Out of the Sun by Robert Goddard Read Free Book Online Page B

at all sure it could be explained. But it had happened.
    Amidst resounding cheers, Slade discharged the volunteers from the stage, stopping Amanda just as she was leaving and asking her to check her rings again. To her crowning astonishment, universally shared, she discovered they had been switched back to their original positions.
    Then the props were removed and the music assumed a frolicsome beat. Two clowns rode onto the stage on mono cycles and completed a couple of wobbly circuits. One of them dismounted, handed his machine to Slade and capered off. A cable was lowered, which Slade clipped to the saddle before standing back to watch as the cycle was raised about six feet off the floor. The same procedure was then followed with the second clown's cycle, except that it was suspended a few inches higher. The two machines now hung about twelve feet apart, with their wheels at right angles to each other. An ominous tone came into the lighting and music as Slade set the wheels spinning. Then the cables began slowly to converge, Slade racing across the ever decreasing gap between them to sustain and accelerate the spin. What would happen when the wheels met seemed obvious: a simple collision of rubber tyre and metal spoke. But Slade was jumping back and forth as if set on some ambitious twist to the plot, head swivelling from side to side, hands flicking at the tyres almost as fast as they were rotating. The music soared, turquoise smoke billowed up at the back of the stage and, suddenly, the two wheels met and came abruptly to rest locked together, tyre threaded through tyre, spoke through spoke.
    At first, there was silence. Then, as people realized what had happened, tumultuous applause. When it had died and the bizarrely tangled cycles had been raised out of sight, Slade said: "My great-grandfather never got around to doing that with a pair of penny-farthings. Pity, don't you think?"
    The audience agreed enthusiastically. To groans of disappointment, Slade then announced that his hyper-dimensional powers were exhausted for the evening. A few self-confessed tricks with playing cards, handcuffs and white rabbits in black hats were all that remained before he signed off by vanishing from inside a seemingly escape-proof safe, only to reappear in the midst of the audience before springing back onto the stage to take his final bow.
    "What did you think, Mrs. T?" Harry asked as the cheers died and they rose to leave.
    "Impressive. Truly impressive. But if he really can .. . what did he say ... manipulate objects in higher dimensions ... why bother earning his living in such a demanding fashion? Why not simply help himself to some gold bars next time he's passing the Bank of England?"
    It was a reasonable question, to which Harry was still trying to think of an answer when they reached the aisle, where a nervous-looking young man in evening dress was waiting to buttonhole them. "Mr. and Mrs. Brancaster?" he asked doubtfully.
    "Certainly not," said Mrs. Tandy.
    "But close friends of theirs," put in Harry. "Here on their behalf, you could say."
    "Oh, well, in that case ... I suppose it might still be all right if .. . You see, Mr. Slade was hoping the Brancasters could join his party for supper after the show."
    "Why, yes," said Harry. "They mentioned it to us. Remind me where it's being held."
    "La Chasse-Maree. In Beak Street."
    "Of course. Well, thanks. We'll go straight there."
    "What can you be thinking of, Harry?" demanded Mrs. Tandy as the young man hurried away. "We are not friends of the Brancasters. And it could prove to be extremely embarrassing when that becomes obvious. As I'm sure it will to a man of Mr. Slade's talents."
    "I know," said Harry, winking at her. "In fact, I'm counting on it."
    NINE
    Harry did not blame Mrs. Tandy for backing out of the rest of the evening's entertainment. Gate-crashing a late-night supper party, after all, had not featured in his original invitation. Besides, it was way past her bedtime,