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. Ushina. 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.