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A/aw E. Nourse was a practicing physician in Washington state from 1958 to 1964 before turning to full-time writing, and many of his stories reflect his expertise and experience with medical subjects. Perhaps his best known novel is The Bladerunner (1974), (which has no relation to the later movie of similar name), although he has written more than a dozen books in the sf field, many of them for younger readers. He is also outstanding and underrated at the shorter lengths, and fortunately most of his best stories have been collected in Tiger by the Tail (1961), The Counterfeit Man (1963), Psi High and Others (1967), and Rx for Tomorrow (1971), These books also appeared as "juveniles," but make fine adult reading in every respect, and confirm Nourse's inventiveness and craftsmanship.
"Tiger by the Tail" is a terrific little "other dimension" story, one of the first few he published.
—M.H.G.
Suppose you were asked if there were something you would want very much, or could always use and always be grateful for. What would it be? Or put it this way, suppose you were
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the legendary "man who has everything" (or woman), what could someone buy you? (Leave out abstractions like ' 'health*' and "happiness.")
I suspect that you could guess any number of times and you wouldn't ever guess anything half as useful, a tenth as useful as what I've finally come up with. I'll tell you what it is.
A hole! A bottomless hole! A really bottomless hole!
Imagine all the wastebaskets you've filled in your life; you've then had to dump them into a bigger container. People come along and dump them into a huge truck and that goes away and dumps it all onto some huge dump area.
Where does all the garbage go? Where does all the radioactive waste go? Where does all the dangerous chemical junk go?
We' re filling all the waste spots on Earth with garbage and trash. We're overloading the ocean with garbage and sludge. We're going crazy thinking of where to put our radioactive waste.
All because we don't have a bottomless hole.
If there existed one bottomless hole on Earth, nations would fight wars to control it. If I owned a bottomless hole, I could charge anything I would wish for allowing others the use of it. It would be worth more to me than a gold mine, or an oil well.
But read the story. Read the story.
—LA.
The department store was so crowded with the postseason rush, it was surprising that they spotted her at all. The salesgirl at the counter was busy at the far end, and the woman was equally busy at her own end, slipping goods from the counter into the large black purse. Kearney watched her in alarm for several minutes before calling over the other section manager.
"Look at that woman!" he said. "She's sorting that hardware like she owns the store."
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"A klepto? What are we waiting for?" asked the other. "Let's have a talk with her."
Kearney scratched his head. "Watch her for a minute. There's something fishy—"
They watched. She was standing at the kitchenware counter, her hands running over the merchandise on the shelf. She took three cookie cutters and popped them into the pocket-book. Two large cake tins and a potato masher followed, then a small cake safe, two small pots and a large aluminum skillet.
The second man stared in disbelief. *'She's taken enough junk there to stock a store. And she's putting it all into that pocketbook. Kearney, she couldn't get all that junk into a pocketbook!''
"I know," said Kearney. "Let's go."
They moved in on her from opposite sides, and Kearney took her gently by the arm. "We'd like to speak to you, madam. Please come with us quietly."
She looked up blankly. "What do you mean?"
"We've been watching you load that pocketbook for fifteen minutes."
"Pocketbook?" the woman said, bewildered.
Kearney took the pocketbook from her arm, unsnapped it, glanced inside, and shook it in alarm.
He looked up, eyes wide and puzzled. "Jerry, look at this."
Jerry looked. When he tried to speak, there just weren't any words.
The pocketbook was empty.
Frank Collins parked his car in front of the Institute of Physics and was passed by fingerprint into the lab wing. Evanson met him in the corridor.
"Glad you got here," Evanson said grimly.
"Listen, John, what is this about a pocketbook? 1 hope it's not your idea of a joke."
"Not this gadget," Evanson promised. "Wait till you see it."
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He led the way into one of the large lab sections. Collins eyed the shiny conrol panels uneasily, the giant generators and boosters, the duocalc relay board with its gleaming tubes and confusion of wiring. "1 can't see what you want with me here. I'm a mechanical engineer."
Evanson walked into a small office off the lab. "You're also a trouble shooter from way back. Meet the research team, Frank."
The research team wore smocks, glasses, and a slouch. Collins nodded, and looked at the pocketbook lying on the table.
"Looks just like any other pocketbook to me," he said. He picked it up. It felt like a pocketbook. "What's in it?"
