Friday, January 24, 2025

Introduction and story index

Welcome to the Chrononauts blogspot page, where we'll be posting obscure science fiction works in the public domain that either have not been digitized in plaintext, or have not been translated into English. It should be noted that all translations are amateur fan translations and should not meant to be taken as definitive, but we hope we can at least produce something readable that resembles the spirit of the original. 

We will also be posting transcriptions of our episodes here.

Discussions of these works can be found on our podcast - works that have not yet been discussed that are posted here will be discussed some point in the future.

We welcome feedback, comments, corrections, etc. You can contact us at chrononautspodcast@gmail.com

Translations:

Russian Empire/Soviet Union:

Latin America:
Italy:
Germany:
Previously undigitized texts:
Bibliography and other features
Episode transcriptions and links to online stories

Below is a list of stories we've covered in podcast order. Transcripts will be posted when available and links to the stories, when available online, will be posted. We'll be posting links to stories from upcoming episodes when we announce them so you can read them before we discuss them. While we'll be transcribing future episodes going forward, we're pausing on regular transcribing the backlog of earlier episodes for now, but will be happy to generate one on request, so if there is any episode you are particularly interested in seeing a transcription of, please email us. These were edited from the OpenAI transcription software, Whisper, so some of these may contain transcription errors that we missed during the editing process. 

If you would like to see an index of stories we've covered by author last name, scroll down to the bottom of this page.

Regular content episodes:
Bonus episodes:

