The Scientific Pioneer Returns

By Nelson S. Bond

Time was no barrier to Lancelot
Biggs when he found out Horse-sense
Hank alone could solve his problem.

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Amazing Stories November 1940.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Before their eyes a strange figure materialized. It was Lancelot Biggs—out of the future!

This sounds silly. At half past three on a Tuesday afternoon, in broad daylight, Professor Hallowell of the Midland University physics department left Jurnegan Hall, walked down a campus path clogged to the gutters with students—and disappeared into thin air.

This sounds even sillier. At nine-fifteen the next Friday morning, Travis Tomkins, chief technician of Midland's new observatory, stepped to the platform of Old Main to speak before an attentive crowd of twelve hundred undergraduates—and vanished before their eyes!

But this sounds silliest. H. Logan MacDowell, fat, fifty, feverish, and president of our institute of (alleged) learning, came to me about it! He came on the run. That is, he came at a brisk, lurching shamble. Which is, to him, the equivalent of a Cunningham four-minute mile. He collapsed on my studio couch, gasped and panted like the White King for a minute, then wheezed out a strangled plea.

"Blakeson, you—you've got to do something!"

I looked at his gaping mouth and bulging eyes, and nodded.

"Right!" I remembered. "I've got to rewind my bass rod and see that the reel is oiled. They'll be running in a week or so."

"No, you impertinent young snippet! I mean, you've got to do something about these mysterious disappearances."

I laughed right out loud. I bared my arms frankly.

I said, "Grab a look, Prexy! Nothing up the right sleeve; nothing up the left sleeve. I didn't snatch your pedagogues. After all, just because certain members of the faculty find it expedient to take a powder—"

"A what?"

"Powder," I repeated. "Can't you understand plain English? To lift one's feet. Scram. Blow. Take it on the lam. Sweet whistleberries, Doc, I'm not something from the 'FOLLOW THAT MAN!' advertisements. I'm just the publicity expert for this football-team-with-a-campus. If you want to learn what happened to Hallowell and Tomkins, why don't you get a dick?"

His jowls sagged to his breastbone. He said in an anguished tone,

"I suppose that means a detective? I did hire one."

"Well? And what did he find out? Aside from the well-known facts that Hallowell was carrying the torch for a red-headed senior, and Tomkins was up to his zipper in debt? Did he dig up any clues? Footprints? Blunt instruments, or ashes with rare cigarettes dangling on the end of them?"

"He didn't," said H. Logan in a hollow voice, "find anything, Blakeson. He disappeared, too!"

I said, "Oh-oh!" Which was inadequate, but it was all I could think of at the moment. "That's bad. It must be contagious. But where do I fit into the picture? Why ask me to do something?"

H. Logan wrestled with his scruples for a long and difficult moment. Then, suddenly,

"Cleaver!" he blurted. "Where is that man?"

Merely saying the name cost him an effort. And why not? Hank Cleaver was the one soul whose amiable meanderings, crossing the life-path of H. Logan MacDowell, had interrupted the smooth flow of traffic along that broad highway, torn up the roadbed, and sprinkled tar and gravel along the right-of-way.

The common-sense genius of Hank Cleaver had made MacDowell look like a cross between a baboon and a stuffed shirt, with the baboon getting the worst of the bargain.

Then, to cap the climax, Hank had handed Prexy's daughter the jilt, leaving sweet Helen high and dry at the altar when he returned to his beloved cabbage patch on his farm.

To say that MacDowell was unfond of Cleaver would be like saying that nice people disapprove of Herr Hitler.

About the campus it was commonly rumored that the president of Midland had a little China doll into which, each midnight, he jabbed many red hot needles.

The plaything wore coveralls and bulldog shoes, just like Hank Cleaver!

I said, "So you're going to call in 'Horse-sense' Hank."[1]

"Don't talk about him!" growled MacDowell savagely. "Find him! If we don't solve this mystery soon, we're going to have F.B.I. men romping all over our campus. The reputation of glorious Midland will be ruined. Our noble banners, heretofore untouched by the faintest breath of scandal—"

"Okay!" I said hastily. "Save that for the Alumni Banquet. I'll see what I can do, Doc."

