A Brilliant Void: A Selection of Classic Irish Science Fiction

by Jack Fennell

  It was composed of all languages, which he called into requisition to express more fully his meaning, or no meaning. I have said, that his delivery was at first slow and difficult, but as he proceeded his facility of pronunciation, his volubility, increased. From a fountain, a rivulet, a river, he poured forth at last a torrent of eloquence, which it was impossible to stop, or almost to make intelligible in words. His merciless imagination flew with the speed of thought from subject to subject, from topic to topic, in a perpetual flux and reflux. It was a labyrinth inextricable – an ill-linked chain of sentences the most involved, parentheses within parentheses, a complication of images and figures the most outré. In short, imagine to yourselves the mysticism of Kant, the transcendental philosophy of Coleridge, the metaphysics of Shelley and Goethe, the poetry of Lycophron, mingled and massed together in one jargon, compounded of Greek, Latin, Italian, French, Spanish, German, and English, not to mention tongues known and unknown, and you may form some idea of his style; but of his barbarous pronunciation I can give you none.

  I now perceived, to my infinite sorrow, that I had done infinite mischief by this Phrengenesis. Its very creation weighed upon me like remorse upon the guilty. I had now the means of knowing that he had nothing to know, yet knew nothing.

  Thus it was that I found out the Theosophs were right in separating entirely the mind from the soul, in considering them diametrically opposite relations – as different principles, as the physic and the phrenic. And I became satisfied that my paradox had no soul. What was to be done now? Should I leave the work imperfect, or endeavour to create one? Was it impious? I scarcely dared put the question. Was there any tradition on the earth, below the earth, or above the earth, of the Psycogenesis? The more I reflected, the more was I lost and confounded. In the lowest depths there was yet a lower depth of mystery.

  Imagine yourself to have lost your way, benighted amid some inhospitable desert, some savage range of Alpine solitudes – far from a path, as you suppose, or the abode of man – and when you are about to lay yourself down and die, in your despair, hear all at once the bark of a house-dog, and see the light streaming from the window of a cottage; and, when you enter, find a cheerful fire blazing in the hearth, and a young girl, beautiful as the houris, who welcomes you with a voice tremulous with delight, and presents to your parched lips an exquisite and life-giving cordial.

  Thus was it with me, when a scroll of vellum slowly unrolled itself. It was a palimpsest. The writing – the work of some falsely pious monk – that supplied the place of the original MSS, gradually became obliterated, and shewed beneath some characters, dim and indistinct, in a language long lost. It had been one of the hermetic books escaped from the burning of the Alexandrian Library, and once belonged to that of Ragusa, the last temple of the Greek and Roman muses. Oh, the marvellous power of somnambulism, that imparts wisdom to brutes, and furnishes a clue to all sciences and tongues! It was by its mysterious power that my eyes were opened, that I could decipher in the pictured language, above the rest, these words, Thebes Adamite King. Then came a sarcophagus, in which was traced in blood the mystical triangle, enclosed within a circle, the sacred emblem and diagram of the Magi and Brahmans.

  Yes, said I, it was in Osiris that the Egyptians supposed to reside all living beings, the genii and the souls of men. To Egypt, then, there to unravel the mystery!

  With my double, my second self, behold me journeying to Alexandria. We ascended the sacred stream of the Nile, and found ourselves among the ruins of ancient Thebes. At the further extremity of the tomb, I discovered, hollowed out of the rock, a subterranean passage, that seemed to descend into the very bowels of the earth. With a delight unutterable, I led the way down the perpendicular stairs, till we came to a lofty door, the entrance to the Necropolis. On each side of this door crouched two colossal sphynxes, as though they were the guardians of the place.

  No human foot had for three thousand years profaned the sanctity of that City of the Dead, into which our venturous steps were treading.

  The winding passage widened as we advanced, when, on a sudden, a light burst on my eyes that dimmed the glare of our torches. It proceeded from myriads of Naphtha lamps, held by gigantic figures, part-man part-beast, in combinations strange as that of the snake-man in the Inferno, in whom it was impossible to distinguish where the man began, and the reptile ended.

