  Title: Ralph 124C 41+ A Romance of the Year 2660 Author: Hugo Gernsback Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 E-text prepared by Tim Lindell, Graeme Mackreth, |
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RALPH 124C 41+
illus A ROMANCE OF THE YEAR 2660
RALPH 124C 41+
by Hugo Gernsback
FOREWORDS BY DR. LEE DE FOREST AND FLETCHER PRATT
NEW YORK: FREDERICK FELL, INC.
COPYRIGHT 1925 BY THE STRATFORD COMPANY
SECOND EDITION COPYRIGHT 1950 BY HUGO GERNSBACK
All rights in this book are reserved. It may not be used for dramatic or motion- or talking-picture purposes without written authorization
from the holder of these rights. Nor may the book or part thereof be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission in writing,
except for brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address: Frederick Fell, Inc., 386 Fourth
Avenue, New York 16, N.Y. Manufactured in the United States of America by H. Wolff, New York. Designed by Sidney Solomon.
Published simultaneously in Canada by George J. McLeod, Ltd., Toronto.
CONTENTS
| PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION | 7 | |
| PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION | 11 | |
| FOREWORD BY DR. LEE DE FOREST | 15 | |
| FOREWORD BY FLETCHER PRATT | 19 | |
| 1 | 25 | |
| 2 | 40 | |
| 3 | 52 | |
| 4 | 66 | |
| 5 | 79 | |
| 6 | "Give Us Food" | 97 |
| 7 | 110 | |
| 8 | 118 | |
| 9 | 127 | |
| 10 | 140 | |
| 11 | 147 | |
| 12 | 164 | |
| 13 | 172 | |
| 14 | 176 | |
| 15 | 188 | |
| 16 | 195 |
PREFACE
TO THE SECOND EDITION
Since the first edition of Ralph 124C 41+ in 1925, an eventful quarter century has passed. Since I first wrote the story, 39 amazing years have been swallowed into the Einstein space-time-continuum—years pregnant with scientific progress.
Since 1925, the 5,000-edition volume has had a rather remarkable career. It has been quoted by hundreds of authorities both great and small, in hundreds of publications—not only in the United States but also in many other countries. Whenever a history of science-fiction was written, Ralph nearly always was included routinely, much to my surprise.
In the meanwhile the book became a sort of museum piece. Early in 1950 the quoted price in the second-hand book market was $50.00 for a single copy. Left with only two copies of the 1925 edition I myself endeavored to buy a copy for a friend in France, but no copies were forthcoming even at $50.00!
Authors avowedly never read their own books—I am no exception to that rule. So the other day when I was reading proofs for the 1950 edition, after a lapse of 25 years, I began to ask myself a lot of questions.
Why for instance was Ralph written, in the first place?
In 1911 I was a young publisher—not yet 27 years old. I had started publishing Modern Electrics in 1908, three years before. It was the world's first radio magazine. By 1911 it had attained a print order of around 100,000 copies and was for sale on all the principal newsstands in the U.S. and Canada, and sold by subscription all over the world.
Yet, today I must confess I do not recall just what prompted me to write Ralph. I do recall that I had no plan whatsoever for the whole of the story. I had no idea how it would end nor what the contents would be.
The story began in the April, 1911, issue of Modern Electrics and ended with the March, 1912, number. On the twelve covers of the magazine for that year there was a monthly illustration depicting some Ralph exploit as divulged in the current installment. Thus for instance the first (April, 1911) cover showed Ralph at the Telephot—not the broadcast television of today but person-to-person television by phone, which has as yet to be realized. (See illustration.)
Indeed the word television was practically unknown in 1911. (The first technical article in print, using the term, was written by me: "Television and the Telephot," Modern Electrics, December, 1909).
As the story developed from month to month there was the age-old scramble to beat the deadline—but somehow or other I always made it—usually under duress, finishing the installment at 3 or 4 A.M. on the last day. That the literary quality suffered painfully under such continuous tours de force every month, there can be no question, but somehow the scientific and technical content came through unscathed most of the time.
illus
After 39 years I could point out a number of minor[Pg 9]
[Pg 10] technical flaws in some of my early predictions, but on the whole I probably could not do much better today. To be sure, I would not think of a gyroscopic propelled space flyer now, but then in 1911 no one was thinking of rocket-propelled or atomic-powered space flyers. In 1911 too, scientists still thought of a universal ether permeating all space. Today we seem to get along very well without it.
While quite a number of the scientific predictions made in Ralph have come to pass, many more are still unrealized. I have, however, little concern that all—or most of them—will come about in the not too distant future. I am certain that all of them will be commonplace by 2660, the time in which the action of this novel moves.
Perhaps I can do no better than reprint the foreword of the original 1911 "Ralph":
This story which plays in the year 2660, will run serially during the coming year in Modern Electrics. It is intended to give the reader as accurate a prophecy of the future as is consistent with the present marvelous growth of science. The author wishes to call especial attention to the fact that while there may be extremely strange and improbable devices and scenes in this narrative, they are not impossible, or outside of the reach of science.
We are now at the beginning of a new and fantastic era—the electronic-atomic age—an age that makes the impossible come true overnight. If Ralph 124C 41+ can fire the present-day young minds with the same enthusiasm for scientific research and accomplishment as it did their fathers in the past, I shall feel amply repaid in having instigated this new, 1950 edition of Ralph.
Hugo Gernsback
New York, May 1950
PREFACE
TO THE FIRST EDITION
Ralph 124C 41+ first appeared as a serial in the author's first magazine, "Modern Electrics," in 1911. This magazine was first devoted exclusively to radio activities. At the time the story was written the word "radio" had not yet come into use. We were at that time still using the term "wireless."
It has been necessary, in view of scientific progress since the time the story was first written, and in order to present the book to a much wider reading public, to rewrite much of the story and to make many changes. Yet, the ideas and conceptions embodied in the original manuscript have been little altered.
