«But,» protested Shea, «if you’re going adventuring you can’t avoid —» and then stopped, his mouth open.
«You were about to say ‘danger’, were you not?» said Chalmers, with a smile. «I confess —»
Shea got to his feet. «Doctor. Doc —» he burst out. «Listen: why shouldn’t we jump right into that last part of the Faerie Queene and help Gloriana’s knights straighten things out? You said you had worked out some new angles. We ought to be better than anyone else in the place. Look what I was able to do in the Ragnarök with the little I know!»
«You are immodest, Harold,» replied Chalmers, but he was leaning forward. «Still, it is an. uh. attractive plan; to look in another world for the achievement denied in this. Suppose you fill my glass again while we consider details.»
«Well, the first detail I’d like to know something about is what new wrinkles in theory you have in mind.»
Chalmers settled himself and took on his lecture-room manner. «As I see it, our universes have a relation analogous to that of a pencil of parallel vectors,» said he. «The vectors themselves represent time, of course. That gives us a six-dimensional cosmos — three in space, one in time, and two which define the relationships of one universe of the cosmos to another.»
«You know enough mathematics to be aware that the ‘fourth dimension’, so called, is only a dimension in the sense of a measurable quality, like colour or density. The same applies for the interuniversal dimensions. I maintain —»
«Whoa!» said Shea. «Is there an infinite number of universes?»
«Ahem — I wish you would learn to avoid interruptions, Harold. I used to believe so. But now I consider the number finite, though very large.»
«Let me continue. I maintain that what we call ‘magic’ is merely. the physics of some of these other universes. This physics is capable of operating along the interuniversal dimensions —»
«I see,» Shea interrupted again. «Just as light can operate through interplanetary space, but sound requires some such conducting medium as air or water.»
«The analogy is not perfect. Let me continue. You know how the theme of conjuring things up and making them disappear constantly recurs in fairy tales. These phenomena become plausible if we assume the enchanter is snatching things from another universe or banishing them to one.»
Shea said: «I see an objection. If the laws of magic don’t operate in the conducting medium of our universe, how’s it possible to learn about them? I mean, how did they get into fairy stories?»
«The question is somewhat obvious. You remember my remarking that dements suffered hallucinations because their personalities were split between this universe and another? The same applies to the composers of fairy stories, though to a lesser degree. Naturally, it would apply to any writer of fantasy, such as Dunsany or Hubbard. When he describes some strange world, he is offering a somewhat garbled version of a real one, having its own set of dimensions quite independent of ours.»
Shea sipped his highball in silence. Then he asked: «Why can’t we conjure things into and out of this universe?»
«We can. You successfully conjured yourself out of this one. But it is probable that certain of these parallel universes are easier of access than others. Ours —»
«Would be one of the hard kind?»
«Ahem. Don’t interrupt, please. Yes. Now as to the time dimension, I’m inclined to think we can travel among universes only at right angles to the pencil of space-time vectors, if you follow my use of a. a somewhat misleading analogy.»
«However, it appears likely that our vectors are curved. A lapse of time, along the inner side of the curve would correspond to a greater lapse of time along the outer. You know the theme in certain fairy tales — the hero comes to fairyland, spends three days, and returns to find he has been gone three minutes or three years.»
«The same feature would account for the possibility of landing in someone’s imagined idea of the future. This is clearly a case where a mind has been running along one of the outer curved vectors at a speed which has outstripped the passage of time along our own inner side of the curve. The result — Harold, are you following me?»
Shea’s highball glass had rolled onto the rug with a gentle plunk, and the suspicion of a snore came from his chair. Fatigue had caught up with him at last.
* * *
Next week-end, Harold Shea went up to Cleveland. He was approaching this second time-journey with some misgivings. Chalmers was an astute old bird — no doubt about that, A good theorist. But it was the pursuit of the theory rather than its result that interested the old boy. How would he work out as a companion in a life of arduous adventure — a man of fifty-six, who had always led a sedentary life, and for that matter, who always seemed to prefer discussion to experience —
Well, too late to pull out now, Shea told himself, as he entered the shop of the Montrose Costume Co. He asked to see medieval stuff. A clerk, who seemed to think that the word «medieval» had something to do with pirates, finally produced an assortment of doublets and hose, feathered hats, and floppy boots of thin yellow leather. Shea selected a costume that had once been worn by the leading man in De Koven’s Robin Hood. It had no pockets, but a tailor could be found to remedy that. For Chalmers, he bought a similar but plainer outfit, with a monkish robe and attached hood. Chalmers was to go as a palmer, or pilgrim, a character which both felt would give him some standing.
The costume company’s assortment of arms and armour proved not only phony but impractical. The chain mail was knitted woollens dipped in aluminium paint. The plate was sheets of tin-can thinness. The swords had neither edge, balance, nor temper. The antique shops had nothing better; their antique weapons were mostly civil War cavalry sabres. Shea decided to use his own fencing épée. It had a rather stiff blade, and if he unscrewed the point d’arrкt, ground the end down to a sharp point, and contrived some kind of sheath, the weapon would do till he got something better.
The most serious question, as he explained to Chalmers on his return, was concern with the formulas of the magic they intended to use on their arrival. «How do you expect to read English in the land of Faerie when I couldn’t in Scandinavia?» he demanded.
«I’ve allowed for that,» Chalmers replied. «You forget that mathematics is a. a universal language, independent of words.»
«All right. But will your mathematical symbols mean the same things?»
«Glance at this sheet, Harold. Knowing the principles of symbolic logic to begin with, I can look over this pictured equation with an apple at the left and a great many apples at the right, and thus realize it means that an apple belongs to the class of apples. From that I shall infer that the horseshoe-shaped symbol in the centre means ‘is a member of the class of’.»
«You think that’ll work, honest? But, say, how do we know that you and I will land in the same part of the Faerie world?»
Chalmers shrugged. «For that matter, how do we know we shan’t land in Greek mythology? There are still laws of this method of transference to be worked out. We can only hold on to each other, read the formulas in chorus, and hope for the best.»
Shea grinned. «And if it doesn’t work, what the hell? Well, I guess we’re ready.» He inhaled deeply. «If P equals not-Q, Q implies not-P. which is equivalent to saying either P or Q but not both. But if not-P is not implied by not-Q — Come in, Mrs. Ladd.»
Shea’s landlady opened the door, and opened her mouth to say something, But the something failed to come forth. She stared agape at a pair of respectable psychologists, standing side by side in medieval costumes, with rucksacks on their shoulders. They were holding hands and with their free hands holding sheets of paper. Chalmers purpled with embarrassment.