by Earl
l That was the end of the astonishing missive that had started the whirl of incongruous speculations in Boswell’s responsive mind. The last sentence attested to the fact that Professor Reinhardt wanted to have him there for some definite reason, if not one time, then another. His almost impolite way—though to Boswell the terse disregard of convention struck him as delightfully mysterious—of next-door-to-demanding Boswell’s presence at his home seemed to augur something above the sanities of humdrumness.
Wonder and momentary astonishment changed to a sort of nameless joy in the breast of the young chemist. Two years of bread-winning as analyst for a cotton producing concern had gradually taken the edge off his keen interest in life, and dulled the bright surface of his formerly-untrammeled imagination. This letter was all he needed to make his soul leap in response to the unmentioned, but strongly suggested, adventure—in the sense of a departure from things ordinary—that lurked between the lines. Andrew Boswell, with the magic that absence had lent to the signed name, could think of the render of the letter as a conjurer in disguise, a necromancer under conventional camouflage. Anton Reinhardt had always been a “radical” in science, an upholder of the motto of all free-thinkers—“there are more things in heaven and earth,” etc.; surely he could not have changed, thought the young chemist to himself. Boswell felt that even an afternoon’s venture into realms of thought with a kindred soul as the professor had proved himself to be back at Harvard during that one intimate conversation they had had together alone, would fully repay any trouble of leaving town and losing some sleep.
Without further thought, Boswell hurriedly flung on hat and topcoat as if the time element had suddenly become important—hut really because his youthful enthusiasm prompted him to joyful haste—and dashed out of the house in which he rented two rooms. A long walk down quiet streets that had always hinted at the bizarre and occult with their masking gloom, brought him to a telegraph station. He penned a few words that promised his presence at the specified time and place and left to walk to his lodgings much more slowly and more dignified than coming there.
Andrew Boswell was an orphan. His mother had died during his infancy, and his father resigned life just a few years later, leaving his only son in the care of the one and only near relation the boy had—an uncle. With the small sum of money left by the father, young Andrew was sent through college, fulfilling the dying wish of his parent. Loath to go back to Albany to live with his uncle, the matriculated Master of Science made connections with the cotton concern in Providence and there took up his residence. He had lived alone and quite isolated, content to fill his leisure hours with reading, both light and heavy, and occasional short journeys to favored spots for recreation. And yet he had never found boredom in life; a virile imagination had kept him young in spirit as well as body.
It was Friday evening as Boswell drew the fresh spring air into his lungs in great volumes, returning from the telegraph office. Whenever he walked the streets, passing figures always registered to his consciousness as the dim effigies of a shadow world. Tonight it was even more so and his quickened thoughts revolved into the past, stirred from the depths by that magic name affixed to the queer letter which had burst like a bombshell in the quiet fields of his dispassionate existence.
The young cotton chemist found sleep beyond his reach for many hours as he retired to a late bed. His mind ran a riot of colorful possibilities which might result from that summons to the home of the biologist, anything from a new theory of life to a revolutionizing discovery produced in the laboratory. But Boswell could not know that his wildest imaginings had fallen far short of the truth.
* * *
Eleven o’clock Sunday morning found Andrew Boswell standing before the house to which he had been guided in a taxi, the muffled roar of the motor dwindling in the vast quiet of a Boston Sabbath. He was somewhat taken aback at the pretentiousness of the stucco building, hardly expecting anything so elaborate, although he had always known Professor Reinhardt to be well-to-do. At the end of the private drive for automobiles, he could see beside the garage two stone buildings, which presumably made up the laboratory, well shaded by tall and leafy trees. He paused a moment to look about the ostentatious neighborhood and then rang the front door bell.
A faultlessly clothed, passionless visaged manservant appeared in the doorway.
“Mr. Andrew Boswell?” he said in impeccable politeness. “You will come right in. The master is expecting you.”
