from: archduke@cpd.org (Archimedes Duke)
to:peptalk@wgpd.net (Philip E. Petersen)
Eyes Only
Phil,
Per our brief phone conversation, and your conversation with Dr. Morley...
This is the meat of my interrogation of the guy they caught yesterday that matched the description of the guy(s) you saw last year.
He was forthcoming with the information only after I insulted him by calling him a son of a shoggoth.
Strange doings.
note: this is only a portion of the entire videotape
the rest of the tape will arrive in the morning
Best to Sue and the kids
You gotta see this
Archie
Transcript of video interview-March 27, 2000.
"Two's company, and three's a crowd, and five's a bunch, and ten thousand is
entirely too many. I hate the holidays. When you have ten thousand blood relatives, and they're all coming out by your place,
you gotta prepare.
I've been salting away fish for what seems like decades, getting ready for their arrival.
It took a whole lot of convincing to get the coral to grow faster, so they could all have somewhere to sleep, but we finally accomplished it, and so that onerous task is out of the way.
We did it together, me and the rest of the members of my shoal, here in our underwater demesne. We all joined webbed hands, and chanted til the dugongs came home, and finally there was visible growth.
We can accomplish a lot when we put our heads together. It's a damn shame it so seldom happens...
Like this holiday. Several different interpreters have relayed their versions of what's due to happen, with the conjunction of planets and all.
It's traditional in most societies that I know of to have a celebration at this time of year, ever since way back when, and we of the Deep are no exception.
We like a party as well as the next being.
Just because we have big froggy eyes, and sometimes hop when we walk, well, that doesn't make us bad people.
Look at your own vengeful gods, and tell me that Cthulhu or Dagon's not just like they are. Maybe better. We know they're real.
I dimly remember a time when I didn't know from Cthulhu, before I grew to my heritage. I'm only an oct, so I'm not as obvious as some of the others, and I go topside occasionally. We try not to do that very much these days, because we bleed, too.
But sometimes I get a yen for tea, or coffee, or something that isn't fish. The really evolved ones sneer up their mossy sleeves at those of us who retain more humanity, who are "becoming" more slowly than they, and call us carnivores, but we don't mind.
They're the ones, after all, that brought destruction upon the heads of their shoal, by showing bad judgement in almost every thought and deed, parading around in public like they didn't give a damn, carrying on, scaring folks, and killing landlubbers.
We're not like that. At least not until the stars are right. Then circumstances may demand that we slaughter everyone, in order to power up all of the Ancient Ones with the proper blood sacrifice.
That remains to be seen. The Chaos got upset at chief interpreter Gideon Marsh, sent their man Malone after him, and Malone called the Hounds.
Naturally he hadn't time to properly train an apprentice, though he had a dozen or so assistants, some of which have begun issuing (conflicting) statements of their own.
Some kind of interference has been jamming the brain channels, so someone's going to have to swim to R'Lyeh to get the correct interpretation from the Older Ones there, some of our ancestors who have grown too large to stay with us here, and dwell amid the shoggoths that attend Great Cthulhu, awaiting transport to the outer dark.
They can't be jammed, their personal magnetism is extremely high, but we of the Deep are low on the ladder, and don't merit that much of a draw from the overall power scheme. There's a grid, you see, a source for all power, and everything draws from that grid.
I suppose this is justified, since we can't seem to ever agree with one another long enough to get anything done. At least humans have that going for them. They may do the wrong stuff, but they DO stuff.
We basically swim around, eat fish, chant occasionally, read a lot in arcane texts. Not a hell of a lot of initiative.
It takes a real crisis to get us all motivated, and sometimes I suspect that the powers that be cook stuff up just to keep us on our toes, like an underwater fire drill. It would be just like them to think like that.
A few of us believe that the coming conjunction of planets is only an excuse to get us working, and that nothing is going to happen. Some of Dagon's followers maintain that there will be activity on His front, and various Cthulhuoid theories are extant.
All of the verses in all of the texts say events occur when stars, and stars only, are right, and while the coming planetary conjunction is a celestial event of some magnitude, planets are not stars, not by any stretch of the imagination.
So I think all of this scurrying about like sandcrabs is to no avail, and all I can hope is that enough of the females enter estrus to make things interesting. Otherwise it'll be a complete waste of time.
And while I have millennia, I'd prefer to be left alone to my own devices if I want to waste time.
It would be nice to get back to my sculptures...
