Elizabeth Akeley looked once at the ramshackle structure, nodded to herself and set out slowly to walk to it. Vernon Whiteside set himself at her elbow, and Ezra Noyes set a pace just a stride behind the others, but Akeley halted at once, turned and gestured silently but decisively to the others to remain behind. She then resumed her progress through the copse.
Whiteside watched Elizabeth Akeley proceeding slowly but with apparently complete self-possession through the wooded area. She halted just outside the shack, leaned forward and slightly to one side as if peering through a cobwebbed window frame, then proceeded again. She tugged at the door, managed to drag it open with a squeal of rusted metal and protesting wood, and disappeared inside the shack.
“Are you just going to let her go like that?” Ezra Noyes demanded of Whiteside. “How do you know who’s in there? What if it’s a Beta Reticulan? What if it’s a Moth Man? What if there’s a whole bunch of aliens in there? They might have a tunnel from the shack to their saucer. The whole thing might be a front. Shouldn’t we go after her?”
Whiteside shook his head. “Mother Akeley issued clear instructions, Ezra. We are to wait here.” He reached inside his jacket and unobtrusively flicked on the concealed microcassette recorder. When he pulled his hand from his pocket, he brought it with the earphone. He adjusted it carefully in his ear.
"Oh, I didn’t know you were deaf,” Noyes said.
“Just a little,” Whiteside replied.
“Well, what are we going to do?” Ezra asked him.
“I shall wait for the Radiant Mother,” Whiteside told him. “There is nothing to fear. Have faith in the Spiritual Light, little brother, and your footsteps will be illuminated."
“Oh.” Ezra made a sour face and climbed onto the roof of the Ambassador. He seated himself there cross-legged to watch for any evidence of activity at the shack.
Vernon Whiteside also kept watch on the shack, but chiefly he was listening to the voices transmitted by the cordless microphone concealed on Elizabeth Akeley’s lapel. Excerpts from the transcript later made of these transmissions follow:
Microcassette, August 8, 1979
Voice #5 (Elizabeth Akeley): Hello? Hello? Is there—
Voice #6 (Unidentified voice; oddly metallic intonation; accent similar to male New England twang present in San Diego trance tapes): Come in, come in, don’t be afraid.
Voice #5: It’s so dark in here.
Voice #6: I’m sorry. Move carefully. You are perfectly safe but there is some delicate apparatus set up.
(Sounds of movement, feet shuffling, breathing, a certain vague buzzing sound. Creak as of a person sitting in an old wooden rocking chair.)
Voice #5: I can hardly see. Where are you?
Voice #6: The cells are very sensitive. My friends are not here. You are not Albert Wilmarth.
Voice #5: No, I don’t even—
Voice #6: (Interrupting) Oh, my God! Of course not. It’s been so—what year is this?
Voice #5: Nineteen seventy-nine.
Voice #6: Poor Albert. Poor Albert. He could have come along. But of course he—what did you say your name was, young woman?
Voice #5: Akeley. Elizabeth Akeley.
(Silence. Buzzing sound. A certain unsettling sound as of wings rustling, but wings larger than those of any creature known to be native to Vermont.)
Voice #6: Do not taunt me, young woman!
Voice #5: Taunt you? Taunt you?
Voice #6: Do you know who I am? Does the name Henry Wentworth Akeley mean nothing to you?
(Pause . . . buzzing . . . rustling.)
Voice #5: Yes! Yes! Oh, oh, this is incredible! This is wonderful! It means—
Yes, my grandfather spoke of you. If you're really—My grandfather was George Akeley. He—we—
Voice #6: (Interrupting) Then I am your great-grandfather, Miss Akeley. I regret that I cannot offer you my hand. George Akeley was my son.
Tell me, is he still alive?
Voice #5: No, he—he died. He died in 1971, eight years ago. I was a little girl, but I remember him speaking of his father in Vermont. He said you disappeared mysteriously. But he always expected to hear from you again. He even founded a church. The Spiritual Light Brotherhood. He never lost faith. I have continued his work. Waiting for word from—beyond. That's why I came when I—when I started receiving messages.
