The Best Short Stories of 1917 Part 72

"But this is not a joke, Mrs. Colcord," rejoined Simec gravely.

"Well, in any event--" began Evelyn, but her husband interrupted.

"I told you I was on record, Simec," he said. "You show me a way to end this carnival of murder--and I'm your man."

"I, too." Bates chuckled. "Perhaps, after all, we've been dining closer to the supernatural than we realized. Well, I'm game. Life, after all, is only a few more summers and a few more winters, even if we live it out. Go to it, Simec." There was sort of a reckless ring in the writer's voice which was taken as a sign that he was seriously impressed. But Bates would be; he had imagination and was temperamental.

"I wish you all would stop." Bessie Dane's voice was childishly plaintive.

"Nick, please!" cried Evelyn. "This is not at all funny."

"I don't see the joke, I must confess," grumbled Allison.

Evelyn wished that Latham or his wife would add weight to the protest, but they remained silent, staring curiously at the inventor, as, indeed, they had throughout. Now she thought of it, she realized that the two had remained practically aloof from the discussion that had preceded Simec's _denouement_.

"I'm afraid, Simec," said Colcord crisply, "that we're getting a bit unpopular. We'd better drop the subject. It was rather a cheap play, I'll admit, stacking myself up as a martyr in a wholly impossible situation. You called me--and Bates there--rather cleverly.... The drinks are on us.... At the same time I meant what I said, even if it was far-fetched; I mean I was sincere."

Simec threw out his arm in a long, bony gesture.

"I am perfectly convinced of that. That is why I am going to ask you to make your offer good."

Had it come from any one else there would have been derisive laughter.

But Simec, a man to whom had been credited so much of mystery and achievement, was speaking. In the soft crimson glow of the table he stood, reducing to practical application the very situation which they had found so attractive, only because of its utter grotesque impossibility. It was startling, grimly thrilling. There was the sense among some about the table of struggling mentally to break the spell which this coldly unemotional creature of science had cast. At length Dane spoke as though by sheer physical effort.

"Simec--we--we all know you're a genius. But just now you don't quite get over."

The inventor turned his head slowly toward the speaker.

"I don't think I quite understand."

"Rats," said Dane roughly. "Here Nick says he'd give up his life if the war could be stopped and you bob up and tell him to make good, throwing sort of a Faust effect over the whole dinner. All right for Nick and Arnold Bates--but how about you, Simec? How will you stop the war if they shuffle off? I'll bite once on anything; how will you do it?" There was a general movement of the diners. Dane's wife laughed a trifle hysterically.

Simec arose and stood leaning forward, his hands upon the table.

"The situation which Colcord devised, as it happens, is not so impossible as you think. In fact, it may prove to be quite feasible--"

He paused, but no voice rose to break the silence. The candle-lights were flickering softly in an entering breath of wind. Evelyn looked appealingly at her husband, who grimaced and shrugged slightly.

"I imagine I have some sort of a reputation in the way of physical formula as applied to war," Simec went on presently. "Dane is about to handle a rather extraordinary gun of mine in the foreign market. But one gun differs from another only inasmuch as it is somewhat more deadly--its destructiveness is not total." He raised a thin forefinger and levelled it along the table.

"Let us a.s.sume," he said, "that there has been devised and perfected an apparatus which will release a destructive energy through the medium of ether waves. If you understand anything about the wireless telegraph you will grasp what I mean; in itself the wireless, of course, involves transmitted power. Let us transform and amplify that power and we encompa.s.s--destruction. The air is filled with energy. A sun-ray is energy; you will recall that Archimedes concentrated it through immense burning-gla.s.ses which set fire to Roman s.h.i.+ps."

His voice had grown clear and strong, as though he was lecturing to a cla.s.s of students.

"Now, then, a.s.sume an instrument such as I have roughly described be placed in the hands of our allied nations, an instrument which releases and propels against the enemy energy so incomprehensibly enormous that it destroys matter instantaneously, whether organic or inorganic; a.s.sume that in a few hours it could lay the greatest host the world ever saw in death, whether they were concealed in the earth or were in the air, or wherever they were; a.s.sume it could level a great city. a.s.suming all this, can you conceive that the nations holding this mighty force in their hands could bring about peace which would not only be instant but would be permanent?"

