J. Harvey Haggard

“ No braver man was made in Lemnis than the ex-spy when it came to hand-to-hand conflict, but when invisible dangers threatened, his superstitious nature asserted itself.
Indeed it had been an eerie experience, Dos-Tev reflected. He had felt about as bodiless as a wraith when he and Bullo had crawled out of the space ship upon the unseen force-beam plane exerted from the projector at the craft’s nose. ”

“ Slave and workers – obeying a superior command.
Overhead, more than two hundred miles of solid rock-strata lay like a thick shell – an exuviate – as tho this alien bit of spake were animate, and the moon-matter a shell over its pulsating being. The crater-shaft itself, like a huge gaping aesophagus, was drawing into the Hemisphere a current of rarefied air, and like corpuscles the disc-shadows flickered upon their endless journeys. Yet herein lay the stronghold, the natural habitat, of the Wrongness of Space. ”

“ Fearing to believe, Bullo staggered out into the center of the room with arms outstretched like a man playing blind man’s buff, and rather to his amazement he encountered something solid where everything looked so empty, which shoved him in the nose so forcefully he was sent stumbling backward. A nebulaeic formation in the center of the room suddenly appeared, coagulating swiftly, and before the startled giant appeared the well-known proportions of the young deposed Emperor, Dos-Tev of Lemnis, wearing a peculiar jutting harness, who was convulsed with laughter. ”

“ The Wrongness of Space has curtailed my every effort, and at last is in supremacy. I cannot send the message.”
“You mean? –“ queried Dos-Tev, the explanation of the other’s sadness suddenly encompassing him with its full significance.
“We must be brave,” said Mea-Quin.
“That I must go,” finished Dos-Tev for himself. “That it is our only chance – now. I must go down – into the crater – and somehow deflect the power-beam controls of the Wrongness of Space.”
At this Bullo sprang forward, his eyes aglow. ”

“ Dos-Tev felt it too, some force wrapping about him. Suddenly he was swept around and hurled out into a great arc. There was a moment of wild tumbling, of chaotic nightmare. A wild force bore him swiftly, in a great spiral motion. And suddenly it came to him.
“Take it easy, Bullo,” he cried, half sobbing in relief, “It’s the inner shaft. We’re circling above it. Our force-beam keeps shoving us away from the rim, and we’re going down in a spiral. Take it easy; we’ll gradually shift to the center again.” ”

“ Every day this Wrongness of Space is getting stronger. Whether it’s devil or man, I know not. Whether it’s vulnerable or not, I cannot fathom. Yet somewhere in the heart of this crater-pocked seimi-riven satellite there crouches an ancient stagnated evil which must be eradicated sooner or later, which is threatening at the peace of the universe and is uniting with that devil in man’s guise, Ay-Artz.”
“What?” stammered Bull, staring. “You mean—“
“That fools win where scientists fear to tread,” quoted Dos-Tev.
Bullo came forward, his eyes gleaming eagerly. ”

“ The Wrongness of Space suddenly sent a bombarding thought roaring into Dos-Tev’s brain.
“You have failed! I dissipated the destructive energy of your bomb into another dimension, not of your normal three. Yes; I will explain:
“We, like yourselves, occupy but three dimensions. There are many other of what you call dimensions, a fourth, fifth and even sixth. Our normal world lies in these last three, totally removed from your own. ”

“ Somewhere over Copernicus, the two invisible bodies of Dos-Tev and Bullo had been loosed in mid-void as the force-plane disseminated beneath their feet, and now were falling toward the heart of the crater, under the power of their own apparati.
Darkness, eddying and impenetrable. Above; a circular star-field like black velvet dusted lightly with powdered crystal, growing constantly smaller. Around and below, a darkness so dense as to seem almost animate. ”

“ Deep down within the heart of Luna was – the Hemisphere! It was one mile in diameter and a half-mile in height. From the bottom of its huge disc-like floor to the top of the broad domed roof it was a solid expanse of permeable shifting grayness, inhabited by strange two-dimensional shadows and angles which were continually moving. An observer from the world above would have found something chilling, something totally extraneous, in the mere vista, suffused by a dull foggy illumination, of which the source was not visible. ”