Index of stories covered, by author last name:
  1. Abbott Edwin Abbott - "Flatland" (1884): 19
  2. Adolph, Anna - "Arqtiq: A Story of the Marvels at the North Pole" (1899): 22
  3. Aligheri, Dante - "Divine Comedy" (1308-20): 1 
  4. Andersen, Hans Christian - "In a Thousand Years" (1852): 16
  5. Anderson, Poul - "The Man Who Came Early" (1956): 34
  6. Anonymous - "Arabian Nights" (800-1300):1
  7. Anonymous - "Urashima Tarō" (8th - 15th c folklore): 6
  8. Anonymous/authorship disputed - "Symzonia: A Voyage of Discovery" (1820): 8
  9. Arelsky, Graal - "Tales of Mars" (1925): 37
  10. Asimov, Isaac - "Trends" (1939): 40
  11. Bacon, Francis - "New Atlantis" (1628): 1
  12. Balzac, Honoré de - "Gambara" (1837): 4
  13. Balzac, Honoré de - "Ursule Mirouët" (1841): 11
  14. Barnard, Charles - "Kate - An Electro-mechanical Romance" (1877): 20
  15. Barkova, Anna - "A Steel Husband" (1926): 43
  16. Bates, Harry - "Alas, All Thinking!" (1935): 38
  17. Bellamy, Elizabeth W. - "Ely's Automatic Housemaid" (1899): 35
  18. Belyaev, Alexander - "Professor Dowell's Head" (1925): 29
  19. Bergerac, Cyrano de - "Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon" (1657): 1
  20. Bergerac, Cyrano de - "The States and Empires of the Sun" (1662): 1 
  21. Berman, Ruth - "Star Drek" (1968): 39
  22. Blackwood, Algernon - "The Pikestaffe Case" (1924): 27
  23. Blish, James - "Pursuit into Nowhere: Adopted from the Annals of Space Patrol" (1936): 39
  24. Bond, Nelson S. - "Lightship, Ho!" (1939): 40
  25. Bose, Jagadish Chandra - "Runaway Cyclone" (1896/1921): 15
  26. Brackett, Leigh - "No Man's Land in Space" (1941): 31
  27. Bulgakov, Mikhail - "A Dog's Heart" (1925): 28
  28. Bulwer-Lytton, Edward - "The Coming Race" (1871): 8
  29. Burroughs, Edgar Rice - "At the Earth's Core" (1912): 9
  30. Butler, Octavia E. - "Kindred" (1979): 32
  31. Butler, Samuel - "Erewhon" (1872): 35
  32. Campbell, John W. - "Who Goes There?" (1938): 38
  33. Cavendish, Margaret - "The Description of a New World, Called The Blazing-World" (1666): 10
  34. Čapek, Karel - "Rossum's Universal Robots" (1920): 36
  35. Chambers, Robert W. - "The Repairer of Reputations" (1895): 15
  36. Chesney, George Tomkyns - "The Battle of Dorking" (1871): 25
  37. Clarín - "Future Story" (1892): 15
  38. Clarín - "Goodbye, Lamb!" (1893): 20
  39. Corelli, Marie - "A Romance of Two Worlds" (1886): 12
  40. Cridge, Annie Denton - "Man's Rights; Or, How Would You Like It?" (1870): 10
  41. De Camp, L. Sprague - "Lest Darkness Fall" (1939): 34
  42. Defontenay, C.I. - "Star ou Psi de Cassiopée" (1854): 3
  43. Dodd, Anna Bowman - "The Republic of the Future: or, Socialism a Reality" (1887): 10
  44. Doyle, Arthur Conan - "The Parasite" (1894): 11
  45. Doyle, Arthur Conan - "The Captain of the Pole-Star" (1890): 22
  46. Doyle, Arthur Conan - "The Maracot Deep" (1928-29): 18
  47. Duane, Diane - "The Wounded Sky" (1983): 41
  48. Dutt, Kylas Chunder - "A Journal of 48 Hours In The Year 1945" (1835): 46
  49. Dyachkov, Semyon - "A Trip to the Moon in a Wonderful Machine With a Description of the Countries There, Customs and Various Rarities" (1844): 4
  50. Dyalhis, Nictzin - "The Sea-Witch" (1937): 24
  51. Dyalhis, Nictzin - "When the Green Star Waned" (1925): 15
  52. Ellis, Edward S. - "The Steam Man of the Prairies" (1868): 7
  53. Ellis, Sophie Wenzel - "Creatures of the Light" (1930): 38
  54. Ellison, Harlan - "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" (1967): 46
  55. Epheyre, Charles - "Professor Bakermann's Microbe" (1890): 15
  56. Fabra, Nilo María - "Teitan the Proud - Tale of Things to Come" (1895): 15
  57. Farley, Ralph Milne - "The Rexmel" (1935): 39
  58. Forster, E.M. - "The Machine Stops" (1909): 36
  59. Forster, E.M. - "Little Imber" (1961): 44
  60. Fuller, Alice W. - "A Wife Manufactured to Order" (1895): 35
  61. Gallun, Raymond Z. - "Old Faithful" (1934): 38
  62. Garin-Mikhailovskii, Nikolai Georgievich - "The Genius" (1901): 19
  63. Gaspar y Rimbau, Enrique Lucio Eugenio - "El Anacronópete" (1887): 6
  64. Gilman, Charlotte Perkins - "Herland" (1915): 10
  65. Godwin, Francis - "The Man in the Moone" (1638): 1
  66. Gorriti, Juana Manuela - "He Who Listens May Hear — To His Regret: Confidence of a Confidence" (1865): 11
  67. Gorriti, Juana Manuela - "Herbs and Pins" (1876): 11
  68. Griffith, George - "The Angel of the Revolution" (1893): 17
  69. Griffith, Mary - "Three Hundred Years Hence" (1836): 10
  70. Grunert, Carl - "Mr. Vivacius Style" (1908): 29
  71. Grunert, Carl - "The Martian Spy" (1908): 26
  72. Hamm, George - Cluck Rogers in Astounding (1936): 39
  73. Hansen, Lucile Taylor - "The Undersea Tube" (1929): 31
  74. Harris, Clare Winger - "A Runaway World" (1926): 25
  75. Harris, Clare Winger - "The Fate of the Poseidonia" (1927): 26
  76. Hawthorne, Nathaniel - "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment" (1837): 4
  77. Hawthorne, Nathaniel - "Rappacini's Daughter" (1844): 4
  78. Hering, Henry A. - "Silas P. Cornu's Dry Calculator" (1898): 19
  79. Hinton, Charles H. - "An Unfinished Communication" (1885): 27
  80. Hodgson, William Hope - "The Derelict" (1912): 23
  81. Hodgson, William Hope - "The Find" (1947): 30
  82. Hodgson, William Hope - "The Gateway of the Monster" (1910): 30
  83. Hodgson, William Hope - "The Haunted Jarvee" (1929): 30
  84. Hodgson, William Hope - "The Hog" (1947): 30
  85. Hodgson, William Hope - "The Horse of the Invisible" (1910): 30
  86. Hodgson, William Hope - "The House Among the Laurels" (1910): 30
  87. Hodgson, William Hope - "The House on the Borderland" (1908): 27
  88. Hodgson, William Hope - "The Searcher of the End House" (1910): 30
  89. Hodgson, William Hope - "The Thing Invisible" (1912): 30
  90. Hodgson, William Hope - "The Voice in the Night" (1907): 23
  91. Hodgson, William Hope - "The Whistling Room" (1910): 30
  92. Hoevenbergh, Henry Van - "Into the Jaws of Death, A Telegraph Operator's Story" (1877): 20
  93. Hoffmann, E.T.A - "The Automata" (1814): 7
  94. Hoffmann, E.T.A. - "The Sandman" (1816): 4
  95. Holberg, Ludvig - "Niels Klim's Journey Under the Ground" (1741): 8
  96. Holmberg, Eduardo Ladislao - "Horacio Kalibang or the Automata" (1879): 7
  97. Holmberg, Eduardo Ladislao - "The Marvelous Voyage of Mr. Nic-Nac" (1875-76): 12
  98. Hossain, Rokeya Sakhawat - "Sultana's Dream" (1905): 10
  99. Irving, Minna - "The Moon Woman" (1929): 31
  100. James, Henry - "In the Cage" (1898): 20
  101. James, P.D. - "Children of Men" (1992): 44
  102. Jarry, Alfred - "Exploits and Opinions of Dr. Faustroll, Pataphysician" (1898): 19
  103. Kardynalovska, Yelyzaveta - "Death of the Happy City" (1926): 43
  104. Keller, David, MD - "Unto us a Child is Born" (1933): 44
  105. Kepler, Johannes - "Somnium" (1608): 1 
  106. Kersh, Gerald - "The Brighton Monster" (1948): 46
  107. Kipling, Rudyard - "As Easy as A.B.C." (1912): 17
  108. Kipling, Rudyard - "Wireless" (1902): 20
  109. Kipling, Rudyard - "With the Night Mail" (1905): 17
  110. Komatsu, Sakyo - "The Savage Mouth" (1979): 46
  111. Kuppord, Skelton - "A Fortune From the Sky" (1903): 25
  112. Lang, Herrmann - "The Air Battle" (1859): 16
  113. Latimer, Elizabeth Wormeley - "The Sirdar's Chess-Board" (1885): 19
  114. Leiber, Fritz - "The Big Time" (1958): 42 
  115. Leiber, Fritz - "No Great Magic" (1963): 42
  116. Leiber, Fritz - "The Oldest Soldier" (1960): 42
  117. Leiber, Fritz - "Knight to Move" (1965): 42
  118. Leiber, Fritz - "Damnation Morning" (1959): 42
  119. Leiber, Fritz - "Try and Change the Past" (1958): 42
  120. Leiber, Fritz - "A Deskful of Girls" (1958): 42
  121. Leinster, Murray - "Sidewise in Time" (1934): 38
  122. Lewis, C.S. - "Out of the Silent Planet" (1938): 14
  123. Lindsay, David - "A Voyage to Arcturus" (1920): 13
  124. Locke, Richard - "The Great Moon Hoax" (1835): 5
  125. Long, Amelia Reynolds - "When the Half Gods Go" (1939): 40
  126. Long, Frank Belknap - "The Hounds of Tindalos" (1929): 24
  127. Lovecraft, H.P. - "Dagon" (1917): 24
  128. Lovecraft, H.P. - "Herbert West - Reanimator" (1922): 29
  129. Lucian - "A True Story" (~150): 1
  130. Lugones, Leopoldo - "An Inexplicable Phenomenon" (1906): 12
  131. Lugones, Leopoldo - "The Omega Force" (1906): 25
  132. Lugones, Leopoldo - "The Psychon" (1906): 12
  133. MacInnes, Helen - "Above Suspicion" (1941): 26
  134. Martinson, Harry - "Aniara" (1956): 37
  135. McLandburgh, Florence - "The Automaton Ear" (1876): 7
  136. Meade, L. T. and Eustace, Robert - "Where the Air Quivered" (1898): 15
  137. Meek, Captain S. P. - "The Cave of Horror" (1930): 38
  138. Merrill, Judith - "That Only a Mother" (1948): 44
  139. Mitchell, Edward Page - "Old Squids and Little Speller" (1885): 28
  140. Mitchell, Edward Page - "The Ablest Man in the World" (1879): 36
  141. Mitchell, Edward Page - "The Clock that Went Backward" (1881): 6
  142. Mitchell, Edward Page - "The Inside of the Earth: A Big Hole through the Planet from Pole to Pole" (1876): 9
  143. Mitchell, Edward Page - "The Man Without a Body" (1877): 45
  144. Mitchell, Edward Page - "The Tachypomp" (1873): 19
  145. Moore, C. L. and Henry Kuttner - "Vintage Season" (1946): 34
  146. Moore, C. L. - "Greater Than Gods" (1939): 40
  147. Morrison, Arthur - "The Case of the Dixon Torpedo" (1894): 26
  148. Morrow, W.C. - "The Monster Maker" (1887): 45
  149. Mortimore, Jim - "The Eye of Heaven" (1998): 41
  150. Moskowitz, Sam - "Why Doesn't Our Ship Move" (1937): 39
  151. Nervo, Amado - "The Soul Giver" (1899): 28
  152. Nichols, Joel Martin, Jr. - "The Devil-Ray" (1926): 25
  153. O'Brien, Fitz-James - "The Wondersmith" (1859): 36
  154. O'Brien, Fitz-James - "The Diamond Lens" (1858): 4
  155. Odoevsky, Vladimir - "The Year 4338: The Petersburg Letters" (1835): 4
  156. Orlovsky, Vladimir - "Steckerite" (1929): 43
  157. Peake, Richard Brinsley - "Presumption; or, the Fate of Frankenstein" (1823): 2 
  158. Penrose, Margaret - "The Radio Girls of Roselawn; or, A Strange Message from the Air" (1922): 20
  159. Pestriniero, Renato - "A Night of 21 Hours" (1960): 37
  160. Poe, Edgar Allan - "Mesmeric Revelation" (1844): 11
  161. Poe, Edgar Allan - "Tale of the Ragged Mountains" (1844): 11
  162. Poe, Edgar Allan - "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" (1845): 11
  163. Poe, Edgar Allan - "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym" (1838): 22
  164. Poe, Edgar Allan - "The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall" (1835): 5
  165. Pohl, Frederik - "We Purchased People" (1974): 46
  166. Pope, Ralph - "$1,000 Reward — My Foot Race with a Telegram" (1877): 20
  167. Ray, Jean - "The Mainz Psalter" (1930): 24
  168. Reade, Philip - "Tom Edison, jr.'s Electric Sea Spider; or, the Wizard of the Submarine World" (1892): 21
  169. Rocklynne, Ross - "The Moth" (1939): 40
  170. Rosny, J.-H. - "Tornadres" (1888): 15
  171. Ross, Ronald - "The Vivisector Vivisected" (1882): 45
  172. Schachner, Nat - "City of the Cosmic Rays" (1939): 40
  173. Scheerbart, Paul - "Malvu the Helmsman: A Story of Vesta" (1912): 27
  174. Schuyler, George - "The Beast of Bradhurst Avenue" (1934): 28
  175. Senarens, Luis - "Frank Reade Jr., and His New Steam Man, or the Young Inventor's Trip to the Far West" (1892?): 21
  176. Serviss, Garrett - "Edison's Conquest of Mars" (1898): 21
  177. Shelley, Mary - "Frankenstein" (1818): 2
  178. Shelley, Mary - "The Last Man" (1826): 2
  179. Shelley, Percy - "The Magnetic Lady to Her Patient" (1822): 11
  180. Shunrō, Oshikawa - "The Undersea Warship" (1900): 18
  181. Sigov, Dmitry - "Journey to the Sun and the Planet Mercury and All the Visible and Invisible Worlds" (1832): 4
  182. Sigov, Dmitry - "The Talk of Moscow Citizens about the Comet of 1832" (1832): 4
  183. Smith, Clark Ashton - "The Primal City" (1934): 39
  184. Spofford, Harriet Elizabeth Prescott - "The Ray of Displacement" (1903): 15
  185. Spofford, Harriet Elizabeth Prescott - "The Moonstone Mass" (1868): 22
  186. Stapledon, Olaf - "Sirius" (1944): 29
  187. Stevens, Francis - "Claimed!" (1920): 24
  188. Stone, Leslie F. - "Out of the Void" (1929): 31
  189. Strobl, Karl Hans - "The Triumph of Mechanics" (1907): 35
  190. Sturgeon, Theodore - "Ether Breather" (1939): 20
  191. Tiptree, James, jr. - "The Girl Who Was Plugged In" (1973): 46
  192. Toombs, Robert - "Electric Bob's Big Black Ostrich; or, Lost on the Desert" (1893): 21
  193. Tsiolkovsky, Konstantin - "On the Moon" (1893): 5
  194. Twain, Mark - "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" (1889): 33
  195. Two Women of the West - "Unveiling a Parallel: A Romance" (1893): 10
  196. Unamuno, Miguel de - "Mechanopolis" (1913): 15
  197. van Vogt, A. E.  - "Black Destroyer" (1939): 40
  198. Verne, Jules - "Around the Moon" (1869): 5
  199. Verne, Jules - "From the Earth to the Moon" (1865): 5
  200. Verne, Jules - "Journey to the Center of the Earth" (1864): 9
  201. Verne, Jules - "The Sphinx of the Ice Realm" (1897): 22
  202. Verne, Jules - "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: A World Tour Underwater" (1869-70): 18
  203. Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, Jean-Marie-Mathias-Philippe-Auguste, comte de - "Tomorrow's Eve" (1886): 7
  204. Visiak, E.H. - "Medusa" (1929): 23
  205. Vladko, Volodymyr - "The Defeat of Jonathan Govers" (1929): 36
  206. Volkov, Alexey Matveyevich  - "Aliens" (1928): 43
  207. Voltaire - "Micromegas" (1752): 1
  208. Webb, Jane - "The Mummy! A Tale of the Twenty-Second Century" (1827): 3
  209. Wells, H.G. - "The Chronic Argonauts" (1888): 6
  210. Wells, H.G. - "The First Men in the Moon" (1901): 5
  211. Wells, H.G. - "The Island of Doctor Moreau" (1896): 45
  212. Wells, H.G. - "The New Accelerator" (1901): 31
  213. Wells, H.G. - "The Time Machine" (1895): 6
  214. Wells, H.G. - "The War in the Air" (1908): 16
  215. Wells, H.G. - "Under the Knife" (1896): 45
  216. Whelpley, James Davenport - "The Atoms of Chladni" (1860): 4
  217. Wilkins, Mary E. - "An Old Arithmetician" (1885): 19
  218. Williamson, Jack - "The Prince of Space" (1931): 31
  219. Zuev-Ordynets, Mikhail - "The Lord of Sound" (1926): 43