Voice #6: Thank you. Thank you, Elizabeth. Perhaps I should not have stayed away so long, but the vistas, my child, the vistas! How old did you say you were?
Voice #5: Why—why—18. Almost 19.
(Buzzing.)
Voice #6: You have followed my directions, Elizabeth? You are alone? Yes?
Good. The cells are very sensitive. I can see you, even in this darkness, even if you cannot see me. Elizabeth, I have been gone from earth for half a century, yet I am no older than the day I—departed— in the year 1928. The sights I have seen, the dimensions and the galaxies I have visited! Not alone, my child. Of course not alone. Those ones who took me—ah, child! Human flesh is too weak, too fragile to travel beyond the earth.
Voice #5: But there are spacesuits. Rockets. Capsules. Oh, I suppose that was after your time. But we’ve visited the moon. We’ve sent instruments to Venus and Mars and the moons of Jupiter.
Voice #6: And what you know is what Columbus might have learned of the New World, by paddling a rowboat around the port of Cadiz! Those ones who took me, those old ones! They can fly between the worlds on great ribbed wings! They can span the very ether of space as a dragonfly flits across the surface of a pond! They are the greatest scientists, the greatest naturalists, the greatest anthropologists, the greatest explorers in the universe! Those whom they select to accompany them, if they cannot survive the ultimate vacuum of space, the old ones discard their bodies and seal their brains in metal canisters and carry them from world to world, from star to burning, glittering star!
(Buzzing, loud sound of rustling.)
Voice #5: Then—you have been to other worlds? Other planets, other physical worlds. Not other planes of spiritual existence. Our congregants believe—
Voice #6: (Interrupting) Your congregants doubtlessly believed poppycock.
Yes, I have been to other worlds. I have seen all the planets in the solar system, from little, sterile Mercury to giant, distant Yuggoth.
Voice #5: Distant Yu—Yuggoth?
Voice #6: Yes, yes. I suppose those fool astronomers have yet to find it, but it is the gem and the glory of the solar system, glowing with its own ruby-red glare. It revolves in its own orbit, turned ninety degrees from the plane of the ecliptic. No wonder they've never seen it. They don’t know where to look. Yet it perturbs the paths of Neptune and Pluto. That ought to be clue enough! Yuggoth is very nearly a sun.
It possesses its own corps of worldlets, Nithon, Zaman, the miniature twins Thog and Thok! And there is life there! There is the Ghooric Zone where bloated shoggoths splash and spawn!
Voice #5: I can’t—I can’t believe all this! My own great-grandpa! Planets and beasts....
Voice #6: Yuggoth was merely the beginning for me. Those ones carried me far away from the sun. I have seen the worlds that circle Arcturus and Centaurus, Wolf and Barnard's Star and Beta Reticuli. I have seen creatures whose physical embodiment would send a sane man into screaming nightmares of horror that never ends—and whose minds and souls would put to shame the proudest achievements of Einstein and Schopenhauer, Confucius and Plato, the Enlightened One and the Anointed One! And I have known love, child, love such as no earth-bound mortal has ever known.
Voice #5: Lo-love, great-grandfather?
(Sound of buzzing, loud and agitated rustling of wings.)
Voice #6: You know about love, surely, Elizabeth. Doesn't your church preach a gospel of love? In 57 years on this planet I never came across a church that didn’t claim that. And have you known love? A girl your age, surely you’ve known the feeling by now.
Voice #5: Yes, great-grandfather.
Voice #
6: Is it merely a physical attraction, Elizabeth? Do you believe that souls can love? Or do you believe in such things as souls? Can minds love one another?
Voice #5: All three. All three of those.
Voice #6: Good. Yes, all three. And when two beings love with their minds and their souls, they yearn also for bodies with which to express their love. Hence the physical manifestation of love. (Pause.) Excuse me, child. In a way I suppose I’m nothing but an old man rambling on about abstractions. You have a young man, have you?
Voice #5: Yes.
Voice #6: I would like to meet him. I would like very much to meet him, my child.
Voice #5: Great-grandfather. May I tell the people about you?
Voice #6: No, Elizabeth. The time is not ripe.
Voice #5: But this is the single most important event since—since—(Pause.)
