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  "It was something else again for the accelerated Druuf robots: they had been transferred into our own original reference frame. They would have seen the K-238 standing there and so they would have stolen it."

  At this juncture Bell would no doubt make a rebuttal: "How was that again about the guy with the electric light bulb? You know, the bit where the light was already on when he flicked the switch? This loss of causality—doesn't it mean that the effect comes in before the cause? Wouldn't that make it seem to a Solitude observer that the K-238 appeared at the second spot before it took off from the first?"

  Trapped by this question, he would have to answer: "The interchange between cause and effect is only one possible manifestation of an acausal event... among many others. For example: consider a rifle bullet that is flying toward the bulls-eye of a target card. Now let's say that, without any influence from outside forces, the bullet does not exactly arrive; that is, it disappears just before it gets to the card and then reappears behind it, only to resume its trajectory. In this case, the bullet would be operating twice against causality: first, it escapes the first effect—hitting the bulls-eye—which would be the normal result of the cause—in other words, a well-aimed shot. Second, a new effect comes in—the disappearance and reappearance of the bullet—without there being any related cause."

  Then Bell would probably grumble to himself about stupid comparisons but nevertheless and after all et cetera and so forth. Whereupon he would have to continue: "The case of the K-238 involves a similar situation. The causal start was the original takeoff, from which one would expect an effect: namely, a landing—but the landing didn't happen. Apparently we must deduce from the theory of alternate time-planes the fact that over a much longer period of time eventually the sum of all causes and the sum of all effects must be equal—even when there can be a loss of causality. The first cause which is lacking in an effect must be balanced off by an effect without a cause. Such a causeless effect was the landing of the K-238 as witnessed by myself and Gorlat, at a time when it was not expected. For Solitude universe observers, the K-238 was simply non-existent.

  "Be that as it may, the ship is back again—as the end effect of an acausal event, or better yet, two of them. It is possible to compute the point in time when a causeless effect may equate to, match up with or link itself to an effectless cause. It is derived from the fact that the amount or extent of speed traveled in excess of the speed of light, during any particular movement, is a measurement of the acausality of the associated event. From the velocity of the K-238 during its transfer from the first landing site to the second one I was able to compute when it should reappear for an observer in the Solitude continuum. Naturally it was merely a try—like a shot in the dark—but as you can see I rode a luckboat (21st century idiom for lucked out, got lucky)."

  What would Bell do then? He would probably scratch his head noisily, then trip up the noble spirit of science with a question he shouldn't venture to ask: "So what the devil's happened to the K-238 that the Druuf robots stole from us?"

  "That all depends on what point of view you are using to look at the situation. For a Solitude observer the Druuf robots could not have stolen the K-238 because it's only just now arrived. For an observer in our own time-frame it must be inferred that there was another kind of exchange. At the moment when the K-238 became visible also in the Solitude plane of reference, the accelerated Druuf robots would have returned simply to their slower time-frame, without any further alien technological influence, and the hypothetical ship of the higher time-plane would disappear where they were concerned."

  All of this was merely a basis or pattern for logical explanation. If anybody hankered after an exposition that would necessarily be distorted by such way out abstractions he would have to be satisfied with ideational patterns only; and such processes, for the most part, only coincided with a few points in reality, whereas other facets of it produced false concepts.

  Bell would realize this and ask no more but he'd still probably add some such remark as: "It seems you've really dug into this thing pretty deeply. From all your 'we must infers' and 'can be deduced froms' one might suspect you did some cribbing on this double-time theory and had it all down pat beforehand. Is that right?"

  And he would answer: "No. But I have a few ideas that can make the search a bit easier for the mathematicians."

  Bell would no doubt consider that a deliberate understatement but would accept it. And thus Rhodan might survive the difficult ordeal of having to clarify vague abstractions to Reginald Bell which Reggie would never be able to figure out by himself.

  • • •

  Five hours later it could be observed that Capt. Gorlat was making his first move toward the energy ring. But it was very slow.

  In the meantime Rhodan had detected no sign of either 'fast' or 'slow' robots in the vicinity of the ship. According to his theory, ever since the reappearance of the K-238 there shouldn't have been any accelerated robots in evidence. The fact that he didn't see any did not necessarily prove the correctness of his theory but it helped to substantiate it.

  After eight hours Rhodan had an idea how he might accelerate Gorlat's return into the Earthly time-frame. He waited until Gorlat started to leap through the ring, which left him, so to speak, floating motionlessly in the air. Then he took a plastic rod that had a hook on one end and went outside to the ring of the force-field. Here he reached through with the rod and hooked Gorlat around the collar of his uniform, whereupon he pulled him through the ring to his side. In so doing he had to be careful to keep Gorlat from touching the ground at any point on the other side because there such a tremendous velocity of movement might cause serious injuries in case of any contact.

  Gorlat fell to the ground as soon as he had traversed the ring. He looked about wonderingly. Then he bounced to his feet and said: "Thank you, sir. I'm glad it isn't so infernally hot over here."

  • • •

  The rest was simple. After the hole in the inner airlock door had been repaired, the K-238 followed after the shuttlecraft in which Bell, Atlan, Tompetch and the two 'ersatz images' were seated. The aircar—with the exception of the 'images'--was brought through the warp-field into the proper time-continnum. The two projections returned to the physical portion of the Solitude Intelligence and the K-238 landed again in the depression not far away from the four pits in the ground. The sea cow was fully reconstituted within an hour or so and then it was also assimilated into the Earthly time-frame.

