THE BIRTH OF A THOUGHT
They turned away in the void--away from the dark-light mystery of the
realm of death, and drove themselves back to the Big-City. The search
for Brutar's encampment was at the moment futile; they knew they could
not reach it. And though Bee had escaped with Eo, she did not know
whether I escaped or not.
They hoped to find me safely returned to the Big-City. But I was
not there. But still Thone felt that I might come. To Will--with his
inherent, instinctive conception of a placid, measured Time--the delay
seemed dangerous. He was impatient; anxious to do something. But there
was nothing which of himself he could do; and Thone was an Intelligence
very keen. Will decided that upon Thone he must rely.
They went back to the home globe, to rest and to wait for my possible
arrival. Will in a way was glad of the inactivity, for he remembered
that of Thone's plans he knew almost nothing. He would learn all he
could; and with something definitely arranged, they could act to better
purpose.
Will felt the pangs of hunger. They brought a glowing brazier wherein
something smouldered. He ate--inhaled, there is no word for it.
Satisfied his pangs; and drank of the silver mist which came flowing
into the globe at a word of command.... And slept; lost consciousness,
to find himself in blackness with Time wholly gone.
But still I did not come back to the Big-City. There were times when
with Thone, Will journeyed about the city streets, gazing at this
strange life. He saw thought-workers, as I had seen them in Brutar's
encampment. Saw the water being created; saw the thought-matter moulded
and spun into new globes--moulded to all the diverse purposes of this
Ego-life.
He slept again; several times; and ministered to the slight wants of
his tenuous body. A great length of time seemed passing; and still I
did not arrive.
There were many talks that Will had with Thone. Ala and Bee were
generally there, as befitted those of their sex.
Sex? It was interesting to Will. The creation of the individual Ego of
this strange realm, so different an existence, and yet in fundamental
conception so like his own. Already he believed that the same Creator
governed both. With strange ways that we mortals so little understand,
over all the realms, the states of existence, the Universes that
possibly could exist--only one Creator held sway. The Thought--there
could be but One.
Will said, "You once spoke, Thone, of yourself as Ala's parent. And the
necessity of the Thought to the creation of Ego-life. Will you explain
that? In our world we have two sexes. Have you also?"
"Yes," said Thone. "In the higher forms of life--we humans, as you
would say--there are, like yours, two sexes. Call me a man--and Ala
a woman. The difference is one of mental capacity; mental qualities,
inherent perhaps to the Ego. I call it the Soul, though we have no name
for it. I mean that something which makes each individual different
from every other.
"The qualities inherent to the individual mould and form the mentality.
Characterize thus, what we call its sex. The one sex is a complement to
the other. An attraction exists between them--a desire for proximity
so that of their own inherent force they will draw together. And the
one mentality derives force--a mental life-force--from the other. An
exchange--for it yields its own necessary qualities in return. Thus we
have the mating--the basis of the family. Without it no complete mental
health is possible. There is no mentality capable of existing in health
by itself."
* * * * *
"And a birth?" Will suggested.
"Communion of thought. The desire, the longing of two closely
interwoven mentalities of complementary qualities. When they combine
with an intensity of longing, the thought-matter they mutually create
brings into existence another, smaller shape like themselves. It is
very small--very tenuous--scarce to be seen save by those two who have
produced it. It lies inert. Almost formless, though they sit beside
it and strive with their loving thoughts of what it should be--strive
to give it form. It may continue to lie inert; and at last in spite
of their efforts, it may dissolve, dissipate--be gone, back into
Nothingness from whence they drew it. The Thought was not within it; it
never was anything then save a human longing unblessed.
"Or again, the Thought may be there. It lives. Grows ponderable. Moves
of itself. Thinks of itself. Then it _is_ something itself--something
independent of all save its creator-divine.... The little nourishment
of its body is easily supplied; the mother-parent gives it lovingly the
needed gentler nourishment of the mind; daily she adds to it the loving
tendrils of her thought-matter so tenuous that to the sight it seems
mere light.
"But if the spark is there, glowing brightly, the little Ego lives.
Grows in size. Displays a growing mental capacity of its own. Its own
mental qualities make themselves known, to identify it as a man-child,
or a woman-child. And the Ego, developing, brings it to individuality.
It is Itself; unlike everyone else. The new Individual.... That, my
friend Will, is a birth."
Will thought a moment. "There is a beauty to it."
