Blaylock, James P - Langdon St Ives 02 Read Online Free PDF Page A

into
degeneration our doctor has trod. The next train to London , Hasbro?"
                   "Two-forty-five,
sir."
                   "We'll be aboard her."
                   
                   THE BAYSWATER CLUB, owned by the Royal Academy
of Sciences, sat across from Kensington Gardens , commanding a view of trimmed lawns and
roses and cleverly pruned trees. St. Ives peered out the window on the second
floor of the club, satisfied with what he saw. The sun loomed like an immense
orange just below the zenith, and the radiant heat glancing through the
geminate windows of the club felt almost alive. The April weather was so
altogether pleasant that it came near to making up for the fearful lunch that
would at any moment arrive to stare at St. Ives from a china plate. He had
attempted a bit of cheerful banter with the stony-faced waiter, ordering dirt
cutlets and beer as a joke, but the man hadn't seen the humor in it. What he
had seen had been evident on his face.
                   St. Ives sighed and wished heartily that he
was taking the sun along with the multitudes in the park, but the thought that
a week hence there mightn't be any park at all—or any multitudes, either—sobered
him, and he drained the bottom half of a glass of claret. He regarded the man
seated across from him. Parsons, the ancient secretary of the Royal Academy , spooned up broth with an enthusiasm that
left St. Ives tired. Floating on the surface of the broth were what appeared to
be twisted little bugs, but must have been some sort of Oriental mushroom,
sprinkled on by a chef with a sense of humor. Parsons chased them with his
spoon.
                   "So you've nothing at all to fear,"
said Parsons, dabbing at his chin with a napkin. He grimaced at St. Ives in a
satisfied way, like a proud doggy who had fetched in
the slippers without tearing holes in them. "The greatest minds in the
scientific world are at work on the problem. The comet will sail past us with
no commotion whatsoever. It's a matter of electromagnetic forces, really. The
comet might easily be drawn to the earth, as you say, with disastrous
consequences. Unless, let's imagine, if we can push ourselves so far, the
earth's magnetic field were to be forcibly suspended."
                   "Suspended?"
                   "Shut off. Current
interruptus." Parsons winked.
                   "Shut off? Lunacy," St. Ives said. "Sheer lunacy."
                   "It's not unknown to have happened.
Common knowledge has it that the magnetic poles have reversed themselves any number
of times, and that during the interim between the
establishing of new poles, the earth was blessedly free of any electromagnetic
field whatsoever. I'm surprised that a physicist such as yourself has to be informed of such a thing.'' Parsons peered at St. Ives over the top
of his pince-nez, then fished up out of his broth a
tendril of vegetable. St. Ives gaped at it. "Kelp," said the
secretary, slathering the dripping weed into his mouth.
                   St. Ives nodded, a shiver running up along his
spine. The pink chicken breast that lay beneath wilted lettuce on his plate
began, suddenly, to fill him with a curious sort of dread. His
lunches with Parsons at the Bays water Club invariably went so. The
secretary was always one up on him, simply because of the food. "So what,
exactly, do you intend? To hope such an event into
existence?"
                   "Not at all," said Parsons smugly.
"We're building a device."
                   ''A device?''
                   "To reverse the polarity of the earth,
thereby negating any natural affinity the earth might have for the comet and
vice versa."
                   "Impossible," said St. Ives, a
kernel of doubt and fear beginning to sprout within him.
                   "Hardly." Parsons waved his fork with an air of