The world perhaps little noted and certainly has not long remembered an item of fourth page interest appearing in the newspapers some sixteen years ago, on May 8, to be exact, in the eventful year of 1940. The article referred to Henry Storm as an eccentric millionaire explorer and scientist, and with a gross inattention to factual details, it related certain curious circumstances which had led to the tragic disappearance of Michael Storm, his twenty-two-year-old son.

The elder Storm, a former classmate of mine at the University of California, had inherited a fortune in real estate which he later converted into an indestructible group of iron-clad securities. Living comfortably on the dividends, he had launched himself into an amazing variety of studies, researches, and diverse sports and avocations. After the death of his wife, he adopted Michael, who was then fourteen, and proceeded to train him in all the arts and sciences in which he was, himself, engrossed.

The boy, of apparent good Scotch-Irish descent, was quick to learn but early demonstrated a proclivity toward the physical arts, excelling in sports--particularly mountain climbing, boxing, and fencing. As a matter of fact, in his second year of college he won the Senior A.A.U. and Western Intercollegiate championships in fencing. However, it was his father's proclivity toward archaeological exploration which finally led to the younger Storm's strange disappearance. I had paid little attention to the true nature of Henry Storm's archaeological investigations, and when the news appeared concerning the disappearance of his son in South America I was too much concerned with my friend's great personal loss to concentrate on the pertinent details. All I knew was that the two of them had been exploring Incan trails in the Peruvian Andes. The native Quichua highlanders had superstitiously attributed the tragedy to some dark vengeance of ancient gods. Naturally, I dismissed all that from my mind until Henry Storm himself personally related the incident to me.

But Henry Storm died of cerebral thrombosis not long after, and I did not for long entertain in my mind the more bizarre aspects of his heartbroken account. It was an unpleasant experience, at best, and its details all but faded from memory when the long lost son appeared abruptly out of the distant past...

That was almost two years ago, and Michael remained with me for many months following that unforgettable day when the immigration authorities took him from a Peruvian vessel in Los Angeles Harbor. A wild stowaway, they had called him, a fevered and demented savage wearing animal skins. Yet he had claimed to be Michael Storm, and as the administrator of his father's estate I had been called to identify him. I had found him to be a far different man from what they had described to me over the phone--in fact, incredibly different from the youngster who had disappeared from my sight over sixteen years before.

Like some sullen and brooding barbarian emperor, he had stood in the rear of the cell where they had held him pending my arrival. His broad back was against the wall, his massive arms folded over such a chest as I had never witnessed before on a human being. Burned a deep brown by tropical suns, his aspect was savage--pagan--enhanced by the skillfully cured animal skins and jeweled harness he wore. His beard was thick, his hair long and unruly, his shining black eyes couched deep beneath the massive arch of a patrician brow.

Those eyes met mine, and they were far from being those of a fevered and demented creature born of the wilderness. They were utterly defiant, power conscient, demanding. So might Alexander of Macedon have gazed down upon the armies of Persia and Babylon.

In fact, during the months following, after I had brought him home and attempted to prepare him for the life to which his inheritance entitled him, those piercing eyes continued to bore into mine, in both my waking and sleeping hours. What mystery did they hold? What unimagined tale of suffering and longing, of striving, glory, and adventure could they tell? Why did he refrain from telling me, his father's closest friend and confidant? What powerful forces of motivation turned him from the obvious advantages afforded him by wealth and easily attainable social position? Why did he scorn the society of his modern environment as though he did not belong to it and never would?

The tantalizing answers to these and a thousand other questions were being set down on paper, week after week and month after month, as this once carefree young son of my dearest friend gradually filled five large diaries with the detailed account of his experiences. Yet he steadfastly refused to divulge any of their contents, and in fact, he chose to keep them in the wall safe in his bedroom, along with a small, precious black box which lie appeared to value as much as life itself.

Often I observed him at the window of the den, gazing at the distant peaks of the Santa Monica Hills as the sun sank behind them, on his strong face an expression of despair, longing and mental anguish combined with a sort of deep smouldering anger of imperial magnitude. Always he had been taciturn, but during our latter days together I had discerned a change in him, a growing purposefulness, a pacing restlessness, like that of a man who awaits a loved one from across the sea and seeks the sails of her ship on the distant horizon. He would sometimes disappear into the mountains for several days at a time, his seemingly inexhaustible energies carrying him often to amazingly distant spots, from which he would return unannounced, as restless and memory-haunted as before.

