shaken
so that his sword trembled in his hands, for the new recruits to the
cause of the machines blew a great blast before them; for they were the
fans and the blowers.

And Gud felt the blast in his face, and his sword swayed and shivered
like a feather in the blast. And the blast became a mighty wind and the
wind blew the sword of Gud from his hand and blew it over the edge of
space, so that Gud was unarmed and cried aloud for quarter. But the
howling of the blast drowned his cry, and the fans and blowers came on,
blowing all before them. Gud turned and fled and ran around the narrow
rim of the edge of space, but the fans and blowers followed after him
and made a great cyclone that blew around the edges of space. Gud fled
in the wind and was bruised and torn by the wind and the garments of Gud
were shattered and torn ... and Gud was lifted out of space and hurled
into an abysmal void where not even space was.

Chapter VI

But in that wind beyond all space
The blast howled fiercely in his face....
Suddenly, from out the sky
A mote of dust blew in his eye.

With pain he slowly rubbed it out,
Examined it with passing doubt,

Then burst into a tide of mirth:
It was the cinder of an earth!

Chapter VII

Gud was walking and as he walked he wondered wherein and whereon he was
walking. But as he knew all things he realized that he was in the Nth
dimension and that he was walking along the Impossible Curve which he
had thrown out of space.

So Gud walked along the Impossible Curve in the Nth dimension until he
came to a heap of discarded theories. It was a tangled heap and looked
as if it might be a hiding place of ideas. So Gud caught up one of the
sturdier theories and shook it, and the dried facts that the theory had
borne rattled off like rotten fruit from a dead branch. Gud plucked the
twigs of hypotheses from the heavier theory--and so made for himself a
staff. This he rammed lustily into the tangled heap of theories,
whereupon something ran out and leaped along the Impossible Curve.

When it stopped, Gud, with his staff in hand, walked after it and came
up to it, and thought that it was the echo of a voice.

"What were you doing?" demanded Gud, "hiding in that heap of discarded
theories?"

"Alas," said that which Gud thought was the echo of a voice, "I was not
hiding. There was nothing left of me to hide, because I was an obedient
man and gave myself awa