THE GATE

by Anthony Blake

illustrations by George Blake

There was a kind of tree there, that gave some shade from the electric green sun of the Traumoidal system. It seemed everlasting and frozen but micro sensors and cameras had shown patterns of growth and decay. Considered besides the seasons of the Earth - dependent almost entirely on the axial orientation with respect to the Sun - the seasons of the tree were complex beyond the wildest possibilities. If a terrestrial tree sounded the notes of leaf, flower and seed, the 'tree' of this place played a whole organ of shapes and colours, a counterpoint of forms and hues that seemed never entirely to repeat. Analysis of the cell nuclei showed no DNA at all, nor any equivalent molecular coding: the directive agencies of its growth and maintenance were obviously non-locatable, perhaps hidden variables below the quantum field. All suppositions - not merely those of terrestrial scientists but even those of sages from the system of Kwlar - concerning the interface membranes between the living and the non-living were rendered inadequate by this single construct.

From a distance, the scene was easily registerable even by human eyes. The mass of the rock stood like a vast erratic block on the plain, giving the impression that its edges were fissured and crumbling as if subject to an understandable pattern of erosion; and there, close beside, the tree grew. The needle-like growths out of its branches gave the semblance of furry leaves. Its branches forked in the quasi-random way typical of the variational calculus of vegetative forms. It had the spirit of a tree - every planet you could walk upon had its own kind of trees - giving the impression of an eternal wisdom. Trees were inevitable where there were sky and earth. A tree marks out a recording of time through space and it makes you listen to your awareness. Still or swaying, barren or laden, in rainfall or under parching sunlight, the kindly, fulfilled story of the courtship of the elements; the calendar of the seasons; the trademark of the life syndrome: so might this tree be.

You see it there, waiting; its existence is in sympathy with trees of your homeworld, with the trees of your youth when you had time and with the tree you met once that revealed people were only a dream far away: it would be a witness of your coming. Beyond the first light of morning the star ship would come, translating you from the dimensions of space into the planetary flatland of level experience, the stars veiled with scattered light; the tree would receive you and show you endurance. Perhaps the tree, too, was attempting to enter the gate.

Only the grizzled corpses of these fine creatures remained nestled in the alien branches, their large eyes reduced to gaping sockets, their evocative and almost sexual wings crumbled to a few strands of cartilage to which stains of flesh adhered, Piece-meal fragments of garments stirred in the breezes. Earth was far away, hundreds of light years across the Galaxy. The immensity of that distance was etched on the monotony of the plain - which had to be traversed on foot, solely by organic power. Earth, the backwater of the network of systems - a fledging surviving only by a fluke of timing admitted to contact in a storm of controversy that had drawn in even the most superior intellects (though few of them would own to suffering any disturbance on account of such an entity so peripheral to the main evolutionary line) - was just a stray stone underfoot. Few of the beings on Earth could even entertain the relevance of this place to them; they were for the most part caught up in the decades of adjustment following on open contact; the sheer pressure of new facts had exhausted their own natures and their minds were growing new organs with the progressive elimination of genetically transmitted toxins, first began with the injection of new sexual 'diseases' a century before. The affairs of world management were watched over by alien infrastructures, largely eco-cybernetic, akin to the primal modules that had installed the first genetic engines. Open curiosity and sense of mission were overwhelmed and threatened with extinction. The Network needed order.

The psycho-archaeology of the new Earth Age was in its infancy and still bound up with the backwards glance the Earth clung to, to preserve something of its own in the face of superiority everywhere. It was hardly credible that somewhere out there in the superior regions, the 'heavens', there existed an enigma that had defied all attempts to render it comprehensible. The general assumption made was that this was nothing but an enigmatic emblem left by an earlier evolution, the sole purpose of which was to stimulate an enquiry into enquiry: a peculiar kind of archaeological remnant, evidence no doubt of a great intelligence but the meaning of it was not to be found in what it was but in the attempts made to find its meaning. Even on Earth, there had long existed symbols and stories epitomising this superior form of the joke. Rather guiltily, earthmen enjoyed the thought of their superior's bafflement. It was rather strange that no species had 'adopted' the phenomena and integrated it into its teaching resources.

The story of the Alfin had reached Earth many years ago. It seemed to evoke distant memories and experiences of the past, of the sources of failure which had so deranged the evolutionary processes of the system. Strange canticles were composed with imaginary characters singing in newly developed 'open' languages, endlessly discussing the meaning of their predicament, while a group of human saints struggled to reach the place, falling by the wayside except for one who chooses to die with the Alfin beings. The songs, the paintings, the dramas had become so involved and mutually referent that the actual story was almost totally neglected. The Traumoidal system was far away. There were other, less widely known stories stored in the archives of the archaeologists. It seemed that every known species had sent someone or other to attempt what was to be attempted, to find out what was to be found out. All had come and gone. Then there was silence, as if the subject once futilely explored was never to be mentioned again. Every species reported what it observed of the actions of other species; but not of its own. There were never any personal accounts. The only direct information came from the earliest reports when scientific instruments still functioned in the vicinity and data was made available through the system network.

Nothing could have prepared him for this place. Alone, he was walking, for several miles and had come far enough to make out the tree. The journey had been empty, monotonous, desiccating. It had dried out his spirit. After trying so hard not to feel anything, to avoid excitement, to remain in a dulled tranquil state - to prevent himself being absorbed like an indifferent molecule in the digestive maw of the Network with its intensities, wonders, actions and intelligences - he found himself left with a zero self. He could not feel anything distinctive about himself. He had no presence. Behind him in time and space were the full-beinged. He had passed through trying not to care - and they had been too full to care. Memories: 'Earthman, the river starts here if you like.' And he said, remembering Heraclitus, 'Twice?'. The Kwlar replied, sternly, 'once is enough.'

He had begun in the false dawn of the black dwarf, the radiant but almost invisible violet-black fusion above the sky shimmering with photonic pressures that crushed every thought to nothingness. There was no grandeur, no sense of being caught up into the mighty thing; he was annihilated. His starting point was the encampment of the Archaeological League which, over the years, had moved steadily further away as the zone of electrical black-out widened. It was calculated that in only ten orbitals there would be only a few hundred square kilometres in which most current machines would operate. The rate of expansion of the zone had seemed to be accelerated in proportion to the number of visits. As these had dwindled away, the rate became steady. Within twelve orbitals, it would be impossible for a star-ship to land safely.

There had been some surprise at the Earthman's arrival, even though his flight had been signalled ahead. He had hopped via a dozen systems but hardly paid them any attention: because he could not afford to. Any one of them was capable of swallowing him up for a lifetime. There was a tacit mutual agreement on both sides that he should simply pass through. On both sides, there was a sigh of relief when he did. His resolve had evaporated to almost nothing by the time he made planetfall in the Traumoidal system. The passage through so many places where beings were obviously at pains to protect him from superior impacts - almost acting the fool on his behalf - had been deeply humiliating. He was earthly enough to feel the resentment and anger add fuel to the madness of his project in coming here. He had expected it to mount and mount into some kind of raging weapon of determination.

