TRAPPED IN HIS OWN MIND: The World at the Edge of Sanity

Harvey Crane woke up at the edge of a world that shouldn't exist—with a pink sky, triangular trees, and a beautiful woman who could erase his spaceship with a wave of her hand. But when she begs him to wake up and claims to be his wife back on Earth, Harvey must face a terrible question: is this strange paradise his new reality, or is he still trapped in his ship, lost forever in the moment he broke the light barrier?

“World Edge” by Jack Egan, originally published in Amazing Stories, November 1962

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
World Edge by Jack Egan, originally published in Amazing Stories
November nineteen sixty two. Harvey Crane was lying flat on
his back. Though how he had gotten there, he was
still trying to figure out. Above him, he could see
the flat, pink half sphere of the sky. Now that

(00:22):
bothered him. He squinted up at it for several more
minutes before deciding it was the color that was wrong. Somehow.
Harvey hunched up into a sitting position, yawned widely, and
gazed around. Thirty yards to his left, a stand of
blue and yellow trees, triangular in shape, effectively blocked the

(00:45):
horizon in front of him. A tapered cylinder, balanced gracefully
on its nose, performed the same function. It was right,
there was no horizon, damn, said Harvey. He crawled the
ten feet or so to the edge of the world
and looked down the all pervading rosiness swirled below. Harvey

(01:10):
tightened his belt to hold his stomach in place, hitched
far back from the edge, and stood shakily up. It
was then that he noticed the girl. She stood with
hands on hips, critically appraising the ship. Ahh, the ship,
that's what it is, Harvey thought triumphantly. I see you

(01:32):
tried to land it again, the girl said dryly. Again.
Harvey wandered, but said nothing. She walked over to the ship,
lifted the gargantuan structure by a wingtip, and scowled back
at him. But don't just stand there like an idiot.
Come give me a hand. He was surprised at the

(01:52):
ease with which they handled the rocket. They soon had
it righted, and the girl stood back and gazed at
it worryingly. There, she said, it sounded final. A look
of vague annoyance crossed her pretty features. She shook her
long brown hair into place, flicked an imaginary speck of

(02:13):
dust off her spotless white trousers, rolled the sleeves of
her blouse up, and erased the ship. Hey, shouted Harvey wildly.
You can't do that. He stared in dumb amazement at
the fading after image of the ship. Beyond it, the
long upward slope of the yellow grassy hill was crowned

(02:34):
by a huge castle. Don't be silly, Hervey, dear, come on,
it's play time. He followed her, for some reason, up
the slope to the palace. Playtime, Harvey learned consisted of
a pleasant swim in the purple waters of the palace moat,
followed by a delicious feast of some sort of orange

(02:56):
fruit faintly resembling wax covered ladybugs. They, he and the girl,
and a pet animal with a disturbing tendency to change
shape every three seconds, were seated in a rather large
floral garden. There was a faunal one somewhere nearby. Harvey
learned gazing. That is to say, the girl was gazing

(03:16):
at the garden, the animal at Harvey, and Harvey at her.
It must have been a pleasant experience all around before
they started laughing. After a few minutes, say Harvey said, standing,
I don't have the faintest idea who I am, where
I am, or why? But who are you? She bit

(03:41):
her lip and said with a forced gayety, My goodness, Harvey,
don't you remember? No, I suppose you don't. Well, I'm Dana.
Tell me, Harvey. She walked over to him and looked
into his eyes. How much do you remember? Harvey stopped smiling,
frowned the hand through his black hair. Not much, he admitted,

(04:04):
staring out the palace window. I keep having the feeling
that if I try hard enough, but I'm not sure
I want to remember, he finished, puzzled and now, Harvey.
Dana laughed and put her arms around him. You're here now,
and that's all that matters. You've always been here. Harvey

(04:25):
looked down at her fondly. Sisk tisk, he pronounced. Now
you have aroused my curiosity. He kissed her, felt an
imperious snap at his pant leg, and turned to find
an amazing likeness of a dragon, turning a burning gaze
at his exposed calf. Hey. He shouted and jumped Timothy.

