Tales of the Shadowmen 2: Gentlemen of the Night

by Jean-Marc Lofficier

  The matter was starting to become clearer. “So!” I exclaimed. “Both men were revolutionaries, but on opposite sides of the issue.”

  “Quite so. And their chance meeting here led our killer to a swift decision. Seeing Zhadikov in the theater, he knew he had stumbled onto a spy ring belonging to his opponents. The only one he recognized was Zhadikov, so he would have to act to close down the ring. How? By making the others think they might become his next victims. He followed Zhadikov into the backstage change room and killed him. It then became important that Zhadikov be discovered swiftly, and his death become a warning.”

  I frowned. “But why was the shot itself not heard?”

  “The backstage areas are well soundproofed,” Strogoff interjected. “It would not do to have activities there heard on the stage.” That I could understand.

  “But you no doubt noticed that the place where Zhadikov had been killed was behind the door,” Rouletabille said. “That did not suit our killer’s purpose–it was always possible that in the bustle and confusion of a premiere that the body might not be found immediately. He needed to strike instant horror into his quarry, so the body must be found before the end of the evening. So he dragged the dying man across the room and then positioned him on the table–in clear view of anyone who opened the door.”

  “But how did you know it was the killer who dragged the poor man, and not the stage hands?” I objected.

  Rouletabille smiled. “My friend, they are four strong men, used to moving heavy pieces of stage equipment. If they had stumbled across the dying body of their friend, they would not have dragged it–they would have picked it up and carried it to the table. So, no, the killer moved the body, and clearly so that it would be seen. Most killers hide their victims–this one did the opposite, so it obviously was in order that the corpse should serve as a warning.”

  Strogoff smiled. “And, of course, you made the killer think that his plan had come apart, and that the victim was still alive. He then had to follow, and attempt the murder again–and so we have him.” The Russian shook his head. “I cannot believe that we saw the same things as you, and yet understood so little.”

  “As I remarked before,” my companion said, “each of us to his own métier. Fortunately for you, you had on hand the one man in all of Paris who would be able to resolve your mystery. If you will allow me to intrude just a fraction on your profession, though, I would suggest that you begin to search through the personnel of the Ballets to discover Zhadikov’s co-conspirators.”

  “Indeed I shall,” Strogoff agreed. “And I should like to meet with both of you gentlemen again, to discuss the thanks my Tsar will undoubtedly wish passed along to you.” He bowed formally to us both, and left.

  I turned to Rouletabille, who had by now shed his disguise and recovered his evening clothes. “Well, my friend–now what?”

  He examined his pocket watch. “Well, with a little luck, the crowds may have started to thin. Perhaps we might do well to see if either of us has sufficient influence to get a table at Maxim’s? All of this mental activity has left me quite famished.”

  The notion that Man was not alone, and further that, thanks to the new discoveries made possible by science, he would soon visit his planetary neighbors, became common place in 19th century science fiction. In 1865, 12 years before Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli thought he saw canals on Mars, Baron Alfred d’Espiard de Colonge, in La Chute du Ciel ou Les Antiques Météores Planétaires, hypothesized that life on Earth had originated on another world, and may have started as the result of deliberate seeding by aliens. Three years prior, French astronomer Camille Flammarion had begun to discuss the physiological properties of extraterrestrial life. Amidst the plethora of fictional scientists harnessing imaginary energies and building new and bigger craft, one figure stands alone: the mysterious Doctor Omega, created by Arnould Galopin in 1906. In this story, cleverly inserted between chapters two and three of Galopin’s novel, Chris Roberson takes a closer look at what lurked behind the apparent miracles of space age technology of the 19th century.

