abruptly then, like the turning of a page in some gigantic book, the +swift-moving phantasmagoria swung back into the blackness of the +infinite and was gone. Before them stretched a landscape of rolling +hills and fertile valleys. Overhead, the skies were a deep blue, +almost violet, and twin suns shone down on the scene. The sphere +drifted along a few hundred feet from the surface.</p> + +<p>"Urtraria!" the Wanderer breathed reverently. His white head was bowed +and his great hands clutched the small rail of the control board.</p> + +<p>In a daze of conflicting emotions, Bert watched as this land of peace +and plenty slipped past beneath them. This, he knew, had been the home +of Wanderer. In what past age or at how great a distance it was from +his own world, he could only imagine. But that the big man who called +himself Wanderer loved this country there was not the slightest doubt. +It was a fetish with him, a past he was in duty bound to revisit time +and again, and to mourn over.</p> + +<p>Smooth broad lakes, there were, and glistening streams that ran their +winding courses through well-kept and productive farmlands. And +scattered communities with orderly streets and spacious parks. Roads, +stretching endless ribbons of wide metallic surface across the +countryside. Long two-wheeled vehicles skimming over the roads with +speed so great the eye could scarcely follow them. Flapping-winged +ships of the air, flying high and low in all directions. A great city +of magnificent dome-topped buildings looming up suddenly at the +horizon.</p> + +<p>The sphere proceeded swiftly toward the city. Once a great air liner, +flapping huge gossamerlike wings, drove directly toward them. Bert +cried out in alarm and ducked instinctively, but the ship passed +<i>through</i> them and on its way. It was as if they did not exist in this +spherical vehicle of the dimensions.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">"W</span>e are here only as onlookers," the Wanderer explained sadly, "and +can have no material existence here. We can not enter this plane, for +there is no gateway. Would that there were."</p> + +<p>Now they were over the city and the sphere came to rest above a +spacious flat roof where there were luxurious gardens and pools, and a +small glass-domed observatory. A woman was seated by one of the pools, +a beautiful woman with long golden hair that fell in soft profusion +over her ivory shoulders and bosom. Two children, handsome stalwart +boys of probably ten and twelve, romped with a domestic animal which +resembled a foxhound of Earth but had glossy short-haired fur and +flippers like these of a seal. Suddenly these three took to the water +and splashed with much vigor and joyful shouting.</p> + +<p>The Wanderer gripped Bert's arm with painful force. "My home!" he +groaned. "Understand, Earthling? This was my home, these my wife and +children—destroyed through my folly. Destroyed, I say, in ancient +days. And by my accursed hand—when the metal monsters came."</p> + +<p>There was madness in the Wanderer's glassy stare, the madness of a +tortured soul within. Bert began to fear him.</p> + +<p>"We should leave," he said. "Why torment yourself with such memories? +My friends...."</p> + +<p>"Have patience, Earthling. Don't you understand that I sinned and am +therefore condemned to this torment? Can't you see that I <i>must</i> +unburden my soul of its ages-old load, that I must revisit the scene +of my crime, that others must see and know? It is part of my +punishment, and you, perforce, must bear witness. Moreover, it is to +help your friends and your world that I bring you here. Behold!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">A</span> man was coming out of the observatory, a tall man with bronzed skin +and raven locks. It was the Wanderer himself, the Wanderer of the +past, as he had been in the days of his youth and happiness.</p> + +<p>The woman by the pool had risen from her seat and was advancing +eagerly toward her mate. Bert saw that the man hardly glanced in her +direction, so intent was he upon an object over which he stood. The +object was a shimmering bowl some eight or ten feet across, which was +mounted on a tripod near the observatory, and over whose metallic +surface a queer bluish light was playing.</p> + +<p>It was a wordless pantomime, the ensuing scene, and Bert watched in +amazement. This woman of another race, another age, another plane, was +pleading with her man. Sobbing soundlessly, wretchedly. And the man +was unheeding, impatient with her demonstrations. He shoved her aside +as she attempted to interfere with his manipulations of some elaborate +mechanical contrivance at the side of the bowl.</p> + +<p>And then there was a sudden roaring vibration, a flash of light +leaping from the bowl, and the materialization of a spherical vessel +that swallowed up the man and vanished in the shaft of light like a +moth in the flame of a candle.</p> + +<p>At Bert's side, the Wanderer was a grim and silent figure, misty and +unreal when compared with those material, emotion-torn beings of the +rooftop. The woman, swooning, had wilted over the rim of the bowl, and +the two boys with their strange amphibious pet splashed out from the +pool and came running to her, wide-eyed and dripping.</p> + +<p>The Wanderer touched a lever and again there was the sensation as of a +great page turned across the vastness of the universe. All was hazy +and indistinct outside the sphere that held them, with a rushing blur +of dimly gray light-forms. Beneath them remained only the bright +outline of the bowl, an object distinct and real and fixed in space.</p> + +<p>"It was thus I left my loved ones," the Wanderer said hollowly. "In +fanatical devotion to my science, but in blind disregard of those +things which really mattered. Observe, O Man-Called-Bert, that the +bowl is still existent in infra-dimensional space—the gateway I left +open to Urtraria. So it remained while I, fool that I was, explored +those planes of the fifth dimension that were all around us though we +saw and felt them not. Only I had seen, even as your friend Tom has +seen. And, like him, I heeded not the menace of the things I had +witnessed. We go now to the plane of the metal monsters. Behold!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">T</span>he sphere shuddered to the increased power of its hidden motors and +another huge page seemed to turn slowly over, lurching sickeningly as +it came to rest in the new and material plane of existence. Here, Bert +understood now, the structure of matter was entirely different. Atoms +were comprised of protons and electrons whirling at different +velocities and in different orbits—possibly some of the electrons in +reverse direction to those of the atomic structure of matter in +Urtraria. And these coexisted with those others in the same relative +position in time and in space. Ages before, the thing had happened, +and he was seeing it now.</p> + +<p>They were in the midst of a forest of conical spires whose sides were +of dark glittering stuff that reminded Bert of the crystals of +carborundum before pulverizing for commercial use. A myriad of deep +colors were reflected from the sharply pointed piles in the light of +a great cold moon that hung low in the heavens above them.</p> + +<p>In the half light down there between the circular bases of the cones, +weird creatures were moving. Like great earthworms they moved, +sluggishly and with writhing contortions of their many-jointed bodies. +Long cylindrical things with glistening gray hide, like armor plate +and with fearsome heads that reared upward occasionally to reveal the +single flaming eye and massive iron jaws each contained. There were +riveted joints and levers, wheels and gears that moved as the +creatures moved; darting lights that flashed forth from +trunnion-mounted cases like the searchlights of a battleship of Earth; +great swiveled arms with grappling hooks attached. They were +mechanical contrivances—the metal monsters of which the Wanderer had +spoken. Whether their brains were comprised of active living cells or +whether they were cold, calculating machines of metallic parts, Bert +was never to know.</p> + +<p>"See, the gateway," the Wanderer was saying. "They are investigating. +It is the beginning of the end of Urtraria—all as it occurred in the +dim and distant past."</p> + +<p>He gripped Bert's arm, pointing a trembling finger, and his face was a +terrible thing to see in the eery light of their sphere.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">A</span> sharply outlined circle of blue-white appeared down there in the +midst of the squirming monsters. The sphere drifted lower and Bert was +able to see that a complicated machine was being trundled out from an +arched doorway in the base of one of the conical dwellings. It was +moved to the edge of the light circle which was the bowl on that +rooftop of Urtraria. The same bowl! A force area like that used by Tom +Parker, an area existent in many planes of the fifth dimension +simultaneously, an area where the various components of wave motion +merged and became as one. The gateway between planes!</p> + +<p>The machine of the metal monsters was provided with a huge lens and a +reflector, and these were trained on the bowl. Wheels and levers of +the machine moved swiftly. There came an orange light from within that +was focused upon lens and reflector to strike down and mingle with the +cold light of the bowl. A startling transformation ensued, for the +entire area within view was encompassed with a milky diffused +brightness in which two worlds seemed to intermingle and fuse. There +were the rooftops of the city in Urtraria and its magnificent domes, a +transparent yet substantial reality superimposed upon the gloomy city +of cones of the metal monsters.</p> + +<p>"Jupiter!" Bert breathed. "They're going through!"</p> + +<p>"They are, Earthling. More accurately, they did—thousands of them; +millions." Even as the Wanderer spoke, the metal monsters were +wriggling through between the two planes, their enormous bodies moving +with menacing deliberation.</p> + +<p>On the rooftops back in Urtraria could be seen the frantic, fleeing +forms of humanlike beings—the Wanderer's people.</p> + +<p>There was a sharp click from the control panel and the scene was +blotted out by the familiar maze of geometric shapes, the whirling, +dancing light-forms that rushed madly past over the vast arch which +spanned infinity.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">"W</span>here were you at the time?" asked Bert. Awed by what he had seen and +with pity in his heart for the man who had unwittingly let loose the +horde of metal monsters on his own loved ones and his own land, he +stared at the Wanderer.