The Blind Spot

by Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint

  XLV

  THE ARADNA

  Thus had the professor got into actual touch with the occult--by sheeraccident. Up to that time it had been only a hypothesis; now it was afact. Next step was to open up direct communication.

  "That was difficult. To begin with, I worked to repeat the phenomenaI had seen, getting some haphazard results from the start. My purposethroughout was to exchange intelligent comment with the individual I hadbeheld on that snow-stone within the Spot; and in the end I succeeded.

  "He gave me fairly explicit warning as to when the Blind Spot shouldopen, not only to the eye, but in its entirety, as it had done for theyoung man of whom the old lady had told me. We agreed through signs thathe would come through first.

  "Understand, up to the instant of his actual arrival, I didn't know justwhat he was like. I had to be content with his sign-talk, by which heassured me he was a real man, material, of life and the living.

  "I made my announcement. You know most of what followed. The Rhamdacame to Berkeley; together we returned to Chatterton Place, for itwas imperative that we hold the Spot open or at least maintain thephenomenon at such a point that we could reopen it at will. Both of uswere guessing.

  "Neither of us knew, at the time, just how long the Rhamda could endureour atmosphere. He had risked his life to come through; it was no morethan fair that I should accede to his caution and insure him a safereturn to his own world.

  "But things went wrong. It was ignorance as much as accident. AtChatterton Place I was caught in the Blind Spot, and without a particleof preparation was tossed into the Thomahlia.

  "When I came through, the Nervina went out. Thus I found myself in thisstrange place with no one to guide me. And unfortunately, or rather,fortunately, I fell into the hands of the Bar Senestro.

  "Now, for all that he is a sceptic, the Senestro is a brave man; andlike many another unbeliever, he has a sense of humour. My coming hadbeen promised by Avec; so he knew that somehow I was a part of theProphecy--the prophecy which, for reasons of his own, he did not wantfulfilled.

  "So he isolated me here in the house of the Jarados. A bold sort ofhumor, I call it--to defy the Prophecy in the very spot where it waswritten!

  "But it was fortunate. I was in the house of the old prophet, with itsstores of wisdom, secrets, raw elements and means for applying the lawsof nature. All that I hitherto had only guessed at, I now had at mydisposal: libraries, laboratories, everything. I was a recluse with nointerruptions and perfect facility for study.

  "First of all I went into their philosophy. Then into their science,and afterwards into their history. Whereupon I made a rather startlingdiscovery.

  "Apparently I AM THE JARADOS.

  "For my coming had been foretold almost to the hour. As I went on withthe research I found many other points that seemed familiar. Plainlythere was something that had led me into the Spot; and most certainly itwas not mere chance. I became convinced that not merely my own destiny,but a higher, a transcendental fate was at stake.

  "In the course of time I became certain of this. Meanwhile I masteredmost of the secrets of this palace--the wisdom of the ancient Jarados.Though a prisoner, I was the happiest of men--which I still remain. TheBars kept close watch over me, constantly changing their guard. And itwas on one of those occasions that I found MacPherson.

  "Well, after MacPherson's coming I was pretty much my own master.I induced the Senestro to allow MacPherson to remain as a constantbodyguard. But I never told Pat what was what, except that some day weshould extricate ourselves.

  "You may wonder why I did not open the Spot.

  "There were several reasons: First, in the nature of the phenomenon itmust be opened only on the earth side, except on rare occasions whencertain conditions are peculiarly favourable. That's why the Rhamda Aveccould not do it alone; I know now that I should have imparted to himcertain technicalities. I possessed two of the keys then; now, I knowthere are three.

  "And I have learned that each of these is a sinister thing.

  "The blue stone, for instance, is life, and it is male. Rather asweeping and ambiguous statement; but you will comprehend it in the end.Were a man to wear it it would kill him, in time; but a woman can wearit with impunity.

  "Perhaps you will appreciate that statement better if you note what Ihave just done through the medium of that crystal. The blue gem is aninductor of the ether; in a sense, it is one of the anchors of the Spotof Life, or the Blind Spot--whatever we want to call it--the Spot ofContact.

  "The other two particles--the red and the green one--are respectivelythe Soul and the Material. Or, let us say, the etheric embryos of theseessentials.

  "The three stones constitute an eternal trinity.

  "As for the substance of the Spot itself, that I cannot tell, just yet.But I do know that the whole truth will come out clear in the fulfilmentof the Prophecy. I am convinced that it has translated Watson, and nowHarry Wendel and the Nervina."

  "Can you control it?" asked Chick.

