AALILA (1)
By:
April 12, 2025
Christopher Blayre’s “Aalila” (1921), which may remind readers of a later work of sf horror, William Sloane’s To Walk the Night, first appeared in Blayre’s University of Cosmopoli collection The Purple Sapphire. HiLoBooks is pleased to serialize the story for HILOBROW’s readers.
ALL INSTALLMENTS: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5.
There is not — or at any rate there should not be — any romance in “Nature.” You will observe the italics and the inverted commas, which indicate that I refer to the Journal and not to the Dame. “Nullius in verba” is the inexorable motto of the Royal Society of London, which means that you must not state a fact unless you can table, or screen, the evidence which supports and proves it. It will be difficult, indeed impossible, to observe this rule in recording the story of Aalila, but I will do my best.
Among the “Notes” which supply to the Curious the scientific news of the week in “Nature” of the — well, perhaps it may be better to refer the Curious to his file of that admirable journal for the exact date, for I am writing face to face with the gorgeous panorama of the Pyrennees as seen from the Hotel de France at Pau, and I have only the paragraph — cut out — with me. It reads:
“We regret to announce the death of Professor Alured Markwand, which took place suddenly in his Observatory at Piping Pebworth on the 14th instant. The cause and manner of his death is unknown, the coroner’s jury having, as directed, returned an open verdict. It seems probable that Professor Markwand met his death by electrocution, as his body, strangely scarred, was found beside a powerful dynamo which generated the electric current of an arc light in the Observatory. It is well known that he was engaged in researches upon the development of photo-telephony, and his Observatory was fitted with an arc-light apparatus of exceptionally high voltage.” Then follow biographical details for which the Curious may be referred to the columns of “Who’s Who.”
I have given anxious thought to the question whether I should record the manner of his death, or allow the ‘open verdict’ of the coroner’s jury to stand as the only (and official) account of the matter. My own reputation for veracity, for reliability as an observer, for scientific method of record — nay, I may say for sanity itself — is at stake. In any case this record cannot be published in my life-time; my position as Professor of Psychology in the University of Cosmopoli would be seriously compromised, and though, as I believe myself to be, not lacking in physical or moral courage, I should shrink from facing the genial gathering of my colleagues in the tea-room of the Royal Society on Thursday afternoons, and probably feeling that I am relegated to that small coterie of eminent men of science who have flown — and unhappily have published an account of their flights — into the cloudy atmosphere of metaphysical — research? experiment? self-delusion? — call it what you will. Thus much by way of apologia. But I feel myself compelled to record, to enregister, the most amazing and overwhelming experience of my life.
In the reports of the inquest, it will be remembered that it appeared that it was I who gave evidence as to the discovery of Alured Markwand’s body. It was stated in those reports, that entering his Observatory at 8 a.m. on the day in question — I had been spending a month with him in Warwickshire — I found his body lying against the dynamo as described. This is not true. I dragged it there — it was the only thing to do — an explanation of some kind had to be forthcoming. I was there when he died.
* * *
It has been noted in “Nature” (ut suprá) that Markwand was actively engaged in the study of photo-telephony. Those who were privileged to be present at the Soirée of the Royal Society in 1919 will remember the demonstration given by Dr. A. O. Rankine of this remarkable method of sound-transmission. The beam of light that extended above the heads of the assembled guests from the Council Chamber to the furthest of the library, the telephones attached to the mirror which caught the beam, and the delicate apparatus of Selenium cells, which enabled people to hear in the library what Dr. Rankine’s assistant spoke into the receiver in the Council Chamber, and how the speech was interrupted when a sheet of card was interposed, cutting off the beam from the receiving mirror, will be within the memory of all who were present. I remember one exquisitely pretty red-haired girl who — but, however, she has nothing to do with this record. Markwand was explaining, or trying to explain, it to me — I knew he had an installation of his own — and, intimate as I was with him, as the result of a friendship that dated from boyhood and had persisted through Eton and Trinity until we found ourselves colleagues on the Professorial Staff at the University of Cosmopoli, I was vaguely distressed at the nervous absorption with which he discussed the matter.
“It is extraordinarily interesting,” said I.
