“I don’t like this place,” Scott confided to me. “I want to get the machine built and get out of here as soon as I can. The Creator is a being entirely different from us. His thought processes and emotional reflexes can bear little resemblance to ours. He is further advanced along the scale of life than we. I am not fool enough to believe he accepts us as his equals. He claims he created us. Whether he did or not, and I can’t bring myself to believe that he did, he nevertheless believes he did. That makes us his property—in his own belief, at least—to do with as he wishes. I’m getting out of here before something happens.”
One of the elephant-men, who had been working with his partner, approached us as we talked. He tapped me gently with his trunk and then stood stupidly staring at us.
“Funny,” said Scott. “That fellow has been bothering me all day. He’s got something he wants to tell us, but he doesn’t seem to be able to get it across.”
Patiently I attempted an elementary language, but the elephant-man merely stared, unmoved, apparently not understanding.
The following day I secured from the Creator a supply of synthetic paper and a sort of black crayon. With these I approached the elephant-men and drew simple pictures, but again I failed. The strange creatures merely stared. Pictures and diagrams meant nothing to them.
The walking-stick-man, however, watched us from across the room, and after the elephant-men had turned away to their work, he walked over to where I stood and held out his hands for the tablet and crayon. I gave them to him. He studied my sketches for a moment, ripped off the sheet and rapidly wielded the crayon. He handed back the tablet. On the sheet were a number of hieroglyphics. I could not make head or tail of them. For a long time the two of us labored over the tablet. We covered the floor with sheets covered with our scribbling, pictures, and diagrams. We quit in despair after advancing no further than recognizing the symbols for the cardinal numbers.
It was apparent that not only the elephant-men but the walking-stick-man as well wished to communicate something to us. Scott and I discussed it often, racking our brains for some means to establish communication with our brothers in exile.
CHAPTER FIVE
Creation—and Destruction
It was shortly after this I made the discovery that I was able to read the unprojected thoughts of the Creator. I imagine that this was made possible by the fact that our host paid little attention to me as he went about his work. Busy with his tasks, his thoughts must have seeped out as he mulled over the problems confronting him. It must have been through this thought seepage that I caught the first of his unprojected brain-images.
At first I received just faint impressions, sort of half-thoughts. Realizing what was occurring, I concentrated upon his thoughts, endeavoring to bore into his brain, to probe out those other thoughts which lay beneath the surface. If it had not been for the intensive mind training which I had imposed upon myself prior to the attempt to project my body through the time-power machine, I am certain I would have failed in my purpose. Without this training, I doubt if I would have been able to read his thoughts unbidden in the first place, and in the second, could never have kept him from learning that I had.
Remembering the suspicions held by my friend, I realized that my suddenly discovered ability might be turned to our advantage. I realized also that this ability would be worthless should the Creator learn of it. In such case, he would be on the alert and would close his thought processes to me. My hope lay in keeping any suspicion disarmed. Therefore, it fell to me not only to attempt to read his mind but also to close a portion of my own to him.
Patch by patch I pieced his thoughts together like a jig-saw puzzle.
He was studying the destruction of matter, seeking a method of completely annihilating it. Having discovered a means of creating matter, he was now swinging to the opposite extreme and experimenting with its destruction.
I did not share my secret with Scott, for I feared that he would unconsciously betray it to the Creator.
As days passed, I learned that the Creator was considering the destruction of matter without the use of heat. I knew that, even on Earth, it was generally conceded a temperature of 4,000,000,000,000 degrees Fahrenheit serve to absolutely annihilate matter. I had believed the Creator had found some manner in which he could control such an excessive temperature. But to attempt to destroy matter with no heat at all—! I believe that it was not until then that I fully realized the great chasm of intelligence that lay between myself and this creature of light.
I have no idea how long we remained in the universe of the Creator before Scott announced that the machine was ready except for a few tests. Time had the illusive quality in this strange place of slithering along without noticeably passing. Although I did not think of it at the time, I cannot recollect now that the Creator employed any means of measuring time. Perhaps time, so far as he was concerned, had become an unnecessary equation. Perhaps he was eternal and time held no significance for him in his eternity.
The elephant-men and the walking-stick-man had already completed their machines, but they had not left. They seemed to be waiting for us. Was it a gesture of respect? We did not know at the time. We never learned.
While Scott made the final tests of our machine I walked into the laboratory. The Creator was at work at his accustomed place. Since our arrival he had paid little attention to us. Now that we were about to leave he made no expression of regret, no sign of farewell.
I approached him, wondering if I should bid him farewell. I pondered for an instant. I had grown to respect him. I wanted to say goodbye. And yet—
Then I caught the faintest of his thoughts and I stiffened. Instantly and unconsciously my mind thrust out probing fingers and grasped the predominant idea in the Creator’s mind.
“Destroy the mass of created matter—the universe which is mine—created by me—create matter—destroy it. It is a laboratory product. Test my destructive—”
“Why, you damn murderer,” I screamed, and threw myself at him.
Light fingers flicked out at me, whipped around my body, snapped me into the air and heaved me across the laboratory. I struck on the smooth floor and skidded across it to bring up with a crash against the wall.
I shook my head to clear it and struggled to my feet. We must fight the Creator! Must save the universe! Save it from destruction by the creature who had created it!
I came to my feet with my muscles bunched, crouched in a fighting posture.
But the Creator had not moved. He stood in the same position and a rod of purple light extended between him and the queer machine of the walking-stick man. The rod of light seemed to hold him there, exactly as if it were a spear which had been thrust into him. Beside the machine stood the walking-stick-man, his hand on the lever, a mad glare in his eyes.
Scott was slapping the gangling fellow on his slender back.
“You’ve got the goods, old man,” he was shouting. “That’s one trick old frozen face didn’t find out from you.”
A thunderous tumult beat through my head. The machine of the walking-stick-man was not a transmission machine at all. It was a weapon, a terrible weapon, which could freeze the Creator into rigid lines.
Weird colors flowed through the Creator. Dead silence lay over the room. The machine of the walking-stick-man was silent, with no noise to hint of the great power it must have been developing. The purple rod did not waver. It was just a rigid rod of purple which had struck and stiffened the Creator in his tracks.