"Why, yes. I believe I've heard that old superstition. Very reasonable, I believe; based on the assumption that the task would be too great for one brain. I...."
"I suppose it never occurred to you," he interrupted, "that this superstition might hold even more truth than that, truth as malignant as it is vast. Perhaps the cosmos hold secrets beyond comprehension of man; and what is your assurance that these secrets are beneficent and kind? Is nature rather not terrible, than kind? In the stars are patterns—designs which if read, might lure the intrepid miserable one who reads them out of earth and beyond ... beyond, to immeasurable evil.... Do you understand what I am saying?" His voice quivered metallically, was vibrant with emotion.
I tried to smile, but managed only a sickly grin. "I understand you, sir, but I am not in the habit of accepting nebulous theories such as that without any shred of evidence."
"There is, sad to say, only too much evidence. But do you believe that men have lost their minds from incessant study of the stars?"
"Perhaps some have, I don't know," I returned. "But in the South of this state in one of the country's leading observatories, I have a friend who is famous as an astronomer. He is as sane as you or I. If not saner." I tacked the last sentence on with significant emphasis.
The fellow was muttering something into his muffler, and I fancied I caught the words "danger ..." and "fools ..." We were silent again. Low dark clouds fled over the roaring sea and the gloom intensified.
Presently, in his clipt speech, the stranger said, "Do you believe that life exists on other planets, other stars? Have you ever wondered what kind of life might inhabit the other stars in this solar system, and those beyond it?" His eyes were near mine as he spoke, and they bewitched me. There was something in them, something intangible and awful. I sensed that he was questioning me idly, as an outlander might be questioned about things with which the asker is familiar, as I might ask a New Yorker, "What do you think of the Golden Gate Bridge?"
"I wouldn't attempt to guess, to describe, for instance, a Martian man," I said. "Yet I read with interest various guesses by writers of fiction." I was striving to maintain a mood of lightness and ease, but inwardly I felt a bitter cold, as one on the rim of a nightmare. I suddenly realized, with childish fear, that night was falling.
"Writers of fiction! And what if they were to guess too well? What then? Is it safe for them to have full rein over their imaginations? Like the star-gazers...." I said nothing, but smiled.
"Perhaps, man, there have been those whose minds were acute beyond most earthly minds—those who have guessed too closely to truth. Perhaps those who are Beyond are not yet ready to make themselves known to Earthlings? And maybe THEY, are annoyed with the puny publicity they receive from imaginative writers.... Ask yourself, what is imagination? Are earth-minds capable of conceiving that which is not and has never been; or is this imagination merely a deeper insight into worlds you know not of, worlds glimpsed dimly in the throes of dream? And whence come these dreams? Tell me, have you ever awakened from a dream with the sinister feeling that all was not well inside your mind?—that while you, the real you, were away in Limbo—someone—something was probing in your mind, invading it and reading it. Might not THEY leave behind them in departure shadowy trailings of their own minds?"