He left, making noises like a sizzling steak. And I got on the phone.

But the results were strictly stinko. I grabbed a blank on my first call. The local operator at Westville intoned,

"No, puh-lease! Sor-ree, puh-lease! There is no telephone listed under the name of 'Gleeber'—"

"Back up," I snorted, "and start over. Look, Sis! 'C' as in cuckoo; 'l' as in lunkhead, 'e' as in—"

"Oh, is that you, Mr. Blakeson?" she chirruped. "I knew you by the description." Ouch! "I'm sorry I can't connect you with Mr. Cleaver. Do you want to talk to Mr. Hawkins?"

"Yeah," I said. "Gimme."

Hawkins was the amateur star-gazer working in Westville as a lay member of the Midland observatory staff. He owed his reputation to Hank and his income to me.

But he turned out to be a perfect bust, and I don't mean the Venus de Milo.

He said, "Hank Cleaver? No, Jim, I haven't seen him for—oh, several days. I don't know where he is. But why do you want him? What's the matter? Is anything wrong?"

"Is anything," I countered, "right? Look, Hawkins, take a run out to his farm. Find Hank and tell him I've got to see him immedi—Who's there?"

"Nobody," said Hawkins querulously, "but our party-line subscribers. They're always listening in. What's ailing you, Jim?"

"I wasn't talking to you. There's somebody at the door of my apartment. Who's there?" I bawled again.

No answer. So I said to Hawkins,

"Well—do what I say. Find Cleaver. Tell him I've got to see him immediately, if not sooner. And let me know the minute you find him. So long—Oh, wait a minute, can't you?"

I hung up and stormed to the door, my foot itching to bury itself in the southern exposure of a salesman facing north. I flung it open, yelled,

"No, I don't want some! Go peddle your damn junk somewhere else—"

And then my jaw hit the top button of my vest.

"Hank!"

"Hyah, Jim!" said Horse-sense Hank.

Big as life and twice as natural. There's only one Horse-sense Hank Cleaver. When they poured him, they laughed so hard they dropped the mold and broke it. Tall and gangly, so thin of cheek that the cud which constantly caresses his bicuspids sticks out like a cue-ball; tow-colored ravelings of hair waving experimentally in all directions; raw-boned of wrist; eyes mild and incurious as those of a heifer—that is my pal, Hank Cleaver.

I clapped him on the back and dragged him, by main force, into my apartment.

"Golly, guy, I'm glad to see you! You're looking a million. Do you know, I've been slaving like a census-taker to find you? I've called Westville, and—"

"I figgered," said Hank mildly, "as how you might be."

The wind whooshed out of my sails.

"You," I gulped, "did?"

"Mmm-hmm. Heard a feller say as how there'd been funny goin's-on down thisaway. Thought to myself, 'Well, now, Hank, 'pears like fust thing you know, ol' Jim'll be needin' a mite o' help, so you better hump along an' give him a lift. So I come, and—" He beamed. "Here I am!"

"Yes," I said weakly. "Here you are."

Dammit, I don't know why I should have been surprised. Especially after having lived under the same roof as this gawky genius for three solid months. But as ever, it utterly confounded me to realize that Hank's thought processes were so simple, so altogether down-to-earth and natural, that he invariably did the right thing at the right time.

I said, "And a mighty good thing you came, too. But your turnips, Hank? How—"

He shook his head dolefully. Turnip growing was Hank's one and only obsession.

"Turnips," he grimaced, "is hell. It don't matter how you plant 'em, or where, or when, or what you do—they don't never act like you'd expect 'em to. I plant 'em wide, I plant 'em close; I plant 'em in cuts an' slips an' seeds; I plant 'em yeller, white an' mottled. I water 'em an' potash 'em an' treat 'em like babies—an' I still can't make 'em behave!"

He wedged a bulldog-tipped toe into the rug and looked at me from under his bushy brows.

"Helen?" he asked. "How's Helen?"

"Iroquois!" I told him grimly.

"Come again?"

"After your scalp. Didn't you ever hear the adage about Satan's old homestead having no fury like a woman left out on the limb? If you bump into Helen MacDowell, pal, you better fly, not run, to the nearest cavern."

Hank cracked his knuckles in misery.

