thousandth part of the complexities involved. But that there are horrors beyond human bearing is an irrefutable fact. Did I not myself see with my own eyes?
Those ponderous, monadelphous forms undulating hideously in the baleful light from the Great White Space. And my former colleagues, even Zalor, smiling devilish smiles of welcome. So that I broke and fled screaming from those blasphemous abodes of hell. Who would not have followed my example?
For there, ingested in some vile and unfathomable manner were my friends Holden, Prescott and Van Damm, ALIVE AND PART OF THE SLUG-CREATURES THEMSELVES! Small wonder my sanity tottered. And as if in answer to Zalor's greeting the great Clark Ashton Scarsdale had bowed and turned his head. And from his features had fallen A WAXEN MASK REVEALING UNKNOWABLE BLASPHEMIES BENEATH!
As God is my witness I swear this is the truth. I had not realised their essence had been removed for a purpose. But what made the doctors fear for my sanity was the supposition at the back of my mind which almost overturned my reason. For the question has been with me since then and is even more persistent of late. The waxen mask was so plausible in its perfection, so brilliant in its personification of Professor Clark Ashton Scarsdale, that it brings other possibilities to mind.
Possibilities that haunt me in the dark hours and nibble at the edges of my reason. At what stage did Scarsdale become transformed? Or was he, long before the Great Northern Expedition began, already ONE OF THEM?
