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Disowned · 20 Short Science Fiction Stories

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Speaker 1: Section eight of twenty short science fiction stories by various authors.
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Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, disowned by
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Speaker 1: Victor Endersby. The sky sagged downward, belling blackly with a
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Speaker 1: sudden summer rain, giving me a vision of catching my
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Speaker 1: train in sodden clothing. After the short cut across the fields,
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Speaker 1: which I was taking in company with my brother Tristan
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Speaker 1: and his fiancee. The sullen atmosphere ripped apart with an
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Speaker 1: electric glare. Our ears quivered to the throbbing sky, while
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Speaker 1: huge drops jarred loose from the air by the thunder
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Speaker 1: impact splattered sluggishly heavily about us. Little breezes swept out
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Speaker 1: from the storm center, lifting the under sides of the
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Speaker 1: long grass leaves to view in waves of lighter green,
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Speaker 1: I complained peevishly. Ah, mop up, said Tristan. You've plenty
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Speaker 1: of time, and there's a big oak. It's as dry
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Speaker 1: under there as a cave. I think that'll be fun,
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Speaker 1: twittered Alice, to wade out a thunderstorm under a tree.
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Speaker 1: Under a tree, I said hardly. I'm not hankering to
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Speaker 1: furnish myself as an exhibit on the physiological effects of
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Speaker 1: a lightning stroke. No, sir, rats, said Tristan. All that's
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Speaker 1: a fairy tale. Tree's being dangerous in a thunderstorm. The
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Speaker 1: rain now beat through our thin summer clothing. As Tristan
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Speaker 1: seized Alice's hand and told her toward the spreading shelter,
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Speaker 1: I followed them at first, then began to lag with
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Speaker 1: an odd unwillingness. I had been only half serious in
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Speaker 1: my objection, but all at once that tree exercised an
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Speaker 1: odd repulsion on me. An imaginary picture of the electric
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Speaker 1: fluid coursing through my shriveling nerve channels grew unpleasantly vivid.
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Speaker 1: Suddenly I knew I was not going under the tree.
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Speaker 1: I stopped dead, pulling my hat brimmed down behind to
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Speaker 1: divert the rivulet coursing down the back of my neck,
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Speaker 1: calling to the others in a voice rather cracked from embarrassment.
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Speaker 1: They looked at me curiously, and Alice began to twit
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Speaker 1: me standing in the rain, while Tristan desired to know
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Speaker 1: whether we thought we were a pair of goldfish. In
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Speaker 1: his estimation, we might belong to the pristine tribal ride,
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Speaker 1: but not to that decorative branch thereof to be frank.
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Speaker 1: He used the term suckers. Feeling exceptionally foolish, I planted
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Speaker 1: myself doggedly in the soaking grass as Alice turned to
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Speaker 1: dash for the tree. Then the thing happened, the thing
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Speaker 1: which to this hour makes the fabric of space, with
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Speaker 1: its unknown forces, seem an insecure and eerie garment for
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Speaker 1: the body of man. Over the slight rise beyond the tree,
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Speaker 1: as the air crackled, roar, and shook under the thunder blasts,
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Speaker 1: there appeared an object moving in long, leisurely bounds, drifting
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Speaker 1: before the wind and touching the ground lightly each time.
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Speaker 1: It was about eighteen inches in diameter, globular, glowing with
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Speaker 1: coruscating fires, red, green, and yellow, a thing of unearthly
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Speaker 1: and holy, sinister beauty. Alice poised with one foot, half
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Speaker 1: raised and shrieked at Tristan, half terrified, half elated at
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Speaker 1: the sight. He wheeled quickly there under the tree, and
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Speaker 1: slowly backed away as the thing drifted in to keep
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Speaker 1: him company in his shelder. We could not see his face,
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Speaker 1: but there was a stiffness to his figure, indicating something
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Speaker 1: like fear. Suddenly, things I had read rose into my memory.
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Speaker 1: This was one of those objects variously called fireballs, globe lightning, meteors,
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Speaker 1: and the like. I also recalled the deadly explosive potencies
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Speaker 1: said to be sometimes possessed by some entities, and called
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Speaker 1: out frantically, Tristan, don't touch it, get away quickly, but
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Speaker 1: don't disturb the air. He heard me, and as the
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Speaker 1: object wavered about in the comparative calm under the tree,
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Speaker 1: drifting closer to him, started to obey, but it suddenly
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Speaker 1: approached his face and seized with a reckless terror. He
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Speaker 1: snatched off his hat and batted at it as one
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Speaker 1: would at a pestilent bee. Instantly there was a blinding glare,
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Speaker 1: a stunning detonation, and a violent airwaf which threw me
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Speaker 1: clear off my feet and on to the ground. I
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Speaker 1: sat up blindly, with my vision full of opalescent lights
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Speaker 1: and my ears ringing, unable to hear, see or think.
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Speaker 1: Slowly my senses came back I saw Alice struggling upright
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Speaker 1: in the grass before me. She cast a quick glance
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Speaker 1: toward the tree, then, still on her knees, covered her
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Speaker 1: face and shut For a long time, it seemed I
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Speaker 1: gazed toward the tree without sight conveying any mental effect whatever.
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Speaker 1: Quite aside from my dazed state, the thing was too bizarre.
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Speaker 1: It gave no foothold to experience for the erection of understanding.
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Speaker 1: My brother's body lay or hung, or rested what term
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Speaker 1: could describe it, with his stomach across the underside of
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Speaker 1: a large limb a few feet above where he had stood.
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Speaker 1: He was doubled up like a hairpin, his abdomen pressed
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Speaker 1: tightly up against this bough, and his arms, legs, and
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Speaker 1: head extended stiffly straightly skyward. Getting my scattered faculties and
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Speaker 1: discordinate limbs together, I made my way to the tree.
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Speaker 1: The gruesome thought entering my mind that Tristan's body had
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Speaker 1: been transfixed by some downward pointing snag as it was
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Speaker 1: blown up against the limb, and that the strange stiffness
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Speaker 1: of his limbs was due to some ghastly sudden rick
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Speaker 1: and mortis brought on by electric shock. Dazed with horror
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Speaker 1: and grief, I reached up to his clothing and pulled gently.
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Speaker 1: Braced for the shock of the falling body, it remained
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Speaker 1: immovable against the bow. A harder tug brought no results either.
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Speaker 1: Gathering up all my courage against the vision of the
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Speaker 1: supposed snag, tearing its rough length out of the poor flesh.
