Brian Aldiss - The Monster Trilogy

‘I’m not so certain about that, doctor. The secret of the universe – provided there is such a thing – is open to enquiry by anyone, by any interested party, just like the secrets of the personality.’

‘What secrets of the personality?’

‘Like why you rub one index finger against the other when you talk … No, wait, doctor, I’m sorry. That was impertinent.’

The doctor had turned on his heel in vexation, but Bodenland charmed him back, to ask what treatment he was giving Stoker for his disease.

‘I treat his sores with mercury ointment. It is painful but efficacious.’

Bodenland scratched his chin.

‘You won’t have heard of penicillin yet awhile, but I could get a hold of some. And in a very few years Salvarsan will become available.’

‘You’re making no sense to me, sir.’

‘You know, Salvarsan? Let’s see, would you have heard of Dr Ehrlich’s “magic bullets” at this date?’

‘Oh.’ The doctor gave a chuckle and nodded. ‘I begin to get your drift. Bram Stoker makes his own magic bullets – to kill off his imaginary vampires, you understand.’

At that juncture, Stoker himself put his head round the dining-room door.

‘There you are. I thought you must have gone into the study. Mr Bodenland, perhaps you’d care to inspect my workshop? I generally spend an hour pottering in there after dinner.’

As they went down a side-passage, Stoker put an arm round Bodenland’s shoulders.

‘You don’t want to pay too much attention to what van Helsing says. He’s a good doctor but —’ He put a finger to his temple, in unconscious imitation of van Helsing’s gesture of a few minutes past. ‘In some respects he has a screw loose.’

On the door before them was a notice saying, Workshop, Keep Out .

‘My private den,’ said Stoker, proudly. As they entered, he drew from an inner pocket a leather case containing large cigars, and proffered it to Bodenland. The latter shook his head vigorously.

He studied Stoker as the ginger man went through the rigmarole of lighting his cigar. The head was large and well-shaped, the ginger hair without grey in it, though a bald patch showed to the rear of the skull. The features were good, although the skin, particularly where it showed above the collar, was coarse and mottled.

Feeling the eyes of his visitor on him, Stoker looked sideways through the smoke.

‘Here’s my den. I must be always doing. I can’t abide nothing to do.’

‘I too.’

‘Life’s too short.’

‘Agreed. I am always ambitious to make something of myself.’

‘That’s it – cut a dash at the least, I say. Needs courage.’

‘Courage, yes, I suppose so. Do you reckon yourself courageous?’

Stoker thought, squeezing his eyes closed. ‘Let’s put it this way. I’m a terrible coward who’s done a lot of brave things. I like cricket. You Yanks don’t play cricket?’

‘No. Business and invention – that’s my line. And a lot of other things. There are so many possibilities in the world.’

‘Do you long to be a hero?’

The question was unexpected. ‘It’s a strange thing to ask. My shrink certainly thinks I long to be a hero … One thing, I have a need for desolate places.’

Giving him a sceptical look, Stoker said, ‘Mm, there’s nothing more desolate than the stage of the Lyceum on a slow Monday night … What does your family think of you?’

The interrogation would have been irritating on other lips. But there was something in Stoker’s manner, sly, teasing, yet sympathetic, to which Bodenland responded warmly, so that he answered with frankness.

‘If they can’t love me they have got to respect me.’

‘I wish to be a hero to others, since I’ll never be one to myself.’ He clapped Bodenland on the shoulder. ‘We have temperamental affinities. I knew it the moment I set eyes on you, even if you come from the end of next century, as you claim. Now have a butcher’s hook at this, as the Cockneys say.’

The workshop was crammed with objects – a man’s version of the ladies’ drawing room. Curved cricket bats, old smooth-bore fowling-pieces, a mounted skeleton of a rat, stuffed animals, model steam engines, masks, theatrical prints, framed items of women’s underwear, a chart of the planets, and a neat array of tools, disposed on shelves above a small lathe. These Bodenland took in slowly as Stoker, full of enthusiasm, began to talk again, lighting a gas mantle as he did so.

‘My Christian belief is that there are dark forces ranged against civilization. As the story of the past unfolds, we see there were millions of years when the Earth was – shall I say unpoliced? Anything could roam at large, the most monstrous things. It’s only in these last two thousand years, since Jesus Christ, that mankind has been able to take over in an active role, keeping the monsters at bay.’ Foreseeing an interruption, he added, ‘They may be actual monsters, or they may materialize from the human brain. Only piety can confront them. We have to war with them continuously. If Jesus were alive today, do you know what I believe he would be?’

‘Er – the Pope?’

‘No, no, nothing like that. A Bengal Lancer.’

After a moment’s silence, Bodenland indicated the work-bench. ‘What are you making here?’

‘Ah, I wanted to show you this. This is part of my fight against the forces of night. Sometimes I wish I could turn the gun on myself. I know there’s evil in me – I’m aware of it. I must ask you about your relationships with the fair sex, so called, some time.’

He held out for examination a cigar-box full of carefully wrought silver bullets, each decorated with a Celtic motif running about the sign of the Cross. He exhibited them with evident pride in their workmanship. An ill feeling overcame Bodenland. The sickly light of the gas mantle seemed to flare yellow and mauve as the room swayed.

‘These are my own manufacture,’ said Stoker and then, catching sight of Bodenland’s face, ‘What’s the matter, old boy? Cigar smoke getting to you?’

Recovering his voice, Bodenland spoke. ‘Mr Stoker, you may be right about dark forces ranged against civilization, and I may have proof of it. What do you make of this?’

He brought forth from his jacket pocket the article he had retrieved from Clift’s ancient grave in the Escalante Desert. In his palm lay a silver bullet, its nose dented, but otherwise identical to the ones in Stoker’s cigar-box.

‘This was found,’ he said, unsteadily, ‘in a grave certified scientifically to be sixty-five point five million years old.’

Stoker was less impressed than Bodenland had expected. He stroked his beard and puffed at his cigar before saying, ‘There’s not that much time in the universe, my friend. Sixty-five point five million years? I have to say I think you’re talking nonsense. Lord Kelvin’s calculations have shown that, according to rigid mathematics, the entire limit of the time the sun is able to emit heat is not greater than twenty-five million years. Admittedly the computations are not exact.’

‘You speak of rigid mathematics. More flexible mathematical systems have been developed, giving us much new understanding of the universe. What once seemed certain has become less certain, more open to subjective interpretation.’

‘That doesn’t sound like progress to me.’

Bodenland considered deeply before speaking again. He then summoned tact to his argument. ‘The remarkable progress of science in your lifetime will be built on by succeeding generations, sir. I should remind you of what you undoubtedly know, that only three generations before yours, at the end of the eighteenth century, claims that the solar system was more than a mere six thousand years old were met with scorn.