INTRODUCTION
Stefan Stefanovich Petrov, or Graal Arelsky was a Russian futurist author, born on December 9th, 1888 and died on April 5th, 1937. In 1910 he began meeting with the ego-futurists, where he adopted the pseudonym of "Graal Arelsky", and wrote the brief text "Egopoetry in Poetry", which seems to be the only work of his translated into English, and the subject of the vast majority of English-language references to his work. Most of his poetry appears to be from this period.
Arelsky was arrested in 1917 and twice in 1921 for having suspected ties to the Socialist Revolutionary Party, and in 1935 was arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison for anti-Soviet propaganda and agitation, and died less than a year and a half into his sentence.
Arelsky wrote a number of science fiction stories in the 1920s, three of which are contained in his book "Tales of Mars", written in 1924 and published in book form in 1925. This book contains the stories "Professor Dagin's Observatory", "Two Worlds" and "Towards a New Sun". "Professor Dagin's Observatory" was initially published in the May-June 1924 issue of the magazine "Man and Nature".
This translation is based off of the original Russian which can be found here: http://az.lib.ru/g/graalxarelxskij/text_0040.shtml
For further biographical information, see his entry on Fantlab (in Russian): https://fantlab.ru/autor12055
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| "Tales of Mars" 1925 printing |
PROFESSOR DAGIN'S OBSERVATORY
1
On aeroplane U.5.3, Northern Air Squadron, the engine had broken down half an hour ago.
The pilot, Dagin, was planning his descent, peering intently into the endless green sea of forest spreading beneath him, among which, like sea crags, peaked mountainous spurs were protruding.
A convenient place to land, there was not. The aeroplane was rapidly descending. At the last minute, the pilot instinctively steered the apparatus towards a jagged, horseshoe-shaped rock, protruding above everything, on top of the green sea of forest.
By some miracle, he had managed to touch down on a wide granite platform next to a towering, spiked massif. The machine's wings were caught on a short, gnarled bush, and thus, the aeroplane was prevented from rolling off, and crashing onto the pointed protruding spurs, encased in multi-colored carpets of mosses and lichens.
The pilot alighted from the apparatus with difficulty and, with a sigh of relief, looked around.
Before him stretched an endless expanse of forest.
Colonnades of pine tree trunks were intertwined with the indigo-greenish foliage of the cedars, on which occasionally, in a blurry smudge, tall firs had been drawn. They were entangled, as if in shrouds, covered to their very tops, with whitish lichens.
From the lower spurs of the massif, where Dagin was located, the rivers - the Sosva, the Shegultan, and the tributaries of the Sosva - the Bolshaya and the Malaya Supreya, zigzagged with a dull bluish silver down to the green forest sea.
In the northeast, this massif was divided into two spurs by the deep and gloomy valley of the Sharp River.
Further to the west stretched, blurred in a bluish fog, a low, flat, harsh meridional Ural.
These well-known pictures of vast forests had reminded Dagin of his childhood. Everything here was well-known to him. A long, long time ago, when he was still a boy, he had been sent to Leningrad from here. His father had moved here, to Vsevolodoblagodatsk, from Moscow, exchanging his professorship in the astronomy department for a position as the head of the mines, so that here, in silence and solitude, he could work on a particular refractor design that he had devised.
The hands of history's clockface were madly spinning from the Russian revolution... Since then, Dagin had not known where his father had gone from Vsevolodoblagodatsk.
The stiff, soft sound of a stone rolling downwards brought him out of his momentary reverie. He took one last look around and energetically set about looking for a convenient descent.
Having walked two hundred sazhens along a steep, pointed rock rising above the platform, he had suddenly noticed a huge building made of large granite stones that was affixed to it.[Translators note: One sazhen is equal to seven feet.] His heart pounded in sudden astonishment. Here, at 5,000 feet up, a man-made structure?!. Another second, and he found the door.
He was first struck by a vast room, completely flooded with light penetrating from above, some wheels of steel, electric batteries, radio receivers and huge astronomical telescopes of unprecedented construction emerging from the rock to which the annex had been adjoined.
Then, in front of the round table on the wheelchair - was the motionless figure of an old man.
The old man was dead, but had died not that long ago.
Piles of drawings, tables, photographs, were strewn in front of his frozen figure, and among them was an unfinished diary.
Life is a violent whirlwind of frantic movement. Countless, incredible, incomprehensible combinations of life. And is not the most vivid fantasy, the most absurd fiction, just a weak reflection of reality? Dagin quickly leafed through the diary... He was grasped by the heart. A fog was floating for a moment. He whispered with pale lips…
- "My father's observatory. This was written by the dead old man, someone unknown to me..."