(04:47):
Dana shouted, and the dragon reverted to her pet animal.
She turned back to Harvey. I'm so sorry, Harvey. Timothy
is really very fond of you. He has an odd
way of showing it, Harvey growl. The pinkness of the
outer world suddenly changed to a deep aquamarine. Oh, dear,
sighed Dana. Night already, and I haven't made up the bed.

(05:11):
I suppose we can sleep on the cot tonight, she
said tentatively. We oh, I forgot. You just got here today,
didn't you, She said, absently, a little rankled, Well you
could have the cot tonight, Harvey. We have so much
to do the rest of our lives. Harvey felt so

(05:31):
suddenly overcome with weariness, he didn't think to ask her
just what it was they had so much of. He
followed her docilely down a blue lighted corridor and out
onto a small balcony. A low cot, lined with silk
and complete with canopy reposed in the exact center of
the porch. He turned to say good night to Dana

(05:53):
and found her already gone. The little changelingk sat panting
in her place. It's multimorphic, warm, vibrating slightly. Harvey grinned
down at its angry dwarfish stare jealous uh, he said.
The bathroom was off to the right of the balcony.

(06:13):
Harvey found he needed nothing but a drink of water.
It was purple. His chin showed no signs of erupting
in its usual forest of thick, dark hairs. He swore
good naturedly at this it had been his intention to
grow a beard, put his razor away and undressed for bed.
A pair of loose, soft pajamas of neutral color lay

(06:34):
across the cot. They fit him. The Awqua sky showed
thousands of very shaped blobs that whirled crazily overhead. He
at first mistook them for clouds. Gradually it became apparent
that they were moons, each a different color. Somehow, the
glinting gold one seemed familiar to him. Finally, he gave

(06:58):
up trying to chase down a forgotten memory and looked
past them to the stars. Now, what were stars? Harvey
stared at the powder sprinkled across the sky. He must
know what they are. He knew what they were called,
didn't he? Or had he just imagined the name, made

(07:19):
it up himself. Creep, the changelings said softly. Harvey switched
his gaze from the sky to the outstretched form of
a bear rug lying on the floor beside the cot. Great. Hmmm.
The changeling's body was barely vibrating. It must be asleep.

(07:42):
Harvey watched the animal for several minutes. A faint blue
breeze aside through the parapets of the palace mounting above him. Below,
in the courtyard, he heard the stealthy rattle of chains. Ghosts.
His mind rejected the possibility at once. He had never
believe in them before. Why start now? His mind worked furiously.

(08:04):
As the sound halted bridge drawbridge, He recalled seeing a
drawbridge across the moat when Dana had let him swimming yesterday,
only they had entered through a small door set flush
with the surface of the water. Someone must be letting
the drawbridge down, and it had to be Dana. Harvey

(08:25):
raised up on his elbow and carefully put a foot
over the edge of the cot. He crept to the
railing of the balcony and looked down eighty feet of
blue emptiness to the yellowness of the hill. Down it,
a cloaked figure followed a crooked path to the edge
of the world Dana. Something sparked an irrational fear in Harvey.

(08:46):
As the figure grew smaller with distance. He wrapped his
robe around him, slipped into his flight shoes. There was
something to examine later. Where had he had gotten those words?
And dodged into a hallway. All roads led to the courtyard.
Harvey knew at least all that he had covered. He
cast an apprehensive glance over his shoulder to see if

(09:08):
the change link had followed him, then wondered at his apprehension.
His memory of existence went back less than twenty four hours,
and this bothered him. He should have thought more about
what the ship was, rather than where he was, he
thought self deprecatingly. But data had to be going somewhere,
and in this world bounded so tightly by infinity, there

(09:31):
was nothing left to do but wonder where the hell
she was going. He halted in the courtyard, located the
path to the drawbridge, and found the drawbridge closed. Yep.
Harvey thought either Dana was already back, or she had
someone or something here to draw the bridge up after

(09:52):
her departure. He whirled, saw nothing, and ran back to
the garden, retracing their steps of yesterday to the small
unhinging out onto the moat. He stripped down to his
trunks and slid out into the chill purple of the water.
It became immediately obvious that swimming was not a nighttime sport.

