World of the Gods

by Pel Torro

  “I’ll ha’ one fer ye in jest a minute,” he said.

  “Don’t hurry,” said Anzar, “we have plenty of time…” The conceit o’ the devil! thought the Scotsman. There was a slight pause and then the Scotsman straightened up with a jerk like an uncoiling spring.

  “I think this one may interest you, Professor Anzar,” he said quietly. “What do you understand by the term ‘osmotic pressure’?” Anzar’s sarcasm and cynicism appeared to know no bounds.

  “I agree that the whole osmotic question is an interesting scientific point,” he said, “but why on earth you should consider that it would take me more than a matter of two or three seconds to give you the necessary definition, I don’t know. Osmotic pressure refers to solution, and when we speak of osmotic pressure we speak necessarily of the osmotic pressure of a solution—of the particular solution with which we are concerned. It is that pressure which must be applied to a solution in order to prevent the flow of solvent through a semi-permeable membrane. A semi-permeable membrane which is separating the solution and the pure solvent. When a solvent is about to flow through such a membrane into a vessel or cell containing the solution, the solvent will flow into the cell until such a pressure is set up as will balance the pressure of the solvent flowing in. The osmotic pressure of a dilute solution is analogous to gaseous pressure. A substance in solution if not dissociated, exerts the same osmotic pressure quite naturally as the gaseous pressure would exert if it was a gas at the same temperature, and occupying the same volume. Therefore it is true to say that the osmotic pressure, the temperature and the volume of a dilute solution of a non-electrolyte, are connected by laws which are exactly similar to the famous gas laws. Let me put it another way. Osmotic pressure is the pressure applicable to a solution preventing the solvent moving from the semi-permeable membrane.…”

  “Go on about the semi-permeable membrane,” said the Scotsman,” define that term for me, will you?”

  “You seem to want quite a lot for your money,” commented Anzar, with a cynical smile. “The semi-permeable membrane, as you well know, is a membrane allowing the passage of some substances, and not of others. It is a partition which permits the passage of pure solvent molecules more readily than those of the dissolved substance, for example we may take the substance copper-ferro-cyanide, with the formula Cu2Fe (CN)6, which is permeable to water, but only very slightly permeable to dissolved substance. Used as a partition between solution and solvent in osmotic measurements, and in dialysis.”

  “I’m satisfied with that,” said the Scotsman, “now go on to what you were saying again.”

  “It’s only a matter of simple repetition from there onwards,” said Anzar. “You know perfectly well that I know everything there is to know about osmotic pressure, if you are honest you will admit that I probably know more about it than you do. It is the pressure which must be applied to a solution in order to prevent the flow of solvent through a semi-permeable membrane which I have defined for you. That semi-permeable membrane, we will presuppose, is separating the solution and the pure solvent. When a solvent is allowed to flow through such a membrane into a vessel or cell containing a solution, then, quite obviously the solvent will flow into the cell. And it will continue to flow until a sufficient pressure is set up to balance the pressure of the solvent which is at that time flowing in, that is the solvent to which we have already referred. Now what we actually understand by the osmotic pressure of a dilute solution is analogous to gaseous pressure. A substance in solution, if not dissociated, exerts the same osmotic pressure as the gaseous pressure it would exert if it was a gas at the same temperature and occupying the same volume … Therefore, the osmotic pressure, temperature and volume of a dilute solution of non-electrolyte are connected by laws exactly similar to the gas laws. Those same simple gas laws which most of you learnt in the fourth form of your grammar school—presupposing that you went to grammar schools! Most of you look as if you were E.S.N. during your early days! And I am rapidly coming to that conclusion. The standard of the questions you have asked—if they are any guide to your intelligence!”

  “There’s no need to be insulting,” said Fotheringay. “You are on trial before this Tribunal on a very serious charge. I would be grateful if you would bear that fact in mind.”

  Anzar bowed with mock courtesy.

  “I’ve shot my bolt,” said MacIntyre. “How about you, William?”

  “Indeed to goodness, it is quite a problem thinking up a suitable question. As I see it, we are trying to test a knowledge in basic science. It is a wide field. We are looking for exactitude and width of knowledge at the same time. We have already had some staggeringly conclusive answers.…”

  “I wouldn’t say they were ‘staggeringly conclusive,’ ” said Fotheringay. “There isn’t a man here who couldn’t have answered them just as well.”

  “No, but on the other hand, we’re not just ordinary men-in-the street, are we?”

  “No—I see what you mean,” replied the Englishman.”

  “He’s right, you know,” put in Riley O’Rorke, “He’s answered reasonably well. He’s answered every bit as well as we could answer, even though he’s damnably conceited about it. Here is a question for you, I think,” said the Welshman suddenly.

  “I hope it will prove more interesting than some of the questions I’ve had so far,” mused Anzar.

  “That rudeness won’t help you whateffer, look you,” said the Welshman. “Now, would you like to tell us what the Joule Thompson effect is? Sometimes it’s known as the Joule Kelvin effect.”

