"Zebbie may be richer than all of us."

"You said last night that he was loaded but I didn't pay attention because I had already decided to marry him. But after experiencing what sort of car he drives I realize that you weren't kidding. Not that it matters. Yes, it did matter-it took both Zebadiah's courage and Gay Deceiver's unusual talents to save our lives."

"You may never find out how loaded Zebbie is, dear. Some people don't let their left hands know what their right hands are doing. Zebbie doesn't let his thumb know what his fingers are doing."

Deety shrugged. "I don't care. He's kind and gentle and he's a storybook hero who saved my life and Pop's and yours... and last night he proved to me that life is worth living when I've been uncertain about it since Mama had to leave us. Let's go find our men, Aunt Nanny Goat. I'll risk Pop's Holy of Holies if you'll go first."

"Suits. Lay on your duff and cursed be he who first cries, 'Nay, enough."

"I don't think they're interested in that now, Nanny Goat."

"Spoilsport. How do you swing back this bookcase?"

"Switch on the cove lights, then turn on the cold water at the sink. Then switch off the cove lights, then turn off the water-in that order."

"Curiouser and curiouser," said Alice."

The bookcase closed behind us and was a door with a knob on the upper landing side. The staircase was wide, treads were broad and nonskid, risers gentle, guard rails on both sides-not the legbreaker most houses have as cellar stairs. Deety went down beside me, holding my hand like a child needing reassurance.

The room was beautifully lighted, well ventilated, and did not seem like a basement. Our men were at the far end, bent over a table, and did not appear to notice us. I looked around for a time machine, could not spot it-at least not anything like George Pal's or any I had ever read about. All around was machinery. A drill press looks the same anywhere and so does a lathe, but others were strange-except that they reminded me of machine shops.

My husband caught sight of us, stood up, and said, "Welcome, ladies!"

Zebbie turned his head and said sharply, "Late to class! Find seats, no whispering during the lecture, take notes; there will be a quiz at eight o'clock tomorrow morning. If you have questions, raise your hands and wait to be called on. Anyone who misbehaves will remain after class and wash the chalk boards."

Deety stuck out her tongue, sat down quietly. I rubbed his brush cut and whispered an indecency into his ear. Then I kissed my husband and sat down.

My husband resumed talking to Zebbie. "I lost more gyroscopes that way."

I held up my hand. My husband said, "Yes, Hilda dear?"

"Monkey Ward's sells gyro tops-I'll buy you a gross."

"Thank you, dearest, but these weren't that sort. They were made by Sperry Division of General Foods."

"So I'll get them from Sperry."

"Sharpie," put in Zeb, "you're honing to clean the erasers, too."

"Just a moment, Son. Hilda may be the perfect case to find out whether or not what I have tried to convey to you-and which really can't be conveyed save in the equations your cousin Zebulon used, a mathematics you say is unfamiliar to you-"

"It is!"

"-but which you appear to grasp as mechanics. Would you explain the concept to Hilda? If she understands it, we may hypothesize that a continua craft can be designed to be operated by a nontechnical person."

"Sure," I said scornfully, "poor little me, with a button for a head. I don't have to know where the electrons go to use television or holovision. I just twist knobs. Go ahead, Zebbie. Take a swing at it, I dare you."

"I'll try," Zebbie agreed. "But, Sharpie, don't chatter and keep your comments to the point. Or I'll ask Pop to give you a fat lip."

"He wouldn't dast~"

"So? I'm going to give him a horsewhip for a wedding present-besides the Weird Tales, Jake; you get those too. But you need a whip. Attention, Sharpie."

"Yes, Zebbie. And the same to you doubled."

"Do you know what 'precess' means?"

"Certainly. Precession of the equinoxes. Means that Vega will be the North Star when I'm a great-grandmother. Thirty thousand years or some such."

"Correct in essence. But you're not even a mother yet."

"You don't know what happened last night. I'm an expectant mother. Jacob doesn't dare use a whip on me."

My husband looked startled but pleased-and I felt relieved. Zebbie looked at his own bride. Deety said solemnly, "It is possible, Zebadiah. Neither of us was protected, each was on or close on ovulation. Hilda is blood type B Rhesus positive and my father is AB positive. I am A Rh positive. May I inquire yours, sir?"

"I'm an 0 positive. Uh.... may have shot you down the first salvo."

"It would seem likely. But-does this meet with your approval?"

"Approval'!" Zebbie stood up, knocking over his chair. "Princess, you could not make me happier! Jake! This calls for a toast!"

My husband stopped kissing me. "Unanimous! Daughter, is there champagne chilled?"

"Yes, Pop."