"Couldn't do nothin' else, Jim. Couldn't marry her. 'T'warn't logical."[2]

"So," I reminded him, "aren't females. But never mind that, Hank. Let's get down to brass tacks. The reason I wanted to see you—"

"I know. About the way them men's been disappearin'," he said. He rose and walked to my radio set. "'Pears like you oughta have this turned on. With all the trouble, seems like you'd be listenin' for news bulletins."

"It's busted," I said. "It hasn't worked for weeks."

"No?" He shifted it around, peered into the maze of coils, tubes, wires and utter incomprehensibles that comprise a modern radio set.

"Hmm. Never see'd the innards o' one o' these things afore. Interestin', ain't it?"

His lean fingers began weaving among the gleaming entrails. A tiny crease appeared over his right eye. He muttered as he pushed and jiggled and explored.

"This one goes there; that one goes there. 'Pears like—Well, I'll be durned!"

Something clicked, and his fingers made a twisting motion. He grinned at me.

"How d'you make 'er talk, Jim?"

"She doesn't. She's a deaf mute. But that vernier on the left—"

He turned it. My long-silent radio went, "Phweeee-gwobble-gwobble!"—and became coherent. Strains of hot jive assaulted my eardrums. I moaned.

"Hank, do you know everything? The repairman who looked at it said it would never work again. He said—"

"He jest wanted to sell you a new one," consoled my friend. "I kinda figgered as how adjustin' that little hunk o' metal would fix it. You see—"

But I never got to see. For at that moment my eyes went wobbly all of a sudden. Out of nowhere came a brilliant light, flooding the room with blinding intensity. There was no sound; just that sharp, bright glare—and my arms tingled with a sort of electric vibration.

And as I blinked, the light coalesced into a form! It was, roughly, the form of a man—and from where its head should be there came a strange, strained, hollow voice.

"Ombiggs!"

Then the light flickered, and was gone, and with it was gone the voice and the last vestige of my self-control. I let loose one squawk—out loud!—and dived for the darkness and comparative security of the region under the couch!

Not so Hank. He stood stockstill in the middle of the floor. I yelled at him,

"Hank, did you do that? Did you touch something on the radio?"

There was a faint, puzzled look on his face.

"Nope, Jim. I didn't do nothin'. Did you see him, too?"

"I saw him. Whoever he was. But who—how?"

"I dunno." Slowly. "Leastwise, the only thing I can think of is so durn unlikely—Hey, listen!"

The radio music had stopped suddenly. The voice of the announcer was clear, crisp, ominous.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt this program of dance music to bring you a special bulletin. Flash! Midland University campus. Dr. H. Logan MacDowell, president of this institution, vanished suddenly five minutes ago from the midst of a group of friends gathered at his home to discuss two similar occurrences at Midland within the past week.

"Police efforts to solve the mystery were hampered by the ensuing panic. A diabolic plot against the persons of eminent American educators is feared by observers—"

The rest was lost to us. Frenzied footsteps beat a tappity-tappity path to the door of my apartment, and nervous hands beat wooden panels. A sweet, familiar voice, now high-pitched in fright, cried,

"Jim! Jim Blakeson! Quick—"

The door and sheer courage were all that sustained her. As I opened the first, the second gave out. And Helen MacDowell moaned gently and collapsed into my arms!

CHAPTER II

Unexpected Journey

I yelled, "Get some water, Hank! And some brandy!"

I carried her to the studio lounge. Hank came back with two glasses. I gulped the brandy swiftly, and held the water to her lips. Pretty soon she spluttered, pushed the glass away, and opened her eyes.

"Oh, Jim! The most dreadful thing has happened to daddy. We—You!"

Hank swallowed convulsively and essayed a grin.

"'Lo, Helen."

Helen MacDowell's fingers made motions like shears on a rampage. Her eyes roved. She asked thoughtfully,

"Jim, where's that paperknife you used to have? The long one? I'm going to stab somebody in the back!"

"Look, sugar," I pleaded, "Hank's come to help us. We have more important things to worry about now than your injured ego. After we've cleared up this trouble, you can have him alone in a dark room for ten minutes—"

"Is that," she demanded fretfully, "a promise?"

