Part 10

"We'll be killed, Mortenson!" Steckel declared excitedly. "Those devils will run us through with arrows, before we get half-way across the clearing!"

"There are only a few of them left," insisted Mortenson. "We can make it. It's now or never, Steckel."

Steckel eyed him thoughtfully for an instant and then spoke to Barton.

"We're going to rush the town, Bart!" he said. "Call the men together and let's go!"

"Okay, Chief," said the detective. "We got 'em on the run now!"

He yelled to the men. Two of them were sitting on the ground, fumbling with their apparatus. They were wounded. Riley was dead, his face twisted in a grotesque mask of death. As the remaining men stood up, the two wounded officers vanished as they transferred themselves back to their own world.

With Steckel and Mortenson in the lead, they started across the clearing. A hail of arrows caused them to crouch.

"Split!" yelled the chief. "Barton, you flank the devils and wipe them out!"

Barton ran off to the right to get in the rear of the creatures, who were hiding behind a dead beast. In a moment his machine gun rattled. The others saw several skinny-legged beings leap into the air. They made no sound as they fell back, dead. The attackers had been wiped out, leaving the way clear.

Mortenson, lying on the ground close to a dead dweller of the blue world, appraised the creature quickly. He was a hideous specimen of a strange race. His face was round and his protruding eyes hung limply in death. His mouth was loathsome and was half-open, revealing jagged teeth like those of a deep-sea fish. Around his neck hung a fibre cord to which were attached three silver dollars.

"So that's how the bandit got into the graces of the Fifth Dimension people," he reflected with a nod. "Gave 'em presents same as we do in Africa or Borneo to win respect from the natives."

Steckel's voice suddenly drew his attention. The chief stood erect, gripping his gun tightly.

"Let's go, boys," he said quickly. "The place is clear now and we've got to get that killer!" He turned to Mortenson. "Which shack did he enter, Mortenson?"

"The big one at the left," replied the scientist.

"All right," said the chief. "Now let's spread out and surround it."

The violet sun was standing well west of its zenith. It seemed to cast grim, malignant shadows over the realm of mystery, death and terror. As they went quickly, but cautiously, toward the town, Mortenson felt something sinister in the terrible silence of the place. Surely they had not wiped out its citizens, leaving the phantom bandit there alone to reckon with fate. He decided that this was the case; that the town was merely an outpost, meagerly populated by roving bands of Fifth Dimension warriors. Perhaps, too, it was the headquarters of the vanishing bandit! He wondered if it was.

Then Steckel caught his eye and motioned to him. Instantly the chief broke into a run, closing in on the shack. It stood somewhat isolated by a narrow, crooked street. Mortenson followed him and they gained the shelter of the wall. Strangely, no sound came from the shack. It seemed as deserted as the town itself. The other men surrounded it completely, but Steckel and Mortenson were nearest to its single door.

Cautiously they peered in. It was a place of gloomy shadows, but on the far side Mortenson caught a glimpse of a shimmering curtain of blue. He knew what it was instantly. The phantom bandit was transferring himself back to their own world, leaving them without further resistance.

With a bound the scientist was in the shack. His pistol spat twice into the blue haze. He turned to Steckel.

"He's going back to our world, Chief!" he cried. "Call your men and we'll follow him!"

While Steckel bellowed to his men, Mortenson glanced around the shack. On the hard-packed floor lay piles of silver coin. Empty bags littered the floor in one corner. Stacks of currency of all denominations were piled neatly to one side. The phantom bandit had certainly made use of his ability to strike and vanish. Untold wealth lay on every hand in the unclean hut, but it would have to remain there for the present. He withdrew his fascinated eyes from it, as the men filed into the room.

"The crook has just returned to our world, men," Mortenson informed them crisply. "We're right on his trail! Press the first two panel buttons together; then press the third. We'll find ourselves within arm's reach of the killer. Be ready to shoot him on sight! Ready? Here we go!"

