Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon (best mobile ebook reader TXT) đź“–
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itself, plainly, it constituted nothing but sheer futility and
desolation. But with awe and hope we told ourselves that it promised an
even greater complexity and subtlety and diversity of the psychical.
This alone could justify it. But this formidable promise, though
inspiring, was also terrifying.
Like a nestling that peers over the nest’s rim for the first time, and
then shrinks back from the great world into its tiny home, we had
emerged beyond the confines of that little nest of stars which for so
long, but falsely, men called “the universe.” And now we sank back to
bury ourselves once more in the genial precincts of our native galaxy.
As our experiences had raised many theoretical problems which we could
not solve without further study of astronomy, we now decided to return
to the Other Earth; but after long and fruitless search we realized that
we had completely lost our bearings. The stars were all much alike, save
that few in this early epoch were as old and temperate as the Other Sun.
Searching at random, but at high speed, we found neither Bvalltu’s
planet nor mine, nor any other solar system. Frustrated, we came to rest
once more in the void to consider our plight. On every side the ebony of
the sky, patterned with diamonds, confronted us with an enigma. Which
spark of all this star-dust was the Other Sun? As was usual in the sky
of this early epoch, streaks of nebular matter were visible in all
directions; but their shapes were unfamiliar, and useless for
orientation.
The fact that we were lost among the stars did not distress us. We were
exhilarated by our adventure, and each was a cause of good spirits in
the other. Our recent experiences had quickened our mental life, still
further organizing our two minds together. Each was still at most times
conscious of the other and of himself as separate beings; but the
pooling or integration of our memories and of our temperaments had now
gone so far that our distinctness was often forgotten. Two disembodied
minds, occupying the same visual position, possessing the same memories
and desires, and often performing the same mental acts at the same time,
can scarcely be conceived as distinct beings. Yet, strangely enough,
this growing identity was complicated by an increasingly intense mutual
realization and comradeship.
Our penetration of one another’s minds brought to each not merely
addition but mutiplication of mental riches; for each knew inwardly not
only himself and the other but also the contrapuntal harmony of each in
relation to the other. Indeed, in some sense which I cannot precisely
describe, our union of minds brought into being a third mind, as yet
intermittent, but more subtly conscious than either of us in the normal
state. Each of us, or rather both of us together, “woke up” now and then
to be this superior spirit. All the experiences of each took on a new
significance in the light of the other; and our two minds together
became a new, more penetrating, and more self-conscious mind. In this
state of heightened lucidity we, or rather the new I, began deliberately
to explore the psychological possibilities of other types of beings and
intelligent worlds. With new penetration I distinguished in myself and
in Bvalltu those attributes which were essential to the spirit and those
mere accidents imposed on each by his peculiar world. This imaginative
venture was soon to prove itself a method, and a very potent method, of
cosmological research.
We now began to realize more clearly a fact that we had long suspected.
In my previous interstellar voyage, which brought me to the Other Earth,
I had unwittingly employed two distinct methods of travel, the method of
disembodied flight through space and a method which I shall call
“physical attraction.” This consisted of telepathic projection of the
mind directly into some alien world, remote perhaps in time and space,
but mentally “in tune” with the explorer’s own mind at the time of the
venture. Evidently it was this method that had really played the chief
part in directing me to the Other Earth. The remarkable similarities of
our two races had set up a strong “physical attraction” which had been
far more potent than all my random interstellar wanderings. It was this
method that Bvalltu and I were now to practice and perfect.
Presently we noticed that we were no longer at rest but slowly drifting.
We had also a queer sense that, though we were seemingly isolated in a
vast desert of stars and nebulae, we were in fact in some kind of mental
proximity with unseen intelligences. Concentrating on this sense of
presence, we found that our drift accelerated; and that, if we tried by
a violent act of volition to change its course, we inevitably swung back
into the original direction as soon as our effort ceased. Soon our drift
became a headlong flight. Once more the forward stars turned violet, the
hinder red. Once more all vanished.
In absolute darkness and silence we debated our situation. Clearly we
were now passing through space more quickly than light itself. Perhaps
we were also, in some incomprehensible manner, traversing time.
Meanwhile that sense of the proximity of other beings became more and
more insistent, though no less confused. Then once again the stars
appeared. Though they streamed past us like flying sparks, they were
colorless and normal. One brilliant light lay right ahead of us. It
waxed, became a dazzling splendor, then visibly a disc. With an effort
of will we decreased our speed, then cautiously we swung round this sun,
searching. To our delight, it proved to be attended by several of the
grains that may harbor life. Guided by our unmistakable sense of mental
presence, we selected one of these planets, and slowly descended toward
it.
