 The Radiant Shell by Paul Ernst This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Radiant Shell. And that, gentlemen, said the Secretary of War, is the situation. Arvania has stolen the Ziegler plans and formulae. With their acquisition, it becomes the most powerful nation on earth. The Ziegler plans are at present in the Arvanean Embassy, but they will be smuggled out with the country soon. Within a month their landing in Arvania, war will be declared against us. That means, he glanced at the tense faces around the conference table, that we have about three months to live as a nation, unless we can get those plans. There was a hushed, appalled silence, broken at last by General Forsyte. Nonsense! How can a postage stamp country like Arvania really threaten us? The day has passed, General, said the Secretary, when a nation's power is reckoned by its size. The Ziegler heat ray is the deadliest weapon yet invented. A thousand men, with a dozen of the ray projectors, can reduce us to smoking ruins while remaining far outside the range of our guns. No, I tell you, that declaration of war by Arvania will be followed by the downfall of the United States, inside of three months. Again the hushed, strained silence descended over the conference table, while one white-faced man gazed at another and all speculated on the incredible possibility of a world in which there was no United States of America. We must get the plans, nodded Forsyte, convinced at last. But how? March openly on the Arvanian embassy? No, that would be a declaration of war, on our part. The world court, which knows nothing of the Ziegler plans, would set the league at our throats. Send volunteers unofficially to raid the place? Impossible. There is a heavy guard in the Arvanian embassy, and I more than suspect the place bristles with machine guns. What are we to do? demanded Forsyte. The secretaries seem to have been waiting for that final question. I have had an odd and desperate plan submitted me from an outside source. I could not pass it without your approval. I will let you hear it from the lips of the planner. He pressed a buzzer. Bring Mr. Winter in, he told his secretary. The man who presently appeared in the doorway was an arresting figure. A man of thirty odd, with a body of an athlete, belied somewhat by the pallor of an indoor worker, with acid-stained, delicate hands, offset by forearms that might have belonged to a blacksmith with cold black hair and grey eyes so light as to look like ice-grey holes in the deep caverns of his eye sockets. This was Thorn Winter. Gentlemen, the scientist, Mr. Winter, announced the secretary. He thinks he can get the Ezekler plants. Thorn Winter cleared his throat. My scheme is simple enough, he said tersely. I believe I can walk right into the embassy, get the plans, and then walk right out again. It sounds kind of impossible, but I think I can work it by making myself invisible. Invisible? Echoed foresight. Invisible? Precisely, said Thorn, in a matter of fact tone. I have just turned out a camouflage which is the most perfect yet discovered. It was designed for application to guns and equipment only. I never thought of trying to cover a human body with it, but I'm sure it can be done. But Invisible? Muttered foresight. Glancing as scants at Winter. There's no time for argument, said the secretary, crisply. The question is, shall we give this man permission to try the apparently impossible? All heads nodded, though in all eyes was doubt. The secretary turned to the scientist. You are aware of the risk you run. You realize that if you are caught, we cannot recognize you, that we must disclaim official knowledge of your work and leave you to your fate, though I'm nodded. Then, said the secretary, his voice vibrant. Yours is the mission, and on your effort hangs the fate of your country. Now, what help will you require? Only the assistance of one man, said Thorn, and since secrecy is vital, I'm going to ask you, sir, to be that man. The secretary smiled, and with that smile he seemed to be transformed from a great leader of affairs into a kindly human individual. I am honored, Mr. Winter, he said. Shall we go at once to your laboratory? In the great laboratory room. The secretary glanced about almost uneasily at the crowding apparatus that was such an enigma to one untrained in science. Then his gaze returned to Winter's activities. Thorn was carefully stirring fluids, poured drop by drop from various retorts in a mixing bowl. All the fluids were colorless, and they combined in a mixture that had approximately the consistency of thin syrup. To this Thorn added a carefully weighted pinch of glittering powder. Then he lit a burner under the bowl and thrust into the mixture a tiny, specially constructed thermometer. You can really make yourself invisible? breathed the secretary. I can, said Thorn. If the blisters don't upset my calculations by making my body surfaces too moist for the stuff to stick to, I'm going to have you paint me with it, you see, and it was never intended to cover flesh. He regulated the burner anxiously, and then began to take off his clothes. Ready, he said at last, glancing at the thermometer, and turning off the burner, he stood before the wondering secretary a fine, muscular figure. Take this brush and cover me with the stuff, and be sure not to miss any of me. And then the secretary saw why Thorn had said the colorless paint was never intended to be applied to human flesh, for it was still seething and smoking in the cauldron. Good heavens, he said. Don't you want to wait till it cools a little? Can't, said Thorn. It has to be applied hot, or it loses its flexibility. The secretary dipped the brush and began to paint the naked flesh of the scientist. Not a quiver touched that flesh as an almost microscopically thin, colorless layer formed into a film after the brush strokes. But the secretary's fingers shook a little. My God, man, he said finally. Doesn't it hurt? It's a little like being boiled in oil, replied Thorn grimly. Outside of that, it's all right. Hurry before the stuff gets too cool. The clinging, thin shell covered him to his chest, then to his throat. At that point he reached into a drawer in a workbench beside him and drew out two small hollow hemispheres of glass. These he cupped over his eyes. What are those for? asked the secretary. So my eyes can be covered with the film. If they weren't, I'd present the somewhat remarkable spectacle of a pair of disembodied eyes walking down the street. Painfully, agonizingly, the hot film was applied to throat and face, over the glass spheres that cupped around the eyes, over a tight leather cap covering the scientist's hair, and over a sort of football nose guard, which extended down an inch below the end of Thorn's nose in a sort of overhanging offset that would allow him to breathe and still keep his nostrils hidden. The secretary stepped back. Before him stood a figure that looked not unlike a glazed statue of a man. The effect was that of a body encased in clear ice, and like clear ice, the encasing shell sparkled and glittered radiantly in the sunlight that poured in at the windows. Thorn moved. His glazed arms and legs and torso glistened with all the colors in the spectrum. While under the filmed bulges of glass his eyes looked as large as apples. The secretary felt a chill of superstitious fear as he gazed at that weird and glittering figure with its enormous glazed eyes. "'But you aren't invisible,' he said at length. "'That comes now,' said Thorn, walking ahead of the secretary, while on the ceiling above him danced red and yellow and blue rainbows of refracted light. He stepped onto a big metal plate. Suspended above was a huge metal ring, with a hole directly over the spot on which he stood. "'Soft magnets,' explained Thorn. "'As simply as I can put it, my process for rendering an object invisible is this. I place the object, coated with the film, on this plate. Then I start in motion the overhead ring, creating an immensely powerful, rapidly rotating magnetic field. The rotating field rearranges the atoms of this peculiarly susceptible film of mine, so that they will transmit light rays with the least possible resistance. It combs the atoms into straight lines, you might say, with that straight line least resistance arrangement comes invisibility.' "'I don't quite see,' began the secretary. "'Refraction of light,' said Thorn hurriedly. "'The light rays strike this film, hurdle around the object, it coats, at increased speed, probably, but there are no instruments accurate enough to check that, and emerge on the other side. Thus you can look at a body so filmed, and not see it. Your gaze travels around it, and rests on objects in a straight line behind it. But you'll see for yourself in a moment. Pull that switch there, will you, and leave it on for two full minutes after you have ceased to see me. Straight and tall, a figure encased in shimmering crystal, the scientist stood on the metal plate. Hesitant, with the superstitious dread growing in his heart, the secretary stood with his hand on the switch. That hand pulled the switch down. Soundlessly the overhead metal ring began to whirl, gathering speed with every second, and then, though he had known advance something of what was coming, the secretary could not suppress a shout of surprise. The man before him on the metal plate was vanishing. Slowly he disappeared from view. Slowly, as an object sinking deeper and deeper into clear water, disappears. Now the face was but a white blob. Now the entire body was a misty blur. And now a shade, a wavering shadow, alone marked winter's presence. The secretary could not have told the exact instant when that last faint blur oozed from sight. He only knew that at one second he was gazing at it, and at the next second his eyes rested on a rack of test tubes on the wall, beyond the plate. He looked at his watch. Sweat glistened in tiny points on the hand that held the switch. It was also like death, this disappearance, as if he had thrown the switch that electrocuted a man. These specified two minutes passed. He cut off the power. The great ring lost speed, stopped whirling. And on the plate was nothing. At least it seemed there was nothing. But a moment later a deep voice sounded out. I guess I'm invisible, all right, according to the expression on your face. You are, said the secretary, mopping his forehead, except when you speak. Then I have the bizarre experience of seeing glimpses of teeth, tongue, and throat hanging in midair. I'd never believed it if I hadn't witnessed it myself that paint of yours is miraculous. A little complicated, but hardly miraculous. It has a cellulose base. And there is in it a small percent of powdered crystal. But the rest I'll keep locked in my brain alone till my