</p> + +<p>The big man was standing with face averted, hands clutching the rail +of the control panel desperately. "I?" he whispered. "I was roaming +the planes, exploring, experimenting, immersed in the pursuits that +went with my insatiable thirst for scientific data and the broadening +of my knowledge of this complex universe of ours. Forgetting my +responsibilities. Unknowing, unsuspecting."</p> + +<p>"You returned—to your home?"</p> + +<p>"Too late I returned. You shall see; we return now by the same route I +then followed."</p> + +<p>"No!" Bert shouted, suddenly panicky at thought of what might be +happening to Joan and Tom in the land of the Bardeks. "No, +Wanderer—tell me, but don't show me. I can imagine. Seeing those +loathsome big worms of iron and steel, I can well visualize what they +did. Come now, have a heart, man; take me to my friends before...."</p> + +<p>"Ah-h!" The Wanderer looked up and a benign look came to take the +place of the pain and horror which had contorted his features. "It is +well, O Man-Called-Bert. I shall do as you request, for I now see that +my mission has been well accomplished. We go to your friends, and fear +you not that we shall arrive too late."</p> + +<p>"Your—your mission?" Bert calmed immediately under the spell of the +Wanderer's new mood.</p> + +<p>"My mission throughout eternity, Earthling—can't you sense it? +Forever and ever I shall roam infra-dimensional space, watching and +waiting for evidence that a similar catastrophe might be visited on +another land where warm-blooded thinking humans of similar mold to my +own may be living out their short lives of happiness or +near-happiness. Never again shall so great a calamity come to mankind +anywhere if it be within the Wanderer's power to prevent it. And that +is why I snatched you up from your friend's laboratory. That is why I +have shown to you the—"</p> + +<p>"Me, why me?" Bert exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"Attend, O Earthling, and you shall hear."</p> + +<p>The mysterious intangibilities of the cosmos whirled by unheeded by +either as the Wanderer's tale unfolded.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">"W</span>hen I returned," he said, "the gateway was closed forever. I could +not reenter my own plane of existence. The metal monsters had taken +possession; they had found a better and richer land than their own, +and when they had completed their migration they destroyed the +generator of my force area. They had shut me out; but I could visit +Urtraria—as an outsider, as a wraith—and I saw what they had done. I +saw the desolation and the blackness of my once fair land. I saw +that—that none of my own kind remained. All, all were gone.</p> + +<p>"For a time my reason deserted me and I roamed infra-dimensional space +a madman, self-condemned to the outer realms where there is no real +material existence, no human companionship, no love, no comfort. When +reason returned, I set myself to the task of visiting other planes +where beings of my own kind might be found and I soon learned that it +was impossible to do this in the body. To these people I was a ghostly +visitant, if they sensed my presence at all, for my roamings between +planes had altered the characteristics of atomic structure of my +being. I could no longer adapt myself to material existence in these +planes of the fifth dimension. The orbits of electrons in the atoms +comprising my substance had become fixed in a new and outcast +oscillation interval. I had remained away too long. I was an outcast, +a wanderer—the Wanderer of Infinity."</p> + +<p>There was silence in the sphere for a space, save only for the gentle +whirring of the motors. Then the Wanderer continued:</p> + +<p>"Nevertheless, I roamed these planes as a nonexistent visitor in so +far as their peoples were concerned. I learned their languages and +came to think of them as my own, and I found that many of their +scientific workers were experimenting along lines similar to those +which had brought disaster to Urtraria. I swore a mighty oath to spend +my lifetime in warning them, in warding off a repetition of so +terrible a mistake as I had made. On several occasions I have +succeeded.</p> + +<p>"And then I found that my lifetime was to be for all eternity. In the +outer realms time stands still, as I have told you, and in the plane +of existence which was now mine—an extra-material plane—I had no +prospect of aging or of death. My vow, therefore, is for so long as +our universe may endure instead of for merely a lifetime. For this I +am duly thankful, for I shall miss nothing until the end of time.</p> + +<p>"I visited planes where other monsters, as clever and as vicious as +the metal ones who devastated Urtraria, were bending every effort of +their sciences toward obtaining actual contact with other planes of +the fifth dimension. And I learned that such contact was utterly +impossible of attainment without a gateway in the realm to which they +wished to pass—a gateway such as I had provided for the metal +monsters and such as that which your friend Tom Parker has provided +for the Bardeks, or spider men, as you term them.</p> + +<p>"In intra-dimensional space I saw the glow of Tom Parker's force area +and I made my way to your world quickly. But Tom could not get my +warning: he was too stubbornly and deeply engrossed in the work he was +engaged in. The girl Joan was slightly more susceptible, and I believe +she was beginning to sense my telepathic messages when she sent for +you. Still and all, I had begun to give up hope when you came on the +scene. I took you away just as the spider men succeeded in capturing +your friends, and now my hope has revived. I feel sure that my warning +shall not have been in vain."</p> + +<p>"But," objected Bert, "you've warned <i>me</i>, not the scientist of my +world who is able to prevent the thing—"</p> + +<p>"Yes, <i>you</i>," the Wanderer broke in. "It is better so. This Tom Parker +is a zealot even as was I—a man of science thinking only of his own +discoveries. I am not sure he would discontinue his experiments even +were he to receive my warning in all its horrible details. But you, O +Man-Called-Bert, through your love of his sister and by your influence +over him, will be able to do what I can not do myself: bring about the +destruction of this apparatus of his; impress upon him the grave +necessity of discontinuing his investigations. You can do it, and you +alone, now that you fully understand."</p> + +<p>"Sa-ay! You're putting it up to me entirely?"</p> + +<p>"Nearly so, and there is no alternative. I believe I have not +misjudged you; you will not fail, of that I am certain. For the sake +of your own kind, for the love of Joan Parker—you will not fail. And +for me—for this small measure of atonement it is permitted that I +make or help to make possible—"</p> + +<p>"No, I'll not fail. Take me to them, quick." Bert grinned +understandingly as the Wanderer straightened his broad shoulders and +extended his hand.</p> + +<p>There was no lack of substantiality in the mighty grip of those +closing fingers.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">A</span>gain the sphere's invisible motors increased speed, and again the +dizzying kaleidoscope of color swept past them more furiously.</p> + +<p>"We will now overtake them—your friends," said the Wanderer, "in the +very act of passing between planes."</p> + +<p>"Overtake them...." Bert mumbled. "I don't get it at all, this time +traveling. It's over my head a mile."</p> + +<p>"It isn't time travel really," explained the Wanderer. "We are merely +closing up the time-space interval, moving to the precise spot in the +universe where your friend's laboratory existed at the moment of +contact between planes with your world and that of the Bardeks. We +shall reach there a few seconds after the actual capture."</p> + +<p>"No chance of missing?" Bert watched the Wanderer as he consulted his +mathematical data and made new adjustments of the controls.</p> + +<p>"Not the slightest; it is calculated to a nicety. We could, if we +wished, stop just short of the exact time and would see the +re-occurrence of their capture. But only as unseen observers—you can +not enter the plane as a material being during your own actual past, +for your entity would then be duplicated. Of course, I can not enter +in any case. But, moving on to the instant after the event, as we +shall do, you may enter either plane as a material being or move +between the two planes at will by means of the gateway provided by Tom +Parker's force area. Do you not now understand the manner in which you +will be enabled to carry out the required procedure?"</p> + +<p>"H-hmm!" Bert wasn't sure at all. "But this moving through time," he +asked helplessly, "and the change from one plane of oscillation to +another—they're all mixed up—what have they to do with each other?"</p> + +<p>"All five dimensions of our universe are definitely interrelated and +dependent one upon the other for the existence of matter in any form +whatsoever. You see—but here we are."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">T</span>he motors slowed down and a titanic page seemed to turn over in the +cosmos with a vanishing blaze of magnificence. Directly beneath them +glowed the disk of blue-white light that was Tom's force area. The +sphere swooped down within its influence and came to rest.</p> + +<p>"Make haste," the Wanderer said. "I shall be here in the gateway +though you see me not. Bring them here, speedily."</p> + +<p>On the one side Bert saw familiar objects in Tom's laboratory, on the +other side the white cliff and the pitchy sea of the Bardek realm. And +the cage of basket-weave between, with his friends inside struggling +with the spider men. It was the instant after the capture.</p> + +<p>"Joan! Tom!" Bert shouted.</p> + +<p>A side of the sphere had opened and he plunged through and into the +Bardek plane—to the inky surface of the sea, fully expecting to sink +in its forbidding depths. But the stuff was an elastic solid, springy +under his feet and bearing him up as would an air-inflated cushion. He +threw himself upon the cage and tore at it with his fingers.</p> + +<p>The whimpering screams of the spider men were in his ears, and he saw +from the corner of his eye that other of the tortoiselike mounds were +rising up out of the viscid black depths, dozens of them, and that +hundreds of the Bardeks were closing in on him from all directions. +Weapons were in their hands, and a huge engine of warfare like a +caterpillar tractor was skimming over the sea from the cliff wall with +a great grinding and clanking of its mechanisms.