Rog Phillips

“ In order for you to understand just what happened, and why Amba was not destroyed when he pressed the buttons that started the atom bombs on their journeys of destruction, I must tell you a little of the basic nature of reality. Our universe is at all times and in every respect a root of a cubic equation. It has long been known that space is curved. ”

“ A few minutes of exertion pushing buttons, a hasty trip to the tri-matter slab, and over into the time machine that was set to return him to normal time rate after three centuries, and he would be in a position to rule the world.
He contemplated the terrific cost. A billion and a half people would be killed in the space of a few hours. Two hundred million of them would be his own state-slaves, his subjects. ”

“ If I fail to have the courage to do this thing, then the welfare of all future generations will be on my shoulders. The sacrifice of the billion or two now living is a SMALL price to pay, compared to the sacrifice of countless billions of future generations if I weaken. ”

“ Though it is true time travel, it amounts to nothing more than perfect stasis for controlled periods, and if destruction hits the space the time traveller is in, he is as vulnerable as he would be if not travelling. In order to escape that it is necessary to step over, so to speak, into one of the imaginary universes at right angles to us in the time continuum and travel forward there. ”

“ We knew beforehand that it had to be a cubic equation. Each cubic equation has three roots for every value of the independent variable, which is in space. It also has three roots for every value of the time. Basically, that means that if any primal unit exists in our space, it exists in three forms, the positive, the negative and the neutral. These units are the positron, the negatron, and the neutron. Those three are the three solutions in space to the co-ordinates of the existential primal point. ”

“ So it was a simple matter to get Hute and his general staff to carry out their plans in one of the other universes rather than this one, and then escape into a time machine in the third universe.
"After they did that I merely pulled the disconnects and destroyed the field that linked our universe temporarily with the one where the destruction went on according to plan. When Hitle and his men wake up a few centuries from now they will find that things went according to plan. They will find their destruction and their bands of savages to rule, if they can rule them. ”

“ The number one is a cube root of itself, and represents our own universe. The field set up by the machine was literally another cube root of one acting on our universe as a factor, transposing its forms into an imaginary universe. There Hitle succeeded in his conquest of all Amba. It was not the conquest he figured on however, because events are merely single values that fit the cubic equation,—never the equation itself. What Hitle did not know was that no one can ever succeed at conquest, but only at what might more accurately be termed the cube root of conquest. ”

“ The time machine in marching forward existed at every instant, and was therefore always present to the view of outsiders.
"My researches made possible sideways travel in time. By means of a device that used fabulous amounts of power, I was able to gather matter from two other universes existing in the same space as our own, but with different time co-ordinates. I proved to Hitle that in one of these other universes he could escape the destruction he planned, and then return to a torn world and fulfill his destiny as ruler of the planet. ”

“ Hute Hitle marched stiffly through the passive group. One after another fell in behind him. The procession marched down to waiting cars.
The cars crossed the bridge. There they stopped. As one man the Leader and his general staff looked back at the great city they loved so well. The Sacrifice they were making for the good of humanity pressed heavily on their hearts. ”

“ Since there are only three dimensions of space, all things must be in our space. It is the time co-ordinates that determine whether we are aware of something or not. At this very moment there is an infinity of universes all occupying the same space, but each in a different position in time. They are existing now, but separated from us in a direction at right angles to the universal time stream. ”

“ But also there must be two other universes co-existent with ours in space, but separated sideways in time. They would be impossible to find with the machine without solving the cubic equation of the curvature of our time line. ”

“ Mathematically, these other universes are expressed in co-ordinates that have the square root of a minus one as a coefficient. Also mathematically, these universes are imaginary, but not in the non-mathematical, mythical sense. They are just as real as ours, but relatively imaginary or relatively non-existent. ”

“ The audience room was filled to overflowing with officials, and over the whole planet people had paused in their work to watch him and listen to his words.
"We, of Aleme," he was saying. "Dared not openly defy Hute Hitle. He was too strongly entrenched. Unless we obeyed his orders to the letter we were executed; and a dead man cannot serve the interests of all Amba. My researches gave me the plan I had been looking for.
"As you all know, time travel was discovered many centuries ago. ”

“ These panels had been constructed by international agreement, so that every country could know that it would be suicide to use atom bombs in war. Suicide for all. Afterwards there would be nothing but isolated bands of wandering savages, without the rudiments of civilization. ”

“ The time machine is constructed in connection with the tri-matter block so that nothing in either of the other two universes can enter it. After you enter, it must be sealed from this side for the period of time travel, so that nothing can enter from this side until it is time for you to come back. ”

“ This is not, however, the simultaneity of events co-existent in our one, three-dimensional space. All events we can be aware of are in one point in the time continuum, which moves along a single time line. ”