The author appreciates that many of the predictions and statements appear to verge upon the fantastic. So was Jules Verne's submarine "Nautilus" in his famous story "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea." Verne's conception of the submarine was declared utterly ridiculous. Nevertheless, the prophecy was fulfilled. In fact, Verne's imagination hit far below the mark in what was actually accomplished by science since the book was written.
Lest you think that the author has gone too far into the realms of pure imagination, place yourself in the position of your great-great-grandfather being told about locomotives, steamships, X-rays, telegraphs, telephones, phonographs, electric lights, radio broadcasting, and the hundred other commonplaces of our lives today. Would he not have condemned such predictions as the height of folly and absurdity?
So with you. You are in the same position with respect to the prophecies in this work as your remote ancestor. Your descendants, picking up this book 750 years hence,—or at the time in which this story is laid,—will ridicule the author for his lack of imagination in conceiving the obvious developments in the first half of the next century.
It may be of passing interest to note that several of the predictions made by the author when this story was written have already become verities. Notable among these is what the author termed the Hypnobioscope, the purpose of which is to acquire knowledge while asleep. The author was greatly astonished to read the results obtained by J.A. Phinney, Chief Radioman, U.S. Navy, who, having tried the system himself, in 1923, introduced it at the Pensacola, Florida, Naval Training School. Here one may see naval students stretched out on long benches asleep with casket-like coverings over their heads. The caskets contain two telephone receivers through which radio code is sent to the sleeper. It has been demonstrated that the sleeping student can be taught code faster than by any other means, for the sub-conscious self never sleeps. Students who have failed in their studies have passed examinations after being taught by this method.
The scientific conception or vision of the world of 750 years hence, represents the author's projection of the scientific knowledge of today. Scientific progress is moving at an accelerating pace, and if that pace is maintained, it seems fair to assume that the conception herein described will, 750 years hence, be found to have fallen far short of the actual progress made in the interim.
Hugo Gernsback
September 3, 1925
FOREWORD
BY LEE DE FOREST, Ph.D., D.Sc., D.Eng.
Father of Radio
No book in two generations, no book since Jules Verne, has undertaken to do what Hugo Gernsback in the first decade of our century has here so outstandingly achieved.
He is gifted with a mind eternally alert, trained from childhood to observe and think. His unbridled imagination has ever fed on the facts of science and technology which his habit of omniverous reading has been continually storing within his brain. As result of this unusual combination his tireless energies have been directed, since childhood in Luxembourg, to writing popular science in a fashion peculiarly attractive to young men and boys who, like himself, possess a keen interest in all realms of physical Nature.
His first essay in this field was his monthly magazine, Modern Electrics, the first to attempt to outline in language understandable by American youth the newly developing science of wireless communication. He made of this first venture into the publishing business a medium wherein, amid serious newsy articles regarding current electrical developments, his eager imagination could find full play. The most outstanding, most extraordinary prophecies which this young clairvoyant had at that time conceived—all based on his keen observations and appreciation of their real significance and trend—he chose to record in the guise of a fanciful romance bearing the strange, cabalistic title of this book.
The author, even at that early date (1911) had a clear conception of future television, then quite unheard of, almost undreamed of. He dubs it "Telephot" and outlines its revolutionary utilities. His hero, Ralph, explains to his enamorata how man has mastered weather-control. Only today has a professor shown New York City how to end its water famine by man-made torrential rains. Years in advance of their advent he describes libraries of microfilm projected on large screens; and news printed electrolytically, without printer's ink. Today we begin to read of this as being partially commercialized. His "Menograph," or thought recorder, is today crudely realized in our lie-detector. By means of his "Hypnobioscope" most of scholastic studying is done while the pupil sleeps. Who is bold enough to scoff at the possibility of such a delightful method? For one, not I.
"Most of the studying was done while one slept," explains Ralph—a statement truly applicable to many a somnolent student's performance today!
Ralph explains, as of the year 2660, the resuscitation of animal (human) life years after the body has been drained of blood. Yet only yesterday a Russian doctor claims to have accomplished this "miracle." His 750-year future has already begun to be realized. Many Utopias are here foretold, such as absolutely permanent non-wearing, metallic highways, where trolley-cars and gas-driven autos are only ancient memories, long obsolete.
"Only electrobiles were to be seen." Here the author badly misjudged the future trend of auto-travel, away from the electric.
He foresaw far better night-illuminated streets than we have yet attained. Let us hope that we must not wait 750 years until cities are "as bright by night as by day"; nor New York's climate, man-controlled, to be "the finest on Earth," with temperatures perennially at 72, sunshine all day, rain for one hour only, every night! In that future we shall have reliable transfer of sun energy into electric by means of photo-electric elements responsive to ultra-violet radiation.
In Musak we already have the wide distribution of music which Mr. Gernsback foresaw in 1911; also our night baseball games, then first foretold. His airplanes launching from roof-tops we partly realize already in our helicopter mail service. But instead of his agglomeration of colored light-beams for direction of aviation we have the far reaching radio beacons, coupled with Loran.
Even today's mysterious "flying saucers" he foretold with nice detail!
Foreseeing the vast increase in global population (the world's gravest menace) Ralph has so deftly applied science to plant growth that we shall reap four crops of wheat per year in sun-heated glass houses of county-sized acreage, to feed the new billions. He fears not an overcrowded, 200 million metropolitan New York!
Only today I read of a recent system for using heat from deep earth for house-warming, now being commercialized. "Ralph" described the same arrangement forty years ago!
Here is liquid fertilizer sprayed as a crop accelerator; and plant-root stimulation by means of high-frequency currents, wholesale diathermy applied to farming; and many other improvements in farm procedure which make this book profitable reading for today's science-minded farmers.
