Investigations of the Future

by Brian Stableford

  However, the pacifiers of the Hague agreed that they ought to do something for Macedonia, and, after a long discussion, they fell into accord with regard to requesting the Gate to substitute for its Muslim police Protestant police recruited in Switzerland.

  The impious laboratory supervisor was replaced by a puritan—and that is why, in spite of the liberality of the billionaire Carnegie and the scientific research of the Institute in the Hague, the balkanic microbe will continue its ravages for a long time.

  XI. The Philosopher

  I could not neglect, in order to bring my investigation to a satisfactory conclusion, a visit to Baltimore to see John Wilfrid Theobald Portius Barnett, director of the Immortality Co. Ltd. That company is not, as one might initially suppose, a life insurance company; no, it is a society formed with the objective of winning a prize founded by a group of billionaires.

  The rich Yankees in question are, in fact, haunted by an obsessive idea—that of immortality. Artists, writers, scientists and captains—people not worth five dollars—pass on to posterity, while they, in spite of their colossal enterprises, their humanitarian foundations, their regal gifts and their ruinous eccentricities, are not certain of arriving there. If they were only certain, quite certain that a part of themselves would survive—a soul, mental fluid or wave—but unfortunately, philosophy, whether supported by religion or science, only gives them rather risky assurances on that score. The idea that they, the men of gold, will one day only have the value of a few shovelfuls of ashes, is particularly unbearable to them; oblivion scares those omnipotent masters of the marketplace, and the problem of our destiny, which, since human beings became human, has tormented their pride, poses itself to these practical calculators in all its mathematical precision. They are no longer content with fables, revelations and dreams, theses, hypotheses and other philosophical speculations; they require certainty.

  That is why a certain number of them have come together and decided to offer a prize of a hundred million dollars—which, as you can see, is not exactly a bagatelle—to the person who brings them precise and scientific information regarding what happens after death.

  Immediately, centralizing all the research carried out and to be carried out, the Immortality Co. Ltd. was formed, under the direction of John Wilfrid Theobald Portius Barnett, and, in going to its establishments in Baltimore, I really was, this time, making a voyage to the other world—no longer merely the world that is on the far side of the Atlantic, or the one that will exist tomorrow, but the beyond whose mysterious existence has always tormented humankind.

  In spite of my letters of recommendation and the personal intervention of one of the billionaire shareholders, I was categorically and rather impolitely refused entry to the severe building enclosed by high walls, the citadel of sorts in which, in solitude and silence, the philosopher Barnett works. It is not admissible that a door may be closed to the reporter of the Universal Informer, and since I was not to be allowed in with a good grace, I decided to trick my way inside.

  I could, strictly speaking, have introduced myself using the classic method of borrowing a supplier’s costume, but in a house so well guarded, the comings and goings of suppliers and service staff had to be rigorously channeled, and I would not have seen anything. Bribe a junior employee? That would not do me much good. It was, before anything else, necessary to inform myself as extensively as possible about the interior workings, in order that, once I got in, I could find my own way around and see what it would be interesting to discover.

  The few indications that I was able to obtain from laboratory assistants or cleverly prepared aides were utterly contradictory. Some talked about spiritualism, occultism and magic, others about hypnotism and magnetism, yet others of biological and physiological research, of dissections and vivisections; some even suggested that experiments were being conducted on living human beings! Whatever was going on there, the somber building had a detestable reputation in the vicinity. People looked at it fearfully, as a redoubtable place in which, under the cover of science, the blackest crimes were being perpetrated.

  What lent credence to these suppositions as that a large number of sick people had been seen entering the company’s hospital who, it was said, never came out. From these narrations, true or false, I concluded that the experimental philosopher must indeed be operating on living subjects, and I immediately resolved to present myself in that capacity.

  In consequence, I made contact with a black beggar who had solicited admission, and, for a rather large sum, he consented to let me have his turn. One evening, therefore, he told me that it was fixed for that night. He dressed me in his rags; I blackened my face and hands as best I could and presented myself at the entrance and the late hour he had indicated to me. This time, the door opened and I slipped in. I was inside!

  Taken to the administrative office, which resembled any office in any company, I found myself in the presence of two individuals: a tall blond fellow and a short dark-haired one, evidently supervisors. They asked me a host of questions, to which I thought it prudent only to offer stupid and nonsensical answers.

  On examining me more closely they realized that the swarthiness of my face only gave me the appearance of a black man, and that dishonesty, combined with my idiocy, motivated the short dark-haired man to make a charming reflection to the tall blond one: “How can you expect to find anything immortal in a specimen like this?”

  To which the other replied: “This very abjection proves the existence within the creature of a superior essence; for, if it did not exist, it could not be diminished.”

  “I’ll wait for you to prove that by other means than words.”

  “In the meantime,” the tall blond went on, “what shall we do with the individual? We can’t make use of him for psychic studies, nor in the physiological laboratories.”

  “He might be useful in the dissection department,” said the short one.

