Astounding Science Fiction (UK Edition) — page 52: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

50 empty desk beyond it, the wall, the window, and blue sky through the pane of glass. But— He glanced at the professor and saw that his attention was now on the blackboard where he was marking symbols. “Let N,” said the professor, “equal known infinity, and the symbol a equal the factor of prob- ability.” Shorty tentatively reached out his left hand again into the aisle and watched it closely. He thought he might as well make sure; he reached out a little farther. The hand was gone. He jerked back his wrist, and sat there sweating. He was nuts. He had to be nuts. Again he tried to move his fingers and felt them wriggle very satisfactorily, just as they should have wriggled. They still had feeling, kinetic and otherwise. But— He reached his wrist toward the desk and didn’t feel the desk. He put it in such a position that his hand, if it had been on the end of his wrist, would have had to touch or pass through the desk, but he felt nothing. Wherever his hand was, it wasn’t on the end of his wrist. It was still out there in the aisle, no matter where he moved his arm. If he got up and walked out of the classroom, would his hand still be out there in the aisle, invisible? And suppose he went a thousand miles away? But that was silly. But was it any sillier than that his arm should rest here on the desk and his hand be two feet away? The difference in silliness between two feet and a thousand miles was only one of degree. Was his hand out there? He took his fountain pen out of his pocket and reached out with his right hand to approximately the point where he thought it-was, and—sure enough—he was holding only part of a fountain pen, half of one. He carefully refrained from reaching any farther, but raised it and brought it down sharply. It rapped—he felt it—across the missing knuckles of his left hand! That tied it! It so startled him that he let go of the pen and it was gone. It wasn’t on the floor of the aisle. It wasn’t anywhere. It was just gone, and it had been a good five-dollar pen, too. Gaw! Here he was worrying about a pen when his left hand was missing. What was he going to do about that? He closed his eyes. “Shorty M‘Cabe,” he ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION said to himself, “you’ve got to think this out logically and figure out how to get your hand back out of whatever that is. You daren’t get scared. Probably you’re asleep and dreaming this, but maybe you aren't, and if you aren’t, you’re in a jam. Now let’s be logical. There is a place out there, a plane or something, and you can reach across it or put things across it, but you can’t get them back again. “Whatever else is on the other side, your left hand is. And your right hand doesn’t know what your left hand is doing because one is here and the other is there, and never the twain shall— Hey, cut it out, Shorty. This isn’t funny.” But there was one thing he could do, and that was find out roughly the size and shape of the—whatever it was. There was a box of paper clips on his desk. He picked up a few in his right hand and tossed one of them out into the aisle. The paper clip got six or eight inches out into the aisle, and vanished. He didn’t hear it land anywhere. So far, so good. He tossed one a bit lower; same result. He bent down at his desk, being careful not to lean his head out into the aisle, and skittered a paper clip across the floor out into the aisle, saw it vanish eight inches out. He tossed one a little forward, one a bit backward. The plane extended at least a yard to the front and _ back, roughly parallel with the aisle itself. And up? He tossed one upward that arced six feet above the aisle and vanished there. Another one, higher yet and in a forward direction. It described an arc in the air and landed on the head of a girl three seats for- ward in the next aisle. She started a little and put up a hand to her head. “Mr. McCabe,” said Professor Dolohan severely, “may I ask if this lecture bores you?” Shorty jumped. He said, “Y— No, pro- fessor. I was just—” “You were, I noticed, experimenting in ballistics and the nature of a parabola. A parabola, Mr. McCabe, is the curve de- scribed by a missile projected into space with no continuing force other than its initial impetus and the force of gravity. Now shall I continue with my original lecture, or would you rather we called you up before the class to demonstrate the nature of para- boloid mechanics for the edification of your fellow students?” “I’m sorry, professor,’ said Shorty. “I was ...uh...ImeanI...Imeanl’m SOrry.” comiclooks ©