The reality was like the dust covering the plain. His energy was burnt up. His humiliation had deepened when it turned out that a whole new apparatus had to be constructed to produce food and chemicals suitable for him and drugs necessary for his survival. In the days in which he had only to wait, he had wandered around trying to avoid the aliens. Once, he looked down into the enzyme vat with its ingenious dynamic crystals orchestrating the chemistry deriving from the few nucleic acids he had donated from his saliva. He had the awful sense of seeing the reality of his mother, of the mother of all humans; intelligent but mindless, the ultimate chemical puppeteer dancing humans at the end of strings of hormones. The raw ingredients had come from the planet Xar, the 'hidden planet' where the species had learnt millennia ago to communicate even with their diseases and use them for deliberate psycho-physical change. He felt useless and parasitic. When, at last, he set out, the strange light glimmering on the horizon towards which he headed, trundling his food tanks and breathing supplements, he felt incredibly foolish. But, in spite of the biochemical supplements, his nervous system was exhausted. It was impossible to rest in these alien environments: his brain had grown tired screaming at him that everything was wrong.

The tree. He had seen it in a dozen different kinds of representation including holography and tactile sculpture. The rock had only been described. His eyes focused towards it, rather than on it. It stood squarely in the morning light of the green sun now appearing. He could not pin it down to any thought. Rock? There? Form? Conception slid off it like water from the back of a river-fowl. It was as if the rock had thoroughly thought itself out and did not require any external attention. Even while looking right at it, it was possible just to forget it was there. Since recorders would not work, he had been trained to imprint his memory by a way of talking to himself, an intimate whispering confiding his experience to his brain, rhythmically and logically within a series of images that would link and form around each other.

Eukaryotes. Prokaryotes. I see the tree. It is to the left of the rock. It leans a little, to the right. Tropism. The 'foliage' seems to hang up rather than down. I see the Alfin remains. Tumulus. I allow a gesture of respect to them. Totem. It is about twenty metres tall. Entelechy. The rock is massive. I cannot identify its boundaries even though it is just there on the plain. Fulcrum. I see it as a whole. Even the sides. Modular perception,?. From here, about thirty metres away, I can actually see the marks. Actualisation; the rock pool. They have been interpreted as attempts in a previous cycle to penetrate. Archaeology before this phase. Art. Drills, lasers - graffiti! Das wurd. Before all. How long has it been here? By what geology? The elements. Warm and dry. The rock is said to have come from the Murani system, planet five of the second sun. Rocks that float in a sea. Archimedes. It warps space. I'm seeing the back now. The toy that rights itself. Come back to here, me: The view will not stabilise until I am closer. There. The transition. Doormat. I wipe my mind. I see the gate. Spine. It is immense. The front back. It is like a door, set flush in the rock which now appears to be a rough cube about a hundred metres a side. I must go down to the sea in ships. The gate - the door - rises high. It is as tall as the tree. Lips. It is about ten metres wide. Frame. It is so evidently a door. Canvas. Can anyone mistake this? It invites me in. I am fascinated by the line where the two wings of the door meet. Book. Is it a crack?

He did not approach further. Continuing to imprint - so that even his dead brain might have something useful in it - he moved to the left and selected a site for his support system. In short moments, his tent with its attached atmosphere compensators was erect and he was inside and disconnected from the portable unit. As he adapted, so he would need the attachments less and less until he could remain outside for long periods. The time cycles and biochemical tests were imprinted in him. He had placed the view window towards the door. He sat inside, resting and gathering strength. The self-talking helped him to bear his existence. When he stopped, there was an awful silence. It was if he were locked into a picture and was entirely an object, being looked at: he as part of the scene. He decided to stay there for a day. To do nothing. He felt very tired, even in the state of elation over his arrival. The energy did not belong to him, but hemmed him in. He was also like a cork on the surface of it all; passive. He knew there was nothing to be done. Was there ever anything to be done?

A grin of insane fact came over the universe. He kept looking at his body. He wasn't sure if his body was a fact. Any feeling seemed meaningless. Intellectual paranoia was his sole occupation. There was nobody. When the light faded, he attended to his needs and went out, a small unit strapped to his belt. He stood in front of the gate and could see his own faint shadow in the gloom. Turning round, he thought he could make out the faint glimmer of the archaeological settlement, though it may have been one of the suns setting. He had ceased to remember the cycle of the suns. His ears were singing in the silence and he almost missed the faint creaking sounds of the Alfin bodies as a breeze stirred about the place and gently jostled the branches of the tree.

The zero ordinal. To escape the world, we go forward in expectation. To explain the world, we go backwards in decipherment. We add them together to represent ourselves. I have come here and will find a reason for it. Or the fact of my having come here will be made reasonable by other observers who have not suffered the banality of it. Anything looked at becomes remarkable: being here is nothing.

Knowing that I am here is for somebody else. On Earth or in Heaven. This place offers me nothing. It tells me nothing. Explains nothing. Demands nothing. Mouth. Slit. The crack in the world. But as if it made all this stay in place. 'When the Universe was made, the ends did not quite meet and they were gathered up. Here. Do I want to enter the door. Even so? Yes. Not to have dimensions. However many dimensions. Legislate existence throughout. But do I make an appeal? Am I representing Earth, which does not care? Not even myself. No representation; no looking forwards or backwards. Let the door look at me. None of them have wanted what I want. 'Want' is the wrong term. I won't even remember what I tell myself now in this fashion. Reality is incredible. It requires no sensation, no feeling, no thought. Perhaps an event. Let there be music! Alfin. All-ended. God-fine. Ayn - eye - I .. To return to facts: they have all come and gone and now there is just an Earthman.

'Natural selection is very subtle.' 'Yes. I see...' He stopped, terrified.

He had started talking back to himself. His training had been broken. No matter how introspective he might have become, this should not have led to a belief in the independence of his own voice-thought. He remembered the early philosophers in the century before open contact who had engaged in the study of phenomenology of the private subject - poets more than philosophers - who had discovered the duality created by any sense of time. It was said that the new psychologies explained all that. But, he shivered.

Diagnostic, I am recovering from a dislocation in my voice-imprinting. Mark. The idea of natural selection has obvious relevance in the stream of associations but did not appear as entirely my own. Second order. My reaction to this aberration is excessive. Framework. My actual thought was of the possible extinction of the distinctively human type in the new era of contact. Contrast. The implication of the dislocation was a trauma throughout the network. That each species is under a survival threat from the Gate.

He paused. The sheer perversity of his journey glowed inside him. For a moment he extolled the sense of futility, a flowering of images in a part of his brain. He examined himself and found no sense of belief or hope. And smiled. Without speaking aloud, words combined in him: 'Perhaps I am the last man.'

All those back there are dead. Those not here sleep. In the cosy prison cell. If we could not work out our own salvation, there is nothing to be gained from help. There is no help. They are after their own interests. Restoring the balance of things. I am a refugee. Earth is under attack. The bug-eyed monsters have come bearing gifts. Bear witness to the sweet crime. Theirs is the goodness thereof. Ours is the nothing thereof. No accusation. No appeal. No-one here. Only the door knows, the makers of the door?