But her bitterness subsided; anxiety rekindled in her eyes. That, and the recollection of a shocking moment.

"Daddy disappeared, Jim! Right from the middle of a group. He was standing at my side; his shoulder was almost touching mine. Then all of a sudden—he was gone! Like that!"

Under any other circumstances, I would have guessed that the old wind-bag had finally blown up and drifted away. But there was precedent now for his Houdini act. One with sinister overtones. Three men and an animated gumshoe detective had vanished.

But I said, in a voice that I hoped wouldn't sound too much like a dish of unchilled tapioca,

"Now, don't worry, Helen. Everything's going to be all right. There must be a logical explanation for this. Hank's just the man to—"

And then—there it was again!

A blinding flash of light. A weird vibrancy tingling my body, drawing taut the tiny hairs of my forearms and neck. Light motes dancing giddily before my eyes, coalescing to form the figure of a man. A wavering, mobile figure, from the uppermost nebulosity of which emanated a piteous, hollow voice.

"Skleeva! Skleeva—"

Then a swift, dulled paling of the light. Burning white tarnished into red-ochre, red-ochre brazened, the green palpitated to a deep blue-indigo. The figure before my eyes took on form and substance. I saw with a sense of stark disbelief it was tall and lanky as Hank himself, that it wore a uniform of some sort, that its eyes were not unfriendly but haggard and despairing. And then,

"Ombiggs!" wailed our impossible visitor. "Ombiggs! Skleeva?"

And vanished!

I stood still. Very, very still It was not courage. It was rivets in the soles of my feet. My brain clamored,

"Go, boys, go!" But my knees were clattering and banging like the fenders of a T-model Ford.

Helen wasn't much better off. Her eyes looked like a pair of sealed-beam headlights, and the most intelligent sound she could summon was a faint, plaintive,

"Oooooh!"

Only Hank retained an iota of self-control. And to tell the truth, his comment was far from enlightening.

"Well!" he said. "So that's it!"

"What's what?" I asked him shakily. My paralysis was slipping away, and I prepared to do ditto. "Friends, did you see what I saw? Or has the little brown jug finally done what the Temperance Society told me it would do some day?"

Hank said, "Now, Jim! It ain't like you to act so. 'Specially when we've reached what you might call a crooshul moment. Hmm! Now, lemme see. You folks seen him most plain when he was what color? Blue?"

"Sort of. Bluish-green."

Helen said, "Greenish-blue."

"That's near enough," mused Hank. "That'd be—Hmmm!—'bout .0005 millimetres. I'll tell him that when he comes back—"

"When he comes back?"

"Why sure!" Hank stared at me amiably. "He'll be back any minute now. He done a lot better this time than the first, don't you think? Next time he'll probably get what he wants."

"And," I faltered, "and I suppose you know what that is?"

"Reckon I do," said Hank complacently. "He wants me."

I gave up trying. My brain was in a muddle, anyway.

I said, "All right, Hank. You win. Now get down to straight facts. Who is he, where did he come from, why does he want you, how do you know he does, and what is this all about?"

Hank shifted uncomfortably.

"Well, now, Jim, that's a powerful lot of questions at one lump. Dunno's I can answer 'em all—yet. Hafta talk to him first, o' course, but as near as I can figger, here's the set-up.

"That guy ain't from our time. He's from some time which ain't come yet. The future, so to speak. I don't know his name, 'cause he didn't speak very clear, but I know who he wants 'cause he said me."

Helen said dazedly, "He said—"

"'Where's Cleaver?'" explained Hank. "Oh, it wasn't very clear. He was all excited. But that's what he meant, I reckon."

I swallowed hard and wished the goose pimples would get off my hide.

"You mean," I said, "he's coming back out of future time to talk to you?"

"Seems as if. More like, he'll want to take me with him," Hank said calmly.

"What! But, Hank, that would be awful! You mustn't allow anything like that—"

Hank said bluntly, "You want I should find out where Helen's old man is, don't you? And them two puffessors? Way I figger, Jim, there must be somethin' awful drastic goin' on there in the future. Somethin' so bad, it's got 'em all upset an' they're back-draggin' the past for me. By accident, they musta got Hallowell an' Tomkins an' Helen's pop. I've got to get over there an' find out what's the trouble—Here it is!"

