The Fatal Eggs (3 page)

"When I publish a paper, I shall mention
that the chamber was built by you, Pyotr Stepanovich," Persikov
interspersed, feeling that the pause should be ended.

"Oh, that doesn't matter... However, if
you insist..."

And the pause ended. After that the ray
devoured Ivanov as well. While Persikov, emaciated and hungry, spent all day
and half the night at his microscope, Ivanov got busy in the brightly-lit
physics laboratory, working out a combination of lenses and mirrors. He was
assisted by the mechanic.

Following a request made to the Commissariat
of Education, Persikov received three parcels from Germany containing mirrors,
convexo-convex, concavo-concave and even some convexo-concave polished lenses.
The upshot of all this was that Ivanov not only built his chamber, but actually
caught the red ray in it. And quite brilliantly, it must be said. The ray was a
thick one, about four centimetres in diameter, sharp and strong.

On June 1st the chamber was set up in
Persikov's laboratory, and he began experimenting avidly by putting frog spawn
in the ray. These experiments produced amazing results. In the course of
forty-eight hours thousands of tadpoles hatched out from the spawn. But that
was not all.

Within another twenty-four hours the
tadpoles grew fantastically into such vicious, greedy frogs that half of them
were devoured by the other half. The survivors then began to spawn rapidly and
two days later, without the assistance of the ray, a new generation appeared
too numerous to count. Then all hell was let loose in the Professor's
laboratory. The tadpoles slithered out all over the Institute. Lusty choirs
croaked loudly in the terrariums and all the nooks and crannies, as in marshes.
Pankrat, who was scared stiff of Persikov as it was, now went in mortal terror
of him. After a week the scientist himself felt he was going mad. The Institute
reeked of ether and potassium cyanide, which nearly finished off Pankrat when
he removed his mask too soon. This expanding marshland generation was
eventually exterminated with poison and the laboratories aired.

"You know, Pyotr Stepanovich,"
Persikov said to Ivanov, "the effect of the ray on deuteroplasm and on the
ovule in general is quite extraordinary."

Ivanov, a cold and reserved gentleman,
interrupted the Professor in an unusual voice:

"Why talk of such minor details as
deuteroplasm, Vladimir Ipatych?

Let's not beat about the bush. You
have discovered something unheard-of..."

With a great effort Ivanov managed to
force the words out. "You have discovered the ray of life, Professor
Persikov!"

A faint flush appeared on Persikov's pale,
unshaven cheekbones.

"Well, well," he mumbled.

"You," Ivanov went on, "you
will win such renown... It makes my head go round. Do you understand, Vladimir
Ipatych," he continued excitedly, "H.
G.

Wells's heroes are nothing compared
to you... And I thought that was all make-believe... Remember his Food for the
Gods'!"

"Ah, that's a novel," Persikov
replied.

"Yes, of course, but it's famous!"

"I've forgotten it," Persikov said.
"I remember reading it, but I've forgotten it."

"How can you have? Just look at
that!" Ivanov picked up an incredibly large frog with a swollen belly from
the glass table by its leg. Even after death its face had a vicious expression.
"It's monstrous!"

Goodness only knows why, perhaps Ivanov was to
blame or perhaps the sensational news just travelled through the air on its
own, but in the huge seething city of Moscow people suddenly started talking
about the ray and Professor Persikov. True, only in passing and vaguely. The
news about the miraculous discovery hopped like a wounded bird round the
shining capital, disappearing from time to time,
then
popping up again, until the middle of July when a short item about the ray
appeared in the Science and Technology News section on page 20 of the newspaper
Izvestia. It announced briefly that a well-known professor at the Fourth
University had invented a ray capable of increasing the activity of lower
organisms to an incredible degree, and that the phenomenon would have to be
checked. There was a mistake in the name, of course, which was given as
"Pepsikov".

Ivanov brought the newspaper and showed
Persikov the article.

"Pepsikov," muttered Persikov, as he
busied himself with the chamber in his laboratory. "How do those
newsmongers find out everything?"