The author foresaw a much-to-be-desired manufacture of news-print from the resultant excessive growth of grain stocks, thereby terminating today's wanton destruction of our forests for comic supplements and sexy pulps.
Last year in the Bell Laboratories I witnessed the recording on paper of the complexities of my voice, very much as Ralph described it in 1911 to his A.D. 2660 friends.
As to the plausibility of Ralph's conquest of gravitation I refer the reader to the recently published General Field Equations of Dr. Einstein. Ralph insisted, even in 1911, that gravitation is indeed wave form, similar to the electromagnetic, and that by interference there—between the force of gravitation may be partially nullified. Let us wait until 2660 to see if he was correctly reported. This and many other strange things our descendants may see.
But to me the most impressive pages of this strange book are those that outlined with striking clarity the basic idea of radar as we know it today. Although gummed over with reference to imaginary metals, inter-planetary ships travelling at comet speeds, and a very earthy romance, the uncanny foresight of Hugo Gernsback in 1911 into the realities of World War II constitutes perhaps the most amazing paragraphs in this astonishing Book of Prophecy.
Chicago, Ill.
May 1950
FOREWORD
BY FLETCHER PRATT
This is a book of historic importance, which belongs on the shelves of a variety of types of people, though not for the usual reasons why a fictional work is a must. No one will ever compare Ralph 124C 41+ with the novels of Marcel Proust or even those of Robert Louis Stevenson. The story is the simplest kind of romantic adventure tale and characters are not particularly significant as such. What matters is the view from the windows as the train runs through the landscape.
For it is a book of prophecy, one of the most remarkable ever written. It has long since been a gold mine for nearly every writer of science-fiction during a generation. No author laying his story in the future would think today of doing without Mr. Gernsback's three-dimensional color television, and very few without his satellite city circling the Earth; and no reader would think of questioning the feasibility of these devices.
The very method employed in the book, that of supplying the people of the future with technical inventions which are the logical outgrowths of those currently in use or logically developed from currently accepted principles—this method has become fundamental in science-fiction. Indeed, it may be said to constitute that new art; and in a very proper sense, Ralph 124C 41+ may be called the first science-fiction story ever written.
This will doubtless bring some protest from the admirers of Mr. H.G. Wells. But a little thought will show that, in spite of some arresting and rather wonderful pictures of the future, and some extremely ingenious scientific devices described, Mr. Wells was not really writing science-fiction. There is nothing known to science out of which the time machine could be developed; Wells simply tells us that it was built and goes on with his story. The invincible balloon-battleships in The War in the Air are flatly contradictory to logic; even when the book was written, everybody knew that hydrogen is inflammable. Heat dissipates in air far too rapidly to allow the heat-ray camera of the Martians in The War of the Worlds to be built; and a very brief consideration will show that the construction of the antigravity plates in The First Men in the Moon would be child's play beside the problem of constructing the screens which temporarily kept those plates from working.
It is the same all down the line, and with Jules Verne as well—whose passengers in the moon-shell would be killed at the moment of firing. The fact is that Wells, himself enough of a scientist to use technical terms correctly, was afflicted with low scientific morality where fiction was concerned. He tried to be a prophet in the domain of sociology, but he was not really interested in the progress of physical science. As long as he could get his characters into a situation by means of a plausible-sounding device, he was quite willing to flim-flam the reader about the practicability of the device and the soundness of the principles involved.
Mr. Gernsback, on the other hand, founded the school of fiction in which the technical plausibility of the surroundings is at least as important as the literary plausibility of the characters. For that matter, the reader is besought to show some interest in what can be done for us by the chemist, the inventor, the electrician, and even the meteorologist. It has often been pointed out that these technicians cannot change human nature, but Mr. Gernsback indicates that they can put human nature into a position where it can hardly avoid changing itself. World government is not an impossibility in an atmosphere where any person on the planet can be instantly in visible communication with any other, and where the barrier of language can be thrown down during a night's sleep.
Thanks to the rules he set for himself (and also, no doubt, to his wide acquaintance with that region in which all the sciences are applied to the practical service of man in the form of inventions) Mr. Gernsback has been rather astoundingly successful in predicting actual developments. Ralph 124C 41+ was written in 1911. The writer's most famous hit, of course, is radar (p. 152), which no one else had come near to conceiving at the time. Yet his description will do as a fair working description of radar as it is today. The device here called "the hypnobioscope" (p. 49) for teaching during sleep, has not been developed to the extent described in the story, but works in a limited fashion and is obviously capable of extension. On p. 116 artificial silk and wool are produced by a process so much like that currently used in the manufacture of rayon and nylon that one wonders whether Mr. Gernsback has a share in the patents. Rustproof alloy steel (p. 103), magnesium alloys in light-weight construction (p. 29), televised opera performances (p. 86), vending machines (p. 89), packing in paper-thin sheets of metal (p. 89)—are all things we know about today but which only Hugo Gernsback could have conceived in 1911.
In addition, there are a number of items where the essential correctness of the concept may be concealed from the reader by the terms employed in this book—for it is not granted to prophets to foresee what words will be employed when inventors designate their products. The "glass" furniture (p. 25) has been made good in the form of plastics—which are, technically, glasses. Fluorescent lighting appears on p. 30 under the name of "luminor." The electric elevator (p. 43) has not turned up as an elevator, but its mechanism is used to drive the electric torpedoes which sank much of the Japanese merchant marine during the war. Newspapers are printed on microfilm on p. 46, and the trans-Uranium elements show up on p. 53. Baseball and football are played at night on p. 80 and paper is made from straw on p. 104. A device which is essentially the radio-direction-finder is on p. 120, and on p. 128 there is a recording mechanism which differs from today's wire-recorders only in employing a strip of paper scanned by light, and which has since been built. This by no means exhausts the list, but it would detract from the reader's enjoyment not to allow him to make some discoveries for himself.