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Speaker 1: I leaped up, grasping the body about chest and hips,
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Speaker 1: and hung. It came loose at once, without any tearing
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Speaker 1: resistance such as I had expected, but manifesting a strong
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Speaker 1: elastic pull upward, as though someone were pulling it with
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Speaker 1: a rope. As I dropped back to the ground with it,
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Speaker 1: the upward resistance remained unchanged, nearly disorganized. Entirely by this phenomenon,
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Speaker 1: it occurred to me that his belt or some of
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Speaker 1: his clothing was still caught, and I jerked sideways to
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Speaker 1: pull it loose. It did not loosen, but I found
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Speaker 1: myself suddenly out from under the tree, my brother dragging
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Speaker 1: upward from my arms until my toes almost left the ground,
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Speaker 1: and there was obviously no connection between him and the tree,
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Speaker 1: or between him and anything else but myself for that matter.
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Speaker 1: At this I went weak, my arms relaxed despite my will,
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Speaker 1: and an incredible fact happened. I found the body sliding
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Speaker 1: skyward through my futile grasp. Desperately, I caught my hands
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Speaker 1: clasped together about his wrist, this last grip almost lifting
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Speaker 1: me from the earth. His legs and remaining arm streamed
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Speaker 1: fantastically skyward through the haze, which seemed to be finally
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Speaker 1: drowning my amazed and tortured soul. I knew that my
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Speaker 1: fingers were slipping through one another, and that in another
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Speaker 1: instant my brother would be gone, Gone Where? Why and how?
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Speaker 1: There was a sudden shriek and the impact of a
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Speaker 1: friend body against mine as Alice, whom I'd quite forgotten,
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Speaker 1: made a skyward running jump and clasped the arm frantically
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Speaker 1: to her bosom with both her own. With vast relief,
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Speaker 1: I loosened my cramped fingers, only to feel her silken
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Speaker 1: garments begin to slide skyward against my cheek. It was
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Speaker 1: more instinct than sense which made me clutch at her legs.
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Speaker 1: God had I not done that? As it was, I
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Speaker 1: held both forms anchored with only a slight pole, waiting
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Speaker 1: dumbly for the next move. Quite non composed by this time,
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Speaker 1: I think, quick, Jim. She shrieked quick under the tree.
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Speaker 1: I can't hold him long. Very glad indeed to be
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Speaker 1: told what to do, I obeyed under her direction, we
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Speaker 1: got the body under a low limb and wedged up
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Speaker 1: against it, where our feet both now on the ground,
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Speaker 1: we balanced it with little effort feverishly. Once more, at
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Speaker 1: her initiative, we took off our our belts and strapped
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Speaker 1: it firmly, whereupon we collapsed in one another's arms, shuddering
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Speaker 1: beneath it. The blaise reader may consider that we here
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Speaker 1: manifested the characters of sensitive weaklings. But let him undergo
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Speaker 1: the like the supernatural, or seemingly so, has always had
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Speaker 1: the power to chill the hottest blood. And here was
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Speaker 1: an invisible horror reaching out of the sky for its prey,
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Speaker 1: without any of the ameliorating trite features which would temper
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Speaker 1: an encounter with the alleged phenomena of Ghostland. For a time,
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Speaker 1: we sat under that fatal tree, listening to the dreary
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Speaker 1: drench of rain pouring off the leaves, quivering nerve shaken
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Speaker 1: to the thunderclaps. Lacking one another, we had gone mad.
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Speaker 1: It was the beginning of a mutual dependence in the
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Speaker 1: face of the unprecedented, which was to grow into something
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Speaker 1: greater during the bizarre days to follow. There was there's
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Speaker 1: no need of words for each of us to know
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Speaker 1: that the other was struggling frantically for a little rational
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Speaker 1: light on the outer catastrophe in which we were entangled.
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Speaker 1: It never once occurred to us that my brother might
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Speaker 1: still be alive, until a long, shuddering groan sounded above us.
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Speaker 1: In combined horror and joy, we sprang up. He was
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Speaker 1: twisting weakly in the belts, muttering deliriously. We unfastened him
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Speaker 1: and pulled him to the ground, where I sat on
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Speaker 1: his knees, while she pressed down on his shoulders and
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Speaker 1: so kept him recumbent. Both horrified at the insistent lift
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Speaker 1: of his body under us, She kissed him frantically and
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Speaker 1: stroked his cheeks. I, feeling utterly without resource. He grew stronger,
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Speaker 1: muttered wildly, and his eyes opened, staring upward through the
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Speaker 1: tree limbs. He became silent and stiffened, gazing fixedly upward,
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Speaker 1: with a horror in his wild blue gaze which chilled
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Speaker 1: our blood. What did he see there? What dire other
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Speaker 1: world thing dragging him into the depths of space. Shortly
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Speaker 1: his eyes closed and he ceased to mutter. I took
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Speaker 1: his legs under my arms. The storm was clearing now,
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Speaker 1: and we set out for home with gruesomely buoyant steps.
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Speaker 1: The insistent pull remaining steady, would it increase? We gazed
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Speaker 1: upward with terrified eyes, becoming calmer by degree as conditions
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Speaker 1: remained unchanged. Jim, we can't take him in like this,
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Speaker 1: I stopped. Why not? Oh, because because it's too ridiculously awful.
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Speaker 1: I don't know just how to say it. Oh, can't
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Speaker 1: you see it for yourself? In a dim way I
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Speaker 1: saw it. No cultured person cares to be made a
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Speaker 1: center of public interest, unless on grounds of respect to
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Speaker 1: come walking in in this fashion Buoyd balloon like by
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Speaker 1: the body of this loved one, and before the members
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Speaker 1: of a f rrivolous, gaping house party. Ah. Even I
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Speaker 1: could imagine the mingled horror and derision, the hysterics among
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Speaker 1: the women perhaps. Nor would it stop there rumors, and
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Speaker 1: Heaven only knows what distortion such rumors might undergo. Having
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Speaker 1: their source in the incredible would range our social circle
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Speaker 1: like wildfire and the newspapers for our families are established
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Speaker 1: and known. No, it wouldn't go. I tied Tristan to
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Speaker 1: a style and called up Jack Briggs, our host from
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Speaker 1: a neighboring house, expreinged briefly that Tristan had met with
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Speaker 1: an accident, asked him to say nothing, and explained where
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Speaker 1: to bring the machine. In ten minutes, he had maneuvered
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Speaker 1: the heavy sedan across the rough, wet fields, and then
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Speaker 1: we had another problem on our hands to let Jack
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Speaker 1: into what had happened without shocking him into uselessness. It
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Speaker 1: was not until we got him to test Tristan's airy
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Speaker 1: buoyancy with his own hands that we were able to
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Speaker 1: make him understand the real nature of our problem, and
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Speaker 1: after that his comments remained largely gibberish. For some time. However,
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Speaker 1: he was even quicker than we were to see the
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Speaker 1: need for secrecy. He had vivid visions of the political
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Speaker 1: capital which opposing newspapers would make of any such occurrence
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Speaker 1: at his party, and so we arranged a plan according
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Speaker 1: to which we drove to the back of the house,
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Speaker 1: explained to the curious, who rushed out that Tristan had
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Speaker 1: been injured by a stroke of lightning, and rushed the
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Speaker 1: closely wrapped form up to his room, feeling a great
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Speaker 1: relief at having something solid between us and the sky.