  "To a limited extent. I have been able to watch you ever since yourcoming. You did not know about Harry, but I saw him come--in the arms ofthe Nervina."

  The Nervina nodded.

  "It is so. I knew the Senestro. I was afraid that Harry would fall intohis hands. I had previously endeavoured to have him give the jewel toCharlotte Fenton. I didn't trust the great Bar--"

  Harry interrupted, "Only because of her distrust of the Senestro did shedecide to come through the Blind Spot with me. She knew what to do. Assoon as we got here, she bundled me off, privately nursed me back tohealth if not strength, and when the time came rushed me up here at thelast second to be in at the finish."

  Watson thought of the dog, Queen. She also had come through just in timeto save his life. Did Harry know anything about her? When Wendel hadrelated what he knew, Chick commented:

  "It's almighty strange, Harry. Everything works out to fit in exactlywith that confounded Prophecy. Perhaps that accounts for your affinityfor the Nervina; it is something beyond your control, or hers. We'llhave to wait and see."

  There was not long to wait. The days passed. The palace was full ofRhamdas, summoned by Dr. Holcomb, who, as the Jarados himself, was nowissuing orders concerning the great day, the last of the sixteen days,now very close at hand; the day which the Rhamdas constantly alluded toas "the Day of Judgment."

  The Senestro went unmolested. Returning to the Mahovisal, he worked nowto further the truths of the Prophecy.

  Still the millions continued to descend upon the Mahovisal. Coming fromthe furthermost parts of the Thomahlia, the pilgrims' aircraft kept theair above the city constantly alive. There were days such as no man hadever known. Even the Rhamdas, trained to composure, gave evidence of thestrain. The atmosphere was tense, charged with expectancy and hope. Awhole world was coming to what it conceived as its judgment, and itsend. And--the Spot of Life was the Blind Spot!

  At last the doctor summoned the two young men. It was night, and theJune Bug was waiting. This time the Geos himself was at the controls.

  "We are going to the Mahovisal," spoke the doctor--"to the Temple ofthe Bell and Leaf. There is still something I must know before theJudgment." He was speaking English. "If we can bring the Prophecyto pass just so far, and no farther, we shall be able to extricateourselves nicely. Anyway, I think we shall not return to the Palace ofLight."

  He held a black leather case in his hand. He touched it with a finger.

  "If this little case and its contents get through the Blind Spot itwill advance civilisation--our civilisation--about a thousand-fold. Soremember: Whatever happens to me, be sure and remember this case! Itmust go through the Spot!"

  He said no more, but took his seat beside the Geos. The young men tookthe rear seats. In a short time they had crossed the great range ofmountains and were hovering over the Mahovisal.

  There was no sound. Though the city was packed with untold millions, thetension was such that scarcely a murmur came out of the metropolis. Theair was
magnetic, charged, strained close to the breaking point; aboveall, the reverence for the Last Day, and the hope, rising, accumulating,to the final supreme moment.

  For the Sixteenth Day was now only forty-eight hours removed.

  Both Chick and Harry realised that their lives were at stake; the doctorhad made that clear. In the last minute, in the final crisis, they mustcrowd their way through the Blind Spot. Only the professor knew how itwas to be done.

  At the temple they found the Nervina and the Aradna waiting. The JanLucar was with them. The Geos had secured entrance by a side door. Fromit they could look out, themselves unobserved, over the entire buildingand upon the Spot of Life. The place was packed--thousands uponthousands of people, standing in silent awe and worship, one and allgazing toward the all-important Spot. There was no sound save thewhisper of multitudinous breathing.

  Said Harry to Chick:

  "I see Queen up there!"

  Harry circled the group, and bounded up the great stairs. In a momenthe was patting his dog's head. She looked up and wagged her tail to showher pleasure. But she was not effusive. Somehow she wasn't just like hisold shepherd. She glanced at him, and then out at the concourse below,and lolled her tongue expectantly. Then she settled back into her placeand resumed watch--exactly as any of her kind would have held guard overa band of sheep.

  The dog was serious. Afterward, Wendel said he had a dim notion that shewas no longer a dog at all, but a mere instrument in the hand of Fate.

  "What's the matter, old girl?" he asked. "Don't you like 'em?"

  For answer she gave a low whine. She looked up again, and out into thethrong; she repeated the whine, with a little whimper at the end.

  Harry returned to the others. Nothing was said of what he had done. Atonce the Geos led the group through a small, half-hidden door, beyondwhich was a narrow, winding stairway of chocolate-coloured stone. TheGeos halted.