To be sure, there are certain inaccuracies. The underearth tube from France to New York does not seem a good engineering proposition today. Nobody understood the nature of radium emanation in 1911 and neither did Mr. Gernsback. But the percentage of accurate judgments (one cannot call them guesses, when they are so numerous and so close to the mark) is somewhere up in the nineties.
Which leads one to the thought that this book perhaps has an importance beyond that as a literary and historical curiosity. Not all the predictions have been fulfilled or placed beyond fulfillment; and if research had proceeded along the lines of (for instance) Mr. Gernsback's suggestion for radar, we might have had that device a good deal earlier. In Ralph 124C 41+ the weather is under complete control. We seem to be edging in that direction, but maybe a little more push is needed—the kind of push that could be supplied by a book like this. Medical research has now caught up with Gernsback by deciding that thought in the human brain is accompanied by electrical manifestations; on p. 48 this concept has advanced to the point where thoughts can be recorded on a tape in the form of interpretable graphs, and it may become true in practice if someone works on the problem. The idea of draining off all the blood from a living body for purification and then replacing it (transfusion also ranks as a Gernsback prediction) is today far from fantastic. It is the standard and only treatment for RH newborn infants.
Yet perhaps the most interesting of all the predictions is that regarding space flight. (Incidentally, the physical and psychological effects of space travel are worked out with a care that would be worth the attention of some current science-fiction writers.) In the days of Ralph 124C 41+, this is not accomplished by means of the rockets everyone is talking about at present, but by using a gravity neutralizer.
But be it noticed that this is not the mysterious metal of H.G. Wells. Gernsback does it in a technically explicable and plausible way, by means of a metal grid, electrically (or electronically) excited. Today it is as possible to do this as it was to build a radar set in 1911; that is, not at all. But the new formula of Dr. Einstein, at last integrating gravity with other manifestations, makes it seem probable that it is not beyond hope to screen gravitation from a selected area; and when that happens, Mr. Gernsback's educated imagination, which has preceded the normal human mind to so many things on Earth, will have led the way to the stars.
New York, May 1950
1
As the vibrations died down in the laboratory the big man arose from the glass chair and viewed the complicated apparatus on the table. It was complete to the last detail. He glanced at the calendar. It was September 1st in the year 2660. Tomorrow was to be a big and busy day for him, for it was to witness the final phase of the three-year experiment. He yawned and stretched himself to his full height, revealing a physique much larger than that of the average man of his times and approaching that of the huge Martians.
His physical superiority, however, was as nothing compared to his gigantic mind. He was Ralph 124C 41+, one of the greatest living scientists and one of the ten men on the whole planet earth permitted to use the Plus sign after his name. Stepping to the Telephot on the side of the wall he pressed a group of buttons and in a few minutes the faceplate of the Telephot became luminous, revealing the face of a clean shaven man about thirty, a pleasant but serious face.
As soon as he recognized the face of Ralph in his own Telephot he smiled and said, "Hello Ralph."
"Hello Edward, I wanted to ask you if you could come over to the laboratory tomorrow morning. I have something unusually interesting to show you. Look!"
He stepped to one side of his instrument so that his friend could see the apparatus on the table about ten feet from the Telephot faceplate.
Edward came closer to his own faceplate, in order that he might see further into the laboratory.
"Why, you've finished it!" he exclaimed. "And your famous—"
At this moment the voice ceased and Ralph's faceplate became clear. Somewhere in the Teleservice company's central office the connection had been broken. After several vain efforts to restore it Ralph was about to give up in disgust and leave the Telephot when the instrument began to glow again. But instead of the face of his friend there appeared that of a vivacious beautiful girl. She was in evening dress and behind her on a table stood a lighted lamp.
Startled at the face of an utter stranger, an unconscious Oh! escaped her lips, to which Ralph quickly replied:
"I beg your pardon, but 'Central' seems to have made another mistake. I shall certainly have to make a complaint about the service."
Her reply indicated that the mistake of "Central" was a little out of the ordinary, for he had been swung onto the Intercontinental Service as he at once understood when she said, "Pardon, Monsieur, je ne comprends pas!"
He immediately turned the small shining disc of the Language Rectifier on his instrument till the pointer rested on "French."
"The service mistakes are very annoying," he heard her say in perfect English. Realizing however, that she was hardly being courteous to the pleasant looking young man who was smiling at her she added, "But sometimes Central's 'mistakes' may be forgiven, depending, of course, on the patience and courtesy of the other person involved."
This, Ralph appreciated, was an attempt at mollification with perhaps a touch of coquetry.
Nevertheless he bowed in acknowledgment of the pretty speech.
She was now closer to the faceplate and was looking with curious eyes at the details of the laboratory—one of the finest in the world.
"What a strange place! What is it, and where are you?" she asked naÏvely.
"New York," he drawled.
"That's a long way from here," she said brightly. "I wonder if you know where I am?"
"I can make a pretty shrewd guess," he returned. "To begin with, before I rectified your speech you spoke French, hence you are probably French. Secondly, you have a lamp burning in your room although it is only four o'clock in the afternoon here in New York. You also wear evening dress. It must be evening, and inasmuch as the clock on your mantelpiece points to nine I would say you are in France, as New York time is five hours ahead of French time."
"Clever, but not quite right. I am not French nor do I live in France. I am Swiss and I live in western Switzerland. Swiss time, you know, is almost the same as French time."
Both laughed. Suddenly she said:
"Your face looks so familiar to me, it seems I must have seen you before."
"That is possible," he admitted somewhat embarrassed. "You have perhaps seen one of my pictures."
"How stupid of me!" she exclaimed. "Why of course I should have recognized you immediately. You are the great American inventor, Ralph 124C 41+."
He again smiled and she continued:
"How interesting your work must be and just think how perfectly lovely that I should be so fortunate as to make your acquaintance in this manner. Fancy, the great Ralph 124C 41+ who always denies himself to society."
