thought of Kregen under Antares. No, I am wrong. I do not think — I know. In working out a scheme whereby I might put myself in contact with a terrestrial agent of the Savanti I had to discount the Everoinye completely from the calculations. The idea began to obsess me. Where hitherto, after that first destructive fit of lethargy, I had flung myself into violent action to blot cruel thoughts from my brain, I now positively dwelt on all I knew of Kregen as it affected the Savanti, the mortal but non-human people of Aphrasöe.
If newspaper advertisements would help I would deluge the daily sheets with advertisements. This was the time I became involved with some of the more dubious aspects of Victorian science. As a trapped rat will turn and struggle against whatever opposes it so I struggled against invisible bonds. In the process I ran across weird people, ordinary human beings, and yet people possessed of some quirk of nature that led them to gather to themselves superior powers. Most of the time they were mere quacks, charlatans, impostors. Of Doctor Quinney, I had my doubts.
A thin, snuffly individual, blessed with a quantity of lank brown hair — hair that grew, it seemed, from every part of his face except his eyes — Doctor Quinney dressed in shiny black clothes, much worn, and a stovepipe hat elegantly blocked out after whoever it was had sat on it. His snuff blew everywhere. His eyes watered and gleamed with fanaticism; he claimed to know the Secrets of the Spheres.
"And I assure you, my dear sir" — his steel-rimmed pince-nez flashed in time to the pendulum motion of his head, the dramatic gestures of his gleaming-knuckled hands — "inthe Spheres like mystic gossamer balls lie the ultimate Secrets!"
I had taken chambers in a quiet London side street and the landlady, Mrs. Benton, was slowly growing accustomed to the procession of odd characters daily pulling the doorbell. As for my own clothes, they were unremarkable, simple English town clothes of sober cut and style. Doctor Quinney regarded me as a man who, also anxious to unravel the Secrets of the Spheres, happened most fortunately to be blessed with the wherewithal to satisfy that craving.
I tolerated him for what he might bring me, rather as a ponsho might be staked out for a leem.
"Listen to me, Doctor Quinney, and mark me well. I expect results from you. It might go very ill for you else." He started back and dropped his handkerchief. I know that he had seen in my face that awful mad glare marking a clansman of Segesthes, marking me, Dray Prescot, the Lord of Strombor.
Chapter Five Madam Ivanovna
Now began a different period of my life on Earth. More and more I mixed with the learned men, the savants, the scientists and chemists, the philosophers and engineers. To speak the truth, many of the new discoveries daily amazing this Victorian world had been spoken of in Aphrasöe. Because of this I was able to hold my own in argument and debate.
When Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace read their paper before the Linnean Society, I had been in India charging about with a saber and uselessly trying either to blot out all thought of Kregen or to imagine myself there as we battled. Many of the ideas expressed in The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, Darwin’s book that appeared in the November of the following year, made me realize that people on Earth were capable of great things, despite their flaws, and that Aphrasöe was a place of logical human development.
One day, it seems to me, our selfish brawling Earth may turn into the paradise I still — despite all! —
believe the Swinging City to be. As you must be aware, since I speak to you in the seventies of the twentieth century and much has transpired over the past one hundred years on Kregen, I know much more now than I knew then. At the time of which I speak, though, I knew practically nothing. Nothing. The Savanti had their purposes, and I had surmised these were for the good of
If newspaper advertisements would help I would deluge the daily sheets with advertisements. This was the time I became involved with some of the more dubious aspects of Victorian science. As a trapped rat will turn and struggle against whatever opposes it so I struggled against invisible bonds. In the process I ran across weird people, ordinary human beings, and yet people possessed of some quirk of nature that led them to gather to themselves superior powers. Most of the time they were mere quacks, charlatans, impostors. Of Doctor Quinney, I had my doubts.
A thin, snuffly individual, blessed with a quantity of lank brown hair — hair that grew, it seemed, from every part of his face except his eyes — Doctor Quinney dressed in shiny black clothes, much worn, and a stovepipe hat elegantly blocked out after whoever it was had sat on it. His snuff blew everywhere. His eyes watered and gleamed with fanaticism; he claimed to know the Secrets of the Spheres.
"And I assure you, my dear sir" — his steel-rimmed pince-nez flashed in time to the pendulum motion of his head, the dramatic gestures of his gleaming-knuckled hands — "inthe Spheres like mystic gossamer balls lie the ultimate Secrets!"
I had taken chambers in a quiet London side street and the landlady, Mrs. Benton, was slowly growing accustomed to the procession of odd characters daily pulling the doorbell. As for my own clothes, they were unremarkable, simple English town clothes of sober cut and style. Doctor Quinney regarded me as a man who, also anxious to unravel the Secrets of the Spheres, happened most fortunately to be blessed with the wherewithal to satisfy that craving.
I tolerated him for what he might bring me, rather as a ponsho might be staked out for a leem.
"Listen to me, Doctor Quinney, and mark me well. I expect results from you. It might go very ill for you else." He started back and dropped his handkerchief. I know that he had seen in my face that awful mad glare marking a clansman of Segesthes, marking me, Dray Prescot, the Lord of Strombor.
Chapter Five Madam Ivanovna
Now began a different period of my life on Earth. More and more I mixed with the learned men, the savants, the scientists and chemists, the philosophers and engineers. To speak the truth, many of the new discoveries daily amazing this Victorian world had been spoken of in Aphrasöe. Because of this I was able to hold my own in argument and debate.
When Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace read their paper before the Linnean Society, I had been in India charging about with a saber and uselessly trying either to blot out all thought of Kregen or to imagine myself there as we battled. Many of the ideas expressed in The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, Darwin’s book that appeared in the November of the following year, made me realize that people on Earth were capable of great things, despite their flaws, and that Aphrasöe was a place of logical human development.
One day, it seems to me, our selfish brawling Earth may turn into the paradise I still — despite all! —
believe the Swinging City to be. As you must be aware, since I speak to you in the seventies of the twentieth century and much has transpired over the past one hundred years on Kregen, I know much more now than I knew then. At the time of which I speak, though, I knew practically nothing. Nothing. The Savanti had their purposes, and I had surmised these were for the good of
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