Then, his voice came: 'It's immature to expect to be left alone. Yes, I don't mean-' Again, he broke off. The sense of another agency in him grew stronger. Revulsion and anguish rose in him. There was a moment like a flash of lightning followed by a different sense of his own presence, a more familiar hollowness. He turned and went inside the tent, but could not rest. When he came out again, it was very dark. He carried with him a phosphorescent torch and went over to the door. His hands slid over its surface but he could not feel the crack; he could only see it. Perhaps, he thought, it is only a mark on the surface. Stars, strange constellations were in the sky. There were lines as well as stars, the filaments of superstrings threaded with condensing gases. All that vastness of energy meant little in comparison with the door. Thermonuclear delusion: death ruled the heavens. He could picture the urgent conquest of matter by the growing passions of life, the relentless progress now concentrated on the front line of memory with its Delphic overtones. A war rages out there and he didn't care at all. The universe was in a crisis of compassion. The door was an end to it all.

At a loss, he turned and went towards the tree. And sat with his back resting on it as the Alfin intellects had in pursuit of their intense contemplations. He avoided any directed mental effort. The answer was before the question.

'There is an answer and it is not subjective,' his voice said. The next day he awoke with the explanation of his verbal anomalies. He concluded that this idea confirmed itself by arising in him. And waited. As the hours accumulated and perished in the emptying of motiveless time, he drifted around. A man attached to a box or a box attached to a man? His clothes were beginning to feel sticky and there were neither electronics nor water-solvents to clean them; even electrostatic powders would be ineffective. He noticed that his support unit had a slight leak. The fluid was staining his trousers. He changed and replaced the unit with the spare. He hung his dirty clothes on the tree keeping well clear of the carcasses. The Moidal moon was in view over the rock, about twice the apparent size of the Earth moon. It had a faint rosy hue and was almost full. It must have been reflecting the light of the dark sun but at radically changed frequencies. There was neither life nor free standing water anywhere on the planet with the possible exception of this region. Even the plain was like a vast concrete swathe covered in grit than a desert of sand. Hills and valleys were questionable. On the journey, he had seemed to climb and descend and the archaeological camp had disappeared from view much too rapidly to be accounted for by the natural curvature of the planetary surface. The horizon was irregular and closer than it should be. But there were never any hills or valleys to be seen.

Towards the late afternoon, a restlessness came over him. He walked to and fro from the tree to the door and around the tree. He tried to walk alongside the rock to get behind it, but found himself always shadowed by the rock face unless he sharply changed direction, when he was brought always to the edge of the door. He was used enough to manipulations of perception not to be dismayed and also not to bother overmuch about what it meant. His hope of contact here did not depend on any chain of reasoning. Pausing by the tree, he gazed curiously at its branches and the remnants scattered among them. The needle growths were purple and yellow, with lines of red; which was impossible considering the ambient illumination. One of the remnants stood out for him: a piece of wing cartilage caught near the fork of two branches. After many more bouts of wandering, he came back to gaze at the Alfin remnant. He found himself moving closer, reaching up to touch it. The contact was electric. He stayed very still with his hand resting there, the tip of a finger bursting with sensation.

'Very well,' he spoke through the finger, 'You can enter at your discretion. But announce yourself'. The intensity subsided and a kind of sweetness came over him, briefly, 'Thank you. Now, make clear to me your position and mine in relation to you.' Suspending all anticipation, he waited only a while before he withdrew into his tent. He unstrapped his support unit and lay down gazing at the fabric of the ceiling, relaxing his eyes. A kind of shape appeared in his mind evoking associations of electron microscopy, the structure of cells and the sense of a personal signature. 'Some form of agreement for interaction must be established. As you realise, I am very small in your body; but that does not count for much in these circumstances. There are some problems of a temporal nature in our rapport; my sequencing is dissimilar; but I have made a translation device.' He lay still, contemplating the situation. When the voice - 'his' voice - spoke there was no sense of anything strange or alien. The strangeness came when he was aware of the meaning of what was said. The intelligence was using morphogenic resonance to communicate independent thoughts, His voice was a shared terminal.

He spoke aloud, at the terminal, 'Once, there was an organism who teamed up with a very bright microbe. They decided to seek their fortune together on a distant planet. Because the microbe was much more intelligent than the organism, it was the microbe who stored the data on how to reach the planet and what to do there. Unfortunately, the organism sneezed while boarding the space-craft. They never saw each other again'. 'But, here I am again!' his voice said. 'I've caught up with you at last! Shall we proceed with the mission?' He smiled, 'How did you get here?' 'I came with you. I've been hanging about in that camp for several orbitals waiting for something like you. It seemed correct to inform you of my existence. Just sneeze if you want to be left alone.'

'That's right' he said, 'You went out when I became disturbed and then came back through the Alfin. But, how do you move about?' 'There are gradients of all kinds and I play off one against the other. I am what you call a 'demon'? But, it was a problem to learn how to do without the electrical gradients. I went back to good old sound. You don't realise how much energy you let loose in moving about. Your voice would be enough to send me back to the camp, directed in the right way.'

'How much have you directed me?' 'Don't be too paranoiac. Does it matter to you which foot you start off on? Well, it matters to me. I use what you do not care about. All very ethical.' There was silence for a while on both sides. Dealing with an on-board alien of a type he had never even heard of before had not been in view. What was it up to? Surely, the convention was to disregard any other species and concentrate on the Gate?

'I'm just open-minded.' His voice chuckled in an unnerving way and he felt very put out that the alien was utilising his non-verbal functions as well, 'If you want, I'll go off and leave you alone with all the other 'microbes' that keep you going. You don't know what you look like from the 'microbe' point of view.' 'It can't matter. You don't see me anymore than I see myself 'Suit yourself. The psychology of organisms is very amusing. Treat me as your personified unconscious, an articulate version of your inmost chemistry, the sublime subliminal at your disposal. I take up no space and use only what you want to forget. Not a super-ego, not an id. Just-yours', really.'

Another superior alien psychoanalysing the human race from higher dimensions! He felt irritated and nauseous. Yahweh with a smile. The Torah in cartoon strip. Freud on the cross of the Network. 'Very understandable.' The voice came out in weird mixture of warmth and anger. 'As your guest I will not impose anything on you, not even an explanation. In fact, if you think about it, you can deduce that any special knowledge I have of you is irrelevant to you - unless you choose otherwise. But I know your picture of things. May I say that you do not understand what a superior intellect is? Thank you. I disclaim, as well to be superior. I'm just rather mare flexible than you. After all - you couldn't get inside me could you! Perhaps you'd like to borrow me for the purposes of your thinking? Go ahead. Give it a try.'

