Ross Rocklynne - People of the Darkness

“But why, Darkness? What makes you think life has a purpose, an ultimate purpose?”

“I don’t know,” came the answer, and for the first time Darkness was startled with the knowledge that he really didn’t! “But there must be some purpose!” he cried.

“How can you say ‘must’? Oh, Darkness, you have clothed life in garments far too rich for its ordinary character! You have given it the sacred aspect of meaning! There is no meaning to it. Once upon a time the spark of life fired a blob of common energy with consciousness of its existence. From that, by some obscure-evolutionary process, we came. That is all. We are born. We live, and grow, and then we die! After that, there is nothing! Nothing!”

Something in Darkness shuddered violently, and then rebelliously. But his thoughts were quiet and tense. “I won’t believe that! You are telling me that life is only meant for death, then. Why… why, if that were so, why should there be life? No, Oldster! I feel that there must be something which justifies my existence.”

Was it pity that came flowing along with Oldster’s thoughts? “You will never believe me. I knew it. All my ancient wisdom could not change you, and perhaps it is just as well. Yet you may spend a lifetime in learning what I have told you.”

His thoughts withdrew, absently, and then returned. “Your other questions, Darkness.”

For a long time Darkness did not answer. He was of half a mind to leave Oldster and leave it to his own experiences to solve his other problems. His resentment was hotter than a dwarf sun, for a moment. But it cooled and though he was beginning to doubt the wisdom to which Oldster laid claim, he continued with his questioning.

“What is the use of the globe of purple light which forever remains at my center, and even returns, no matter how far I hurl it from me?”

Such a wave of mingled agitation and sadness passed from the old being that Darkness shuddered. Oldster turned on him with extraordinary fierceness. “Do not learn that secret! I will not tell you! What might I not have spared myself had I not sought and found the answer to that riddle! I was a thinker, Darkness, like you! Darkness, if you value… Come, Darkness,” he went on in a singularly broken manner, “Your remaining question.” His thought rays switched back and forth with an uncommon sign of utter chaos of mind.

Then they centered on Darkness again. “I know your other query, Darkness. I know; I knew when first Sparkle brought you to me, eons ago.

“What is beyond the darkness? That has occupied your mind since your creation. What lies on the fringe of the lightless section by which this universe is bounded?

“I do not know, Darkness. Nor does anyone know.”

“But you must believe there is something beyond,” cried Darkness.

“Darkness, in the dim past of our race, beings of your caliber have tried — five of them I remember in my time, billions of years ago. But they never came back. They left the universe, hurling themselves into that awful void, and they never came back.”

“How do you know they didn’t reach that foreign universe?” asked Darkness breathlessly.

“Because they didn’t come back,” answered Oldster, simply. “If they could have gotten across, at least one or two of them would have returned. They never reached that universe. Why? All the energy they were able to accumulate for that staggering voyage was exhausted. And they dissipated — died — in the energyless emptiness of the darkness.”

“There must be a way to cross!” said Darkness violently. “There must be a way to gather energy for the crossing! Oldster, you are destroying my life-dream! I have wanted to cross. I want to find the edge of the darkness. I want to find life there — perhaps then I will find the meaning of all life!”

“Find the—” began Oldster pityingly, then stopped, realizing the futility of completing the sentence.

“It is a pity you are not like the others, Darkness. Perhaps they understand that it is as purposeful to lie sleeping in the seventh band as to discover the riddle of the darkness. They are truly happy, you are not. Always, my son, you overestimate the worth of life.”

“Am I wrong in doing so?”

“No. Think as you will, and think that life is high. There is no harm. Dream your dream of great life, and dream your dream of another universe. There is joy even in the sadness of unattainment.”

Again that long silence, and again the smoldering flame of resentment in Darkness’ mind. This time there was no quenching of that flame. It burned fiercely.

“I will not dream!” said Darkness furiously. “When first my visions became activated, they rested on the darkness, and my newborn thought swirls wondered about the darkness, and knew that something lay beyond it!

“And whether or not I die in that void, I am going into it!”

Abruptly, irately, he snapped from the fifteenth band into the first, but before he had time to use his propellants he saw Oldster, a giant body of intense, swirling energies of pure light, materialize before him.

“Darkness, stop!” and Oldster’s thoughts were unsteady. “Darkness,” he went on, as the younger energy creature stared — spellbound, “I had vowed to myself never to leave the band of lightlessness. I have come from it, a moment, for… you!

“You will die. You will dissipate in the void! You will never cross it, if it can be crossed, with the limited energy your body contains!”

He seized Darkness’ thought swirls in tight bands of energy.

“Darkness, there is knowledge that I possess. Receive it!”

With newborn wonder, Darkness erased consciousness. The mighty accumulated knowledge of Oldster sped into him in a swift-flow, a great tide of space lore no other being had ever possessed.

The inflow ceased, and as from an immeasurably distant space came Oldster’s parting words:

“Darkness, farewell! Use your knowledge, use it to further your dream. Use it to cross the darkness.”

Again fully conscious, Darkness knew that Oldster had gone again into the fifteenth band of utter lightlessness, in his vain attempt at peace.

He hung tensely motionless in the first band, exploring the knowledge that now was his. At the portent of one particular portion of it, he trembled.

In wildest exhilaration, he thrust out his propellants, dashing at full speed to his mother.

He hung before her.

“Mother, I am going into the darkness!”

There was a silence, pregnant with her sorrow. “Yes, I know. It was destined when first you were born. For that I named you Darkness.” A restless quiver of sparks left her, her gaze sad and loving. She said, “Farewell, Darkness, my son.”

She wrenched herself from true space, and he was alone. The thought stabbed him. He was alone — alone as Oldster.

Struggling against the vast depression that overwhelmed him, he slowly started on his way to the very furthest edge of the universe, for there lay the Great Energy.

Absently he drifted across the galaxies, the brilliant denizens of the cosmos, lying quiescent on their eternal black beds. He drew a small sun into him, and converted it into energy for the long flight.

And suddenly, far off he saw his innumerable former companions. A cold mirth seized him. Playing! The folly of children, the aimlessness of stars!

He sped away from them; and slowly increased his velocity, the thousands of galaxies flashing away behind. His speed mounted a frightful acceleration carrying him toward his goal.

It took him seven million years to cross the universe, going at the tremendous velocity he had attained. And he was in a galaxy whose far-flung suns hung out into the darkness, who were themselves traveling into the darkness at the comparatively slow pace of several thousand miles a second.