  “Let’s send him to the amphitheater, then.”

  Then, just like that, without further ado, they didn’t give me time to breathe or to say what I thought; they weren’t going to hang about: I was to be taken apart as soon as I had arrived. I am certainly very fond of my profession, but my passion for reportage did not extent as far as risking being dissected in order to furnish copy to the Universal Informer. The prospect of feeling scalpels cutting into my skin sent a rather disagreeable shiver down my spine, and I almost cried out, making a fuss by demanding my ambassador and humanity. Fortunately, I reflected that by so doing, I would lose the benefit of all my efforts, that I would still have time to make my identity known, and that, finally, people did not cut other people’s throats as unceremoniously in a civilized country.

  Thus, without saying a word, I followed the black man—a genuine one—that I had been given as my guide, seeking by the flickering light of the lantern he held in his hand to take the best possible account of the layout of the place.

  Having passed through a studio of typewriters and calculators, still at work, and along a corridor on to which opened a vast library and study-rooms, we arrived in a moonlit courtyard planted with trees, which seemed to me to have giant proportions. So far as I could tell, there was no symmetry in the order of the buildings that surrounded it, nor architectural uniformity in the constructions of the same group. To the right, my black man identified a black mass with feebly-lit windows as the Physiology Department. It looked much like a hospital to me, with wards of invalids, an operating theater and laboratories. To the left, I noticed the bizarre silhouette of an edifice reminiscent of a temple or a necropolis; he told me that it contained the Evocation Rooms. Further on, a small workshop working at full tilt was the Fluid Factory. Finally, beneath a terrace, a low windowless building with a glazed roof appeared, with pale walls on which the conical shadows of a row of cypresses were projected: the amphitheater!

  The interior was even less reassuring. I vaguely distinguished human forms lying on stone tables, and further away, anatom
ical specimens of shelves; then, in special rooms, instruments that reminded me of those used in olden times to question bandits, and kill them, if necessary. We followed—in a deathly silence, it must be said—a long damp corridor beset by corpse-like odors. At the far end, my guide opened a door and I found myself in the lodgings intended for me: a camp-bed, a shelf, a toilet and a stool: the furniture of a condemned cell.

  “Goodnight,” said the black man, and left.

  The few reflections that came to mind at that moment were rather morose. I told myself that I might protest all I liked, but if it pleased these gentlemen to experiment on my person until the point at which the soul survived the body, it would be quite impossible for me to prevent them from so doing. Should I await their pleasure and let myself be bled like a chicken? Certainly not. As nothing worse could happen to me than being dissected, I swapped my rags for an orderly’s smock, swiftly cleaned myself up, and set out to explore.

  I intended to go back along the dark corridor, lighting my way with a few matches, go through the rooms and out into the moonlight. This time, the corridor seemed interminable; I used almost all my matches without seeing the end of it. I had evidently gone astray; without realizing it, I must have gone into a subterranean passage opening into the corridor. Fortunately, I noticed the double rail of a service tramway embedded in the floor, and, as a railway always goes somewhere, I followed it.

  A wall soon blocked my route, however. I raised my eyes, and saw a circle of light far above my head, as if I were at the bottom of a well. I recognized the cage of an elevator, climbed up on to the platform, pressed a button, and, a few seconds later, arrived soundlessly in a small glazed courtyard adjacent, if I were not mistaken, to the Physiology Department. I had taken the route followed by the cadavers that passed from the hospital to the amphitheater in reverse.

  There was a door in front of me; I opened it. Menial workers were hurrying past; I joined them, and thus entered a room where a tall old man was standing in the midst of young men, whom the personnel surrounded respectfully. I soon understood that an important experiment was being carried out at that very moment by John Wilfrid Theobald Portius Barnett, aided by his collaborators, and that all of them were so sharply focused on the philosopher’s words that no one was paying any attention to me.

  “Yes, gentlemen,” he was saying, “in a few minutes, perhaps we shall be in possession of a truth that humans have sought in vain every since they obtained consciousness of themselves. Tomorrow, there might be no more unknown!”

  “We shall have isolated the immortal essence of human being!” proclaimed the tall blond fellow I had seen when I came in.

  “The reign of ponderable matter will be over; that of the imponderable will begin,” declare the short dark-haired one. Then, slyly, he said to his colleague: “It’s the end of spiritomania.”

  “Rather say that it’s the annihilation of radiomania!” the other replied.

  “Serenity, gentlemen,” said the philosopher, “while destiny is accomplished.”

  Only then, by hoisting myself up on a stool, did I perceive a patient lying on a low table. He was enveloped in a sort of network of exceedingly thin wires and helmeted with recording apparatus, some of which indicated the form of his pulse and the heartbeat, other the intensity of respiration, the variation of his temperature, muscular strength, nervous tension, the energy of his will and thought, etc. Aides were nothing down the various modifications from time to time. A physician was lavishing the cares of his art upon him, a magnetizer was hypnotizing him, and other attentive operators seemed to be ready to seize the soul on the wing, so to speak, at the point of its exhalation.

