The John Russell Fearn Science Fiction Megapack

by John Russell Fearn

  The young man produced two chairs from amidst the general untidiness and pushed them forward. Milton nodded an aloof thanks. He had little patience with this blond young man. He seemed altogether too self-assured to be a good assistant to a scientist.

  “I’m Eric Temple,” the young man volun­teered, looking at the girl. “I’ve heard plenty about you, through the papers and on radio and television. So I—”

  “I am afraid,” Milton put in coldly, “that you are wasting your time, Mr. Temple. This girl cannot understand your language. Maybe you’d better confine yourself to your work… I assume Nelson knows we’re here?”

  “Certainly, and he’ll be here at any moment.” With which Eric Temple muttered something about “frozen sawbones” under his breath and then returned to his task at the desk.

  Several times he glanced up in thought and found the girl’s eerie eyes fixed im­movably upon him from under the brim of her big hat. He found his mind stray­ing away from his mathematics to the far pleasanter contemplation of her beauty. Girls like this did not drop into the rather drab Nelson laboratory every day! He did his best to look casual as he noted the perfect sym­metry of her young body, the golden hue of her face and slender hands… Then catching the sardonic eyes of Milton fixed upon him he coughed slightly and continued with his work, only to pause presently in irritation.

  “Definitely it matches up to forty-five de­grees,” he muttered, scratching his head. “That makes it—” He broke off with a snort of dis­gust, bunched the paper up and hurled it on the floor. Then he went on again, executing quick mathematics.

  “Something wrong,” he told himself out loud. “That figure can’t fit there because—”

  His sentence trailed off and he jerked up his head in astonishment at the sudden sound of crisply rustling paper. The girl had risen from her chair and was studying the creased figuring closely. If it did not prove anything else it at least showed that her eyesight was normal enough—in this respect anyhow.

  Dr. Milton sat watching in interested silence. Eric Temple himself drew back sharply as the girl suddenly came towards him. She took the pencil from his hand and began to figure rapidly on the half blank sheet in front of him.

  “What the—” He watched in amazement, then his eyes really began to goggle as he saw figures and mathematical symbols piling up on the paper before his gaze, the pencil held firmly in the girl’s golden fingers. She was figuring and computing with the speed and skill of a mathematical genius. In two short min­utes she had not only worked out the angle which had been bothering him, but also the entire construction of a machine about which she could not have had the least advance know­ledge. The design was there, sure enough, in figures: the only thing was that the figures were peculiar in their manner of totalling.

  “Great heavens!” Milton exclaimed, gazing over the girl’s shoulder as she tossed the pencil down. “This is positively uncanny! She may not be able to talk our language, but she cer­tainly knows what figures stand for.”

  “Uh-uh.” Eric nodded weakly and glanced at her exquisite smiling face so close to his own. “Hell’s bells, you’re beautiful,” he blurted out, and was rewarded by a puzzled frown and a quick shrug.

  Milton glanced at his watch impatiently. “How much longer is Nelson going to be, do you suppose? It’s about—”

  “Still as short-tempered as ever, eh Milton?” enquired a chesty, good-humoured voice—and Milton turned to see a short, stumpy figure advancing from the laboratory’s exterior door. It was Hugh Nelson, attired as ever in an untidy navy suit, a row of different-coloured pens clipped to his breast pocket.

  His podgy little hand endeavoured to flatten a stray wisp of hair on his semi-bald head as he advanced. His round, good-tempered face tried to look unconcerned as the girl turned from Eric Temple to study him.

  “Well, you old buzzard, what’s on your mind?” Nelson asked haltingly. “You sounded pretty worried over the ’phone.”

  “Kindly do not refer to me as a buzzard!” Milton retorted. “I have a reputation to main­tain, even if you haven’t. I wish to consult you professionally concerning this young lady here. In a way she’s my—er—ward. I’m providing everything for her at the moment, purely out of interest in her case.”

  “Don’t blame you,” Nelson said, studying her thoughtfully. “Where does she come from?”

  “That’s what I want you to find out. In my capacity as resident surgeon—”

  “Oh, stop being high-hat, man! One would think we’d never been college mates. I’m a busy man, Milly—” And, as Milton winced, “What do you want me to do?”

