It was not thus that he would be armed for conquest. He must be prepared not only to resist, but to rout with a returning ridicule. He could not afford to fail. He could not even afford an indecisive contest.
If his brain were stimulated… He saw that the time had come to call in the aid of the unsuspected power which he held reserved. Surely, after all his experiments …
He would try an infinitesimal dose at first, and then a larger one, when he had experienced its effects.
VII
It was about half an hour before he felt the effect of the injection. Then he became aware of an increased clarity of vision, by which the minor details of the objects around him, which he had previously overlooked, were thrown into a vivid prominence. Then he was conscious of a new mental energy, and a quickened perception of abstract things. It was absurd that he should have been troubled by the sluggish cerebrations of Professor Sturmie, who had a mind that floundered like a hippopotamus. And the problem itself was of a childish simplicity. Quiescent Space could have no Time at all. Therefore they could not be identical.
Space must be invaded by Energy: then Time was needed for its operations. Time commenced with its own occasion.
That was the sequence. Space must first exist. Then there must be the invasion of Energy. Then there must be Time for its operations.
So far he saw—or thought he saw—very clearly. But there was something further. Something behind, and beyond, of which his mind was aware, but which it could not reach. Something that vexed and baffled, like a half-faded dream. Something which, could he grasp it, would bring conviction to all who heard, and confound his opponents with a swift derision.
He saw that he would need a further injection before he would be able to overwhelm his enemies. With the experience which he had gained, he no longer feared it. He resolved to take the Council into a partial confidence. He would tell them of the discovery he had made. He would take a further injection before their eyes. He would discourse upon it for half an hour, telling of the experiments which he had made already—telling everything but the formula itself—offering to share his discovery with his colleagues, and to confine it to them, so that, even among their fellow-scientists, they would be assured of a continued supremacy.
Meanwhile, the injection would operate in him, and would demonstrate the miracle which he had achieved.
After that, he would know how to deal with Borthin, even with Sturmie, should they dare to attack him. Should they be silent, he would also deal with them, quickly and quietly, after the Council had risen.
Meanwhile, he could put the question from his mind entirely. He was disposed to experiment with the second preparation, to ascertain its effects upon those who had been exhilarated by the first already. Not, of course, upon himself. He went to the laboratory, filled a syringe, and went down to the pig-sty.
He entered it by the sliding door, at the back of the sleeping-compartment. The sow, sprawled in clean straw, after a heavy lunch of her beloved barley-meal, was snoring happily. He applied the syringe behind her ear, and gave her an ample dose. The ear flicked, as though a fly had vexed it, but the sow did not waken.
VIII
President Brisket was not lacking in self-control, and there were probably few men who were less under the domination of the physical. Yet he had developed certain habits of which he vaguely disapproved, and against which he fought a desultory battle, in which he was never decisively victorious.
Among these habits was one of muttering to himself, more or less audibly, when he imagined himself to be alone, and sometimes even when those were present before whom a firmer restraint was desirable.
It was unfortunate for himself, and of momentous consequence to the world, that he had been particularly injudicious on more than one occasion when he had been lost in thought, sitting at the table, or pacing the private yard, after he had finished one of his instructive interviews with the animal intelligence that he had stimulated, and after the sow had retired to her own quarters. With all his wisdom, he had not considered that the hearing of a sow is more acute than that of a man, and that the alertness of the senses of this particular animal rendered the closing of the partition a useless obstacle to the hearing of the words which he subsequently muttered, however indistinctly.
It followed that the animal had been able to supplement the information which he had thought well to give her with a knowledge of the preparations he was using, and of his hopes and plans, which he would have found very disconcerting, had he been aware of this development, and still more so had he suspected the conclusions to which they had led her.
As we have remarked already, although she had become a pig of very exceptional intelligence, she was a pig still. She was not concerned with the stars, nor with the good of humanity, nor with the pursuit of science, nor even with the good of her own kind. She was concerned solely and entirely with her own physical welfare. Because she had learnt of the general destiny of pigs without resentment, it did not follow that she was willing to feel a knife in her own neck. Rather, she recognized that this was the one problem with which it was essential that she should deal successfully. It did not appear that it was of an immediate urgency, but it was of an overwhelming importance.
When the self-communings of the President had informed her of the nature of the cultures which he had produced, and of his intentions concerning them, she had seen at once that her ultimate hope must lie in the second of these preparations, which, administered at the right time, and to the right individual, could hardly fail to direct his mind to a universal benevolence, from which she would benefit, in common with all the other creatures around him.
But she was too clear-sighted to minimize the difficulties of such a program. She was aware of her physical limitations, and she felt no assurance, even should she be able to obtain and secrete some of the drug or culture in question (she was not very clear as to its exact nature), that the final assault upon herself would give her an opportunity of using it successfully.
