Part 9 (1/2)
But if I went out there I'd perish from cold in seconds and lack of air in minutes.”
”That's right,” Ramsey said almost cheerfully. ”So do I take the s.h.i.+p back up?”
”I hate you, Jason Ramsey. Oh, I hate you!” Margot cried. Then suddenly: ”Wait! Wait a minute! What was that you were thinking? Tell me! You must tell me--”
Ramsey shook his head and tried to force the thoughts from his mind with doggerel. Ben Adam, he thought. Abou Ben Adam, Humpty Dumpty, hurry, hurry, hurry, the only two headed get yours here the sum of the square of the sides is equal to the square of the hyper-s.p.a.ce, no, mustn't think that mimsy were the borogroves and the momraths now what the heck did the momraths do anyhow absolute zero is the temperature at which all molecular activity....
”What were you thinking, Ramsey?”
His mind was a labyrinth. There were thousands of discrete thoughts, of course. Millions of them, collected over a lifetime. But all at once he did not know his way through that labyrinth and his thoughts kept whirling back to the one Margot Dennison wanted as if, somehow, she could pluck it from his mind.
She stood before him, her brow furrowed, sweat beading her pretty face.
And she was winning, forcing the thought to take shape in Ramsey's mind--
_But if I went out there I'd perish from cold in seconds and lack of air in minutes._
_Cold_, came the known and unbidden thoughts to Ramsey's struggling mind. _And lack of air. Attributes of extension, of s.p.a.ce_, but measured by duration, by time. _And since time does not exist in hyper-s.p.a.ce, the vacuum out there and the terrible, killing cold, could have no effect on you. You could go out there perfectly protected from the lethal environment by the absence of the time dimension._
Margot smiled at him. ”Thank you,” she said. ”Thank you, Ramsey.”
He was about to speak, but she added: ”And don't give me that stuff about a power we shouldn't tamper with. I'm going out there. Now.”
Ramsey nodded slowly. ”I won't stop you.”
”But just so you don't get any ideas of stranding me here--Vardin.
Vardin's going with me.”
The Vegan girl looked at Ramsey mutely.
Ramsey said: ”What makes you think I'll let you take her?”
Margot smiled again. ”The m.g. gun makes me think so.”
”The heck of it is, you're not really bad, Margot. This thing's got you, is all. You're not essentially evil.”
”Thank you for the thrilling compliment. I'm delighted,” Margot said sarcastically.
”Vardin stays with me.”
Margot reminded him of the lethal m.g. gun by showing it to him, muzzle-first.
He laughed in her face. ”Go ahead and shoot.”
She stared at him.
”There isn't a lethal weapon'd do you any good here in a timeless continuum. Take an m.g. gun. It induces an artificial breakdown of radioactive fuel in its chamber, firing an instantly lethal dose of radiation. But in order for radioactive breakdown to occur, time must pa.s.s. Even if it's only milliseconds, as in the case of an m.g. gun.