A thought came up from his past studies: "The Barbarians contributed nothing to the development of civilisations." But, was he a barbarian? Were civilisations the point? The collective mind ruled like an archaic democracy. What was made public in the network of systems must be inherently a lie. There were no constraints on the individual. He was here at the gate. The place was redefining his nature. Nothing could remove his centre which didn't even exist. "So, we can co-operate with each other?' his voice said. 'You can understand now that there is no competition?' 'But, you came here to the gate; not to me', he said. 'What do you want in coming here? Are we battling for survival?' 'If I could tell you why I came, you would find it meaningless. The nearest to it I can find for you is this: "that over there is not here, as far as I can make out"'.

'And where are you?' 'I don't have any co-ordinates, but carry the data of co-ordinates. Remember your story? Whenever our paths coincide, I am with you. At other times, I am just a thought to conjure with'.

Their conversation continued for some hours in a playful manner. It seemed to him the only kind of companionship that made sense. Sitting around with a visible alien would be insufferable, He was exhausted with the multitude of forms - all seemingly ruled by the anthropic principle to be so big (more or less) and have senses dangling off bioelectric switching systems. He was beginning to enjoy his microbe friend. What better thing than to make friends with one's chemistry With he before he became he? Disguised in the sound and syntax of his built-in transponder.

'Yes. I know about Earth and the Network. Yes, some species do know about me; or think they know. You see, I am a one-off, self-designed. Some of your terrestrial images in mythology had the sense of it. Atum, for example; but, without the sexual politics! Then there were the angels. Yes, some of my friends pioneered the methods used in organic evolutions. But, the notion of an heavenly hierarchy controlling everything is a mix-up. What is taken to be control is actually temporary correction procedures. All authorities are temporary expedients. But they tend to outstay their usefulness. No; it's not "lonely". I know how you feel about "lonely". Probably, you already understand - at least from being here - that loneliness is just a mental energy, a connection between functions. You get confused about what more it is. Every intellect needs the lonely energy to work with. I work a lot with loneliness. It's the best part of life. But, as you see, I am not adverse to companionship. It's a nice change that makes no difference.'

He stared out at the Gate. 'The door is like that. It is pure loneliness. They made it exist somehow.' 'Have you thought of this? I know you haven't, but I have to put it like that. What happens when the zone extends beyond the planet?' 'Will it!' He had never considered the possibility. 'Nobody has mentioned that. I mean, drawn attention to that.' 'Well, they wouldn't, considering it's obvious. Think about it - the galaxy being smothered by the zone. Back to your Stone Age. Perhaps the universe will come to an end.' The voice chuckled.

'But the dampening effect is only macro-electric.' 'Not so. There are other effects which are disturbing the balance of forces. Still, Earth might be long gone before the Network gets undone.' 'But there cannot be a local change in the basic parameters.' 'How did the Universe begin?' He was left with his own thoughts. Just at that moment, it seemed to him that the surface of the door quivered slightly; his sight seemed to mist over. Hardly crediting it, he made out a metallic shape that emerged, turned this way and that and then came over to the tree. It was hovering or floating in the air. Prism-like, it had the basic form of a head with no body. It hummed and glistened and gave a sense of vitality and purpose. He scrambled to his feet and stumbled out of the tent, disdaining to use his support unit. What the hell! The thing was resting in the lower branches of the tree.

'Halt!' he said. There was no answer. He paced round the tree, his eyes fixed on the apparition. 'It came out of the door,' he told himself, 'It came out of the door. No, perhaps it just materialised in front of the door.' A thought struck him and he rushed over to the door. There it was: the crack was definitely wider. His eyes blurred. Was one wing of the door in front of the other? He tried to peer sideways. For some reason, he could not bring himself to feel with his hands. He forgot he had hands. He just looked.

'Psst!' He jumped. The prism object was peering over his shoulder. He looked at the thing full in the 'face'. He was almost captivated by the features he could see this close. They were delicate, intricate, feminine in their appeal. Yet, the stem lines of the shape were masculine and assertive. 'Psst!' it repeated. And then suddenly moved 'backwards' into the tree again. 'What do you think?' He found himself whispering. 'Your thought is as good as mine,' his voice answered, blurting it out so loud it startled him. The object was again settled in the branches, looking at him. He wandered over, wondering what to do.

'Well,' said the thing, 'You can call me "Thing" if you like.' 'Hi! Thing. I'm not here really, so you can call me "Nothing"'. His voice spoke for the microbe. He was feeling crowded between Thing and Nothing: there was not much room for anything else. 'I'll be Anything' he said , testily. And waited for the tremendous event which should come next. The object stirred. 'Psst! Nothing and Anything. Good luck in everything. Goodbye.' It shot in a line straight for the door that gave out a sound exactly as if it were being slammed shut just as Thing disappeared from sight.

He and the microbe did the next best thing to turning around and looking at each other: that is, they stood there in stunned silence trying to find a thought that meant something. 'Does this mean that we can get in?' 'And do we want to?' 'Is there anything else to do round here?' 'To travel hopefully is better than to arrive nowhere - as you might say.' 'We have arrived nowhere.' From the soreness in his throat, he was activated to get inside the tent and regain balance. As had become usual, he sat staring out at the door.

'Tell me,' he asked, 'Did they know you were around in the camp?' 'Only one of them - the Thrugian. But the Thrugians have a problem with the identity question and could never bring themselves to simply have a conversation.' See here. We didn't ask Thing anything.' 'Who?' He reflected that 'Nothing' was not proving very co-operative. 'Earthman. Believe me when you say that I do not really know what you are up to here either. Friendship we can share: it's laughing at the same joke even if we don't see eye to eye. I can't get in your way, nor you in mine.' 'But, doesn't that make us useless to each other?' 'Sure, but that's how it can work for both of us. Stretch your logic a little. Like this... '

He was convulsed with laughter and ended up on the floor pointing to his feet trying to explain them to his nose. 'Sorry about that,' his voice managed to blurt out. 'Organisms have a way of their own and I've forgotten a great deal. I was going to show you some other stuff but I'm not sure I can do that without undoing you.'

'Undo me?' He dissolved into hysterics again. 'You creatures sure like throughput. Food, experiences, thoughts anything, as long as you can take it in and shit it out. Still, it makes a change for me. I like a bit of indulgence every now and then to remind me of what it's like.' He felt waves of delicious possibility, an experience akin to surveying a heap of treasure within reach, or an ecosystem where everything tasted is delightful, or simply a shop window full of pastries. To have and to have not. Experience itself was tasty, addictive. But he saw his own life as tasty morsel in the mouth of experience itself; the universe was in reality an epicure which allowed its morsels a little taste of each other. So, everything ate everything else and the more sophisticated morsels enjoyed themselves watching this going on. But - objects, things! Thing!

He said, 'I can't know how the world tastes for you and, as for you, as far as I'm concerned you must know how the world tastes for me, even if you don't. Which leaves me with the question: does the Thing taste us? And can we ever know that?' 'You can always ask! As for me, why not ask me - to start off with. What do you want to know?' 'Can you.' he said very carefully, 'Know or experience events in the same way as I know and experience them?' 'My answer is this: I can understand what you mean by the "same way" at least as well as you can.'

