Part 10 (1/2)
Ryan didn't answer so Regan forged ahead.
”Before, we were just like everyone else. But things have changed. The Teacher lifted us off the page. We know what 3D objects look like when viewed from the fourth dimension. We know how our bodies feel when we're moving in that impossible direction. So all you have to do is find a tiny fourth-dimensional seam in the s.h.i.+eld and go through. You can do it, Ryan. I'm sure of it.”
”That's great, Regan,” replied her brother sarcastically, finally responding. ”Can you come up with a theory of how I can flap my arms and fly out of here? That's just as likely. Or maybe I can click my heels together and say, 'there's no place like home.' ”
”Come on, Ryan. Why are we now suddenly able to see inside solid objects when we go through a barrier? Because our minds have been changed again. We've been shown the fourth dimension. So now we can recognize it when we're there. So press against the s.h.i.+eld and find a way to move a billionth of an inch into the fourth dimension. And then go through it as easily as a Flatlander walking over a line.”
”That's impossible!” barked Ryan. ”Dad said no human has ever been able to move into the fourth dimension. What part of that didn't you understand!”
”No human has ever been telepathic either. And yet we're using telepathy right now. Give it a shot,” she broadcast as forcefully as she could. ”You have nothing to lose.”
”All right already! I'll give it a try. Just to shut you up! Just promise you'll leave when it doesn't work.”
”I promise.”
Ryan rose and walked closer to the surrounding gray beasts, still inside the roaring semicircle of fire. He picked up his last three stones and flung them as hard as he could at the nearest three carnivores. ”I hate this planet and I hate you!” he screamed at the top of his lungs. Then he stopped using words and just screamed at them as threateningly as he could until his throat hurt. None of the animals were the least bit intimidated.
Finally, he decided he was ready to make his ridiculous attempt. He pressed against the wall of force so he was touching it with as much of his body as possible.
If Regan was right, the barrier touched the fourth dimension. There was a crack he could pa.s.s through. Or step over. If only he could find an impossible direction in which to move.
He closed his eyes. He curled his hands into fists and fought to concentrate. He needed to move his body so he would feel the same stretching sensation he had felt twice before. He tried to recapture what this felt like in his mind. He visualized what he had seen before. The driver's insides. And inside the insides. And inside of that. For just a moment he fooled himself into thinking the sensation of being pulled apart had returned, but then he totally lost his concentration and knew he would never get it back.
It was over. He never had a chance of finding the fourth dimension and he knew it.
”I'm done,” he broadcast to his sister. ”I tried your idiotic idea and I failed! Now go away!”
CHAPTER 18.
Through the Looking Gla.s.s
Ryan turned back around. To face the fire. And the vicious pack eagerly awaiting their chance at him. He opened his eyes.
The barrier was an inch in front of him!
He gasped. He blinked rapidly, not sure if he should believe his eyes. But the blinking didn't change anything.
He had made it through, after all. He had found the seam.
”Regan, I'm in! You were right!”
Three miles away, sitting by herself near the edge of a portable, green-tinted force-field, Regan beamed. ”Yessss!” she replied happily. ”I knew it!”
Ryan wasted no further time on celebration. He had to find a way to help the rest of the expedition. ”I'm looking for the other tram.”
He searched for several minutes within the s.h.i.+eld perimeter and found the tram Nathaniel had stolen. He quickly inspected it. ”Nathaniel removed both the red and white crystals from this one too. And there aren't any more trams on Isis.”
”Why would he bother to do that? He thought there was no way we could get back through the s.h.i.+eld to even reach the second tram.”
”He's like Tezoc,” replied Ryan. ”Very, very careful. If someone from Prometheus did try to rescue us, he wanted them to fail.” He paused. ”I'll be right back.”
As Ryan bolted through the portal the connection with his sister ended abruptly. Earth was just slightly beyond their telepathic range of fifteen miles.
Ryan looked around cautiously but no one was inside the zoo building. He shot through the nearest portal and used his knife to pry both a red and then a white crystal from the first tram he spotted. Returning to Isis he slid the white crystal into the small, hidden slot in the front of the tram and worked the controls.
Nothing happened.
”Regan,” he broadcast. ”I can't get the tram to work. There must be some trick to inserting the white crystal, or maybe a white crystal from one tram won't work in another. I don't know.”
”That's okay. It doesn't matter anyway. You can't reach us until the lava river stops flowing and cools down. Or until we find a way around it.”
”I'll go and get help,” he a.s.sured her. ”But I need to do something first. I'll be back in five minutes.”
”Where are you going?” asked Regan.
But Ryan was just stepping through the portal as the thought reached him, and an instant later he was once again 25,000 light years away, back in the zoo building.
Ryan returned, right on schedule. ”I had to get another red crystal,” he told her upon his return.
”Why do you need two?”
”You may be able to get through the s.h.i.+eld the way I did, but who knows. I have no idea how I did it. And I'm not sure I could do it again. In case something happens to me and help never comes, I'm leaving a red crystal outside the s.h.i.+eld for you and the expedition.”
Regan considered this. ”Good thinking. And I get why you have two. So you can leave one outside and use one to get back across the barrier.”
”Exactly,” replied Ryan. ”I'll bury the crystal right next to the s.h.i.+eld. Look for a ring of ash by the s.h.i.+eld where my fire was. I'll also mark its location with a few sticks.”
”How will you explain how you got through the barrier?”
Ryan thought for a few seconds. Having set foot back on Earth had done wonders for his mood and his powers of concentration. ”I'll say I was getting attacked and the barrier just opened for me somehow. Like this was another safety feature the Qwervy built in to protect zoo visitors that we didn't know about.”
Regan nodded. ”That should work.”
”Regan,” he broadcast. ”Thanks. And sorry for being such a jerk. I owe you one. And I'm going to make it up to you.” Ryan paused. ”But before I go, I could use your help one last time. Remember in Nathaniel's letter he said something about gravity being an insanely weak force. A force that isn't a force.”
”I remember.”