Page:Amazing Stories Volume 07 Number 08.djvu/42

shut off the power as soon as the end came. But the experiment was not yet over.

Dane abandoned his telescope, and began manipulating a slide rule with frenzied speed. After about half an hour of steady work he finished, glanced at the chronometer on the switchboard, and relaxed for the first time since the beginning of the experiment. He waved aside my questions, saying with a smile, "You will understand in less than fifteen minutes." In a few minutes he was on the move again. He descended from the platform, went to the tripod supporting the glass globe, and removed the globe, placing it on the floor. Then he moved the tripod to one side, and over the spot where it had stood he placed, of all things, an ordinary pillow.

He came back to the top of the platform, smiling when he saw my face, which must have clearly shown my complete mystification. He glanced at the chronometer again, and busied himself in reviewing the calculations he had made some time before. Soon he motioned me back to my telescope, and went to his own.

Again came that queer snap that was not a sound, but suggested to some indescribable sense the release of an intolerable strain in the space where the field had been formed. Simultaneously something small and round appeared out of empty space in the same position that the pith ball had occupied during the experiment. For a moment it hung motionless, then flashed out of the field of my telescope.

We scrambled down from the platform and made for the pillow. Dane pointed at its center. There, upon the white surface, lay a pith ball identical in size and shape with the one I had so long studied through the telescope. Attached to the pith ball was a length of broken thread. And then I understood.

Over our belated luncheon we discussed the results of the experiment.

Professor Dane had the sheets upon which he had kept the record of the experiment, and the two pith balls. "You see," he said, "that the results are exactly those indicated by the Einstein theory, until just before the field disappears. At this point, the potential of the field becomes equivalent to the velocity of light, and the theory breaks down. It is up to us to develop a theory that does account for what happens. Of course, the one fact that must be explained is the apparent reduplication of the pith ball. This is my explanation:

"When the field vanishes, the time in its core has been slowed down to zero, as is shown by these figures," and he tapped the papers. "Timeless space is naturally not amenable to the laws of ordinary space-time. As far as we can tell by our instruments or senses, it does not exist. But for the same reason, it is omnipresent—it exists in all the future as well as in the present.

"But this timeless space is apparently not stable—is incapable of existing for any length of ordinary time. As it cannot hold together, it breaks down, appearing as ordinary space-time in two different times.

"It may seem strange that it does not merely appear in space-time at one particular time co-ordinate. But if it did this, the energy of the field—that $60,000 worth—would have disappeared without a trace. This would mean the violation of the fundamental law of the universe—the conservation of energy.^[1] From the energy point of view, the energy of the field is spent in creating new matter; either the first or the second pith ball, there is no way of telling which.

"As confirmation for this theory, I have the powerful evidence that a straightforward mathematical development, according to this explanation, gives the correct results for field-energy input and the time co-ordinate interval between the two pith balls."

For a week following, I worked on the mathematical and philosophical reasoning behind this theory. And at the end of that time I was able to comprehend the greatest implication of all. If the theory were right, the second pith ball—the one that appeared later—actually existed before the first, and if it remained until the end of the universe, it would still, at the very end of time, be existing before that first pith ball.

This seems incomprehensible—mad—but the cold, infallible logic of mathematics stated that, if the premises of Dane's theory were correct, then this unbelievable statement must also be true. And we could see nothing wrong in the premises.

Not being supermen, neither Dane nor I could ever understand all the implications of this astounding result. As far as they concerned the practical business of time travel, however, we were able to work out, at the cost of many a headache, the following very interesting facts:

A living creature in place of the pith ball would not only appear at two times—one at the present, the other in the future—but its present self would remember all the experiences of that future reduplication upon the instant of its reappearance after the field had vanished at the end of the experiment. No physical changes, however, could be transmitted from the earlier future life to the present one. The practical importance of this action, if it really took place—a thing of which we could by no means be sure—need not be enlarged upon. All the achievements of the future were within our reach.

From our viewpoint as scientists, these practical benefits were of minor importance when compared to the tremendous fact that here we had information that gave us a new insight into the nature of the universe. Dane believed that the universe was made up of recurring identical cycles, and this theory was capable of explaining most of the facts, including that all important equation, though this explanation was by no means simple. I myself have another explanation.

In spite of all distractions I still remembered that my real object in coming to inspect Professor Dane's invention was the possible discovery of a new weapon of warfare. If the time theory were correct, the possibilities were tremendous. It was very likely that in the future, technical development would continue to advance. Thus, if one of us went into the future, he would not only add an extra lifetime to his experiences, but could reproduce the inventions of that future time when he reappeared in the present.

The entire business was very strange. Perhaps the most bizarre aspect of all was the possibility of living an unlimited number of lives in the future, and remembering all the incidents of each. Dane, quick as usual to seize upon the humorous side of a situation, remarked that it was quite likely that one, who went into his gravity field, would not only live an extra life, but find out all about the spirit world, and eventually help to increase its teeming billions by at least a pair of identical ghosts.

Truth to tell, neither Dane nor I could fully credit the correctness of the time theory, even though there seemed