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Abel Asquini - "Nyctalopes" (1954)

INTRODUCTION

"Nyctalopes" was published in Más Allá #8, Jan 1954 and was illustrated by Dominguez. It is the third of three stories that make up "The Crimes of the LIO" series. We recommend reading the first and second entries in the series, "Protonickel" (#6, Nov 1953) and "Nemobius Fasciatus" (#7, Dec 1953) before reading this one.

For further information on this era of Argentine science fiction, see Rachel Haywood Ferreira's "Más Allá, El Eternauta, and the Dawn of the Golden Age of Latin American Science Fiction (1953-59)" and "How Latin America Saved the World and Other Forgotten Futures".

For complete scans of Más Allá, including the illustrations, see: https://ahira.com.ar/revistas/mas-alla-de-la-ciencia-y-de-la-fantasia/

NYCTALOPES


The posting, which appeared in the morning's largest newspaper, read something like this: 

A. f. res. l., e. k. elec, req. CV to LIO, which according to Nogler (the director of the LIO) and the editor of the posting in question, was intended to mean:

"Assistant for research laboratory, extensive knowledge of electronics required. Send CV to L.I.O."

And Nogler's theory of putting it in such a concise form was that if potential job applicants weren't smart enough to figure it out, then the lab had no interest in such people either.

The theory seemed very attractive, but the cruel reality made it shake like a flan when Gladys (Nogler's personal secretary) opened the first of the three hundred letters that arrived, and one could see that the general interpretation had been along these lines:

"Apartment for residential living, enormous kitchen (electric), send required credit verification to LIO"

And the respondants asked for all sorts of details about prices and locations.

But Nogler was a man of luck, and even his failures were successes. So it happened that letter number 261 (Gladys could even count Nogler's sneezes from her excessive thoroughness) turned out to be a legitimate candidate for the position offered. He answered it correctly, demonstrating all his personal credentials and his knowledge of electronics.

Nogler paraded Letter No. 261 triumphantly around the laboratory as a confirmation of the exactitude of his theory, and this served to somewhat calm the group of "lieros" who were noisily celebrating the alluvium of alkylating correspondence.

To tell the truth, and without this in any way tarnishing the glory of Nogler's theories, it was Gladys who informed one of her admirers of the vacancy. The very astute woman advised him to answer the posting as if he'd interpreted it correctly.

And so the youth did.

But, we repeat, Nogler was a lucky man, and Cupídez (the one who answered the posting) turned out to be, in every aspect, the most extraordinary person who walked over the fallen capacitors scattered on the floors of the LIO (there was always a large quantity of these).

Cupídez was extremely intelligent, and logically, failed the mandatory Orselec mental test. On the other hand, he possessed an enormous mass of scientific knowledge along with a great deal of practical experience. And, to complete the picture, we can say in passing that he also had a tender heart with a very low flash point (according to Pensky-Martens). He was habitually and simultaneously in love, or in the process of becoming so, with several maidens at once; and his colleagues promptly learned how to calculate the number of candidates on duty by the hourly frequency of their languid sighs. (In the laboratory, everything was measured).


* * *

THIS new "point", according to the laboratory lexicon, was destined to fill the void left by Puntualini, easy to fill physically, but not so much intellectually; which why Nogler administered to him an entrance examination on infrared noctovisors.

The examination was taken in the presence of Gladys, El Petiso Trapisóndez, Oscar, Manuelski and others for numerous reasons:

When the nosy El Petiso, with his characteristic petulance, came forward to ask him if he by chance knew or heard anything about noctovisors, and if so, if he could tell him...

El Petiso had not even finished the word "noctovisors" when Cupídez was already bombarding him with data, formulas and figures, and the conversation evolved to the front of the blackboard, where he sketched out the circuits.

He did everything so quickly that at times, due to the persistence of images on the retina, it seemed like two people, possibly more, were taking the examination simultaneously.

- "The American noctovisor system" - Cupídez said - "uses the 1P25 image tube as described by Morton and Flory, and has a Cs-O-Ag..." - here he interrupted himself for a half-second, due to a sigh directed at Gladys - "semitransparent photocathode and a corresponding Wratten filter; the method is completely electronic, it works with a tension of..." - a pause for one and a half seconds, due to two sighs, one long and one short - "4,000 to 5,000 volts, when increased by fifty percent, the electrons are focused on a willemite screen, or possibly the zinc orthosilicate developed by the laboratory's craniums, which is notably barium"  - a failed attempt at sigh -; "but on the other hand, the English method, derived from Hols and his collaborators, is based on a uniform electronic field, which has the advantage of..."

And he continued this for a long while, exhaustively expounding on the topic while sighing in Gladys' direction with a sufficiently regulated frequency.

Through all of this, El Petiso Trapisóndez's face had passed through all the colors of the spectrum, including green, and at that moment, he was shining in a beautiful scarlet tone that was already turning into ochre.

Cupídez allowed himself the insolence of knowing just as much, or more even, than him on the subject in question, and that was despite the fact that El Petiso, with his usual modesty, considered himself the greatest in electronics and all the other fields!

* * *

The problem that was occupying the laboratory at that time, and which was the subject of Cupídez's famous scientific-amorous examination, was, translated into a vulgar romance, the following: They wanted to construct various devices that could be adapted for use in cars and trucks, which would allow these vehicle's drivers to see in complete darkness and through the densest of fog, without using headlights (which are useless anyways in the event of fog), and which would have the advantage of not blinding anyone coming from the opposite direction, because they use infrared rays that are far outside the visible spectrum; that is, with a long wavelength.

Similar devices were already built at the end of the Second World War for military usage, but the ones that LIO wanted to produce were intended for civilian usage, designed primarily to solve the problem of fog.

The work had fallen rather behind due to the lack of Caldero and Puntualini and, additionally, because the laboratory personnel refused (for their own reasons) to collaborate with El Petiso, who was in charge of said devices.

Nogler's initial idea had been to assign Cupídez as El Petiso's assistant; but Nogler, who was had arrived at the "maximus maximorum" of his periodic "eruption" of ideas (both good and otherwise), decided in light of Cupídez's brilliant examination, to put him in competition with El Petiso by assigning him the same task simultaneously.

His theory was (he had a theory for everything) that the rivalry would speed up the manufacture of the noctovisors and, on the other hand (using a widespread phrase from Manuelski), Nogler was also getting the urge to diminish El Petiso's gas combustion columns, that is, to lower his smoke.[Translator's note: "lower his smoke", fig. "take him down a peg" or something similar]

* * *

Some time passed, during which Cupídez and Trapisóndez worked "full uranium ahead" (the expression "full steam ahead" was no longer used at the LIO), and the devices were almost ready to be tested. But El Petiso, to compensate for Cupídez's greater speed, had to work nights as well, and, as such, his devices, although just as excellent as those of his rival, were considerably more expensive to produce.

Trapisóndez felt increasingly dwarfed by his competitor, and the flux in his anger towards him expanded in geometric proportion.

And, as (one can easily comprehend) such great anger couldn't be housed for long in a body as small as El Petiso's without blowing the fuses out, Trapisóndez's ideas took a dangerous turn.

