The Germ Growers: An Australian story of adventure and mystery by Robert Potter (best historical fiction books of all time .txt) 📖

said, “what are they?” and he spoke now with great coolness and without a sign of sneer; “trace back the ideas to their origin. Right is what I will, and wrong is what I will not. So it is with the Giver, and why should it not be so with you and me?” I observed that as he said this some of the mottoes on his dress grew bright and even flashed. Among them was that in Hebrew letters which I told you of just now. “But I know there are slaves,” he went on to say, “slaves (you surely are not one of them) who are afraid of liberty, and who are jealous of those who are not afraid of it. And these,” he said, and here the scowl returned, “these make use of such words as right and wrong to perpetuate the tyrannous rule of Him who gives with a curse, and who takes again with a fresh curse.”

[146] “Is He,” I said, “the tyrant on whom you are making war?”

“Oh, yes,” he said, “for all tyrants hold from Him; they are His hired bullies whom he pampers and lashes as you might lash and pamper your dog.”

“You say that He gives and takes, will He take the gift of the freedom of will from you?”

If I had foreseen the effect which this question would have produced, I should certainly have been afraid to have asked it. His face became at once full of deadly fury and frenzy; “Yes,” he said, “curse Him! He will at last if He can!” And then he sprang up and caught at the air with both his hands, just like the hands, in the device of which I have told you, grasping at the forked lightning.

In a moment, however, he resumed the quiet, stately and affable air, which he had worn before, and he sat down, and began to talk again quite calmly.

“Yes,” he said, “free will is no doubt real to the bold and desperate spirit. To all others it is in effect unreal. To make it in effect real to all, every free being ought to be able to do as he will, not only without let or hindrance, but also without what you I suppose would call penal consequences.”

“It seems to me,” I said, “that our little world is [147] too limited for such freedom as you desire. We should speedily come into collision with each other if there were no limit of any sort to our freedom.”

“Yes, if your world were the only world.”

I did not notice at the time his use of the pronoun “your” for “our.” I only replied, “If our world were multiplied a hundred thousand fold, and I can well believe that there may be a hundred thousand such worlds, still the limits of habitable space must ultimately be a limit to freedom so that it cannot be unconditional.”

“There are no limits,” he said, “to habitable space.”

I began to think that he was a very clever madman, and I said nothing.

“For such as you,” he continued, “the limit exists, but not for me, nor for such as I.”

Now I was sure he was mad, and I still kept silence.

“Nor yet for you,” he added, “either, if you have courage enough to overleap the limit.”

Now I began to be afraid that the form of mania which affected him was homicidal, and that he would presently require me, as he said, “to overleap the limit.” But he rose to his feet with such a collected air, and looked so full of proud intellect and power [148] that I began to change my mind and to think that I was going mad myself.

He spoke again, stretching out his hand, “Space is unlimited, and wherever space is there is a dwelling-place for me. This form in which I live here is but my dress, which I assume when I come to live among you. I can put it off and live in space, I can put it on again and come back to you. See here!”

Both his hands were now stretched upward, and his eyes were fixed on me with a domineering gaze, and mine on him with a mixture of wonder and of dread. Then he looked away straight out into the southern sky.

Suppose now a great mass of metal to be so quickly molten and vaporized that it has no time to fall to the earth as fluid before it rises into the air as gas. That was how it seemed to happen to the body of this extraordinary man. As I looked at him I saw no longer his body, but a great mass of apparently fluid substance, moved with a continuous ripple all through. Then it increased in volume vastly and spread upward like the smoke from an immense furnace. And as it spread it became thinner and finer, and still thinner and finer, until presently there was not the slightest trace of it any longer to be distinguished. How long [149] a time it took to complete this transformation I could not at all guess from my experience of it. As far as my recollection of that goes, it might have occupied hours, but I know from external facts such as the shadows of the trees and the clouds that it could have been little more than five minutes at most, and on comparing notes afterwards with Jack I became inclined to believe that although I had certainly observed a succession of changes the whole transformation and disappearance was practically instantaneous.

