 As long as you wish, this is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. As Long As You Wish by John O'Keefe The patient sat stiffly in the leather chair on the other side of the desk. Nervously, he pressed a coin into the palm of one hand. Just start anywhere, I said, and tell me all about it. As before, without waiting for an answer, he continued the coin clutched tightly in one hand. I'm Charles J. Fisher, professor of philosophy at Reeser College. He looked at me quickly, or at least I was until recently. For a second his face was boyish, professor of philosophy, that is. I smiled and found I was staring at the coin in his hand. He gave it to me. On one side I read the words, the statement on the other side of this coin is false. The patient watched me with an expressionless face. I turned over the coin. It was engraved with the words, the statement on the other side of this coin is false. That's not the problem, he said. Not my problem. I had the coin made when I was an undergraduate. I enjoyed reading one side, turning it over, and so on, a famous enjoyment, like boys planning where to put the tipped-over outhouse. I looked at the patient. He was thirty-eight, single, medium-build, had an MA and PhD from an eastern university. I knew this and more from the folder on my desk. Eight months ago, he continued, I read about the sphere found on Paney Island. He stopped, looking at me questioningly. Yes, I know, I said. I opened my desk drawer, took out a clipping from the newspaper and handed it to him. That's it. I read the clipping before putting it back on the drawer. Manila, September 24, INS. Archaeologists from University of California have discovered an earth fault of recent quake, a sphere, two feet in diameter, of an unidentifiable material. Dr. Carl Schwartz, head of the group, said the sphere was returned to the University for study. He declined to answer questions on the cultural origin of the sphere. There wasn't any more in the newspapers about it, he said. I have a friend in California who got me the photographs. He looked at me intently. You won't believe any of this. He pressed the coin into the palm of his hand. You won't be able to. The photographs, he continued, as if lecturing, were of characters projected by the sphere when placed before a focused light. The sphere was transparent, you see, embedded with dark microscopic specks. By moving the sphere a certain distance each time, there was a total projection of 360 different characters and 18 different orderings, or 19 different orderings, if you count one, which was the list of all the characters. I made a mental note of the numbers. I felt they were significant. As I said, he continued, I obtained the photographs of the characters, very strange shapes, totally unlike the characters of Oriental languages, but yet that is the closest way to describe them. He jerked forward in his chair. Except, of course, ostensibly. Later, I said, I wanted to get through the preliminaries first. There would be time later to see the photographs. The characters projected by the sphere, he said, weren't like the characters of any known language. He paused dramatically. There was reason to believe they had origin in an unknown culture, a culture more scientifically advanced than our own. And the reasons for this supposition, I asked? The material, the material of the sphere, it could only be roughly classified as ferroplastic, totally unknown, amazing in perviousness, a synthetic material, hardly the product of a former culture. From Mars, I said, smiling. There were all kinds of conjectures. But, of course, the important thing was to see if the projection of characters was a message, the message, if any, would mean more than any conjecture. You translated it? He paused the coin on his jacket. You won't dare believe it, he said sharply. He cleared his throat and stiffened into a more rigid posture. It wasn't exactly a translation. You see, to us, none of the characters had designation. They were just characters. So it was a problem of decoding, I asked? As it turned out, no. Decoding is dependent on knowledge of language characteristics. Characteristics have known languages. Decoding was tried but without success. No, what we had to find was a key to language. You mean like the runestone? More or less, in principle, we needed a picture of a cow and a sign of meaning indicating one of the characters. For me, there was no possibility of finding similarities between the characters and the characters of other languages that would require tremendous linguistic knowledge in library facilities. Nor could I use the decoding approach that would require special knowledge of techniques and access to electronic computers and other mechanical aids. No, I had to work on the assumption that the key to the sphere was implicit in the sphere. You hoped to find the key to the language in the language itself? Exactly. You know, of course, some languages do have an implicit key. For example, hieroglyphics or picture language. The word for cow is a picture of a cow. He looked at the toes of his shoes. You won't be able to believe it. It's impossible to believe. I use the word impossible in its logical sense. In most languages, he continued, looking up from his shoes. The sound of some words themselves indicates the meaning of the word and a monotopodic words like bow-wow and buzz. And the key to the unknown language? I asked. How did you find it? I watched him push the coin against the back of his arm and lifted it to read the backward letters pressed into his skin. He looked up at me and smiled. I built models of the characters, big material ones, exactly proportionate to the ones projected. Then, quite by accident, I viewed one of them through a glass globe the size of the original sphere. What do you think I saw? What? I noticed he had the boyish look again. A distortion of the model. But that's not what's important. The distortions on study gave specific visual entities like when looking at one of those trick pictures and suddenly seeing the lion in the grass. The lion's outlining the lion are there all the time. Only the observer has to view them as the outline of a lion. It was the same with the models of the characters except the shapes that appeared were not lions or other recognizable things. But they did suggest. He pressed the coin against his forehead, closed his eyes, and appeared to be thinking deeply. Yes, impossible to believe. No one can believe it. In addition to the visual response, the distortions gave me definite feelings, not mixtures of feelings, but one definite emotional experience. How do you mean? One character, when viewed through the globe, gave me a visual image and, at the same time, a strong feeling of light hilarity. I take it, then, that these distortions seemed to connote meanings rather than denote them. You might say that their meaning was conveyed through a Gestalt experience on the part of the observer. Yes, each character gave a definite Gestalt, but the Gestalt was the same for each observer. Or at least for 35 observers there was an 80% correlation. I whistled softly. And the translation? Doctor, what would you say if I told you the translation was unbelievable? That it couldn't be seriously entertained by any man? What if I said it would take the sanity of any man who believed it? I would say that it might well be incorrect. He took some papers from his pocket and laughed excitedly, slumping down in the chair. This is the complete translation in idiomatic English. I'm going to let you read it, but first I want you to consider a few things. He hid the papers behind the back of his chair. His face became even more boyish, almost as if he was deciding on where to put the tipped-over outhouse. Consider first, Doctor, that there was a total projection of 360 different characters, the same number as the number of degrees in a circle. Consider also that there were 18 different orderings of the characters, or 19 counting the alphabetical list, the square root of 360 would lie between 18 and 19. Yes, I said, I remembered there was something significant about the numbers, but I wasn't all sure that it was this. Consider also, he continued, that the communication was through the medium of a sphere. Moreover, keep in mind that physics accepts the path of a beam of light as its definition of a straight line, yet the path is a curve. If extended sufficiently, it would be a circle, the section of a sphere. All right, I said, by now the patient was pounding the coin against the sole of one's shoe. And, he said, keep in mind that in some sense time can be thought of as another dimension. He suddenly thrust the papers at me and sat back in the chair. I picked up the translation and began reading. The patient sat stiffly in the leather chair on the other side of the desk. Nervously, he pressed a coin into the palm of one hand. Just start anywhere, I said, and tell me all about it. As before, without waiting for an answer, he continued the coin clutched tightly in one hand. I'm Charles J. Fisher, Professor of Philosophy at Reeser College. He looked at me quickly, or at least I was, until recently. For a second his face was boyish, Professor of Philosophy, that is. He smiled and found I was staring at the coin in his hand. He gave it to me. On one side I read the words. The statement on the other side of this coin is false. The patient watched. This is the end of As Long as You Wish, by John O'Keefe. Please visit LibriVox.org Reading by Greg Marguerite Beyond Lies the Wub by Philip K. Dick The slovenly wub might well have said, many men talk like philosophers and live like fools. They had almost finished with the loading. Outside stood the optis, his arms folded, his face sunk in gloom. Captain Franco walked leisurely down the gangplank grinning. What's the matter, he said? You're getting paid for all this. The optis said nothing. He turned away, collecting his robes. The captain put his boot on the hem of the robe. Just a minute. Don't go off. I'm not finished. Oh! The optis turned with dignity. I am going back to the village. He looked toward the animals and birds being driven up the gangplank into the spaceship. I must organize new hunts. Franco lit a cigarette. Why not? You people can go out into the belt and track it all down again, but when we run out halfway between Mars and Earth. The optis went off wordless. Franco joined the first mate at the bottom of the gangplank. How's it coming, he said? He looked at his watch. We got a good bargain here. The mate glanced at him sourly. How do you explain that? What's the matter with you? We need it more than they do. I'll see you later, Captain. He started his way up the plank between the long-legged Martian go-birds into the ship. Franco watched him disappear. He was just starting up after him up the plank toward the port when he saw it. My God! he stood, staring his hands on his hips. Peterson was walking along the path, his face red, leading it by a string. I'm sorry, Captain, he said, tugging at the string. Franco walked toward him. What is it? The wub stood, sagging, its great body settling slowly. It was sitting down, its eyes half shut, a few flies buzzed about its flank and it swished its tail. It sat. There was silence. It's a wub, Peterson said. I got it from a native for fifty cents. He said it was a very unusual animal, very respected. This Franco poked the great sloping side of the wub. It's a pig, a huge dirty pig. Yes, sir, it's a pig. The natives call it a wub. A huge pig. It must weigh four hundred pounds. Franco grabbed a tuft of the rough hair. The wub gasped, its eyes opened, small and moist. Then its great mouth twitched. A tear rolled down the wub's cheek and splashed on the floor. Maybe it's good to eat, Peterson said nervously. We'll soon find out, Franco said. The wub survived the take-off sound of sleep in the hold of the ship. When they were out in space and everything was running smoothly, Captain Franco bade his men fetch the wub upstairs so that he might perceive what manner of beast it was. The wub grunted and wheezed, squeezing up the passageway. Come on, Jones grated, pulling at the rope. The wub twisting, rubbing its skin off on the smooth chrome walls. It burst into the ante-room, tumbling down in a heap. The men leaped up. Good Lord, French said. What is it? Peterson says it's a wub, Jones said. It belongs to him. He kicked at the wub. The wub stood up, unsteadily panting. What's the matter with it, French came over? Is it going to be sick? They watched. The wub rolled its eyes mournfully. It gazed around at the men. I think it's thirsty, Peterson said. He went to get some water. French shook his head. No wonder we had so much trouble taking off. I had to reset all my ballast calculations. Peterson came back with the water. The wub began to lap gratefully, splashing the men. Captain Franco appeared at the door. Let's have a look at it. He advanced, squinting critically. You've got this for fifty cents? Yes, sir, Peterson said. It eats almost anything. I fed it on grain, and it liked that, and then potatoes and mash and scraps from the table and milk. It seems to enjoy eating. After it eats it lies down and goes to sleep. I see, Captain Franco said. Now as to its taste. That's the real