N. Pavlov - "Chicks" (1928)

INTRODUCTION 

I can't find any information on N. Pavlov, even a first name. "Chicks" was initially published in "Knowledge is Power" (Знание - сила), 1928, No 6. and illustrated by P. Staronosova. It has been republished in Russian in the anthology "Monster Cave: Forgotten Paleontological Fiction, Book II". published by Salamandra P.V.V., and we have used one of their footnotes. The text with illustrations can be found here:

https://flibusta.club/b/334054/read

Throughout the text, numerals have been spelled out, for example, "three" for the "3" which appears in the original text.

CHICKS

An Amateur Poultry Farmer

-- "Ivan Semyonovich, happy housewarming!"

-- "Please, please, Pyotr Andreyevich," -- an elderly man jumped out to meet his guest. -- "I'm in the middle of taking care of some things around the house. You can go to your room for now: I'll be done in five minutes -- and ready for you."

-- "What a ceremony! I just wanted to see how you were settling in and chat. What are you doing? It's not a secret?"

-- "I've put my eggs in the incubator. But I've already finished."

-- "What, you have an incubator? Show me. I've never seen it."

The host took his guest to a rough-looking log cabin at the back of the yard. In the middle of a large room there were three closed boxes, next to which a whole system of thermometers, regulators, and rheostats was affixed.

-- "My goodness, what a massive setup you've got here! An entire power plant. I imagined it being more simple."

-- "It's my invention. But it's not all that complicated. Here, look."

Ivan Semyonovich began to show him.

-- "And what, you breed a lot of chickens then?"

-- "Well, I'm not pursuing quantity. Industrial breeding of chickens doesn't interest me. I do experiments. For example, I'm currently studying the effect of electric light on the embryos inside the eggs. I've drawn an analogy with plants. It's known that electric lighting has a very favorable effect on the germination and development of plants. Why not try the same effect of electricity on the embryos of eggs?"

-- "Yes, you have become a real scientist!"

-- "Well, I'm far from a scientist. But, I am working, and I have achieved something. I was able to halve the incubation period of chicken eggs by exposure to electric light. In its presence, the chickens bred in this fashion grow unusually quickly. Let's go, I'll show you my first accelerated brood."

And he dragged his guest into a barn attached to the house.

-- "Here are the chicks that hatched in twelve days. They hatched from their eggs three days ago and -- look -- they're already fledging."

Pyotr Andreyevich looked with surprise at the tall, seemingly month-old chickens.

-- "It's amazing. And it's because of the electricity?"

-- "You find another explanation."

-- "Well, you know, I have some interesting material for your experiments. I recently dug up six of some kind of large eggs in the ground while hunting. Do you want me to bring them? Maybe you can get something out of them. They're well preserved. I'll tell you how I found them. We were walking through the forest, along the edge of a small, deep ravine. The ground collapsed under us, and together with the dogs, we fell three sazhens down onto the snow lying at the bottom of the ravine.[Translator's note: Sazhen: An antiquated unit of measurement equal to seven feet. The USSR adopted the metric system in 1925.] When we got up, I saw that the dogs were licking the remains of some eggs that were crushed by our fall. Right there in the sandy layer exposed from the fall, I found the eggs."

-- "How do you explain that they are so well preserved?"

-- "I've thought about it and I think I found an explanation. The eggs were lying in a dry sand bed. They were protected from the winter frosts by the sand bed's position, which was lying at such a depth where the earth does not freeze. They were protected from the summer's heat by the snow that lies in the forest ravines all year round. Thus, a constant, and rather low temperature was maintained in the sand bed where the eggs were stored. When I dug them up, despite the fact that it was hot that day, my hands were cold. Their temperature was somewhere around zero."

-- "Hm... A low and, most importantly, constant temperature... The conditions are good. Well, let's do an experiment. Maybe something will hatch. Bring them. In any case, these eggs are interesting to look at, anyways."

  

Fossilized Eggs

Exactly a week later, Pyotr Andreyevich appeared with a large basket containing six large eggs with rough shells, unusually thick and layered.

-- "Well, what do you think - do you think it will work?"

-- "Why not? Plant seeds retain the ability to germinate for an incredibly long time. It's possible to assume the same survival rate in animal embryos. Preserved eggs are good. And I'm assuming it will be a complete success."

-- "And what will come out?"

-- "I can't say. There's no doubt that the eggs are of prehistoric origin and belong to lizards. This means that we'll hatch one of the many species of dinosaurs -- giant lizards, teleosaurs -- the ancestors of our crocodiles, and pterosaurs -- flying lizards... But," Ivan Semyonovich interrupted himself, "instead of guessing, let's incubate the eggs. When the time comes, we'll know everything."

He inspected the incubator, checked all the bulbs, thermometers, regulators, rheostats. Then, filling the box with dry sand, the two friends placed the eggs in it. Ivan Semyonovich turned on the current and set the reflectors.

-- "Well, it's all done. We'll wait."

  

An Extraordinary Brood

After twenty days, while tending to the eggs in the morning, Ivan Semyonovich noticed a rustle in one of them. It was as if someone was drilling the shell from the inside.

Not believing himself, he put the egg back and listened again after about two minutes. The scratching was distinct.

Ivan Semyonovich pierced the thick shell from the outside.

The shell cracked, and the tip of a thick triangular beak appeared from the hole. Ivan Semyonovich's heart swooned...

The beak moved, breaking the shell in different directions. Ivan Semyonovich wanted to help the "chick", but he was afraid of hurting him instead of helping, and remained an observer.

About five minutes of vigorous effort and the top of the shell was broken. The newborn came into the world.

Ivan Semyonovich saw a long, gray head that filled the entire egg with a narrow, elongated muzzle like that of a lizard, ending in a horned, beak-shaped outgrowth. A huge mouth extended out to its neck, complete with several large, sharp teeth growing in the back of it. Large bulging eyes, covered with some kind of thick film, were surrounded by yellow ring-like circles. From under the head that covered the entire chick, bony legs with long, tenacious digits could be seen from below. And at the top, peeking out from on both sides, three hooked, bony claws were already present.

The chick was so disgusting, and its huge unblinking eyes breathed such malice that Ivan Semyonovich almost threw the egg on the floor.

-- "This is some real -- 'reptile'" -- he grumbled.

The newborn soon completely freed itself from the shell, and began to straighten itself out. Suddenly, the chick revealed itself to be very large, as if it grew in the five to eight minutes since it was born. Dark membranous wings, stretched behind it. Between its legs, a long bare tail stretched out with some kind of enlargement on its end.

It felt cramped in its box, which could hold about forty chickens, and it was strange to recall that it just came out of an egg that was now several times smaller than it. The chick, helping itself with its wings, tried to rise on its weak legs, but immediately fell again.

Ivan Semyonovich transplanted him into a larger box and ran to the telephone to delight Pyotr Andreyevich.

He dropped everything and an hour later was at the incubator. He caught Ivan Semyonovich fussing with the fourth chick, whom he freed from captivity.

-- "Show me, show me what you have. What kind of birds are they?"

But, in seeing the monstrously ugly "birds", he recoiled.

-- "These are some kind of monsters... But what are they? What are they called?"

Ivan Semyonovich assumed a solemn air.[Salamandra note: A typo of "Semyon Ivanovich" in the original printing.]

-- "Allow me to introduce -- the only living representatives of the flying lizards that died out in prehistoric times -- the pterosaurs of the Mesozoic Era."

-- "Well, but, can such ancient animals live in our environment?"

-- "Who knows! After all, we managed to bring them to life by means of electricity. Of course, one cannot rely on reproduction for their prolonged existence. But that doesn't really grieve me. I'm already happy that we've managed to see with our own eyes what no one else has seen. We'll only let them live until tomorrow... It will be a great triumph for science to have the opportunity to examine their corpses."

-- "But the question is: what to feed them, where to find suitable food for them?"

-- "I'm not worried about that. Do you see their beaks? They are superbly adapted to find food in the ground. And our earthworm? It traces its ancestry further back than the Jurassic era and was undoubtedly a familiar food for the ancestors of our chicks. Let's dig up some worms for them now. Take a shovel."

Gathering a large can of worms, the friends initiated the feeding.

As Ivan Semyonovich expected, things went well. At first, the lizards resisted, but after two or three portions, they began to open their mouths themselves.

  

A New Breed

Having finished the feeding, the two friends remembered that there were two unhatched eggs still in the incubator. Pyotr Andreyevich was worried.

-- "Why did that happen? Are these two eggs dead?"

-- "Don't despair," -- Ivan Semyonovich reassured him. -- "A little delayed, that's all. The remaining eggs are probably some other young, or belong to another species. But I’ll encourage them now, and by the evening, we'll have more pupils.

Ivan Semyonovich dug the eggs out of the sand that filled the incubator and placed them on top, directing the electric lamp reflectors at them.

All day, the "lizard breeders" were occupied with the pterosaurs. Clumsy, inactive at first, the lizards grew stronger and stronger every hour.

Now they were cramped inside a big box. In addition, they were completely unsuited for sitting on a smooth floor. The claws on their forelimbs indicated that their ancestors were accustomed to resting, hanging from the branches of trees, in the absence of which they had to fasten suspended beams under the ceiling.

This work and the incessant feeding of insatiable lizards took up all the time until evening.

How many times during this period they watched the incubating eggs - it's hard to count.

But in the evening, only when they started to lose hope, Ivan Semyonovich noticed a crack on one of the eggs and heard scratching from inside the egg.

He lightly cracked open the egg, from which the head of the same monster crawled out, snapping his huge wide jaws, filled to the brim with sharp triangular teeth.

-- "The same thing..." -- Pyotr Andreyevich drawled somewhat disappointedly.

-- "No, not at all 'the same thing,'" Ivan Semyonovich objected. -- "See -- there's no beak, the jaws are flatter, the teeth fill the entire mouth, there's no tail. Furthermore -- look at the skin: it's not smooth, like its elders, but scaly. All this suggests that we have before us another type of flying lizard -- a pterodactyl."

Before they had time to arrange the pterodactyl properly, the last egg began to peck, from which the second of these chicks hatched.

Having transplanted the pterodactyls, which turned out to be both larger and stronger than pterosaurs, into a box, they kept them there for two hours, and then let them hang on a beam, next to the first brood.

It was past midnight when Ivan Semyonovich and his guest could go to bed.

  

A Prehistoric Picture

After the turmoil of the day, the two friends woke up unexpectedly late in the morning - about eight o'clock.

At that minute, without washing up, they ran to the incubator.

Even before they entered, they saw an extraordinary turmoil through the windows. Dark webs of wings fluttered across the room in all directions.

-- "What's going on in there? What's all that commotion?" said Pyotr Andreyevich.

