The lurker in the inter-record gap
The occasional visitor to Miskatonic University's
Information Science Department can hardly help but remark on the contrast between the lowering, inbred looks of the head porter, as he unloads the visitor's portmanteaux from the railroad station, and the comparatively frank and open expression of your average Yankee university student.
Certainly Edwin, returning to the involuted and
claustrophobic region of his upbringing in the belief that the creatures of the deep were quiescent again, suspected that the man who carried his disk packs was one of his Arkham half brothers, possibly a three-quaters brother.
"Did they seal up the window in the granite tower above
Arkham?" he asked by way of experiment. As a consequence of the man's multiple speach defects, the answer was unintelligible, but Edwin caught the sense from the livid patches that sprang up on the fellow's forehead and from his letting fall six volumes of operating manuals. Clearer than words came the message that one could still–if imprudent enough–look out the window that faced no point of the compass, and that certain things could still look in. Medlers might still give Cthulhu and the Old Ones their opportunity.
In contrast, Dr. James Pendline was like a breath of
fresh air when Edwin sat down with him to plan how they would generate the new operating system on the Miskatonic computer. Young, hair trimmed in the en brosse style affected by New York academics, he stuck but one faint, discordant note: His tie-tack was fashioned into a shape familiar to those who have studied the abominable writings of the satanic Arab, el Oufkr aft.
The main problem was to get rid of the old Arkham
monitor, Reptilian 13. Into the dusk they worked, poring over the vellum sheets.
Once a student came in to report slimy things creeping
out of the multiplex channel. James Pendine looked at him levelly. "Did you invoke a recursive procedure?" He at last admitted it, was given a temporary fix, and sent away.
They went into the computer room just after midnight.
Little by little they cut away parts of the Arkham monitor, trying to leave only an amount sufficient for the reading in of the clean new code. Edwin heard a muted scream as the job scheduler went. There were toads everywhere. Grim-faced they continued.
At two o'clock the telephone rang. "That's project MAC" said James Pendine. "We let them
hook into our processor when theirs is down for maintenance." The telephone stopped ringing and a light came on to show that the line had been connected automatically to the computer.
Edwin shrieked and pulled the cable, fizzing and
sparking, out of the communications front-end. Pendine had not moved.
"Pray Heaven I was quick enough," said Edwin. "Why had
you not disconnected that telephone?" Pendine smiled. "You are fearful that somehow the remnants of the Reptilian might have fled down the line to Massachusetts?"
"I hardly know what I feared," answered Edwin, and he
began loading the disks and tapes and cards that would make the Miskatonic computer a healthy thing again.
Rosy-fingered Dawn broke, cloudless, serene. The
computer was compileing Algol, working much more slowly than it used to under the old monitor, but at least there were no more toads. Edwin and Pendine had some kidneys brought in on a salver for breakfast.
Across the dewy campus lawn the porter was seen
approaching. Absently Edwin noticed he left the prints of three feet behind him. He proffered a telegram.
TO PENDINE MISKATONIC STOP SINCE CONNECTION YOUR CPU LAST
NIGHT OUR GRAPH PLOTTER WONT DRAW PENTACLES STOP ALSO TOADS EVERYWHERE STOP HOWEVER WELL WORTH IT STOP EXECUTION SPEEDS MUCH IMPROVED STOP THANKS MIT ENDS
As is the case with many telegrams, the text was
followed by a few meaningless characters–random ripples on Mr. Bell's fluid that appended themselves as parasites to the real symbols of human intercourse. For the sake of this narrative's completeness they are given below:
CTHULU...CTHULHU...HAHA...CTHULHU.....