Particularly the one of Cthulhu that I'm carving out of starstuff. I'd have liked to show it off, but it's nowhere near done yet. I probably won't have time before They arrive.
I just hope they haven't brought any shoggoths this time. We'll run out of food again, and they'll start eating the wrong people again. What a mess that was last time-they had to induce estrus in hundreds of females so that we could restock ourselves enough to maintain our niche.
Social science can suck sometimes.
We of the deep are more aware of socialities than the people of the surface, we literally know everyone of our species, through the telepathic ability we all share. It's pretty limited and doesn't always work, depending on the positions of planets and stars it waxes and wanes, but the ability works often enough and well enough that we are mostly acquainted with each other on a very intimate level.
Consequently we're not extremely group-social, and tend to be solitary. When someone can read your mind from anywhere, you don't have to be close to them.
As long as we stay inside certain parameters, we're fine.
You people of the surface are just sooo xenophobic. You can't stand the very idea of another intelligent race on this planet, and especially one that actually preceded you.
That's the part we're not supposed to tell about.
I mean, please, what's with all the racial memories of warm seas, and darkness.
You can't tell me you entirely support the typical suppositions regarding that, that it's all womb memories of when you were developing as a being.
It goes way deeper than that.
Our two strains split off a few million of years ago, but the race is far older than that.
You just refuse to accept the cosmology. Consequently, if any part of this interview sees the light of day, I'll have to kill you."
End of Interview
Begin automatic transcription
I'm still waiting for the tape that comes with the transcription. I can't wait to see this.
The subject of the interview was described to me as a six-foot frog, with rows of tiny sharp teeth like a shark, and bone ridges on its back.
He (so I'm told) has been examined by the coroner, who was on the scene when the party was captured, and by a local physician, a party who had affiliations with one of DNA mapping projects, who opined that the party in question was human, that he just looked different because of some previously inactive portion of DNA called "transposons".
What those are, I don't quite grasp.
The doc tried to explain, but I'm kinda thick between the horns sometimes.
But you wouldn't have to drop a truck on me to get me to figure this one out.
Obviously they have captured some kind of a freak, in the middle of that party that they dragged him out of, and he had developed this whole...mythology out of story books and whatnot, to make himself feel he belonged to something.
Hell, I sympathize, but what are you gonna do?
You gotta play the hand you're dealt.
That's what I was always told, growing up, and I believe it today.
Good advice is good advice.
I strongly suggest you parcel-post that video over here pronto, so I can see it yesterday.
Best also to Sharon and your younguns
file to return email
archive copy
Petersen out
End automatic transcription
cue interior:
Philip E. Petersen, six two, two hundred, wearing baggy black pants and a careworn white shirt, his tie askew, sits at a large desk covered in a sea of white.
He holds that a clean desk is the sign of a sick mind.
A pencil is protruding from his mouth.
He is chewing the eraser.
His brow is furrowed, he is deep in concentration. He is trying to remember as clearly as he can the events of October 29 of the previous year.
The room he sits in is a part of that larger space which is claimed by the Westgrove Police Department, of which he is a member.
Phil Petersen is a police detective.
He spends a lot of time on the phone, and just about as much time on the internet, chasing down leads.
He says it cuts down on the legwork.
Some cases take him outside, and this is one of them.
Phil Petersen is in a great deal of trouble, and he doesn't know it yet.
At the moment, he has finished talking into the air for the benefit of his unseen audience, and is straightening his tie, preparatory to leaving the building.
Phil puts on his weatherbeaten bomber jacket and heads over to at least collect the photographs connected with this case.
He figures on examining those until the tape arrives.
On the way to picking up the pics, he stops at a shop and gets sandwiches, coffee, and aspirin.
It's going to be a long day, he says to himself, driving his bedraggled old Chevy through the crowded streets of Chicago, to the precinct where the pics were being held.
The coffee went a long way toward improving his disposition.
Phil ate one of the sandwiches while driving.
The traffic was murder.
It always is at Belmont and Cicero around lunchtime.
Any time, if the truth be told.
Phil liked driving, but city traffic would tax a saint, and he grew aggravated.
He leaned out of the window a few times and exchanged pleasantries and common ancestral inequities, and eventually arrived at the station feeling much better.
The wooden doors even looked inviting, and he pulled one open and stepped inside.
"I'm Phil Petersen, from Westgrove. I'm here about some pictures," he replied to the inquiring glance from the uniformed cop behind a sturdy metal desk to the right of the door.
"Right," came the reply. "I'll ring the captain." He then pressed a button on the phone, and presently Malloy appeared, dapper and wearing his omnipresent lantern tan.