-- "They're probably hungry. Let's go and see how they look and then feed them."

There was indeed commotion in the cabin. Flapping their wings, with a hoarse hiss, the lizards were rushing around the room, now and then grazing something. They, as if looking for something, darted back and forth around the room, stretching their huge heads forward, spreading their immense wings and maneuvering their tense tail like a rudder. But every time they came back to the same corner. After looking closely, the new arrivals understood the situation a little bit. There was a fight.

The two pterodactyls, pressed against the corner, hung on the beams, and were being attacked by the pterosaurs. With open mouths and burning eyes, stretching their tails out, with an extended membrane on their ends, hissing hoarsely like snakes, they swooped down on the pterodactyls. They did not retreat, freeing one of their claws and with a responding hiss, met their attackers with two rows of bared teeth and blows from a powerful wing, which often knocked their enemy onto the floor. The tight corner made it impossible for the pterosaurs to exploit their superior numbers. They would attack and in turn, the pterodactyls invariably fought off their attack.

Despite the fact that the combatants made no sounds other than hissing, there was a "stir" in the room from the whistling and flapping of wings, the falling of grazed objects, the clicking of teeth and the noise of grasping and falling lizards.

The lizards were not the same today as they were yesterday.

From weak chicks, they had turned into great, horrifying dragons overnight.

Dark leathery wings, eyes burning with terrible malice like they were on fire, skeletal legs and arms, bare rat tails, the grin of countless teeth... All this, with the enormous size of the lizards, made a strong impression, causing no longer disgust, but fear.

A fantastic sound blew from pterosaurs enraged in the excitement of battle. As if the ghosts of long-dead prehistoric eras stood up in this room, as if a mighty iguanodon or brontosaurus was about to burst in, knocking the walls down...

Overwhelmed by this feeling, Ivan Semyonovich and Pyotr Andreyevich stopped, and looked at their pets with apprehension..

-- "How they've grown overnight!" -- whispered Pyotr Andreyevich. -- "Eventually, these pterodactyls will have a wingspan of more than a sazhen. What can we do with them if they continue to grow like this?"

-- "But look, what a fight!" -- said Ivan Semyonovich. -- "We inadvertently caused it by placing two different species side by side..."

-- "Who could have thought? They aren't even days old."

-- "I had to take into account the action of lights."

-- "We need to separate them at once," said Pyotr Andreyevich.

-- "Under no circumstance," -- Ivan Semyonovich stopped him. -- "Don't touch them. Be careful. It's dangerous to agitate them."

-- "But the older ones will kill the younger ones -- there are two of them against four".

-- "Well, it's hard to tell who's who. Pterosaurs are both smaller and weaker. Pterodactyls hold up much better. But the fight must be stopped somehow. Let's try to bring them food, they're probably hungry."

  

Dangerous Pets

They already approached the door, when the noise of the lizards suddenly intensified and some kind of wheezing was heard.

Ivan Semyonovich turned back and couldn't bear it. One of the pterodactyls snatched the beak of a pterosaur with its sharp-toothed mouth, and was trying to gnaw through. It wheezed, fighting with its wings and legs, blood dripping from its beak..

-- "Yes, they're really going to kill each other!" -- he shouted, and with a shovel, rushed up to the fighting lizards.

With blows from the shovel, he forced the pterodactyl to release its enemy. Having released its enemy, the lizard opened its bloodied mouth, for two seconds looked around with its burning eyes, and suddenly, breaking off the beam, rushed at Ivan Semyonovich like a thrown stone. Another pterodactyl jumped behind him.

Before Ivan Semyonovich had time to figure out what was happening, blows of hard wings were raining down on him, and sharp teeth tore his jacket to shreds.

-- "Pyotr Andreyevich, the door, the door!" he shouted, fighting back with a shovel.

But Pyotr Andreyevich had no time to listen: the pterosaurs were attacking him.

Looking for something to protect himself from the lizards that had drawn his blood, Ivan Semyonovich tore off the lid of the incubator that was standing next to him and tried to make his way to the door. But the lizards, as if understanding his intentions, moved the front to the other side and forced him to retreat.

-- "Under the table, Ivan Semyonovich. Under the table!"

He looked: Pyotr Andreyevich, was hiding under the table, defending himself with a shovel and advised him to do the same. But there was no other table nearby. 

"They’ll kill you," flashed through his head. "You’ll be drained and gnawed upon, like from a vampire. What to do? Scream, they won't hear."

And just then it came to mind:

-- "Fire -- fire is the only salvation."

Stopping his defenses for a second, he pulled some matches from his pocket.

Scraps of newspapers were scattered on the floor. Withdrawing his shield to cover his back, Ivan Semyonovich threw himself on the floor and, picking up several pieces of paper, lit them.

The flaming paper forced the lizards to retreat. Increasing the size of his torch, Ivan Semyonovich rushed to the aid of Pyotr Andreyevich.

Waving the makeshift torch, the two friends reached the door and rushed out.

  

The Death of the Chicks

-- "To tell you the truth, I was frightened, Pyotr Andreyevich. Those devils looking like that, I thought they wouldn't let us out. If you hadn't figured out to light the paper, it could have ended very badly."

-- "Well, it didn't exactly have a good end now."

-- "But what are we going to do with them next? How can we feed them and where can we keep them? They need to be separated."

-- "We'll have to get rid of them. No matter how interesting it is to have antediluvian animals, but to make a menagerie out of my house and to constantly risk being maimed... I won't agree to this."

-- "But what can we do? We can't kill them?"

-- "Who said anything about that! They must be taken to the zoo."

-- "Well, if you'll pass it on - let's hurry, otherwise they will either gnaw on each other or die of hunger."

The two friends no sooner reached the grate, when a frantic cry came from the yard.

-- "Fire... Burning..."

Ivan Semyonovich clutched his head.

-- "Did I set it on fire?... What about the pterosaurs?..." He rushed into the yard.

The hatchery was full of smoke. Thinking only about the lizards, Ivan Semyonovich jumped to the door, but such a sheaf of flame was thrown towards him that he had to retreat.

The dry building blazed from all sides at once. Nothing could be done.

The firefighters who showed up found only burning firebrands.

Everything was over.

Vladimir Orlovsky - "Steckerite" (1929)

INTRODUCTION

Vladimir Evgrafovich Grushvitsky, who wrote under the pseudonym Vladimir Orlovsky, was born on June 28, 1889 in Lukov, modern day Poland. He served on the front lines during World War I between 1914 and 1917, took courses in Petrograd at the Academy, and in 1919 returned to the front lines, eventually rising to Chief Engineer of the Southern Front Army. After the war, he taught physics and chemistry, and later taught at the Leningrad Pharmaceutical Institute, where he served as the head of inorganic chemistry department between 1939 and 1942. He died in January of 1942 from dystrophy during the siege of Leningrad.

Orlovsky wrote a number of science fiction stories in the 1920s, appearing in the publications "World of Adventure" and "Around the World". He is one of the few Soviet pulp science fiction authors from the 1920s to have a story appear in American pulp magazines, his 1927 story "The Revolt of the Atoms" was published in the April 1929 issue of "Amazing Stories". "Steckerite" was first published in "World of Adventure", 1929, issue number 3-4 and illustrated by N. Ushin. Some later reprints have published the story in censored form. Written in Russian as "Штеккерит"/"Shtekkerit" - we have used the German spelling for the name, which has the "sh" sound before the "t".

This translation is based off the uncensored plaintext version found here: https://traumlibrary.ru/book/orlovskiy-mashina-uzhasa/orlovskiy-mashina-uzhasa.html

An original scan of the issue of World of Adventure the story was published in can be found here, which is where we sourced the illustrations from:

http://publ.lib.ru/ARCHIVES/M/''Mir_priklyucheniy''_(jurnal_izd.''P.P.Soykin'')/%cc%e8%f0%20%ef%f0%e8%ea%eb%fe%f7%e5%ed%e8%e9,%201929,%20%b903-04.pdf

STECKERITE

Chapter I

-- "War? War, my dear friend, will stop on earth no earlier than when the last ciliate devours the penultimate one - no earlier."

Stecker ended his energetic maxim with a no less energetic gesture, banged his empty mug on the marble table and looked around at the chewing and chomping hall.

-- "All of them are stock for a future war," he continued, smiling hard. "They and their children, and the children of their children."

His companion followed his gaze and shuddered, looking at the living human sea.

-- "Well, are you, too... getting ready?"

-- "Yes, though I can't speak about it out  loud."

-- "Poisonous gases?"

Stecker drummed his fingers on the table, watching the smoke of his cigar.

-- "Y-yes," he said at last, turning to his companion. "It will be a surprise in due time, before which mustard gas, lewisite and everything else hitherto in the field of military chemistry, will all turn pale."

-- "A secret, of course?"

-- "I hope so, yes... though they do sniff things out diligently. After all, we have 'measures to combat pests and cereal diseases,' a peaceful chemical industry, so to speak," he laughed dryly.

-- "How strong is this poison that you're putting all these hopes into?"

-- "You'll see that it's a means for quick, disabling strikes... A substance that, by its action, would spark unstoppable horror, destroying any thought in the enemy combatants of the possibility of fighting. One touch of it causes burning, unbearable pain. When inhaled, death is almost instantaneous. It penetrates through all membranes of organic origin, burning through them..."

-- "But there is, as with every poison, to the very last, an antidote!"

-- "An antidote, of course, can and should be found to protect one's soldiers. And I've discovered it... after two years work... But while they're still looking for it, they'll fall by my gas, it will do its job. The usual protection is powerless here: the poison seeps through the fabric of one's clothing, if it contains the slightest fraction of organic fibers or the slightest pores. There you have it... Imagine what impression will be produced when such a cloud washes over the enemy in a vast wave... Do you understand? Panic, madness, despair. There will be nothing left in the way..."

Geisler looked at his companion, almost in horror.

-- "And how can you talk about it so calmly? Indeed, when conducting such research, don't you think about these living people towards whom they're directed, to whom they bring suffering and death?"

Stecker was silent for a minute.

-- "The sufferings of a few, and even a few million, don't even measure on the scales of history," -- he dryly said at last, -- "and when you remember this, everything becomes very simple and clear."

-- "And what are you calling it, this new gas?"

-- "It'll be called 'Steckerite'. I dare say, that I've earned the right to call it that?"

Geisler was silent, looking in thought at the swarming human anthill.

Chapter II

Twilight was thickening in the laboratory, and Stecker lit a fire. It suddenly became darker outside the window, as if a cloudy veil lowered over it. The silence was imperturbable, as happens in the late afternoon in vast empty rooms, when you're alone in them, tired of the day's bustle and noise.