For an instant there had flickered again that ray of light. Hank warned hastily,

"You two stand back out o' the way! Keep calm an' don't worry. I'll be back directly."

He stepped into the middle of the room as the bright, golden light suddenly flamed anew. He lifted his voice.

"Point oh-oh-oh-five, friend. Or thereabout—"

And the light changed. Slid swiftly down the wavelengths again to that hue most favorable. The figure appeared, this time firm, unwavering. It was the face and figure of a man remarkably like Hank Cleaver himself; a young man, serious-eyed, hopeful of voice.

"Cleaver?" he cried. "You Cleaver?"

Hank nodded. "Mmm-hmm. I'm him."

"Come!" said the young man. "Come, Hank Cleaver."

He held out his hand. And Hank stepped forward into the blaze of pallid, green-blue light.

Which was just one too many for Helen MacDowell. A tiny groan escaped her lips. She tottered, pitched forward to Hank's shoulder. Hank turned worried eyes to me.

"Grab her, Jim! Get her back before—"

And I, too, leaped forward. I got my hands on Helen, started to pull her from that color-field. I was aware of the distant throbbing of some unknown machine, then of a swift, sudden shock. Great forces wrenched at my body. I felt as if I were being racked in a titanic tug-o'-war. There was an instant of frightful cold, another of giddy nausea, a sensation of wild, hurtling motion.

Then blackness, soft, warm and impenetrable....

No, not impenetrable. For there was a light in my eyes, and my head was no longer swimming, and I was lying on something comfortable, and a friendly voice was saying,

"Here you are, Buster. Drink this!"

So why look a gift drink in the bottle? I drank it, and immediately felt warmer inside. And more confident, too. Until I lifted my head and looked about me. Then I let loose a howl that stretched from here to there, with reverberations.

"Great galloping saints, where am I? No, don't say it! Let me guess. World's Fair?"

My young companion looked puzzled. He was a decent-looking chap, except for that wild costume he was wearing. A sort of uniform, but it reminded me painfully of a Buck Rogers serial. Loose tunic and slacks, sky-blue, with a Sam Browne belt and a gun holster into which was jammed a weird-appearing weapon, all knobs and studs and buttons.

"How?" he said.

I said, "My—my friends? Where are they?"

"They're up and around. You're the only fader."

He grinned. "You must be allergic to electricity, huh?"

I was still staring about me. The room was a humdinger. All metal and plastic and glass; a small cubicle about six by ten, with a single bunk (that on which I now sat, poised for flight) a desk, chair, porthole—

Porthole!

"So that's it!" I yipped. "Shanghaied!"

I made a dive for the porthole, pressed my nose to it, hoping that across the bounding blue I might see at least one faint ribbon of good old terra firma.

But there was no land. There was no bounding blue. There weren't even any clouds or sky! There was—just gray. Wan, dismal gray that seemed to stretch into infinity!

It was plain that I needed either one less drink or one more. I settled for the latter. A long, straight one. It snapped me hurriedly out of my speechlessness.

"Not that it's any of my business," I said, "but it looks to me like there's nothing outside that porthole but a lot of gray emptiness."

My companion nodded dolefully.

"Yeah," he said, "I know. I've looked—and looked."

"Where I come from, space usually has things stuffed inside it. So apparently I'm not there. Which being the case, would you mind telling me where the hell I am?" I demanded.

He shook his head. "That's just it, Buster. We don't know."

"You," I told him, "are a big help. Pass the bottle. Do you happen to know your own name?"

"Yeah," he said. "Mud. It used to be Bert Donovan. I'm the radio operator aboard this ship."

"Ship?" He was beginning to talk sense now.

"Lugger, I should say. This is the Saturn, friend. IPS freight lugger, operating on the Earth-Mars shuttle. Or, anyhow, we used to. Till he got monkeying around with that new power drive of his—"

"IPS?" I strangled. "Earth-Mars? He?"

"Take it easy, friend. IPS—interplanetary space ship. Earth-Mars—round-trip route, originally. Navigator, Lancelot Biggs, the first mate.[3] Didn't you know—"

"Omigod!" I bleated. "Don't tell me, but I—we—all of us are in the future!"