(10:13):
The water was extremely cold. Harvey twice bumped into floating
cakes of ice and harbored a species of life that,
while seemingly harmless, certainly felt horrible. He pulled himself out
of the far side and sat chattering for several minutes,
massaging his legs. Somewhere on that small plane of grass,

(10:35):
Dear old Dana was up to something, and Harvey felt
it imperative that he know what. He shuddered to his
feet and gaped back at the castle. In the crazy
light of the whirling moons, shadows danced and played in
the deep gouges of balconies and alcoves. The ramparts themselves
stabbed into the night sky, like the many pointed noses

(10:57):
of rockets on the spacefield base field rockets. What a
dim wave of remembrance washed over Harvey. He clenched his
fists and tried to think. He tore it, the black
veil over the past, with mental fingers, and it resisted.
He opened his eyes and found himself running down the

(11:19):
Esplande toward the spot where he had regained consciousness the
day before. He slowed to a walk, hoping the crazy, darting,
heterochromatic moons would hide his mobile shadows among the moving
shadows of the fixed plants and rocks, near the place
where he had first met her. Dana halted and looked
behind her. Harvey darted into the dubious shelter of a

(11:41):
triangle tree and stopped, waiting breathlessly for her call of discovery.
Nothing happened, and a few moments later he chanced to look,
a row of three eyes stared coldly in his face.
Harvey jerked back, shuddered to fight back a yell, and
ran madly down the hill toward Dana, but she was

(12:02):
no longer in sight. For one wild second, Harvey thought
she had disappeared over the edge. A look confirmed the
fallacy of the notion, but behind him, the three floating
red eyes stared impassively angrily. He wrenched them from the
air and flung the glowing coals out into infinity, and
had the satisfaction of watching them dwindle into nothing. He

(12:24):
had no idea what they were. All he knew was
he hadn't liked them. Disappointed at having lost Dana, he
started back up the hill toward the castle. Thud. Harvey
picked himself up off the ground and explored the night
air in front of him with wary hands. He encountered
a solid surface and felt his way around it, Astonished

(12:48):
it was the ship. Dana had done nothing but render
it invisible yesterday. He located the rocket tubes and the
heavy arches of the landing fins, and looked up. When
he judged he would be under the airlock. A sudden,
frightful flood of memory poured over him. My God, Earth,
the universe, me Harvey silence. He squatted down under the

(13:14):
rocket's firing flange, hidden from the view of the airlock. Harvey, dear,
is that you? A light sprang out of the air
twenty feet above the ground. Dana stood in breath, taking
silhouettes and a rectangular frame of familiar white. Harvey realized
it was the first time since since the crash, since

(13:36):
the crash, that he had seen white light, white, the
symbol of truth. He straightened still under the flange and
waited while Dana decided to come down and look around.
He would soon get to the truth, Harvey. He tensed
as her shapely legs appeared, carefully feeling for the rungs

(13:59):
of an invisible ladder. When she reached the ground, Harvey
stepped around the exhaust flange and flung himself on her.
They landed in the yellow turf, and Harvey found, without surprise,
he faced a formidable opponent. Whatever. The force that had
enabled her to lift the ship yesterday proved equally useful
against flesh. But Harvey found he also possessed new strength.

(14:22):
His eyes fell on the tiny metal case strapped to
her waist a matter disorganizer, Harvey, Stop it, Harvey. You
don't know what you're doing, she screamed. He laughed harshly
and finally succeeded in wrenching the little metal box away
from her. You were going to destroy the ship, he shouted, incredulously.
In God's name, why, She stepped back from him, tears

(14:46):
glistening in her eyes. To keep this from happening, she panted.
She turned and yelled something at the castle. In the
weird moonlights, a huge flying monster dragged itself from the
top most pinnacle and came in a banshee wail toward Harvey.
He put down his fear and aimed the matter disorganizer carefully.