  Chris Roberson: Annus Mirabilis

  Le Creusot and Bern, 1905

  In the still dark hours of the morning, while the town of Le Creusot slowly rubbed the sleep from its eyes and woke to another spring day, the old man ambled along aimlessly through the foothills of the Morvan. He was lost in thought, a dark mote drifting along the green Bourgogne countryside in his black cloak, a long striped scarf wrapped round his neck, a peaked fur hat atop his head, which could scarcely conceal the snow-white hair and rebellious forelock that swept back from his high forehead.

  As the Sun pinked the eastern sky, and Le Creusot began to hum with life and activity, the old man came back down into the township proper, passing the gates of the Château de la Verrerie, since the last century the residence of the Schneider family, the masters of the forges. At this early hour, dark smoke already bled into the lightening sky, billowing up from the smokestacks of the foundries. Arriving at the metal-works unmolested, the old man flung open the door, and a wave of heat from the forges rolled toward him like a solid wall. Within, directing the workmen of the Schneider foundry, the old man found his companion already hard at work, crescents of sweat darkening the arm-pits of his crisp white shirt, his trouser legs stained and scuffed.

  “Borel,” the old man said, then had to repeat, raising his voice over the tintinnabulation of metal striking metal. “Borel! How goes the assembly?”

  “What?” the young man shouted back, cupping his hands around his ears like a listening trumpet. The old man repeated his question, raising the pitch of his voice even higher. “Oh, well enough, Doctor! We seem to be proceeding on schedule.”

  “In that case,” the old man said, quite unconcerned now whether his companion could hear him further, “I shall find a bite to eat, hmm?”

  On a side table was laid out the makings of a simple breakfast, for the use of the foundry’s workers. The Schneiders had evidently learned that providing such simple amenities, though a notional expense at the outset, meant that their laborers had a shorter distance to travel to sate their appetites, and would perforce be the quicker to return to their duties. The old man, considering himself in some regards as the workers’ employer–he had, after all, contracted the foundry’s services in the construction of the large craft which Borel now oversaw–had no compunctions against helping himself to their board.

  Selecting an apple, a hunk of cold cheese, and a small loaf of fresh bread, the old man seated himself on a nearby straight-backed chair, on the back of which was folded some sort of newspaper or journal. As he bit into the apple, the old man unfolded the periodical, and scanned the contents. It was a copy of Beiblätter zu den Annalen der Physik, and the old man concluded that it must have been left by one of the foundry’s engineers. Absently chewing on a bite of apple, the old man began to read, idly.

  After finishing no more than half of the apple, having hardly touched the bread, the old man’s eyes opened wide, and he jumped to his feet, clutching the journal.

  “Borel!” he shouted, racing across the foundry floor, waving his arms for the young man’s attention. The old man’s companion, seeing his approach, gave a shout of alarm, and rushed to his side, his labors forgotten.

  “Doctor, what is it?” the young man said, his expression suggesting that he feared the worst.

  “What is the date, my boy?” the old man asked, his mouth drawn into a tight line.

  The young man’s forehead wrinkled momentarily, as he did some quick mental calculation. “March the sixth,” he finally answered. “A Monday.”

  “Yes, yes,” the old man said impatiently, waving his hand. “But the year, man, what year?”

  The young man was a bit taken aback, but it was clear he’d grown used to the old man’s eccentricities in recent weeks. “Why, it’s 1905, naturally.”

  “Oh dear, oh dear.” The old man began to pace back and forth, his expression grave, his eyes f
lashing. “No, this won’t do. This won’t do at all.”

  Before the young man could speak, to ask the old man what was the matter at hand, the old man stopped short, straightening.

  “Borel, I’m leaving you in charge. See to it that the three components of the craft are appropriately joined together.”

  “Certainly, Doctor. But where will you be?”

  “I’m sorry, my boy, but I have vital matters which must be attended.” With that, the old man shoved the journal into the young man’s hands, turned on his heel, and stalked from the foundry.

