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PALGRAVE SOCIO-LEGAL STUDIES

China in Global
Governance of
Intellectual Property
Implications for Global
Distributive Justice
Wenting Cheng
 Palgrave Socio-Legal Studies

Series Editor
Dave Cowan, School of Law, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

Editorial Board
Dame Hazel Genn, University College London, London, UK
Fiona Haines, School of Social & Political Sciences, University
of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
Herbert Kritzer, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN,
USA
Linda Mulcahy, Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of
Oxford, Oxford, UK
Rosemary Hunter, Kent Law School, University of Kent,
Canterbury, UK
Carl Stychin, Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University
of London, London, UK
Mariana Valverde, Centre for Criminology & Socio-Legal
Studies, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
Sally Wheeler, College of Law, Australian National University,
Canberra, ACT, Australia
Senthorun Raj, Manchester Metropolitan University,
Manchester, Lancashire, UK
The Palgrave Socio-Legal Studies series is a developing series of monographs
and textbooks featuring cutting edge work which, in the best tradition of
socio-legal studies, reach out to a wide international audience.
 Wenting Cheng

China in Global
Governance
of Intellectual
Property
Implications for Global Distributive
Justice
Wenting Cheng
College of Law
Australian National University
Canberra, ACT, Australia

ISSN 2947-9274 ISSN 2947-9282 (electronic)

Palgrave Socio-Legal Studies
ISBN 978-3-031-24369-1 ISBN 978-3-031-24370-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24370-7

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG 2023
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse
of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and
transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar
or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or
the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Photo name: Dancer Holding A Pipa Behind Her Back in the Pure land, Cave 112 of Mogao Grottoes,
Dunhuang China (781-847 AD). Photographer: Jian Wu. Provider/copyright holder: Dunhuang Academy

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 To my parents,
for the bravery and perseverance
you taught me through words and deeds.
 Preface

Writing a book is like a journey, and this book is a long journey for me. I
started my Ph.D. at the Australian National University in Early 2014 when
there was not much discussion on China in global governance or China’s
intellectual property (IP) issues. My Ph.D. thesis focused on the question of
how China has engaged in global IP governance since its WTO accession
in 2001. In March 2018, two weeks after I received feedbacks on the final
draft of my thesis, the US Trade Representative issued Section 301 Report
on China’s Acts, Policies, and Practices Related to Technology Transfer, Intellec-
tual Property, and Innovation. The allegations in this report on unfair trade
practices and IP theft became the trigger for the US-China trade war. I was
fortunate that my Ph.D. degree was conferred without having to incorporate
this development. But book revision became an ever-expanding project—
with the accelerated US-China decoupling, the 2020 US-China Phase One
trade agreement consists of 16-page on IP as its Chapter 1 and the system-
atic IP law revision in China. In 2020, China promulgated four IP laws and
regulations and issued six judicial interpretations, yet it was still condemned
engaging IP theft by the US. I kept waking up in the night wondering
whether my conclusions in the Ph.D. thesis are still valid and how I can
contribute a useful understanding of China in global IP governance.
It took me another four years to update the data and navigate a deeper
interpretation of the findings from the cases, but I think it is time worth
taking. As will show in this book, the Chinese IP system increasingly resem-
bles those of the US and/or the EU, and IP protection is emphasised in

vii
viii Preface

China’s grand strategies such as innovation-driven development. China has

recognised the instrumental value of IP in stimulating innovation and facili-
tating economic transformation. It has started focusing on cultivating an IP
culture that respects the intrinsic value of IP, setting the target of building
itself as a global IP power by 2035. All these development makes it impera-
tive to understand not only whether China’s large-scale deployment of IP in
various markets would make itself a global IP regulatory power, but also what
China would deliver in its enhanced participation in global IP governance.
While the global COVID-19 pandemic and climate catastrophes are
disruptive in many ways, these crises urged the rethinking of IP from its
beginning and the fundamentals. The history of the industrialisation of
different nations and their IP laws has confirmed Ha-Joon Chang’s claim
that, by harmonising international IP law, technologically advanced countries
have kicked away the ladder for economic development for technologically
retarded countries. On the other hand, any view on IP needs to be associ-
ated with a broader paradigm of distributive justice (Chapter 1), either as
a barrier to knowledge dissemination (egalitarianism), as monopolies for a
limited period to stimulate innovation (utilitarianism), or as quasi-property
rights (entitlement-based principles). Each paradigm includes not only the
principles but also the original caveats that faded in their self-evolvement. In
one way or another, none of the paradigms indicates that IP is an inviolable
property right even though it has been a dominant discourse since the TRIPS
Agreement. These paradigms not only provide frameworks to reflect on the
popular allegation of IP theft or to justify law reform when IP conflicts with
access to health in a pandemic; they also offer this book a new angle for
implications from China’s global IP engagement. They provoked questions
of what sort of IP rules China would like to promote in its participation in
global governance and how China would treat other countries when itself
reaches the top of the ladder of technology and industrial development.
Based on five case studies, this book analyses how China has engaged
in global IP governance and the implication of its engagement for global
distributive justice. It approaches the topic through a regulation-oriented
interdisciplinary approach by examining key actors, principles and strategies
of China’s global IP engagement. Drawing on principles of global distribu-
tive justice nationally and internationally, this book contributes to a critical
understanding of what China’s rising role in global IP governance means for
the rest of the world.
This book will not be possible without the love and supports from many
people—my supervisors, colleagues, friends and family. I acknowledge my
informants to provide valuable information and sometimes clues for such
 Preface ix

information and other colleagues in China who facilitated my fieldwork

during the Ph.D. I was so fortunate to have both Professor Peter Drahos
and Professor Susan Sell as my Ph.D. supervisors, who provided continuous
supports and guidance on this topic during and after my Ph.D. I thank
Professor Sally Wheeler for helping me positioning this book in the broader
area of socio-legal studies. I thank Dr Hazel Moir for reading various versions
of the manuscript, reminding me of incidences in the history of international
IP law that I had otherwise missed. Post-Ph.D. book revision was a soli-
tude, and I appreciate daily message check-ins with my colleague and friend
Anne McNaughton to fight against procrastination. I thank my husband
and my daughter for their love and support in this marathon like journey.
I am grateful to the School of Regulation and Global Governance of the
Australian National University to nurture me to be an interdisciplinary regu-
latory scholar during the Ph.D. period. I also appreciate the fund provided
by the Australian Centre on China in the World to support the copyediting
of this book—it was a great relief during the COVID-19 lockdown when I
also needed to engage home-schooling. I thank Jan Borrie for copyediting my
book. I thank Professor David Cowan for including this book in this presti-
gious Palgrave Series on Socio-Legal Studies. Last but not least, I appreciate
Palgrave Macmillan publishing team, particularly Josie Taylor, Saranya Siva
and Kanchan Latambale for their seamless support.