  With an indefinable terror, that even stilled the eternal babble of my Caliban, we continued to pace those Hades, popular with the dead; and as the azure light flickered and quivered, like serpents’ tongues, from the lamps of the colossi, my imagination gifted the vapours with shapes all differing from each other, floating light as the atoms in the sunbeams along the walls, even to the lofty roof.

  And now, afar off, murmurs were heard. Was it the many voices of the dead? It became more distinct. ’Twas the Nile rushing above our heads, swollen with the Abyssinian rains. Still we passed on, till its echoes died away in distant music among the catacombs.

  Should we sink to rest among these labyrinthian cells, stifled in that dust of centuries, which rose from our feet in volumes – such were some of the reflections that began to suggest themselves, when I was attracted by an illumination, rendered more brilliant than the rest by the impenetrable depth of pitchy darkness of a cavern at its back. This galaxy of light proceeded from lamps held by twelve figures of the natural size, so admirable as a work of art, that they might have been supposed from the chisel of Phydias or Praxiteles. Was this the sarcophagus of the mysterious scroll? Did it contain the sacred emblems? My heart beat audibly with hope. I approached, and leaned over the shoulder of one of the bearers. Yes! It was there – the sacred diagram! That most perfect of figures enclosed in its mystic circle, as I had seen it in my trance!

  And now for the great arcanum! With hands trembling at the sacrilege I was about to commit, I proceeded to lift off the lid of the sarcophagus. It slowly yielded, lost its equilibrium, and fell with a heavy crash on the floor. The sound was like that of thunder, and vibrated through the pitchy cavern in long echoes, which, from their repetition, proved it to be of vast extent – perhaps the hades of the Egyptians.

  There lay the undecaying corpse of the Adamite king. Like to life he was – the hues of life were yet upon his cheek-his eyes were open, and glared on me with more than mortal lustre; and, lit by that reflection, made more wan his lips, that moved and quivered, as though he was only waiting for me to address him, ere he replied in answer to my questions.

  At that awful moment, the whole Necropolis rocked and shook, as though rent by an earthquake; and there arose on all sides, out of the ground, a multitude of hideous fiends, vibrating in their hands torches, from which the ruddy fire flew off in flakes. They came in crowds that seemed to thicken as they approached, and joining in one chorus. The words were these:

  ‘Papai Satan, Papai Satan, Aleppe!’

  At that moment all the tombs opened with one accord, and the dead that had slept for ages rose slowly out of them in their shrouds, pressing forward in throngs from the depths of the streets that branched out on every side. They advanced as to a festival; and the light from their eyes was like that of a distant world, whose ashes are burning after it is extinct.

  As they came near, I felt a sort of numbing iciness emanate from their bodies, the poisonous effluvia of the grave, penetrating to my marrow like a thousand points of steel. Yet did my heart beat wildly, panting to respire the atmosphere of life, struggling between life and death, suffocated amid that dust of millennia, the flame of torches, the damp of the catacombs. And imagine to yourself, added to all this, the daemons of the night howling, roaring in my stunned ears all one chorus-those discordant and mysterious words of invocation:

  ‘Papai Satan, Papai Satan, Aleppe!’

  Then, too, the earth seemed to open beneath my feet, and a red spiral flame issued forth, which by degrees assumed a form, a shape. It was, yet it was not, my old tutor. Then I awoke, and found it was – A DREAM.


  The Diamond Lens

  FITZ-JAMES O’BRIEN (1858)

  In science fiction, there is often very

  little distinction between being the

  object of a Mad Scientist’s affections

  and the subject of his experiments. Fitz-

  James O’Brien’s narcissistic, murderous,

  bigoted microbiologist Linley blends

  science and the occult to achieve

  his goals, with dire consequences for

  everyone around him, including the

  woman with whom he has fallen in love,

  unbeknownst to her. O’Brien is also

  known for his short story ‘What Was It?’

