During January (it was already the end of January), the leaders of both party currents were preparing to discuss organizing a mass demonstration which would probably result in an armed conflict. The evening before the planned meeting, Menni visited us and raised the question whether the party leaders themselves should participate in the demonstration in the event that it was decided upon. Anna Nikolaevna declared that anyone who voted for the demonstration was morally obliged to march at its head. I considered that no such obligation existed, but that the participants should be such persons as might be necessary or useful. Since I had had some experience of similar matters, I included myself in that category. Menni went further, asserting that in view of the fact that an armed clash with the troops was evidently unavoidable, the presence of street agitators and combat organizers was a must, whereas political leaders were quite out of place and people who were weak or jittery might even be downright harmful. Anna Nikolaevna was insulted by these arguments, taking them to be aimed specifically at her. She broke off the conversation and went to her room. Menni left soon after.
The following day I was obliged to get up early and leave without seeing Anna Nikolaevna, and I did not return until evening. The demonstration was voted down both by our committee and, I was told, by the executive collective of the other current. I was satisfied with the decision, because I knew that we were quite unprepared for an armed conflict and I considered such an action a useless waste of energy. I thought that the decision would mollify Anna Nikolaevna after the conversation of the day before, but when I arrived home I found a note from her on the table:
I’m leaving. The better I understand myself and you the clearer it seems to me that we have chosen different paths and have both made a mistake. I think we had best not see each other any more. Farewell.
Exhausted, with a feeling of emptiness in my head and a chill in my heart, I wandered the streets for a long time. When I returned home I found an unexpected guest waiting for me. Menni was sitting at my table writing a note.
2. The Invitation
“I must speak to you on a certain very serious and rather curious matter,” said Menni.
I had no objections, so I sat down and prepared to listen.
“I have read your brochure on electrons and matter,” he began. “I have been studying this problem for several years myself, and I think that many of the ideas in your brochure are correct.”
I gave a silent nod of appreciation. “In your study,” he continued, “you make one observation that I think is especially interesting. You express the hypothesis that the electrical theory of matter, since it necessarily represents the force of gravity in the form of an attraction and repulsion deriving from a play of electric forces, should eventually enable us to discover a different gravitational principle. In other words, we should be able to obtain a type of matter such that it is repelled rather than attracted by Earth, the sun, and other known celestial bodies. By way of comparison you refer to the diamagnetic repulsion of bodies and the repulsion of parallel currents of different sets. All of this is mentioned in passing, but I have the impression that you yourself attach more importance to it than you wished to disclose.”
“You are right,” I replied, “and I think that it is along these lines that man is going to solve the problems of free movement in the atmosphere and interplanetary travel. Whether or not my idea is in itself correct, however, it will lead to nothing until we have developed an accurate theory of matter and gravity. If another type of matter exists, then it is obviously impossible simply to find it, as the force of repulsion has long since eliminated it from the entire solar system. Or, more likely, it was never included in the composition of the system in its initial nebular stage of development. Thus this type of matter must first be constructed theoretically and then actually be reproduced. At present we lack the data necessary for such an operation, so that all we can do now is begin to envisage the problem itself.”
“Nevertheless, the problem has already been solved,” said Menni.
I looked at him in amazement. His face was as frozen as ever, but something in the tone of his voice told me I was not dealing with a charlatan. “Perhaps he is mad,” flashed through my mind.
“I have no need to deceive you,” he answered my thought, “and I am quite aware of what I am saying. Hear me out patiently, and then, if you are still unconvinced, I shall give you the proof.”
And he told me the following.
“The great discovery we are talking about was not made by any one individual. It is the achievement of an entire scientific society that has been in existence for quite some time now and has been working along these lines for many years. Until now the society has been a secret, and I am not at liberty to give you the particulars of its origin and history until you and I have come to an agreement on the main issue.
“Our society is far ahead of the academic world in many important scientific questions. We knew about radioactive elements and their decay long before Curie and Ramsay, and our analysis of the structure of matter has come much further than theirs. We foresaw the possible existence of elements that are repelled by the planetary bodies and subsequently succeeded in synthesizing this minus-matter, as we briefly designate it.
“After that it was easy to develop and implement technical applications for the discovery—first, flying machines for movement within the atmosphere, and then vehicles for travel to other planets.”
Menni’s tone was calm and persuasive, but his story seemed too strange and improbable to believe. “And you were able to do all this in secret?” I interrupted.