Instantly the shack glowed with the peculiar pale blue luminosity cast off by the electronic apparatus. As one the men vanished, wondering where they would next appear. Within five seconds vague shapes began to dance before them. Then out of the jumbled maze of dancing, tottering forms they beheld familiar buildings. The dull rumble of traffic reached their ears above the drone of the apparatus. They emerged from the Fifth Dimension to find themselves standing directly in the middle of an intersection. The traffic was at a standstill while the corner signals changed.

Instantly the crowds scattered. Women screamed and fainted. The traffic cop went into action, sensing something was about to happen, and held up the traffic. The bandit's pistol cracked. Mortenson felt a stab of pain in his right shoulder. He dropped his automatic and sagged to the street, a black nausea swept over him. He felt himself dropping into a yawning hole as a machine gun rattled almost in his face. Dimly he saw Barton standing over him, his machine gun spitting flame and death.

For an instant the nausea left him, but the pain in his shoulder increased. Dazedly he looked around. A man was sagging limply near the curb. He was covered with blood and seemed dead on his feet. Then Mortenson recognized the phantom bandit as the man slumped from the curb and fell face-forward into the street. The pain in his shoulder intensified. He fainted.

When he regained consciousness, Chief Steckel and Police Surgeon Wagner were standing beside his cot in the receiving hospital. After a moment he spoke:

"Did you get his corpse, Wagner?" he inquired weakly, his brain still foggy from an anesthetic.

Wagner grinned. "Dead men are sent to the morgue next door, Mortenson," he said. "They've kept a slab ready for the Phantom Bandit...."

"But is he making use of it?" Mortenson cut in anxiously.

"Hell, yes!" replied Wagner. "He's been sleeping on it for two hours! Now be quiet. Sleep if you can. You're not badly hurt, except for a perforated shoulder-blade."

Mortenson felt relieved for the first time in weeks, and promptly went to sleep.

_The Red Dimension_

A party of Russian engineers surveying a desolate part of Siberia came one day upon the body of a man. He had evidently been dead for quite some time and, from the wasted face and limbs, it was concluded he had died from starvation. He carried in his pocket among other things a small pouch in which were found some dirty sheafs of paper on which was scrawled what follows. The thing had little interest for the surveyors and it was my good fortune in being an invited member of the party that gave me possession of the papers. Subsequently, I tried to verify the statements made in the manuscript and failed. Though I hunted through countless volumes of the records of Russian courts, I ran across no mention of a Doctor Ivan Korsakoff, or the trial of Arnoldi Kherkoff. Whether this story was only the raving of the poor wretch who was found dead, or whether it had a basis in fact far beyond my ability to discover, I cannot say. I must present the manuscript intact as I translated it, and leave it to my readers to judge.

How I hope to succeed in getting the following narrative to the world is a secret which I never will reveal. Should the channels through which it may reach you be disclosed, then the hands of my jailers would forever seal the lips of those who aided me in giving to the world the true facts of the strange case of my life-long friend and benefactor, Dr. Ivan Korsakoff.

Few people will remember the case. It was given some prominence at the time that the events occurred; but the details were soon forgotten in the frenzied excitement of war and the dethroning of the Romanoffs.

In brief, let me say that I was convicted on circumstantial evidence of having done away with the famous scientist. The evidence I brought in my favor had no effect and I was forthwith sentenced to life imprisonment in a pest-hole in Siberia.

For years I lived in the hope that the truth of Dr. Korsakoff's case might become known. But the passing of years have made me an old man--although I'm only forty--and have caused me to wish that I had received a death penalty. For life has been unbearable! Even now, I lie in a bed of filth praying a humane hand to relieve me of the burden of life.

Perhaps you will be inclined to doubt me when I say I am still confined in a filthy prison camp. You probably believe that such confinement for criminals has been abandoned by every civilized nation in the world. Let me destroy that belief.

In the wastes of Siberia, forgotten by the world, I am destined to remain for the rest of my natural life! Siberian prison camps were the pets of Russian monarchy in the early days. Mine was the most accursed of all, being visited only on rare occasions to receive prisoners and scant supplies. If civilization has actually abolished these places of lingering death, then mine must have been overlooked and forgotten when the Romanoffs met their fate and the monarchy was overthrown!

