Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon (bts book recommendations .txt) 📕

itself, plainly, it constituted nothing but sheer futility and

desolation. But with awe and hope we told ourselves that it promised an

even greater complexity and subtlety and diversity of the psychical.

This alone could justify it. But this formidable promise, though

inspiring, was also terrifying.

Like a nestling that peers over the nest’s rim for the first time, and

then shrinks back from the great world into its tiny home, we had

emerged beyond the confines of that little nest of stars which for so

long, but falsely, men called “the universe.” And now we sank back to

bury ourselves once more in the genial precincts of our native galaxy.

As our experiences had raised many theoretical problems which we could

not solve without further study of astronomy, we now decided to return

to the Other Earth; but after long and fruitless search we realized that

we had completely lost our bearings. The stars were all much alike, save

that few in this early epoch were as old and temperate as the Other Sun.

Searching at random, but at high speed, we found neither Bvalltu’s

planet nor mine, nor any other solar system. Frustrated, we came to rest

once more in the void to consider our plight. On every side the ebony of

the sky, patterned with diamonds, confronted us with an enigma. Which

spark of all this star-dust was the Other Sun? As was usual in the sky

of this early epoch, streaks of nebular matter were visible in all

directions; but their shapes were unfamiliar, and useless for

orientation.

The fact that we were lost among the stars did not distress us. We were

exhilarated by our adventure, and each was a cause of good spirits in

the other. Our recent experiences had quickened our mental life, still

further organizing our two minds together. Each was still at most times

conscious of the other and of himself as separate beings; but the

pooling or integration of our memories and of our temperaments had now

gone so far that our distinctness was often forgotten. Two disembodied

minds, occupying the same visual position, possessing the same memories

and desires, and often performing the same mental acts at the same time,

can scarcely be conceived as distinct beings. Yet, strangely enough,

this growing identity was complicated by an increasingly intense mutual

realization and comradeship.

Our penetration of one another’s minds brought to each not merely

addition but mutiplication of mental riches; for each knew inwardly not

only himself and the other but also the contrapuntal harmony of each in

relation to the other. Indeed, in some sense which I cannot precisely

describe, our union of minds brought into being a third mind, as yet

intermittent, but more subtly conscious than either of us in the normal

state. Each of us, or rather both of us together, “woke up” now and then

to be this superior spirit. All the experiences of each took on a new

significance in the light of the other; and our two minds together

became a new, more penetrating, and more self-conscious mind. In this

state of heightened lucidity we, or rather the new I, began deliberately

to explore the psychological possibilities of other types of beings and

intelligent worlds. With new penetration I distinguished in myself and

in Bvalltu those attributes which were essential to the spirit and those

mere accidents imposed on each by his peculiar world. This imaginative

venture was soon to prove itself a method, and a very potent method, of

cosmological research.

We now began to realize more clearly a fact that we had long suspected.

In my previous interstellar voyage, which brought me to the Other Earth,

I had unwittingly employed two distinct methods of travel, the method of

disembodied flight through space and a method which I shall call

“physical attraction.” This consisted of telepathic projection of the

mind directly into some alien world, remote perhaps in time and space,

but mentally “in tune” with the explorer’s own mind at the time of the

venture. Evidently it was this method that had really played the chief

part in directing me to the Other Earth. The remarkable similarities of

our two races had set up a strong “physical attraction” which had been

far more potent than all my random interstellar wanderings. It was this

method that Bvalltu and I were now to practice and perfect.

Presently we noticed that we were no longer at rest but slowly drifting.

We had also a queer sense that, though we were seemingly isolated in a

vast desert of stars and nebulae, we were in fact in some kind of mental

proximity with unseen intelligences. Concentrating on this sense of

presence, we found that our drift accelerated; and that, if we tried by

a violent act of volition to change its course, we inevitably swung back

into the original direction as soon as our effort ceased. Soon our drift

became a headlong flight. Once more the forward stars turned violet, the

hinder red. Once more all vanished.

In absolute darkness and silence we debated our situation. Clearly we

were now passing through space more quickly than light itself. Perhaps

we were also, in some incomprehensible manner, traversing time.

Meanwhile that sense of the proximity of other beings became more and

more insistent, though no less confused. Then once again the stars

appeared. Though they streamed past us like flying sparks, they were

colorless and normal. One brilliant light lay right ahead of us. It

waxed, became a dazzling splendor, then visibly a disc. With an effort

of will we decreased our speed, then cautiously we swung round this sun,

searching. To our delight, it proved to be attended by several of the

grains that may harbor life. Guided by our unmistakable sense of mental

presence, we selected one of these planets, and slowly descended toward

it.