Canberra, Australia Wenting Cheng

 Contents

Part I Setting the Scene

1 Introduction 3
1.1 China: Between IP Theft and Assertive IP Power 3
1.2 The Development of Global IP Governance 6
1.3 IP and Distributive Justice 8
1.3.1 Egalitarian Principle of Distributive Justice 10
1.3.2 Utilitarian Principle of Distributive Justice 11
1.3.3 Entitlement-Based Principle of Distributive
Justice 12
1.3.4 Global Distributive Justice and the Confucian
Golden Principle 13
1.4 A Brief History of IP in China 15
1.4.1 IP in China’s Modern History and the Maoist
Era 16
1.4.2 China’s Re-integration into the International
IP System 19
1.4.3 China’s Global IP Engagement in the New Era 21
1.5 Case Selection, Analytical Framework, and Key Findings 23
1.5.1 Selection of Cases 23

xi
xii Contents

1.5.2 Analytical Framework and Main Findings 25

1.5.3 A Focus on Engagement 28
References 29

Part II Case Studies

2 China Engages in International Regulation
of Geographical Indications 39
2.1 Introduction 39
2.2 International GI System: Regime Complexity
and Power Contestation 41
2.2.1 Mapping International GI Regime Complexity 41
2.2.2 TRIPS Provisions on GIs and Post-TRIPS GI
Negotiations 43
2.2.3 Post-TRIPS GI Negotiations at the WTO 44
2.2.4 GI-Related Initiatives at WIPO 45
2.2.5 Failed GI Proposal in the Anti-Counterfeiting
Trade Agreement 46
2.2.6 GIs in Bilateral FTAs 47
2.3 GIs in China: Legal Fragmentation and Regulatory
Competition 49
2.3.1 From No Protection to Case-by-Case Protection 50
2.3.2 EU and US Influences on the Building
of Chinese GI Institutions 52
2.3.3 TRIPS Compliance and Post-TRIPS GI
Divergence 53
2.3.4 Implementing GI Regulation to China’s
Advantage 56
2.3.5 Regulatory Competition and CNIPA’s
Holistic Approach to GI Regulation 58
2.4 China’s Engagement with International GI Regulation 60
2.4.1 China’s Position at the WTO 61
2.4.2 China and the WIPO SCT 65
2.4.3 China’s Bilateral GI Engagement with the EU
and US 67
2.4.3.1 EU–China GI Mutual Recognition 67
2.4.3.2 GIs in the US-China Economic
and Trade Agreement 68
2.4.4 GI Provisions in Other Chinese FTAs/RTAs 69
 Contents xiii

2.4.4.1 Category I: FTAs Mentioning GIs

in the Definition of Intellectual
Property Rights 69
2.4.4.2 Category II: Listing GIs for Mutual
Recognition 70
2.4.4.3 Category III: Miscellaneous 70
2.4.4.4 GI in Chinese Regional Trade
Agreements: RCEP 72
2.5 Conclusion 73
References 75
3 China Engages in International Regulation of Disclosure
Obligation 81
3.1 Introduction 81
3.2 Multilateral Negotiations on the Disclosure Obligation 84
3.2.1 Debates Over the Disclosure of the Origin
of Genetic Resources 84
3.2.1.1 Is Patent Law a Solution
to Guarantee ABS? 84
3.2.1.2 Voluntary Disclosure Versus
Mandatory Disclosure 85
3.2.1.3 International Law Versus National
Law 86
3.2.2 A Spectrum of Positions on the Disclosure
Obligation 87
3.2.3 Disclosure Obligation Negotiations: From
WTO to WIPO 90
3.3 China Navigating Multilateral Negotiations
on the Disclosure Obligation 92
3.3.1 Context for China’s Engagement
in the Disclosure Obligation 92
3.3.2 China’s Position at the TRIPS Council 94
3.4 Active Learning from Negotiations: Patent Law (2008) 96
3.4.1 The Disclosure Obligation in Patent Law (2008) 96
3.4.1.1 Weak Disclosure Obligation 97
3.4.1.2 Additional Protection for Genetic
Resources: The Linkage Arrangement 99
3.4.2 Comparison of Chinese Law with Existing
Proposals 100
3.5 China’s Engagement After Patent Law (2008) 104
3.5.1 China Engages in Multilateral Negotiations 104
xiv Contents

3.5.1.1 China Promoting Substantive

Negotiations at the TRIPS Council 105
3.5.1.2 China Supporting
the Implementation of the Nagoya
Protocol at the WTO 106
3.5.1.3 China as Part of the Coalition
to Push Negotiations Forward 107
3.5.2 China Incorporates the Disclosure Obligation
into FTAs 108
3.5.2.1 China–Peru FTA 108
3.5.2.2 China–Switzerland FTA 109
3.6 Conclusion 110
References 111
4 China Emerges in International Standardisation 115
4.1 Introduction 115
4.1.1 Standardisation as a Survival Kit in Competition 116
4.1.2 The North-South Contestation
in International Standardisation 117
4.1.3 Standardisation as a Lifeline for Chinese ICT
Firms 118
4.2 The DVD Case and Its Lessons 119
4.2.1 The Rise and Fall of the DVD Industry
in China 119
4.2.2 Two Lessons from the DVD Case 120
4.2.3 Strategies to Avoid a Similar Trap 122
4.3 WAPI: Failed Attempts at Domestic and International
Standardisation 124
4.3.1 Failure to Adopt WAPI as a Compulsory
National Standard 125
4.3.2 The Journey for WAPI to Go Global 128
4.3.3 The Mobile Phone Market: A New
Opportunity for WAPI? 134
4.3.4 A Standard Without a Market: The
Implementation Game for WAPI 135
4.4 Discussion: Technological Hegemony
or Technological Nationalism? 136
4.4.1 The US Strategy Against WAPI 137
4.4.2 Ex Ante Standards and the Compatibility
Argument 139
 Contents xv

