You are the last of our line. Who knows how many of our forebears have undergone the experiences which I have related at such length here? You must do as you think best. If it is your wish then sell the house and its lands without so much as a cursory visit. Then, with the proceeds, continue to live your life in the normality of the everyday world. Or, risk a life of novel adventure, of mystery and engrossing questions to which only the most enigmatic answers are ever given. At least to those of us, those who have gone before you . . .
Who knows? My experiences may have begun and ended with me. Perhaps I suffer from a unique form of madness where all I have experienced has been some sophisticated form of hallucination. The beings and creatures I encountered perhaps were not real at all. They did indeed seem to me at times to resemble automata, simulcra, those machine-driven dolls which are so lifelike, yet have no true life within them at all. At times I felt the entire house was akin to some great clockwork machine and I a simple cog within it, doomed to turn and turn within a tiny circle as part of some great plan of the machine maker.
I leave it to you to believe as you will, and to decide what you will do.
You may choose for normality or you may choose for curiosity. Am I wrong in thinking you are curious? I have seen a photograph of you, sent to me by your sister at my request. You bear a strong resemblance to myself at your age. Am I wrong to encourage you? Do I seek your doom or do I urge what is simply your destiny? Am I truly mad after all?
Or are you the very one they have sought for so long . . .?
In The Realm Of The Silver Skein
The rays of the sun fall lightly
on the moor at the close of day
The colors all fade from the heather
and the trees turn the shade of clay
Mosses curl ever inward
and everything starts to sleep
As shadows wander across the wall
while careful cats begin to creep
In his bed Joe is dreaming
his eyelids flicker to what he sees
In his head is a gamboling sheep
that has ship’s bells on its knees
Up in the loft the dust lies still
from the skylight soft light falls
For the moon is full this silent night
and the outside weirdly calls
In the wood nearby there’s a stirring
softly, gently just beyond the ear
No one is there to see it,
no one is there to fear
Elemental shapes invisible abound
where no human now will tread
They gather like mist to the tree boles
appearing akin to the dead
The unseen gather where no humans are
communing together of old
Where wet mosses and lichen grow
and stone as ageless as gold
Joe shivers in his sleep awhile
some connection there is to his head
of these shifting shapes in the wood outside
who he’ll know once he is dead
Now the sunlight has all but gone
save for a pink smear across the sky
The moon arises, a silver sphere
looking down on those to die
For all that lives will die my dear
and all that changes does rot
Even gurgling babes in arms my dear
now cosseted in wooly cot
Amid the misty ones are dark
and these hang closer to the trees
high up in the topmost branches
and cause their tips to freeze
These are lost to the righteous road
and wish to do all harm
Caught in a trap of self-conceit
and desire to spread alarm
Across the horizon is all now dark
and only cats eyes can now be seen
While the moon makes her course across the sky
causing shivers in the silver skein.
Perfect Zero—The Duel
On the seventh day created He them
On the eighth an angel tried to destroy
Held back and countered he sorely failed
The plan moved forward and goodness quailed
The power of evil was far too strong
An ultimate savagery unleashed to kill
To plunder the universe with arrogant will
The Angel fled and soared to Earth
Incarnating there to escape the wrath
Of the creator god of the material ALL
Hibernating still to await the call
Ages came and ages went
While the plan progressed on mindless bent
The Creator mad beyond all help
Lost track of the Angel heaven sent
Long eons full of nightmare life
No end to torment or to strife
Too late to stop the useless struggle
As it evolved in hopeless muddle
The Angel lay unknown and dormant
Deep within Earth’s mad ferment
A time would come to show his hand
To light the fuse at His command
To end the blight of Man’s wicked ways
The Creator made at the start of days
To kill the twisted child of alien form
To cease the breed and quell the storm
To save the universe from an ugly seed
Destroying ambition with every deed
Filling the heart with desire for death
And stop each fetid, diseased breath
On high the Creator was lost in torment
Madly screaming of HIS firmament
Sneering at His creation and its ways
Urging starflight in spluttering craze
What cowardly flesh these pale ones wore
In form like His but He much more
They were not fulfilling His holy plan
This stupid creature he made called Man
He had wished the universe turn shades of red
As His hateful creatures infection spread
Upon the globes His dark hand made
Insane He screamed until time did fade
On Earth the Angel fought for His plans
Turning sinners in confusion He baleful scans
Each horizon for starships He fears will fly
Taking infected Man to the sky
Each thought He sends, each act He takes
Has just one purpose to stop these snakes
The pale devils in the shape of He
Bringing imperfection to its knee
An end to ALL things in the Holy ONE
From where the ALL should never have come
To push back this wickedness and end it all
So that never again they hear its call
And silence once more will then reign
A nothingness, perfection, without pain
To kill the Creator and make Him sane
So the Perfect Zero can be whole again.