  Rhodan considered whether or not it would serve any purpose to look for a third Solitude cave so as to take out the hypercom transmitter and determine its directional setting. Since the fundamentals of the alternate-time theory were understood to the extent that the mathematicians could probably make headway with them, the transmitter didn't seem to be so important any more—especially in view of the fact that there was no further reason Terranian ships couldn't go in and out of the two time-planes at will. The top priority now was Wanderer. The location of the Druuf world could be investigated later.

  It turned out that Reginald Bell of course asked the very question Rhodan had anticipated. He also appeared to be satisfied at precisely the point which had been rehearsed and from there on ceased to ask further questions.

  But he did add an extra comment: "I guess it's about time that I retired and went back into private life," he complained. "75 years ago I was satisfied to be able to multiply 17 times 18 in my head but today I've got to mess around with alternate-time theories. It's too much for me—I've had it!"

  The Solitude Intelligence did not wish to remain any longer on its home planet because it feared pursuit and persecution by the robots. It was therefore completely receptive to Rhodan's suggestion that it should return with them to the Drusus and later accompany them back to Earth.

  The K-238 finally took off on its return flight without any more worries concerning the Druuf robots. The latter had evidently scattered far and wide in search of the enemy.


  The captured robot building superintendent still lay on the deck of the airco's hangar in the K-238, restricted to a state of complete immobility because of its slower time-frame status. It was to be transferred into the Terrestrial time-continuum on board the Drusus so that the electronics experts could dismantle it and probe its memory bank.

  Rhodan believed that he didn't have to worry too much about Solitude itself. The Druufs considered the planet to be such an important advance outpost that they were taking pains, themselves, to bring it back into a stabilized orbit.

  A few hours after the takeoff the K-238 reached the location in the purple-red void where the Drusus was still maintaining its warp-field projection, which appeared as an opalescent, elliptical framework of energy. The ship shot through the ring without any need for time adjustment and found itself in a universe where the background was gratifyingly black and the stars shone forth with a redeeming whiteness—even though there were some among them which radiated a slightly different color.

  The return had been accomplished. Now the only question remaining was—how long had the operation required in terms of Earth time?

  • • •

  The day of the return was the 21st of April, 2042. Rhodan had to be content with that—and he was—because if the time-distortion factor had been the same as in the other universe, where the lapse-rate of all events was 72000 times slower, the K-238 might not have returned for several thousand years.

  But time was pressing, nevertheless. The time-span remaining in which he could safely visit Wanderer would end on the 1st of May. Rhodan commissioned a 10-man team of specialists to perform the necessary research on the Druuf robot, telling them that he would prefer to get the results that same day. It was an impossibility, which he knew; but the work team did its best and concluded the investigation early on the morning of the 23rd of April.

  The results were far more informative than Rhodan had expected, eliminating all the difficulties which had stood in the way of finding Wanderer until now. The Druuf robot had not only possessed information concerning the cause of the gravitational disturbance that had thrown Solitude from its orbit; it also knew the course taken by Wanderer after its transit past Solitude. And above all it was aware of something that utterly astonished Rhodan—data which seemed to indicate that the collective being on Wanderer had by no means been as helpless in the face of the time-plane transit as had first been supposed.

  In the meantime, Wanderer had exited from the Druuf universe at another location. The Druufs had not been able to prevent it. Of course they had made an attempt to retain the synthetic world inside their own dimension but the power of the Wanderer entity had apparently been superior to theirs. After a short flight through the purple-red 'other' void, Wanderer had returned into its own universe. The distance it had traveled was now a known factor. Using this travel arc, Rhodan was able to compute the place where the Wanderer would have to be at present. This point lay within its original orbit but at a location it would not have reached under normal circumstances for another 18000 years.

  Research on the robot had brought a number of other important bits of knowledge to light. A vast number of very evident clues concerning Druuf technology turned up in their product and it was to be hoped that they would shortly come to know the status of the enemy's technical development.

  Prior to concerning himself with such matters, however, Rhodan prepared the Drusus for its next journey. The orbital point at which Wanderer was now located was 9.5 light-years from the present position of the Drusus —a distance which it could easily cover in a single transition.

  The takeoff was set for 20:00 ship time, 23 April 2042. For Perry Rhodan, immortality could come to an end within one week—but now he was confident he would keep his appointment in time.

  DIMENSION SEARCH

  Copyright © Ace Books 1974,

  by Ace Publishing Corporation

  All Rights Reserved

  THE SHIP OF THINGS TO COME

  BETWEEN DIMENSIONS...

  Somewhere in the interstices of the fabric of space, maintaining a tenuous existence between the 4th dimension and the 5th, lies that mysterious realm known as semispace.

  This half plane must be penetrated if the planet Wanderer is to be reached in time—and reached it must be, else it will be the end of Perry. Not to mention Reginald Bell.

  Incredibly, the venture between the dimensions alters their physical forms so that the Terranians, strangers on a strange terrain, find themselves metamorphosed into—Giants!

  And make no mistake about it, the next step is a giant one, for–

  DEATH WAITS IN SEMISPACE by Kurt Mahr