Leaving his wraps with the butler, Boswell stepped into the drawing room pointed out by the servant. He lit a cigarette and gazed about curiously at the simple magnificence of the room. He declined to sit in any of the comfortable-looking chairs, hut wandered about examining the various pictures on the walls. He was startled out of a momentary revery by the opening of a door.
Boswell turned to face his host, whose expressive face was lit up with a beaming smile of welcome.
“Why, hello Andrew,” he cried in his deep voice. “How are you, my boy?”
Boswell grasped the outstretched hand eagerly, a slight flush of youthful embarrassment on his face.
“Very well, thank you, Professor. And you?”
“Couldn’t be better, except that old age creeps upon me steadily. Witness the signs.” He touched first his shiny bald pate and then his paunch which had increased in size considerably since they had last met. “But this is no way to greet the young—talking about age. Come, sit down and tell me all about yourself.”
They seated themselves facing each other and fell into easy conversation which can be so delightful between two souls that have mutual ideas and opinions. Boswell found the professor little changed from when he had known him years before. He had still that burning look in his kindly brown eyes, that fiery personality that had won him many friends, the deep lines of thought grooved into his features—perhaps a little deeper now—and the calm poise of a man whom trifles cannot disturb. His voice, deep and unfaltering, still carried that indefinable note of mysticism and hidden intimation that had so stirred Boswell as a student, a voice that reflected a mind of vast understanding and wisdom.
“Yes, I know you were surprised that I should give so little notice of this visit,” explained Professor Reinhardt after they had disposed of the outlines of their activities in the past five years that they had been apart. “But the reason is this: I had already arranged with my other guests—five men whom I have invited here for the same purpose you are here—that they should come here today. I had some trouble finding out where you were, but finally received an answer from the Institute which had promised to help me. Then I sent that letter—or what goes for a letter.”
Boswell showed surprise that five other men had been asked to come, and then inquired: “I confess this has been a bit mysterious. I’ve been . . .
“Tut, tut, now,” interrupted the professor with a slight smile. “If you will forgive me, my young friend, I shall withhold the reason for this get-together until after dinner, when I expect the others. For the time being, I’ll show you through my laboratory.”
The open assertion of a portentous motive behind the professor’s act in calling together six men fully confirmed the young chemist’s nebulous anticipations of something exciting, or at least extraordinary, in the wind and he followed the biologist out the back way with a singing heart.
“This is the general storeroom and animal house combined,” commented the professor as he threw open the door to the smaller of the two stone buildings. “Actually, Andrew, I’ve concerned myself mainly in physiological work in my private researches since I left Harvard. You remember my theory of ‘Spores of Intelligent Life’—that intelligence never evolves, as evolutionists would have it, but that it comes from outer space in the form of indestructible spores which evolve into rational life when they meet favorable conditions, as when they drift to a young and sunshiny planet.”
“Yes, I do remember that lecture you gave. I seem to remember, too, that it met with. . .
. well, with unfavorable criticism,” said Boswell.
“It certainly did,” agreed Reinhardt with a chuckle that had a faint echo of bitterness in it. “It rebounded in toto from the ramparts of the conservatism—which, Boswell, is just another name for narrowmindedness—that submerges present-day science, every ism and ology of it. What a fantastic idea, they politely pooh-poohed me, that germs or spores can exist in the cold vacuum of space for ages before meeting conditions that will cause them to spring into life and intelligence. But fantastic or not, it seems much more plausible to me than intelligence is a semi-divine property of matter than cannot be duplicated on any of the multitude of planets that constantly form and become fit for life in the immensities of the universe. It seems much more sacred and inexplicable than that haphazard theory of evolution. What do you think, Andrew?”
“To tell the truth, professor, my opinion can count for little as I know so little of biology. But I agree with you on one point: I, too, believe that rational intelligence as it exists in man is incapable of being reproduced mechanically by a mere combination of whatever the evolutionists conjure up as ideal conditions. On that basis alone I favor your theory, professor, as I favored it the first time I heard it.”
l The young chemist spoke earnestly without insipid flattery. Truth always struck him as a virtue too little practiced.