  “Find out all about her,” Milton replied. “You can see for yourself that she isn’t a nor­mal girl. She doesn’t even look Earthly—not about the eyes and hair anyway. And in these days of flying saucers and interplanetary travel just around the corner she might have come un­noticed from another planet—”

  “If she’s a sample of the people on another planet, count me in for the first journey!” Eric Temple enthused, only to cool off again at Mil­ton’s stony look.

  “With your many accomplishments, Nelson,” Milton presently continued,” you might find out something. You’re a mathematician, linguist, general scientist.”

  “True, but I’m not a detective—”

  “Look here,” Eric Temple interrupted, thrusting the sheet of calculations into his em­ployer’s hand. “She worked this lot out in two minutes! That’s faster than an adding machine!”

  “She did, eh?” Nelson frowned and shrugged. “Well, maybe she is a good matheatician in her own land, wherever that is, but she is all wrong here. These figures are not the same in meaning as ours, though the prin­ciple is similar.”

  “But she’s worked out every detail of that air pressure machine we’re working on!” Eric insisted. “All from a waste sheet of figures which I threw on the floor!”

  “Yes, I suppose that does represent supreme mathematical skill,” Nelson admitted, musing. “At least we know we have something in common to commence with, anyhow.”

  He turned to look at her and found her smiling.

  “Figures? You understand them?” he asked slowly, jabbing a fat index finger to the crumpled paper—but she only raised and low­ered her slim shoulders.

  “Her language and ours are completely dif­ferent,” Milton said. “I told you that over the ’phone. What suggestions have you?”

  “The only obvious ones. Leave her with me: she can stay with my housekeeper. I’ll diagnose her thoroughly, test her mental power in every way I can, and try to get to the bottom of her origin. She obviously is highly intelli­gent, and certainly very beautiful. Soon as I get an angle I’ll ’phone you. How’s that?”

  Milton nodded. “Do splendidly; but take care you keep a close watch on her. Movie men and theatre scouts have been trying to grab her for weeks.”

  “Can you wonder!” Eric exclaimed, gazing at her. “She’s got all the film beauties laid out deader than mutton…”

  * * * *

  Hugh Nelson, absorbed by the unusual problem entrusted to him, promptly abandoned all other scientific dabblings in the days which followed and subjected the strange girl to all the tests he could conceive. Also he examined her physically with the numerous ordinary and extraordinary instruments he had in the labora­tory.

  X-ray plates revealed that her physical forma­tion was the same as any woman’s. Eye tests showed that she could see with perfect clear­ness in some lights, but hardly at all in others. Also, she seemed to mistake various objects for something totally different, as though she were suffering from some curious visual re­fraction.

  Most difficult of all was the language problem. Nelson, despite being a capable linguist, found himself stumped when it came to understand­ing her swift, fluid speech. The only thing he discovered was that her name was Onia. Fin­ally he adopted the only course and taught her English, becoming gradually amazed at the speed with which she mastered it. Her mem­ory was uncannily re
tentive and accurate. Once she made a mistake—which was rare—she never repeated it.

  In a week she had mastered small sentences; in a fortnight she could talk haltingly and intel­ligently in a clear, bell-like tone, always to the accompaniment of pretty gestures. Highly satis­fied with his progress to date, Nelson ’phoned Milton to come over and hear for the first time whatever story of origin the girl might have to tell.

  The girl herself sat coiled up on the library chesterfield as Nelson, Milton, and Eric Temple sat quietly about her. She studied them for a while, and then began—

  “You have all been very kind to me, and for that I want to thank you. I find myself faced with so many difficulties that I perhaps appear vague at times. I assure you that is only be­cause of my surroundings. They are so dif­ferent from my own.”

  “Do you know where you are, Onia?” Nel­son questioned, and her head, with that amaz­ing blue hair, nodded quickly.