And suddenly, with a frantic impulse, he was seized by a thirst for clues. Not giving any attention to anything else, he started to read the diary.
2
Here is what the old deceased scientist had written in his diary.
...A few months ago, my friend and teacher died, Professor Dagin, the founder of this observatory, who had made such incredible scientific discoveries for our time. He died from concentrated rays of radium, which the inhabitants of Mars accidentally transmitted to our earth. We had discovered the possibility of protection from these rays too late, but if someone finds their way into this observatory after my death, then let them know that without a special rubber-lead clothing and a mask made of lead glass, it's impossible to make observations of Mars through these refractors.
For decades I had been working with my friend, and before his death, he had instructed me to find his son and deliver his last letter to him, and his whole life's work. I make the same request to that unknown person who, by the will of fate, will someday penetrate this observatory... I feel the approach of imminent death and am unable to fulfill the request of my friend and teacher.
Professor Dagin, even prior to this observatory's operation, had solved the problem of a short focal length. With a special combination of lenses, he had replaced the huge modern refractors with ones that were almost microscopic, but that gave the same magnification.
Further applying the old principle, he then increased the focal length of the refractor that he designed and thus achieved an incredible magnification. With these refractors, we first noticed the cities on Mars and, finally, the Martians themselves.
For the accuracy of observations, absolute immobility of the refractor was required, and therefore Professor Dagin had completely eliminated the ordinary body of the telescope. He replaced it with a huge cylindrical tunnel in the rock, under the slope of the axis of the world, attaching a system of lenses and eyepieces to the openings. In front of the main lens a rotating prismatic apparatus was placed, a receiver for rays of light.
With the help of this receiver, and with the immobility of the refractor, any observable object could be viewed through the telescope's lens.
We built the observatory in two years, and it was not difficult for us. My friend was the head of the mines and, under the guise of mine research, he could deliver all the materials and even use the labor force without arousing anyone's suspicions.
You will find the results of our work in the manuscripts stored in the cabinets. But I still want to describe our first observations here, our first sensations of the delight that seized us when we first directed the refractor that we had invented into the blue abyss of the sky.
I won't talk about hundreds of discoveries we made of new stars and star systems, or about the planet we discovered beyond Neptune, with two satellites, which we called Dagia. I'll only speak of our observations on Mars...
3
The first time, we had directed the refractor to the Ismenius Lacus area. I will never forget the delight that flared up in my chest in a triumphant blaze and made me young again.
A truly wonderful sight had opened up before me.
This year, Mars was in a period of opposition and was especially convenient for observation.
The sky of Mars is almost always cloudless, but on this day it amazed us with its crystal clearness.
Six canals radiated from the lake in bluish ribbons, projecting sharply against the fiery red background of the desert surrounding the lake. The space between the canals was covered with emerald arable land, over which forests occasionally stretched in darker patches. Along the canals, arranged in a straight line that stretched infinitely into the distance, were housing buildings and structures incomprehensible to us, very tall and which seemed to be hanging in thin air. They stood on pillars of a bizarre shape and design. Under the houses were the layouts of the squares and the lower streets. The upper streets were replaced by wide metal platforms along the rooftops, with rows of self-propelled subways and an intricate system of viaducts.
During the canals' spring flooding that irrigates the farmland and forest areas lying within the canals, it was necessary to protect the houses from the turbulent flood of spring waters, which rushed along the network of canals from the distant poles.
The city of Ismenius was in tumultuous motion.
Through the canals, ships of unprecedented designs flashed with incredible speed. In the air, columns of text of newspapers and advertisements were burning in gigantic letters, which our astronomers still take for signals from Mars.
From a tall cylindrical building, tilted in a horizontal direction, near the Protonilus Canal, gigantic aerobiles took off one after another. As we learned later, there was an air station for direct communication with the moons of Mars — Phobos [Author note: Satellite of Mars. It is located at a distance of 21,900 kilometers from the planet. It revolves around Mars in 30 hours, 18 minutes. The diameter is 15 kilometers.] and Deimos.[Author note: Satellite of Mars. It is located at a distance of 8,700 kilometers from the planet. It revolves around Mars in 7 hours, 39 minutes. The diameter is 54 kilometers. It is likely to fall into the surface of Mars.] These two moons presented a striking sight, changing their phases almost continuously. These two moons are the two Martian colonies. The very size of these colonies is microscopic. Phobos is 54 kilometers in diameter, and Deimos' is only 15 kilometers. The closest one is Phobos. It's located a distance from the planet Mars, approximately, the same as that between our Berlin and New York, i.e. a distance of 8,700 kilometers. Flying by aerobile, it takes only 3 hours to get there from Mars.
