Third—this morning. Weak—terribly feverish—staring at wall—pattern in grain of wood—familiar—pattern jumped to nearer surface—John’s head and back—no surprise or horror, at first—muttered, “John’s sick too. Gone to sleep on the floor, like me.”—recognized pattern.
Worked over him an hour—longer—hopeless—skull eaten in—hair dissolved—falls to powder at touch—violet lines—track twisted downward—shirt eaten through—spine laid bare—flesh near track snow white and icy to touch, much colder than cabin—trembling all the while, partly from cold—blizzard still raging—both fires out—got them going—searched cabin—John’s body into storeroom—covered—coffee—crazy itch to write—tried to work on smashed radio—had to keep doing something—hands moving faster and faster—began to tremble—more and more—threw on clothes—strapped on snowshoes—out into the blizzard—full force of wind—knocked down twice—tried to go on by crouching—snowshoes tangled—down a third time—pain—struggled like something’d caught me—more pain—lay still—face lashed by ice—had to get back—crawled—crawled forever—no feeling—glimpsed open door of cabin, behind me—made it—
I must keep control of myself. I must keep my thoughts logical. Reconstruct!
John asleep. What made him sleep? Meanwhile, am I letting the thing in? How? He starts up suddenly. Struggles with the thing and me. Knocks me down. Is caught like Laocoon. Strikes with the axe. Misses. Hits the radio. No chance for a second blow. Squeezed, frozen, corroded to death.
Then? I was helpless. Why did it stop?
Is it sure of me and saving me for tonight? Or does it need me? At times I have the crazy feeling that the story I have been writing is true—that one of my monsters killed John—that I am trying to help them reach the Earth.
But that’s mental weakness—an attempt to rationalize the incredible. This is not fantasy—it’s real I must fight any such trends toward insanity.
I must make plans. As long as the blizzard lasts, I’m trapped here. It will try to get me tonight. I must keep awake. When the blizzard lifts, I can try smoke signals. Or, if my ankle improves, attempt it to Terrestrial along the road. The farmer ought to be coming by, though John did say that when the roads are blocked—
John—
If only I weren’t so completely alone. If only I had the radio.
Later: Got the radio going! A miracle of luck—I must have absorbed more knowledge than I realized, helping fix it yesterday. My fingers moved nimbly, as if they remembered more than my conscious mind, and pretty soon I had all the smashed parts replaced with spares.
It was good to hear those first voices.
The blizzard will end tonight, it is predicted.
I feel considerably reassured. I fully realize the dangers of the coming night, but I believe that with luck I’ll be able to escape them.
My emotions are exhausted. I think I can face whatever comes, coolly and calmly.
I would be completely confident except for that persistent, unnerving feeling that a segment of my unconscious mind is under the control of something outside myself.
My chief fear is that I will yield to some sudden irrational impulse, such as the urge to write, which at times becomes incomprehensibly intense-I feel I must complete the “snag section” of my story.
Such impulses may be traps, to get me off guard.
I’ll listen to the radio. Hope I find a good, steadying program.
That fantastic urge to finish my story!
(The first lines of the next entry in Alderman’s diary are wholly unintelligible—a frantic, automatic scribbling done in great haste. At several places the penpoint has penetrated the paper. Abruptly the message becomes coherent, although the writing speed seems, if anything, to increase. The transition is startling, as though a gibbering lunatic had suddenly put on the glib semblance of sanity. The change in person is also noteworthy, and obviously related to the last line of the preceding entry.)
The spider-creature noted that contact had been reestablished and coolly asked for more power, although it meant draining the last reserves. It would not do to undershoot the mark this time—there was not enough left for another attempt.
They should succeed, however. The interfering biped had been eliminated, and the other biped was responding beautifully.
How long this moment had been anticipated! How many eons had been spent waiting for the emergence of sufficiently intelligent animals on that faraway planet and their development of adequate radiation exciters—maddeningly slow processes even with telepathic urging! How long, too, at the end, it had taken to select and mold one of the bipeds into a suitably sensitive subject! For a while it had seemed that he was going to escape them by hiding among the crude thought-storms of his duller fellows, but at last he had been tempted into the open. Conditions were right for the establishment of that delicate admixture of physical and mental radiations which opened the door between the stars and built the web across the cosmic chasms.
And now the spider-creature was halfway across that web. Five times already he had crossed it, only to be repulsed at the very end. He must not fail this time. The fate of the world hung on it.
The tractable biped’s mind was becoming restive, though not as yet to an alarming degree. Because his conscious mind could not bear the reality of what he was doing, the biped was inscribing it as a fictional account—his customary rationalization.
And now the spider-creature was across the bridge. His transmuted flesh tingled as it began to reassemble, shuddered at the first radiation blasts of this raw, hot planet. It was like being reborn.
The biped’s mind was in turmoil. Obviously the crasser, planet-tethered portion of it was straining to gain control and would soon over-power the more sensitive segment—but not soon enough. Dispassionately the spider-creature scanned it and noted: an almost unendurable horror, the intent to set fire to its habitation with an inflammable oil in an effort to injure the invader (that was good—it would destroy evidence), and the further intent to flee as soon as it regained control of its body (that must be prevented—the biped must be overtaken and eliminated; its story would not be believed, but alive it constituted a danger, nevertheless).
The spider-creature broke free, its crossing accomplished. As the mental portion of it underwent the final transformation, it felt its control of the biped’s mind snap and it prepared for pursuit.
At that first moment of exultation, however, it felt a twinge of pity for the small, frantic, doomed animal that had helped alter so signally the destiny of its planet.
It could so easily have saved itself. It had only to have resisted one of the telepathic promptings. It had only to have maintained its previous detestation of the voice of the herd. It had only not to have undone the work of defensive sabotage its comrade, in dying, had achieved. It had only not to have repaired the radio.
Final Comment by Willard P. Cronin, M.D., Terrestrial, Montana: The fire at John Wendle’s residence was noted at 3:00 A.M. on the morning of January 17th, shortly after the blizzard ended. I was a member of the party that immediately set out to render aid, and was among the first to sight the gutted cabin. In its ruin was discovered a single, badly-charred body, later identified as that of Wendle. There were indications that the fire had been started by the deliberate smashing of a kerosene lamp.