“Martin,” I cried once more, a dreadful doubt upon me. “Martin—what do you mean?”
“Whence did—They—come?” His voice was clear and calm, the eyes beneath the red brand clear and quiet, too. “Whence did They come—these Things that carry us? That strode like destroying angels over Cherkis's city? Are they spawn of Earth—as we are? Or are they foster children—changelings from another star?
“These creatures that when many still are one—that when one still are many. Whence did They come? What are They?”
He looked down upon the cubes that held us; their hosts of tiny eyes shone up at him, enigmatically—as though they heard and understood.
“I do not forget,” he said. “At least not all do I forget of what I saw during that time when I seemed an atom outside space—as I told you, or think I told you, speaking with unthinkable effort through lips that seemed eternities away from me, the atom, who strove to open them.
“There were three—visions, revelations—I know not what to call them. And though each seemed equally real, of two of them, only one, I think, can be true; and of the third—that may some time be true but surely is not yet.”
Through the air came a louder drum roll—in it something ominous, something sinister. It swelled to a crescendo; abruptly ceased. And now I saw Norhala raise her head; listen.
“I saw a world, a vast world, Goodwin, marching stately through space. It was no globe—it was a world of many facets, of smooth and polished planes; a huge blue jewel world, dimly luminous; a crystal world cut out from Aether. A geometric thought of the Great Cause, of God, if you will, made material. It was airless, waterless, sunless.
“I seemed to draw closer to it. And then I saw that over every facet patterns were traced; gigantic symmetrical designs; mathematical hieroglyphs. In them I read unthinkable calculations, formulas of interwoven universes, arithmetical progressions of armies of stars, pandects of the motions of the suns. In the patterns was an appalling harmony—as though all the laws from those which guide the atom to those which direct the cosmos were there resolved into completeness—totalled.
“The faceted world was like a cosmic abacist, tallying as it marched the errors of the infinite.