Title: The shape of things
Author: Bradbury, Ray
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The shape of things" ***


                          The Shape of Things

                            By RAY BRADBURY

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                Thrilling Wonder Stories February 1948.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


He did not want to be the father of a small blue pyramid. Peter Horn
hadn't planned it that way at all. Neither he nor his wife imagined
that such a thing could happen to them. They had talked quietly for
days about the birth of their coming child, they had eaten normal
foods, slept a great deal, taken in a few shows, and, when it was time
for her to fly in the helicopter to the hospital, her husband, Peter
Horn, laughed and kissed her.

"Honey, you'll be home in six hours," he said. "These new
birth-mechanisms do everything but father the child for you."

She remembered an old-time song. "No, no, they can't take _that_
away from me!" and sang it, and they laughed as the helicopter lifted
them over the green way from country to city.

The doctor, a quiet gentleman named Wolcott, was very confident.
Polly Ann, the wife, was made ready for the task ahead and the father
was put, as usual, out in the waiting room where he could suck on
cigarettes or take highballs from a convenient mixer. He was feeling
pretty good. This was the first baby, but there was not a thing to
worry about. Polly Ann was in good hands.

Dr. Wolcott came into the waiting room an hour later. He looked like
a man who has seen death. Peter Horn, on his third highball, did not
move. His hand tightened on the glass and he whispered:

"She's dead."

"No," said Wolcott, quietly. "No, no, she's fine. It's the baby."

"The baby's dead, then."

"The baby's alive, too, but--drink the rest of that drink and come
along after me. Something's happened."

Yes, indeed, something had happened. The "something" that had happened
had brought the entire hospital out into the corridors. People were
going and coming from one room to another. As Peter Horn was led
through a hallway where attendants in white uniforms were standing
around peering into each other's faces and whispering, he became quite
sick. The entire thing had the air of a carnival, as if at any moment
someone might step up upon a platform and cry:

"Hey, looky looky! The child of Peter Horn! Incredible!"

They entered a small clean room. There was a crowd in the room, looking
down at a low table. There was something on the table.

A small blue pyramid.

"Why've you brought me here?" said Horn, turning to the doctor.

The small blue pyramid moved. It began to cry.

       *       *       *       *       *

Peter Horn pushed forward and looked down wildly. He was very white and
he was breathing rapidly. "You don't mean that's it?"

The doctor named Wolcott nodded.

The blue pyramid had six blue snake-like appendages, and three eyes
that blinked from the tips of projecting structures.

Horn didn't move.

"It weighs seven pounds, eight ounces," someone said.

Horn thought to himself, they're kidding me. This is some joke.
Charlie Ruscoll is behind all this. He'll pop in a door any moment
and cry "April Fool!" and everybody'll laugh. That's not my child. Oh,
horrible! They're kidding me.

Horn stood there, and the sweat rolled down his face.

Dr. Wolcott said, quietly. "We didn't dare show your wife. The shock.
She mustn't be told about it--now."

"Get me away from here." Horn turned and his hands were opening and
closing without purpose, his eyes were flickering.

Wolcott held his elbow, talking calmly. "This is your child. Understand
that, Mr. Horn."

"No. No, it's not." His mind wouldn't touch the thing. "It's a
nightmare. Destroy the thing!"

"You can't kill a human being."

"Human?" Horn blinked tears. "That's not human! That's a crime against
God!"

The doctor went on, quickly. "We've examined this--child--and we've
decided that it is not a mutant, a result of gene destruction or
rearrangement. It's not a freak. Nor is it sick, Please listen to
everything I say to you."

Horn stared at the wall, his eyes wide and sick. He swayed. The doctor
talked distantly, with assurance.

"The child was somehow affected by the birth pressure. There was a
dimensional distructure caused by the simultaneous short-circuitings
and malfunctionings of the new birth-mechs and the hypnosis machines.
Well, anyway," the doctor ended lamely, "your baby was born
into--another dimension."