(15:07):
The huge, yawning mouth gaped out at him. As he
pulled the actuator, the banshee scream stopped abruptly, the monster vanished.
Dana fell to her knees, sobbing. You've killed him, You've
killed Timothy, she cried. Harvey turned back to the ridiculous
rectangle of white radiance suspended in mid air and adjusted

(15:29):
the MD's energy span. The solid metal walls of the
rocket reared into the night sky. All right, Dana, Harvey said, coldly,
turning to the kneeling woman. Where am I and what's
going on here? I suppose I should tell you now?
She choked out standing Without his help, Harvey felt suddenly cold.

(15:53):
The night wind had ceased, and a blue heatlessness settled
over the yellow field. Even the moon's law some of
their giddy fervor go on, I'm listening, he felt, his
voice softened. Man rebelled. He had been subservient for too
long in this crazy world, he realized. He felt something

(16:14):
else was necessary. I remember now, he stated. Dana sucked
in her breath and stared at him longingly. Oh, Harley, darling,
I've lost you so many times already. Must we go
through it again? She said sadly. Harvey said nothing. Her
shoulders sagged very well, it isn't a long story. You

(16:39):
remember Earth, Harvey, Your Earth? I remember you know why
you came here. Now look at your shit, Harvey. It's old.
It is very old. I'm going to tell you something,
something you already know but won't admit to yourself. A

(17:00):
frightened look appeared in Harvey's eyes. Well go on tell me,
he shouted, impatiently, fearfully. After your ship left Earth, Harvey,
it jumped the light barrier, but you and the others
hadn't counted on the forces involved everything, but the man
was designed to take that jump. You never came out

(17:21):
of overdrive, Harvey. You're still in that ship and you'll
never wake up. She laughed and cried at Harvey's twisted face.
You're crazy, he roared hoarsely. You're crazy. I remember, I
know where I am and how to get back. Take
a look around you, Harvey Crane. Dana laughed at him hysterically.
Do you think a world such as this could ever

(17:45):
really exist? All of this, Harvey? She gestured at the
chunk of land, the castle, and the moons, they're just symbols.
This island your mind. The world edge is the end
of reality out there, the moon's they are insanity. But
you wanted me to stay here. Why'd you change your mind?

(18:07):
He stared at her accusingly. If you wish, you could
describe motives to my actions, Dana said tiredly. But they
are your motives, not mine, Harvey. I'm just real in
your imagination. In reality the only reality. I'm back on
Earth waiting, Harvey, go back. I want you so, Harvey

(18:32):
stared at her incredulous. But you, who are you? He blurted.
She bit her lip and gazed at him sadly. I,
she said, her voice trembulent, I am your wife. Harvey's
memory tore back to a green planet called Earth, forgotten

(18:52):
faces places. He looked at Dana for the first time,
and in that instant a full recognition. She began to
dissolve Hervey. She pleaded, wake up, You've got a face reality.
Before it's too late. Please, She sobbed into non existence.
Harvey wheeled toward the ship and fled up the ramp. No, no,

(19:16):
this is reality, he shouted. He stared up at the
insane island, moons swirling in the sky, the soft, sourceless
aqua of the air, the incredible bulk of the castle
on the edge of infinity, and he felt on the
brink of hell. Something was going to happen. Harvey's breathing
was loud in the thundering silence. The castle suddenly wrenched

(19:38):
from the island and lifted ponderously into the air, an immense,
ghastly shadow looming closer. Harvey screamed. He spun around, intending
to use the matter disorganizer on the castle as it
swung faster and faster toward the ship. The MD slipped
from his grasp and sailed high into the air toward
the No. No up and up, No, no up and up. No, please, Harvey,

(20:03):
you're trapped in your in your imagination. You've got to
face reality. Clank It hit the ship. The universe dissolved
in a vivid flash of white fire, and still Harvey
could hear Dana's whispered pleading