The Golden Age of Science Fiction Volume VI: An Anthology of 50 Short Stories

by Various

  "Or devils, Sarakoff," I murmured.

  CHAPTER IV

  THE SIX TUBES

  One night, just as I entered my house, the telephone bell in the hall rang sharply. I picked up the receiver impatiently, for I was tired with the long day's work.

  "Is that Dr. Harden?"

  "Yes."

  "Can you come down to Charing Cross Station at once? The station-master is speaking."

  "An accident?"

  "No. We wish you to identify a person who has arrived by the boat-train. The police are detaining him as a suspect. He gave your name as a reference. He is a Russian."

  "All right. I'll come at once."

  I hung up the receiver and told the servant to whistle for a taxi-cab. Ten minutes later I was picking my way through the crowds on the platform to the station-master's office. I entered, and found a strange scene being enacted. On one side of a table stood Sarakoff, very flushed, with shining eyes, clasping a black bag tightly to his breast. On the other side stood a group of four men, the station-master, a police officer, a plain clothes man and an elderly gentleman in white spats. The last was pointing an accusing finger at Sarakoff.

  "Open that bag and we'll believe you!" he shouted.

  Sarakoff glared at him defiantly.

  I recognized his accuser at once. It was Lord Alberan, the famous Tory obstructionist.

  "Anarchist!" Lord Alberan's voice rang out sharply. He took out a handkerchief and mopped his face.

  "Arrest him!" he said to the constable with an air of satisfaction. "I knew he was an anarchist the moment I set eyes on him at Dover. There is an infernal machine in that bag. The man reeks of vodka. He is mad."

  "Idiot," exclaimed Sarakoff, with great vehemence. "I drink nothing but water."

  "He wishes to destroy London," said Lord Alberan coldly. "There is enough dynamite in that bag to blow the whole of Trafalgar Square into fragments. Arrest him instantly."

  I stepped forward from the shadows by the door. Sarakoff uttered a cry of pleasure.

  "Ah, Harden, I knew you would come. Get me out of this stupid situation!"

  "What is the matter?" I asked, glancing at the station-master. He explained briefly that Lord Alberan and Sarakoff had travelled up in the same compartment from Dover, and that Sarakoff's strange restlessness and excited movements had roused Lord Alberan's suspicions. As a consequence Sarakoff had been detained for examination.

  "If he would open his bag we should be satisfied," added the station-master. I looked at my friend significantly.

  "Why not open it?" I asked. "It would be simplest."

  My words had the effect of quieting the excited professor. He put the bag on the table, and placed his hands on the top of it.

  "Very well," he said slowly, "I will open it, since my friend Dr. Harden has requested me to do so."

  "Stand back!" cried Lord Alberan, flinging out his arms. "We may be so much dust flying over London in a moment."

  Sarakoff took out a key and unlocked the bag. There was silence for a moment, only broken by hurrying footsteps on the platform without. Then Lord Alberan stepped cautiously forward.

  He saw the worn canvas lining of the bag. He took a step nearer and saw a wooden rack, fitted in the interior, containing six glass tubes whose mouths were stopped with plugs of cotton wool.

  "You see, there is nothing important there," said Sarakoff with a smile. "These objects are of purely scientific interest." He took out one of the tubes and held it up to the light. It was half full of a semi-transparent jelly-like mass, faintly blue in colour. The detective, the policeman and the station official clustered round, their faces turned up to the light and their eyes fixed on the tube. The Russian looked at them narrowly, and reading nothing but dull wonderment in their expressions, began to speak again.

  "Yes--the Bacillus Pyocyaneus," he said, with a faint mocking smile and a side glance at me. "It is occasionally met with in man and is easily detected by the blue bye-product it gives off while growing." He twisted the tube slowly round. "It is quite an interesting culture," he continued idly. "Do you observe the uniform distribution of the growth and the absence of any sign of liquefaction in the medium?"

  Lord Alberan cleared his throat.

  "I--er--I think we owe you an apology," he said. "My suspicions were unfounded. However, I did my duty to my country by having you examined. You must admit your conduct was suspicious--highly suspicious, sir!"

