The Devolutionist and the Emancipatrix

A pair of speculative tales follows a group of scientific adventurers who return from voyages to the inner planets with relics and accounts of a vanished civilization on one world and an advanced telepathic society on another. Back home they attempt to reproduce the alien mind-travel technique, rigging electrical apparatus and linking sleeping subjects to project consciousness across space; the narrative traces the experiments, the strange mental experiences they provoke, and the unsettling consequences. The stories combine space exploration and experimental psychology to examine perception, identity, and the risks of importing unfamiliar knowledge into human practice.