4.4.3 Lessons Learned: China Embracing Inclusive

Development in the ICT Sector 140
4.5 Conclusion 142
References 144
5 China’s Bilateral IP Engagement: A Look into the Chinese
FTAs 149
5.1 Introduction 149
5.1.1 IP Provisions in Chinese FTAs: An Overview 150
5.1.2 China’s FTA Strategies in the Global Context 153
5.1.3 Categories of Chinese IP Provisions in Its FTAs 153
5.2 Chinese FTAs Defending TRIPS Standards 154
5.2.1 Passive-Defensive Chinese FTAs 154
5.2.2 Active Defensive Provisions in Chinese FTAs 159
5.3 Active Promotion of New Standards in Chinese FTAs 161
5.3.1 Protection of Genetic Resources
and Traditional Knowledge 162
5.3.2 Intellectual Property and Public Health 163
5.3.3 Limit to ISP Liability 164
5.3.4 Active Promotion of Cooperation
and Dispute Settlement 166
5.4 TRIPS-Plus Standards in Chinese FTAs 168
5.4.1 Data Exclusivity for Biologics 168
5.4.2 Protection for Designs 170
5.4.3 Abolition of ‘Visually Perceptible’
as a Trademark Registration Requirement 171
5.4.4 Border Measures 172
5.4.5 Additional Transparency Obligation 174
5.4.6 Calculation of Damages 175
5.4.7 Principle of Minimum Obligations 175
5.5 Conclusion 176
References 178
xvi Contents

6 China and Multilateral IP Governance 181

6.1 Introduction 181
6.2 China and WIPO: A Tale of Reciprocity 182
6.2.1 History of Trust-Building and Technical
Assistance 183
6.2.2 WIPO Beijing Office: A Response to Surging
Chinese IP Applications 185
6.2.3 Beijing Treaty on Audiovisual Performances 185
6.2.4 WIPO’s Support for the Belt and Road Initiative 187
6.2.5 China Supports WIPO to Remain a Major
Multilateral IP Forum 188
6.3 China and the TRIPS Agreement: Safeguarding
Multilateralism Despite Limited Involvement
in Agenda-Setting 189
6.3.1 China’s First WTO Proposal: IP
in Standardisation 191
6.3.2 China and the WTO Negotiations on ‘IP
Waiver’ 194
6.4 Conclusion 201
References 202

Part III Discussion

7 Who Governs? Actors in China’s International IP
Engagement 209
7.1 Introduction 209
7.2 Substate Actors 209
7.2.1 MOFCOM: The Checkpoint for China’s IP
Engagement 211
7.2.2 SIPO: A New Node for International Patent
Regulation 213
7.2.3 Rule-Implementing Actors: Judicial Activism 215
7.2.4 The Missing Actors in Developing Potential
Engagement 218
7.2.5 Discussion 219
7.3 Non-state Actors 219
7.3.1 Chinese IP Epistemic Communities 219
7.3.1.1 IP Elites 220
 Contents xvii

7.3.1.2 IP Practitioners 222

7.3.2 Private Actors 223
7.4 Conclusion 224
References 225
8 Principles for China’s International IP Engagement 229
8.1 Introduction 229
8.2 Underpinnings for Domestic IP Protection: IP
Instrumentalism 230
8.2.1 The Innovation Stimulation Theory 231
8.2.2 The Economic Contribution Theory 233
8.3 China’s Foreign Policy Principles 235
8.3.1 Non-alignment in the Independent Foreign
Policy of Peace 235
8.3.2 China’s Support for Developing-Country
Agendas 236
8.3.3 China’s Support for the Multilateral IP Regimes 238
8.4 The Development of Principles and Their Contestation 239
8.4.1 From IP Instrumentalism
to the Entitlement-Based Theory 239
8.4.2 From ‘Keeping a Low Profile’ to ‘Striving
for Achievements’ 241
8.5 Summary 242
References 243
9 China’s Strategies to Engage in Global IP Governance 247
9.1 Introduction 247
9.2 Forum and Agenda-Related Strategies 247
9.2.1 Multi-forum Engagement 248
9.2.2 Dissembling 250
9.2.3 More Cohesive Responsive Engagement Than
Active Promotion 251
9.3 Principle-Related Strategies 252
9.3.1 Modelling 252
9.3.1.1 Modelling for Foreign Policy
Objectives 252
9.3.1.2 Modelling Rival Standards 254
9.3.1.3 Active Modelling and Model Export 254
9.3.2 Balancing 256
9.3.2.1 Reticence 257
9.3.2.2 Serving the Foreign Policy Priority 258
xviii Contents

9.3.2.3 Rule Coexistence and Complexity 259

9.4 Potential Effects of the Strategies 260
9.4.1 Institutional Isomorphism and Constructed
Inconsistency 260
9.4.2 Diminishing Resistance to TRIPS-Plus
Standards 261
References 262
10 Conclusion 265
10.1 Effects of the Strategies: China’s IP System
Increasingly Resembles Those of the US and/or the EU 265
10.2 Tipping Point for China to Become an International
IP Rule-Maker? 266
10.3 China’s Global IP Engagement and Global
Distributive Justice 268

Appendix 1: Multilateral Treaties Effective in China 271

Appendix 2: Intellectual Property Regulators in China 275
Appendix 3: IP Targets in the Action Plan for Further
Implementing the National IP Strategy (2014–2020) 277
Appendix 4: Different Positions on the Disclosure Obligation
Based on Relationship Between CBD and TRIPS 279
Index 283
 Abbreviations