Donovan caught me as I was about to collapse and clapped me heartily on the back. I think it did more harm than good, but at least it brought me out of the fog.

"Correct," he said unhappily. "We're off in the future—hmm—maybe two-three hundred years. Myself, I don't understand how the hell it happened, but—"

At that moment a bell sounded. We turned to a hunk of square glass set in a side wall. It lighted, and a crusty-looking face scowled down on us, eyed me appraisingly.

"Ah, so you've recovered, young man? Fine! Your friends are waiting here in the control turret. Sparks, come along up here. Mr. Biggs has called a general conference."

The light dimmed. Sparks grinned at me languidly.

"That's the Old Man. Cap Hanson. Well, let's go, Buster. The fireworks are about to begin."

"The name," I told him, "is Blakeson. And how come the fireworks? Me no savvy."

"You heard him say L. Biggs was in the control turret, no? That's the tip-off, Bust—"

"Blakeson!" I said firmly.

"Blakeson," he corrected. "Okay. Buster. Come on!"

CHAPTER III

Lancelot Biggs' √-1

Things moved so swiftly then that the series of surprises I received was practically one continuous blow. The walk through the Saturn was a revelation in itself. Like the cabin in which I had awakened, the ship was all metal, glass and plastic. And a funny metal at that. It was hard, but it looked soft, if you know what I mean. Which I'm sure I don't! The name of the metal, Donovan told me, was "permalloy." It was a special, non-conductive, something-or-other resistant alloy.

"—invented," said Sparks, "around the end of the twentieth century." And he looked at me curiously. "Oh. I forgot. You wouldn't know about that, would you?"

"Look," I said desperately. "Let me know when we get to the Psychopathic Ward, will you?"

But he didn't get it. We walked down one ramp and up another, through an observation room, climbed a ladder, and finally ended in the room the skipper had called the "control turret." And what a place that was!

It looked like an overgrown cyclotron with a purpose. Huge, banked panels with studs on them, cryptic plates, coiled thingamajigs, mechanical what nots and doolollies all over. More guys in sky-blue uniforms. Bells tingling, television screens popping on and off at intervals....

"Interestin'," said a voice at my elbow, "ain't it?"

And it was Hank, gulping and grinning and shaking my hand.

"Kinda worried about you, Jim. You shouldn't ought to have allowed yourself to be drawed into the power-field."

But seeing Hank had made me think of Helen; and now, looking for Helen, I found something that completed my mental collapse. Helen was standing shoulder to shoulder with—none other than her old man, himself, in person! And right behind H. Logan MacDowell stood the missing professors, Hallowell and Tomkins. And lurking behind them, looking more baffled—if possible—than myself, was an exceedingly disgruntled individual in a hard hat. The vanishing detective.

I answered their nods weakly. Then I turned to Hank.

"I give up, pal. What is it? The after-world? Or Old Home Week?"

Hank said seriously, "Well, reckon as how you might call it the after-world, Jim. In a way. It's the world which is to be. But here comes the feller that can explain everything."

For the door had opened, and in walked the chap whom we had seen thrice in my apartment, the effervescent spirit of electricity, the blue-green mystic, the first mate of the Saturn—Lancelot Biggs!

Did I say "walked?" Excuse it, please. What he did with his feet could never, by the wildest stretch of the imagination, be called walking. Oh, he progressed forward, yes—but there are no words to describe his locomotion. Think of a polar bear on a pogo stick. Or a secretary bird on skates. A two-footed octopus, even.

His gait was a combination of the worst features of all three. He lurched and shambled, his bony knees protruding as if acknowledging introductions at each passage. A sort of, "You let me by this time, and I'll let you by next time!" deal.

But the peculiarities of Signor Biggs did not end at that point. He had others. I have said that he looked a bit like Hank Cleaver. That is true. They shared lean lankiness of build. Each was blessed—or cursed—with a mop of faded-yellow hair; their eyes were alike in that they mirrored soft curiosity. But Biggs had an appendage Hank lacked.

Matter of fact, no man ever had an Adam's-apple like that before or since. It hung in his scrawny throat like an unswallowed cud; and when he smiled—which was often—or talked, it woggled up and down like a runaway elevator.