Is it any wonder, therefore, that I finally succumbed to a devouring curiosity? I had restrained myself, desperately nursing a strongly ingrained sense of propriety but at last I knew that my will and even honor itself had failed to prevail against the narcotic influence of intellectual hunger. I must have the answers to the numberless questions that had been driving me utterly mad ever since the return of Michael Storm.

So it was that when he left the estate one morning in one of those somber moods which I knew would take him afar into the Sierra Madres I decided that this was the day. There would be time to procure the diaries from the safe, the combination of which was well known to me, and perhaps to even inspect the mysterious contents of the sacred little box.

Yet as I entered his bed-chamber I hesitated, momentarily stayed by a nameless fear. The room overlooked a flowering garden, and it was cheerful with the soft, morning rays of the sun. Yet the room was also dark with his brooding presence and I could still see his deep-couched eyes boring into mine, the long, thin scar down one side of his jaw, the terrible battle wound that marked fully half of his massive chest. It was as though I stood at the gateway of a world that was his alone--through which none other might ever pass.

With a desperate effort, I shrugged away this dark illusion and hastened to the safe, which was concealed in one wall of his closet. Opening it easily, I drew forth the five diaries with trembling hands and perceived behind them the enigmatic little box of mystery.

Somehow, I felt that to open the latter at this time would constitute a special violation of Michael's privacy, but since I had helped to regain his fluency in language I felt that I had earned at least some prerogative with regard to the diaries. So I closed the safe and hurried triumphantly to my own study, where I gloated over that which now lay at my command to examine--the full and detailed account of Michael Storm's sixteen years of adventure.

Preparing myself adequately with pipe, tobacco, matches, and plenty of coffee, I sat down in my favorite chair and opened the diary that was simply marked with a roman numeral "I"...

Of those last wonderful weeks spent with my foster father in the Peruvian Andes back in the spring of 1940, there are a few details which come to my mind clearly--for the sixteen years that intervene have engraved upon my memory a record of scenes and events far more vivid. Yet there are two details of that period which remain with indelible clarity. The first pertains to the force and character of the man who adopted me, Henry Storm, and of his impelling pertinacity with regard to his dangerous and mysterious goal. The second pertains to the impetuous journey I undertook on my own account, and against his wishes, in order to reach that forbidden goal in his name--to the legendary Gate of Viracocha, high in the eternal glacial fastnesses of Huascarán.

That I reached that feared gateway into realms as yet almost indefinable to me, and that I lived to return back through it, makes possible the account that follows--which for bizarre experience and perilous adventure is perhaps unparalleled in modern times, or indeed since the days of Scheherazade...

We stood one day at the summit of that mountain pass in the Peruvian Andes of which he had spoken to me so often during our several years of planning for this expedition. One hundred miles inland from the coastal town of Trujillo, and halfway between the mining town of Quiruvilca and picturesque Huamachuco, we stood together on a rocky ledge above the dirt highway, in barren, windswept highlands, fourteen thousand feet above the level of the sea.

"There," he said proudly, as he pointed at the tremendous vista which now unfolded before us, "is the Valley, and Huamachuco, at last! It is the first base of our assault on Huascarán. Here in this spot, Michael, and perhaps even on this very rock, stood the Spanish conqueror, Francisco Pizarro, as he and his pitiful band of half-frozen companions beheld the mighty display of warrior pavilions in the victorious camp of Atahualpa, the Incan emperor."

"And where were those pavilions?" I asked, as I shaded my eyes against the glare of the deep blue sky.

"Down there, on the green slopes of the Valley beyond the town."

The Valley began far below with the tile-roofed adobe town of Huamachuco and swept indiscernible miles eastward into a dizzying haze of purpled distance, which unveiled the rich, wild region of the Maranon River. The coastal Andes were characterized by barren, desert-like slopes, but here was a breathtaking vista of fertile green, the first beginnings of the endless verdure that follows the world's greatest natural drainage system into the mighty basin of the Amazon.

"And where," I asked, "is Huascarán?"

My father laughed heartily. "That titan is too vast to see because the foundations that support him are too broad--but we are in his country now. Later, when we reach our second base at Pomabamba--then you will crane your neck to find his face."

Suddenly, he frowned in pain and held his hand tightly pressed over his eyes.

"What's the matter? Are you ill?" I asked.

He removed his hand and shook his head. His face was unusually ruddy, like one afflicted with fever. "It's nothing. I--" He got no farther, for in the next instant he slumped into unconsciousness and would have fallen had I not caught him in my arms.