1G The First Generation of Wireless Cellular Technology

2G The Second-generation Cellular Network
3G The Third Generation of Wireless Mobile Telecommu-
nications Technology
3GPP The Third Generation Partnership Project
4G The Fourth Generation of Broadband Cellular
Network Technology
5G The Fifth-generation Technology Standard for Broad-
band Cellular Networks
ABS Access and Benefit-Sharing
ACTA The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement
AD Active Defensive
AIIB The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank
AmCham China The American Chamber of Commerce in China
AP Active Promotion
APEC The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
API Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient
AQSIQ General Administration of Quality Supervision,
Inspection and Quarantine of China (dissolved in
2018)
ASEAN The Association of Southeast Asian Nations
AVS Audio Video coding Standards
Beijing Treaty The Beijing Treaty on Audio-Visual Performance
Berne Convention The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary
and Artistic Works

xix
xx Abbreviations

BRI The Belt and Road Initiative

BRICS Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa
CBD The Convention on Biological Diversity
CBWIPSG China Broadband Wireless IP Standard Group
CCP The Chinese Communist Party
CCPIT China Council for the Promotion of International
Trade
CDMA2000 Code-Division Multiple Access 2000
CESI China Electronic Standardization Institute
CETA Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade
Agreement
CFDA China Food and Drug Administration
CHIPS and Science ACT Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconduc-
tors and Science Act of the US
CNIPA China National Intellectual Property Administration
CNY The Chinese Yuan
CoCom The Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export
Controls
COVAX Covid-19 Vaccines Global Access
COVID-19 Coronavirus Disease 2019
CPTPP Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-
Pacific Partnership
DG AGRI Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural
Development
DMCA The US Digital Millennium Copyright Act
DSB Dispute Settlement Body
DSM Dispute Settlement Mechanism
DVD Digital Versatile Disc
EC The European Community
EEC The European Economic Community
EFOW The European Federation of Origin Wines
EFTA The European Free Trade Association
EPO The European Patent Office
EU The European Union
FAO Food and Agriculture Organization
FDI Foreign Direct Investments
FRAND The Principle of Fair, Reasonable and Non-
Discrimination
FTA Free Trade Agreement
FTAAP Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific
G-77 The Group of 77
GATT General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
GCC Gulf Cooperation Council
GDP Gross Domestic Product
 Abbreviations xxi

GI Geographical Indication
GI Extension Extending Higher-Level Protection to Products
Beyond Wines and Spirits
GI Register A Multilateral System for Notifying and Registering
GIs for Wines and Spirits
GPA The WTO Governmental Procurement Agreement
GVC Global Value Chain
ICT Information Communication Technologies
ID5 Industrial Design 5 (a regulatory framework for indus-
trial designs)
IEC The International Electrotechnical Commission
IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
IP Intellectual Property
IP5 The Five (Largest) Patent Offices
IPC The International Patent Classification
IPO Initial Public Offering
IPR2 EU China Project on the Protection of Intellectual
Property Rights (2007–2011)
IRCC Internationally Recognized Certificate of Compliance
IRPL Implementation Rules of the Patent Law of China
ISO The International Standard Organization
ISP Internet service provider
ITPGRFA International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for
Food and Agriculture
ITU International Telecommunications Union
IUPGR International Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources
IWNComm China IWNCOMM Co., Ltd
JCCT The Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade
between the US and China
JTC (The ISO and The IEC) Joint Technical Committee
KOREU FTA South Korea-EU FTA
KORUS FTA South Korea-US FTA
LAC Legislative Affairs Committee of the National People’s
Congress of China
LAO Legislative Affair Office of the State Council of China
Lisbon Agreement Lisbon Agreement for the Protection of Appellations of
Origin and their International Registration
LMMC Like-Minded Megadiverse Countries
LTE Long-Term Evolution
Madrid Agreement Madrid Agreement Concerning the International
Registration of Marks
Madrid Protocol The Protocol Relating to the Madrid Agreement
Concerning the International Registration of Marks
MEE The Ministry of Ecology and Environment of China
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The space ship, which had extended across the city from Chevy
Chase to Anacostia, moved out over the river, followed by the
relatively tiny bombers. After a time the entire countryside was
shaken by the detonations of the world's heaviest projectiles, but
DuQuesne's cold, clear voice went on:
"The bombers have done their best, but they have not even marred
the outer plating of my ship. I will now show you what I can do if I
should decide to do it. There is an obsolete battleship anchored off
the Cape, which was to have been sunk by naval gunfire. I direct a
force upon it—it is gone; volatilized almost instantly.
"I am now over Sandy Hook. I am not destroying the coast-defense
guns, as I cannot do so without killing men. Therefore I am simply
uprooting them and am depositing them gently upon the mud flats of
the Mississippi River, at St. Louis, Missouri. Now I am sending out a
force to each armed vessel of the United States navy, wheresoever
situated upon the face of the globe.
"At such speed as is compatible with the safety of the personnel, I
am transporting those vessels through the air toward Salt Lake City,
Utah. To-morrow morning every unit of the American navy will float in
Great Salt Lake. If you do not believe that I am doing this, read in
your own newspaper to-morrow that I have done it.

"To-morrow morning," the cold, clear voice went on, "every unit of
the American navy will float in Great Salt Lake."
"To-morrow I shall treat similarly the navies of Great Britain, France,
Italy, Japan, and the other maritime nations. I shall deal then with the
naval bases of the world and with the military forces and their
fortifications.
"I have already taken steps to abate the nuisance of certain widely
known criminals and racketeers who have been conducting, quite
openly and flagrantly, a reign of terror for profit. Seven of those men
have already died, and ten more are to die to-night. Your homes
shall be safe from the kidnaper; your businesses shall be safe from
the extortioner and his skulking aid, the dynamiter.
"In conclusion, I tell you that the often-promised new era is here; not
in words, but in actuality. Good-by until to-morrow."
DuQuesne flashed his projection down into Brookings' office. "Well,
Brookings, that's the start. You understand now what I am going to
do, and you know that I can do it."
"Yes. You undoubtedly have immense power, and you have taken
exactly the right course to give us the support of a great number of
people who would ordinarily be bitterly opposed to anything we do.
But that talk of wiping out gangsters and racketeers sounded funny,
coming from you."
"Why should it? We are now beyond that stage. And, while public
opinion is not absolutely necessary to our success it is always a
potent force. No program of despotism, however benevolent, can
expect to be welcomed unanimously; but the course I have outlined
will at least divide the opposition."
DuQuesne cut off his forces and sat back at the controls, relaxed, his
black eyes staring into infinity. Earth was his, to do with as he
wished; and he would soon have it so armed that he could hold it
against the universe. Master of Earth! His highest ambition had been
attained—or had it? The world, after all, was small—merely a mote
in space. Why not be master of the entire Galaxy? There was
Norlamin to be considered, of course—
Norlamin!
Norlamin would not like the idea and would have to be pacified.
As soon as he got the Earth straightened out he would have to see
what could be done about Norlamin.

