workshop, bore little resemblance to the original model.
On my part, I delved more deeply into my study of dreams, relentlessly pursuing my theory of consciousness units. My progress necessarily was slower than that of my friend as I was dealing almost entirely with the abstruse although I tried to make it as practical as possible, while Scott had a more practical and material basis for his investigations.
Of course, we soon decided to make the attempt to actually transfer our bodies into the laboratory of my dreams. That is, we proposed to transform all the electrons, all the elements of our bodies, into consciousness units through the use of the time-power. A more daring scheme possibly had never been conceived by man.
In an attempt to impress upon my friend's mind a picture of the laboratory, I drew diagrams and pictures, visiting the laboratory many times, with the aid of the time-power, to gather more detailed data on the place.
It was not until I used hypnotism that I could finally transfer to Scott's mind a true picture of that massive room with its outre scientific equipment.
It was a day of high triumph when Scott, placed under the influence of the time-power, awoke to tell me of the place I had visited so often. It was not until then that we could be absolutely sure we had accomplished the first, and perhaps most difficult, step in our great experiment.
I plunged into a mad study of the psychology of the Oriental ascetic, who of all people was the furthest advanced in the matter of concentration, the science of willpower, and the ability to subjugate the body to the mind.
Although my studies left much to be desired, they nevertheless pointed the way for us to consciously aid the time-power element in reducing our corporeal beings to the state of consciousness units necessary for our actual transportation to the huge laboratory with which we had both grown so familiar.
There were other places than the dream-laboratory, of course. Both of us, in our half-life imparted by the time-power, visited other strange places, the location of which in time and space we could not determine. We looked upon sights which would have blasted our mortal sanity had we gazed upon them in full consciousness. There were times when we awoke with blanched faces and told each other in ghastly, fear-ridden whispers of the horrors that dwelled in some unprobed dimension of the unplumbed depth of the cosmos. We stared at shambling, slithering things which we recognized as the descendants of entities, or perhaps the very entities, which were related in manuscripts written by ancient men versed in the blackest of sorcery — and still remembered in the hag- ridden tales of people in the hinterlands.
But it was upon the mysterious laboratory that we centered all our efforts. It had been our first real glimpse into the vast vista to which we had raised the veil and to it we remained true, regarding those other places as mere side excursions into the recondite world we had discovered.
IN THE CREATOR'S LABORATORY
At last the day arrived when we were satisfied we had advanced sufficiently far in our investigations and had perfected our technique to a point where we might safely attempt an actual excursion into the familiar, yet unknown, realm of the dream-laboratory.
The completed and improved time-power machine squatted before us like a hideous relic out of the forgotten days of an earlier age, its weird voice filling the entire house, rising and falling, half the time a scream, half the time a deep murmur. Its polished sides glistened evilly and the mirrors set about it, at inconceivable angles in their relation to each other, caught the glare from the row of step-up tubes across the top, reflecting the light to bathe the entire creation in an unholy glow.
We stood before it, our hair tinged with gray, our faces marked by lines of premature age. We were young men grown old in the service of our ambition and vast curiosity.
After ten years we had created a thing that I now realize might have killed us both. But at that time we were superbly confident. Ten years of molding metal and glass, harnessing and taming strange powers! Ten years of molding brains, of concentrating and stepping up the sensitivity and strength of our consciousness until, day and night, there lurked in the back of our brains an image of that mysterious laboratory. As our consciousness direction had been gradually narrowed, the laboratory had become almost a second life to us.
Scott pressed a stud on the side of the machine and a door swung outward, revealing an interior compartment which yawned like a black maw. In that maw was no hint of the raw power and surging strength revealed by the exterior. Yet, to the uninitiate, it would have held a horrible threat of its own.
Scott stepped through the door into the pitch-black interior; gently he lowered himself into the reclining seat, reaching out to place his hands on the power controls.
I slid in beside him and closed the door. As the last ray of light was shut out, absolute blackness enveloped us. We fitted power helmets on our heads. Terrific energy poured through us, beating through our bodies, seeming to tear us to pieces.
My friend stretched forth a groping hand. Fumbling in the darkness, I found it. Our hands closed in a fierce grip, the handshake of men about to venture into the unknown.
I fought for control of my thoughts, centered them savagely upon the laboratory, recalling, with a supereffort, every detail of its interior. Then Scott must have shoved the power control full over. My body was pain-racked, then seemed to sway with giddiness. I forgot my body. The laboratory seemed nearer; it seemed to flash up at me. I was falling toward it, falling rapidly. I was a detached thought speeding along a directional line, falling straight into the laboratory… and I was very ill.
My fall was suddenly broken, without jar or impact.
I was standing in the laboratory. I could feel the cold of the floor beneath my feet.
I glanced sidewise and there stood Scott Marston and my friend was stark naked. Of course, we would be naked. Our clothing would not be transported through the time-power machine.
'It didn't kill us,' remarked Scott.
'Not even a scratch,' I asserted.
We faced each other and shook hands, solemnly, for again we had triumphed and that handshake was a self- imposed congratulation.
We turned back to the room before us. It was a colorful place. Varicolored liquids reposed in gleaming containers. The furniture, queerly carved and constructed along lines alien to any earthly standard, seemed to be of highly polished, iridescent wood. Through the windows poured a brilliant blue daylight. Great globes suspended from the ceiling further illuminated the building with a soft white glow.
A cone of light, a creamy white faintly tinged with pink, floated through an arched doorway and entered the room. We stared at it. It seemed to be light, yet was it light? It was not transparent and although it gave one the impression of intense brilliance, its color was so soft that it did not hurt one's eyes to look at it.
The cone, about ten feet in height, rested on its smaller end and advanced rapidly toward us. Its approach was silent. There was not even the remotest suggestion of sound in the entire room. It came to a rest a short distance in front of us and I had an uncanny sense that the thing was busily observing us.
'Who are you?'
The Voice seemed to fill the room, yet there was no one there but Scott and me, and neither of us had spoken. We looked at one another in astonishment and then shifted our gaze to the cone of light, motionless, resting quietly before us.
'I am speaking,' said the Voice and instantly each of us knew that the strange cone before us had voiced the words.
'I am not speaking,' went on the Voice. That was a misstatement. I am thinking. You hear my thoughts. I can as easily hear yours.'
Telepathy,' I suggested.
'Your term is a strange one,' replied the Voice, 'but the mental image the term calls up tells me that you faintly understand the principle.
T perceive from your thoughts that you are from a place which you call the Earth. I know where the Earth is located. I understand you are puzzled and discomfited by my appearance, my powers, and my general disresemblance to anything you have ever encountered. Do not be alarmed. I welcome you here. I understand you
