"What an incredible coincidence that he called me away," said the scientist. "Otherwise I would never have noticed it. But what does it mean?
The devil only knows!.."
The Professor smiled, squinted at his galoshes, took off the left one and put on the right. "Good heavens! One can't even imagine all the consequences..." The Professor prodded off the left galosh, which had irritated him by not going on top of the right, and walked to the front door wearing one galosh only. He also lost his handkerchief and went out, slamming the heavy door. On the porch he searched in his pockets for some matches, patting his sides, found them eventually and set off down the street with an unlit cigarette in his mouth.
The scientist did not meet a soul all the way to the church. There he threw back his head and stared at the golden dome. The sun was licking it avidly on one side.
"Why didn't I notice it before? What a coincidence! Well, I never!
Silly ass!" The Professor looked down and stared pensively at his strangely shod feet. "Hm, what shall I do? Go back to Pankrat? No, there's no waking him. It's a pity to throw the wretched thing away. I'll have to carry it."
He removed the galosh and set off carrying it distastefully.
An old car drove out of Prechistenka with three passengers. Two men, slightly tipsy, with a garishly made-up woman in those baggy silk trousers that were all the rage in 1928 sitting on their lap.
"Hey, Dad!" she shouted in a low husky voice. "Did you sell the other galosh for booze?"
"The old boy got sozzled at the Alcazar," howled the man on the left, while the one on the right leaned out of the car and shouted: "Is the night-club in Volkhonka still open, Dad? That's where we're making for!"
The Professor looked at them sternly over the top of his glasses, let the cigarette fall out of his mouth and then immediately forgot they existed. A beam was cutting its way through Prechistensky Boulevard, and the dome of Christ the Saviour had begun to burn. The sun had come out.
CHAPTER III.
Persikov Catches It
What had happened was this. When the Professor put his discerning eye to the microscope, he noticed for the first time in his life that one particular ray in the coloured tendril stood out more vividly and boldly than the others. This ray was bright red and stuck out of the tendril like the tiny point of a needle, say.
Thus, as ill luck would have it, this ray attracted the attention of the great man's experienced eye for several seconds.
In it, the ray, the Professor detected something a thousand times more significant and important than the ray itself, that precarious offspring accidentally engendered by the movement of a microscope mirror and lens. Due to the assistant calling the Professor away, some amoebas had been subject to the action of the ray for an hour-and-a-half and this is what had happened: whereas the blobs of amoebas on the plate outside the ray simply lay there limp and helpless, some very strange phenomena were taking place on the spot over which the sharp red sword was poised. This strip of red was teeming with life. The old amoebas were forming pseudopodia in a desperate effort to reach the red strip, and when they did they came to life, as if by magic. Some force seemed to breathe life into them. They flocked there, fighting one another for a place in the ray, where the most frantic (there was no other word for it) reproduction was taking place. In defiance of all the laws which Persikov knew like the back of his hand, they gemmated before his eyes with lightning speed. They split into two in the ray, and each of the parts became a new, fresh organism in a couple of seconds. In another second or two these organisms grew to maturity and produced a new generation in their turn. There was soon no room at all in the red strip or on the plate, and inevitably a bitter struggle broke out.
The newly born amoebas tore one another to pieces and gobbled the pieces up.
Among the newly born lay the corpses of those who had perished in the fight for survival. It was the best and strongest who won. And they were terrifying. Firstly, they were about twice the size of ordinary amoebas and, secondly, they were far more active and aggressive. Their movements were rapid, their pseudopodia much longer than normal, and it would be no exaggeration to say that they used them like an octopus's tentacles.
On the second evening the Professor, pale and haggard, his only sustenance the thick cigarettes he rolled himself, studied the new generation of amoebas. And on the third day he turned to the primary source, i.e., the red ray.
The gas hissed faintly in the Bunsen burner, the traffic clattered along the street outside, and the Professor, poisoned by a hundred cigarettes, eyes half-closed, leaned back in his revolving chair.