question. I doubt if there's much point in fattening it up anymore. It seems fat enough to me already. Where's the cook? I want him here. I want to find out. The wub stopped lapping and looked up at the captain. Really, Captain, the wub said. I suggest we talk of other matters. The room was silent. What was that, Franco said, just now? The wub, sir, Peterson said. It spoke. They all looked at the wub. What did it say? What did it say? It suggested we talk about other things. Franco walked towards the wub. He went all around it, examining it from every side. Then he came back over and stood with the men. I wonder if there's a need of insight in it, he said thoughtfully. Maybe we should open it up and have a look. Oh, goodness! The wub cried. Is that all you people can think of, killing and cutting? Franco clenched his fists. Come out of there, whoever you are. Come out! Nothing stirred. The men stood together, their faces blank, staring at the wub. The wub swished its tail. It belched suddenly. I beg your pardon, the wub said. I don't think there's anyone in there, Jones said, in a low voice. They all looked at each other. The cook came in. You wanted me, Captain, he said? What's this thing? This is a wub, Franco said. It's to be eaten. Will you measure it and figure out? I think we should have a talk, the wub said. I'd like to discuss this with you, Captain, if I might. I can see that you and I do not agree on some basic issues. The Captain took a long time to answer. The wub waited good-naturedly, licking the water from its jowls. Come into my office, the Captain said at last. He turned and walked out of the room. The wub rose and patted after him. The men watched it go out. They heard it climbing the stairs. I wonder what the outcome will be, the cook said. Well, I'll be in the kitchen. Let me know as soon as you hear. Sure, Jones said, sure. The wub eased itself down in the corner with a sigh. You must forgive me, it said. I'm afraid I'm addicted to various forms of relaxation. One is as large as I. The Captain nodded impatiently. He sat down at his desk and folded his hands. All right, he said. Let's get started. You're a wub, is that correct? The wub shrugged. I suppose so. That's what they call us, the natives, I mean. We have our own term. And you speak English. You've been in contact with earthmen before? No. Then how do you do it? Speak English? Am I speaking English? I'm not conscious of speaking anything in particular. I examine your mind, my mind. I study the contents, especially the semantic warehouse, as I refer to it. I see, the Captain said. Telepathy, of course. We are a very old race, the wub said. Very old and very ponderous. It is difficult for us to move around. You can appreciate that anything so slow and heavy would be at the mercy of more agile forms of life. There was no use in our relying on physical defenses. How could we win? Too heavy to run? Too soft to fight? Too good nature to hunt for game? How do you live? Plants, vegetables. We can eat almost anything. We're very Catholic. Tolerant, eclectic, Catholic. We live and let live. That's how we've gotten along. The wub eyed the Captain. And that's why I so violently objected to this business about having me boiled. I could see the image in your mind. Most of me in the frozen food locker. Some of me in the kettle. And a bit for your pet cat. So you read minds, the Captain said. How interesting. Anything else? I mean, what else can you do along those lines? A few odds and ends. The wub said absently, staring around the room. A nice apartment you have here, Captain. You keep it quite neat. I respect life forms that are tidy. Some Martian birds are quite tidy. They throw things out of their nests and sweep them. Indeed, the Captain nodded. But to get back to the problem. Quite so. You spoke of dining on me. The taste I'm told is good. A little fatty, but tender. But how can any lasting contact be established between your people and mine if you resort to such barbaric attitudes? Eat me? Rather you should discuss questions with me. Philosophy. The arts. The Captain stood up. Philosophy. It might interest you to know that you will be hard put to find something to eat for the next month, an unfortunate spoilage. I know, the wub nodded. But wouldn't it be more in accord with your principles of democracy if we all drew straws or something along that line? After all, democracy is to protect the minority from just such infringements. Now, if each of us casts one vote, the Captain walked to the door. Nuts to you, he said. He opened the door. He opened his mouth. Frozen, his mouth wide, his eyes staring, his fingers still on the knob. The wub watched him. Presently it patted out of the room, edging past the Captain. It went down the hall, deep in meditation. The room was quiet. So you see, the wub said, we have a common myth. Your mind contains many familiar myth symbols, Ishtar, Odysseus. Peterson sat silently staring at the floor. He shifted his chair. And he said, please go on. I find in your Odysseus a figure common to the mythology of most self-conscious races. As I interpret it, Odysseus wanders as an individual aware of himself as such. This is the idea of separation, of separation from family and country, the process of individuation. But Odysseus returns to his home. Peterson looked out of the port window at the stars, endless stars burning intently on the empty universe. Finally, he goes home. As must all creatures, the moment of separation is a temporary period, a brief journey of the soul. It begins, it ends. The wanderer returns to land and race. The door opened. The wub stopped, turning its great head. Captain Franco came into the room, the men behind him. They hesitated at the door. Are you all right, French said? Do you mean me, Peterson said surprised, why me? Franco lowered his gun. Come over here, he said to Peterson. Get up and come here. There was silence. Go ahead, the wub said. It doesn't matter. Peterson stood up. What for? It's an order. Peterson walked to the door. French caught his arm. What's going on, Peterson wrenched loose? What's the matter with you? Captain Franco moved towards the wub. The wub looked up from where it lay in the corner pressed against the wall. It is interesting, the wub said, that you are obsessed with the idea of eating me. I wonder why? Get up, Franco said. If you wish, the wub rose grunting. Be patient, it's difficult for me. It stood, gasping. It's tongue walling foolishly. Shoot it now, French said. For God's sake, Peterson exclaimed, Jones turned to him quickly, his eyes gray with fear. You didn't see him, like a statue standing there, his mouth open. If we hadn't come down, he'd still be there. Who? The Captain? Peterson stared around. But he's all right now. They looked at the wub, standing in the middle of the room, its great chest rising and falling. Come on, Franco said, out of the way. The men pulled aside toward the door. You are quite afraid of me, aren't you? the wub said. Have I done anything to you? I am against the idea of hurting. All I have done is try to protect myself. Can you expect me to rush eagerly to my death? I am a sensible being like yourselves. I was curious to see your ship learn about you. I suggested to the native, the gun jerked. See, Franco said, I thought so. The wub settled down panting. It put its paw out, pulling its tail around it. It is very warm, the wub said. I understand that we are close to the jets, atomic power. You have done many wonderful things with it, technically. Apparently your scientific hierarchy is not equipped to solve more ethical. Franco turned to the men, crowding behind him, wide-eyed, silent. I'll do it. You can watch. French nodded. Try to hit the brain. It's no good for eating. Don't hit the chest if the rib cage shatters will have to pick bones out. Listen, Peterson said, licking his lips. Has it done anything? What harm has it done? I'm asking you, and anyhow it's still mine. You have no right to shoot it. It doesn't belong to you. Franco raised his gun. I'm going out, Jones said. His face was white and sick. I don't want to see it. Me too, French said. The men straggled out, murmuring. Peterson lingered at the door. It was talking to me about myths, he said. It wouldn't hurt any one. He went outside. Franco walked toward the wub. The wub looked up slowly. It swallowed. A very foolish thing it said. I am sorry that you want to do it. There was a parable that your savior related. It stopped, staring at the gun. Can you look me in the eye and do it, the wub said? Can you do that? The captain gazed down. I can look you in the eye, he said. Back on the farm we had hogs, dirty, razor-back hogs. I can do it. Staring down at the wub into the gleaming moist eyes, he pressed the trigger. The taste was excellent. They sat glumly around the table, some of them hardly eating at all. The only one who seemed to be enjoying himself was Captain Franco. More, he said, looking around. More, and some wine, perhaps. Not me, French said. I think I'll go back to the chart-room. Me too, Jones stood up, pushing his chair back. I'll see you later. The captain watched them go. Some of the others excused themselves. What do you suppose the matter is, the captain said. He turned to Peterson. Peterson sat staring at his plate, at the potatoes, the green peas, and the thick slab of tender, warm meat. He opened his mouth. No sound came. The captain put his hand on Peterson's shoulder. It's only organic matter now, he said. The life essence is gone. He ate, spooning up the gravy with some bread. I myself love to eat. It is one of the greatest things that a living creature can enjoy. Eating, resting, meditation, discussing things. Peterson nodded. More men got up and went out. The captain drank some water inside. Well, he said, I must say that this was a very enjoyable meal. All the reports I had heard were quite true. The taste of wub, very fine. But I was prevented from enjoying this pleasure in times past. He dabbed at his lips with his napkin and leaned back in his chair. Peterson stared dejectedly at the table. The captain watched him intently. He leaned over. Come, come, he said. Cheer up. Let's discuss things. He smiled. As I was saying before I was interrupted, the role of Odysseus in the myths, Peterson jerked up, staring. To go on, the captain said, oh, Odysseus, as I understand him, end of Beyond Lies the Wub by Philip K. Dick. The Crystal Egg by H. G. Wells This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Greg Marguerite. The Crystal Egg by H. G. Wells There was, until a year ago, a little and very grimy looking shop near Seven Dials, over which in weather-worn yellow lettering the name of C. Cave, naturalist and dealer in antiquities, was inscribed. The contents of its window were curiously variegated. They comprised some elephant tusks and an imperfect set of chessmen, beads and weapons of box of eyes, two skulls of tigers and one of human, several moth-eaten stuffed monkeys, one holding a lamp, an old-fashioned cabinet, a fly-blown ostrich egg or so, some fishing tackle, and an extraordinarily dirty, empty glass fish tank. There was also at the moment the story begins a mass of crystal worked into the shape of an egg and brilliantly polished. And at that two people who stood outside the window were looking, one of them a tall, thin clergyman, the other a black-bearded young man of dusky complexion and unobtrusive costume. The dusky young man spoke with eager gesticulation and seemed anxious for his companion to purchase the article. While they were there, Mr. Cave came into his shop, his beard still wagging with the bread and butter of his tea. When he saw these men in the object of their regard, his countenance fell. He glanced guiltily over his shoulder and softly shut the door. He was a little old man with pale face and peculiar, watery blue eyes. His hair was a dirty gray and he wore a shabby blue frock coat and ancient silk hat and carpet slippers, very much down at heel. He remained watching the two men as they talked. The clergyman went deep into his trouser pocket, examined a handful of money and showed his teeth in an agreeable smile. Mr. Cave seemed still more depressed when they came into the shop. The clergyman, without any ceremony, asked the price of the crystal egg. Mr. Cave glanced nervously toward the door leading to the parlor and said, Five pounds. The clergyman protested that the price was high to his companion as well as to Mr. Cave. It was, indeed, very much more than Mr. Cave had intended to ask when he had stocked the article and an attempt at bargaining ensued. Mr. Cave stepped to the shop door and held it open. Five pounds is my price, he said, as though he wished to save himself the trouble of unprofitable discussion. As he did so, the upper portion of a woman's face appeared above the blind in the glass upper panel of the door leading into the parlor and stared curiously at the two customers. Five pounds is my price, said Mr. Cave with a quiver in his voice. The smartly young man had so far remained a spectator, watching Cave keenly. Now he spoke. Give him five pounds, he said. The clergyman glanced at him to see if he were in earnest and when he looked at Mr. Cave again he saw that the latter's face was white. It's a lot of money, said the