  Sarakoff replaced the tube and locked the bag. Lord Alberan marched to the door and held it open.

  "We need not detain you, sir," said the detective. The policeman squared his shoulders and hitched up his belt. The station official looked nervous.

  Dr. Sarakoff, with a gesture of indifference, picked up the bag and, taking me by the arm, passed out on to the brilliantly-lit platform. "Pyocyaneus," he muttered in my ear; "pyocyaneus, indeed! Confound the fellow. He might have got me into no end of trouble if he had known the truth, Harden."

  "But what is it?" I asked. "What have you got in the bag?"

  He stopped under a sizzling arc-lamp outside the station.

  "The bag," he said touching the worn leather lovingly, "contains six tubes of the Sarakoff-Harden bacillus. Yes, I have added your name to it. I will make your name immortal--by coupling it with mine."

  "But what is the Sarakoff-Harden bacillus?" I cried.

  He struck an attitude under the viperish glare of the lamp and smiled. He certainly did look like an anarchist at the moment. He loomed over me, huge, satanic, inscrutable.

  A thrill, almost of fear, passed over me. I glanced round in some apprehension. Under an archway near by I saw Lord Alberan looking fixedly at us. The expression of suspicion had returned to his face.

  "You mean----?" He nodded. I gulped a little. "You really have----?" He continued to nod. "Then we can try the great experiment?" I whispered, dry throated.

  "At once!" The detective passed us, brushing against my shoulder. I caught Sarakoff by the arm.

  "Look here--we must get away," I muttered. I felt like a criminal. Sarakoff clasped the bag firmly under his free arm. We began to walk hurriedly away. Our manner was furtive. Once I looked back and saw Alberan talking, with excited gestures, to the detective. They were both looking in our direction. The impulse to run possessed me. "Quick," I exclaimed, "there's a taxi. Jump in. Drive to Harley Street--like the devil."

  Inside the cab I lay back, my mind in a whirl.

  "We begin the experiment to-morrow," said Sarakoff at last. "Have you made plans as I told you?"

  "Yes--yes. Of course. Only I never believed it possible." I controlled myself and sat up. "I fixed on Birmingham. It seemed best--but I never dreamed----"

  "Good!" he exclaimed. "Birmingham, then!"

  "Their water supply comes from Wales."

  We spoke no more till I turned the key of my study door behind me. It was in this way that the germ, which made so vast and strange an impression on the course of the world's history, first reached England. It had lain under the very nose of Lord Alberan, who opposed everything new automatically. Yet it, the newest of all things, escaped his vigilance.

  We decided to put our plans into action without delay, and next morning we set off, carrying with us the precious tubes of the Sarakoff-Harden bacillus. Throughout the long journey we scarcely spoke to each other. Each of us was absorbed in his picture of the future effects of the germ.

  There was one strange fact that Sarakoff had told me the night before, and that I had verified. The bacillus was ultra-microscopical--that is, it could not be seen, even with the highest power, under the microscope. Its presence was only to be detected by the blue stain it gave off during its growth.

  CHAPTER V

  THE GREAT AQUEDUCT

  The Birmingham reservoirs are a chain of lakes artificially produced by damming up the River Elan, a tributary of the Wye. The great aqueduct which carries the water from the Elan, eighty miles across country, travelling through hills and bridging vall
eys, runs past Ludlow and Cleobury Mortimer, through the Wyre Forest to Kidderminster, and on to Birmingham itself through Frankley, where there is a large storage reservoir from which the water is distributed.

  The scenery was bleak and desolate. Before us the sun was sinking in a flood of crimson light. We walked briskly, the long legs of the Russian carrying him swiftly over the uneven ground while I trotted beside him. Before the last rays of the sun had died away we saw the black outline of the Caban Loch dam before us, and caught the sheen of water beyond. On the north lay the river Elan and on the south the steep side of a mountain towered up against the luminous sky. The road runs along the left bank of the river bounded by a series of bold and abrupt crags that rise to a height of some eight hundred feet above the level of the water. Just below the Caban Dam is a house occupied by an inspector in charge of the gauge apparatus that is used to measure the outflow of water from the huge natural reservoirs. The lights from his house twinkled through the growing darkness as we drew near, and we skirted it by a short detour and pressed on.