Alas, the misprinted surname did not save the
Professor from the events that followed, and they began the very next day,
immediately turning Persikov's whole life upside down.

After a discreet knock, Pankrat appeared in
the laboratory and handed Persikov a magnificent glossy visiting card.

"'E's out there," Pankrat added
timidly.

The elegantly printed card said:

Alfred Arkadyevich Bronsky

Correspondent for the Moscow magazines Red
Light, Red Pepper, Red Journal and Red Searchlight and the newspaper Red Moscow
Evening News

"Tell him to go to blazes," said
Persikov flatly, tossing the card under the table.

Pankrat turned round and went out, only to
return five minutes later with a pained expression on his face and a second
specimen of the same visiting card.

"Is this supposed to be a joke?"
squeaked Persikov, his voice shrill with rage.

"Sez 'e's from the Gee-Pee-Yoo," Pankrat
replied, white as a sheet.

Persikov snatched the card with one hand,
almost tearing it in half, and threw his pincers onto the table with the other.
The card bore a message in ornate handwriting: "Humbly request three
minutes of your precious time, esteemed Professor, on public press business,
correspondent of the satirical magazine Red Maria, a GPU publication."

"Send him in," said Persikov with a
sigh.

A young man with a smoothly shaven oily face
immediately popped out from behind Pankrat's back. He had permanently raised
eyebrows, like a Chinaman, over agate eyes which never looked at the person he
was talking to. The young man was dressed impeccably in the latest fashion. He
wore a long narrow jacket down to his knees, extremely baggy trousers and
unnaturally wide glossy shoes with toes like hooves. In his hands he held a
cane, a hat with a pointed top and a note-pad.

"What do you want?" asked Persikov
in a voice which sent Pankrat scuttling out of the room. "Weren't you told
that I am busy?"

In lieu of a reply the young man bowed twice
to the Professor, to the left and to the right of him, then his eyes skimmed
over the whole laboratory, and the young man jotted a mark in his pad.

"I am busy," repeated the Professor,
looking with loathing into the visitor's eyes, but to no avail for they were
too elusive.

"A thousand apologies, esteemed
Professor," the young man said in a thin voice, "for intruding upon
you and taking up your precious time, but the news of your incredible discovery
which has astounded the whole world compels our journal to ask you for some
explanations."

"What explanations, what whole
world?" Persikov whined miserably, turning yellow. "I don't have to
give you any explanations or anything of the sort... I'm busy...
Terribly busy."

"What are you working on?" the young
man asked ingratiatingly, putting a second mark in his pad.

"Well, I'm... Why? Do you want to publish
something?"

"Yes," replied the young man and
suddenly started scribbling furiously.

"Firstly, I do not intend to publish
anything until I have finished my work ... and certainly not in your
newspapers... Secondly, how did you find out about this?" Persikov
suddenly felt at a loss.

"Is it true that you have invented a new
life ray?"

"What new life?" exploded the
Professor.
"You're talking absolute piffle! The ray I
am working on has not been fully studied, and nothing at all is known yet! It
may be able to increase the activity of protoplasm..."

"By how much?" the young man asked
quickly.

Persikov was really at a loss now.
"The insolent devil!
What the blazes is going on?"
he thought to himself.

"What ridiculous questions! Suppose I
say, well, a thousand times!"

Predatory delight flashed in the young man's
eyes.'

"Does that produce gigantic
organisms?"
"Nothing of the sort!
Well, of
course, the organisms I have obtained are bigger than usual. And they do have
some new properties. But the main thing is not the size, but the incredible
speed of reproduction," Persikov heard himself say to his utmost dismay.
Having filled up a whole page, the young man turned over and went on
scribbling.

"Don't write it down!" Persikov
croaked in despair, realising that he was in the young man's hands. "What
are you writing?"

"Is it true that in forty-eight hours you
can hatch two million tadpoles from frog-spawn?"

"From how much spawn?" exploded
Persikov, losing his temper
again.

"Have you ever seen the spawn of
a tree-frog, say?"