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Speaker 1: While Jack went downstairs to dismiss the party as courteously
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Speaker 1: as possible. Alice and I tied my brother to the
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Speaker 1: bed with trunk straps, whereupon the bed and patient plumped
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Speaker 1: lightly but decisively against the ceiling as soon as we
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Speaker 1: removed our weight. While we gazed upward open mouthed, Jack returned.
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Speaker 1: His faculties were recovering better than ours, probably because his
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Speaker 1: affections were not so involved, and he gave the answer
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Speaker 1: at once. Ah hell, he said, pull the damn bed
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Speaker 1: down and spike it to the floor. This we did.
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Speaker 1: Then we held a short but intense consultation whatever else
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Speaker 1: might be the matter. Obviously Tristan was suffering severely from shock,
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Speaker 1: and for all we knew, maybe from partial electrocution, so
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Speaker 1: we called up doctor Grosnoff in the nearest town. Grosnoff,
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Speaker 1: after our brief but disingenuous explanation, threw off the bed
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Speaker 1: covers in a businesslike way, then straightened up grimly. May
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Speaker 1: I ask, he said, with sarcastic politeness. Since when a
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Speaker 1: straight jacket has become first aid for a case of
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Speaker 1: lightning stroke? He was delirious, I stammered, delirious, my eye,
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Speaker 1: he's as quiet as a lamb, and you've tied him
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Speaker 1: down tightly that the straps are cutting right into him.
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Speaker 1: Of all the the he stopped, evidently feeling words futile,
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Speaker 1: and before we could make an effective attempt to stop him,
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Speaker 1: whipped out a knife and cut the straps. Tristan's unfortunate
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Speaker 1: body instantly crashed against the ceiling, smashing the lathing and plaster,
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Speaker 1: and remaining half embedded in the ruins. A low cry
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Speaker 1: of pain arose from Alice. Doctor Grosnoff staggered to a
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Speaker 1: chair and sat down, his eyes fixed on the ceiling
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Speaker 1: with a steady stare the odd caricature of a man
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Speaker 1: coolly studying an interesting phenomenon. My brother appeared to be
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Speaker 1: aroused by the shock, struggling about in his embedment, and
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Speaker 1: finally sat up up down, I mean, then he stood
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Speaker 1: on the ceiling and began to walk. His nose had
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Speaker 1: been bruised by the impact, and I noticed with uncomprehending
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Speaker 1: wonder that the blood moved slowly upward over his lip.
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Speaker 1: He saw the window and walked across the ceiling to
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Speaker 1: it upside down. There he pushed the top of the
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Speaker 1: window down and leaned out, gazing up into the sky
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Speaker 1: with some sort of fascination. Instantly he crouched on the
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Speaker 1: ceiling hiding his eyes while the house rang with shriek
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Speaker 1: after shriek of mortal terror, speeding the packing of the
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Speaker 1: parting guests. Alice seized my arm, her fingers cutting painfully
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Speaker 1: into the flesh. Jim, she screamed, I see it now,
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Speaker 1: don't you. His gravity's all changed around. He waves up,
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Speaker 1: he thinks the skies under him. The human mind is
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Speaker 1: so constructed that merely to name a thing oddly smooths
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Speaker 1: its unwonted outlines to the grasp of the mind. The
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Speaker 1: conception of a simple reversal of my brother's weight, I
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Speaker 1: think saved us all from the padded cell that made
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Speaker 1: it so commonplace. Such an everyday sort of thing likely
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Speaker 1: to have happened to anybody. The ordinary phenomenon of gravitation
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Speaker 1: is no whit more serious in all truth than that
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Speaker 1: which we are now witnessing. But we are born to it.
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Speaker 1: Doctor Grosnoff recovered in a manner which showed considerable caliber. Well,
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Speaker 1: he grunted that being the case, we'd best be looking
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Speaker 1: after him. Nervous shock, possible electric shock and electric burns, psychosthenia.
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Speaker 1: That's going to be a long drawn affair. Bruises, maybe
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Speaker 1: a little concussion and possibly internal injury that was equivalent
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Speaker 1: to a ten foot unbroken fall flat on his stomach.
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Speaker 1: And I'll never forgive myself if give me that chair.
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Speaker 1: With infinite care and reassuring words, the big doctor, with
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Speaker 1: our help, pulled my brother down the latter frantically begging
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Speaker 1: us not to let him fall again, holding him securely
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Speaker 1: on the bed, and trying to reassure him. Grosnoff's said,
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Speaker 1: straps and ropes won't do his whole weight hangs in them,
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Speaker 1: They'll cut him unmercifully. Take a sheet, tie the corners
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Speaker 1: with ropes, and let him lie in that like a hammock.
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Speaker 1: It took many reassurances as to the strength of this
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Speaker 1: arrangement before Tristan was at comparatives peace. Doctor Grosnoff affected
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Speaker 1: an examination by slacking off the ropes until Tristan lay
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Speaker 1: a couple of feet clear of the bed, then himself
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Speaker 1: lay on the mattress, face up, prodding the patient over
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Speaker 1: the examination concluded. He informed us that Tristan's symptoms were
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Speaker 1: simply those of a general physical shock, such as would
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Speaker 1: be expected in the case of a man standing close
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Speaker 1: to the center of an explosion. Though from our description
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Speaker 1: of the affair. He could not understand how my brother
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Speaker 1: had survived at all. The glimmering of an explanation of
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Speaker 1: this did not come until long afterward. So far as
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Speaker 1: physical condition was concerned, Tristan might expect to recover fully
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Speaker 1: in a matter of weeks. Mentally, the doctor was not
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Speaker 1: so sure. The boy had gone through a terrible experience,
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Speaker 1: and one which was still continuing might continue. No one
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Speaker 1: knew how long we were, said the doctor, up against
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Speaker 1: a trick played by the great Sphinx nature, and one which,
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Speaker 1: so far as he knew, had never before taken place
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Speaker 1: in the history of all mankind. There is faintly taking
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Speaker 1: shape in my mind, he said, the beginning of a
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Speaker 1: theory as to how it came about. But it is
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Speaker 1: a theory, having many ramifications, and involving much in several
19:41
Speaker 1: lines of science, with most of which I am but
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Speaker 1: little acquainted. For the present, I have no more to
19:47
Speaker 1: say than that if a theory of causation can be
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Speaker 1: worked out, it will be the first step toward cure.
