The Link

by Richard Matheson

  She draws back and smiles at him impishly. “Well, Rob, my dear, my love,” she says. “You have gone a ‘fur piece’ past the point where I am. However—”

  She shakes her head and makes a sound of dry amusement. “—you certainly do present a bunch of stimulating notions we can fight about.”

  They walk back to the motor home, arms around each other.

  “You really think Alan’s going to use that in his film?” she asks.

  He snickers. “Not in a million years,” he says.

  He is sitting in the booth talking with Peter, Cathy asleep in back.

  “You’re sure you don’t want me to wake her up?” Robert asks. “She’d love to see you.”

  “Another time, old man,” says Peter. “We have something more important to discuss. You should not be giving up the dig.”

  “Peter, there’s a boulder blocking our way. It could weigh a ton or more.”

  “That’s not the point, old man,” Peter remonstrates. “You aren’t getting to the heart of things.”

  “The heart of things,” Robert repeats.

  Peter is suddenly angry with him. “Damn it, Robert, you are not listening!” he cries. “Strike through at the heart of it. The heart!”

  Robert sits up on the bed.

  Cathy is asleep beside him, the motor home dark and silent.

  “The heart of it,” he murmurs.

  Suddenly, he gasps as it hits him. Throwing aside the covers, he stands and dresses quickly. He hurries from the motor home with an electric lantern, striding quickly to the shaft.

  He looks down into the blackness of it; hesitates.

  Deciding then, he cranks up the platform and steps onto it, grabs a pick and starts to crank himself down.

  He stops beside the enormous boulder they had by-passed some time back, stares at the heart he scratched on its surface. The ghostly voice of Ann seems to fill the shaft as she says, “Thank you, Kachinas.”

  Robert drives the pick end into the heart.

  The impact of the blow sends painful vibrations through his arms and shoulders.

  “What am I doing?” he asks himself incredulously.

  He hesitates. Then something keeps him at it. Again and again, he drives the pick end into the heart, staring at it, concentrating all his energy and thought on that single spot.

  He will never know what part of what happens next comes about because of the strength of his blows, what part because of sudden telekinetic power surging out of him.

  It seems the latter because, in an instant, it is as though the area of rock around the heart is literally blown out and he is looking at a hole.

  It was not a boulder but a wall.

  He stares at the hole, breathing hard, perspiration running down his face.

  Abruptly then, he starts to drive the pick end at the stone around the hole, widening it until he can wedge himself in through the opening.

  He makes a sound of wonderment such as Howard Carter must have made when first looking through the opening into the tomb of Tutankhamen.

  In the lantern light, he sees a declining passage six foot high disappearing into blackness.

  Unable to speak, having trouble with his breath, he pulls himself through the opening, drops down, then stands, holding up the lantern.

  His throat moves as he swallows dryly.

  It is obviously a man-made tunnel.

  He begins to descend the sloping floor of it.

  An eerie, deathly stillness covers him as he moves down through the tunnel which, in a series of 180-degree reversals, takes him deeper and deeper into the earth.

  Until, at last, he reaches an enormous metal door which blocks his way.

  He tries to push it open but it will not budge.

  He cannot believe that he has come this far only to be thwarted now. Putting down the lantern, he shoves his weight against the door with more and more despairing urgency.

  It remains as fixed as the tunnel wall.

  “No!” he cries, the word echoing off into the distance.

  He paces angrily, filled with frustration.

  Then he stops himself. “Wait a minute,” he says. “Wait a minute. Energy,” he murmurs. “Use the energy.”

  He draws in deep, shuddering breath and faces the door.

  He closes his eyes and extends his finger-spread palms toward the door, “opening” himself, not fighting; waiting. He becomes very still, his breath inaudible. He stands immobile in silence.

  Then he opens his eyes.

  On the scrollwork of the door, it seems as though he sees ten different points aglow.

  Slowly, without anxiety, he places the tips of his fingers on the points, then presses in.

  With an immense grinding noise—the sound of some great unseen system of weights which has not functioned in eons—the door begins to move.

  Inchingly, it swings in, stops.

  Picking up the lantern, Robert enters the area which has been revealed.

  It appears to be the interior of the top portion of a pyramid.

  If the entire structure exists below, its sides must be buried more than four hundred and seventy five feet deeper in the earth.

  He holds up the lantern and sees wall glyphs in the stone.

  One of them is the carving from the tablet and the ornament: what Joseph called the symbol of the Sacred Four.

  The central area of the chamber is enclosed by a wall.

  He moves around it.

  There is an entry on the opposite side.

  He enters the center chamber.

  To see, before him, a heart-stopping sight.

  An altar, on it a pair of exquisitely sculpted bronze hands three feet high.

  The hands are reaching upward, fingers bowed.

  Between their facing palms—floating in mid-air—is a crystal globe two feet in circumference.

  Unlike his vision, however, the globe is not perfect.

  A piece is missing.

  As though he understands immediately, Robert reaches into his pocket and removes the crystal cone.

  He slides it into the globe.

  And watches in amazement as it seals itself into place.

  He waits.

  Nothing happens.

  His expression grows confused. He moves around the globe, examining it.

  He makes a sound of unbelieving anguish.

  Another piece is missing from it.

  He cannot conceive of this. The disappointment is more than he can bear. Tears spring to his eyes. “No,” he says, almost sobbing the word.

  He turns away abruptly, agonized.

  And freezes, heartbeat leaping with shock.

  A figure blocks the entry way, unidentifiable in the shadows.

  Robert stares at the figure, his expression one of stunned apprehension.

  Then the figure steps forward, Robert shrinking back involuntarily.

