 THE PLATINER STORY 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 PLATINER STORY by H. G. Wells Whether the story of Godfrey Plattener is to be credited or not is a pretty question in the value of evidence. On the one hand, we have seven witnesses. To be perfectly exact, we have six and a half pairs of eyes and one undeniable fact. And on the other, we have, what is it, prejudice, common sense, the inertia of opinion? Never were there seven more honest seeming witnesses. Never was there a more undeniable fact than the inversion of Godfrey Plattener's anatomical structure. And never was there a more preposterous story than the one they have to tell. The most preposterous part of the story is the worthy Godfrey's contribution, for I count him as one of the seven. Heaven forbid that I should be led into giving countenance to superstition by a passion for impartiality. And so come to share the fate of Usapea's patrons. Frankly, I believe there is something crooked about this business of Godfrey Plattener. But what that crooked factor is, I will admit as frankly I do not know. I have been surprised at the credit accorded to the story in the most unexpected and authoritative quarters. The fairest way to the reader, however, will be for me to tell it without further comment. Godfrey Plattener is, in spite of his name, a free-born Englishman. His father was an Alsatian who came to England in the sixties, married a respectable English girl of unexceptional antecedents, and died after a wholesome and uneventful life devoted, I understand, chiefly to the laying of parquet flooring in 1887. Godfrey's age is seven and twenty. He is by virtue of his heritage of three languages—modern languages master in a small private school in the south of England. To the casual observer he is singularly like any other modern languages master in any other small private school. His costume is neither very costly nor very fashionable, but on the other hand it is not markedly cheap or shabby. His complexion like his height and his bearing is inconspicuous. You would not notice perhaps that, like the majority of people, his face was not absolutely symmetrical. His right eye a little larger than the left and his jaw a trifle heavier on the right side. If you, as an ordinary careless person, were to bear his chest and feel his heart beating, you would probably find it quite like the heart of anyone else. But here you and the trained observer would part company. If you found his heart quite ordinary, the trained observer would find it quite otherwise. And once the thing was pointed out to you, you too would perceive the peculiarity easily enough. It is that Godfrey's heart beats on the right side of his body. Now, that is not the only singularity of Godfrey's structure, although it is the only one that would appeal to the untrained mind. Careful sounding of Godfrey's internal arrangements by a well-known surgeon seems to point to the fact that all the other unsymmetrical parts of his body are similarly misplaced. The right lobe of his liver is on the left side, the left on his right, while his lungs too are similarly contraposed. What is still more singular, unless Godfrey is a consummate actor, we must believe that his right hand has recently become his left. Since the occurrences we are about to consider, as impartially as possible, he has found the utmost difficulty in writing, except from right to left across the paper with his left hand. He cannot throw with his right hand. He is perplexed at mealtimes between knife and fork, and his ideas of the rule of the road, he is a cyclist, are still a dangerous confusion. And there is not a scrap of evidence to show that before these occurrences Godfrey was at all left-handed. There is yet another wonderful fact in this preposterous business. Godfrey produces three photographs of himself. You have him at the age of five or six, thrusting fat legs at you from under a plaid frock and scowling. In that photograph his left eye is a little larger than his right, and his jaw is a trifle heavier on the left side. This is the reverse of his present living condition. The photograph of Godfrey at fourteen seems to contradict these facts, but that is because it is one of those cheap gem photographs that were then in vogue, taken direct upon the metal. And therefore reversing things just as a looking-glass would. The third photograph represents him at one and twenty and confirms the record of the others. There seems here evidence of the strongest confirmatory character that Godfrey has exchanged his left side for his right. Yet how a human being can be so changed short of a fantastic and pointless miracle, it is exceedingly hard to suggest. In one way, of course, these facts might be explicable on the supposition that Plattener has undertaken an elaborate mystification on the strength of his heart's displacement. Photographs may be faked and left-handedness imitated, but the character of the man does not lend itself to any such theory. He is quiet, practical, unobtrusive, and thoroughly sane from the Nordau standpoint. He likes beer and smokes moderately, takes walking exercise daily, and has a healthy high estimate of the value of his teaching. He has a good but untrained tenor voice, and takes a pleasure in singing heirs of a popular and cheerful character. He is fond, but not morbidly fond, of reading, chiefly fiction pervaded with a vaguely pious optimism. Sleeps well and rarely dreams. He is, in fact, the very last person to evolve a fantastic fable. Indeed, so far from forcing this story upon the world, he has been singularly reticent on the matter. He meets inquirers with a certain engaging bashfulness, is almost the word, that disarms the most suspicious. He seems genuinely ashamed that anything so unusual has occurred to him. It is to be regretted that Platinum's aversion to the idea of post-mortem dissection may postpone, perhaps forever, the positive proof that his entire body has had its left and right sides transposed. Upon that fact, mainly the credibility of his story hangs. There is no way of taking a man and moving him about in space as ordinary people understand space that will result in our changing his sides. Whatever you do, his right is still his right, and his left is left. You can do that with a perfectly thin and flat thing, of course. If you were to cut a figure out of paper, any figure with a right and left side, you could change its side simply by lifting it up and turning it over. But with a solid, it is different. Mathematical theorists tell us that the only way in which the right and left sides of a solid body can be changed is by taking that body clean out of space as we know it. Taking it out of ordinary existence, that is, and turning it somewhere outside space. This is a little obstruous, no doubt, but anyone with any knowledge of mathematical theory will assure the reader of its truth. To put the thing in technical language, the curious inversion of Platinum's right and left sides is proof that he has moved out of our space into what is called the fourth dimension, and that he has returned again to our world. Unless we choose to consider ourselves the victims of an elaborate and motiveless fabrication, we are almost bound to believe that this has occurred. So much for the tangible facts. Now we come to the account of the phenomena that attended his temporary disappearance from the world. It appears that in the Sussexville Proprietary School, Platinum not only discharged the duties of modern language master, but also taught chemistry, commercial geography, bookkeeping, shorthand, drawing, and any other additional subject to which the changing fancies of the boy's parents might direct attention. He knew little or nothing of these various subjects, but in secondary, as distinguished from board or elementary schools, knowledge in the teacher is very properly by no means so necessary as high moral character and gentlemanly tone. In chemistry he was particularly deficient, knowing he says nothing beyond the three gases, whatever the three gases may be. As, however, his pupils began by knowing nothing and derived all their information from him, this caused him or anyone but little inconvenience for several terms. Then a little boy named Wibble joined the school, who had been educated, it seems, by some mischievous relative into an inquiring habit of mind. This little boy followed Platinum's lessons with marked and sustained interest, and in order to exhibit his zeal on the subject brought at various times substances for Platinum to analyze. Platinum, flattered by this evidence of his power of awakening interest and trusting to the boy's ignorance, analyzed these and even made general statements as to their composition. Indeed, he was so far stimulated by his pupil as to obtain a work upon analytical chemistry and study it during his supervision of the evening's preparation. He was surprised to find chemistry quite an interesting subject. So far the story is absolutely commonplace, but now the greenish powder comes upon the scene. The source of that greenish powder seems unfortunately lost. Master Wibble tells a torturous story of finding it done up in a packet in a disused lime kiln near the downs. It would have been an excellent thing for Platinum and possibly for Master Wibble's family if a match could have been applied to that powder there and then. The young gentleman certainly did not bring it to school in a packet, but in a common 8-ounce graduated medicine bottle plugged with masticated newspaper. He gave it to Platinum at the end of the afternoon school. Four boys had been detained after school prayers in order to complete some neglected tasks, and Platinum was supervising these in the small classroom in which the chemical teaching was conducted. The appliances for the practical teaching of chemistry in the Sussexville Proprietary School as in most small schools in this country are characterized by a severe simplicity. They are kept in a small cupboard standing in a recess and having about the same capacity as a common traveling trunk. Platinum being bored with his passive superintendent seemed to have welcomed the intervention of Wibble with his green powder as an agreeable diversion and unlocking this cupboard proceeded at once with his analytical experiments. Wibble sat, luckily for himself, at a safe distance regarding him. The four malefactors, feigning a profound absorption in their work, watched him furtively with the keenest interest, for even within the limits of the three gases Platinum's practical chemistry was, I understand, tamarious. They are practically unanimous in their account of Platinum's proceedings. He poured a little of the green powder into a test tube and tried the substance with water, hydrochloric acid, nitric acid, and sulfuric acid in succession. Getting no result, he emptied out a little heap, nearly half the bottle full, in fact, upon a slate and tried a match. He held the medicine bottle in his left hand. The stuff began to smoke and melt and then exploded with deafening violence and a blinding flash. The five boys, seeing the flash and being prepared for catastrophes, ducked below their desks and were none of them seriously hurt. The window was blown out into the playground and the blackboard on its easel was upset. The slate was smashed to atoms. Some plaster fell from the ceiling, but no other damage was done to the school edifice or appliances, and the boys at first, seeing nothing of Platinum, fancied he was knocked down and lying out of their sight below the desks. They jumped out of their places to go to his assistants and were amazed to find the space empty. Being still confused by the sudden violence of the report, they hurried to the open door under the