Contact with other beings, with other races, not of Earth. Proof that there is intelligent life throughout the universe. Proof of visits between the worlds and between the galaxies.
Voice #6: All in time, child. Now I am tired. Please go now. Will you visit me again?
Voice #5: Of course. Of course.
Elizabeth Akeley emerged from the shack, took one step and staggered.
At the far side of the copse of trees, Vernon Whiteside and Ezra Noyes watched. They saw Elizabeth. Ezra scrambled from the roof of the station wagon. Whiteside started forward, prepared to assist Mother Akeley.
But she had merely been blinded, for the moment, by the bright sunlight of a Vermont August. Whiteside and Ezra Noyes saw her returning through the glade. Once or twice she stopped and leaned against a strangely spongy tree. Each time she started again, apparently further debilitated rather than restored.
She reached the station wagon and leaned against its drab metalwork. Whiteside said, “Are you all right, Radiant Mother?”
She managed a wan smile. “Thank you, Vernon. Yes, I'm all right. Thank you.”
Ezra Noyes was beside himself.
"Who was in there? What was going on? Were there really aliens in that shack? Can I go? Oh, darn it, darn it!" He pounded one fist into the palm of his other hand. “I should never have left home without my camera! Kenneth Arnold himself said that back in ’47. It’s the prime directive of all ufologists, and I went off without one, me of all people.”
Vernon Whiteside said, “Radiant Mother, do you wish to leave now? May I visit the shack first?”
“Please, Vernon, don’t. I asked him—’’ She drew Whiteside away from Noyes. “I asked him if I could reveal this to the world and he said, not yet.”
“I monitored the tape, Reverend Mother."
“Yes.”
“What does it mean, Reverend Mother?”
She passed her hand across her face, tugging soft bangs across her eyes to block out the bright sunlight. “I feel faint. Vernon. Ask Ezra to drive us back to Dark Mountain, would you?”
He helped her climb into the station wagon and signaled to Ezra. “Mother Akeley is fatigued. She must be taken back at once.”
Ezra sighed and started the Ambassador’s straight-six engine.
Elizabeth Akeley telephoned Marc Feinman from the Noyes house in Dark Mountain. A message had been transmitted surreptitiously by agent Whiteside in time for monitoring arrangements to be made. Neither Akeley nor Feinman was aware of the monitoring system.
Excerpts from the call follow:
August 9, 1979 (outgoing)
Voice #2 (Sara Feinman): Yes.
Voice #5 (Elizabeth Akeley): Mrs. Feinman?
Voice #2: Yes, who is this?
Voice #5: Mrs. Feinman, this is Elizabeth Akeley speaking. I’m a friend of Marc’s from San Diego. Is Marc there, please?
Voice #2:1 know all about Marc’s friend, Elizabeth darling. Don’t you know Marc’s father is in the hospital? Should you be bothering Marc at such a time?
Voice #5: I’m very sorry about Mr. Feinman, Mrs. Feinman. Marc told me before he left California. Is he all right?
Voice #2: Don't ask.
(Pause.)
Voice #5: Could I speak with Marc? Please?
Voice #2: (Off-line, pickup is very faint) Marc, here, it's your little goyish priestess. Yes. On the telephone. No, she didn't say where. No, she didn't say.
Voice #1 (Marc Feinman): Lizzy? Lizzy baby, are you okay?
Voice #5: Yes, I'm okay. Is your father—
Voice #1: (Interrupting) They operated this morning. I saw him after. He’s very weak, Liz. But I think he’s going to make it. Lizzy, where are you? Pleasant Street?
Voice #5: Vermont.
Voice #1: What? Vermont?
Voice #5: I couldn’t wait, Marc. You were on the road, and there was another trance. I couldn’t wait till you arrived in New York. Vernon came with me. We're staying with a family in Dark Mountain. Marc, I met my great-grandfather. Yesterday. I tried to call you last night but—
Voice #1: I was at the hospital with Ma, visiting my father. We couldn't just—
Voice #5: Of course, Marc. You did the right thing. (Pause.) How soon can you get here?
Voice #1: I can’t leave now. My father is still—they're not sure. (Lowering his voice.) I don’t want to talk too loud. The doctor said it’s going to be touch and go for at least forty-eight hours. I can’t leave Ma.