country has need of it. The glimpses of teeth, and tongue, and throat ceased. In spite of himself the secretary started as an unseen hand touched his shoulder. Now there was a ringing resolution in the deep voice for the Arvanian embassy. Please drive me there, and be as quick as you can about it. I can't last for very long with this film sealing most of the pores of my body. The secretary started for the laboratory door. Beside him sounded the patter of bare feet. He opened the door and walked into the hallway. Behind him, apparently of itself, the door clicked shut. And the footsteps again sounded beside him. The secretary walked to the curb where his limousine waited. His chauffeur jumped out and opened the door. The secretary paused a moment, one foot on the running board, to draw a cigar from his pocket and light it. During that moment the car pressed down on that side and as suddenly rocked back up again. The chauffeur stared wide-eyed at his employer. Did you do that, sir? He asked. Do what? said the secretary. Push down on the running board with your foot. Of course not, said the secretary, his eyebrows raising. You could have seen my leg move if I had, but why do you ask? It felt like somebody got into this car, mumbled the man. Did you see anybody get in? said the secretary with a shrug. And shaking his head, with a photo look in his eyes, the chauffeur turned away and got into the driver's seat. The secretary glanced at the rear seat. On the far side the cushion was heavily depressed. He sat on the near side, feeling his knees strike another, unseen knee. Drive to the Bulgarian Embassy, he told his man. Up 16th Street, the car swung past the various embassies, which looked more like palatial private villas than offices of foreign nations. Toward the end of the line, a smaller building than most of the others was the Arvanian Embassy. Next to it was the Bulgarian. The car stopped in front of the Bulgarian Embassy, and the secretary got out. Again he paused, while the chauffeur held the door open, to hold a match to his cigar. Again the car sagged down on that side and slowly swayed up again. Hey! said the chauffeur. But meeting the secretary's calmly inquiring gaze, he stopped. Scratching his head, he went back to the wheel, while the secretary walked toward the building entrance. Behind him, moving on soundless bare feet along the sidewalk, thorn winter hastened, cloaked in invisibility, toward the Arvanian Embassy, and the plans that spelled America's destruction, if they remained in Arvanian hands. The Embassy building was a three-storied oblong house of white stone topping a terrace that started its climb from the sidewalk of 16th Street. The doors at the head of the white stone staircase were of bronze, and they were closed, and thorns are mized, efficiently barred. The windows at front and sides were also closed, in spite of the warmth of the sunny spring afternoon. Beside the building, leading up in a short steep hill, was the driveway. Up this thorn started. The front of the house was hopelessly barred, but at the rear entrance there might be a chance. Up the driveway, then, he walked, a little startled at the fact that he cast no shadow, feeling as a ghost might feel. The pavement was hot to his thinly filmed feet. A little dubious as to the effect of heat on the vital shell that hit him, he stepped off into the cool grasp beside the drive, and came soon to the rear of the Embassy. There was no porch or veranda, simply two stone steps leading up to a stout oak door which opened onto the Embassy kitchens. From behind this door came the sound of crockery and hum of voices. The Arvanian chef evidently was preparing afternoon tea. Walking boldly to the very steps, thorn began the vigil that should end when someone came in or out of that door, allowing him to slip inside the building before the portal was barred shut again. For nearly half an hour, thorn stood there before something happened that had once helped him, and at the same time nearly proved his undoing. A light delivery van sped up the driveway. The wheels stirred up a cloud of dust. It was a very small cloud of very fine dust. Thorn at first thought nothing of it, because he was so engrossed in the conviction that here ought to be provided an entrance into the house. The truck driver got out, took a crate from the body of the van, and went with it to the back door. After a moment of waiting, the door opened. Thorn noticed that it was opened very cautiously, only an inch or so. He caught a glimpse of a heavy chain stretched across the inch opening, and saw a strip of bearded, resolute face. The door was unchained. The driver walked in, while the door stood open. Thorn started to glide in after him. Mere chance made him glance at a window near the door. The window framed another bearded, resolute face, and the eyes in that face were like saucers as they stared full at Thorn. For an instant Thorn knew icy fear. His invisibility had something happen to strip him of that concealing mantle, but what could have happened? He glanced down at himself, and saw the reason for the guard's saucer-eyed expression. A little of the light cloud of dust stirred up by the truck-wheels had settled over him, and clung to the encasing shell. As he moved, these dust-becks moved. The effect to the staring guard, Thorn realized, must be that of seeing a queer, fine dust column moving eccentrically over a grassy lawn where no dust column had any business to be. Quickly Thorn moved toward the garage, with the eyes of the amaze guard following him. The scientist was savage at the delay, but it was vital that he read himself of that clinging dust. Behind the garage he broke off a feathery spray from a vine and struck it lightly over himself. That too presented a curious spectacle, a leafy branch suddenly detaching itself from the parent vine and dancing here and there in mid-air. When the all-important task was done, Thorn raised back to the rear doorway. By great good luck it was still open. He stole in, just making it as the truck driver, staggering under a load of empty crates, came up the cellar stairs and went out to his truck. Thorn drew a deep breath. He was inside the Arvanian Embassy. The place was a three-storied stone trap in which, if the slightest slip revealed him to its tenants, he would surely meet his death. But anyway he was inside, and the threatening Zeigler plans waited somewhere near at hand for him to find and take. Even had Thorn not known at advance that trouble was brewing, he could have surmised that something sinister was being hatched in the Arvanian Embassy. For in this big, sunny kitchen five men lounged about in addition to the white-coated chef and his beardless stripling of an assistant. And each of the five had a holster strapped openly over his coat with a butt of an automatic protruding in plain sight. Tom looked about. Across the great range, besides which he was standing, and holding his breath for fear some one of the seven men should become aware of his presence, was the door leading to the front part of the house. He started toward that door, walking on tiptoe. A shutter crept up his spine as he tiptoed across the floor directly in front of the armed guards who would have shot him down without compunction could they have seen him. He was not yet used to his invisibility. Knowing himself to be substantial, feeling his feet descend solidly on the floor, he still could hardly credit the fact that human eyes could not observe him. He got to the door. He put out his hand to open it. Then realized just in time that he could not do that. A door stealthily opening and closing again, with no apparent hand to manipulate it, such a spectacle would start a riot. In a frenzy of impatience he stood beside the door, waiting till someone else should swing it open. And in a moment a chance that the stripling assistant chef came toward him with a tray. The boys pushed the swinging door with his foot and walked into the butler's pantry. After him, treading almost on the lad's heels, came thorn. The boys sat the tray down and turned to reach into an upper shelf. The space in the pantry was constricted, and he turned abruptly. The result was that he suddenly drew back as though a hot iron had seared him and went white as chalk. Then he dashed back into the kitchen. A hand! Thorn heard him gibbering in our vanian. A hand! I touched it with mine. Something horrible is in there. With his heart pounding in his throat, Thorn leaned close to the swing door to hear what happened next. Would there be a rush for the butler's pantry? An investigation. He eyed the farther door, the dining-room door. But he dared not flee through that, save as a last resort. In the dining-room sounded voices, and again the side of a door opening and closing of itself would lead to uproar. A hand! He heard one of the guards say in the kitchen. An unseen hand! Thou art empty in the head, young Govah. There followed some jeering sentences in colloquial arvanian that were too idiomatic for Thorn's knowledge of the language to let him understand. A general Govah came from the rest, and as no move was made toward the pantry, Thorn decided he was saved for another few moments. Gasping, he raised his hand to wipe the perspiration off his forehead, then realized there was no perspiration there. His film-clogged pores could exude nothing. He had only the sensation of perspiring. Now the problem was to get through the next door. Thoughtfully Thorn gazed at it. He saw that this, too, was a swing door. Further he saw that now and then it creaked open a few inches, and swung sluggishly back. Beyond it somewhere a window was open, and spasmodic gusts moved the swinging slab of wood. The next time the door moved with the wind, Thorn caught it and augmented the movement a bit. Twice he did that, each time swinging it back a trifle further. Next time, he figured, he could open it enough to slide into the room. Two glimpses he had had, with the openings of the door, into the room beyond. These glimpses had showed him a great oval table on which was set the debris of afternoon tea, and around which were grouped tense, eager men. Dark of hair and complexion were these men, with the arrogant hawk-noses and ruthless small eyes of the typical Arvanian. Several of them were garbed in military uniforms and armed with swords. They were talking in tones too low for Thorn to distinguish words through the film over his ears. He would have to get in there to hear them. For the third time the wind pushed at the door. For the third time Thorn caught its edge and swung it, six inches, eight, almost enough to slip through. Shut thou window, cracked a voice suddenly. Fool, what if some of these documents blew away? There was a slam, and the breeze was cut off. Thorn quickly let go of