impression that he must have been hurt and have rushed out of the room. But Carson, the foremost, nearly collided in the doorway with the principal, Mr. Lidget. Mr. Lidget is a corpulent, excitable man with one eye. The boys describe him as stumbling into the room, mouthing some of those tempered, expletives, irritable schoolmasters accustomed themselves to use, lest worse befall. Wretched mum-chancer, he said. Where's Mr. Platner? The boys are agreed on the very words. Wobbler, stiveling puppy, and mum-chancer are, it seems, among the ordinary small change of Mr. Lidget's scholastic commerce. Where's Mr. Platner? That was a question that was to be repeated many times in the next few days. It really seemed as though that frantic hyperbole, verbally blown to atoms, had for once realized itself. There was not a visible particle of Platner to be seen, not a drop of blood nor a stitch of clothing to be found. Apparently he had been blown clean out of existence and left not a rack behind. Not so much as would cover a six-penny piece to quote a proverbial expression. The evidence of his absolute disappearance as a consequence of that explosion is indubitable. It is not necessary to enlarge here upon the commotion excited in the Sussexville Proprietary School and in Sussexville and elsewhere by this event. It is quite possible indeed that some of the readers of these pages may recall the hearing of some remote and dying version of that excitement during the last summer holidays. Lidget, it would seem, did everything in his power to suppress and minimize the story. He instituted a penalty of twenty-five lines for any mention of Platner's name among the boys and stated in the schoolroom that he was clearly aware of his assistance whereabouts. He was afraid, he explains, that the possibility of an explosion happening in spite of the elaborate precautions taken to minimize the practical teaching of chemistry might injure the reputation of the school and so might any mysterious quality in Platner's departure. Indeed, he did everything in his power to make the occurrence seem as ordinary as possible. In particular, he cross-examined the five eyewitnesses of the occurrence so searchingly that they began to doubt the plain evidence of their senses. But in spite of these efforts, the tale, in a magnified and distorted state, made a nine-days wonder in the district, and several parents withdrew their sons on colorable pretexts. Not the least remarkable point in the matter is the fact that a large number of people in the neighborhood dreamed singularly vivid dreams of Platner during the period of excitement before his return, and these dreams had a curious uniformity. In almost all of them, Platner was seen sometimes singularly, sometimes in company, wandering about through a coruscating iridescence. In all cases, his face was pale and distressed, and in some he gesticulated toward the dreamer. One or two of the boys evidently under the influence of nightmare fancied that Platner approached them with remarkable swiftness and seemed to look closely into their very eyes. Others fled with Platner in pursuit of vague and extraordinary creatures of a globular shape. But all these fancies were forgotten in inquiries and speculations, when on the Wednesday next, but one after the Monday of the explosion, Platner returned. The circumstances of his return were as singular as those of his departure. So far as Mr. Lidget's somewhat caloric outline can be filled in from Platner's hesitating statements, it would appear that on Wednesday evening toward the hour of sunset, the former gentleman having dismissed evening preparation was engaged in his garden, picking and eating strawberries, a fruit of which he is inordinately fond. It is a large, old-fashioned garden, secured from observation fortunately by a high and ivy-covered red-brick wall. Just as he was stooping over a particularly prolific plant, there was a flash in the air and a heavy thud, and before he could look round, some heavy body struck him violently from behind. He was pitched forward, crushing the strawberries he held in his hand, and that so roughly that his silk hat, Mr. Lidget adheres to the older ideas of scholastic costume, was driven violently down upon his forehead, and almost over one eye. This heavy missile which slid over him sideways and collapsed into a sitting posture among the strawberry plants proved to be our long-lost Mr. Godfried Platner. In an extremely disheveled condition, he was collarless and hatless. His linen was dirty and there was blood upon his hands. Mr. Lidget was so indignant and surprised that he remained on all fours and with his hat jammed down on his eye, while he expostulated vehemently with Platner for his disrespectful and unaccountable conduct. This scarcely idyllic scene completes what I may call the exterior version of the Platner story—its esoteric aspect. It is quite unnecessary to enter here into all the details of his dismissal by Mr. Lidget. Such details, with the full names and dates and references, will be found in the larger report of these occurrences that was laid before the Society for the Investigation of Abnormal Phenomena. The singular transposition of Platner's right and left sides was scarcely observed for the first day or so, and then, first in connection with his disposition to right from right to left across the blackboard. He concealed rather than astended this curious confirmatory circumstance, as he considered it would unfavorably affect his prospects in a new situation. The displacement of his heart was discovered some months after when he was having a tooth extracted under anesthetics. He then, very unwillingly, allowed a cursory surgical examination to be made of himself, with a view to a brief account in the Journal of Anatomy. That exhausts the statement of the material facts, and we may now go on to consider Platner's account of the matter. First, let us clearly differentiate between the preceding portion of this story and what is to follow. All I have told thus far is established by such evidence as even a criminal lawyer would approve. Every one of the witnesses is still alive. The reader, if he have the leisure, may hunt the lads out tomorrow, or even brave the terrors of the redoubtable Lidget and cross-examine and trap and test to his heart's content, God freed Platner himself, and his twisted heart and his three photographs are producible. It may be taken as proved that he did disappear for nine days as the consequence of an explosion, that he returned almost as violently under circumstances in their nature annoying to Mr. Lidget, whatever the details of those circumstances may be, and that he returned inverted, just as a reflection returns from a mirror. From the last fact, as I have already stated, it follows almost inevitably that Platner, during those nine days, must have been in some state of existence altogether out of space. The evidence to these statements is, indeed, far stronger than that upon which most murderers are hanged. But for his own particular account of where he had been, with its confused explanations and well-nice self-contradictory details, we have only Mr. Godfried Platner's word. I do not wish to discredit that, but I must point out what so many writers upon obscure psychic phenomena fail to do, that we are passing here from the practically undeniable to that kind of matter which any reasonable man is entitled to believe or reject as he thinks proper. The previous statements render it plausible. Its discordance with common experience tilts it towards the incredible. I would prefer not to sway the beam of the reader's judgment either way, but simply to tell the story as Platner told it to me. He gave me his narrative, I may state, at my house at Chiselhurst, and so soon as he had left me that evening I went into my study and wrote down everything as I remembered it. Subsequently he was good enough to read over a type-written copy so that its substantial correctness is undeniable. He states that at the moment of explosion he distinctly thought he was killed. He felt lifted off his feet and driven forcibly backward. It is a curious fact for psychologists that he thought clearly during his backward flight and wondered whether he should hit the chemistry cupboard or the blackboard easel. His heels struck ground and he staggered and fell heavily into a sitting position on something soft and firm. For a moment the concussion stunned him. He became aware at once of a vivid scent of singed hair, and he seemed to hear the voice of Lidget asking for him. You will understand that for a time his mind was greatly confused. At first he was under the impression that he was standing in the classroom. He perceived quite distinctly the surprise of the boys and the entry of Mr. Lidget. He is quite positive upon that score. He did not hear their remarks, but that he ascribed to the deafening effect of the experiment. Things about him seemed curiously dark and faint, but his mind explained that on the obvious but mistaken idea that the explosion had engendered a huge volume of dark smoke. Lidget and the boys moved as faint and silent as ghosts. Plattener's face still tingled with the stinging heat of the flash. He was, he says, all muddled. His first definite thoughts seemed to have been of his personal safety. He thought he was perhaps blinded and deafened. He felt his limbs and face in a gingerly manner. Then his perceptions grew clearer and he was astonished to miss the old familiar desks and other things. Only dim, uncertain gray shapes stood in the place of these. Then came a thing that made him shout aloud and awoke his stunned faculties to instant activity. Two of the boys gesticulating walked one after the other, clean through him. Neither manifested the slightest consciousness of his presence. It is difficult to imagine the sensation he felt. They came against him, he says, with no more force to resist. Plattener's first thought after that was that he was dead, having been brought up with thoroughly sound views in these matters. However, he was a little surprised to find his body still about him. His second conclusion was that he was not dead, but that the others were, that the explosion had destroyed the Sussexville proprietary school and every soul in it except for himself, but that too was scarcely satisfactory. He was thrown back upon astonished sensation. Everything about him was profoundly dark. At first it seemed to have an altogether ebony blackness. Overhead was a black firmament. The only touch of light in the scene was a faint greenish glow at the edge of the sky in one direction, which threw into prominence a horizon of undulating black hills. This, I say, was his impression at first. As his eye grew accustomed to the darkness, he began to distinguish a faint quality of differentiating greenish color in the circumambient night. Against this background the furniture and occupants of the classroom it seemed stood out like phosphorescent specters, faint and impalpable. He extended his hand and thrust it without an effort through the wall of the room by the fireplace. He described himself as making a strenuous effort to attract attention. He shouted to Lidget and tried to seize the boys as they went to and fro. He only desisted from these attempts when Mrs. Lidget, whom he, as an assistant manager naturally disliked, entered the room. He says the sensation of being in the world and yet not a part of it was an extraordinarily disagreeable one. He compared his feelings not in aptly to those of a cat watching a mouse through a window. Whenever he made a motion to communicate with the dim familiar world about him he found an invisible incomprehensible barrier preventing intercourse. He then turned his attention to his