Horn did not even nod. He stood there, waiting.

Dr. Wolcott made it emphatic. "Your child is alive, well, and happy.
It is lying there, on the table. But because it was born into another
dimension it has a shape alien to us. Our eyes, adjusted to a three
dimensional concept, cannot recognize it as a baby. But it is.
Underneath that camouflage, the strange pyramidal shape and appendages,
it is _your_ child."

Horn closed his mouth and shut his eyes and wanted to think. "Can I
have a drink?" he asked.

"Certainly," said Wolcott. "Here." A drink was thrust into Horn's hands.

"Now, let me just sit down, sit down somewhere a moment." Horn sank
wearily into a chair. It was coming clear. Everything shifted slowly
into place. It was his child, no matter what. He shuddered. No matter
how horrible it looked, it was his first child.

At last he looked up and tried to see the doctor. "What'll we tell
Polly?" His voice was hardly a whisper. It was tired.

"We'll work that out this morning, as soon as you feel up to it."

"What happens after that? Is there any way to--change it back?"

"We'll try. That is, if you give us permission to try. After all, it's
your child. You can do anything with him you want to do."

"Him?" Horn laughed ironically, shutting his eyes. "How do you know
it's a him?" He sank down into darkness. His ears roared.

Wolcott was visibly upset. "Why, we--that is--well, we don't know, for
sure."

Horn drank more of his drink. "What if you _can't_ change him
back?"

"I realize what a shock it is to you, Mr. Horn. If you can't bear to
look upon the child, we'll be glad to raise him here, at the Institute,
for you."

Horn thought it over. "Thanks. But he's still my kid. He still belongs
to me and Polly. I'll raise him. I'll give him a home. Raise him like
I'd raise any kid. Give him a normal home life. Try to learn to love
him. Treat him right." His lips were numb, he couldn't think.

"You realize what a job you're taking on, Mr. Horn? This child can't
be allowed to have normal playmates, why, they'd pester it to death in
no time. You know how children are. If you decide to raise the child
at home, his life will be strictly regimented, he must _never_ be
seen by anyone. Is that clear?"

"Yeah. Yeah, it's clear, Doc. Doc, is he okay _mentally_?"

"Yes. We've tested his reactions. He's a fine healthy child as far as
nervous response and such things go."

"I just wanted to be sure. Now, the only problem is Polly."

       *       *       *       *       *

Wolcott frowned. "I confess that one has me stumped. You know it is
pretty hard on a woman to hear that her child has been born dead.
But _this_, telling a woman she's given birth to something not
recognizable as human. It's not as clean as death. There's too much
chance for shock. And yet I must tell her the truth. A doctor gets
nowhere by lying to his patient."

Horn put his glass down. "I don't want to lose Polly, too. I'd be
prepared now, if you destroyed the child, to take it. But I don't want
Polly killed by the shock of this whole thing."

"I think we may be able to change the child back. That's the point
which makes me hesitate. If I thought the case was hopeless I'd make
out a certificate of euthanasia immediately. But it's at least worth a
chance."

Horn was very tired. He was shivering quietly, deeply. "All right,
doctor. It needs food, milk and love until you can fix it up. It's had
a raw deal so far, no reason for it to go on getting a raw deal. When
will we tell Polly?"

"Tomorrow afternoon, when she wakes up."

Horn got up and walked to the table which was warmed by a soft
illumination from overhead. The blue pyramid sat upon the table as Horn
held out his hand.

"Hello, baby," said Horn.

The blue pyramid looked up at Horn with three bright blue eyes. It
shifted a tiny blue tendril, touching Horn's fingers with it.

Horn shivered.

"Hello, baby."

The doctor produced a special feeding bottle.

"This is woman's milk. Here, baby."