His eyes were coming to rest on the door once more. Something had brought them into play once more. Prethoughts uncoiling into sense occasions. The metaphysical formulations were simply a recreation that eased his emptiness in front of the door, in front of his bluff in wangling his way across the Galaxy to 'study the enigma' under the guise of 'basic research rights for Earth'. If it had not been for Thing's appearance he would have been looking for some way out of the situation, some other bluff to get him back home into forgetfulness without appearing a complete idiot. But, something rather obvious was seeping through to him. Something that was rather difficult to focus on while engaged in conversation with the microbe. He, an example of the most backward member of the Network, without power or insight had: first, been entered by an intelligent form he had never realised existed; second, been witness to an apparition reported by none of the previous investigators. He sighed. Were Thing and Nothing just to pass through him like an experience? Were they working together in some super-real world beyond his awareness? Is the whole sick thing of the Earth crisis to be repeated here? Rumours of the 'real' people escaping to other planets.

As darkness came, the air grew very still once more. Nothing was to be heard. Even the sounds of his own body quietened. He no longer needed the voice of the microbe, but it was good that it existed somewhere with its own purpose. He let it speak. 'If we combine what I know with what you do not know, we might get somewhere.'

From the tree, he recovered his first set of clothes. He went into the tent and attended to his bodily needs. He noticed that hardly any of the breathing supplements were needed. On impulse, he went out again, in the light of the moon just risen. Making his way over to the tree, he listened patiently to the sound of his own feet. The needle growths on the branches he touched were softer than he had expected. Maybe, they were at a different stage to the ones he had examined when he first arrived. He broke some of the soft ones off and slipped one into his mouth. It dissolved rapidly, making a liquid that trickled smoothly down his throat.

Instantly, he felt a pressure that was intense in his limbs, pushing out at fingers and toes. His face seemed to implode inwards to the back of his skull, but with no violence or frenzy. There was a kind of world, a space, and he was alive. There was someone with him. They shook hands. 'Friend microbe, I presume?' 'Sir, we are all appearances of each other.' They laughed together and departed on voyages of exploration in which the stars were just dust under their feet and galaxies petty islands in an ocean of wonders. It seemed that the whole universe was woven together by their travels. Riches were transported through them; but they were constantly in search of other kinds of meaning. In a kind of twilight, they turned and sailed back across the time-seas to the dawn of their friendship. They landed on a shore blazing with the lights of a busy port. Intelligence was manufactured in factories that lay near the harbour. As they walked through the city, they pointed out the wonders to each other. Sacred images tended in vast gardens. Engines devising increasing subtleties. Cosmic events enshrined in visible memories that moved with their own life. The air was serenity. Discussion flowed everywhere. Meanings rained down in showers in which the people danced. Peals of agony rang from squares where the ugliness and degradation of the universe was gathered for intense contemplation. The highest adepts refined torture into bliss.

They were drawn into the centre where all the forces streamed together. No one else was there. They were turned to horror. A flash. Intense heat. The city was laid waste. Heaps of gravel were left everywhere, the air full of dust. A pure lament cut through the time. The two friends were left, clasping each other. He opened his eyes. His hand was clutching still a few of the needles, mingled with dust and grit. The forgotten was intensely powerful. He understood enough to be there.

Something of his mental training asserted itself. He began to review the actual events that had transpired and searched into the detail which verged on the subconscious levels. In the interval between one breath and the next, the habitual mind is extinguished. The quantum theory of consciousness was pretty standard, but every species had to find its own way of gaining experience of the quantum and sub-quantum levels. It was, even, an individual matter and it had radically altered the course of science. So, he ran through and re-ran his memory sequences of the Thing and its movements. And discovered an anomaly. He thought he remembered the door looking as if it were slightly open after Thing came out but, when he looked more closely, he saw that the reverse was true. It was when Thing sped towards the door that it opened. Another item: Thing had not gone through the door at all when it disappeared.

Hurriedly, he looked round at the tree. Thing was not there. Its absence sat there with complete certainty. He looked towards the door, letting himself see it just at the quantum threshold, a state of self-induced dream. In this state, he compared notes with Nothing. They agreed only that the door was completely shut. 'Nothing!' The man cut out the dream state. 'You said that you could travel with the sound of my voice?' 'Time for an experiment, my friend?' his voice sounded almost relieved. 'Yes. What I suggest is that you travel out on my voice to the centre of the door. I think that my mistake has been in thinking of you as nothing,' 'You want me to be like a high energy particle to see if I can probabalise myself through the door? My friend, I have been to and fro a hundred times while you've been sleeping! The sound of your snores is enough to give me wings. Nothing happens. It's shut. Closed. No opening. No change. Zilch.'

'I want to watch you do it. I mean, I want to be aware of what effect it has. If it has any effect. Damn it, let's try a little primitive science for a change,' 'I've been and come back already. Did you notice anything?' 'You might have told me! I want to be part of it. It's not enough for you to do it on your own. I want to put myself into my voice and you to put yourself into my voice so that we are thinking the same way at the same time.' 'We have to say a word together. Both of us in your voice. Interesting. It has to be the right word.' 'Open sesame?' 'Be serious. You'll turn us both into a piece of fiction with words like that. Attend! What is the most powerful word for you?' 'For us.'

Strings of words went through his brain. Not one of them stirred him. They swum around like a lot of poor fish in the medium of microbes own language of tracts of space-tine and uncoiling lines of hidden dimensions. Then, for whatever reason, they said, "That's it!'. In his view, the door opened. Definitely. Clearly. Even though he could not register the size of the opening. The bare fact was incontestable at all levels. 'There,' his voice said, 'Nothing happened. Even though it appears you remember something did.' 'Yes!' he shouted. 'The door opened. You should have passed through'.

'What I now find is that you passed through and have forgotten what actually happened. It's absolutely clear in you.' Their voice fell silent as they gave themselves up to a thorough examination of their experience. They extracted it, turned it inside out, washed it, hung it up to dry, scrutinised it and found that it added up in the end to the fact that the door was shut. He wandered around again, this time impatient, concentrated; a man with two brains trying to realise a mental stereoscopic scan of the intransigence of the door. The simultaneity of the contradictory experiences had been made as clear as possible. What was lacking was a third observer-participator who could decide which reality was paramount and when. Maybe, such an observer could actually penetrate the door.

It was an intensely hot morning, for some reason, and the air was heat-hazed, the distance shimmering and shifting. It looked like another boring day on the threshold of the infinite. He realised that he had stopped his active mentation and his senses had turned grey. Then, the ground thundered. He looked about him but the sound appeared to come more through his feet than through the air. Louder and more disturbing the sound grew. If he stood still, he felt his legs reverberating with it. Far off in the distance, he noticed the horizon smeared with clouds of dust. He peered into the haze. Something was there, in the direction of the camp. Almost within minutes, he began to make out a shape: it seemed that a small mountain was growing in that direction.

