Dead Sea

Now what? Well, you’ve made the trip, can you make the trip back? Theoretically, yes. You can return. It will be a matter, I think, of returning to your stepping off point into this world. Which I am certain is somewhere in what I have called the Sea of Mists (see my chart). It really will be a matter of waiting for the wormhole to open and being in the right place at the right time. If it opens, using a boat or plane, I think you can punch your way back through. But, by all means, do not enter a wormhole in any other geographical location or you will find yourself God-knows-where. If my theory is correct, the wormhole that brought you here… all of us here… will only open in that locality. Now beware of one thing. If you are lucky enough to pass through to our world, consider the time distortion factor. Einstein discovered that gravity and other forms of linear acceleration can cause a distortion in the curvature of fourth-dimensional time-space. Essentially, this acceleration can bend time. And you, my friend, accelerated through hyperspace at an impossible speed… well, you may be in for a surprise. What may happen is what’s known as temporal stasis or the slowing down of time. You may return to the world you knew or you may return a million years in the past or future. It’s impossible to say. Conversely, the bending of time may counteract itself when you pass back through.

Again, I’m just guessing.

This brings my little sermon to an end. Once again, I am traveling to the Sea of Veils, to the Lancet. Because what the three of us – Imab, Betydon, and myself – discovered there, was revelatory indeed. When I say that the Lancet is the key, I know of what I speak. If we had had more time… well, no matter. I will go up there again. To satisfy my own scientific curiosity, if nothing else. For that ship holds secrets. And it is, I believe, the focal point for what caused the horrible deaths of Imab and Betydon. For, if you have been here any length of time, you may have felt the presence of another. What this thing is, I cannot say, only that I believe it to be destructive and sentient. Something that may lie dormant or inactive for extended periods of time. A sort of potential energy waiting to spend itself. Lately, I’ve felt it building. I believe it is about to become kinetic.

God help us, God help any creature with a conscious, reasoning brain when that happens.

I will die, perhaps. But I will die knowing. Not just the nature of that thing (something that boggles the mind), but of the secret of the Lancet. For there, I think, are the keys to deliverance from this place.

This, then, is my mission. I leave you this letter, my chart. Help yourself to my gun and supplies. For I no longer will need them. Please, do not come after me.

May God protect you,

John R. Greenberg

That is where the letter ended.

Cushing stood there, amazed and informed, depressed and confused, feeling a great many things. Maybe there was hope now and maybe there was a complete lack of it. There were certainly a lot of questions he needed answered and, unfortunately, this Greenberg… the Hermit. .. was not there to answer them.

“What do you know about this guy?” Cushing asked Elizabeth.

She just sighed and shook her head. “He was a crazy old man who didn’t like people. My Uncle knew him… visited him sometimes.. . he was out of his head.”

“Maybe not.”

“We should go,” Elizabeth said.

Cushing found himself staring at her. “You didn’t want me seeing this, did you?”

She shook her head.

“You knew he was gone?”

“Yes.”

“And-”

“And I didn’t want you filling yourself with his crazy ideas. I didn’t want you to get filled with false hope,” she said to him, “because it is false.”

It was confession time. She told him her Uncle Richard had been something of an acquaintance of the Hermit. That he believed implicitly in the Hermit’s science. Uncle Richard spent days on end trying to find that vortex that would carry them out.

“But he didn’t find it?”

She shook her head. “No. He never did… and it broke something in him. Destroyed something in him. Made him give up. That’s what killed him… he had no hope left. None at all.”

“And Greenberg never returned from the Sea of Veils?”

“No one ever does.” She swallowed. “Can we please leave now?”

Cushing had a fair idea that Elizabeth was not telling him all she knew. The letter… it was dated in December. But this December or the last or five past? He knew Elizabeth wouldn’t tell him. At least not yet. But for his money, Greenberg had probably only just set out for the Sea of Veils a few months back. He didn’t know that to be true, yet he was certain it was.

“Please,” Elizabeth said. “We need to go.”

Taking the chart, letter, and gun, they did just that.

15