Page:Stirring Science Stories, February 1941.djvu/108

 T THE cry, the horror moved. It stooped and took a short step toward the uncowering Halpin, its facial rosette rose just as a man lifts his eyebrows in surprise, and then—speech came from its lips. Halpin, strangely, answered it in English.

"I claim the forfeit," he cried boldly. "Never has one of your kind been released that it did not grant to whoever released it one wish, were it in its power to grant it."

The thing bowed, actually bowed. In deep—inhumanly deep—tones it gave what was manifestly an assent. It clasped its hands over what should have been its breast and bowed, in what even the paralyzed Denning could tell was certainly mock humility.

"Very well, then!" the heedless Halpin went on. "I want to know! That is my wish—to know. All my life I have been a student, seeking, seeking—and learning nothing. And now—I want to know the why of things, the cause, the reason, and the end to which we travel. Tell me the place of man in this universe, and the place of this universe in the cosmos!"

The thing, the Jinni, or whatever it was, bowed again. Why was it that Halpin could not see its mockery! It clasped those amazingly human hands together, it drew them apart, and from fingertips to fingertips leaped a maze of sparks. In that maze of brilliant filaments a form began to take shape, became rectangular, took on solidity and became a little window. A silvery, latticed window whose panes were seemingly transparent, but which looked out upon—from where Denning stood, it seemed nothing but blackness. The creature's head made a gesture and it spoke a single word—the only word which it spoke that Denning recognized.

"Look!" it said, and obeying, Hah pin stepped forward and looked through that window.

Denning says that Halpin stared while you might have counted ten. Then he drew back a step or two, stumbled against the couch and sat down. "Oh!" he said softly—very softly, and then: "Oh, I see!" Denning says he said it like a little child that had just had some problem explained by a doting parent And he made no attempt to rise, no comment, nor any further word of any kind.

And the Jinni, the Elder One, demon or angel or whatever it was, bowed again and turned around—and was gone! Then, suddenly, somehow or other, Denning's trance of fright was over, and he rushed to the light switch and flooded the room with light. An empty jar lay upon the floor, and upon the couch sat one who stared and stared into vacancy with a look of unutterable despair on his face.

ITTLE more need be said. Denning called his wife, gave her a brief and distorted tale which he later amplified for the police, and spent the rest of the night trying to rouse Halpin. When morning came, he sent for a doctor and had Halpin removed to his own home. From there Halpin was taken to the state asylum for the insane where he still is. He sits constantly in meditation, unless one tries to arouse him, and then he turns on them a sad, pitying smile and returns to his musings.

And except for that sad, pitying smile, his only look is one of unutterable despair.