19:54
Speaker 1: But it may be the only step. Don't build hopes.
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Speaker 1: Looking Alice and Me over carefully, he gave us each
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Speaker 1: a nerve sedative and departed, leaving us with the feeling
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Speaker 1: that there was a man of considerable wider learning than
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Speaker 1: might be expected of a small town doctor. In point
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Speaker 1: of fact, we learned that this was the case. The
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Speaker 1: specialist has been described as a man who knows more
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Speaker 1: and more about less and less. In doctor Grosnoff's mind,
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Speaker 1: the less and less outweighed, the more and more Tristan
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Speaker 1: grew stronger physically mentally, he was intelligent enough to help
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Speaker 1: us and help himself by keeping his mind as much
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Speaker 1: as possible off his condition, sometimes by sheer force of will. Meantime,
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Speaker 1: doctor Grosnoff, realizing that his patient could not be kept
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Speaker 1: forever tied in bed, had assisted me in preparing for
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Speaker 1: his permanent care at home. The device was simple. We
20:56
Speaker 1: had just taken his room, remodeled the ceiling as a floor,
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Speaker 1: and fitted it with furniture upside down. Most of the
21:04
Speaker 1: problems involved in this were fairly simple. The matter of
21:08
Speaker 1: a bath rather stumped us for a while, until we
21:11
Speaker 1: hit upon a shower. The jets came up from under
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Speaker 1: Tristan's feet. From the point of view of his perception,
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Speaker 1: he told us that one of the strangest of all
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Speaker 1: his experiences, was to see the waste water swirl about
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Speaker 1: in the pan over his head and being sucked up
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Speaker 1: the drain as though drawn by some mysterious magnet. My
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Speaker 1: brother and I shared a flat alone, so there was
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Speaker 1: no servant problem to deal with, but he was going
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Speaker 1: to need care as well as companionship, and I had
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Speaker 1: to earn my living for Alice. It was a case
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Speaker 1: where the voice of the heart chimed with that of necessity,
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Speaker 1: and I was best man at perhaps the weirdest marriage
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Speaker 1: ceremony which ever took place on this earth. Held down
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Speaker 1: in bed with the roped sheet, all betrayed signs carefully concealed,
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Speaker 1: Tristan was married to Alice by an unsuspecting dominie who
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Speaker 1: took it all for one of those ordinary the romantic
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Speaker 1: sick bed affairs. From the first Tristan felt better and
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Speaker 1: more secure in his special quarters, and was now able
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Speaker 1: to move about quite freely within his limits. Though such
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Speaker 1: were his mental reactions that for his comfort we had
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Speaker 1: to refinish the floor to look like plaster ceiling, to
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Speaker 1: eliminate as far as possible the upside down suggestions left
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Speaker 1: in the room, and to keep the windows closely shaded.
22:35
Speaker 1: I soon found that the sight of me or anyone
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Speaker 1: else walking upside down to him was very painful. Only
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Speaker 1: in the case of Alice did other considerations remove the unpleasantness.
22:48
Speaker 1: Little by little, the accumulation of experience brought to my
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Speaker 1: mind the full and vivid horror of what the poor
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Speaker 1: lad had suffered and was suffering. Why, when he had
22:59
Speaker 1: looked out of the window into the sky, he was
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Speaker 1: looking down into a bottomless abyss, from which he was
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Speaker 1: sustained only by the frail plaster and planking under his feet.
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Speaker 1: The whole earth, with its trees and buildings, was suspended
23:13
Speaker 1: over his head, seemingly about to fall at any moment
23:17
Speaker 1: with him into the depths. The sun at noon glared
23:20
Speaker 1: upward from the depths of an inferno, lighting from below
23:24
Speaker 1: the somber earth suspended overhead. Thus the warm comfort of
23:29
Speaker 1: the sun, which as cheered the heart of man from
23:32
Speaker 1: time immemorial, now took on an unearthly, unnatural semblance. I
23:38
Speaker 1: learned that he could never quite shake off the feeling
23:40
Speaker 1: that the houses were anchored into the earth, suspended only
23:44
Speaker 1: by the embedment of their foundations in the soil, that
23:48
Speaker 1: trees were suspended from their roots, which groaned with a strain.
23:53
Speaker 1: That soil was held to the bedrock only by its cohesion.
23:57
Speaker 1: He even dreaded lest during storm the grip of the
24:01
Speaker 1: muddy soil be loosened and the fields fall into the blue.
24:06
Speaker 1: It was only when clasped tight in Alice's arms that
24:09
Speaker 1: the horse wholly left him. All the reasoning we might
24:13
Speaker 1: use on his mind, or that he himself could bring
24:16
Speaker 1: to bear on it was useless. We found that the
24:19
Speaker 1: sense of up and down is erradically fixed by the
24:22
Speaker 1: balancing apparatus of the body. Meanwhile, his psychology was undergoing
24:29
Speaker 1: strange alterations. The more I came to appreciate the actual
24:33
Speaker 1: conditions he was living under, the more apparent it seemed
24:36
Speaker 1: to me that he must have a cast iron mental
24:39
Speaker 1: stamina to maintain sanity at all. But he not only
24:43
Speaker 1: did that. He began to recover normal strength and to
24:47
Speaker 1: be irked unbearably by his constant confinement. So it came
24:51
Speaker 1: about that he began to venture a little at time
24:54
Speaker 1: to time from his room, wandering about on the ceiling
24:57
Speaker 1: of the rest of the house. However, he could not
25:00
Speaker 1: yet look out of windows, but sidled up to them
25:04
Speaker 1: with averted face to draw any blinds that were up.
25:07
Speaker 1: As he grew increasingly restless, we all felt more and
25:11
Speaker 1: more that the thing could not continue as it was.
25:14
Speaker 1: Some way out must be found. We had many a
25:18
Speaker 1: talk with Grosnoff, at last inducing him to speak about
25:22
Speaker 1: this still half formed theory which he had dimly conceived
25:25
Speaker 1: at the first for many decades, he said, there have
25:29
Speaker 1: been a few who regarded the close analogies between magnetism
25:33
Speaker 1: and gravitational action as symptomatic of a concealed identity between them.
