Beneath the Stars
Chapter 4
As Dipper expected, Soos cheerfully let Wendy off early that Tuesday afternoon. Shortly before three o'clock, Ford pulled up in his handsome—and yet dented—Lincoln. Wendy took off her name badge, and she and Dipper went out to the car.
"Hiya, Dr. Pines," Wendy said. "Thanks for givin' me a chance to drive your car! It's slick, dude."
Stanford had stepped out of the car. "My pleasure, Wendy. Truth be told, I am not yet entirely comfortable driving, especially on Interstates. I manage well enough in the Valley, though. Oh, one moment." He walked around to the passenger seat, climbed in, and said, "Now open the driver's door."
Wendy tugged, and from inside the car Ford pushed with his foot and the door popped open. "Just a little ding," Ford said. "I'll have to take it to the shop to get it mended and the door fixed."
Dipper climbed in on the driver's side, and Ford scooted over. Wendy came in after Dipper. "There a trick to closin' the door again?"
"Just slam hard," Ford said.
Wendy did, and the wing mirror fell out of its shell.
"Oh, I forgot about that," Ford said. "One moment." He got out of the car again, went around and picked up the mirror, and then fitted it back into place. When he climbed back in once more, he said, "That happened at the same time as the dent. I'll have to make a note to remind myself to have the mirror attended to as well."
"Buckle up, dudes," Wendy said. "We're on our way."
By the Interstate it was better than a two-hour trip to the airport, but that turned out not to be a problem, because Dr. Tremaine's plane was about thirty minutes late in landing. He called Ford at 5:35 to tell him that they had just taxied in and that he would meet them in the baggage area in a few minutes.
Wendy found a slot in the short-term parking garage, and the three of them walked beneath a cantilevered shelter across the pavement, past the ground-transportation loading area, and into the airport. They saw the escalators and then found their way to the green-carpeted baggage claim area.
Dipper spotted the baggage carousel that corresponded with Dr. Tremaine's flight number—not yet holding any luggage. But just as they came near it, the bags started popping out, and before very many minutes had gone by, passengers started to come up and crane, peering as the suitcases took their carnival ride around and around.
"Bet that's him," Wendy said.
A fussy-looking little man—slender, but shorter than Wendy—in a pale blue shirt and a gray tweedy jacket with leather patches on the elbow came hurrying up, clutching a briefcase.
Stanford met him. "Dr. Tremaine, I presume."
"Yes, yes," the small man said impatiently. "I'm trying to find a Dr. Stanford Pines."
"I'm Stanford Pines," Dipper's great-uncle said. "It's a pleasure to meet you."
"Oh. Oh! I apologize for my brusqueness. Henry, sir. Good heavens, you're polydactylic!"
Wendy whispered to Dipper, "I thought that was, like, the meter that Shakespeare wrote poetry in!"
"Six-fingered," he whispered back.
Ford was laughing. "Yes, born with six fingers, a genetic aberration. It's never bothered me though—physically, I mean. Dr. Tremaine—"
"Henry, please," the smaller, gray-haired man said. "I may be a product of New England, but I try not to exhibit over-much New England reticence!" He laughed, and Dipper supposed he had made a joke.
"Henry, then," Ford said. "And you must call me Stanford, or just Ford, as my friends do. Henry, welcome to Oregon. These young people are Miss Wendy Corduroy, who is acting chauffeur today, and my great-nephew Mason Pines, generally known as Dipper."
"Charmed," Tremaine said, making a courtly bow toward Wendy. He shook hands with Dipper. "Oh, Dr. Pines's research assistant! My heavens, I'd imagined you as a graduate student, my boy. What are you, a freshman?"
"Rising sophomore," Dipper said with a smile.
"Remarkable, remarkable!" Tremaine shook his head. "I always say that the incoming crop of University students look younger than they should, though! Well, lad, I congratulate you on working with Dr. Pines! You're off to a fine start in your university education."
Dipper didn't know whether to explain that he was a rising high-school sophomore, but he took too much time to explain, and Dr. Tremaine suddenly said, "Oh, there goes my suitcase, blast it! Someone stop it before it gets away!"
"On it," Wendy said, dodging expertly through the crowd. She found a clear space near the spot where the bags made their last turn, snagged the suitcase, and used its momentum to lift it up and swing it around. "Here you are, sir!"
"Excellent, young woman!" Dr. Tremaine said.
"I'll carry it for you," Dipper offered. That turned out to be a struggle, because from the weight of the suitcase he judged that Tremaine had packed not only clothes, but also several weighty books. But he didn't complain as Ford led them out, across the busy ground-transportation lanes, and into the parking deck.
Wendy had the keys, and she unlocked the car and the trunk. "You guys ride in the back and talk," she told Ford. "Dipper and I will take the front seat."
Tremaine made no objection. He and Ford got into the Lincoln, while Wendy, concealed behind the open trunk lid, helped Dipper hoist the heavy suitcase into the trunk. "Thanks," he said.
"You're welcome, dude! Wonder what the old guy packed in that thing. Weighs a ton, man!"
Dipper and Wendy got into the car, Wendy started the engine, and they headed out.