Stecker stayed there longer than usual today working on something new, and for half an hour before finishing, he gave himself up to a lazy "far niente", smoking a cigar.[Translator's note: "Far niente": Italian, "without a care".] In his mind, he went over everything he saw and heard over the last few days.

Geisler said something like:

-- "Try to imagine yourself in the place of those hundreds of thousands of people who'll be poisoned by your gases, like rats or gophers."

Stecker smiled contemptuously. 

What a strange comparison! Hundreds of thousands are cannon fodder, destined by iron laws to fulfill the statistical quotas of the dead and wounded. And he belongs to that sort who are the driving force in the complex course of human events. An accident, of course, is always possible, he recalled the tragic fate of Sackur, who died in the midst of his work.[Translator's note: Otto Sackur, a German chemist who died on December 17th, 1914 in a laboratory explosion involving cacodyl chloride.] Well, even so, he'd be able to meet death in a dignified manner, as befits a scientist and a thinker, without screaming in fright. But this doesn't change the nature of the matter.

Stecker threw down his finished cigar, stretched, and walked over to the worktable, where there was an instrument for testing the physiological action of the various gases being studied. Under a large glass bell, another sacrifice was sitting, a large gray rat, who fearfully ran away at the man's approach. Stecker looked at it for a few seconds, waiting for it to move to the far end of the vessel, away from the inlet valve, and then released a cloud of reddish gas under the bell, and began to observe.

The rat was hiding in a corner, not moving from its spot, and only when the first crimson plume, creeping along the base, licked its legs, it felt the burn and plaintively screamed, thrashed around in the transparent cage, smashing its snout against the glass walls, rising on its hind legs, scratching at the barrier with its front paws and stretching its head upwards in mortal pain and terror.

Stecker indifferently watched the familiar stages of the gas's action and waited. The rat, running from wall to wall, came across a small block placed in the center of the base, towering several inches above it. In an instant, it climbed up on top it and looked at the crimson sea rising from below, trembling all over and licking its burnt paws. But it still was breathing calmly -- outside of the cloud, the presence of the gas didn't bother the animal. It needed to force itself upwards to do that, and was still unsuccessful in doing so. The gas had an enormous density and mixed with the air extremely slowly, moving in a heavy wave. And now it was the same, despite the impurities for the purpose of facilitating the spread of the poisonous cloud. True, it made itself felt from a distance with a faint, cloying smell, one already familiar to Stecker, but this smell, the exact cause of which was its volatile impurities, was not poisonous, although it caused a slight dizziness.

The plug stopped the gas intake under the bell. The baited rat, sitting on the stand, somewhat calmed down and only squeaked plaintively. Then the experimenter switched on the propeller that was fastened into the bell's upper covering. Its blades spun up, and a wave of air stirred up the gas that settled below. Its reddish streams swirled in spirals and quickly crept upwards. The rat let out a piercing scream, raised its feverishly open mouth, began to breathe heavily and intermittently, and then fell on its side in convulsions. Another half a minute - and the crimson fog was swirling over the already completely motionless body. Stecker turned the propeller off and opened the valve, through which a jet of diffused liquid splashed under the bell, absorbing the gas in an instant, which had almost filled the entire vessel already. The experiment was over. He removed the bell from the plate and carefully examined the dead animal. The outward signs were no different from those he'd previously seen many times. Inflamed skin, patches of hair falling out, cloudy eyes, blood-stained foam in the mouth -- nothing new.

Stecker indifferently grabbed the corpse through a piece of paper, threw it into a box and rang. An attendant appeared, a lazy and drowsy fellow, temporarily employed to replace the laboratory's old-timer, who had fallen ill.

-- "Take it away," Stecker told him, pointing to the box. -- "And get a guinea pig from the large cage ready for tomorrow morning."

The attendant, still with the same apathetic air, took the dead rat by its tail and went to the door. Stecker shook his head. He didn't care for this clumsy, strange man, who always looked sullen and was miserly with his words.

-- "Egad, what a sleepy oaf, he's bound to do something stupid working that foolishly. Thank God old Gustav will be back in three days."

He went to a small door, from which several steps up, a narrow staircase led to a small dark room which served as a location for experiments on the effects of various rays. The room was a dead end with no other exits. On the way, Stecker looked around at several steel cylinders that were standing near the door. They were filled with gas under high pressure and were temporarily placed there, before being shipped off to the testing site. A thought moved his brain with fleeting anxiety: - "Get them out of here as soon as possible!" - he checked the pressure gauges, examined the spigots - everything was in order.

Footsteps were audible behind him. The attendant entered again and began to move some things on the table.

-- "And what about the dog, Mr. Professor?" he asked in a voice as if he were too lazy to move his tongue.

Stecker glanced at a small cage that stood on a high table by the window, in which a small dog was dozing, curled up in a ball. She was exposed to the gas in low concentrations the day before, and an autopsy was scheduled tomorrow to examine the condition of her internal organs. In the meantime, she slept, squealing from time to time and trembling all over.

-- "Give her food and leave her here, I'll take care of her tomorrow morning."

The attendant was silent, as if hiding in a concealed corner of the laboratory.

Stecker climbed the narrow, steep stairs, turned on the light, and drew the curtain, closing the doorway in dense folds. He walked over to the desk, on which stood a large spectroscope, a flat glass vessel filled with gas, a Ruhmkorff coil, and several other instruments. Here, work was calm, methodical, and the passage of time wasn't noticeable. Colored lines changed into one another in the eyepiece of the spectroscope, an inductor buzzed monotonously, a mouse scratched in the far corner. The clock downstairs struck nine, - Stecker mechanically counted the chimes; somewhere in the distance a door slammed.

An hour passed thus, maybe more. And suddenly the dog's drawn-out howl, full of mortal pain and fear, burst into the dark room and died away... Stecker jumped to his feet, suddenly seized by an unexpected chill. He listened for a minute - the howl was replaced by a hysterical, piercing squeal... 

He turned the switch on and rushed to the door, but, pulling back the curtain, he stopped dead in his tracks, not daring to step any further. The narrow hole below was filled with a crimson mass that was gently quivering and slowly creeping upwards, step by step, like a disgusting rotting jelly.

Chapter III

Horror shackled him to immobility. He dared not believe his eyes, and still didn't realize what had happened, but somewhere in the depths, consciousness of an irreparable misfortune was already stirring, and an overwhelming fear swept over his soul.

The gas had escaped from the cylinders -- that was certain. What he saw was also joined by a sweet, subtle smell, the meaning of which was impossible to mistake. But then... then it's over. The poisonous cloud, travelling upward, was blocking the sole exit and rising further, gradually filling the stone receptacle, slamming it shut, as if it were a trap.

Stecker leaned up against the wall as not to fall over -- his head was spinning and his mouth suddenly became sickeningly dry. He did not know how much time passed in this stupor, but when he came to his senses and looked down, a miserable, bewildered cry escaped from his chest against his will. He surely remembered that when he first looked at the stairs, the upper four steps were free of gas; now only two were rising from under the crimson, quivering mass - everything else was already flooded. He screamed again, but this time intentionally, hoping for some kind of response. His answer was the dog's yelping, thrashing in the iron cage below.

Then Stecker remembered a small window in the wall of this trap, which opened, however, not to the street, but to the inside of the laboratory, from which a staircase led. He rushed to this dark hole, as if expecting salvation out of there... but this, of course, turned out to be an illusion. From the window, which was almost at the ceiling of a spacious high room, nothing was visible. The light was extinguished, and a faint twinkling of stars poured in through the window. In this meager illumination, it seemed that the black mass was swaying almost under that very window.

Stecker opened it and stuck his head out - silence and darkness. He took out a box of matches, lit one of them, and made an effort to illuminate the darkening gap. For a few seconds in the tremulous flicker of its flame, he saw the room's nearest corner and leaned back: the floor, tables, and stools were no longer visible -- they were hidden under a veil of crimson fog, the outlines and boundaries of which were difficult to ascertain. Against the background of a window slightly lit from the outside, the contours of the cage were barely outlined, in which the trapped dog rushed about and howled. Stecker shouted once more into the dark abyss -- a new mournful howl answered him from the depths.

Again he rushed to the door. Reddish waves covered another step, and the cloying smell grew stronger. 

His first move was -- going downstairs and slamming the door that closed the narrow gap, but as he took a step, he stopped. In order to reach the door, he needed to plunge into the poisonous, burning cloud that went almost up to his shoulders -- this was tantamount to death.

He drew the curtain in the hope of at least somewhat delaying the progression of the gas, went to the desk, and, sinking in weakness on a stool, sat like that for some time, not taking his eyes off the dark folds of fabric, from which the poisonous wave was about to appear.

It was difficult to collect the thoughts rushing about in his inflamed brain. - "What can I do?[Translator's note: "Shto dielat?"/"Что делать?", more frequently translated as "What is to be done?", the title of a Nikolai Chernyshevsky novel that was influential to many, including Lenin, who gave his 1902 revolutionary pamphlet the same title.] And how did it happen? Did the attendant inadvertently, or out of curiosity, open the valve on the cylinder, or did the gas escape through a leaky valve by itself? And why was the door downstairs open? Did he himself forget to shut it? But that's not important now. Right now, the main thing is - what can I do. Is the end... today... in this stone receptacle?"

The little dog below yelped again with a desperate voice and fell silent.

With a tremendous effort of will, Stecker pulled himself together. He needed to calmly consider the situation and find ways of escape. From the room, there's no exit. The telephone? It's downstairs, and to get to it, he'd have to break through a narrow hole plugged up with gas... Yes, and the whole lower room is full of it, he himself saw... And that means, what now? Break a wall? On the desk, there was a small hammer with a pointed end just laying there. He seized upon that thought. How long would it take to break through brickwork with such a weapon? Three or four hours? He took the hammer and struck the wall with it. Small fragments of plaster and lime dust fell down. After several minutes, brick was exposed, on which the strongest blows took off only tiny pieces. Stecker looked back: the crimson mist was creeping out from behind the folds of the curtain and snaked in plumes at the threshold.

He felt a lump rise in his throat and take his breath away... A short sob escaped his chest in a strained sound that he didn't recognize as his own voice. His entire body was suddenly covered in a cold sweat. He mechanically wiped his forehead with a handkerchief and continued to look at the streams of heavy gas spreading towards his feet. Another minute, and standing on these cold slabs would be unthinkable.

At that moment, a strange sound caught his attention. In the far corner, two dark figures were scurrying about and squealing in shrill voices. These were the rats that were driven out of the ground by the gas, the very same ones who, later on, would also probably be destined to find themselves, first falling into a trap, and then under the bell in the large laboratory. The animals were rushing about the room, sometimes finding themselves in trembling brown tatters, each time screaming in pain. Suddenly, both of them, as if by agreement, jumped towards the long desk along the wall opposite the window, and climbed onto its smooth surface.

