Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustrations.
See 60944-h.htm or 60944-h.zip:
(https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/60944/pg60944-images.html)
or
(https://www.gutenberg.org/files/60944/60944-h.zip)
Images of the original pages are available through
HathiTrust Digital Library. See
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015003928853&view=1up&seq=5
RALPH 124C 41+
[Illustration]
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 _The Avalanche_ _25_
2 _Two Faces_ _40_
3 _Dead or Alive?_ _52_
4 _Fernand_ _66_
5 _New York A.D. 2660_ _79_
6 "_Give Us Food_" _97_
7 _The End of Money_ _110_
8 _The Menace of the Invisible Cloak_ _118_
9 _The Conquest of Gravitation_ _127_
10 _Two Letters_ _140_
11 _The Flight Into Space_ _147_
12 _Llysanorh' Strikes_ _164_
13 _Alice Objects_ _172_
14 _The Terror of the Comet_ _176_
15 _Llysanorh' Throws Off the Mask_ _188_
16 _The Supreme Victory_ _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.
[Illustration]
After 39 years I could point out a number of minor 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
THE AVALANCHE
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.
2
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.