But the place still exists. Where, I do not know--nor does any other of my pestilence-stricken fellow prisoners.

It is not my intention to dwell too long on the horrible details of confinement here. My main object before I answer the Hand that beckons is to give the world the fact regarding dear Dr. Korsakoff. But first let me tell you who I am. My name is Arnoldi Kherkoff, and I, until my arrest, had hoped to become a great scientist. When I was but four years old, my parents disappeared strangely.

I was left alone--deserted. It was then that Dr. Korsakoff found me wandering aimlessly through the snow-clad streets of Moscow, ravenous, terrified and frost-bitten. He took me at once to his home.

I became his ward and lived with him until the end. He showered me with everything that wealth could offer.

As I grew older, I in turn helped him in his laboratory and learned much about optics and other branches of physics and obtained an inkling of the dimensions beyond ours.

Dr. Korsakoff began to discuss his various experiments with me when I reached eighteen. I was delighted, because it was a sign that I was progressing in the sciences. He could converse with me and receive intelligent replies; and he trusted me not to disclose the nature of his experiments to others.

One day Dr. Korsakoff approached me and laid an affectionate hand upon my shoulder. I looked up from a book I was reading. His face was aglow with excitement and his hand trembled. I surveyed him with alarm, for I felt that excessive work was beginning to affect him. He glanced at the book which now lay on my lap.

"I am pleased to see you reading the treatises in that book, Arnoldi," he said beaming. "How far have you gone?"

"I've reached the chapters that explain Dr. Valenev's magic goggles, sir," I replied, regarding him curiously. "The second chapter tells how he managed to see into an alien dimension. Quite interesting reading matter, sir, but rather fantastic. It sounds impossible."

His hands became still and apparently nerveless. Then his strong fingers sank into the flesh covering my shoulder-blade. He seemed tense.

"It is somewhat fantastic, Arnoldi," he said slowly, "but not as impossible as one might think."

"What, sir?" I asked, interested. "Those magic spectacles not impossible?"

"Quite so, my son. It is not at all impossible to see into other planes of life through er-er magic glasses."

"I've never heard of anyone ever doing it except in this book, sir," I protested. "And the experiences set down here sound more like fiction than actual fact. Who was this Dr. Valenev, anyhow?"

"Valenev?" Dr. Korsakoff said, brows arching. "Have I neglected to recount his life to you?"

"Rather I have neglected reading his works, sir," I replied.

"Vladimir Valenev, Arnoldi, was one of the very first Russians to take up the practice and study of optometry in the early days. He was actually the father of the profession in Russia. But his startling discoveries branded him as a fool and he was discredited by the church and state. He was eventually strung up by the thumbs in old St. Petersburg for an exhibition to black magic.

"Most of his statements were without concrete foundation, and they led him presently to his death. Yet for all that, Arnoldi, have you ever thought it might be possible to create a pair of spectacles through which one could see into the beyond?"

I stiffened in the chair and the heavy book thumped on the floor. I surveyed his serious features for a sign that he was jesting.

"I've never thought of such a thing, sir," I said, shaking my head. "In fact I do think it is quite impossible with any glass or series of glasses which we have today."

"Naturally, Arnoldi," he said, "it could not be done with our present chromatic glasses. Yet it _is_ possible to penetrate the beyond--the planes of existence beyond our own."

"What do you mean, sir?" I asked.

"You already know that we exist in a world that wise scientists realize is very limited. Atomic vibration, my dear Arnoldi, has created a varied series of planes of existence, to which the human retina and the human auditory organs are totally out of accord. That is--everything vibrating within the perceptions of our own immediate powers of sense manifests itself in the form of concrete material matter, such as myself and yourself and objects in this room, perceptible by sound, sight, smell, touch, and so forth. Everything below or extremely above our accustomed vibratory limits is to us non existent. You are aware that there are sounds so high in pitch or frequency that the human auditory system cannot hear them. Also there are objects that emit vibrations whose low frequency makes them invisible to the eye."