He'll destroy Cupídez's devices, using the same infrared rays that his rival so skillfully handled; and if in the process some unfortunate accident happened to him... Well, he was hardly in a position to focus on such tiny details.

* * *

ONE night, El Petiso was finishing up mounting his one of his devices in a car owned by the laboratory, while Cupídez had already finished his several days ago now, and with several girls, and always sighing, he was driving around in his car, under the pretext of testing the new system.

That night, Trapisóndez, finding himself alone in the laboratory, took the opportunity to work on his special project, which was aimed at making his most hated enemy breathe "the last sigh". He would do this by means of a special projector, the very same that El Petiso himself designated a "monoscopic tube infrared projector." This device, with such an impressive name, in reality resembled the magic lantern projectors used by children, and projected any image or photograph that was placed inside of it, with the major difference that the projection was composed of infrared rays, that is to say, it was invisible without the help of a noctovisor.

The plan that El Petiso had devised was quite ingenious: Cupídez went out at night to test his devices, driving his car on the dangerous road that led to the laboratory; Trapisóndez had taken a photograph of that road, but on a section that was straight and flat, and intended to mount that photo inside his monoscopic tube. He would place the tube on a tripod with its battery, and install the assembly right before the road's most dangerous curves, hiding it among the trees that were lining it. The monoscopic tube would be focused on the route that Cupídez would take at night, guiding his car with the help of the noctovisor and with the large headlights turned off. But on the screen of Cupídez's noctovisor, he wouldn't see the dangerous curve in the road, but rather the photograph's false image projected by the monoscope tube of the straight and flat section of the road! An accident was inevitable, as the dangerous curve led to an embankment more than thirty meters high! On the other hand, his monoscopic tube was harmless to other cars with ordinary headlights, because it projected this image with invisible rays; thus, it would choose its prey with infallible precision. Trapisóndez would just happen to pass by shortly after the lamentable accident, remove the tube and destroy it to eliminate absolutely any indication he was there.

"That was all very well," thought El Petiso, "but first I need to hurry up and finish the monoscopic tube, which is still incomplete."

He needed to make the contacts that went through the tube's glass, and for this, he would use some pieces of tungsten in the form of little rods.

Trapisondez muttered to himself:

"What a fool! I forgot to bring the tungsten! Maybe there's some in the laboratory."

He looked around him. On a table nearby, he found some thin, dark, heavy rods, which he immediately recognized.

"What luck! Tungsten! In 0.3mm diameter! A bit fine, but it'll be serviceable all the same."

Using a gas and oxygen torch, he quickly installed the tungsten contacts in the glass. He installed the photograph of the road inside the newly finished tube, mounted the whole assembly on a small tripod equipped with a battery, and left the laboratory in search of his car. Finally, he installed the tripod in front of the automobile, turned on his noctovisor, and was pleased at the clarity of the image he observed.

It seemed like he was seeing the road on the noctovisor, but it was actually the projected photograph!

Cupídez had no possible escape!

Trapisóndez loaded the tripod into his car, started off and sped fairly quickly down the road. Fog had risen, but El Petiso didn't consider that of any importance: on his noctovisor screen, despite the fog, the road was projected very clearly. The devices worked very well. He was proud of having built them. Within a few hours, Cupídez and his noctovisors would be destroyed, and in turn, his own system will win out and will be the one that will be adopted.

He continued moving forward at a steady pace. The curve where he planned to install the monoscopic tube must be close now. Everything was going according to plan. However, a dark feeling of fear was gripping him, and it seemed like his subconscious wanted to remind him of something.

But what value does presentiment have? Can it be expressed in formulas? Can its voltage be measured? It would be better to pay more attention to the road, as the curve should be right up ahead.

He looked intently at the screen of his noctovisor. The road was still straight and clear of all obstacles.

Again, he felt the sensation of forgetting some detail...

The crash against the railing sharpened his senses!

As he and his car fell into the void, he remembered clearly:

"0.3mm Tungsten on the next table, and Cupídez was working on it!!"

They both had the exact same idea, but Cupídez was the first to implement it.

El Petiso had met his end. 

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Abel Asquini - "Nemobius Fasciatus" (1953)

INTRODUCTION

"Nemobius Fasciatus" was published in Más Allá #7, Dec 1953 and was illustrated by Olmos. It is the second of three stories that make up "The Crimes of the LIO" series. We recommend reading the first entry in the series, "Protonickel" (#6, Nov 1953) before reading this and the third entry, "Nyctalopes" (#8, Jan 1954).

For further information on this era of Argentine science fiction, see Rachel Haywood Ferreira's "Más Allá, El Eternauta, and the Dawn of the Golden Age of Latin American Science Fiction (1953-59)" and "How Latin America Saved the World and Other Forgotten Futures".

For complete scans of Más Allá, including the illustrations, see: https://ahira.com.ar/revistas/mas-alla-de-la-ciencia-y-de-la-fantasia/

NEMOBIUS FASCIATUS


In truth, clouds again gathered over El Petiso Trapisóndez's head the day Nogler decided to review his employees' timecards.

That day, a Monday morning, Nogler (the director of the LIO, that is, Liero No. 1) realized that Puntualini didn't exactly live up to his surname.

El Flaco Puntualini, one of the "craniums" of the laboratory, was an expert in electronics.[Translator's note: "Flaco", thin, weak.] His friends said he was so thin that as a child he could have lived comfortably in a furnished aspirin tube; but what he had in thinness he more than compensated for by his impunctuality, which was his greatest defect. In reviewing his card, Nogler discovered that El Flaco was systematically late for work, and sometimes so late that he didn't show up at all.

"That's Puntualini's 'flaco' side. But what isn't?" he thought angrily. "We'll have to put the brakes on him."

He immediately called him into his office via intercom.

El Flaco arrived smiling as always, but when he saw Nogler's face, his internal adrenaline secretion increased, that is to say, he became afraid.

- "Are you adhering to the timezone in Santiago, Chile? Maybe you're respecting the time from '81? Or are you still using a clepsydra to keep track of time?" [Translator's note: Argentina's modern time zone was standarized in 1894. El Observatorio de Marina was established in 1881 to provide accurate time to ships in the Port of Buenos Aires.]

Puntualini was going to defend himself by responding that the public transit system was extremely poor, but just in time, he remembered that he lived only half a block from the laboratory, and preferred to remain silent.

Nogler, seeing that he did not respond, decided he'd apply maximum castigation to him, and said:

- "From now on and until it's corrected, you'll be working as an assistant under El Petiso Trapisóndez's orders, designing and building his infrared noctivisors."

Work under the orders of El Petiso! Siberia, Dachau, Devil's Island and other such places of recreation were preferable.

But Puntualini was prideful: he decided not to ask for clemency and accepted his sentence.

Furthermore, any request would've been useless, since it's well known that on Monday mornings, as was the case here, directors and managers are influenced by mysterious astral currents that make them immune to any requests for kindness or clemency.

* * *

PUNTUALINI left the office and was greeted by the entire gang of lieros, who, as always, were already aware of everything that happened, thanks to the good offices of Gladys, the director's personal secretary. Gladys, apart from being an impressive beauty, was the perfect transceiver, that is, she immediately retransmitted, amplified and modulated everything received through her boss's desk; but, of course, asking for the maximum discretion.

Manuelski approached Puntualini and wanted to console him.

- "Don't worry. You know about that one time where one of El Petiso's assistants lasted almost a week. Of course, there were three holidays in between and he finally committed suicide; but his motives in doing so were never fully explained, so perhaps it was for some other reason."

Oscar affectionately patted Puntualini on the back, saying:

- "In three months, you'll have a legal address in the asylum; and then..."

He was interrupted by the shrill voice of El Petiso, who from the other end of the laboratory shouted:

- "Let's see, Puntualini; quickly and effectively, straighten my work desk up for me. And I've already told you that..."

Three terrible months passed for Puntualini, and while he was working on the infrared project, he began to see everything in an 800 millimicron wavelength; that is to say, he saw everything in red. Perhaps he was under the influence of El Petiso. And the hatred he already felt for him swelled in crescendo.

To free himself from this obsession over El Petiso, he went to see a company of giants in a famous foreign circus; but, despite attending three consecutive performances, he didn't notice much in the way of improvement.

It was, therefore, completely natural and logical that he thought of eliminating him. But how could he do so without arousing suspicion?

Electronics were completely ruled out. Everyone knew about his expertise in this area. He'd have to find a different method, but controlled for this proposed purpose.

Controlled? Conditioned? Conditioning?...

The dendrites in Puntualini's brain connected, and the response came immediately.

Pavlov's reflexive conditioning!