The Tourist Trap
Desirous of sleep they leapt abed
Too long the road to the house had led
Windswept and rainy, bleak foreign streets
Had led them here to these clean sheets
Above their heads unknown trees did blow
And leaves scraped window ledges down below
Across the floor scurried tiny feet unheard
While outside rasped the cawing of a bird
he house was of wood and stone, quite bare
Booked at the last minute without much care
Their bags lay scattered on the wooden floor
She sighed in her sleep as he began to snore
The shapes now gathered in the rafters high
Looking down on the pair who would soon die
They saw the future and they saw the past
And how it would be at the last
The rogues crept close, silent of foot
Hands of stone, souls as soot
Quickly the lock was opened without a care
They halted below and up did stare
Toward the bedroom where the tourists slept
With near silent footfalls they now crept
Turning the latch with slow careful hand
Now in the bedroom they did stand
Two dark shapes moved in his dream
And in hers she seemed about to scream
But no sound disturbed the silence of the room
Which all too soon would be their tomb
Greedy eyes turned to scattered clothes and bags
In such contrast to their lowly rags
Crouching down to feel for a wallet there
A shadow crossed her face so fair
A scrape of leather sounded on the wooden floor
A whispered hiss rose and chilled to the core
He woke and sat up with a start
Only for cold steel to pierce his heart
With a terrible scream she shouted “No!”
As his blood began to spurt and flow
Deftly now she was silenced fast
Without thought of the deed that was so vast
They took all they could and left the house
All that was left was the mouse
And the shapes that faded up in the rafters dark
Two more now added in dawn’s wan spark.
Forewarned Of Folly
He’d seen it all happen
right there in his dream
They’d hit the rocks,
he’d heard the crew scream
All hands had been lost,
each good friend and foe
He’d seen it all happen,
he’d been given to know
He woke from his dream
all covered in sweat
with a feeling of remorse,
dread fear and regret
He said nothing to his crew
the very next day
as they set sail from Yarmouth
and skirted the bay
He’d thought about cancelling
the trip in the night
but how would he know
when the timing was right?
Better face it now,
and change their fate
than cower at home and
forever wait
All went well
till that eventide came
Then the sky turned black
and the sea the same
The wind picked up
and the breakers grew
As he watched from the bridge
his toiling crew
It had been a good catch,
the best for a while
But it didn’t raise in him
his usual smile
He looked to the horizon
and stood then in his dream
He saw the great grey clouds
rain down in a stream
The cables began snapping
in the strengthening storm
as the breakers exploded
in a watery swarm
He was now trapped between
this world and the next
He couldn’t think clearly
and “knew” they were hexed
He turned the steering wheel
now toward home
Crashing through the swell
and the flying foam
But his panic gripped him
as he re-lived his dream
His mind writhed in terror,
in his throat was a scream
Blindly he turned the wheel,
this way and that
Overcome by sheer panic
he threw himself flat
It was then that the mate
burst through the door
and grabbed the wheel,
order to restore
He sailed home safely
with a cool head and arm
and docked in the harbor
with no shout of alarm
They took their captain
to the hospital then,
his eyes rolling insane,
beyond all human ken.