Bee said, "I don't quite understand--" She gazed at Will, puzzled; and
Will felt and understood her confusion. He said:
"Your explanation, Thone, seems to make Man differ from Woman only in
qualities of the Soul and Mind. You do not speak of the body; yet to
me, Ala here appears of very different form from yourself."
Thone smiled. "You say, 'to me.' You have answered yourself, my friend.
The physical aspect of everything is but the reflected image of it
within our own mentality. The gentleness of Ala--those qualities which
make her what she is--are seen by you in the form of what you call a
woman."
"But," protested Will, "does she not look the same to you?"
* * * * *
"That I do not know," he returned earnestly. "Nor do you. We can only
see, think, imagine for ourselves. Our conscious universe is our own;
it exists of our own creation, and what it is of itself apart from us,
I do not know."
"We have on Earth," Will said, "a school of philosophical thinking
which believes that nothing exists apart from the mentality perceiving
it. Believes that without a consciousness of existence, nothing can
exist."
"That may be so," Thone replied gravely.
Bee was still puzzled. She said to Thone, "Ala, to me, looks different
from you. She looks, as Will says, like a girl. Won't you tell us how
she looks to you?"
He thought a moment. "She looks--like Ala," he said slowly. "I think we
mould our images from the individual itself--not upon a generality of
sex. She looks to me like Ala, as I know her to be. Very gentle. Very
keen of reasoning. Very quick--" He smiled. "Yet not always so very
logical. She looks like the Ala of my creation--mine and that other
mentality whom you would call her mother--" His voice turned solemn,
with a singular hush to it. "Her mother--who has long since gone into
that realm of mystery."
At other times they talked of practical subjects. Brutar's coming
invasion of Earth; my own fate, since I still was missing, unheard
from. And they talked of what could be done to overcome Brutar and his
horde of followers.
Thone, it seemed to Will, had accomplished very little. He had learned
of Brutar's purpose; and of the establishment of his realm. Thone had
sent--by the aid of the lolos plant--an adventurer into the Borderland
who had seen Brutar and some of his cohorts experimenting with the
Earth-state. Then Ala had gone into the Borderland; had met Will; had
arranged to bring him, Bee and myself back to see her parent.
Little of accomplishment! A public meeting of protest, which we had
attended; and which Brutar invaded. But now Thone was organizing his
Thinkers--his army, as it might have been called on Earth. Their
purpose was to seek out Brutar's realm by concerted effort of thought;
to find it while Brutar's preparations were still incomplete; and to
destroy it.
The very conception of warfare of this kind was difficult for Will to
encompass. There were no weapons--nothing of the sort we on Earth would
call weapons. Will showed Thone his broad belt, and the contents of
its pouches. He drew out a revolver and a knife. Thone inspected them
curiously--shadowy, glowing objects which almost floated when tossed
into the air, so imponderable were they.
Will explained their Earthly uses. He said, a trifle shamefacedly, "I
brought them--but I felt they would be of no advantage here."
He pulled the trigger of the revolver. If it discharged, there was no
result which his Ego-senses could perceive. Thone said, handing him the
knife, "Strike me with it."
The action was instinctively revolting; yet Will drove the knife-blade
into the semblance of Thone's arm. Thone said, "It seems to hurt."
To Will the knife might have been a feather he was thrusting against a
pillow. He withdrew the blade; fancied he saw in Thone's arm an open
gash. But if he did, the gash closed at once. The outlines of the arm
were quivering, unreal, under Will's earnest gaze. And he knew that if
he persisted in regarding it, the arm would turn formless to his sight.
He exclaimed, "Useless! Of course." And tossed the knife away. But
Thone recovered it. "In the Borderland it would be more effective,
Will. Keep it."
Thone explained how his army of Thinkers might destroy Brutar's
encampment. The thought-matter, created, was held in substance only by
continued mental effort. And this withdrawn, at once the disintegrating
forces of Nature would dissolve it into nothingness.
"So it is," Thone said, "when an Ego dies. The persistent, subconscious
effort of mind during life is all that holds the shell of body in
existence. Withdraw that--and you have dissolution."
"And with inorganic matter--" Will began.
"With this globe, for instance," said Thone. "With everything we have
created, a worker-mentality must guard it. Replenish it."
To Will that seemed not very strange. "On Earth," he said, "we must
repair. Nature slowly but steadily tears down that which we have built."
* * * * *
"Of course," Thone responded. "We will destroy Brutar's encampment,
himself and all his followers. Rather should I say, we will force them
to stop replenishing--and Nature will destroy."