"Hold it!" I said. "Let's not get excited over a normal biological function. Deety and I don't know that we caught; we just hope so. And-"

"So we try again," Zebbie interrupted. "What's your calendar?"

"Twenty-eight and a half days, Zebadiah. My rhythm is pendulum steady."

"Mine's twenty-seven; Deety and I just happen to be in step. But I want that toast at dinner and a luau afterwards; it might be the last for a long time. Deety, do you get morning sick?"

"I don't know; I've never been pregnant. before."

"I have and I do and it's miserable. Then I lost the naked little grub after trying hard to keep it. But I'm not going to lose this one! Fresh air and proper exercise and careful diet and nothing but champagne for me tonight, then not another drop until I know. In the meantime- Professors, may I point out that class is in session? I want to know about time machines and I'm not sure I could understand with champagne buzzing my buttonhead."

"Sharpie, sometimes you astound me."

"Zebbie, sometimes I astound myself. Since my husband builds time machines, I want to know what makes them tick. Or at least which knobs to turn. He might be clawed by the Bandersnatch and I would have to pilot him home. Get on with your lecture."

"I read you loud and clear."

But we wasted ("U'wasted?") a few moments because everybody had to kiss everybody else-even Zebbie and my husband pounded each other on the back and kissed both cheeks Latin style. Zebbie tried to kiss me as if I were truly his mother-in-law but I haven't kissed that way since junior high. Once I was firm with him he gave in and kissed me better than he ever had before-whew! I'm certain Deety is right but I won't risk worrying my older husband over a younger man and I'd be an idiot to risk competing with Deety's teats et cetera when all I have is fried eggs and my wonderful old goat seems so pleased with my et cetera.

Class resumed. "Sharpie, can you explain precession in gyroscopes?"

"Well, maybe. Physics One was required but that was a long time ago. Push a gyroscope and it doesn't go the way you expect, but ninety degrees from that direction so that the push lines up with the spin. Like this-" I pointed a forefinger like a little boy going: "Bang!-you're dead!"

"My thumb is the axis, my forefinger represents the push, the other fingers show the rotation."

"Go to the head of the class. Now-think hard!-suppose we put a gyroscope in a frame, then impress equal forces at all three spatial coordinates at once; what would it do?"

I tried to visualize it. "I think it would either faint or drop dead."

"A good first hypothesis. According to Jake, it disappears."

"They do disappear, Aunt Hilda. I watched it happen several times."

"But where do they go?"

"I can't follow Jake's math; I have to accept his transformations without proof. But it is based on the notion of six space-time coordinates, three of space, the usual three that we see-marked x, y, and z-and three time coordinates:

one marked 't' like this-" (t) "-and one marked 'tau,' Greek alphabet-" ('i-) "-and the third from the Cyrillic alphabet, 'teh'-" (rn)

"Looks like an 'm' with a macron over it."

"So it does, but it's what the Russians use for 't."

"No, the Russians use 'chai' for tea. In thick glasses with strawberry jam."

"Stow it, Sharpie. So we have x, y, and z; t, tau, and teh, six dimensions. It is basic to the theory that all are at right angles to each other, and that any one may be swapped for any of the others by rotation-or that a new coordinate may be found (not a seventh but replacing any of the six) by translation-say 'tau' to 'tau prime' by displacement along 'x."

"Zebbie, I think I fell off about four coordinates back."

My husband suggested, "Show her the caltrop, Zeb."

"Good idea." Zeb accepted a widget from my husband, placed it in front of me. It looked like jacks I used to play with as a little girl but not enough things sticking out_four instead of six. Three touched the table, a tripod; the fourth stuck straight up.

Zeb said, "This is a weapon, invented centuries ago. The points should be sharp but these have been filed down." He flipped it, let it fall to the table. "No matter how it falls, one prong is vertical. Scatter them in front of cavalry; the horses go down-discouraging. They came into use again in Wars One and Two against anything with pneumatic tires-bicycles, motorcycles, lorries, and so forth. Big enough, they disable tanks and tracked vehicles. A small sort can be whittled from thorn bushes for guerrilla warfare-usually poisoned and quite nasty.

"But here this lethal toy is a geometrical projection, a drawing of the coordinates of a four-dimensional space-time continuum. Each spike is exactly ninety degrees from every other spike."

"fliit +h~~7 ~ ~ I ~ ~ ~ ~, mrn~ fh,iy, ~ ricj1,t ,it,crlt~ '~

"I said it was a projection. Sharpie, it's an isometric projection of fourdimensional coordinates in three-dimensional space. That distorts the angles....nd the human eye is even more limited. Cover one eye and hold still and you see only two dimensions. The illusion of depth is a construct of the brain."

