<meta name="LineWrap" content="true"><TITLE>SR_Bk1 0142</TITLE><A HREF="SR_Bk1-0143.txt">Next (Page 143)</A><BR> He had committed it to memory long ago, but still he had to be careful to execute the whole thing right.<P><P>When he punched in the last sequence, there was a big click, and the entire panel lurched forward a little. With both hands, he pushed the panel forward. It receded under the floor, revealing a spiral staircase leading into darkness below.<P><P>He stood up, opened a drawer, and took out a flashlight. Then he started descending into the blackness.<P><P>This was a vault where Winter Stadium Them kept their most valuable and/or hazardous artifacts, collected during their complex and otherworldly missions.<P><P>He strode past innumerable crazy and wonderful things, until finally he got to a huge vault door. This was the vault within the vault. Behind it were the most unbelievable and devastating objects in the collection. Neither he nor the other two in the current Winter Stadium Them team knew how to unlock the vault. But Snoppy had a crossbow bolt, called the Gethbolt, which just might work, he thought.<P><P>His crossbow was broken up into eight part, four of which he stored in each of his boots, along with a bunch of bolts.<P><P>He put the crossbow together and loaded it up with the Gethbolt. Then he nuzzled his crossbow right up against the vault door and fired. Instantly, a thunderous noise was heard from beyond the door.<P><P>Then all was silent again.<P><P>He waited a few moments, then all of a sudden the vault door fell forward with a thud--surprisingly only a few inches thick.<P><P>Carefully, Snoppy stepped into the vault and looked around. There were four cages that he could see by the flashlight light. One held a weird, shiny, giant mushroom. Another held a smiling teddy bear. Another held what looked like a Sunday newspaper, with writing of an alien nature on it.<P><P>The fourth cage held a black pillow.<P><P>Snoppy raised his eyebrows in wonder as he regarded it. Yaut Pillow. He had read about it in the records of Winter Stadium Them. It was considered one of their most valued and potentially cataclysmic possessions. <P><P>The cosmology of the object put forth perhaps one of the most important pieces of information ever--that night and day were not all of it. Instead, it set a third part of the day, called "yaut", after the end of night and before the beginning of day. It is said that all people spend time in yaut every day. This is what accounts for the sense of the passage of time upon awaking, not dreams. It is said that no memory of experiences in yaut may ever be retained. Dreams and life in yaut are totally separate things. If even a single memory from yaut is recalled in day or night--or even dream--the mind recalling it must surely fall into irreparable madness.<P><P>That was the idea. Yaut Pillow was said to be the only artifact retained when an ancient Winter Stadium Them team accidentally stumbled into yaut on a cross-dimensional journey. The records of that team after the incident were confusing and contradictory. One thing was sure though--none of them survived the experience with any semblance of sanity. A new Winter Stadium Them team was promptly assembled, and Yaut Pillow was stashed deep in this supposedly impenetrable vault.<P><P>The reason Snoppy instantly thought of Yaut Pillow in regards to the Soot Mary situation was due to the last entry in the personal log of The Stingy Girl, one of the unfortunate team members in the yaut incident. She wrote:<P><P>"Yautmatter of its content, upon the contact of topaz, will allow for one (1) self-aware thing to be born in the flesh. Yautgrammer in its tavvyhood, the notions of amazing drash,..."<P><P>The Stingy Girl's treatise quickly degenerated into gibberish after that. But the idea always stayed with Snoppy. He had even commissioned a pure topaz crossbow bolt, which he now loaded into his crossbow.<P><P>He leveled the weapon and aimed it at the black pillow.<BR><A HREF="SR_Bk1-0143.txt">Next (Page 143)</A>