authority. They stood aside for us to enter,
and then followed us down a long corridor which was not lighted by any
device I could discern, and yet which was not dark.

A broad door swung open, and I was thrust through the doorway.

"Pete!" shouted a familiar voice, and I scrambled to my feet. There was
Vic, his red hair tousled, and his face gray with worry. Behind him, her
big blue eyes brimming, her lips quivering, was Hope.

"Vic! Well, here I am. And Hope, dear...."

My voice trailed off. These were not Vic and Hope before me; they were
unreal creatures, like the beings which had captured me. I could
recognize the face and the figure of the woman I loved and of her
brother; but they seemed to have no substance.

Hope suddenly put her arms about me. She was sobbing.

"Don't, Peter!" she whispered.

"Don't look at me like that. I know how you feel. You--you and Vic--you
aren't real to me, either! We're just shadows--lost souls...."

"Buck up, Hope!" Vic's voice was kindly, yet firm and gravely
commanding. "We're all right. Only--temporarily--we're Infra-Medians.
Sit down, Pete, and let's talk. It may be that there's no time to lose
in making some plans."

* * * * *

"First of all," I insisted, "tell me where we are; what's happened to
us. Do you know?"

"Where we are? Surely. Looking at it in one way, we're less than a mile
from my laboratory."

"But, Vic!" I protested. "Do you really mean that we're less than a mile
from your laboratory; from our own world? If we were, we could see it;
we'd bump into our own trees and houses and people; we'd be knocked down
by automobiles, and--"

"Two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time. Old law of
simple physics. Is that what you mean?" interrupted Vic.

"Why, yes."

"And a body; what's that?"

"A body? Why, matter, I suppose."

"And matter is what?"

"Anything that occupies space," I replied triumphantly. I had remembered
that much from my physics classes.

"True," smiled Vic. "But let's see. It is possible to have sound and
light in the same place, isn't it? We can even add other things: heat
and electricity, for example. Speaking of electricity, a tremendous
current of it adds nothing to the weight of the wire carrying it, and
nothing to its bulk, unless we have a heating overload. Current enough
to kill a thousand men, or to do the work of a million horses, weighs
nothing, is invisible, and actually does