X.
"Dick!" Dorothy shrieked, flashing to Seaton's side; and, abandoning
his fruitless speculations, he turned to confront two indescribable, yet
vaguely recognizable, entities who had floated effortlessly into the
control room of the Skylark. Large they were, and black—a dull,
lusterless black—and each was possessed of four huge, bright
lenses which apparently were eyes. "Dick! What are they, anyway?"
"Life, probably; the intelligent, four-dimensional life that Mart fully
expected to find here," Seaton answered. "I'll see if I can't send them
a thought."
Staring directly into those expressionless lenses the man sent out
wave after wave of friendly thought, without result or reaction. He
then turned on the power of the mechanical educator and donned a
headset, extending another toward one of the weird visitors and
indicating as clearly as he could by signs that it was to be placed
back of the outlandish eyes. Nothing happened, however, and
Seaton snatched off the useless phones.
"Might have known they wouldn't work!" he snorted. "Electricity! Too
slow—and those tubes probably won't be hot in less than ten years
of this hypertime, besides. Probably wouldn't have been any good,
anyway—their minds would of course be four-dimensional, and ours
most distinctly are not. There may be some point—or rather, plane—
of contact between their minds and ours, but I doubt it. They don't
act warlike, though; we'll simply watch them a while and see what
they do."
But if, as Seaton had said, the intruders did not seem inimical,
neither were they friendly. If any emotion at all affected them, it was
apparently nothing more nor less than curiosity. They floated about,
gliding here and there, their great eyes now close to this article, now
that; until at last they floated past the arenak wall of the spherical
space ship and disappeared.
Seaton turned quickly to his wife, ready to minister again to
overstrained nerves, but much to his surprise he found Dorothy calm
and intensely interested.
"Funny-looking things, weren't they, Dick?" she asked animatedly.
"They looked just like highly magnified chess knights with four
hands; or like those funny little sea horses they have in the
aquarium, only on a larger scale. Were those propellers they had
instead of tails natural or artificial—could you tell?"
"Huh? What're you talking about? I didn't see any such details as
that!" Seaton exclaimed.
"I couldn't, either, really," Dorothy explained, "until after I found out
how to look at them. I don't know whether my method would appeal
to a strictly scientific mind or not. I can't understand any of this
fourth-dimensional, mathematical stuff of yours and Martin's,
anyway, so when I want to see anything out here I just pretend that
the fourth dimension isn't there at all. I just look at what you call the
three-dimensional surface and it looks all right. When I look at you
that way, for instance, you look like my own Dick, instead of like a
cubist's four-dimensional nightmare."
"You have hit it, Dorothy." Crane had been visualizing four-
dimensional objects as three-dimensional while she was speaking.
"That is probably the only way in which we can really perceive
hyperthings at all."
"It does work, at that!" Seaton exclaimed. "Congratulations, Dot;
you've made a contribution to science—but say, what's coming off
now? We're going somewhere."

For the Skylark, which had been floating freely in space—a motion
which the senses of the wanderers had long since ceased to
interpret as a sensation of falling—had been given an acceleration.
Only a slight acceleration, barely enough to make the floor of the
control room seem "down," but any acceleration at all in such
circumstances was to the scientists cause for grave concern.
"Nongravitational, of course, or we couldn't feel it—it'd affect
everything about the ship alike. What's the answer, Mart, if any?"
Seaton demanded. "Suppose that they've taken hold of us with a
tractor ray and are taking us for a ride?"
"It would appear that way. I wonder if the visiplates are still
practical?" Crane moved over to number one visiplate and turned it
in every direction. Nothing was visible in the abysmal, all-engulfing,
almost palpable darkness of the absolute black outside the hull of
the vessel.
"It wouldn't work, hardly," Seaton commented. "Look at our time here
—we must be 'way beyond light. I doubt if we could see anything,
even if we had a sixth-order projector—which of course we haven't."
"But how about our light inside here, then?" asked Margaret. "The
lamps are burning, and we can see things."
"I don't know, Peg," Seaton replied. "All this stuff is 'way past me.
Maybe it's because the lights are traveling with us—no, that's out.
Probably, as I intimated before, we aren't seeing things at all—just
feeling them, some way or other. That must be it, I think—it's sure
that the light-waves from those lamps are almost perfectly stationary,
as far as we're concerned."
"Oh, there's something!" Dorothy called. She had remained at the
visiplate, staring into the impenetrable darkness. "See, it just flashed
on! We're falling toward ground of some kind. It doesn't look like any
planet I ever saw before, either—it's perfectly endless and it's
perfectly flat."
The others rushed to the plates and saw, instead of the utter
blackness of a moment before, an infinite expanse of level,
uncurving hyperland. Though so distant from it that any planetary
curvature should have been evident, they could perceive no such
curvature. Flat that land was, and sunless, but apparently self-
luminous; glowing with a strong, somewhat hazy, violet light. And
now they could also see the craft which had been towing them. It
was a lozenge-shaped affair, glowing fiercely with the peculiarly livid
"light" of the hyperplanet; and was now apparently exerting its
maximum tractive effort in a vain attempt to hold the prodigious mass
of Skylark Two against the seemingly slight force of gravitation.
"Must be some kind of hyperlight that we're seeing by," Seaton
cogitated. "Must be sixth or seventh-order velocity, at least, or we'd
be—"
"Never mind the light or our seeing things!" Dorothy interrupted. "We
are falling, and we shall probably hit hard. Can't you do something
about it?"
"Afraid not, Kitten." He grinned at her. "But I'll try it—Nope,
everything's dead. No power, no control, no nothing, and there won't
be until we snap back where we belong. But don't worry about a
crash. Even if that ground is solid enough to crash us, and I don't
think it is, everything out here, including gravity, seems to be so
feeble that it won't hurt us any."
Scarcely had he finished speaking when the Skylark struck—or,
rather, floated gently downward into the ground. For, slight as was
the force of gravitation, and partially counteracted as well by the pull
of the towing vessel, the arenak globe did not even pause as it
encountered the apparently solid rock of the planet's surface. That
rock billowed away upon all sides as the Skylark sank into it and
through it, to come to a halt only after her mass had driven a vertical,
smooth-sided well some hundreds of feet in depth.
Even though the Osnomian metal had been rendered much less
dense than normal by its extrusion and expansion into the fourth
dimension, yet it was still so much denser than the unknown material
of the hyperplanet that it sank into that planet's rocky soil as a bullet
sinks into thick jelly.
"Well, that's that!" Seaton declared. "Thinness and tenuosity, as well
as feebleness, seem to be characteristics of this hypermaterial. Now
we'll camp here peacefully for a while. Before they succeed in
digging us out—if they try it, which they probably will—we'll be
gone."