clergyman, and diving into his pocket began counting his resources. He had little more than thirty shillings and he appealed to his companion with whom he seemed to be on terms of considerable intimacy. This gave Mr. Cave an opportunity of collecting his thoughts and he began to explain in an agitated manner that the crystal was not, as a matter of fact, entirely free for sale. His two customers were naturally surprised at this and inquired why he had not thought of that before he began to bargain. Mr. Cave became confused but he stuck to his story that the crystal was not in the market that afternoon, that a probable purchaser of it had already appeared. The two treating this as an attempt to raise the price still further made as if they would leave the shop, but at this point the parlor door opened and the owner of the dark fringe and the little eyes appeared. She was a coarse-featured, corpulent woman, younger and very much larger than Mr. Cave. She walked heavily and her face was flushed. That crystal is for sale, she said, and five pounds is a good enough price for it. I can't think what you're about, Cave, not to take the gentleman's offer. Mr. Cave, greatly perturbed by the eruption, looked angrily at her over the rims of his spectacles and without excessive assurance asserted his right to manage his business in his own way. An altercation began. The two customers watched the scene with interest and some amusement, occasionally assisting Mrs. Cave with suggestions. Mr. Cave, hard-driven, persisted in a confused and impossible story of an inquiry for the crystal that morning and his agitation became painful, but he stuck to his point with extraordinary persistence. It was the young Oriental who ended this curious controversy. He proposed that they should call again in the course of two days, so as to give the alleged inquirer a fair chance. And then we must insist, said the clergyman, five pounds. Mrs. Cave took it on herself to apologize for her husband, explaining that he was sometimes a little odd. And as the two customers left, the couple prepared for a free discussion of the incident in all its bearings. Mrs. Cave talked to her husband with singular directness. The poor little man, quivering with emotion, muddled himself between his stories, maintaining on the one hand that he had another customer in view, and on the other, asserting that the crystal was honestly worth ten guineas. Why did you ask five pounds, said his wife? Do let me manage my business my own way, said Mr. Cave. Mr. Cave had living with him a step-daughter and step-son, and at supper that night the transaction was rediscussed. None of them had a high opinion of Mr. Cave's business methods, and this action seemed a culminating folly. It's my opinion he's refused that crystal before, said the steps son, a loose-limbed lout of eighteen. But five pounds, said the step-daughter, an argumentative young woman of six and twenty. Mr. Cave's answers were wretched. He could only mumble weak assertions that he knew his own business best. They drove him from his half-eaten supper into the shop to close it for the night, his ears aflame, and tears of vexation behind his spectacles. Why had he left the crystal in the window so long, the folly of it? That was the trouble closest in his mind. For a time he could see no way of evading the sale. After supper his step-daughter and step-son smartened themselves up and went out, and his wife retired upstairs to reflect upon the business aspects of the crystal, over a little sugar and lemon and so forth in hot water. Mr. Cave went into the shop and stayed there until late, ostensibly to make ornamental rockeries for goldfish cases, but really for a private purpose that will be better explained later. The next day Mrs. Cave found that the crystal had been removed from the window and was lying behind some second-hand books on angling. She replaced it in a conspicuous position, but she did not argue further about it as a nervous headache disinclined her from debate. Mr. Cave was always disinclined. The day passed disagreeably. Mr. Cave was, if anything, more absent-minded than usual and uncommonly irritable with all. In the afternoon when his wife was taking her customary sleep, he removed the crystal from the window again. The next day Mr. Cave had to deliver a consignment of dogfish at one of the hospital schools, where they were needed for dissection. In his absence Mrs. Cave's mind reverted to the topic of the crystal and the methods of expenditure suitable to a windfall of five pounds. She had already devised some very agreeable expedience, among others a dress of green silk for herself and a trip to Richmond, when a jangling of the front doorbell summoned her into the shop. The customer was an examination coach who came to complain about the non-delivery of certain frogs asked for the previous day. Mrs. Cave did not approve of this particular branch of Mr. Cave's business and the gentleman who had called in a somewhat aggressive mood retired after a brief exchange of words, entirely civil so far as he was concerned. Mrs. Cave's eye then naturally turned to the window for the sight of the crystal was an assurance of the five pounds and her dreams. What was her surprise to find it gone? She went to the place behind the locker on the counter where she had discovered it the day before. She was not there and she immediately began an eager search about the shop. When Mr. Cave returned from his business with the dogfish about a quarter to two in the afternoon, he found the shop in some confusion and his wife extremely exasperated and on her knees behind the counter rooting among his taxidermic material. Her face came up hot and angry over the counter as the jangling bell announced his return and she forthwith accused him of hiding it. Hid what? asked Mr. Cave. The crystal! At that Mr. Cave apparently much surprised rushed to the window. Isn't it here, he said? Great heavens! What has become of it? Just then Mr. Cave's stepson re-entered the shop from the inner room. He had come home a minute or so before Mr. Cave and he was blaspheming freely. He was apprenticed to a second-hand furniture dealer down the road but he had his meals at home and he was naturally annoyed to find no dinner ready. But when he heard of the loss of the crystal he forgot his meal and his anger was diverted from his mother to his stepfather. Their first idea, of course, was that he had hidden it but Mr. Cave stoutly denied all knowledge of its fate, freely offering his bedabbed affidavit in the matter. And at last was worked up to the point of accusing first his wife and then his stepson of having taken it with a view to private sale. So began an exceedingly acrimonious and emotional discussion which ended for Mrs. Cave in a peculiar nervous condition, midway between hysterics and a muck, and caused the stepson to be half an hour late at the furniture establishment in the afternoon. Mr. Cave took refuge from his wife's emotions in the shop. In the evening the matter was resumed with less passion and in a judicial spirit under the presidency of the stepdaughter. The supper passed unhappily and culminated in a painful scene. Mr. Cave gave way at last to extreme exasperation and went out banging the front door violently. The rest of the family having discussed him with the freedom his absence warranted hunted the house from Garrett to Seller hoping to light upon the crystal. The next day the two customers called again. They were received by Mrs. Cave almost in tears. It transpired that no one could imagine all that she had stood at Mrs. Cave at various times in her married pilgrimage. She also gave a garbled account of the disappearance. The clergymen in the oriental laughed silently at one another and said it was very extraordinary. As Mrs. Cave seemed disposed to give them the complete history of her life they made to leave the shop. Thereupon Mrs. Cave still clinging to hope asked for the clergyman's address so that if she could get anything out of Cave she might communicate it. The address was duly given, but apparently was afterwards mislaid. Mrs. Cave can remember nothing about it. In the evening of that day the caves seemed to have exhausted their emotions and Mr. Cave who had been out in the afternoon sucked in a gloomy isolation that contrasted pleasantly with the impassioned controversy of the previous days. For some time matters were very badly strained in the Cave household, but neither crystal nor customer reappeared. Now without mincing the matter we must admit that Mr. Cave was a liar. He knew perfectly well where that crystal was. It was in the rooms of Mr. Jacoby Wase, assistant demonstrator at St. Catherine's Hospital, Westbourne Street. It stood on the sideboard partially covered by a black velvet cloth and beside a decanter of American whiskey. It is from Mr. Wase indeed that the particulars upon which this narrative is based were derived. Cave had taken off the thing to the hospital in a dogfish sack and there had pressed the young investigator to keep it for him. Mr. Wase was a little dubious at first. His relationship to Cave was peculiar. He had a taste for singular characters and he had more than once invited the old man to smoke and drink in his rooms and to unfold his rather amusing views of life in general and of his wife in particular. Mr. Wase had encountered Mrs. Cave too on occasions when Mr. Cave was not at home to attend him. There was constant interference to which Cave was subjected and having weighed the story judicially he decided to give the crystal a refuge. Mr. Cave promised to explain the reasons for his remarkable affection for the crystal more fully on a later occasion but he spoke distinctly of seeing visions therein. He called on Mr. Wase the same evening. He told a complicated story. The crystal, he said, had come into his possession with other Ottomans at the forced sale of another curiosity dealer's effects and not knowing what its value might be he had ticketed it at ten shillings. It had hung upon his hands at that price for some months and he was thinking of reducing the figure when he made a singular discovery. At that time his health was very bad and it must be borne in mind that throughout all this experience his physical condition was one of ebb and he was in considerable distress by reason of the negligence, the positive ill treatment even he received from his wife and step-children. His wife was vain, extravagant, unfeeling and had a growing taste for private drinking. His step-daughter was mean and overreaching and his step-son had conceived a violent dislike for him and lost no chance of showing it. The requirements of his business pressed heavily upon him and Mr. Wase does not think that he was altogether free from occasional intemperance. He had begun life in a comfortable position. He was a man of fair education and he suffered for weeks at a stretch from melancholia and insomnia. Afraid to disturb his family he would slip quietly from his wife's side when his thoughts became intolerable and wander about the house and about three o'clock one morning late in August Chance directed him into the shop. The dirty little place was impenetrably black except in one spot where he perceived an unusual glow of light. Approaching this he discovered it to be the crystal egg which was standing on the corner of the counter towards the window. A thin ray smote through a crack in the shutters impinged upon the object and seemed as if it were to fill its entire interior. It occurred to Mr. Cave that this was not in accordance with the laws of optics as he had known them in his younger days. He could understand the rays being refracted by the crystal and coming to a focus in its interior but this diffusion jarred with his physical conceptions. He approached the crystal nearly, peering into it and round it with a transient revival of the scientific curiosity that in his youth had determined his choice of calling. He was surprised to find the light not steady but writhing within the substance of the egg as though that object was a hollow sphere of some luminous vapor. In moving about to get different points of view he suddenly found that he had come between it and the ray and that the crystal nonetheless remained luminous. Greatly astonished he lifted it out of the light ray and carried it to the darkest part of the shop. It remained bright for some four or five minutes. When it slowly faded and went out he placed it in the thin streak of daylight and its luminousness was almost immediately restored. So far at least Mr. Wase was able to verify the remarkable story of Mr. Cave. He has himself repeatedly held this crystal in a ray of light which has had to be of less diameter than one millimeter and in a perfect darkness such as could be produced by velvet wrapping the crystal did undoubtedly appear very faintly phosphorescent. It would seem, however, that the luminousness was of some exceptional sort and not equally visible to all eyes. For Mr. Harbinger, whose name will be familiar to the scientific reader in conjunction with the Pasteur Institute, was quite unable to see any light whatever and Mr. Wase's own capacity for its appreciation was out of comparison inferior to that of Mr. Cave's. Even with Mr. Cave the power varied