“Yes, because we considered secrecy to be of the utmost importance. We decided that it would be very dangerous to publish our findings so long as most countries are ruled by reactionary governments. You, as a Russian revolutionary, would be the first to agree. Look how your Asiatic government uses European means of communication and destruction to oppress and eradicate all the most vigorous and progressive elements in the country. Or take the government of a certain semifeudal, semicon-stitutional country whose throne is occupied by a warmongering, jabbering blockhead in the power of a pack of known swindlers—is it much better? How much are even the two philistine republics of Europe worth? It is clear that if our flying machines were to become known, the governments would first of all try to get a monopoly on them and use them to enhance the power and might of the upper classes. That is something we most decidedly do not want, and we shall therefore retain the monopoly for ourselves and wait for more favorable circumstances.”
“Have you actually succeeded in reaching other planets?” I asked.
“Yes, the two closest, the telluric planets Venus and Mars. Of course I am not counting the moon, which is dead. At this very moment we are exploring them in detail. We have all the necessary technical resources—what we lack is people, strong, reliable people. By the authority vested in me by my comrades, I am inviting you to join our ranks. Naturally, you would have all the rights and obligations of any other member.”
He paused to wait for my answer. I did not know what to think.
“Proof!” I said. “You promised to show me the proof.”
Menni took from his pocket a glass bottle containing a metallic liquid, which I took to be mercury. Strangely, however, this liquid, which filled not more than a third of the container, was not at the bottom of the bottle but in its upper part from just below the neck right up to the cork. Menni turned the bottle upside down and the liquid flowed upward to the bottom. He released the phial, and it hung suspended in midair. This was incredible, but there could be no doubt that it was really true.
“This is an ordinary glass phial,” Menni explained, “but it contains a liquid which is repelled by the bodies of the solar system. Just enough liquid has been poured in to counterbalance the weight of the bottle, so that they are weightless taken together. We construct all our flying machines on the same principle. They are made of ordinary materials, but they have a reservoir fill
ed with the appropriate quantity of this minus-matter. All that remains is to give this entire weightless system the proper speed. The flying machines intended for use in Earth’s atmosphere have simple electric motors and wings. Such craft are of course unsuited for interplanetary travel, where we employ an entirely different system, with which I shall familiarize you in more detail later.”
There was no longer any room for doubt.
“What restraints does your society place upon its members, besides, that is, the obligation to keep its existence a secret?”
“Actually, hardly any at all. Neither the private lives nor the public activities of our comrades are circumscribed in any way, so long as the activity of the society as a whole is not jeopardized. Upon joining, however, each new member is required to perform some important task for the society. This binds him more closely to the organization and also affords us an opportunity to observe his talents and initiative in action.”
“In other words, I will also be assigned such a mission?”
“Yes.”
“What, exactly?”
“You are to participate in the expedition leaving tomorrow for Mars in our etheroneph.”
“How long will this expedition take?”
Menni shows Leonid antimatter as he tries to convince him to come with him
“We do not know. The round trip will require at least five months. Of course, there is always the possibility we may never return.”
“I understand, but that is not the point. What will become of my revolutionary work? You are obviously a Social Democrat yourself, so you must understand my problem/’
“Make your choice. We think that you should pause in your work to complete your training. The mission cannot be postponed. If you refuse to accept it now you will not be given another chance.”
I thought for a moment. Now that the broad masses had entered upon the scene, the absence of any one party worker was of little consequence to the cause as a whole. Besides, I would only be away temporarily, and, when I returned, my new connections, knowledge, and skills would make me considerably more useful. I made up my mind.
“When am I to start?”
“Immediately, with me.”
“Can you give me two hours to notify my comrades? They will have to replace me tomorrow in the district.”
“That matter has almost been taken care of already. Andrei arrived today, fleeing from the South. I told him that you might be leaving, and he is prepared to take your place. While waiting for you I wrote him a letter with detailed instructions, just in case. We can drop it off to him on our way.”
There was nothing more to discuss. I quickly destroyed my personal papers, wrote a note to my landlady, and began dressing. Menni was ready already.
“Well then, let’s go. From this moment on, I am your prisoner.”
“You are my comrade!” answered Menni.
3. Night
Menni’s apartment took up the entire fifth floor of a large building that towered above the little houses of one of the suburbs of the capital.* No one was there to greet us. The rooms through which we proceeded were empty, and in the glaring light of the electric light bulbs this bareness seemed even more gloomy and unnatural. Menni stopped in the third room.
“Here,” he said, pointing at the door to the fourth room, “is the flying boat that will presently take us to the etheroneph. First, however, I shall have to undergo a slight transformation. It would be difficult to pilot the gondola in this mask.”
He unbuttoned his collar and removed his glasses and an incredibly realistic mask, which, until this moment, I and everyone else had taken to be his face. I was astonished by the sight that greeted me. His eyes were monstrously huge, much larger than any human eyes. The pupils were disproportionately large, which made his gaze almost frightening. Due to the unnatural size of the eyes, the upper part of his face and head was unusually broad. The lower half of the face, on the other hand, was relatively narrow, and he lacked any sign of a beard or mustasche. All in all, his appearance was highly original, deformed even, but not to the point that it could be called grotesque.