~
Is it better to always know
what will befall?
Or could it spell the ruin
of us all?
Can we second guess the truth
of what our dreams say?
Or may they in reality,
carry us away . . . ?
VI. THE SEARCH FOR THE WHITE ROOMS
Porting into the future wasn’t easy. It wasn’t easy at all. Our maps were incredibly patchy for obvious reasons. And there had been far too many accidents already. Considering how long it takes to train a Porter you really cannot afford to have one mashed full-molecular with a future wall. Besides, it looks bad. Okay, they might think it’s a novel form of dramatic artwork, matter-hacking or god-only-knows-what, but too many of those and anomalies arise. And in the Porter religion anomalies were total anathema. But everyone will admit it, we are obsessed by the white rooms. We only saw them once but we got pictures and the Porter was able to access a file or two before leaving. But they were white gold, there was no doubt about it. Within the files of the white rooms was every technological development of note that the Footers would develop over a one hundred year future period. Okay, no doubt there were similar rooms further out in the two, three, four hundred years timesets but my god we were having a hard enough job mapping even one hundred years out without blundering that far away from us.
We couldn’t get over this glimpse of the motherload, sadly and especially because the timestamp co-ordinates had gotten scrambled on the journey there and the Porter had landed outfield, not an uncommon event much to our constant frustration. But, they were out there. Somewhere. And by hook or by f’ing crook we were determined to find these wondrous needles in a yet-to-be haystack. Or die trying of course.
Mapping future locations was hazardous to say the least as I’ve already mentioned. All you had to go on was earlier map co-ordinates that had come back intact. These held boundaries, walls, rivers, streets, parks, trees, any and everything that could present a molecular conflict with a porter. Time coordinated ground and street levels were one of the most crucial factors to a successful mission apart from not arriving half in and half out of or completely mashed within a wall. Having your feet stuck three inches into terra firma was not a good place to be.
And it was my turn to port.
Just as everyone else who goes I worked closely with the embarkation team. It had been almost a year now. Each day we’d examine and cross-check, analyze and plan, go over language nuance and dialect, discuss food, currency, habits, customs and fads, clothing, current events, mannerisms . . . Oh there was plenty to go over. By now I felt more Footer than Porter and I was even beginning to wonder if I’d ever feel normal again. Normal . . . It seemed an interesting concept to me now rather than something natural. The Footers were different just as we were different, very different from the Pasters. I know these terms are a
ll familiar to you now but I still can’t help feeling we could have come up with cooler terminology. Footers, Porters and Pasters. Rather silly names I agree. But they sort of rolled off the tongue from the start and that was important as they were used a hell of a lot back then, and still are. Some tried to give the whole thing a bit of cache (and make it all a bit more academic-sounding) with names such as the Forehumans, the Teleport-Twixsters and the Ancestors but they never caught on and the more impressive name for us Porters, sadly lapsed out of use as quickly as it was coined. A pity that as an impressive sounding name often leads to an impressive looking salary. But anyway, for better or more likely worse, we were the Porters and such we would no doubt stay.
The device itself was called CERN-V. After the Higgs was found CERN-II was started to really get stuck into building the theory structure which would unify all previous theories concerning the origin and nature of matter and thence of the universe itself. This was found to be easier said than done. Hence CERNs III to IV. And hence CERN-V. And there my friends, as you all know by now, we really struck paydirt. We being humanity. It was all unlocked. All of it. Well . . . perhaps that’s going a bit far. As you no doubt are aware, the more you know the more you realize how much there is still left to know. But, with CERN-V we had at least reached a plateau few had ever believed possible. Oh yes, H.G. Wells would have been proud of us, there’s no doubt in my mind about that. And, at the beginning we thought it was going to be simple to travel in time. How many times, after a huge leap forward, has that mistake been made? Plenty.