solid environment. He found the medicine bottle still unbroken in his hand with the remainder of the green powder therein. He put this in his pocket and began to feel about him. Apparently he was sitting on a boulder of rock covered with a velvety moss. The dark country about him he was unable to see, the faint misty picture of the school room blotting it out. But he had a feeling due perhaps to a cold wind that he was near the crest of a hill and that a steep valley fell away beneath his feet. The green glow along the edge of the sky seemed to be growing in extent and intensity. He stood up, rubbing his eyes. It would seem that he made a few steps, going steeply downhill, and then stumbled, nearly fell, and sat down again upon a jagged mass of rock to watch the dawn. He became aware that the world about him was absolutely silent. It was as still as it was dark. And though there was a cold wind blowing up the hill face, the rustle of grass, the sowing of the bowels, that should have accompanied it, were absent. He could hear, therefore, if he could not see, that the hillside upon which he stood was rocky and desolate. The green grew brighter every moment, and as it did so a faint transparent blood red mingled with, but did not mitigate the blackness of the sky overhead and the rocky desolations about him. Having regard to what follows, I am inclined to think that the redness may have been an optical effect due to contrast. Something black fluttered momentarily against the livid yellow-green of the lower sky, and then the thin and penetrating voice of a bell rose out of the black gulf below him. An oppressive expectation grew with the growing light. It is probable that an hour or more elapsed while he sat there, the strange green light growing brighter every moment, and spreading the inflamboyant fingers upward toward the zenith. As it grew, the spectral vision of our world became relatively or absolutely fainter. Probably both. For the time must have been about that of our earthly sunset. So far as his vision of our world went, Plattner, by his few steps downhill, had passed through the floor of the classroom and was now, it seemed, sitting in mid-air in the larger school room downstairs. He saw the borders distinctly, but much more faintly than he had seen Lidget. They were preparing their evening tasks, and he noticed with interest that several were cheating with their Euclid riders by means of a crib, a compilation whose existence he had hitherto never expected. As the time passed they faded steadily, as steadily as the light of the green dawn increased. Looking down into the valley he saw that the light had crept far down its rocky sides, and that the profound blackness of the abyss was driven by a minute green glow, like the light of a glow worm, and almost immediately the limb of a huge heavenly body of blazing green rose over the basaltic undulations of the distant hills, and the monstrous hill masses about him came out gaunt and desolate in green light and deep ruddy black shadows. He became aware of a vast number of ball-shaped objects drifting as thistle-down drifts over the high ground. None of these nearer to him than the opposite side of the gorge. The bell below twanged quicker and quicker with something like impatient insistence, and several lights moved hither and thither. The boys at work at their desks were now almost imperceptibly faint. This extinction of our world, when the green sun of this other universe rose is a curious point upon which Platner insists. During the other world night it is difficult to move about on account of the events with which the things of this world are visible. It becomes a riddle to explain why, if this is the case, we in this world catch no glimpse of the other world. It is due perhaps to the comparatively vivid illumination of this world of ours. Platner describes the mid-day of the other world at its brightest as not being nearly so bright as this world at full moon, while its night is profoundly black. Consequently the amount of light even in an ordinary dark room is sufficient to render the things of the other world invisible, on the same principle that faint phosphorescence is only visible in the profoundest darkness. I have tried, since he told me his story, to see something of the other world by sitting for a long space in a photographer's dark room at night. I have certainly seen indistinctly the form of greenish slopes and rocks, but only, I must admit, very indistinctly indeed. The reader may possibly be more successful. Platner tells me that since his return he has dreamt in seen and recognized places in the other world, but this is probably due to his memory of these scenes. It seems quite possible that people with unusually keen eyesight may occasionally catch a glimpse of this strange other world about us. However, this is digression. As the green sun rose, a long street of black buildings became perceptible, though only darkly and indistinctly in the gorge, and after some hesitation, Platner began to clamor down the precipitous descent toward them. The descent was long and exceedingly tedious, being so not only by the extraordinary steepness, but also by reason of the looseness of the boulders with which the whole face of the hill was strewn. The noise of his descent, now and then his heels struck fire from the rocks, seemed now the only sound in the universe for the beating of the bell had ceased. As he drew nearer, he perceived that the various edifices had a singular resemblance to tombs and mausoleums and monuments, saving only that they were all uniformly black instead of being white as most sepulchres are. And then he saw, crowding out of the largest building, very much as people dispersed from church a number of pallid rounded pale green figures. These dispersed in several directions about the broad street place, some going through side alleys and reappearing upon the steepness of the hill, others entering some of the small black buildings which lined the way. At the sight of these things drifting up towards him, Plattner stopped staring. They were not walking. They were indeed limbless, and they had the appearance of human heads beneath which a tadpole like body swung. He was too astonished at their strangeness, too full indeed of strangeness armed by them. They drove towards him in front of the chill wind that was blowing up hill, much as soap bubbles drive before a draft. And as he looked at the nearest of those approaching, he saw it was indeed a human head, albeit with singularly large eyes and wearing such an expression of distress and anguish as he had never seen before upon mortal countenance. He was surprised to find that it did not turn to regard him, but seemed to be watching and following some thing. For a moment he was puzzled, and then it occurred to him that this creature was watching with its enormous eyes something that was happening in the world he had just left. Nearer it came and nearer, and he was too astonished to cry out. It made a very faint fretting sound as it came close to him. Then it struck his face with a gentle pat, its touch was very cold, and drove past him and upward toward the crest of the hill. An extraordinary flashed across Plattner's mind that this head had a strong likeness to Lidget. Then he turned his attention to the other heads that were now swarming thickly up the hillside. None made the slightest sign of recognition. One or two indeed came close to his head and almost followed the example of the first, but he dodged convulsively out of the way. Upon most of them he saw the same expression of unavailing regret he had seen upon the first, and heard the same wickedness from them. One or two wept, and one rolling swiftly up hill wore an expression of diabolical rage. But others were cold, and several had a look of gratified interest in their eyes. One at least was almost in an ecstasy of happiness. Plattner does not remember that he recognized any more likenesses in those he saw at this time. For several hours perhaps Plattner watched these strange things dispersing themselves over the hills, and not till long after they had ceased to issue from the clustering black buildings in the gorge did he resume his downward climb. The darkness about him increased so much that he had a difficulty in stepping true. Overhead the sky was now a bright pale green. He felt neither hunger nor thirst. Later, when he did, he found a chilly stream running down the center of the gorge, and the rare moss upon the boulders, when he tried it at last in desperation, was to eat. He groped about among the tombs that ran down the gorge, seeking vaguely for some clue to these inexplicable things. After a long time he came to the entrance of the big mausoleum-like building from which the heads had issued. In this he found a group of green lights burning upon a kind of basaltic altar, and a bell-rope from a belfry overhead hanging down into the center of the place. Round the wall ran a lettering of fire in a character unknown while he was still wondering at the purport of these things he heard the receding tramp of heavy feet echoing far down the street. He ran out into the darkness again, but he could see nothing. He had a mind to pull the bell-rope and finally decided to follow the footsteps. But although he ran far he never overtook them, and his shouting was of no avail. The gorge seemed to extend an interminable distance. It was as dark as earthly starlight throughout its length while the ghastly green day lay along the upper edge of its precipices. There were none of the heads now, below. They were all it seemed busily occupied along the upper slopes. Looking up he saw them drifting hither and thither, some hovering stationary, some flying swiftly through the air. It reminded him, he said, of big snowflakes. Only these were black and pale green. In pursuing the firm, undeviating footsteps that he never overtook, in groping into new regions of this endless devil's dyke, in clamoring up and down the pitiless heights, in wandering about the summits and in watching the drifting faces, Plattner states that he spent the better part of seven or eight days. He did not keep count, he says. Though once or twice he found eyes watching him, he had word with no living soul. He slept among the rocks on the hillside. In the gorge things earthly were invisible, because from the earthly point it was far underground. On the altitudes, so soon as the earthly day began, the world became visible to him. He found himself sometimes stumbling over the dark green rocks, or arresting himself on a precipitous brink, while all about him, the green branches of the Sussexville lanes were swaying. Or again he seemed to be walking through the Sussexville streets or watching unseen the private business of some household. And then it was, discovered that to almost every human being in our world there pertained some of these drifting heads, that everyone in the world is watched intermittently by these helpless disembodiments. What are they? These watchers of the living? Plattner never learned. But two that presently found and followed him were like his childhood's memory of his father and mother. Now and then other faces turned their eyes upon him. Eyes like those of dead people who had swayed or injured him or helped him in his youth and manhood. Whenever they looked at him, Plattner was overcome with a strange sense of responsibility. To his mother he ventured to speak, but she made no answer. She looked sadly, steadfastly, and tenderly, a little reproachfully too, it seemed, into his eyes. He simply tells this story. He does not endeavor to explain. We are left to surmise who these watchers of the living may be, or if they are indeed the dead, why they should so closely and passionately