THE SCI-FI COLLECTION OF EDGAR WALLACE. Edgar Wallace
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is perfectly true that he was tried in Australia and sent to penal servitude. He had got a big wireless plant in his house, and there is no doubt that for many years he has made large sums of money by picking up commercial messages that have been sent by radio and decoding and using them to his own purpose. In this way he must have learnt something about Mr. Colson’s correspondent — he was under the impression that Colson received messages in code and was anxious to get the codebook. By the way, we found the charred remnants of that book in the car. It was burnt out, as you probably know. That alone would have been sufficient to convict Hildreth of complicity in the murder. Fortunately, we have been saved the trouble of a trial.”
“None of the code remains?” asked Tim anxiously. The detective shook his head.
“No, sir, none. There are one or two words — for instance, ‘Zeiith’ means ‘the Parliamentary system of the third decade,’ whatever that may mean. It seems a queer sort of code to me.”
“That is very unfortunate,” said Tim. “I had hoped to devote my time to telling the history of this strange people, and the book would have been invaluable.”
“Which people is this?” asked Sir Charles puzzled. “Did our friend get into communication with one of the lost tribes?”
Tim laughed, in spite of himself. “No, sir. I think the best explanation I can offer you is to read Mr. Colson’s manuscript, which I discovered last night. It is one of the most remarkable stories that has ever been told, and I’ll be glad to have you here, Sir Charles, so that you may supply explanations which do not occur to me.”
“Is it about the planet?” asked Sir Charles quickly, and Tim nodded.
“Then you have discovered it! It is a planetoid—”
Tim shook his head. “No, sir,” he said quietly. “It is a world as big as ours.”
The scientist looked at him openmouthed.
“A world as big as ours, and never been discovered by our astronomers? How far away?”
“At its nearest, a hundred and eighty million miles,” said Tim.
“Impossible!” cried Sir Charles scornfully. “It would have been detected years ago. It is absolutely impossible!”
“It has never been detected because it is invisible,” said Tim.
“Invisible? How can a planet be invisible? Neptune is much farther distant from the sun—”
“Nevertheless, it is invisible,” said Tim. “And now,” he said, as he took the manuscript from his pocket, “if you will give me your attention, I will tell you the story of Neo. Incidentally, the cryptogram on the stone reads: ‘Behind the sun is another world!’”
Chapter VIII
Tim turned the flyleaf of the manuscript and began reading in an even tone.
“THE STORY OF NEO.”
“My name” (the manuscript began) “is Charles Royton Colson. I am a Master of Arts of the University of Cambridge, science lecturer to Mildram School, and I have for many years been engaged in the study of the Hertzian waves, and that branch of science commonly known as radiology. I claim in all modesty to have applied the principles which Marconi brought nearer to perfection, when wireless telegraphy was unknown. And I was amongst the pioneers of wireless telephony. As is also generally known, I am a mathematician and have written several textbooks upon astronomy. I am also the author of a well-known monograph on the subject of the Inclinations of the Planetary Orbits; and my treatise on the star Oyonis is familiar to most astronomers.
“For many years I engaged myself in studying the alterations of ellipses following the calculations and reasonings of Lagrange, who to my mind was considerably less of a genius than Professor Adams, to whom the credit for the discovery of Neptune should be given…”
Here followed a long and learned examination of the incidence of Neptune’s orbit, as influenced by Uranus.
“…My astronomical and radiological studies were practically carried on at the same time. In June, 1914, my attention was called to a statement made by the Superintendent of the great wireless telegraph station outside Berlin, that he had on three separate occasions taken what he described as ‘slurred receptions’ from an unknown station. He gave excellent technical reasons why these receptions could not have come from any known station, and he expressed the opinion, which was generally scoffed at, that the messages he had taken came from some extra-terrestrial source. There immediately followed a suggestion that these mysterious dashes and dots had come from Mars. The matter was lost sight of owing to the outbreak of the European War, and when, in 1915, the same German engineer stated that he had received a distinct message of a similar character, the world, and particularly the Allied world, rejected the story, for the credibility of the Germans at that period did not stand very high.
“A year later, the wireless station at Cape Cod also reported signals, as did a private station in Connecticut; whilst the Government station at Rio de Janeiro reported that it had heard a sound like ‘a flattened voice.’ It was obvious that these stories were not inventions, and I set to work on an experimental station which I had been allowed to set up at the school, and after about six months of hard toil I succeeded in fashioning an instrument which enabled me to test my theories. My main theory was that, if the sound came from another world, it would in all probability be pitched in a key that would be inaudible to human ears. For example, there is a dog-whistle which makes no sound that we detect, but which is audible to every dog. My rough amplifier had not been operating for a week when I began to pick up scraps of signals and scraps of words — unintelligible to me, but obviously human speech. Not only was I able to hear, but I was able to make myself heard; and the first startling discovery I made was that it took my voice a thousand and seven seconds to reach the person who was speaking to me.
“I was satisfied now that I was talking to the inhabitants of another world, though, for my reputation’s sake, I dared not make my discovery known. After hard experimental work, I succeeded in clarifying the voices, and evidently the person at the other end was as anxious as I to make himself understood and to understand the nature of his unknown correspondent’s speech.
“You may imagine what a heartbreaking business it was, with no common vocabulary, invisible to one another, and living possibly in conditions widely different, to make our meaning clear to one another. We made a start with the cardinal numbers, and after a week’s interchange we had mastered these. I was then struck with the idea of pouring a glass of water from a tumbler near to my microphone, and using the word ‘water.’ In half-an-hour I heard the sound of falling water from the other end and the equivalent word, which will be found in the vocabulary. I then clapped my hands together, and used the word ‘hand.’ With these little illustrations, which took a great deal of time, began the formation of the dictionary. In the Neo language there are practically no verbs and few adjectives. Very much is indicated by a certain inflexion of voice; even the tenses are similarly expressed; and yet, in spite of this, the Neothians to whom I spoke had no very great difficulty, once I had learnt the art of the inflexion, in supplying the English equivalent.
“All the time I was searching the heavens in the vain endeavour to discover the exact location of this world, which was, from the description I had, exactly the same size as ours, and therefore should have been visible. I had maps of the southern hemispheres, reports from the astronomers of Capetown and Brisbane, but they could offer me no assistance. It was certain that there was in the heavens no visible planetary body as big as Neo.
“The chief difficulty I had lay in the fact that the voices invariably came from the direction of the sun; and it was as certain as anything could be that life could not exist on that great golden mass. Notwithstanding this, unless my mirror was turned to the sun, I received no message whatever; and even in the middle of the night, when I was communicating