"Dionisio!" I shouted at our hired guide and chauffeur, who still sat in the truck on the highway. "Apúrate!"

The sandalled Quichua arriero came running at my call, a knowing grin on his high-boned face.

"It is seroche, señor, "he explained, as he helped me lift my father's inert form. "The sickness of the mountains. The serrano who lives in the Jalca, way up here in the sky, Don Michael--he gets lowland fever when he travels to the sea.

The people from down below--they get it up here, from altitude."

"Then why don't I get it?" I grunted, as we carried my father between us to the truck.

"Ha! Who is to know the limitations of the young in body, mind and heart, hijito! But your father--well, he will feel better down in Huamachuco." In a low voice, he said, "The padrón, your father, wishes to climb Huascarán. Please believe me, Don Michael, he cannot do it."

"But," I protested in alarm, "He has devoted years of research to his theories, which only Huascarán will prove or disprove! If he does not get to try it, it will kill him!"

"No," said Dionisio firmly. "If he does try it--it will be his death."

As the battered and dusty truck lumbered down the long grade to Huamachuco, the scenic aspects of my environment were lost upon me because my thoughts were of my father. I was not intimately acquainted with his secret theories regarding what it was he expected to find on Huascarán, but he had made one thing clear to me. He had insisted that if his theories were valid, we were on the trail of probably the most monumental discovery in the history of science. I remembered his heroic labors over books, maps, and ancient manuscripts borrowed from the world's greatest libraries and museums; his explosive vehemence in emphasizing the fact that he must continue in spite of his doctor's warnings, and the wide-eyed expression of awed enthrallment I would see from time to time on his fatigue-lined countenance. To such a positive character and bold adventurer as he, his secret mission of discovery seemed to be more important than his own life. And such, I knew, was the way with the genuine investigator. Nothing would stop him short of his death. To such as he the world owed its knowledge, its history, and its future destiny.

This hard-driving, hard-living man with the burning light of insatiable curiosity in his pale blue eyes, this wiry, graying doer of deeds had won my total admiration and respect. I loved him as though he were my own father. To him I owed my education, my enlightenment to the wonders of the world and the mystery of life--even my growth, strength, skills and ability.

Here was the curious paradox, I told myself, as we thundered down the narrow, cobblestoned streets of the town. Whereas his goals were more precious to him than his life, I cherished his life more than his ambition. But how was I to stay him when I, myself, shared his burning impatience to pursue the project he had so studiously begun and carried so ardently to the very threshold of action?

In a second-story bedroom of the Gato Blanco, an old inn facing the village square, Huamachuco's only doctor corroborated Dionisio's somber admonishment. "You cannot climb mountains, señor," he told my father. "Your heart will not stand it, and your respiratory system--"

"Don't pontificate to me!" my father exclaimed, in his scholarly Spanish. "I am still the master of my fate--and I am going to Huascarãn!"

The old doctor shook his head sadly. "You will learn, señor, what the sierra has taught my people. Only the mountains live with the gods. We are very small and helpless." He pointed at the ceiling. "There is One above you, señor, who will be the master of your fate. I am only a doctor."

After he had gone, my father gripped my hand. "Sit down, son. I must tell you everything now--and then you will understand why I must go on!"

He talked then, and my mind was filled with such a mass of historical and legendary detail that I was speechless before that avalanche of learning. I cannot recall a tenth of the details, but I feel that the following postulates of his theory are significant in the light of the events which were to follow.

His interest in South American archaeology and anthropology was first awakened, he told me, when he came upon the legend of Viracocha--known also to Aztec civilization as Quetzalcoatl, and by various other appellations and totems to most of the indigenous races of the Western Hemisphere. Somewhere in past ages, a bearded white man had come among the primitive peoples of both continents, preaching against violence and human sacrifice. Incan legend insisted that he had first appeared in Peru and had, in fact, descended from the sky. They had called him Viracocha.

More esoteric sources had pointed to Huascarãn as the actual mountain from which he had descended. Then, in later centuries, a mysterious advanced race of people had appeared as if from the sky among the primitive of this region and established the fabulous empire of Tiahuanaco, the ruins of which are still plainly visible at Lake Titicaca. Centuries later, Tiahuanaco was invaded and conquered overnight by another wave of superior people who called themselves Incas. It is a known fact that the Incas referred to themselves as being a different race entirely from the indigenous peoples they conquered, and even up to the period of the Spanish conquests they spoke a language which was unknown to their Peruvian subjects.

