Author's Notes: Once again, I'd like to thank all those who have read and/or reviewed this story, especially to K9grmingTwihard, autismmom31910, bythepalmtrees, as well as my anon reviewers. Your reviews have been most kind and supportive, and I'm extremely grateful for them.

The Light at the End of the World

The Professor was exhausted from pedalling the turbine as hard as he could to re-create the frequency; this had been the tenth trial. He'd been able to generate a very low signal, but it was nowhere close enough to reach the frequency he needed to re-open the interdimensional gateway. However, in this case failure had provided some measure of success: it proved he was on the right track in the possibility of sending a Morse signal via a low-band AM frequency carrier wave. There might actually be a chance that after he returned his double to his own dimension, that their own rescue might be possible.

*.*.*.*.*

"Skipper, I'm worried about the Professor." Gilligan looked in the direction of the scientist's hut; fear was clearly defined in his eyes.

"You're not the only one, little buddy." The Skipper pushed back his sailor's cap in frustration at not being able to do anything.

Mr. Howell nodded his agreement with the others.

"No, I don't mean that Dr. Hinkley would do anything to hurt the Professor. He needs his help too bad. But they're exactly the same person, right?"

"My boy," began Mr. Howell, "they might look the same on the outside, but it's what's inside a man that counts. That man is no more the Professor than Boris Balinkoff is Albert Schweitzer." The threesome shuddered at the comparison, remembering what Balinkoff had done to them.

"But how will that other universe be able to tell the difference? Suppose it opens around the wrong person."

Mr. Howell and the Skipper looked at each other in horror. The subject had never come up in their discussion with the Professor of sending Hinkley back to his own universe, and with the Professor only just recovered from a concussion—albeit a mild one—he might not have even considered that as a possibility.

*.*.*.*.*

"If at first you don't succeed—" began Hinkley.

The Professor cut him off. "If you'd give me a moment to catch my breath," he wiped the sweat from his brow with his already damp shirt sleeve, "I'll be able to try again."

"Would you prefer that I pedal for a while?" His offer sounded sincere, but he still managed to get in a barb, "While you go sit in a corner."

"Frankly, I'd prefer that you'd…" the Professor wanted to say something else, but stopped himself, "just keep listening for the correct vibrational frequency."

"Well, you've proved your theory at any rate. You've succeeded in creating a carrier wave signal that will travel about 3.04 meters"

"Or across the space-time continuum."

"Depending on how you look at it."

"Ah, I see you're someone who has to have the last word."

"Bien sûr.

The Professor just shook his head; there was no sense continuing this verbal sparring. It could go on indefinitely, and would accomplish little, for every statement made, Hinkley had a rebuttal: sign, countersign.

The thought occurred to him so suddenly that it nearly knocked him from the turbine's saddle. For every sine wave there's an inverse sine. He'd been pedalling on a constant. If he was going to punch a hole into an alternate universe he needed to be pedalling on two axes—the positive, which he had been doing, as well as the negative, which would be the reverse. For every pedal forward, he'd need to reverse his momentum and pedal backwards, allowing each wave to create its inverse.

He started pedalling again, at first simply forward to regain control of the turbine for what he would do next. Once he had built a rhythm that felt sustainable, he countered his motions. Forward. Backward. Forward. Backward. Each movement mentally timed to be consistent with its opposite.

At first the radio began to hum, again with the same low frequency it had so far only been able to attain. After what felt like hours of pumping, but was actually only a few minutes, that same eerie electronic hum began to grow, almost taking on a life of its own. This time, though, there was no blinding flash of light as had happened previously from the ball lightning; it was like a ripple was forming in the ether, widening to give the Professor and his counterpart a small glimpse into another universe.

The sight was, at first breathtaking, like looking through a kaleidoscope of colours that the human mind wasn't meant to comprehend. Drawn by the wonder he was witnessing, the Professor stopped pedalling, as much mesmerised by the glow as his counterpart.

Even without his pedalling, the hole was remaining stable, ever so slowly enlarging in size.

"It's working," said Hinkley, relieved to be finally returning to civilisation from this accursed island.

"Yes," The awe in the Professor's voice was barely audible above that incessant electronic whine. He had already stepped from the pedal-powered turbine to join Hinkley in seeing what no human, to their knowledge, had ever witnessed.

The colours were so vivid that the Professor could almost feel the radiance emanating through the gap, drawing him as well as Hinkley into it.

The electronic tone began to rise, turning into an electronic squeal. It snapped the Professor from his reverie just long enough for him to understand what he was viewing.

Hinkley was preparing to launch himself through the gap which had grown almost wide enough for a man to walk through.

"My God, man. No!" The Professor grabbed his alternate self by the arm, and began wrestling with him to keep him from walking into what his mind had finally grasped what they had been seeing in slow, horrifying motion through the interdimensional gap.

*.*.*.*.*

Gilligan, the Skipper and Mr. Howell all recognized that ungodly sound when it began. When they heard the Professor's garbled shout, they wasted no time in running for his hut. For all they knew, the experiment had gone wrong, and the Professor needed their help.

Throwing open the door to the hut, the Skipper and Mr. Howell, like the Professor and Hinkley before them, were swept away in awe at what they were seeing from a parallel dimension, and halted in their tracks, leaving Gilligan in the unenviable position of running smack into the back of the Skipper. The first mate had not seen the radiance that held the others in its thrall; he could see only that the two Professors were fighting.