"You have taught me to understand that, sir," I replied, beginning to have a dim, awed feeling of what was to come.

Surely he had not evolved a pair of glasses adjusting our senses to vibration frequencies beyond our natural limit, for he would have told me of it. But I had learned to know two sides of Dr. Korsakoff. Although he took great pride in explaining his experiments to me, he secretly guarded his plans and formulae until he could offer concrete proof of their feasibility.

"I have tried to teach you much, Arnoldi," he said, "but a complete knowledge of the science of infinite dimensions is too broad for one man. Our span of life is too short--the powers of apprehension too limited. Yet I mean just what I say about the planes of vision and hearing. I will go even further. I believe there are living material things on these other planes. It will surprise you, no doubt, to learn that I have created a medium through which we may see and hear them!"

I stared at him astounded--fascinated. He smiled down at me with supreme assurance, but without the arrogance that usually accompanies such statements of scientific power. Yet the conception of such a thing was too stupendous for me to grasp all at once.

At the moment I could relieve my tension in no way but to laugh. My mirth seemed to sober him and his features clouded. I felt suddenly ill at ease under his steady eyes and became more serious.

"I'm sorry, sir," I said, grasping his sleeve. "I couldn't help but laugh at the conception. But I simply can't grasp the feasibility of such a thing. It sounds too much like Valenev."

"Arnoldi," he replied impressively, "as we see it the world has been fairly well explored. Yet, if we were to delve into the hidden worlds around us, think of the strange objects and beings that might be seen. Why, the value of the knowledge that could be gleaned from such an adventure would be beyond calculation!"

My head spun at the thought and I stood erect, eager with anticipation.

"You almost convince me, sir," I said, "that such a thing can be done--that such worlds do actually exist."

"It _can_ be done, Arnoldi," he replied, smiling again: "And other worlds _do_ exist within our own world! It is possible that we can visit at least several of them. Would you like to see them, my son?"

Trembling I nodded assent. Dr. Korsakoff grasped my shaking hand and wrung it in a firm grip. He placed an arm around me and together we strode slowly toward the laboratory.

As we entered the work-shop which contained practically every known instrument of optical science, and many others, including high-speed lathes, grinding apparatus, measuring devices for facet shaping, and priceless stores of transparent gem-stones, I had a vague feeling that the experiment would see the advent of something unknown to man. I cast a glance at the scientist. His face was stern and serious, although his eyes glowed with excitement. But, could I have realized then what the experiment was to lead to!

He motioned me to be seated before a long quartz-topped table. It shone like myriads of diamonds under the glare of a hanging lamp emitting a strange purplish light. In the center of the table lay two oddly-shaped helmets. From what I believed to be the front of them, there struck out two sets of tapering metallic cylinders. On the sides were accoutrements which I learned were to fit tightly over the ears. Wires ran down from the helmets toward the edge of the table and disappeared beneath it. I surveyed them curiously as Dr. Korsakoff sat down beside me. He picked them up and held one close to me for observation.

Inside the cylinders I saw what appeared to be crystals with hundreds of facets which glittered weirdly under the light. The helmets were oddly designed and of light, pliable metal. The backs of them were not unlike the ancient Roman helmets in so far as they extended down to the shoulders where the metal would fit snugly.

The auditory appliance was shaped exactly like the human ear. In the center were small, bright-metal discs which fitted directly into the inner lobe for unhampered transmutation of whatever sounds might come through the magnetic discs from the invisible worlds!