  It is Joseph.

  Without a word, he removes something from his pocket.

  A crystal identical to the other one.

  He slides it into the globe and, like the first one, it seals itself in place.

  Instantly, the globe begins to shimmer flickeringly like a strange fluorescent light about to go on.

  Joseph takes Robert by the arm and draws him to the floor.

  Cross-legged, both sit in silence, staring at the globe like children.

  It has begun to mist and swirl inside now like a psychic’s crystal ball.

  Then the misting fades and CAMERA MOVES IN ON the globe until it fills the screen.

  The universe devoid of life – empty, soundless. The immensity of space, dark and motionless.

  Something vast moves within the abyss. Molecules and atoms are created, specks and particles ignited which begin to meld together, the resulting forms revolving in space.

  Gradually, these spinning forms grow massive and evolve into burning suns, a panoply of sparkling stars spread across the universe.

  Finally, planets are assem
bled from swirling gasses and they swing into orbits about the suns.

  CAMERA MOVES IN ON the planet which is Earth.

  Darkness covers it; silence. No atmosphere, no water.

  LONG DISSOLVES separate each eon of creative time.

  The outside gasses of the Earth are separated and the atmosphere formed, waters settle on the Earth to cover its entire face. No land is visible.

  Then the gasses which have formed the atmosphere begin to move, shafts of sunlight meeting shafts of light within the atmosphere and giving birth to light and heat which falls across the surface of the Earth.

  The gasses still inside the Earth begin to burn now, thrusting land above the surface of the waters.

  There are cataclysms in this period, rumblings and swellings in the cooling Earth, cracking of the lands. Shiftings and contractions causing surfaces to change so that water becomes land and land becomes water.

  It is as though an unseen sculptor is altering the appearance of a ball of clay by pressing here and there so that the oceans and the continents are formed.

  Finally, shafts of sunlight meet shafts of light from the earth (as Robert saw earlier) and, in the mud of the waters and the dust of the lands, plant life is created. Lands begin to flower and the Earth becomes green, an exquisite environment.

  Minute forms of cellular life appear, first in the oceans, then on the lands.

  Evolution begins. Simple at first, gradually becoming more sophisticated, the animal kingdom appearing.

  CAMERA RUSHES BACK INTO the vastness of the universe again as the great force moves once more and casts off trillions of sparks in one enormous burst of energy, most of them flying off into the cosmos.

  Some of these life sparks fall to Earth and enter the bodies of the creatures of sea, air and land where they “experience” the pleasures of physical existence.

  At first, the life sparks come and go at will, enjoying the beauty of the waters, the winds, the forests, the plains.

  Then they remain within the creatures too long and become trapped.

  Experimenting with this new imprisonment, they create mixtures of animals and a mockery of forms appear on Earth—centaurs, Cyclops, unicorns—the world overrun with monsters.

  Until the universal force moves once again and every monstrous sub-creature is destroyed.

  A single form is chosen—the ape.

  Now the life sparks hover around the anthropoids and watch as they are influenced from simple lives. The apes descent from trees, make tools, build fires, form larger groups, begin attempting to communicate, lose their totally simian look, shed hair, become refined as creatures.

  At which point, the life sparks—working through the matrix—are allowed entrance into the new forms and man becomes a part of evolution.

  LONG DISSOLVE

  We see the continent of Mu in the Pacific much like the shape which Joseph drew by connecting islands on his map.

  Part of its eastern seaboard is the form of Western California separated from North America by a stretch of ocean. The west coast of what will be the United States is vastly different.

  Mu is a tropical country of huge plains, its fields and valleys covered with rich grasses, its hillsides shaded by luxuriant growths of vegetation. The land is intersected and watered by broad, slow-running streams and rivers which wind their sinuous ways around the wooded hills and through the fertile plains, their banks thick with giant ferns. Tall fronded palms fringe the ocean shores.

  Here, in this paradise, evolution has produced the first true man of Earth.

  We see the people: the dominant race tall with olive skins, dark eyes and straight black hair; the other races yellow, brown and black.

  The people of the Motherland.

  All dress similarly in colorful toga-type robes, sandals on their feet. All are healthy and vigorous, their children beautiful.

  Seasonally, they visit pyramids built along the matrix lines where they are re-vitalized.

  All have natural psychic powers.

  They communicate by thought.

  They move objects unaffected by the weight of gravity.

  They assemble molecules to form giant figures.

  We watch this happen, seeing the great monoliths created.

  SHIMMER DISSOLVE TO these figures which exist today on Easter Island.

  CAMERA HOLDS ON these as CAMERA PULLS BACK to Robert and Joseph watching in silence.

  The globe darkens.

  They leave the chamber and ascend the tunnel to the shaft, crank the platform to the surface.

  As they reach it, sunrise begins. They stand in silence, watching its magnificence.

  CAMERA PULLS UP SLOWLY, ENDLESSLY until we are in space, looking at the Earth below.

  A SLOW UPWARD CRAWL OF WORDS begins.

  The first thing that came to mind as I looked at Earth was its incredible beauty.

  It was a majestic sight—a splendid blue and white jewel suspended against a velvet black sky.

  How peacefully, how harmoniously, how marvelously it fit into the evolutionary pattern by which the universe is maintained.

  The presence of divinity became almost palpable and I knew that life in the universe was not just an accident.

  Clearly, the universe had meaning and direction.

  It was not perceptible by the sensory organs but it was there nevertheless, an unseen dimension behind the visible creation that gives it an intelligent design and that gives life purpose.

  —Edgar Mitchell

  American astronaut

  Apollo 14 Lunar Expedition

  SLOW FADE

  END