The Technologists (28 page)

“I’ve never counted myself, Professor Swallow,” Bob grunted. His new appellation for her, which he used liberally, seemed to satisfy his rebellion against the collaboration for the moment. “I should not argue the point with you. The idea of making science out of food might not be very scientific but it is, well, awfully womanly.”

“Tomorrow, if not today, the woman who is to be master of her house must be an engineer also. Mr. Mansfield,” she added, snapping her head
toward the other side of the room, “you do understand you have been permitted inside my laboratory only for the present and for this very particular purpose.”

“Yes, Miss Swallow,” answered Marcus.

“Good. Because you are
not
welcome here if you wish to examine my private belongings.”

He had been looking over the wires of what appeared to be an alarm mechanism, presumably what had warned her of his presence outside her door the day he found the offensive caricature. “It is impressive. Is it of your own construction?”

“It is,” Ellen said, allowing a little pride to enter her usually dispassionate tone. “Go ahead, then, you may look at it briefly.”

“Two circuits operated by one galvanic battery,” Marcus described it as he inspected it. “Arranged with electromagnets, so that any breaking of the circuit by coming into contact with the wire causes that signal wheel over your supply cabinet to turn—the interruption causing the alarm to sound. Most ingenious of all, the mechanism is arranged so that the length of the alarm will inform you exactly where the location of the break occurred. Miss Swallow, have you been very harassed of late?”

Ellen’s look of quiet pride vanished at the question. “From the very instant I set foot on the grounds of the Institute.”

“I mean whether there has been an escalation in the hazing recently.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Why do you ask, Mr. Mansfield?”

“Do you know who is responsible?”

“Of course I do!”

“Tell me, and I can see to it that the faculty put an end to it.”

“Child.”

“What?” he asked.

“You really are a child.”

Marcus frowned, puzzled and hurt.

She showed her irritation at having to explain with a loud sigh. “Mr. Mansfield, if I were to point out the perpetrator you refer to, and he is punished or shipped off, do you think I will then be more readily accepted by the others? No, indeed. I will stir up more hornets from the original nest. It is not a fear of me individually that prompts hazing as
much as what my being here will mean in the future, for rapid change is always fungoid to those who do not wish it. People are curious to know what monstrosity is to arise from my ashes, aren’t they? Tell all such interested individuals that my aim is only to make myself a true woman, one worthy of the name, and one who will unshrinkingly follow the path that God marks out—wherever it takes me. I should thank you to remember you have no call to intrude upon my life—we are not friends, and shall not be. When this is finished, you shall return to your separate existences, as far from me as possible.”

“On that point,” Bob interjected, “I am with the good professor wholeheartedly.”

During the next afternoon study period, when Bob and Ellen were in her laboratory finishing disassembling equipment for transport, to be reassembled at the harbor, there was that sound again—like a crying baby.

“There it is! That noise! What else do you do here in your secret little laboratory, Professor Swallow?”

“What sound do you mean, Mr. Richards?” she asked Bob innocently.

The sound repeated itself, this time as a wild shriek.

“That’s what!” Bob said, satisfied now that he was closer to exposing her true wickedness.

“You mean my baby.”

Before Bob could question this, a slender black cat leaped from behind a cabinet onto the table directly in front of Bob, who shouted and jumped back.

“A cat? You keep a cat in here?”

“He is my baby,” she replied forthrightly. “And the handsomest creature ever made by God. He has a voice like an angel.”

“He is a common black cat. His cry is loud and disruptive. Why don’t you leave him home?”

“Usually I would. There is a building being erected outside my boardinghouse window, and I do not like him to be near the dust particles during the day. Neither human nor animal should breathe in such foreign particles. Here, at least, I know exactly how each compound is made, and have the use of a ventilating fan. You may wish to know he enjoys to be scratched on the chin.”

“Do you not realize that with a black cat you are liable to provoke those less mature boys who think you’re a witch?”

“You mean boys such as yourself?”

“Less mature even!”

“Did you know, and it is a fact, that sailors’ wives kept black cats to guarantee their husbands’ safe return from sea? In fact, due to this superstition, they were constantly stolen.”