Captain Malloy not-so-secretly planned on retiring to Florida in the very near future, and he was practicing.
Malloy extended a hand the color of a Virginia ham, saying, "Petersen, yeah. I heard about that business you guys had out there last year. Thought it was over and done with."
Malloy patted his coif. "It's enough to make a man's hair turn white." He grimaced, said seriously, confidentially, "You know we can't let this get out.The press would have the proverbial field day with this little shindig."
Petersen nodded.
Malloy handed him the package he'd been carrying. A smaller rectangle within felt like a copy of the tape.
"Thanks," said Phil. "I appreciate this, I really do."
"Aw, c'mon. You'd do the same for us, if the reverse were true. It's your case. We've lost the prisoner, and the only evidence is that tape, and the doctor's reports. For all we know, it might have been just an extremely clever disguise."
"It's definitely not a disguise. I got real close to one."
Malloy's jaw dropped. "There's more than one?"
"Yeah. At least a dozen. They were in a wooded section on the west end of town, off the main road, having a little barbecue. The developer that had just bought the land was pacing off a parcel he planned to keep for himself and saw their fire. He called us, but all we were able to do was scare them away. They left a couple of little statues behind, made of some weird green stone. Never saw stone like that before."
"How do you mean?"
"Green, striated like shale, but not crumbly, smooth even, but with all these black and gold threads running through it."
"I understand the carvings themselves are unusual..."
"Right. One's kind of an octopus-headed lizard guy, with big bat-wings. Another is a furry toad with gorilla arms, and there's a thing that looks like a cross between a goat and one of those big lizards..."
"Dinosaur?" asked the uniform.
"No, an island, it's named after an island, sounds kind of like a hotel. Kamada, Kamoda, Komodo, that's it-a Komodo dragon. With tentacles."
"It sounds like the toys my kids bring home, from the comic book guys."
"Really good art, though. That's the crazy part-these things are incredibly well-done...like they could be in a museum or something, an art gallery. But they look old as hell, like rocks that have been sandblasted by time. They have a real weird sort of gloss, like a piece of soap, but they're dry, and they're always cold to the touch."
Malloy and the uniformed cop (Barclay, said his badge, 1131772) both shuddered involuntarily.
"How did you get this one to talk, anyway? They all ran from me."
"We decided," said Malloy, "To get ourselves a captive audience. People have been complaining about fires on the beach, and weird noises in the wee hours, and dancing, which is a little different than the usual shootings and muggings and general mayhem that we get around here.
"We had a lot of guys, and we managed to net one. You'd be surprised at how far this thing can jump."
"Well, Archie said it was a big frog, on the phone. With sharp little teeth, and ridges on its back."
Malloy nodded."That about covers it. This thing looked more than half like a frog. The video has the coroner examining him. He was at the scene, and we thought the thing was dead. No heartbeat or anything.
"Imagine our surprise," he continued. "When the sumbitch up and jumped off the gurney. Damn near lost him then. I'm serious about the jumping. It escaped by jumping over the retaining wall, we had to let it out to exercise, by law, since the doc said it was human. Jumped over a twelve foot fence and a three-foot electric enclosure, shackled, in leg irons."
It was Phil's turn to nod. "But the thing was almost friendly-sounding, from the transcription I got. And leg irons?"
"Archie did that. He's read all those weird books, he knew what the thing was talking about. The leg irons were improvised."
"Books?" Queried Phil. "What books?"
"By a writer named Lovecraft. There's a whole sort of industry built on these creations of his-the Great Ones or something like that. He talked with that thing for two hours. I couldn't understand ten words the whole time, but Archie was right there with him, up until the end."
Phil raised his eyebrows. "What happened then?"
Malloy sighed. "The thing got mad at Archie. Archie raised some point that the thing really disagreed with, it started chanting in that weird language and drumming on the table, then it composed itself and that was when it said the part that Archie sent you."
"And where's Archie?"
"He went to follow something up. I think he went to one of the museums."
"Oh Christ. There's hundreds. He didn't say which one?"
"No. He was on that computer of his, then he went tearing off out of here like a ghost was after him."
"Yeah. Look, I gotta go. Thanks for everything, and I'll let you guys know as soon as I have something."
Phil left the station and drove back to Westgrove, eating the other sandwiches and drinking the rest of the coffee.
His headache began to locate above his right eye, and he groaned.
The trip back took three-quarters of forever.
