transmission might give him an idea of the direction of the mines. Perhaps the crustaceans were able to transmit mental images, for some of the legends about their outposts on Earth spoke of their using long-range hypnosis. If the discs worked on a variant of this principle, the power ought not to harm him, for since passing through the barrier he should have the metabolism of a crustacean. At any rate, he had three batteries left for his torch, and could afford to waste a little time, for he could protect himself with the feared name if any of the citizens came upon him.
He sank into the plastic of one of the deep-blue seats. He leaned back in it, placing the torch on the ground beside one of the batteries which had fallen out of a pocket. He sat up a little in the chair, and his head came between the metal discs. A deafening whine came from these, and before he could move a bright orange spark flashed from one disc to the other, passing through his brain.
Taylor leaped up, and the orange ray faded. A metallic odor came from his left pocket, where he had placed the other two batteries. He slid in his hand, and withdrew it covered with a dull- grey fluid which was plainly all that remained of the batteries. The torch and one battery, which had not been in contact with his body, still stood nearby, and the bulb was still lit. But in spite of what the ray had done to the batteries, he was untouched; and he wanted very much to return to the chair, so that he turned off the torch to conserve the battery and sat back on the plastic. For that ray had the property of forming images in the mind; and in that moment between the discs Taylor had seen fleetingly a strange vision of a metal-grilled gateway, rusted and standing alone in the middle of a desert, lit by a setting green moon. What it had been he did not know, but it had an air of distinct and unknowable purpose.
The ray began to pass even before he came between the discs, and an image formed, only to fade and be replaced by another. A series of unconnected visions paraded and blurred the surrounding darkness. A snakelike being flew across a coppery sky, its head and tail hanging limply down from its midsection, where a single bat- wing rotated. Great cobwebbed objects rolled from noisome caverns in the center of a phosphorescent morass, their mouths opening wetly as they hastened toward where a figure screamed and struggled in the mud. A range of mountains, their peaks ice-covered, reached almost to the sky; and as he watched, a whole line of peaks exploded upward and a leprously white, faceless head rose into view.
Rather disturbed, Taylor thought defensively, 'What a waste of time!” and began to stand up.
Immediately on the word 'waste,” a new picture formed. A close-up of one of the crustaceans appeared, and what it was doing was nauseatingly obvious, even with its unaccustomed shape. What was unusual was that it was performing this act in the garden of one of the towers, by a specimen of the ever-present fungus. When the crustacean had finished, it stood up and moved away, while Taylor received a close view of what it had left behind. As he watched in horrified fascination, the leaves of the nearby fungus bent and covered the offal; and when it rose from this position, the ground was bare at that spot. He now saw the purpose 0f the lines of fungi.
More important, however, he realized that he had just discovered the method of referring to the knowledge stored in this library. He must think of some key word — that was how 'waste” had evoked such an unfortunate vision. Now, swallowing his nausea, Taylor thought: 'mines connected with this city.”
The vista which now appeared to him was an aerial view of the city. It was totally lightless, but in some way he sensed the outlines of the buildings. Then the point of view descended until he was looking down from directly above the library; and it gave him an odd vertigo to see, in the seat from which he was viewing, a figure seated. Whatever was transmitting the images began to move along the street bordering the library, traversed a straight toad directly to a widening of the road, and showed him the mitie-pit a few yards further on.
The transmitter, however, now seemed to be working independent of his will. Now it tracked back six hundred yards or so up the road, to a junction with a wider street at the right. Taylor realized that something important was to follow. It moved up the branching street, and he saw that the buildings ended a few yards further on; from there a rougher path stretched to the edge of a pit, much larger than the first. The transmitter moved forward, stopping at the edge of the buildings. He willed it to go closer, but it remained in that position. When he persisted, a loud noise made him start; it was only part of the transmission — not like a voice, it resembled glass surfaces vibrating together, but forming definite patterns. Perhaps it was a voice, but its message was meaningless — what did
BafHed, he rose. He had been unable to glean any further information from the discs. The larger pit was further, but it would contain more mineral; and the buildings did not crowd so close to it, hence the danger of interruption was less likely. He decided to head for it.
When he reached the junction, he hesitated briefly, then remembering the squat black towers which had encircled the nearer mine, he turned off to the right. His shoes clanked on the black pavement and crunched on the rocks of the continuing path. The beam of the torch trembled on the crumbling rim, and then he stood on the edge of the pit. He looked down.
At first he saw nothing. Dust-motes rising from below tinted the beam a translucent green, but it showed nothing except a wavering disc of black rock on the opposite wall. The disc grew and dimmed as it descended, but dim as it was it finally outlined the ledge outcropping from the rock, and what stood upon it.
There is nothing horrible about a group of tall deserted pyramids, even when those pyramids are constructed of a pale green material which glitters and seems to move in the half-light. Something else caused Taylor to stare in fascination; the way the emerald cones were drinking in the light from his torch, while the bulb dimmed visibly. He peered downward, awaiting something which he felt must come.
The torch-bulb flickered and went out, leaving him in total darkness.
In the blackness he unscrewed the end of the torch and let the dead battery clatter far down the rock surface. Drawing the last battery from his pocket, he fumbled blindly with the pieces of metal, squinting into the darkness, and saw the torch in his hands. It was faintly limned by the glow from beneath, growing clearer as he watched. He could see the distant side of the pit now, and, noting the grating metallic sound which had begun below him, he looked down into the green light.
Something was climbing toward him up the rock face; something which slithered up from the rock ledge, glowing greenly. It was vast and covered with green surfaces which ground together, but it had a shape — and that was what made Taylor flee from the miles-deep pit, clattering down the ebon pavements, not switching on the torch until he collided with a black spire beyond the widening radius of the green light, not stopping until he reached the frustum-shaped building he remembered and the tower near it. He threw himself up the outer steps recklessly, crawled on all fours and swung from the catwalks, and reached the last roof.
He glanced across the tower roofs once, then heaved open the trapdoor and plunged down the unlit steps, through the searing barrier across the passage and clattered down into the blinding daylight, half-fell down the Devil’s Steps and reached the car. Somewhere what he had glimpsed at the last was still moving — that green- radiating shape which heaved and pulsed above the steeples, toppling them and putting forth glowing arms to engulf fleeing dwarved forms…
When passers-by telephoned the Brichester police after hearing unusual sounds from a house on South Abbey Avenue, few of the documents in that house had not been destroyed by Taylor. The police called in the Mercy Hill doctors, who could only take him to the hospital. He became violent when they refused to explore the Devil’s Steps, but when they tried to reassure him with promises of exploration he protested so demonstratively that he was removed to the Camside Home for the Mentally Disturbed. There he could only lie repeating feverishly:
'You fools, why don’t you stop them going up the Steps? They’ll be dragged into space — lungs burst — blue faces… And suppose
Edward Taylor’s case yet stirs controversy among doctors, and is a subject for exaggerated speculation in Sunday newspaper features. Of course the writers of the latter do not know all the facts; if they did their tone would certainly be different, but the doctors felt it unwise to reveal all that had happened to Taylor.
That is why the X-ray photographs taken of Taylor’s body are carefully restricted to a hospital file. At first glance they would seem normal, and the layman might not notice any abnormality even upon close examination. It takes a doctor to see that the lungs, although they function perfectly, do not resemble in any respect the lungs of a
