400 Boys and 50 More (51 page)

This last command was meant for the girl, who hurriedly retrieved a well-worn astrolabe-like device from a concealed cabinet and pressed it into her master’s hands.

“The spectrum is like nothing ever seen on this earth,” he said, pulling aside the rack of filter bottles and bending toward his abat-nuit with the phantospectroscope at his eye, like a sorcerer stooping to divine the future in the embers of a hearth where some sacrifice has just done charring. I could not bear the cold heat of that unshielded black fire. I took several quick steps back.

“I would show you,” he went on, “but it would mean nothing to you. This is my real triumph, this phantospectroscope; it will be the foundation of a new science. Until now, visual methods of spectral inspection have been confined to the visible portion of the spectrum; the ultraviolet and infrared regions gave way before slow photographic methods; and there we came to a halt. But I have gone beyond that now. Ha! Yes!”

He thrust the phantospectroscope back into the burned hands of his assistant and made a final adjustment to the levers that controlled the angle and intensity of rays conducted through the abat-nuit. As the darkness deepened in that clinical space, it dawned on me that the third and deepest meaning of absorption was something like worship, and not completely dissimilar to terror.

ACCELERATOR!

my friend shouted, and I sensed rather than saw the girl moving toward him, but too slowly. Common accelerators are sodium carbonate, washing soda, ammonia, potassium carbonate, sodium hydrate (caustic soda), and potassium hydrate (caustic potash), none of which suited Aanschultz. He screamed again, and now there was a rush of bodies, a crush of them in the small corner of the room. An accelerator shortens the duration of development and brings out an image more quickly, but the images he sought to capture required special attention. As is written in the
Encylopaedia of Photography
(1911, exoteric edition), “Accelerators cannot be used as fancy dictates.” I threw myself back, fearful that otherwise I would be shoved through the gaping abat-nuit and myself dissolve into that negative essence. I heard the girl mewing at my feet, trod on by her fellows, and I leaned to help her up. But at that moment there was a quickening in the evil corner, and I put my hands to a more instinctive use.

ACCOMMODATION OF THE EYE

The darkness cupped inside my palms seemed welcoming by comparison to the anti-light that had emptied the room of all meaning. With both eyes covered, I felt I was beyond harm. I could not immediately understand the source of the noises and commotion I heard around me, nor did I wish to. (
See also
, “Axial Accommodation.”)

ACCUMULATOR

Apparently (and this I worked out afterward in hospital beside Aanschultz) the room had absorbed its fill of the neutralizing light. All things threatened to split at their seams. Matter itself, the atmosphere, Aanschultz’s assistants, bare thought, creaking metaphor–these things and others were stuffed to the bursting point. My own mind was a peaking crest of images and insights, a wave about to break. Aanschultz screamed incomprehensible commands as he realized the sudden danger; but there must have been no one who still retained the necessary self-control to obey him. My friend himself leapt to reverse the charge, to shut down the opening, sliding the rack of filtering jars back in place–but even he was too late to prevent one small, significant rupture.

I heard the inexplicable popping of corks, accompanied by a simultaneous metallic grating, followed by the shattering of glass. Aanschultz later whispered of what he had glimpsed out of the edges of his eyes, and by no means can I–nor would I–discredit him.

It was the bottles and jars in the filter rack that burst. Or rather, some burst, curved glass shards and gelatinous contents flying, spewing, dripping, clotting the floor and ceiling, spitting backward into the bolt-hole of night. Other receptacles opened with more deliberation. Aanschultz later blushed when he described, with perfect objectivity, the sight of certain jar lids unscrewing themselves from within. The dripping and splashes and soft wet steps I heard, he said, bore an actual correspondence in physical reality, but he refused ever to go into further detail on exactly what manner of things, curdled there and quickened in those jars by the action of that deep black light, leapt forth to scatter through the laboratory, slipping between the feet of his assistants, scurrying for the shadows, bleeding away between the planks of the floor and the cracks of our minds, seeping out into the world. My own memory is somewhat more distorted by emotion, for I felt the girl clutching at my ankles and heard her terrible cries. I forced myself to tear my hands away from my face–while still keeping my eyes pressed tight shut–and leaned down to offer help. No sooner had I taken hold of her fingers than she began to scream more desperately. Fearing that I was aggravating her wounds, I relaxed my hands to ease her pain; but she clung even more tightly to my hands and her screams intensified. It was as if something were pulling her away from me, as if I were her final anchor. As soon as I realized this, as soon as I tried to get a better hold on her, she slipped away. I heard her mother calling. The girl’s cries were smothered. Across the floor rushed a liquid seething, as of a sudden flood draining from the room and down the abat-nuit and out of the laboratory entirely.