  "Dost wish the building emptied, O Jarados?"

  "I do. When we come back from under the Spot of Life, we should have theplace to ourselves."

  Accompanied by the two queens the Rhamda returned to the main body ofthe temple. Dr. Holcomb, Harry and Chick were left to themselves.

  The professor took out a notebook. In it was traced a map, or chart,together with several notations.

  "The three of us," said he, "are going to take a look at the under sideof the Blind Spot. This stairway leads into a secret chamber inside thefoundations of the great stair; and according to this data I found inthe palace, together with some calculations of my own, we ought to findsome of the secrets of the Spot."

  He led the way up the steps. At the top of the flight they came to ablank, blue wall. There was no sign of a door, but in the front of thewall stood a low platform, in the centre of which was set a strange, redstone. The professor consulted his chart, then opened his black case.From it he took another stone, red like the other, but not so intense.This he touched to the first, and waited.

  Inside a minute a light sprang up from the contact. Immediately Harryand Chick beheld something they had not seen on the wall--a knob, orbutton. The doctor pulled sharply on it. Instantly a door opened in thewall.

  They passed into another room. It was not a large place--about thirtyfeet across, perhaps, stone-walled and with a low ceiling. From allsides a soft, intrinsic glow was given off. There were no furnishings.

  But in the centre of the ceiling, occupying almost all the spaceoverhead, a snow-white substance hung as if suspended. Were it notfor its colour and its size, it might have been likened to an immense,horizontal grindstone hung in mid-air, with apparently nothing to holdit there. Around its side they could make out a narrow gap betweenit and the ceiling. And directly along its lower edge was a series ofsmall, fiery jewels inset, and of the order and colour of the sign ofthe Jarados--red, blue and green, alternating.

  The professor produced an electric torch and held it up to show that thegap between the stone and the ceiling was unbroken at any point. Then hecounted the jewels on the lower edge. Chick made out twenty-four. Threewere missing from their sockets--all told, then, there should have beentwenty-seven.

  The doctor noted the positions of the three empty sockets and, drawinga tapeline from his pocket, proceeded to measure the distances from eachof the three--they were widely separated round the circle--from eachother. Then he turned to Chick and Harry.

  "Do you know where we are?"

  "Under the Spot of Life," it was easy to answer.

  "You are in San Francisco!"

  "Not in--in--" Chick hesitated.

  "Yes. Exactly. This is 288 Chatterton Place--the house of the BlindSpot." He paused for them to digest this. Then, "Harry--did you sayHobart Fenton was with you on that last night?"

  "Hobart and his sister, Charlotte. I remember their coming at the lastminute. They were too late, sir."

  The professor nodded.

  "Well, Harry, the chances are that Hobart is not more than twentyfeet away at the present moment. Charlotte may be sitting rightthere"--pointing to a spot at Harry's side--"this very instant. Andthere may be many others.

  "No doubt they are working hard to solve the mystery. Unfortunately thebest they can do is to guess. We hold the key. That is--I should correctthat statement--we hold the knowledge, and they hold the keys."

  "The keys?" Harry wanted to know more.

  The professor pointed to the three empty sockets in the great whitestone above their heads. "These three missing stones are the keys.Until they are reset we cannot control the Spot. I had found two ofthem before I came through. I take it that both of you remember the blueone?"

  "I think," agreed Chick, "that neither of us is ever likely to forgetit! Eh, Harry?"

  The professor smiled. He was holding the light up to the snow-stone,at a spot that would have been the point of intersection had lines beendrawn from the three missing gems, and the resulting triangle centred.He held his hand up to the substance. It was slightly rough at thatpoint, as though it had been frozen.

  Then he ran his fingers across the surrounding surface.

  "Ah!" he exclaimed. "I thought so! That helps considerably. Chick--putyour hand up here. What do you feel?"

  "Rough," said Chick, feeling the intersection point. "Slightly so, butcold and--and magnetic."

  "Now feel here."

  "Cool and magnetic, doctor; but smooth. What does it prove?"

  "Let's see; do you understand the term 'electrolysis'? Good. Well,there should be another clue--not similar, but supplementary, or rather,complementary--on the earth side. Perhaps one of you found it while youlived in that house." The professor eyed both men anxiously. "Did eitherof you find a stain, or anything of that sort, on the walls, ceiling, orfloor of any room there?"

  Both shook their heads.

  "Well, there ought to be," frowned the doctor. "I am positive that,should we return now, we could locate some such phenomenon. From thisside it is very easy to account for; it's simply the disintegratingeffect of the current, constantly impinging at the point of contact orthe intersection. Having acted on this side, it must have left some markon the other."

