Henry Woods fought his way through the crowd which milled in front of the loudspeaker. The hum of excitement was giving away to a silence, the silence of a stunned people, the fearful silence of a populace facing a presence it is unable to understand, an embattled world standing with useless weapons before an incomprehensible enemy.
In despair the reporter looked about for a taxi, but realized, with a groan of resignation, that no taxi could possibly operate in that crowded street. A street car, blocked by the stream of humanity which jostled and elbowed about it, stood still, a defeated thing.
Seemingly the only man with a definite purpose in that whirlpool of terror-stricken men and women, the newspaperman settled down to the serious business of battling his way through the swarming street.
“Before I go to the crux of the matter,” said Dr. Silas White, about half an hour later, “let us first review what we know of this so-called Horror. Suppose you tell me exactly what you know of it.”
Henry Woods shifted uneasily in his chair. Why didn’t the old fool get down to business? The chief would raise hell if this story didn’t make the regular edition. He stole a glance at his wristwatch. There was still almost an hour left. Maybe he could manage it. If the old chap would only snap into it!
“I know no more,” he said, “than is common knowledge.”
The gimlet eyes of the old white-haired scientist regarded the newspaperman sharply.
“And that is?” he questioned.
There was no way out of it, thought Henry. He’d have to humor the old fellow.
“The Horror,” he replied, “appeared on Earth, so far as the knowledge of man is concerned, about six months ago.”
Dr. White nodded approvingly.
“You state the facts very aptly,” he said.
“How so?”
“When you say ‘so far as the knowledge of man is concerned.’ ”
“Why is that?”
“You will understand in due time. Please proceed.”
Vaguely the newspaperman wondered whether he was interviewing the scientist or the scientist interviewing him.
“They were first reported,” Woods said, “early this spring. At that time they wiped out a small village in the province of Quebec. All the inhabitants, except a few fugitives, were found dead, killed mysteriously and half eaten, as if by wild beasts. The fugitives were demented, babbling of black shapes that swept down out of the dark forest upon the little town in the small hours of the morning.
“The next that was heard of them was about a week later, when they struck in an isolated rural district in Poland, killing and feeding on the population of several farms. In the next week more villages were wiped out, in practically every country on the face of the Earth. From the hinterlands came tales of murder done at midnight, of men and women horribly mangled, of livestock slaughtered, of buildings crushed as if by some titanic force.
“At first they worked only at night and then, seeming to become bolder and more numerous, attacked in broad daylight.”
The newspaperman paused.
“Is that what you want?” he asked.
“That’s part of it,” replied Dr. White, “but that’s not all. What do these Horrors look like?”
“That’s more difficult,” said Henry. “They have been reported as every conceivable sort of monstrosity. Some are large and others are small. Some take the form of animals, others of birds and reptiles, and some are cast in appalling shapes such as might be snatched out of the horrid imagery of a thing which resided in a world entirely alien to our own.”
Dr. White rose from his chair and strode across the room to confront the other.
“Young man,” he asked, “do you think it possible the Horror might have come out of a world entirely alien to our own?”
“I don’t know,” replied Henry. “I know that some of the scientists believe they came from some other planet, perhaps even from some other solar system. I know they are like nothing ever known before on Earth. They are always inky black, something like black tar, you know, sort of sticky-looking, a disgusting sight. The weapons of mankind can’t affect them. Explosives are useless and so are projectiles. They wade through poison gas and fiery chemicals and seem to enjoy them. Elaborate electrical barriers have failed. Heat doesn’t make them turn a hair.”
“And you think they came from some other planet, perhaps some other solar system?”
“I don’t know what to think,” said Henry. “If they came out of space they must have come in some conveyance, and that would certainly have been sighted, picked up long before it arrived, by our astronomers. If they came in small conveyances, there must have been many of them. If they came in a single conveyance, it would be too large to escape detection. That is, unless—”
“Unless what?” snapped the scientist.
“Unless it traveled at the speed of light. Then it would have been invisible.”
“Not only invisible,” snorted the old man, “but nonexistent.”
A question was on the tip of the newspaperman’s tongue, but before it could be asked the old man was speaking again, asking a question:
“Can you imagine a fourth dimension?”
“No, I can’t,” said Henry.
“Can you imagine a thing of only two dimensions?”
“Vaguely, yes.”
The scientist smote his palms together.
“Now we’re coming to it!” he exclaimed.
Henry Woods regarded the other narrowly. The old man must be turned. What did fourth and second dimensions have to do with the Horror?
“Do you know anything about evolution?” questioned the old man.
“I have a slight understanding of it. It is the process of upward growth, the stairs by which simple organisms climb to become more complex organisms.”
Dr. White grunted and asked still another question:
“Do you know anything about the theory of the exploding universe? Have you ever noted the tendency of the perfectly balanced to run amuck?”
The reporter rose slowly to his feet.
“Dr. White,” he said, “you phoned my paper you had a story for us.