  “I’ll do my best,” returned Anzar. “Would you like it in words of one syllable or words of two syllables?” There was an oily, cynical, laconic smile on his face. “Roughly the Joule Thompson effect—Joule Kelvin effect if you prefer—is this. When a gas expands through a porous plug, there is a change of temperature. Now that change of temperature which occurs is proportional to the pressure difference across the plug. The temperature change is partly due to a departure of the gas from Joule’s Law—the gas performing internal work and overcoming the mutual attraction of its molecules, and thus cooling itself. And partly to deviation of the gas from Boyle’s Law, this latter effect can give rise either to a cooling or a heating process, depending upon the initial temperature and the pressure difference used. For a given mean pressure the temperature at which the two effects balance, resulting in no alteration of temperature, is normally referred to as being the ‘inversion’ temperature. Gases expanding through a porous plug below their inversion temperature are cooled; otherwise they are heated!” He spread his hands in a rather French gesture. Was that a clue to his nationality? wondered Claude Fotheringay. Or was it just a gesture that he had picked up somewhere? Fotheringay knew that there were many Englishmen who used that same little hand-spread, shoulder-shrug gesture. There may be Germans and Swedes who used it—perhaps Anzar was no more French than he was a Zulu … what was Anzar? It was extremely difficult to tell.

  “It’s up to me, I believe,” said Riley O’Rorke. “To find the final question. And what’s it to be about, I wonder? What is it to be about? There’s so many things I’d like to ask you. It was my idea that we questioned you in the first place. Unless I can find one to beat you, then we shall have to admit—albeit grudgingly—that you’re obviously some sort of a scientist.

  “Thank you very much for those few kind words,” retorted Anzar with biting sarcasm. “All right, my wild colonial boy! What’s your question?”

  “If I have any more of your lip I’ll come over there and forget that I’m a member of an official Tribunal,” muttered the Irishman, “just because I’m a scientist, it doesn’t mean that I’m an old fogey! It doesn’t mean that I’ve got a long grey beard and rheumatism, and a scholarly stoop. I’d have you know I still play rugger three-quarter! That I weigh over fourteen stone, and that last time I punched a penny-in-the-slot punchball on the sea-front at Brighton, I burst the bag.…”

  “Oooooh! Physica
l violence” returned Anzar scornfully.

  “You’ll find out just what physical violence can mean in a minute! I’ll save the Tribunal the trouble of sorting you out!” Hot Gaelic temper was rising.

  “Steady on now,” said the Welshman putting a restraining and friendly hand on his friend’s arm. He too, had Gaelic blood and understood exactly how his Irish colleague was feeling.

  “Steady on now, Riley my friend. There’s no need whateffer, no need at all, look you, to get upset about this matter. Ask him your question, and then we’ll get on with considering our verdict. He’s not helping his own case by this stupid and idiotic attitude that he’s got. Not helping it in the slightest, look you. More over and howeffer he won’t help it, if he goes on like this!”

  “All right,” said the Irishman thickly, glaring with eyes that had turned to chips of blue steel, in the direction of the mysterious Anzar, “Here’s your question—I want you to tell me what the electro-motive series is.…”

  “The electro-motive series,” said Anzar nodding his head sagely up and down in a very annoying way, imitating a Chinese sage, or nodding Mandarin, in the process, “Well that is what I would call the potential series of a metal. It is a list of metals ranged in order of the magnitudes of their polar electrode potentials. That is, arranged in the order of the magnitude of the potential difference between the metal and a normal solution of one of its salts.… Metals with high negative electrode potentials stand at the head of the electro-motive series, and quite obviously the list represents the order in which the metals replace one another from their salts. A metal higher in the series replaces one which is lower down, similarly, again quite obviously, metals placed above hydrogen will liberate it from acids. The chief metals in order, are sodium, magnesium, aluminium, manganese, zinc, cadmium, iron, cobalt, nickel, tin, lead, hydrogen, copper, mercury, silver, platinum and gold Hydrogen, of course, is not a metal, but I have placed it in the scale so that you can see which metals will liberate it from acids.”

  “Thank you,” said the Irishman. “Thank you very much, Mr. blasted-walking-dictionary!” He smacked one big, athletic fist into the palm of the other hand. “So much for my bright idea,” he said. “At least we have established one point I suppose though—we have established that he’s worthy the reputation of a scientist whatever else and whoever else he may be. All right Anzar, you have established, by trial by examination, your right to expound your theory, before this Council. But I warn you that if your theory, that if your ideas, do not meet with our general approval——”

  “You’re usurping my prerogative,” said Fotheringay “Allow me.…”

  “All right,” said the Irishman, “I’m sorry Claude, I was getting carried away.”

  “What Mr. O’Rorke was saying is quite correct,” said Fotheringay. “I feel it is my solemn duty to warn you that you are in the very gravest danger of being expelled from the Scientific Council altogether.”

  “I’m fully aware of that,” said Anzar. “I know that you are all jealous of my success in my work, and that because of something which you call ethics, something which you call ‘working in the name of common humanity’ and all that kind of nonsense, you don’t approve of some of the paths that I’m taking. But knowledge knows no bounds; knowledge refuses to be shackled by ethics or anything else; I believe that science is knowledge and that knowledge is power, and I’m going on pursuing my cause, irrespective of anything you may do, or anything you may say.”

