The Visitor

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 290, 7 December 1937, Page 21

The Visitor

By RITCHIE SYMONS

Short Story

THE big ape shuffled restleesly on its short chain and whimpered. At the other end of the laboratory the white-coated scientist bent over the black, camera-like box and made a few delicate adjustments. With his hand on an ebony switch he paused. Then, firmly, lie pressed.

The chain twanged like a bowstring as the ape leapt convulsively and fell, a hairy, crumpled heap on the bate floor. With quick, eager strides the miin was beside it, kneeling over it, examining it intently. Not a sign of injury, no mark of any kind, but quite dead. Triumph gleamed in his face as he rose and dropped into a chair, shading from the brilliant light eyes suddenly tired with weeks of relentless, unceasing toil. • • • • He could scarcely believe it himself. He had found what some of the best scientific brains in every country had been seeking for years—a deadly ray, instantly fatal, yet convenient and safe to use. Xow he would show them—those who said he sought the impossible! He supposed the Government would pay him well—it would help rearmament tremendously—but that aspect had never concerned him much. He had sought because he could not help seeking, labouring' till his weary brain could scarcely register the formulae he evolved, till his eyes ached and his hand trembled over intricate calculations and adjustments. Always his goal had been to do something, to find something no man had ever done or found before. And now he had! Oh, but he was tired! "Von are happy at your achievement?" For a moment he was not sure that he had really heard the voice. Then he looked up, startled, into the grave, kindly face gazing down at him. The sweet, mobile mouth bore the hint of a smile; grey, deep-set eyes seemed to hold compassion and a gentle reproof. There had been no sound of his coining. Only the curtains moved fitfully, though there was no breeze.

"Who #ie devil are you?" The scientist jolted out of his customary calm.

"I don't think you can know me well." came the quiet reply, "else it would nit be necessary for me to ask you to destroy that apparatus." "Destroy it!' shouted the scientist. "You must be . . ." He stopped. That was it. How on earth did the madman get past Thompson, who had strict orders that he was not to be disturbed? Better humour him, though ... might be dangerous. "Destroy it?" he repeated, in a much milder voice. "Why?" The stranger was gazing thoughtful]v and sadly at the black box. "Why must they always use the divine gift of intelligence to .such ends? They bring new life, care for "the feeble spark lest its tiny light fades, guard it from danger, nurture it. teach it noble thoughts and ideals, build it beautifully, weep over and with it, laugh with it. strive and sacrifice for it —then destroy it ... destroy . . . destroy ..." The luminous eyes turned on the scientist. "My dear fellow, it is not my concern to what ends my discoveries will be put. My ideas lead me in a certain direction —I must follow . . . must!" He said it all the more arrogantly because he began to feel, for the first time, strange emotions and doubts. Ought he perhaps to have given more thought to the consequences of his researches ?

Was it possible that there were things more important and vital than knowledge and power? Standards he had accepted unquestionably as basic and. immutable began to look less firm. It was all part of the strange uneasiness that hnd troubled him since he had first become aware of the stranger's presence. "Is there no suffering and misery in the world?" went on the low voice. "Xo disease to be banished ... no povertv and injustice? Are all children happy and well and carefree? Is every life rich and wholesome and splendid? Is there no work but destruction? Look . . . I will show you what your work does." The burning eyes seared into the scientist's brain. He shrank back in his chair, covering his face with his hands. The soft voice died to a whisper . . . softer . . . softer, till murmur of the words faded, and only the pictures they brought remained. Clear and bright he saw them passing in ever-changing scenes across the screen of his mind. A groat crowd gathered in a square bounded by tall, grey buildings, white, tense faces turned intently on the little black figure on the pedestal who gesticulated wildly as he spoke. As from a vast distance the words came: ". . . And the honour and dignity of this great country, of which we are so justly proud and for which we are so willing, yes, eager, to sacrifice everything . . . everything . . . has been* grossly and deliberately offended. We, the grateful sons and daughters of such a noble mother. . . ." But the people had ceased to listen. The sea of faces had rippled and turned upwards to the blue sky where the tiny speck of a 'plane hung. • • • • As they watched, there shot from the 'plane a thin, vivid beam of light, and where it struck the white mass of faces a gaping black hole yawned. A paralysed pause, then a mad, panicstricken flood surged back against the grey walls. And as it went the ray cut troughs of inert, contorted bodies through it.

Now the scenes changed with kaleidoscopic rapidity. He saw young men in overalls, in flannels, in evening dress, in drab and in smart suits, hurrying from workshop, factory, office, restau" runt, sports field, their faces flushed and eager. Another change, and he saw them again, now dressed all alike in yellowishbrown uniform even to the heroic, exultant expression each wore so' proudly. On they marched, singing gaily, then suddenly they were not. Only pile beyond yellow-brown pile of still, twisted figures, with here and there a pink young dead face turned upward. As though superimposed upon this picture he could see into many homes. A young girl who sat stricken and staring, looking nncomprehendingly at a telegram and an unfinished baby's coat ... a white-haired woman rocking herself drearily to and fro ... an old man with his head buried in his hands before the photograph of a boy in uniform. Maddeningly, sickeningly, the pictures came, hundred upon hundred, alike in their agonising significance, different only in tragic detail. Then gradually, so that he could not say when he first became aware of it, came the sound. It seemed to contain at once the rending anguish of the young widow, the harrowing weeping of the child in grief, the low moan of mourning age. It swept over him in a dolorous flood, excruciating, unbearable, as it beat on his quivering consciousness. It eeared him mercilessly as he looked at the next scone. Kow upon row, thousand upon thousand, they stretched into the remote distance . . . little white, pathetic I crosses, with the sound of that ineffable woe sighing through them. • • • • It was dark and cold, but as he watched the far horizon lightened, a blue, chilly light. Up came, not the sun, but a squat, black box, from which came a ghastly radiance that touched cruelly the simple crosses. Larger and larger grew the box

till it filled the sky. It was crushing the world. Sobbing wildly, sweat standing nut on his forehead, the scientist stumbled to his feet. Seizing a heavy brass rule from the bench, he smashed it down on the black box. The stranger stood over by the door, his fingers on the handle, a sweet and gentle smile lighting his face. There was a scurry of hastening footsteps outside the room. The door flew open and Thompson, hurriedly dressed and wide-eyed with alarm, rushed in. "Is ... is there anything the matter, sir?"' he gasped, horrified eyes on the wreck on the bench. The scientist passed a shaky hand across his brow. "No, Thompson, it's all right. I was just . . . destroying something. By the way, who was that man who went out as you came in ?" Thompson looked puzzled, then a look of concern crossed his face. "Man, sir?" he said slowly. "There was no man."