Steampunk Prime_ A Vintage Steampunk Reader - Mike Ashley [90]
“Constant powerful discharges of cathode and X-rays, such as must have been playing upon Durham for days and nights continuously, are now proved to be so injurious to life, that he would in all probability have been dead before the morning,” I cried. “As it is, we may save him.” Then I turned and grasped Dufrayer by the arm.
“I believe that at last we have evidence to convict Mme. Koluchy,” I exclaimed. “What with Lady Faulkner’s confession, and — — ”
“Let us go back at once and speak to Lady Faulkner,” said Dufrayer.
We returned at once to the next house, but the woman whom we sought had already vanished. How she had gone, and when, no one knew.
The next day we learned that Mme. Koluchy had also left London, and that it was not certain when she would return. Doubtless, Lady Faulkner, having confessed, in a moment of terrible agitation, had then flown to Mme. Koluchy for protection. From that hour to now we have heard nothing more of the unfortunate young woman. Her husband is moving Heaven and earth to find her, but in vain.
Removed from the fatal influence of the rays Durham has recovered, and the joy of having his little son restored to him has doubtless been his best medicine.
THE PLAGUE OF LIGHTS
Owen Oliver
AT THE END of the nineteenth century certain British factions were becoming almost paranoid at how unprepared Britain was for any possible invasion by either the French or the Germans. William Le Queux (1864-1927), one of the pioneers of spy fiction, produced two warning novels, The Great War in England in 1897 (1894) and The Invasion of 1910 (1906). The latter was sponsored by and serialised in the Daily Mail newspaper and caused a considerable uproar, with questions asked in Parliament.
If Britain was considered ill prepared for an invasion by foreign powers, how less ready was it (or any other country) for an invasion by extraterrestrials? H. G. Wells had shown this memorably in The War of the Worlds (1898) and since its publication many authors turned to the thought of alien invasion. One of the most creative was Owen Oliver, the alias used by Joshua Flynn (1863-1933). Flynn was a leading civil servant for over 30 years. He was financial adviser to Lord Kitchener during the Boer War and became Director-General of Finance for the Ministry of Pensions during the First World War. He was knighted in 1920.
As Oliver, Flynn contributed a variety of stories to the popular magazines, and though only a small percentage was science fiction it was still a significant number of stories. There are enough for a small volume but their themes are often repetitive because he enjoyed looking at different ways in which Earth (usually Britain) might be under threat. In “Out of the Deep” (London Magazine, July 1904) it was by giant fish who had evolved sufficient intelligence to manufacture artificial flying fish. In “The Long Night” (Pearson’s Magazine, January 1906), the Earth’s rotation unaccountably slows down. In “The Cloud-Men” (Munsey’s Magazine, August 1911) Earth is invaded by strange vapour-beings. There are plenty more, but perhaps the most original is the following, from The London Magazine for October 1904. — M.A.
THE official Blue Books just published, as the result of the Royal Commission on the Plague of Lights, contain the evidence of some two hundred scientists, and an exhaustive report by the two peers, three M.P.’s, and four Fellows of the Royal Society, who formed the Commission, upon the terrible calamity that recently devastated the earth. It may seem presumptuous for me to add to the testimony of such authorities; but I notice that all the learned gentlemen who gave evidence either obtained their facts at second-hand (having themselves escaped the plague by flight or going into hiding), or confessed that during the actual attack their faculties were