the door and watched it fall back in place again. He was cursing his luck when he heard the same commanding boy say, Corrie, see if there be one who listens in the butler's pantry, and seen the door open wider than the wind would warrant. There was a scrape of chair. Then the door was abruptly thrust open, and coldly alert eyes in a hostile, wary face swept over the pantry. No one in here, excellent sea, said Corrie, and he returned to his place at the table. But with him came another, unseen, to stand against the wall beside a great mahogany buffet and to listen and watch. Corrie had not unnaturally held the door open while he glanced around the pantry, and under Corrie's outstretched arm, so close as almost to brush against his uniformed legs, had stolen Thorn. Then, gentlemen, it is all arranged, said the man at the head of the oval table, as spare, elderly of individual, with bristling gray mustachios and smoldering dark eyes. The plans leave for Arvania tomorrow night to arrive in our capital city in ten days. Then day and night, manufacture of the Ziegler projectors and declaration of war. Following that, this great city of Washington and the even greater cities of New York and Chicago, and all this fine land from Atlantic to Pacific, shall become an Arvanian possession to exploit as we like. There was an audible ah from the score of men around the table, broken by a voice in the main double doorway of the dining room. Gentlemen, you're pardoned. I am late. Thorn looked at the speaker. He was a young fellow, with an especially elaborate uniform, and a face that appeared weak and dissipated in spite of the arrogant Arvanian nose. Then a bark came to Thorn's ears, and a cold feeling to the pit of Thorn's stomach. The newcomer had brought a dog with him. Even as he gazed apprehensively at the dog, a rangy wolf hound. The brute growled deep in its throat, and stared at the corner by the buffet, where Thorn was instinctively trying to make himself smaller. The dog growled again, and stalked warily toward the buffet. Gregor, down, said his master absently. Then to the spare man at the head of the table. I have been next door, talking to the American Secretary of War, a dull fellow, convinced, you see, that Arvanian harbors only kind thoughts for this great stupid nation. They shall be utterly unprepared for our attack. Gregor, what is the brute? The wolf hound had evaded several outstretched hands, and got to the buffet. There it crouched and cowered, fang-showing in a snarl, eyes reddening wickedly while the growl rattled louder in its shaggy throat. Perhaps the heat has affected him, said one. All were looking at the dog now, marveling at its odd behavior, but of all the eyes that observed it, a pair of unseen eyes watched with utmost agitation. Thorn stared, almost hypnotized, at the creature. A dog! What rotten luck! Men might be fooled by the masking invisibility, but there was no deceiving a dog's keen nose. The wolf hounds started forward, as though to leap, then settled back. Plainly it longed to spring. Equally plainly it was afraid of the being that so impossibly was revealed to its nostrils, but not to its eyes. Meanwhile one tearing sweep of blunt claws or sharp fangs and a fatal rent would appear in Thorn's encasing shell. The dog snapped tentatively. Thorn flattened still harder against the wall, with discovery and death hovering very close about him. Then the Beastmaster intervened. Grego, here, sir! A council room is no place for the anyway. Here I say! So then he hastened to the dog and caught its collar, twisting the leather cruelly. He dragged the protesting, snarling brute to the doors and slid them shut, with the wolf-hound barking and growling on the outside. Someone put him in his kennel, he said through the panels. A scuffling in the hall told of the execution of the order. The council room became quiet again, and Thorn leaned against the wall and closed his eyes for an instant. We were saying, so you, the leader, addressed the dog's honor, that these regular plans start for Arvenia tomorrow night. All is arranged. These innocent-looking bits of paper, he thumped a small packet of documents lying before him, shall deliver mighty America to us. A subdued cheer answered the man's words. Thorn stared at the packet of papers with unbelieving eyes. It had never occurred to him that the Ziegler plans might be in that very room, on the table with the rest of the welter of letters, thumped documents, and cups and saucers. And there they were, the vital projector plans, not in a safe or hidden in some fantastic place, but right before his eyes. Involuntarily his hand extended eagerly toward the packet, then was withdrawn. Not now. He was invisible, but the papers, if he grasped them, would not be. Clenched in his unseen hand they would be perfectly visible, moving in jerks and starts as he raced for the door. Like lightning his mind turned over one plan after another for making away with that precious packet. Each scheme seemed impossible of fulfillment. The biggest difficulty is in getting them out of the country, the spare elderly man was saying. But we have solved that. Solved it simply. I myself shall bear them, sewn in my clothes to our native land. The American authorities could search on some pretext any other of our number who tried to smuggle them out, but me they did not lay a finger on. That would be an overt act. Thorn's thoughts whirled desperately on. Wait till later and follow whoever left the room with the plans, but he hated to let them get out of his sight. And at this point he became suddenly aware that the man named Corrie was gazing fixedly at him. Thorn was between the section of the table where Corrie sat and the angular buffet end. Corrie could not possibly see anything but the shining mahogany that Thorn. And yet the man's eyes were narrowing to ominous slits as he started in his direction. Thorn held his breath. Was the shielding film changing in structure? Were the repolarized atoms slowly losing their straight line arrangement allowing the light rays to penetrate to his body instead of diverting them to form a pocket of invisibility around him? The film had never acted like that before. But never before had Thorn applied it to the living flesh with its disintegrating heat and moisture. Excellency, said Corrie at last, a hard edge to his voice. Look thou at that buffet. No, no, the inn nearest my chair. Thou, said the elderly man, I see nothing. Thorn breathed a sigh of relief. But the relief was to be of short duration. Come to my place, if thou wilt, and see from here, said Corrie. The leader got up and came to Corrie's place. Corrie pointed straight at Thorn. There, seeest thou anything out of the ordinary? I see nothing, said the leader after a moment. Thine eyes, Corrie, are not good. They are the eyes of a hawk, said Corrie stubbornly. And they see this. The vertical line of the end of that buffet does not continue straightly up and down. At its middle, the line is broken, then continues up, a fraction of an inch to the side, like an object seen underwater, distorted by the sun rays that strike the surface. Thorn fairly jumped away from the buffet and stood against bare wall, full. Of course, the light refraction would not be perfect. Why hadn't he thought of that? Thought to stand clear of revealing vertical lines. There, it is gone, said Corrie, blanking. But something, excellency, made that distortion of line. And something made Soyo's Wolfhound act as it did. Something. Art thou attempting to say a spy listened unseen in this room? Demanded the grim, mustachioed Arvanian. Something is odd, that is all I say. All eyes were ranging along the wall, against which Thorn leaned his back. All eyes finally turned to Corrie. It is nonsense. I see nothing, whatever. Corrie has drunk of champagne in place of tea, or some of the exclamations. And then occurred the thing that, in Thorn's perilous position, was like the self-signing of his own death warrant. He sneezed. That agony of helplessness, as a man's nose wrinkles and twitches and, in spite of the most desperate attempts at repression, the betraying sound forces its way out. How many men have lost their lives because of that insistent and soft nasal explosion, which can be smothered, but not entirely hushed? Thorn had felt this news coming on for seconds. He had fought it frantically, with life itself at stake. But he could not hold it back. In his naked body, beginning to burn with fever and the long clogged pores, and insulated not at all by the film from the coolness of the room, the seeds of that soft explosion had been planted, and they would bear fruit. So he had sneezed. Instantly there was chaos. Men looked at each other, back at the blank wall from which had come the painfully muffled sound, then all sprang to their feet. Champagne, is it? Quarry exulted savagely. Did I not say my eyes were those of a hawk? Double-guarded old doors roared the Arvanian leader to the guards outside. Someone is in the house, and you in here. He went on in a lower tone. See that this unseen one dies! Soyo and several other men whipped out automatics and pointed them at the wall. Thorne dropped to the floor, but with his quick action came Quarry's voice. No, no, this sort, gentlemen. It is not so noisy, and covers a wideart sweet. Thorne shivered. Far rather would he have had bullets as his lot, than cold steel. The prospect of being hacked to pieces of gradually emerging from invisibility as a lump of gashed and bleeding flesh turned him faint. The Arvanians split up into orderly formation. Two went to guard the door to the butler's pantry, and two to cover the closed sliding doors to the outer hall. Six, with the drawn swords sweeping back and forth before them, walked slowly toward the wall from which the sneeze had come. Thorne said his jaws, only just catching himself in time to prevent his lips from opening in the half-snarl instinctive to the most civilized men when danger is threatening. That lip motion would have revealed his teeth for an instant. The sensation of perspiring heavily flamed over him again. There were so many trifling things to keep in mind, and each, if neglected, meaning certain death. The nearest of the marching six stopped with his foot almost touching Thorne's hand. The dancing sword, the men carried, almost grazed the scientist's shoulder on his downsweep. Thorne could not stay there. Lying flat along the baseboard, he would be stabbed at any instant by an inquiring sword-point. The six spread a little, a very little, but there was room enough for Thorne to slide between the two men nearest him and roll soundlessly under the table. There was no sanctuary for him there. The cursed quarry, with his hawk eyes, glanced under the table after stabbing vainly along the wall. The carpet, he