The Feminine Future: Early Science Fiction by Women Writers (Dover Thrift Editions) Page 22

  David Bell and his wife looked at each other with tear-dimmed eyes.

  Next day the “slender thread” which had held George Gregory to this world was laid in its last resting place, but the soul which had realized and repented of its error, who knows whither it went?

  * * *

  *Note: An “artificial kidney” has been invented recently, and tried out successfully on dogs. A cylinder of glass contains a number of celloidin tubes which strain the poisons out of the blood.

  CREATURES OF THE LIGHT

  Sophie Wenzel Ellis (1894–1984)

  Like Gertrude Bennett and Clare Winger Harris, Sophie Wenzel Ellis, a Southern woman from Memphis, Tennessee, was another regular contributor of strange stories to the early pulp magazines. The first was probably “The Unseen Seventh,” a ghost story in The Thrill Book in 1919 under her maiden name Sophie Louise Wenzel. She married lawyer George E. Ellis in 1922. Most of her fiction was either ghost stories or mysteries, mixed with a few romances, but she had a sudden flourish with science fiction in 1930 when a new magazine, Astounding Stories of Super Science appeared and was looking for stories of wild and extravagant scientific adventure. Ellis threw herself into the story with gusto, imagining a scientist seeking to create the perfect human, but the story includes lots of other intriguing ideas, not least the idea of slipping a minute or two into the future in order to be invisible to those around you. It might be over the top, but there’s no denying this novelette is a grandiose performance by the author.

  IN A NIGHT club of many lights and much high-pitched laughter, where he had come for an hour of forgetfulness and an execrable dinner, John Northwood was suddenly conscious that Fate had begun shuffling the cards of his destiny for a dramatic game.

  First, he was aware that the singularly ugly and deformed man at the next table was gazing at him with an intense, almost excited scrutiny. But, more disturbing than this, was the scowl of hate on the face of another man, as handsome as this other was hideous, who sat in a far corner hidden behind a broad column, with rude elbows on the table, gawking first at Northwood and then at the deformed, almost hideous man.

  Northwood’s blood chilled over the expression on the handsome, fair-haired stranger’s perfectly carved face. If a figure in marble could display a fierce, unnatural passion, it would seem no more eldritch than the hate in the icy blue eyes.

  It was not a new experience for Northwood to be stared at: he was not merely a good-looking young fellow of twenty-five, he was scenery, magnificent and compelling. Furthermore, he had been in the public eye for years, first as a precocious child and, later, as a brilliant young scientist. Yet, for all his experience with hero worshippers to put an adamantine crust on his sensibilities, he grew warm-eared under the gaze of these two strangers—this hunchback with a face like a grotesque mask in a Greek play, this other who, even handsomer than himself, chilled the blood queerly with the cold perfection of his godlike masculine beauty.

  Northwood sensed something familiar about the hunchback. Somewhere he had seen that huge, round, intelligent face splattered with startling features. The very breadth of the man’s massive brow was not altogether unknown to him, nor could Northwood look into the mournful, near-sighted black eyes without trying to recall when and where he had last seen them.

  But this other of the marble-perfect nose and jaw, the blond, thick-waved hair, was totally a stranger, whom Northwood fervently hoped he would never know too well.

  Trying to analyze the queer repugnance that he felt for this handsome, boldly staring fellow, Northwood decided: “He’s like a newly-made wax figure endowed with life.”

  Shivering over his own fantastic thought, he again glanced swiftly at the hunchback, who he noticed was playing with his coffee, evidently to prolong the meal.

  One year of calm-headed scientific teaching in a famous old eastern university had not made him callous to mysteries. Thus, with a feeling of high adventure, he finished his supper and prepared to go. From the corner of his eye, he saw the hunchback leave his seat, while the handsome man behind the column rose furtively, as though he, too, intended to follow.

  Northwood was out in the dusky street about thirty seconds, when the hunchback came from the foyer. Without apparently noticing Northwood, he hailed a taxi. For a moment, he stood still, waiting for the taxi to pull up at the curb. Standing thus, with the street light limning every unnatural angle of his twisted body and every queer abnormality of his huge features, he looked almost repulsive.

  On his way to the taxi, his thick shoulder jostled the younger man. Northwood felt something strike his foot, and, stooping in the crowded street, picked up a black leather wallet.

  “Wait!” he shouted as the hunchback stepped into the waiting taxi.

  But the man did not falter. In a moment, Northwood lost sight of him as the taxi moved away.

  He debated with himself whether or not he should attempt to follow. And while he stood thus in indecision, the handsome stranger approached him.

  “Good evening to you,” he said curtly. His rich, musical voice, for all its deepness, held a faint hint of the tremulous, birdlike notes heard in the voice of a young child who has not used his vocal chords long enough for them to have lost their exquisite newness.

  “Good evening,” echoed Northwood, somewhat uncertainly. A sudden aura of repulsion swept coldly over him. Seen close, with the brilliant light of the street directly on his too perfect face, the man was more sinister than in the café. Yet Northwood, struggling desperately for a reason to explain his violent dislike, could not discover why he shrank from this splendid creature, whose eyes and flesh had a new, fresh appearance rarely seen except in very young boys.