watch a world they have left forever. It may be, indeed to my mind it seems just, that when our life has closed, when evil or good is no longer a choice for us, we may still have to witness the working out of the train of consequences we have laid. If human souls continue after death, then surely human interests continue after death. But that is merely my own guess at the meaning of the living scene. Plattener offers no interpretation, for none was given him. It is well the reader should understand this clearly. Day after day, with his head reeling, he wandered about this strange, lit world outside the world, weary, and, towards the end, weak and hungry. By day, by our earthly day, that is, the ghostly vision of the old familiar scenery of Sussexville all about him irked and worried him. He could put his feet and ever and again with a chilly touch one of these watching souls would come against his face. And after dark the multitude of these watchers about him and their intent distress confused his mind beyond describing. A great longing to return to the earthly life that was so near and yet so remote consumed him. The unearthliness of things about him produced a positively painful mental distress. He was worried beyond describing by his own followers. He would shout at them to desist from staring at him, scold at them, hurry away from them. They were always mute and intent. Run as he might over the uneven ground they followed his destinies. On the ninth day, towards evening, Plattner heard the invisible footsteps approaching far away down the gorge. He was then wandering over the broad crest of the same hill upon which he had fallen in his entry into this strange other world of his. He turned a hairy down into the gorge, feeling his way hastily, and was arrested by the sight of the thing that was happening in a room in a back street near the school. Both of the people in the room he knew by sight. The windows were open, the blinds up, and the setting sun shone clearly into it, so that it came out quite brightly at first, a vivid oblong room lying like a magic lantern picture upon the black landscape and the livid green dawn. In addition to the sunlight, a candle had just been lit in the room. On the bed lay a lank man, his ghastly white face terrible upon the tumbled pillow. His clenched hands were raised above his head, a little table beside the bed carried a few medicine bottles, some toast and water and an empty glass. Every now and then the lank man's lips fell apart to indicate a word he could not articulate. But the woman did not notice that he wanted anything because she was busy turning out papers from an old-fashioned canvas at corner of the room. At first the picture was very vivid indeed, but as the green dawn behind it grew brighter and brighter so it became fainter and more and more transparent. As the echoing footsteps paced nearer and nearer, those footsteps that sound so loud in that other world and come so silently in this, Plattener perceived about him a great multitude of dim faces gathering together out of the darkness and watching the two people in the room. Never before had he seen so many of the watchers of the living. A multitude had eyes only for the sufferer in the room. Another multitude in infinite anguish watched the woman as she hunted with greedy eyes for something she could not find. They crowded about Plattener. They came across his sight and buffeted his face. The noise of their unavailing regrets was all about him. He saw clearly only now and then. At other times the picture quivered dimly through the veil of green reflections upon their movements. In the room it must have been very still, and Plattener says the candle flame streamed up into a perfectly vertical line of smoke. But in his ears each footfall and its echoes beat like a clap of thunder. And the faces, two more particularly near the women's, one a woman's also white and clear featured, a face which might have once been cold and hard but which was now softened by the touch of a wisdom worth. The other might have been the woman's father. Both were evidently absorbed in the contemplation of some act of hateful meanness, so it seemed which they could no longer guard against and prevent. Behind were others, teachers it may be, who had taught ill, friends whose influence had failed, and over the man too a multitude but none that seemed to be parents or teachers, faces that might once have been coarse now or strength by sorrow. And in the forefront one face, a girlish one, neither angry nor remorseful but merely patient and weary, and as it seemed to Plattener, waiting for relief. His powers of description fail him at the memory of this multitude of ghastly countenances. They gathered on the stroke of the bell. He saw them all in the space of a second. It would seem that he was so worked on by his excitement that quite restless fingers took the bottle of green powder out of his pocket and held it before him. But he does not remember that. Abruptly the footsteps ceased. He waited for the next, and there was silence, and then suddenly, cutting through the unexpected stillness like a keen, thin blade came the first stroke of the bell. At that the multitudeness faces swayed too and fro, and a louder crying began all about him. The woman did not hear. She was burning something like a candle flame. At the second stroke everything grew dim, and a breath of wind, icy cold, blew through the host of watchers. They swirled about him like an eddy of dead leaves in the spring, and at the third stroke something was extended through them to the bed. You have heard of a beam of light? This was like a beam of darkness, and looking again at it, Plattener saw that it was a shadowy arm and hand. The green sun of the horizon and the vision of the room was very faint. Plattener could see that the white of the bed struggled and was convulsed, and that the woman looked around over her shoulder at it startled. The cloud of watchers lifted high, like a puff of green dust before the wind, and swept silently downward toward the temple in the gorge. Then suddenly Plattener understood the meaning of the shadowy black arm that stretched across his shoulder and clutched its prey. He sat behind the arm. With a violent effort and covering his eyes, he set himself to run, made perhaps twenty strides, then slipped on a boulder and fell. He fell forward on his hands and the bottle smashed and exploded as he touched the ground. In another moment he found himself stunned and bleeding, sitting face to face with Lidget in the old walled garden behind the school. There the story of Plattener's experience ends. I have resisted, I believe, successfully the natural of a writer of fiction to dress up incidents of this sort. I have told the thing as far as possible in the order in which Plattener told it to me. I have carefully avoided any attempt at style, effect, or construction. It would have been easy, for instance, to have worked the scene of the deathbed into a kind of plot in which Plattener might have been involved, but quite apart from the objectionableness of falsifying a most extraordinary true story, any such trite device and peculiar effect of this dark world with its vivid green illumination and its drifting watchers of the living which unseen and unapproachable to us is yet lying all about us. It remains to add that a death did actually occur in Vincent Tarris just beyond the school garden and so far as can be proved at the moment of Plattener's return. Deceased was a rape collector and insurance agent, his widow who was much younger than himself married last day, Mr. Wimper, a veterinary surgeon of all-bleeding. As the portion of this story given here has in various forms circulated orally in Sussexville, she has consented to my use of her name, one condition that I make it distinctly known that she emphatically contradicts every detail of Plattener's account of her husband's last moments. She burnt no will, she says, although Plattener never accused her of doing so. Her husband made but one will and that just after their marriage. Certainly from a man who had never seen it, Plattener's account of the furniture of the room was curiously accurate. One other thing, even at the risk of an irksome repetition I must insist upon, lest I seem to favor the credulous superstitious view. Plattener's absence from the world for nine days is, I think, proved, but that does not prove his story. It is quite conceivable that even outside space hallucinations may be possible. That, at least, the reader must bear distinctly in mind. End of The Plattener's Story by H. G. Wells Regeneration This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Regeneration by Charles Dye It was bound to happen sooner or later. Not because man failed to understand his fellow man, but because he failed to understand himself. There wasn't much left afterwards, after the golden showers of deadly dust and the blinding flashes that blotted out the light from the sun. And all because man continued to confuse emotion with reason. But somehow, as before, man survived. Don't Touch Another death thing, maybe, Sinzor said. Another thing our ancestors made with which to destroy themselves. He peered around the semi-circle of men until he spotted the aged one, with a leg missing. Morge, see that this place is marked as the place of the dead. It's not the place of the dead. It's not the place of the dead. It's not the place of the dead. It's not the place of the dead. It's not the place of the dead. Morge, see that this place is marked forbidden. The hunting party moved on, and Morge stayed behind. He hobbled about, collecting sticks and stones, arranging them in the forbidden symbol way to form a barrier around the thing. It was because of such a thing that he'd lost a leg in his youth. He both hated and feared the death things his ancestors had so carelessly left lying about before they vanished. On the right, Morge scratched his grisly old head and thought hard. According to Builder, wisest of their tribe, their ancestors hadn't all vanished. Some of them had become the tribe, Sinzor, Builder, and even old Morge. Very puzzling. It was all because of the death things. Puffing, Morge completed the barrier, then turned for a last look at the thing in the pale winter sunlight. How strange it looked! In no way did it resemble the usual death things, most of which were long and round with little wings attached. This one was different, like nothing he'd ever seen before. It was box-like with strange arms sticking up. And under the arms, half-buried, was a shelf or platform resembling vaguely the upper portion of two legs. The thing terrified Morge for a moment. Then, in order to prove his courage to himself, he stepped forward and spat on it. Nothing happened. Sneering, he spat on it again, and watched its spittle slowly run down its side over a strange marking like a thunderbolt. Thunderbolt! Suddenly Morge fell groveling to his one good knee. It was Thor, God of Thunder and Lightning, God of the tribe. And he had spat on Thor. For nearly an hour he knelt there praying forgiveness for his sacrilege. Then, trembling, he tore off a piece of his goat-skin and wiped the spittle off Thor's side, and carefully he began to uncover the remainder of Thor. Finally he lifted Thor out of the hole and onto level ground. Nealing once more, he took a small drink-scoop from his belt and placed it before Thor. Then he pulled out his knife and folded his single leg under him, bending over. He cut a gash in his wrist and let the blood flow into the scoop until it was nearly full. Rising to his knee, he said, Oh, Thor! Please take this humble offering to show that I am forgiven. Almost prostrate now, he picked up the scoop and placed it on Thor's lap with