"Skipper, Mr. Howell stay back," yelled one of the men, over the ear-piercing electronic sound.

"Let me go," shouted the other, as he fought all the harder to break free.

This is what Gilligan's instinct had feared: that the Professor had been right about that universe being on the eve of destruction.

*.*.*.*.*

The women were not much further behind than the men. But with the Skipper and Mr. Howell already blocking the entrance, and Gilligan trying to push his way through them, there was little they could do.

Ginger being the tallest, tried to look between the Skipper and Mr. Howell, but was blocked by Gilligan. "Girls," he shouted. "Whatever you do, don't look!" They'd never heard the first mate bark a command at them like that.

He dropped to his knees, and crawled between the Skipper and Mr. Howell, reminding himself to keep his eyes closed, while trying to use his memory to manoeuvre around the hut. But that was no good, with the debris throughout it, he had no idea whether he was going toward or away from the Professor and Hinkley, or heading straight for that dimensional rift.

"Ginger," he yelled, as he stood, "Can you tell me if my voice is coming toward you or away from you?"

"Away from me," she replied, as anxious as the first mate obviously was.

"I-I'm going to turn around and face you. Keep your eyes only on me, don't look at anything—even the Professors—" he shouted.

"All-all right, Gilligan, I'll try." She saw the top of his white sailor cap bobbing up and down.

"Mary Ann, Mrs. Howell. Try to turn the Skipper and Mr. Howell toward you and away from the inside of the hut."

For Mrs. Howell, it was the easier assignment, "Thurston," she shouted, as she turned her husband to face her. "Thurston, can you see me?"

"Lovey?" he was like a man awakened from somnambulism. He grabbed his beloved wife in his arms, and held on tightly, tears streaming down his cheeks. She led him away from the hut, and back to the community table.

"Skipper! Skipper!" Mary Ann yelled.

When that obviously did no good, she started hitting him on the back to get his attention, like one would to someone who was choking. She still could not get him to turn away. In desperation, she remembered what Ginger had said about kicking a phony casting director in his 'audition parts'. "I'm sorry about this, Skipper," she said, as she let out with a kick that doubled the big man over, and forced him to his knees, and then onto his side in pain. She apologised, and forced his eyes shut, while trying to keep herself from looking ahead.

Gilligan hurried back to help his Skipper up, and grab Mary Ann by the arm to drag her away.

"We've got to go back," cried Ginger, her voice barely audible above that horrible electronic scream. "We can't leave the Professor in there with that madman."

"I will," he said, "Just help me get the Skipper and Mary Ann away from here."

She did as he said; it wasn't like there was much choice anyway.

The Skipper was panting painfully from Mary Ann's kick; but the tears streaming down his face had little to do with the physical pain he was experiencing. "I-I'll stay with him," she said, grabbing Gilligan's arm. "You try to get the Professor out of there before it's too late."

*.*.*.*.*

Gilligan had no plan for getting the Professor out, and that piercing electronic noise was doing nothing to help him concentrate.

Opening the hut door, he kept his eyes focused on the floor, refusing to look ahead.

"Professor, are you okay?" he asked over the sound.

"For the moment."

Gilligan could still hear the two men struggling, and watched as two pairs of legs danced around what he could only figure was the gateway.

"I've got to get back there," shouted Hinkley. "You don't understand."

"It's too late for your universe," said the Professor, still struggling with his doppelgänger. "Don't you comprehend that sound? What you're seeing?"

The other shook his head. "Your stupid morality. Don't you realise what we've accomplished?"

This time, Gilligan saw the second pair of legs being yanked toward what he assumed was the opening.

"It's already closing. If I don't get through now, I never will." The second set of legs pulled the first pair back.

Back and forth, he didn't know which was which. "Professor?" he called.

Both voices answered "yes", almost simultaneously.

Hoo-boy, he thought to himself, How am I going to tell them apart?

"Come with me." Though out of breath, the voice was as smooth as silk.

"I'm trying to save your life, you fool," wheezed the Professor.

Again he saw the two pairs of legs moving from one side of the room to the other. Until finally one shoved the other pair from his sight. The other pair had also disappeared from view.

"Professor," he asked again. "Are you all right?"

He heard a strange sound mixed with the eeriness of that shrill electronic whine, but didn't hear the Professor's reply.

"I-I couldn't stop him, Gilligan." The Professor replied from where he'd landed on the floor, after having been shoved away. "I tried. But he wanted to go through the gateway, even knowing what was there."

The Professor was about to turn off the radio to shut the gateway, but performed one final act, throwing the circuit board through the shrinking remains of the interdimensional hole.

Whether or not the hole had some sentience was impossible to know, but it immediately sealed itself once the circuit board passed through it.

"He went back where he came from, Professor." The first mate finally felt confident enough to look straight ahead of him.

The Professor quickly turned off the radio, and the hut fell silent again.

"Why?" the Professor asked the question more of himself than Gilligan.

"He wanted to go home," answered the first mate honestly. "That's all he ever wanted since arriving here."

The Professor shook his head, "But he knew what was happening there. He saw the same brilliant light we all did."

"Maybe…" Gilligan hesitated, searching for an answer he wasn't sure he had. "Maybe, he wanted to make peace for himself in his world, and that was the only way he could do it."

"It was the waste of a life, though," replied the Professor. "No one else needed to die."

"There might still be people there. People like us," said Gilligan, "who can rebuild their world. Even if he's not our Professor, he might help them in the same way you've helped us."