“ To a flatlander of one world, the other world would appear merely as a thin line – one dimension.
Similarly, he pointed out, one of the common three dimensions might be shifted into the fourth, leaving a vacancy in one of the visible three, whereby objects would be visible and tangible only as the two dimensional proportions left! It was his idea that this hemisphere was the workshop of the Wrongness of Space, that the lines and angles represented two-dimensional bases of walls, instruments, and manipulative devices, one of their dimensions having been shifted to the fourth. ”

“ But these were real people of tangible dimensions, who had appeared like corpuscles to their warped semi-view from the other plane. The giant on the throne was a real man, tho his demonical face was wreathed in a triumphant grin. His head, perched upon massive shoulders, was diminutive and bird-like after the manner of some Lemnisians Dos-Tev had known who had been mentally inefficient. ”

“ Bullo, taken aback by the seeming opposition which had suddenly flared up between the young prince and the old scientist, crouched with open mouth in very evident discomfort. Dos-Tev, red-faced, stood breathing heavily. After several moments his passion subsided, and he hung his head. Slowly he walked across to the silent Mea-Quin, and placed a hand upon his arm.
“Forgive me, Mea-Quin,” he said simply. “I fear I have momentarily lost both my senses and my respect for your wisdom. It would be foolhardy. There’s one chance in a hundred we’d come out alive or victorious. ”

“ He motioned to his peculiar harness, to a framework circling his waist which radiated out into a rim-loop of whitely gleaming metal closely woven with tiny shields of woven strands which seemed to be composed of flexible glass.
“Then it’s not Hakka,” cried Bullo in evident relief. “And it isn’t true about the twins–?” He looked so querulous and believing that Dos-Tev chuckled again, but his face quickly resumed a grave mien.
“Bullo,” he said emphatically, striking his fist in his palm, after laying down the glass-woven harness. “We’ve deliberated too long! ”

“ The tidal action of the Sun on the molten mass must have drawn the satellite from its mother. Why shouldn’t the life spores germinate here as well as there?”
“Then perhaps there is some sort of advanced life below,” returned Bullo. “Perhaps the Wrongness of Space is a Lunarian, developed thru an evolutive scale here, a cousin to earth men.”
“Perhaps,” agreed Dos-Tev doubtfully. “It’s possible. But even a distant branching creature should feel sympathy when a common enemy is advancing on the Solar System. ”

“ A giant claw – sixteen feet high; with distended pincers gaping, it shoved out, to be followed by a body so vast that it completely filled the rim of the cavern. A hideous unbelievable body! A giant crab-creature, an evolutive development of normal tangible dimensions, tho its customary habitat probably extended into the upper rarefied veins of the satellite. ”

“ I was beginning to think we couldn’t see out of all this gear; space suit, invisibility harness and all.”
“Oh yes,” returned Dos-Tev. “We can see all right when there is anything to see, which there isn’t right now. Thank our lucky start we’ve got the latest television-plate head-gear tho. If we had the old type of glassite goggles we couldn’t see out of our own force-field.” He was referring to the hexagonal hemispherical television-screen built directly into the inner face of the space suit head-gear, an important advancement since the old type Lemnisian glassite goggles. ”

“ Yet within this vista of shifting planes and two-dimensional angles, darker objects were moving waveringly thru the great hemispherical enclosure, like interior organs of a giant beast. Great streams of disc-like shadows filed thru the space between floor and ceiling in great angles and steep declivities, on far-flung curves which embraced the width of the Hemisphere; disc-shadows seemingly without support or propulsion, which disappeared into labyrinthine tunnels which crawled away from the central cavern into the rock, and which moved thru the angles and shadows as tho disembodied. ”

“ Altho insanity was manifest in his shriveled bird-like head, yet there was maniacal power, a dominating driving force which, tho erratic, still sufficed to exert his versatile whims upon his under-servants, who probably feared him and held his insanity in superstitious adulation. ”