Again, however, the venturesome and impetuous chemist was

wrong. Feeble the hypermen were, and tenuous, but their curiosity
was whetted even sharper than before. Derricks were rigged, and
slings; but even before the task of hoisting the Skylark to the surface
of the planet was begun, two of the peculiar denizens of the
hyperworld were swimming down through the atmosphere of the
four-dimensional well at whose bottom the Earth vessel lay. Past the
arenak wall of the cruiser they dropped, and into the control room
they floated.
"But I do not understand it at all, Dick," Crane had been arguing.
"Postulating the existence of a three-dimensional object in four-
dimensional space, a four-dimensional being could of course enter it
at will, as your fingers entered that tobacco can. But since all objects
here are in fact and of necessity four-dimensional, that condition
alone should bar any such proceeding. Therefore, since you actually
did take the contents out of that can without opening it, and since our
recent visitors actually did enter and leave our vessel at will, I can
only conclude that we must still be essentially three-dimensional in
nature, even though constrained temporarily to occupy four-
dimensional space."
"Say, Mart, that's a thought! You're still the champion ground-and-
lofty thinker of the universe, aren't you? That explains a lot of things
I've been worrying myself black in the face about. I think I can
explain it, too, by analogy. Imagine a two-dimensional man, one
centimeter wide and ten or twelve centimeters long; the typical
flatlander of the classical dimensional explanations. There he is, in a
plane, happy as a clam and perfectly at home. Then some force
takes him by one end and rolls him up into a spiral, or sort of
semisolid cylinder, one centimeter long. He won't know what to make
of it, but in reality he'll be a two-dimensional man occupying three-
dimensional space.
"Now imagine further that we can see him, which of course is a
pretty tall order, but necessary since this is a very rough analogy. We
wouldn't know what to make of him, either, would we? Doesn't that
square up with what we're going through now? We'd think that such
a thing was quite a curiosity and want to find out about it, wouldn't
we? That, I think, explains the whole thing, both our sensations and
the actions of those sea horses—huh! Here they are again.
Welcome to our city, strangers!"
But the intruders made no sign of understanding the message. They
did not, could not, understand.
The human beings, now using Dorothy's happily discovered method
of dimensional reduction, saw that the hypermen did indeed
somewhat resemble overgrown sea horses—the hippocampus of
Earthly zoölogy—but sea horses each equipped with a writhing,
spinning, air-propeller tail and with four long and sinuous arms,
terminating in many dexterous and prehensile fingers.
 Using Dorothy's method of dimensional reduction, Seaton and the
Cranes saw that the hypermen did indeed somewhat resemble
overgrown sea horses.

Each of those hands held a grappling trident; a peculiar, four-

dimensional hyperforceps whose insulated, interlocking teeth were
apparently electrodes—conductors of some hyperequivalent of our
Earthly electricity. With unmoved, expressionless "faces" the two
visitors floated about the control room, while Seaton and Crane sent
out wave after wave of friendly thought and made signs of friendship
in all the various pantomimic languages at their command.
"Look out, Mart, they're coming this way! I don't want to start
anything hostile, but I don't particularly like the looks of those toad-
stabbers of theirs, and if they start any funny business with them
maybe we'd better wring their fishy little necks!"
But there was to be no neck-wringing—then. Slight of strength the
hypermen were, and of but little greater density than the thin air
through which they floated so easily; but they had no need of
physical strength—then.
Four tridents shot out, and in a monstrously obscure fashion reached
past clothing, skin, and ribs; seizing upon and holding firmly, but
painlessly and gently, the vital nervous centers of the human bodies.
Seaton tried to leap to the attack, but even his quickness was of no
avail—even before he moved, a wave of intolerable agony surged
throughout his being, ceasing only and completely when he relaxed,
relinquishing his pugnacious attempt. Shiro, leaping from the galley
with cleaver upraised, was similarly impaled and similarly subdued.
Then a hoisting platform appeared, and Seaton and Margaret were
forced to board it. They had no choice; the first tensing of the
muscles to resist the will of the hyperman was quelled instantly by a
blast of such intolerable torture that no human body could possibly
defy it for even the slightest perceptible instant of time.
"Take it easy, Dot—Mart," Seaton spoke rapidly as the hoist started
upward. "Do whatever they say—no use taking much of that stuff—
until Peg and I get back. We'll get back, too, believe me! They'll have
to take these meat hooks out of us sometime, and when they do
they'll think a cyclone has broken loose."