We thus examined a number of the cities and came to the conclusion that the largest Martian cities should be considered the City of the Sun, located near the lake of the same name, and the city of Nilosyrtis, on the banks of the Libya, around the Tyrrhenian Sea.
Not far from the city of Nilosyrtis, in the area called Triton's Swamp, there are colossal deposits of uranium.[Translators note: "Triton's Swamp" referred to as "Tritonis Sinus" in English.][Author note: Uranium: A mineral ore.]
A series of mines and radio factories are located here. The entire area glows with a bluish, deadly glow emitted by deposits of uranium ore.
The moons of Phobos and Deimos are very close in distance from the planet. Through the course of millennia, this distance is decreasing, and the moons will eventually fall into Mars.
We saw all the details of such a fall in the first moon of Phobos. We observed during the week the panic that seized the Martians, the mind-boggling destruction which had arisen from the grounds of this panic, which the police tried to quell in vain so that order could be established and a rescue streamlined.
On Wednesday afternoon, columns of notices from the observatories detailing the impending doom of Mars' entire northern hemisphere appeared simultaneously in both the skies of Mars and its satellites.
It was enough to start a panic.
The inhabitants of the colonies rushed to the continent, the inhabitants of the northern hemisphere fled to the south, the east and the west.
A whirlwind of despair raged over the city of Ismenius.
The upper streets were covered with a continuous mass of running Martians.
The canals churned with ships quickly speeding southward. Aerobiles were hovering in the air, all in a solid mass.
From Phobos, thousands of aerobiles were continuously rushing like clouds of locusts that darkened the entire sky. In the uninterrupted chaos, everyone was striving towards the City of the Sun. And the City of the Sun seethed, boiled, and was unable to accommodate the arrival of the refugees. The Supreme Council decided to stop the panic, and threatened their total destruction.
For the entire day, giant, fiery columns of decrees filled the sky. Two air squadrons simultaneously dashed to Phobos and Deimos. There was insufficient means of transportation, and with the masses in desperation, they took the aerobiles by force, dying by the hundreds at the air stations.
When the squadrons opened up their concentrated radio-fire, wanting to thwart the panic at any cost, a revolt broke out.
The mob destroyed the radio arsenals and opened fire on the squadron.
Bright streaks of fire began to cut through the sky of Mars, sweeping away everything in their path. One of these radio-salvos was directed at our Earth, accidentally striking Professor Dagin, who died shortly thereafter.
On the planet's continent, the panic of despair also reigned. The upper streets were bombarded with radio-fire, thousands of fleeing people fell, together with the demolished metro and viaducts.
For a whole week, a whirlwind of destruction raged.
Then, for four days, an unexpected, dead silence followed.
And so, on Tuesday morning, the catastrophe had occurred in the clear crystal sky: Phobos was rushing with incredible speed towards Mars.
From the drag of the atmosphere, it instantly became hot and looked like a blood-red ball, shrouded in bright white clouds.
It fell, crashing in the area between the cities of Boreosyrtis, Ismenius, and the Oxus Canal.
Giant plumes of steam covered Mars' entire northern hemisphere for three days. When the vapors dissipated, the entire terrain was a fiery molten mass, streaming a blindingly bright light. This mass spread to the south, removing, like an eraser, the outlines of the channels and the continents.
Afterwards, solid clouds had covered the entire disk of Mars for a long time. Only the fiery red spot at the site of the fallen satellite continued to stream its bright light. We had to stop further observations.
Professor Dagin suddenly felt weak.
A small wound opened up on his chest, and from it, a tumor quickly spread to his heart.
He died that same day in the evening. I buried him right here, near the observatory... A similar wound turned up on me...
This is where the diary ends.
4
Among the manuscripts in the cabinets, Dagin found a letter from his father. He read. He fell into deep thought. And suddenly he felt that there was no joy, but there was something else, huge and incomprehensible.
In the observatory, a solemn silence reigned.
Through the upper windows poured the purple light of the sunset.
The metal parts of the refractors and the complex apparatus were gleaming dispassionately, and the dark figure of the dead scientist became completely vague and mysterious.
Dagin thought:
Life is a violent whirlwind of frantic movement.
Countless, incredible, incomprehensible combinations of life.
Hurry up, and get ahead in life!
If you fall behind for a moment - you'll never catch up with life, you'll never come back.
But if you overtake life?..
RELATED STORIES
"Two Worlds" (the second story in "Tales of Mars")
"Towards a New Sun" (third and final story of "Tales of Mars")
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