She asked if anyone wanted to stop for dinner. She might as well have asked the car for all the response she got. The two researchers in the back were in urgent conversation, very animated and yet not quite loud enough for Dipper or Wendy to follow it.
They hit the Interstate, with its usual clog of traffic right around the city, but once they had gone a few miles the cars thinned out and Wendy made good time. "Maybe you can teach Grunkle Ford a little about driving," Dipper suggested quietly.
"Dunno, man. I did great in drivers' training, but I don't think I'd have the patience!"
When they were close to the Bridge of the Gods, Wendy spoke up loudly enough to interrupt the two men in the back seat. "Guys! Dipper and I are hungry! We're going to pull off for dinner. Is that OK with you?"
"Dinner?" Dr. Tremaine said, sounding surprised. "Surely I've had my dinner already—no, wait, I haven't. I keep forgetting the time difference! To me it seems closer to 9:45 than 6:45! Yes, I could certainly eat something."
"Thank you, Wendy," Stanford said. "Do you know any place?"
"There's a restaurant with a good view of the bridge," Wendy told him. "Don't know how the food is, but I've noticed it before. This is our exit."
The Bridgeview was more of a diner than a regular restaurant, but it was crowded, and they were lucky to get a booth next to the window looking out over the Columbia River and the steel-truss bridge high above it. Neither Tremaine nor Stanford was in the least fussy about food, and when Stanford ordered salmon chowder and a trip through the salad bar, Tremaine echoed him.
Wendy and Dipper also asked for the salad bar, but they decided to split an order of salmon and chips between them. Dipper discovered that he'd been famished, but gallantly he allowed Wendy to have the very last French fry.
Feeling considerably better, they all got back in the car. This time the two passengers in back were not so animated—or so quiet. Dipper head Stanford say, "So you're convinced, then, that the meteor seen over Gravity Falls came from the region of Pluto?"
"Perhaps the Oort Cloud," Tremaine said. "But know this: Pluto is not the final planet in the Solar System. Oh, I know the youngsters have demoted it to 'dwarf planet,' but I'm an old fogey. No, Ford, beyond Pluto, where the cold, dark Universe borders our small stellar island of sanity, lies Yuggoth, the legendary forgotten planet, invisible to us either because of its great distance and darkness of hue—or else concealed from us by the darkest of magics!" He paused and then murmured, "Of course, you're a scientist. I suppose you have no belief in magic."
In his most thoughtful tone, Ford began, "Actually . . . ."
A fragment of an ancient book. The following manuscript pages, translated by an unknown hand from Latin (according to the best guess of scholars) is from The Tale of Forbidden Names, attributed to a student of John Dee, ca. 1600. This is the only leaf from that book known to exist today. It is in the private collection of Dr. Henry Tremaine of Miskatonic University. He brought photocopies of both sides of the leaf with him to Portland, Oregon, and shared the copies with Dr. Stanford Pines.
Perhaps unwisely, Dr. Pines inadvertently left his copy-of-a-copy in plain view, and his great-nephew Mason "Dipper" Pines had a chance to read what no one should ever read.
The excerpt follows. You have been warned.
Know ye, then, ye who dwell in blessed ignorance, that this world is NOT the only world, nor its inhabitants the only living things in the Universe!
For lo, eon upon eons in the past, the Great Old Ones held sway and dominion over our planet, and they were without number, and their minds were not as our minds.
Who were they, my brothers in humanity? How were they reckoned?
In their time of triumph, no human yet lived. At the time of their downfall, humanity had not yet emerged. And still, weary centuries passed, and millennia, and more, and then came our forebears, rising up from ape to become mankind.
And they knew of the Great Old Ones, and told terrified legends of them in the flickering light of fires made in caves;
And they clustered in tight groups, fearing the dark, as well they should;
And in hushed and fearful tones, they whispered that not all the Great Old Ones had perished in the cataclysm that ended their rule;
[page torn here] . . . the frightful Shoggoths, of which no man should have knowledge.
And the terrified men of old said, yea, that though the remnant beings from the dawn of time that were left behind lingered in uneasy slumbers and dreamed of seizing the fair Earth again for their own, yet never yet woke, certain Great Old Ones yet lingered in the Earth;
And unwisely, some men did worship them.
One is Nyarlathotep, Dweller in Darkness, whose protean forms are legion: a tall, dark man; the Crawling Chaos; or a being of utmost night with bat-wings.
And yea, one is Shub-Niggurath, the Black Goat of the Woods, the Goat with a Thousand Young, she whom the Ancients mistakenly called Pan, a seductive creature who craves worship and perverts the impulse of humans to adore a god, who grants unto her wickedest and most depraved followers magical power, for she is the Mother of Witches.
And yea, one is Azathoth, the infinite sultan-demon, that bubbles and seethes in ultimate chaos in the unknown angle of space that no human may visit and from which none ever return sane.
And yea, one is Yog-Sothoth, now locked beyond the bounds of Time and Space that we know; impotent and yet hungry for dominion; seemingly mindless, and yet it knows all and sees all and spins dark unknown destinies for us all.
And yea, one is Great Cthulhu, imprisoned in the sunken city of R'lyeh, drowned and yet not dead, for he is undying and one day his dark dreams of return will become reality and will overthrow reality and then the reign . . . .[page torn here]