“A common animal does not belong in a laboratory.”

“In fact, the laboratory may be the greatest friend to dumb animals. As science advances, the lives of animals will improve as we depend less and less on their labor and no longer ignore their conditions in order to improve ours. You know, there is much to learn from animals if we are ever to be truly industrial creatures. The beaver is the finest builder of bridges and the silkworm a better weaver than any man or woman. God gave industry perfectly to the caterpillar while we must learn our arts. That is technology—our way to become closer to being like the animals. I worry the pioneer cankerworms are having a cold time of it this spring, by and by.”

“Cankerworms? Thunder and lightning, woman! See to it that animal is not here long, or I shall throw him out on the street myself and let a sailor’s wife find him.”

“I suppose you have seen the latest news,” she said, changing the subject, and gestured to the day’s newspaper on the table.

“We have been somewhat occupied!”

“Do not get too lost in your experiments alone. You know the story of the fate of the great Archimedes, I assume.”

“Obviously!” Bob said, but his hesitation gave away his ignorance on the subject.

“I shall tell it anyway,” she said with a knowing look. “When the Romans took Syracuse, Marcellus ordered that the enemy’s renowned engineer, inventor of the dreaded Archimedes’ mirror, be spared. But when the soldiers found him, Archimedes was too busy writing geometrical formulas in the sand with a stick to answer to his name, and was run through by a sword.”

“Well?” Bob asked impatiently.

“Well, Mr. Richards, the latest news is that Louis Agassiz at Harvard is organizing expeditions at several points around Boston to examine the sediment formations.”

“Heavens! The sediment?”

“Excuse me. I have matters to attend to in the other room.”

“She ought to look into Archimedes’ mirror now and again,” he grumbled as he picked up the newspaper and found the column. “Well. Fossilized Agassiz, just our luck to contend with you.”

The cat, thinking he was addressed, curled on his side in front of Bob. When he was certain Ellen had gone back to the laboratory next door, Bob scratched the chin of the animal, who purred throatily.

*   *   *

M
ARCUS COULDN’T CONFESS
to Bob how tickled he was to be collaborating with Ellen Swallow. He had heard all of the stories about her eccentric personality but also about the rare genius of her microscopic eye in chemical analysis. If he did not have to hide what they were doing from the rest of the world, Agnes Turner would be enthralled to hear all about Miss Swallow. If he was tempted to tell her, the threats from the unionist worker had knocked sense into him. It would not be safe to involve her more than she was.

Over the next three days he made sketches refining a few of the mechanisms for the rest of the equipment they would need to search for evidence at the harbor. Needing to make some tests in water, he announced he was going to walk to the river, but Bob stopped him and said he had a better idea. They exited the laboratory and crossed the hall to the other side of the basement, directly under the entrance hall, where they passed through the engines for the ventilating fans and the rows of excess charcoal and other supplies.

They reached two water tanks, fashioned with pipes and steam pumps, that supplied special faucets inside the building with salt water for use in experiments. Bob pointed out a third saltwater tank.

“Where does this one connect?” Marcus asked.

“Nowhere,” Bob said, unscrewing the top. “I have been using it to experiment with an injector device for aerating water.”

“You have? Does the faculty know?”

“Indeed. They approved it.”

He waited to see if Bob was going to make a joke, but he was busy adeptly preparing the tank. “You never mentioned your aerating device before, Bob.”

“Oh, I shouldn’t want you fellows to have the wrong idea that I am a dig or a toady like you or Edwin. Come, are you ready to start?”

“Much appreciated,” Marcus said, laughing.

They lowered into the water a lantern slightly larger than the usual kerosene lamp held by hand, with a tube extended upward from the cage. After testing the lamp at different depths in the tank to determine how long the flame would remain, and getting mostly satisfactory results, they paused to make modifications.

“Do not permit her to distract you, Mansfield, old boy.”

Marcus looked up at him from the floor, where he was fastening a gauge, wondering how he knew Agnes was on his mind. Bob had pulled an unusually serious face. “Who?” he replied.

