'Tell me something," he finally said to Hunter. "Have you seen the madness yet?"
"Madness?" Hunter replied. "I think I've seen it everywhere since I was dropped into this place."
The astronaut shook his head. "No, I used the wrong term; of course you've seen madness here. It is everywhere. What I mean is, have you seen or heard of other acts of unspeakable cruelty, above and beyond the pale? Something like what the REF did to the helpless SF troopers on Doomsday 212 after shooting down their ships?"
Hunter had to think. He'd been out of the loop so to speak for a month or so, so he wasn't privy to everything that had happened in the Galaxy while he was away. But there was that burst of panicky Maydays he'd heard during his dash across the Milky Way. From what he could determine, it seemed like innocent people both on planets and in ships were being killed, horribly, for no good reason. He told all this to the astronaut, and the old man became even more upset.
"This is the worst of all possible scenarios, I'm afraid," the man said gravely. "Can't you see what's happened?"
Hunter just shook his head. The nurses did, too.
"As you and your friends were so clever to find an escape door to Paradise," the astronaut began.
"The REF did the same thing — except they went in the other direction. You opened up a portal, a split in the fabric of space, and they were somehow able to take advantage of it, too. Or maybe they just fell into it and never told anybody in power after it happened."
Hunter needed a moment to connect the dots.
"Are you saying," he asked the astronaut. "That as we went to Heaven, they went… to Hell?"
"And found a way to come back," the astronaut nodded. "Just as you did."
Hunter's brain started doing a slow spin.
"Is… is that really possible?" he asked the astronaut.
"Why would you think it is impossible?" the man replied tersely. "Why do you think one place could exist, and not its opposite? You were in Paradise, correct? Where everything seemed good. Where there was no conflict, no need for anything negative. And I have the feeling that upon returning, some of that would travel back with you. In varying degrees, I suspect.
"But what you have to realize is that for a place so wonderful to exist, an opposite place would have to exist as well. And if a door opens to one place, then a door must open to the other. That's the dilemma, you see. Where a traveler to your place might see nothing but beauty and light and knowledge and passion, a traveler to the other place would see only the power that comes from evil. Pure evil. A very tempting thing, especially if you are predisposed to it, which I suspect these people in the REF were.
Ages ago, back on Earth, before we ever went to the stars, the yogis used to say that good and bad are actually two sides of the same thing. These two places — where you went and where they went — are the same idea, but exact opposites."
"Like matter and antimatter," one of the nurses said.
"Precisely, my dear," the astronaut replied. "And we — those of us who live here, within humanity, in the Galaxy, in the universe — are simply caught in the middle. It's been like that through the ages. And be advised: this has nothing to do with religion. The good place exists, the bad place exists, but their religious significance amounts to little more than a drop in an ocean. Religion is just the simplest way to explain something very complex, something that even the most advanced physics in the Galaxy today cannot begin to understand. But they are there. In the infinite number of planes that exist above and below this universe, these two are the ones right next door."
The astronaut shifted on his bed again.
"This is not good," he went on. "Something has been opened up here that cannot be so easily closed.
The madness— the real evil madness—is out. Again."
"So this sort of thing has happened before?" Hunter asked, not really sure he wanted to know the answer.
"Only all throughout history," was the astronaut's reply. "And I don't mean that dopey history back on Earth that barely went back ten thousand years. The history of the universe is as old as the universe itself.
Take a good look at one of those pyramids someday. Not the ones on Earth. I mean the ones they've found near the Ball, or on some of the real isolated moons on the Fringe. Some of those things are billions of years old. And someone had to build them back then, right?"
He let his voice trail off.
"So what can be done?" Hunter asked. "If what you say is true, this just got a lot bigger than merely my friends trying to get back across. And I'm only one person. It sounds like impossible odds."
"All very true," the astronaut replied. "But that doesn't mean you still can't beat them. The real problem is that I suspect the REF knows what you and your friends are up to. Don't ask me how, but I bet they do. So you'll have to be careful, too. Remember, when it comes to these sorts of things, there is nothing new under the stars. The evil ones may be devious, but it's only when things start turning against them that they become especially cruel. And they fear you and your friends because they must know you've been to the good place, and there is power in that alone. So, I predict, their first trick will be to put innocent souls in harm's way to counter anything you might try to do. They will be willing to kill millions, hell, billions to get what they want. And what will you do then, Mr. Superhero, if the choice is between billions losing their lives or you just backing away? Is it better for innocents to live in tyranny and evil than not at all?"
Another long silence. Hunter had no reply. The coffee machine started wheezing again.
"It would not shock me to learn that they are going back into their bag of dirty tricks right now," the astronaut went on. "Dreaming up something that everyone will fear is new but will also be something they've done, successfully, in the past. They are inscrutable, and they are probably getting help from somewhere else in the underworld. There are many kinds of devils down there. Trust me, I know about these things. Just because I've lived five thousand years doesn't mean I've spent all of that time lying here in bed. Yes… they will try to make you defeat yourself. They will try to use your good conscience against you. You must be ready for that."
He leaned back on his pillows, suddenly exhausted. "A big one is coming," he said. "A terrible battle that could have terrible consequences. Whether it was your doing or not— opening the way to the other sides — that was a huge mistake. And if you ever have the chance, I would look into exactly who the person was who provided you the means to get to Paradise, because, whether they knew it or not, they also allowed the REF to get to the other place. By doing so, they put in motion the terrible events that are approaching us now.
"If my guess is right, the REF will come back again and again to wreak havoc on everyone and everything, and they will continue to do so until they are stopped. And they must be stopped, or they will hold sway over everything for the next million years or so. They will spread so much evil that all of civilization will end — again. And it will have to start from scratch — again."
The astronaut fell quiet once more. The nurses were beside themselves now, fretting and sobbing.
They'd been through this before. That was obvious.
"How long did you say before the rest of your fleet crosses over?" the astronaut finally asked Hunter.
"We gave it one week," Hunter replied. He checked his watch. It was still counting down. "But now we are talking about less than five days."