a soft rumble and humming. Fearfully old Morge watched Thor's arms come down, lift up the scoop and carried it inside his huge mouth. There was a sucking noise and the scoop was returned empty to his lap. Filled with joy, Morge spent another endless time thanking Thor. Then all of a sudden an idea seized him. What if he carried Thor back to the tribe and presented him to the priest, Thaugor, all to worship and give sacrifices to? Would not he, the despised, the looked down upon, be the greatest of heroes? All that was known of Thor were the legends, but at last they would have the actual God. Painfully, with many grunts and groans, he got Thor under one arm and staggered off toward the village, his crutch kicking up little puffs of dust. Builder was having trouble with Thaugor. He almost wished now that he'd continued his search a little longer for a segment of humanity. He might have found a group less primitive who would have appreciated and understood his help much better, but this was the best he'd found. As it was, he'd wandered over the continent nearly a lifetime before even finding these poor wretches. But they were at least human, something that couldn't be said for those others he'd come in contact with all through the past years. And now, after having been with the tribe, the only human tribe for over a year, he was being balked by this priest, which meant being balked at setting up truth and knowledge as the only true gods of humanity. Being balked at getting the dam built before the spring rains, so that there would not be another summer drought followed by a winter of famines such as they had just passed through. The dam was his first big project. Without freedom from want, there would be little progress next winter. Almost savagely, he turned on Thaugor. But why must you have this religious festival now? Because of the finding of the god Thor, came Thaugor's cold answer. Why the offerings of blood, can't they wait? The dam must be finished before the rains. But the loss of blood already has so weak in the workers that they can no longer have a full day. Which is more important, worldly or spiritual things, Thaugor replied. But there maybe won't be anyone around to indulge in spiritual things if there's another drought this year. Thor will see to it that there is not another drought. Yes, I know. But wouldn't it be wiser to be on the safe side? Suppose somebody does something to displease Thor. Nobody will displease Thor. It is my duty to see to that. I tell them what to think so that they won't displease Thor. A crafty devil you are, builder thought, manipulating this image of Thor you talk about. So that it will take the blood offerings of the people. And even you in that half-baked discipline of yours, Morge, I must look at your god Thor one of these days. He suddenly felt very weary and sat down on the floor, looking up at Thaugor, he said. But that is not part of being civilized, to tell the people what to think. You must make them think without telling them what to think. And with the dam next winter there will be freedom from want for the first time. The tribe will have a chance to think and be on the road to civilization. The tribe has already found civilization by finding Thor. By worshiping him as a group they have already ceased their bickering and quarreling. Does not that fit with your definition of civilization, the one you gave my people when you first came to us? Since the coming of Thor we have begun to cooperate, have we not? No, hardly at all. I said civilization is cooperating among men in adapting to the environment, which includes man. Thor and his men have already separated each other, and for a while there was silence. Nevertheless, Thaugor finally said Thor and blood offerings continue. Builder watched Thaugor turn and stalk out of the tiny hobble that housed his plans and his work, himself and his dreams. What could he do? He could only appeal to the tribe's reason. Thaugor could appeal to their emotions which were far stronger. But unless emotion was controlled easily, there could never be any reason. Builder realized with a sinking heart that he was much too old for the job he'd undertaken. Too late in life he had discovered these people. Almost all his energy since youth had been sapped just looking for a segment of humanity. His mother and father had told him there might be failure, but still they had taught him everything they could in the short time before death had overtaken them. Only humans living in that towering jungle of concrete and steel how they had gotten there was never explained to him. It didn't matter though. Suddenly Builder shook himself. Here he was recollecting his youth instead of concentrating on the task at hand. He must really be getting old. He was glad of Thaugor's visit. At least now he was fully aware of the problem to be solved. In spite of the priest he had to find a way of getting that damn finished and soon or maybe next year there wouldn't be any people for game was getting scarcer each winter. Very little work was done that day in spite of Builder's managing to round up his full crew. The blood offering each worker had given the night before had left them tired and listless. Only four of the 54 molds running across the river were filled with sand and gravel that morning and afternoon. There were still nearly 50 to be filled. Builder was very depressed. But he was even more depressed at the close of day when two workmen grew careless and slipped into the last mold being filled. Their ear-splitting shrieks brought half the tribe up over the hill above the village and down to the damn site. After Builder explained what had happened there were angry mutterings to the effect that Thaugor was displeased with the damn and therefore had taken lives. They would dissuade them from this notion. So well had Thaugor indoctrinated them with religious fear of anything used to control nature. Builder hadn't realized until that moment just how much the people were against the damn. Then he saw Thaugor, tall and ominous in his cloak of black skins come striding through the crowd. For a moment he stood facing them with his hands on his hips. There seemed to be a silent understanding between them. Suddenly the crowd turned and disappeared over the hill. Then Thaugor strode over to Builder and said simply, there will be no more damn. Turning he followed the rest of the tribe back to the village. Builder was thunderstruck. He knew there was no use arguing or trying to reason with either Thaugor or the tribe. It was far too late for that. Only some drastic measure would complete the damn now. Thaugor stood over the black hill and down to his shack, wondering how he could compete with an idol. He realized now it had been foolish of him to have overlooked the possible effect Thaugor might have upon the tribe. When it had been found three months ago, he never dreamed they would spend all their leisure in rituals. The god was his problem. Therefore he must get it out of the way, himself, without expecting help from anyone. Each evening the clouds on the northern were darkening and drawing closer. It was night when Builder finally stumbled into his quarters. After lighting a pine torch, he sat down by his workbench and buried his head in his hands. He was too tired and upset to eat, which was just as well. Outside of deliberately killing Thaugor, there was only one thing he could do. That was to kidnap Thor. With this realization, in spite of the risk involved, came some peace of mind. He hadn't the vaguest idea just how he was to go about it, especially since his strength was failing him. But do it, he would. First, though, he would have to wait until some time before dawn, when everybody, even Thaugor, was sure to be asleep. The hours dragged heavily between then and his chosen time. Many were the times when he longed for something to read, although he supposed that by this time he'd forgotten how. Spaces of smoke, memories of his youth and the concrete jungle drifted through his mind. How long ago that all seemed now. Sometimes he wondered if any of it had been real. But here he was, as his parents wished him to be, trying to help what was left of humanity back up the trail. To what, he wondered? To destruction again? This time, probably complete and final? He shook his old head and ran a trembling hand through his white shaggy hair. He'd gotten this far. Somehow he would get the rest of the way. Builder got up and crossed over to his sleeping pile. After tying several skins together, he folded them under his arm and walked out into the pre-dawn night. His bones felt the crackling cold of early spring, as they had never felt it before. Slowly he made his way around the village to where Thor was housed under a huge slanting roof and scraped skins. He'd never seen Thor and now wished he'd paid at least one visit to the god. Like a shadow, he glided carefully through the blackness and back of the temple until he was just inside the rear opening. He could see clear across the chamber, out to the pale twinkling stars. Then he detected a dark mass in the center of the temple, silhouetted against the stars. That must be Thor. Finally, Builder advanced toward it until his foot struck something soft, causing him to stumble and fall. As he did so, he heard a grunt sounding like someone being kicked in the stomach. Then something was on top of him. Pounding his head and shoulders with a heavy stick of some kind. Old Builder knew he didn't have the strength to wrestle. He managed to get his pile of skins unfolded and, with his last ounce of strength, throw them over the head of his attacker. Somehow he managed to wiggle out from underneath and climb to his feet. His assailant began to scream for help, but the heavy skins muffled his shouts. Quickly, Builder looked around for something to hit him with. The only thing his eye spotted was the idol. He hobbled over and, using both arms, dragged it off its dais. Then, with the remainder of his strength, dropped it squarely on top of whomever was under the skins. There was a muted clunk followed by silence. Fearfully, he stood there for a moment, catching his breath and listening for anyone coming. All was quiet except the pounding of his heart. As fast as he could make his arms and hands work, he rolled up the body in the skins and painfully hoisted it over one shoulder. With his other hand he reached down and picked Thor up by one of its arms. Then, staggering under the load, he started back the way he had come. Except for a grayish streak in the east, it was still dark. He stumbled and fell several times before reaching his dwelling, but he was confident that he had left no tracks. Every night, even this late in the winter, the ground froze solid. Back inside his shed, still in the dark, Builder unrolled his burden and listened for any heartbeat. There was none. As he rolled the body up again, something clattered to the floor. It was a crutch. Quickly he felt for his victims' legs. One was missing. Of all the people he had to kill, Morge, Thaugor's right-hand man, he realized he had to get rid of the body before daylight and fast. Already more gray was lining the eastern horizon. He didn't know whether he had the strength to do it or not, but he had to get Morge up to the dam and into one of the unfilled molds. For the time being, he would have to hide Thor someplace inside here. He couldn't carry both of them up to the dam. He rolled the idol up in another set of skins and placed it under the head of his sleeping pile. Then, picking up his other bundle once more, he started for the dam. The sun was just peeking over the horizon when Builder finally stumbled back into his dwelling and into bed. All that day he lay there, body on fire with fever and heart