The Ike was backed up from Damen straight through to the Hillside Strangler, and Apex wasn't any better as he headed south into LePage county toward Westgrove.
It looked like rain, there was sort of a haze in the air.
The way things were going was depressing enough. Maybe at least his son had some of that Lovecraft stuff-he liked horror novelists like King...
Phil picked up the phone, dialed home.
"Hello," said his son Paul.
"Paul, just the guy I wanted to talk to. Have you ever heard of a writer named Lovecraft?"
"Lovecraft? HP Lovecraft? Absolutely. I have all of his books, and some of his letters..." He trailed off, then said, "Hey, this is about those guys last year, right?"
"I'll talk to you when I get home. No, better yet, I'm on the way to the station. Why don't you meet me there. Since you know all this stuff, you can help me figure it out."
"Cool. Naturally I can't say anything to anybody about anything anywhere anytime."
"Naturally. I'll see you in fifteen minutes or so."
"Seeya." Paul hung up, doubtless he was already in his car and on the way.
Paul was a smart kid. Phil knew his towheaded son would have plenty of answers.
He smiled a little, proud papa.
The day seemed a little brighter. Still the haze hung in the air.
Phil got on the phone again. "Archie?"
"Yeah, Archie here."
"I've had a brainstorm. I don't know how good of one, but I can't back out now. I'm on the way to pick up Paul. He knows a lot, I mean a LOT, about this mythos stuff..."
"Hmm. Could be a problem. I'd have to clear it with the prof here, these books aren't exactly here for public viewing. Let me get back to you."
Phil performed a small lifesaving maneuver and continued on. The mist had deepened, especially behind him, towards the lake.
That bothered Phil, a little, and he chewed his lip meditatively, wishing for a cigarette.
But he'd given up smoking years ago.
Not since the Army.
The phone rang, there in its nest in Phil's coat pocket.
"Archie?"
"Yeah, it's me. If Paul's under 16, we can't do it. We can get a permit for him to view the books if he's 16, with your sig."
"Paul's 17."
"That's what I thought. Okay, come on down. The prof says she knows Paul."
"She knows him?"
"Well," Archie chuckled. "Us devotees of the Old Gent have a newsgroup, where we share ideas and books, things like that. All three of us subscribe to that group, and the prof here has published quite a few stories."
"Stories?"
"Sure, tales. She salts them with real true information about these things. Great stuff, she's good, a minor celebrity."
"Amazing. Every day's a full moon. I'm pulling up at the station now, we'll see you in half an hour or so."
"All right." Archie hung up.
"Damn. I forgot to ask which museum." Phil pulled into the lot, meaning to call when he got in.
He parked his car behind the station, got out his keycard for the outside door.
The duty manager was inside, buzzed him in.
"Randy," Phil said, waving a little. "What's up?"
Randy Tolleson, the bald duty officer, was on the phone. He waved back, holding up an index finger.
Phil waited until he finished his call.
"Archie called, said he's at the Museum."
"Shit. I'll bet he didn't say which."
"Yes, he did. The Field Museum. He went to see a Dr. Beverly."
"Damn, you're good. No wonder you have this job."
"I'll assume you meant that as a compliment."
Paul came bursting in through the outer office. "Hey, guys, Randy, dad. What's going on?"
Phil considered a minute before inviting Paul, but he knew he had to. The kid would never forgive him. Where was the harm in taking your kid to the museum?
"Paul, rather than watch the video right away, we're gonna go see Archie at the Field Museum. Come on, I'll explain in the car."
The two went out, climbed into Phil's sleeper Impala.
Paul didn't miss a beat. "All right, Dad, what's this all about?"
Phil explained as best he could.
"Deep Ones!" Yelled Paul. "They caught a Deep One! Wow! Holy shit! Oops."
He clapped a hand over his mouth.
"Dad, you don't know what I'm talking about, do you. Whoa, real Deep Ones. I always thought there was some truth to that...this is gonna be sooo cool. Ulp! Maybe not."
"I'm glad you're so happy about it. Fill me in."
"Well, dad, it's like this. The Deep Ones, one of whom is on that videotape, are amphibians. They are either related to us, or they were brought here by Cthulhu when he arrived here from Xoth, and then bred with us, or have only recently been breeding with humans, since sometime shortly before 1927." Paul paused for breath.
"That's a lot of ifs. Who is Cthulhu, and what's Xoth? Let's start there." Phil avoided a turbocharged Saab that narrowly missed his rear bumper when impatiently changing lanes.