bellowed, see how the nap is pressed down. He is under there, comrades. The thrusting swords raked under the table, a half second or so after Thorne had rolled out the other side, upsetting a chair in his hurry. Out through him, panted soil, but they're leaving God. This is wizardry, but he must not get away. He won't, snapped the elderly leader. Men form a line at the far end of the room and march slowly shoulder to shoulder to this end. The spy must be caught. The move was executed. All the men in the room, save the four guarding the doors, lined up and advance slowly, swerving and slashing their swords. Like a line of workers hand-harvesting a wheat field, they came, foot by foot, toward this corner, where Thorne turned this way and that in a vain effort to escape. The line reached the table, over and under and around it the swords slashed viciously, leaving no space unproved. Thorne lynched his fist. He gazed at the packet containing the Ziegler plans. He gazed at the guarded door leading back to the kitchen. Then he tensed himself and leaped. The blends, shouted Corey, hoarsely. Look! The vital packet, as far as the eye could see, had suddenly grown wings, soared from the tabletop and was floating rapidly, convulsively, toward the door. Stop him, yelled Soil. Stop! At that instant the heads of the two who guarded the door were dashed together. The door itself slammed open. The Ziegler plans sped into Butler's pantry. The door to the kitchen began to open, just as Corey reached the pantry, an oath burst from the Arvanian's lips. He flung his sword. In the air, shoulder high, appeared suddenly a small fountain of blood. Corey yelled triumphantly. Thorne, feeling the warm drip following the glancing slash in his shoulder, knew the veil of invisibility had at last been rent. Abandoning efforts at noiselessness, knowing that his whereabouts was constantly marked by the packet in his hand anyway, he fled through the kitchen to the rear door. The bolt jerked back, under the astonished eyes of the five guards who had not yet realized precisely what the commotion was all about, and who only saw a packet of papers waving in mid-air, a trickle of blood appearing out of nothing, and a bolt banging open at slot for no reason, whatever. Thorne's fingers worked feverishly at the chain, but before he could begin to get it undone, the guards had recovered from their surprise and had joined the Arvanians, who poured in from the dining room under Corey's lead. With a score of men crowding the kitchen, Thorne looped back in his tracks like a hunted creature and sought the cellar door. Four men he upset, one after another, aided by the fact that his twisting body could be only approximately placed by the papers and the wound. Then Corey's hand swept through the air above the waving packet to clamp over Thorne's wrists. With an effort that bulged the muscles of that blacksmith's forearm of his, till it seemed they must burst through the film, Thorne whirled Corey clear off his feet and sent him stumbling into the charge of three guards. But in the meantime, the cellar was barred to him by a double line of men. Fighting for his life, and far more important, the existence of his country, Thorne lashed out with his invisible right fist while his left clutched the plans. A score of men arrayed in a death struggle against one, but the odds were not 20 to one. Not quite. The score could mark Thorne's general whereabouts, but they could not see his flying right fist. This was an invisible weapon that did incredible damage. But if they could not see the fist guard against it, they could see the results of the fist's impacts. Here a nose suddenly crumpled and an instant later gushed red. There a head was snapped back and up while its owner slowly sagged to the floor. And all the while the still dripping wound and the packet of documents kept with devilish ingenuity between the body of some swordless guard and the impatient blades of the Arvanian nobles. Almost it seemed to Thorne, he would win free. Almost it appeared to the Arvanians the unseen one would reach the big window near the door which the path of his wreckage indicated was his goal. But one of the wildly swinging fists of a guard caught Thorne at last. It landed on the glass cup over his right eye cutting a perfect circle in the skin around the eye socket and tearing the film over the glass. Now there were three things about the lithe invisible body that the Arvanians could see. The crumpled papers, a slowly drying patch of blood that moves shoulder high in the air and a blood-rimmed, ice-grey eye that glared defiance at them from apparently untenanted atmosphere. Then came what seemed must be the end. Soil appeared in the pantry doorway with a machine gun. Everybody to the end of the kitchen by the window, he cried, to the devil with silence. We'll spray this room with lead and let the sound of shots bring what consequences it may. The men scattered. The machine gun muzzle swept toward the place with the eye, the papers and the blood spot were to be seen. That spot was now at one end of the great kitchen range on which a few copper pots simmered over white hot electric burners. At the other end of the range, in the end wall of the kitchen was a second window. It was small, less than a yard square and had evidently been punched through the wall as an afterthought to carry off some of the heat of the huge stove. Soil's face twisted exultantly. The machine gun belched flame. Chasing relentlessly after the dodging, shifting blood spot, a line of holes appeared in the wall following instantly on the tap, tap, tap of the gun. Eye and papers and blood spot appeared to float through the air. One of the copper pots on the range flew off onto the floor. The glass of the small ventilating window smashed to bits. In the jagged frame, its broken edges presented, the Arvanian saw for a flashing instant the seared, blistered soles of a pair of human feet. Outside, bold Cory, he jumped onto the range and dove through the window after him. After precious seconds had been wasted, the rear door was unchained and wrenched open. The Arvanians, swords and guns drawn, raced out to the rear yard. His Excellency's town car that had been standing in front of the open garage doors leaped into life with motor roaring wide open. It toured toward the Arvanians, some of whom leaped aside and some of whom were hurled to right and left by the heavy fenders. Startle people on 16th Street saw a great town car swaying down the asphalt, seemingly guided by no hand other than that of fate. Some said afterward they saw a single eye gleaming through the windshield, but no one believed that. Equally started people saw the car screech to a stop in front of the home of the Secretary of War. After it, scarcely a full minute later, three motors with the Arvanian coat of arms on them came to a halt. "'My dear fellow,' said the Secretary, blandly to the livid Arvanian ambassador, "'no one has come in here with papers or anything else. "'I saw a man jump out of your town car "'and run south on Connecticut Avenue. "'That's all I know.' "'But I tell you,' shrieked the Arvanian. "'He stopped, impaled on the Secretary's icy cold glance. "'Your story is rather incredible,' murmured the Secretary, "'valuable plans stolen from your embassy "'by an invisible man, come, come.' "'Dark Arvanian eyes "'laired into light American ones.' "'By the way,' said the Secretary affably, "'I am thinking of giving a semi-official banquet "'to celebrate future friendly relations "'between our two countries. "'Do you approve?' "'The Arvanian ambassador tugged at his collar "'to straighten it. "'World Dominion had been in his fingers "'and had slipped through. "'But he would not have been a diplomat "'had he let his face continue "'to express the bitterness in his heart. "'I think such a banquet would be a splendid idea,' he said, suavely. "'End of the radiant shell. "'This recording is in the public domain.'" A Scientist Rises. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Dennis Dawson. A Scientist Rises by D. W. Hall. The face of the giant was indeed that of a god. On that summer day, the sky over New York was unflecked by clouds and the air hung motionless, the waves of heat undisturbed. The city was a vast oven, where even the sounds of the coiling traffic in its streets seemed heavy and weary under the press of heat that poured down from above. In Washington Square, the urchins of the neighborhood splashed in the fountain and the usual midday assortment of mothers, tramps and out of works lounged listlessly on the hot park benches. As a bowl, the square was filled by the torrid sun and the trees and grass drooped like the people on its walks. In the surrounding city, men worked in sweltering offices and the streets rumbled with the never-ceasing tide of business. But Washington Square rested. And then a man walked out of one of the houses lining the square and all this was changed. He came with a calm, steady stride down the steps of a house on the north side and those who happened to see him gazed with surprised interest, for he was a giant in size. He measured at least 11 feet in height and his body was well-formed and in perfect proportion. He crossed the street and stepped over the railing into the nearest patch of grass and there stood with his arms folded and legs a little apart. The expression on his face was preoccupied and strangely apart, nor did it change when almost immediately from the park bench nearest him a woman's excited voice cried, "'Look! Look! Oh, look!' The people around her craned their necks and stared and from them grew a startled murmur. Others from farther away came to see who had cried out and remained a gaze fascinated at the man on the grass. Quickly the murmur spread across the square and from its every part men and women and children streamed toward the center of interest and then, when they saw, backed away slowly and fearfully with staring eyes from where the lone figure stood. There was about that figure something uncanny and terrible. There in the hot midday hush something was happening to it which men would say could not happen and men seeing it backed away in alarm. Quickly they dispersed. Soon there were only white frightened faces peering from behind buildings and trees. Before their very eyes the giant was growing. When he had first emerged he had been around eleven feet tall and now within three minutes he had risen close to sixteen feet. His great body maintained its perfect proportions. It was that of an elderly man clad simply in a gray business suit. The face was kind, the clear, chiseled features indicating fine spiritual strength. On the white forehead beneath the sparse gray hair were deep sunken lines which spoke of years of concentrated work. No thought of