The Fourth-Dimensional Demonstrator Read online

  The Fourth-Dimensional Demonstrator

  Murray Leinster

  The Fourth-Dimensional Demonstrator

  by Murray Leinster

  Pete Davidson was engaged to Miss Daisy Manners of the Green Paradise floor show. He had just inherited all the properties of an uncle who had been an authority on the fourth dimension, and he was the custodian of an unusually amiable kangaroo named Arthur. But still he was not happy; it showed this morning.

  Inside his uncle’s laboratory, Pete scribbled on paper. He added, and ran his hands through his hair in desperation. Then he subtracted, divided and multiplied. But the results were invariably problems as incapable of solution as his deceased relative’s fourth-dimensional equations. From time to time a long, horselike, hopeful face peered in at him. That was Thomas, his uncle’s servant, whom Pete was afraid he had also inherited.

  “Beg pardon, sir,” said Thomas tentatively.

  Pete leaned harassedly back in his chair.

  “What is it, Thomas? What has Arthur been doing now?”

  “He is browsing in the dahlias, sir. I wished to ask about lunch, sir. What shall I prepare?”

  “Anything!” said Pete. “Anything at all! No. On second thought, trying to untangle Uncle Robert’s affairs calls for brains. Give me something rich in phosphorus and vitamins; I need them.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Thomas. “But the grocer, sir—”

  “Again?” demanded Pete hopelessly.

  “Yes, sir,” said Thomas, coming into the laboratory. “I hoped, sir, that matters might be looking better.”

  Pete shook his head, regarding his calculations depressedly. “They aren’t. Cash to pay the grocer’s bill is still a dim and misty hope. It is horrible, Thomas! I remembered my uncle as simply reeking with cash, and I thought the fourth dimension was mathematics, not debauchery. But Uncle Robert must have had positive orgies with quanta and space-time continua! I shan’t break even on the heir business, let alone make a profit!”

  Thomas made a noise suggesting sympathy.

  “I could stand it for myself alone,” said Pete gloomily. “Even Arthur, in his simple, kangaroo’s heart, bears up well. But Daisy! There’s the rub! Daisy!”

  “Daisy, sir?”

  “My fiancée,” said Pete. “She’s in the Green Paradise floor show. She is technically Arthur’s owner. I told Daisy, Thomas, that I had inherited a fortune. And she’s going to be disappointed.”

  “Too bad, sir,” said Thomas.

  “That statement is one of humorous underemphasis, Thomas. Daisy is not a person to take disappointments lightly. When I explain that my uncle’s fortune has flown off into the fourth dimension, Daisy is going to look absent-minded and stop listening. Did you ever try to make love to a girl who looked absent-minded?”

  “No, sir,” said Thomas. “But about lunch, sir—”

  “We’ll have to pay for it. Damn!” Pete said morbidly. “I’ve just forty cents in my clothes, Thomas, and Arthur at least mustn’t be allowed to starve. Daisy wouldn’t like it. Let’s see!”

  He moved away from the desk and surveyed the laboratory with a predatory air. It was not exactly a homey place. There was a skeletonlike thing of iron rods, some four feet high. Thomas had said it was a tesseract—a model of a cube existing in four dimensions instead of three.

  To Pete, it looked rather like a medieval instrument of torture—something to be used in theological argument with a heretic. Pete could not imagine anybody but his uncle wanting it. There were other pieces of apparatus of all sizes, but largely dismantled. They looked like the product of someone putting vast amounts of money and patience into an effort to do something which would be unsatisfactory when accomplished.

  “There’s nothing here to pawn,” said Pete depressedly. “Not even anything I could use for a hand organ, with Arthur substituting for the monkey!”

  “There’s the demonstrator, sir,” said Thomas hopefully. “Your uncle finished it, sir, and it worked, and he had a stroke, sir.”

  “Cheerful!” said Pete. “What is this demonstrator? What’s it supposed to do?”

  “Why, sir, it demonstrates the fourth dimension,” said Thomas. “It’s your uncle’s life work, sir.”