* * *

PUNTUALINI was active; he already had the idea, and, drawing strength from 'flaqueza' (he didn't have any other), he put his hands to work without wasting any time.[Translator's note: "flaqueza", "flaco" in noun form.] He quickly transformed the basement of his house into a laboratory for physiological experiments and bought a beautiful sheepdog that he named Fusible.

- "Trapisóndez was a crabby dog, he should die ribbed like a dog bitten by a rabid dog," thought Puntualini. This seemed like a tongue twister, but in reality it was a part of El Flaco's idea.[Translator's note: "crabby, ribbed, rabid", "cascarrabias, rabiando, rabioso"] And El Flaco began to rehearse with Fusible night after night.

Several weeks passed, and one summer night Puntualini was in his basement laboratory wafting the fragrant aromas from the garden that entered through the open window.

"A beautiful tropical night," he thought satisfied, but poor Fusible wouldn't agree.

The animal was tied to a special frame by thick straps, and its hind legs rested on receptacles containing acidulated water, from which thin metal cables emerged. 

Puntualini took his long amber cigarette holder out of his mouth and examined it carefully. The small cut made with a micro mill was almost invisible, but it was enough to transform the harmless cigarette holder into a mysterious whistle. Yes, in reality, it functioned like a Galton whistle: forcefully blowing through it produced sounds of more than 20,000 cycles per second, inaudible to human ears, but not to dogs... Ultrasonic!!

Puntualini murmured:

- "He's had enough rest now; I'll get the current going on Fusible again and see if he jumps up."

He pressed the switch that electrified the containers of acidulated water, and simultaneously blew loudly on the inaudible whistle.

Feeling the current, the poor dog, enraged, ferociously jumped on the rag dummy and immediately tore it to pieces between his powerful teeth.

El Flaco, satisfied, said to himself:

- "Yes, it's already time to try it without applying current."

He blew into the cigarette holder again, but without pressing the switch, and the result was the same: the animal jumped, bit and tore with uncontrollable fury.


Reflexive conditioning! The preliminary phase had already been accomplished: the dog, hearing the ultrasonic tone without having to receive electric current, frantically pounced on the dummy, sinking its fangs into it and crushing it like a mouse.

* * *

The plan to kill or injure El Petiso was very simple. One of these days he'd invite him over to his house with another friend. Under some pretext, he'd leave El Petiso alone in the garden with the dog. He would take his other companion into the living room, from where he could comfortably observe El Petiso through the window. At an opportune moment, he would take out his cigarette holder to smoke; but, as it would be somewhat obstructed, he would forcefully blow through it to unclog it, and then...

The plan seemed perfect. They would blame poor Fusible. Rabid, no doubt.

Puntualini skillfully untied the straps that secured the dog, and it curled up meekly at his feet.

Yes, he would blow his whistle and order death through the window. The thought seemed to please Puntualini, who instinctively looked out the basement window.

Something of enormous size came crashing through the window. Puntualini looked terrified. He tried to flee. It was too late! Fusible jumped on him like a tiger and seized his throat!...

The cricket, which then entered through the same window, fluttered around for a while, emitting its high-pitched audible chirps and the corresponding ultrasonic pitch, and then went back out into the garden.

El Petiso Trapisóndez was saved again.

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Nemobius fasciatus (the field cricket) emits audible sounds at 8,000 and 11,000 cycles per second; it also emits ultrasonic harmonics of the former at 16,000, 22,000 and 36,000 cycles per second. The intensity of the emission is very strong. Ultrasonic measurements have been made 30 cm from the insect, which gave values ​​of 90 db, or 10-7 W/cm2. (Der Ultraschall. L. Bergmam).

Galton's whistle, perfected by Edelman, emits ultrasonic frequencies up to 40,000 cycles per second. It was used for physiological experiments. 

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Abel Asquini - "Protonickel" (1953)

INTRODUCTION

Abel Asquini was the pseudonym of Oscar Varsavsky (1/18/1920 - 12/17/1976), an Argentine mathematician and physicist who earned a doctorate in 1949 with a dissertation on quantum mechanics and taught at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, and after brief stints at Universidad de Cuyo and la Universidad Nacional del Sur, he returned to the Universidad de Buenos Aires to join the board of directors of la Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. In his later career, he used mathematical modeling for the purposes of analzying social policy. For more information on this stage in his career, see "Ultra-left science policy and anti-modernization in Argentina: Oscar Varsavsky" by Schoijet, Mauricio. 

Varsavsky wrote a number of mathematics textbooks and other non-fiction books including "Science, Politics and Scientism", "Latin America: Mathematical Models", and "Towards a National Scientific policy". Under the pseudonym Abel Asquini, he published three stories as part of "The Crimes of the LIO" series in the science fiction magazine Más Allá (Beyond), which includes "Protonickel" (#6, Nov 1953) "Nemobius Fasciatus"​ (#7, Dec 1953) and "Nyctalopes" (#8, Jan 1954).

For further information on this era of Argentine science fiction, see Rachel Haywood Ferreira's "Más Allá, El Eternauta, and the Dawn of the Golden Age of Latin American Science Fiction (1953-59)" and "How Latin America Saved the World and Other Forgotten Futures".

For complete scans of Más Allá, including the illustrations, see: https://ahira.com.ar/revistas/mas-alla-de-la-ciencia-y-de-la-fantasia/

PROTONICKEL

CALDERO furiously kicked the bulging wallet that appeared on the sidewalk just to tempt him.

It was a signal that he was arriving home. Every single day, the neighborhood kids would pull a prank on him, tying the wallet to a string, that would then disappear into some vestibule with a well-timed tug at the very moment when Caldero's hands were about to snatch it. But this never stopped Caldero from crouching down; he told himself that one of these times the wallet really may be authentic. And, after all, crouching down is good exercise.

The truth is though, that he always came home so engrossed in the details of the latest device he was designing at the LIO or at his home, that he didn't even remember the boys' existence, that species sadly indispensable for renewing the human flock, and instinctively crouched down when he saw the wallet.

But that day, Caldero didn't crouch down. Without hesitation, he kicked it with such force that he almost tore Sebo's finger off, the boy who was holding the other end of the string.

- "He's finally getting wise," said one of those watching from the vestibule.

- "He's not getting any wiser," replied Sebo, as being the son of his cook he knew him quite well and was tormentor number one of the "mad wizard," as they called him in the neighborhood. "He must've gotten fired from his job or something like that."

And "something like that" was what indeed had happened. Caldero had just received a scientific lapidary snub in front of all his colleagues at the LIO.

He was always so proud to belong to the renowned Laboratory of Investigation, Orselec (the name that the directors of the Orselec Corporation abbreviated as 'LIO' from their offices in New York, unaware of the numerous bad, repetitive jokes that it would spawn in Buenos Aires), and having to suffer such an insult there! [Translator's note: "Lio", mess, disorder, tangle, etc.] And it's all the fault of El Petiso Trapisóndez, that scoundrel, that... [Translators note: "petiso", short, "trapisonda", disorder, chaos, synonym of "lio"] But there was no point in getting angry with him; they were practically even with each other already. The incredible thing was that Nogler, the head of the laboratory, was giving him his ear. Nogler, who everyone thought was so intelligent, had been incapable of comprehending the importance of his apparatus in producing protonickel!

* * *

ONE week prior, Caldero had presented him with the complete circuits, calculations and plans, and today Nogler had approached his drawing table, handed his excessively large binder back to him and shook his head.

- "I don't quite understand you, Caldero" - he told him - "You're marvellous at improving any instrument that's brought to you; you make it practically perfect."

Caldero impassively received the praise. Nogler raised his voice without realizing it, and little by little the other LIO researchers began paying attention to them. Trapisóndez was brazenly approaching them already, getting up without turning off his pentagonal audio frequency wave generator that produced several decibels of a rattling noise that frayed one's nerves.

- "You, Caldero" - Nogler continued - "are capable of exploiting a vacuum tube down to its last electron, and can modify the position of two atoms on a transistor to squeeze more out of it."

Caldero nodded. Modesty was not among his vices.

- "But..." - continued Nogler, and now the whole world had been forming a circle to listen to him - "but every time you come up with a brilliant idea, it results in something akin to perpetual motion! What you propose is impossible; it can't work, it violates all the laws of physics!"

Caldero almost exploded, but Nogler had employed such a friendly and easy-going tone that he couldn't be offended. He been left with no choice but to respond with a casual chuckle.

- "What did you invent this time?" - asked Flaco Puntualini, one of the "craniums" of the LIO.[Translator's note: "flaco", skinny, "puntual", punctual.]

- "A method for fabricating protonickel" - said Caldero with dignity.

- "What does that mean?" several people chanted.

- "Caldero wants to make superdense matter, he proposes starting with nickel and as such calls it that" - Nogler explained  -. "He says he's capable of removing all the electrons from their atoms and combining thousands of nuclei in the space occupied by a single atom!"