"You tell us," Evanson said.
Collins opened it up. It was curiously dark inside, with a dull metallic ring around the opening, near the top. He turned it upside down and shook it. Nothing came out.
"Don't reach around inside," Evanson cautioned. "It's not safe. One fellow tried, and lost a wrist watch."
Collins looked up, his bland face curious. "Where did you get this?"
"A couple of section managers spotted a shoplifter down in the Taylor-Hyden store a few days ago. She was helping herself to kitchen hardware, and was stuffing her pocketbook full. They nabbed her, but when they tried to get the hardware back out of the pocketbook they couldn't find any. One of them lost a wrist watch groping around in it."
"Yes, but how did you wind up with the purse?"
Evanson shrugged. "They turned the woman over to Psych, naturally. She denied ever seeing the purse. And when the Psych boys looked at the pocketbook they called us in a hurry. Here, I'll show you why."
Evanson picked up a meter stick and began to push it into the pocketbook. It went in about ten centimeters, to the bottom of the purse. . . .
And kept on going!
It didn't poke out the bottom. It didn't even bulge the purse.
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Collins goggled at it. "Holy smoke, how'd you do that?"
"Maybe it's going somewhere else. Fourth dimension. I don't know."
"Nuts!"
"Where else, then?" Evanson laid the meter stick down. "Another thing about that pocketbook," he added, "no matter what you do, you can't turn it inside out."
Collins looked at the dark inside of the pocketbook. Gingerly he stuck his finger in, rubbed the metallic ring, scratched it with his nail. A shiny line appeared. "That's aluminum in there," he said. "An aluminum circle."
Evanson nodded, "All the stuff she was stealing was aluminum," he said. "That's one reason we called you. You're an engineer, and you know your metals. We've been trying for three days to figure out what's happening inside that purse. We still don't know. Maybe you can tell us."
"What have you been doing?"
"Pushing stuff into it. Checking it with all the instruments. X-ray, everything. Didn't tell us a thing. We'd like to know where that stuff that we push in goes."
Collins dropped an aluminum button into the purse. It went through the aluminum circle and vanished. "Say," he asked suddenly, scowling. "What do you mean, you can't turn this thing inside out?"
"It's a second-order geometric form." Evanson lit a cigarette carefully. "You can turn a first-order form, like a sphere or a rubber ball, inside out through a small hole in the surface. But you can't turn an inner tube inside out, no matter what you do."
"Hm. Why not?"
"Because it's got a hole in it. And you can't pull a hole through a hole. Not even an infinitesimal hole."
"So?" Collins said, frowning.
"So it's the same with that purse. We think it's wrapped around a chunk of another universe. A four-dimensional universe. And you can't pull a chunk of another universe through this one without causing a lot of trouble."
"But you can turn an inner tube inside out," Collins
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protested. "It may stretch all out of shape, but you can pull it through the hole."
Evanson eyed the pocketbook on the table. "Maybe so. A second-order geometric under conditions of stress. But there's one hitch to that. It won't be an inner tube any more."
He took another bit of aluminum and fed it into the purse. He shook his head tiredly. "I don't know. The stuff is going somewhere. He pushed a wooden ruler in, watched it pop right out again. "And it takes only aluminum. Nothing else. That detective had an aluminum military watch, which disappeared from his wrist, but he had two gold rings on the same hand, and neither one was touched."
"Let's play some thinking games," Collins said.
Evanson looked up sharply. "What do you mean?"
Collins grinned. "Whatever is on the other side of that pocketbook seems to want aluminum. Why? There's an aluminum ring around the mouth of the purse—all around it. Like a portal. But it isn't very big, and it doesn't use much aluminum. They seem to want lots more."
"They?"
"Whatever takes the metal but pushes back the wood."
"Why?"
"We could venture a guess. Maybe they're building another opening. A large one."
Evanson stared at him. "Don't be silly," he said. "Why—"
"I was just thinking out loud," said Collins mildly. He picked up the steel meter stick. Taking a firm grip on one end, he pushed the other end into the purse.
Evanson watched, puzzled. "They don't want it. They're trying to push it back."
Collins continued to push the stick in, perspiring a little. Suddenly the end appeared, curving back out. Like a flash Collins grabbed it and began tugging both ends at once.