       *       *       *       *       *

Baby looked upward through clearing mists. Baby saw the shapes moving
over him and knew them to be friendly. Baby was new-born, but already
alert, strangely alert. Baby was aware.

There were moving objects above and around Baby. Six cubes of a
gray-white color, bending down. Six cubes with hexagonal appendages and
three eyes to each cube. Then there were two other cubes coming from a
distance over a crystalline plateau. One of the cubes was white. It had
three eyes, too. There was something about this White Cube that Baby
liked. There was an attraction. Some relation. There was an odor to the
White Cube that reminded Baby of itself.

Shrill sounds came from the six bending down gray-white cubes. Sounds
of curiosity and wonder. It was like a kind of piccolo music, all
playing at once.

Now the two newly arrived cubes, the White Cube, and the Gray Cube,
were whistling. After awhile the White Cube extended one of its
hexagonal appendages to touch Baby. Baby responded by putting out one
of its tendrils from its pyramidal body. Baby liked the White Cube.
Baby liked. Baby was hungry. Baby liked. Maybe the White Cube would
give it food....

The Gray Cube produced a pink globe for Baby. Baby was now to be fed.
Good. Good. Baby accepted food eagerly.

Food was good. All the gray-white cubes drifted away, leaving only the
nice White Cube standing over Baby looking down and whistling over and
over. Over and over.

       *       *       *       *       *

They told Polly the next day. Not everything. Just enough. Just a hint.
They told her the baby was not well, in a certain way. They talked
slowly, and in ever tightening circles, in upon Polly. Then Dr. Wolcott
gave a long lecture on the birth-mechanisms, how they helped a woman
in her labor, and how the birth-mechs were put together, and how, this
time, they short-circuited. There was another man of scientific means
present and he gave her a dry little talk on dimensions, holding up his
fingers, so! one two three and four. Still another man talked of energy
and matter. Another spoke of underprivileged children.

Polly finally sat up in bed and said, "What's all the talk for? What's
wrong with my baby that you should all be talking so long?"

Wolcott _told_ her.

"Of course, you can wait a week and see it," he said. "Or you can sign
over guardianship of the child to the Institute."

"There's only one thing I want to know," said Polly.

       *       *       *       *       *

Dr. Wolcott raised his brows.

"Did I _make_ the child that way?" asked Polly.

"You most certainly did _not_!"

"The child isn't a monster, genetically?" asked Polly.

"The child was thrust into another continuum. Otherwise, it is
perfectly normal."

Polly's tight, lined mouth relaxed. She said, simply, "Then, bring me
my baby. I want to see him. Please. Now."

They brought the "child."

The Horns left the hospital the next day. Polly walked out on her own
two good legs, with Peter Horn following her, looking at her in quiet
amaze.

They did not have the baby with them. That would come later. Horn
helped his wife into their helicopter and sat beside her. He lifted the
ship, whirring, into the warm air.

"You're a wonder," he said.

"Am I?" she said, lighting a cigarette.

"You are. You didn't cry. You didn't do anything."

"He's not so bad, you know," she said. "Once you get to know him. I can
even--hold him in my arms. He's warm and he cries and he even needs his
triangular diapers." Here she laughed. He noticed a nervous tremor in
the laugh, however. "No, I didn't cry, Pete, because that's my baby.
Or he will be. He isn't dead, I thank God for that. He's--I don't know
how to explain--still unborn. I like to think he hasn't been born yet.
We're waiting for him to show up. I have confidence in Dr. Wolcott.
Haven't you?"

"You're right. You're right." He reached over and held her hand. "You
know something? You're a peach."

"I can hold on," she said, sitting there looking ahead as the green
country swung under them. "I can wait. As long as I know something
good will happen. I won't let it hurt or shock me. The mind is a great
thing. If it has some hope, then it's cushioned all around. I'll wait
six months," she said. And she looked over the edge of the helicopter.
"And then maybe I'll kill myself."

"Polly!"