  “Yes. From what you tell me I am in a city called London, in Great Britain.” Her face clouded a little. “I cannot properly remember how I got here, but I think it was my own folly which caused it. I did something wrong: I was too venturesome. My father was experiment­ing with atoms and molecules, converging them on to a mosaic screen. I remember that there was a misty gap in that screen and I walked through it. My father tried to call me back, but… Well, I was too self-willed and disobeyed him. Next thing I knew I was wandering around in a strange land—half buildings and half trees. I think I must have wandered for many hours, then fatigue overcame me and I collapsed, waking up in the hospital.”

  “I gather that you know what atoms and molecules are?” Nelson asked quickly.

  “Only from the language you have taught me. We have other names for them—”

  “This is getting us nowhere!” Milton inter­rupted, glancing at his watch. “I’ve a major operation to perform tonight and I want to hear everything before I go… Where is this place you came from, Onia? Is there a race of people like you?”

  “Why, naturally!” She looked surprised. “Tens of millions of them! And it is on this planet, too. There was no spatial projection: that I do know. One moment I was in my father’s laboratory, and then I was here. Just as though I’d… I’d fainted,” she finished vaguely.

  “Fourth dimension?” Eric volunteered, thinking—but Nelson shook his head.

  “No; Onia isn’t a fourth-dimensional being. If that were the case only part of her would be visible. Besides she conforms in anatomy to any other woman on Earth, except for the eyes. Tell us, Onia, what do you see?”

  “That’s hard to explain! You build in such a queer fashion. You have walls where there should be emptiness; you have nothing hardly anywhere to block the lavender glare of ultra­violet rays. I can see those—and infra-red. And they’re painful! Then again you have many forests in this city where ought to be buildings… To me it’s all such a hopeless confusion!”

  “Forests?” Nelson repeated, astounded. “Forests!”

  Onia nodded slowly and Milton gave a snort of disgust.

  “This gets ridiculous! The girl’s a prac­tical joker!”

  “Don’t be too sure of that,” Nelson told him. “There are more things in heaven and earth, my friend…”

  Apparently struck by a sudden thought, he got to his feet and from a table nearby raised a dried shrub in its art pot. Taking it over to the girl, he allowed her to study it. “What,” Nelson asked seriously “is this?”

  “A piece of queerly fashioned stone. And that is something I can’t understand. Why do you people have so many stones inside your homes, and in places of prominence, too? I’ve even seen them inside big buildings, but with the plant underneath and the stone on top, mys­teriously defying the pull of gravity.”

  “Inverted vision,” Milton decided brusquely. “Not uncommon by any means.”

  “Inverted nothing, Milly,” Nelson told him. “She is describing exactly what she sees. She describes this shrub as a queerly fashioned stone. Also she fully believes that the palms and things we have in public buildings have the pot on top and the plant underneath. We’ve got to find out why!”

  Nelson returned the shrub to the table and then wandered back to the girl. He asked a question very deliberately: “Onia, what do we look like to you?”

  A merry smile curved her lips. “Very funny! Your blue hair and animal skin clothes are most unusual!”

  “What!” Milton gasped, shaken. “You—you mean to say our hair looks like yours? That we dress in pelts?”

  “Hair like mine!” Onia echoed. “Why, that’s absurd! I—”

  “Wait a minute—wait a minute!” Nelson waved his podgy hands fiercely. “Let’s get some order. What colour are our skins, Onia?”

  She hesitated a little. “I—I don’t know the word for it, but I should say like—that!” Her hand swung and pointed to a massive brass shield hanging on the panelled wall.

  “Golden—like hers!” Eric cried in amaze­ment. “Has she got a looking-glass mind, or what?”

  “Nothing like that.” Nelson shook his head slowly. “The first thing we have got to rea­lize is that she belongs to a different space from ours, yet for some reason we look like her—to her, that is—and vice versa. One last thing, Onia; do cities and buildings and furniture and clothes look like those things to you?”

  “Sometimes,” she replied uncertainly. “At first I had a terrible task to accommodate my­self. For instance, in the hospital you covered me with hide instead of cloth. You never used sheets. And that nurse in her vivid pink animal skin—”

  “This,” Milton broke in sourly, “is a cheap hoax! Pink animal skin indeed! Hide sheets! Young woman, what sort of a joke do you think you’re perpetrating?”