XI.
Raging but impotent, Seaton stood motionless beside his friend's
wife upon the slowly rising lift; while Crane, Dorothy, and Shiro
remained in the control room of the Skylark. All were helpless,
incapable alike of making a single movement not authorized by their
grotesque captors. Feeble the hypermen were, as has been said; but
at the first tensing of a human muscle in revolt there shot from the
insulated teeth of the grappling hypertrident such a terrific surge of
unbearably poignant torture that any thought of resistance was out of
the question.
Even Seaton—fighter by instinct though he was, and reckless as he
was and desperate at the thought of being separated from his
beloved Dorothy—had been able to endure only three such shocks.
The unimaginable anguish of the third rebuke, a particularly vicious
and long-continued wrenching and wringing of the most delicate
nerve centers of his being, had left him limp and quivering. He was
still furious, still bitterly humiliated. His spirit was willing, but he was
physically unable to drive his fiendishly tortured body to further acts
of rebellion.
Thus it was that the improvised elevator of the hypermen carried two
docile captives as it went past—not through—the spherical arenak
shell of Skylark Two and up the mighty well which the vessel had
driven in its downward plunge. The walls of that pit were glassily
smooth; or, more accurately, were like slag: as though the peculiarly
unsubstantial rock of the hyperplanet had been actually melted by
the force of the cruiser's descent, easy and gradual as the fall had
seemed to the senses of the Terrestrials.
It was apparent also that the hypermen were having difficulty in lifting
the, to them, tremendous weight of the two human bodies. The
platform would go up a few feet, then pause. Up and pause, up and
pause; again and again. But at last they reached the top of the well,
and, wretched as he was, Seaton had to grin when he perceived that
they were being lifted by a derrick, whose overdriven engine,
attended though it was by a veritable corps of mechanics, could lift
them only a few feet at a time. Coughing and snorting, it ran slower
and slower until, released from the load, it burst again into free
motion to build up sufficient momentum to lift them another foot or
so.
And all about the rim of that forty-foot well there were being erected
other machines. Trusses were rising into the air, immense chains
were being forged, and additional motors were being assembled. It
was apparent that the Skylark was to be raised; and it was equally
evident that to the hypermen that raising presented an engineering
problem of no small magnitude.
"She'll be right here when we get back, Peg, as far as those jaspers
are concerned," Seaton informed his companion. "If they have to slip
their clutches to lift the weight of just us two, they'll have one sweet
job getting the old Skylark back up here. They haven't got the
slightest idea of what they're tackling—they can't begin to pile
enough of that kind of machinery in this whole part of the country to
budge her."
"You speak as though you were quite certain of our returning,"
Margaret spoke somberly. "I wish that I could feel that way."
"Sure I'm certain of it," Seaton assured her. "I've got it all figured out.
Nobody can maintain one hundred per cent vigilance forever, and as
soon as I get back into shape from that last twisting they gave me, I'll
be fast enough to take advantage of the break when it comes."
"Yes; but suppose it doesn't come?"
"It's bound to come sometime. The only thing that bothers me is that
I can't even guess at when we're due to snap back into our own
three-dimensional space. Since we couldn't detect any motion in an
ether wave, though, I imagine that we'll have lots of time, relatively
speaking, to get back here before the Skylark leaves. Ah! I wondered
if they were going to make us walk to wherever it is they're taking us,
but I see we ride—there comes something that must be an airship.
Maybe we can make our break now instead of later."
But the hyperman did not relax his vigilance for an instant as the
vast, vague bulk of the flier hovered in the air beside their elevator. A
port opened, a short gangplank shot out, and under the urge of the
punishing trident the two human beings stepped aboard. A silent
flurry ensued among the weird crew of the vessel as its huge volume
sank downward under the unheard-of mass of the two captives, but
no opportunity was afforded for escape—the gripping trident did not
relax, and at last the amazed officers succeeded in driving their
motors sufficiently to lift the prodigious load into the air of the
hyperplanet.
"Take a good, long look around, Peg, so that you can help find our
way back," Seaton directed, and pointed out through the peculiarly
transparent wall of their conveyance. "See those three peaks over
there, the only hills in sight? Our course is about twelve or fifteen
degrees off the line of the right-hand two—and there's something
that looks like a river down below us. The bend there is just about on
line—see anything to mark it by?"
"Well, there's a funny-looking island, kind of heart-shaped, with a
reddish-colored spire of rock—see it?"
"Fine—we ought to be able to recognize that. Bend, heart-island, red
obelisk on what we'll call the upstream end. Now from here, what?
Oh, we're turning—going upstream. Fine business! Now we'll have to
notice when and where we leave this river, lake, or whatever it is."

They did not, however, leave the course of the water. For hundreds
of miles, apparently, it was almost perfectly straight, and for hours
the airship of the hypermen bored through the air only a few hundred
feet above its gleaming surface. Faster and faster the hypership flew
onward, until it became a whistling, yelling projectile, tearing its way
at a terrific but constant velocity through the complaining air.
But while that which was beneath them was apparently the fourth
dimensional counterpart of an Earthly canal, neither water nor
landscape was in any sense familiar. No sun was visible, nor moon,
nor the tiniest twinkling star. Where should be the heavens there was
merely a void of utter, absolute black, appalling in its
uncompromising profundity. Indeed, the Terrestrials would have
thought themselves blind were it not for the forbidding, Luciferean
vegetation which, self-luminous with a ghastly bluish-violet pseudo-
light, extended outward—flat—in every direction to infinity.
"What's the matter with it, Dick?" demanded Margaret, shivering. "It's
horrible, awful, unsettling. Surely anything that is actually seen must
be capable of description? But this—" Her voice died away.
"Ordinarily, three-dimensionally, yes; but this, no," Seaton assured
her. "Remember that our brains and eyes, now really pseudo-fourth-
dimensional, are capable of seeing those things as they actually are;
but that our entities—intelligences—whatever you like—are still
three-dimensional and can neither comprehend nor describe them.
We can grasp them only very roughly by transposing them into our
own three-dimensional concepts, and that is a poor subterfuge that
fails entirely to convey even an approximate idea. As for that horizon
—or lack of it—it simply means that this planet is so big that it looks
flat. Maybe it is flat in the fourth dimension—I don't know!"
Both fell silent, staring at the weird terrain over which they were
being borne at such an insane pace. Along its right line above that
straight watercourse sped the airship, a shrieking arrow; and to the
right of the observers and to left of them spread, as far as the eye
could reach, a flatly unbroken expanse of the ghostly, livid, weirdly
self-luminous vegetation of the unknowable hyperworld. And,
slinking, leaping, or perchance flying between and among the boles
and stalks of the rank forest growth could be glimpsed fleeting
monstrous forms of animal life.
Seaton strained his eyes, trying to see them more clearly; but owing
to the speed of the ship, the rapidity of the animals' movements, the
unsatisfactory illumination, and the extreme difficulty of translating at
all rapidly the incomprehensible four-dimensional forms into their
three-dimensional equivalents, he could not even approximate either
the size or the appearance of the creatures with which he, unarmed
and defenseless, might have to deal.
"Can you make any sense out of those animals down there, Peg?"
Seaton demanded. "See, there's one just jumped out of the river and
seemed to fly into that clump of bamboolike stuff there. Get any
details?"
"No. What with the poor light and everything being so awful and so
distorted, I can hardly see anything at all. Why—what of them?"
"This of 'em. We're coming back this way, and we may have to come
on foot. I'll try to steal a ship, of course, but the chance that we'll be
able to get one—or to run it after we do get it—is mighty slim. But
assuming that we are afoot, the more we know about what we're apt
to go up against the better we'll be able to meet it. Oh, we're slowing
down—been wondering what that thing up ahead of us is. It looks
like a cross between the Pyramid of Cheops and the old castle of
Bingen on the Rhine, but I guess it's a city—it seems to be where
we're headed for."
"Does this water actually flow out from the side of that wall, or am I
seeing things?" the girl asked.
"It seems to—your eyes are all right, I guess. But why shouldn't it?
There's a big archway, you notice—maybe they use it for power or
something, and this is simply an outfall—"
"Oh, we're going in!" Margaret exclaimed, her hand flashing out to
Seaton's arm.
"Looks like it, but they probably know their stuff." He pressed her
hand reassuringly. "Now, Peg, no matter what happens, stick to me
as long as you possibly can!"
As Seaton had noticed, the city toward which they were flying
resembled somewhat an enormous pyramid, whose component units
were themselves mighty buildings, towering one above and behind
the other in crenelated majesty to an awe-inspiring height. In the wall
of the foundation tier of buildings there yawned an enormous
opening, spanned by a noble arch of metaled masonry, and out of
this gloriously arched aqueduct there sprang the stream whose
course the airship had been following so long. Toward that forbidding
opening the hypership planed down, and into it she floated slowly
and carefully.

