aw
grotesque shapes flashing through it. A ball of blue fire, shimmering
and ghost-like, shrouded the instruments.

Charlie's induction coil buzzed wickedly, with purple fire playing
about the terminals. The X-ray tube flickered with a greenish glow. He
manipulated the rheostat that controlled the current through the
electromagnet, and continued to read his instruments.

"Look at that!" he cried.

The bluish haze about the stone grew brighter; it became a ball of
sapphire flame, five feet thick, bright and motionless. A great sphere
of shimmering azure fire! Wisps of pale, sparkling bluish mist ringed
it. The stone in its box, the X-ray bulb and other apparatus were
hidden. The end of the table stuck oddly from the ball of light.

I heard Charlie move a switch. The hum of the coils changed a note.

The ball of blue fire vanished abruptly. It became a hole, a window in
space!

Through it, we saw another world!

The darkness of the night hung about us. Where the ball had been was a
circle of misty blue flame, five feet across. Through that circle I
could see a vast expanse of blue ocean, running in high, white-capped
rollers, beneath a sky overcast with low gray clouds.

It was no flat picture like a movie screen. The scene had vast depth;
I knew that we were really looking over an infinite expanse of stormy
ocean. It was all perfectly clear, distinct, real!

* * * * *

Astounded, I turned to find Charlie standing back and looking into the
ring of blue fire, with a curious mixture of surprise and delighted
satisfaction.

"What--what--" I gasped.

"It's amazing! Wonderful! More than I had dared hope for! The
complete vindication of my theory! If Virginia cares for scientific
reputation--"

"But what is it?"

"It's hard to explain without mathematical language. You might say
that we are looking through a hole in space. The new force in the
meteorite, amplified by the X-rays and the magnetic field, is causing
a distortion of space-time coordinates. You know that a gravitational
field bends light; the light of a star is deflected in passing the
sun. The field of this meteorite bends light through space-time,
through the four-dimensional continuum. That scrap of ocean we can see
may be on the other side of the earth."

I walked around the circle of luminous smoke with the marvelous
picture in the center. It seemed that the window swung with me. I
surveyed the whole angry surf