Books › Blue Book v085 n06 [1947-10], 1947 › scan 5
Scan 5
Blue Book v085 n06 [1947-10], 1947
78 lines. Read by computer on 18 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1He said: "I'm neutralizing the recording cylinder. It's a process roughly analogous to the demagnetizing of iron by alternations of a magnetic field diminishing gradually to zero. The wire mesh which covers the apparatus operates as a shield against stray electrical effects. Don't approach closer than four feet, now. Your bodies would affect the very sensitive recording cylinder, despite the shield."
3"Do you have any one-syllable words for all this?" I asked. "It would be more interesting if we knew what goes on."
5"I can explain it better after you see what the projector does. The basic principle hinges on this: Electricity is the only reality. Matter itself is electrical. Life—living—is an electrical process. Our bodies are electrical machines, vibrant with millions of tiny currents, and emanating faint electrical auras—fields of force. And by suitable means, any electrical effect can be recorded, and again reproduced."
7He hesitated, then added, with a peculiar emphasis: "The ego of an individual, his special and peculiar life-essence—call it what you will—is the summation of his electrical effects. Merely that."
9I said: "And the Winged Victory, no doubt, is merely a piece of stone."
11An old anger was rising inside me. From our boyhood, it had been this way with us. Comradeship, loyalty, deep affection for each other—but always this plane of cleavage between our minds. For months it would remain invisible and forgotten, and then suddenly it would be there, as real and rigid and impenetrable as a sheet of glass. A clouded glass through which neither of us could see into the other's thoughts. Then there would be quick anger on my side; and on his, puzzlement and an amused contempt.
13The cold incisiveness of his mind had a quality of terror for me. I felt that he stripped the flesh off beauty to get at its bare bones—to see what held it up.
15Once I had said to him: "There's something appalling, a sort of ferocious lust, in the way you scientists pursue knowledge. You're as merciless as weasels after a rabbit. You spring on it and suck the life-blood, and leave a dead carcass of fact behind you. And like weasels, you're never satiated."
17He gibed: "You've been eating something."
19"I mean it," I insisted. "I'm afraid of scientists. Any of you would put humanity in the cart, just to find out something new."
21"Tripe. Look what science has done for humanity."
23"Done for' is right! Or soon will be."
25"That's sloppy thinking, Ian. Humanity may do for itself, I grant you. But you can't blame that on science."
27"Give gunpowder to children, and then blame the children," I said.
29"They've got to grow up—stop being children. If exact scientific knowledge isn't the most important thing in life, I'd like to know what is."
31"All right, I'll tell you," I said. "Listen carefully: The most important thing in life is to be able to sit idle on a spring morning and be glad of the beauty of the earth."
33"Is that supposed to mean something?"
35"Not for you. You're a scientist."
37He grinned at me, then clutched the throat of the desk phone and began shouting into its mouthpiece, imitating a frenzied broadcaster:
39"The referee brings them to the center of the ring. Killer Mackinnon refuses to shake hands! He's going to make it a grudge fight! The bell! They come out swinging! The Killer lands a haymaker! Kid Kane's knees buckle! He's groggy! He doesn't know what it's all about! The Killer smashes him—he's down! He's up, he's down—"
41That was the way our arguments ended, always. He had a charm as potent with men as with women. You could not stay angry with him.
43But this time there was more behind it. Mona was behind it—Mona standing there, looking at him as she had never looked at me. Both of us knew.
45He didn't answer me. He took a piece of chalk from his pocket and marked a square on the floor, some twenty feet in advance of the recorder. "Keep inside that square, Mona. I have to focus on you, so to speak."
47Mona glanced about, then overhead. "It's getting dusky in here. Won't you need more light?"
49"No. This isn't like photography. Pitch dark would do as well."
51"What must I do? Stand still? Or move about?"
53"Anything you like, so you stay in the focal area. How about a few dance steps? The recording period will be exactly one minute and a half. Then it cuts off automatically."
55He went back to the enameled steel box, circling carefully around the recorder, and stood for a moment watching the needle of its dial. Then he turned the switch button—cutting out the neutralizer, probably. On the wall to one side was a large knife-switch—triple blades of glistening copper united at the top by a bar on which was a black handle. He grasped this and thrust the switch shut. Somewhere in the recorder a hissing began. The glass tubes began to glow—some only a dull red, others gleaming brightly. The hissing died away, to be replaced by a high whining note suggestive of something vibrating with extreme rapidity.
57Court had turned to face the girl, and now he said: "Ready, Mona! It begins!" There was a click, and I saw that the circular section of wire mesh covering the mouth of the bakelite horn had been whipped aside, leaving the horn open.
59Of what followed, I do not like to speak. For me, it ended with a disintegrating emotional shock; and it is associated with later horror from which I shall never entirely recover. But it is important, and must be told.
61Mona was dancing: her head thrown back, a tremulous half-smile on her lips, her eyes on Court. I have no words for the beauty of it, there amid the harsh and graceless confusion of that laboratory. I can only say that, for me, the walls receded, were no longer there. It was like watching some young girl dancing for her pleasure, alone in a forest glade in the morning of the world. A dance gay, hopeful, innocent and happy; yet touched with the pathos of all youth, which hopes for and believes so much.
63She finished, and stood for a moment, her arms flung wide, the questioning smile still on her face. And then Court came swiftly from the shadow of the wall. He went to her and took her in his arms, and her arms went round his neck.
65The high whining note of the recorder kept on and on. All I could think of was that Mona had misjudged the time, that her dance had ended too soon.
67With a click, the wire screen whipped back across the mouth of the bakelite horn. The whining note cut off abruptly, and the tubes of the recorder dimmed and died. I turned and went as quietly as I could down the stair, leaving them motionless and silent, still locked in their embrace.
69I thought I would walk out of the house and keep on walking; but after a moment I saw that would not do. So I waited in the patio.
71They came down presently, a little pale and wide-eyed, as if they were astonished by what had happened; but Mona's eyes misted, and she ran to me and caught my arm in both her hands. I kissed her cheek and said: "It is all right, Mona. It was meant, I guess." And I took Court's hand and said: "Luck, kid."
73He said: "We're flying to Yuma to be married tonight, Ian. If you'd come—"
75"Don't be silly," I said. "Get going. Okata can drive me home in the roadster."
77They didn't get to Yuma. It turned into a bad night of rain and fog, and somehow their chartered plane got off its course and crashed on one of the Cuyamaca peaks. Court was only
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