The bench moved. It settled slowly downward. As Vanning’s jaw dropped, the bench seemed to crawl into the locker, with the gentle motion of a not-too-heavy object sinking through water. It wasn’t sucked down. It melted down. The portion still outside the locker was unchanged. But that, too, settled, and was gone.
Vanning craned forward. A blur of movement hurt his eyes. Inside the locker was—something. It shifted its contours, shrank, and became a spiky sort of scalene pyramid, deep-purple in hue.
It seemed to be less than four inches across at its widest point.
“I don’t believe it,” Vanning said.
Galloway grinned. “As the Duke of Wellington remarked to the subaltern, it was a demned small bottle, sir.”
“Now, wait a minute. How the devil could I put an eight-foot bench inside of a five-foot locker?”
“Because of Newton,” Galloway said. “Gravity. Go fill a test tube with water and I’ll show you.”
“Wait a minute… O. K. Now what?”
“Got it brim-full? Good. You’ll find some sugar cubes in that drawer labeled ‘Fuses.’ Lay a cube on top of the test tube, one corner down so it touches the water.”
Vanning racked the tube and obeyed. “Well?”