She looked at him as if he'd just come in. "Pete, I'm sorry. But this
sort of thing doesn't happen. Once it's over and the baby is finally
'born' I'll forget it so quick it'll never have occurred. But if the
doctor can't help us, then a mind can't take it, a mind can only tell
the body to climb out on a roof and jump."

"Things'll be all right," he said, holding to the guide-wheel. "They
_have_ to be."

She said nothing, but let the cigarette smoke blow out of her mouth in
the pounding concussion of the helicopter fan.

Three weeks passed. Every day they flew in to the Institute to visit
"Py." For that was the quiet calm name that Polly Horn gave to the blue
pyramid that lay on the warm sleeping-table and blinked up at them.
Dr. Wolcott was careful to point out that the habits of the "child"
were as normal as any others; so many hours sleep, so many awake, so
much attentiveness, so much boredom, so much food, so much elimination.
Polly Horn listened, and her face softened and her eyes warmed.

At the end of the third week, Dr. Wolcott said, "Feel up to taking him
home now? You live in the country, don't you? All right, you have an
enclosed patio, he can be out there in the sunlight, on occasion. He
needs a mother's love. That's trite, but nevertheless true. He should
be suckled. We have an arrangement where he's been fed by the new
feed-mech; cooing voice, warmth, hands, and all." Dr. Wolcott's voice
was dry, "But still I feel you are familiar enough with him now to know
he's a pretty healthy child. Are you game, Mrs. Horn?"

"Yes, I'm game."

"Good. Bring him in every third day for a check up. Here's his formula.
We're working on several ideas now, Mrs. Horn. We should have some
results for you by the end of the year. I don't want to say anything
definite, but I have reason to believe we'll pull that boy right out of
the fourth dimension, like a rabbit out of a hat."

The doctor was mildly surprised and pleased when Polly Horn kissed him,
then and there.

       *       *       *       *       *

Pete Horn took the 'copter home over the smooth rolling greens
of Griffith. From time to time he looked at the pyramid lying in
Polly's arms. She was making cooing noises at it, it was replying in
approximately the same way.

[Illustration: Peter took the 'copter home, from time to time looking
down at the pyramid in Polly's arms.]

"I wonder," said Polly.

"What?"

"How do _we_ look to _it_?" asked his wife.

"I asked Wolcott about that. He said we probably look funny to him,
also. He's in one dimension we're in another."

"You mean we don't look like men and women to him?"

"If we could see ourselves, no. But, remember, the baby knows nothing
of men or women. To the baby whatever shape we're in, we are natural.
It's accustomed to seeing us shaped like cubes or squares or pyramids,
as it sees us from its separate dimension. The baby's had no other
experience, no other norm with which to compare what it sees. We
_are_ its norm. On the other hand, the baby seems weird to us
because we compare it to our accustomed shapes and sizes."

"Yes, I see. I see."

Baby was conscious of movement. One White Cube held him in warm
appendages. Another White Cube sat further over, within an oblong
of purple. The oblong moved in the air over a vast bright plain of
pyramids, hexagons, oblongs, pillars, bubbles and multi-colored cubes.

One White Cube made a whistling noise. The other White Cube replied
with a whistling. The White Cube that held him shifted about. Baby
watched the two White Cubes, and watched the fleeing world outside the
traveling bubble.

Baby felt--sleepy. Baby closed his eyes, settled his pyramidal
youngness upon the lap of the White Cube, and made faint little
noises....

"He's asleep," said Polly Horn.

       *       *       *       *       *

Summer came. Peter Horn himself was busy with his export, import
business. But he made certain he was home every night. Polly was all
right during the day, but, at night, when she had to be alone with the
child, she got to smoking too much, and one night he found her passed
out on the davenport, an empty sherry bottle on the table beside her.
From then on, he took care of the child himself, nights. When it cried
it made a weird whistling noise, like some jungle animal lost and
wailing. It wasn't the sound of a baby.