Stecker glanced at the floor -- the gas was already licking the soles of his boots. With an involuntary movement, he was also thrown to where the frightened animals were huddled in the corner. He jumped up onto the upper shelf of the desk and stood leaning against the wall, pale, disheveled, terrified, with wandering eyes, clutching the handle of the hammer in his hand. What's next? Fight against the inevitable or... He looked down again, where the crimson waves rippled at the base of the desk and between the legs of the stool. In fact, it would be so easy to just put an end to everything: to rush down and inhale this nauseating jelly just once...

He remembered the terrible cry of the trapped animal under the glass cap, and suddenly he began to tremble all over with a small, irrepressible trembling. No, there will always be time for that... He must fight while there is still at least a spark of hope. Having chosen a spot chest-high, he moved up to the wall and began to batter it fiercely with the hammer. Plaster fell down again, fragments of brick, white dust. He worked in a frenzy, not stopping for a minute, drenched in sweat. And the work brought relief. Not that any hope came, but simply that he put himself into these feverish blows with his entire being, feeling the barrier slowly fall, that separated him from the world. It's only necessary to break through a small hole, call for help, and catch sight of someone.

He glanced back again. The gas already rose to half the desk's height, and the hole in the brick was no more deep than his hand. Stecker was breathing from his entire chest; his head was spinning from the syrupy disgusting smell. What madness! It was necessary to start working much higher, as high as possible, so that the gas wouldn't have time to rise to his feet. His eyes fell upon the stool again, which was about three paces from the desk. "Damnit... how could I make such a mistake? After all, in half an hour, it won't be possible to stand on the desk."

For a few seconds he stood in hesitation, then suddenly put the hammer up against the wall, somehow buttoned his jacket tightly, clenched his teeth and jumped down... A burning, unbearable pain gripped his legs up to his knees. It seemed as though the hot teeth of an iron saw were tearing into his skin; the pain bored into his brain, convulsed his muscles, blurred his eyes. He let out a sound resembling a growl, and took a step forward. With a convulsive movement he seized the stool and threw it up onto the desk. His eyes darkened, his legs burned unbearably. Staggering like a drunkard, he stepped back to the desk, almost tripped on its edge, and with terrible strain, dragged his suddenly slumped, slack torso onto the boards.

For five minutes he lay on the desk, writhing in pain, and weeping helpless, cold tears. Then the pain subsided somewhat, and at the same time his thoughts started working again. He peered intently over the edge of the desk into the hovering red sea: it was hovering almost at the same level; apparently its speed was decreasing. Or did it just seem that way? He looked at his watch, it was a quarter past eleven, but he didn't know when the catastrophe had begun. In any case, the whole night was still ahead of him -- help wouldn't come until morning, if he even remained alive until then. In the meantime, something must be done so as to not drive himself mad with this terrible expectation.

Standing with difficulty on his burnt feet, he dragged himself to the stool and moved it to the corner of the wall, to provide more stability for his body. Then, overcoming his suffering, clenching his teeth, almost crying from pain, he climbed onto the rickety wooden platform and stood on his feet. He suddenly remembered his recent victim, how it had escaped onto a block that was prudently placed in the middle of the vessel. There seemed something strange to him in this comparison, some kind of diabolical mockery of fate. But once again, he pulled himself together and got rid of these intrusive thoughts. Ridiculous fantasy, excited nerves playing a game. Now he needed to think about only one thing and not even think, but just do it - strike, strike, while his fingers could still hold the hammer.

And he set to work for the third time, choosing a place in the wall not far from the corner. Somehow, he shrank back, clenched his teeth and, without looking back, delivered the blows. They fell one after another, frequent, resonant, stubborn, with white and red dust pouring under them, and their ringing was clearly audible in the tense silence, which became unbearable with every passing minute. It seemed that the most terrible thing wasn't what was happening back there even, behind him, on the stone floor, where he was afraid to look, but precisely this gnawing, murderous silence. And he pounded the wall furiously, muttering curses through clenched teeth, battling his ringing of blows against the frightening silence. He already lost his sense of time in this relentless strain, when again, a noise under his feet made him look down.

It was the rats running from the corner to the stool, knocking their heads into the silent walls with a plaintive squeak. The gas rose to the level of the desk and, burning them, crept in clumps along its surface.

Stecker lowered his hands and only now felt how tired and broken down he was by this feverish work. His whole body was covered in sweat, his wet hair fell into his eyes, his fingers trembled with tension and could barely hold the hammer. His heart was beating painfully, his lungs couldn't get enough air. His eyes mechanically followed the scurrying of the fleeing animals, and he suddenly shuddered. The rats stopped at the stool and, driven by pain, began to climb the wooden legs. In another second, one of them having reached the top, rushed at the man in blind horror and clinging to his suit, began to climb up his legs, up his torso, further and further towards his head.

Stecker screamed in terror and revulsion and grabbed the trembling body with his free hand. 

The rat huddled under his fingers with a plaintive squeak and dug its teeth into the flesh of his palm. He tore it off himself and threw it in the corner of the room, then began to kick at the second animal with his foot, attacking from the stool and dodging its blows. The stool swayed and threatened to tip over at any second. Finally, with a kick of his toe, he threw the rat into the air, and, having circumscribed an arc, plunged into the jelly that lay under his feet and disappeared.

Stecker leaned against the corner of the wall, panting and trembling from his head to his feet. His strength was leaving him, he could hardly stand. It seemed that the plank on which he had found salvation was rising and falling in rhythmic movements.

Well, what now? Should he continue working? It's too late... The gas will catch up with him before he's done half the job. On top of that, he felt that he couldn't move his hand, the muscles refused to act.

His eyes were mechanically riveted to the light bulb, as if it were hypnotizing him with its unblinking light. His thoughts were confused, he lost contact with reality. And suddenly, something completely new happened that he wasn't even able to immediately comprehend in his strange lethargy: the lights went out...Stecker was enveloped in impenetrable darkness, in which a deadly fog swirled close under his feet.

A complete, all-encompassing, dead silence...

For several seconds he stared in confusion into the impenetrable darkness, thinking that he had become a victim of hallucination, that he only needed to make an effort to control his nerves and force himself to see the light again. But all attempts were in vain. It was not an optical illusion. The bulb had gone out, the gas was also to blame for this, which having broken a loose contact somewhere, or maybe it had just burned out. Stecker stood motionless on his rickety shelter, surrounded by the horror of what was happening.

Now he couldn't even see how the inexorable thing was creeping up on him, swaying somewhere here, under his feet - whether it was close, whether it was far, he couldn't know now. Is it rising? Or maybe it stopped? Maybe the wave has begun to subside, perhaps salvation, even?

Stecker remembered the matches. Carefully, trying to avoid dropping the small box, he pulled it out of his pocket and counted the wooden sticks with trembling fingers. There were only three of them, three flashes of light in the chaos of darkness. And now, unable to contain the irresistible desire to look down, he lit one of them. A yellowish light flared up, but what he gleamed from the darkness was vague and unclear. In any event, the surface of the desk was not visible, it was hidden by a thick dark veil; however, it was impossible to ascertain to what height it had risen with this trembling flicker. Still, Stecker gazed yearningly at the crimson sea that surrounded his refuge until the match, burning his fingers, went out. And the darkness again closed around him in a thick veil.

There were no more thoughts in his head now. There was a blind instinct that forced him to fight for his life until the very last opportunity. He clenched the handle of the hammer in his fist again, which he hadn't released this entire time, felt the hole that he made in the wall with the fingers on his left hand, and still blindly, almost at random, began to strike the stone wall, stopping only from time to time to catch his breath. His throat was dry, his head was pounding, swirls of fire flashed before his eyes. And he kept tapping, tapping, not thinking about anything, almost forgetting about the danger. But this couldn't continue forever. The blows became weaker, fell at random, and his fingers trembled, at times gripped by a slight cramp. And then, finally, with a forceful oblique thrust, the pointed end slid over an uneven surface, and the hammer, escaping from his hand, fell into the darkness. The ensuing silence was cut through by a wild, already almost inhuman cry:

-- "Save me! Save me!"

As if in response, the clock chimed below. There were twelve blows and then there was a final silence.

The circle of inevitability is closed. Death lay ahead, but when? Now? In five minutes, in ten, or in an hour? Or maybe later? Or maybe, this cursed cloud has stopped and is already subsiding? Or will it keep rising? Nothing more to be thought about the approach or retreat of the invisible enemy. No sound, no spark, no smell -- perhaps even the most dulled sense dried up in his perception.

It seemed absurd to stand here in the dark on a stool, almost at the ceiling, barely holding on by trembling, burned legs. It seemed so simple - to jump off and go out, to run out, into the light, to people... And meanwhile...

A burning pain in his feet penetrated him to the deepest convolutions of his brain. Is this the end? The poison taking his last refuge!

He pulled the matches from his pocket and, with trembling fingers, tried to light one of them. From uncertain movements, or from the dampness, it instantly flashed with a weak sparkle and went out, illuminating nothing. Without thinking, he grabbed the last one and scratched it on the box. The match caught fire, and again the pale light illuminated the dark corner... Stecker stooped down, frantically looking below. The stool still stuck out as a lonely island in the crimson sea -- the pain deceived him, an attack from an old burn. But the cloud was rising, that was clear.

The match went out -- the last one. He frantically searched his pockets, felt the lining of his suit, shook the box, - nothing... This time, that was it. It was useless to fight on. He wanted to throw himself down, to end the terrible suspense as soon as possible, but the memory of the pain he had experienced from touching the poison held him back again. He crouched on the stool, learned into the corner, and looked into the darkness with inflamed eyes. Someone, almost nearby, suddenly said in a mocking voice: -- "The sufferings of a few, and even a few million, don't even measure on the scales of history..."

He looked around frightened, as if expecting to see someone in the deadly chaos, then remembered: after all, these were his own words, spoken yesterday to Geisler. Yesterday? Or a thousand years ago? When did it all start?

A murky image emerged from the darkness in a blur. He peered at it: a rat's head, unnaturally large, with a grin of teeth in its gaping maw. He waved it away -- and the image sank into darkness. Someone breathed behind his back and touched him with a damp hand... He shrieked again, such a plaintive, quite bestial shriek. Then the darkness was filled with indistinct rustling, breathing, contours of vague movement.

Now Geisler was speaking from somewhere in the far corner:

-- "Try to imagine yourself in the place of those hundreds of thousands of people who'll be poisoned by your gases..."

And with parched lips, he squeezed out a pitiful answer:

-- "Yes, it's terrifying to die..."

