would have full tensile strength up to a certain instant,
and then disrupt itself without violence into a gas, a vapor.... It
would be an alloy, perhaps. It would be....

He struck at his own head with his clenched fist, angrily demanding
that his brain bring forth the thought that was forming slowly. The
metal that could be revolved in time without producing a disastrous
explosion and without requiring an impossible amount of power....

* * * * *

He did not see Von Holtz looking in the eyepiece of the dimensoscope.
He stared at nothing, thinking concentratedly, putting every bit of
energy into sheer thought. And suddenly, like the explosion he sought
a way to avoid, the answer came, blindingly clear.

He surveyed that answer warily. A tremendous excitement filled him.

"I've got it!" he said softly to himself. "By God, I know how he did
the thing!"

And as if through a mist the figure of Von Holtz became clear before
his eyes. Von Holtz was looking into the dimensoscope tube. He was
staring into that other, extraordinary world in which Denham and his
daughter were marooned. And Von Holtz's face was utterly, deathly
white, and he was making frantic, repressed gestures, and whispering
little whimpering phrases to himself. They were unintelligible, but
the deathly pallor of his cheeks, and the fascinated, dribbling
fullness of his lips brought Tommy Reames suddenly down to earth.

"What's happening?" demanded Tommy sharply.

Von Holtz did not answer. He made disjointed, moaning little
exclamations to himself. He was twitching horribly as he looked
through the telescope into that other world....

Tommy flung him aside and clapped his own eye to the eyepiece. And
then he groaned.

* * * * *

The telescope was pointed at the steel globe upon that ferny bank, no
more than a few hundred yards away but two dimensions removed from
Earth. The screening mass of tree-fronds had been torn away. A swarm
of ragged, half-naked men was gathered about the globe. They were
armed with spears and clubs, in the main, but there were other weapons
of intricate design whose uses Tommy could not even guess at. He did
not try. He was watching the men as they swarmed about and over the
steel sphere. Their faces were brutal and savage, and now they were
distorted with an insane hate. It was the same awful, gibbering hatred
he had sensed in the caperings of the four he had s