To Sparks, beside me, I said dreamily,

"I see it, but I don't believe it. Is it alive?"

And then Biggs addressed us.

"First of all, I must apologize to you, Mr. Cleaver, and to Miss MacDowell and Mr. Blakeson for this rude infringement upon your personal privacy. It was an unwarranted step I took, intruding on your lives this way, but I hope that you'll agree it was not unforgivable.

"I have already explained to these gentlemen"—he bobbed his head toward the pedagogues and the shamus—"the urgency of our situation. To clarify in your minds the how and where of your present location—"

Hank Cleaver harrumphed! and interrupted.

"Reckon as how you can skip that, Lootenant," he said. "It's purty clear. You bridged the time gap from your time to ours by means of an ultra-wave temporal aberrant. Brought us up a couple o' centuries to 'bout the—well, 'bout the twenty-third century."

Lancelot Biggs tried hard to swallow the billiard ball under his chin.

"How—how did you know that, Mr. Cleaver?"

Hank scratched his head, and into his eyes came the old, baffled look that always came there when he was asked how he knew anything.

"Well," he confessed, "I don't 'zackly know how I know, but I do. Just stands to reason, that's all. When you come slidin' down the visible waves to hunt for us, an' when we woke to find ourselves on a space ship—an' as for the time element, well, I alluz 'lowed as how it'd take people bout fifty years, more or less, to make the first successful space flight, an' another two hundred to git it workin' proper—"

Lancelot Biggs' eyes lighted with a great joy.

"Mr. Cleaver, I touch my rocket to you! The ancient records do not lie. You are indeed a remarkable man. Now"—he turned to his fellow officers triumphantly—"now I know we shall win free of our difficulties. With your assistance."

Hank flushed, and squirmed a bulldog toe.

"Mebbe you better explain these here difficulties."

It was Biggs' turn to flush.

"I'm afraid," he said miserably, "it's all my fault. Six days ago, Earth Standard time, we lifted gravs from Long Island space port for Mars Central. This was to be my final shuttle before getting married to the skipper's daughter, Diane. Consequently I was a trifle—well, impatient. But I'm sure you understand, Mr. Cleaver."

Hank said hastily, "You better git on, Lootenant." He didn't look at Helen, which was a good thing.

"For some time," continued Biggs, "I have been experimenting with a new device, designed to increase the speed of our vessel. It seemed particularly appropriate that this shuttle should be the test period. So with Captain Hanson's permission I installed my new velocity intensifier on the hypatomics. After we cleared Lunar III, I switched it on—"

Biggs stopped. His eyes were haunted.

Horse-sense Hank said, "Yeah?"

"There was a moment of frightful acceleration, then a sharp explosion, and when order was resumed—here we were!"

Nobody spoke, which seemed silly.

"That," I said, "doesn't make sense. Here you were. So where were you?"

"That," said Biggs dejectedly, "is just what we don't know! Ah, that sounds ridiculous to you, gentlemen? Believe me, if you knew space, as we who shuttle back and forth within it in our daily toil, you would recognize by merely glancing through the quartzite viewpanes that we are nowhere within the confines of man's studied universe!

"Space is an ebon, eternal night, pricked by a myriad glowing sparks. The stars wheel in their courses. Comets scream through the infinitude. The planets, firmly shining in the reflected glory of their several suns are colored gems upon a velvet pall. But about us now we see nothing but a dull, endless gray. There are no cosmic clouds, no meteor mists, no stars; neither light nor dark. Only nothingness, complete and unresponsive to our best instruments!"

"Huh!" broke in Hank. "Whazzat you say?"

"Apparently," explained the young lieutenant, "our delicate instruments were broken during the explosion. That is the factor making more perilous our position. We are not able to orient ourselves, discover into what portion of the universe our moment of wild flight flung us.

"I have studied and worked and thought on the problem, but to no avail. That is why, Mr. Cleaver, I undertook to find you."

Cleaver looked at the youngster admiringly.