</p> + +<p>But the cage was pulling apart in his clutches as if made of reeds. +With Joan in one encircling arm he was battling the spider men, +driving swift short-arm jabs into their soft bloated bodies with +devastating effect. And Tom, recovering from the first surprise of his +capture, was doing a good job himself, his flailing arms scattering +the Bardeks like ninepins. The Wanderer and his sphere, both doomed to +material existence only in infra-dimensional space, had vanished from +sight.</p> + +<p>A bedlam rose up from the reinforcing hordes as they came in to enter +the force area. But Bert sensed the guiding touch of the Wanderer's +unseen hand, heard his placid voice urging him, and, in a single wild +leap was inside the sphere with the girl.</p> + +<p>With Joan safely in the Wanderer's care, he rushed out again for Tom. +Then followed a nightmare of battling those twining tentacles and the +puffy crowding bodies of the spider men. Wrestling tactics and +swinging fists were all that the two Earthlings had to rely upon, but, +between them, they managed to fight off a half score of the Bardeks +and work their way back into the glowing force area.</p> + +<p>"It's no use," Tom gasped. "We can't get back."</p> + +<p>"Sure we can. We've a friend—here—in the force area."</p> + +<p>Tom Parker staggered: his strength was giving out. "No, no, Bert," he +moaned, "I can't. You go on. Leave me here."</p> + +<p>"Not on your life!" Bert swung him up bodily into the sphere as he +contacted with the invisible metal of its hull. Kicking off the +nearest of the spider men, he clambered in after the scientist.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">T</span>he tableau then presented in the sphere's interior was to remain +forever imprinted on Bert's memory, though it was only a momentary +flash in his consciousness at the time: the Wanderer, calm and erect +at the control panel, his benign countenance alight with satisfaction; +Tom Parker, pulling himself to his feet, clutching at the big man's +free arm, his mouth opened in astonishment; Joan, seated at the +Wanderer's feet with awed and reverent eyes upturned.</p> + +<p>There is no passing directly between the planes. One must have the +force area as a gateway, and, besides, a medium such as the cage of +the Bardeks, the orange light of the metal monsters, or the sphere of +the Wanderer. Bert knew this instinctively as the sphere darkened and +the flashing light-forms leaped across the blackness.</p> + +<p>The motors screamed in rising crescendo as their speed increased. +Then, abruptly, the sound broke off into deathly silence as the limit +of audibility was passed. Against the brilliant background of swift +color changes and geometric light-shapes that so quickly merged into +the familiar blur, Bert saw his companions as dim wraithlike forms. He +moved toward Joan, groping.</p> + +<p>Then came the tremendous thump, the swinging of a colossal page across +the void, the warping of the very universe about them, the physical +torture and the swift rush through Stygian inkiness....</p> + +<p>"Farewell." A single word, whispered like a benediction in the +Wanderer's mellow voice, was in Bert's consciousness. He knew that +their benefactor had slipped away into the mysterious regions of +intra-dimensional space.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">R</span>aising himself slowly and dazedly from where he had been flung, he +saw they were in Tom's laboratory. Joan lay over there white and +still, a pitiful crumpled heap. Panicky, Bert crossed to her. His +trembling fingers found her pulse; a sobbing breath of relief escaped +his lips. She had merely swooned.</p> + +<p>Tom Parker, exhausted from his efforts in that other plane and with +the very foundations of his being wrenched by the passage through the +fifth dimension, was unable to rise. Only semiconscious, his eyes were +glazed with pain, and incoherent moaning sounds came from his white +lips when he attempted to speak.</p> + +<p>Bert's mind was clearing rapidly. That diabolical machine of Tom's was +still operating, the drone of its motors being the only sound in the +laboratory as the inventor closed his mouth grimly and made a +desperate effort to raise his head. But Bert had seen shapes +materializing on the lighted disk that was the gateway between planes +and he rushed to the controls of the instrument. That starting lever +must be shifted without delay.</p> + +<p>"Don't!" Tom Parker had found his voice; his frantic warning was a +hoarse whistling gasp. He had struggled to his knees. "It will kill +you, Bert. Those things in the force area—partly through—the +reaction will destroy the machine and all of us if you turn it off. +Don't, I say!"</p> + +<p>"What then?" Bert fell back appalled. Hazily, the steel prow of a war +machine was forming itself on the metal disk; caterpillar treads moved +like ghostly shadows beneath. It was the vanguard of the Bardek +hordes!</p> + +<p>"Can't do it that way!" Tom had gotten to his feet and was stumbling +toward the force area. "Only one way—during the change of oscillation +periods. Must mingle other atoms with those before they stabilize in +our plane. Must localize annihilating force. Must—"</p> + +<p>What was the fool doing? He'd be in the force area in another moment. +Bert thrust forward to intercept him; saw that Joan had regained +consciousness and was sitting erect, swaying weakly. Her eyes widened +with horror as they took in the scene and she screamed once +despairingly and was on her feet, tottering.</p> + +<p>"Back!" Tom Parker yelled, wheeling. "Save yourselves."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">B</span>ert lunged toward him but was too late. Tom had already burst into +the force area and cast himself upon the semitransparent tank of the +spider men. A blast of searing heat radiated from the disk and the +motors of Tom's machine groaned as they slowed down under a tremendous +overload.</p> + +<p>Joan cried out in awful despair and moved to follow, but her knees +gave way beneath her. Moaning and shuddering, she slumped into Bert's +arms and he drew her back from the awful heat of the force area.</p> + +<p>Then, horrified, they watched as Tom Parker melted into the misty +shape of the Bardek war machine. Swiftly his body merged with the +half-substance of the tank and became an integral part of the mass. +For a horrible instant Tom, too, was transparent—a ghost shape +writhing in a ghostly throbbing mechanism of another world. His own +atomic structure mingled with that of the alien thing and yet, for a +moment, he retained his Earthly form. His lean face was peaceful in +death, satisfied, like the Wanderer's when they had last seen him.</p> + +<p>A terrific thunderclap rent the air and a column of flame roared up +from the force area. Tom's apparatus glowed to instant white heat, +then melted down into sizzling liquid metal and glass. The laboratory +was in sudden twilight gloom, save for the tongue of fire that licked +up from the force area to the paneled ceiling. On the metal disk, now +glowing redly, was no visible thing. The gateway was closed forever.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">W</span>hat more fearful calamity might have befallen had the machine been +switched off instead, Bert was never to know. Nor did he know how he +reached his parked flivver with Joan a limp sobbing bundle in his +arms. He only knew that Tom Parker's sacrifice had saved them, had +undoubtedly prevented a horrible invasion of Earth; and that the +efforts of the Wanderer had not been in vain.</p> + +<p>The old house was burning furiously when he climbed in under the wheel +of his car. He held Joan very close and watched that blazing funeral +pyre in wordless sorrow as the bereaved girl dropped her head to his +shoulder.</p> + +<p>A group of men came up the winding road, a straggling group, +running—the loungers from the village. In the forefront was the +beardless youth who had directed Bert, and, bringing up the rear, +limping and scurrying, was the old man they had called Gramp. He was +puffing prodigiously when the others gathered around the car, +demanding information.</p> + +<p>And the old fellow with the thick spectacles talked them all down.</p> + +<p>"What'd I tell you?" he screeched. "Didn't I say they was queer doin's +up here? Didn't I say the devil was here with his imps—an' the +thunder? You're a passel o' idjits like I said—"</p> + +<p>The roar of Bert's starting motor drowned out the rest, but the old +fellow was still gesticulating and dancing about when they clattered +off down the winding road to Lenville.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">A</span>n hour later Joan had fallen asleep, exhausted.</p> + +<p>Night had fallen and, as mile after mile of smooth concrete unrolled +beneath the flivver's wheels, Bert gave himself over to thoughts he +had not dared to entertain in nearly two years. They'd be happy, he +and Joan, and there'd be no further argument. If she still objected to +living on the fruit farm, that could be managed easily. They'd live in +Indianapolis and he'd buy a new car, a good one, to run back and +forth. If, when her grief for Tom had lessened, she wanted to go on +with laboratory work and such—well, that was easy, too. Only there +would be no fooling around with this dimensional stuff—she'd had +enough of that, he knew.</p> + +<p>He drew her close with his free arm and his thoughts shifted—moved +far out in infra-dimensional space to dwell upon the man of the past +who had called himself Wanderer of Infinity. He who would go on and on +until the end of time, until the end of all things, watching over the +many worlds and planes. Warning peoples of humanlike mold and emotions +wherever they might dwell. Helping them. Atoning throughout infinity. +Suffering.