Ray Cummings

“ I understand you have a void of Space. Must it not be filled with something besides these Thought-entities? Some all-pervading, impalpable fluid?"
"We do not know," said Thone frankly. "There are emanations from our immobile organisms. Thus we breathe and eat—the substance of our bodies is renewed—but of that I shall tell you more at another time. You were saying—"
Will went on: "This realm then is filled with your material bodies. This globe we are in—the globes that make your city—the Ego which is you—and myself—other Egos like us—What holds us where we are?" ”

“ I remember now that my first thought was surprise that I should be able to visualize things of strangeness. But now I know that once over the Borderland my mind itself had changed, yet retaining of its old self just enough, so that I might be conscious of the strangeness. In a grey half-light of luminosity seemingly inherent to everything, I found myself standing upon a hillside, gazing down an empty slope of greyness. Was it land? I can only say that it seemed solid beneath me; solid, quivering with a tiny tremble; vibrating, and within itself vaguely luminous. ”

“ Thone answered very slowly. "A mind Omniscient. Have you not spoken of your own belief in such a mind? We call it our Creator-Mind—as quite literally it is."
Will said, "Of itself; that is not concrete to me who am in a measure of scientific reasoning."
Thone said warmly, "That is where you of your Earth—as you call it—are wholly mistaken. And indeed, I begin to see where there is not so much difference between your world and mine as we suppose. Let us assume we have the same Creator, his thought to bring us and all that we call our Universe into being." ”

“ Science has given me the power to do what I'm planning, but we won't discuss that now. Call this anything you like. What I want you to know is—there is another realm about us into which—under given conditions—our consciousness can penetrate. Call it the Unknown. The realm of Unthought Things. A material world? I've shown you, Rob, that nothing is substance if you go to the inside of it."
Dimly I was groping at a hundred will-o'-the-wisps, my mind trembling upon the verge of his meaning, my imagination winging into distant caverns of unthought things that hid in the elusive dark. ”

“ This Borderland, full of these shadows of our other world, yet seemed empty. Nothing of its own reality was visible. In every direction I could look into seemingly infinite distance; and overhead was a vast darkness—the emptiness of infinite space. Was nothing here with us in this Borderland? Those other spectres—those beings coming out from their world as we were coming in from ours?...
A thrill of quite normal excitement swept me at the thought. We had come in to encounter those spectres. And now they would be spectres no longer. Ponderable beings upon an equality with ourselves ”

“ Again in the void.... The power of woman's mentality—the nameless power; illogical, against all reason, all science; not to be explained.... But it was leading them.... A rush through the darkness of vague, unreasoning woman's thought; a distance, a time felt, but unmeasurable; a direction not to be fathomed.... And then, ahead of them as in a clinging group they followed Ala, the glow of a poised realm became visible. They neared it; hovered in the void regarding it. And knew and saw that it was Brutar's realm—that great, tenuous globe hanging there like a gigantic bubble. ”

“ The knowledge of sound, not the sound itself. And an exhilaration was coming to me. A sense of lightness. My body growing lighter, less ponderable. But it was far more than that. An exhilaration of spirit, as though from me shackles of which I was newly conscious, were melting away. A lightness of being. A freedom.... A new sense of freedom, frightening with the vague wild triumph it brought.... Frightening too, for in the background of my mind was the realization that all my physical perceptions were dulling. My elbow was resting sharp against the rough mattress. ”

“ Thone replied gravely. "To our material existence, our consciousness, it is a finite area, yet within it some of us may go further than others. A mind unhinged takes its body very far—or so we believe—and yet sometimes returns safely. A mind departed from its physical shell which it then leaves behind—is gone forever. Yet that too, is illogical, for traversing a curved path such as ours—however slight may be the curve—one must eventually return. And out of this we have built a theory that such a mind—or as we call it, an Ego—untrammeled—will return sometime to take a new body. ”

“ Thone said gravely, "Watch it, Will. The Thought is gone from it. Our own thought-matter is all that is left. You shall see of what permanence that is."
The dead shell lay inert. It was dissolving.... Grewsome.... Will turned away; then forced his vision back to see a leprous wraith—a rotting shape which presently, like a melting fog, began to dissipate. Dissolving, until the very last essence of it was gone into nothingness.
Ala seemed to sigh. "It is very horrible. Yet I think that we are wrong to consider it so, for it is Nature." ”

“ Was it my fancy that Brutar's shape was of changing aspect?
And then I was aware of an uneasiness growing in the mob huddled there in the midst of the fighting. A stirring. A ripple of movement. Spreading like the ripples of a pebble thrown into a pond; spreading until abruptly the mob was surging, struggling to break the bonds of its own protecting ring of fighters.
The fighters felt the press of the throng behind them. Their efforts wavered. With diverted minds their thought-stream weakened. ”