  The young man watched the retreating back of his companion, baffled. He glanced at the journal the old man has been reading, hoping there to find some clue to what had set the old man off. It was open to a review of a Professor Wellingham’s paper, “On the role of panergon in the relationship between electricity and light,” by one A. Einstein. The young man could see no reason for excitement with either the names or the subject and, tucking the journal into his trouser pocket, shrugged and returned to his labors.

  Two days later, on the morning of Wednesday, March 8, the old man appeared at the reception area of the Swiss Patent Office, in Bern, Switzerland. Not bothering to doff his fur hat, nor unwind his striped scarf, he marched up to the clerk behind the reception desk, leaning forward like a man walking against a heavy wind.

  “I insist on speaking with one of your technical assistant examiners,” the old man said, before the clerk had the opportunity to ask.

  The clerk sighed, a long-suffering, resigned sort of sigh, and pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. “And does this concern a pending patent application, I assume?”

  “You may assume what you like,” the old man said, brusquely, “it makes no difference to me. However, I dare say that the matter on which I have come will impact a great many future patents and discoveries which might one day pass through this office.”

  The clerk sighed a second time, if anything more dramatic and expressive than the first. “And whom should I say is calling?”

  The old man straightened, grabbing hold of his lapels with either hand.

  “I am the Doctor.”

  “Who?”

  “What?” The old man blinked, a bit perplexed, as if suddenly asked by a stranger the dimensions of his inseam. “Oh, Omega will suit under the circumstances. Doctor Omega.”

  The clerk looked the old man up and down, suspiciously. After a considerable pause, he gave yet another sigh, rose from his desk and moved to open a low gate for the old man. “This way, Herr Doctor.”

  The old man followed behind, as the clerk escorted him through narrow, musty hallways, grey and grimed. Finally, they came to a small room, smelling of old tobacco and mold, dimly lit by sunlight filtering in through heavy glass panes that hadn’t been washed since the previous century. There, seated at a low, wide desk, was a young man, bent low over a great stack of papers, a pen in hand.

  “Albert,” the clerk said, motioning the old man forward, “this gentleman has some inquiries for you.”

  “Ah,” the old man said, brightening. He strode forward, smiling broadly, his hand extended before him. “Mr. Einstein. Precisely the man I wanted to see. I am Doctor Omega.”

  Albert Einstein was a week shy of his 26th birthday, with dark, curly hair and a full mustache, and though his eyes seemed sad, he smiled easily and often. There was a certain unearthly quality about him that reminded the old man of someone, though it took a moment to recognize something of his granddaughter’s look in the young man’s expression. The old man wondered, idly, if there might not be a trace of his “countrymen” somewhere in the young man’s ancestry. It wouldn’t be the first time.

  “It is about your recent review concerning panergon that I have come,” the old man explained, once he’d arranged himself on a chair opposite Einstein’s desk. “In it, you discussed panergon’s capacity to produce ‘secondary electricity,’ with which one can control the movements and qualities of projected light.”

  “Yes, that’s correct,” Einstein said, folding his hands in his lap, looking more than a little surprised that someone had sought him out to discuss his avocation and not his vocation. “And it is Wellingham’s contention that panergon is also the cohesive force that keeps the molecules of matter from falling apart from one another.”

  “Mmm.” The old man rubbed at his lower lip. “And in your remarks, appended to your review, you made mention that this put paid to your own theories on the nature of photoelectricity.”

  Einstein nodded. “I had made careful study of Heinrich Hertz’s writings on the subject, and had begun to formulate an equation that might address the causes of the so-called ‘Hertz effect.’ This effect concerns the production and emission of electricity from matter upon the absorption of visible or ultraviolet light…”

  “Yes, yes, I know all about that,” the old man said, impatiently. “What, specifically, was this theory of yours, impacted by the discovery of panergon?”