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Wanderer of Infinity, by Harl Vincent + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WANDERER OF INFINITY *** + +***** This file should be named 29408-h.htm or 29408-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/4/0/29408/ + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Wanderer of Infinity + +Author: Harl Vincent + +Release Date: July 14, 2009 [EBook #29408] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WANDERER OF INFINITY *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + Transcriber's Note: + + This etext was produced from Astounding Stories March 1933. + Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the + U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. + + + Wanderer of Infinity + + By Harl Vincent + + * * * * * + + + + +[Sidenote: In the uncharted realms of infra-dimensional space Bert +meets a pathetic figure--The Wanderer.] + + +Lenville! Bert Redmond had never heard of the place until he received +Joan's letter. But here it was, a tiny straggling village cuddled +amongst the Ramapo hills of lower New York State, only a few miles +from Tuxedo. There was a prim, white-painted church, a general store +with the inevitable gasoline pump at the curb, and a dozen or so of +weatherbeaten frame houses. That was all. It was a typical, dusty +cross-roads hamlet of the vintage of thirty years before, utterly +isolated and apart from the rushing life of the broad concrete highway +so short a distance away. + +Bert stopped his ancient and battered flivver at the corner where a +group of overalled loungers was gathered. Its asthmatic motor died +with a despairing cough as he cut the ignition. + +"Anyone tell me where to find the Carmody place?" he sang out. + +No one answered, and for a moment there was no movement amongst his +listeners. Then one of the loungers, an old man with a stubble of gray +beard, drew near and regarded him through thick spectacles. + +"You ain't aimin' to go up there alone, be you?" the old fellow asked +in a thin cracked voice. + +"Certainly. Why?" Bert caught a peculiar gleam in the watery old eyes +that were enlarged so enormously by the thick lenses. It was fear of +the supernatural that lurked there, stark terror, almost. + +"Don't you go up to the Carmody place, young feller. They's queer +doin's in the big house, is why. Blue lights at night, an' noises +inside--an'--an' cracklin' like thunder overhead--" + +"Aw shet up, Gramp!" Another of the idlers, a youngster with chubby +features, and downy of lip and chin, sauntered over from the group, +interrupting the old man's discourse. "Don't listen to him," he said +to Bert. "He's cracked a mite--been seein' things. The big house is up +yonder on the hill. See, with the red chimbley showin' through the +trees. They's a windin' road down here a piece." + +Bert followed the pointing finger with suddenly anxious gaze. It was +not an inviting spot, that tangle of second-growth timber and +underbrush that hid the big house on the lonely hillside; it might +conceal almost anything. And Joan Parker was there! + +The one called Gramp was screeching invectives at the grinning +bystanders. "You passel o' young idjits!" he stormed. "I seen it, I +tell you. An'--an' heard things, too, The devil hisself is up +there--an' his imps. We'd oughtn't to let this feller go...." + +[Illustration: _He attacked it in vain with his fists._] + +Bert waited to hear no more. Unreasoning fear came to him that +something was very much amiss up there at the big house, and he +started the flivver with a thunderous barrage of its exhaust. + +The words of Joan's note were vivid in his mind: "Come to me, Bert, at +the Carmody place in Lenville. Believe me, I need you." Only that, but +it had been sufficient to bring young Redmond across three states to +this measly town that wasn't even on the road maps. + +Bert yanked the bouncing car into the winding road that led up the +hill, and thought grimly of the quarrel with Joan two years before. He +had told her then, arrogantly, that she'd need him some day. But now +that his words had proved true the fact brought him no consolation +nor the slightest elation. Joan was there in this lonely spot, and she +did need him. That was enough. + +He ran nervous fingers through his already tousled mop of sandy +hair--a habit he had when disturbed--and nearly wrecked the car on a +gray boulder that encroached on one of the two ruts which, together, +had been termed a road. + +Stupid, that quarrel of theirs. And how stubborn both had been! Joan +had insisted on going to the big city to follow the career her +brother had chosen for her. Chemistry, biology, laboratory work! Bert +sniffed, even now. But he had been equally stubborn in his insistence +that she marry him instead and settle down on the middle-Western fruit +farm. + +With a sudden twist, the road turned in at the entrance of a sadly +neglected estate. The grounds of the place were overrun with rank +growths and the driveway was covered with weeds. The tumble-down +gables of a descrepit frame house peeped out through the trees. It was +a rambling old building that once had been a mansion--the "big house" +of the natives. A musty air of decay was upon it, and crazily askew +window shutters proclaimed deep-shrouded mystery within. + +Bert drew up at the rickety porch and stopped the flivver with its +usual shuddering jerk. + + * * * * * + +As if his coming had been watched for through the stained glass of its +windows, the door was flung violently open. A white-clad figure darted +across the porch, but not before Bert had untangled the lean six feet +of him from under the flivver's wheel and bounded up the steps. + +"Joan!" + +"Bert! I--I'm sorry." + +"Me too." Swallowing hard, Bert Redmond held her close. + +"But I won't go back to Indiana!" The girl raised her chin and the old +defiance was in her tearful gaze. + +Bert stared. Joan was white and wan, a mere shadow of her old self. +And she was trembling, hysterical. + +"That's all right," he whispered. "But tell me now, what is it? What's +wrong?" + +With sudden vigor she was drawing him into the house. "It's Tom," she +quavered. "I can't do a thing with him; can't get him to leave here. +And something terrible is about to happen, I know. I thought perhaps +you could help, even if--" + +"Tom Parker here?" Bert was surprised that the fastidious older +brother should leave his comfortable city quarters and lose himself in +this God-forsaken place. "Sure, I'll help, dear--if I can." + +"You can; oh, I'm sure you can," the girl went on tremulously. A spot +of color flared in either cheek. "It's his experiments. He came over +from New York about a year ago and rented this old house. The city +laboratory wasn't secluded enough. And I've helped him until now in +everything. But I'm frightened; he's playing with dangerous forces. He +doesn't understand--won't understand. But I saw...." + +And then Joan Parker slumped into a high-backed chair that stood in +the ancient paneled hall. Soft waves of her chestnut hair framed the +pinched, terrified face, and wide eyes looked up at Bert, with the +same horror he had seen in those of the old fellow the village. A +surge of the old tenderness welled up in him and he wanted to take her +in his arms. + +"Wait," she said, swiftly rising. "I'll let you judge for yourself. +Here--go into the laboratory and talk with Tom." + +She pushed him forward and through a door that closed softly behind +him. He was in a large room that was cluttered with the most +bewildering array of electrical mechanisms he had ever seen. Joan had +remained outside. + + * * * * * + +Tom Parker, his hair grayer and forehead higher than when Bert had +seen him last, rose from where he was stooping over a work bench. He +advanced, smiling, and his black eyes were alight with genuine +pleasure. Bert had anticipated a less cordial welcome. + +"Albert Redmond!" exclaimed the older man. "This is a surprise. Glad +to see you, boy, glad to see you." + +He meant it, Tom did, and Bert wrung the extended hand heartily. Yet +he dared not tell of Joan's note. The two men had always been the very +best of friends--except in the matter of Joan's future. + +"You haven't changed much," Bert ventured. + +Tom Parker laughed. "Not about Joan, if that is what you mean. She +likes the work and will go far in it. Why, Bert--" + +"Sa-ay, wait a minute." Bert Redmond's mien was solemn. "I saw her +outside, Tom, and was shocked. She isn't herself--doesn't look at all +well. Haven't you noticed, man?" + +The older man sobered and a puzzled frown crossed his brow. "I have +noticed, yes. But it's nonsense, Bert, I swear it is. She has been +having dreams--worrying a lot, it seems. Guess I'll have to send her +to the doctor?" + +"Dreams? Worry?" Bert thought of the old man called Gramp. + +"Yes. I'll tell you all about it--what we're working on here--and show +you. It's no wonder she gets that way, I guess. I've been a bit loony +with the marvel of it myself at times. Come here." + +Tom led him to an intricate apparatus which bore some resemblance to a +television radio. There were countless vacuum tubes and their +controls, tiny motors belted to slotted disks that would spin when +power was applied, and a double eyepiece. + +"Before I let you look," Tom was saying, "I'll give you an idea of it, +to prepare you. This is a mechanism I've developed for a study of the +less-understood dimensions. The results have more than justified my +expectations--they're astounding. Bert, we can actually see into these +realms that were hitherto unexplored. We can examine at close range +the life of these other planes. Think of it!" + +"Life--plane--dimensions?" said Bert blankly. "Remember, I know very +little about this science of yours." + + * * * * * + +"Haven't you read the news-paper accounts of Einstein's researches and +of others who have delved into the theory of relativity?" + +"Sa-ay! I read them, but they don't tell me a thing. It's over my head +a mile." + +"Well, listen: this universe of ours--space and all it contains--is a +thing of five dimensions, a continuum we have never begun to +contemplate in its true complexity and immensity. There are three of +its dimensions with which we are familiar. Our normal senses perceive +and understand them--length, breadth and thickness. The fourth +dimension, time, or, more properly, the time-space interval, we have +only recently understood. And this fifth dimension, Bert, is something +no man on earth has delved into--excepting myself." + +"You don't say." Bert was properly impressed; the old gleam of the +enthusiastic scientist was in Tom's keen eyes. + +"Surest thing. I have called this fifth dimension the interval of +oscillation, though the term is not precisely correct. It has to do +with the arrangement, the speed and direction of movement, and the +polarity of protonic and electronic energy charges of which matter is +comprised. It upsets some of our old and accepted natural laws--one in +particular. Bert, two objects can occupy the same space at the same +time, though only one is perceptible to our earthbound senses. Their +differently constituted atoms exist in the same location without +interference--merely vibrating in different planes. There are many +such planes in this fifth dimension of space, all around us, some +actually inhabited. Each plane has a different atomic structure of +matter, its own oscillation interval of the energy that is matter, and +a set of natural laws peculiar to itself. I can't begin to tell you; +in fact, I've explored only a fraction. But here--look!" + + * * * * * + +Tom's instrument set up a soft purring at his touch of a lever, and +eery blue light flickered from behind the double eyepiece, casting +grotesque shadows on walls and ceiling, and paling to insignificance +the light of day that filtered through the long-unwashed windows. + +Bert squinted through the hooded twin lenses. At first he was dazzled +and confused by the rapidly whirling light-images, but these