  “I want what you picked up,” went on the stranger.

  “It isn’t yours!” Northwood flashed back. Ah! that effluvium of hatred which seemed to weave a tangible net around him!

  “Nor is it yours. Give it to me!”

  “You’re insolent, aren’t you?”

  “If you don’t give it to me, you will be sorry.” The man did not raise his voice in anger, yet the words whipped Northwood with almost physical violence. “If he knew that I saw everything that happened in there—that I am talking to you at this moment—he would tremble with fear.”

  “But you can’t intimidate me.”

  “No?” For a long moment, the cold blue eyes held his contemptuously. “No? I can’t frighten you—you worm of the Black Age?”

  Before Northwood’s horrified sight, he vanished; vanished as though he had turned suddenly to air and floated away.

  The street was not crowded at that time, and there was no pressing group of bodies to hide the splendid creature. Northwood gawked stupidly, mouth half open, eyes searching wildly everywhere. The man was gone. He had simply disappeared, in this sane, electric-lighted street.

  Suddenly, close to Northwood’s ear, grated a derisive laugh. “I can’t frighten you?” From nowhere came that singularly young-old voice.

  As Northwood jerked his head around to meet blank space, a blow struck the corner of his mouth. He felt the warm blood run over his chin.

  “I could take that wallet from you, worm, but you may keep it, and see me later. But remember this—the thing inside never will be yours.”

  The words fell from empty air.

  For several minutes, Northwood waited at the spot, expecting another demonstration of the abnormal, but nothing else occurred. At last, trembling violently, he wiped the thick moisture from his forehead and dabbed at the blood which he still felt on his chin.

  But when he looked at his handkerchief, he muttered:

  “Well, I’ll be jiggered!”

  The handkerchief bore not the slightest trace of blood.

  Under the light in his bedroom, Northwood examined the wallet. It was made of alligator skin, clasped with a gold signet that bore the initial M. The first pocket was empty; the second yielded an object that sent a warm flush to his face.

  It was the photog
raph of a gloriously beautiful girl, so seductively lovely that the picture seemed almost to be alive. The short, curved upper lip, the full, delicately voluptuous lower, parted slightly in a smile that seemed to linger in every exquisite line of her face. She looked as though she had just spoken passionately, and the spirit of her words had inspired her sweet flesh and eyes.

  Northwood turned his head abruptly and groaned, “Good Heavens!”

  He had no right to palpitate over the picture of an unknown beauty. Only a month ago, he had become engaged to a young woman whose mind was as brilliant as her face was plain. Always he had vowed that he would never marry a pretty girl, for he detested his own masculine beauty sincerely.

  He tried to grasp a mental picture of Mary Burns, who had never stirred in him the emotion that this smiling picture invoked. But, gazing at the picture, he could not remember how his fiancée looked.

  Suddenly the picture fell from his fingers and dropped to the floor on its face, revealing an inscription on the back. In a bold, masculine hand, he read: “Your future wife.”

  “Some lucky fellow is headed for a life of bliss,” was his jealous thought.

  He frowned at the beautiful face. What was this girl to that hideous hunchback? Why did the handsome stranger warn him, “The thing inside never will be yours?”

  Again he turned eagerly to the wallet.

  In the last flap he found something that gave him another surprise: a plain white card on which a name and address were written by the same hand that had penned the inscription on the picture.

  Emil Mundson, Ph.D.,

  44-1/2 Indian Court

  Emil Mundson, the electrical wizard and distinguished scientific writer, friend of the professor of science at the university where Northwood was an assistant professor; Emil Mundson, whom, a week ago, Northwood had yearned mightily to meet.

  Now Northwood knew why the hunchback’s intelligent, ugly face was familiar to him. He had seen it pictured as often as enterprising news photographers could steal a likeness from the over-sensitive scientist, who would never sit for a formal portrait.

  Even before Northwood had graduated from the university where he now taught, he had been avidly interested in Emil Mundson’s fantastic articles in scientific journals. Only a week ago, Professor Michael had come to him with the current issue of New Science, shouting excitedly:

  “Did you read this, John, this article by Emil Mundson?” His shaking, gnarled old fingers tapped the open magazine.

  Northwood seized the magazine and looked avidly at the title of the article, “Creatures of the Light.”

  “No, I haven’t read it,” he admitted. “My magazine hasn’t come yet.”

  “Run through it now briefly, will you? And note with especial care the passages I have marked. In fact, you needn’t bother with anything else just now. Read this—and this—and this.” He pointed out penciled paragraphs.

  Northwood read:

  Man always has been, always will be a creature of the light. He is forever reaching for some future point of perfected evolution which, even when his most remote ancestor was a fish creature composed of a few cells, was the guiding power that brought him up from the first stinking sea and caused him to create gods in his own image.

  It is this yearning for perfection which sets man apart from all other life, which made him man even in the rudimentary stages of his development. He was man when he wallowed in the slime of the new world and yearned for the air above. He will still be man when he has evolved into that glorious creature of the future whose body is deathless and whose mind rules the universe.