My first impulse was to follow, but I could no longer see a thing, even with my eyes wide open.

“A light!” I shouted, and Aanschultz overlapped my own words with his own: “No!”

But too late. The need for fire was instinctive, beyond Aanschultz’s ability to quell by force or reason. A match was struck, a lantern lit and instantly in panic dropped; and as we fled onrushing flames, in that instant of total exposure, Aanschultz’s most ambitious and momentous experiment reached its climax…although the denouement for the rest of Europe and the world would be a painful and protracted one.

ACETALDEHYDE

(
See
“Aldehyde.”)

ACETIC ACID

The oldest of acids, with many uses in photography, in early days as a constituent of the developer for wet plates, later for clearing iron from bromide prints, to assist in uranium toning, and as a restrainer. It is extremely volatile and should be kept in a glass-stoppered bottle and in a cool place.

ACETIC ETHER

Synonym, ethyl acetate. A light, volatile, colorless liquid with pleasant acetous smell, sometimes used in making collodion. It should be kept in well-stoppered bottles away from fire, as the vapor is very inflammable.

ACETONE

A colorless volatile liquid of peculiar and characteristic odor, with two separate and distinct uses in photography, as an addition to developers and in varnish making. As the vapor is highly inflammable, the liquid should be kept in a bottle with a close-fitting cork or glass stopper.

ACETOUS ACID

The old, and now obsolete, name for acetic acid (
which see
). Highly inflammable.

ACETYLENE

A hydrocarbon gas having, when pure, a sweet odor, the well known unpleasant smell associated with this gas being due to the presence of impurities. It is formed by the action of water upon calcium carbide, 1 lb. of which will yield about 5 ft. of gas. It burns in air with a very bright flame, and is largely used by photographers for studio lighting, copying, etc., and as an illuminant in enlarging and projection lanterns. Acetylene forms, like other combustible gases, an explosive mixture with ordinary air, the presence of as little as 4 per cent. of the gas being sufficient to constitute a dangerous combination.

ACETYLENE GENERATOR

An apparatus for generating acetylene by the action of water on calcium carbide. Copper should not be employed in acetylene generators, as under certain conditions a detonating explosive compound is formed.

ACETYLIDE EMULSION

Wratten and Mees prepared a silver acetylide emulsion by passing acetylene into an ammoniacal solution of silver nitrate and emulsifying in gelatin the precipitate, which is highly explosive. While this substance blackens in daylight about ten times faster than silver chloride paper, for years observers failed to detect any evidence of latent image formation and concluded that insights gained in Professor Conreid Aanschultz’s laboratory were of no lasting significance. This misunderstanding is attributed to the fact that, despite the intensity of exposure, it has taken more than a century for certain crucial images to emerge, even with the application of strong developers. We are only now beginning to see what Aanschultz glimpsed in an instant.

“What man may hereafter do, now that Dame Nature has become his drawing mistress, is impossible to predict.”

— Michael Faraday

* * *

“Great Breakthroughs in Darkness” copyright 1992 by Marc Laidlaw. First appeared in
New Worlds #2
(1992), edited by David Garnett.

TERROR FAN

Runick shoved a rolled-up towel against the bottom of the door to keep the smell of pot out of his room; it filled the corridor with a sickly scent and made him ill at ease, a distraction where he was going. He drew the curtains to shut out the grey October light, cutting off his sight of the campus paths, students rushing everywhere in a light rain.