quickly +resolved into geometric figures, an inconceivable number of them, +extending off into limitless space in a huge arc, revolving and +tumbling like the colored particles in an old-fashioned kaleidoscope. +Cubes, pyramids and cones of variegated hues. Swift-rushing spheres +and long slim cylinders of brilliant blue-white; gleaming disks of +polished jet, spinning.... + +Abruptly the view stabilized, and clear-cut stationary objects sprang +into being. An unbroken vista of seamed chalky cliffs beside an inky +sea whose waters rose and fell rhythmically yet did not break against +the towering palisade. Wave-less, glass-smooth, these waters. A huge +blood-red sun hanging low in a leaden though cloudless sky, reflecting +scintillating flecks of gold and purple brilliance from the ocean's +black surface. + +At first there was no sign of life to be seen. Then a mound was rising +up from the sea near the cliff, a huge tortoiselike shape that +stretched forth several flat members which adhered to the vertical +white wall is if held by suction disks. Ponderously the thing turned +over and headed up from the inky depths, spewing out from its concave +under side an army of furry brown bipeds. Creatures with bloated +torsos in which head and body merged so closely as to be +indistinguishable one from the other, balanced precariously on two +spindly legs, and with long thin arms like tentacles, waving and +coiling. Spiderlike beings ran out over the smooth dark surface of the +sea as if it were solid ground. + + * * * * * + +"Jupiter!" Bert looked up from the eyepiece, blinking into the +triumphant grinning face of Tom Parker. "You mean to tell me these +creatures are real?" he demanded. "Living here, all around us, in +another plane where we can't see them without this machine of yours?" + +"Surest thing. And this is but one of many such planes." + +"They can't get through, to our plane?" + +"Lord no, man, how could they?" + +A sharp crackling peal of thunder rang out overhead and Tom Parker +went suddenly white. Outside, the sky was cloudless. + +"And that--what's that?" Bert remembered the warning of the old man of +the village, and Joan's obvious fear. + +"It--it's only a physical manifestation of the forces I use in +obtaining visual connection, one of the things that worries Joan. Yet +I can't find any cause for alarm...." + +The scientist's voice droned on endlessly, technically. But Bert knew +there was something Tom did not understand, something he was trying +desperately to explain to himself. + +Thunder rumbled once more, and Bert returned his eyes to the +instrument. Directly before him in the field of vision a group of the +spider men advanced over the pitchy sea with a curiously constructed +cage of woven transparent material which they set down at a point so +close by that it seemed he could touch it if he stretched out his +hand. The illusion of physical nearness was perfect. The evil eyes of +the creatures were fastened upon him; tentacle arms uncoiled and +reached forth as if to break down the barrier that separated them. + +And then a scream penetrated his consciousness, wrenching him back to +consideration of his immediate surroundings. The laboratory door burst +open and Joan, pale and disheveled, dashed into the room. + + * * * * * + +Tom shouted, running forward to intercept her, and Bert saw what he +had not seen before, a ten-foot circle of blue-white metal set in the +floor and illuminated by a shaft of light from a reflector on the +ceiling above Tom's machine. + +"Joan--the force area!" Tom was yelling. "Keep away!" + +Tom had reached the distraught girl and was struggling with her over +on the far side of the disk. + +There came a throbbing of the very air surrounding them, and Bert saw +Tom and Joan on the other side of the force area, their white faces +indistinct and wavering as if blurred by heat waves rising between. +The rumblings and cracklings overhead increased in intensity until the +old house swayed and creaked with the concussions. Hazy forms +materialized on the lighted disk--the cage of the transparent, woven +basket--dark spidery forms within. The creatures from that other +plane! + +"Joan! Tom!" Bert's voice was soundless as he tried to shout, and his +muscles were paralyzed when he attempted to hurl himself across to +them. The blue-white light had spread and formed a huge bubble of +white brilliance, a transparent elastic solid that flung him back when +he attacked it in vain with his fists. + +Within its confines he saw Joan and her brother scuffling with the +spider men, tearing at the tentacle arms that encircled them and drew +them relentlessly into the basket-weave cage. There was a tremendous +thump and the warping of the very universe about them all. Bert +Redmond, his body racked by insupportable tortures, was hurled into +the black abyss of infinity.... + + * * * * * + +This was not death nor was it a dream from which he would awaken. +After that moment of mental agony and ghastly physical pain, after a +dizzying rush through inky nothingness, Bert knew suddenly that he was +very much alive. If he had lost consciousness at all, it had been for +no great length of time. And yet there was this sense of strangeness +in his surroundings, a feeling that he had been transported over some +nameless gulf of space. He had dropped to his knees, but with the +swift return of normal faculties he jumped to his feet. + +A tall stranger confronted him, a half-nude giant with bronzed skin +and of solemn visage. The stalwart build of him and the smooth +contours of cheek and jaw proclaimed him a man not yet past middle +age, but his uncropped hair was white as the driven snow. + +They stood in a spherical chamber of silvery metal, Bert and this +giant, and the gentle vibration of delicately balanced machinery made +itself felt in the structure. Of Joan and Tom there was no sign. + +"Where am I?" Bert demanded. "And where are my friends? Why am I with +you, without them?" + +Compassion was in the tall stranger's gaze--and something more. The +pain of a great sorrow filled the brown eyes that looked down at Bert, +and resignation to a fate that was shrouded in ineffable mystery. + +"Trust me," he said in a mellow slurring voice. "Where you are, you +shall soon learn. You are safe. And your friends will be located." + +"_Will_ be located! Don't you _know_ where they are?" Bert laid hands +on the big man's wrists and shook him impatiently. The stranger was +too calm and unmoved in the face of this tremendous thing which had +come to pass. + +"I know where they have been taken, yes. But there is no need of haste +out here in infra-dimensional space, for time stands still. We will +find it a simple matter to reach the plane of their captors, the +Bardeks, within a few seconds after your friends arrive there. My +plane segregator--this sphere--will accomplish this in due season." + + * * * * * + +Strangely, Bert believed him. This talk of dimensions and planes and +of the halting of time was incomprehensible, but somehow there was +communicated to his own restless nature something of the placid +serenity of the white-haired stranger. He regarded the man more +closely, saw there was an alien look about him that marked him as +different and apart from the men of Earth. His sole garment was a wide +breech clout of silvery stuff that glinted with changing colors--hues +foreign to nature on Earth. His was a superhuman perfection of +muscular development, and there was an indescribable mingling of +gentleness and sternness in his demeanor. With a start, Bert noted +that his fingers were webbed, as were his toes. + +"Sa-ay," Bert exclaimed, "who are you, anyway?" + +The stranger permitted himself the merest ghost of a smile. "You may +call me Wanderer," he said. "I am the Wanderer of Infinity." + +"Infinity! You are not of my world?" + +"But no." + +"You speak my language." + +"It is one of many with which I am familiar." + +"I--I don't understand." Bert Redmond was like a man in a trance, +completely under the spell of his amazing host's personality. + +"It is given to few men, to understand." The Wanderer fell silent, his +arms folded across his broad chest. And his great shoulders bowed as +under the weight of centuries of mankind's cares. "Yet I would have +you understand, O Man-Called-Bert, for the tale is a strange one and +is heavy upon me." + +It was uncanny that this Wanderer should address him by name. Bert +thrilled to a new sense of awe. + +"But," he objected, "my friends are in the hands of the spider men. +You said we'd go to them. Good Lord, man, I've got to do it!" + +"You forget that time means nothing here. We will go to them in +precise synchronism with the proper time as existent in that plane." + + * * * * * + +The Wanderer's intense gaze held Bert speechless, hypnotized. A swift +dimming of the sphere's diffused illumination came immediately, and +darkness swept down like a blanket, thick and stifling. This was no +ordinary darkness, but utter absence of light--the total obscurity of +Erebus. And the hidden motors throbbed with sudden new vigor. + +"Behold!" At the Wanderer's exclamation the enclosing sphere became +transparent and they were in the midst of a dizzying maelstrom of +flashing color. Brilliant geometric shapes, there were, whirling off +into the vastness of space; as Bert had seen them in Tom Parker's +instrument. A gigantic arc of rushing light-forms spanning the black +gulf of an unknown cosmos. And in the foreground directly under the +sphere was a blue-white disk, horizontally fixed--a substantial and +familiar object, with hazy surroundings likewise familiar. + +"Isn't that the metal platform in my friend's laboratory?" asked Bert, +marveling. + +"It is indeed." The mellow voice of the Wanderer was grave, and he +laid a hand on Bert's arm. "And for so long as it exists it +constitutes a serious menace to your civilization. It is a gateway to +your world, a means of contact with your plane of existence for those +many vicious hordes that dwell in other planes of the fifth dimension. +Without it, the Bardeks had not been able to enter and effect the +kidnaping of your friends. Oh, I tried so hard to warn them--Parker +and the girl--but could not do it in time." + +A measure of understanding came to Bert Redmond. This was the thing +Joan had feared and which Tom Parker had neglected to consider. The +forces which enabled the scientist to see into the mysterious planes +of this uncharted realm were likewise capable of providing physical +contact between the planes, or actual travel from one to the other. +Tom had not learned how to use the forces in this manner, but the +Bardeks had. + + * * * * * + +"We travel now along a different set of coordinates, those of +space-time," said the Wanderer. "We go into the past, through eons of +time as it is counted