Voice #5: (Sobs.) I understand, Marc. But—but—my great-grandfather....
Voice #1: How old is the old coot? He must be at least ninety.
Voice #5: He was born in 1871. He’s 108.
Voice #1: My God! Talk about tough old Yankee stock!
Voice #5: It isn’t that, Marc! It has to do with the trance messages. Don't you understand? All of that strange material about alien beings, and other galaxies? That was no sci-fi trip—
Voice #1: I never said you were making it up, Lizzy! Your subconscious, though, I mean, you see some TV show or a movie and—
Voice #5: But that’s just it, Marc! Those are real messages. Not from my subconscious. My great-grandpa was sending, oh, call them spirit messages or telepathic radiations or anything you like. He’s here.
He's back. Aliens took him away, they took his brain in a metal cylinder, and he’s been traveling in outer space for fifty years, and now he’s back here in Vermont and—
Voice #1: Okay, Lizzy, enough! Look, I’ll drive up there as soon as I can get away. As soon as my father’s out of danger. I can’t leave my Ma now, but as soon as I can. What’s this place....
Late in the afternoon of August 9th Ezra Noyes rapped on the door of Elizabeth Akeley’s room. She admitted him and he stood in the center of the room, nervously wondering whether it would be proper to sit in her presence. Akeley urged him to sit. The conversation which ensued was recalled by young Noyes in a deposition taken later at an agency field office. Excerpts from the deposition follow:
“Well, you see, I told her that I was really serious about UFO’s and all that stuff. She didn’t know much about ufology. She’d never heard about the men in black, even. So I told her all about them so she’d be on the lookout. I asked her who this Vernon Whiteside was, and she said he was the sexton of her church and completely reliable and I shouldn’t worry about him.
“I showed her some copies of the Intelligencer, and she said she liked the mag a lot and asked if she could keep them. I said sure. Anyway, she wanted to know how long the Moth Man sightings had been going on. I told her, only about six months or so over at Townshend and around here. Then she asked me what I knew about a rash of similar sightings about fifty years ago.
“That was right up my alley. You know, I did a lot of research. I went down and read a lot of old newspaper files. They have the old papers on microfilm now; it kills your eyes to crouch over a reader all day looking at the old stuff, but it’s really interesting.
"Anyway, there were some odd sightings back in the ’20s, and then when they had those floods around here in November '27, there were some really strange things. They found some bodies, parts of bod
ies that is, carried downstream in the flood. There were some in the Winooski River over near Montpelier, and some right in the streets of Passumpsic. The town was flooded, you know.
"Strange bodies. Things like big wings. Not like moth wings, though. More like bat wings. And there seems to have been some odd goings on with Miss Akeley's great-grandfather, Henry Akeley. He was a retired prof, you know. And something about a friend of his, a guy called Al Wilmarth. But it was all hushed up.
“Well, I told Miss Akeley everything I knew and then I asked her who was in the cabin over at that dirt road near Ludlow. I think she must have got mixed up, because she said it was Henry Akeley. He disappeared in 1927 or '28. Even if he turned up, he couldn’t be alive now. She said he said something to her about love, and about wanting a young man’s body and a young woman's body so he could make love with some woman from outer space, he said from Aldebaran. I guess you have to be a sci-fi nut to know about Aldebaran. I’m a sci-fi nut. I don’t say too much about it in UFO circles—they don’t like sci-fi, they think the sci-fi crowd put down UFO’s. They’re scared of 'em. They want to keep it all nice and safe and imaginary, you ought to read Sanderson and Early on that some time.
"Well, how could a human and an alien make love? I guess old Akeley must have thought something like a mind-transfer, like one partner could take over the body of a member of the other partner's species, you know. Only be careful, don't try it with spiders where the female eats the male after they mate. Ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha!
“But Miss Akeley kept asking about lovemaking, you know, and I started to wonder if maybe she wasn’t hinting at something, you know.
I mean, there we were in this room. And it was my own parents’ house and all, but it was a bedroom, and I didn’t want her to think that she could just walk in there and, uh, well, you know.
Pyrate Cthulhu: Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, Volume 1 (4.0) Page 13
