Science-Fiction Adventures in Dimension, page 13
Mr. Black and Mr. McScribe acknowledged the introduction with the usual polite phrases.
Chief Rain-in-the-Face (ah! the appropriateness of that name!) confined himself to a noncommittal “Ugh.”
As for me, I’m afraid I let my jaw fall open rather foolishly.
“I wrote to Mr. Black and Mr. McScribe about my planned experiment to settle the Atlantis question,” Aloysius went on, “and they very graciously consented to act as subjects. The fact that they are on opposite sides in the debate will give added significance to our findings.”
“I see,” I managed a trifle weakly. “And where does—er—Chief Rain-in-the-Face come in?”
“In order to prove or disprove Mr. Black’s contention that the first settlers on the American continent were from Atlantis, it was necessary that a genuine Indian take part in the experiment,” he explained. “Of course, in order to be really scientific we should have an Egyptian as well, but none was procurable. However, Mr. Black is convinced that his earliest forebears were Atlanteans; so that will have to suffice.
“And now, gentlemen,” he continued, “if you are ready, we will begin the first step. Eric, you will act as witness and recording secretary.”
He lined his subjects up in chairs facing him, and, after a few minutes, succeeded in placing all three of them in a state of deep hypnosis. He then undertook, by suggestion, to turn their minds backward through the layers of inherited instinct, making them relive their “race memories,” as he called them, as actual experiences.
I will say this much for what followed: It was extremely interesting and would have convinced the Reincarnationists that their day of justification had arrived. During the next two hours, Chief Rain-in-the-Face told us all about what had happened to Henry Hudson after he had sailed on his last voyage up the river that now bears his name, while Mr. Black and Mr. McScribe furnished us with some interesting sidelights in the lives of several prominent personages at the courts of Louis XIV and Henry VIII respectively. All in all, it was a morning well spent.
Upon being awakened, none of the three men retained any memory of his mental experiences while in the hypnotic state, and they were exceedingly surprised when I read my notes to them. At Aloysius’ request, they all promised to return the next day, when the experiment would be continued.
“Of course, today was only the beginning,” Aloysius said when we were alone. “A mere scratching of the surface. Tomorrow we will go deeper, and the next day deeper still, until eventually we reach the level that will prove conclusively from what source these races have sprung.”
“I hope you’re not claiming that today’s performance had anything to do with instinct,” I remarked. “Why, the very latest of our instincts was developed long before the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Moreover, according to your own statement, instinct is race memory. What these men related today were the experiences of single individuals.”
“I know that,” he admitted, unperturbed. “But it only goes to verify another theory of mine. For a long time I have believed that the life experiences of our not-too-distant ancestors are inherited in certain cells of the brain, just as their physical characteristics are duplicated in our bodies. They bear the same relationship to racial memory that family resemblance bears to racial resemblance. For example, it—”
“Never mind the example,” I cut in. “I’ll probably understand better without it. And now, if I may speak figuratively, how long in this experiment of yours before we get through the topsoil and strike bedrock?”
“Oh, about two weeks,” he replied. “Incidentally, I like your metaphor. It has such a—er—archaeological flavor.”
I will not go into a detailed account of all the subsequent steps in the experiment, but will note only the high lights. There was, for instance, the time when Chief Rain-in-the-Face went on the warpath and attempted to translate his mental experience into physical action with the aid of the table lamp and a letter opener. He entirely wrecked the experiment for that day, and had to be brought out of his hypnotic trance by the somewhat crude means of a crack over the head with a volume of the encyclopedia.
Then there was the time when Mr. McScribe thought he was with Joshua before the walls of Jericho, and insisted upon going out and marching around the block until the policeman on the beat picked him up as a suspicious character.
It was this incident, together with the explanation it entailed, that was responsible for bringing the whole affair to the attention of the public. When we went to the police station to collect Mr. McScribe, an overenterprising reporter was present; and that evening the story, embellished with lurid details, appeared in his paper. The result was that the next morning representatives of every newspaper in the city descended upon us.
Now, Aloysius is retiring by nature, and at first he refused to have anything to do with them. But it is easier to rid oneself of dandruff than of the gentlemen of the press. By sheer persistence they wore him down, until at last he consented to their being present at the next experiment.
By this time he had got back to the early Egyptian period and had actually begun to accomplish things with race memory. The reporters were duly impressed, and when their stories appeared, the reading public got its money’s worth. Interest in the subject became so acute that the editor of the paper that carried the first story got the brilliant idea that the remainder of the experiment be put on in a public auditorium, the affair to be sponsored by his newspaper.
Naturally, Aloysius would have refused anything so spectacular, had not both Mr. Black and Mr. McScribe intervened. What weight, they argued, would our findings carry if they could be attested to by only one or two men? For the sake of science, the final steps should be taken before a sufficient number of witnesses, so that the outcome could never be doubted. The argument undeniably had its points; and at last in spite of his better judgment, Aloysius gave in.