She hesitated, and then, impulsively, "I wonder if it would be too much to ask you for your autograph?"
Much to his astonishment Ralph found himself pleased with the request. Autograph-hunting women he usually dismissed with a curt refusal.
"Certainly," he answered, "but it seems only fair that I should know to whom I am giving it."
"Oh," she said, blushing a little, and then, with dancing eyes, "Why?"
"Because," replied Ralph with an audacity that surprised himself, "I don't want to be put to the necessity of calling up all Switzerland to find you again."
"Well, if you put it that way," she said, the scarlet mounting in her cheeks, "I suppose I must. I am Alice 212B 423, of Ventalp, Switzerland."
Ralph then attached the Telautograph to his Telephot while the girl did the same. When both instruments were connected he signed his name and he saw his signature appear simultaneously on the machine in Switzerland.
"Thank you so much!" she exclaimed, and added, "I am really proud to have your autograph. From what I have heard of you this is the first you have ever given to a lady. Am I right?" she asked.
"You are perfectly correct, and what is more, it affords me a very great pleasure indeed to present it to you."
"How lovely," she said as she held up the autograph, "I have never seen an original signature with the +, for there are only ten of you who have it on this planet, and now to actually have one seems almost unbelievable."
The awe and admiration in her dark eyes began to make him feel a little uncomfortable. She sensed this immediately and once more became apologetic.
"I shouldn't take up your time in this manner," she went on, "but you see, I have not spoken to any living being for five days and I am just dying to talk."
"Go right ahead, I am delighted to listen. What caused your isolation?"
"Well, you see," she answered, "father and I live in our villa half way up Mount Rosa, and for the last five days such a terrible blizzard has been raging that the house is entirely snowed in. The storm was so terrific that no aeroflyer could come near the house; I have never seen such a thing. Five days ago my father and brother left for Paris, intending to return the same afternoon, but they had a bad accident in which my brother dislocated his knee-cap; both were, therefore, obliged to stay somewhere near Paris, where they landed, and in the meanwhile the blizzard set in. The Teleservice line became disconnected somewhere in the valley, and this is the first connection I have had for five days. How they came to connect me with New York, though, is a puzzle!"
"Most extraordinary—but how about the Radio?"
"Both the Power mast and the Communico mast were blown down the same day, and I was left without any means of communication whatever. However, I managed to put the light magnesium power mast into a temporary position again, and I had just called up the Teleservice Company, telling them again to direct the power, and getting some other information when they cut me in on you."
"Yes, I knew something was wrong when I saw the old-fashioned Radialamp in your room, and I could not quite understand it. You had better try the power now; they probably have directed it by this time; anyhow, the Luminor should work."
"You are probably right," and raising her voice, she called out sharply: "Lux!"
The delicate detectophone mechanism of the Luminor responded instantly to her command; and the room was flooded at once with the beautiful cold pink-white Luminor-light, emanating from the thin wire running around the four sides of the room below the white ceiling.
The light, however, seemed too strong, and she sharply cried, "Lux-dah!" The mechanism again responded; the cold light-radiation of the Luminor wire decreased in intensity at once and the room appeared in an exquisite pink light.
"That's better now," she laughed. "The heater just begins to get warm, too. I am frozen stiff; just think, no heat for five days! I really sometimes envy our ancestors, who, I believe, heated their houses with stoves, burning strange black rocks or tree-chunks in them!"
"That's too bad! It must be a dreadful predicament to be cut off from the entire world, in these days of weather control. It must be a novel experience. I cannot understand, however, what should have brought on a blizzard in midsummer."
"Unfortunately, our governor had some trouble with the four weather-engineers of our district, some months ago, and they struck for better living. They claimed the authorities did not furnish them with sufficient luxuries, and when their demands were refused, they simultaneously turned on the high-depression at the four Meteoro-Towers and then fled, leaving their towers with the high-tension currents escaping at a tremendous rate.
"This was done in the evening, and by midnight our entire district, bounded by the four Meteoro-Towers, was covered with two inches of snow. They had erected especially, additional discharge arms, pointing downward from the towers, for the purpose of snowing in the Meteoros completely.
"Their plans were well laid, for it became impossible to approach the towers for four days; and they finally had to be dismantled by directed energy from forty other Meteoro-Towers, which directed a tremendous amount of energy against the four local towers, till the latter were fused and melted.
"The other Meteoros, I believe, will start in immediately to direct a low-pression over our district; but, as they are not very near us, it will probably take them twenty-four hours to generate enough heat to melt the snow and ice. They will probably encounter considerable difficulty, because our snowed-under district naturally will give rise to some meteorological disturbances in their own districts, and therefore they will be obliged, I presume, to take care of the weather conditions in their districts as well as our own."
"What a remarkable case!" Ralph ejaculated.
She opened her mouth as if to say something. But at that moment an electric gong began to ring furiously, so loud that it vibrated loudly in Ralph's laboratory, four thousand miles away.
Immediately her countenance changed, and the smile in her eyes gave way to a look of terror.
"What is that?" Ralph asked sharply.
"An avalanche! It's just started—what shall I do, oh, what shall I do! It'll reach here in fifteen minutes and I'm absolutely helpless. Tell me—what shall I do?"
The mind of the scientist reacted instantly.
"Speak quick!" he barked. "Is your Power Mast still up?"
"Yes, but what good—?"
"Never mind. Your wave length?"
".629."
"Oscillatory?"
"491,211."
"Can you direct it yourself?"
"Yes."
"Could you attach a six-foot piece of your blown-down Communico mast to the base of the Power aerial?"
"Certainly—it's of alomagnesium and it is very light."
"Good! Now act quick! Run to the roof and attach the Communico mastpiece to the very base of the power mast, and point the former towards the avalanche. Then move the directoscope exactly to West-by-South, and point the antenna of the power mast East-by-North. Now run—I'll do the rest!"
