Машина ужаса
(Фантастические произведения) - Страница 124

“What do you mean to say?”

“It seems to me that something has happened in the laboratory. Have you any idea, colleague, what special work the professor was doing there yesterday?”

Hinez suspiciously looked up at the speaker and replied reluctantly:

“I believe he was making preparations to test the newly installed apparatus, which was to accelerate the breaking up of the atoms of several gases…”

“Listen, Hinez,” exclaimed Deriugin, his voice ringing with excitement, “I understand that my words seem strange to you, perhaps brazen, but the situation is too serious for us to fret about formalities. I have been watching the work of the professor for a long time and was very much interested in it. But now, I repeat, I am afraid that some mishap has occurred there.” Hinez silently shrugged his shoulders, yet, he too felt that he was becoming affected by an incomprehensible alarm.

They unlocked the door of the laboratory. In the assistant’s room, a servant with a long iron rod, on one end of which a rag was tied, was cleaning the room. The servant welcomed the entering pair with a curt: Guten Tag. The two whisked through the room directly into the laboratory of the professor.

Hinez led the way. On the threshold of the large room he halted unwillingly and covered his eyes with his hand, blinded by the unexpected light. Behind him stood Deriugin; silent and pale as a ghost, he was contemplating the picture that lay before their eyes. Upon a large marble table, where the new adjustments were gathered, shone, with unbearable brightness, a fiery sphere the size of a man’s head. It quivered, as if it pulsated. Upon its dazzling background, bluish veins crossed themselves and everything about it was covered with a bluish mist. At the place where the sphere had touched the surface of the table, a light sizzling and crackling was heard. The room was hot and suffocating, as it is before a big storm, and a sharp smell of ozone assailed the nostrils.

Hinez and Deriugin stood like a pair of statues, not daring to move from their places nor to remove their eyes from the strange phenomenon.

“Herr Hinez,” exclaimed the surprised servant, who had followed them into the laboratory, “something is burning there!”

And before either of them had a chance to stop him, he ran over to the table and drove the end of his iron rod into the face of the fiery sphere.

A dry, loud crack followed. A dazzling spark, resembling a short lightning, flashed out at the end of the rod and the old man dropped backwards, spreading his hands and knocking his head against the hard floor. His body twisted up in spasms and remained motionless. All this took place, it seemed, within the twinkle of an eye. When Hinez rushed over to the old man, bending over him and trying to raise him up, he no longer breathed.

“Dead!” confusedly announced the assistant, retreating unwillingly and turning back his head to his colleague. Deriugin, standing at the door, repeated mechanically one and the same phrase:

“I knew it…! I knew it…!”

About ten minutes passed before the visitors regained a little of their composure. They carried out the body of the old man into the assistant’s room, and tried every means to revive him, but all their attempts failed; the unfortunate man was dead.

“What is this anyhow?” demanded Hinez, at last, when he realized the futility of their efforts.

“This,” repeated Deriugin, and the sound of his voice resembled the burst of thunder before a rainstorm, “this is a mutiny of the atoms, revolting against the man who dared to disturb them..

“You mean to say, that. began Hinez with uncertainty.

“I believe,” interrupted Deriugin harshly, “that the destruction of matter has begun and, in all probability, nothing in the whole world will be- able to check it. This old man is the first victim of the millions that are to follow.”

“But, why do you speak about a catastrophe, colleague? And even if what you expect to happen, does happen, it will not pass beyond the bounds of the laboratory and can be disposed of right here.”

“Disposed of? And this I hear from you, assistant to Professor Flinder? Don’t you realize that we are powerless when it comes to the element? Can we, in any way or with any thing influence the work that goes on within the atoms? Can we stop the growth of this fiery vortex?”

“Growth?” this new idea impelled Hinez to withdraw hastily into the main laboratory.

Indeed, this was quite apparent: the flaming sphere, in the last half hour, had increased about a fraction of an inch in diameter. Besides, it was becoming more and more difficult to breathe in the room. The air was all pregnant with electricity. The twinkling of little bluish lights upon all the prominent parts of the apparatus and other appliances, transformed the whole picture into a fairy-scene.

Deriugin and Hinez left the laboratory, shutting the door tightly behind them. Actions and measures to forestall an impending calamity began immediately. Hinez took upon himself the task of informing all the professors of the Institute of the actual prevailing condition; Deriugin, meanwhile, departed to see Eike, a friend of his and the editor of a leading newspaper. To find him was not an easy task. But about one o’clock in the afternoon, he found him in his editorial office. At first Eike was hesitant and undecided about going with him. Professional curiosity finally, triumphed however.

They entered a machine that puffed at the street-door entrance, and whisked away in the direction of the Institute. On the Frankfurt Strasse they noticed a pillar of smoke standing almost motionless in the air. Along the streets, hissing, whistling and pealing their bells, hurried the fire-engines. Men in copper helmets, with hatchets in their hands, clung to the sides, like operatic warriors on the stage.

“There must be a fire somewhere,” remarked Eike, flaming up again with the curiosity, which is so much part of a newspaper man.

“It’s there…” insisted Deriugin with growing alarm. “We are late! It’s there!”

His premonition did not deceive him. Their noses were soon assailed by a scorching sensation. Opposite the house in which Flinder lived, a large throng of people had assembled. From the garden, now and then, firemen were running to their engines; beyond the iron fence and between the trees, where the laboratory stood, tongues of flames danced and smoke rose and whirled, gradually being carried away into the street which was becoming enveloped in a thick and corrosive cloud.

In this hubbub, Eike immediately lost sight of Deriugin, so he decided to go around the burning house to the windy side to quietly view the scene of fire, from there. Suddenly, from the side of the laboratory came loud shrieks from the firemen and the crowds of curious people who had broken into the garden. Eike threw himself in the direction of the shrieks and almost collided with Deriugin, who ran up at demoniacal speed.

“Look out! It has broken out into the open! Look out, Eike!” he shouted, waving everybody away with his hands.

At that moment, a gust of wind wafted a cloud of smoke upon the two, and the editor saw a sphere of fire, about eighteen inches in diameter, quivering and tossing, borne by the wind, directly towards the dumbfounded spectators.

“Save yourselves!” shouted someone in the crowd. “It’s ball lightning!”

The crowd of people scattered in all directions. Eike remained on the spot, as if nailed to the ground, but only for a few fleeting seconds. Soon, he too, threw himself aside, as the flaming whirl, flying past and only a few feet away from him, breathed forth its sultry heat and blinded the eyes with its dazzling glitter. As it moved over the sand of the road, thousands of fiery sparks fell from it upon the earth and upon objects it met on its way.

Dazed and stunned, Eike fell down, stumbling over bumps. Lying there, his terror-filled eyes continued to follow the flight of the sphere.