"Okay," replied Paul. "Cthulhu is one of the most powerful of the Great Old Ones, the leaders of the Xothians. The little squid-man statue is Cthulhu. Xoth is a planet in another star system closer to the center of the universe, where life evolved much sooner than it did here. Cthulhu is immensely powerful, can speak with men through their dreams, and doesn't thnik much of us. There's a theory that we were bred to be food for he and his star-spawn, loathsome creatures that he brought with him.
"The Great Old Ones are a loose confederacy of similarly powerful, alien creatures who hold or held domain over different parts of the earth and the universe itself. Gods, but so far above us that they regard us not at all. They are allied with those from Outside, who are also alien, residing in different dimensions than ours, and bearing strange knowledge and powers. It's possible that Those from Outside are from the universe previous to ours."
Phil looked at him curiously."There are others?"
"If the tales are to be believed, there are literally hundreds."
"Swell. Hundreds. And you believe this stuff?"
"Not until now. I really hope its not true."
Phil braked to avoid hitting another car, turned toward Paul slightly. "Why?"
Paul patiently explained what it meant if true, and Phil blanched, and though he didn't believe a word, he kept it to himself.
"So these fugitives from a grade B horror flick are really the worshippers of these ancient gods, and are promoting their premature return? Around here?" He reached back for the satchel behind the driver's seat. "Are these the guys they worship?"
Paul exploded when he saw the statuettes. "Oh, man. This is not funny. I hope it's a hoax, otherwise we are in baaaad trouble. Oh man. Pray, dad. Pray."
Phil saw the look on his son's face, saw he was serious.
They pulled into the museum parking lot, Phil showing his ID. He parked the car as close as he could get on a weekday afternoon, and they ascended the wide white steps upward toward the Field Museum of Chicago.
Phil was walking rather slowly, Paul keeping pace, though obviously chomping at the bit.
"Paul," said Phil. "This is how it's gotta go. You're here to furnish information, only. You will not participate in any excursions. Immediately after leaving here, we drop you off at Union Station, and you take the train home. Right home. You know as well as I do that it's an act of the greatest irresponsibility for me to bring you here. But I think you can help.
If you know as much about this stuff as I think you do, you're one of the world's greatest experts."
Paul looked up at him. "Of course, I understand. Archie probably knows more, though. He's been reading the stuff for longer. There's supposed to be a Necronomicon in this place," he said, his voice echoing as they entered the great main hall. "This Dr. you're meeting, does he read Latin?"
Phil turned, for he had forged slightly ahead, stopped. "Of course she does." He continued on. Archie was striding toward them, amazement etched into his features.
"Paul, not surprised to see you here. Probably you can help, but you know the rules..."
"I told him," answered Phil for Paul.
"Fine. I assume you filled Phil in, Paul?"
"I think so. He doesn't quite get it, but he's close. You'd have access to a lot more convincing material than I would."
"You don't know the half of it. I've experienced these things, when I was in the Army. We blasted out an encampment to use one of the outer islands for an outrider base.
"They're hard to kill, less dense than we are, so bullets don't affect them the same way. But being torn to shreds by a machine gun will settle most of those situations."
Paul was agape.
"Yes, Paul, it's true. Just so you understand the seriousness of the situation. The stories are true. ALL OF THEM," he hissed.
"Ohmigod."
Phil cut in. "You're kidding. All of this mumbo-jumbo is true? No way. I can't believe that." He folded his arms.
Archie rewarded him with a cryptic little smile."You'll see."
They took the freight elevator down to the subbasement, where objects of great value and/or rarity were often stored, a level below those that just weren't on display.
It was cavernous. Huge. the Museum is more than a city block square, and the subbasement covered rather more area than that.
It was far underground, and temperature-controlled, secure.
In the center was a room, where only the most valuable, the rarest treasures are held.
It was a tiny windowless room, locked by passcode and thumbprint, steel a foot thick was the door itself, and the jambs were likewise.
Inside lay one of the six known copies of the fabled Necronomicon.
Few people know about that book. Far fewer still are those that have seen a copy, and a very few human eyes have ever regarded that particular volume.
The nature of its origin is mentioned only in whispers.
Some of those whispers opine that the book is not of human origin.
Dr. Beverly was in her office. The outer office held a great many masks, and oddments of different kinds. Phil had the satchel with the statuettes in it. He shook the satchel slightly, said "these things would look right at home in here..."
"What things?" Inquired a female voice. "You brought things for my collection?"