  “Then let’s take a look at it,” said Pete. “Maybe we can support ourselves demonstrating the fourth dimension in shop windows for advertising purposes. But I don’t think Daisy will care for the career.”

  Thomas marched solemnly to a curtain just behind the desk. Pete had thought it hid a cupboard. He slid the cover back and displayed a huge contrivance which seemed to have the solitary virtue of completion. Pete could see a monstrous brass horseshoe all of seven feet high. It was apparently hollow and full of cryptic cogs and wheels. Beneath it there was a circular plate of inch-thick glass which seemed to be designed to revolve. Below that, in turn, there was a massive base to which ran certain copper tubes from a refrigerating unit out of an ice box.

  Thomas turned on a switch and the unit began to purr. Pete watched.

  “Your uncle talked to himself quite a bit about this, sir,” said Thomas. “I gathered that it’s quite a scientific triumph, sir. You see, sir, the fourth dimension is time.”

  “I’m glad to hear it explained so simply,” said Pete.

  “Yes, sir. As I understand it, sir, if one were motoring and saw a pretty girl about to step on a banana peel, sir, and if one wished to tip her off, so to speak, but didn’t quite realize for—say, two minutes, until one had gone on half a mile—”

  “The pretty girl would have stepped on the banana peel and nature would have taken its course,” said Pete.

  “Except for this demonstrator, sir. You see, to tip off the young lady one would have to retrace the half mile and the time too, sir, or one would be too late. That is, one would have to go back not only the half mile but the two minutes. And so your uncle, sir, built this demonstrator—”

  “So he could cope with such a situation when it arose,” finished Pete. “I see! But I’m afraid it won’t settle our financial troubles.”

  The refrigeration unit ceased to purr. Thomas solemnly struck a safety match.

  “If I may finish the demonstration, sir,” he said hopefully. “I blow out this match, and put it on the glass plate between the ends of the horseshoe. The temperature’s right, so it should work.”

  There were self-satisfied clucking sounds from the base of the machine. They went on for seconds. The huge glass plate suddenly revolved perhaps the eighth of a revolution. A humming noise began. It stopped. Suddenly there was another burnt safety match on the glass plate. The machine began to cluck triumphantly.

  “You see, sir?” said Thomas. “It’s produced another burnt match. Dragged it forward out of the past, sir. There was a burnt match at that spot, until the glass plate moved a few seconds ago. Like the girl and the banana peel, sir. The machine went back to the place where the match had been, and then it went back in time to where the match was, and then it brought it forward.”

  The plate turned another eighth of a revolution. The machine clucked and hummed. The humming stopped. There was a third burnt match on the glass plate. The clucking clatter began once more.

  “It will keep that up indefinitely, sir,” said Thomas hopefully.

  “I begin,” said Pete, “to see the true greatness of modern science. With only two tons of brass and steel, and at a cost of only a couple of hundred thousand dollars and a lifetime of effort, my Uncle Robert has left me a machine which will keep me supplied with burnt matches for years to come! Thomas, this machine is a scientific triumph!”

  Thomas beamed.

  “Splendid, sir! I’m glad you approve. And what s
hall I do about lunch, sir?”

  The machine, having clucked and hummed appropriately, now produced a fourth burnt match and clucked more triumphantly still. It prepared to reach again into the hitherto unreachable past.

  Pete looked reproachfully at the servant he had apparently inherited. He reached in his pocket and drew out his forty cents. Then the machine hummed. Pete jerked his head and stared at it.

  “Speaking of science, now,” he said an instant later. “I have a very commercial thought. I blush to contemplate it.” He looked at the monstrous, clucking demonstrator of the fourth dimension. “Clear out of here for ten minutes, Thomas. I’m going to be busy!”

  Thomas vanished. Pete turned off the demonstrator. He risked a nickel, placing it firmly on the inch-thick glass plate. The machine went on again. It clucked, hummed, ceased to hum—and there were two nickels. Pete added a dime to the second nickel. At the end of another cycle he ran his hand rather desperately through his hair and added his entire remaining wealth—a quarter. Then, after incredulously watching what happened, he began to pyramid.