considerably. His vision was most vivid during states of extreme weakness and fatigue. Now from the outset this light in the crystal exercised a curious fascination upon Mr. Cave and it says more for his loneliness of soul than a volume of pathetic writing could do that he told no human being of his curious observations. He seems to have been living in such an atmosphere of petty spite that to admit the existence of a pleasure would have been to risk the loss of it. He found that as the dawn advanced and the amount of diffused light increased the crystal became to all appearance non-luminous and for some time he was unable to see anything in it except at night time in dark corners of the shop. But the use of an old velvet cloth which he used as a background for a collection of minerals occurred to him and by doubling this and putting it over his head in hands he was able to get a sight of the luminous movement within the crystal even in the daytime. He was very cautious lest he should be thus discovered by his wife and he practiced this occupation only in the afternoons while she was asleep upstairs and then circumspectly in a hollow under the counter. And one day turning the crystal about in his hands he saw something. It came and went like a flash but it gave him the impression that the object had for a moment opened to him the view of a wide and spacious and strange country and turning it about he did just as the light faded see the same vision again. Now it would be tedious and unnecessary to state all the phases of Mr. Cave's discovery from this point suffice that the effect was this. The crystal, being peered into at an angle of about 137 degrees from the direction of the illuminating ray gave a clear and consistent picture of a wide and peculiar countryside. It was not dreamlike at all. It produced a definite impression of reality and the better the light the more real and solid it seemed. It was a moving picture. That is to say certain objects moved in it but slowly in an orderly manner like real things. And according as the direction of the lighting and vision changed the picture changed also. It must indeed have been like looking through an oval glass at a view and turning the glass about to get at different aspects. Mr. Cave's statements, Mr. Wesa Shores Me were extremely circumstantial and entirely free from any of that emotional quality that taints hallucinatory impressions. But it must be remembered that all the efforts of Mr. Wase to see any similar clarity in the faint opalescence of the crystal were wholly unsuccessful. Try as he would the difference in intensity of the impressions received by the two men was very great. And it is quite conceivable that what was a view to Mr. Cave was a mere blurred nebulosity to Mr. Wase. The view as Mr. Cave described it was invariably of an extensive plane and he seemed always to be looking at it from a considerable height as if from a tower or a mast. To the east and to the west the plane was bounded at a remote distance by vast reddish cliffs which reminded him of those he had seen in some picture but what the picture was Mr. Wase was unable to ascertain. These cliffs passed north and south. He could tell the points of the compass by the stars that were visible of a night receding in an almost illimitable perspective and fading into the mists of the distance before they met. He was nearer the eastern set of cliffs. On the occasion of his first vision the sun was rising over them and black against the sunlight and pale against their shadow appeared a multitude of soaring forms that Mr. Cave regarded as birds. A vast range of buildings spread below him. He seemed to be looking down upon them and as they approached the blurred and refracted edge of the picture they became indistinct. There were also trees, curious in shape and in coloring, a deep mossy green and an exquisite gray beside a wide and shining canal. And something great and brilliantly colored flew across the picture. But the first time Mr. Cave saw these pictures he saw only in flashes. His hands shook, his head moved, the vision came and went and grew foggy and indistinct. And at first he had the greatest difficulty in finding the picture again once the direction of it was lost. His next clear vision which came about a week after the first, the interval having yielded nothing but tantalizing glimpses in some useful experience, showed him the view down the length of the valley. The view was different but he had a curious persuasion which his subsequent observations abundantly confirmed that he was regarding this strange world from exactly the same spot. Although he was looking in a different direction. The long facade of the great building whose roof he had looked down upon before was now receding in perspective. He recognized the roof. In the front of the facade was a terrace of massive proportions and extraordinary length. And down the middle of the terrace at certain intervals stood huge but very graceful masts bearing small shiny objects which reflected in the setting sun. The import of these small objects did not occur to Mr. Cave until some time after as he was describing the scene to Mr. Wase. The terrace overhung a thicket of the most luxuriant and graceful vegetation and beyond this was a wide grassy lawn on which certain broad creatures informed like beetles but enormously larger reposed. Beyond this again was a richly decorated causeway of pinkish stone and beyond that and lined with dense red weeds and passing up the valley exactly parallel with the distant cliffs was a broad and mirror like expanse of water. The air seemed full of squadrons of great birds maneuvering and stately curves and across the river was a multitude of splendid buildings richly colored and glittering with metallic tracery and facets among a forest of moss like and likeness trees and suddenly something flapped repeatedly across the vision the fluttering of a jeweled fan or the beating of a wing and a face or rather the upper part of a face with very large eyes came as it were close to his own as if on the other side of the crystal. Mr. Cave was so startled and so impressed by the absolute reality of these eyes that he drew his head back from the crystal to look behind it. He had become so absorbed in watching that he was quite surprised to find himself in the cool darkness of his little shop a familiar odor of methyl, mustiness and decay and as he blinked about him the glowing crystal faded and went out. Such were the first general impressions of Mr. Cave. The story is curiously direct and circumstantial. From the outset when the valley first flashed momentarily on his senses his imagination was strangely affected and as he began to appreciate the details of the scene he saw his wonder rose to the point he went about his business listless and distraught thinking only of the time when he should be able to return to his watching and then a few weeks after his first sight of the valley came the two customers. The stress and excitement of their offer and the narrow escape of the crystal from sale as I have already told. Now while the thing was Mr. Cave's secret it remained a mere wonder a thing to creep to covertly in peep at as a child might peep upon a forbidden garden but Mr. Wase has for a young scientific investigator a particularly lucid and consecutive habit of mind. Directly the crystal and its story came to him and he had satisfied himself by seeing the phosphorescence with his own eyes that there really was a certain evidence for Mr. Cave's statements. He proceeded to develop the matter systematically. Mr. Cave was only too eager to come and feast his eyes on this wonderland he saw and he came overnight from half past eight until half past ten and sometimes in Mr. Wase's absence during the day. On Sunday afternoons also he came. From the outset Mr. Wase made copious notes and it was due to his scientific method that the relation between the direction from which the initiating ray entered the crystal and the orientation of the picture were proved. And by covering the crystal in a box perforated only with a small aperture to admit the exciting ray and by substituting Black Holland for his buff blinds he greatly improved the conditions of the observations so that in a little while they were able to survey the valley in any direction they desired. So having cleared the way we may give a brief account of this visionary world within the crystal. The things were in all cases seen by Mr. Cave and the method of working was invariably for him to watch the crystal and report what he saw while Mr. Wase, who as a science student had learnt the trick of writing in the dark, wrote a brief note of his report. When the crystal faded it was put into its box in the proper position and the electric light turned on. Mr. Wase asked questions and suggested observations to clear up difficult points. Nothing indeed could have been less visionary and more matter of fact. The attention of Mr. Cave had been speedily directed to the bird-like creatures he had seen so abundantly present in each of his earlier visions. His first impression was soon corrected and he considered for a time that they might represent a diurnal species of bat. Then he thought grotesquely enough that they might be cherubs. Their heads were round and curiously human and it was the eyes of one of them that had so startled him on his second observation. They had broad silvery wings, not feathered but glistening almost as brilliantly as new killed fish and with the same subtle play of color. And these wings were not built on the plan of bird wing or bat Mr. Wase learned, but supported by curved ribs radiating from the body. A sort of butterfly wing with curved ribs seemed best to express their appearance. The body was small but fitted with two bunches of prehensile organs like long tentacles immediately under the mouth. Incredible as it appeared to Mr. Wase the persuasion at last became irresistible that it was these creatures which owned the great quasi-human buildings and the magnificent garden that made the broad valley so splendid. And Mr. Cave perceived that the buildings with other peculiarities had no doors but that the great circular windows which opened freely gave the creatures egress and entrance. They would alight upon their tentacles, fold their wings to a smallness almost rod-like and hop into the interior. But among them was a multitude of smaller winged creatures like great dragonflies and moths and flying beetles and across the greensward, brilliantly colored gigantic ground beetles crawled lazily to and fro. Moreover, on the causeways and terraces large-headed creatures similar to the greater winged flies but wingless were visible hopping busily upon their hand-like tangle of tentacles. Illusion has already been made to the glittering objects upon masts that stood upon the terrace of the interior building. It dawned upon Mr. Cave after regarding one of these masts very fixedly on one particularly vivid day, that the glittering object there was a crystal exactly like that into which he peered. And a still more careful scrutiny convinced him that each one in a vista of nearly twenty carried a similar object. Occasionally one of the large flying creatures would flutter up to one and folding its wings and coiling a number of its tentacles about the crystal fixedly for a space sometimes for as long as fifteen minutes. And a series of observations made at the suggestion of Mr. Wase convinced both watchers that so far as this visionary world was concerned the crystal into which they peered actually stood at the summit of the endmost mast on the terrace. And that on one occasion at least one of these inhabitants of this other world had looked into Mr. Cave's face while he was making these observations. So much for the essential facts of this very singular story. Unless we dismiss it all as the ingenious fabrication of Mr. Wase we have to believe one of two things. Either that Mr. Cave's crystal was in two worlds at once and that while it was carried about in one it remained stationary in the other which seems altogether absurd. Or else that it had some peculiar relation of sympathy with another and exactly similar crystal in this other world so that what was seen in the interior of the one in this world was under suitable conditions visible to an observer in the corresponding crystal in the other world and vice versa. At present indeed we do not know of any way in which two crystals could so come and rapport. But nowadays we know enough to understand that the thing is not altogether impossible. This view of the crystals as and rapport was the supposition that occurred to Mr. Wase. And to me at least it seems extremely plausible. And where was this other world? On this also the alert intelligence of Mr. Wase speedily threw light. After sunset the sky darkened rapidly. There was a very brief twilight interval indeed and the stars shown out. They were recognizably the same as those we see arranged in the same constellations. Mr. Cave recognized the bear, the Pleiades, Aldebaran and Sirius so that the other world must be somewhere in the solar system and at the utmost only a few hundred millions of miles from our own. Following up this clue Mr. Wase learned that the midnight sky was