malevolence could come from that head with its gentle blue eyes that showed the peace within but fear struck ever stronger into those who watched him and in one place a woman fainted. For the great body continued to grow and grow even faster until it was twenty feet high then swiftly twenty-five and the feet still separated were as long as the body of a normal boy. Clothes and body grew effortlessly. The latter apparently without pain as if the terrifying process were wholly natural. The cars coming into Washington Square had stopped as their drivers cited what was rising there and by now the bordering streets were tangled with traffic. A distant crowd of milling people heightened the turmoil. The northern edge was deserted but in a large semi-circle was spread a fear-struck, panicky mob. A single policeman, his face white and his eyes wide tried to straighten out the tangle of vehicles but it was infinitely beyond him and he sent in a riot call. And as the giant with the kind dignified face loomed silently higher than the trees in the square and even higher a dozen blue-coated figures appeared and saw and knew fear too and hung back awestruck and had a loss what to do for by now the rapidly mounting body had risen to the height of forty feet. An excited voice raised itself above the general hubbub. Why, I know him. I know him. It's Edgar Wesley. Dr. Edgar Wesley. A police sergeant turned to the man who had spoken and it, he knows you? Then go closer to him and ask him what it means. But the man looked fearfully at the giant and hung back. Even as they talked his gigantic body had grown as high as the four-storied buildings lining the square and his feet were becoming too large for the place where they had first been put. And now a faint smile could be seen on the giant's face. An enigmatic smile with something ironic and bitter in it. Then shout to him from here, pressed the sergeant nervously. We've got to find out something. This is crazy, impossible. My God, higher yet and faster. Summoning his courage, the other man cupped his hands about his mouth and shouted, Dr. Wesley, can you speak and tell us? Can we help you stop it? The ring of people looked up breathless at the towering figure and a wave of fear passed over them. Several hysterical shrieks rose up as, very slowly, the huge head shook from side to side. But the smile on its lips became stronger and kinder and the bitterness seemed to leave it. There was fear at that motion of the enormous head, but a roar of panic sounded from the watchers when, with marked caution, the growing giant moved one foot from the grass into the street behind and the other into the nearby base of Fifth Avenue just above the arch. Fearing harm, they were gripped by terror and they fought back while the trembling policemen tried vainly to control them. But the panic soon ended when they saw that the Leviathan's arms remained crossed and his smile kinder yet. By now he dwarfed the houses, his body looming 150 feet into the sky. At this moment a woman back of the semicircle slumped to her knees and prayed hysterically. Someone's coming out of his house, shouted one of the closest onlookers. The door of the house from which the giant had first appeared had opened and the figure of a middle-aged, normal-sized man emerged. For a second he crouched on the steps, gaping up at the monstrous shape in the sky and then he scurried down and made at a desperate run for the nearest group of policemen. He gripped the sergeant and cried frantically, that's Dr. Wesley, why don't you do something? Why don't... Who are you, the officer asked, with some return of an authoritative manner? I work for him, I'm his janitor, but can't you do anything? Look at him, look! The crowd pressed closer. What do you know about this? Went on the sergeant. The man gulped and stared around wildly. He's been working on something many years. I don't know what, for he kept it a close secret. All I knew is that an hour ago I was in my room upstairs when I heard some disturbance in his laboratory on the ground floor. I came down and knocked on the door and he answered from inside and said that everything was all right. You didn't go in? No, I went back up and everything was quiet for a long time. Then I heard a lot of noise down below, a smashing, as if things were being broken. But I thought he was just destroying something he didn't need and I didn't investigate. He hated to be disturbed. And then, a little later, I heard them shouting out here in the square and I looked out and saw. I saw him, just as I knew him, but a giant. Look at his face. Why, he has the face of a god. He's as if he were looking down on us and pitying us. For a moment all were silent as they gazed, transfixed to the vast form that towered 200 feet above them. Almost as awe-inspiring as the astounding growth was the fine, dignified calmness of the face. The sergeant broke in. The explanation of this must be in his laboratory. We've got to have a look. You lead us there. The other man nodded, but just then the giant moved again and they waited and watched. With the utmost caution, the Titanic shape changed position. Gradually one great foot over 30 feet in length soared up from the street and lowered farther away and then the other distant foot changed its position and the Leviathan came gently to rest against the tallest building bordering the square and once more folded his arms and stood quiet. The enormous body appeared to waver slightly as a breath of wind washed against it. Obviously it was not gaining weight as it grew. Almost now it appeared to float in the air. Swiftly it grew another 25 feet and the gray expanse of its clothes shimmered strangely as a ripple ran over its colossal bulk. A change of feeling came gradually over the watching multitude. The face of the giant was indeed that of a god in the noble, irony-tinged serenity of his calm features. It was as if a further world had opened and one of divinity had stepped down. A further world of kindness and fellow love where were none of the discords that bring conflicts and slaughterings to the weary people of earth. Spiritual peace radiated from the enormous face under the silvery hair. Peace with an undertone of sadness as if the giant knew of the sorrows of the swarm of dwarves beneath them and pitied them. From all the roofs and the towers of the city for miles and miles around, men saw the mammoth shape and the kindly smile grow more and more tenuous against the clear blue sky. The figure remained quietly in the same position, his feet filling two empty streets and under the spell of his smile, all fear seemed to leave the nearer watchers and they became more quiet and controlled. The group of policemen and the janitor made a dash for the house from which the giant had come. They ascended the steps, went in, and found the door of the laboratory locked. They broke the door down. The sergeant looked in. Anyone in here? He cried. Nothing disturbed the silence and he entered the other's following. A long, wide, dimly-lit room met their eyes and in its middle the remains of a great mass of apparatus that had dominated it. The apparatus was now completely destroyed. Its dozen rows of tubes were shattered. Its intricate coils of wire and machinery hopelessly smashed. Fragments lay scattered all over the floor. No longer was there the least shape of meaning to anything in the room. There remained merely a litter of glass and stone and scrap metal. Conspicuous on the floor was a large hammer. The sergeant walked over to pick it up but instead paused and stared at what lay beyond it. A body, he said. A sprawled-out dead man lay on the floor. His dark face twisted up. His sightless eyes staring at the ceiling. His temple crushed as with a hammer. Clutched tight in one stiff hand was an automatic. On his chest was a sheet of paper. The captain reached down and grasped the paper. He read what was written on it and then he read it to the others. There was a fool who dreamed the high dream of the pure scientist and who lived only to ferret out the secrets of nature and harness them for his fellow man. He studied and worked and thought and in time came to concentrate on the manipulation of the atom, especially the possibility of contracting it, expanding it, a thing of greatest potential value. For nine years he worked along this line hoping to succeed and give new power, new happiness, a new horizon to mankind. Hermetically sealed in his laboratory, self-exiled from human contacts, he labored hard. There came a day when the device into which the fool had poured his life stood completed and a success. And on that very day an agent for a certain government entered his laboratory to steal the device. And in that moment the fool realized what he had done. That from the apparatus he had invented not happiness and new freedom would come to his fellow man but instead slaughter and carnage and drunken power increased a hundred fold. He realized suddenly that man had not yet learned to use fruitfully the precious, powerful things given to them but as yet could only play with them like greedy children and kill as they played. Already his invention had brought death. And he realized even on this day of his triumph that it and its secret must be destroyed and with them he who had fashioned so blindly. For the scientist was old, his whole life was the invention and with its going there would be nothing more. And so he used the device's great powers on his own body and then with those powers working on him he destroyed the device and all the papers that held its secrets. Was the fool also mad? Perhaps, but I do not think so. Into his lonely laboratory with this marauder had come the wisdom that men must wait. At the time is not yet for such power as he was about to offer. A gesture, his strange death, which you who read this have seen? Yes, but a useful one. For with it he and his invention and its hurtful secrets go from you and a fitting one for he dies through his achievement through his very life. But in a better sense he will not die for the power of his achievement will dissolve his very body among you infinitely. You will breathe him in your air and in you he will live in connet until the later time when another will give you the knowledge he now destroys and he will see it used as he wished it used. E.W. The sergeant's voice ceased and wordlessly the men in the laboratory looked at each other. No comment was needed. They went out. They watched from the steps of Edgar Wesley's house. At first sight of the figure in the sky a new awe struck them for now the shape of the giant tower to full 500 feet into the sun and it seemed almost a mirage for definite outline was gone from it. It shimmered and wavered against the bright blue like a mist and the blue shone through it for it was quite transparent. And yet still they imagined they could discern the slight ironic smile on the face and the peaceful understanding light in the serene eyes and their hearts swelled at the knowledge of the spirit of the courage of the fine far-seeing mind of that outflung titanic martyr to the happiness of men. The end came quickly. The great misty body rose. It floated over the city like a wreath and then it swiftly dispersed even as steamed as all's in the air. They felt a silence over the thousands of watching people in the square. A hush broken at last by a deep, low murmur of awe and wonderment as the final misty fragments of the vast sky-held figure wavered and melted imperceptibly, melted and were gone from sight in the air that was breathed by the men whom Edgar Wesley loved. End of A Scientist Rises by D. W. Hall. Recording by Dennis Dawson, Cupertino, California, www.epcomm.com slash D. Dawson. Vanishing Point by C. C. Beck. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Vanishing Point by C. C. Beck. Quote. In perspective, theoretically, the vanishing point is at infinity and therefore unattainable, but reality is different. Vanishment occurs a lot sooner than theory suggests. That? Oh, that's a perspective machine. Well, not exactly, but that's what I call it. No, I don't know how it works. Too complicated for me. Carter could make it a go, but after he made it he never used it. Too bad, he thought he'd make a lot of money with it there for a while while he was working it out. Almost had me convinced, but I told him, get it to working first, Carter, and then show me what you can do with it better than I can do it without it. I'm doing pretty well as is. Pictures sellin' good. Even if I do make them all by guesswork as you call it, that's what I told him. You see, Carter was one of the martyrs that think they can work everything out by formulas and stuff. Me, I just paint things as I see them. Never worry about perspective and all that kind of mechanical aids. Never even went to art school. But I do all right. Carter now was a different sort of artist. Well, he wasn't really an artist. More of a draftsman. I first got him in to help me with a series of real estate paintings I'd got in order for. Big aerial views of land developments and drawings of buildings, roads, and causeways, that kind of stuff. Was a little too much for me to handle alone because I never studied that kind of things, yet no. I thought he'd do the mechanical drawings, which should've been simple for anybody trained that way, and I'd throw in the colors, figures, and trees, and so on. He did fine. Job came out good. Client was real happy. We made a pretty good amount on the job. Enough to keep us for a couple of months without working afterwards. I took it easy, fishing, and so on. But Carter stayed here in the studio working on his own stuff. I let him keep an eye on things from me around the place and just dropped in now and then to check up. The guy was nuts on the subject of perspective. I thought he knew all there was to know about it already, but he claimed nobody knew anything about it, really. Said he'd been studying it for years, and the more he learned about it, the more there was to learn. He used to cover big sheets of paper with complicated diagrams, trying to prove something or other to himself. I come into the studio and find him with thumbtacks and strings and stuff all over the place. He'd get big, long rulers and draw lines at various points all over the room and end up with a little drawing of a cube about an inch square that anybody could have made in a half a minute without all the apparatus. Seemed pretty silly to me. Then he brought in some books on mathematics and physics and other things and a bunch of slide rules, calculators and junk. He must have been a pretty smart guy to know how to handle all those things, even if he was kind of dopey about other things. You know, women and fishing and sports and drinking. He was lousy at everything except working those perspective problems. Personally, I couldn't see much sense to what he was doing. The guy could draw all right already, so I asked him what more did he want. Let me see if I can remember what he said. I'm trying to get at things as they really are, not as they appear, he said. I think those were his words. Art is an illusion, a bag of tricks. Reality is something else, not what we think it is. Drawings are two-dimensional projections of a world that is not merely three, but four-dimensional, if not more, he said. Yeah, kind of a crackpot, Carter was. Just on that one subject, though. Nice enough guy, otherwise. Here, look at some of the drawings he made, working out his formulas. Nice designs, huh? Might make good wallpaper or fabric patterns. Real abstract, that's what people seem to like. See all those little letters scattered around among the lines? Different kinds of vanishing points they are. Carter claimed the whole world was full of vanishing points. You don't know what a vanishing point is? Let me see if I can explain. Come over to the window here. You see how that road out there gets smaller and smaller in the distance? Of course, the road doesn't really get smaller. It just looks that way. That's what we call a vanishing point in drawing. Simple, isn't it? Never could understand why Carter went to so much trouble working out all those ways to locate vanishing points. Me, I just throw them in wherever I need them. But Carter claimed that was wrong, said they were all connected together some way, and he was gonna work out a method to prove it. Here, here's a little gadget he made up to help his calculations. Bunch of disks all pivoted together at the center. You're supposed to turn around so the arrows point to the different figures and things. Here's the square root sign. I remember Carter telling me that. This one is the tangent function, whatever that means. Log, there, is short for logarithm. Oh, he had a bunch of that scientific stuff in his head all the time to know whether he understood it all himself. He built this thing just before he put together the perspective machine there. Silly looking gadget, huh? All them pipes and wires and that little cube in the center. Don't try to touch it. It ain't really there. You just think it is. It's what Carter called a teteract, or a cataract. No, that ain't the right word. Something like that tesser something or other. There's a picture like it in one of Carter's books. Hurt your eyes, look at it, don't it? That's what Carter thought was gonna make him a lot of fame and money, that perspective machine. I told him nobody'd ever make a drawing machine yet that worked, but he said it wasn't supposed to make drawings. It was just supposed to give people a view of what reality really is instead of what they think it is. I don't know whether he expected to charge money to look through it, or whether he was gonna look through it himself and make some new kind of drawings and sell them. No, I can't tell you how it works. I said before, I don't know. Carter only used it once himself. I came in here the day he finished it, just as he was ready to turn it on. He was just putting the finishing touches on it. In a few minutes, he told me, I'll have the answer to a question that may never have been answered before. What is reality? Is the world a thing by itself? And all we know of illusion? Why do things grow smaller? The farther away from us they appear. Why can't we see more than one side of anything at a time? What happens to the far side of an object? Does it cease to exist just because we can't see it? Are objects not present, non-existent? Because artists draw things, vanishing to points. Does that mean they really vanish? A whack. That's what he was. A nice guy, but sort of screwy. He kept saying more goofy things while he was finishing up the machine about how he'd figured out that all we knew about vision and drawing and so on must be wrong and that once he got a look at the real world, he'd prove it. How about cameras? I asked him. Take a picture with a camera and it looks just about the same as a drawing, don't it? That's because cameras are built to take pictures like we're used to seeing them, he said. Flat two-dimensional slices of reality without depth or motion. Even 3D moving pictures, I asked. They're closer to reality, he admitted, but they are still only cross-sections of it. The shutter of a movie camera is closed as much of the time as it's open. What happens in between the times it's open? You know, he went on. People used to think matter and motion were continuous, but scientists have proved that they are discontinuous. Now some of them think that time may be too. Maybe everything is just imaginary. It appears to our senses in whatever way we want it to appear. We are so well-trended that we see everything just as we are taught to see it by generations of artists, writers, and other symbol makers. If we could see things as they really are, what might happen? We'd probably all go nuts, I told him. He just smiled. Well, here goes, he said. It's finished. Now to find out who was right. The scientists and philosophers say reality is forever unreachable, or the artists who say there isn't any reality that we make the whole thing up to see ourselves. He moved one of those pointers to see there and squintered around at the different scales and dials and then stepped back. That little tessie thing appeared, real small at first. Just a point, you could hardly see it. I couldn't see anything else happening and thought he was gonna do something else in the machine. I turned to look at Carter and saw his face was white as a sheet. Good God, he says, just like that. Good God! That's all. Well, I says to him, who was right. The scientists or the artists? The artists! He sort of screeches. The artists were right all the time. There is no reality. It's all a fabric of illusion we've created ourselves. And now I've ripped a hole in that. He gives a strangled hoot and goes hightailing out of here like something was after him. Jumps in his car, roars off down the road and disappears. Nah, I don't mean he'd really disappeared. Are you nuts? Just roared on down the road till he got so small I couldn't see him no more. You know, the way things do when they go farther and farther away happens every day. That's what those artists mean by perspective. The machine? Well, I don't know what to do with it. If Carter ever comes back, he might not like my getting rid of it. I was thinking maybe I'd put it in the hobby show at the county fair next week though. You notice how that funny looking cube inside there gets bigger every time you look at it? There, it just doubled its size again, see? People at the fair ought to get a big kick out of that. No telling how big it'll get with all