“I will not deceive you. We can study and observe, as we are doing already. But we cannot interfere, because we cannot understand.”
“Then what are we to do? And why has this thing happened to us?”
“It had to happen to someone. There is nothing exceptional about you, any more than there is about the first neutron that starts the chain reaction in an atomic bomb. It simply happens to be the first. Any other neutron would have served — just as Jeffrey might have been anybody in the world. We call it Total Breakthrough. There is no need for any secrecy now, and I am very glad. We have been waiting for this to happen, ever since we came to Earth. There was no way of telling when and where it would start — until, by pure chance, we met at Rupert Boyce’s party. Then I knew that, almost certainly, your wife’s children would be the first.”
“But — we weren’t married then. We hadn’t even—”
“Yes, I know. But Miss Morrel’s mind was the channel that, if only for a moment, let through knowledge which no one alive at that time could possess. It could only come from another mind, intimately linked to hers. The fact that it was a mind not yet born was of no consequence, for Time is very much stranger than you think.”
“I begin to understand. Jeff knows these things — he can see other worlds, and can tell where you come from. And somehow Jean caught his thoughts, even before he was born.”
“There is far more to it than that — but I do not imagine you will ever get much closer to the truth. All through history there have been people with inexplicable powers which seemed to transcend space and time. They never understood them: almost without exception, their attempted explanations were rubbish. I should know — I have read enough of them!
“But there is one analogy which is — well, suggestive and helpful. It occurs over and over again in your literature. Imagine that every man’s mind is an island, surrounded by ocean. Each seems isolated, yet in reality all are linked by the bedrock from which they spring. If the oceans were to vanish, that would be the end of the islands. They would all be part of one continent, but their individuality would have gone.
“Telepathy, as you have called it, is something like this. In suitable circumstances minds can merge and share each other’s contents, and carry back memories of the experience when they are isolated once more. In its highest form, this power is not subject to the usual limitations of time and space. That is why Jean could tap the knowledge of her unborn son.”
There was a long silence while George wrestled with these astounding thoughts. The pattern was beginning to take shape. It was an unbelievable pattern, but it had its own inherent logic. And it explained — if the word could be used for anything so incomprehensible — all that had happened since that evening at Rupert Boyce’s home. It also accounted, he realized now, for Jean’s own curiosity about the supernormal.