There's somebody else here besides us."
"There's no one else. You're crazy." Red looked around the room. Then helooked at me. His gaze was sharp and penetrating.
"You can't see it now," I said. "But I'm sure I saw something. A woman.Over there." I pointed to where I'd seen the thing that might have beena reflection.
"Maybe you'd better lie down, Jay. You've been working too hard. A yearout on this rock could make a man see King Solomon's harem."
"No, Red," I said. "Those funny things we saw, your book pages turning;the cockeyed balance; maybe your loss of weight. They aren't natural.Something is here and what I just saw makes me think it's human and it'strying to get in touch with us."
Red's stomach muscles squeezed with laughter and he held onto a guardrail to keep from being sent across the room by the exertion.
"What I saw was a woman, Red," I went on.
Red laughed out loud and hung on again. "I could use a babe," he said.Suddenly he jerked. "Who hit me?" he asked. Across his face was a redwelt, the shape of a woman's hand.
* * * * *
We called them "manifestations" after that and Red called her his ghostsweetheart, although the slap had convinced him it wasn't a ghost. Red'sgetting slapped was the first indication that perhaps this thing didhave matter of some sort, but its ability to remain invisible made itappear that the matter wasn't the ordinary kind.
Finally I came up with some sort of an answer. It was just a crazy ideaand there was no way to prove that I was right. I tried to explain it toRed, who didn't know much about atomic physics, but he seemed to get theidea.
"You see, Red, it could be _negative_ matter," I explained.
"What's that?"
"Well, you know what an electron is, I suppose, a negatively chargedsub-atomic particle?"
Red nodded.
"And a proton, which is positively charged?"
Again he nodded.
"Well, scientists have learned that there could be positive electrons,as well as negative, and negative protons. In other words eachsub-atomic particle has a 'minus quantity' counterpart."
"You're saying it, I'm believing it," said Red. "A guy's gotta believesomething."
"Well, this leads to a great deal of speculation. If these minusquantities got together they might form a minus matter."
"You've got me in a hole, so I'm minus too."
"You don't have to understand it, but try to imagine that two universescould exist side by side, one minus, one plus, and that neither could beaware of the other. Every star, every planet and every speck of mattercould have its counterpart, but neither would be aware of thatcounterpart's existence."
Red grinned and shook his head. "Crazy," he said.
"Yes, crazy. But dig this, supposing that some sixth sense made itpossible for one of our minus counterparts to get in contact with usthrough extra-sensory perception."
"How'd they do it?" Red asked.
"I don't know. We don't know how to do it, but it may be that ourscientific progress wouldn't keep abreast of each other. We might knowmore than our minus counterparts in some fields, and they might knowmore in others. But their special knowledge enabled them to bridge thegap briefly--long enough to see us, and watch us--"
"And read our books." Red nodded.
"And perhaps learn our language--remember you got slapped."
"I'll watch it," said Red.
"There's no reason why the gap couldn't be bridged. Science and mindshave done a lot of things that looked impossible."
We went to bed on that and all night long I dreamed of negativeuniverses, with suns like old Sol except that they shone black in brightheavens and planets of space floating in vacuums of matter. Red musthave dreamed about it too, because he had a question over the dehydratedham and eggs the next morning.
"Does that explain the loss in mass for this asteroid?"
"I think it does. Either the method our minus counterparts have inbridging the gap, or perhaps some sort of space warp that permits themto do it. At any rate enough of the minus world has been projectedthrough to our side of the equation to displace the mass of thisplanetoid. Our lab scales being haywire might be the result of a being'snearness to it, or something."
Red didn't digest it all, but I could see he was thinking. "I wonderwhat all this has to do with my whiskers," he mused.
We were busy making some further checks on the planetoid's mass later inthe day when Red got a glimpse of the vision I'd seen. Red didn't takeit quietly. He yelled loud and pointed.
I turned just in time to see her fade away. It was the same woman,dressed the same. But this time she had been a bit more than a vapor.
Red forgot where he was and made a dive toward her. His body shot like abullet across the room, skimming over laboratory equipment, and his headcrashed solidly against the telescope.
Red literally bounced back halfway again. Then a long thin arm seemed toreach out of nowhere and seize him by the jacket and hold him longenough to stop him.
Red drifted down to the floor, knocked cold.
* * * * *
It had happened so swiftly that I hadn't had time to move. Now I pulledmyself toward Red. The arm was still there in space, and it had added ashoulder, a rather pretty shoulder. Next there was a body, clothed inthe flowing orange cape, and finally a woman's head. It was the sameone--the minus woman.
"It's true," I said.
The woman seemed to understand. "Yes," she said. "All that you told RedBrewer is true, Jay Hayling. For you, I am a minus woman. For me, youare a minus man. But we have bridged the gap. For the first time ineternity, plus and minus, positive and negative, can meet on eventerms."
"Better not come too close," I said.
"Nothing will happen," she replied. "We are now alike." She stoopedtoward the fallen figure on the floor. "Help me with this child. He'sunconscious."
"Child!" I said. "If he's a child, they grow 'em big in the minusworld."
But as I lifted Jay off the floor I wondered if he was as big as I'dalways thought. It wasn't his weight. Nothing weighed very much on thisasteroid, but it was his frail body. He seemed to be a boy of sixteen,rather than a man stationed 300,000,000 miles in space.
I carried him out of the laboratory into the living quarters and placedhim on his bunk. I loosened his clothing, noting at the time that he hadbeen right about his garments not fitting him.
"You've made him lose weight," I said.
"What makes you think so?" the woman asked.
"Because every screwy thing that has happened since we came here a yearago must have an explanation."
The woman smiled. "Don't think too harshly of me." She looked very solidnow. Her body had lost that tenuous look. She was no longer nebulous andcloud-like. "Certain things were necessary in order for me to proceedsafely through the gap between the positive and negative worlds," sheexplained.
I looked at Red again. His face was smooth and I knew he hadn't shavedin more than a week. "You've made him younger," I said. "Well, heshouldn't kick at that."
The woman nodded. "I turned the young man inside out. In a moment thetransition will be complete. You will be our next entrance to thisuniverse...."
From Red's bunk came a wail. A bawl, like a tiny baby. A dying baby.
Some people die of age. Red died an infant. As for the minus woman--shewas murdered on an asteroid.
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from _Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy_ July 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.
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The Minus Woman Page 2