There was silence for a moment. The footman, obeying a significant glance from the butler, withdrew; the butler himself went softly out of the room. Latham looked up with the expression of a man emerging from a trance.

"I don't fancy any one could doubt that," he said.

"No, indeed. Certainly not." Allison gestured in playful salute. "Let me congratulate you upon a fine flight of imagination, Professor Simec."

"Thank you--but it isn't imagination, Doctor Allison." The man's voice had again become flat and unemotional, with the effect of withdrawal of personality. "I have reason to think I have perfected some such device.... At least I believe I now possess the means of destroying human life on a wholesale scale. There is yet more to do before we may successfully a.s.sail inorganic matter. The waves penetrate but do not as yet destroy, so that while we should easily bring dissolution to human beings we cannot yet disintegrate the walls behind which they lurk.

That, however, is a detail--"

"Just like that, eh?" No one smiled at Jerry Dane's comment. Bates leaned forward.

"Where do Colcord and I come in?"

Simec, who had resumed his seat, turned to him.

"Of course--I beg your pardon. I should have explained at the outset that the discovery has never had adequate practical test. One of my a.s.sistants lost his life a month or so ago, to be sure; an extremely promising man. The incident was of value in demonstrating practically a theoretical deadliness; unfortunately, it proved also that the power energized ether waves in all directions, whereas obviously it should be within the power of the operator to send it only in a given direction."

"Otherwise," remarked Latham, "it would be as fatal to the side using it as to the army against whom it was directed."

"Precisely." Simec lifted his wine-gla.s.s and sipped slowly. "For a time," he went on, "this drawback seemed insuperable, just as it has been in wireless telegraphy. Within the past week, however, I am convinced that a solution of that difficulty has been reached. In theory and in tests on a minor scale it certainly has. My a.s.sistants, however, refuse to serve in the demonstrations at full power--which, of course, are vitally necessary--even though I engage to share a part, but not, of course, the major part, of the risk. I have been equally unfortunate in enlisting others, to whom, naturally, I was in duty bound to designate possible--in fact, extremely probable--dangers."

"In more precise words," snapped Bates, "if your invention is what you think it is your a.s.sistants are bound to die."

Simec hesitated a moment, his gleaming brow wrinkled thoughtfully.

"Well, not precisely," he said at length. "That is, not necessarily.

There is, of course, as I have said, that possi--that probability. I cannot be certain. a.s.suming the more serious outcome materializes, there will be no further danger for those who operate; I shall have learned all that it is necessary to know." He paused. "Then war will cease; either before or immediately after the initial field application."

"But this is absurd." Allison smote the table in agitation. "Why don't you secure condemned convicts?"

"Even were that possible, I should not care to proceed in that way.

Again, I must have one or more men of keen intelligence."

"But neither Colcord nor Bates is a scientist!"

"That is not at all necessary," was the composed reply. "I am the scientist."

"And Nick the victim," flashed Evelyn Colcord. "Well, I most decidedly and unalterably object, Professor Simec."

"Your husband and Mr. Bates, inspired by humanitarian motives, named a condition under which they would _give_--not risk--their lives. I meet their condition, at least so far as it lies within human agency to do.... Of course they can withdraw their offer--"

Bates, who had left his seat and was walking up and down the room, turned suddenly, standing over the scientist with upraised hand.

"Simec, I withdraw right here. I'm no fool. The whole spirit of this--this situation is not in keeping with the original idea. Not at all. Whether you are joking, serious, or simply insane, I'm out. Try it on yourself."

"I have already a.s.sumed great risks. In furtherance of my device--which, as you may imagine, will have far-reaching effects--I must survive, if I can."

Evelyn, who had suppressed an exclamation of approval of Arnold Bates's stanch words, turned to her husband. His jaws were bulging at the corners, his eyes alight. In a species of panic she tried to speak but could not.

"And you, Colcord?" Simec's colorless delivered question came as from afar.

Colcord had arisen and was staring at the inventor with the face of one exalted.