What Went Before
Alan MacRae, simple, uneducated, yet a skilful radio operator, endowed with an unusually keen sense of hearing, is sent as operator to a secret radio station, operated by the British Government, known as STATION X, somewhere off on an island in the Pacific. He is chosen for the post because of his ability as a radio expert and his fine hearing. He accepts the offer because the extra pay involved brings him that much nearer to the day when he and May Treherne, the heroine, can be married. He takes leave of his sweetheart with peculiar forebodings of impending, intangible, dangers, fears which seem to have no foundation or reason. He soon learns, while still en route to the island, that his partner-to-be for several months is not going to be much of a companion for him. Lieut. Wilson is very well educated and is very intolerant of Macrae's educational shortcomings. Ling, the Chinese cook and caretaker, completes the party to remain on the island, and incidently also serves as the "butt" for Lieut. Wilson's ill-temper.
Before long both men—Lieut. Wilson and the Chinaman—are found lying dead, apparently murdered by each other. And it is probably because of his nervous condition, caused by this mysterious murder, that Macrae falls under the influence of an inhabitant of Venus, who is known in this story, as a "Venerian," and whose voice comes to him over the radio, telling him all kinds of interesting things about the inhabitants of Venus, giving him a great deal of scientific information, etc., although Macrae understands nothing of the greatest part of it.
Because London has received no answer from Station X for three days, the "Sagitta" with a crew of investigators and relief is despatched to the island and arrives to find Macrae lying on the floor, apparently dead, still wearing the ear-set; the chair on which Macrae sat seems to have been thrown over, and not another living soul is to be seen.
The doctor, thinking that Macrae may be suffering from catalepsy rather than that he is dead, takes him back to London on the "Sagitta." Macrae recovers on the boat and tells a weird tale, which, however, coincides perfectly with his shorthand notes of both his report and of the mysterious messages, and with his diary.
When they arrive in London, the government starts an investigation.
The story is now reaching an interesting point, bringing in the tale of planetary inter-communication, of the rivalry between the planets, of hypnotism across millions of miles of space, directly and indirectly, all told with vraisemblance. The rivalry of the powers for good and for evil, the help given by the gentle inhabitants of Venus, the asperities of the Martian inhabitants, are all told of so that we almost believe the words of the author, whose imagination follows such scientific lines and makes us feel that a climax perhaps fraught with disaster is approaching.
CHAPTER VII
The Voice From Mars
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f the question had been asked, Who is the most eminent scientists of the day? nine out of ten would have answered: Stanley Budge. His distinguishing characteristic was his open-mindedness. If, for example, he had been a church dignitary, his tolerance would have become a scandal. The same quality in him that would have caused him to make ribbons of the rubrics, caused him to encounter an occasional sidelong look, even in the halls of science. It was disgusting to some of his confrères, that a man whose scientific attainments and labors could not be gainsaid, whose position was unchallengeable, should dabble with the, to them, unclean thing; should dare to assert the possibility of the existence of what could not be put under the microscope.
The value of his scientific work admitted, because it was undeniable, his leaning towards spiritualism was looked upon as a strange weakness in an otherwise fine intellect. The extra narrow-minded believed that there must be a bee in his bonnet somewhere.
The Professor was by no means thin-skinned, but there are few who do not chafe, however slightly, under ridicule. He was well aware that this had been the attitude with which his psychological investigations had been regarded, and that the results which he believed himself to have verified, were met with undisguised incredulity. He knew also that his treatise on the habitability of Mars had met with a cold reception. His own opinion on the universality of life, that it would be found, could the fact be ascertained, to exist wherever the conditions necessary to organic chemistry rendered its presence possible, he kept to himself. That such conditions existed on Mars, and probably other planets, he considered to be perfectly established. In this view he did not stand alone, but many hesitated.
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