Peter Horn had the nursery sound-proofed.

"So your wife won't hear your baby crying?" asked the workman.

"Yeah," said Pete Horn. "So she won't hear."

They had few visitors. They were afraid that by some accident or other
someone might stumble on Py, dear sweet pyramidal little Py.

"What's that noise?" asked a visitor one evening, over his cocktail.
"Sounds like some sort of bird. You didn't tell me you had an aviary,
Peter?"

"Oh, yes," said Horn, going and closing the nursery door. "Have another
drink. Let's get drunk, everybody."

It was like having a dog or a cat in the house. At least that's how
Polly looked upon it. Pete Horn watched her and observed exactly how
she talked and petted the small Py. It was Py this and Py that, but
somehow with some reserve, and sometimes she would look around the room
and touch herself, and her hands would clench, and she would look lost
and afraid, as if she were waiting for someone to arrive.

In September, Polly reported to Pete: "He can say Daddy. Yes he can.
Come on, Py. Say, Daddy!"

       *       *       *       *       *

She held the blue warm pyramid up. "Wheelly," whistled the little warm
blue pyramid.

"Daddy," repeated Polly.

"Wheelly!" whistled the pyramid.

"For heaven's sake, cut it out!" shouted Pete Horn. He took the child
from her and put it in the nursery where it whistled over and over that
name, that name, that name. Whistled, whistled. Horn came out and got
himself a stiff drink. Polly was laughing quietly, bitterly.

"Isn't that terrific?" she said. "Even his _voice_ is in the
fourth dimension. I teach him to say Daddy and it comes out Wheelly!
He says Daddy, but it sounds like Wheelly to _us_!" She looked at
her husband. "Won't it be nice when he learns to talk later? We'll give
him Hamlet's soliloquy to memorize and he'll say it but it'll come out,
Wheelly-roth urll whee whistle wheet!" She mashed out her cigarette.
"The offspring of James Joyce! Aren't we lucky?" She got up. "Give me a
drink."

"You've had enough," he said.

"Thanks, I'll help myself," she said, and did.

October, and then November. Py was learning to talk now. He whistled
and squealed and made a bell-like tone when he was hungry. Dr. Wolcott
visited. "When his color is a constant bright blue," said the doctor,
"that means he's healthy. When the color fades, dull--the child is
feeling poorly. Remember that."

"Oh, yes, I will, I will," said Polly. "Robin's egg blue for health.
Dull cobalt for illness."

"Young lady," said Wolcott, "You'd better take a couple of these pills
and come see me tomorrow for a little chat. I don't like the way you're
talking. Stick out your tongue. Ah-hmm. Give me your wrist. Pulse bad.
Your eyes, now. Have you been drinking? Look at the stains on your
fingers. Cut the cigarettes in half. I'll see you tomorrow."

"You don't give me much to go on," said Polly. "It's been almost a year
now."

"My dear Mrs. Horn, I don't want to excite you continually. When we
have our mechs ready we'll let you know. We're working every day.
There'll be an experiment soon. Take those pills now and shut that nice
mouth." He chucked Py under the "chin." "Good healthy baby, by gravy!
Twenty pounds if he's an _ounce_!"

Baby was conscious of the goings and comings of the Two White Cubes.
The two nice White Cubes who were with him during all of his waking
hours. There was another Cube, a Gray One, who visited on certain days.
But mostly it was the Two White Cubes who cared for and loved him. He
looked up at the one warm, rounder, softer White Cube and made the low
warmbling soft sound of contentment. The White Cube fed him. He was
content. He grew. All was familiar and good.

The New Year, the year 1969, arrived.

Rocket ships flashed on the sky, and helicopters whirred and flourished
the warm California winds.

Peter Horn carted home large plates of specially poured blue and gray
polarized glass, secretly. Through these, he peered at his "child."
Nothing doing. The pyramid remained a pyramid, no matter if he viewed
it through X-ray or yellow cellophane. The barrier was unbreakable.
Horn returned quietly to his drinking.