“Who do you think, Mansfield? Ellepedia. She seems to have a Napoleonic faith in her own star, which cannot fail to annoy.”

“Yes, you’re right. There is too much important work to do to invite distraction. Enough people have been hurt already by someone out there.”

“When do you think we will be ready with the rest of the machinery?” Bob asked.

“A little more testing. Day after tomorrow, maybe. How well it will work, Bob, I cannot say.”

“Did you notice that sometimes her eyes appear gray, and other times, blue, the color appearing and vanishing like a meteor in the sky? There is some trickery in it.”

“You mean Miss Swallow?”

“Who else?”

“Intrigued?” Marcus ventured.

Bob balked. “Terrified. She is, doubtless, the very first girl I cannot understand.”

“Fellows, there you are, come on!” Edwin had barely burst upon them and caught his breath before turning and dashing off again, his
laboratory coat fluttering behind him. Marcus and Bob put aside what they were doing and followed him back to their laboratory and took places near the table, where Ellen stood in her apron.

“I won’t break. You can come closer, gentlemen,” Ellen said. “That’s better. Ready? Class begins.”

“You see, fellows, Miss Swallow and I have changed the compound using the formulas she had been preparing,” Edwin said without taking a breath, “along with the rate of distribution shown by the Old State House clock and the watches you two found, and Bob’s supposition about the fireplugs, which appears absolutely correct.”

“Eddy,” Bob urged, though Edwin couldn’t possibly talk any faster.

“You see, by working backward using those formulas, and adjusting the dilution of the acid that is combined with a fluoride to the right level …”

Ellen released a small amount of their compound onto the corner of a pane of glass at the table. That part of the glass fizzled and dripped down as a liquid.

“In gas form, it would have the same effect,” said Ellen, “on a much broader area against any silicates or glass—not just windows but eyeglasses, drinking glasses, watches. Of course, I suspect the experimenter is using an impure, adulterated compound that we will never reproduce exactly, but replicating its behavior and primary components should allow us to observe what happened with some exactitude.”

“If we have hit upon the right chemical formula,” Bob said.

“Then we are leagues closer to finding where it could have come from,” Marcus said, finishing his thought.

Their mutual excitement was interrupted by a knock at the door to the laboratory.

“Busy!” Bob answered.

The knock repeated itself and the door swung open.

“I said ‘busy’!” Bob bellowed.

“Greetings, fellows.”

“Hammie,” Bob said, utterly surprised. As he spoke, he moved in front of the demonstration table, blocking it from Hammie’s view. “You have a key to this room?”

Marcus tensed.

“Why are you in the building so late, Hammie?” Edwin finally managed a less leading question.

“Come now, enough of this pretense. I know what you’re all doing here,” Hammie said somberly, taking a few leisurely steps inside. His hat was cocked over to one side and his face was unevenly shaved around the bends of his cheeks.

“And,” he continued as they stared at him, “I don’t like it, not at all.”

“Listen, Hammie,” Bob pleaded, but Marcus put out his hand, sensing this wasn’t what it appeared.

“The Technologists!” Hammie cried in outrage. “How dare you!”

“What?” Bob asked.

“My father might think to disregard my pursuits, but I shall not allow my classmates to do the same. I won’t! I saw the papers in the faculty offices. You registered yourselves as members of the Technologists and have been holding meetings. I
started
the Technologists Society when we were sophs. It’s a plain fact of the bylaws that you can’t have meetings without me!”

The others took the opportunity to breathe again.

“Hammie, I didn’t realize that you started the Technologists,” Bob said. “Why didn’t anyone join back then?”

Hammie gazed at the ceiling, then began looking around the room. “Frankly, I couldn’t find any members—that’s just it. What a bore everyone around here is. I always wanted to have a secret society. Say, what is all this?”

“You mustn’t tell anyone,” Edwin blurted out.

“What, Hoyt?” Hammie asked, distracted by the variety of objects on the demonstration tables.

“You mustn’t tell!” Edwin repeated, while Marcus and Bob both gave him surreptitious warning glances that went unseen.