25:39
Speaker 1: Einstein's field theory practically proves it. On the mathematical side. Now,
25:44
Speaker 1: it is obvious that if gravitation is a form of magnetism,
25:48
Speaker 1: and if so it belongs to another plane of magnetic
25:51
Speaker 1: forces than that which we know and use, then the
25:55
Speaker 1: objects on a planet must have the opposite polarity from
25:59
Speaker 1: that of the planet. Since the globe is itself a
26:03
Speaker 1: magnet with a positive and negative pole, its attraction power
26:07
Speaker 1: is not that of a magnet on any plane. Because
26:10
Speaker 1: then the human race would be divided into two species,
26:14
Speaker 1: each polarized in the opposite to its own pole. When
26:18
Speaker 1: an individual of either race reached the equator, he would
26:22
Speaker 1: become weightless, and when he crossed, it would be repelled
26:25
Speaker 1: into space. Lord, I said, there would be a plot
26:30
Speaker 1: for one of your science fiction writers. I can present
26:33
Speaker 1: you with another, said doctor Grosnoff. How do we know
26:37
Speaker 1: whether another planet would have the opposite sign to our
26:40
Speaker 1: own bodies? Well, I chuckled. They'll find that out soon
26:45
Speaker 1: enough when the first interplanetary expedition tries to land on
26:48
Speaker 1: one of em. Humph, grunted the Medico. That'll be the
26:52
Speaker 1: least of their troubles. But you said the polarity couldn't
26:56
Speaker 1: be that of a magnet. Then what don't you remember
27:00
Speaker 1: the common pith ball of your high school physics days.
27:04
Speaker 1: An accumulation of positive electricity repels an accumulation of the
27:08
Speaker 1: negative if indeed, we can correctly use accumulation for negativity.
27:14
Speaker 1: And it is my idea that the Earth is the
27:16
Speaker 1: container of a gigantic accumulation of this meta or hyper
27:20
Speaker 1: electricity which we are postulating, and our bodies contain a
27:25
Speaker 1: charge of the opposite sign. But Doctor, the retention of
27:29
Speaker 1: a charge of static electricity by a body in the
27:32
Speaker 1: presence of one of the opposite sign requires insulation of
27:36
Speaker 1: the containing bodies. For instance, lightning is a breaking down
27:41
Speaker 1: of the air insulation between the ground and a cloud.
27:45
Speaker 1: In our case, we are constantly in contact with the earth,
27:48
Speaker 1: and the charges would equalize. Please bear in mind, Jim,
27:53
Speaker 1: that we are not talking about electricity as now handled
27:56
Speaker 1: by man, but about some form of it. Yet hypothetically,
28:00
Speaker 1: we don't know what kind of insulation it would require.
28:04
Speaker 1: We may be constitutionally insulated, and you think the fireball
28:09
Speaker 1: broke down that insulation by the shocked e Tristan system,
28:13
Speaker 1: I asked, the logic of the thing was shaping up
28:16
Speaker 1: hazily but unmistakably. But then, why don't we frequently see
28:22
Speaker 1: people kiding off the earth as the result of explosions?
28:26
Speaker 1: How do you know they haven't? Don't we have plenty
28:29
Speaker 1: of mysterious disappearances as the result of explosions, and particularly
28:34
Speaker 1: strangely large numbers of missing in a major war. My
28:38
Speaker 1: blood chilled. The world was beginning to seem a pretty
28:42
Speaker 1: awful place. Grosnoff saw my disturbance and placed a reassuring
28:47
Speaker 1: hand on my shoulder. I'm afraid, he said, smiling that
28:52
Speaker 1: I rather yielded to the temptation to get a rise
28:54
Speaker 1: out of you. That suggestion might be unpleasantly true under
28:59
Speaker 1: special circumstances. But I particularly have an eye out for
29:03
Speaker 1: the special capacities of that weird and rare phenomenon the fireball.
29:09
Speaker 1: It isn't impossible that the energy of the fireball went
29:12
Speaker 1: into the repolarization rather than into a destructive concussion. Hence
29:17
Speaker 1: Tristan's escape. You mean its effect is quantitatively different from
29:22
Speaker 1: that of any other explosion. It may be so. It
29:26
Speaker 1: is known to be an electric conglomeration of some kind,
29:29
Speaker 1: but that's all. Meantime, circumstances weren't going well with us.
29:35
Speaker 1: The financial burden of Tristan's support, added to the strain
29:39
Speaker 1: of the situation, was becoming overwhelming. Tristan knew this and
29:44
Speaker 1: felt it keenly. This brought him to a momentous decision.
29:48
Speaker 1: He looked down at us from the ceiling one day
29:51
Speaker 1: with an expression of unusual tenseness, and announced that he
29:54
Speaker 1: was going out permanently and to take part in the
29:57
Speaker 1: world again. I've gotten now, so I can bear to
30:01
Speaker 1: look out the windows quite well. It's only a matter
30:04
Speaker 1: of time and practice until I can stand in the open.
30:07
Speaker 1: After all, it isn't any worse than being a steel
30:10
Speaker 1: worker or a steeplejack. Even if the worst came to
30:14
Speaker 1: the worst, I'd rather be burst open by the frozen
30:17
Speaker 1: vacuum of interstellar space than to splash upon a sidewalk
30:21
Speaker 1: before an admiring populace. And people do that every day.
30:26
Speaker 1: Doctor Grosnoff, who was present, expressed great delight his patient
30:31
Speaker 1: was coming along well mentally at least. Alice sat down trembling.
30:36
Speaker 1: But good Lord Tristan, I said, what possible occupation could
30:41
Speaker 1: you follow? Oh? I've brooded over that for weeks, and
30:45
Speaker 1: I've come across the rubicon. I think we're a long
30:48
Speaker 1: way past such petty things as personal pride. Did it
30:52
Speaker 1: ever occur to you that what from one point of
30:54
Speaker 1: view is a monstrous catastrophe, from another is an asset?
30:59
Speaker 1: What in the daykins are you talking about? I asked,
31:03
Speaker 1: I'm talking about the the He gulped painfully the stage.
31:08
Speaker 1: Alice wrung her hands, crying, bitterly, wonderful, splendid. Tristan Leeuber,
31:14
Speaker 1: the world's unparalleled upside down man. He doesn't know whether
31:18
Speaker 1: he's on his head or his heels. He's always up
31:21
Speaker 1: in the air about something, But you can't upset him.
31:25
Speaker 1: Vaudeville tonight, the Bodongo Brothers, brilliant Bernese balancers, Archicanny, the
31:31
Speaker 1: Prima Donna of Sealdom, and Tristan Leeuber the balloon man
31:37
Speaker 1: he uses in an anchor for a parachute. And last, indeed,
31:41
Speaker 1: the Leeuber family will have arrived sensationally in the public eye.
