“Do you get the conception now? This whole universe we see and feel from here on earth, from a greater viewpoint would all shrink into a tiny, apparently solid particle.”
“I can visualize it,” I said. “It’s stupendous.”
But Jim interposed, “This trip we are to make—”
Alice interrupted him, explaining, “Grandfather has been making tests. We have several models; he saved one of them to show you. We can see it now?” She looked inquiringly at her grandfather.
Dr. Weatherby rose to his feet. “We’ll try it now. I’ll show you the model and we’ll send it . . . away.
“Come,” he added. “When you see it start, you will understand.”
We left the house. Night had closed down, a soft, cloudless night. Never had I seen the stars so brilliant.
Dr. Weatherby led us up a path, beneath spreading trees, past gardens of flowers, past his lake with its pool and a cascading brook for its outlet down the hillside to the Hudson; past the shadowy landing stage where high overhead my plane lay moored; up the slope of a hill to a long, narrow outbuilding.
Jim and I had noticed this building when we landed at dawn. It was new to us, erected during the year or so since we had last been here.
“My workshop,” Dr. Weatherby said as we approached it.