Dr. Beverly strode out of the inner office to greet them. She was taller than anyone in the room, black-haired, with a presence befitting her size.
"Hi, you must be Phil. Archie told me good things about you." She clasped one of his hands woth both of hers, making the hand disappear.
"And this must be the famous Paul. Paul, you didn't know this before now, but we've met before. I subscribe to some of the same newsgroups you do, and Archie does. Archie and have been in contact for a long time, after he found out who I was, and we've been trying to get ready for such an occasion. There's not that much you can do ahead of time, except find the sources you'll need later. Those we have."
"Wow. You're Doctor Thirteen?"
"One and the same. How'd you guess?" Her slate-blue eyes twinkled.
"Well, you and Archie always seemed to hit it off online. Your posts are always attached to each other's, so I assumed..."
"Stories?" Asked Phil.
She turned to him. "Yes. I've been disseminating information for a long time, through stories, communicating with some others who know the truth, and keeping the realities alive so that someone may be able to carry on the work of prevention in case we can't."
"Hmmm." He rubbed his chin. "Don't you admit that this is a little hard to swallow?"
"Mr. Petersen, you're a skeptic?" She raised an eyebrow.
"You could say that. I'm not acquainted with this Mythos, though Paul tells me there have always been rumors that some or all of it was true. He also told me that some of that is possibly because of the blending into the fiction of true facts, adding to the overall depiction."
"Some of us have known for a long time that these things were facts, and have long labored to keep them before the public eye, just in case. It's not advisable to print something like the Necronomicon, or the Unaussprechlichen Kulten, but hints in that direction are enough to make people think about it, and scratch their heads, and say what if?
"Some of those people might live if the stars are ever right."
"How do you know when the stars are right?"
"You don't. Nobody does. The proper alignment's configuration is gone in the mists of antiquity, apparently. That doesn't stop their followers from having trial runs every so often.
"One of these days it'll work...likely you saw the video tape?"
Phil shook his head. No.
"Have to see that."
"I know. Just got it an hour or so ago, got the call to come here before I had the chance."
"I see."
The procession had reached the locked inner room. The other three stood back a bit as Dr. Beverly negotiated the intricate mechanism, then they entered the confines.
Dr. Beverly unlocked the airtight chest that the book and its companion volumes were kept in, and Archie and Paul booted up the computer.
They began the task of correlating the contents, a task at which the online resources were invaluable. Dr. Beverly pointed out several tales she had penned, full of actual information about the doings of the Old Ones, and planted among the other pieces.
The material was entirely new to Phil, so they had to take it slowly. Phil goggled at the sight of the ancient books, sneezed at the scent of antiquity (and a little stray dust).
"Dad," said Paul.
"What?"
Archie understood immediately. Phil had picked up one of the books, and was beginning to open it.
"Don't read aloud," they chorused.
Phil only smiled and continued reading. The book was in German. Phil remembered a little German, from when he was in the service.
Archie and Dr. Beverly emailed some people asking for interpretations, and Paul posed some ambiguous questions to the newsgroup they frequented, habituated by people who were versed in the fictional Cthulhu Mythos. At this time in the late afternoon, most of the North American members were online. Those that posted responses quickly were emailed, and some were chatted with.
Subsequent mails proved that some were acquainted with the real mythos also, but no definitive answer was to be had. Nobody knew when the stars would be right, knew why the increased activity.
Nobody except the Deep Ones themselves. And if they were telling, they were probably lying.
Dr. Beverly called building management, for a television and a vcr. "Why don't you two guys," she said, indicating Paul and Phil, "watch the video? Archie, see if you can find the alignment of the stars in the Kulten. You'll recognize the pages by the star maps..."
Phil and Paul watched the video after a tv/vcr was brought down.
It opened with Archie assuming an investigative reporter pose with a portable tape recorder and a microphone. "I'm Archimedes Duke, a detective sergeant attached to the Chicago Police Department as a special investigator. The room I'm about to enter holds the first captured member of a race that has inhabited this planet since before humans walked the earth. He speaks and understands English very well, I'm told, and is willing to consent to an interview, for police and federal use only.
The department agrees to those stipulations, because it is not a good idea to make this public at this time.
Archie opens the wooden door inward, entering the room. At the opposite side of a long conference table sits a creature roughly the shape of a man, having no visible neck, broad sloping shoulders, and a large paunch. The creature is naked from the waist up.
