His hand checked us. “I have been working since 1970 along these lines. Alice recently has been helping me. And then Dolores—
“This child here, in the dark, it has been given her to see things denied to our science. Years and years ago a scientist proclaimed that thoughts themselves are a mere vibration, like light and heat and sound, and all these mysterious rays and flying electrons—electricity itself. They are all the same, though we name them differently.”
He had been talking swiftly, but quietly. “Tell them, Dolores.”
“A big open space,” she said slowly. “Mountains and a broad valley. A cliffside. People there on a ledge. A young man and a young woman, very white and pale, with blood on the man’s face. They were standing on a height, with a dark cavern behind them.
“Other people, or monsters down in the valley: something vague but horrible as a nightmare with a nameless horror. And the man was calling, Help. Not the word. I could not hear that, but I knew. Calling to me. He keeps on calling. I can hear him so often. Calling to me!”
She said it so strangely. At once it seemed uncanny, weird, almost gruesome. A thrill very akin to fear ran over me. This was not science. But Dr. Weatherby’s calm, precise voice was scientific enough.
“That was several years ago. We have found since that she is receiving thought-vibrations, not from here on earth, not from the planets, or the stars, but from beyond the stars. The greater realms out there, suspected to exist for so long, which now I know and can prove to exist!”
His voice had risen in an excitement, an exaltation. He went on more swiftly, “But all that is nothing. I wanted you to come here and help me. Dolores has had thoughts from out there beyond the stars . . . and her own answering thoughts have been answered. Communication!
“Oh, I have guarded against delusion! I have sent messages through Dolores of scientific import, and been answered with scientific thoughts all beyond this child’s comprehension. Communications with the great unknown—the infinity of distance unfathomable.
“That started a year ago. Now I have done more. I have learned how to get there. I can transport myself, my girls and you! I am ready to make the journey now. That is why I want you, and need you. We are going. We want you to come with us, out beyond the stars!”