This seemed to settle it, but threw little light on the problem for Binney. He rubbed his aching eyes and tried to think. A hallucination? Maybe. On an impulse, he gingerly reached out and touched a furry, lean claw. The claw gripped his hand and cordially shook it. This nearly finished poor Binney, who shuddered and gave himself up for lost.
“Ah nyasta,” said the deeper voice.
Binney felt himself being fingered. It was not a pleasant sensation. He opened his eyes again and found himself staring into the inquisitive pupils of Red-whiskers.
The creature, or creatures, pointed up, and made an inquiring sound. For some reason this heartened Binney. He stood up, staring around. Then he screamed.
STRONG talons were gripping him.
The gray, folded membrane about the thing’s arms unfolded and took the shape of strong, bat-like wings. Binney felt himself being carried up into the air. His stomach turned over. By some quirk of mind, he became violently enraged at the indignity. Carried off by the seat of his pants... red fury surged through Binney.
Simultaneously he felt a grinding shock, a wave of sickness and disorientation. He fell heavily, landing on his hands and knees on a metal surface that sent out angry echoes. A hoarse voice bellowed curses. But, Binney realized with heartfelt relief, these were good, Brooklyn oaths. Nothing about nyasta or urdle dree.
Brakes screamed. A policeman appeared and plucked Binney from his position, spread-eagled across the hood of a truck.
“Hah!” said the cop. “I know your kind. Trying to bump yourself off, eh?”
Binney stared around. He was at the New York side of the Holland Tunnel. Familiar skyscrapers rose all around him. Taxis honked and a streetcar rumbled by in the distance. The Empire State loomed against the gray, stormy sky.
“No,” said Binney, gulping. “I—I fell off. Off the ramp up there.” He pointed wildly.
It took much argument, but at last the salesman got free. He staggered to a subway....
There was a slight disturbance there. Binney, getting an umbrella in the ribs, and finding himself sandwiched in between two plump and odorous gentlemen, cried, “Out please,” at his station, with no perceptible result. Valiantly he fought his way through the mob. Anger began to rise in him.
A woman screamed. She chattered incoherent sounds and pointed at Binney. He did not, for the moment, realize that he had briefly vanished into thin air and as suddenly returned. There had been only a momentary feeling that he stood amid a pallid scarlet glow, untenanted save for a man who had been jammed against him in the crush.
Climbing out of the subway, Binney abruptly gasped as his chaotic thoughts focused upon the matter. He fled to a drugstore and made a hasty telephone call to Jersey. Presently an answer came.
“For heaven’s sake,” Binney cried, “what was in that bottle you gave me. Professor? Opium?”
Muffled grunts told of distant merriment.
“Opium? I told you I did not know what it was. It would not react to litmus or anything. Why?”
BINNEY, in great detail, told why.
There was a pause on the other end of the wire. Then the Professor said jubilantly:
“This is wonderful! My boy, you have been transported to another universe! Another dimension, existing coincidentally with ours, on another plane of vibration. The combination of the lightning shock—the electric energy— and my elixir sent you into another world. How I wish I could make more of the stuff! But the secret is lost, I fear.”
“Then it was real? I wasn’t dreaming?”
“It was real enough. I’m only theorizing, of course, from what you tell me, but it fits in with all our knowledge of non-Euclidean physics. As Planck puts it—” The Professor’s words became somewhat puzzling to Binney, who inquired:
“Huh? How does lamb-pie come into it?”
“Lambda. And pi. Part of a formula—an equation. It doesn’t matter. You wouldn’t understand, anyway. Try to imagine, Binney, two worlds, interlocking, existing in the same space but at a different rate of vibration. You were very lucky, you know. The ground level in the other world might not have been the same as ours, and you might have materialized there under the surface, or miles above it. As it was, where did you say you landed?”
Binney explained again about the crescent-shaped plaza. The Professor laughed.
“You were doubly lucky. The end of the Holland Tunnel in New York just happens to coincide with that crescent-shaped plaza in the red world. Suppose the accident had happened while you were up, say, in the Empire State? You’d have found yourself in the other world, in empty air over a thousand feet above the ground. What’s the matter? Are you there?”
“Uh, yes,” said Binney, picking up the telephone receiver, which he had dropped in a momentary fit of stark horror.
“So. Another thing—you say you returned to New York through the dimensions when you became angry? When that creature started to fly away with you? That is significant. Let me see....” The Professor grumbled and muttered, and at length became coherent again.
“I have it, perhaps. Adrenalin. The ductless glands. We know little about them, but when lightning struck you in the Holland Tunnel, we had three factors. The electric energy, my elixir, and the adrenalin in your blood-stream—for you say you were angry at the time. One of them may have been the catalyst. The resultant chemical reaction altered your physical pattern so you were moved from one dimension to another.”
“But I came back again—”
“When you got angry. When the adrenalin flooded your body again. The elixir is probably in a state of suspension within your tissues. The lightning may have been the initial catalyst, and it isn’t necessary any more. Every time you get mad, you go into the other world. Get mad again, and you come back. I’m just theorizing, of course,” the Professor said chattily, “but you did say something happened just now in the subway. Repeat the incident, please.”
Binney inserted a nickel in the slot at the operator’s request and continued his story.
“Ah,” the Professor chuckled. “So human bodies conduct the power, too. Like electricity. You can take people with you into the other dimension—as you did with that man in the subway. Luckily, it was only momentary.”
“Listen,” Binney said hopelessly, “I’m going crazy. What am I to do?”
“Do? Nothing. I’ll find some cure. Phone me tonight. I’ll work out some way of neutralizing the elixir, and put you back to normal. Don’t worry,” the Professor comforted. “Er—if you happen to go into that other dimension in the meantime, try and take a camera with you. I’ve always contended that Earth isn’t the only world with life, and I’d appreciate your getting the proof for me.”
He listened to Binney for a time, and then clucked remonstration.
“Oh, of course, if you feel so strongly about it.... Well, I’ll go to my lab and see what I can do. In the meantime, you’ll be safe enough if you don’t get mad. As long as there’s no adrenalin flooding your system, you’re normal. Phone me at eight.”
“All right,” Binney assented, and hung up, his brain in a whirl.
He couldn’t figure it out. No doubt the Professor knew what was happening, but he, Binney, certainly didn’t. Lamb-pies, nuts!
HE went up to his offices. He’d take Susan Blythe out to lunch, and spend the day with her. He never got angry when Susan was near. Then at eight he could ’phone the Professor.
Susan was a charming girl in a neatly tailored gray suit. She had black hair and eyes, and Binney’s heart flipped as he stared at the girl.
She turned from her switchboard.