  "How long does water take to get from here to Birmingham?" asked Sarakoff as we climbed up to the edge of the first lake.

  "It travels about a couple of miles an hour," I replied. "So that means about a day and a half."

  We spoke in low voices, for we were afraid of detection. The presence of two visitors at that hour might well have attracted attention.

  "A day and a half! Then the bacillus has a long journey to take." He stopped at the margin of the water and stared across the shadowy lake. "Yes, it has a long journey to take, for it will go round the whole world."

  The last glow in the sky tinted the calm sheet of water a deep blood colour. Sarakoff opened his bag and took out a couple of tubes.

  He pulled the cotton-wool plugs out of the tubes, and with a long wire, loosened the gelatinous contents. Then, inverting the tubes he flung them into the lake close to the beginning of the huge aqueduct.

  I stared as the tubes vanished from sight, feeling that it was too late to regret what had now been done, for nothing could collect those millions of bacilli, that had been set free in the water. Already some of them had perhaps entered the dark cavernous mouth of the first culvert to start on their slow journey to Birmingham. The light faded from the sky and darkness spread swiftly over the lake. Sarakoff emptied the remaining tubes calmly and then turned his footsteps in the direction of Rhayader. I waited a moment longer in the deep silence of that lonely spot; and then with a shiver followed my friend. The bacillus had been let loose on the world.

  CHAPTER VI

  THE ATTITUDE OF MR. THORNDUCK

  We reached London next day in the afternoon. I felt exhausted and could scarcely answer Sarakoff, who had talked continuously during the journey.

  But his theory had interested me. The Russian had revealed much of his character, under the stress of excitement. He spoke of the coming of Immortality in the light of a physical boon to mankind. He seemed to see in his mind's eye a great picture of comfort and physical enjoyment and of a humanity released from the grim spectres of disease and death, and ceaselessly pursuing pleasure.

  "I love life," he remarked. "I love fame and success. I love comfort, ease, laughter, and companionship. The whole of Nature is beautiful to me, and a beautiful woman is Nature's best reward. Now that the dawn of Immortality is at hand, Harden, we must set about reorganizing the world so that it may yield the maximum of pleasure."

  "But surely there will be some limit to pleasure?" I objected.

  "Why? Can't you see that is just what there will not be?" he cried excitedly. "We are going to do away with the confining limits. Your imagination is too cramped! You sit there, huddled up in a corner, as if we had let loose a dreadful plague on Birmingham!"

  "It may prove to be so," I muttered. I do not think I had any clear idea as to the future, but there is a natural machinery in the mind that doubts golden ages and universal panaceas. Call it superstition if you will, but man's instinct tells him he cannot have uninterrupted pleasure without paying for it. I said as much to the Russian.

  He gave vent to a roar of laughter.

  "You have all the caution and timidity of your race," he said. "You are fearful even in your hour of deliverance. My friend, it is impossible to conceive, even faintly, of the change that will come over us towards the meaning of life. Can't you see that, as soon as the idea of Immortality gets hold of people, they will devote all their energies to making their earth a paradise? Why, it is obvious. They will then know that there is no other paradise."

  He took out his watch and made a calculation. His face became flushed.

  "The bacillus has travelled forty-two miles towards Birmingham," he said, just as our train drew in to the London terminus.

  I was busy with patients until dinner-time and did not see anything of Sarakoff. While working, my exhaustion and anxiety wore off, and were replaced by a mild exhilaration. One of my patients was a professor of engineering at a northern university; a brilliant young man, who, but for physical disease, had the promise of a great career before him. He had been sent to me, after having made a round of the consultants, to see if I could give him any hope as to the future. I went into his case carefully, and then addressed him a question.

  "What is your own view of your case, Mr. Thornduck?"

  He looked surprised. His face relaxed, and he smiled. I suppose he detected a message of hope in my expression.