  “Well, my thinking was influenced by Joseph Long Thomson’s theoretical ‘corpuscles.’ Thomson argued that these subatomic components constitute cathode rays and, under certain conditions, that these ‘corpuscles’ could be excited in such a way that they would be emitted singly, and thus detected. It occurred to me that light, which since Maxwell has been assumed to be a wave phenomenon like electromagnetism, might be constituted of small, discrete packets of energy, which I thought to name ‘light quanta.’ ”

  The old man leaned forward, pulling his fur hat from his head and worrying it between his hands. “But you no longer believe this to be the case?”

  “Clearly not,” the young man said, shaking his head sadly, “as the demonstrated nature of Welligham’s panergon clearly precludes the existence of the quantum.”

  “Hmm.” The old man shook his head, eyes narrowed and lips pursed. “Something is very much amiss here, Albert.”

  Over the course of the next hours, the old man picked through Einstein’s thoughts, questioning him at length about the reading he’d done into the study of energy in recent years. In addition to his summary of Wellingham’s panergon studies, it transpired, Einstein had also written recent reviews of Professor Mirzabeau’s work on violent flame, and Henry R. Cortlandt’s paper on apergy, and had just begun a survey on recent findings concerning vril.

  The old man was interested, specifically, in the ways in which recent discoveries about these energies had affected Einstein’s understanding of the fundamental laws and forces which governed the natural world.

  As Einstein spoke, the old man scribbled strange notations on his cuff with a laundry marker from time to time, deep in thought.

  At length, the old man pushed off his chair and stood. He set his fur hat back on his head and wound his long scarf around his neck. “I thank you for your time, Herr Einstein. I’m afraid, based on what you’ve told me, that I haven’t a moment to lose.”

  The old man turned and started towards the door, but Einstein jumped to his feet, taking hold of the old man’s elbow.

  “Please, sir, I now find I have many questions for you.”

  “For me?”

  Einstein was breathless, eyes wide. “From your questions and comments, it’s clear to me that you have a stronger grasp of theoretical physics than any individual it has been my pleasure to encounter.”

  The old man’s mouth formed a moue of distaste, and he waved his hand, shooing away the compliment as though it were a horsefly. “I’ve no interest in your flattery, sir. It means as little to me as the praise of a child first learning his alphabet complimenting Flaubert’s penmanship.”

  The old man tried to extricate himself from Einstein’s grip, but the young man was insistent. “Wait! You say that you find some peril in this talk of energies and fundamental forces?”

  “Yes,” the old man said, nodding slowly, “grave peril.”

  “I won’t pretend to have any notion what you might mean; however, I can’t but trust a man with you
r grasp of physics. If there is anything I can do to assist, you have but to ask.”

  The old man responded with a tight smile and, as Einstein released his grip, swept towards the door, his long cloak billowing around him. “Well, come along, young man, don’t dawdle. There is work to be done.”

  That night, on a hilltop some distance from Bern, the two men bent low, their attention on a small assemblage of iron rods, copper wiring and ceramic vials.

  Einstein connected the components as the old man directed, while the latter busied himself with strange objects he pulled from the inner folds of his coat. They were small, glittering objects, flashing in the moonlight like gems.

  “There,” the old man said, once the apparatus was assembled to his satisfaction. “Now, step back a moment, my boy. Were these to be misaligned, even a fraction, neither of us would survive long enough to attempt a correction.”

  Obligingly, the young man stood, and took a few paces backwards. Only when he was safely out of reach did the old man kneel down, placing the objects one by one at key junctures of the assemblage.

  When the old man finally rose and stepped back, a low humming noise began to fill the night air around them.

  “Doctor, what precisely is this we have constructed?” Einstein looked down on the strange assemblage, a worried expression tugging down the corners of his mouth. “What is its purpose?”

  “This device emits a sort of resonance pattern,” the old man said, as though it were the simplest thing in the world, “specific to this region of space-time, which should be anathema to anything which resonates at a different frequency. Like positive and negatively charged plates drawn together, or matter being forced into a vacuum, this emitter will serve to attract any non-resonant objects, pulling them here to us.”