* * *

CALDERO exploded:

- "And why not? Is that not what happens inside dwarf stars?" - everyone instinctively looked at Trapisóndez, who reddened - "Inside them, each cubic centimeter weighs several tons."

- "It doesn't seem so far-fetched" - ventured Puntualini, always impartial - "An atom's nucleus occupies a volume that's billions of times smaller than the entire atom. And that's where all its mass is; if you could fill all that empty space with other nuclei..."

- "But you can't fabricate very large nuclei" - protested Manuelski, another of the craniums -. "More than a hundred protons induces fission on its own."

- "Breaking news!" Caldero roared. "Do you think I don't know? But my method isn't making one huge nucleus, but rather, placing several nuclei a short distance from one another. Protonickel will be the first successful nuclear polymerization."

- "And you've already done the calculations?" - Puntualini asked.

Caldero almost betrayed himself in his eagerness to crush these non-believers, but he stopped himself in time and confined himself to pointing at the binder.

- "Everything is here," he replied, more serenely now that he remembered that the last laugh was going to be his anyways. "I've discovered which radioactive decay gives nickel a temperature capable of removing its electrons until the bare nuclei can be condensed under the pressure of a helium jet."

Nogler seemed a little disconcerted.

- "The thing is," - he admitted - "I couldn't personally oversee everything. There is nothing worse than being appointed to management. The whole day's wasted on bureaucratic red tape and there's no time left for any research."

- "So how dare you say that there's anything's wrong?" - Caldero roared.

- "I handed your project to Mr. Trapisóndez" - and he pointed to El Petiso, who cynically smiled - "in whose ability I have complete confidence, and he's studied it and found several fundamental flaws..."

And upon reaching this stage in his reminiscences, Caldero raised his arms to the sky, which alarmed the boys who were following him with intrigue a few meters behind.

- "Nogler, Nogler, I will never forgive you for this!" - Caldero's voice exploded loudly, and entered his house in a fury.

Yes, the object of his indignation was Nogler and not El Petiso. And for a very simple reason: he was already at peace with El Petiso.

He had decided to kill him, naturally.

Such a weakling who thought himself capable of stopping the progress of science did not deserve to live; he must not live. It was a moral duty to make him disappear!

* * *

PEPA, the cook and housekeeper in Caldero's disorderly laboratory suite, received him with her habitual protests.

- "You've fixed my iron wrong again, sir! The fuse is blown! There's no light!

- "Fine, fine, Pepa, I'll fix everything now..."

- "You wouldn't think he knew so much about electricity, would you?" Sebo shouted venomously, who had come in behind him, "He doesn't even know how to fix an iron!"

Which was not true, as Sebo knew very well, since he himself was responsible for short-circuiting the iron every time the "mad wizard" fixed it.

But Caldero didn't even hear him. He was already heading to his laboratory, iron in hand. His secret was lying there...

Caldero's laboratory was homogeneous chaos. At first glance, it seemed completely at odds with his meticulous and orderly personality. But there was a method in that apparent disorder. Caldero never wasted a second looking for a 100-microfarad capacitor or an 18 by 25 screw; without hesitation, a strictly localized section of ​​his brain directed his hand to the exact spot where the desired part was located.

Caldero closed the door behind him and let his gaze rest lovingly on a strange object lying on a well-isolated steel table. The blood, sweat and pesos that this had cost him!

It was a metal sphere about fifty centimeters in diameter, with several protuberances on its surface through which pipes of all kinds entered, and a small opening in front, closed off by a lid. It looked like a giant spider whose legs had become independent, each one grasping onto a different device in the laboratory...

A Mephistophelian smile lit up Caldero's flat physiognomy. Those ignorant people laughed at his methods, and here was tangible proof that he was a genius. That sphere was the small-scale model, the pilot protonickel fabrication plant. And it worked!

Caldero, out of scientific vanity, had not mentioned the existence of said sphere. He entertained the idea of ​​appearing in future physics textbooks as the luminary who had foreseen the theoretical details of nuclear polymerization, just as Leverrier had discovered Neptune by simple calculation, without the need for telescopes. The truth, of course, was that he had proceeded by trial and error, trying countless systems until he found the satisfactory method.

And now his scheme for achieving glory as a theorist perfectly suited his plans to liquidate El Petiso Trapisóndez.

What spiritual satisfaction! He would kill him with the very substance that El Petiso had denied him the possibility of fabricating. Protonickel shall become the Trapisondic weapon!

Caldero replaced the blown fuses, fixed the iron, handed it over to Sebo to take to his mother, and, free from any commitments to the outside world, began to prepare the protonickel.

* * *

HE already had some seven kilos of molybdenum powder that would be transformed into nickel through radioactive decay. He mixed them with a little beryllium and, opening the lid of the metal sphere, or the nucleus polymerizer, rather, introduced the mixture inside, well wrapped in tin foil, placing it in a spot crudely marked with a dermographic pencil. He flipped a switch, and the foil rose with its contents and hung in balance in the center of the sphere, held in place by a finely tuned electromagnetic field. Slight movements were corrected by modifying the stabilizing circuits, and the molybdenum-beryllium mixture remained motionless, suspended in the air at the exact center of the sphere.

Caldero sighed. It was a miracle that the circuits built in such haste didn't fall out of alignment.

He closed the lid of the sphere and put the vacuum pumps into action, finishing with the silicone oil diffuser. After a few minutes, the Knutzen instrument indicated that the required vacuum had been attained.

All of that was just preparation. Now came the hard part. Caldero closed his eyes and started up the alpha particle accelerator and the helium compressor. The alpha particles were to collide with the beryllium mixed with the molybdenum and produce neutrons that would incite a chain reaction in the molybdenum, transforming it into nickel, and at the same time would release a phenomenal energy that would tear all the electrons from their position surrounding the nuclei, like throwing off a protective cape. At the same time, jets of extremely high pressure helium would be shot from all sides at the reacting substance, absorbing the excess energy and forcing the stripped nuclei to approach one another up to a critical distance where certain forces of attraction would act that would then be responsible for keeping them together forever. Protonickel!

At least, that was Caldero's explanation for what was happening inside his polymerizer. No wonder they didn't want to take him seriously!

But what's strange was that the thing worked. A red light indicated the beginning of disintegration, and a small explosion shook the sphere. Everything was taking place at the desired pressure. Caldero turned off the alpha particle accelerator; it was no longer necessary since it incited a chain reaction. The Geiger counters indicated satisfactory radioactivity levels.

After ten minutes the red light went out, and Caldero let out a deep sigh. He felt like he hadn't breathed that entire time.

He opened the polymerizer's clasps and examined it under the light of a potent lamp.

Yes, there was something at the bottom: a miniscule sphere, less than a millimeter in diameter.

Using strong, delicate tweezers, Caldero carefully removed it. Although he was prepared for it, he was once again surprised by the effort required to lift it. The proto-nickel sphere weighed as much as the seven kilos of the molybdenum that it came from! That is, almost seven kilos, since a small percentage of the mass had been transformed into the energy needed for polymerization.

The little sphere looked like a pellet of ammunition used to hunt partridges. And its mission was going to be equally deadly, but with a more important target: El Petiso.

* * *

THE plan was extremely simple. The heavy little sphere, falling from a certain height onto El Petiso's head, would completely pass through him and leave him as if struck by a fainting spell. And that's what everyone would think, because who was going to find the little sphere afterwards! And everything could be done in the presence of witnesses. The ceiling of the laboratory was high. He would have the little sphere suspended there with an electromagnet. He would invite El Petiso and other fellows from the LIO to visit him under any pretext, and as soon as that cursed man was right under the electromagnet he would cut the current and the little sphere would fall, passing through him from top to bottom. It's worthy of a detective novel! Only here there would be no Sherlock Holmes capable of even suspecting that a crime was involved.

But he had to make sure things were well prepared. His aim had to be perfect.

First, the electromagnet. Three thousand coils of 0.5 gauge wire would suffice. He wound them quickly, fitted the core, connected the windings to the rectifier and measured their load-bearing force.

- "Ten kilos, that's more than enough" - he muttered.

He had so many things hanging from the ceiling that no one would notice the powerful electromagnet. He installed it above the heavy chair where Trapisóndez used to sit every time he came to visit him.

When connected, it held the protonickel sphere perfectly, and it remained there, attached to the electromagnet on the ceiling like the sword of Damocles over the head of whoever was sitting in the chair.

But he had to be more precise. He moistened the sphere with a little bit of water and observed where the drop fell. He had to move the chair a little. He sat down on it, adopting El Petiso's usual posture.

Yes, now it was perfect. As soon as El Petiso rested his head on his hands like that, he would cut the current and the little sphere would detach from the electromagnet, falling like divine justice upon the heretic...

In the kitchen, Pepa plugged in the iron that her boss had fixed. She didn't know that in the meantime, Sebo had shorted it out again.

The flash made her cry out in fright. The house went dark; the fuses had blown again, and the current was cut off.