a darker blue even than our mid-winter sky. And that the sun seemed a little smaller. And there were two small moons, like our moon but smaller and quite differently marked. One of which moved so rapidly that its motion was clearly visible as one regarded it. These moons were never high in the sky but vanished as they rose. That is, every time they revolved they were eclipsed because they were so near their primary planet. And all this answers quite completely although Mr. Cave did not know it to what must be the conditions of things on Mars. Indeed it seems an exceedingly plausible conclusion that peering into this crystal Mr. Cave did actually see the planet Mars and its inhabitants. And if that be the case then the evening star that shone so brilliantly in the sky of that distant vision was neither more nor less than our own familiar Earth. For a time the Martians, if they were Martians, do not seem to have known of Mr. Cave's inspection. Once or twice one would come to pier and go away very shortly to some other mast as though the vision was unsatisfactory. During this time Mr. Cave was able to watch the proceedings of these winged people without being disturbed by their attention. And although his report is necessarily vague and fragmentary it is nevertheless very suggestive. Imagine the impression of humanity a Martian observer would get who after a difficult process of preparation and with considerable fatigue to the eyes was able to appear at London from the steeple of St. Martin's Church for stretches at longest of four minutes at a time. Mr. Cave was unable to ascertain if the winged Martians were the same as the Martians who hopped about horses and if the latter could put on wings at will. He several times saw certain clumsy bipeds dimly suggestive of apes, white and partially translucent, feeding among certain of the likeness trees, and once some of these fled before one of the hopping round-headed Martians. The latter caught one in its tentacles and then the picture faded suddenly and left Mr. Cave most tantalizingly in the dark. On another occasion a vast thing that Mr. Cave thought at first was some gigantic insect appeared advancing along the causeway beside the canal with extraordinary rapidity. As this drew nearer Mr. Cave perceived that it was a mechanism of shining metals and of extraordinary complexity and then when he looked again it had passed out of sight. After a time Mr. Wase aspired to attract the attention of the Martians and the next time that the strange eyes of one of them appeared close to the crystal Mr. Cave cried out and sprang away and they immediately turned on the light and began to gesticulate in a manner suggestive of signaling. But when at last Mr. Cave examined the crystal again, the Martian had departed. Thus far these observations had progressed in early November and then Mr. Cave feeling that the suspicions of his family about the crystal were allayed began to take it to and fro with him in order that as occasion arose in the daytime or night he might comfort himself with what was fast becoming the most real thing in his existence. In December Mr. Wase's work in conjunction with the forthcoming examination became heavy. The sittings were reluctantly suspended for a week and for ten or eleven days he's not quite sure which he saw nothing of Cave. He then grew anxious to resume these investigations and the stress of his seasonal labors being abated he went down to seven dials. At the corner he noticed a shutter before a bird fancier's window and then another at the cobbler's Mr. Cave's shop was closed. He rapped and the door was opened by the step son in black. He at once called Mrs. Cave who was Mr. Wade could not but observe in cheap but ample widow's weeds of the most imposing pattern. Without any very great surprise Mr. Wase learnt that Cave was dead and already buried. She was in tears and her voice was a little thick. She had just returned from Highgate. Her mind seemed occupied with her own prospects and the honourable details of the obsequies but Mr. Wase was at last able to learn the particulars of Cave's death. He had been found dead in his shop in the early morning the day after his last visit to Mr. Wase and the crystal had been clasped in his stone-cold hands. His face was smiling said Mrs. Cave and the velvet cloth from the minerals lay on the floor at his feet. He must have been dead five or six hours when he was found. This came as a great shock to Wase and he began to reproach himself bitterly for having neglected the plain symptoms of the old man's ill health. But his chief thought was of the crystal. He approached that topic in a gingerly manner because he knew Mrs. Cave's peculiarities. He was dumbfounded to learn that it was sold. Mrs. Cave's first impulse directly after Cave's body had been taken upstairs had been to write to the mad clergymen who had offered the crystal, informing him of its recovery. But after a violent hunt in which her daughter joined her, they were convinced of the loss of his address. As they were without the means required to mourn and bury Cave in the elaborate style, the dignity of an old seven dial's inhabitant demands, they had appealed to a friendly fellow tradesman in Great Portland Street. He had very kindly taken over a portion of the stock at a valuation. The valuation was his own and the crystal egg was included in one of the lots. Mr. Wase, after a few suitable consolatory observations, a little offhandedly proffered perhaps, hurried at once to Great Portland Street. But there he learned that the crystal egg had already been sold to a tall dark man in grey. And there the material facts of this curious and to me at least very suggestive story come abruptly to an end. The great Portland Street dealer did not know who the tall dark man in grey was, nor had he observed him with sufficient attention to describe him minutely. He did not even know which way this person had gone after leaving the shop. For a time Mr. Wase remained in the shop trying the dealer's patience with hopeless questions, venting his own exasperation, and at last realizing abruptly that the whole thing had passed out of his hands, had vanished like a vision of the night. He returned to his own rooms a little astonished to find the notes he had made tangible and visible upon his untidy table. His annoyance and disappointment were naturally very great. He made a second call, equally ineffectual, upon the great Portland Street dealer, and he resorted to advertisements in such periodicals as were likely to come into the hands of a brick-a-brack collector. He also wrote letters to the daily chronicle and nature, but both those periodicals suspecting a hoax asked him to reconsider his action before leaving, and he was advised that such a strange story, unfortunately so bare of supporting evidence, might imperil his reputation as an investigator. Moreover, the calls of his proper work were urgent, so that after a month or so, save for an occasional reminder to certain dealers, he had reluctantly to abandon the quest for the crystal egg, and from that day to this it remains undiscovered. Occasionally, however, he tells me, and I can quite believe him, he has bursts of appeal in which he abandons his more urgent occupation and resumes the search. Whether or not it will remain lost forever with the material and origin of it are things equally speculative at the present time. If the present purchaser is a collector, one would have expected the inquiries of Mr. Waste to have reached him through the dealers. He has been able to discover Mr. Cave's clergyman and oriental, no other than the Reverend James Parker and the young Prince of Cooney and Java. I am obliged to them for certain particulars. The object of the Prince was simple curiosity and extravagance. He was so eager to buy because Cave was so oddly reluctant to sell. It is just as possible that the buyer in the second instance was simply a casual purchaser and not a collector at all, and the crystal egg, for all I know, may be at the present moment within a mile of me, decorating a drawing room or serving as a paperweight. It's remarkable functions all unknown. Indeed it is partly with the idea of such a possibility that I have thrown this narrative into a form that will give it a chance of being read by the ordinary consumer of fiction. My own ideas in the matter are practically identical with those of Mr. Waste. I believe the crystal on the mast in Mars and the crystal egg of Mr. Cave's to be in some physical but at present quite inexplicable way and rapport, and we both believe further that the terrestrial crystal must have been, possibly at some remote date, sent hither from that planet in order to give the Martians a near view of our affairs. Possibly the fellows to the crystals in the other masts are also on our globe. No theory of hallucination suffices for the facts. End of The Crystal Egg by H.G. Wells Hard guy. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Bookman. Hard guy by H.B. Carrollton He was standing at the side of the glass side super highway. His arm half raised, Tom pointing in the same direction as that of the approaching rocket car. Ordinarily Fredid Martin would have passed a hitchhiker without stopping. But there was something in the bearing in appearance of this one that caused him to apply his brakes. Martin opened the door next to the vacant seat behind him. Going my way, he asked. A pair of steady, unsmining blue eyes looked him over. Yeah. Alright. Then hop in. The hitchhiker took his time. He slid into the seat with casual deliberateness and slammed the car door shut. The rocket car got under way once more. They wrote in science for half a mile or so. Finally Martin glanced questionnately at his companion's expressionless profile. Where are you heading for? He asked. Dentonville He spoke from the corner of his mouth without turning his head. Oh yes, that's the next town, isn't it? Yeah. Not very definitive, reflective Martin noticing the rather ragged condition of the other Silo Lex clothing. Have much trouble getting rides? The passenger turned his head his blue eyes without a motion. Yeah. Most guys are leery about picking up hitchhikers. Scared they'll get raw. Martin pursed his lips nodded. Something to that alright. I'm pretty self, but I figured you looked okay. Can't always tell by looks, was the calm reply. Of course, us guys mostly pick out some guy with a swell atomic mobile if we're going to pull a stick up. When we see all heap like this, one, there's usually not enough dough to make it pay. Martin felt his genre. Say, you sound like you go in for that sort of thing. I'm telling you right now, I haven't enough cash on me to make it worth your while. I'm just a salesman trying to get along. You got nothing to worry about. His passenger assured him, stick ups art may racket. An audible sigh of relief escaped Martin. I'm certainly glad to hear that. What is your blanket anyway? The blue eyes frosted over. Look, chum, sometimes it ain't exactly healthy to ask questions like that. Pardon me, Martin said hastily. I didn't mean anything. It's none of my business, of course. The calm eyes flickered over his contrite expression. Skip it, pal. You look like a right guy. I'll put you next to something. Only keep your lip buttoned. See? Oh, absolutely. I'm Mike Egan. Head of the Strato Rovers. No. Martin was plainly odd. The Strato Rovers, eh? I've heard of them all, right? The other nodded complacently. Yeah, we're about the toughest mob this side of Mars. We don't bother honest people, though. We get hours from the crooks and racketeers. They can't squeal to the interplanetary police. There's a lot in what you say, a great Martin. And of course, that puts your mob in the Robin Hood class. Robin Hood nuts. That guy was a dup running around with bows and arrows. Why? We got a mystery ray that paralyzes anybody that starts up with us. They are all right when it wears off, but by the time we get away, Martin was properly impressed. A mystery ray? With a weapon like that, you should be able to walk into a bag and clean it out without any trouble. His passengers lips curled. I told you, we don't bother honest people. We even help the SP sometimes. Right now, we're working with the Earth Mars G-man in rounding up a gang of columnists that are planning on taking over the government. They're led by the Black Hornet. This Black Hornet goes around pretending like he's a big businessman, but he's really a international spy. A what? A international spy. Repeated Martin's companion shortly. The EMG men say he's the most dangerous man in the country, but he won't last long with the Strato Rovers on his trail. Martin nodded. I can believe that. Tell me, Egan, what are you doing out here around a smaller town like Dentonville? The government's building some kind of an ammunition place near here, and I understand the Black Hornet's figuring on Wreck and everything. Of course, he won't get away with it. Scattered plasticade houses on either side of the road indicated they had reached the outskirts of Dentonville. Mike Egan pointed ahead to a small white house set back among a cluster of trees. There's where I'm holed up. Drop me in front. A young woman in a faded blue Satan glass house dressed was standing at the gate of the white picket fence. She watched in silence as the passenger stepped from the rocket car and lifted his hand to the driver in careless farewell. Thanks for the lift, Chum, said Mike Egan. Not at all, replied Martin. Glad to have been of service to Mike Egan. The woman smiled to him. He's told you his name, I see. Martin lifted his hat. Indeed, he has. Michelle is alright, she said. I think, though, that he reads too many Bach-Gordon interplanetary comic books for a boy of eleven. End of title by H.B. Carrollton Recording by Bookman I'm a stranger here myself. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by William Passeltine One can't be too cautious about the people one meets in ten year. They're all weirdies of one kind or another. Me? Oh. I'm a stranger here myself by Mack Reynolds. The Place de France is the town's hub. It marks the end of Boulevard Pasteur, the main drag of the westernized part of the city, and the beginning of Rue de la Liberté which leads down to the Grand Soco and the Medina. In a three-minute walk from the Place de France you can go from an ultra-modern California-like resort to the Baghdad of Péran al-Rasid. It's quite a town ten year. King size sidewalk cafes occupy three of the strategic corners on the Place de France. The cafe de Paris serves the best draft beer in town. It's all the better custom and has three shoe shine boys who can sit on a sunny morning and read the Paris edition of the New York Times Herald Tribune while getting your shoes done up like mirrors for 30 Moroccan francs which comes to about five cents its current exchange. You can sit there after the paper's red, sip your espresso, and watch the people go by. Ten year is probably the most cosmopolitan city in the world. In native costume you'll see Berber and Reef, Arab and French. In European dress you'll see Japs and Chinese, Hindus and Turks, Levitines and Filipinos, North Americans and South Americans and of course even Europeans from both sides of the curtain. In ten year you'll find some of the world's poorest and some of the richest. The poorest will try to sell you anything from a shoe shine to their not very lily white bodies and the rich will avoid your eyes afraid you might try to sell them in spite of recent changes, the town still has its unique qualities. As a result of them the permanent population includes smugglers and black marketeers fugitives from justice and international con men, espionage and counter espionage agents, homosexuals nymphomaniacs, alcoholics, drug addicts displaced persons, ex royalty and subversives of every flavor. Local law limits the activities of a few of these. Like I said, it's quite a town. I came up from my Harold Tribune and said hello Paul, anything new cooking? He sank into the chair opposite me and looked around for the waiter. The tables were all crowded and since mine was a face he recognized, he assumed he was welcome to intrude. It was more or less standard procedure at the cafe de Paris, it wasn't a place to go if you wanted to be alone. Paul said, how old are you Rupert? Haven't seen you for donkeys years. The waiter came along and Paul ordered a glass of beer. Paul was an obese little man. I vaguely remembered someone saying he was from Liverpool and in exports. What's in the newspaper? He said disinterestedly. Pogo and Albert are going to find a duel I told him and little Abner is becoming a rock and roll singer. He grunted Oh, I said, the intellectual type. I scanned the front page. The Ruskies have put up another man's satellite. They have, eh? How big? Several times bigger than anything we Americans have. The beer came and looked good. So I ordered a glass, too. Paul said Whatever happened to those plexi flying saucers? What flying saucers? A French girl with bi with a poodle so finely clipped as to look as though it had been shaven. The girl was in the latest from Paris. Every poor in the place, we both looked after her. You know, what everyone was seeing a few years ago. It's too bad none of these bloody man satellites was up then. Maybe they would have seen one. That's an idea, I said. We didn't say anything else for a while and I began to wonder if I could go back to my paper without ribbing him the wrong way. I didn't know Paul very well, but for that matter, it was completely seldom you ever got to know anybody very well in ten years. Largely, cards were played close to the chest. My beer came and a plate of tapas for us both. Tapas at the Café de Paris are apt to be potato salad, a few anchovies, olives, and possibly some cheese. Free lunch, they used to call it in the states. Just to say something, I said, do you think they come from, and when he looked blank I added the flying saucers. He grinned from Mars or Venus or someplace. I said, too bad none of them ever crashed or landed in the Yale football field and said, take me to your cheerleader or something. Paul Yon said, that was always a trouble with those crackpot blokes explanations of them. If they were aliens from space, though why not show themselves? I ate one of the potato chips. It had been cooked and rinsed, oh well. I said, oh there are various answers to that one. We could probably sit around here and think or two or three, they made sense. Paul was mildly interested. Like what? Well, hell. Suppose, for instance, there's this big galactic league of civilized planets. But it's restricted, see. You're not eligible for membership until you, well, say, until you develop spaceflight. Then you're invited into the club. Meanwhile, they send secret missions down from time to time to keep an eye on your progress. Paul grinned at me. I see you'll read the same poxy stuff I do. A Moorish girl went by addressing a neatly tailored grey gelaba. European style high-heeled shoes and a pinkish silk veil, so transparent you can see she wore lipstick. Very provocative, dark eyes can be overveil. We both look after her. I said, or here's another one. Suppose you have a very advanced civilization on, say, Mars. Not Mars, no air. And too bloody dry to support life. Don't interrupt, please, I said with mocking severity. This is a very old civilization and as the planet began to lose its water and air it withdrew underground. Uses hydroponics and so forth. Husbands its water and air. Isn't that what we'd do in a few million years if Earth wants its water and air? I suppose so, he said. Anyway, what about them? Well, they observe how man is going through a scientific boom, an industrial boom, a population boom, a boom period. Any day now he's going to have a practical spaceship. Meanwhile, he's got the H-bomb and the way he beats on the drums on both sides of the curtain he's not against using it if he could get away with it. Paul said, I got it. So they're scared and are keeping an eye on our sights on an old one. I read that a dozen times. Distract different. I shifted my shoulders. Well, it's one possibility. I've got a better one. How's this? There's this alien life form that's way ahead of us. Their civilization is so old they don't have any record of when it began or how it was in the only days. They've gone beyond things like war and depressions and revolutions and greed for power, earning these things giving us a bad time here on Earth. They're all like scholars, get it? As some of them are pretty jolly well taken by Earth, especially the way we are right now with all these problems, get it? Things developing so fast we don't know where we're going or how we're going to get there. I finished my beer and clapped my hands for Muli. How do you mean where we're going? Well, take half the countries in the world today. They're trying to industrialize, modernize, catch up with the advanced countries. Look at Egypt and Israel and India and China and Yugoslavia and Brazil and all the rest. Trying to drag themselves up to the level of the advanced countries and all using different methods of doing it. But look at our so called advanced countries. Up to their bottoms and problems. Juvenile delinquents, climbing crime and suicide rates, the loony bins full of the balmy, unemployed, fed of war, spending all their money on armaments instead of things like schools. All the bloody mess of it. Why? A man for miles would be fascinated like. Muli came shuffling up in his baboosh slippers and we both ordered to know the schooner of beer. Paul said seriously. You know. There's only one big snag in this sort of talk. I've sort of the whole thing out before and you always come up against this brick wall. Where are they? These observers or scholars or spies or whatever they are. Sooner or later we'd name one of them. You know, Scotland Yard or the FBI or Russia's Secret Police or the French Surrouté or Interpol. This world is so deep in police. Counter espionage outfits and security agents that an alien would slip up in time, no matter how trained he'd been. Sooner or later he'd slip up and they'd nab him. I shook my head. Not necessarily. The first time I even considered this possibility it seemed to me that such an alien would base himself in London or New York. Somewhere where he could use the libraries for research and get the daily newspapers and the magazines and be right in the center of things. But now I don't think so. I think he'd be right here in Tangier. Why Tangier? It's one town in the world where anything goes. Nobody gives a damn about you or your affairs. For instance, I've known you a year or more now and I haven't the slightest idea how you make your living. That's right, Paul admitted. And this time you seldom even ask a man where he's from. He could be British or white Russian or Basque or Sikh or no one could care less. Where are you from, Rupert? California, I told him. No, you're not e-grid. I was taken back. What do you mean? I felt your mind probe back a few minutes ago when I was talking about Scotland Yard or the FBI possibly fleshing out an alien. Telepathy is a sense not trained by the humanoids. If they had it, your job and mine would be considerably more difficult. Let's face it, in spite of these human bodies we're disguised in, neither of us is humanoid. Where are you really from, Rupert? Older Baron, I said. How about you? Didn't have, he told me, shaking. We had a laugh and ordered another round of beer. What are you doing here on Earth, I asked him. Researching for one of our meat truss. We're protein eaters, humanoid flesh you considered quite a delicacy. How about you? Scouting the place for thrill tourists. My job is to go around to these backward cultures and help stir up inter-tribal or international conflicts all according to how advanced they are. Then our tourists come in, well shielded by their kicks watching it. Paul frowned. Less little practice could spoil an awful lot of good meat. End of I'm A Stranger Here Myself by Mack Reynolds. Recorded by William Hasseltime. Reading by Greg Marguerite The New Accelerator by H. G. Wells Certainly, if ever a man found a guinea when he was looking for a pin, it is my good friend, Professor Giburn. I have heard before of investigators overshooting the mark, but never quite to the extent that he has done. He has really, this time at any rate, without any touch of exaggeration in the phrase, found something to revolutionize human life. And that, when he was simply seeking an all-around nervous stimulant to bring languid people up to the stresses of these pushful days. I have tasted the stuff now several times, and I cannot do better than describe the effect the thing had on me. That there are astonishing experiences in store for all in search of new sensations will become apparent enough. Professor Giburn, as many people know, is my neighbor in Folkstone. Unless my memory plays me a trick, his portrait at various ages has already appeared in this strand magazine. I think late in 1899, but I am unable to look it up because I have lent that volume to someone who has never sent it back. The reader may perhaps recall the high forehead and the singularly long black eyebrows that give such a mephestoffalian touch to his face. He occupies one of those pleasant little detached houses in the mixed style that make the western end of the upper Sandgate Road so interesting. His is the one with the Flemish Gables and the Moorish Portico, and it is in the little room with the Moliand Bay window that he works when he is down here, and in which of an evening we have so often smoked and talked together. He is a mighty jester, but besides, he likes to talk to me about his work. He is one of those men who find a help and stimulus in talking, and so I have been able to follow the conception of the new accelerator right up from a very early stage. Of course the greater portion of his experimental work is not done in Folkstone but in Gower Street, in the fine new laboratory next to the hospital that he has been the first to use. As everyone knows, or at least as all intelligent people know, the special department in which Giburn has gained so great and deserved a reputation among physiologists is the action of drugs upon the nervous system, among soporifics, sedatives, and anesthetics he is, I am told, he is also a chemist of considerable eminence, and I suppose in the subtle and complex jungle of riddles that centers about the ganglion cell and the axis fiber, there