4'Watch it, watch it!" Evanson snapped. "You'll twisi their universe to conform to our geometry!" The purse seemed to be sagging inward.
One end of the stick suddenly slipped out of Collins' hand.
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He fell back, pulling it out of the pocketbook. It was straight again.
Collins stared at it, and his eyes narrowed. "Can you get a winch up here?"
"I think so," Evanson said.
"Good," said Collins. "I think I know how we can hook onto their universe."
The big three-inch steel oar rolled easily into the lab on a dolly. The end of the bar was covered with shiny aluminum tubing and bent into a sharp hook.
"Is the winch ready?" Collins asked.
"All set," Evanson said.
"Then slide the purse onto the end of the bar."
The end of the bar disappeared into the pocketbook.
"What are you trying to do?" Evanson asked uneasily.
"They seem to want aluminum, so we're going to give them some. If they're building another opening through with it, 1 want to hook onto the opening and pull it out into this lab. They'll be putting the aluminum on this bar with the rest. If we can hook onto what they already have, they'll either have to cut it free and let us retrieve it, or open it into this lab."
Evanson scowled. "But what if they don't do either?''
"They have to. If we pull a non-free section of their universe through the purse, it will put a terrific strain on their whole geometric pattern. Their whole universe will be twisted. Just like an inner tube."
The winch squeaked as Collins worked the bar to and fro inside the purse.
"Up a little," he said to the operator.
Evanson shook his head sourly. "I don't see—" he began. Th bar twanged under sudden pressure.
"Hold it! You've got it hooked!" Collins shouted.
The winch squealed noisily, the motor whining under the strain. The steel bar began sliding slowly out of the purse, millimeter by millimeter. Every ten minutes one of the tech-
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nicians made a chalk mark on the bar by the mouth of the purse.
Frank Collins filled a pipe and puffed nervously. 'The way 1 see it," he said, 4'these beings pried a small fourth-dimension hole into our universe, and somehow got that woman under control. Then they made her start collecting aluminum so they could build a bigger opening."
"But why?" Evanson poured coffee out of a thermos. It was late, and the whole building was silent and deserted except for this one lab section. The only noise in the room was the whine of the winch, tugging away at the other universe.
"Who knows? To get more and more aluminum? Whatever the reason, they want to get through to our universe. Maybe theirs is in some kind of danger. The reason may be so alien that we couldn't possibly understand it."
"But what's the idea of hooking onto them?" Evanson's eyes were worried.
"Control. We pull a non-free chunk of their universe into ours, and they can't use the opening. It'll be plugged up. The more we pull through, the more strain on the structure of their universe. They'll have to listen to our terms then. They'll have to give us their information so that we can build openings and examine them properly. If they don't, we'll wreck their universe."
"But you don't even know what they're doing in there!"
Collins shrugged, made another chalk mark on the bar. The bar was humming under the strain.
"I don't think we should take the risk," Evanson complained. "I didn't have permission to try this. I just let you go ahead on my own authority, on data—" he shuddered suddenly—"that's so vague it makes no sense at all."
Collins knocked out his pipe sharply. "It's all the data we have."
"I say it's wrong. I think we should release the bar right now, and wait till Chalmers gets here in the morning."
Collins eyed the winch with growing uneasiness. His fingers trembled as he lit his pipe again. "Don't be foolish," he
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said. "We can't release the bar now. The tapered sheaves are under too much tension. We couldn't even burn through that rod with an oxy torch in less than twenty minutes—and it would jolt the whole building apart when it broke."
"But the danger—M Evanson stood up, his forehead beaded with perspiration. He nodded toward the creaking winch. "You might be gambling our whole universe."
"Oh, calm down!" Collins said angrily. "We don't have any choice now. We're doing it, and that's all there is to it. When you grab a tiger by the tail, you've got to hang on."
Evanson crossed the room excitedly. "It seems to me," he said tensely, "that the tiger might have the advantage. If it went the wrong way, think what they could do to our universe!"
Collins rubbed his chin nervously. "Well, at any rate, I'm glad we thought of it first—" He trailed off, his face slowly turning white.
Evanson followed his stare, and his breath came in a sharp gasp. The thermos clattered noisily to the floor. He pointed at the second chalk mark, sliding slowly into the pocketbook.
"You mean you hope we did," he said.