The big thing happened early in February. Horn, arriving home in his
helicopter, was appalled to see a crowd of neighbors gathered on the
lawn of his home. Some of them were sitting, others were standing,
still others were moving away, with frightened expressions on their
faces.

Polly was walking the "child" in the yard.

Polly was quite drunk. She held the small blue pyramid by the hand and
walked him up and down. She did not see the helicopter land, nor did
she pay much attention as Horn came running up.

One of the neighbors turned. "Oh, Mr. Horn, it's the cutest thing.
Where'd you _find_ it?"

One of the others cried, "Hey, you're quite the traveler, Horn. Pick it
up in South America?"

       *       *       *       *       *

Polly held the pyramid up. "Say Daddy!" she cried, trying to focus on
her husband.

"Wheelly!" cried the pyramid.

"Polly!" shouted Peter Horn, and strode forward.

"He's friendly as a dog or a cat," said Polly staggering along, taking
the child with her. She laughed at the neighbors. "Oh, no, he's not
dangerous. He looks dangerous, yes, but he's not. He's friendly as
a baby. My husband brought him from Afghanistan the other day. Has
anybody got a drink?"

The neighbors began to move off when Peter Horn glared at them.

"Come back!" Polly waved at them. "Come back! Don't you want to see my
baby? _Don't_ you? Yes, he's my _child_, my very _own_!
Isn't he simply beautiful!"

He slapped her face.

"My baby," she said, brokenly.

He slapped her again and again until she quit saying it and collapsed.
He picked her up and took her into the house. Then he came out and took
Py in and then he sat down and phoned the Institute.

"Dr. Wolcott. This is Horn. You'd better get your stuff ready for the
experiment. It's tonight or not at all."

There was a hesitation. Finally, Wolcott sighed. "All right. Bring your
wife and the child. We'll try to have things in shape."

They hung up.

Horn sat there studying the pyramid.

"The neighbors thought he was the cutest pet," said his wife, lying on
the couch, her eyes shut, her lips trembling....

The Institute hall smelled clean, neat, sterile. Dr. Wolcott walked
along it, followed by Peter Horn and his wife Polly, who was holding Py
in her arms. They turned in at a doorway and stood in a large room. In
the center of the room were two tables with large black hoods suspended
over them. Behind the tables were a number of machines with dials and
levers on them. There was the faintest perceptible hum in the room.
Pete Horn looked at Polly for a moment.

Wolcott gave her a glass of liquid. "Drink this." She drank it. "Now.
Sit down." They both sat. The doctor put his hands together and looked
at them for a moment.

"I want to tell you what I've been doing in the last few months," he
said. "I've tried to bring the baby out of the dimension, fourth,
fifth, or sixth, that it is in. I haven't said much to you about
it, but every time you left the baby for a checkup we worked on the
problem. Now, do not get excited, but, I think we have found a way out
of our problem."

Polly looked up quickly, her eyes lighting. "What!"

"Now, now, wait a moment," Wolcott cautioned her. "I have a solution,
but it has nothing to do with bringing the _baby_ out of the
dimension in which _it_ exists."

Polly sank back. Horn simply watched the doctor carefully for anything
he might say. Wolcott leaned forward.

"I can't bring Py out, but I can put you people _in_. That's it."
He spread his hands.

Horn looked at the machine in the corner. "You mean you can send
_us_ into Py's dimension?"

"If you want to go badly enough."

"I don't know," said Horn. "There'll have to be more explained. We'll
have to know what we're getting into."

Polly said nothing. She held Py quietly and looked at him.