“ They seemed more like grey, ghostly bricks, each man carrying one.
What were they? I could no more than guess. Some material, doubtless of Brutar's creation, brought into this Borderland state. Would these ghosts, each with a simple brick like these—would they dare to materialize—dare to enter our Earth-state upon an equality of being with the armed, massed troops awaiting them? It seemed incredible. Two hundred ghosts marching in spectral array beneath the city, with soldiers above; and machine guns, and war-vessels alert to destroy them. ”

“ You walked upon the curvature of Space. Upon a false, a mere semblance of solidity which was the resultant balance of the forces moving you. This globe—this city—it lies immobile upon a solidity equally false—immobile because there is nothing to move it."
"I think I understand a little better," Will said slowly. "All force then, as well as all matter, has its source in the Ego-mind."
"Of course. We create matter, and movement of matter, by our own volition. We have been originally created by the Divine-thought; after which we construct and maintain our Universe by Ego-thought of our own. ”

“ With this reinforcement we became stronger over here, and the red chaos surged inward. I saw it flow almost to engulf the crouching Brutar fighters who were here opposing it. Saw a few of them fall—ghostly shells lying inert—and above them a something luminous, the Ego-mind deranged, unhinged, hovering, then winging away into death....
A shape hurriedly approached us; a man with harried, anxious face. "Thone! We are too weak now upon the other side. The Red Death is almost upon us there! They want the thinkers back." ”

“ Minds driven into darkness; driven away, to leave an empty shell behind them. Soon the confusion was over. The amphitheatre was strewn with mindless bodies; the dead—never to move again, and others, injured; minds unhinged—irrationally wandering, to return, some of them, to reach again their accustomed abode.
Ala's father—they called him Thone—found his daughter with Will; took Will to his home, where for a nameless time they were together, exchanging friendly thoughts that each might know what manner of world was his friend's. To Will it was the first rationality of this new realm. ”

“ Thone retorted. "At all events, with us mind-qualities are the basic substance out of which all matter is built. A variety of qualities, which vary the resultant product, be it an Ego, or a thing inert, all are from the same source—a thought."
A Universe built from a Thought! Yet to Will then came the realization that our realm is of an essence equally unsubstantial—our own matter—rock, metal, living organisms, what are they of their essence save a mere vortex, a whirlpool of Nothingness? ”

“ This is not the moment for any detailed explanation, Rob. I need only say this: As I told you a while ago, the fundamental substance of which our bodies are composed is—not substance, but a mere vortex. A whirlpool, a vibration let me term it. And the quality of this vibration—this vortex—the time-factor controlling it, governs the material character of our conscious universe. From birth to death—from the beginning to the end—we and all the substance of our universe move along this unalterable, measured flow of time. ”

“ The lurid red of the opposing thought-streams still held balanced between the lines of the fighters. But in one place it was indented now far into Brutar's territory—a red gash like a wound gaping amid his huddled throng. And I noticed, too, that the dim purple haze hung now like an aura close above the heads of our enemies.
I asked Thone about it. He said, "Those who are not fighters in there are beginning to feel our thoughts. Perhaps even they begin to suspect what awaits them. Soon the fighters also will know." ”

“ Vague, shifting shadows—grey shapes of men, from which the lights cast monstrous grey shadows as they moved. It seemed a dim inferno of strange industry incomprehensible.... Brutar led us toward it.
"We built all this," he said; and his gesture encompassed the entire inner void within that glowing tenuous shell. "We built and poised this here in Space. My followers have forsaken their homes to join me here. Soon we will go to your Earth-realm.... Some of us often go out there now—into that Borderland—to test our power." ”

“ With my mind's ear, the memory of his normal voice made me hear his hurried, anxious admonition. "Turn off your battery. Rob! Rob!"
My battery. Of course, the moment had arrived when I must turn it off. I glanced down at it. A shadowy, unreal, phantom battery lying beside me; my grey hand resting upon it seemed to my vision far more ponderable. And then I received my first real perception as to the nature of this change. My fingers groped for the switch, found it. ”

“ Saw them; saw Bee with horrified arms held out as though to bring me back. And felt myself whirling in Nothingness.
"Rob! Rob!"
"Yes," I called. "I'm here—coming." And at last again I was with them.
"You're careless, Rob." Concern mingled with the relief in Will's tone. "Careless—you must not wander that way."
Ala said quietly. "There are many like that. A wandering mind brings evil to the body it tosses about."
"But with us now, it is additionally hard," Will said. "Every instinct within us draws us away—as it was with you, Ala, in the Borderland." ”