pounding like a drum. He was almost certain he would soon die. It was just as well, a little corner of his consciousness said, at least he would be missing all the frenzied excitement of Thor's disappearance along with Morge. But it looked as though he had failed after all. In spite of removing the god, now he was dying and the dam still unfinished. The day dragged on and on and he didn't die. After waking up in late afternoon he felt better. He ate a handful of nuts and figs down with a little herb tea. Then as night crept over the sky he tottered down to the village. Whatever had taken place during the day was done and little groups of people stood around fires resting and talking as though it were the old days before the coming of Thor, thought Builder. That was good. Builder moved in closer to one of the fires to warm himself against the early spring night. Someone recognized him. It was one of his workers who was suddenly made welcome. Once again being given the place of honor nearest the fire as in the old days when he'd first discovered the humans. Builder was dumbfounded at the sudden cordiality. In recent days Thaugor had done such a good job of discrediting he never dreamed of regaining his old standing. Then he was told what had happened during the day while he lay almost dying. When the god and Morge were discovered missing Thaugor had called the village together and that Thor had left them taking Morge as a sacrifice because he was dissatisfied with the tribe's paltry blood offerings and worship. Therefore a great death sacrifice of young men and women must be undertaken to pacify Thor and cause his return. But the people questioned Thaugor's order. They seemed to feel it was the priest who had been at fault, not themselves. After all he was the closest to Thor, was he not? Therefore it was Thaugor, not the village that Thor had become angered at. And after holding quick counsel they had driven Thaugor out into the wilderness telling him he was not to return unless Thor was with him. Old Builder almost cried when he heard this joyful news. The dam would be completed after all he was almost certain. He decided to say nothing more about religion, Thor, or Thaugor. Maybe soon they would forget the whole thing. Now he could go back to teaching the youngsters and some of the brighter oldsters the methods of writing in symbols instead of drawing pictures. Hours and days turned into weeks and months as Builder taught his people what feeble knowledge he possessed in arithmetic, simple engineering, such as the dam, and most of all instilling in them the will to want to learn and investigate and question anything they came in contact with, even the very thing he was asking them to do. As the weeks passed on and the dam was completed he gradually gathered around him an ardent little group of seeker after that most elusive of all things, truth. But Builder knew that his days were numbered now and his work completed there was still one thing he had to do and that was permanently to do away with Thor by dropping the idol to the bottom of the dam. He still hadn't examined the god hidden under his sleeping pile. One evening after returning from a solitary walk above the dam he entered his shack and led a torch then almost dropped it from shock. His dwelling was a wreck the place had been ransacked from top to bottom his sleeping pile lay in the middle of the floor the idol was gone. He turned and fled from the room but before he could take a dozen steps toward the village several shadows glided out from behind trees and rocks in the moonlight resolving themselves into men before he could cry out or struggle strong arms pinned his arms to his body and someone clapped a dirty hand over his mouth he was forced back into his hovel and the door slams shut standing in front of him was a very bedraggled figure whom he recognized as Thaogor he also recognized his three other captors all were elderly reactionaries of the tribe who had disapproved of him from the beginning in spite of his predicament builder felt a warm glow of happiness coursed through him if these were the only cronies Thaogor could round up that meant the rest of the villagers were sympathetic with his cause he suddenly became aware of Thaogor's grating voice it took me a little time to piece things together but once I did it didn't take me long to come back and find the god where I might have at first suspected it would be right here for your sacrilege you will pay with every last drop of blood you have in your scrawny old body and now whereupon Thaogor disappeared out of the hovel somehow builder had known they were going to kill him before arousing the rest of the tribe to the fact that Thaogor was back Thaogor was taking no chances of his standing in the way of him or Thaogor ever again but builder didn't care he had sown his few seeds of knowledge and wisdom well although Thaogor didn't know it this time he wouldn't have complete homage to all the tribe there would now be doubts and questionings and tests for both Thor and Thaogor in the ways of truth and righteousness then Thaogor returned to the shack with what builder thought must be Thor the hand over his mouth had twisted his head back so that he only got a glimpse but he didn't miss the long knife Thaogor pulled from beneath his tattered skins nor the large sacrificial bowl one of the others held below his neck his head was tilted forward and sideways and he got his first full look at the god Thor at the sight his whole body shook with smothered laughter below the two arms and etched thunderbolt were large block letters standing out in bold relief Thor automatic dishwasher atomic powered 1999 End of Regeneration by Charles Dye This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain To learn more or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org This reading by John George Rex X. Machina by Frederick Max One final lesson a dying man's last letter to his only son that completes the young man's education My dear son Doctors have left and I'm told that in a few hours I shall die In my lifetime the world has progressed from the chaotic turmoil of the early atomic era to the peacefulness and tranquility of our present age and I die content For ten years I have instructed you in all that you will need for the future One final lesson remains to be taught On the wall of my bed chamber hangs a citation From a grateful government For service is too secret to hear and set forth In past years you've asked me repeatedly about this citation But each time I've taken pains to avoid a direct answer Now it is proper that you should know Forty years ago I was an obscure army captain stationed at the Armed Forces Language School in Monterey, California I had at that time just completed a tour of duty in Korea, a minor skirmish of that era and despite an excellent reputation for resourcefulness I had drawn Monterey as my next assignment An aptitude for foreign languages had led to an instructorship in the Russian department with additional duties instructing in the Slavic tongues My life was pleasant and uneventful and it was with mixed emotions that I received orders to report to Washington for a new duty assignment The chain of events which precipitated those orders were to change the world For while you and I were playing on the lawn of our Monterey home An unknown Hungarian physicist working under Russian supervision had made a startling discovery Within a matter of days alarming rumors of his work reached Washington Our embassies in Moscow and Belgrade reported furious activity in the field of psychic research and large-scale experiments of mass hypnosis Four of us were selected to investigate the rumors Before we could commence our undertaking word reached Washington that the rumors were now actualities A device capable of mass hypnosis of great segments of the world's population was rapidly reaching perfection After three months of intensive grooming in the fields of physics and psychology we four agents set out individually with orders to track down and destroy both the scientist and his machine I never saw the other three again During the three months of schooling other members of our vast intelligence organization had been engaged in laying the groundwork for our efforts In December 1955 I slipped into Russia and took the place of a government official who felt that western civilization offered greater reimbursement than Soviet communism I entered into my new role with trepidation but my fears were unfounded Thanks to a remarkable resemblance which was the original reason for my selection and also due to a most thorough briefing I found myself making the substitution with ease I pride myself on the fact that by diligent application I was able to increase my worth to the Russian government to the extent I was reportedly able to secure my transfer to the psychological warfare section of the secret police From there it was a simple procedure to have myself assign to what was known as project part check The device was in its final stage of development only the problem of increasing its effective range remained to be solved Three weeks after my assignment to the project its successful conclusion was accomplished In June 1956 the Russian government ordered me to a small house on the outskirts of Brelia, Hungary where I was to attend a private showing of the device By design I arrived one day early and made my way to the laboratory immediately Dr. Michael Parczyk the inventor stood facing me as I entered On a table between us lay a small complicated mechanism resembling a radio transmitter But it was infinitely more than that The device was a thought generator capable of hypnotizing every thinking creature on the face of the earth The power of infinite goodness or evil which the machine embodied was terrifying to consider I listened to Parczyk's boasting with revulsion Although he had the ability to work for the ultimate good of mankind this creature intended instead to use his newly found power for selfish aggrandizement I drew him out let him explain the inner workings of his device and killed him My orders were to destroy the machine I disobeyed them utilizing the machine to make good my escape I left Hungary and returned to the United States The citation which you have seen was only one of many honors which were bestowed upon me A few weeks later I resigned my commission and retired to a country hideaway to experiment further with the device I was supposed to have destroyed The peace and tranquility in which we of the earth now live marked the successful culmination of my experiments You will find the machine walled up in the north alcove of my bed chamber Your education is now complete my son Use it well You are kind to our slave peoples The world is yours Your affectionate father Francis I Emperor of the earth Rex X. Machina by Frederick Max Tales of Space and Time Chapter 2 The Star This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer LibriVox.org Recording by Linda Dodge Tales of Space and Time Chapter 2 The Star by H.G. Wells It was on the first day of the new year that the announcement was made almost simultaneously from three observatories that the motion of the planet Neptune the outermost of all the planets that wheel about the sun became very erratic Ogilvy had already called attention to a suspected retardation in its velocity in December Such a piece of news was scarcely calculated to interest a world the greater proportion of whose inhabitants were unaware of the existence of the planet Neptune nor outside the astronomical profession did the subsequent discovery of a faint remote speck of light in the region of the perturbed planet cause any great excitement Scientific people however found the intelligence