In the laboratory, Caldero was lying on the floor, lifeless.

The doctors ruled a stroke as the cause death.

No one ever discovered the tiny protonickel sphere buried in the cement floor, nor the tiny entry and exit holes in Caldero's head, where not even a drop of blood had managed to form... 

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Thursday, January 23, 2025

Claudio Paz - "Seventeen 20¢ Coins"

INTRODUCTION

I can find no information Claudio Paz. "Seventeen 20¢ Coins"/"17 monedas de Veinte" was initially published in the May 1955 issue of Más Allá, a special issue on flying saucers. The initial publication was published under the name "Roger Dee", but it does not appear to be a translation of any of his stories. The subsequent republications in Nueva Dimension #49 (1973) and all criticism attribute Claudio Paz as the author.

For further information on this era of Argentine science fiction, see Rachel Haywood Ferreira's "Más Allá, El Eternauta, and the Dawn of the Golden Age of Latin American Science Fiction (1953-59)" and "How Latin America Saved the World and Other Forgotten Futures".

For complete scans of Más Allá, including the illustrations, see: https://ahira.com.ar/revistas/mas-alla-de-la-ciencia-y-de-la-fantasia/

SEVENTEEN 20¢ COINS


THE burning rays of the February sun penetrated through a window at the police station and reverberated off a piece of wire running over the desk.

Stroking his mustache, Officer Paunero answered the question posed by Dr. Torres:

- "It's not nerves, doctor... it's just that there's days when everything comes at you all at once! First there's the fight in the stables; I have the jail all full of drunks, you know? And now..."

He drummed his fingers on the glass of the desk, trying to decide whether or not to continue. Finally, he asked abruptly:

- "Tell me, doctor, do you believe in flying saucers?"

The doctor laughed heartily.

- "Surely that old lady... that one, man, the saddler's neighbor! ... surely she asked for his protection to fend the Martians off for her. It's clear that these flying saucers are gonna to put an end to this town's peace and quiet! Even my son came to tell me that he saw one... Pure suggestion, of course.

"And if someone came to tell you that they saw one, and that they spoke with the pilot, what would you say?"

The doctor became serious. Choosing his words carefully, he began to say:

- "Well, Paunero, you've been working a lot lately. Even a serious person, when the state of their nerves isn't so great..."

Paunero sighed with relief.

- "Come on now, don't think it was me who saw one! The thing is, I've got a vagrant here who told me a very charming story... At first I thought that a better lie for defending himself never occured to him, but the man insists, and I'm afraid he's a little... well, you'll see now, doctor."

And raising his voice, he ordered:

- "Bring in Pereira... or whatever the hell his name is!"

The door opened, and with a gust of hot air, a little man came in, dirty, hunched, and poorly dressed.

- "You, old nutjob," - said Officer Paunero - "are you still going on with that absurd story?"

José Pereira did not deign to look at the officer. Instead, addressing Dr. Torres, he said in a plaintive tone:

- "I know it sounds strange, doctor, but I assure you, I'm not crazy. If I broke into the cash register at Rodriguez's bar and took out seventeen 20¢ coins, it was..."

The officer finished his sentence for him. With a tone of resignation, he said:

-"We already know that. It was to save humanity from destruction." - And he added, growling-: "Nonsense, nonsense!"

Yes, Officer Paunero was in a bad humor, but it was not his fault, as the doctor would come to understand when he learned of the events of the previous night:

At 4:30 in the morning, the policeman who was on patrol saw a light inside Rodríguez's bar. This set the little town's slightly complicated police machinery in motion.

The facts brought to light by the investigation can be summarized as follows:

At one in the morning, as usual, the barkeep closed the door, lowered the metal curtain, secured it with a padlock, yawned and went to sleep.

At 4:45 in the morning - which wasn't as usual - the owner of the bar, yawning, confirmed to Officer Paunero:

*That the padlock was opened with a bent wire.

*That someone forced the cash register open, whose contents were intact, except for - a rare detail - the twenty-centavo coins, which had disappeared. In addition, the bottle of authentic Scotch Whisky, the pride of the establishment, lay on the floor next to the alleged author of the disturbance, who was snoring under the effects of the aforementioned whisky. And, finally,

*That the water polo pinball machine disappeared without a trace.

These facts gave rise to the theory that Mr. Rodriguez vehemently sustained. He claimed that an unknown person or persons, in love with the progress they've made playing one of these pinball machines, stole it from the premises. Their mission accomplished, they silently withdrew, without taking the trouble to lower the metal curtain again. Favored by these circumstances and the luck that passed him by a little later, José Pereira introduced himself to the inside of the bar, taking the whiskey and the $3.40 in twenty-centavo coins. Then, the rapid effect of the drink plunged him into the deep sleep in which he was found.

Officer Paunero had a different thesis: the old scoundrel forced the padlock. He then went into the bar and began to drink some authentic Scotch whisky. Drunkenness overcame him when he just finished only a part of the register's contents.

A search of the prisoner's tattered clothing revealed a bent piece of wire. This, as the officer pointed out to Mr. Rodriguez, supported his theory. However, although neither of the two could explain the absence of the coins, which didn't turn up in the search, Officer Paunero's theory - and this Mr. Rodriguez pointed out to him - had the additional disadvantage of being unable to explain the absence of the pinball machine.

While Rodríguez and Paunero were talking, Pereira was subjected to a vigorous detoxification process, which consisted of repeatedly pouring measureable quantities of cold water on his body. The treatment produced the desired effect, and the defendant was able to give a statement.

But his statement was so fantastic, absurd and incredible that the officer was forced to call on Dr. Torres to tell him whether the man was lying, whether he was still drunk, or - and this seemed most likely - whether the unfortunate man was crazy.

And yet, José Pereira's account explained the absence of the coins and the machine... and was completely true. We'll reproduce it, henceforth, with all the details.

* * *

GY'MBEL had carefully chosen the landing site. The weather was also favorable. At two in the morning, there wasn't much activity in the little town.

The flying saucer landed silently among the piles of bags, behind the tracks. The hatch was opened, and Gy'Mbel began his exploration.

And... what exploration! None of this slow gliding at 4,000 kilometers per hour, recording pressures, atmospheric compositions, cosmic radiation... No, this time the Research Expedition was going to make direct contact with the strange planet. He looked around: everything was calm.

Nestled in a thicket of weeds, Pereira was also calm. He made a little expedition of his own, with magnificent results: a duck and two chickens. He was wondering which to roast first, when he heard a crack behind him that made him turn around violently. Before him, illuminated by the moon, was Gy'Mbel.

Now very well, in order to fully comprehend what happened next, it's necessary to have an exact idea of ​​the character of our friend Pereira. He was eminently practical, and not at all a fool; his appearing to be stupid was only a defensive weapon against a hostile world. But before the fantastic appearance of the otherworldly extraterrestrial being, José Pereira did what the bravest and most intelligent man would have done: he was struck dumb with astonishment, and paralyzed with terror.

Gy'Mbel, on the other hand, was actively thinking. Without a doubt, the animal before him was an example of the most highly evolved life form on the planet. He tried to establish telepathic contact... this was easy.

- "Greetings, Earthling! Remain quiet or I'll disintegrate you."

We've already said that Pereira was practical and sensible. He didn't run to the first journalist who came along and declare that a strange being, something resembling a man, had come out of a flying saucer and had spoken to him. No, have faith; he remained very still.

Gy'Mbel continued:

- "You're surprised that I know your language. Answer, I won't harm you."

Pereira silently rummaged through his belongings and pulled out the remnants of a popular science magazine, which he displayed triumphantly. Then he turned his thoughts to Gy'Mbel:

- "I'm not surprised. They explain it all here. It's telepathy. You communicate directly with me, mind to mind, without using words."

- "Magnificent!" Gy'Mbel replied, adding: "What a pity! We'll have to eliminate them, it seems." [Translator's note: Gy'Mbel begins the conversation using informal address and at this point switches to more polite, formal address. Pereira always addresses Gy'Mbel formally.]

- "The scientific articles? Why? I like them a lot." Gy'Mbel's answer was not helpful in reassuring Pereira.

- "I wasn't referring to the scientific articles. We'll have to eliminate them, meaning you, the men."

This statement aroused vehement protests from our friend. Why, if anyone knew, did such an absurd idea enter their heads? (Supposing that the gelatinous mass under the transparent helmet was a head, of course.)

Gy'Mbel explained it clearly:

They came from far away, from very far away. Their people had achieved a high level of technical perfection, and started undertaking space travel a very long time ago. Successive conquests extended the radius of action in their domain. On numerous planets, they found conditions that allowed them to cultivate the lifeforms that supplied them with their food and raw materials. They, however, remained in their primitive planetary system, as they could not acclimatize themselves in any other...

- "And here, on Earth?" Pereira asked, horrified, believing he understood.