She was, as we know, a very sensible animal, and she could not imagine a murderous-minded butcher, who might be short either of time or temper, delaying operations at her request, so that she might give him an injection in the right arm.
Beyond that, the mutterings of President Brisket had left her in doubt as to how soon the injection would take effect, and it is obvious that time would be of vital importance under such conditions as she had imagined.
She had a very practical mind, and it would have been no consolation to her to know that a repentant butcher would wreathe her corpse with flowers.
Finally, she had decided that her best hope lay in causing the President to take a sufficient dose of the second preparation to cause him to become of an overwhelming amiability, in which case the beneficence of his disposition could hardly fail to favor one who had been brought into such close and intellectually intimate relations with him.
That, at least, seemed her best hope, and she had now been watching for some weeks for an opportunity of putting into operation the simple but audacious plan by which she hoped to insure her safety.
This plan was to penetrate into the President’s laboratory, and so to mix or interchange the cultures as to insure that when, as she had learnt from his own lips that he intended, he should aim to inoculate himself with the first, he should actually take an injection of the second.
But in this enterprise she could not afford to fail, and as she did not consider it urgent, she had delayed for choice of opportunity, until, as we have seen, President Brisket had already commenced the process of brain-stimulation which it was her object to complicate.
Such was the position when she awoke, alert from sleep, as the afternoon was waning, with a feeling of most unusual kindliness to the world around her.
IX
She went first into the outer sty, to observe the position of the sun, from which she was able to estimate the time—about three hours which would elapse before
her snout would sink suckingly into the ecstasy of the evening meal. Then she returned, somewhat uncertainly, to the inner sty. She had a vague impulse of beneficence, such as she had never known before, causing her to feel that her time was wasted unless she were doing good to someone.
Someone certainly included herself. When she remembered the project that had recently possessed her mind, it had acquired an even greater importance than it had had previously. She observed that the absentminded President had failed to close the sliding hatch from which he had entered to disturb her sleep so momentously.
She knew that she had only to cross the yard to gain the stairway door through which he was accustomed to descend upon her. She did not suppose that it would be locked, and there were few forms of latch which she had not learnt to manipulate.
It would be little consonant with a narrative of such events as those that we are now approaching to give a detailed observation to the movements of a domestic pig, however intelligent.
It is sufficient to say that she must have succeeded in her purpose, which is not entirely surprising when her abnormal intelligence is considered, together with the fact that she was impulsed by an altruistic exaltation of mind, induced by the last injection she had received, and very foreign to her natural propensities, and, finally, that she was equipped by nature with a highly sensitive snout, capable, even with the less intelligent of her kind, of operations of almost manual dexterity, and to which feet and teeth could give very useful support at need.
But it is evident, from the sequel, that she must have found some human or mechanical obstacle, such as that of a closed door, which prevented her return to her sty by the direct way when she had completed her enterprise; for we next observe her in Berkhampsted High Street, where she was brought up short by encountering a certain carpenter, a Mr. Jubbins, who turned suddenly from a sidestreet, with his bag of tools on his shoulder.
It is evident that the carpenter must have been fond of pork (or perhaps bacon is indicated), and that the sight of this sleek-sided specimen of her kind must have awakened certain acquisitive, if not actually gluttonous, instincts in a corrupt mind, which must have communicated themselves to an animal in which the drug was still working most potently, so that it had become an uncontrollable impulse to gratify the desires of those among whom she moved.
“Can you direct me,” she inquired fatuously, “to a really good butcher?”
We know that her articulation of human speech was not clear, but Mr. Jubbins seems to have caught her meaning immediately.
“Come this way,” he said genially, with a persuasive hand on the ear that was nearer. He scratched her back very comfortably. He felt that he would be able to do all that was necessary.
He doubted whether a saw would be mutually satisfactory, but perhaps a chisel …
They entered his workshop side by side, and the subsequent events may best be indicated by “noises off stage.” Actually, I do not know what happened. I believe that the effects of the injection, which was certainly not as permanent in its nature as the first one, were beginning to clear as the carpenter turned the key on the inside of his workshop-door, but beyond that … well, she was a very intelligent animal.
We are dealing with the events of 1990, which I may not live to investigate, but should I attain to such a great longevity, I shall make a point of penetrating that side-turning from the Berkhampsted High Street. It would be nice to know.
X
The Council of Twenty-One met in a plainly furnished room in the London University buildings. They had no need of the vulgarity of material ostentation. Individual members might indulge in castle or park or palace, and none would stay them, for the earth was theirs, and common men lived or died at their pleasure, but collectively their power needed no pomp to display it. It lay in formulae which only they—or perhaps only some of them—could read: in powerhouse and test tube: most of all, in the fear of the unknown that lay, like a shadow of death, over the ignorant populace that they ruled and exploited.
Once before, in the twilight of the middle ages, this shadow had lengthened across the world, but the people of that time had struck viciously with fire and cord, and had stamped back into smoldering ash the threat that might otherwise have won, even then, its dark dominion over them.