"From half-a-pound?" asked the young
man, unabashed. Persikov flushed with anger.

"Whoever measures it like that? Pah! What
are you talking about? Of course, if you were to take half-a-pound of
frog-spawn, then perhaps...

Well, about that much, damn it, but
perhaps a lot more!"

Diamonds flashed in the young man's eyes, as
he filled up yet another page in one fell swoop.

"Is it true that this will cause a world
revolution in animal husbandry?"

"Trust the press to ask a question like
that," Persikov howled. "I forbid you to write such rubbish. I can
see from your face that you're writing sheer nonsense!"

"And now, if you'd be so kind, Professor,
a photograph of you," said the young man, closing his note-pad with a
snap.

"What's that?
A
photograph of me?
To put in those magazines of yours?

Together with all that diabolical
rubbish you've been scribbling down. No, certainly not... And I'm extremely
busy. I really must ask you to..."

"Any old one will do. And we'll return it
straightaway." "Pankrat!" the Professor yelled in a fury.
"Your humble servant," said the young man and vanished. Instead of
Pankrat came the strange rhythmic scraping sound of something metallic hitting
the floor, and into the laboratory rolled a man of unusual girth, dressed in a
blouse and trousers made from a woollen blanket. His left, artificial leg
clattered and clanked, and he was holding a briefcase. The clean-shaven round
face resembling yellowish meat-jelly was creased into a welcoming smile. He
bowed in military fashion to the Professor and drew himself up, his leg giving
a springlike snap. Persikov was speechless.

"My dear Professor," the stranger
began in a pleasant, slightly throaty voice, "
forgive
an ordinary mortal for invading your seclusion."

"Are you a reporter?" Persikov
asked.
"Pankrat!"

"Certainly not, dear Professor," the
fat man replied. "Allow me to introduce myself-naval captain and
contributor to the Industrial Herald, newspaper of the Council of People's
Commissars."

"Pankrat!" cried Persikov hysterically,
and at that very moment a red light went on in the corner and the telephone
rang softly. "Pankrat!" the Professor cried again. "Hello."

"Verzeihen Sie bitte, Herr
Professor," croaked the telephone in German, "das ich store. Ich bin
Mitarbeiter des Berliner Tageblatts..."

"Pankrat!" the Professor shouted
down the receiver. "Bin momental sehr beschaftigt und kann Sie deshalb
jetzt nicht empfangen.
Pankrat!"

And just at this moment the bell at the main
door started ringing.

"Terrible murder in Bronnaya
Street!" yelled unnaturally hoarse voices, darting about between wheels
and flashing headlights on the hot June roadway.
"Terrible
illness of chickens belonging to the priest's widow Drozdova with a picture of
her!
Terrible discovery of life ray by Professor
Persikov!"

Persikov dashed out so quickly that he almost
got run over by a car in Mokhovaya and grabbed a newspaper angrily.

"Three copecks, citizen!" cried the
newsboy, squeezing into the crowd on the pavement and yelling: "Red Moscow
Evening News, discovery of X-ray!"

The flabbergasted Persikov opened the
newspaper and huddled against a lamp-post. On page two in the left-hand corner
a bald man with crazed, unseeing eyes and a hanging lower jaw, the fruit of
Alfred Bronsky's artistic endeavours,

stared
at him from a
smudged frame. The caption beneath it read: "V I.

Persikov who
discovered the mysterious ray."
Lower down, under the heading
World-Wide Enigma was an article which began as follows: "'Take a seat,'
the eminent scientist Persikov invited me hospitably..."

The article was signed with a flourish
"Alfred Bronsky (Alonso)".

A greenish light soared up over the University
roof; the words "Talking Newspaper" lit up in the
sky,
and a crowd jammed Mokhovaya.

"Take a seat!' an unpleasant thin voice,
just like Alfred Bronsky's magnified a thousand times, yelped from a
loudspeaker on the roof, "the eminent scientist Persikov invited me
hospitably
. '
I've
been wanting
to tell the workers of
Moscow
the results of my discovery for some time...'"