  (1859), which features a similar blend of

  science and horror in its depiction of an

  invisible monster.

  I

  FROM A VERY EARLY PERIOD of my life the entire bent of my inclinations had been toward microscopic investigations. When I was not more than ten years old, a distant relative of our family, hoping to astonish my inexperience, constructed a simple microscope for me by drilling in a disk of copper a small hole in which a drop of pure water was sustained by capillary attraction. This very primitive apparatus, magnifying some fifty diameters, presented, it is true, only indistinct and imperfect forms, but still sufficiently wonderful to work up my imagination to a preternatural state of excitement.

  Seeing me so interested in this rude instrument, my cousin explained to me all that he knew about the principles of the microscope, related to me a few of the wonders which had been accomplished through its agency, and ended by promising to send me one regularly constructed, immediately on his return to the city. I counted the days, the hours, the minutes that intervened between that promise and his departure.

  Meantime, I was not idle. Every transparent substance that bore the remotest resemblance to a lens I eagerly seized upon, and employed in vain attempts to realise that instrument the theory of whose construction I as yet only vaguely comprehended. All panes of glass containing those oblate spheroidal knots familiarly known as ‘bull’s-eyes’ were ruthlessly destroyed in the hope of obtaining lenses of marvellous power. I even went so far as to extract the crystalline humour from the eyes of fishes and animals, and endeavoured to press it into the microscopic service. I plead guilty to having stolen the glasses from my Aunt Agatha’s spectacles, with a dim idea of grinding them into lenses of wondrous magnifying properties – in which attempt it is scarcely necessary to say that I totally failed.

  At last the promised instrument came. It was of that order known as Field’s Simple Microscope, and had cost perhaps about fifteen dollars. As far as educational purposes went, a better apparatus could not have been selected. Accompanying it was a small treatise on the microscope – its history, uses, and discoveries. I comprehended then for the first time the ‘Arabian Nights’ Entertainments’. The dull veil of ordinary existence that hung across the world seemed suddenly to roll away, and to lay bare a land of enchantments. I felt toward my companions as the seer might feel toward the ordinary masses of men. I held conversations with nature in a tongue which they could not understand. I was in daily communication with living wonders such as they never imagined in their wildest visions, I penetrated beyond the external portal of things, and roamed through the sanctuaries. Where they beheld only a drop of rain slowly rolling down the window-glass, I saw a universe of beings animated with all the passions common to physical life, and convulsing their minute sphere with struggles as fierce and protracted as those of men. In the common spots of mould, which my mother, good housekeeper that she was, fiercely scooped away from her jam-pots, there abode for me, under the name of mildew, enchanted gardens, filled with dells and avenues of the densest foliage and most astonishing verdure, while from the fantastic boughs of these microscopic forests hung strange fruits glittering with green and silver and gold.

  It was no scientific thirst that at this time filled my mind. It was the pure enjoyment of a poet to whom a world of wonders has been disclosed. I talked of my solitary pleasures to none. Alone with my microscope, I dimmed my sight, day after day and night after night, poring over the marvels which it unfolded to me. I was like one who, having discovered the ancient Eden still existing in all its primitive glory, should resolve to enjoy it in solitude, and never betray to mortal the secret of its locality. The rod of my life was bent at this moment. I destined myself to be a microscopist.

  Of course, like every novice, I fancied myself a discoverer. I was ignorant at the time of the thousands of acute intellects engaged in the same pursuit as myself, and with the advantage of instruments a thousand times more powerful than mine. The names of Leeuwenhoek, Williamson, Spencer, Ehrenberg, Schultz, Dujardin, Schact, and Schleiden were then entirely unknown to me, or, if known, I was ignorant of their patient and wonderful researches. In every fresh specimen of cryptogamia which I placed beneath my instrument I believed that I discovered wonders of which the world was as yet ignorant. I remember well the thrill of delight and admiration that shot through me the first time that I discovered the common wheel animalcule (Rotifera vulgaris) expanding and contracting its flexible spokes and seemingly rotating through the water. Alas! as I grew older, and obtained some works treating of my favourite study, I found that I was only on the threshold of a science to the investigation of which some of the greatest men of the age were devoting their lives and intellects.