  "I have been told by half-a-dozen doctors that I have not long to live, Dr. Harden," he replied. "But it is very difficult for me to grasp that view. I find that I behave as if nothing were the matter. I still go on working. I still see goals far ahead. Death is just a word--frequently uttered, it is true--but meaningless. What am I to do?"

  "Go on working."

  "And am I to expect only a short lease of life?"

  I rose from my writing-table and walked to the hearth. A surge of power came over me as I thought of the bacillus which was so silently and steadily advancing on Birmingham.

  "Do you believe in miracles?" I asked.

  "That is an odd question." He reflected for a time. "No, I don't think so. All one is taught now-a-days is in a contrary direction, isn't it?"

  "Yes, but our knowledge only covers a very small field--perhaps an artificially isolated one, too."

  "Then you think only a miracle will save my life?"

  I nodded and gazed at him.

  "You seem amused," he remarked quietly.

  "I am not amused, Mr. Thornduck. I am very happy."

  "Does my case interest you?"

  "Extremely. As a case, you are typical. Your malady is invariably fatal. It is only one of the many maladies that we know to be fatal, while we remain ignorant of all else. Under ordinary circumstances, you would have before you about three years of reasonable health and sanity."

  "And then?"

  "Well, after that you would be somewhat helpless. You would begin to employ that large section of modern civilization that deals with the somewhat helpless."

  I began to warm to my theme, and clasped my hands behind my back.

  "Yes, you would pass into that class that disproves all theories of a kindly Deity, and you would become an undergraduate in the vast and lamentable University of Suffering, through whose limitless corridors we medical men walk with weary footsteps. Ah, if only an intelligent group of scientists had had the construction of the human body to plan! Think what poor stuff it is! Think how easy it would have been to make it more enduring! The cell--what a useless fragile delicacy! And we are made of millions of these useless fragile delicacies."

  To my surprise he laughed with great amusement. He stood there, young, pleasant, and smiling. I stared at him with a curious uneasiness. For the moment I had forgotten what it had been my intention to say. The dawn of Immortality passed out of my mind, and I found myself gazing, as it were, on something strangely mysterious.

  "Your religion helps you?" I hazarded.

 
"Religion?" He mused for a moment. "Don't you think there is some meaning behind our particular inevitable destinies--that we may perhaps have earned them?"

  "Nonsense! It is all the cruel caprice of Nature, and nothing else."

  "Oh, come, Dr. Harden, you surely take a larger view. Do you think the short existence we have here is all the chance of activity we ever have? That I have a glimpse of engineering, and you have a short phase of doctoring on this planet, and that then we have finished all experience?"

  "Certainly. It would not be possible to take any other view--horrible."

  "But you believe in some theory of evolution--of slow upward progress?"

  "Yes, of course. That is proved beyond all doubt."

  "And yet you think it applies only to the body--to the instrument--and not to the immaterial side of us?"

  I stared at him in astonishment.

  "I do not think there is any immaterial side, Mr. Thornduck."

  He smiled.

  "A very unsatisfying view, surely?" he remarked.

  "Unsatisfying, perhaps, but sound science," I retorted.

  "Sound?" He pondered for an instant. "Can a thing be sound and unsatisfying at the same time? When I see a machine that's ugly--that's unsatisfying from the artist's point of view--I always know it's wrongly planned and inefficient. Don't you think it's the same with theories of life?" He took out his watch and glanced at it. "But I must not keep you. Good-bye, Dr. Harden."

  He went to the door, nodded, and left the room before I recalled that I meant to hint to him that a miracle was going to happen, and save his life. I remained on the hearth-rug, wondering what on earth he meant.

  CHAPTER VII

  LEONORA

  I found a note in the hall from Sarakoff asking me to come round to the Pyramid Restaurant at eight o'clock to meet a friend of his. It was a crisp clear evening, and I decided to walk. There were two problems on my mind. One was the outlook of Sarakoff, which even I deemed to be too materialistic. The other was the attitude of young Thornduck, which was obviously absurd.

  In my top hat and solemn frock-coat I paced slowly down Harley Street.