31:46
Speaker 1: There are alice raved two billion people on the earth today,
31:51
Speaker 1: counting three generations per century. There have been about twelve
31:55
Speaker 1: billion of us in the last two hundred years. And
31:58
Speaker 1: out of all those, and all them millions and billions
32:01
Speaker 1: before that, we had to be picked for this loathsome
32:04
Speaker 1: cosmic joke, just little less for all that distinction. Why,
32:09
Speaker 1: oh why, if our romance had to be spoiled by
32:12
Speaker 1: a tragedy smeared across the billboards of notoriety, why couldn't
32:16
Speaker 1: it have been in some decent human sort of way.
32:20
Speaker 1: Why this ghastly absurdity. From time immemorial, said Grosnoff, there
32:25
Speaker 1: have been men who sought to excite the admiration of
32:28
Speaker 1: their fellows, to get themselves worshiped, to dominate, to collect
32:33
Speaker 1: perquisites by developing some wonderful personal power or another. From
32:39
Speaker 1: Icarus on down. Levitation or its equivalent, has been a
32:42
Speaker 1: favorite the ecstatics of medieval times. The Hindu Yogis, even
32:48
Speaker 1: the day dreaming schoolboy have had visions of floating in
32:51
Speaker 1: air before the astounding multitudes by a mere act of will.
32:55
Speaker 1: The frequency of flying dreams may indicate such a thing
32:59
Speaker 1: as a possible. Nature tradition says many have accomplished it.
33:04
Speaker 1: If so, it was by a reversal of polarity through
33:08
Speaker 1: an act of will, Those who did it Yogi's believed
33:12
Speaker 1: in successive lives on earth. If they were right about
33:15
Speaker 1: the one, why not the other. Suppose one who had
33:19
Speaker 1: developed that power of will carried it to another berth,
33:22
Speaker 1: where it lay dormant in the subconscious, until set off
33:26
Speaker 1: and controlled by some special shock. Alis paled and Tristan
33:31
Speaker 1: might have been. He might then again, maybe my brain
33:35
Speaker 1: is idle by this thing. In any case, the moral
33:39
Speaker 1: is don't monkey with nature. She's particular Tristan Vaudvel's scheme
33:46
Speaker 1: was not as easily realized as said. The first manager
33:49
Speaker 1: to whom we applied was stubbornly skeptical, in spite of
33:53
Speaker 1: Tristan's appearance standing upside down in stilts heavily weighted at
33:57
Speaker 1: the ground ends, and even after his resistance, Sidince was
34:00
Speaker 1: broken down in a manner which left him gasping and
34:03
Speaker 1: a little woozy. Began to reason unfavorably in a hard
34:07
Speaker 1: headed way. Audiences, he explained, were off levitation acts too old.
34:14
Speaker 1: No matter what you did, they'd lay it to concealed
34:17
Speaker 1: wires and yawn. Even if you called a committee from
34:20
Speaker 1: the audience, the committee itself would merely be sore at
34:24
Speaker 1: not being able to solve the trick. The audience would
34:27
Speaker 1: consider the committee of fake or merely dumb, and all
34:31
Speaker 1: that would take too much time for an act of
34:33
Speaker 1: that kind. Oh yeah, I know it's got me going
34:37
Speaker 1: all right, but I can't think like me about this
34:40
Speaker 1: sort of thing. I got to think like the audience does,
34:44
Speaker 1: or go out of business, after which solid but unprofitable
34:48
Speaker 1: lesson in psychology, We dropped the last vestige of pride
34:51
Speaker 1: and try to circus side show, but the results were similar. Nah,
34:56
Speaker 1: the roofs don't wear celluloid collars anymore. You can't slip
35:00
Speaker 1: our tricks over on him. But he can do this
35:03
Speaker 1: in a big, topless tent or even out in an
35:06
Speaker 1: open field. If you like. Nope, steel rods run up
35:09
Speaker 1: the middle of a rope has been done before. Steel
35:13
Speaker 1: rods on a rope which the people see uncoiled from
35:15
Speaker 1: the ground in front of their eyes, Well, they'd think
35:19
Speaker 1: of something else. Then, I'm telling you it won't go. Sure,
35:22
Speaker 1: people like to be fooled, but they want it to
35:25
Speaker 1: be done right. Yes, I sneered, and a hell of
35:28
Speaker 1: a lot of people have fooled themselves right about this
35:31
Speaker 1: matter too. He looked at me curiously, say have you
35:36
Speaker 1: really got something up your sleeve? You'd be surprised. Thus
35:40
Speaker 1: he grudgingly gave us a chance for a tryout. And
35:43
Speaker 1: he was surprised indeed. But on thinking it over, he decided,
35:48
Speaker 1: like the vaudeville man, listen, Tristan said suddenly, in a
35:52
Speaker 1: voice of desperation, I'll do a parachute, drump into the
35:56
Speaker 1: sky and land on an airplane. Tristan shrieked Alice in horror.
36:01
Speaker 1: The circus man nearly lost his cigar, then bit it
36:04
Speaker 1: in two. Say what the I'll call that right now.
36:08
Speaker 1: I'll get you the plane and shoot if you'll put
36:11
Speaker 1: up a deposit to cover the cost. If you do that,
36:13
Speaker 1: we'll have the best money in the tents. If you don't,
36:17
Speaker 1: I keep the money. If I don't, said Tristan distinctly,
36:21
Speaker 1: I'll have not the slightest need for the money. But
36:24
Speaker 1: the airplane idea was out. We could think of no
36:27
Speaker 1: way for him to make the landing on such a
36:29
Speaker 1: swiftly moving vehicle. Again, Alice solved it. If you absolutely
36:35
Speaker 1: must break my heart and put me in a sanitarium,
36:38
Speaker 1: she sobbed, get a blimp, of course, and that's what
36:42
Speaker 1: we did on the first attempt, coming unpleasantly close to
36:45
Speaker 1: doing just that to Alice. The blimp captain was obviously
36:50
Speaker 1: skeptical and betrayed signs of a peeve at having his
36:54
Speaker 1: machine hired for a hoax. But money was money, and
36:57
Speaker 1: he agreed to obey our instructions meticulates. His tone was perfunctory, however,
37:04
Speaker 1: despite my desperate attempts to impress him with the seriousness
37:07
Speaker 1: of the matter, and that nonchalance of his came near
37:11
Speaker 1: to having dire consequences. The captain was supplied with a
37:16
Speaker 1: sword of boat hook with instructions to steer his course
37:19
Speaker 1: to reach the parachute ropes as it passed him on
37:21
Speaker 1: its upward flight, and he was seriously warned of the
37:25
Speaker 1: fact that after the chute reached two or three thousand feet,
37:29
Speaker 1: its speed would increase because of the rare faction of
37:32
Speaker 1: the air, and in case of a miss, it would
37:35
Speaker 1: become constantly harder to overtake. These directions he received with
37:40
Speaker 1: a scornful half smile. Obviously he never expected to see
37:44
Speaker 1: the chute open. We got all set the blimp circling overhead,
37:50
Speaker 1: Tristan upside down in his seat, suspended skyward, a desperately
37:54
Speaker 1: grim look on his face, and Alice almost in collapse.