Then came chaos and oblivion.

* * *

Only by evening the next day was the laboratory cleared of gases. In the first room, they found a dead dog in a cage. All of her skin was covered with blisters and ulcers, her hair, which hung in tatters, turned black and decayed. The muzzle was bared in a convulsive death howl.

The spigots on the gas cylinders were left unscrewed; the attendant who had replaced old Gustav vanished.

Searches located a trace of him in the direction of the French border, which hospitably opened its arms up to him, who later, upon a thorough investigation, turned out to be an officer of the French General Staff.

In the upper room, on a desk, next to a stool, lay a man with completely gray hair and an expression of indescribable horror in his glassy eyes. His body was untouched by burns, except for the lower part of his legs. Apparently, he fell on the desk after the movement of the cloud stopped and the gas subsided, seeping into the cracks in the wall leading outward.

In a pile of garbage, near the man's head, lay a hammer and an empty matchbox. On the floor, mutilated by poison, lay the corpses of two rats with their eyes leaking out of their sockets.

That was everything. Stecker was buried three days later with great solemnity. Speeches were made, the focus of which was a painful death in a scientific position.

Geisler listened to these words and thought hard about his own, about a time when the insanity of mankind will remain in the distant past, and history will turn a new page, which both the stubborn daydreamers and the people of strong will are dreaming of now, moving towards a distant, but inevitable goal.

Graal Arelsky - "Towards a New Sun" (1924)

INTRODUCTION

"Towards a New Sun" is the third and final part in three loosely connected stories, "Tales of Mars", written in 1924 and published in book form in 1925. While each story can be read on its own, we recommend reading the first two installments, "Professor Dagin's Observatory" and "Two Worlds" before this one.

1. Interplanecom Council Meeting. Ro-pa-ge's report. The decision must be immediately enforced!

[Author's note: Interplanecom: Interplanetary Communications][Translator's note: In Russian, "Mezhplaso"/"Межпласо", short for "Mezhplanetnykh Soobshieniy"/"Межпланетных сообщений". I used "Communications" for "сообщений" rather than "Messages" for the cleaner sounding abbreviated word.]

Across the entire sky, hanging in a cast-iron dome over the icy steel of the upper streets, the blue-emerald constellations were blazing brilliantly.

The planets were no longer visible. The light of the fading sun was insufficient in illuminating them. For a long time now, the day only differed from the night, in that during the day, among the constellations blazing in the black sky, a dull crimson solar disk appeared, mottled with smoky stripes.

The upper streets were long abandoned by the populace. Now a thick layer of ice lay there. It filled the entire metro, all the endless roofs of the upper structures, it hung from the viaducts like emerald stalactites and penetrated into the inner parts of the buildings.

Fleeing from the cold, people had left the upper dwellings and gone underground. There, all their lives' tremendous labor had been concentrated. This frantic pace of labor ignited a flame in the hearts of everyone. Everything personal was gladly and unquestioningly sacrificed for this labor.

Nothing like this has ever been known in the history of mankind.

In the large, round hall of the Interplanecom council, a government meeting was taking place.

Radio stenographs characteristically creaked, recording the speeches. Behind the stenographers, the glass-striped proofs were glittering. Continuously flashing inside of them were the words that composed the speeches. From these glass proofs, the speeches delivered at the meeting were broadcast by radio to all Mars' cities.

The faces of those present were serious and solemn.

The chairman of Interplanecom, the engineer Ro-pa-ge, made the final speech.

- "It's clear, why our hearts are now lit with the same flame. We're solving the riddle of life, and of mankind's purpose. The sun - the source of our planetary system's life - has faded out. It has illuminated planetary humanity's long and thorny path. In the prehistoric world's early days, it had illuminated our distant ancestors' lives with a bright blue light. Now it's faded out, and we see its crimson, ominous light. We have traveled an extremely long path in life. Along this path, we have carried all of culture and science's values. We are the last representatives of humanity!

"Our life was inextricably linked with the sun. We're now present at its death. We were left alone: communication with other planets has ceased. Coldness and death have now separated the planets' once closely knit family of mankind; now everyone is only concerned with their own salvation. Coldness and death..."

He paused and looked around the room with blazing eyes. Everyone sat silent. In absolute silence, only the impulsive breathing of those present and the creaking of the stenographers could be heard.

After a moment's pause, Ro-pa-ge began to resume his speech.

- "Our ancestors believed that the main source of sustaining solar energy was in its compression, and therefore the thermal energy of the sun should only be enough for 17 million years. After this period of time, the sun will condense to the size of our planet. Generally, this was correct, except in the matter of the date of the death of the sun, which was immeasurably further away. With the discovery of radium, its property of continuously emitting heat became apparent. From radium's emanations, completely new helium atoms could be obtained. Since helium is an emanation of radium, and its presence was discovered in the sun, even then it was already concluded that radium is also present in the sun. Subsequently, this was confirmed by science, and wide horizons were opened up in the realm of new sources of solar thermal energy. It is clear, therefore, that the sun retained its energy for an immeasurably longer span of centuries than had been supposed by our ancestors. But those dates have now passed... The sun has been extinguished. Is it possible that with its death, doom awaits us too? Do all the achievements of culture and science have to perish with the death of the sun? Is the path traversed by mankind really pointless?!

"No! In the last century, we have tremendously labored. Today it's finished. At the pole, we've constructed gigantic fifteen-kilometer apparatuses. Gas explodes inside them. With the help of these explosions, we'll break away from our sun's gravity, and will be transported through space towards a new sun. In many places, space is occupied by gaseous, dark masses and clouds of cosmic dust. They absorb the light of the stars beyond them. Sweeping for millennia, together with the entire solar system, our planet has now come into contact with such a cosmic cloud. This fortunate accident gave us the opportunity, with the help of an explosion directed at a denser part of the cosmic cloud, to overcome our sun's gravity and speed off into space. Today we will make the decision to depart on a long road! Through the icy expanses of space, to the silver road of the Milky Way, towards a new sun and a new life. Today we're finished with the old life! In two years, a new sun will be shining on us! Our decision must be immediately enforced!"

He finished and left the pulpit.

Everyone present rose from the large round table.

- "The decision must be immediately enforced!"

- "Communicate with the pole on the radio!"

- "Immediately!"

Ro-pa-ge walked to the table and wrote out the order.

In absolute silence, the order was signed by everyone.

After that, everyone again sat down at the round table, prolonging the silence. This continued while the transmission and execution of the order was in progress.

Suddenly, an abrupt, slight shock confirmed that at the pole, the first explosion of gas had occurred. The order had been executed.

Everyone again jumped up from the table and, holding on to the backs of their chairs during the continuous series of secondary shocks that followed, surrounded Ro-pa-ge, who was leaning over an oval mirror that was reflecting the sky.

In the convex surface of the mirror, flaming constellations quickly moved from west to east. Ursa Major, in the form of an elongated zigzag line, flashed in that same horizon. Flying along its orbit, the planet had slowly separated from it, drifting to the right. This was clear as the constellations of the southern hemisphere had appeared over the horizon.

Suddenly, at the edge of the oval mirror, a red, smoky spot of the ebbing sun flashed, fading and drifting from west to east.

2. The "Solar Engine" Society's Organizer and His Daughter

Ro-pa-ge returned home from the meeting cheerful and happy.

Finally, his life's dream had come true. The influence and power that he had recently lost were returning to him again.

He walked into his office and sat down at his desk.

He was still excited by the recently finished meeting and didn't feel tired yet. He was thinking about the planet, now broken away from its orbit and rushing through space, and felt a tremendous moral satisfaction. 

He then involuntarily turned his eyes to the portrait of his ancestor, the primary founder of the "Solar Engine" Society.

A wise, energetic face watched him from a black frame.

It seemed to Ro-pa-ge that his tightly compressed lips were sympathetically smiling at him.

This primary founder had spent a great deal of energy putting his invention into practice - the "Solar Engine".

His invention was an aerobile, constructed on the principle of a planet.

Like a planet, it was surrounded by an atmosphere, formed from a special gas produced from inside the apparatus.

This gas coating protected the apparatus from the cold of airless space and solved all the previously unsolvable difficulties. Energy was captured by the apparatus from the sun's rays.

He made several flights to Earth, after that the government established the Interplanecom Institute, and he organized the "Solar Engine" Society, with a number of factories for producing his apparatuses. In a short period of time, he succeeded in getting large orders from Earth, and the Society began to rapidly prosper.

This Society played a large role in planetary history for millennia. And only when the sun faded out did it fall apart.

Its last organizer was Ro-pa-ge.

A continuous string of thoughts flashed through Ro-pa-ge's brain.

If Mars made a safe flight through space and revolved around a new sun - what incredible prospects would await it?!

He would be able to start the factories again, and thus take control of all the planet's production, once again in his own hands. His influence would have no limits. He'll explore the planets close to the new sun, and if life exists there, Mars will have precedence in the planetary market exchange. In any event, he - the last representative of the Society - will be its first recreator, and the creator of a new life!

* * * 

While Ro-pa-ge was dreaming and making his plans for the future, a meeting was taking place in his daughter's office, the nature of which was very far from his dreams.

The blond, diminutive Me-ta, Ro-pa-ge's daughter, paced up and down the room, occasionally stopping in front of her listeners and gesticulating.

There were two listeners.

One was the engineer Reil, the other was the astronomical scientist Verne.[Translator's note: Presumably after Johann Christian Reil, source of the term "psychiatry", and Jules Verne, science fiction pioneer.]

- "We must take action immediately!" - Me-ta said: - "you can see for yourself that the influence of my father's party is growing. Even now, when our planet is flying through space, everyone will unquestioningly stand on his side, intoxicated with the idea of saving life and civilization. This threatens us with the fact that we'll be crushed in the near future. We have almost no supporters up here. Therefore, we must immediately establish relations with the workers in the mines. They're kept as slaves, their living conditions are terrible."

She was interrupted by engineer Reil.

- "You're right, Me-ta. I work on the electric trains that deliver cleveite from the mines to the engines. I see the workers all the time. They've already started fomenting. Our task is to direct their discontent to where we need it."

- "I'm in agreement with you on everything," Verne said, who had been sitting in thought the entire time: "you need to start immediately. Moreover, I have established that we'll fall into the new sun's gravitational sphere much earlier than was calculated by Interplanecom. Our planetary system is racing towards the constellation Hercules, towards the newly discovered star, Novum Sol.[Author's note: New sun] This star, in turn, races towards us. We'll enter its gravitational sphere not in two years, but in one year, four months. Additionally, this process won't proceed as painlessly as they've suggested. From the shock, will come tremendous destruction."

- "Are you suggesting, Verne, that the buildings, the factories, and the machines will be destroyed?" - was the question that Me-ta asked.