  “Expulsion is a pretty serious threat,” reminded Fotheringay. “A scientist who is expelled from the Council, is cut off from the International Laboratories, he is cut off from his supplies of chemicals, and apparatus. In other words—to all intents and purposes, he is no longer a scientist in anything but name.”

  “I’m fully aware of all this,” said the short, blue-black bearded grotesque. “I am more than aware of it. We have been at loggerheads for a long time. This has not been the first occasion on which you have threatened me with expulsion.”

  “On this occasion I’m afraid the threat will have to be carried out,” said Fotheringay. “Unless you can persuade us that there is nothing whatever that is harmful to the human race in the experiment which you intend to carry out.” And suddenly some of Anzar’s iron reserve broke down.

  “I don’t give a damn about the human race,” he screamed out to the assembled council of scientists, “it’s knowledge and power that I’m after! Can’t you see that, you blind, blundering fools? You’ve been tripping over yourselves worrying about the human race! Stopping on the threshold of each new discovery! Will it harm the human race? Will it do good? Will they destroy themselves? Will it make life easier for them? Will it help them to see better pictures on the television sets, will it help them to drive faster and more safely in their cars. Damn their cars! Blast their television sets! That’s not what I’m interested in! That’s not science! That’s wet-nursing this stupid, simpering race of ours! I’m not here because I am concerned with the ethical values of some weird quality which you like to delineate as being either goodness or badness. That doesn’t concern me in the least!” He spread his hands wide in a gesture of defiance. “I’m not here to answer your questions, I’m not here to listen to the quibblings and the wanderings of your puny little minds!” The, great black beard was wagging up and down on the enormous barrel chest. “I’ll tell you why I’m a scientist! I’m a scientist because I’m in pursuit of knowledge. Pure unadulterated knowledge! Pontius Pilate asked what Truth was? I’m still asking, after twenty-two centuries, and I intend to find out the answer, and I’m not going to be held back because the line of research which I am following may or may not have serious repercussions upon the human race! What has the human race ever done for me, that I should stop and consider and do anything for them!” He snapped his fingers scornfully. “That for the human race! And that for you!” He snapped his fingers again. “Gentlemen, do your worst, expel me, if you wish. I will find other ways of carrying on my experiment. You do not know the terrible powers that are already at my finger tips.”

  His eyes blazed with crazy fanaticism.

  “You know nothing of the Yellow Mist! You know nothing of the secrets which are locked in the great cylinder with which I work! You know nothing of the mechanical devices which I am perfecting at this very moment. They are beyond your puny, finite, human minds. You stick to your ethics if you will. I’ll stick to science, and we’ll see who arrives at the goal of complete understanding first! There is no need to continue your tribunal, gentlemen. You have angered me beyond belief, I declare war upon you! Every one of you! I declare war upon this human race which you try to protect. I withdraw from it! I want nothing more to do with it! I’m fed up with it! Fed up, do you understand! You don’t expel me, I expel myself! Damn and blast the lot of you!”

  Before a single member of the Tribunal could utter a word Professor Anzar stormed away from the witness box in which he had been standing, thrust the two guards aside, before they had time to gather their wits, and crashed out through the door, slamming it behind him with such force that it shattered the plastic panels.

  A waiting helicab that was hovering just above the sidewalk whisked him up into the clouds, and he vanished away to the West. Claude Fotheringay rose to his feet, and rapped for silence with his gavel.

  “I hereby officially declare that the Tribunal is closed, and that as a result of Professor Anzar’s behaviour, he is officially expelled from the Science Council. The Tribunal is closed, the General Meeting is now open. I request the Chairman of the General Meeting that he ratify the decisions the Tribunal has reached. By a show of hands, gentlemen?”

  The show of hands was quite unanimous, Anzar’s fanatical outburst had been more than enough to swing even the one or two odd waverers, who had thought that he might have something, over to the side of the majority.

  The decision to expel was unanimous. It was recorded by the secretary and Anzar was branded as a lone wolf—a scientist and
yet not a scientist. Something beyond science; something outside; something working in the dark, away from the light of his fellow savants.

  Chapter Two

  Chain of Events

  DON CAMERON was on the squad car that found them. As a matter of fact he was driving it. They rounded a bend on the big northern highway, and there on a lonely stretch of perfectly clear road, they saw the wreck. It seemed pointless to ask whether anyone could have survived, but they were IPF officers, and there was a job to be done. It wasn’t a particularly pleasant job. Don trod on the brake savagely. Unnecessarily so … he was putting his feelings into the toe and into the brake linings. It all seemed such a hideous, unnecessary waste of life. He and his fellow officers stepped quickly out of the car and hurried across … there was always the odd chance. Don told himself. Always the odd chance that the miracle had happened. That padding in just the right place had saved … he was fooling himself and he knew it.

  It looked more like a tangle from a scrap yard.

  “What happened?” asked Joe indicating the wreckage.

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” returned Don, I’d say it was maybe a foul-up in the transmission gear somewhere. Maybe part of the engine came up through the floor boards, and turned ’em over. Maybe they just skidded.…”