37:59
Speaker 1: We were all spared the agony of several hundred feet
38:01
Speaker 1: of unbroken fall. The chute was open on the ground
38:05
Speaker 1: and rose at a leisurely speed, but too fast at
38:09
Speaker 1: that for the comfort of any of us. I don't
38:12
Speaker 1: think the wondering crowd and the dumbfounded circus people ever
38:15
Speaker 1: saw a stranger's sight than that shoot drifting upward into
38:19
Speaker 1: the blue. We heard nothing of hidden wires then or
38:23
Speaker 1: ever after. The white circle grew pitifully small and forlorn
38:27
Speaker 1: against the fathomless as shore, and suddenly we noticed that
38:31
Speaker 1: the blimp seemed to be merely drifting with the wind,
38:34
Speaker 1: making no attempt to get under or over tristan our
38:38
Speaker 1: hearts labored painfully, had the engines broken down. Alice buried
38:43
Speaker 1: her face against my sleeve with a moan. I can't
38:46
Speaker 1: look tell me, I tried to, in a voice which
38:50
Speaker 1: I vainly tried to make steady. All at once the
38:53
Speaker 1: blimp went into frenzied activity. We learned afterwards that it's
38:58
Speaker 1: crew of three, the captain and cluted, had been so
39:01
Speaker 1: completely paralyzed by the reality of the event that they
39:05
Speaker 1: had forgotten what they were there for until almost too late.
39:09
Speaker 1: Now we heard the high note of its overdriven engines
39:12
Speaker 1: as it rolled in rock toward the rising chute. For
39:15
Speaker 1: a moment, the white spot showed against its side, then
39:18
Speaker 1: tossed and pitched wildly in the wake of the propellers.
39:22
Speaker 1: As driven too hastily and frenziedly, the ship overshot its mark,
39:26
Speaker 1: and the captain missed his grab. I could only squeeze
39:31
Speaker 1: Alice tightly and choke as the aerial objects parted company
39:35
Speaker 1: and the blue gap between them widened. Instantly. Avid to
39:40
Speaker 1: retrieve his mistake, the captain swung his craft in a
39:43
Speaker 1: wild careen around and a spiral upward, but he tried
39:48
Speaker 1: to do too many things at a time, make too
39:50
Speaker 1: much altitude and headway both at once. The blimp pitched
39:55
Speaker 1: deeply upward to a standstill, barely moving toward the parachute.
40:00
Speaker 1: Quickly it sloped downward again and gathered speed, nearing the
40:04
Speaker 1: chute and then making a desperate zoom upward on its momentum.
40:08
Speaker 1: Mistake number three. He had waited too long before using
40:13
Speaker 1: his elevator, and the chute fled hopelessly away, just ahead
40:17
Speaker 1: of the up tilted gnulls of the blimp. I could
40:20
Speaker 1: only moan, and Alice made no sound or movement. Next
40:24
Speaker 1: we saw the blimp's water ballast streaming earthward in the sun,
40:29
Speaker 1: and it was put into a long, steady spiral in
40:31
Speaker 1: pursuit of the parachute, whose speed, or so it seemed
40:35
Speaker 1: to my agonized gaze, was now noticeably on the increase.
40:40
Speaker 1: The altitude seemed appallingly great. The blimp's ceiling, I knew,
40:45
Speaker 1: was only about twenty thousand, and my brother, even if
40:49
Speaker 1: not frozen to death by that time, would be traveling
40:52
Speaker 1: far faster than than any climbing speed the blimp could make.
40:56
Speaker 1: As his fall increased in speed, the climb of the
40:59
Speaker 1: bag decreased. At last, with a quiver of renewed hope,
41:05
Speaker 1: I saw the blimp narrowing down its spirals. It was overtaking.
41:10
Speaker 1: Smaller and smaller grew both objects, but so did the
41:13
Speaker 1: gap between them. At last they merged the tiny white
41:18
Speaker 1: dot and the little gray minnow in one long agony.
41:21
Speaker 1: I waited to see whether the gap would open out again,
41:25
Speaker 1: Lord of Hosts, The blimp was slanting steeply downward. The
41:29
Speaker 1: parachute had vanished. Then at last I paid some attention
41:33
Speaker 1: to the totally limp form in my arms, And a
41:36
Speaker 1: few minutes later, amid an insane crowd, a pitiful, embarrassed
41:41
Speaker 1: and nerve shaking, dirgible navigator was helping me lift my
41:45
Speaker 1: heavily wrapped, shivering brother from the gondola, while the mechanics
41:49
Speaker 1: turned their attention to the overdriven engines and wrecked framing.
41:54
Speaker 1: Did I say, helping me lift such is the force
41:58
Speaker 1: of habit. But verily a new nomenclature would have to
42:01
Speaker 1: come into being to deal adequately with such a life
42:04
Speaker 1: as my poor brothers. Kristen seized my hand, Jim, he said,
42:10
Speaker 1: through chattering teeth, I'm cured and of the awful fear.
42:15
Speaker 1: The second time he missed, I just gave up entirely.
42:19
Speaker 1: I didn't care any longer. And then somehow I felt
42:22
Speaker 1: such a sense of peace and freedom. There weren't any
42:26
Speaker 1: upside down things around to torture me, no sense of insecurity.
42:30
Speaker 1: I just was in a great blue quiet It wasn't
42:34
Speaker 1: like falling at all, no awful shock to meet, no
42:38
Speaker 1: sickness or pain, just quietly floating along from hair to there,
42:42
Speaker 1: with no particular dividing line between anywhere. The cold herd,
42:47
Speaker 1: of course, but somehow it didn't seem to matter, and
42:50
Speaker 1: was getting better when they caught me. But now I
42:54
Speaker 1: can do things you never even imagined. Thus began my
42:59
Speaker 1: brother's real public career. He had arrived. After that, he
43:04
Speaker 1: was able to name his own compensation, and shortly during
43:08
Speaker 1: his tours began to sport a private digible of his own,
43:12
Speaker 1: which he often used for jumps between stands. He told
43:16
Speaker 1: me jokingly that it was very fitting transportation for him,
43:20
Speaker 1: as his one hundred and sixty pound lift save quite
43:23
Speaker 1: a bit of expense for helium. He developed an astonishing
43:27
Speaker 1: set of tricks. After the jump. He would arrive on
43:31
Speaker 1: the field suspended above the dirgible doing trapeze tricks. After that,
43:36
Speaker 1: in the show tent, he would go through some more
43:39
Speaker 1: of them with a few hair raisers of his own invention,
43:43
Speaker 1: one of which consisted of apparently letting go the rope
43:46
Speaker 1: by accident and shooting skyward with a wild shriek, only
43:50
Speaker 1: to be caught at the end of a fine, especially
43:53
Speaker 1: woven piano wire attached to a spring safety belt, the
43:57
Speaker 1: cable being in turn fastened to the end of the row.