“I’m glad to hear you say that, Andrew, not merely because you are agreeing with me, but because it indicates that you are still as broad-minded as you used to be, and as I hope you always will be. My boy, imagination—which is another name for the highest attainment of intellect—is a possession that should be prized above all other things, material or spiritual. Imagination has been the key to golden treasures of the material, which is Science, and of the spiritual, which is Life in the highest sense of the word. Never, my young friend, allow anything to suppress or bind that quality. It exists in all of us in varying degrees, but unfortunately, it is looked upon as an evil more than a virtue.”
As Professor Reinhardt sighed heavily as one who realizes a colossal blunder before his very eyes, but is powerless to remedy it, Boswell suddenly felt his perspectives of life change subtly. Education sunk in the scale of values imperceptibly; concrete life dropped several points; human nature took on a darkened aspect; and that free-running imagination of his that he had sometimes been ashamed of, soared into the sunlight. The young chemist drew in his breath convulsively several times as the professor bent over a cage to twiddle his finger at the white mice within. Professor Reinhardt and all his atmosphere of rebellious free-thinking were exerting a powerful influence on Boswell, uncovering within his mind unsuspected pools of unbound thought.
Then he bent over the cage with the professor, determined to make the most of the visit which he knew would be all too short to satisfy him. After a few minutes of examination of the various animals in their separate cages, commented upon now and then by the biologist, they stepped into the well-equipped laboratory. Familiar as this sort of scene was to Boswell, they stopped only long enough for the professor to point out several things engaging his labors at that time. Then they went in to dinner.
CHAPTER II
The Secret
l There was only one significant thing that came up during the dinner, to which both of them did ample justice. Boswell asked the professor how near he had come to obtaining indications of proof of his theory of spores.
“Well, Andrew,” began Professor Reinhardt pushing himself a little ways away from the table, “I figured that the best way to approach the problem would be to duplicate those spores which would have to be impervious to all conditions of outer space. For five years I have worked at that angle, using the female germ-cell that grows to maturity upon fertilization, of guinea pigs. It perhaps seems idiotic to use the germ-cell of a non-intellectual creature, but there would have been insurmountable obstacles to my procuring human cells, as you can readily surmise, and anyway, the use of animal germs of life would give results analogous to those of human, provided only the former worked.”
“And the result?” asked Boswell eagerly impatient.
“The result, Andrew, is the reason why you are here—and why those five other men are coming. To avoid repetition, and in keeping with my original plans, I beg to defer elucidating until those others are here.”
With this, the conversation ran into lighter strain, while Boswell felt a fever of ecstatic anticipation grow within him to the bursting point. Professor Reinhardt seemed himself to grow nervous, extracting his watch betimes and biting his lips as they awaited the other guests.
Finally, just before two o’clock, the butler came in the drawing room to announce to his master that two gentlemen had arrived. The professor jumped up and met them at the door, wringing their hands, all three exchanging greetings. They were perfect strangers to Boswell, and as he stood up, the professor introduced them: Dr. Hugo Festus and James Goodwin, L.L.D.
To the newcomers’ almost immediate inquiry as to the reason for the somewhat unexpected invitation, the biologist evaded the issue exactly as he had done with Boswell.
A short time later the fourth member arrived, a Melvin Gregory, Ph.D.
He, too, sat down with a resigned air after finding out nothing of the purpose of the conclave. Then the last two belated guests arrived, and Boswell was pleasantly surprised to recognize one of them as a former fellow student at Harvard, although a much older man.
“Thomas Taylor, M.S.—oh, I see you know each other,” said the biologist.
The last man was John Callahan, Ph.D.
