Waldo

He returned to the central ring which constituted his usual locus and switched on the beamcaster. Since the ship itself effectively shielded anything in the room from outer radiation, he had installed a small power plant and caster similar in type to NAPA's giant ones; without it he would have had no way to test the reception of the deKalbs

He rejoined Grimes and passed down the line of deKalbs, switching on the activizing circuits. All save two began to dis­play the uncouth motions he had begun to think of as the Schneider flex. ‘That one on the far end,' he remarked, ‘is in operation but doesn't flex. It has never broken down, so it's never been treated. It's my control; but this one' - he touched the one in front of him - ‘needs fixing. Watch me.

‘What are you going to do?

‘To tell the truth, I don't quite know. But I'll do it.' He did not know. All he knew was that it was necessary to gaze down the ante

‘That's all there is to it - strictly between ourselves. I learned it from Schneider.' They had returned to the centre of the sphere, at Grimes's suggestion, on the pretext of wanting to get a cigarette. The squirming deKalbs made him nervous, but he did not want to say so

‘How do you explain it?

‘I regard it as an imperfectly understood phenomenon of the Other Space. I know less about it than Franklin knew about lightning. But I will know- I will! I could give Stevens a solution right now for his worries if I knew some way to get around your problem too.

‘I don't see the co

‘There ought to be some way to do the whole thing through the Other Space. Start out by radiating power into the Other Space and pick it up from there. Then the radiation could not harm human beings. It would never get at them; it would duck around them. I've been working on my caster, but with no luck so far. I'll crack it in time.

‘I hope you do. Speaking of that, isn't the radiation from your own caster loose in this room?

‘Yes.

‘Then I'll put on my shield coat. It's not good for you either.

‘Never mind. I'll turn it off.' As he turned to do so there was the sound of a sweet, chirruping whistle. Baldur barked. Grimes turned to see what caused it

‘What,' he demanded, ‘have you got there?

‘Huh? Oh, That's my cuckoo clock. Fun, isn't it?' Grimes agreed that it was, although he could not see much use for it. Waldo had mounted it on the edge of a light metal hoop which spun with a speed just sufficient to produce a centrifugal force of one g

‘I rigged it up,' Waldo continued, ‘while I was bogged down in this problem of the Other Space. Gave me something to do.

‘This "Other Space" business - I still don't get it.

‘Think of another continuum much like our own and super­posed on it the way you might lay one sheet of paper on another. The two spaces aren't identical, but they are separated from each other by the smallest interval you can imagine - coextensive but not touching - usually. There is an absolute one-to- one, point-for-point correspondence, as I con­ceive it, between the two spaces, but they are not necessarily the same size or shape.

‘Hey? Come again - they would have to be.

‘Not at all. Which has the larger number of points in it? A line an inch long, or a line a mile long?

‘A mile long, of course.

‘No. They have exactly the same number of points. Want me to prove it?

‘I'll take your word for it. But I never studied that sort of maths.

‘All right. Take my word for it then. Neither size nor shape is any impediment to setting up a full, point-for-point corres­pondence between two spaces. Neither of the words is really appropriate. "Size" has to do with a space's own i

Grimes shrugged. ‘It all sounds like gibberish to me.' He returned to watching the cuckoo clock swing round and round its wheel

‘Sure it does,' Waldo assented cheerfully. ‘We are limited by our experience. Do you know how I think of the Other World?' The question was purely rhetorical. ‘I think of it as about the size and shape of an ostrich egg, but nevertheless a whole universe, existing side by side with our own, from here to the farthest star. I know that it's a false picture, but it helps me to think about it that way.

‘I wouldn't know,' said Grimes, and turned himself around in the air. The compound motion of the clock's pendulum was making him a little dizzy. ‘Say! I thought you turned off the caster?

‘I did,' Waldo agreed, and looked where Grimes was look­ing. The deKalbs were still squirming. ‘I thought I did,' he said doubtfully, and turned to the caster's control board. His eyes then opened wider. ‘But I did. It is turned off.

‘Then what the devil-

‘Shut up!' He had to think - think hard. Was the caster actually out of operation? He floated himself over to it, in­spected it. Yes, it was dead, dead as the dinosaurs. Just to make sure he went back, assumed his primary waldoes, cut in the necessary circuits, and partially disassembled it. But the deKalbs still squirmed

The one deKalb set which had not been subjected to the Schneider treatment was dead; it gave out no power hum. But the others were working frantically, gathering power from -where?

He wondered whether or not McLeod had said anything to Granmps Schneider about the casters from which the deKalbs were intended to pick up their power. Certainly he himself had not. It simply had not come into the conversation. But Schnei­der had said something. ‘The Other World is close by and full of power!

In spite of his own intention of taking the old man literally he had ignored that statement. The Other World is full of power. I am sorry I snapped at you, Uncle Gus,' he said

'S all right.

‘But what do you make of that?

‘Looks like you've invented perpetual motion, son.

‘In a way, perhaps. Or maybe we've repealed the law of con­servation of energy. Those de Kalbs are drawing energy that was never before in this world!

‘Hm-m-m!

To check his belief he returned to the control ring, do

The power came from Other Space. Not from his own beamcaster, not from NAPA's shiny stations, but from Other Space. In that case he was not even close to solving the prob­1cm of the defective deKalbs; he might never solve it. Wait, now - just what had he contracted to do? He tried to recall the exact words of the contract

There just might be a way around it. Maybe. Yes, and this newest cockeyed trick of Gramps Schneider's little pets could have some very tricky aspects. He began to see some possibili­ties, but he needed to think about it

‘Uncle Gus-

‘Yes, Waldo?

‘You can go back and tell Stevens that I'll be ready with the answers. We'll get his problem licked, and yours too. In the meantime I've got to do some really heavy thinking, so I want to be by myself, please.

‘Greetings, Mr Gleason. Quiet, Baldur! Comein. Be com­fortable. How do you do, Dr Stevens.

‘How do you do, Mr Jones.

‘This,' said Gleason, indicating a figure trailing him, ‘is Mr. Harkness, head of our legal staff.

‘Ah, yes indeed. There will be matters of contract to be dis­cussed. Welcome to Freehold, Mr Harkness.