“ Growing solid! In a surging torrent of horror complete realization rushed over me. I scarce heard Brutar's gloating words: "That inert matter, freed of physical contact with our Borderland bodies, tends slowly to change to the state of the thing nearest to it. As heat by contact communicates, so does the vibratory rate of all substances. That brick, lodged there, is materializing. Slowly now—but soon very fast. Presently it will be as solid as the steel girder itself—a brick resting there complete in your Earth-state—demanding space of its own, for its own existence!" ”

“ But the distance is very dimly perceived by our senses."
"Wait," said Will, "Before you discuss Time, let me understand the other. All your material entities are Thoughts? That is incomprehensible to me."
Thone deliberated. "I suppose that is natural," he declared at last. "Your substance—as it appears to you—has a greater solidity than the substance of your mentality."
It was Will's turn to smile. "The latter, with us, has no substance at all. The human mind—as distinct from our physical brain—is wholly intangible. And it is one of the things we know least about." ”

“ It was an effort to hold them—an effort to think coherently; an effort to cling to anything—even mental—of reality. I told myself that the change must be nearly complete. I was the spectre; this phantom mattress, this wraith of a room—those ghost-like chairs and table floating in space above me—that was my own real world, lost and gone. ”

“ With these guarded thoughts surreptitiously roaming through my mind, I was all the while describing our Earth to Brutar. He interrupted me once. "Eo, come here."
I became aware of another shape hovering near us. It now advanced; and with Brutar's words of explanation it took form in the fashion of a young man. A smiling, deferential youth seemingly of an age just reaching maturity. He came forward meekly. Brutar spoke.
"This is my friend whom we call Eo. I have trust in him—he is helping me greatly. I want him to hear what you have to say, Rob." ”

“ I'd better not question you, Rob, but you won't find me hard to understand. A point—an infinitesimal point in space—has no dimension. It has only location. That's clear, isn't it? A line has one dimension—length. A plane surface has length and breadth; a cube, length, breadth and thickness. The world of the cube, Rob, is the world we think we live in—the world of three dimensions. You've heard of that intangible something they call the fourth dimension? We think it does not concern us—but it does. We ourselves have four dimensions. We are the world of the fourth dimension. ”

“ The very essence of it a physical inactivity. Fighting! The word to our Earthly minds is so full of movement! Yet a man battling with himself, pitting the good against the evil within himself, may sit in his easy chair and fight a fierce fight.
So it was here; unleashed forces of the mind, grappling silently—a struggle without rules of combat in which no quarter could be given, and which could only end by complete annihilation of one side or the other. I knew all this, and standing with Bee, Thone and Will on a dark eminence above the scene, I watched, breathlessly. ”

“ His last despairing cry; and Bee's echo. He was going—floating downward; while they, uncontaminated, hovered above, at the edge of the realm, to see it but not to enter.
Will saw but dimly. Saw shapes floating in there. Dismembered shapes. Others, whole, floating inert. A cauldron, with bubbles of sight and sound, and smell. Shrouded in murk. Unreal.... A wailing ... sobbing ... faint aerial voices wailing like ghosts distraught.... And a stench—the thought of it, no more——but to Will the thought, the knowledge of all this was horrible, fearsome. ”

“ He said:
"Your explanation, Thone, seems to make Man differ from Woman only in qualities of the Soul and Mind. You do not speak of the body; yet to me, Ala here appears of very different form from yourself."
Thone smiled. "You say, 'to me.' You have answered yourself, my friend. The physical aspect of everything is but the reflected image of it within our own mentality. The gentleness of Ala—those qualities which make her what she is—are seen by you in the form of what you call a woman." ”

“ We were in the Borderland—that same dark void with its rolling slopes. Near at hand I saw some two hundred of Brutar's workers—his fighters—drawn up in orderly array. Shadows like myself. And behind them a rabble of Egos in the fashion of men, women and children. His followers, waiting to enter the Earth-realm when the fighters had conquered it. ”

“ We stood together; she clung to me. The figure advanced, stood now quite within our walls. No longer wholly spectral, a cast of green had come to it; a first faint semblance of solidity. It stood motionless; drooping, as though tired and spent. Was it Wilton Grant? It moved again. It advanced, sank into the floor as though sitting down—sitting almost in the center of the mattress, though a foot beneath it. Significant posture! It had come to the mattress from whence it had departed. It was Wilton Grant!
We bent down. Bee was on her knees. ”