remarkable enough even before it became known that the new body was rapidly growing larger and brighter and its motion was quite different from the orderly progress of the planets and that the deflection of Neptune and its satellite was becoming now of an unprecedented kind Few people without a training in science can realize the huge isolation of the solar system the sun with its specks of planets, its dust of planetoids and its impalpable comets swims in a vacant immensity that almost defeats the imagination beyond the orbit of Neptune there is space vacant so far as human observation has penetrated without warmth or light or sound blank emptiness for 20 million times a million miles this is the smallest estimate of the distance to be traversed before the very nearest of the stars is attained and saving a few comets more unsubstantial than the thinnest flame no matter had ever to human knowledge cross this gulf of space until early in the 20th century the strange wanderer appeared a vast mass of matter it was bulky, heavy rushing without warning out of the black mystery of the sky into the radiance of the sun by the second day it was clearly visible to any decent instrument as a speck with a barely sensible diameter in the constellation of Leo near Regulus in a little while an upper glass could attain it on the third day of the new year the newspaper readers of two hemispheres were made aware for the first time of the real importance of this unusual apparition in the heavens quote a planetary collision unquote one London paper headed the news and proclaimed Duchenne's opinion that this strange new planet would probably collide with Neptune the leader writers enlarged upon the topic so that in most of the capitals of the world on January 3rd there was an expectation however vague of some imminent phenomenon in the sky and as the night followed the sunset round the globe thousands of men turned their eyes skyward to see the old familiar stars just as they had always been until it was dawn in London and Pollock setting overhead grown pale the winter's dawn it was a sickly filtering accumulation of daylight and the light of gas and candles shown yellow in the windows to show where people were astir but the yawning policemen saw the thing the busy crowds in the market stopped a gate workmen going to their work betines milkmen the drivers of news carts dissipation going home jaded in pale wanderers sentinels on their beats and in the country laborers trudging a field poachers slinking home all over the dusty quickening country it could be seen and out at sea by seamen watching for the day a great white star comes suddenly into the western sky brighter it was than any star in our skies brighter than the evening star at its brightest still glowed out white and large no mere twinkling spot of light but a small round clear shining disk an hour after the day had come and where science has not reached men stared and feared telling one another of the wars and pestilences that are foreshadowed by these fury signs in the heavens sturdy boars dusky hotentots gold coast negroes spaniards portugues stood in the warmth of the sunrise watching the setting of this strange new star and in a hundred observatories there had been suppressed excitement rising almost to shouting pitch as the two remote bodies had rushed together and are hurrying to and fro to gather photographic apparatus and spectroscope and this appliance and that to record this novel astonishing sight the destruction of a world for it was a world a sister planet of our earth far greater than our earth indeed that had so suddenly flashed into flaming death Neptune as it was had been struck fairly and squarely by the strange planet from outer space and the heat of the concussion had incontinentally turned two solid globes into one vast mass of incandescence round the world that day two hours before the dawn with the pallid great white star fading only as it sank westward and the sun mounted above it everywhere men marveled at it but all of those who saw it none could have marveled more than those sailors habitual watchers of the stars who far away at sea had heard nothing of its advent and saw it now rise like a pygmy moon and climb zenithward and hang overhead and sink westward with the passing of the night and when next it rose over Europe everywhere were crowds of watchers on hilly slopes on house roofs in open spaces staring eastward for the rising of the great new star it rose with a white glow in front of it like the glare of a white fire and those who had seen it come into existence the night before cried out at the sight of it it is larger they cried it is brighter and indeed the moon a quarter fallen sinking in the west was in its apparent size beyond comparison but scarcely in all its breadth had it as much brightness now as the little circle of the strange new star it is brighter cried the people clustering in the streets but in the dim observatories the watchers held their breath and peered at one another it is nearer they said nearer and voice after voice repeated it is nearer and the clicking telegraph took that up and it trembled along telephone wires and in a thousand cities the composers fingered the type it is nearer men writing in offices struck with a strange realization flung down their pens men talking in a thousand places suddenly came upon a grotesque possibility in those words quote it is nearer unquote it hurried along awakening streets it was shouted down the frost stilled ways of quiet villages men who had read these things from the throbbing tape stood in yellow lit doorways shouting the news to the passersby it is nearer pretty women flushed and glittering heard the news told jestingly between the dances and feigned an intelligent interest they did not feel nearer indeed how curious how very very clever people must be to find out things like that lonely tramps bearing through the wintery night murmured those words to comfort themselves looking skyward it has need to be nearer for the night's as cold as charity don't seem much warmth from it if it is nearer all the same what is a new star to me cried the weeping woman kneeling beside her dead the schoolboy rising early for his examination work puzzled it out for himself with the great white star shining broad and bright through the frost flowers of his window centrifugal centrifugal he said with his chin on his fist stop a planet in its flight rob it of its centrifugal force what then centrifugal has it and down it falls into the sun and this do we come in the way I wonder the light of that day went the way of its brethren and with the later watches of the frosty darkness rose the strange star again and now it was so bright that the waxing moon seemed but a pale yellow ghost of itself hanging huge in the sunset in a South African city a great man had married and the streets were a light to welcome his return with his bride even the skies have illuminated said the flatterer under Capricorn two Negro lovers staring the wild beasts and evil spirits for love of one another crouched together in the cane break where the fireflies hovered that is our star they whispered and felt strangely comforted by the sweet brilliance of its light the master mathematician sat in his private room and pushed papers from him his calculations were already finished in a small white file there still remained a little of the drug that had kept him awake and active for four long nights each day serene, explicit patient as ever he had given his lecture to his students and then had come back at once to this momentous calculation his face was grave a little drawn and hectic from activity for some time he seemed lost and thought then he went to the window and the blind went up with a click half way up in the sky over the clustering roofs chimneys and steeples of the city hung the star he looked at it as one might look into the eyes of a brave enemy you may kill me he said after a silence but I can hold you and all the universe for that matter in the grip of this little brain I would not change even now he looked at his little file there will be no need of sleep again he said the next day at noon punctual to the minute he entered his lecture theater put his hat on the end of the table as his habit was and carefully selected a large piece of chalk it was a joke among his students that he could not lecture without that piece of chalk to fumble in his fingers and once he had been stricken to impotence by their hiding his supply he came and looked under his gray eyebrows at the rising tears of fresh young faces and spoke with his accustomed studied commonness of phrasing circumstances have arisen circumstances beyond my control he said in pause which will debar me from completing the course I had designed it would seem gentlemen if I may put the thing clearly and briefly that man has lived in vain the students glanced at one another had they heard a right mad raised eyebrows and grinning lips there were but one or two faces remain intent upon this calm gray fringed face it will be interesting he was saying to devote this morning to an exposition so far as I can make it clear to you of the calculations that have led me to this conclusion let us assume to turn toward the blackboard meditating a diagram in the way that was unusual to him what was that about lived in vain whispered one student to another listen said the other nodding toward the lecturer and presently they began to understand that night the star rose later for its proper eastward motion had carried it some way across Leo toward Virgo and its brightness was so great that the sky became a luminous blue as it rose and every star was hidden in its turn save only Jupiter near the zenith Capella Aldebaran Sirius and the pointers of the bear it was very white and beautiful in many parts of the world that night a pallid halo encircled it about it was perceptibly larger in the clear refractive sky of the tropics it seemed as if it were nearly a quarter the size of the moon the frost was still on the ground in England but the world was as brightly lit as if it were mid-summer moonlight one could see to read quite ordinary print by that cold clear light and in the cities the lamps burnt yellow and won and everywhere the world was awake that night throughout Christendom a somber murmur hung in the keen air over the countryside like the belling of bees in the heather and this murmurous tumult grew to a clanger in the cities it was the tolling of the bells in a million belfry towers and steeples summoning the people to sleep no more to sin no more but to gather in their churches and pray and overhead growing larger and brighter as the earth rolled on its way and the night passed rose the dazzling star and the streets and houses were a lit in all the cities the shipyards glared and whatever roads led to high country were lit and crowded all night long all the seas about the civilized lands ships with throbbing engines and ships with belling sails crowded with men and living creatures were standing out to ocean and the north for already the warning of the master mathematician had been telegraphed all over the world and translated into a hundred tongues the new planet and Neptune locked in a fury embrace were whirling headlong ever faster and faster towards the sun already every second this blazing mass flew a hundred miles and every second its terrific velocity increased as it flew now indeed it must pass a hundred million miles wide of the earth and scarcely affected but near its destined path as yet only slightly perturbed spun the mighty planet Jupiter and his moon sweeping splendid round the sun every moment now the attraction between the fury star and the greatest of planets grew stronger and the result