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Polaris, v. 1, issue 4, September 1940
Page 9
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POLARIS 9 Suddenly I knew that I did not want to look at the picture again; I wanted to destroy it. I wanted to run from it. Theunis was suggesting something beyond. . . . A trembling, cosmic fear gripped me and drew me away from the hideous picture, for I was afraid I would recognize some object in it. . . . I glanced at my friend. He was poring over the ancient book, a strange expression on his face. He sat up straight. "Let's call the thing off for today. I'm tired of this endless guessing and wondering. I must get the loan of the gem from the museum where it is, and do what is to be done." "As you say," I replied. "Will you have to go to Croydon?" He nodded. "Then we'll both go home," I said decisively. III I need not chronicle the events of the fortnight that followed. With me they formed a constant and enemating struggle between a mad longing to return to the cryptic tree of dreams and freedom, and a frenzied dread of that selfsame thing and all connected with it. That I did not return is perhaps less a matter of my own will than a matter of pure chance. Meanwhile I knew that Theunis was desperately active in some investigation of the strangest nature---something which included a mysterious motor trip and a return under circumstances of the greatest secrecy. By hints over the telephone I was made to understand that he had somewhere borrowed the obscure and primal object mentioned in the ancient volume as "The Gem," and that he was busy devising a means of applying it to the photographs I had left with him. He spoke fragmentarily of "refraction," "polarization," and "unknown angles of space and time," and indicated that he was building a kind of box or camera obscura for the study of the curious snapshots with the gem's aid. It was on the sixteenth day that I received the startling message from the hospital in Croydon. Theunis was there, and wanted to see me at once. He had suffered some odd sort of seizure; being found prone and unconscious by friends who found their way into his house after hearing certain cries of mortal agony and fear. Though still weak and helpless, he had now regained his senses and seemed frantic to tell me something and have me perform certain important duties. This much the hospital informed me over the wire; and within half an hour I was at my friend's bedside, marvelling at the inroads which worry and tension had made on his features in so brief a time. His first act was to move away the nurses in order to speak in utter confidence. "Single---I saw it!" His voice was strained and husky. "You must destroy them all---those pictures. I sent it back by seeing it, but the pictures had better go. That tree will never be seen on the hill again---at least, I hope not---till thousands of eons bring back the Year of The Black Goat. You are safe now---mankind is safe." He paused, breathing heavily, and continued. "Take the Gem out of the apparatus and put it in the safe--- you know the combination. It must go back where it came from, for there's a time when it may be needed to save the world. They won't let me leave it here yet, but I can rest if I know it's safe. Don't look through the box as it is---it would fix you as it's fixed me.
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POLARIS 9 Suddenly I knew that I did not want to look at the picture again; I wanted to destroy it. I wanted to run from it. Theunis was suggesting something beyond. . . . A trembling, cosmic fear gripped me and drew me away from the hideous picture, for I was afraid I would recognize some object in it. . . . I glanced at my friend. He was poring over the ancient book, a strange expression on his face. He sat up straight. "Let's call the thing off for today. I'm tired of this endless guessing and wondering. I must get the loan of the gem from the museum where it is, and do what is to be done." "As you say," I replied. "Will you have to go to Croydon?" He nodded. "Then we'll both go home," I said decisively. III I need not chronicle the events of the fortnight that followed. With me they formed a constant and enemating struggle between a mad longing to return to the cryptic tree of dreams and freedom, and a frenzied dread of that selfsame thing and all connected with it. That I did not return is perhaps less a matter of my own will than a matter of pure chance. Meanwhile I knew that Theunis was desperately active in some investigation of the strangest nature---something which included a mysterious motor trip and a return under circumstances of the greatest secrecy. By hints over the telephone I was made to understand that he had somewhere borrowed the obscure and primal object mentioned in the ancient volume as "The Gem," and that he was busy devising a means of applying it to the photographs I had left with him. He spoke fragmentarily of "refraction," "polarization," and "unknown angles of space and time," and indicated that he was building a kind of box or camera obscura for the study of the curious snapshots with the gem's aid. It was on the sixteenth day that I received the startling message from the hospital in Croydon. Theunis was there, and wanted to see me at once. He had suffered some odd sort of seizure; being found prone and unconscious by friends who found their way into his house after hearing certain cries of mortal agony and fear. Though still weak and helpless, he had now regained his senses and seemed frantic to tell me something and have me perform certain important duties. This much the hospital informed me over the wire; and within half an hour I was at my friend's bedside, marvelling at the inroads which worry and tension had made on his features in so brief a time. His first act was to move away the nurses in order to speak in utter confidence. "Single---I saw it!" His voice was strained and husky. "You must destroy them all---those pictures. I sent it back by seeing it, but the pictures had better go. That tree will never be seen on the hill again---at least, I hope not---till thousands of eons bring back the Year of The Black Goat. You are safe now---mankind is safe." He paused, breathing heavily, and continued. "Take the Gem out of the apparatus and put it in the safe--- you know the combination. It must go back where it came from, for there's a time when it may be needed to save the world. They won't let me leave it here yet, but I can rest if I know it's safe. Don't look through the box as it is---it would fix you as it's fixed me.
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