- "Oh, not here either!"

- "So why do you think you have to destroy us?"

- "Because the Earth is an excellent breeding ground for Ahjxes, who are very useful for us."

Nevertheless, Gy'Mbel continued, they had scruples about destroying life forms similar to their own. He didn't refer to mere physical resemblance, of course! He alluded to mental resemblance.


- "So, we're saved! Because the fact that you're mentally communicating with me demonstrates..."

- "I lament to tell you that this demonstrates practically nothing. We communicate, it's true, but when you receive my thought, do you know what form it had in my mind? Your mind, when it receives it, modifies it... assuming that our mental structures are indifferent. Yes, the example you brought up is apt: You speak to a dog and the animal understands you... to a certain extent. But do you know exactly how a dog interprets your commands? Certainly, there is a mental similarity between you and a dog... A very small similarity."

- "And our cities?" - Pereira excitedly shouted - "Our airplanes, so similar to your own..." - he was going to say "flying saucers," but changed his mind - ... "your own means of transportation?"

- "That doesn't demonstrate anything, either. Our exploratory group found an animal here that builds cities, raises animals, grows plants..."

- "Us men!"

- "No. The ants."

Pereira fell silent. Or rather, he turned his thoughts inward, and not toward the extraterrestrial monster. He understood the situation perfectly.

Yes, one doesn't kill men just to raise cows, whether they're white or black, pygmies or normal. One doesn't eliminate them... in theory, at least. But if it's ants that get in the way... or bees... well, so much the worse for them.

Pereira was intelligent, and had no difficulty in understanding the situation. And, furthermore, he was practical. In a short time, man would be swept from the face of the earth... Should he raise an alarm? How? Or, why resist? His thoughts became confused and he redirected his mind back to Gy'Mbel.

- "You didn't tell me why you think that men are less intelligent than you."

- "Please!" - Gy'Mbel was politely shocked - "not just 'less intelligent'. Your enormous technical inferiority to our doesn't give us the right to think that about you. We're simply interested in finding out whether you are different from us, or whether you are, mentally, our equals. In the latter case, your life will be sacred to us."

- "And how do you plan on figuring all that out?"

Gy'Mbel inwardly elaborated on the subject. You'll have to forgive him: it was his specialty. The gist of his explanation resulted in the following:

The first possibility would be, of course, to compare their products of science and technology: machines of various kinds, vehicles, construction. But this has little value. Machines are designed to dominate and exploit nature. Thus, these machines are more adapted to the very nature that they were designed to combat, rather than to those that built them. Mere technical similarity would therefore, have little value.

But there are devices of another kind: they're disconnected from those particular aspects of Nature in a certain way. Instead, they're closely related to the thinking being that creates them. Machines for reasoning, for verifying reasoning, to be more precise. These can provide valuable information on the workings of its user's thought processes.

- "But perhaps," Gy'Mbel added, "such machines exist here and you've never heard of them. I have one here, small and rudimentary, of course."

Pereira distractedly watched as Gy'Mbel's tentacles pulled a flat box from inside his spacesuit. There was something that didn't fit... an idea that struggled to be formulated clearly; something like an indication that there was something more...

- "Here" - Gy'Mbel interrupted his thoughts - "See?"

He opened the box, in whose interior he could see a tangled bunch of cables intermixed with small cubic-shaped pieces.

- "For example" - he continued - "to confirm that it's true that you live on this planet" - meanwhile he manipulated (or tenticlepulated?) some controls - "Aha, all men live on this planet, I start from that concrete proposition, and you are a man, aren't you?... And thus... You live on Earth."

A little blue light lit up on the lid of the box, blinked twice, and went out.

- "Correct," said Gy'Mbel with satisfaction.

And Pereira said slowly:

- "Now I understand... I understand everything."

* * *

JOSÉ Pereira didn't know what a syllogism was.

But one time, a policeman screamed at him, banging his fist on the table:

- "All you bums are liars, and since you're the worst bum, you're also a liar!"

And now, under the moonlight, facing a monster from another world, Pereira recalled that reasoning.

He recalled that reasoning and immediately recognized the resemblance. But he didn't cry out in joy that Gy'Mbel's race and the race of men bore any similarity. No, he took great care to not even imply it.

Because, finally, he knew the situation clearly.

Man respecting his fellow man? A powerful nation renouncing their gold mining in Africa as to not bother the black peoples?

Absurd.

Now everything was clear as water.

For starters, this flying saucer bug was a liar and a hypocrite. Of course he wanted to find out any possible resemblance to them. But for purposes that were completely opposite to those he declared.

The truth was simple: a race that had conquered an enormous empire by means of its intelligence wasn't prepared to admit any similar race into its domain. Because, if we were their equals, what would prevent us from going as far as they went... or even further?

Pereira saw the matter clearly, and he liked it less and less. He pushed his tongue through his dry lips. "I need a drink," he thought. A drink. Who wouldn't be able to find peace at the bar!... The bar! How hadn't this occurred to him before! He felt secure, relieved, happy. He directed his thoughts back to Gy'Mbel.

- "Thinking machines! Of course we have them! It's just that..."

- "They're not similar? That would be rather lamentable!"

Pereira feigned a fear that he was now far from feeling.

- "I can't say, but I'm afraid they're not similar. Anyway, come with me. No, none of the flying saucers. We'll walk."

* * *

THE main street of the little town opened up like one yawning underneath the moonlight. The trees cast uncertain shadows on the pavement.

Crouching in the shadows, Pereira finished forcing the padlock. He sighed in relief. But the worst was yet to come.

He carefully lifted the metal curtain. Slowly... , slowly... It made more noise than an earthquake! Finally he turned to Gy'Mbel, who had been waiting patiently at his side.

- "You can go in," he said. He looked both ways one last time - no one in sight - and then went in. He pulled down the curtain and felt along the wall until he found the light switch.

The lights lit up the deserted establishment. The pinball machine - Table Water Polo Fun Play - 5 pulls for $0.20 - was in a corner.

- "You can examine it if you want" - Pereira told Gy'Mbel - "I'm going to look for some 'concrete propositions'. Without 'concrete propositions', it doesn't work."

The cash register suffered from the same disease as the lock: debilitating senility. A pull, a push, and a fork used as a lever persuaded it to open. Pereira was rewarded for his efforts by a handful of $0.20 coins.

Walking over to the pinball machine, he inserted a coin into the slot and pressed the button... An half an hour later, Gy'Mbel was at the point of despair. This strange mechanical-electrical brain, or whatever it was, was completely different from anything he could've possibly conceived.

- "You still don't understand? It's simple." - Pereira was saying - "I enter a concrete proposition and press the button." (Needless to say, the "concrete proposition" was the seventeenth twenty-centavo coin.)

A small steel ball fell in front of the little handle.

- "I put the semi-supersonic three-dimensional control into operation. All, hic, men live on Earth."

(As the astute reader will guess, the "hic" was caused by the authentic Scotch whisky.)

Pereira pulled the little handle, which compressed the spring.

- "I am, hic!, a man."

He let go of the little handle, which struck the steel ball. It flew out and hit a stopper. A buzzer sounded. The ball hit another spring, and a green light came on. Then it passed under a row of arches and tripped a wire. The machine was going faster and faster. Buzzers sounded, sharp "clicks" were heard, lights indicating the points scored flashed on and off... The machine gave a final hum, grumbled something to itself, and the ball fell down a ramp. One light remained on.

- "Twelve points!..., I say, hic, then: I live on earth!" - said Pereira triumphantly. - "Similar to yours, no?"

- "Oh, yes," replied Gy'Mbel with false happiness. "Very similar. Well, it's been a pleasure finding in this corner of the Universe..."

Pereira didn't hear him. Lying beside the bottle, he dozed off in his alcoholic slumber with the tranquility that comes from one's duty accomplished.

Using his gravity interference nullifier, Gy'Mbel quickly moved the pinball machine to the flying saucer and took off for the mothership.

* * *

A freight train struggles breathless up a hill. Comfortably installed on the roof of one of the cars, José Pereira dreamily contemplates the landscape.

How? Oh, of course it was their opinion that he was crazy. But the cell was full and Pereira needed medical attention, so they made the mistake of locking him up in the spare room at Dr. Torres' house for the night. And on the floor, there was a piece of wire...

As you can all see, an old lock doesn't hold very many secrets for José Pereira.

Meanwhile, the fleet of flying saucers anxiously scans the surface of Aldebaran III.

And Gy'Mbel, connecting the automatic flight control for a moment, records in the expedition log:

"Specimen 17. Strange reasoning machine from 030-4.33-1248-III. Supposedly combining a rudimentary knowledge of incomprehensible logic with a high proportion of superstitious divinatory rituals."

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Introduction and story index

Welcome to the Chrononauts blogspot page, where we'll be posting obscure science fiction works in the public domain that either have not...