- "Of course."

- "That will make our job easier."

- "With the first rays of the new sun, a new life will begin!" - Reil confidently stated.

- "Well, let's leave the metaphysics for a while and get down to business..." - Me-ta declared, approaching the writing table: - "Tomorrow, I, together with my father, will go to the engines at the pole. You, of course, know that Ro-pa-ge has been appointed the chief of mines and engines... Under his cover, we'll start to work... I want to familiarize you with my plan. Listen."

Reil and Verne walked up to the table and leaned over the blueprints and mine plans...

* * * 

In the morning, Me-ta entered her father's office. Ro-pa-ge had been up for a while and was sitting in a fluffy woolen bathrobe at a table littered with reports and charts.

When he saw her, he smiled from the corners of his lips, but the heavy concentration had not disappeared from his face.

He loved Me-ta in his own way.

He loved her wayward resolute character, in which he had recognized himself, and took pleasure in this.

At his core, he was a lonely, tired and jaded man. He needed authority and activity to fill the emptiness of his personal life. And he craved them like a drug in order to support his decrepit body. Today, his spirits were in good disposition.

- "I'll agree to everything, Me-ta. I know what you want."

- "I'm in awe of your clairvoyance."

- "Go, get ready, in three hours I'm leaving for the pole."

- "Engineer Reil is going with us".

- "Is that the fat, little melancholiac with a wart on his chin? Am I not mistaken?"

- "No."

- "Fine. He seems to talk little - I have nothing against him."

3. Slaves of the Machine. Song of the Sun

The mines branched out in endless corridors, going deeper and deeper towards the center of the planet. There, in the hot, suffocating air, the greasy bluish mineral deposits were glittering. The ore from here was delivered upwards on electric trains, where the exploding Yutli gas was produced at the pole's factories. It flowed through the pipes to the propulsion apparatus, where it exploded and imparted the movement of the planet through space.

The workers' quarters were located here, in the immediate vicinity of the mineral deposits of the mine works. Next to them, hospitals, cinematograph theaters and numerous workers' cafés had been built.

The work here was unending. Everyone rumbled, everyone rushed in a mad frenzy. All life here was adapted to this frantic pace of work.

In one of the worker's cafés, a group of workers who were free from work were resting.

Everyone's faces were gray and haggard. In their inflamed eyes, an expressionless mortal fatigue was gleaming.

The conversation was abrupt and sluggish.

- "We die by the hundreds every day. Our wives stopped having babies."

- "Children's homes are closed as being unnecessary."

- "We can't take it anymore!"

- "When will it end!?"

- "When we're all dead..."

At that moment, a young worker entered the café. Magir. He worked on the electric trains that delivered ore up to the engines. He had learned a great deal from the engineers and enjoyed a wide popularity among the workers.

He was surrounded and, in shaking everyone's hands, was carried away and deeper into the café.

Immediately he was bombarded with questions.

He slowly sat down at a table in the corner of the café and began to speak.

- "The engineers say the planet is heading in the right direction. If it continues like this, we'll see a new sun in six months."

- "What's next, Magir?"

- "We'll continue working here! The new life will be for the people up top, not for us..." old Dobbs interrupted angrily.

Sarcastic remarks were heard from all sides.

- "That's right, Dobbs! The sun won't see us..."

- "It won't have to warm our bones with its white rays."

- "It won't have to see those green trees and flowers, completely unknown to us."

- "The people up top will enjoy it on our behalf! You're right" - Magir began again, when the individual cries had ceased: - "Of course, then we'll all be forced to work for the people up top... But we'll be able to disrupt their power then..."

A sudden silence filled the café.

The workers moved closer to Magir.

- "What are you saying, Magir!?"

- "That's unthinkable."

- "The people up top are too powerful."

- "Have you forgotten how they treat people who say such things?"

- "Careful! They have ears everywhere."

- "Listen, listen," - Magir continued. - "I'll tell you what I've heard at the engines from the engineers. We have supporters among the people up top. They're going to help us. Listen! When our world approaches the new sun, there will be a strong marsquake. Much stronger than when our planet burst out from our old sun. Remember how the mines collapsed and crushed hundreds of workers?! Remember... And all the buildings and factories will collapse then, all the viaducts will shatter into pieces - the people up top will be powerless then. And we will come out of here, out of the dark mines, out of the grave's eternal darkness into a renewed world. Green-curled trees and flowers will blossom, fragrant fields will sing under the dazzling rays of the sun."

- "You speak well, Magir!"

- "Speak, speak... It seems to me that I can already feel this fertile warmth, from which my bones, rotted from dampness, are now coming to life."

- "I've never seen real forests!"

- "Speak, Magir... Go on."

And Magir spoke.

When the excited workers left the café half an hour later, Magir went to the women's houses.

Passing along one narrow street-mine, around a corner he heard a song. Someone walked towards him and sang:

"Soon the planet - a dying beast
Will become a young, jubilant beast;
Covered with a green wool again, -
With the forest's green-curled wool...
Like precious gems, flowers
Will sparkle in the green grass...
The beautiful wreath, from these flowers,
I will weave my beloved."

Magir recognized Arri by her voice. She came around the corner and ran into Magir, who had blocked her way.

- "I've been following you, Arri. It's good that I met you."

- "I decided to run to a friend's for a minute. Did you forget we're going to the theater today?"

- "Of course, I didn't forget... Tell me, where did you hear this song you were singing just now."

- "I wrote it myself. All our women, Magir, dream of a new sun. Of a new sun and a new love."

4. In the theatre. Magir and Arri at the round lake

A large segment of the public was at the enormous semicircular theater building. Magir and Arri had difficulty finding a free seat. The play "SonorgInterplanecom" was being performed.

There were no decorations. Their role had long been replaced by kino-epidiascopes, projecting the necessary scenery through the air onto the stage throughout the course of the play.

The theater curtain had been replaced a film camera that projected images right through the air, to the place where it would have hung. The same apparatus, if necessary, captured the hidden thoughts of the characters; which flashed in fiery letters in the air above the performers' heads.

In this way, scenery could instantly change, and could constantly be moving like a film strip, achieving unbelievable lighting effects.

Magir had already seen this play, but Arri was watching it for the first time.

The plot of the play was as follows. The son of a Interplanecom organizer falls in love with an artist from Jupiter. He had only seen her in films, and heard her voice in the "interplanetary radio opera." He decides to go to Jupiter and declare his love to her. But while he's in flight, his aerobile collides with one of the asteroids, Ceres. Everyone is dying. The organizer's son is alone on the asteroid, and on it, he makes an orbital revolution around the sun. Interplanetary newspapers carry this story to all the planets and print his portrait.

While reading the newspapers, the Jovian artist, in turn, falls in love with the organizer's son. She gathers an expedition and goes to save him. In the end, she eventually finds him. Everything turns out well. The instigator of the adventure marries the Jovian artist and publishes his book of impressions of Ceres, which makes him a famous writer.

Magir absentmindedly looked at the stage. He was thinking about something else. Tomorrow, these laughing people will groan under overwork again, curse their lives and die in hospitals. Is this frippery enough for them to forget all about this and be happy today? Where's the exit?!

The sharp longing of despair squeezed his heart. He himself suddenly longed for oblivion, some kind of mighty impulse, a dazzling joy and happiness.

He squeezed Arri's hand...

She turned to him and regarded him with tender, smiling eyes.

Then she took his hand in turn and stroked it with hers.

The play ended at that moment.

In place of the curtain, fiery letters jumped and turned into phrases:

"Keep working hard, we will soon see a new sun. Don't forget that you're doing a great job saving life and civilization. Long live the Interplanecom Council! Long live Ro-pa-ge!"

Arri stood up and took Magir's arm.

- "We'll go to the dance hall."

- "Good... whatever you like."

Crowds of people slowly poured out of the theatre's wide-open doors. The merry laughter and squeals of the women resounded in the archway. And on top of all this, somewhere far away, a cheerful, infectious dance was raging. The electricity was dazzlingly blazing, and cheerful couples were already spinning around the huge hall. Arri carried away Magir, and he spun in two circles with her. But he soon left her and began to wander through the crowded foyers and halls.

He was bored. Unreasonable anger began to choke him.

In one of the rooms, where there was an automated buffet, four workers were sitting at a table and drinking sapa.[Author's note: Vodka with ether] They were very drunk and were mocking and provoking those who were passing by.

When Magir entered, noticing his gloomy appearance, they burst out laughing merrily.

- "Look at this young fellow," said the first of them, choking with laughter.

- "He's trying to show us that he's very smart!"

- "This is Magir. He looks so smart because he's with the engineers all the time."

- "Hey, kid, don't dream too much, otherwise we'll teach you a lesson."

Ignoring them, Magir went to the buffet and drank a large glass of sapa in one gulp.

Alcohol immediately rushed to his head. The anguish began to fade. He wanted some rowdy fun.

He turned and looked at the drunken workers sitting at the table.

His gaze met their bleary eyes.

- "Hey, Magir, you're too shy to talk to us!" - shouted the first of them. - "Fine, I'll teach you to be polite now..."

He wanted to get up from his chair, but couldn't. The wide scar on his left cheek turned crimson from exertion.

Magir, without haste, approached him, his eyes flashing with a malevolent cheer. He grabbed him by the waist with both hands, lifted him into the air and flung him back into the chair with such force that he found himself on the floor, along with the chair, which had been smashed to pieces.

His comrades immediately fell silent and stared at Magir with glassy eyes.

- "That's enough for us..." - Magir gritted through his teeth and left the buffet.

His sudden upswing had been replaced by indifference. He became sad again.

He passed through a dazzlingly sparkling hall, where couples were merrily spinning and the music thundering, and went out into a deserted mine-street.

He walked straight ahead with quick strides.

Gradually the sounds of the merry dancing died away, and the deathlike silence, in which his steps resounded, enveloped him with its watchful intensity.

He turned right and, in order to shorten his route, walked to his workplace through narrow, zigzagging passages.

He didn't know where or why he was going. There were no distinct thoughts in his brain. Only some kind of melancholy and self-pity for himself, an almost physical pain, was squeezing his heart.

He came to the round lake. An electric lamp burned brightly above him. Its light cut a wide, sharp wedge into the motionless leaden water surface.

On the right side of the lake, Magir noticed a bench.

Approaching it, he sat down.

All around, everything was deserted and quiet. He sat for a long time, trying not to think about anything. The silence was thick. And he even felt his ears ringing from the rushing of blood.

Suddenly he thought he heard distant, hurried footsteps. He wasn't mistaken. Soon he saw Arri coming out towards the lake.

She saw him at once and hurried over to the bench.