are little cleared places of his making, little glades of illumination that until he sees fit to publish his results are still inaccessible to every other living man. And in the last few years he has been particularly assiduous upon this question of nervous stimulants and already before the discovery of the new invigorator, very successful with them. Medical science has to thank him for at least three distinct and absolutely safe invigorators of unrivaled value to practicing men. In cases of exhaustion the preparation known as Giburn's B syrup has, I suppose, saved more lives already than any lifeboat round the coast. But none of these little things begin to satisfy me yet, he told me nearly a year ago. Either they increase the central energy without affecting the nerves, or simply increase the available energy by lowering the nervous conductivity. And all of them are unequal and local in their operation. One wakes up the heart and viscera and leaves the brain stupefied. One gets at the brain's champagne fashion and does nothing good for the solar plexus. And what I want and what if it's an earthly possibility I mean to have, is a stimulant that stimulates all round that wakes you up for a time from the crown of your head to your toe and makes you go two or even three to everybody else's one, eh? That's the thing I'm after. It would tire a man, I said. Not a doubt of it. And you'd eat double or treble and all that. But just think what the thing would mean. Imagine yourself with a little vial like this. He held up a little bottle of green glass and marked his points with it. And in the precious vial is the power to think twice as fast, move slowly, do twice as much work in a given time as you could otherwise do. But is such a thing possible? I believe so. If it isn't I've wasted my time for a year. These various preparations of hypophosphites, for example, seem to show that something of the sort, even if it was only one and a half times as fast, it would do. It would do, I said. If you were a statesman in a corner, for example, time rushing up against you, something urgent to be done, eh? He could dose his private secretary, I said, and gain double time and think if you, for example, wanted to finish a book. Usually, I said, I wish I'd never begun him. Or a doctor, driven to death, wants to sit down and think out a case or a barrister or a man cramming for an examination. Worth a guinea drop, said I, and more to men like that. And in a duel, again, said Giburn, where it all depends on your quickness and your fear. Or in fencing, I echoed. You see, said Giburn, if I get it as an all-round thing, it will really do you no harm at all, except perhaps to an infinitesimal degree, it brings you nearer old age. You will just have lived twice to other people's wants. I suppose I meditated in a duel it would be fair. That's a question for the second, said Giburn. I harked back further. And you really think such a thing as I said? As possible, said Giburn and glanced at something that went throbbing by his window, as a motor-bus. As a matter of fact, he paused and smiled at me deeply and tapped slowly on the edge of his desk with the green vial. I think I know this stuff. Already I've got something coming. The nervous smile upon his face betrayed the gravity of his revelation. He rarely talked of his actual experimental work unless things could be. It may be. I shouldn't be surprised it may even do the thing at a greater rate than twice. It will be rather a big thing, I hazarded. It will be, I think, rather a big thing. But I don't think he quite knew what a big thing it was to be for all that. I remember we had several talks about the stuff after that. The new accelerator, he called it, and his tone about it grew more confident on each occasion. Sometimes he talked nervously of unexpected physiological results its use might have, and then he would get a little unhappy. At others he was frankly mercenary, and we debated long and anxiously how the preparation might be turned to commercial account. It's a good thing, said Gibbon, a tremendous thing. I know I'm giving the world something, and I think it only reasonable we should expect the world to pay. The dignity of science is all very well, but I think somehow I must have the monopoly of the stuff for, say, ten years. I don't see why all the fun in life should go to the dealers in ham. My own interest in the coming drug certainly did not wane in time. I have always had a queer little twist towards metaphysics in my mind. I have always been given to paradoxes about space and time, and it seemed to me that Gibbon was really preparing no less than the absolute acceleration of life. Suppose a man repeatedly dosed with such a preparation. He would live an active and record life, indeed, but he would be an adult at eleven, middle-aged at twenty-five, and by thirty well on the road to senile decay. It seemed to me that so far Gibbon was only going to do for anyone who took his drug exactly what nature had done for the Jews and Orientals, who are men in their teens and aged by fifty, and quicker in thought and act than we are all the time. The marvel of drugs has always been great to my mind. You can mad in a man, calm a man, make him incredibly strong an alert or a helpless log, quick in this passion and allay that, all by means of drugs, and here was a new miracle to be added to this strange armory of vials the doctors use. But Gibbon was far too eager upon his technical points to enter very keenly into my aspect of the question. It was the seventh or eighth of August when he told me the distillation that would decide his failure or success for a time was going forward as we talked, and it was on the tenth that he told me the thing was done and the new accelerator a tangible reality in the world. I met him as I was going up the Sandgate Hill towards Folkstone. I think I was going to get my hair cut and he came hurrying down to meet me. I suppose he was coming to my house to tell me at once of his success. I remember that his eyes were unusually bright and his face flushed and I noted even then the swift alacrity of his step. It's done, he cried and gripped my hand very fast. It's more than done. Come up to my house and see. Really? Really, he shouted, incredibly, come up and see. And it does twice? It does more, much more. It scares me. Come up and see the stuff, taste it, try it. It's the most amazing stuff on earth. He gripped my arm and walking at such a pace that he forced me into a trot when shouting with me up the hill. A whole Char-A-Bank full of people turned and stared at us in unison in a manner of people in Char-A-Bank. It was one of those hot, clear days that Folkstone sees so much of. Every color incredibly bright and every outline hard. There was a breeze, of course, but not so much breeze as sufficed under these conditions to keep me cool and dry. I panted for mercy. I'm not walking too fast, am I? cried Gibbon and slackened his pace to a quick march. You've been taking some of this stuff, I puffed. No, he said, at the upmost tip of water that stood in a beaker from which I had washed out the last traces of the stuff. I took some last night, you know, but that is ancient history now. And it goes twice, I said, nearing his doorway in a grateful perspiration. It goes a thousand times. Many thousand times, cried Gibbon with a dramatic gesture flinging open his early English-carved oak gate. Phew! said I and followed him to the door. I don't know how many times it goes, he said, with his latch-key in his hand. And you? It throws all sorts of light on nervous physiology. It kicks the theory of vision into a perfectly new shape. Heaven knows how many thousand times. We'll try all that after. The thing is to try the stuff now. Try the stuff, I said, as we went along the passage. Rather, said Gibbon, turning on me in his study. There it is in that little green vial there, unless you happen to be afraid. I am a careful man by nature and only theoretically adventurous. I was afraid. But on the other hand, there is pride. Well, I haggled. You say you've tried it? I've tried it, he said, and I don't look hurt by it, do I? I don't even look livery, and I feel— I sat down. Give me the potion, I said. If the worst comes to worst, it will save me having my hair cut, and that, I think, is one of the most hateful duties of a civilized man. How do you take the mixture? I said, Gibbon, whacking down a carafe. He stood up in front of his desk and regarded me in his easy chair. His manner was suddenly affected by a touch of the Harley Street Specialist. It's rum stuff, you know, he said. I made a gesture with my hand. I must warn you in the first place as soon as you've got it down to shut your eyes and open them very cautiously in a minute or so's time. One still sees. The sense of vision is a question of length of vibration and altitude of impacts. But there's a kind of shock to the retina, a nasty, giddy confusion, just at the time, if the eyes are open. Keep them shut. Shut, I said. Good. And the next thing is, keep still. Don't begin to whack about. You may fetch something, a nasty wrap, if you do. Remember, you will be going several thousand times faster than you ever did before. Heart, lungs, muscles, brain, everything. And you will hit hard without knowing it. You won't know it, you know. You'll feel just as you do now. Only everything in the world will seem to be going ever so many thousand times slower than it ever went before. That's what makes it so deuced queer. Lord, I said, and you mean, you'll see, said he, and took up a little measure. He glanced at the material on his desk. Glasses, he said. Water, all here. Mustn't take too much for the first attempt. A little vile glucked out its precious contents. Don't forget what I told you, he said, turning the contents of the measure into a glass in the manner of an Italian waiter measuring whiskey. Sit with the eyes tightly shut and in absolute stillness for two minutes, he said. Then you will hear me speak. He added an inch or so of water to the little dose in each glass. By the by, he said, don't put your glass down. Keep it in your hand and rest it on your knee. Yes, so. And now, he raised his glass. The new accelerator, I said. The new accelerator, he answered, and we touched glasses and drank, and instantly I closed my eyes. You know that blank non-existence into which one drops when one has taken gas? For an indefinite interval it was like that. Then I heard Gibburn telling me to wake up, and I stirred and opened my eyes. There he stood as he had been standing. Glass still in hand. It was empty. That was all the difference. Well, said I. Nothing. Nothing out of the way? Nothing. A slight feeling of exhilaration, perhaps. Nothing more. Sounds. Things are still, I said. By Jove, yes, they are still. Except the sort of faint pattern like rain falling on different things. What is it? Analyzed sounds, I think, he said, but I am not sure. He glanced at the window. Have you ever seen a curtain before a window way before? I followed his eyes and there was the end of the curtain, frozen as it were corner-high in the act of flapping briskly in the breeze. No, said I. That's odd. And here, he said, and opened the hand that held the glass. Naturally I winced, expecting the glass to smash, but so far from smashing it did not even seem to stir. It hung in mid-air, motionless. Roughly speaking, said Gibburn, an object in these latitudes falls sixteen feet in the first second. This glass is falling sixteen feet in a second now. Only you see it hasn't been falling yet for the hundredth part of a second. That gives you some idea of the pace of my accelerator. And he waved his hand round and round over and under the slowly sinking glass. Finally he took it by the bottom, pulled it down, and placed it very carefully on the table. A. he said to me and laughed. That seems all right, I said, and began very gingerly to raise myself from the chair. I felt perfectly well, very light and comfortable, and quite confident in my mind. I was going fast all over. My heart, for example, was beating a thousand times a second, but that caused me no discomfort at all. I looked out of the window. An immovable cyclist head down with a frozen puff of dust behind his driving-wheel scorched to overtake a galloping shower-bank that did not stir. I gaped in amazement at this incredible spectacle. Gibber and I cried. How long will this confounded stuff last? Heaven knows, he answered. Last time I took it, I went to bed and slept it off. I tell you, I was frightened. It must have lasted some minutes. I think it seemed like hours, but after a bit it slows down rather suddenly, I believe. I was proud to observe that I did not feel frightened. I suppose because there were two of us. Didn't we go out? I asked. Why not? They'll see us. Not they, goodness know. Why, we shall be going a thousand times faster than the quickest conjuring trick that ever was done. Come along. Which way shall we go? Window or door? And out by the window we went. Assuredly, of all the strange experiences that I have ever had, or imagined, or read of other people having or imagining, that little raid I made with Gibber and on the Folkstone Lees under the influence of the new accelerator was the strangest and maddest