The Green Star

: The House On The Borderland

The world was held in a savage gloom--cold and intolerable. Outside,

all was quiet--quiet! From the dark room behind me, came the occasional,

soft thud[10] of falling matter--fragments of rotting stone. So time

passed, and night grasped the world, wrapping it in wrappings of

impenetrable blackness.



There was no night-sky, as we know it. Even the few straggling stars

had vanished, conclusively. I might hav been in a shuttered room,

without a light; for all that I could see. Only, in the impalpableness

of gloom, opposite, burnt that vast, encircling hair of dull fire.

Beyond this, there was no ray in all the vastitude of night that

surrounded me; save that, far in the North, that soft, mistlike glow

still shone.



Silently, years moved on. What period of time passed, I shall never

know. It seemed to me, waiting there, that eternities came and went,

stealthily; and still I watched. I could see only the glow of the sun's

edge, at times; for now, it had commenced to come and go--lighting up a

while, and again becoming extinguished.



All at once, during one of these periods of life, a sudden flame cut

across the night--a quick glare that lit up the dead earth, shortly;

giving me a glimpse of its flat lonesomeness. The light appeared to come

from the sun--shooting out from somewhere near its center, diagonally. A

moment, I gazed, startled. Then the leaping flame sank, and the gloom

fell again. But now it was not so dark; and the sun was belted by a thin

line of vivid, white light. I stared, intently. Had a volcano broken out

on the sun? Yet, I negatived the thought, as soon as formed. I felt that

the light had been far too intensely white, and large, for such a cause.



Another idea there was, that suggested itself to me. It was, that one

of the inner planets had fallen into the sun--becoming incandescent,

under that impact. This theory appealed to me, as being more plausible,

and accounting more satisfactorily for the extraordinary size and

brilliance of the blaze, that had lit up the dead world, so

unexpectedly.



Full of interest and emotion, I stared, across the darkness, at that

line of white fire, cutting the night. One thing it told to me,

unmistakably: the sun was yet rotating at an enormous speed. Thus, I

knew that the years were still fleeting at an incalculable rate; though

so far as the earth was concerned, life, and light, and time, were

things belonging to a period lost in the long gone ages.



After that one burst of flame, the light had shown, only as an

encircling band of bright fire. Now, however, as I watched, it began

slowly to sink into a ruddy tint, and, later, to a dark, copper-red

color; much as the sun had done. Presently, it sank to a deeper hue;

and, in a still further space of time, it began to fluctuate; having

periods of glowing, and anon, dying. Thus, after a great while, it

disappeared.



Long before this, the smoldering edge of the sun had deadened into

blackness. And so, in that supremely future time, the world, dark and

intensely silent, rode on its gloomy orbit around the ponderous mass of

the dead sun.



My thoughts, at this period, can be scarcely described. At first, they

were chaotic and wanting in coherence. But, later, as the ages came and

went, my soul seemed to imbibe the very essence of the oppressive

solitude and dreariness, that held the earth.



With this feeling, there came a wonderful clearness of thought, and I

realized, despairingly, that the world might wander for ever, through

that enormous night. For a while, the unwholesome idea filled me, with a

sensation of overbearing desolation; so that I could have cried like a

child. In time, however, this feeling grew, almost insensibly, less, and

an unreasoning hope possessed me. Patiently, I waited.



From time to time, the noise of dropping particles, behind in the room,

came dully to my ears. Once, I heard a loud crash, and turned,

instinctively, to look; forgetting, for the moment, the impenetrable

night in which every detail was submerged. In a while, my gaze sought

the heavens; turning, unconsciously, toward the North. Yes, the nebulous

glow still showed. Indeed, I could have almost imagined that it looked

somewhat plainer. For a long time, I kept my gaze fixed upon it;

feeling, in my lonely soul, that its soft haze was, in some way, a tie

with the past. Strange, the trifles from which one can suck comfort! And

yet, had I but known--But I shall come to that in its proper time.



For a very long space, I watched, without experiencing any of the

desire for sleep, that would so soon have visited me in the old-earth

days. How I should have welcomed it; if only to have passed the time,

away from my perplexities and thoughts.



Several times, the comfortless sound of some great piece of masonry

falling, disturbed my meditations; and, once, it seemed I could hear

whispering in the room, behind me. Yet it was utterly useless to try to

see anything. Such blackness, as existed, scarcely can be conceived. It

was palpable, and hideously brutal to the sense; as though something

dead, pressed up against me--something soft, and icily cold.



Under all this, there grew up within my mind, a great and overwhelming

distress of uneasiness, that left me, but to drop me into an

uncomfortable brooding. I felt that I must fight against it; and,

presently, hoping to distract my thoughts, I turned to the window, and

looked up toward the North, in search of the nebulous whiteness, which,

still, I believed to be the far and misty glowing of the universe we had

left. Even as I raised my eyes, I was thrilled with a feeling of wonder;

for, now, the hazy light had resolved into a single, great star, of

vivid green.



As I stared, astonished, the thought flashed into my mind; that the

earth must be traveling toward the star; not away, as I had imagined.

Next, that it could not be the universe the earth had left; but,

possibly, an outlying star, belonging to some vast star-cluster, hidden

in the enormous depths of space. With a sense of commingled awe and

curiosity, I watched it, wondering what new thing was to be revealed

to me.