  “It’s anything but a joke!” she declared passionately. “Just look at this skin you have made me dress in!” And her slender hand pulled at the soft silken gown she was wearing.

  “This is an affront!” Milton shouted. “That gown is of the finest silk money can buy. I ought to know!” He relapsed into simmering silence for a moment, then suddenly started. “By Jove, I wonder! That passer-by who found her referred vaguely in his statement to the animal skin this girl was wearing—”

  “I know,” Nelson said calmly. “I’ve had that pedestrian under cross examination, and I also have the skin in which Onia made her debut. Meadows obtained it for me.”

  “Oh, he did!” Milton looked ominous.

  “Don’t start flying off the handle, Milly. You’re a busy man and so I didn’t bother you.”

  “All right—and don’t call me Milly!”

  “That skin,” Nelson proceeded, “belongs to some animal quite unknown to us, but to Onia it probably represented the finest fabric. Am I right, Onia?”

  She nodded quickly, her face brightening with dawning understanding.

  “Quite right. It was similar in texture to all the garments worn by the younger women of my race. And it was not skin!” Onia finished indignantly, pouting at Milton.

  “I give up,” Milton growled. “She must be insane. Perhaps a severe case of reversed con­ception—a kind of egocentrical belief that every­thing is different from what it really is. Really most interesting. She must be examined by the greatest brain specialists in the land. Amnesia producing contrary conception! Never been anything like it!”

  “Amnesia be damned,” Nelson said politely. “Whoever heard of amnesia producing supreme mathematical ability, even if the figures are queer? For instance, Onia, what is the fourth dimension?”

  “A property that is to volume what volume is to area,” she replied promptly. “It is en­tirely theoretical, cannot be mastered, and can­not be travelled. Nor is it Time.”

  “It isn’t?” Nelson asked quickly.

  “Time is a state or condition of thought—nothing more. My father is a master mathe­matician and he has definitely proved that fact. Since Time is a mental concept it cannot be travelled physically; that is obvious. If you are thinking that
I perhaps have come from some other Time-state you are quite wrong. The date in my world corresponds exactly with the one I discovered here when I arrived, so the two Time-states were—and are—in existence synchronically. The only thing that can be travelled is the space existing between atoms. That, I think, is how I came here. It’s all very strange,” Onia finished wearily, relaxing amidst the cushions. “I wish I could find the way back.”

  “You will,” Nelson promised, smiling.” Well help all we can…”

  With that he turned aside and looked at the puzzled Milton and thoughtful Eric Temple.

  “I believe I have it, Milly!” he exclaimed. “And you listen to this as well, Onia: it’s right up your street. You, my dear girl, are the living proof of Positivism!”

  “What the devil’s that?” Milton growled. “Talk English, man! And time’s getting on!”

  “Positivism,” Nelson said slowly, “was dis­covered and explained by August Comte in eighteen-twenty-four. It is probably the most important and yet the most neglected ramifica­tion of the pure scientific thinker. It asserts that there is no other source of knowledge ex­cept within the range of our limited senses. It even states that the external world does not exist at all—except through sensory impres­sion.”

  “Farfetched!” Milton decided brusquely.

  “On the contrary! Take one Positivist ex­ample as laid down by the famous scientist Max Planck: It asserts that a tree is nothing but a complex series of sense impressions. We see it grow; we hear the rustle of its leaves; we inhale the perfume of its blossom. Take away all those sensory impressions which flow to­gether to suggest a tree and what is there? Nothing! There is no tree!”

  “In the same fashion,” Eric put in, “as a blind man builds up a world of his own im­pressions and sometimes gets the shock of his life if sight is regained?”

  “A good simile, Eric. You have it exactly. Further, the Positivist outlook cannot be accused of logical inconsistency because when we come to apply it as the exclusive foundation on which scientific research is built, we find that all science is nothing more than an infer­ence from sensory experience. Our entire creation, our entire world, is built up of certain lines of sensory impression which have endured since the dawn of Time. We have learned to call a stone a stone—and we do. Our very brains have been moulded that way through interminable generations. Here and there one goes wrong and we call him—perhaps unjustly—a lunatic. Others do not interpret colour wavelengths correctly and are called colour blind. Definite proof of Positivism!”