It was arranged for the final stage of the experiment to be conducted in the city’s largest auditorium. Free tickets could be had by taking a year’s subscription to the sponsoring newspaper; and the public’s response would have turned Barnum green with envy. Within three days every seat in the house had been taken, and tickets for standing room were being issued on six months’ subscriptions.
~ * ~
At last the fatal night came when, according to the best calculations, the Atlantean strata in the unconscious minds of the three subjects should be reached. Aloysius had planned to skip a few thousand years in order to get, if possible, a description of Atlantis in its heyday, then to work up gradually to the great inundation. It would, he explained, make the experiment more understandable to the audience.
I think that, of the two of us, I was the more nervous. Experience had taught me that Aloysius’ experiments quite frequently ended in unforeseen results, and I did not relish the thought of how so large an audience might react in such a case. I even urged him to have a sort of dress rehearsal in private, but he refused.
“No, Eric,” he said firmly. “If I did that, tonight’s performance would not be a true experiment but merely a demonstration of something already proven. I am a man of my word and must give these people what I promised.”
“But suppose there was no continent of Atlantis,” I argued. “Then what?”
“In that case,” he replied, unruffled, “we will have proven Mr. Mc-Scribe’s contention.”
I saw that there was nothing I could do, so I gave up.
Promptly at eight o’clock, Aloysius stepped out upon the stage and explained to a packed and eager house what he proposed to do. He was followed by Mr. Black and Mr. McScribe, who, in turn, stated their positions in the matter.
Chief Rain-in-the-Face, upon being introduced next, confined himself to the usual noncommittal “Ugh,” since the purpose of the whole affair was still a little hazy in his mind.
Amid a silence heavy enough to be weighed, Aloysius proceeded to place his three subjects in a state of hypnosis. He had explained that the best results might be expected from Mr. Black, since he alone, once the mental transfer to the remote past had been made, seemed able to translate his awakened race memories into the language of the present. Chief Rain-in-the-Face, when under the hypnotic influence, spoke his native Indian language; while on the last two occasions, Mr. McScribe had emitted only a kind of unintelligible jabbering suggestive of an anthropoid ape.
As soon as the hypnotic trance was deep enough, Aloysius addressed the three collectively, informing them that they were now living before the dawn of recorded history, in approximately the year 20,000 b.c., and directing them to describe their experiences. There followed a minute of tense expectancy, during which a subtle change seemed to take place in all three men.
Then Chief Rain-in-the-Face rose and delivered a spirited oration in a language that resembled none known on earth today, after which he bowed formally and resumed his seat.
The audience understood not a word of what he had said, and accordingly was duly impressed. Aloysius raised his hand to check applause that he saw was about to break forth, and turned to Mr. Black.
“Now, Theophilus Black, tell us where you are and what you see.”
The reply came at once, but the words were spoken slowly, as if the speaker was obliged to translate his thoughts into a tongue with which he was unfamiliar.
“I am in a great city—the capital of the civilized world. On all sides, tall white buildings rear themselves toward the sky, while the streets are thronged with busy people. There are also many horse-drawn chariots, but each year these grow fewer, for recently there has been invented a chariot that runs without horses. Since the invention of this horseless chariot, the pedestrians, too, have grown fewer. The land is rich and powerful, and its scientists are the greatest the world has ever known.”
“What is the name of this land?” Aloysius put in, endeavoring to control his excitement. So far, results were turning out far better than they had before.
There was a brief pause; Mr. Black then said, “Its native name would mean nothing to you, but it has come down to you in legend as Atlantis.”
A unanimous gasp arose from the audience. The authenticity of the mythical Atlantis was actually being proven! At this very moment, the man before them had returned there mentally through awakened race memory! No wonder they were excited and thrilled. I was myself.
“I have said that our scientists are the greatest the world has ever known,” Mr. Black went on in the same hesitant, rather monotonous voice. “But recently they have fallen into disrepute, and all because they have predicted that which it does not please the people to believe.
“For many years we have known that the ocean bottom is rising. Our own coastal plains have been sinking, while our mariners report that in the distant reaches of both the eastern and western oceans, strange new islands have appeared. Our scientists have studied these reports and announced that the appearance of the islands mark the beginning of a great cataclysm of nature which will raise new continents from the ocean bottom, pouring the waters that now cover them over Atlantis, burying it forever. Naturally, the people are loath to accept such a prediction, for it seems to them impossible that Atlantis, the wise and beautiful, could ever perish.”
“Does no one believe the scientists?” Aloysius asked.