My father emphasized that science must ask an embarrassing question at this point. A superior race of people does not evolve overnight. If they came from some other region, that place must have retained some sign or mark of its past achievements--even as the Tiahuanaqueños had left Tiahuanaco and as the Incas had left us the monumental works of Macchu Picchu and the fortress at Cuzco. Where, then, were the works of their previous abode?

The lurking question behind all this was perhaps bizarre but unavoidable. Did these mysterious peoples have a common point of entrance into this single area where they had all made their sudden appearance?

From this stage in the development of the archaeological aspects of his thesis, my father then launched into a much more complicated dissertation in astrophysics and theoretical mathematics. Far from wishing to spare the reader the details of his theories at this point, I must confess that I would be incapable of repeating them, because they were very largely beyond my comprehension--both then and now. However, I knew he was talking about the phenomenon of time, which he referred to as a "necessary coordinate in the mechanics of total entity." He mentioned "stress-points" in time, where one might fall or stray into either past or future periods of history. He spoke of universal orbits and etheric tides, of eddies and warps in the "space-time continuum," and finally succeeded in losing me entirely.

"The point I want to make clear," he summarized, "is that it is possible that such a stress-point, or 'gate,' in time has occurred in the region of Huascarán. It is not always there. I have graphed the periods of its possible occurrence, and the peaks seem to fall into an approximate cycle of every eight hundred years. It was in the twelfth century that the Incas first made their first appearance, and that was just about eight hundred years ago."

He watched my face closely as comprehension dawned upon me. I tensed, fascinated by the thought. "Then--what you are trying to say is that--this 'gate' may be open again."

"Yes--the Gate of Viracocha!" he triumphed, his eyes gleaming. "The crowning discovery in all my research was a reference made by Inca Garcilaso de la Vega in one of his unpublished Royal Commentaries, back in the sixteenth century. As I have told you before, he was a Christianized Inca who was brought to Spain by the conquistadores and educated at the University of Salamanca. He was the greatest living authority on the legends of his people."

"Well, what was the reference about?"

"It referred, quite parenthetically and in all innocence of its true significance, to the 'dread Gate of Viracocha, from which none return.' And in a later passage he refers to Huasearán as 'that fountain of the gods, whence come our sacred forebears.'"

I could not help but respond to my father's radiant enthusiasm. "It may be only theory," I said, "but it does seem irresistible."

He gripped my hand again. "It may well be, Michael, that somewhere on that mighty peak a stress-point exists through which men may travel into another era of time. And if it exists, you and I are going to find it!"

I did not attempt just then to dissuade him from the perilous venture. Not only did I harbor grave misgivings concerning his health, should he pursue his course, but I also entertained some considerable doubts as to our ability to discover such a weird phenomenon in the frozen wastes of the monstrous peak he hoped to assail--if indeed the entire theory were valid in the first place. But even if I should deter him by means of one pretext or another, I knew that he would never be at peace until his theory was given a chance of proof or denial. He would insist that the time was now, when his graph indicated the "Gate" might be open. In later years, the opportunity might be gone forever--or at least for another eight centuries of time.

I could not allow him to go on, yet we could not turn our backs upon such a stupendous mystery now that we were so close to its source.

On the following day when my father planned to begin preparations, he was stricken with severe spasms of seroche. He shook so violently that he complained of an intolerable soreness in his kidneys. I recalled the local physician and also dispatched a messenger to Trujillo to bring a modern doctor to his aid. He was definitely not in a condition to undertake the journey to Huascarán; yet I was assured the attack of seroche would pass, under proper treatment, and that he would be in good condition if he returned to the lowlands and remained there.

It was that evening that I made my impulsive decision. Why was it not possible, I asked myself, for me to make the trip for him? At least my own investigation of his theories would be much better than nothing at all.

Yet if I should mention such a plan he would forbid it--and then a lid would close upon the mystery forever. The more I pondered over the alternatives of the dilemma, the more I succumbed to the promptings of my heart and the red blood of the same adventurous spirit which he had imparted to me. More than wealth, this had I inherited from Henry Storm. I was a searcher, and as keen to achieve my objectives as he. Moreover, I owed him much. Though he would abhor the thought of my impulsiveness, yet I knew that he would be proud of my gesture on his behalf.

By morning I had secretly prepared my provisions and alerted Dionisio. I left my father a note, explaining that the course I had chosen was the only alternative--and that I would make a rendezvous with him in Trujillo one month hence, if not sooner.

This time schedule gave me about two weeks on Huascarân--or so, at least, I calculated then. It was the last time I ever saw my father, though he lived eight years, I am told, beyond that day...