For a while, vague thoughts and speculations occupied me, during which

my gaze dwelt insatiably upon that one spot of light, in the otherwise

pitlike darkness. Hope grew up within me, banishing the oppression of

despair, that had seemed to stifle me. Wherever the earth was traveling,

it was, at least, going once more toward the realms of light. Light! One

must spend an eternity wrapped in soundless night, to understand the

full horror of being without it.



Slowly, but surely, the star grew upon my vision, until, in time, it

shone as brightly as had the planet Jupiter, in the old-earth days. With

increased size, its color became more impressive; reminding me of a huge

emerald, scintillating rays of fire across the world.



Years fled away in silence, and the green star grew into a great splash

of flame in the sky. A little later, I saw a thing that filled me with

amazement. It was the ghostly outline of a vast crescent, in the night;

a gigantic new moon, seeming to be growing out of the surrounding gloom.

Utterly bemused, I stared at it. It appeared to be quite

close--comparatively; and I puzzled to understand how the earth had come

so near to it, without my having seen it before.



The light, thrown by the star, grew stronger; and, presently, I was

aware that it was possible to see the earthscape again; though

indistinctly. Awhile, I stared, trying to make out whether I could

distinguish any detail of the world's surface, but I found the light

insufficient. In a little, I gave up the attempt, and glanced once more

toward the star. Even in the short space, that my attention had been

diverted, it had increased considerably, and seemed now, to my

bewildered sight, about a quarter of the size of the full moon. The

light it threw, was extraordinarily powerful; yet its color was so

abominably unfamiliar, that such of the world as I could see, showed

unreal; more as though I looked out upon a landscape of shadow, than

aught else.



All this time, the great crescent was increasing in brightness, and

began, now, to shine with a perceptible shade of green. Steadily, the

star increased in size and brilliancy, until it showed, fully as large

as half a full moon; and, as it grew greater and brighter, so did the

vast crescent throw out more and more light, though of an ever deepening

hue of green. Under the combined blaze of their radiances, the

wilderness that stretched before me, became steadily more visible. Soon,

I seemed able to stare across the whole world, which now appeared,

beneath the strange light, terrible in its cold and awful, flat

dreariness.



It was a little later, that my attention was drawn to the fact, that

the great star of green flame, was slowly sinking out of the North,

toward the East. At first, I could scarcely believe that I saw aright;

but soon there could be no doubt that it was so. Gradually, it sank,

and, as it fell, the vast crescent of glowing green, began to dwindle

and dwindle, until it became a mere arc of light, against the livid

colored sky. Later it vanished, disappearing in the self-same spot from

which I had seen it slowly emerge.



By this time, the star had come to within some thirty degrees of the

hidden horizon. In size it could now have rivaled the moon at its full;

though, even yet, I could not distinguish its disk. This fact led me to

conceive that it was, still, an extraordinary distance away; and, this

being so, I knew that its size must be huge, beyond the conception of

man to understand or imagine.



Suddenly, as I watched, the lower edge of the star vanished--cut by a

straight, dark line. A minute--or a century--passed, and it dipped

lower, until the half of it had disappeared from sight. Far away out on

the great plain, I saw a monstrous shadow blotting it out, and advancing

swiftly. Only a third of the star was visible now. Then, like a flash,

the solution of this extraordinary phenomenon revealed itself to me. The

star was sinking behind the enormous mass of the dead sun. Or rather,

the sun--obedient to its attraction--was rising toward it, with the

earth following in its trail. As these thoughts expanded in my mind, the

star vanished; being completely hidden by the tremendous bulk of the

sun. Over the earth there fell, once more, the brooding night.



With the darkness, came an intolerable feeling of loneliness and dread.

For the first time, I thought of the Pit, and its inmates. After that,

there rose in my memory the still more terrible Thing, that had haunted

the shores of the Sea of Sleep, and lurked in the shadows of this old

building. Where were they? I wondered--and shivered with miserable

thoughts. For a time, fear held me, and I prayed, wildly and

incoherently, for some ray of light with which to dispel the cold

blackness that enveloped the world.



How long I waited, it is impossible to say--certainly for a very great

period. Then, all at once, I saw a loom of light shine out ahead.

Gradually, it became more distinct. Suddenly, a ray of vivid green,

flashed across the darkness. At the same moment, I saw a thin line of

livid flame, far in the night. An instant, it seemed, and it had grown

into a great clot of fire; beneath which, the world lay bathed in a

blaze of emerald green light. Steadily it grew, until, presently, the

whole of the green star had come into sight again. But now, it could be

scarcely called a star; for it had increased to vast proportions, being

incomparably greater than the sun had been in the olden time.



"Then, as I stared, I became aware that I could see the edge of the

lifeless sun, glowing like a great crescent-moon. Slowly, its lighted

surface, broadened out to me, until half of its diameter was visible;

and the star began to drop away on my right. Time passed, and the earth

moved on, slowly traversing the tremendous face of the dead sun."



Gradually, as the earth traveled forward, the star fell still more to

the right; until, at last, it shone on the back of the house, sending a

flood of broken rays, in through the skeleton-like walls. Glancing

upward, I saw that much of the ceiling had vanished, enabling me to see

that the upper storeys were even more decayed. The roof had, evidently,

gone entirely; and I could see the green effulgence of the Starlight

shining in, slantingly.