He saw her drop the receiver and rush away from the Telephot. Immediately he leaped up the glass stairs to the top of his building, and swung his big aerial around so that it pointed West-by-South.
He then adjusted his directoscope till a little bell began to ring. He knew then that the instrument was in perfect tune with the far-off instrument in Switzerland; he also noted that its pointer had swung to exactly East-by-North.
"So far, so good," he whistled with satisfaction. "Now for the power!"
He ran down to the laboratory and threw in a switch. Then he threw in another one with his foot, while clasping his ears tightly with his rubber-gloved hands. A terrible, whining sound was heard, and the building shook. It was the warning siren on top of the house, which could be heard within a radius of sixty miles, sounding its warning to all to keep away from tall steel or metal structures, or, if they could not do this, to insulate themselves.
He sounded the siren twice for ten seconds, which meant that he would direct his ultra-power for at least twenty minutes, and everybody must be on guard for this length of time.
No sooner had the siren blast stopped, than he had seen Alice at the Telephot, signalling him that everything was in readiness.
He yelled to her to insulate herself, and he saw her jump into a tall glass chair where she sat perfectly still, deathly white. He could see that she clasped her hands to her ears; and he knew that she must be trying to shut out the thunder of the descending avalanche.
He ran up his high glass ladder; and having reached the top, began to turn the large glass wheel the shaft of which was connected with the ultra-generator.
As he started turning the wheel, for the first time he looked at the clock. He observed that it was just nine minutes after he first had heard the gong and he smiled, coldly. He knew he was in time.
A terrifying roar set in as soon as he had commenced to turn the wheel. It was as if a million devils had been let loose. Sparks were flying everywhere. Small metal parts not encased in lead boxes fused. Long streamers of blue flames emanated from sharp objects, while ball-shaped objects glowed with a white aureole.
Large iron pieces became strongly magnetic, and small iron objects continually flew from one large iron piece to another. Ralph's watch chain became so hot that he had to discard it, together with his watch.
He kept on turning the wheel, and the roar changed to a scream so intense that he had to pull out his rubber ear vacuum-caps so that he might not hear the terrible sound. As he turned the wheel farther around the tone of the ultra-generator reached the note where it coincided with the fundamental note of the building, which was built of steelonium (the new substitute for steel).
Suddenly the whole building "sang," with a shriek so loud and piercing that it could be heard twenty miles away.
Another building whose fundamental note was the same began to "sing" in its turn, just as one tuning fork produces sympathetic sounds in a similar distant one.
A few more turns of the wheel and the "singing" stopped. As he continued turning the wheel of the generator, the latter gave out sounds sharper and sharper, higher and higher, shriller and shriller, till the shrieking became unendurable.
And then, suddenly, all sound stopped abruptly.
The frequency had passed over twenty thousand, at which point the human ear ceases to hear sounds.
Ralph turned the wheel a few more notches and then stopped. Except for the flying iron pieces, there was no sound. Even the myriads of sparks leaping around were strangely silent, except for the hissing noise of flames streaming from sharp metal points.
Ralph looked at the clock. It was exactly ten minutes after the first sounding of the gong. He then turned the wheel one notch further and instantly the room was plunged into pitch-black darkness.
To anyone unacquainted with the tremendous force under the control of Ralph 124C 41 +, but having the temerity to insulate himself and stand on a nearby roof there would have been visible an unusual sight. He would also have undergone some remarkable experiences.
The uninitiated stranger standing—well insulated—on a roof not very far off from Ralph's laboratory, would have witnessed the following remarkable phenomena:
As soon as Ralph threw the power of the Ultra-Generator on his aerial, the latter began to shoot out hissing flames in the direction of West-by-South.
As Ralph kept turning on more power, the flames became longer and the sound louder. The heavy iridium wires of the large aerial became red-hot, then yellow, then dazzling white, and the entire mast became white-hot. Just as the observer could hardly endure the shrill hissing sound of the outflowing flames any more, the sound stopped altogether, abruptly, and simultaneously the whole landscape was plunged into such a pitch-black darkness as he had never experienced before. He could not even see his hand before his eyes. The aerial could not be seen either, although he could feel the tremendous energy still flowing away.
What had happened? The aerial on top of Ralph's house had obtained such a tremendously high frequency, and had become so strongly energyzed, that it acted toward the ether much the same as a vacuum pump acts on the air.
The aerial for a radius of some forty miles attracted the ether so fast that a new supply could not spread over this area with sufficient rapidity.
Inasmuch as light waves cannot pass through space without the medium of ether, it necessarily follows that the entire area upon which the aerial acted was dark.
The observer who had never before been in an etherless hole (the so-called negative whirlpool), experienced some remarkable sensations during the twenty minutes that followed.
It is a well known fact that heat waves cannot pass through space without their medium, ether, the same as an electric bell, working in a vacuum, cannot be heard outside of the vacuum, because sound waves cannot pass through space without their medium, the air.
No sooner had the darkness set in, than a peculiar feeling of numbness and passiveness would have come over him.
As long as he was in the etherless space, he absolutely stopped growing older, as no combustion nor digestion can go on without ether. He furthermore had lost all sense of heat or cold. His pipe, hot previously, was neither hot nor cold to his touch. His own body could not grow cold as its heat could not be given off to the atmosphere, nor could his body grow cold, even if he had sat on a cake of ice, because there was no ether to permit the heat to pass from one atom to another.
He would have remembered how, one day, he had been in a tornado center, and how, when the storm center had created a partial vacuum around him, he all of a sudden had felt the very air drawn from his lungs. He would have remembered people talking about an air-less hole, in which there was no medium but ether (inasmuch as he could see the light). Now things were reversed. He could hear and breathe, because the ether has no effect on these functions; but he had been robbed of his visual senses, and heat or cold could not affect him, as there was no means by which the heat or cold could traverse the ether-hole.
