As we later learned, the scientific mechanism by which
the transition was made from the realm of the fourth
dimension to our own earthly world and back again, was only
effective to transport organic substances. The green
light-beam was of similar limitation. An organic substance
of our world upon which it struck was changed in vibration
rate and space-time co-ordinates to coincide with the
characteristics with which the light-current was endowed.
Thus the invaders used their beams as a weapon. The light
flung whatever it touched of organic material with horrible
speed of transition away into the Unknown—to the fourth,
fifth, or perhaps still other realms. In
effect—annihilation.
The mechanism of wires and dials (and small disks which were
storage batteries of the strange current) was of slower,
more controllable operation. Thus it could be used for
transportation—for space-time traveling, as Earth
scientists later came to call it. The invaders, wearing this
mechanism, materialized at will into the state of matter
existing in our world—and by a reversal of the co-ordinates
of the current, dematerialized into the more tenuous state
of their own realm.[Return to text]
We were soon to learn also that they were bringing into
our world weapons, food, clothing and a variety of equipment
by encasing the articles in containers operated by these
same mechanisms of wires carrying the transition current.
The transportation was possible because all the articles
they brought with them were of organic substance.[Return to text]
The extent of the Fourth Dimensional world was never
made wholly clear to us. Its rugged surface was coincident
with the surface of our earth at Bermuda, at New York City,
and at many points along the Atlantic seaboard of the United
States. For the rest, there is no data upon which one may
even guess.[Return to text]
The vehicles were constructed of a material allied in
character to that used for garments by the people of this
realm. It was not metal, but an organic vegetable substance.[Return to text]
What we learned of the science of the invisible realm
was perforce picked piecemeal by us from all that we saw,
experienced, and what several different times Tako was
willing to explain to us. And it was later studied by the
scientists of our world, whose additional theories I can
incorporate into my own knowledge. Yet much of it remains
obscure. And it is so intricate a subject that even if I
understood it fully I could do no more than summarize here
its fundamental principles.
The space-transition of these vehicles, Tako had already
told us, was closely allied to the transition from his world
to ours. And the weapons were of the same principles. The
science of space-transition, limited to travel from one
portion of the realm to another, quite evidently came first.
The weapons, the forcible, abrupt transition of material
objects out of the realm into other dimensions—into the
Unknown—this principle was developed from the traveling.
And from them both Tako himself evolved the safe and
controlled transition from his world to ours.
Concerning the operation of these vehicles: Motion, in our
Earth-world or any other, is the progressive change of a
material object in relation to its time and space. It is
here now, but it was there. Both space and time undergo a
simultaneous change; the object itself remains unaltered,
save in its position.
In the case of the vehicles, the current I have already
mentioned (used in the mechanism for the transition from
Earth to the other realm) that current, circulating in the
organic material of which the vehicle was composed, altered
the state of matter of the carrier and everything within the
aura of the current’s field. The vehicle and all its
contents, with altered inherent vibratory rate of its
molecules, atoms and electrons, was in effect projected into
another world. A new dimension was added to it. It became an
imponderable wraith, resting dimly visible in a sort of
borderland upon the fringe of its own world.
Yet it had not changed position. It still remained
quiescent. Then the current was further altered, and the
time and space co-ordinates set into new combinations. This
change of the current was a progressive change. Controlled
and carefully calculated by what intricate theoretic
principles and practical mechanisms no scientist of our
world can yet say.
It is clear, however, that as this progressive change in
space-time characteristics began, the vehicle perforce must
move slightly in space and time to reconcile itself to the
change.
There never has been a seemingly more abstruse subject for
the human mind to grasp than the theories involving a true
conception of space-time. Yet, doubtless, to those of Tako’s
realm, inheriting, let me say, the consciousness of its
reality, there was nothing abstruse about it.
An analogy may make it clearer. The vehicle, hovering in the
borderland, might be called in a visible but gaseous state.
A solid can be turned to gas merely by the alteration of the
vibratory rate of its molecules.
