assistant-professorship, to continue with certain of his studies.
I can never understand why he confided in me as he would in no one else, unless it was because I listened to his theories with true seriousness. I was fascinated by certain of his lines of thought. Nevertheless, I cannot but admit that he sounded rather wild at times.
“Here we are,” he would say, vibrantly, “tiny motes upon the surface of the planet Vhoorl, deep in the twenty-third nebula. The great scientists have told us that much as to our present locality. But what of our destination — the ultimate? Here we have our spinning planet, our revolving system, our drifting nebula — but one among millions that go to make what we call the universe-a universe we should say, for it is only a particle, rushing onward with other particles — whither? and to what destiny? and for what purpose?… For whose purpose, perhaps we should say.
“And are we never to know; must we remain ever chained to this miserable little planet? I think not, Tlaviir. Man in a million years may master the stars. But that will not come in my time; and I cannot wait; and besides, my greed is greater than mere mastery of stars. Look, Tlaviir: suppose that one could discover a way to project himself out, not among the stars, but beyond — outside of the cosmic globe of stars! To attain a point entirely outside… from there to watch the working of the cosmic dust in the fluid of time. Why, there is no time, after all, is there? — must not space and time be one and the same thing, co-existent and correlative, one to the other? Do you not see? And to project one’s self quite outside of it — would not that be the realization of our vaunted immortality? And rest assured, there is a way.”
I could not quite digest this fantastic bit of reasoning, but did not deny the possible truth of his theories. There were several old books to which he often made reference, and I think it was these books which caused his theorizing at times to take a somewhat tangential trend:
“What of those superstitions, Tlaviir, that have come down to us from the ancients who inhabited Vhoorl eons ago? And why must we say superstitions and myths? Why must man scoff at that which he cannot understand? It is only logical that these superstitions and myths had a definite reason for being: my perusal of certain ancient manuscripts has convinced me of that. Who knows? — perhaps probing fingers from outside reached in and touched Vhoorl ages ago, thus giving rise to those tales that we know very well could not have had birth in mere imagination. That, Tlaviir, is why I sometimes think I may be wrong in seeking the way outside; perhaps it were best for man not to try: he might learn things that it is best not to know.”
But these latter reflections of his came only seldom. More often
he would show me sheafs of paper covered with calculations, and others filled with geometrical drawings, infinite angles and curves such as I had never before seen, some of which seemed so diabolically distorted as to leap from the paper out at me! When he would try to explain his calculus I was never quite able to follow his reasoning beyond a certain point, although his explanation plus his enthusiasm made it all seem quite logical.
So far as I was able to grasp it, there exists an almost infinite number of space-dimensions, some of which impinge on our own and might be used as catapults if one could but penetrate the invisible and tenuous boundary between our space and these hyperspaces. I had never given much credence to any dimensions beyond our familiar three, but Kathulhn seemed very certain.
“There must be a way, Tlaviir. I have ascertained that beyond doubt. And I am sure now that I am working toward the correct solution. I shall find it before long.”
Aye, he found it. He found it indeed, and went further than any mortal has ever gone or will ever go again. He could not have known….
It was but shortly after my last conversation with him that he disappeared, without trace or reason: was given up as dead, and even I, to whom he had confided all his hopes, did not suspect that I was ever to see him again. But I did.
It was twenty long years later when Kathulhn returned as suddenly as he had gone; came direct to me. The marvel of it is that he looked not a day older than when I had last seen him, those twenty long years ago! But the years had lain heavily on me, and Kathulhn seemed shocked at the change.
He told me his story.
“I succeeded, Tlaviir. I knew I was on the right track with my calculus, but it might have gone for nought had I not interpreted a certain passage from one of those ancient books; it was a sort of incantation, the very essence of evil, which opened the door when spoken in correlation with my dimension calculus. The purport of this incantation I cannot tell you now, but it should have warned me that the thing I was doing was for no good. Nevertheless, I dared; I had already gone too far to turn back.
“I carried the thing through, feeling a little foolish perhaps, only hoping, but not knowing, that this was the combination I had so long sought for. For a moment it seemed that nothing had happened, and yet I was aware of a change. Something had happened to my vision; things were blurred, but were rapidly emerging into a clear grotes- querie of impossible angles and planes.
“But before this vision could become quite definite, I was jerked outward, Tlaviir; out beyond the curvature of space, out into the space beyond space where even light turns back upon itself because of the non-existence of time! All things ceased: sight and sound, time and dimension and comparison. There was left to me only an awareness, but an awareness infinitely more acute than our mere physical one. I–I was Mind!
“As to Them — now I know, Tlaviir, and it is even as I feared. They are not to be imagined as Beings, or Things, or anything familiar to us — no word is adequate. They are forces of pure Evil, the source of all the evil that ever was, and is, and will be! Sometimes They reach in. There is a purpose.”
Kathulhn’s hand brushed his forehead.
“There is much — so very much, Tlaviir. All is not as clear as it was. But I am beginning to remember! I am beginning… I think those entities of Evil were amused, Tlaviir — with a kind of amusement I cannot now understand. Amused, perhaps, that I should have managed to come out there among Them. Assuredly no mere being had ever done that before. I realize now that had They wished, They could have uttered a word that would have blasted and annihilated me. Had They wished! Instead, They kept me among Them. There was something — something about Their amusement.
“Do you remember a certain conversation of long ago, Tlaviir, wherein I said that our universe was but a particle among other particles, rushing away somewhere, on to some destiny, for some — purpose?
Do you remember also that I said perhaps it was best that man should not know — certain things?
“I have learned many things, Tlaviir, things that I now wish I did not know. Monstrous things. Whence the Cosmos came… and why… and its ultimate destiny — not a pleasant one. Most horrible of all is that I am beginning to remember… rites… performed by those Evil Ones… rites involving the Cosmos in a most diabolic way….
“I could not even wonder at my presence out There. All was Mind and Mind was all. It would seem that I was large among Them — willfully one of Them — assisting in certain of those colossal rites — partaking of Their evil joy. But at one and the same time, by some unexplainable and inconceivable ultracircumstance, it seemed that I was aloof and insignificant, a spectator of only some small part of the whole. It seemed that I mingled there among Them for countless millenniums, but again it seemed but the smallest fraction of what we call ‘time.’
“But now — now I know that They merely toyed with me awhile, as a child toys with and then tires of a new plaything. They thrust me back, Tlaviir, and here I am upon Vhoorl again. At first I thought I had awakened from a very bad dream, but it didn’t take me long to discover that Vhoorl had traveled twenty years upon its destined path during those many millenniums, or those few seconds, that I was in that timeless place!”
“And you will go back again?” I asked eagerly, for by his very sincerity I believed his story.
“I cannot, even if I would, nor can any mortal again. They have closed the route now for all time, and it is well so.
“To Them, as I have said, I was but a moment’s amusement, but not too insignificant, for all that — because They gave me warning! They thrust me back, and this was the warning: if ever I made known to another mortal the slightest of the secrets I had learned, or mentioned any part or purpose of the awful rites I had seen enacted, my soul would be shattered into a million fragments and these tortured fragments scattered shrieking throughout the entire Cosmos! That is why, Tlaviir, I dare not tell you more than I have. More and more memory floods in upon me, but I dare not speak of things.
“Because — I know that They can reach in!”
From that day neither Kathulhn nor I again mentioned his sojourn “outside.” For a long time I could not forget the things he had hinted at, but how terrible must have been that which he did not — dared not — tell!
Several years passed, and the whole thing became more or less a myth in my mind. But not so with Kathulhn,