“None but a few religious sects, who believe that the end of the world has been predicted. One of our merchants has taken advantage of their credulity and has advertised in his shop a special sale of fine linen for ascension robes.”
“When do the scientists predict that this great catastrophe will take place?”
“They say that it will occur about ten years from now.”
Aloysius waited several seconds before speaking again. Then he said, “Six years have passed. The catastrophe is only four years away. Tell us what is happening in Atlantis now.”
The reply came promptly. “Earthquakes have begun to shake our land. Two volcanoes have become active. The ocean bottom to the east and west is rising rapidly.”
“Do the people still doubt the predictions of the scientists?”
“A few more have ceased to doubt. These are building large boats in which, if the water begins to rise over the land, they will flee to the small, barbarous continent of Yropa to the northeast. The boats are very large. They will carry animals and supplies as well as men and women.”
“Blast me eyes!” exclaimed an awed British voice from the balcony. “A whole fleet of bloomin’ Noah’s arks!”
Aloysius gestured sternly for silence, and returned to his subject. “Now three more years have gone by. The disaster is only one year away.”
The audience leaned forward breathlessly to catch the answer. This time the voice that delivered it was strained and tense.
“The sky is dark with the ashes from the volcanoes. Whole cities have been destroyed by earthquakes. Reports reach us that the sea has rushed in over a portion of Yropa, creating a large island off the west coast, where before was a peninsula. Also, a large tract of land shaped like a boot has arisen out of the sea on the south of Yropa.
“At last the people of Atlantis believe that the scientists predicted correctly, but now it is too late. Most of the boats have already departed to establish colonies in Yropa and other barbarous places. As for the others, their captains grow rich conducting one-way excursions to the new islands. Atlantis is a doomed continent.”
The voice moaned away into silence, like the last gasp of the dying civilization it described. It was echoed by the audibly released breath of the gallery.
From my place in the wings I tried to catch Aloysius’ eye. Surely the experiment had gone far enough, and it was now time to awaken the subjects. Besides, during the last few minutes Chief Rain-in-the-Face had shown distinct signs of restlessness, as if he was passing through the same mental experiences as Mr. Black but was unable to express himself. To keep him in the hypnotic state much longer might lead to complications.
But Aloysius had not yet finished. A gleam came into his eyes that I knew only too well; he braced himself to launch the real climax of his experiment. “The hour of catastrophe has come!” he cried in ringing tones. “Atlantis is sinking! The waters are closing over it! Tell me what you see.”
There was a moment of electric tension so strong it could have charged a battery. Then the answer came, but this time it was not in words but in actions.
Before anyone fully realized what was happening, Chief Rain-in-the-Face had leaped from his chair. The next instant he was heading for the edge of the platform, while his arms flailed about in perfect imitation of an English Channel swimmer. Pausing on the platform’s edge for only a split second, he executed a perfect swan dive into the lap of an obese lady in the front row!
Instantly pandemonium broke loose. Women screamed and men shouted. There was a mad stampede for the exits, in which everybody seemed to get in everybody else’s way. One well-meaning soul, attempting to switch on more lights, pressed the wrong button—with the result that he turned on the emergency fire sprinkler instead, and streams of water began to spurt in all directions. We learned afterward that this caused several people to believe that the entire company had actually been translated bodily as well as mentally to sinking Atlantis and were going down with it.
In vain, Aloysius entreated the crowd to be calm, assuring them that everything was all right. However, those people had but one thought in mind: to get out of there—quickly, while they still had their scalps.
In the excitement, the two other subjects of the experiment had been completely forgotten; and it is painful to contemplate what might have been the fate of at least one of them had not a faint, gurgling sound attracted my attention. I went to investigate. There was poor Mr. Black flapping about helplessly in his chair, emitting the most awful gaspings and groanings, like a man in the last stages of drowning.
“Aloysius!” I bellowed, striving to make myself heard above the surrounding din. “You’ve got to get Black out of the Atlantis period, quick! The poor devil can’t swim!”
Leaving the auditorium to attendants and the police, who had arrived by this time to look after the commotion in front, we rushed to the assistance of Mr. Black; while Mr. McScribe peered out at us from beneath the speaker’s table, a perfect example of the atavistic cave man gone to cover. Our star subject was in pretty bad shape; and even after he had been awakened from the hypnosis, it was necessary to administer artificial respiration.
After the excitement was all over and Aloysius had been warned, by an irate police sergeant, that “if there’s any more av this foolishness, Professor O’Flannigan, ye’ll find yerself in a cage with the rest of the monkeys,” we were allowed to go home.
To my surprise, Aloysius was not nearly so downcast as I had expected. “I’ll admit that matters did get a little out of hand toward the end,” he said philosophically. “But in spite of that, the experiment was a success. We certainly proved the onetime existence of Atlantis.”