Was the planet undergoing tectonic convulsions - in spite of the fact that it had no plate structure in its mantle? The distant booming and the shaking of the ground sharpened. The mountain was on the move. He felt himself become giddy as if the ground were tilting beneath his feet. Colossal and inexorable, a giant figure came into view. Not a mountain, not a pillar of God; but a being: vast, striding across the plain with the power of an encapsulated hurricane. He felt fear and awe. This was not like a giant of the ancient Earth - which might have measured three metres at most - but something from another scale of things. He felt totally ridiculous standing there, laughing at himself as he abandoned all hope of survival.

Then, it paused. He noticed the air about him was swirling. In the relative silence, he made out a kind of rhythmic roar, rather like the sound of terrestrial seas as they pressed against the land-shelves. His eyes blurred as he peered into the glare of the hot morning. The whirlwinds of opaque dust were settling, leaving only the shimmering distortions of the thermal layering. There was a sparkle towards the top of the figure - which now looked more like a step pyramid than anything else. Even if it had really been striding, no legs were now visible. A cascade of notes, rising and falling in pitch in counterpoint, several lines together, in chords and measures of rapidly changing tonality and, never dissolving into the bland chaos of white noise but conveying a sense of articulate purpose, came out of it.

He found himself stretching, reaching up his arms and yelling out, 'There's someone here! I'm very small! Take care!' The sounds checked, then seemed to echo the frequencies of his voice and develop them as a banal sequence of notes turned into a masterful chorus. The figure rose higher still, seeming to stretch as high as the distance to the camp. He could make out colossal limbs, but not how many or of what form. 'Do you think I am sense deprived, Earthman?' The voice sounded filtered and probably was. He was relieved by having a response. It was still a problem for him not to treat non-humanoids as exotic animals capable of anything at any time, without restraint from abstract information.

He had to say something more, so he blurted out, 'Welcome to the party!' 'Thanks for the greeting, however belated. To reassure you, I will tell you in advance what I am going to do. I shall draw nearer until I am within one hundred of your metres - that is, at my outermost extremity. I shall move to your, at present, left side. I suggest that you go inside your habitat and seal it during this process. After I am in place, you can come out and we can discuss the situation.'

'Thank you for your consideration,' he yelled and hurried into the tent, wishing that his window faced the giant figure and he could watch it grow nearer. Heaving and shuddering, the ground told him of the giant's approach. He saw the great shadow which advanced across the door as the being loomed nearer. The roaring grew to the sound of a hundred combustion turbines; then some kind of sound baffles came into play and made the level of noise more bearable. By the time movement had ceased, he could hear himself think.

The air was settling and he ventured outside, his heart beating fast. It was impossible to make out the upper part of the creature: he was now too near to see anything but the lower bulges. He might as well have been confronting an island plucked out of the sea: he would have no idea whether there were tropical plants, ice sheets or barren desert on the surface. Yet, as he bent his head backwards he could make out something that reminded him of the sparkle he had glimpsed when the figure was out in the plain. It must have moved halfway down. It was still moving and forming. It became an immense and turquoise eye. It was without pupil or iris, honeycombed into different sectors that seemed to be in constant rotation relative to each other.

The rest of the giant was amorphous. It was a pile of flesh and stone: flesh, because it emanated life and vitality; stone, because it sat there like a mountain impervious to living time. Standing just near the edge of the being was a kind of tripod, with various knobs and projections. A voice came out of this apparatus. 'I am aware that we are not alone and I pay greetings to the sentience taking advantage of your psycho-organic facilities. Since I can hardly inhabit your organism, I have to resort to a machine to speak at your level. No offence meant, you understand! Now, perhaps you are wondering why I am here and what I am, even, how I can exist at all? Though facts are rather more compelling than explanations.'

The man swallowed and licked his dry lips. He fervently hoped that the various inputs to his nervous system would see him through the next period of time. 'Yes. There are many questions but I am sure it matters to find the ones strictly relevant to this situation. Let me offer you some information. Quite recently, we witnessed the unexpected. A machinelike entity that called itself Thing appeared to come out of the door. It greeted us and then disappeared back inside again. We have been investigating this. I was just wondering about the role of a third observer when you appeared.'

'By the way,' Microbe added in the human's voice, 'in this context, I am called Nothing and the human. Anything.' 'That only leaves me the name Something', the giant chuckled, 'and I like that very much'.

'As you can see, I am evident. I evidently am. I like mass; always had a feeling for it. If there's anything that distinguishes this universe, it's mass. You know, the whole problem was how to get it and, in getting it, how to have it move about. Mass in motion! It's invigorating, enriching. The physical universe is not appreciated enough. It's sheer lumpiness of inertia is not savoured properly. It is true art. And, I have played my modest part in furthering awareness of its qualities. Look at me! Have you ever seen such a beautiful lump of stuff? It took me ages to evolve an energy system adequate to drive this size of organism around. You may think the megatransports of the Thrugians impressive, but that's just aggregation. Anyway, there are only a few systems capable of providing docking facilities which prevent those arrogant conveyances from wrecking the planets they land on. Me, I can move about without any machinery except me, myself. I've got it all humming from the sub-quantum levels on up to the construction forces, the macro-smears. In your system you've just got to the point of energy physics. Let me tell you - I've got equations on tap that your scientists have never even dreamed of. Here it stands. I am it. It is me. Every energy burp serves my purpose. I can go anywhere, however long it takes, whatever the environment. The whole universe is on my side! On all sides! This is me. Yes - call me Something. That's better than some names I've had. Beings are so concerned about their "Higher levels" that they never learn about being material. Sooner or later, they have to get down to it. I tell them - fly away all you like, let your minds dream up immaterial heavens and try to live in them with your disintegrating patterns of memory. Sooner or later, you'll have to do it my way. You want to get through the universe before you've even been here. Illusionists!'

In a bewildered frame of mind, the man cast his eyes around trying to find a reference to his own scale of things. To his horror, he observed that the ground around the giant's base was sagging. The figure was actually making a dent in the planet. 'Don't worry, master Anything!' the huge figure said, 'I've gotten the hang of anti-gravity too and I won't hurt the planet. There'll be a bit of an energy drain, but what the hell! This planet has a few fancy energy systems and right now is getting its maintenance from your Network.'

'It's draining energy out of the Net!' the man exclaimed, reminded of microbe's speculations. 'Oh! It's a fair exchange. The Network's more worried than it's been for a hundred thousand of your years. You thought Earth was a nuisance! Let me tell you - it's this! Earth was used as a cover-up. It's obvious.'

The man felt great relief sweep through him - like the scent of air on the first deep breath after a rainstorm in a period of dusty summer. In fact, he felt absurdly pleased. He wanted to embrace the monster but remained calm enough to keep his respectful distance. Instead, he shouted out an agreement, 'Right!'