  As I grew up, my parents, who saw but little likelihood of anything practical resulting from the examination of bits of moss and drops of water through a brass tube and a piece of glass, were anxious that I should choose a profession.

  It was their desire that I should enter the counting-house of my uncle, Ethan Blake, a prosperous merchant, who carried on business in New York. This suggestion I decisively combated. I had no taste for trade; I should only make a failure; in short, I refused to become a merchant.

  But it was necessary for me to select some pursuit. My parents were staid New England people, who insisted on the necessity of labour, and therefore, although, thanks to the bequest of my poor Aunt Agatha, I should, on coming of age, inherit a small fortune sufficient to place me above want, it was decided that, instead of waiting for this, I should act the nobler part, and employ the intervening years in rendering myself independent.

  After much cogitation, I complied with the wishes of my family, and selected a profession. I determined to study medicine at the New York Academy. This disposition of my future suited me. A removal from my relatives would enable me to dispose of my time as I pleased without fear of detection. As long as I paid my Academy fees, I might shirk attending the lectures if I chose; and, as I never had the remotest intention of standing an examination, there was no danger of my being ‘plucked’. Besides, a metropolis was the place for me. There I could obtain excellent instruments, the newest publications, intimacy with men of pursuits kindred with my own – in short, all things necessary to ensure a profitable devotion of my life to my beloved science. I had an abundance of money, few desires that were not bounded by my illuminating mirror on one side and my object-glass on the other; what, therefore, was to prevent my becoming an illustrious investigator of the veiled worlds? It was with the most buoyant hope that I left my New England home and established myself in New York.

  II

  My first step, of course, was to find suitable apartments. These I obtained, after a couple of days’ search, in Fourth Avenue; a very pretty second floor, unfurnished, containing sitting-room, bedroom, and a smaller apartment which I intended to fit up as a laboratory. I furnished my lodgings simply, but rather elegantly, and then devoted all my energies to the adornment of the temple of my worship. I visited Pike, the celebrated optician, and passed in review his splendid collection of microscopes: Field’s Compound, Hingham’s, Spencer’s, Nachet’s Binocular (that founded on the principles of the stereoscope), and at length fixed upon that form known as Spencer’s Trunnion Microscope, as combining the greate
st number of improvements with an almost perfect freedom from tremor. Along with this I purchased every possible accessory – draw-tubes, micrometers, a camera lucida, lever-stage, achromatic condensers, white cloud illuminators, prisms, parabolic condensers, polarising apparatus, forceps, aquatic boxes, fishing-tubes, with a host of other articles, all of which would have been useful in the hands of an experienced microscopist, but, as I afterward discovered, were not of the slightest present value to me. It takes years of practice to know how to use a complicated microscope. The optician looked suspiciously at me as I made these valuable purchases. He evidently was uncertain whether to set me down as some scientific celebrity or a madman. I think he was inclined to the latter belief. I suppose I was mad. Every great genius is mad upon the subject in which he is greatest. The unsuccessful madman is disgraced and called a lunatic.

  Mad or not, I set myself to work with a zeal which few scientific students have ever equalled. I had everything to learn relative to the delicate study upon which I had embarked – a study involving the most earnest patience, the most rigid analytic powers, the steadiest hand, the most untiring eye, the most refined and subtle manipulation.

  For a long time, half my apparatus lay inactively on the shelves of my laboratory, which was now most amply furnished with every possible contrivance for facilitating my investigations. The fact was that I did not know how to use some of my scientific implements – never having been taught microscopies – and those whose use I understood theoretically were of little avail until by practice I could attain the necessary delicacy of handling. Still, such was the fury of my ambition, such the untiring perseverance of my experiments, that, difficult of credit as it may be, in the course of one year I became theoretically and practically an accomplished microscopist.