Now it had triumphed, and not only the members of the Council, but their meanest student, could walk securely among a host of common men, though he knew there was not one but would have slain him gladly. They were the terror that walked at noon, and there was none so bold as to lift even a glance of hatred against them. President Brisket sat at the table’s head, with the Secretary of the Council, Dr. Acton-Shaw, at his right hand.
Dr. Acton-Shaw was himself one of the Council, as it was not considered expedient that its minutes should be in the hands of an official of inferior status or responsibility, nor were these minutes, dealing largely, as they did, with the application of the abstruser sciences, always easy to take.
The Secretary was a small man, with a very wizened face, and a habit of peering, as though he suffered from partial blindness. In fact, his sight was excellent, his observation abnormal, and his memory for fact or face an amazement, even to the trained minds that were round him. With these qualities he made no enemies, for he expressed no opinions. No one knew what he thought. So far, there had been no evidence that he thought at all.
There are many battles that are decided before the moment of actual conflict, by the courage or cowardice of those who approach to the encounter. Men defeat themselves more often than they are defeated by the assault of circumstance. But, on this occasion, a psychologist, investigating the mental confidence of either side, or observing the careful preparations on which such confidence rested, might have foretold their victory with an equal certainty.
The agenda which the Secretary had prepared from the President’s instructions, and from the requisitions of members, included the name of Dr. Sturmie for the first time in the history of the Council. Dr. P. A. Sturmie to address the Council on FUNDAMENTALS, and to move a resolution.
Immediately after, there came the name of Professor Borthin to address the Council on the progress of BRAIN-GRAFTING, and to move a resolution.
The atmosphere, as the scientists entered, one by one, and took their accustomed seats, was oppressive with the sense of a coming storm. The majority were not men of aggressive temperament. They only wanted to be left alone to the pursuit of their own researches. Now that the earth was theirs, and they could demand what they would for apparatus or experiment, they had no wish but to be left in quietness to cultivate the opportunity which life had offered.
But they knew, all of them more or less, of the conflict which was impending. And there were only seven members who had not some private knowledge in reserve of swift and secret ways by which he might destroy his colleagues, should he be disposed to do so.
President Brisket came late. He entered with an almost jaunty confidence. He glanced down the agenda which lay before him, with light words of bantering comment.
“Dr. Sturrniel … Always glad to hear Sturmie…. Quite a lightweight subject for you, doctor. Almost skittish… . Borthin? … Oh, yes. I remember. The babies’ brains… . Always enterprising.”
Then his manner changed. He drew a small tube from his pocket, and laid it on the table before him.
He spoke now with a grave elation. “Gentlemen, when these routine matters are over, I’ve something of real importance to tell you. An avenue is opening before us of unimagined life and power. I am going to show you an experiment on myself, and I am going to offer its benefits to you also, when I have demonstrated what they are… . But we’ll get through the agenda first, and we’ll try to make it as short as possible… . Dr. Sturmie will address us on—what is it? Oh, yes. FUNDAMENTALS.”
Dr. Sturmie did not rise. His age and infirmities excused him from such an ordeal. He had shown no sign of hearing what had been said, but now he began to speak. At fir
st, his tone was low, an indistinct rumbling from the depths of his massive chest. He looked at no one. He seemed to be unaware of the audience by which he was surrounded.
But as he went on, his voice became louder, his articulation clearer. Much that he said was difficult to understand, even to the select audience he addressed. Members leant forward eagerly to catch the pregnant sentences as they fell. Now and then he became strangely lucid, so that, though he spoke of things which are beyond the ordinary imaginations of men, a child could have understood him. The listeners felt that he spoke of things that they had always known, but that they had never been able to formulate, to articulate, previously. Had he concluded by moving that President Brisket should be sent to an Infants’ School, it is doubtful whether there would have been less than nineteen votes to support him; but his motion was simply this: That any member, after this date, who shall speak on subjects of which he is ignorant, shall be dismissed the Council.
Hearing the resolution, the President decided instantly to ignore the fact that it was so clearly aimed at himself, and to put it without discussion. He did not merely ignore the attack, he swept it contemptuously back. Since he had taken that injection three days ago, his brain felt equal to anything.
“Well, gentlemen,” he said briefly, “we’ve all enjoyed the address, but we’ve got some important business coming, so I’ll put the resolution at once. It seems a good one to me, though we should all be sorry if Sturmie should have to leave us in consequence. Oh, you never know.”—As the astonished Sturmie, really roused for once, turned a heavy contemptuous glance in his direction.— “I’ve got something to say about Space and Time myself before we part this afternoon. But that will come later. The resolution is … carried unanimously, of course. And now we’ll hear about Borthin’s brains… . Professor Borthin will address the meetings.”
Adventures in Time and Space Page 126