"I see it all now. The ray brought them to life. It's a new ray, never studied or even discovered by anyone before. The first thing is to find out whether it is produced only by electricity, or by the sun as well," Persikov muttered to himself.
The next night provided the answer to this question. Persikov caught three rays in three microscopes from the arc light, but nothing from the sun, and summed this up as follows:
"We must assume that it is not found in the solar spectrum... Hm, well, in short we must assume it can only be obtained from electric light." He gazed fondly at the frosted ball overhead, thought for a moment and invited Ivanov into the laboratory, where he told him all and showed him the amoebas.
Decent Ivanov was amazed, quite flabbergasted. Why on earth hadn't a simple thing as this tiny arrow been noticed before? By anyone, or even by him, Ivanov. It was really appalling! Just look...
"Look, Vladimir Ipatych!" Ivanov said, his eye glued to the microscope.
"Look what's happening! They're growing be" fore my eyes... You must take a look..."
"I've been observing them for three days," Persikov replied animatedly.
Then a conversation took place between the two scientists, the gist of which was as follows. Decent Ivanov undertook with the help of lenses and mirrors to make a chamber in which they could obtain the ray in magnified form without a microscope. Ivanov hoped, was even convinced, that this would be extremely simple. He would obtain the ray, Vladimir Ipatych need have no doubts on that score. There was a slight pause.
"When I publish a paper, I shall mention that the chamber was built by you, Pyotr Stepanovich," Persikov interspersed, feeling that the pause should be ended.
"Oh, that doesn't matter... However, if you insist..."
And the pause ended. After that the ray devoured Ivanov as well. While Persikov, emaciated and hungry, spent all day and half the night at his microscope, Ivanov got busy in the brightly-lit physics laboratory, working out a combination of lenses and mirrors. He was assisted by the mechanic.
Following a request made to the Commissariat of Education, Persikov received three parcels from Germany containing mirrors, convexo-convex, concavo-concave and even some convexo-concave polished lenses. The upshot of all this was that Ivanov not only built his chamber, but actually caught the red ray in it. And quite brilliantly, it must be said. The ray was a thick one, about four centimetres in diameter, sharp and strong.
On June 1st the chamber was set up in Persikov's laboratory, and he began experimenting avidly by putting frog spawn in the ray. These experiments produced amazing results. In the course of forty-eight hours thousands of tadpoles hatched out from the spawn. But that was not all.
Within another twenty-four hours the tadpoles grew fantastically into such vicious, greedy frogs that half of them were devoured by the other half. The survivors then began to spawn rapidly and two days later, without the assistance of the ray, a new generation appeared too numerous to count. Then all hell was let loose in the Professor's laboratory. The tadpoles slithered out all over the Institute. Lusty choirs croaked loudly in the terrariums and all the nooks and crannies, as in marshes. Pankrat, who was scared stiff of Persikov as it was, now went in mortal terror of him. After a week the scientist himself felt he was going mad. The Institute reeked of ether and potassium cyanide, which nearly finished off Pankrat when he removed his mask to
o soon. This expanding marshland generation was eventually exterminated with poison and the laboratories aired.
"You know, Pyotr Stepanovich," Persikov said to Ivanov, "the effect of the ray on deuteroplasm and on the ovule in general is quite extraordinary."
Ivanov, a cold and reserved gentleman, interrupted the Professor in an unusual voice:
"Why talk of such minor details as deuteroplasm, Vladimir Ipatych?
Let's not beat about the bush. You have discovered something unheard-of..."
With a great effort Ivanov managed to force the words out. "You have discovered the ray of life, Professor Persikov!"
A faint flush appeared on Persikov's pale, unshaven cheekbones.
"Well, well," he mumbled.
"You," Ivanov went on, "you will win such renown... It makes my head go round. Do you understand, Vladimir Ipatych," he continued excitedly, "H. G.
Wells's heroes are nothing compared to you... And I thought that was all make-believe... Remember his Food for the Gods'!"
"Ah, that's a novel," Persikov replied.