Alice's father, who had heard of the strike of the Meteoro-Tower operators and guessed of his daughter's predicament, rushed back from Paris in his aeroflyer. He had speeded up his machine to the utmost, scenting impending disaster as if by instinct. When finally his villa came into sight, his blood froze in his veins and his heart stopped beating at the scene below him.
He could see that an immense avalanche was sweeping down the mountain-side, with his house, that sheltered his daughter, directly in the path of it.
As he approached, he heard the roar and thunder of the avalanche as it swept everything in its path before it. He knew he was powerless, as he could not reach the house in time, and it only meant the certain destruction of himself if he could; and for that reason he could do nothing but be a spectator of the tragedy which would enact itself before his eyes in a few short minutes.
At this juncture a miracle, so it seemed to the distracted father, occurred.
His eye chanced to fall on the Power mast on the top of his house. He could see the iridium aerial wires which were pointing East-by-North suddenly become red-hot; then yellow, then white-hot, at the same time he felt that some enormous etheric disturbance had been set up, as sparks were flying from all metallic parts of his machine. When he looked again at the aerial on his house, he saw that a piece of the Communico mast, which apparently had fallen at the base of the Power mast, and which was pointing directly at the avalanche, was streaming gigantic flames which grew longer and longer, and gave forth shriller and shriller sounds. The flames which streamed from the end of the Communico-mast-piece looked like a tremendously long jet of water leaving its nozzle under pressure.
For about five hundred yards from the tip of the Communico mast it was really only a single flame about fifteen feet in diameter. Beyond that it spread out fan-wise. He could also see that the entire Power mast, including the Communico mast, was glowing in a white heat, showing that immense forces were directed upon it. By this time the avalanche had almost come in contact with the furthest end of the flames.
Here the unbelievable happened. No sooner did the avalanche touch the flames, than it began turning to water. It seemed that the heat of those flames was so intense and powerful that had the avalanche been a block of solid ice it would not have made any marked difference. As it was, the entire avalanche was being reduced to hot water and steam even before it reached the main shaft of the flame.
A torrent of hot water rushing down the mountain was all that remained of the menacing avalanche; and while the water did some damage, it was insignificant.
For several minutes after the melting of the avalanche the flames continued to stream from the aerial, and then faded away.
Ralph 124C 41+, in New York, four thousand miles distant, had turned off the power of his ultra-generator.
He climbed down his glass ladder, stepped over to the Telephot, and found that Alice had already reached her instrument.
She looked at the man smiling in the faceplate of the Telephot almost dumb with an emotion that came very near to being reverence.
The voice that reached him was trembling and he could see her struggle for coherent speech.
"It's gone," she gasped; "what did you do?"
"Melted it."
"Melted it!" she echoed, "I—"
Before she could continue, the door in her room burst violently open and in rushed a fear-stricken old man. Alice flew to his arms, crying, "Oh father—"
Ralph 124C 41+ with discretion disconnected the Telephot.
TWO FACES
Feeling the need of fresh air and quiet after the strain of the last half hour, Ralph 124C 41+ climbed the few steps leading from the laboratory to the roof and sat down on a bench beneath the revolving aerial.
The hum of the great city came faintly from below. Aeroflyers dotted the sky. From time to time, trans-oceanic or trans-continental air liners passed with a low vibration, scarcely audible.
At times a great aircraft would come close—within 500 yards perhaps—when the passengers would crane their necks to get a good view of his "house," if such it could be called.
Indeed, his "house," which was a round tower, 650 feet high, and thirty in diameter, built entirely of crystal glass-bricks and steelonium, was one of the sights of New York. A grateful city, recognizing his genius and his benefits to humanity, had erected the great tower for him on a plot where, centuries ago, Union Square had been.
The top of the tower was twice as great in circumference as the main building, and in this upper part was located the research laboratory, famous throughout the world. An electromagnetic tube elevator ran down the tower on one side of the building, all the rooms being circular in shape, except for the space taken up by the elevator.
Ralph, sitting on the roof of his tower, was oblivious to all about him. He was unable to dismiss from his mind the lovely face of the girl whose life he had just been the means of saving. The soft tones of her voice were in his ears. Heretofore engrossed in his work, his scientific mind had been oblivious to women. They had played no part in his life. Science had been his mistress, and a laboratory his home.
And now, in one short half hour, for him the whole world had become a new place. Two dark eyes, a bewitching pair of lips, a voice that had stirred the very core of his being—
Ralph shook himself. It was not for him to think of these things, he told himself. He was but a tool, a tool to advance science, to benefit humanity. He belonged, not to himself, but to the Government—the Government, who fed and clothed him, and whose doctors guarded his health with every precaution. He had to pay the penalty of his +. To be sure, he had everything. He had but to ask and his wish was law—if it did not interfere with his work.
There were times he grew restive under the restraint, he longed to smoke the tobacco forbidden him by watchful doctors, and to indulge in those little vices which vary the monotony of existence for the ordinary individual. There were times when he most ardently wished that he were an ordinary individual.
He was not allowed to make dangerous tests personally, thereby endangering a life invaluable to the Government. That institution would supply him with some criminal under sentence of death who would be compelled to undergo the test for him. If the criminal were killed during the experiment, nothing was lost; if he did not perish, he would be imprisoned for life.
Being a true scientist, Ralph wanted to make his own dangerous experiments. Not to do this took away the very spice of life for him, and on occasion he rebelled. He would call up the Planet Governor, the ruler of 15 billion human beings, and demand that he be relieved of his work.
"I can't stand it," he would protest. "This constraint which I am forced to endure maddens me, I feel that I am being hampered."
The Governor, a wise man, and a kindly one, would often call upon him in person, and for a long time they would discuss the question, Ralph protesting, the Governor reasoning with him.