of that attraction inevitably Jupiter would be deflected from its orbit into an elliptical path and the burning star swung by his attraction wide of its sunward rush would describe a curved path and perhaps collide with and certainly pass very close to our earth earthquakes volcanic outbreaks cyclone sea waves floods and a steady rise in temperature to I know not what limit so prophesied the master mathematician and overhead to carry out his words lonely and cold and livid blazed the star of the coming doom to many who stared at it that night until their eyes ached it seemed that it was visibly approaching and that night too the weather changed and the frost that had gripped all central Europe and France and England softened towards a thaw but you must not imagine because I have spoken of people praying through the night and people going aboard ships and people fleeing toward the that the whole world was already in a terror because of the star as a matter of fact use and want still ruled the world and save for the talk of idle moments and the splendor of the night nine human beings out of 10 were still busy at their common occupations in all the cities the shops safe one here or there opened and closed at their proper hours the doctor and the undertaker applied their trades the workers gathered in the factories soldiers drilled scholars studied lovers sought one another thieves lurked and fled politicians planned their schemes the presses of the newspapers roared through the nights and many a priest of this church and that would not open his holy building to further what he considered a foolish panic the newspapers insisted on the lesson of the year 1000 for then too people had anticipated the end the star was no star mere gas a comet and were it a star it could not possibly strike the earth there was no precedent for such a thing common sense was sturdy everywhere scornful jesting a little inclined to persecute the obdurate fearful that night at 715 by Greenwich time the star would be at its nearest to Jupiter then the world would see the turn things would take the master mathematicians grim warnings were treated by many as so much mere elaborate self advertisement common sense at last a little heated by argument signified its unalterable convictions by going to bed so too barbarism and savagery already tired of the novelty went about their nightly business and save for a howling dog here and there the beast world left the star unheeded and yet when it last the watchers in the European state saw the star rise an hour later it is true but no larger than it had been the night before there were still plenty awake to laugh at the master mathematician to take the danger as if it had passed but here after the laughter ceased the star grew it grew with a terrible steadiness hour after hour a little larger each hour a little nearer the midnight zenith and brighter and brighter until it had turned night into a second day had it come straight to the earth instead of in a curve path had it lost no velocity to Jupiter it must have left the intervening life in a day but as it was it took five days altogether to come by our planet the next night it had become a third the size of the moon before it set to English eyes and the fall was assured it rose over America near the size of the moon but blinding white to look at and hot in a breath of hot wind blew now with its rising and gathering strength still and down the St. Lawrence valley it shone intermittently through a driving reek of thunder clouds flickering violent lightning and hail unprecedented in Manitoba was a thaw and devastating floods and upon all the mountains of the earth the snow and ice began to melt that night and all the rivers coming out of high country flowed thick and turbid and soon in their upper reaches with swirling trees and bodies of beasts and men they rose steadily, steadily in ghostly brilliance and came trickling over their banks at last behind the flying population of their valleys and along the coast of Argentina and up the south Atlantic the tides were higher than they had ever been in the memory of man and the storms drove the waters in many cases scores of miles inland drowning whole cities and so great grew the heat during the night that the rising of the sun was like the coming of a shadow. The earthquakes began and grew until all down America from the Arctic Ocean to Cape Horn hillsides were sliding and fishers were opening and houses and walls crumbling to destruction the whole side of Cotopaxi slipped out in one vast compulsion and a tumult of lava poured out so high and broad and swift in liquid that in one day it reached the sea so the star with the wan moon in its wake marched across the Pacific trailed the thunderstorms like the hem of a robe and the growing tidal wave that toiled behind it frothing and eager poured over island and island and swept them clear of men until that wave came at last in a blinding light and with the breath of a furnace swift and terrible it came a wall of water 50 feet high roaring hungrily upon the long coast of Asia and swept inland across the plains of China for a space the star hotter now and larger and brighter than the sun in its strength showed with pitiless brilliance the wide and populous country towns and villages with their pagodas and trees roads wide cultivated fields millions of sleepless people staring in helpless terror at the incandescent sky and then low and growing came the murmur of the flood and thus it was with millions of men that night a flight no wither with limbs heavy with heat and breath and the flood like a wall swift and white behind and then death China was lit glowing white but over Japan and Java and all the islands of eastern Asia the great star was a bowl of dull red fire because of the steam and smoke and ashes the volcanoes were spouting forth to salute its coming above was the lava hot gases and ash and below the seething floods and the whole earth swayed and rumbled with the earthquake shocks soon the immemorial snows of Tibet at the Himalaya were melting and pouring down by ten million deepening converging channels upon the plains of Burma and Hindustan the tangled summits of the Indian jungles were aflame in a thousand places and below the hurrying waters around the stems were dark objects that still struggled feebly and reflected the blood red tongues of fire and in a rudderless confusion a multitude of men and women fled down the broad river ways to that one last hope of men the open sea larger grew the star and larger hotter and brighter with a terrible swiftness now the tropical ocean had lost its phosphorescence and the whirling steam rose and ghastly reese from the black waves that plunged incessantly speckled with storm-tossed ships and then came a wonder it seemed to those who in Europe watched for the rising of the star that the world must have ceased its rotation in a thousand open spaces of down and upland the people who had fled thither from the floods and the falling houses and slopes of hill watched for that rising in vain hour followed hour through a terrible suspense and the star rose not once again men set their eyes upon the old constellations they had counted lost to them forever in England it was hot and clear overhead though the ground quivered perpetually but in the tropics serious in Capella and Aldebaran steam and when that last that great star rose near 10 hours late the sun rose close upon it and in the center of its white heart was a disc of black over Asia it was the star had begun to fall behind the movement of the sky and then suddenly as it hung over India its light had been veiled all the plane of India from the mouth of the Indus to the mouths of the Ganges was a shallow waste of shining water that night out of which rose temples and palaces, mounds and hills black with people every minaret was a clustering mass of people who fell one by one into the turbid waters as heat and terror overcame them the whole land seemed a wailing and suddenly there swept a shadow across that furnace of despair and a breath of cold wind and a gathering of clouds out of the cooling air men looking up near blinded at the star saw that a black disc was creeping across the light it was the moon coming between the star and the earth and even as men cried to God at this respite out of the east with a strange and inexplicable swiftness sprang the sun and then star sun and moon rushed together across the heavens so it was that presently to the European watchers star and sun rose close upon each other drove headlong for a space and then slower and at last came to rest star and sun merged into one glare of flame at the zenith of the sky the moon lo longer eclipsed the star but was lost to sight the brilliance of the sky and though those who were still alive regarded it for the most part with that dull stupidity that hunger, fatigue, heat and despair and gender there were still men who could perceive the meaning of these signs star and earth had been at their nearest had swung about one another and the star had passed already it was receding the last stage of its headlong journey downward into the sun and then the clouds gathered blotting out the vision of the sky the thunder and lightning wove a garment round the world over all the earth was such a downpour of rain as men had never before seen and where the volcanoes flared red against the cloud canopy there descended torrents of mud everywhere the waters were pouring off the land leaving mud silted ruins and the earth littered like a storm-worn beach with all that had floated and the dead bodies of the men and brutes its children for days the water streamed off the land sweeping away soil and trees and houses in its way and piling huge dikes and scooping out titanic gullies over the countryside those were the days of darkness that followed the star and the heat all through them and for many weeks and months the earthquakes continued but the star had passed and men hunger driven and gathering courage only slowly might creep back to the ruined cities buried granaries and sodden fields such few ships as had escaped the storms of that time came stunned and shattered and sounding their way cautiously through the new marks of the souls of once familiar ports and as the storms subsided men perceived that everywhere the days were hotter than of yore and the sun larger and the moon shrunk to a third of its former size took now four score days between its new and new but of the new brotherhood that grew presently among men of the saving of laws and books and machines of this strange change that had come over Iceland and Greenland and the shores of Bathens Bay so that the sailors coming there presently found them green and gracious and could scarcely believe their eyes this story does not tell nor of the movement of mankind now that the earth was hotter northward and southward toward the poles of the earth it concerns itself only with the coming and the passing of the star the Martian astronomers for there are astronomers on Mars although they are very different beings from men were naturally profoundly interested by these things they saw them from their own standpoint of course considering the mass and temperature of the missile that was flung through our solar system into the sun one wrote it is astonishing what a little damage the earth which it missed so narrowly was sustained all the familiar continental markings and the masses of the seas remain intact and indeed the only difference seems to be a shrinkage of the white discoloration supposed to be frozen water round either pole which only shows how small the vastness of human catastrophes may seem at a distance of a few million miles end of tales of space and time Chapter 2 The Star by H.G. Wells