This unmoving (gaseous) vehicle, is now further altered in
space-time characteristics. Suppose we say it is very
slightly thrown out of tune with its spatial surroundings
at the time which is its present. Nature will allow no
such disorganization. The vehicle, as a second of time
passes, is impelled by the force of nature to be in a
different place. This involves motion. A small change in
the first second. Then the current alters it progressively
faster. The change, of necessity, is progressively greater,
the motion more rapid.
And this, controlled as to direction, became transportation.
The determination of direction at first thought seems
amazingly intricate. In effect, that was not so. With
space-time factors set as a destination, i. e., the place
where the vehicle must end its change at a certain time, all
the intermediate changes become automatic. With every
passing second it must be at a reconcilable place—the
direction of its passage perforce being the shortest path
between the two.
With this in mind, the transition from one world to another
becomes more readily understandable. No natural change of
space is involved, merely the change of the state of matter.
It was the same change as that which carried the vehicles
into a shadowy borderland, and then pushed further into new
dimensional realms.
The green light-beam weapons were merely another application
of the same principle. The characteristics of the green
light current, touching organic matter, altered the
vibratory rate of what was struck to coincide with the
light. A solid cake of ice under a blow-torch becomes steam
by the same principle. The light-beams were swift and
violent in their action. The change in them was progressive
also—but it was so swiftly violent a change that nothing
living could survive the shock of the enforced transition.[Return to text]
Materialization bombs, we afterward called them; they
played a diabolical part in the coming events. They were of
many sizes and shapes, but most of them were small in size
and shape, like a foot-long wedged-shaped brick, or the head
of an ax. They were constructed of organic material, with a
wire mesh of the transition mechanism encasing them, and an
automatic operating device like the firing fuse of a bomb.[Return to text]
Neither Eunice Arton, nor any of the stolen girls, have
ever been heard from since. Like the thousands of men, women
and children who met their death in the attack upon New
York, Eunice Arton was a victim of these tragic events.[Return to text]
The detailed nature of the scientific devices Tako used
in the handling of his army during the attack never has been
disclosed. I saw him using one of the eye-telescopes. There
was also a telephonic device and occasionally he would
discharge a silent signal radiance—a curious intermittent
green flare of light. His charts of the topography of New
York City were to me incomprehensible
hieroglyphics—mathematical formula, no doubt; the
co-ordinates of altitudes and contours of our world-space in
its relation to the mountainous terrain of his world which
stood mingled here with the New York City buildings.[Return to text]
There was a thing which puzzled me before we arrived in
the carrier, and surprised me when we left it; and though I
did not, and still do not wholly understand it, I think I
should mention it here. Traveling in the carrier we were
suspended in a condition of matter which might be termed mid
way between Tako’s realm and our Earth-world. Both, in
shadowy form, were visible to us; and to an observer on
either world we also were visible.
Then, as the carrier landed, it receded from this sort of
borderland as I have termed it, contacted with its own realm
and landed. At once I saw that the shadowy outlines of New
York were gone. And, to New York observers, the carriers as
they landed, were invisible. The mountains—all this tumbled
barren wilderness of Tako’s world—were invisible to
observers in New York.
But I knew now how very close were the two worlds—a very
fraction of visible “distance,” one from the other.
Then, with wires, disks and helmets—all the transition
mechanism worn now by us and all of Tako’s forces—we drew
ourselves a very small fraction of the way toward the
Earth-world state. Enough and no more than to bring it to
most tenuous, most wraithlike visibility, so that we could
see the shadows of it and know our location in relation to
it, which was necessary to Tako’s operations.
In this state, New York City was a wraith to us—and we were
shadowy, dimly visible apparitions to New York observers.
But in this slight transition, we did not wholly disconnect
with the terrain of Tako’s world. There was undoubtedly—if
the term could be called scientific—a depth of field to the
solidity of these mountains. By that I mean, their
tangibility persisted for a certain distance toward other
dimensions. Perhaps it was a greater “depth of field” than
the solidity of our world possesses. As to that, I do not
know.
But I do know, since I experienced it, that as we sat now
encamped upon this ledge, the ground under us felt only a
trifle different from when we had full contact with it.
There was a lightness upon us—an abnormal feeling of
weight-loss—a feeling of indefinable abnormality to the
rocks. Yet, to observers in New York, we were faintly to be
seen, and the rocks upon which we sat were not.[Return to text]