- "I ran after you... You walked so fast. What's wrong with you Magir?"

Magir silently seated Arri next to him.

She cuddled up to him and fell silent.

From behind the lake, noise from the work started to become more distinctly audible. This activity was from the oxygen factories, which had replaced the functions of the forests now vanished.

- "Listen, Arri..." - Magir finally spoke, - "now I have a feeling that you and I are alone, away from this entire world. Up there, is coldness and death. And around the planet, darkness and coldness. And the planet is speeding towards a new sun. When our planet is illuminated by its white rays, we must be free. Will you help me? Will you be with me, Arri?"

5. Magir and Me-ta. Maita's Secret

Arriving at the factories at the pole, Me-ta wanted to find her own way into the mines and establish relations with the workers.

Her wish was fulfilled by engineer Reil, the head of the electric trains for ore delivery.

Ro-pa-ge was called away to the Interplanecom council, and therefore her absence wouldn't be noticed by anyone.

Me-ta dressed up as a worker and was sped into the depths of the mines on the very train that Magir was operating.

The train rushed quickly through the narrow mines, deafeningly loud around the turns. The heavy, stale air whistled in Me-ta's ears.

Magir stood motionless in the front car by the engine. His eyes were directed straight ahead, into the stuffy, quivering twilight, where the gigantic electric lamps flashed vaguely, streaking past the train. His hand was frozen on the regulator.

Me-ta was sitting nearby and couldn't take her eyes off his energetic face. Engineer Reil had told her a great deal of this worker, and she was now in agreement with him that Magir should be the leader of the rebellion.

As the train began to slow down, Magir turned around.

- "You'll get off now and wait for me in the mine-street on the right. It's my shift now. I'll take the train there."

At the bend, the train stopped instantly, and Me-ta jumped out of the car.

Pressing her back against the damp wall of the mine, she let a long line of cars disappear around the bend. Then she went straight ahead, deeper into the mine-street on the right...

Thus began Me-ta's acquaintance with Magir. Without noticing it himself, Magir had completely fallen under the influence of this girl. What had previously been budding in his thoughts, vaguely and indefinitely, now during conversations with Me-ta, ripened. He always looked forward to Me-ta's appearances. Lately, occupied with business up top, she appeared in the mines less and less often.

* * *

The hospital's huge quadrangular rooms were filled with beds.

Here, like everywhere else, the roar of the machines penetrated. And here in this incessant noise, thousands of people died, exhausted by work, by the lack of sun and air.

Medicine was powerless in the fight against this mortality. Nothing can replace light and air.

Magir often came here after his shift. His mother was lying here.

Today he came late, delayed by a workers secret meeting.

Lying on the bed motionless was his mother, Maita.

Gray hair hung over her reddened face. As he approached the bed, she opened her eyes.

- "How do you feel, mama?"

- "I feel like I'm about to die... You did well to come today. There's a lot I want to tell you..."

He knelt before her and placed her hand on his head.

A thin, powerless hand caressingly clung to his hair.

- "Listen, my dear boy, every night I dream one and the same thing. Once as a child I was up top, in the museums. I saw the old paintings. It was, probably, a very long time ago. My parents and my parents' parents lived under the red sun. And in those paintings, a bright, white-bluish sun was drawn. The whole planet was covered with green-curled trees and bright flowers... Every night now I dream all of this. I can't tell if this is delusion or reality? I see that our dead planet is once again covered with lush vegetation and fragrant flowers. I see a completely different people: strong, joyful and singing.

"No more dead cold and eternal twilight. The dazzling blue sun shoots its hot streams of rays from the sky. Animals completely unfamiliar to me are caressing me... And wherever I look, our gloomy iron factories, steel streets and black dead skies are nowhere. Everywhere - are trees, herbs and flowers. My dear Magir, maybe it will be so. Maybe it's not a delusion... Why are you silent, Magir? Move closer to me, it's hard for me to speak..."

- "It's not a delusion, mama... I believe in it myself. And I have the same dreams. All of us, living here in darkness and crushed by this slave labor, have the same dreams. It's not a delusion, it's a premonition. Our planet - an old and decrepit beast - will again be covered with green-curled wool. We'll all be free and happy. Listen, mother, a girl from above came to us and told us about a new sun and a new life. This girl now lives among us. She says that soon, the new sun's rays will douse our old planet, burn and destroy all our factories and iron housing, and wash away our life's curse. She says we need to rise up and win our new life. We're ready to follow her..."

- "Yes, Magir, the time has come... An ancient prophecy is coming true..."

- "What prophecy are you talking about?"

- "Your father, Magir, was the last member of a secret society, who dreamed of a new sun and a new life. He said, that only cosmic revolutions can regenerate life. The society your father belonged to was exterminated.

"The last of its members fled to the underground caverns and lived out the rest of their lives there. Your father, Magir, gave me the secret of this Society. I will die soon. Listen, and I'll give it to you..."

Magir moved closer, and old Maita began to speak to him in a low, broken voice.

- "In these mines, where we now work, the last members of the secret Society went into hiding. In the straight mineshaft that leads to the round lake, is where their laboratory remains. Nobody knows about its existence. Come closer to me and I'll tell you how to find it..."

By evening Maita had died.

Me-ta arrived at night and Magir told her about her mother's secret. With great precautions, they went together into the straight mineshaft, that leads to the round lake.

On the right-hand wall, Magir located a protruding stone and turned it. A door opened and brought them to the laboratory. Musty air and a layer of dust indicated that no one had been there in a long time.

Magir's attention was attracted by a round, metallic mirror with electric wires dispersing from it, and a shining acoustic device.

- "It's a receiver!" - exclaimed Me-ta: - "if it's in good condition, we can find out everything that's happening on the surface..."

She brushed the dust off the mirror and began to randomly rearrange the levers.

A cry of surprise broke from Magir's lips.

The round mirror turned black. In it, unknown constellations were brightly flashing. At its zenith, more and more distinctly, a misty spot of the new sun flared up. The blue-black abyss of the sky was covered by its rays like a film.

- "The new sun! We're approaching the new sun!!" Me-ta exclaimed and squeezed Magir's hand.

Magir was silent. Everything here amazed him in its unusualness. Thoughts swept through his mind. His heart swooned. The stale air rang in his ears and his face burned.

From somewhere far away, the words of Me-ta sounded...

- "Listen, Magir, I'll tell you about your past. Long, long ago, an incredible disaster struck our already dying planet. One of our satellite moons, Phobos, crashed into the northern hemisphere. It destroyed all our cities, turning the entire northern half into a fiery liquid mass. And then, a miracle happened. When the fiery-liquid mass cooled down, the first forms of life appeared. A prehistoric world arose, and in it, finally, a new man. We didn't know what to do with them. But time went by. This new tribe of people - your ancestors - multiplied rapidly.

"Coming into contact with our culture, their development made enormous strides. We had to do something about them. And well, we couldn't think of anything better than the enslavement of these creatures. It happened when the sun faded. Use of our mechanical workers became impossible for us. The cold destroyed all of our technology and rendered us powerless. We needed manpower, and the people up top committed the greatest injustice. They made you our slaves, equating you with mechanical workers. To save their own lives, they threw you into the mines..."

Me-ta approached Magir and put her hands on his shoulders.

- "We must win, Magir! The new sun and new living conditions will help us merge two different kinds of people into one whole. Us - who arose earlier, enriched with experience and knowledge, but already dying, already deprived of many human functions, and you - still young, full of vitality. This merger will produce a powerful new race. A new sun will light our way!"

The heart in Magir's chest rocked in a frenzy of beats. Everything was somewhere floating away, obscured by white streams of sparkling light. For a moment the sole image of Arri was flashing. She flickered and faded. Gone without a trace.

Me-ta's lips smiled closer and closer. The wide-open abyss of her eyes drew an irresistible joy into their incomprehensible depth...

6. Arri. In the laboratory again

Me-ta left on the same day...

Magir was sitting in the workers' café, everything that happened seemed like a dream to him. At that moment there was no one in the café. Magir hadn't gone to work for a while and was hiding from the Interplanecom soldiers who were searching for him, and had received orders for his arrest. This secluded café was chosen as a meeting place for like-minded people.

The machines were shining coldly. Light from the electric lamps was pouring from the vaulted stone ceiling, reflecting onto the smooth surfaces of the metal tables.

It was deathly silent. From the mine-street, not a sound could be heard.

Suddenly the door opened and Arri quickly rushed into the café. Magir didn't recognize her at first.

He hadn't seen her in a long time. She'd changed a great deal. She lost weight, a mournful wrinkle had set around her lips. Her eyes revealed the shade of a poorly concealed yearning.

- "I knew that I'd find you here," - Arri began in a broken voice, - "I ran... it's good that I came in time. Save yourself, Magir! You're going to be arrested..."

Noticing that Magir was trying to speak, she took him by the hand...

- "Later... Every minute is precious now."

They came out of the café and saw four Interplanecom soldiers rapidly approaching the café from the right.

- "If we manage to make it to the straight mineshaft, we'll be safe. It seems they've already noticed us, Arri?!"

Magir was not mistaken - the soldiers had noticed them.

The pursuit began.

Trying to take a shortcut, Magir opted for the narrow, dark passages. The soldiers weren't far behind. In one of the passages, a soldier fired a shot. But Magir and Arri had already turned into the straight mineshaft. Having reached the laboratory, they were hidden and had escaped their pursuers.

The mineshaft was straight, and there were no exits within it. The soldiers, wondering where the fugitives could be hiding, ran past the laboratory, towards the round lake.

- "I escaped. Arri... I owe this to you."

Arri was silent, which turned into heavy breathing.

Magir became uneasy. He walked over to the receiver and looked around the laboratory. Down to the smallest detail, the previous day had flashed before him. All sensations were alive. Against his will, the image of Me-ta stood between him and Arri. A cold, caustic wave rose to his yearning heart. It was clear that nothing could be restored.

The past is gone forever. And the more he thought, the brighter the flame of yearning and painful tenderness for Arri flared up. What should he do? How can he touch the wound without pain...

He walked over to Arri.

She looked at him with a sad, staring visage.

- "You've been avoiding me lately, Arri..."

- "I... you noticed that?”

The discarded phrase seemed absurd and meaningless. It became painfully offensive that they could not find the necessary, simple words. Like ripples on top of water from a stone's throw, sensations elusively slipped through their brains, passing without a trace, without evoking words...

He stepped closer to her and took her by the hand.

She winced.

- "Did you know, Arri, that there's something stronger than me? I used to be alive here, the dead stone arch seemed like the sky to me, the darkness did not plunge its heavy claws into my shoulders, the work did not seem like slavery. And from somewhere, a longing for the white sun came. From where? I haven't even seen this white sun! A girl from up top came to me... As a storm sweeps over everything in its whirlwind, so now my feelings and thoughts overwhelm me. They're torn from the past. The past has vanished like smoke. I have no more will!"