"You see, Arnoldi," the doctor said in explanation, "there are several crystals in each of the sense-transmitting cylinders. Each one was ground with seventy-seven outer facets and double internally. I have cut three different stones and pieced them together in slices to give them the power to transmit the super-sense vibrations. Between each of the lenses, yet below the direct line of vision, are very tiny, high-frequency electrical bulbs. By special transformer I shall lift the voltage through the crystals from a hundred and ten volts to twenty-two thousand. The current will pass finally through the helmets and into the cylinders, creating a transformation of vibrations to our own perceptive limits. The senses of this world are directed to us by a ray, commonly known as the infra-red ray. In a small transparent container behind each of the crystals is an accumulation of _dionium_, a creation of my own. Beyond that, my dear Arnoldi, I can tell you no more about these instruments; for I have constructed them in such a way that caused me to depart from many accepted principles of optics."

He lifted a helmet and fitted it over my head, the cylinders directly in front of my eyes and the auditory systems snug in my ears. I sat deathly still and closed my eyes while he made certain adjustments, expecting momentarily to find myself looking into a strange world of the beyond. But nothing met my vision. Only darkness--deep darkness.

"Do not be alarmed, Arnoldi." He patted me assuringly. "There is nothing to fear. Just sit still until I adjust my own helmet to the Sixth Dimension, and we will be ready for the experiment."

Presently I heard the hum of a high-speed motor somewhere under the table. It throbbed softly through the auditory apparatus on the helmets. I shuddered at the terrific vibratory movements of the world I began to perceive. Suspended between two worlds, these new sounds grated like steel on my ears. I remembered that such vibrations were alien to the human organs and settled back to wait.

I was startled by a sudden word from Dr. Korsakoff, for it pulled me back to our own world.

"I didn't mean to frighten you, Arnoldi," he said, chuckling. "There's really nothing to be alarmed about. I merely wanted to tell you not to jump when I start the current flowing through the helmet. It will sound very weird on your ear-drums. Sit perfectly still and keep your eyes closed for best results. Open them very slowly, and a new world will be revealed. Now be perfectly still, my son. I am switching on the current. You keep your hands on the table. I will control the vibration from a panel at my side. Have an enjoyable visit into the Sixth Dimension--the Red World, Arnoldi!"

I sat with closed eyes for a long time and felt drifting off. Then slowly I opened my eyes and was stunned by an amazing brilliancy of vari-hued lights. For a moment a pain shot through my eyes--they pained to the depths. Gradually it wore off. Crystals that ranged in color from deep, unfathomable red to emerald green danced before me. As though fighting for some control of a color-world the reds began to seep through into the blues and the greens.

They suddenly merged into one solid color--the deep, unfathomable infra-red of the spectrum. The suddenness of the change caused my whole system to react in a terrific shudder. Remembering the scientist's words, I clenched my teeth for control over myself. Now I leaned forward tensely. Objects were slowly shaping themselves from the masses. It was the Red World! I thought I was gazing on a world of fire. Everything shimmered in what appeared to be a terrific heat. Then, as objects assumed definite form, I was able to detect the outlines of strange, luxurious vegetable growths. Weird trees and ferns stood on all sides.

The sky overhead was of a red not less deep than the more concrete materials of Red Dimension. The earth--as it appeared, showed in open areas like blood-covered sandstone. Across it raced what appeared to be heat waves dancing on a hot, searing surface. Slowly the scene moved.

Then I beheld a rather large clearing completely surrounded by the thick, tangled vegetation. I thought I caught a slight movement in a patch of swaying lush herbage. I watched the spot tensely.

Slowly, very slowly, the blades parted and out of them protruded a weird snout. The thing was coming into view, slinking forward like a stalking panther.

Its nose, like the magnified beak of some grotesque earthly insect, pointed to needle thinness, and was pikelike at the base where it protruded from a terror-invoking face! The eyes were like the orbs of an owl, opening and closing with even, rhythmic precision. The creature seemed to crouch ready to spring upon a victim. I wondered at whom or what that death-dealing pike of a snout was aimed. And what did the victim look like? And what were the dimensions of the strange beast or insect of prey? I was soon to learn.

Suddenly the crouching thing hurled itself forward at terrific speed. As it raced on long, slender legs toward the center of the clearing, it appeared in full view to be really an insect. It had three pairs of well-balanced legs that held the segmented body well above the herbage when erect.