It is hairless, with black eyes under pronounced brow ridges bearing no brows, a curiously flattened nose with very small nostrils, and an extremely wide and lipless mouth. At the lower end of the head, where the neck would be, at each side, are ridged scales, and slits between them. These slits flute open periodically as the creature respires.
The muscular arms terminate in webbed claws. The claw portions of the hand are extremely sharp. The creature tore an officer in half with one swipe of those claws during capture.
Archie sat at the far end of the table.
"Greetings," he said. "Is there anything we can get you?"
"Not at this time. Unless you're offering to open the door."
The creature leaned forward, putting both claws on the table. He stared at Archie, his mouth widening into a leer.
Archie nodded No.
"Okay, then. We remember you, you were in the Army."
"So it's true, then. You're telepathic?"
"Only to a limited degree. But we have a strong link to our, you'd call them senior citizens. We live a really long time, and can always ask them."
"Fascinating. Do you suppose that von Junzt and Alhazred, maybe, were getting information this way? Were they sensitives?"
"Hmm. They probably were sensitives, but I'm not sure if they got their data from our Elders."
"Okay. I have to ask some leading questions here. No offense intended, and I do caution you that you won't get across that table before you're killed."
"I doubt that, but I'm enjoying the conversation. Ask away, and maybe I won't have to kill you."
"Is there an entire civilization, under the sea, composed of beings like you, and if so, where is it located?"
"Yes." The creature uttered a rasping laugh. "I can't tell you, it's not very centralized anyway. I'm not going to tell you where R'Lyeh is, and you know where Y'Ha-Nthlei used to be, until 1928."
"I guess I have to accept that. Is there in truth a gigantic creature from the depths of interstellar space sleeping beneath an island below the surface of the Pacific?"
"You know the answer to that one." The creature reared back and hissed, spat "Yes!"
As he drew back, the trails from his claws were clearly visible on the surface of the table.
"Eeeyah!" bellowed the creature. "Eeeyah! Cthulhu!"
He brought his massive arms down, almost breaking the table. Even with the improvised restraints, meant to keep him from bunching his massive thigh muscles for a leap, the creature was clearly straining toward something. The tension of his neck was so intense that his mandibles stood out in high relief, highlighting the gill ridges on the sides of his neck.
The creature drummed his features, said confidentially, "If I tell you everything, will you let me tell it in my own words, without the prompting? I know what you want to know. They are the same questions I asked myself, back when I was just beginning to change."
"I don't know. I suppose so," said Archie, uncomfortably. He was squinched side-saddle in his chair, and smoking a cigarette.
"You're not supposed to smoke those in here, you know that," said the creature. "I have rights."
"Where were you born? If you can't tell me who you used to be, I can't see that you have any rights other than those of an illegal alien. Hmf." Archie picked up a pencil, twiddled it, made a note on the yellow legal pad in front of him.
"Then you would notify the federal authority you used to be with, and sequester anyone who had thinner lips and smaller ears than quote normal unquote. I've seen your work." The creature crossed its arms, enabling the viewer to see that the undersides were more lightly colored than the upper, and that there was a rudimentary fin along the back of each forearm from the elbow down.
"Do you mean that you were at a raid, or how exactly? I'm not admitting compliance, but the question needs to be asked, since you brought it up." Archie raised his left eyebrow.
"I'll admit it for you. Yes, I was near the Grand Banks that late August afternoon when you and a number of your camouflage cohorts firebombed an island that was inhabited by a group of my people. You folks believe that you have the right to kill anything different than you. You are more dangerous than we are, and far more numerous. We have been here the whole time you've been developing. We helped, a little. Not much, guided a couple of ships, stuff like that. But we saw what you did, you humans.
People have no right to call us killers considering what kind of war they wage against anyone or anything that gets in your way.
"Don't get me wrong, we'll kill you too, if we have to. But you don't have to kill us. You just do. We're some more Indians to you. Someone else in the space of you lebensrauming scum that people the dirt of this planet."
"You don't like us."
"Hah! There's nothing to like. I didn't much like myself when I was a person, everything smelled as bad as that cigarette you're smoking, you son of a shoggoth."
"Is that meant literally? I'm not sure that my heritage includes shoggoth." Archie frowned. "You yourself would be a better candidate for that, wouldn't you?" He rested his elbows on the table, putting the cigarette in an ashtray.
The creature leaned forward. "That's a deadly insult, though I don't think you know it. If I were, I'd be able to slip these shackles off by dematerializing slightly, and then kill you and everyone else here, just for the hell of it. Shoggotha are nothing to monkey around with, pardon the pun. And everything on this orb has a little shoggoth in it. As well as everything else. You just need the right cue."