Much to the surprise of the Terrestrials, however, the great tunnel of

the aqueduct was not dark. Walls and arched ceiling alike glowed
with the livid, bluish-violet ultra-light which they had come to regard
as characteristic of all hyperthings, and through that uncanny glare
the airship stole along. Once inside the tunnel its opening vanished
—imperceptible, indistinguishable from its four-dimensional, black-
and-livid-blue background.
Unending that tunnel stretched before and behind them. Walls and
watery surface alike were smooth, featureless, and so uniformly and
weirdly luminous that the eye could not fix upon any point firmly
enough to determine the rate of motion of the vessel—or even to
determine whether it was moving at all. No motion could be
perceived or felt and the time-sense had long since failed. Seaton
and Margaret may have traveled in that gigantic bore for inches or
for miles of distance; for seconds or for weeks of hypertime; they did
not then and never did know. But with a slight jar the hypership came
to rest at last upon a metallic cradle which had in some fashion
appeared beneath her keel. Doors opened and the being holding the
tridents, who had not moved a muscle during the, to the Terrestrials,
interminable journey, made it plain to them that they were to precede
him out of the airship. They did so, quietly and without protest, utterly
helpless to move save at the behest of their unhuman captor-guide.
Through a maze of corridors and passages the long way led. Each
was featureless and blank, each was lighted by the same eerie,
bluish light, each was paved with a material which, although stone-
hard to the hypermen, yielded springily, as yields a soft peat bog,
under the feet of the massive Terrestrials. Seaton, although now
restored to full vigor, held himself rigorously in check. Far from
resisting the controlling impulses of the trident he sought to
anticipate those commands.
Indeed, recognizing the possibility that the captor might be aware,
through those electrical connections, of his very ideas, he schooled
his outward thoughts to complete and unquestioning submission. Yet
never had his inner brain been more active, and now the immense
mentality given him by the Norlaminians stood him in good stead.
For every doorway, every turn, every angle and intersection of that
maze of communicating passageways was being engraved indelibly
upon his brain, he knew that no matter how long or how involved the
way, he could retain his orientation with respect to the buried river up
which they had sailed.
And, although quiescent enough and submissive enough to all
outward seeming, his inner brain was keyed up to its highest pitch,
eager to drive Seaton's gigantic and instantaneously reacting
muscles into outbursts of berserk fury at the slightest lapse of the
attention of the wielder of the mastering trident.
But there was no such lapse. The intelligence of the hyperman
seemed to be concentrated in the glowing tips of the forceps and did
not waver for an instant, even when an elevator into which he
steered his charges refused to lift the immense weight put upon it.
A silent colloquy ensued, then Seaton and Margaret walked
endlessly up a spiral ramp. Climbed, it seemed, for hours, their feet
sinking to the ankles into the resilient material of the rock-and-metal
floor, while their alert guardian floated effortlessly in the air behind
them, propelled and guided by his swiftly revolving tail.
Eventually the ramp leveled off into a corridor. Straight ahead, two
aisles—branch half right—branch half left—first turn left—third turn
right—second doorway on right. They stopped. The door opened.
They stepped into a large, officelike room, thronged with the peculiar,
sea-horselike hypermen of this four-dimensional civilization.
Everything was indescribable, incomprehensible, but there seemed
to be desks, mechanisms, and tier upon tier of shelf-like receptacles
intended for the storage of they knew not what.
Most evident of all, however, were the huge, goggling, staring eyes
of the creatures as they pressed in, closer and closer to the
helplessly immobile bodies of the man and the woman. Eyes dull,
expressionless, and unmoving to Earthly, three-dimensional
intelligences; but organs of highly intelligible, flashing language, as
well as of keen vision, to their possessors.
Thus it was that the very air of the chamber was full of speech and of
signs, but neither Margaret nor Seaton could see or hear them. In
turn the Earthman tried, with every resource at his command of
voice, thought, and pantomime, to bridge the gap—in vain.
Then strange, many-lensed instruments were trundled into the room
and up to the helpless prisoners. Lenses peered; multicolored rays
probed; planimeters, pantographs, and plotting points traced and
recorded every bodily part; the while the two sets of intelligences,
each to the other so foreign, were at last compelled to acknowledge
frustration. Seaton of course knew what caused the impasse and,
knowing the fundamental incompatibility of the dimensions involved,
had no real hope that communication could be established, even
though he knew the hypermen to be of high intelligence and
attainment.
The natives, however, had no inkling of the possibility of three-
dimensional actualities. Therefore, when it had been made plain to
them that they had no point of contact with their visitors—that the
massive outlanders were and must remain unresponsive to their
every message and signal—they perforce ascribed that lack of
response to a complete lack of intelligence.
The chief of the council, who had been conducting the examination,
released the forces of his mechanisms and directed his flashing
glance upon the eyes of the Terrestrials' guard, ordering him to put
the specimens away.
"—and see to it that they are watched very carefully," the ordering
eye concluded. "The Fellows of Science will be convened and will
study them in greater detail than we have been able to do here."
"Yes, sir; as you have said, so shall it be," the guard acknowledged,
and by means of the trident he guided his captives through a high-
arched exit and into another labyrinth of corridors.
Seaton laughed aloud as he tucked Margaret's hand under his arm
and marched along under the urge of the admonishing trident.
"'Nobody 'ome—they ain't got no sense,' says his royal nibs. 'Tyke
'em awye!'" he exclaimed.
"Why so happy all of a sudden, Dick? I can't see very much change
in our status."