those people looking at it. But come on, let's go fishing. We better hurry or it'll be too late. End of The Vanishing Point, read by Bologna Times for JWP and Tom. Viewpoint, this is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recorded by Ray Smith. Viewpoint by Randall Garrett. A fearsome thing is a thing you're afraid of and it is nothing whatever to do with whatever others are afraid, nor with whether it is in fact dangerous. It's your view of the matter that counts. There was a dizzy sickening moral of metal blackness, not true blackness, but a mind enveloping darkness that was filled with the multicolored little sparks of thoughts and memories that scattered through the darkness like tiny glowing mice, fleeing from something unknown, fleeing outward in a way towards us, as somewhere that was equally unknown, scurrying, moving, changing, each half recognizable as it passed, but leaving only a vague impression behind. Memories were scattered into their component data bits in that maelstrom of not quite darkness and scattered throughout infinity and eternity. Then the pseudo-dark stopped its violent motion and became still, no longer scattering the fleeing memories, but merely blanketing them. And slowly, ever so slowly, the powerful, cohesive forces that existed between the data bits began pulling them back together again as the not blackness faded. The associative powers of the mind began putting the frightened little things together as they drifted back in from vast distances, trying to fit them together again in an ordered whole. Like a vast jigsaw puzzle in five dimensions, little clots and patches formed as the bits were snuggled into place here and there. The process was far from complete when Broom regained consciousness. Broom sat up abruptly and looked around him. The room was totally unfamiliar. For a moment, that seemed perfectly understandable. Why shouldn't the room look odd after he had gone through? What? He rubbed his head and looked around more carefully. It was not just that the room itself was unfamiliar as a whole. The effect was greater than that. It was not the first time in his life that he had regained consciousness in unfamiliar surroundings, but always before he had been aware that only the pattern was different, not the details. He sat there on the floor and took stock of himself and his surroundings. He was a big man, six feet tall when he stood up and proportionately heavy, a big boned frame covered with hard, well-trained muscles. His hair and beard were dark blonde and rather shaggy because of the time he'd spent in prison. Prison? Yes, he'd been in prison. The rough clothing he was wearing was certainly nothing like the type of dress he was used to. He tried to force his memory to give him the information he was looking for, but it wouldn't come. His face flickered in his mind for a moment and a name. Contraini. He seemed to remember a startled look on the Italian's face, but he could neither remember the reason for it nor when it had been. But it would come back, he was sure of that. Meanwhile, where the devil was he? From where he was sitting, he could see that the room was fairly large but not extraordinarily so. A door and one wall led into another room about the same size. But they were like no other rooms he had ever seen before. He looked down at the floor. It was soft, almost as soft as a bed, covered with thick, even resilient layer of fine material of some kind. It was some sort of carpeting that covered the floor from wall to wall. But no carpet had ever felt like this. He lifted himself gingerly to his feet. He wasn't hurt at least. He felt fine, except for the gaps in his memory. The room was well lit and the illumination came from the ceiling, which seemed to be made of some glowing semi-transparent metal that cast a shadow-less glow over everything. There was a large bulky table near the wall away from the door. It looked almost normal, except that the objects were like nothing that he had ever existed. Their purposes were unknown and their shapes meaningless. He jerked his head away, not wanting to look at the things on the table. The walls at least looked familiar. They seemed to be paneled in some fine wood. He walked over and touched it and knew immediately that no matter what it looked like, it wasn't wood. The illusion was there to the eye, but no wood ever had such a hard, smooth, glass-like surface as this. He jerked his fingertips away. He recognized then the emotion that had made him turn away from the objects on the table and pull his hand away from the unnatural wall. It was fear, fear nonsense. He put his hand out suddenly and slapped the wall with his palm and held it there. There was nothing to be afraid of. He laughed at himself softly. He'd faced death a hundred times during the war without showing fear. This was no time to start. What would his men think of him if they saw him getting shaky over the mere touch of a wood-like wall? The memories were coming back. This time he didn't try to probe for them. He'd just let them flow. He turned around again and looked deliberately at the big, bulky table. There was a faint humming noise coming from it which had escaped his notice before. He walked over to it and looked at the clearly shaped thing that lay on its shining surface. He had already decided that the table was no more wood than the wall and a touch of a finger to the surface verified the decision. The only thing that looked at all familiar on the table was a sheaf of written paper. He picked it up and glancing over the pages. Notice the neat characters, so unlike any that he knew. He couldn't read a word of it. He grinned and put the sheets back down on the smooth tabletop. The humming appeared to be coming from a metal box on the other side of the table. He circled around and took a look at the thing. It had levers and knobs and other projections but their functions were not immediately discernible. There were several rows of studs with various unrecognizable symbols on them. This would certainly be something to tell in London when and if he ever got back. He reached out a tentative finger and touched one of the symbol marked studs. There was a loud click in the stillness of the room and he leaped back from the device. He watched it warily for a moment but nothing more seemed to be forthcoming. Still, he decided it might be best to let things alone. There was no point in messing with things that undoubtedly controlled forces beyond his ability to cope with or understand after all such a long time. He stopped. Time. Time? What had contrary said about time? Something about it being like a river that flowed rapidly. That much he remembered. Oh yes, and that it was almost impossible to try to swim backwards against the current or something else. What? He shook his head. The more he tried to remember what his fellow prisoner had told him, the more elusive it became. He had traveled in time that much was certain but how far and in which direction toward the future, obviously, Contraini had made a plane that going into the past was impossible. Then could he broom, get back to his own time or was he destined to stay in this place wherever and whenever it was? Evidently, movement through the time river had a tendency to disorganize a man's memories. Well, wasn't that obvious anyway? Even normal movement through time at the rate of a day per day made some memories fade and some were lost entirely while others remained clear and bright. What would have sudden jump of centuries do? His memory was improving though. If he just let it alone, most of it would come back and he could orientate himself. Meanwhile, he might as well explore his surroundings a little more. He resolved to keep his hands off anything that wasn't readily identifiable. There was a single oddly shaped chair by the bulky table and behind the chair was a heavy curtain which apparently covered a window. He could see the gleam of light coming through the division in the curtains. Broomed aside, he might as well get a good look at whatever was outside the building he was in. He stepped over, parted the curtains and gasped. It was nighttime outside and the sky was clear. He recognized the familiar constellations up there but they were dimmed by the light from the city that stretched below him. And what a city. At first it was difficult for his eyes to convey their impressions intelligently to his brain. What they were recording was so unfamiliar that his brain could not decode the messages they set. There was broad, welded streets that stretched on and on as far as he could see and beyond them, flittering ferry bridges rose into the air and arched into the distance and the buildings towered over everything. He forced himself to look down and it made him dizzy. The building he was in was so high that it would have projected through the clouds if there had been any clouds. Broom backed away from the window and let the curtain close. He's had all he could take for right now. The inside of the building, his immediate surroundings looked almost homey after seeing the monstrous endless city outside. He skirted the table with its still humming machine and walked toward the door that led to the other room. A picture hanging on a nearby wall caught his eye and he stopped. It was a portrait of a man in an unfamiliar outlandish clothing but Broom had seen outer clothing in his travels. But the thing that had stopped him was the amazing reality of the picture. It was almost as if there were a mirror there reflecting the face of a man who stood invisibly before him. It wasn't, of course. It was only a painting but the lifelike somber eyes of the man were focused directly on him. Broom decided that he didn't like the effect at all and hurried into the next room. There were several rows of the bulky tables in there each with its own chair. Broom's footsteps sound loud in the room yet goes rebounding from the wall. He stopped and looked down. This floor wasn't covered with a soft carpeting. It was a square mosaic pattern as though it might be composed of tile of some kind. And yet, though it was harder than the carpet, it had kind of a queer resiliency of its own. The room itself was larger than the one he had just quitted and not as well lit. For the first time he thought of the possibility that there might be someone else here beside himself. He looked around wishing that he had a weapon of some kind. Even a knife would have made him feel better. But there had been no chance of that of course. Prisoners of war are hardly allowed to carry weapons with them. So none had been available. He wondered what sort of men lived in this fantastic city. So far he had seen no one. The streets blow had been filled with moving vehicles of some kind. But it had been difficult to tell whether