“You see what nature has endowed me with,” said Menni. “You can understand that I must wear a mask if only to avoid frightening people, not to mention the demands of underground political work. You shall simply have to get used to my ugliness, however, as you will be obliged to spend quite a lot of time with me.”
He opened the door to the next room and turned on the light. It was a spacious hall, in the middle of which stood a small, rather broad boat of metal and glass. The sides and bottom of the fore were of glass bound in steel. This transparent hull was some two centimeters thick and appeared to be very sturdy. Above the sides of the bow were two flat crystal plates joined at a sharp angle which were meant to cut through the air and shield the passengers from the wind at high speeds. The engine was in the middle part of the boat and was connected to a three-bladed propeller half a meter across in the stern. The front of the boat and the engine were covered by a thin lamellar awning fastened to the metal binding of the glass hull and a number of light steel columns. The entire craft was like some finely fashioned toy.
Menni invited me to sit down on the side bench in the gondola, switched off the lights, and opened the enormous window of the room. He took a seat in the fore near the engine and threw out several sacks of ballast lying on the floor of the boat. He grasped the engine lever. The boat rocked, slowly rose, and quietly slipped through the open window.
I sat riveted to the spot, not daring to move. The noise of the propeller became more distinct. The winter air streamed in under the awning, pleasantly cooling my burning face but unable to penetrate my warm clothing. Thousands of stars twinkled and shimmered above us, while through the transparent floor of the gondola I could see the black dots of the houses growing smaller. The bright spots of the electric lights of the capital receded into the distance and the snowy plain shone a dull, bluish white far below us. I felt dizzy. At first the sensation was slight and almost pleasant, but as it grew stronger I was forced to close my eyes to get rid of it.
The rush of air became sharper, and the sound of the propeller and the whistle of the wind grew louder and louder. Obviously, our speed was increasing. Among these noises I began to distinguish an even, unbroken, delicate silvery sound produced by the vibrations of the glass hull slicing through the air. I was filled by this strange music; my thoughts became confused and vanished, leaving only a sensation of natural, free, easy movement forward and ever forward into endless space.
“Four kilometers a minute,” said Menni, and I opened my eyes.
“Is it much farther?” I asked.
“About an hour’s flying time. We will be landing on a frozen lake.”
We were at an altitude of several hundred meters. The gondola flew in a perfectly even horizontal trajectory, neither rising nor descending. I was able to see better as my eyes became used to the dark. We had entered the land of lakes and granite crags.* These rocks showed black in the spots that were free of snow. Small villages were nestled here and there among them.
Behind us to the left the snowy field of the frozen gulf stretched into the distance, while off to our right lay the plain of an enormous lake. It was in this lifeless winter landscape that I was about to cut my ties with the ancient Earth. Suddenly I suspected—no, I was seized by absolute certainty—that this break would be forever.
The gondola slowly descended between the rocks toward a small inlet of a mountain lake and stopped before a structure looming dark against the snow. I could not see any doors or windows. A part of the metal cover of the structure slowly moved to one side, and our craft sailed into the black opening. It closed again, and electric lights went on around us, illuminating a large, elongated, unfurnished room. A pile of bags filled with ballast lay on the floor.
Menni moored the gondola to columns especially designed for the purpose and opened one of the side doors of the room. We entered a long, dimly l
it corridor flanked on both sides by what appeared to be cabins. Menni led me to one of them and said:
“Here is your cabin. Get settled down, I am going to the engine room. I will see you tomorrow morning.”
I was glad to be left alone. I was beginning to feel weary from the excitement caused by the strange events of the evening. I did not touch the supper prepared for me on the table but turned out the light and lay down on the bed. My thoughts were in an absurd jumble, leaping unpredictably from subject to subject. I stubbornly tried to force myself to sleep, but I lay awake for a long time. Finally my mind became blurred as dimly flickering images began to throng before my eyes. Everything around me receded into the distance and my brain was overpowered by oppressive visions.
I had a series of dreams which ended in a terrible nightmare. I was standing on the brink of an enormous black abyss. Stars shone at the bottom, and Menni was irresistibly dragging me down into it, telling me that there was no reason to fear the force of gravity and that in a few hundred thousand years we would reach the nearest star. I moaned in my final agonizing struggle and awoke.
My room was flooded with a soft blue light. Sitting beside me on the bed and bending over me was . . . Menni? Yes, Menni, but he was different somehow . . . strange, shadowy. He seemed to be much smaller, and his eyes did not stand out so sharply. His expression was tender and kind, not cold and implacable like a moment ago on the edge of the precipice.
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