  From the conversations of my neighbors, I learned that they had been waiting a long time for such a favorable opportunity to cut through the great question conclusively. That very night, a company electrician had been accidentally electrocuted, and the numerous trials that had already given appreciable results with the anemic and cachetic patients dying in the hospital, carried out on this healthy and robust subject, could not fail to be definitive.

  In the vast white, bare and well-lit room the group of men leaning over a moribund individual, with the anxious expressions on all their faces contracted by the feverish anticipation of the unobserved phenomenon, took on a grandiose and impressive solemnity. The conversations ceased. All the motionless witnesses held their breath. I was gripped by an insurmountable anguish.

  In the midst of that nervous silence, only disturbed by the dry clicking of instruments…a bell rang!

  The heart had stopped beating.

  The tall blond fellow, followed by his aides, ran to the evocation chamber in order to catch the soul off the dead man therein; the short dark-haired one precipitated himself toward the switches and the physician began rhythmic tractions. Portius Barnett remain motionless, his chin in his hand, his eyes fixed on the cadaver, waiting for the results obtained by his collaborators.

  At that moment, it was as if the body lying on the table became phosphorescent; that, it appeared was due to the influence of W- and Y-rays on the vital waves. And the short dark-haired man cried: “You see, the waves emanating from our body while it is alive, and which explain quite simply all the phenomena of suggestion, telepathy, magic, second sight, and the influences of will, sympathy and love, don’t cease immediately after death, and are prolonged, dispersing like any fluids in the great reservoir of the world.”

  “You’re talking about the vital force,” said the philosopher Barnett, “but the vital force isn’t consciousness.”

  “Consciousness,” the short man replied, “is nothing but a fugitive reflex; that man lost consciousness long before losing his life, and I don’t admit that consciousness can exist without the phenomena that produce it.”

  “Master! Master!” said the tall blond man, coming in precipitately. “We’ve isolated the conscious fluid; the spirit of that unfortunate is fixed in our receiving apparatus; you shall have the honor of being the first to interrogate it!”

  In the previously mute room there was an eruption of “hurrahs,” a tempest of “bravos” and the stamping of feet. People congratulated one another warmly. There was now no more doubt; the proof had been obtained mathematically; the spirit survived the body and he company was about to bank the hundred million dollars. The theory of spirits had crushed by its superiority all the rival theories: the physicists with their electricity, their magnetism, their radiations and their waves crushed; the psychologists with their research into the secretion of thought and the localization of the soul, crushed. For two pins they would immediately have sacked the fluid factory, the hospital and the amphitheater.

  As everyone, after that explosion of joy—including me, of course—headed for the exit in order to go and find the electrician’s soul in the evocation room, a long-drawn-out yawn was heard. I turned round; the other did likewise; and we saw our subject, on the table where we had forgotten him, stretch his arms, while the needles of the recorders flickered over the graph-paper on the cylinders.

  A frisson of mystic terror ran through the audience, as if they had just seen a ghost or a phantom loom up before them. It was an apparition all the more fantastic because the body’s soul was next door, in the evocation room, and it had lost its vital radiation!

  In the midst of the general alarm, the physician uttered a satanic snigger. He had recognized a systolic pause of the heart, but had not breathed a word about it, letting the others proclaim their victory and infer more and more.

  “Where am I?” murmured the patient, blinking. “Who are you?”

  Fear gave way to amazement. The man was thinking; therefore he existed! If he existed, his soul could not be simultaneously found in him and in the receivers. Its presence had, however, been clearly observed. It was, therefore, necessary to admit that, by virtue of an as-yet-unexplained phenomenon, the man had come back to life after being dead.

  John Wilfrid Theobald Portius Barnett advanced solemnly.

&nbs
p; “Gentlemen, you have often observed sick people recover from a fainting fit or unconsciousness, emerge from lethargy or a coma, but since Lazarus of Biblical memory, it has not been given to us to see a man rendered to life after real death. I have no need to tell you how important this event is, and what precious information we might obtain therefrom for the future of our company.”

  Then turning to the electrician, he said to him in an entirely reassuring tone: “You are, my friend, in the premises of the Immortality Co. Ltd., of which I, Barnett, and the director and you are an employee, attached to the electrical department.”

  “Yes,” said the man. “Yes, I remember…once, a long time ago. But it seems, at present, that I’ve come back from a long way away?”

  “Exactly. You were dead, and you’ve come back from the other world.”

  “You think so?”

  “I’m sure of it—ask these gentlemen. Now, as your impressions are still fresh, tells, I beg you, what you felt.”

  The bewildered unfortunate raked his brains for some time. “It seemed to me that I was at the bottom of the sea…then I heard the water buzzing louder and louder in my ears. I rose up…rose up…finally, I reached the surface. I opened my eyes…and found myself here.”

  “Good—but don’t you remember anything before? You touched a cable that shocked you...”

  “Yes, I touched a cable.”