  Professor Michael, looking over Northwood’s shoulder, interrupted the reading:

  “Man always has been man,” he droned emphatically. “That’s not original with friend Mundson, of course; yet it is a theory that has not received sufficient investigation.” He indicated another marked paragraph. “Read this thoughtfully, John. It’s the crux of Mundson’s thought.”

  Northwood continued:

  Since the human body is chemical and electrical, increased knowledge of its powers and limitations will enable us to work with Nature in her sublime but infinitely slow processes of human evolution. We need not wait another fifty thousand years to be godlike creatures. Perhaps even now we may be standing at the beginning of the splendid bridge that will take us to that state of perfected evolution when we shall be Creatures who have reached the Light.

  Northwood looked questioningly at the professor. “Queer, fantastic thing, isn’t it?”

  Professor Michael smoothed his thin, gray hair with his dried-out hand. “Fantastic?” His intellectual eyes behind the thick glasses sought the ceiling. “Who can say? Haven’t you ever wondered why all parents expect their children to be nearer perfection than themselves, and why is it a natural impulse for them to be willing to sacrifice themselves to better their offspring?” He paused and moistened his pale, wrinkled lips. “Instinct, Northwood. We Creatures of the Light know that our race shall reach that point in evolution when, as perfect creatures, we shall rule all matter and live forever.” He punctuated the last words with blows on the table.

  Northwood laughed dryly. “How many thousands of years are you looking forward, Professor?”

  The professor made an obscure noise that sounded like a smothered sniff. “You and I shall never agree on the point that mental advancement may wipe out physical limitations in the human race, perhaps in a few hundred years. It seems as though your profound admiration for Dr. Mundson would win you over to this pet theory.”

  “But what sane man can believe that even perfectly developed beings, through mental control, could overcome Nature’s fixed laws?”

  “We don’t know! We don’t know!” The professor slapped the magazine with an emphatic hand. “Emil Mundson hasn’t written this article for nothing. He’s paving the way for some announcement that will startle the scientific world. I know him. In the same manner he gave out veiled hints of his various brilliant discoveries and inventions long before he offered them to the world.”

  “But Dr. Mundson is an electrical wizard. He would not be delving seriously into the mysteries of evolution, would he?”

  “Why not?” The professor’s wizened face screwed up wisely. “A year ago, when he was back from one of those mysterious long excursions he takes in that weirdly different aircraft of his, about which he is so secretive, he told me that he was conducting experiments to prove his belief that the human brain generates electric current, and that the electrical impulses in the brain set up radioactive waves that some day, among other miracles, will make thought communication possible. Perfect man, he says, will perform mental feats which will give him complete mental domination over the physical.”

  Northwood finished reading and turned thoughtfully to the window. His profile in repose had the straight-nosed, full-lipped perfection of a Greek coin. Old, wizened Professor Michael, gazing at him covertly, smothered a sigh.

  “I wish you knew Dr. Mundson,” he said. “He, the ugliest man in the world, delights in physical perfection. He would revel in your splendid body and brilliant mind.”

  Northwood blushed hotly. “You’ll have to arrange a meeting between us.”

  “I have.” The professor’s thin, dry lips pursed comically. “He’ll drop in to see you within a few days.”

  And now John Northwood sat holding Dr. Mundson’s card and the wallet which the scientist had so mysteriously dropped at his feet.

  Here was high adventure, perhaps, for which he had been singled out by the famous electrical wizard. While excitement mounted in his blood, Northwood again examined the photograph. The girl’s strange eyes, odd in expression rather than in size or shape, seemed to hold him. The young man’s breath came quicker.

  “It’s a challenge,” he said softly. “It won’t hurt to see what it’s all about.”

  His watch showed eleven o’clock. He would return the wallet that night. Into his coat pocket he slipped a revolver. One sometime
s needed weapons in Indian Court.

  He took a taxi, which soon turned from the well-lighted streets into a section where squalid houses crowded against each other, and dirty children swarmed in the streets in their last games of the day.

  Indian Court was little more than an alley, dark and evil smelling.

  The chauffeur stopped at the entrance and said:

  “If I drive in, I’ll have to back out, sir. Number forty-four and a half is the end house, facing the entrance.”

  “You’ve been here before?” asked Northwood.

  “Last week I drove the queerest bird here—a fellow as good-looking as you, who had me follow the taxi occupied by a hunch-back with a face like Old Nick.” The man hesitated and went on haltingly: “It might sound goofy, mister, but there was something funny about my fare. He jumped out, asked me the charge, and, in the moment I glanced at my taxi-meter, he disappeared. Yes, sir. Vanished, owing me four dollars, six bits. It was almost ghost-like, mister.”

  Northwood laughed nervously and dismissed him. He found his number and knocked at the dilapidated door. He heard a sudden movement in the lighted room beyond, and the door opened quickly.

  Dr. Mundson faced him.

  “I knew you’d come!” he said with a slight Teutonic accent. “Often I’m not wrong in sizing up my man. Come in.”

  Northwood cleared his throat awkwardly. “You dropped your wallet at my feet, Dr. Mundson. I tried to stop you before you got away, but I guess you did not hear me.”

  He offered the wallet, but the hunchback waved it aside.