The Other Side of Here

Meanwhile, Waldron and Lucy had driven off into the darkness in another direction, leaving behind them a filling station attendant looking up at a gasoline gauge with an expression of absorption which would remain upon his face for days or weeks.

Waldron drove. At first he used only the parking lights and moved slowly. But after some miles he turned on the full headlights and the big car leaped ahead. A long time later, when a rabbit leaped frightenedly from the road before them, he was sure they were beyond the area of affliction. He relaxed, for he had felt a nagging anxiety that one of the high-frequency packs might cease to work at any instant.

"We're out of the dead spot," he told Lucy. "Tell me: while you were frozen, did you know it?"

"N-no," said Lucy. "One instant I was sitting in the chair, watching you twist two wires together. And suddenly the doctor was holding me toward you and you had your hands on my arms and I wasn't in the chair at all. I had no feeling of time-lapse."

"I think we should thank God for that!" said Waldron. "If all those hundreds of thousands of people could see and hear and feel but not move, they'd be better off actually dead. But they won't know anything until they're revived. That, at least, is merciful."

He slowed the car and searched the sides of the road.

"What are you looking for, Steve?"

"A hiding place," said Waldron briefly. "The packs we have are all right. They saved us. But they're makeshift. I want to connect them up so they'll use storage-battery current while we're in the car and go on dry cell only if we get out. And I want to change the dry cells. Also, I think you need some rest."

"How about you?"

Waldron shrugged. He did not feel sleepy, but he was beginning to feel that numbness which came from complete weariness of mind and body.

Presently he found a small side road. It was hardly more than a dirt road that led through the pinewood that bordered the highway. Seeing that it showed no sign of recent use, Waldron turned in it and drove a hundred yards or so. The road wound and twisted, and low-hanging branches swished over the car's roof.

"Okay," he said, and cut the ignition. "Now we should be all right for a while. I'm going to fix our life savers. When they're done, I'll take a nap until sunrise. Curl up in the back and go to sleep if you can."

Lucy hesitated, and then obediently moved to the wide, soft rear seat. Waldron cut all but the instrument-board lights and set to work as best he could in the unsatisfactory illumination.

There was silence. A breeze blew outside and tree branches sighed and whispered. Lucy was still. Waldron spliced wires and made contacts. From time to time, there was a faint humming sound as he tested some new arrangement.

Lucy stirred and sat quietly for a long time. She stirred again. Then she said: "Steve ... I haven't asked anything about my father for a long time. Does what you've found out tell anything about him?"

"He's in Fran Dutt's homeland," said Waldron flatly. "Fran said he was unharmed. I more than suspect he is. I believe it."

"But ... where's that? What country? Where?"

Waldron frowned. He scraped wires. He twisted them together. "Tricky to explain," he said slowly. "But you remember that your father was working on Straussman's Theory. Straussman sprang his wild ideas all of thirty years back, or even more. Scientists laughed at him. They classed him with Fort. He said two objects could be in the same place at the same time. Compenetration was philosophically possible. But in fact—they said it was ridiculous. When Straussman claimed experimental proof, nobody would even look at it. So Straussman disappeared. He vanished into thin air. Nobody cared. His theory lay fallow for thirty years, until somebody noticed that he'd anticipated some extremely ticklish wave-mechanics stuff. Then they realized that he had something. But I don't think anybody understands it all yet."

"My father said that much, Steve."

"Just so. Your father examined his theories. He published a paper on that two-objects-in-the-same-space-and-time angle. It was just about then that Fran Dutt turned up, so brilliant and so admiring that your father took him on as assistant. Remember?"

"He offered to work without pay for the privilege of serving with Father in pure research."

"With the purest of motives," said Waldron ironically, "as we know now. He was sent to spy on your father, just in case he found out something in this pure research of his."

He tightened two twisted wires with pliers.

"In the living room of your house," he said presently, "there's a mirror hanging on the wall. If you look in that mirror you see another living room in the space where actually there's a dining room. Right?"

"You see a reflection," said Lucy. "What has that to do with my father?"