"Smart feller!" he said. "Time-travel, huh? Alluz thought it could be made to work. Mighta tried it myself if it hadn't been I was so durn busy on them turnips—"

"It was an accidental discovery, sir. I chanced upon it several months ago while inventing a new type of uranium speech condenser. It turned out to be a time-speech trap."[4]

"Nevertheless," insisted Hank, "you done a good job. Findin' a way to transport your body across time. An' pickin' me up outa 1940, bringin' me here. Like to talk to you about that later. But right now—" He frowned severely. "You say them instruments o' your'n won't work?"

"No, sir."

"Not a-tall?"

Biggs swallowed with difficulty.

"The truth is, Mr. Cleaver—"

"Hank's good enough."

"Well, Hank, the truth is—the instruments do work! But they work so dad-blamed funny—"

"Let's," suggested Horse-sense Hank mildly, "have a look."

That was all the invitation the young lieutenant needed. Without so much as a backward glance at the rest of us, he led Hank to the control banks of the space freighter. They began to talk in undertones. Biggs pushed buttons and explained things. I heard snatches about, "tensor alleviators," "orbital velocity adjusters," and a bunch of terms even less comprehensible, and gave it up as a bad job.

It was Hank's party. And his headache.

I turned to my self-appointed guide, the radioman, Bert Donovan.

"Do you understand what they're talking about?"

He grinned. "Buster, I've been listening to Lancelot Biggs talk for almost a year now. And I have yet to understand the first thing he tells me."

"Then in that case," I said, "it looks to me like a drink is indicated. Right?"

Right is might, and shall prevail.

I don't know how long later it was that we wandered back to the control turret. It must have been quite a while, for Sparks had shown me through the entire ship. When we got back, Cap Hanson and Doc Hallowell were playing a game of high-low, and the Saturn's skipper was giving Hallowell a good old-fashioned, twenty-third century going over.

Tomkins and MacDowell were napping quietly. The second mate, a guy named Todd, was making motions at guiding the ship's flight through nothing, and also making a mild play for Helen MacDowell. And not getting very far with either job.

Biggs and Cleaver had finished inspecting the instrument panels, and were in earnest confab by the plot charts. Hank seemed to be summarizing their decisions.

"—your new gadget was supposed to eliminate every speck of energy waste, huh?"

"That's right. And thus conserve fuel, at the same time giving tremendous speed," Biggs nodded.

"An' when you plugged the switch, it gave one whoop an' holler, the Saturn went like a bat out o' hell for a few seconds—"

"—and then," finished Biggs, "we found ourselves here. That's the story, Hank. The whole story, so help me. But if, from those few facts and what I've shown you, you can explain in what part of the universe we are, you're an even greater genius than history says you were—I mean, are."

Hank cocked a quizzical eye. "That's funny, ain't it?" he mused. "I was, but I still am. Time's tricky, Lanse. But, listen, you made one mistake."

"Yes?"

"In sayin' 'what part o' the universe.' Way I see it that ain't the explanation a-tall. Way I see it, there's two kinds o' universes. The is an' the ain't. An' we're in the other one."

"I—I beg your pardon?" faltered Biggs.

"Put it this way. You draw a graph, an' you cross two lines. The block at the upper right intersection o' them two lines is the is universe. The one we live in. Ain't that right?"

Biggs nodded. "That's a simple way of graphing existence, yes. The horizontal line would represent existence in space, the vertical line existence in time. At any given moment, a man's position in space and time is coördinated in the positive sector. But—"

He stopped abruptly, looking at Hank with startled eyes.

"But you don't mean, Hank, we're in the bottom sector of the graph!"

Hank sighed. "'Fraid that's 'zackly what I do mean, Lanse. It's no wonder nuthin' looked natcheral to you. We done bust plumb out o' space an' time as we ordinarily know it. We're in the imaginary sector o' space-time! The coördinate of where we are now ain't even positive numbers. They're all based on a negative factor—the square root o' minus one!"

CHAPTER IV

Danger Ahead

I looked at Bert Donovan and he looked at me. Judging by the faces of our two screwball intellectuals, there was something smelly on the Saturn. But it was all a deep and dark mystery to me.

I said, "Hank, for old times' sake, would you brush that off again lightly for me? In words of one syllable, what has the little letter i got to do with space flight, gray skies and time-travel?"