in your world." + +"Into the past," Bert repeated. He stared foolishly at his host, whose +eyes glittered strangely in the flickering light. + +"Yes, we go to my home--to what was my home." + +"To your home? Why?" Bert shrank before the awful contorted face of +the Wanderer. A spasm of ferocity had crossed it on his last words. +Some fearful secret must be gnawing at the big man's vitals. + +"Again you must trust me. To understand, it is necessary that you +see." + +The gentle whir of machinery rose to a piercing shriek as the Wanderer +manipulated the tiny levers of a control board that was set in the +smooth transparent wall. And the rushing light-forms outside became a +blur at first, then a solid stream of cold liquid fire into which they +plunged at breakneck speed. + +There was no perceptible motion of the sphere, however. It was the +only object that seemed substantial and fixed in an intangible and +madly gyrating universe. Its curved wall, though transparent, was +solid, comforting to the touch. + +Standing by his instrument board, the Wanderer was engrossed in a +tabulation of mathematical data he was apparently using in setting the +many control knobs before him. Plotting their course through infinity! +His placid serenity of countenance had returned, but there was a new +eagerness in his intense gaze and his strong fingers trembled while he +manipulated the tiny levers and dials. + + * * * * * + +Outside the apparently motionless sphere, a never-ending riot of color +surged swiftly and silently by, now swirling violently in great +sweeping arcs of blinding magnificence, now changing character and +driving down from dizzying heights as a dim-lit column of gray that +might have been a blast of steam from some huge inverted geyser of the +cosmos. Always there were the intermittent black bands that flashed +swiftly across the brightness, momentarily darkening the sphere and +then passing on into the limbo of this strange realm between planes. + +Abruptly then, like the turning of a page in some gigantic book, the +swift-moving phantasmagoria swung back into the blackness of the +infinite and was gone. Before them stretched a landscape of rolling +hills and fertile valleys. Overhead, the skies were a deep blue, +almost violet, and twin suns shone down on the scene. The sphere +drifted along a few hundred feet from the surface. + +"Urtraria!" the Wanderer breathed reverently. His white head was bowed +and his great hands clutched the small rail of the control board. + +In a daze of conflicting emotions, Bert watched as this land of peace +and plenty slipped past beneath them. This, he knew, had been the home +of Wanderer. In what past age or at how great a distance it was from +his own world, he could only imagine. But that the big man who called +himself Wanderer loved this country there was not the slightest doubt. +It was a fetish with him, a past he was in duty bound to revisit time +and again, and to mourn over. + +Smooth broad lakes, there were, and glistening streams that ran their +winding courses through well-kept and productive farmlands. And +scattered communities with orderly streets and spacious parks. Roads, +stretching endless ribbons of wide metallic surface across the +countryside. Long two-wheeled vehicles skimming over the roads with +speed so great the eye could scarcely follow them. Flapping-winged +ships of the air, flying high and low in all directions. A great city +of magnificent dome-topped buildings looming up suddenly at the +horizon. + +The sphere proceeded swiftly toward the city. Once a great air liner, +flapping huge gossamerlike wings, drove directly toward them. Bert +cried out in alarm and ducked instinctively, but the ship passed +_through_ them and on its way. It was as if they did not exist in this +spherical vehicle of the dimensions. + + * * * * * + +"We are here only as onlookers," the Wanderer explained sadly, "and +can have no material existence here. We can not enter this plane, for +there is no gateway. Would that there were." + +Now they were over the city and the sphere came to rest above a +spacious flat roof where there were luxurious gardens and pools, and a +small glass-domed observatory. A woman was seated by one of the pools, +a beautiful woman with long golden hair that fell in soft profusion +over her ivory shoulders and bosom. Two children, handsome stalwart +boys of probably ten and twelve, romped with a domestic animal which +resembled a foxhound of Earth but had glossy short-haired fur and +flippers like these of a seal. Suddenly these three took to the water +and splashed with much vigor and joyful shouting. + +The Wanderer gripped Bert's arm with painful force. "My home!" he +groaned. "Understand, Earthling? This was my home, these my wife and +children--destroyed through my folly. Destroyed, I say, in ancient +days. And by my accursed hand--when the metal monsters came." + +There was madness in the Wanderer's glassy stare, the madness of a +tortured soul within. Bert began to fear him. + +"We should leave," he said. "Why torment yourself with such memories? +My friends...." + +"Have patience, Earthling. Don't you understand that I sinned and am +therefore condemned to this torment? Can't you see that I _must_ +unburden my soul of its ages-old load, that I must revisit the scene +of my crime, that others must see and know? It is part of my +punishment, and you, perforce, must bear witness. Moreover, it is to +help your friends and your world that I bring you here. Behold!" + + * * * * * + +A man was coming out of the observatory, a tall man with bronzed skin +and raven locks. It was the Wanderer himself, the Wanderer of the +past, as he had been in the days of his youth and happiness. + +The woman by the pool had risen from her seat and was advancing +eagerly toward her mate. Bert saw that the man hardly glanced in her +direction, so intent was he upon an object over which he stood. The +object was a shimmering bowl some eight or ten feet across, which was +mounted on a tripod near the observatory, and over whose metallic +surface a queer bluish light was playing. + +It was a wordless pantomime, the ensuing scene, and Bert watched in +amazement. This woman of another race, another age, another plane, was +pleading with her man. Sobbing soundlessly, wretchedly. And the man +was unheeding, impatient with her demonstrations. He shoved her aside +as she attempted to interfere with his manipulations of some elaborate +mechanical contrivance at the side of the bowl. + +And then there was a sudden roaring vibration, a flash of light +leaping from the bowl, and the materialization of a spherical vessel +that swallowed up the man and vanished in the shaft of light like a +moth in the flame of a candle. + +At Bert's side, the Wanderer was a grim and silent figure, misty and +unreal when compared with those material, emotion-torn beings of the +rooftop. The woman, swooning, had wilted over the rim of the bowl, and +the two boys with their strange amphibious pet splashed out from the +pool and came running to her, wide-eyed and dripping. + +The Wanderer touched a lever and again there was the sensation as of a +great page turned across the vastness of the universe. All was hazy +and indistinct outside the sphere that held them, with a rushing blur +of dimly gray light-forms. Beneath them remained only the bright +outline of the bowl, an object distinct and real and fixed in space. + +"It was thus I left my loved ones," the Wanderer said hollowly. "In +fanatical devotion to my science, but in blind disregard of those +things which really mattered. Observe, O Man-Called-Bert, that the +bowl is still existent in infra-dimensional space--the gateway I left +open to Urtraria. So it remained while I, fool that I was, explored +those planes of the fifth dimension that were all around us though we +saw and felt them not. Only I had seen, even as your friend Tom has +seen. And, like him, I heeded not the menace of the things I had +witnessed. We go now to the plane of the metal monsters. Behold!" + + * * * * * + +The sphere shuddered to the increased power of its hidden motors and +another huge page seemed to turn slowly over, lurching sickeningly as +it came to rest in the new and material plane of existence. Here, Bert +understood now, the structure of matter was entirely different. Atoms +were comprised of protons and electrons whirling at different +velocities and in different orbits--possibly some of the electrons in +reverse direction to those of the atomic structure of matter in +Urtraria. And these coexisted with those others in the same relative +position in time and in space. Ages before, the thing had happened, +and he was seeing it now. + +They were in the midst of a forest of conical spires whose sides were +of dark glittering stuff that reminded Bert of the crystals of +carborundum before pulverizing for commercial use. A myriad of deep +colors were reflected from the sharply pointed piles in the light of +a great cold moon that hung low in the heavens above them. + +In the half light down there between the circular bases of the cones, +weird creatures were moving. Like great earthworms they moved, +sluggishly and with writhing contortions of their many-jointed bodies. +Long cylindrical things with glistening gray hide, like armor plate +and with fearsome heads that reared upward occasionally to reveal the +single flaming eye and massive iron jaws each contained. There were +riveted joints and levers, wheels and gears that moved as the +creatures moved; darting lights that flashed forth from +trunnion-mounted cases like the searchlights of a battleship of Earth; +great swiveled arms with grappling hooks attached. They were +mechanical contrivances--the metal monsters of which the Wanderer had +spoken. Whether their brains were comprised of active living cells or +whether they were cold, calculating machines of metallic parts, Bert +was never to know. + +"See, the gateway," the Wanderer was saying. "They are investigating. +It is the beginning of the end of Urtraria--all as it occurred in the +dim and distant past." + +He gripped Bert's arm, pointing a trembling finger, and his face was a +terrible thing to see in the eery light of their sphere. + + * * * * * + +A sharply outlined circle of blue-white appeared down there in the +midst of the squirming monsters. The sphere drifted lower and Bert was +able to see that a complicated machine was being trundled out from an +arched doorway in the base of one of the conical dwellings. It was +moved to the edge of the light circle which was the bowl on that +rooftop of Urtraria. The same bowl! A force area like that used by Tom +Parker, an area existent in many planes of the fifth dimension +simultaneously, an area where the various components of wave motion +merged and became as one. The gateway between