His voice slyly interjected, 'That's part of the nature of our friend. Stuff is empathetic. His mass gives him a lot of contact with how things really are. With me, it's different. I never know the problems unless some being is there for me. You see, I've never been alive, let alone got into mass. Never had the time or inclination. I suppose I got into the habit of borrowing experience when I needed it. Before there was much to borrow I fixed up a few things, got a few disturbances going, played about with stuff a bit. You know - started a few tendencies here and there, semblances of a thought or two. Nothing too definite. But, you know what matter's like! Put a bit of thought in it and bam! there's a whole bunch of organisms running around and re-organising the planetary surface before you've time to see what's happening. The wise thing is to get out of there fast. But, the whole scene is so fascinating. All those experiences! I've never been bored. It's just a bit difficult to want more than you've got if you haven't any mass.'

'You're not even a microbe, then - or a molecule!' said the man. 'You are really Nothing?' 'Yes, I suppose the best way for you to think of me is like your old rolled up dimensions, tucked away at the beginning of the universe. You know - the shy dimensions. They're embarrassed to show themselves in front of the stuff poking around everywhere. I'm like that, but not embarrassed. I'm sort of halfway not there, you know? I'm enough to make a difference to anything that's there, but not enough to make a difference if there isn't anything.'

'Look.' exclaimed the man, 'Why don't you get inside our friend Something and have an ultimate experience?' There was a roaring, rumbling, supersonic air fracturing, blast of energy that beat at his ears from all directions and even massaged his feet. Wildly looking around, he saw the tree shaking and shivering, one of the last clinging remains of the Alfin cracked off and crumbled to the ground in translucent pieces, turning to powder in the shredding air waves. By the time the sound had subsided, he found himself on his hands and knees trying to hide his head inside the tent but unable to find the opening. A gargling torrent of tones followed. His head oscillated in waves of mental expansion and contraction -until his identity was dizzy. At the end of all this he was sat with matted hair in a dust storm gazing with mouth wide open at the tripod which seemed to be saying something to him.

'A philosopher! A thinker! What an effective combination of simple ideas! Nothing's been extolling your virtues, but now I'm converted. What a pity you are not big enough to see yourself. You have mastered some of the trickiest aberrations of stuff. I remember more about your sector now. I was inexperienced then, still into mental expansion. What a mistake! Why travel the universe in a flash when you can walk and take everything in?'

'Why travel at all?' said his voice, a little cracked at the moment and breathless, 'when others will travel for you?'

'Once a centre of experience has accumulated mass, the inevitable occurs to it. It's sickening to see the half-baked intelligences stumbling in from other universes and rushing off to yet others before they've even been here.' 'Can you tell me,' said the man, 'what was so funny?' 'Put it this way, as wise man of earth once did: "Why is there Something rather than Nothing?'" 'Because he likes it there', put in his voice. 'Me. I can take it or leave it.'

The man was beginning to feel that he was the joke. He realised why the clown was always portrayed as tragic figure: it hurt to be a joke. Not made into a joke - to be a joke. It was not a form of existence that he had ever foreseen, for he had always assumed that the things he experienced were dependent on him for their existence. Now, he was a joke. The joke was not only on him, but was him. He couldn't laugh at himself because it would make him miss the point; but, if he did not laugh then there would be no point to it either. In the midst of these conundrums, he was aware of 'giant' and 'microbe' talking to him at once. Inside and outside he was being thoroughly described and exposed and they were acting as if he were doing all this and not them. It seemed that he split in two and rejoined in a backwards way. Something in him accelerated at a fantastic speed and came back and hit him right in the back of his head.

'Wow!' he exclaimed; but it was his voice signifying Nothing's enjoyment of Something and reporting back. After a dazed interlude, in which it seemed that normal procedures were being re-established, the giant said, 'Tell me, do you like to think?' He gazed down at his feet and the barren ground. He knelt and let his hands scuff the dirt, drawing abstract figures. He thought about the question. 'Would I be here otherwise?' he mumbled.

'I don't know where you might be if you were not here but, since you are here, the question is to be asked, even if you do not understand it, because that is why you are here', said the giant in a smooth concatenation of inference that made the man feel absurd. 'Look', said the giant kindly, 'Think of it like this. We invented thinking quite some time ago and we're doing a kind of market research. How do you find it? Have you any suggestions for improvement? We're always open to new input. Something's obviously bothering you about this thinking and we'd like to sort it out now rather than later when it might be too late to do any of us any good.'

At that moment Thing appeared again. This time, there was an announcing sound of metal moving against metal. The keen figure issued from the door, hummed through the air and rose to hover just before the eye of the giant. 'Psst!' it said. 'Psst!' said the giant. Then there came a weird sound and the triangular shape of the Thing appeared to oscillate irregularly. The man felt a spasm of energy in his head. Another swiftly followed. Perspiration shot out onto his forehead. Thing backed off and lighted in the tree, seemingly staring at the scene.

'Excuse us', said the giant, 'We were just comparing notes on certain physical problems. We've just had a conference - the three of us.' 'Look', said the man, 'Are you part of this gate thing? Why are you bothering with me? What's going on!' He was almost yelling. 'I'm just a speck from a degenerate planet in the backwoods; I'm an accident of your early mistakes. I don't count for anything; but I'm here and I want to get through that door and get something straight for once.'

'Understand this', said the giant. 'We did not create you but, we may have invited you.' A deadly chill came over the man. The three visible entities were like statues. The man felt a pang from the memory of the Alfin seekers. He felt the shame of the archaeological savants of the base camp, arranging their retreat. His thoughts altered and he fumbled for words.

'I'm sorry for my state. I'm willing to do anything you want me to do. Just let me see more than I do - think more.'

'Calm down', 'microbe' in the form of his voice said soothingly. 'You've come a long way but there is a very long way to go. We're with you - as much as you want us to be. A lot depends on you right now.'

'Let me tell you a story while you collect yourself, 'said the giant. 'The story is about the universe, which is always a relief to think about at times like this, especially if you are not sure what you mean by it.' 'Right', interjected Nothing. 'The universe is very big and very small. It is as small as it is big. You don't know how small it is until you know how big it is. Now, it's your body which tells you how big it is, while it's your mind which tells you how small it is. But, your mind is unable to tell you how small your body is as your body is unable to tell how big the mind is. OK so far? Right. Now, thinking is the purposeful connection between mind and body and everything that is both big and small has to think. What thinking does is to turn the smaller into the bigger and vice versa. This is what keeps the universe together. Only, mind you, there is no such thing as one overall 'big' intelligence to make sure nothing goes wrong. He's got his own problems. Nothing might tell you about that some time.' 'I've already given him a few hints', the 'microbe' pointed out.

'Given the smaller and the bigger and this tendency in thinking, you can see that the smaller has its smaller and the bigger its bigger, otherwise they could not exist intelligently. Now, for an intelligence to find out what it is, it has to find out how big the small is -' ' - and how small the big is', finished 'microbe'. 'This produces a certain kind of unhappiness, because it cannot be done. Eventually, every intelligence begins to wonder what is wrong with everything,' 'Everything', emphasised Microbe 'And then what happens? Well, any number of things can be set off. Do you see?