"I am nothing but a prisoner," Ralph stormed once.
"You are a great inventor," smiled the Governor, "and a tremendous factor in the world's advancement. You are invaluable to humanity, and—you are irreplaceable. You belong to the world—not to yourself."
Many times in the past few years he recalled, had the two been over the same ground, and many times had the diplomatic Governor convinced the scientist that in sacrifice of self and devotion to the world's future lay his great reward.
The voice of his manservant interrupted his reverie.
"Sir," he said, "your presence in the transmission-room would be appreciated."
"What is it?" asked the scientist, impatient at the interruption.
"Sir, the people have heard all about the Switzerland incident of an hour ago and desire to show their appreciation."
"Well, I suppose I must submit," the inventor rather wearily responded, and both stepped over into the round steel car of the electromagnetic elevator. The butler pressed one of the 28 ivory buttons and the car shot downward, with neither noise nor friction. There were no cables or guides, the car being held and propelled by magnetism only. At the 22nd floor the car stopped, and Ralph stepped into the transmission-room.
No sooner had he entered than the deafening applause of hundreds of thousands of voices greeted him, and he was forced to put his hands to his ears to muffle the sound.
Yet, the transmission-room was entirely empty.
Every inch of the wall, however, was covered with large-sized Telephots and loud-speaking devices.
Centuries ago, when people tendered some one an ovation, they would all assemble in some great square or large hall. The celebrity would have to appear in person, else there would be no ovation—truly a clumsy means. Then, too, in those years, people at a distance could neither see nor hear what was going on throughout the world.
Ralph's ovation was the result of the enterprise of a news "paper" which had issued extras about his exploit, and urged its readers to be connected with him at 5 p.m.
Naturally everyone who could spare the time had called the Teleservice Company and asked to be connected with the inventor's trunk-line—and this was the result.
Ralph 124C 41 + stepped into the middle of the room and bowed to the four points of the compass, in order that all might see him perfectly. The noise was deafening, and as it rather grew in volume than diminished he beseechingly held up his hands. In a few seconds the applause ceased and some one cried—"Speech!"
Ralph spoke briefly, thanking his audience for their interest, and touching but lightly upon his rescue of the young Swiss girl, begged his hearers to remember that in no way had he risked his life and therefore could scarcely be called a hero.
Vociferous cries of "No, no," told him that no one shared his humble opinion of the achievement.
It was at this juncture that Ralph's attention was caught by two persons in the audience. There were so many thousands of faces on each plate that nearly every countenance was blurred, due to their constant movement. (He himself, however, was clearly seen by them, as each one had switched on their "reversers," making it possible to see only the object at the end of the line.)
To Ralph, the shifting, clouded appearance of his audience was a commonplace.
This was not the first time that he had been called upon to receive the thanks of the multitude for some unusual service he had rendered them, or some surprising scientific feat he had successfully accomplished. While realizing that he must of necessity yield to public adulation, it more or less bored him.
He was not particularly interested in the crowd, either collectively or individually, and as there were so many faces crowded into each faceplate he made no attempt to distinguish friends from strangers.
Yet there were two faces among the numerous Telephot faceplates that Ralph in making his brief speech, found his eyes returning to again and again. Each occupied the whole of a respective faceplate and while dissimilar in appearance, nevertheless were markedly alike in expression. It was as if they were studying this great scientist, endeavoring to fix in their minds a permanent picture of him. Ralph sensed no animosity in their steady almost hypnotic gaze and yet they were curiously apart from the enthusiastic throng. He felt as though he were, to both of them, under the microscope.
One of the faces was that of a man in his early thirties. It was a handsome face, though, to the close observer, the eyes were set just a trifle too near together, and the mouth betrayed cunning and had a touch of viciousness.
The other was not a Terrestrial, but a visiting Martian. It was impossible to mistake the distinctly Martian cast of countenance. The great black horse eyes in the long, melancholy face, the elongated slightly pointed ears were proof enough. Martians in New York were not sufficiently rare to excite any particular comment. Many made that city their permanent home, although the law on the planet Earth, as well as on Mars, which forbade the intermarriage of Martians and Terrestrials, kept them from flocking earthwards in any great numbers.
In the applause that followed the conclusion of Ralph's words the incident of the two pairs of scrutinizing eyes vanished from his thoughts. But his sub-conscious self, that marvelous mechanism which forgets nothing, had photographed them indelibly. With the plaudits of the crowd still ringing he bowed and left the room.
He went, via the elevator, directly to his library, and asked for the afternoon news.
His man handed him a tray on which lay a piece of material as large as a postage stamp, as transparent and flexible as celluloid.
"What edition is this?" he asked.
"The 5 o'clock New York News,[1] sir."
Ralph took the "News" and placed it in a metal holder which was part of the hinged door of a small box. He closed the door and turned on a switch on the side of the box. Immediately there appeared on the opposite white wall of the room, a twelve-column page of the New York News and the scientist, leaning back in his chair, proceeded to read.
The New York News was simply a microscopic reduction of a page, which, when enlarged by a powerful lens, became plainly visible.
Moreover, each paper had eight "pages," in separate sheets, as was the fashion centuries ago, but eight pages literally on top of each other. The printing process was electrolytic, no ink whatsoever being used in the manufacture of the "newspaper." This process was invented in 1910 by an Englishman, and improved by the American 64L 52 in 2031, who made it possible to "print" in one operation eight different subjects, one on top of another.
These eight impressions could be made visible only by subjecting the "paper" to different colors, the color rays bringing out the different prints. The seven colors of the rainbow were used, while white light was employed to show reproduced photographs, etc., in their natural colors. With this method it was possible to "print" a "newspaper," fully ten times as large in volume as any newspaper of the 21st century, on a piece of film, the size of a postage-stamp.