planes! + +The machine of the metal monsters was provided with a huge lens and a +reflector, and these were trained on the bowl. Wheels and levers of +the machine moved swiftly. There came an orange light from within that +was focused upon lens and reflector to strike down and mingle with the +cold light of the bowl. A startling transformation ensued, for the +entire area within view was encompassed with a milky diffused +brightness in which two worlds seemed to intermingle and fuse. There +were the rooftops of the city in Urtraria and its magnificent domes, a +transparent yet substantial reality superimposed upon the gloomy city +of cones of the metal monsters. + +"Jupiter!" Bert breathed. "They're going through!" + +"They are, Earthling. More accurately, they did--thousands of them; +millions." Even as the Wanderer spoke, the metal monsters were +wriggling through between the two planes, their enormous bodies moving +with menacing deliberation. + +On the rooftops back in Urtraria could be seen the frantic, fleeing +forms of humanlike beings--the Wanderer's people. + +There was a sharp click from the control panel and the scene was +blotted out by the familiar maze of geometric shapes, the whirling, +dancing light-forms that rushed madly past over the vast arch which +spanned infinity. + + * * * * * + +"Where were you at the time?" asked Bert. Awed by what he had seen and +with pity in his heart for the man who had unwittingly let loose the +horde of metal monsters on his own loved ones and his own land, he +stared at the Wanderer. + +The big man was standing with face averted, hands clutching the rail +of the control panel desperately. "I?" he whispered. "I was roaming +the planes, exploring, experimenting, immersed in the pursuits that +went with my insatiable thirst for scientific data and the broadening +of my knowledge of this complex universe of ours. Forgetting my +responsibilities. Unknowing, unsuspecting." + +"You returned--to your home?" + +"Too late I returned. You shall see; we return now by the same route I +then followed." + +"No!" Bert shouted, suddenly panicky at thought of what might be +happening to Joan and Tom in the land of the Bardeks. "No, +Wanderer--tell me, but don't show me. I can imagine. Seeing those +loathsome big worms of iron and steel, I can well visualize what they +did. Come now, have a heart, man; take me to my friends before...." + +"Ah-h!" The Wanderer looked up and a benign look came to take the +place of the pain and horror which had contorted his features. "It is +well, O Man-Called-Bert. I shall do as you request, for I now see that +my mission has been well accomplished. We go to your friends, and fear +you not that we shall arrive too late." + +"Your--your mission?" Bert calmed immediately under the spell of the +Wanderer's new mood. + +"My mission throughout eternity, Earthling--can't you sense it? +Forever and ever I shall roam infra-dimensional space, watching and +waiting for evidence that a similar catastrophe might be visited on +another land where warm-blooded thinking humans of similar mold to my +own may be living out their short lives of happiness or +near-happiness. Never again shall so great a calamity come to mankind +anywhere if it be within the Wanderer's power to prevent it. And that +is why I snatched you up from your friend's laboratory. That is why I +have shown to you the--" + +"Me, why me?" Bert exclaimed. + +"Attend, O Earthling, and you shall hear." + +The mysterious intangibilities of the cosmos whirled by unheeded by +either as the Wanderer's tale unfolded. + + * * * * * + +"When I returned," he said, "the gateway was closed forever. I could +not reenter my own plane of existence. The metal monsters had taken +possession; they had found a better and richer land than their own, +and when they had completed their migration they destroyed the +generator of my force area. They had shut me out; but I could visit +Urtraria--as an outsider, as a wraith--and I saw what they had done. I +saw the desolation and the blackness of my once fair land. I saw +that--that none of my own kind remained. All, all were gone. + +"For a time my reason deserted me and I roamed infra-dimensional space +a madman, self-condemned to the outer realms where there is no real +material existence, no human companionship, no love, no comfort. When +reason returned, I set myself to the task of visiting other planes +where beings of my own kind might be found and I soon learned that it +was impossible to do this in the body. To these people I was a ghostly +visitant, if they sensed my presence at all, for my roamings between +planes had altered the characteristics of atomic structure of my +being. I could no longer adapt myself to material existence in these +planes of the fifth dimension. The orbits of electrons in the atoms +comprising my substance had become fixed in a new and outcast +oscillation interval. I had remained away too long. I was an outcast, +a wanderer--the Wanderer of Infinity." + +There was silence in the sphere for a space, save only for the gentle +whirring of the motors. Then the Wanderer continued: + +"Nevertheless, I roamed these planes as a nonexistent visitor in so +far as their peoples were concerned. I learned their languages and +came to think of them as my own, and I found that many of their +scientific workers were experimenting along lines similar to those +which had brought disaster to Urtraria. I swore a mighty oath to spend +my lifetime in warning them, in warding off a repetition of so +terrible a mistake as I had made. On several occasions I have +succeeded. + +"And then I found that my lifetime was to be for all eternity. In the +outer realms time stands still, as I have told you, and in the plane +of existence which was now mine--an extra-material plane--I had no +prospect of aging or of death. My vow, therefore, is for so long as +our universe may endure instead of for merely a lifetime. For this I +am duly thankful, for I shall miss nothing until the end of time. + +"I visited planes where other monsters, as clever and as vicious as +the metal ones who devastated Urtraria, were bending every effort of +their sciences toward obtaining actual contact with other planes of +the fifth dimension. And I learned that such contact was utterly +impossible of attainment without a gateway in the realm to which they +wished to pass--a gateway such as I had provided for the metal +monsters and such as that which your friend Tom Parker has provided +for the Bardeks, or spider men, as you term them. + +"In intra-dimensional space I saw the glow of Tom Parker's force area +and I made my way to your world quickly. But Tom could not get my +warning: he was too stubbornly and deeply engrossed in the work he was +engaged in. The girl Joan was slightly more susceptible, and I believe +she was beginning to sense my telepathic messages when she sent for +you. Still and all, I had begun to give up hope when you came on the +scene. I took you away just as the spider men succeeded in capturing +your friends, and now my hope has revived. I feel sure that my warning +shall not have been in vain." + +"But," objected Bert, "you've warned _me_, not the scientist of my +world who is able to prevent the thing--" + +"Yes, _you_," the Wanderer broke in. "It is better so. This Tom Parker +is a zealot even as was I--a man of science thinking only of his own +discoveries. I am not sure he would discontinue his experiments even +were he to receive my warning in all its horrible details. But you, O +Man-Called-Bert, through your love of his sister and by your influence +over him, will be able to do what I can not do myself: bring about the +destruction of this apparatus of his; impress upon him the grave +necessity of discontinuing his investigations. You can do it, and you +alone, now that you fully understand." + +"Sa-ay! You're putting it up to me entirely?" + +"Nearly so, and there is no alternative. I believe I have not +misjudged you; you will not fail, of that I am certain. For the sake +of your own kind, for the love of Joan Parker--you will not fail. And +for me--for this small measure of atonement it is permitted that I +make or help to make possible--" + +"No, I'll not fail. Take me to them, quick." Bert grinned +understandingly as the Wanderer straightened his broad shoulders and +extended his hand. + +There was no lack of substantiality in the mighty grip of those +closing fingers. + + * * * * * + +Again the sphere's invisible motors increased speed, and again the +dizzying kaleidoscope of color swept past them more furiously. + +"We will now overtake them--your friends," said the Wanderer, "in the +very act of passing between planes." + +"Overtake them...." Bert mumbled. "I don't get it at all, this time +traveling. It's over my head a mile." + +"It isn't time travel really," explained the Wanderer. "We are merely +closing up the time-space interval, moving to the precise spot in the +universe where your friend's laboratory existed at the moment of +contact between planes with your world and that of the Bardeks. We +shall reach there a few seconds after the actual capture." + +"No chance of missing?" Bert watched the Wanderer as he consulted his +mathematical data and made new adjustments of the controls. + +"Not the slightest; it is calculated to a nicety. We could, if we +wished, stop just short of the exact time and would see the +re-occurrence of their capture. But only as unseen observers--you can +not enter the plane as a material being during your own actual past, +for your entity would then be duplicated. Of course, I can not enter +in any case. But, moving on to the instant after the event, as we +shall do, you may enter either plane as a material being or move +between the two planes at will by means of the gateway provided by Tom +Parker's force area. Do you not now understand the manner in which you +will be enabled to carry out the required procedure?" + +"H-hmm!" Bert wasn't sure at all. "But this moving through time," he +asked helplessly, "and the change from one plane of oscillation to +another--they're all mixed up--what have they to do with each other?" + +"All five dimensions of our universe are definitely interrelated and +dependent one upon the other for the existence of matter in any form +whatsoever. You see--but here we are." + + * * * * * + +The motors slowed down and a titanic page seemed to turn over in the +cosmos with a vanishing blaze of magnificence. Directly beneath them +glowed the disk of blue-white light that was Tom's force area. The +sphere swooped down within its influence and came to rest. + +"Make haste," the Wanderer said. "I shall be here in the gateway +though you see me not. Bring them here, speedily." + +On the one side Bert saw familiar objects in Tom's laboratory, on the +other side the white cliff and the pitchy