"Cue?"
"Usually chemical, a catalyst that starts a particular reaction. At least that's how it's been explained to me. I'm no scientist." The creature essayed a shrug.
"I see."
"No," the creature hissed. "You don't see. Any of you." This last was roared, and the creature brought its arms down on the table with a whack.
The table tottered a bit, but held.
The creature spoke again. " Hell! This isn't getting us anywhere. I'll just tell you about our daily life, is that enough for you? I've been long out of the water, and I would rest while you landlubbers try to decide what to do with me, and about us."
"Fine. I'm sure you'll answer the other questions on the list. I must say, you speak English like a native."
"I am a native. Shut up, I won't tell you where I came from. You're leading the witness."
"You're not on trial here."
"Oh, yeah, right. Don't lie. My entire race is on trial here. You people would befoul your own oceans to get rid of us if this got out."
"I suppose you're right. All right, go ahead."
At that point, the creature began the anecdote above.
Archie and Dr. Beverly were trying to find out from a page in the Necronomicon what the possible configuration of stars for the return of the Old Ones would be.
Archie located the page in question, but examination proved inconclusive.
"Stop," he said. "Stop the tape. Then roll it slow. This is where he escapes."
Frame-by-frame, the tape advanced. The creature squatted, and then leaped upward, breaking through the ceiling, and leaping again out of the window at the near end of a window on the upper floor. He could be seen bounding away through the window of the room that Archie still sat in.
The whole thing had taken a second or two. The creature disappeared around a building.
The pursuing cops came back later, empty-handed.
The next section of tape dealt with the capture of the creature, badly shot with a stationary camera mounted on the hood of a police unit. The creature was wrestled to the ground by ten or eleven uniformed officers, brought down by sheer weight. As soon as some of the officers let go, the creature squatted and then leaped on top of a car. He bounded from that one to another fifteen feet away, then to the ground, where another group of officers laid hands on him and brought him down.
The film had no audio. The officers could be seen to shout, and Archie came into the foreground. It didn't take a lip reader to realize he was telling them not to let go this time.
He bore the shackles later seen on the creature, a length of tow chain between two ankle bracelets, and a similar set for the upper arms, with large handcuffs for the wrists.
The creature endured this operation stoically. As soon as he was let go, he somehow slipped his shoulders out of their sockets and pulled his arms over his head, getting his hands out in front of him. The creature spoke to Archie, and Archie motioned the men to let him alone. The creature hobbled over to the back seat of an open car and sat down.
There was a shorter section of tape showing the cursory physical examination by Dr. Morley, who was somehow on the scene. He had been seen in the patrol car that bore the creature to the station house.
He lifted each arm, showing the fins, and separated the fingers, showing the expansive webbing between them. The tips of the fingers were clawed. He did the same with the legs, showing fins at the back of the calves, and then turned the creature over onto its stomach, showing the bony ridge on its back, along the spine, and a fin developing there as well.
He opened the mouth to show the rows of sharp teeth, and then took a swatch of skin for a sample.
"Archie," said Phil. "I have a lot of questions, not only about the creature, but about the procedure you guys followed...I'm not sure we don't have a powderkeg on our hands if this ever gets out."
"How so?"
"Some of what that thing said made sense. It's pretty obvious that that's an intelligent creature. If that's proven, then the creature does have a claim to rights and sanctuary."
"So we shouldn't put it in jail if we catch it again?"
"There's gotta be another way to do this. I see that those books didn't do you any good in this case."
"No, not exactly." Archie spread his hands. "Not unless we want to call something up and ask it."
"You mean like on the telephone, I hope?"
"No. But we can't risk that. I'm going to try going online at the library, find out some things about predictions from seers of the past. There has to be something that indicated why there's so much activity these days. This fog has to come from somewhere. I've been reading all kinds of odd little reports in the newspapers and the scandal sheets. Crop circles are at an all-time high, and mental hospitals are carrying greater volume than usual."
"And I," said Dr. Beverly, "Have a date with a colleague. Not really a date, but an appointment." She dimpled. "He has another lead on things. I can't tell you about it now, until I hear from him. Then I'll introduce him to all of you."
On that note, the conclave broke up.Everyone agreed to keep in touch via email and telephone.
Archie left for the library, Phil and Paul braved the rush hour traffic on I-55, Dr. Beverly returned to her usual work.
It was an uneventful evening for all, except for the dreams.
And the ever-thickening fog.