Arri cautiously released her hands and backed away from Magir. Her voice sounded sorrowful and tranquil.

- "I understand you. I don't need anything. I just love you. I don't need any future freedoms, or the white sun, I don't need anything but my love for you. Let's not talk about it anymore..."

When they left the laboratory, the straight mineshaft was deserted. At the end of it, illuminated by electric lamps, the surface of the round lake was gleaming, coldly and gloomily.

They walked around it and silently saying goodbye, went their separate ways.

7. Multum novi sub sole[Author's note: Much is new under the sun]

Ro-pa-ge sat motionless in his office inside the circular Interplanecom building. His pale face was twitching with nervous spasms. His lips were tight. Sometimes they had a disdainful smile. His heavy, tired gaze was focused on one point - on the white sheets of the report.

He had just finished reading this report, on the blossoming movement among the workers.

As stated in the report, the primary leaders of the movement were Verne, Reil, some worker named Magir, and his own daughter, Me-ta. Verne had been arrested this morning in the Interplanecom laboratory. The others whereabouts were unknown. It wasn't news to him that his daughter was involved in the conspiracy. He had previously assumed this, knowing Me-ta's views.

He was thinking about something else now. Much had passed before his eyes. Much, that is commonly called life. And it's necessary to do justice to the fact that this "much" is just enough for him to be sick of it. Eternal repetition. And the foundations of life are unchanged. Even cognitive power is an eternal cycle of repetition. Perhaps this cognitive power existed before the emergence of sentient beings.

The surrounding external world, with its unchanged appearance, evokes the same thoughts. And here is the movement towards these people's freedom, who by some miracle have sprung up. Sprung up like mold on an old planet already about to rot. Another absurdity of eternal repetition. Suddenly, the image of Me-ta appeared in front of his eyes, and her words sounded enthusiastically.

- "No, you are sorely mistaken, father. There is no knowledge outside of people. It's only with the development of people that productive forces also develop. And what to you seems old and eternally repeated, is, in essence, new. Life doesn't come back. Life is an eternally young, boisterously exuberant stream. It takes us to unknown shores... Every moment of its flow is a new unique world."

He closed his eyes to better hear her words, to more clearly see her revived, almost real image. A new, unfamiliar joyful feeling raged in warm waves in his chest. There was no strength to fight against this imperious feeling, Ro-pa-ge opened his eyes.

- "I need to see Verne and learn about Me-ta from him."

This desire had unexpectedly come, after a powerful new feeling for Me-ta flared up in him.

He gave the order and, leaning back in his chair, waited.

When Verne was in the office at last, Ro-pa-ge asked him a question.

- "Listen, Verne, as recently as yesterday, you were present during the report at Interplanecom. We finally arrived at the new sun's sphere of gravity. What almost seemed like a dream to us two years ago has now come true. We've preserved life, culture and all the value of science. Our existence has become purposeful. And will you now oppose us at the time when we must proceed with our temporarily interrupted construction of life?..."

- "I'll answer your question, Ro-pa-ge. Yes, we're against you. And we will win! Have you forgotten that society can become a parasite? The most common parasite, from which many previously existing lifeforms have perished. It doesn't need them now, since it now lives off another lifeform. Your Society has become such a parasite. It's achieved everything - the highest measure of well-being - and then the death of this organism's unnecessary organs started. Many valuable human functions have disappeared from us forever. They can't be restored. You've forgotten that the only way to save ourselves is to merge with a young, new tribe, still full of life force. You've neglected this... You've made this tribe into slaves and thrown them into the mines."

- "Fine, Verne, but if we give power to these workers now, what will we achieve? Nothing. After a certain period of time, they'll do the same thing that we're doing now. Do you really think that they aren't bearing their burden of knowledge and experience of life? Do you really think that, having entered a new, freshly nascent world, they'll forget their previous one, that they'll be able to throw the burden of millennia off of their shoulders, that they'll be able to regenerate themselves? No! They'll apply their previous experiences to this world and, in the end, will arrive at the same spot that we've come to. Or do you think, Verne, that they're made of some kind of different substance? No. The foundations of life are homogeneous and constant. Is it worth it kicking up this whole business, only to come to the same result, just in a more roundabout fashion?"

He fell silent.

Verne rose from his chair and paced around the office.

A wide stream of faint white light flowed through the large oval window. The sky, which no longer had constellations, took on a greyish-blue tint. The planet was rapidly approaching the sun.

"A few more weeks and everything will change," Verne thought, "the planet will come to life. Bright rays will melt the layers of ice. Seas and rivers will form. Humid winds will blow and warm rain will fall. A new life will begin. Will I see it?"

Ro-pa-ge was the first to break the silence.

- "Tell me, Verne, where is Me-ta now?"

- "Completely safe. I can't tell you more, of course."

- "Fine. Answer one more question."

- "But make it the last. We're not going to convince each other."

- "Fine. Did you know that you'll be accused of treason..."

- "Yes. And what will that mean...?"

- "Death. For you, and for the culture that you're preserving for a future life. I think you're quite mistaken in your sweeping accusations of our Society. I hope that you won't deny this. Consider my words."

Ro-pa-ge called out and Verne was taken away.

Ro-pa-ge was left alone. An unreasonable irritation took possession of him. He's above life's laws and human delusions. He knows what life's laws lead to.

A pointless circle of repetition! Nonsense! There is nothing but prosperity and power!

This heroism in life is worth absolutely nothing. No, he will never compromise. He's not afraid to fight...

He leaned back in his chair and began considering measures to suppress the presumed rebellion.

Then a smile flickered across his tight lips.

Multum novi sub sole!

8. A new world is born

Everything was brighter and brighter, growing more blue in the sky. The sun's incandescent white-bluish disk constantly sparkled motionlessly at its zenith. Dazzling sheaves of white rays flowed through the gaps of the unexpectedly formed clouds, and under their influence, the planet came to life.

Amid the ruins of collapsed buildings, rapid streams from the melted ice were surging. Everything was in a flurry of movement.

In the form of evaporation, huge reserves of moisture had risen to the sky, and returned from there by the warm showers. All the lowlands were covered with water and looked like seas.

With extraordinary speed, life had gained its rights, destroying all of mankind's centuries-old achievements, as if removing faint pencil drawings on paper with an eraser.

The news that the planet was in the sphere of the sun's rays had spread with the speed of lightning throughout the mines.

Confusion arose there.

With incredible speed, the planet raced parallel to the sun, but, under the influence of its gravity, gradually turned to the right, and created an orbit for itself.

The conflict of two forces - gravity and inertia - destroyed part of the lower mines, and the workers rushed to the upper mines in a panicking horror.

This was taken advantage of by rebellion committees, which were led by Magir.

The slogan was thrown around: "To the planet's surface!"

At that moment, when everyone spontaneously rushed to the mines' main exit, Magir was informed that the oxygen factories were abandoned by Interplanecom's detachments of guards.

The detachments had left the mines and closed the main exit's steel gates.

It was necessary to act immediately and decisively.

Magir, with a portion of the committee's workers, rushed to the round lake, behind which the oxygen factories were located.

No one was near them. The electric lights were out, and absolute darkness reigned everywhere. Only above one of the factories was an ever-increasing scarlet glow fluttering and bleeding onto the motionless round lake.

- "The factory's been set on fire, Magir," said Arri quietly, who had been with Magir the entire time.

- "We need to put the fire out immediately! If we can't do it, the flames will spread to the rest of the factories, and we'll suffocate without air..."

There was an eerie silence around. No one dared sacrifice himself.

- "We mustn't hesitate..." - Magir broke the silence: - "any minute the fire can reach the gas tanks, and then the resulting explosive gas will destroy both the factories and the mines. I'll go..."

- "No, no!" - Arri screamed, - "You need to lead the rebellion. I'm ready, let's get a cannister of fire extinguishing gas. I'll go."

- "You, Arri?..." - with pale lips Magir whispered.

- "Didn't I promise that I wouldn't leave you?..."

Arri's eyes sparkled. A bright blush appeared on her face.

- "Farewell, Magir... Maybe..."

Something tightened Magir's throat and he couldn't speak.

Her flaming lips touched his lips and burned him with the fire of ecstasy. A moment passed.

Then Arri disappeared among the black shadows of the departing workers, which were even blacker against the backdrop of the glow.

- "When the fire is put out, start up the factories..." - without realizing what he was saying, Magir mechanically gave the order.

He didn't have time to find out what happened next. A messenger, who had been a long time looking for him, approached him that moment.

- "You're wanted at the main exit. The steel gates are closed. Here's the order from the girl up top."

After reading Me-ta's message, Magir gave orders on the go.

- "Immediately drive three electric trains to the main exit. We'll break the gates down with them!"

Halfway to the main exit, the first train had caught up with him. He jumped on it and took control of it.

A few minutes later he stopped the train.

A huge crowd of workers at the main exit were blocking the road.

A panic of desperation had set in.

Me-ta and engineer Reil squeezed their way towards Magir with difficulty.

- "The gates are closed. The Interplanecom guard detachments have found their way behind them. Panic has broken out among the workers."

- "I see. We'll break the gate!"

- "Calm the workers down first."

Magir started to deliver a speech and the panic was instantly quelled.

When he had finished, the crowd had backed away from the main exit and cleared a path.

Armed detachments were lined up behind the train.

- "Listen, Reil, go to the oxygen factories. There's a fire. Let them through. To stop the fire, Arri sacrificed herself. Save her if it's not too late."

Behind them, the approaching electric trains were already thundering.

- "We must act! Every second is precious. In the event of my death, Me-ta, I'm handing the leadership of the rebellion over to you. Farewell."

He jumped on the train and pulled the lever...

An incredible crash jolted the vaulting of the mines! The heavy steel gates trembled and flew off their hinges.

The bright white rays of the sun burst into the mines and tore the darkness apart.

Part of the first car was shattered, and Magir, thrown back by the force of the impact, was launched into the rear wall of the car. Miraculously, he escaped death.

For a moment he saw a dazzling white light flowing in a wide stream from above, an enormous space filled with Interplanecom detachments fleeing in terror. Round, large, dark eyeglasses were in front of the soldiers crushed by the train.

Then he heard, like the roar of waves, the victorious noise of the battle behind him, and suddenly fiery red circles were in his eyes and a sharp, cutting pain darkened his consciousness.

He raised his hand to his eyes and realized that he was blinded by the brightness of the white rays.

A black, cold wave rose from below and flooded his brain. It became easy. The pain stopped, as if his brain had been removed.

He lost all feeling.