Then Will said, "Let me ask you this: I understand that if you, with
your weaving of the net of thoughts, are quicker, more powerful than I,
you will beat down my resistance. Entrap me; force my body to follow
you."
"Or to depart from me," Thone added. "I could force you back--as far
from me as I could spin the net."
"I was thinking--suppose we must fight them in the Borderland--"
"A combat at once physical and mental," Thone retorted. He smiled. "You
think we are ill-prepared, Will? That is not so. My men of Science
have studied this condition--experimented with it very fully. The
Borderland--the transition into your Earth-state--all such things are
new to us. But we are coming to understand them. And I think that
Brutar's people know little of their subject...."
He paused in contemplation; then went on slowly. "We are not sure how
permanent may be the transition by the lolos-blood into the state of
your Earth-matter. Brutar may be mistaken in that--"
He paused again. His smile had a gleam of irony; and there came into
his voice an ironic note. "I am not sure but that from the Borderland,
our opposing thoughts might not reach your Earth-state. They might,
perhaps, do strange things to those of Brutar's people who have reached
there--who have taken with them what they may think are effective
weapons."
That Thone had learned, or divined much of Brutar's purpose, and that
he was prepared to combat it, was evident. But at the moment he chose
to speak no further. He added abruptly, "My Thinkers are organized.
Very soon they will be ready. The mind, my friend Will, grows strong
only with use. Every moment that they can, they are developing the
strength of battle.... Come here and see."
They passed upward upon the side of the globe; and at once its opaque
wall began to glow; become translucent; transparent, until through it
Will saw the city. An open space, from this angle seemingly tilted on
end, was nearby. Within it a horde of shapes were squatting. Figures
which after a moment of inspection seemed men--gaunt of body, but with
craniums distended. A horde--a myriad; Will could not have guessed at
their number. Squatting in a giant spiral curving inward to its center
point. From the heads of them all light was streaming. It spun in a
band close over them; whirled, flashed with iridescent color. A spiral
band of light, concentrating at the center point into a beam that shot
away and was lost in the darkness.
The globe wall became again opaque; the scene vanished. Thone said
softly, "There is much power for combat in mentalities like those. And
very soon I will put them to searching for Brutar's realm."
A cry from Ala interrupted him. The girl had been seated as though in
meditation; but now she flung herself erect.
"I can find this encampment of Brutar--I can lead you to it now!"
Thone stared.
"Are you getting thoughts from it?" Will demanded eagerly. And Bee gave
a glad exclamation. She asked, "Is Rob there? Is he safe, Ala? Can you
take us to him?"
"I do not know if he is there, or safe. Oh, I cannot tell you those
things! I only know I can take you to Brutar's realm!"
"You feel no thoughts from there?" said Thone.
"No."
Thone was standing with the others. No delay now. He was ready. He said
to Will, "It is the nameless power. Those only whom you call women have
it."
"Intuition," Will supplied.
"We say, the nameless.... You may try, Ala. And, if once you take me
there--" A restrained, grave triumph was upon him.
"Once I have been there, with perfect sureness I can lead our Thinkers
to the attack."
Again in the void.... The power of woman's mentality--the nameless
power; illogical, against all reason, all science; not to be
explained.... But it was leading them.... A rush through the darkness
of vague, unreasoning woman's thought; a distance, a time felt, but
unmeasurable; a direction not to be fathomed.... And then, ahead of
them as in a clinging group they followed Ala, the glow of a poised
realm became visible. They neared it; hovered in the void regarding it.
And knew and saw that it was Brutar's realm--that great, tenuous globe
hanging there like a gigantic bubble. They could see within it; see
details as though by some magnification the details were close at hand.
The encampment was deserted! Abandoned! The lolos field was uprooted;
its plants gone. The globes, the workshops, the streets, fields--all
were deserted. And more than that, with the removal of all conscious,
constructive, replenishing mentality, disintegration already was taking
place. A leprous realm. Holes of Nothingness were visibly eating their
way into everything. Rotting walls ... rotting habitations....
Under the gaze of the watchers the whole realm was melting. Dissolving
into slow-flowing viscosity; cesspools of putridity, rising into mists,
vapors--a puff of Nothingness....
The realm was vanished. The void was black, empty and silent. The
little group of apprehensive watchers turned away.
Brutar--presumably taking me with him--had already started his invasion
of Earth!