He would shut out that world for as long as he could. It took an additional effort to ignore the stack of textbooks teetering on his little built-in desk, especially since they were in the way of the stereo. He dropped a Holly Terror album on the turntable, then fit a pair of hugely padded headphones over his ears, shutting out all sounds but the soft crackling, like footsteps in pine needles, that always filled him with anticipation. He lay down on his bed, folded his hands over his chest, and shut his eyes.

The first notes, as always, summoned feelings of dread. The music made a choked path into darkness, little-travelled. Of him it made a shadow sweeping down into a black place.

His return was a moment of fear, despite his great joy.

He used to think he was entering the groove itself, that he was becoming microscopic, smaller than the needle’s head, descending into the track. But no vinyl groove could have been so overgrown with brambles, its steepening sides edged far above with tottering rocks like decayed molars. Thick pine branches crowded out the sky, clawed at the stars, blotted out their light—as all the while he swept down faster, borne by the music and his own black wings. He himself was dread now, pure terror. This valley was his hunting ground, a fissure between the hemispheres of his brain, the place he went when he had to get away.

Deeper, darker, faster, as the music built and fed his power, welcoming him home. The darkness was impregnable.

All around him, the black faces of his brethren stirred and squirmed invisibly, their open mouths waiting for any morsel he might drop to them.

And then, right on cue, the light appeared.

Far ahead of him, growing slowly, a spark of brightness, a flame drawing him, a star—

A voice.

He was unable to check his swooping flight, his headlong plunge, unable to hold back his all-smothering blackness from extinguishing that tiny spark. It grew in size and clarity as he swept toward it—brighter, louder, the words coming clear though his mind refused to admit them. He must quench the spark. The power to do so was his alone. Despite some reluctance, it was necessary to complete the darkness of his mind, to preserve the utter purity of the music, which shaped the silence of this valley.

He spread his wings and the spark trembled, expanding. Suddenly he saw the face of Holly Terror caught in a sourceless spotlight, her jet-black hair with one white streak flying around her alabaster face. He stretched to spill out all the passion he held back, and knew that it was his love that allowed him to murder her—for without her he was incomplete. Without her presence he had no reason to be here. What good is darkness without a light to quench?

Eagerly, he bent to snuff her.

Suddenly his wings were torn away, a light most drab and ordinary fouled his eyes, and Holly was gone, her voice snatched from his ears, her life from his black enveloping fingers.

“Runick! Guess what!”

He came awake clenched in fetal posture, uncurling as his roommate Nevis tore off the headphones that were Runick’s umbilicus to that dark womb of fear. Nevis, who should have been gone for the day, threw open the curtains and dropped down on the opposite bed with that taunting grin that was his usual expression, and not to be taken personally.

“You’re not gonna believe this. She’s back in town.”

“Who?” Runick whispered, far from acclimated to this bright and ugly place.

“Who? What do you mean, who? Is there any other ‘she’ in your vocabulary? Holly Terror, stupid. Unless you’ve got a girl nobody knows about.”

Runick sat up, got to his feet, turned to the door and then back to Nevis. “How do you know?”

“Miller’s girlfriend works at the airport rent-a-car. She just saw her there. You wanna bet she’s gonna do a concert? One for the old home town?”

Runick sank back onto the bed, in shock, unsure of what action he should take—if any. His grief was almost immeasurable. He should have been delirious, but there were so many others here who had a claim on Holly Terror. He was nothing to her, just a face in the crowd despite the power of his visions and the feeling he had when he was with her in that dark valley, swooping down to blow her out with the certain knowledge that he had total control of her life and death. But that was just a dream, a fantasy. What did it matter to Holly that he had seen every concert she’d heldin Portland since he was fifteen, that he’d played her records a thousand times? He was just one among many.

“What’s wrong, Runick? I thought you’d be stoked.”

He shrugged. “It is good news.”

“So come on, time for action. We’ll track her down. Spencer’s such a small town, she can’t hide for long. Her sister still lives on the outskirts—I’ll bet that’s the place to start. Come on, Runick, you’re up for it, aren’t you?”