All greetings and introductions over with, and all seated in chairs, six pair of eyes turned on Professor Reinhardt by mutual reaction. All of them felt the mystery in the air, for the biologist was known to be no social fanatic, inviting people to his home for aimless and purposeless functions, but a gifted and somewhat eccentric scientist, bound up in his research. Professor Reinhardt, in turn, looked from one to another speculatively as if estimating their capacity to withstand shock—mental shock. Satisfied, he began to speak.
“Gentlemen, I have called you together for a definite purpose, as you may have guessed by now, and not merely to say ‘Hello; how are you?’ First of all I must say that the matter of choosing you six from amongst the multitudes of friends and acquaintances whom I know, took some thought for reasons that will bear out later. Before I go any further, I must emphasize that you are to hear me out with all patience and regard for my reputation as a scientist. If you feel yourselves skeptical of things I say as I go along, please be so good as to withhold condemnation at least until I have finished. Now . . .
He sat up straighter in his chair and swept a glance around the circle of men as if undecided how to broach the subject, further painting the anticipation that Boswell felt in the colors of the extraordinary.
“Five years ago, gentlemen, I announced my theory of the ‘Spores of Intelligent Life’ at the Institute, for which I was openly derided. From then on I sought to uphold that theory by undeniable proof. I took the fertilized germ-cells from female guinea pigs before those cells had begun to grow and attempted to preserve them in such a way that they would neither die nor decay from age. In other words, I tried to duplicate with the guinea pig life-cell what my theory attributes to the spores of intelligence.”
As the professor paused, the six listeners shot guarded glances to one another, glances of surprise, interest, slight contempt, and skepticism. Roswell noticed with a sudden surge of anger that Dr. Festus had assumed an open look of lofty impatience, his lips half-curled in scorn.
Professor Reinhardt resumed: “In the course of the experiments I used, of course, hundreds of the life-cells, and gradually came to the point where their innate tendency to grow and decay was halted, suspended. But then they would die. I will not detail the countless steps I took to overcome this stumbling block. Suffice it to say that I finally gazed upon a life-cell immersed in non-nutritive paraffin oil that would remain unaltered for any
length of time. Then came the tests to see if they would once again respond to conditions of life. I found that when they were transferred to rich culture media and bathed in oxygen, they resumed the functions of life without hesitation, every one of them.” He paused in die breathless silence and then continued. “But I met complete failure in die last and most important part of the experiments. Do what I would, these treated life-cells would promptly die when the temperature was lowered beyond a certain, point, far from the low temperatures that obtain in outer space.”
“Which was to be expected,” said Dr. Festus emphatically. “That marks the downfall of your spore theory.”
“I disagree with you,” cried Professor Reinhardt quickly. “It simply indicates that present day science is not yet advanced to the point where such an astounding and miraculous step can be taken.”
“You speak as if you credit the existence of your hypothetical spores to the handiwork of intelligence and not to Nature,” said Dr. Festus with a contemptuous grunt.
“I do!” returned the biologist quietly but firmly. “I said nothing of that when I presented my theory years ago—mainly, Dr. Festus, because I feared certain intellects would not stand the shock. But I say now that I verily believe the Spores of Intelligence are produced—manufactured, to be explicit—by intelligence itself and seeded throughout the universe so that the divine spark of intellect will never disappear.”
“And you have called us together, professor,” burst out Dr. Festus petulantly, “just to air your fantastic—may I say idiotic, inane, sir—ideas about ‘Spores of Intelligence’ to what you hoped would be a group of yes-men for the satisfaction of your own ego. Well, I, for one, will not . . .
l Professor Reinhardt had merely held up a hand, but something in the way he did it cut the excitable, skeptical Dr. Festus short as if a hand had clapped over his mouth.
“You do me injustice, Dr. Festus,” said the biologist. “My purpose in calling you men together had nothing whatever to do with my theory or work on the spores, only that there are certain connections that you will soon comprehend. You remember I said that I did manage to suspend the life operations of those life-cells and at the same time prevent death from destroying them. Perhaps one of you gentlemen can sum that up in less words. . . .”