Dr. Wolcott explained. "We know what series of accidents, mechanical
and electrical, forced Py into his present state. We can reproduce
those accidents and stresses. But bringing him _back_ is something
else. It might take a million trials and failures before we got the
combination. The combination that jammed him into another space was an
accident, but luckily we saw, observed and recorded it. There are no
records for bringing one back. We have to work in the dark. Therefore,
it will be easier to put _you_ in the fourth dimension than to
bring Py into ours."

       *       *       *       *       *

Polly asked, simply and earnestly, "Will I see my baby as he really is,
if I go into his dimension?"

Wolcott nodded.

Polly said, "Then, I want to go." She was smiling weakly.

"Hold on," said Peter Horn. "We've only been in this office five
minutes and already you're promising away the rest of your life."

"I'll be with my real baby, I won't care."

"Dr. Wolcott, what will it be like, in that dimension on the other
side?"

"There will be no change that _you_ will notice. You will both
seem the same size and shape to one another. The pyramid will become a
baby, however. You will have added an extra sense, you will be able to
interpret what you see differently."

"But won't we turn into oblongs or pyramids ourselves? And won't you,
doctor, look like some geometrical form instead of a human?"

"Does a blind man who sees for the first time give up his ability to
hear or taste?" asked the doctor.

"No."

"All right, then. Stop thinking in terms of subtraction. Think in terms
of addition. You're gaining something. You lose nothing. You know what
a human looks like, which is an advantage Py doesn't have, looking
out from his dimension. When you arrive 'over there' you can see Dr.
Wolcott as both things, a geometrical abstract or a human, as you
choose. It will probably make quite a philosopher out of you. There's
one other thing, however."

"And that?"

"To everyone else in the world you, your wife and the child will look
like _abstract forms_. The baby a triangle. Your wife an oblong
perhaps. Yourself a hexagonal solid. The _world_ will be shocked,
not you."

"We'll be freaks."

"You'll be freaks," said Wolcott. "But you won't know it. You'll have
to lead a secluded life."

"Until you find a way to bring all three of us out together."

"That's right. Until then. It may be ten years, twenty. I won't
recommend it to you, you may both develop psychoses as a result of
feeling apart, different. If there's anything paranoid in you, it'll
come out. It's up to you, naturally."

Peter Horn looked at his wife, she looked back gravely.

"We'll go," said Peter Horn.

"Into Py's dimension?" said Wolcott.

"Into Py's dimension," said Peter Horn, quietly.

They stood up from their chairs. "We'll lose no other sense, you're
certain, doctor? Hearing or talking. Will you be able to understand us
when we talk to you? Py's talk is incomprehensible, just whistles."

"Py talks that way because that's what he thinks we sound like when our
talk comes through the dimensions to him. He imitates the sound. When
you are over there and talk to me, you'll be talking perfect English,
because you know _how_. Dimensions have to do with senses and time
and knowledge. Don't worry about that."

"And what about Py? When we come into his strata of existence. Will he
see us as humans, immediately, and won't that be a shock to him? Won't
it be dangerous."

"He's awfully young. Things haven't got too set for him. There'll be
a slight shock, but your odors will be the same, and your voices will
have the same timber and pitch and you'll be just as warm and loving,
which is most important of all. You'll get on with him well."

Horn scratched his head slowly. "This seems such a long way around to
where we want to go." He sighed. "I wish we could have another kid and
forget all about this one."

"This baby is the one that counts. I dare say Polly here wouldn't want
any other, would you, Polly? Besides, she _can't_ have another.
I didn't say anything before, but her first was her _last_. It's
either _this_ baby or none at all."

"This baby, _this_ baby," said Polly.

       *       *       *       *       *

Wolcott gave Peter Horn a meaningful look. Horn interpreted it
correctly. This baby or no more Polly ever again. This baby or Polly
would be in a quiet room somewhere staring into space for the rest
of her life, quite insane. Polly took this whole thing as a personal
failure of her own. Somehow she supposed _she_ herself had forced
the child into an alien dimension. She lived only to make right that
wrong, to lose the sense of failure, fear and guilt. It had to be Py.
It just simply _had_ to be Py. You couldn't reason Polly out of
it. There was the evidence, the pyramid, to prove her guilt. It had to
be Py.