WORLDS INNUMERABLE
1. THE DIVERSITY OF WORLDS
THE planet on which we now descended after our long flight among the
stars was the first of many to be visited. In some we stayed, according
to the local calendar, only a few weeks, in others several years, housed
together in the mind of some native. Often when the time came for our
departure our host would accompany us for subsequent adventures. As we
passed from world to world, as experience was piled upon experience like
geological strata, it seemed that this strange tour of worlds was
lasting for many lifetimes. Yet thoughts of our own home-planets were
constantly with us. Indeed, in my case it was not till I found myself
thus exiled that I came to realize fully the little jewel of personal
union that I had left behind. I had to comprehend each world as best I
could by reference to the remote world where my own life had happened,
and above all by the touchstone of that common life that she and I had
made together.
Before trying to describe, or rather suggest, the immense diversity of
worlds which I entered, I must say a few words about the movement of the
adventure itself. After the experiences which I have just recorded it
was clear that the method of disembodied flight was of little use. It
did indeed afford us extremely vivid perception of the visible features
of our galaxy; and we often used it to orientate ourselves when we had
made some fresh discovery by the method of psychological attraction. But
since it gave us freedom only of space and not of time, and since,
moreover, planetary systems were so very rare, the method of sheer
random physical flight alone was almost infinitely unlikely to produce
results. Physical attraction, however, once we had mastered it, proved
very effective. This method depended on the imaginative reach of our own
minds. At first, when our imaginative power was strictly limited by
experience of our own worlds, we could make contact only with worlds
closely akin to our own. Moreover, in this novitiate stage of our work
we invariably came upon these worlds when they were passing through the
same spiritual crisis as that which underlies the plight of Homo sapiens
today. It appeared that, for to enter any world at all, there had to be
a deeplying likeness or identity in ourselves and our hosts.
As we passed on from world to world we greatly increased our
understanding of the principles underlying our venture, and our powers
of applying them. Further, in each world that we visited we sought out a
new collaborator, to give us insight into his world and to extend our
imaginative reach for further exploration of the galaxy. This “snowball”
method by which our company was increased was of great importance, since
it magnified our powers. In the final stages of the exploration we made
discoveries which might well be regarded as infinitely beyond the range
of any single and unaided human mind.
At the outset Bvalltu and I assumed that we were embarking on a purely
private adventure; and later, as we gathered helpers, we still believed
that we ourselves were the sole initiators of cosmical exploration. But
after a while we came in psychical contact with another group of
cosmical explorers, natives of worlds as yet unknown to us. With these
adventurers, after difficult and often distressing experiments, we
joined forces, entering first into intimate community, and later into
that strange mental union which Bvalitu and I had already experienced
together in some degree on our first voyage among the stars.
When we had encountered many more such groups, we realized that, though
each little expedition had made a lonely start, all were destined sooner
or later to come together. For, no matter now alien from one another at
the outset, each group gradually acquired such far-reaching imaginative
power that sooner or later it was sure to make contact with others.
In time it became clear that we, individual inhabitants of a host of
other worlds, were playing a small part in one of the great movements by
which the cosmos was seeking to know itself, and even see beyond itself.
In saying this I do not for a moment claim that, because I have shared
in this vast process of cosmical self-discovery, the story which I have
to tell is true in a fully literal sense. Plainly it does not deserve to
be taken as part of the absolute objective truth about the cosmos. I,
the human individual, can only in a most superficial and falsifying way
participate in the superhuman experience of that communal “I” which was
supported by the innumerable explorers. This book must needs be a
ludicrously false caricature of our actual adventure. But further,
though we were and are a multitude drawn from a multitude of spheres, we
represent only a tiny fraction of the diversity of the whole cosmos.
Thus even the supreme moment of our experience, when it seemed to us
that we had penetrated to the very heart of reality, must in fact have
given us no more than a few shreds of truth, and these not literal but
symbolic.
My account of that part of my adventure which brought me into contact
with worlds of more or less human type may be fairly accurate; but that
which deals with more alien spheres must be far from the truth. The
Other Earth I have probably described with little more falsehood than
our historians commit in telling of the past ages of Homo sapiens. But
of the less human worlds, and the many fantastic kinds of beings which
we encountered up and down the galaxy and throughout the whole cosmos,
and even beyond it, I shall perforce make statements which, literally
regarded, must be almost wholly false. I can only hope that they have
the kind
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