“You are making very tardy progress,” said the man. Once more they were in a dark club. “Those who do not show more progress we cannot use. After all, you are only a vestigial. It is probable that you have very little of the ancient race in you. Fortunately those who do not show progress destroy themselves. You had not imagined that there were only two phases of time, had you?”
“Lately I have come to suspect that there are many more,” said Charles Vincent.
“And you understand that only one step cannot succeed?”
“I understand that the life I have been living is in direct violation of all that we know of the laws of mass, momentum, and acceleration, as well as those of conservation of energy, the potential of the human person, the moral compensation, the golden mean, and the capacity of human organs. I know that I cannot multiply energy and experience sixty times without a compensating increase of food intake, and yet I do it. I know that I cannot live on eight minutes’ sleep in twenty-four hours, but I do that also. I know that I cannot reasonably crowd four thousand years of experience into one lifetime, yet unreasonably I do not see what will prevent it. But you say I will destroy myself.”
“Those who take only the first step destroy themselves.”
“And how does one take the second step?”
“At the proper moment you will be given the choice.”
“I have the most uncanny feeling that I will refuse the choice.”
“From present indications, you will refuse it. You are fastidious.”
“You have a smell about you, Old Man without a face. I know now what it is. It is the smell of the pit.”