The Diary of Doc­tor Vin­cent Thorne
Doc­tor of The­ol­ogy and Theo­soph­i­cal Stud­ies
The Smith­son­ian Insti­tute, Flambard.

Twelfth of Jan­u­ary, in the year Six­teen Hun­dred and Fifty-Six.

As soon as I opened the door this morn­ing to see a mes­sen­ger boy there, I knew that the day had come. It almost felt ridicu­lous to con­tem­plate it. That old man, so old that the stu­dents were only half-joking when they nick­named him “The Immortal”…

Now he lay dying.

Mem­o­ries of him flooded my mind as I made my way slowly through the win­ter snow towards the hos­pi­tal. Pro­fes­sor Albert Stahl… I still remem­ber the bearded Mill-enese man’s warm hand­shake on the first day of my under­grad­u­ate stud­ies at the Smith­son­ian; how his lec­tures were always inter­spersed with tales of his adven­tur­ous youth; how he proud he was to offer me a doc­toral posi­tion at the university…

Even as he lay on his death bed, the man was jovial. The irony of the sit­u­a­tion was clearly not lost on “the Immor­tal”. He talked for hours – old habits die hard for lec­tur­ers, it seems – of his future plans, and he laughed each time he realised that he wouldn’t be able to put them into practice.

At last, the man came to the point he had been try­ing to make.

“I’m not a poor man, Vin­cent,” he said. “I’ve made my will, and my money is going to the Institute.”

I nod­ded sagely. I had expected noth­ing less. Per­sonal wealth had never been one of the professor’s goals, and the deci­sion to leave his money to the Insti­tute itself was a log­i­cal one.

“How­ever,” he con­tin­ued, “It would have been unwise for me to give my money blindly, and thus I have not. You are aware, of course, of my fas­ci­na­tion with the Mael­strom and the lands that lie beyond.”

Again, I nodded.

“In such advanced years as mine, it has been an impos­si­ble wish for me to see for myself the New World and its cul­ture, its soci­ety and its reli­gions. The larger part of my money, there­fore, has been given to the Smith­son­ian Insti­tute in order to fund an extended expe­di­tion to the New World and to doc­u­ment the the­o­log­i­cal atti­tudes of those peo­ple who now call it their home.

My mouth hung open, my eyes shone. I could see where this was head­ing, and I liked it very much.

“You, Vin­cent, being a young and strong man and devoted to your sub­ject… While I still, barely, have the posi­tion to decide such things, let me ask you this. Will you go? Will you accept the chal­lenge, will you travel across the seas to unknown lands beyond?”

I grasped the old man’s hands firmly in mine.

“Of course, Albert, you old fool! You know me well enough by now, there’s no way I could turn down a chance like that!”

“Then it is decided. The Smith­son­ian Insti­tute will fund your trans­port, your liv­ing expenses, and any­thing else you might need. In return, Vin­cent… Dis­cover a new world for us, and broaden the hori­zons of theology!”

He paused for a moment, and coughed loudly.

“And now, my pupil and friend, I must rest. A new life awaits you, and you need not con­cern your­self with the run-down remains of your last one!”

Pro­fes­sor Albert Stahl let out one last guf­faw, low­ered him­self down on the bed, closed his eyes, and died with a smile still on his face.

In time, a doc­tor came to cover him and take him away to be buried. He had no fam­ily to inform, for he had well out­lasted them. All that he had left behind was me, a promise of spon­sor­ship, and one ticket for a passenger-carrying ship to New Terino.

In the end, he was right. There is no need to worry about the debris of my old life any more. Although his mem­ory will never leave me, there is a brighter future that awaits me far away over the seas.