to my own world, as such things sometimes do in stories. When life is gone, it is gone, whether in one dimension or another. I would be just as dead in the z dimension as in the t dimension.
"Now, Einstein, or never?" I thought. "Come to my aid, O Riemann! O Lobatchewsky! If anything will save me it will have to be a tensor or a geodesic."
I said it to myself rather ironically. Relativity had brought me here. Could it get me out of this?
Well! Why not?
If the form of a natural law, yea, if a natural object varies with the observer who expresses it, might not the truth and the meaning of the gostak slogan also be a matter of relativity? It was like making the moon ride the tree tops again. If I could be a better relativist, and put myself in these people's place, perhaps I could understand the gostak. Perhaps I would even be willing to fight for him or it.
The idea struck me suddenly. I must have straightened up and some bright change must have passed over my features, for the guards who led me looked at me curiously and took a firmer grip on me. We had just descended the steps of the building and had started down the walk.
Making the moon ride the tree tops! That was what I needed now. And that sounded as silly to me as the gostak. And the gostak did not seem so silly. I drew a deep breath and felt very much encouraged. The viewpoint of relativity was somehow coming back to me. Necessity manages much. I could understand how one might fight for the idea of a gostak distimming the doshes. I felt almost like telling these men. Relativity is a wonderful thing. They led me up the slope, between the rows of poplars.
Then it all suddenly popped into my head; how I had gotten here by changing my coordinates, insisting to myself that I was going upwards. Just like making the moon stop and making the trees ride, when you are out riding at night. Now I was going upwards. In my own world, in the z dimension, this same poplar was down the slope.
"It's downwards!" I insisted to myself. I shut my eyes, and imagined the building behind and above me. With my eyes shut, it did seem downwards. I walked for a long time before opening them. Then I opened them and looked around.
I was at the end of the avenue of poplars. I was surprised. The avenue seemed short. Somehow it had become shortened; I had not expected to reach the end so soon. And where were the guards in olive uniform? There were none.
I turned around and looked back. The slope extended on backwards above me. Indeed I had walked downwards. There we no guards, and the fresh, new building was on the hill behind me.
Woleshensky stood on the steps.
"Now what do you think of a t dimension," he called out to me.
Woleshensky!
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