They walked toward the machine together. "I guess I can take it, if she
can," said Horn, taking her hand. "I've worked hard for a good many
years now, it might be fun retiring and being an abstract for a change."

"I envy you the journey, to be honest with you," said Wolcott, making
adjustments on the large dark machine. "I don't mind telling you that
as a result of your being 'over there' you may very well write a volume
of philosophy that will set Dewey, Bergson, Hegel or any of the others
on their ears. I might 'come over' to visit you one day."

"You'll be welcome. What do we need for the trip?"

"Nothing. Just lie on these tables and be still."

A humming filled the room. A sound of power and energy and warmth.

They lay on the tables, holding hands, Polly and Peter Horn. A double
black hood came down over them. They were both in darkness. From
somewhere far off in the hospital, a voice-clock sang, "Tick tock,
seven o'clock. Tick tock, seven o'clock ..." fading away in a little
soft gong.

The low humming grew louder. The machine glittered with hidden,
shifting, compressed power.

"Will we be killed, is there any chance of that?" cried Peter Horn.

"No, none!"

The power screamed! The very atoms of the room divided against
each other, into alien and enemy camps. The two sides fought for
supremacy. Horn opened his mouth to shout as he felt his insides
becoming pyramidal, oblong with the terrific electrical wrestlings in
the air. He felt a pulling, sucking, demanding power clawing at his
body. Wolcott was on the right track, by heavens! The power yearned
and nuzzled and pressed through the room. The dimensions of the
black hood over his body were stretched, pulled into wild planes of
incomprehension. Sweat, pouring down Horn's face, seemed more than
sweat, it seemed a dimensional essence!

He felt his body webbed into a dimensional vortex, wrenched, flung,
jabbed, suddenly caught and heated so it seemed to melt like running
wax.

A clicking sliding noise.

Horn thought swiftly, but calmly. How will it be in the future with
Polly and I and Py at home and people coming over for a cocktail party?
How will it be?

Suddenly he knew how it would be and the thought of it filled him with
a great awe and a sense of credulous faith and time. They would live in
the same white house on the same quiet green hill, with a high fence
around it to keep out the merely curious. And Dr. Wolcott would come
to visit, park his beetle in the yard below, come up the steps and at
the door would be a tall slim White Rectangle to meet him with a dry
martini in its snake-like hand.

And in an easy chair across the room would sit a Salt White Oblong
seated with a copy of Nietzsche open, reading, smoking a pipe. And on
the floor would be Py, running about. And there would be talk and more
friends would come in and the White Oblong and the White Rectangle
would laugh and joke and offer little finger sandwiches and more drinks
and it would be a good evening of talk and laughter.

That's how it would be.

_Click._

The humming noise stopped.

The hood lifted from Horn.

It was all over.

They were in another dimension.

He heard Polly cry out. There was much light. Then he slipped from the
table, stood blinking. Polly was running. She stooped and picked up
something from the floor.

It was Peter Horn's son. A living, pink-faced, blue-eyed boy, lying in
her arms, gasping and blinking and crying.

The pyramidal shape was gone. Polly was crying with happiness.

Peter Horn walked across the room, trembling, trying to smile himself,
to hold on to Polly and the boy baby, both at the same time, and cry
with them.

"Well!" said Wolcott, standing back. He did not move for a long while.
He only watched the White Oblong and the White slim Rectangle holding
the Blue Pyramid on the opposite side of the room. An assistant came in
the door.

"_Shh_," said Wolcott, hand to his lips. "They'll want to be alone
awhile. Come along." He took the assistant by the arm and tiptoed
across the room. The White Rectangle and the White Oblong didn't even
look up when the door closed.



*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The shape of things" ***


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