  Thomas tapped decorously some ten minutes later.

  “Beg pardon, sir,” he said hopefully. “About lunch, sir—”

  Pete turned off the demonstrator. He gulped.

  “Thomas,” he said in careful calm, “I shall let you write the menu for lunch. Take a basketful of this small change and go shopping. And—Thomas, have you any item of currency larger than a quarter? A fifty-cent piece would be about right. I’d like to have something really impressive to show to Daisy when she comes.”

  Miss Daisy Manners of the Green Paradise floor show was just the person to accept the fourth-dimensional demonstrator without question and to make full use of the results of modern scientific research. She greeted Pete abstractedly and interestedly asked just how much he’d inherited. And Pete took her to the laboratory. He unveiled the demonstrator.

  “These are my jewels,” said Pete impressively. “Darling, it’s going to be a shock, but—have you got a quarter?”

  “You’ve got nerve, asking me for money,” said Daisy. “And if you lied about inheriting some money—”

  Pete smiled tenderly upon her. He produced a quarter of his own.

  “Watch, my dear! I’m doing this for you!”

  He turned on the demonstrator and explained complacently as the first cluckings came from the base. The glass plate moved, a second quarter appeared, and Pete pyramided the two while he continued to explain. In the fraction of a minute, there were four quarters. Again Pete pyramided. There were eight quarters—sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four, one hundred twenty-eight—At this point the stack collapsed and Pete shut off the switch.

  “You see, my dear? Out of the fourth dimension to you! Uncle invested it, I inherited it, and—shall I change your money for you?”

  Daisy did not look at all absent-minded now. Pete gave her a neat little sheaf of bank notes.

  “And from now on, darling,” he said cheerfully, “whenever you want money just come in here, start the machine—and there you are! Isn’t that nice?”

  “I want some more money now,” said Daisy. “I have to buy a trousseau.”

  “I hoped you’d feel that way!” said Pete enthusiastically. “Here goes! And we have a reunion while the pennies roll in.”

  The demonstrator began to cluck and clatter with bills instead of quarters on the plate. Once, to be sure, it suspended all operations and the refrigeration unit purred busily for a time. Then it resumed its self-satisfied delving into the immediate past.

  “I haven’t been making any definite plans,” explained Pete, “until I talked to you. Just getting things in line. But I’ve looked after Arthur carefully. You know how he loves cigarettes. He eats them, and though it may be eccentric in a kangaroo, they seem to agree with him. I’ve used the demonstrator to lay up a huge supply of cigarettes for him—his favorite brand, too. And I’ve been trying to build up a bank account. I thought it would seem strange if we bought a house on Park Avenue and just casually offered a trunkful of bank notes in payment. It might look as if we’d been running a snatch racket.”

  “Stupid!” said Daisy.

  “What?”

  “You could be pyramiding those bills like you did the quarters,” said Daisy. “Then there’d be lots more of them!”

  “Darling,” said Pete fondly, “does it matter how much you have when I have so much?”

  “Yes,” said Daisy. “You might get angry with me.”

  “Never!” protested Pete. Then he added reminiscently, “Before we thought of the bank note idea, Thomas and I filled up the coal bin with quarters and half dollars. They’re still there.”

  “Gold pieces would be nice,” suggested Daisy, thinking hard, “if you could get hold of some. Maybe we could.”

  “Ah!” said Pete. “But Thomas had a gold filling in one tooth. We took it out and ran it up to half a pound or so. Then we melted that into a little brick and put it on the demonstrator. Darling, you’d really be surprised if you looked in the woodshed.”

  “And there’s jewelry,” said Daisy. “It would be faster still!”

  “If you feel in the mood for jewelry,” said Pete tenderly, “just look in the vegetable bin. We’d about run out of storage space when the idea occurred to us.”

  “I think,” said Daisy enthusiastically, “we’d better get married right away. Don’t you?”

  “Sure! Let’s go and do it now! I’ll get the car around!”

  “Do, darling,” said Daisy. “I’ll watch the demonstrator.”