  Watson was still running his hand over the snow-stone. Once before, whenhe had stood barefooted in the contest with the Senestro, he had notedits cold magnetism.

  "What is this substance, professor?"

  "That, I have not been able to discover. I would call it neutralelement, for want of a more exact term; something that touches bothaspects of the spectrum."

  "Both aspects of the spectrum?"

  "Yes; as nearly as the limitations of my vocabulary will permit. If yourecall, I showed you a simple experiment the other day in the palace.By means of an inductor I drew out the iron principle from the ether andbuilt up the metal. Only it was not precisely iron but its Thomahlianequivalent. Had you been on the earth side you would have seen nothingat all, not even myself. I was on the wrong aspect of the spectrum.

  "Also, you see here the Jaradic colours--the crimson, green andblue--th
e shades between, the iridescence and the shadows. Had youbeen on the other side you wouldn't have seen one of them; they are notprecisely our own colours, but their equivalents on this side of theSpot.

  "In the final analysis, as I said before, it gets down to ether, tospeed and vibration--and still at last to the perceptive limitations ofour own earthly five senses. Just stop and consider how limited we are!Only five senses--why, even insects have six. Then consider that allmatter, when we get to the bottom of it, is differentiated and condensedether, focused into various mathematical arrangements, as numberless asthe particles of the universe. Of these our five senses pick out a verysmall proportion indeed.

  "This is one way to account for the Blind Spot. It may be merelyanother phase of the spectrum--not simply the unexplored regions of theinfra-red or the ultra-violet, but a region co-existent with what wenormally apprehend, and making itself manifest through apertures in whatwe, with our extremely limited sense-grasp, think to be a continuousspectrum. I throw out the idea mainly as a suggestion. It is notnecessarily the true explanation.

  "Let us go a bit farther. Remember, we are still upon the earth. Andthat we are still in San Francisco, although all the while we are alsoin the Mahovisal. This is 288 Chatterton Place, and at the same timeit is the Temple of the Bell. It might be a hundred or a thousand otherplaces just as well, too, if my hypothesis is correct; which we shallsee.

  "Now, what does this mean? Simply this, gentlemen, that we five-sensedpeople have failed to grasp the true meaning of the word 'Infinity.' Welook out toward the stars, fancying that only in unlimited space can wefind the infinite. We little suspect we ourselves are infinity! It isonly our five senses that make us finite.

  "As soon as we grasp this the so-called spiritual realm becomes a verysubstantial fact. We begin to apprehend the occult. Our five-sensedworld is merely a highly specialized phase of infinity. Material orspiritual--it is all the same. That's why we look on the Thomahlians asoccult, and why they consider us in the same light.

  "It is strictly a question of sense perception and limitations, whichcan be covered by the word, 'viewpoint.' Viewpoint--that is all itamounts to.

  "There is no such thing as unreality; but there is most certainly such athing as relativity, and all life is real.

  "Of course I knew nothing of this until the discovery of the Blind Spot.It will, I think, prove to be one of the greatest events in history. Itwill silence the sceptics, and form a bulwark for all religion. And itwill make us all appreciate our Creator the more."

  The professor stopped. For some moments there was silence.

  "What are we to do now?" asked Harry.

  But the professor chose not to answer. With his tape he began taking afresh series of measurements, with reference to the empty sockets andone particularly brilliant red gem, which seemed to be "number one" inthe circle. From time to time the doctor jotted down the results andmade short calculations. Presently he said: "That ought to be enough.Now suppose we--"

  At that instant something happened. Harry Wendel caught him by theshoulder. He pointed to the suspended stone.

  It was moving!

  It was revolving, almost imperceptibly, like some vast wheel turningon its axis. So slowly did it rotate, the motion would have escapedattention were it not for the gems and their brilliance.

  Suddenly it came to a stop, short and quick, as though it had droppedinto a notch. And from above they heard the deep, solemn clang of thetemple bell.

  "What is that?" asked Harry, startled. "Who moved the stone?"

  "Can it be," flashed Chick, "that Hobart Fenton has found the keys?"

  "That remains to be seen!" from the doctor. "Come--we must find out whathas happened!"

  Within a minute they knew. As they came out of the private door on thenow emptied floor of the great temple, they saw the senior queen, theNervina, coming down the great stairway from the Spot of Life.

  "What is it?" called Harry, apprehensively.

  "The Aradna!" she replied. Her voice was curiously strained. "Somethinghappened, and--she has fallen through the Spot!"