"I'm not very good at holding still-"

"No, she isn't," agreed my bridegroom whom I love dearly and at that instant could have choked.

"But I can close both eyes and feel three dimensions with my hands."

"A good point. Close your eyes and pick this up and think of the prongs as the four directions of a four-dimensional space. Does the word tesseract mean anything to you?"

"My high school geometry teacher showed us how to construct them-projections-with modeling wax and toothpicks. Fun. I found other four-dimensional figures that were easy to project. And a number of ways to project them."

"Sharpie, you must have had an exceptional geometry teacher."

"In an exceptional geometry class. Don't faint, Zebbie, but I was grouped with what they called 'overachievers' after it became 'undemocratic' to call them 'gifted children."

"Be durned! Why do you always behave like a fritterhead?"

"Why don't you ever look beneath the surface, young man! I laugh because I dare not cry. This is a crazy world and the only way to enjoy it is to treat it as a joke. That doesn't mean I don't read and can't think. I read everything from Giblett to Hoyle, from Sartre to Pauling. I read in the tub, I read on the john, I read in bed, I read when I eat alone, and I would read in my sleep if I could keep my eyes open. Deety, this is proof that Zebbie has never been in my bed: the books downstairs are display; the stuff I read is stacked in my bedroom."

"Deety, did you think I had been sleeping with Sharpie?"

"No, Zebadiah."

"And you never will! Deety told me what a sex maniac you are! You lay your lecherous hands on me and I'll scream for Jacob and he'll beat you to a pulp."

"Don't count on it, dear one," my husband said mildly. "Zeb is bigger and younger and stronger than I... and if I found it needful to try, Deety would cry and beat me to a pulp. Son, I should have warned you: my daughter is vicious at karate. The killer instinct."

"Thanks. Forewarned, forearmed. I'll use a kitchen chair in one hand, a revolver in the second, and a whip in the other, just as I used to do in handling the big cats for Ringling, Barnum, and Bailey."

"That's three hands," said Deety.

"I'm four-dimensional, darling. Professor, we can speed up this seminar; we've been underrating our overachiever. Hilda is a brain."

"Zebbie, can we kiss and make up?"

"Class is in session."

"Zebadiah, there is always time for that. Right, Pop?"

"Ki~ hc~v Smi nr Qhp'll sulk "

"I don't sulk, I bite."

"I think you're cute, too," Zebbie answered, grabbed me by both shoulders, dragged me over the table, and kissed me hard. Our teeth grated and my nipples went spung! Sometimes I wish I weren't so noble.

He dropped me abruptly and said, "Attention, class. The two prongs of the caltrop painted blue represent our three-dimensional space of experience. The third prong painted yellow is the t-time we are used to. The red fourth prong simulates both Tau-time and Teh-time, the unexplored time dimensions necessary to Jake's theory. Sharpie, we have condensed six dimensions into four, then we either work by analogy into six, or we have to use math that apparently nobody but Jake and my cousin Ed understands. Unless you can think of some way to project six dimensions into three-you seem to be smart at such projections."

I closed my eyes and thought hard. "Zebbie, I don't think it can be done. Maybe Escher could have done it."

"It can be done, my dearest," answered my dearest, "but it is unsatisfactory. Even with a display computer with capacity to subtract one or more dimensions at a time. A superhypertesseract-a to the sixth power-has too many lines and corners and planes and solids and hypersolids for the eye to grasp. Cause the computer to subtract dimensions and what you have left is what you already knew. I fear it is an innate incapacity of visual conception in the human brain."

"I think Pop is right," agreed Deety. "I worked hard on that program. I don't think the late great Dr. Marvin Minsky could have done it better in flat projection. Holovision? I don't know. I would like to try if I ever get my hands on a computer with holovideo display and the capacity to add, subtract, and rotate six coordinates."

"But why six dimensions?" I asked. "Why not five? Or even four, since you speak of rotating them interchangeably."

"Jake?" said Zeb.

My darling looked fussed. "It bothered me that a space-time continuum seemed to require three space dimensions but only one time dimension. Granted that the universe is what it is, nevertheless nature is filled with symmetries. Even after the destruction of the parity principle, scientists kept finding new ones. Philosophers stay wedded to symmetry-but I don't count philosophers."

"Of course not," agreed Zeb. "No philosopher allows his opinions to be swayed by facts-he would be kicked out of his guild. Theologians, the lot of them."

"I concur. Hilda my darling, after I found a way to experiment, it turned out that six dimensions existed. Possibly more-but I see no way to reach them."