  Beaming, Pete kissed her ecstatically and rushed from the laboratory. He rang for Thomas, and rang again. It was not until the third ring that Thomas appeared. And Thomas was very pale. He said agitatedly:

  “Beg pardon, sir, but shall I pack your bag?”

  “I’m going to be—Pack my bag? What for?”

  “We’re going to be arrested, sir,” said Thomas. He gulped. “I thought you might want it, sir. An acquaintance in the village, sir, believes we are among the lower-numbered public enemies, sir, and respects us accordingly. He telephoned me the news.”

  “Thomas, have you been drinking?”

  “No, sir,” said Thomas pallidly. “Not yet, sir. But it is a splendid suggestion, thank you, sir.” Then he said desperately: “It’s the money, sir—the bank notes. If you recall, we never changed but one lot of silver into notes, sir. We got a one, a five, a ten and so on, sir.”

  “Of course,” said Pete. “That was all we needed. Why not?”

  “It’s the serial number, sir! All the one-dollar bills the demonstrator turned out have the same serial number—and all the fives and tens and the rest, sir. Some person with a hobby for looking for kidnap bills, sir, found he had several with the same number. The Secret Service has traced them back. They’re coming for us, sir. The penalty for counterfeiting is twenty years, sir. My—my friend in the village asked if we intended to shoot it out with them, sir, because if so he’d like to watch.”

  Thomas wrung his hands. Pete stared at him.

  “Come to think of it,” he said meditatively, “they are counterfeits. It hadn’t occurred to me before. We’ll have to plead guilty, Thomas. And perhaps Daisy won’t want to marry me if I’m going to prison. I’ll go tell her the news.”

  Then he stared. He heard Daisy’s voice, speaking very angrily. An instant later the sound grew louder. It became a continuous, shrill, soprano babble. It grew louder yet. Pete ran.

  He burst into the laboratory and was stunned. The demonstrator was still running. Daisy had seen Pete piling up the bills as they were turned out, pyramiding to make the next pile larger. She had evidently essayed the same feat. But the pile was a bit unwieldy, now, and Daisy had climbed on the glass plate. She had come into the scope of the demonstrator’s action.

  There were three of her in the laboratory when Pete first entered. As he froze in horror, the three became four. The demonstrator clucked and hummed what was almost a hoo
t of triumph. Then it produced a fifth Daisy. Pete dashed frantically forward and turned off the switch just too late to prevent the appearance of a sixth copy of Miss Daisy Manners of the Green Paradise floor show. She made a splendid sister act, but Pete gazed in paralyzed horror at this plethora of his heart’s desire.

  Because all of Daisy was identical, with not only the same exterior and—so to speak—the same serial number, but with the same opinions and convictions. And all six of Daisy were convinced that they, individually, owned the heap of bank notes now on the glass plate. All six of her were trying to get it. And Daisy was quarreling furiously with herself. She was telling herself what she thought of herself, in fact, and on the whole her opinion was not flattering.

  Arthur, like Daisy, possessed a fortunate disposition. He was not one of those kangaroos who go around looking for things to be upset about. He browsed peacefully upon the lawn, eating up the dahlias and now and again hopping over the six-foot hedge in hopes that there might be a dog come along the lane to bark at him. Or, failing to see a dog, that somebody might have come by who would drop a cigarette butt that he might salvage.

  At his first coming to this place, both pleasing events had been frequent. The average unwarned passer-by, on seeing a five-foot kangaroo soaring toward him in this part of the world, did have a tendency to throw down everything and run. Sometimes, among the things he threw down was a cigarette.

  There had been a good supply of dogs, too, but they didn’t seem to care to play with Arthur any more. Arthur’s idea of playfulness with a strange dog—especially one that barked at him—was to grab him with both front paws and then kick the living daylights out of him.

  Arthur browsed, and was somewhat bored. Because of his boredom he was likely to take a hand in almost anything that turned up. There was a riot going on in the laboratory, but Arthur did not care for family quarrels. He was interested, however, in the government officers when they arrived. There were two of them and they came in a roadster. They stopped at the gate and marched truculently up to the front door.