sea of the Bardek realm. And +the cage of basket-weave between, with his friends inside struggling +with the spider men. It was the instant after the capture. + +"Joan! Tom!" Bert shouted. + +A side of the sphere had opened and he plunged through and into the +Bardek plane--to the inky surface of the sea, fully expecting to sink +in its forbidding depths. But the stuff was an elastic solid, springy +under his feet and bearing him up as would an air-inflated cushion. He +threw himself upon the cage and tore at it with his fingers. + +The whimpering screams of the spider men were in his ears, and he saw +from the corner of his eye that other of the tortoiselike mounds were +rising up out of the viscid black depths, dozens of them, and that +hundreds of the Bardeks were closing in on him from all directions. +Weapons were in their hands, and a huge engine of warfare like a +caterpillar tractor was skimming over the sea from the cliff wall with +a great grinding and clanking of its mechanisms. + +But the cage was pulling apart in his clutches as if made of reeds. +With Joan in one encircling arm he was battling the spider men, +driving swift short-arm jabs into their soft bloated bodies with +devastating effect. And Tom, recovering from the first surprise of his +capture, was doing a good job himself, his flailing arms scattering +the Bardeks like ninepins. The Wanderer and his sphere, both doomed to +material existence only in infra-dimensional space, had vanished from +sight. + +A bedlam rose up from the reinforcing hordes as they came in to enter +the force area. But Bert sensed the guiding touch of the Wanderer's +unseen hand, heard his placid voice urging him, and, in a single wild +leap was inside the sphere with the girl. + +With Joan safely in the Wanderer's care, he rushed out again for Tom. +Then followed a nightmare of battling those twining tentacles and the +puffy crowding bodies of the spider men. Wrestling tactics and +swinging fists were all that the two Earthlings had to rely upon, but, +between them, they managed to fight off a half score of the Bardeks +and work their way back into the glowing force area. + +"It's no use," Tom gasped. "We can't get back." + +"Sure we can. We've a friend--here--in the force area." + +Tom Parker staggered: his strength was giving out. "No, no, Bert," he +moaned, "I can't. You go on. Leave me here." + +"Not on your life!" Bert swung him up bodily into the sphere as he +contacted with the invisible metal of its hull. Kicking off the +nearest of the spider men, he clambered in after the scientist. + + * * * * * + +The tableau then presented in the sphere's interior was to remain +forever imprinted on Bert's memory, though it was only a momentary +flash in his consciousness at the time: the Wanderer, calm and erect +at the control panel, his benign countenance alight with satisfaction; +Tom Parker, pulling himself to his feet, clutching at the big man's +free arm, his mouth opened in astonishment; Joan, seated at the +Wanderer's feet with awed and reverent eyes upturned. + +There is no passing directly between the planes. One must have the +force area as a gateway, and, besides, a medium such as the cage of +the Bardeks, the orange light of the metal monsters, or the sphere of +the Wanderer. Bert knew this instinctively as the sphere darkened and +the flashing light-forms leaped across the blackness. + +The motors screamed in rising crescendo as their speed increased. +Then, abruptly, the sound broke off into deathly silence as the limit +of audibility was passed. Against the brilliant background of swift +color changes and geometric light-shapes that so quickly merged into +the familiar blur, Bert saw his companions as dim wraithlike forms. He +moved toward Joan, groping. + +Then came the tremendous thump, the swinging of a colossal page across +the void, the warping of the very universe about them, the physical +torture and the swift rush through Stygian inkiness.... + +"Farewell." A single word, whispered like a benediction in the +Wanderer's mellow voice, was in Bert's consciousness. He knew that +their benefactor had slipped away into the mysterious regions of +intra-dimensional space. + + * * * * * + +Raising himself slowly and dazedly from where he had been flung, he +saw they were in Tom's laboratory. Joan lay over there white and +still, a pitiful crumpled heap. Panicky, Bert crossed to her. His +trembling fingers found her pulse; a sobbing breath of relief escaped +his lips. She had merely swooned. + +Tom Parker, exhausted from his efforts in that other plane and with +the very foundations of his being wrenched by the passage through the +fifth dimension, was unable to rise. Only semiconscious, his eyes were +glazed with pain, and incoherent moaning sounds came from his white +lips when he attempted to speak. + +Bert's mind was clearing rapidly. That diabolical machine of Tom's was +still operating, the drone of its motors being the only sound in the +laboratory as the inventor closed his mouth grimly and made a +desperate effort to raise his head. But Bert had seen shapes +materializing on the lighted disk that was the gateway between planes +and he rushed to the controls of the instrument. That starting lever +must be shifted without delay. + +"Don't!" Tom Parker had found his voice; his frantic warning was a +hoarse whistling gasp. He had struggled to his knees. "It will kill +you, Bert. Those things in the force area--partly through--the +reaction will destroy the machine and all of us if you turn it off. +Don't, I say!" + +"What then?" Bert fell back appalled. Hazily, the steel prow of a war +machine was forming itself on the metal disk; caterpillar treads moved +like ghostly shadows beneath. It was the vanguard of the Bardek +hordes! + +"Can't do it that way!" Tom had gotten to his feet and was stumbling +toward the force area. "Only one way--during the change of oscillation +periods. Must mingle other atoms with those before they stabilize in +our plane. Must localize annihilating force. Must--" + +What was the fool doing? He'd be in the force area in another moment. +Bert thrust forward to intercept him; saw that Joan had regained +consciousness and was sitting erect, swaying weakly. Her eyes widened +with horror as they took in the scene and she screamed once +despairingly and was on her feet, tottering. + +"Back!" Tom Parker yelled, wheeling. "Save yourselves." + + * * * * * + +Bert lunged toward him but was too late. Tom had already burst into +the force area and cast himself upon the semitransparent tank of the +spider men. A blast of searing heat radiated from the disk and the +motors of Tom's machine groaned as they slowed down under a tremendous +overload. + +Joan cried out in awful despair and moved to follow, but her knees +gave way beneath her. Moaning and shuddering, she slumped into Bert's +arms and he drew her back from the awful heat of the force area. + +Then, horrified, they watched as Tom Parker melted into the misty +shape of the Bardek war machine. Swiftly his body merged with the +half-substance of the tank and became an integral part of the mass. +For a horrible instant Tom, too, was transparent--a ghost shape +writhing in a ghostly throbbing mechanism of another world. His own +atomic structure mingled with that of the alien thing and yet, for a +moment, he retained his Earthly form. His lean face was peaceful in +death, satisfied, like the Wanderer's when they had last seen him. + +A terrific thunderclap rent the air and a column of flame roared up +from the force area. Tom's apparatus glowed to instant white heat, +then melted down into sizzling liquid metal and glass. The laboratory +was in sudden twilight gloom, save for the tongue of fire that licked +up from the force area to the paneled ceiling. On the metal disk, now +glowing redly, was no visible thing. The gateway was closed forever. + + * * * * * + +What more fearful calamity might have befallen had the machine been +switched off instead, Bert was never to know. Nor did he know how he +reached his parked flivver with Joan a limp sobbing bundle in his +arms. He only knew that Tom Parker's sacrifice had saved them, had +undoubtedly prevented a horrible invasion of Earth; and that the +efforts of the Wanderer had not been in vain. + +The old house was burning furiously when he climbed in under the wheel +of his car. He held Joan very close and watched that blazing funeral +pyre in wordless sorrow as the bereaved girl dropped her head to his +shoulder. + +A group of men came up the winding road, a straggling group, +running--the loungers from the village. In the forefront was the +beardless youth who had directed Bert, and, bringing up the rear, +limping and scurrying, was the old man they had called Gramp. He was +puffing prodigiously when the others gathered around the car, +demanding information. + +And the old fellow with the thick spectacles talked them all down. + +"What'd I tell you?" he screeched. "Didn't I say they was queer doin's +up here? Didn't I say the devil was here with his imps--an' the +thunder? You're a passel o' idjits like I said--" + +The roar of Bert's starting motor drowned out the rest, but the old +fellow was still gesticulating and dancing about when they clattered +off down the winding road to Lenville. + + * * * * * + +An hour later Joan had fallen asleep, exhausted. + +Night had fallen and, as mile after mile of smooth concrete unrolled +beneath the flivver's wheels, Bert gave himself over to thoughts he +had not dared to entertain in nearly two years. They'd be happy, he +and Joan, and there'd be no further argument. If she still objected to +living on the fruit farm, that could be managed easily. They'd live in +Indianapolis and he'd buy a new car, a good one, to run back and +forth. If, when her grief for Tom had lessened, she wanted to go on +with laboratory work and such--well, that was easy, too. Only there +would be no fooling around with this dimensional stuff--she'd had +enough of that, he knew. + +He drew her close with his free arm and his thoughts shifted--moved +far out in infra-dimensional space to dwell upon the man of the past +who had called himself Wanderer of Infinity. He who would go on and on +until the end of time, until the end of all things, watching over the +many worlds and planes. Warning peoples of humanlike mold and emotions +wherever they might dwell. Helping them. Atoning throughout infinity. +Suffering. + + * * * * * + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Wanderer of Infinity, by Harl Vincent + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WANDERER OF INFINITY *** + +***** This file should be named 29408.txt or 29408.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/4/0/29408/ + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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