Into the Fourth Dimension by Ray Cummings

I shall revert now to Will's experience during that attack upon the meeting house as he later described it to me. He had been crouching near Ala. When the hostile shapes burst in, he clung to her. Will was more alert than I to the conditions of this strange existence. He gave no thought to a physical violence; he knew it was the mental struggle which was to be feared; and he kept his mind alert, aggressive to attack.

Ala too, was of help. He heard her murmuring, "Be very careful. Let no evil thought-waves engulf us."

A shape whirled up -- a leering man. But Will's thoughts were stronger. The waves clashed with a visible front of conflict; a faint glow of luminous black, in a very palpable heat. The shape cowered, retreated, slunk away.

Everywhere the struggle was proceeding. Upon the center ball Ala's father stood, and with roaring voice and a will more defiant than any within the globe, he strove to quell the invaders. Beat them back. Some retreated; some fell, lying crumpled and inert. Dead? We may call them so. Bodies unharmed. Minds driven into darkness; driven away, to leave an empty shell behind them. Soon the confusion was over. The amphitheatre was strewn with mindless bodies; the dead -- never to move again, and others, injured; minds unhinged -- irrationally wandering, to return, some of them, to reach again their accustomed abode.

Ala's father -- they called him Thone -- found his daughter with Will; took Will to his home, where for a nameless time they were together, exchanging friendly thoughts that each might know what manner of world was his friend's. To Will it was the first rationality of this new realm. They reclined within a globe of luxurious fittings which gave a sense of peace, luxury, well-being of the mind, derived by what means Will could not say. He only was aware that Ala was beside him, her father facing them.

He had thought of Bee and of me with fear -- had wondered where we were, had wished we were with him. But Thone had told him not to be afraid. It was so easy to wander. We had not come to harm within the meeting house. We would presently come back, or if we did not, he would send out and find us.

The interior of the globe was vaguely luminous. Thone said, "We would perhaps be more comfortable if we could see outside. " He murmured words -- commands spoken aloud; and a shell of the globe in a patch above them slowly seemed to dissolve -- or at least become transparent, so that they saw through it a vista of the city of globes -- a city lying then in the vertical plane with the black void of darkness to one side.

Thone was a grave man of dominant aspect; eyes from which shone a power of mind unmistakable. He listened silently while Will tried to describe our Earthly existence. Occasionally he would question, smiling his doubts. At last he said, "It seems very queer to have the mind so enchained by its body."

Then Thone spoke of his own realm. "We Egos -- " The word struck upon Will's consciousness with an aptness startling. Egos! Why, of course. These were not people. He -- himself -- was no longer a man; an Ego, little more.

"We Egos live so different a life. It is nearly all mental. This body -- " He struck himself. "It is negligible."

Soon they were plunged into scientific discussion, for only by an attempt at comparison in terms of science could Will hope to grasp the elements of this new material universe. He said so, frankly; and Thone at once acquiesced.

"I will try," he smiled, "to tell you the essence of all we know of -- shall we call it the construction of this universe of ours? All we know. My friend, it is only the wise man who knows how little is his knowledge.

"Our world then is a void of Space and Time. The Space of itself is Nothingness, illimitable. Yet to our consciousness it has a shape, a curvature, like this that is around us now. " He indicated the hollow interior of the globe. "To traverse it in a single direction, one always tends to return."

Will said: "A globular void of Space. I can understand that. But how big is it?"

"There is no answer to such a question," Thone replied gravely. "To our material existence, our consciousness, it is a finite area, yet within it some of us may go further than others. A mind unhinged takes its body very far -- or so we believe -- and yet sometimes returns safely. A mind departed from its physical shell which it then leaves behind -- is gone forever. Yet that too, is illogical, for traversing a curved path such as ours -- however slight may be the curve -- one must eventually return. And out of this we have built a theory that such a mind -- or as we call it, an Ego -- untrammeled -- will return sometime to take a new body. But I must not confuse you with mere theories when there is so much of fact which is confusing enough no doubt."

"That's not confusing," said Will. "We likewise have such a theory -- we call it reincarnation."

Thone went on: "We have then, a void of curved Space. Within it exist Thoughts; material entities persisting in Space for a length of Time. Thus Time is brought into our Universe; but not Time as you have described it to me. Ours, like yours, is the measure of distance between two or more events. But the distance is very dimly perceived by our senses."

"Wait," said Will, "Before you discuss Time, let me understand the other. All your material entities are Thoughts? That is incomprehensible to me."

Thone deliberated. "I suppose that is natural," he declared at last. "Your substance -- as it appears to you -- has a greater solidity than the substance of your mentality."

It was Will's turn to smile. "The latter, with us, has no substance at all. The human mind -- as distinct from our physical brain -- is wholly intangible. And it is one of the things we know least about."