of all. We went out by his gate into the road, and there we made a minute examination of the statuesque passing traffic. The tops of the wheels and some of the legs of the horses of this Charabaut, the end of the whiplash and the lower jaw of the conductor who was just beginning to yawn, were perceptibly in motion, but all the rest of the lumbering conveyance seemed still, and quite noiseless, except for a faint rattling that came from one man's throat. And as parts of this frozen edifice there were a driver, you know, and a conductor and eleven people. The effect as we walked about the thing began by being madly queer and ended by being disagreeable. There they were, people like ourselves, and yet not like ourselves, frozen in careless attitudes, caught in mid-gesture. A girl and a man smiled at one another, a leering smile that threatened to last forevermore. A woman in a floppy capoline rested her arms on the rail and stared at Gibran's house with the unwinking stare of eternity. A man stroked his moustache like a figure of wax, and another stretched a tiresome stiff hand with extended fingers towards his loosened hat. We stared at them, we laughed at them, we made faces at them, and then a sort of disgust of them came upon us, and we turned away and walked round in front of the cyclist towards the leaves. Goodness! cried Gibran suddenly. Look there! He pointed, and there at the tip of his finger and sliding down the air with wings flapping slowly and at the speed of an exceptionally languid snail was a bee. And so we came out upon the leaves. There the thing seemed madder than ever. The band was playing in the upper stand, though all the sound it made for us was a low-pitched wheezy rattle, a sort of prolonged last sigh that passed at times into a sound like the slow muffled ticking of some monstrous clock. Frozen people stood erect, strange, silent, self-conscious-looking dummies hung unstably in mid-air, promenading upon the grass. I passed close to a little poodle dog suspended in the act of leaping and watched the slow movement of his legs as he sank to earth. Lord, look here! cried Gibran, and we halted for a moment before a magnificent person in white faint-striped flannels, white shoes, and a Panama hat who turned back to wink at two gaily-dressed ladies he had passed. A wink, studied with such leisurely deliberation as we could afford, is an unattractive thing. It loses any quality of alert gaiting, and one remarks that the winking eye does not completely close, that under its drooping lid appears the lower edge of an eyeball and a little line of ink. Heaven give me memory, said I, and I will never wink again. Or smile, said Gibran, with his eye on the ladies' answering teeth. It's infernally hot somehow, said I. Let's go slower. Oh, come along, said Gibran. We picked our way among the bath-chairs in the path. Many of the people sitting in the chairs seemed almost natural in their passive poses, but the contorted scarlet of the bandsman was not a restful thing to see. A purple-faced little gentleman was frozen in the midst of a violent struggle to refold his newspaper against the wind. There were many evidences that these people in their sluggish way were exposed to a considerable breeze, a breeze that had no existence so far as our sensations went. We came out and walked a little away from the crowd, and turned and regarded it. To see all that multitude changed to a picture smitten rigid as it were into the semblance of realistic was impossibly wonderful. It was absurd, of course, but it filled me with an irrational and exultant sense of superior advantage. Consider the wonder of it. All that I had said and thought and done since the stuff had begun to work in my veins had happened so far as those people, so far as the world in general went in the twinkling of an eye. The new accelerator I began, but Gibran interrupted me. There's that infernal old woman, he said. What old woman? Lives next door to me, said Gibran. Has a lap dog that yaps. God's, the temptation is strong. There is something very boyish and impulsive about Gibran at times. Before I could expostulate with him, he had dashed forward, snatched the unfortunate animal out of visible existence, and was running violently with it towards the cliff of the leaves. It was most extraordinary. The little brute, you know, didn't bark or wiggle or make the sound of a dog. It was like running about with a dog of wood. Gibran, I cried, put it down. Then I said something else. If you run like that, Gibran, I cried, you'll set your clothes on fire, your linen trousers are going brown as it is. He clapped his hand on his thigh and stood hesitating on the verge. Gibran, I cried, coming up. Put it down. This heat is too much. It's our three miles a second. Friction of the air. What? he said, glancing at the dog. Friction of the air, I shouted. Friction of the air going too fast, like meteorites and things, too hot. And Gibran, Gibran, I'm all over prickling and a sort of perspiration. You can see people stirring slightly. I believe the stuff's working off. Put that dog down. Eh? he said. It's working off, I repeated. We're working off. I'm wet through. He stared at me. Then at the band, the wheezy rattle of whose performance was certainly going faster. Then with a tremendous sweep of the arm he hurled the dog away from him and it went spinning upward still inanimate and hung at last over the grouped parasols of a knot of chattering people. Gibran was gripping my elbow. By Jove, he cried, I believe it is. A sort of hot prickling and, yes, that man's moving his pocket handkerchief perceptibly. We must get out of this sharp. But we could not get out of it sharply enough. Luckily, perhaps, for we might have run, and if we had run we should, I believe, have burst into flames. Almost certainly we should have burst into flames. You know we had neither of us thought of that. But before we could even begin to run, the action of the drug had ceased. It was the business of a minute fraction of a second. The effect of the new accelerator passed like the drawing of a hand, vanished in the moment of a hand. I heard Gibran's voice in infinite alarm. Sit down, he said, and flopped down upon the turf at the edge of the leaves. I sat, scorching as I sat. There was a patch of burnt grass there still where I sat down. The whole stagnation seemed to wake up as I did so. The disarticulated vibration of the band rushed together into a blast of music. The promenaders put their feet down and walked their ways. Winters and flags began flapping. Smiles passed into words. The winker finished his wink and went on his way complacently, and all the seated people moved and spoke. The whole world had come alive again. Was going as fast as we were, or rather we were going no faster than the rest of the world. It was like slowing down as one comes into a railway station. Everything seemed to spin around for a second or two. I had the most transient feeling of nausea, and that was all. The dog, which had seemed to hang for a moment when the force of Giburn's arm was expended, fell with a swift acceleration clean through a lady's parasol. That was the saving of us, unless it was for one corpulent old gentleman in a bath-chair who certainly did start at the sight of us and afterwards regarded us at intervals with a darkly suspicious eye, and finally I believe said something to his nurse about us. I doubt if a solitary person remarked our sudden appearance among them. Plop. We must have appeared abruptly. We ceased to smolder almost at once, though the turf beneath me was uncomfortably hot. The attention of everyone, including even the Amusements Association ban, which on this occasion for the only time in its history got out of tune, was arrested by the amazing fact, and the still more amazing yapping and uproar caused by the fact that a respectable overfed lap dog sleeping quietly to the east of the bandstand should suddenly fall through the wall of a lady on the west, in a slightly singed condition due to the extreme velocity of his movements through the air. In these absurd days, too, when we are all trying to be as psychic and silly and superstitious as possible, people got up and trod on other people. Chairs were overturned. The Lee's policemen ran. How the matter settled itself, I do not know. We were much too anxious to disentangle ourselves from the affair and get out of range of the eye of the gentleman in the bath-chair to make minute inquiries. As soon as we were sufficiently cool and sufficiently recovered from our giddiness and nausea and confusion of mind, to do so, we stood up and, skirting the crowd, directed our steps back along the road below the metropole towards Giburn's house. But amidst the din, I heard very distinctly the gentleman who had been sitting beside the lady of the ruptured sunshade using quite unjustifiable threats and language to one of those inspector written on their caps. If you didn't throw the dog, he said, who did? The sudden return of movement and familiar noises and our natural anxiety about ourselves, our clothes were still dreadfully hot and the fronts of the thighs of Giburn's white trousers were scorched a drab-ish brown. Prevented the minute observations I should have liked to make on all these things. Indeed, I really made no observations of any scientific value on that return. He, of course, had gone. I looked for that cyclist, but he was already out of sight as we came into the upper Sandgate Road or hidden from us by traffic. The Charabank, however, with its people now all alive and stirring, was clattering along at a spanking pace, almost abreast of the nearer church. We noted, however, that the window sill on which we had stepped in getting out of the house was slightly singed, and that the impressions of our feet on the side of the house were much different. So it was I had my first experience of the new accelerator. Practically we had been running about and saying and doing all sorts of things in the space of a second or so of time. We had lived half an hour while the band had played perhaps two bars, but the effect it had upon us was that the whole world had stopped for our convenient inspection. Considering all things and particularly considering our rashness in venturing out of the house was, it showed no doubt that Giburn has still much to learn before his preparation is a manageable convenience, but its practicability is certainly demonstrated beyond all cavill. Since that adventure he has been steadily bringing its use under control, and I have several times and without the slightest bad result taken measured doses under his direction, though I must confess I have not yet ventured abroad again while under its influence. I may mention for example that this story has been written at one sitting and without interruption, except for the nibbling of some chocolate. By its means I began at 6.25 and my watch is now very nearly at the minute past the half hour. The convenience of securing a long uninterrupted spell of work in the midst of a day full of engagements cannot be exaggerated. Giburn is now working at the quantitative handling of his preparation with a special reference to its distinctive effects upon different types of events, in hopes to find a retarder with which to dilute its present rather excessive potency. The retarder will of course have the reverse effect of the accelerator. Used alone it should enable the patient to spread a few seconds over many hours of ordinary time, and so to maintain an apathetic inaction, a glacier-like absence of alacrity amidst the most animated or irritating surroundings. The two things together must necessarily work an entire revolution in civilized existence. It is the beginning of our escape from that time garment of which Carlisle speaks. While this accelerator will enable us to concentrate ourselves with tremendous impact upon any moment or occasion that demands our utmost sense and vigor, the retarder will enable us to pass in passive tranquility through infinite hardship and tedium. Perhaps I am a little optimistic about the retarder which has indeed still to be discovered, but about the accelerator there is no possible sort of doubt whatever. Its appearance upon the market in a convenient controllable and assimilable form is a matter of the next few months. It will be obtainable of all chemists and drugists in small green bottles, at a high, but considering its extraordinary qualities by no means excessive, price. Gibburn's nervous accelerator it will be called, and he hopes to be able to supply it in three strengths. One in the 200, one in 900, and one in 2000, distinguished by yellow, pink, and white labels respectively. No doubt its use renders a great number of very extraordinary things possible for, of course, the most remarkable and possibly even criminal proceedings may be affected with impunity by this dodging, as it were, into the interstices of time. Like all potent preparations it will be liable to abuse. We have, however, discussed this aspect of the question very thoroughly, and we have decided that this is purely a matter of medical jurisprudence outside our province. We shall manufacture and sell the accelerator, and as for the consequences, we shall see. End of The New Accelerator by H. G. Wells