Roger D. Aycock

“ But for once the Doc was on the wrong end of a browbeating. The generals knew their ground and they shut the Doc up like a thirty-dollar shoe clerk.
"Since a state of global emergency has been declared," Three-star Corbin said icily, "the military has full authority to commandeer the fruits of any independent research. Eastern and Western forces are at the ultimate in cold-war deadlock, a stalemate which must soon cripple the economy of the world unless it is broken. Your Dimension-tube offers an ideal weapon for ending it." ”

“ All that mattered was that unless the Blazers were stopped immediately our world was finished. Those fission-hungry fiends would strip us to the last erg of our nuclear energy—and to a world geared to atomic power that meant the end. ”

“ That would explain why the Twisters could force entrance to the Blazers' dimension, once you destroyed the strain-bubble in superspace, but could not enter our plane from their own subspatial continuum."
"It's all physics to me," I said, holding Dora's hand and feeling almost safe again. "Only one thing worries me—did the Blazers lose the rhubarb we ran out on or will we have them back in our hair again some day?"
Doc gave me a startled squint and fuzzed his beard goatishly. "Get that model generator out of the gyro," he ordered, sounding like his old self. ”

“ A larger generator could extend a Dimension-rift clean to infinity and sooner or later some incompetent fool would swing the beam in operation and slice the universe in half!"
And that was how the brass and brains of Allied Military got their big Di-tube generator built. It took three weeks, with Doc superintending and Dora and me doing the work, to set it up and tune it for the test. ”

“ Doc snapped, bristling his beard triumphantly. "The cross-sections we see of these inhabitants of subspace give no clue whatever as to their true nature. Even you should realise that opening a larger rift into their domain would be an extremely dangerous undertaking."
"Allied Military," said Three-star Corbin, who had got some of his color back, "is quite capable of dealing with these brutes if necessary. Dr. Maxey, you will proceed with the construction of a full-scale Dimension-tunnel." ”

“ You couldn't sight directly down the tube itself because the generator's energy feedback raised a glowing force-bubble that hung above the cabinet like a basketball-sized neon bulb. That bubble represented a spherical strain against superspace, so Doc said, in compensation for the forced passage of the Di-tube through the continuum of subspace. A demonstration of the first law of physics, to every action an equal and opposite reaction. ”

“ Maxey," he groaned. "Using your Dimension-tube as a weapon was a mistake, a cosmic and irremediable error. These invaders are indestructible—the concerted might of Allied Military has failed to repel them. The doom of Earth is sealed."
Doc plucked unhappily at his beard.
"Surely we can retool our industries to electric power in time," he said. But he didn't sound sure. He sounded beaten.
Corbin shook his head grayly. "You don't understand the psychology of panic, Doctor. Law is dependent upon power. When power fails the mob rules. ”

“ But the strain-bubble was what I had come to see. The rest didn't matter too much.
"Warm up the model," I said. My voice had a thin, windy sound and I couldn't keep it steady. "From the way they're flitting around that bubble they've got troubles of their own—and they're going to have more!"
Dora understood then what I had in mind. "Their generator is weakening the barrier to the dimension above this one!" she said. "Jerry, something is trying to break through, isn't it?"
Our little Di-tube model gave a tentative sizzle, and it sounded pitifully weak. ”

“ Both generals were on the wire, countermanding each other's orders right and left and screaming for the Air Marines. The living-room t-v was blaring full blast at a circle of both Eastern and Western hemispheres and they were hitting us right where we lived. ”