Marvak wasn't there. Marvak was gone.
Suddenly I turned to Fradin. "You—" I gulped. "You were afraid this would happen. My God, man, what was it?"
"It was," he answered, "a hole in the fourth dimension."
Then I got it. He had been trying to tell that convention of radio engineers that radio waves were transmitted through the fourth dimension, not through the "ether." He had been able to prove his point but he had refused because he knew that this would happen.
"But even if radio waves do pass through the fourth dimension, nothing like this has ever happened," I stammered.
"Ordinary broadcasting stations do not put enough power through their transmitters to open this hole," he explained. "It takes power to do it, lots of power. I had calculated how much power it would take. There was a red mark on the input meter of the transmitter. That red line marked the critical point. If more power was put through the transmitter, it would break down the fabric of space between this dimension and the fourth dimension. I knew it would happen. That's why I refused to make a demonstration for the benefit of my skeptical compatriots. If I told them what I had discovered, proved I had discovered it, some fool would be sure to try it, with disastrous results."
"But that cold wind," I protested.
"This particular region opens out into what must be interplanetary space in the fourth dimension. That cold wind was simply the cold of outer space rushing through what was in effect a window."
So that was it. There was a hole in space. And space is cold.
"Marvak!" I said weakly.