“Interesting!” he exclaimed, in the tone he might have adopted to the Yankee girl who, on seeing the Falls of Niagara for the first time and by moonlight, remarked ‘Well—well, ain’t that cunning!’ “Interesting!” he said. “Good God! it’s overwhelming — it’s terrible!”
I looked at him in some disquiet; it had not struck me in that light. His face was ashy, and his lips, like his hands, trembled. I knew he had been overworking. I felt very uneasy. I had been trying to persuade him to go down to his cottage and Observatory at Piping Febworth for a real rest, and he had promised to go as soon as the term was over, on condition that I would go with him. Meanwhile I succeeded in getting him back early that evening to his rooms, where, over a pipe and a whiskey and soda, he made half-confidences. It seemed to me he was on the verge of a serious breakdown, if not of actual insanity. I felt called upon to remonstrate with him, gently, as one would humour a patient suffering from acute neurasthenia.
“Come, Markwand,” I said, “what is all this about? You are overstraining the cord. It will snap if you are not careful. A Professor of Astronomy — a mathematician — should, of all people, keep a level head. Remember our motto “Nullius in verba,” if you didn’t seem to be in such deadly earnest I should say you are simply talking tosh.”
“I am in deadly earnest,” he replied quietly. “This is “Nullius in verba,” I know what I’m talking about — and it’s too much to know. You think I’m going mad? Well — if I don’t talk about it pretty soon to somebody I shall go mad. And I’ve made up my mind to talk to you.”
“Fire ahead.”
“Not now. I’m too tired. And there’s still something more to be done. I’ll tell you all about it when we get down there. Meanwhile, think, man! Try to realise what photo-telephony means — the carrying power of a beam of light; the illimitable spaces of æther, across which beams of light are still reaching us from planets that became extinct thousands of years ago. Think of the lines of light that are connecting us at this moment with the other planets — Mars, Jupiter, Venus. Venus!” he repeated, reaching for his tumbler, and I saw that his hand shook like a contact-breaker. “Think of it! Has it never occurred to you that between talking from one end to the other of the Society’s rooms, and talking from here to, say, Venus, is only a question of degree? Why not?” And he looked at me as if challenging me to express an unbelief — as who should say “Can I go on? Are you safe? Do you think it is worth while to listen?”
I was extremely uncomfortable. I hated to leave him, wrought up as he was, but on the other hand I was afraid to let him go on — then. I decided rapidly.
“Anyhow, it is frightfully suggestive — extraordinarily interesting — but it’s too big a subject to go into now. I’m off home. See you at lunch to-morrow.”
And so we parted for that time. Next day, as we smoked in the Common Room after lunch there was no trace visible of his agitation of the night before. Indeed he appeared to be so entirely his normal self that I felt emboldened to revert to Rankine’s demonstration.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “A delightful entertainment for an evening party. I quite envied Rankine’s assistant, fitting the receivers over the prettiest possible ears of the prettiest possible people, and listening to their delighted squeals of astonishment. But you know,” and he became graver, “our friend has hardly touched the fringe of the subject. Wait till you get to Piping Pebworth and see what I can do. I’ll astonish you! And by the way, do you remember years ago, the talk there was of transmitting designs — drawings, portraits — by wire? There were pictures of it on the back sheet of the “Daily Mail.” Well, if by wire, why not by wireless? If by wireless, why not by light? Think it over. I must get back. I’ve got a lecture. See you later.” And he was gone with a jovial nod and a quaint expression as of one who pulls the leg.
Though I saw a good deal of him both in college and out, until the end of term, we never referred to the subject again, and when the University closed for the summer vacation we found ourselves “by divers mesne assignments,” as the lawyers say, at his adorable little cottage in Warwickshire, where he had his private observatory and did his own work, uninterrupted by the need of imparting such knowledge as might be necessary to enable his students to proceed to a science degree.
RADIUM AGE PROTO-SF: “Radium Age” is Josh Glenn’s name for the nascent sf genre’s c. 1900–1935 era, a period which saw the discovery of radioactivity, i.e., the revelation that matter itself is constantly in movement — a fitting metaphor for the first decades of the 20th century, during which old scientific, religious, political, and social certainties were shattered. More info here.
SERIALIZED BY HILOBOOKS: James Parker’s Cocky the Fox | Annalee Newitz’s “The Great Oxygen Race” | Matthew Battles’s “Imago” | & many more original and reissued novels and stories.