'I'm not sure', said the man. 'What's the conclusion?' 'No conclusion. It's still in progress. You may think Earth is the pits, but there are worse places, believe you me. Earth has the basic technique of having everybody blame everybody else for things being as they are. In reality, it's a problem of measurement. So, now you know what the situation really is, what are you going to do?' finished the giant. Casting around for a foothold on his situation, the man wandered over to the tree. He had to refrain himself from taking a needle and letting its magic take him over, the alien chemistry shape his mind and cover the forlorn nakedness of his power to act. It seemed better to go on experiencing his ineptitude in existing effectively. To be sure, he could not have much life left after this meeting. Body and mind were flying apart at light speed and he had no conviction of anything being left in the middle. His gaze, casting around the branches of the tree, came to rest on Thing. The two entities considered each other. Wanting to leave no gesture unused the man asked, 'Please tell me how to get through the door,'

The Thing slowly edged out of the tree and came down to hover at his level. 'Psst! The door is always open, but only according to the size of the entity that comes out of it.' 'Then, it's not possible to get inside!' he protested weakly. Thing continued to stare at him with an air of everlasting indifference contradicted only by the singleness of concentration. Never had the man felt himself looked at in this way. The gaze went into his bones, into his cells. He became transparent. Deeper vestiges of desire and pain were driven out to weep in shame before this god of supreme impartiality. Secrets of the soul were registered with ruthless precision as if by a scientist as old as the universe. Though there was nothing left of him to hug to himself, to feel private about, to be veiled in the vagueness of subjective and passing experience; his mind grew crystal clear and in it the whole scenario of the Gate was vivid and delineated distinctly in every micro-second. A wealth of experience poured into him, unknown but enabling him to reason about himself. He looked down on himself from afar, yet he was nearer to himself than he had ever been. It was an epiphany of humanity, a spark, an act of love; even though it was nothing at all.

He heard himself day, 'So, I'm the wrong size for myself?' 'That is almost correct,' Thing said. The man walked up to the door. It gazed back at him implacably, ineluctably existent, a whole dimension beyond the Thing, a monolithic object, totally inert, strong and certain beyond any life. In front of the door, he found that the enigma was in himself, in coming here. It was the end of the line. The railways went only as far as this. No matter how many thousands of light years the systems species could travel, none could pass this point. Here, everybody had to get off. And, go back the way they had come. Earth had been connected into the system. Perhaps it was an accident, a mistake. This place had been found and a loop laboriously built to bring it into the Network. The final branch-line - through the derelict fringes of the Galaxy, past spectral worlds which hardly existed, the wreckage of dream systems strewn about like broken toys in a nursery - to reach this ultimate object. From Earth to the door. Nothing in between seemed to count. A dead end to a dead end. Perhaps the last train had gone. Here, nothing worked any more. It was the distant future, when life had failed. It was the distant past when nothing was known. Yet, it was built. It was made. It was put here. It could not be self-existent. Yet, that was its central message: this exists and it is not for anything.

He turned to look up towards the giant. No longer did he feel the enormous mass of Something. He saw only a being whose suffering and laughter were lighting up the wonders and terrors of everything, inexhaustible and pure. 'Can you go through the door?' He smiled and added, 'Perhaps I am here to witness your going so that I can tell the worlds.' 'What worlds?' microbe interjected. You keep thinking with these approximations instead of becoming more accurate. How big are these worlds? How small? Who's more intelligent?' 'But surely you and Something between you contain all possibilities? If you two can't get through, then who can?

'Remember the third observer question. For us, the problem remains. At the moment, there is no way in which we can learn about the other side of the door - even that it doesn't exist. There is a clue in the fact that we have to come here while we are unable to do anything by being here. Existence is strange in that way. But, we do not have access right now - not even in ten dimensions. It turns our thought back on ourselves, which means back upon the past. Similarly, with all the beings who have come here. The lines go out from here, into the Network and beyond the Network. Everything is being re-appraised. The lines go back in time and space and they are unravelling the connections between things. We two have vast experience of all kinds of conditions and intelligences, but the door is like nothing else. We cannot communicate with the door. There is no purpose in it - no desire, no memories. Perhaps, if we opened the door, the whole universe would drain away. Or, we would instantly realise that the world and ourselves have never existed. What if we found our journey here to be simply a walk around the rock? Perhaps we are trying to escape - not get in.'

'The three of us trying to remember whether we are trying to escape or go through. Or, is Thing a part of this, too? Is Thing from the door or a being that made it to the other side?' 'Something!' his voice said, 'We were just conducting some experiments before you came. No doubt, you saw them in progress?'

'That's what attracted me here. That was when I saw the door opened.' 'How big was the opening?' the man interjected. 'Your size. Too big for Nothing and too small for me.' The 'microbe' questioned - obviously, for the sake of the man - 'Did you see Anything go through?' 'No', said the giant. 'As you might have guessed from my previous remarks. The fun's just beginning. A truly unique occasion. An. uncommon cosmic experiment in which nothing can happen because it refuses to and something might come out of it because that's my way. And anything goes! Because, my dear young friend of muddled Earth, only you are mixed up enough to do anything about this impossible artefact.'

Without making any comment, the man withdrew into his tent. Some perverse attitude still remaining in him made him decide to reason things out. Something and Nothing were incomprehensible facts. By combining them he might overcome the question of the gate. The answer was obvious. The question was totally obscure. He went out again. Green shadows lay across the dust. His exhausted nervous system brought out violet hues on the horizon. The rock sat there, white as pure marble, all roughness faded. He stretched out his hands to either side, and walked towards the door. He forced himself to realise that he was not moving and that there was no way in which he could draw nearer to the door. He deliberately ignored any sense of growing closer. Thing moved to a position just above his head and like a procession to the end of the world, they made a triumphant advance. The giant sent down a tentacle to touch a hand. It was the last, delicate, branching frond in a cascade of limbs. At the same time, the man also felt the tingle of sensation which signalled a point of contact with the microbe at the tip of a finger on the other hand. The door opened. It was precisely of his dimensions.

As he passed through. Something and Nothing, ceased to exist for him; but gave him leave without any form of tears. A hand reached out to guide him in. It was the Mother of two hundred and thirty thousand years ago, black and about five feet tall. Behind her were the Fathers and, behind them, the chemical incarnations from the first thought of life. Real bodies. He realised that he had never been body before. The door was a vast projector casting images of living and non-living things out into a universe which had existed long ago; but which was fading. He embraced the Mother in gratitude and was her fulfilment. She smiled and went off, a black rose. The emotions of mankind passed by and took off their disguises. Then, there were the Many. He had not thought that existence was so many. They passed on as he looked towards them, each touching him with a glance of recognition. The levels were no longer a residue, frozen artificially in a dying universe. The current of time flowed between his hands. From the concentrated medium of pure action a form arose endlessly, which men had thought of as the Angelic, and he knew this to be the Thing which had spilled in overflowing light beyond the face of the door. He saw the Angelic Thing reaching his wings into the shadows of the pseudo-universe and remembered his unusual friends. In his first study, he resolved the question of planetary systems and initiated the question of space and time. The question grew into the form of a tree.