"Yes, of course, but it's famous!"
"I've forgotten it," Persikov said. "I remember reading it, but I've forgotten it."
"How can you have? Just look at that!" Ivanov picked up an incredibly large frog with a swollen belly from the glass table by its leg. Even after death its face had a vicious expression. "It's monstrous!"
CHAPTER IV.
Drozdova, the Priest's Widow
Goodness only knows why, perhaps Ivanov was to blame or perhaps the sensational news just travelled through the air on its own, but in the huge seething city of Moscow people suddenly started talking about the ray and Professor Persikov. True, only in passing and vaguely. The news about the miraculous discovery hopped like a wounded bird round the shining capital, disappearing from time to time, then popping up again, until the middle of July when a short item about the ray appeared in the Science and Technology News section on page 20 of the newspaper Izvestia. It announced briefly that a well-known professor at the Fourth University had invented a ray capable of increasing the activity of lower organisms to an incredible degree, and that the phenomenon would have to be checked. There was a mistake in the name, of course, which was given as "Pepsikov".
Ivanov brought the newspaper and showed Persikov the article.
"Pepsikov," muttered Persikov, as he busied himself with the chamber in his laboratory. "How do those newsmongers find out everything?"
Alas, the misprinted surname did not save the Professor from the events that followed, and they began the very next day, immediately turning Persikov's whole life upside down.
After a discreet knock, Pankrat appeared in the laboratory and handed Persikov a magnificent glossy visiting card.
"'E's out there," Pankrat added timidly.
The elegantly printed card said:
Alfred Arkadyevich Bronsky
Correspondent for the Moscow magazines Red Light, Red Pepper, Red Journal and Red Searchlight and the newspaper Red Moscow Evening News
"Tell him to go to blazes," said Persikov flatly, tossing the card under the table.
Pankrat turned round and went out, only to return five minutes later with a pained expression on his face and a second specimen of the same visiting card.
"Is this supposed to be a joke?" squeaked Persikov, his voice shrill with rage.
"Sez 'e's from the Gee-Pee-Yoo," Pankrat replied, white as a sheet.
Persikov snatched the card with one hand, almost tearing it in half, and threw his pincers onto the table with the other. The card bore a message in ornate handwriting: "Humbly request three minutes of your precious time, esteemed Professor, on public press business, correspondent of the satirical magazine Red Maria, a GPU publication."
"Send him in," said Persikov with a sigh.
A young man with a smoothly shaven oily face immediately popped out from behind Pankrat's back. He had permanently raised eyebrows, like a Chinaman, over agate eyes which never looked at the person he was talking to. The young man was dressed impeccably in the latest fashion. He wore a long narrow jacket down to his knees, extremely baggy trousers and unnaturally wide glossy shoes with toes like hooves. In his hands he held a cane, a hat with a pointed top and a note-pad.
"What do you want?" asked Persikov in a voice which sent Pankrat scuttling out of the room. "Weren't you told that I am busy?"
In lieu of a reply the young man bowed twice to the Professor, to the left and to the right of him, then his eyes skimmed over the whole laboratory, and the young man jotted a mark in his pad.
"I am busy," repeated the Professor, looking with loathing into the visitor's eyes, but to no avail for they were too elusive.
"A thousand apologies, esteemed Professor," the young man said in a thin voice, "for intruding upon you and taking up your precious time, but the news of your incredible discovery which has astounded the whole world compels our journal to ask you for some explanations."
"What explanations, what whole world?" Persikov whined miserably, turning yellow. "I don't have to give you any explanations or anything of the sort... I'm busy... Terribly busy."
"What are you working on?" the young man asked ingratiatingly, putting a second mark in his pad.
"Well, I'm... Why? Do you want to publish something?"
"Yes," replied the young man and suddenly started scribbling furiously.
"Firstly, I do not intend to publish anything until I have finished my work ... and certainly not in your newspapers... Secondly, how did you find out about this?" Persikov suddenly felt at a loss.
"Is it true that you have invented a new life ray?"