Jack and I said not a word, we were both quite stupefied for the moment. Partly recovering ourselves we both walked up to the spot where Signor Davelli had stood, and we saw what seemed to be the remains of the sandals, hat, and coat, which he had worn. Jack took them up one after another, looked at them, and handed them to me. The texture of none of them was in any way destroyed. But they were now wholly colourless, and not the least trace of any letter or device was anywhere to be seen on them.

After the lapse of about ten minutes a slight explosion was heard a little way over our heads, and then a slight vapour appeared in the air very widely spread. Then I saw the same changes as before, but in reverse order. The vapour thickened into smoke, the smoke [150] became condensed into a fluid rapidly rippling throughout. This presently settled down over the spot where the discarded dress was lying, and became solidified; and as I looked I saw Signor Davelli with the same pose and attitude as before his disappearance, and with the same dress bearing the very same inscriptions and devices.

As before, I am inclined to believe that the reappearance and transformation, although presented to me as a succession of changes, were practically instantaneous.

I stood looking at him, transfixed with wonder and horror. He signed to me to sit down; then he sat down himself, and began to speak again quite gently and persuasively. Jack stood for a minute or two as if in hesitation about something; then he, too, sat down and listened.

Signor Davelli. Do not be alarmed, there is no occasion for alarm nor even for surprise. Nothing has been done but what is quite as fully susceptible of explanation as any simple chemical experiment.

Easterley. That can hardly be so. Much even of what we saw yesterday far exceeded any results of experimental science known to me, but I could readily believe it all to be explicable upon principles which I [151] have studied, and which I partly understand. But the experiment which I have just witnessed (if I may call it an experiment) surely implies principles which far transcend any with which I am in the slightest degree acquainted.

Davelli. “Transcend” them, yes, but are nevertheless closely related to them, and are never at variance with them. But I can put you through an experience quite similar to that which I have myself just undergone. You shall judge for yourself then.

He came quite near me, and went on to speak in a tone at once masterful and persuasive.

“You shall experience my power,” he said, “and you shall criticise it. I will send you hence and back in quite a little time. You will remember what you see, and you shall compare it with what you know of your own world, and you shall say then whether it is not worth your while to come and join us. If you join us you will know nothing of what you call death, for death cannot touch the dwellers in space.”

As he said these last words I felt a shudder pass through me; it reminded me of something, I knew not what, but afterwards I remembered.

“Cannot death touch you?” I said. “Not even when you are dwelling here with us?”

[152] “No,” he replied; “anything that would kill you would simply drive us back into space.”

I have a very trustworthy instinct as to the truth or falsehood of those who speak to me, and I felt now that Signor Davelli was speaking the truth in this particular, but that he was deceiving me somehow.

“Do you propose,” I said, “to send me among the dwellers in space and to fetch me back now?”

I detected just the faintest turn of his eye towards Jack, and as he answered I knew that he was lying, and that if need were he would lie more.

“You cannot acquire at once,” he said, “the powers of a dweller in space. But I shall send you out of this world and I will fetch you back, and your journey will help you to acquire the power to become a dweller in space by-and-by.”

I distrusted him profoundly and I was not without fear of him. It was fear, however, that I could not easily define. Certainly it was not fear of death, for I felt quite sure that he was not going to kill me. I felt a consuming desire to know all about him, and I was willing to risk much in order to satisfy my desire. I felt also the influence of his masterful will. My distrust of him weighed one way, and the strength of his [153] will the other way, and my lust of knowledge turned the scale.

So I said, “Send me where you will then.”

The words were scarce out of my mouth when he raised his hand, and in a moment I lost all power of active motion, and could neither see nor hear, although my consciousness not only remained but became abnormally distinct.

Of course I had never experienced exactly such a state, but I remember once, in my college days, I had mastered a very abstract philosophical discussion, and I lay down on the hearthrug and thought it over until my power of thought seemed to merge into something clearer and fuller, and once later in life I stood on the deck of a ship gazing on the ocean—