44:01
Speaker 1: Needless to say, Alice was unable to wax enthusiastic about
44:06
Speaker 1: any of these feats, though she loyally accompanied him in
44:10
Speaker 1: his travels. She would sit in the tent gazing at
44:13
Speaker 1: him with horrible fascination, and month by month grew thinner
44:17
Speaker 1: and more strained. Tristan felt her stress deeply, but was
44:21
Speaker 1: making money so fast that we all felt that in
44:24
Speaker 1: a short time, if not able to finance the recovery
44:27
Speaker 1: of a cure, at least he could retire and live
44:30
Speaker 1: a safer life. And he found his ideal haven of
44:34
Speaker 1: rest in a Pennsylvania coal mine. Thus the project grew
44:39
Speaker 1: in his mind of buying an abandoned mine and fitting
44:42
Speaker 1: it with comfortable and spacious inverted quarters, environed with fungus, gardens,
44:48
Speaker 1: air ferns and the like plants which could be trained
44:52
Speaker 1: to grow upside down, he emerging only for necessary sun baths.
44:58
Speaker 1: As time went on, really grew accustomed to the situation,
45:02
Speaker 1: though seeing less and less of Tristan and Alice. During
45:06
Speaker 1: summers they were on tour and in winter were quartered
45:09
Speaker 1: in Tristan's coal mine, which had become a reality. One
45:14
Speaker 1: summer day, when the circus stopped at a small town
45:17
Speaker 1: where I was taking vacation, I was overjoyed at the
45:20
Speaker 1: opportunity to see them. I timed myself to get there
45:24
Speaker 1: as the afternoon performance was over, but arrived a little
45:28
Speaker 1: early and went on into the untopped tent. Tristan waved
45:33
Speaker 1: and inverted, greeting at me from his poise on his trapees,
45:36
Speaker 1: and I watched for a few minutes. There was an
45:39
Speaker 1: odd mood about the crowd that day, largely due to
45:42
Speaker 1: a group of loud mouthed hillbillies from the back country,
45:46
Speaker 1: the sort of which is so ignorant as to live
45:49
Speaker 1: in perpetual fear of getting something slipped over, and so
45:53
Speaker 1: believes everything it is told. Looking for something ulterior behind
45:58
Speaker 1: every exterior, having duly exposed to their own satisfaction, the
46:02
Speaker 1: strong man's wooden dumbbells, the snake charmer's rubber serpents, the
46:07
Speaker 1: fat woman's pillows, and the bearded lady's false whiskers. I
46:11
Speaker 1: don't know what they did about the living skeleton. These
46:14
Speaker 1: fellows were now gaping before Tristan's platform and growing hostile
46:19
Speaker 1: as their ruther inadequate brains failed to cook up any
46:22
Speaker 1: damaging explanation. Yeah, yelled a long neck flap eared youth.
46:28
Speaker 1: Suddenly he's got an iron bar in that rope. They
46:31
Speaker 1: had come too late to see the parachute drop. Tristan
46:35
Speaker 1: grinned and pulled himself down the rope, which of course
46:38
Speaker 1: fell limp behind him. At this the crowd jeered and
46:42
Speaker 1: booed to the hasty youth, who became so resentfully abusive
46:46
Speaker 1: of Tristan that one of the attendants pushed him out
46:48
Speaker 1: of the tent. As he passed me. I caught fragments
46:52
Speaker 1: of wrathy words. Wished I'd had to show him whether
46:56
Speaker 1: it's a fake. Tristan closed his act by dropping full
47:00
Speaker 1: length to the end of his invisible wire. Then pulled
47:04
Speaker 1: himself down, got into his stilts, and was unfastening the
47:08
Speaker 1: belt when the manager rushed in with the request that
47:11
Speaker 1: he repeat for the benefit of a special party just
47:14
Speaker 1: arrived on a delayed train. Go on and look at
47:17
Speaker 1: the animals, old man Tristan called to me. I'll be
47:20
Speaker 1: with you in about half an hour. I strolled out, idly,
47:25
Speaker 1: meeting on the way the flap eared youth, who seemed
47:28
Speaker 1: bent on making his way back into the tent, wearing
47:31
Speaker 1: a mingled air of furtiveness, of triumph and anticipation, wondering
47:36
Speaker 1: casually just what kind of fool the lad was planning
47:39
Speaker 1: to make of himself next, I wandered on toward the
47:42
Speaker 1: main entrance, only to be stopped by an appalling uproar.
47:46
Speaker 1: Behind me, there was a rausius gurgling shriek of mortal terror,
47:51
Speaker 1: the loud composite who of a shocked or astonished crowd,
47:55
Speaker 1: a set of fervent curses directed at someone, loud fuse babbling,
48:01
Speaker 1: and then a woman's voice raised in a seemingly endless
48:04
Speaker 1: succession of hysterical shrieks. Thinking that an animal had gotten
48:09
Speaker 1: loose or something of that kind, I wheeled unmistakably the
48:14
Speaker 1: racket came from Tristan's own tent. Cold dread clutching at
48:19
Speaker 1: my heart, and with lead on my boots soles, I
48:22
Speaker 1: rushed frantically back at the entrance. I was held by
48:26
Speaker 1: a mad onrush of humanity for some moments. When I
48:30
Speaker 1: reached the platform, Tristan was not in sight. Then I
48:34
Speaker 1: noticed the long neck boy sitting on the platform with
48:37
Speaker 1: his face in his hands, shrieking. I didn't mean to
48:41
Speaker 1: do it. I didn't mean to damn it, don't touch me,
48:45
Speaker 1: I thought, sure it was fake. I saw a new,
48:48
Speaker 1: glittering jackknife lying on the platform beside the limp foot
48:52
Speaker 1: long stub of Tristan's rope slowly frozenly. I raised my eyes.
48:58
Speaker 1: The blue abyss was traceless of any object and of
49:03
Speaker 1: Section eight