"What new life?" exploded the Professor. "You're talking absolute piffle! The ray I am working on has not been fully studied, and nothing at all is known yet! It may be able to increase the activity of protoplasm..."
"By how much?" the young man asked quickly.
Persikov was really at a loss now. "The insolent devil! What the blazes is going on?" he thought to himself.
"What ridiculous questions! Suppose I say, well, a thousand times!"
Predatory delight flashed in the young man's eyes.'
"Does that produce gigantic organisms?" "Nothing of the sort! Well, of course, the organisms I have obtained are bigger than usual. And they do have some new properties. But the main thing is not the size, but the incredible speed of reproduction," Persikov heard himself say to his utmost dismay. Having filled up a whole page, the young man turned over and went on scribbling.
"Don't write it down!" Persikov croaked in despair, realising that he was in the young man's hands. "What are you writing?"
"Is it true that in forty-eight hours you can hatch two million tadpoles from frog-spawn?"
"From how much spawn?" exploded Persikov, losing his temper again.
"Have you ever seen the spawn of a tree-frog, say?"
"From half-a-pound?" asked the young man, unabashed. Persikov flushed with anger.
"Whoever measures it like that? Pah! What are you talking about? Of course, if you were to take half-a-pound of frog-spawn, then perhaps...
Well, about that much, damn it, but perhaps a lot more!"
Diamonds flashed in the young man's eyes, as he filled up yet another page in one fell swoop.
"Is it true that this will cause a world revolution in animal husbandry?"
"Trust the press to ask a question like that," Persikov howled. "I forbid you to write such rubbish. I can see from your face that you're writing sheer nonsense!"
"And now, if you'd be so kind, Professor, a photograph of you," said the young man, closing his note-pad with a snap.
"What's that? A photograph of me? To put in those magazines of yours?
Together with all that diabolical rubbish you've been scribbling down. No, certainly not... And I'm extremely busy. I really must ask you to..."
"Any old one will do. And we'll return it straightaway." "Pankrat!" the Professor yelled in a fury. "Your humble s
ervant," said the young man and vanished. Instead of Pankrat came the strange rhythmic scraping sound of something metallic hitting the floor, and into the laboratory rolled a man of unusual girth, dressed in a blouse and trousers made from a woollen blanket. His left, artificial leg clattered and clanked, and he was holding a briefcase. The clean-shaven round face resembling yellowish meat-jelly was creased into a welcoming smile. He bowed in military fashion to the Professor and drew himself up, his leg giving a springlike snap. Persikov was speechless.
"My dear Professor," the stranger began in a pleasant, slightly throaty voice, "forgive an ordinary mortal for invading your seclusion."
"Are you a reporter?" Persikov asked. "Pankrat!"
"Certainly not, dear Professor," the fat man replied. "Allow me to introduce myself-naval captain and contributor to the Industrial Herald, newspaper of the Council of People's Commissars."
"Pankrat!" cried Persikov hysterically, and at that very moment a red light went on in the corner and the telephone rang softly. "Pankrat!" the Professor cried again. "Hello."
"Verzeihen Sie bitte, Herr Professor," croaked the telephone in German, "das ich store. Ich bin Mitarbeiter des Berliner Tageblatts..."
"Pankrat!" the Professor shouted down the receiver. "Bin momental sehr beschaftigt und kann Sie deshalb jetzt nicht empfangen. Pankrat!"
And just at this moment the bell at the main door started ringing.
"Terrible murder in Bronnaya Street!" yelled unnaturally hoarse voices, darting about between wheels and flashing headlights on the hot June roadway. "Terrible illness of chickens belonging to the priest's widow Drozdova with a picture of her! Terrible discovery of life ray by Professor Persikov!"
Persikov dashed out so quickly that he almost got run over by a car in Mokhovaya and grabbed a newspaper angrily.
"Three copecks, citizen!" cried the newsboy, squeezing into the crowd on the pavement and yelling: "Red Moscow Evening News, discovery of X-ray!"