there had been anyone walking down there from this height. Contourini had said that it would be how had he said it, like sleeping for hundreds of years and waking up in a strange world. Well, it was that of all right. Did anyone know he was here? He had the uneasy feeling that hidden, unseen eyes were watching his every move. And yet he could detect nothing. There was no sound except the faint humming from the device in the room behind him and a deeper, almost inaudible rushing rumbling sound that seemed to come from far below. His wish for a weapon came back stronger than before. The very fact that he had seen no one sent his nerves on edge even more than the sight of a known enemy would have done. He was suddenly no longer interested in his surroundings. He felt trapped in this strange, silent room. He could see a light shining through a door and far into the room. Perhaps it was a way out. He walked toward it trying to keep his footsteps as silent as possible as he moved. The door had a painted translucent glass in it and there were more of the unreadable characters on it. He wished feverently that he could decipher them. They might tell him where he was. Carefully he grasped the handle of the door, twisted it and pulled. And carefully as he had been, the door swung inward with a surprising rapidity. It was a great deal thinner and lighter than he had supposed. He looked down at it wondering if there was any way the door could be locked. There was a tiny vertical set in the small metal panel in the door but it was much too tiny to be a keyhole. Still, it didn't matter. If necessary, he could smash the glass to get through the door. He stepped out into what was obviously a hallway beyond the door. The hallway stretched away to either side lined with doors similar to the one he had just come through. How did a man get out of this place anyway? The door behind him was pressed again, his hand with patient insistence. As though it wanted to close itself. He almost let it close but at the last second he changed his mind. Better the devil than we know than the devil we don't, he thought to himself. He went back into the office and looked around for something to prop the door open. He found a small beautifully formed porcelain dish on one of the desks, picked it up and went back to the door. The dish held the door open an inch or so. That was good enough. If someone locked the door, he could still smash the door if he wanted to. But the absence of the dish when he returned would tell him that he was not alone in the mysterious place. He started down the hallway to his right, checking the doors as he went. They were all locked. He knew that he could break into any of them but he had a feeling that he would find no exit through any of them. They all looked as though they concealed more of the big rooms. None of them had any lights behind them. Only the one door that he had come through showed the telltale glow from the other side. Why? He had the terrible feeling that he had been drawn across time to this place for a purpose and that he could think of no rational reason for believing so. He stopped as another memory came back. He remembered being in the stone walled dungeon with its smelly straw beds that only by the faint shaft of sunlight that came from the barred windows high overhead. Contrary to any, the short, wirely little Italian who was in the next cell looked at him through the narrow opening. I still think it can be done, my friend. It is the mind and the mind alone that sees the flow of time, the body experiences, but does not see. Only the soul is capable of knowing eternity. Broom outranked the little Italian, but prison can make brothers of all men. You think it's possible then to get out of a place like this simply by thinking about it? Contrary not it, why not? Did not the saints do so? And what was that? Contemplation of the eternal, my comrade. Contemplation of the eternal. Broom held back grin. Then why, my Venetian friend, have you not left this place long since? I try, Contraryne had said simply, but I cannot do it. You wish to know why? It is because I'm afraid. Afraid, Broom raised an eyebrow. He had seen Contraryne on the battlefield dealing death in hand-to-hand combat, and the Italian hadn't impressed him as a coward. Yes, said the Venetian, afraid. Oh, I am not afraid of men. I fight. Someday I may die. Will die. This does not frighten me death. I am not afraid of what men may do to me. He stopped and frowned. But of this I have a great fear. Only a saint can handle such things and I am no saint. I hope, my dear Contraryne, Broom said dryly, that you are not under the impression that I am a saint. No, perhaps not, Contraryne said, perhaps not. But you are braver than I. I am not afraid of any man living. But you are afraid of neither the living nor the dead, nor of man or evil. Which is a great deal more than I can say for myself. Besides, there is blood of kings in your veins. And has not a king protection that even a man of noble birth such as yourself does not have? I think so. Oh, I have no doubt that you could do it, if you but would. And then perhaps when you are free, you would free me for teaching you all that I know to accomplish this. My fear holds me chained here, but you have no chains of fear. Broom had thought that over for a moment. Then grinned, all right, my friend, I'll try it. What's your first lesson? The memory faded from Broom's mind. Had he really moved through some segment of eternity to reach this, this place, had he? He felt the children threw him. What was he doing here? How could he have taken it all so calmly, afraid of man or devil? No, but this was neither. He had to get back. The utter aliveness of this bright, shining, lifeless wonderland was too much for him. Instinctively, he turned and ran back toward the room he had left. If he got back to the place where he had appeared in this world, perhaps somehow some force would return him to where he belonged. The door was as he had left it. The porcelain dish still in place. He scooped up the dish in one big hand and ran on into the room, letting the door shut itself behind him. He ran on through the large room with its many tables into the brightly lighted room beyond. He stopped. What could he do now? He tried to remember the things that the Italian had told him to do, and he could not for the life of him remember them. His memory still had gaps in it. Gapsy did not know were there because he had not yet probed for them. He closed his eyes in concentration, trying to bring back a memory that would not come. He did not hear the intruder until the man's voice echoed in the room. Broom's eyes opened, and instantly every muscle and nerve in his hard-trained body tensed for action. There was a man standing in the doorway of the office. He was not a particularly impressive man. In spite of the queer cut of his clothes, he was not as tall as Broom, and he looked soft and overfed. His punch protruded roundly from the open front of the short coat, and there was a fleshiness about his face that portrayed too much good living. And he looked even more frightened than Broom had been a few minutes before. He was saying something in a language that Broom did not understand, and the tenseness in his voice betrayed his fear. Broom relaxed. He had nothing to fear from this little man. I won't hurt you, Broom said. I have no intention of intruding on your property, but all I ask is help. The little man was blinking and backing away as though he was going to turn and bolt at any moment. Broom laughed. You have nothing to fear from me, little man. Prevent me to introduce myself. I am Richard Broom, known as, he stopped, and his eyes widened. Total memory flooded over him as he realized fully who he was and where he belonged. And the fear hit him again in a raging flood, sweeping over his mind and blotting it out. Again, the darkness came. This time the blackness faded quickly. There was a face, a worried face, looking at him through an aperture of the stone wall. The surroundings were so familiar that the bit of memories that had been scattered again during the past three centuries of time came back more quickly and settled back into their accustomed pattern more easily. The face was that of the Italian Contorini. He was looking both worried and disappointed. You were not gone long, my Lord King, he said, but you were gone. Of that there can be no doubt. Why did you return? Richard Broom sat up on his pallet of straw. The scene in the strange building already seemed dreamlike, but the fear was still there. I couldn't remember, he said softly. I couldn't remember who I was, nor why I had gone to that place. And when I remembered, I came back. Contorini nodded sadly. It is as I have heard. The memory ties one too strongly to the past, to one's own time. One must return as soon as the mind had digested. I am sorry, my friend. I had hoped we could escape. But now it appears that we must wait until our ransoms are paid. And I much fear that mine will never be paid. Nor mine, said the big mandolee. My faithful blonden found me, but he may not have returned to London. And even if he has, my brother John may be reluctant to raise the money. What? Would England hesitate to ransom the brave king who had fought so gallantly in the Holy Crusades? Never, you will be free, my friend. But Richard Plantagenet just stared at the little dish that he still held in his hand. The fear still in his heart. Men wouldn't still call him Lionheart, but he knew that he would never again deserve the title. And nearly eight centuries away in time and thousands of miles away in space, a Mr. Edward Jasperson was speaking hurriedly into the telephone that stood by the electric typewriter on his desk. That's right, officer, suite 8601, Empire State Building. I was working late and I left the light on in my office when I came out to get a cup of coffee. When I came back, he was there, a big bearded man wearing a thing that looked like a monk's robe made out of gunny sack. What? No, I locked the door when I left. What? Well, the only thing that is missing so far as I can tell is a ceramic ash dish from one of the desks. He was holding it in his hand when I saw him. What? Oh, where did he go? Mr. Jasperson paused in his rush of words. Well, I must have gotten a little dizzy. I was pretty shocked, you know. To be honest, I didn't see where he went. I must have fainted. But I think you can pick him up if you hurry. With that getup on, he can't get very far away. All right, thank you, officer. He cradled the phone, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at his damp forehead. He was a very frightened little man, but he knew he would get over it by morning. End of Viewpoint by Randall Garrett, recording by Ray Smith, Phoenix, Arizona.