Chapter 18 Chapter 18 The Mysterious Laboratory

The top of the steel ladder hooked on the floor of a large circular room with no connection to the outside.The room would be pitch black were it not for a blinding white light coming in from a thick bull's-eye pane of glass set in the center of the oak floor.The window hole seems to be a round moon, facing the sun, it looks pure and pure. The walls on all sides were deaf and dumb, unable to see or hear, and surrounded the house in silence.The two young men thought they had come to the aisle leading to the mausoleum. Marcel hesitated for a moment before stepping forward and bending over the illuminated window.He's almost done!He had no doubt that the impenetrable secret he had come to Starstad to explore was about to be revealed!

He just hesitated for a moment.He went forward together with Octave, knelt down beside the disc, and lowered his head to examine every corner of the room below. A sight both terrible and unexpected met their eyes. Both sides of this glass disk are convex, like a lens, and everything seen through it is amazingly large. This is Mr. Schultz's secret laboratory.The intense light that shone through the disc seemed to emanate from the diopters of a lighthouse, but was actually emitted from two bell-shaped vacuum bulbs constantly powered by extremely powerful batteries.In the center of the room, in this blinding light, a lensed, gigantic human figure—something like a sphinx in the Libyan desert—sat, motionless.

On the ground around the ghost, there were fragments of cannonballs. There is nothing to doubt! ... This is Mr. Schultz, recognizable by his monstrously large mouth and shining teeth, but this is Mr. Schultz of enormous size, asphyxiated by the explosion of one of his terrible shells And died, its body froze in extremely low temperature! The Iron King was sitting at his desk, holding a giant pen in his hand, as if he was still writing!If it weren't for the dilated pupils, the glazed eyes, and the motionless mouth, you'd think he was still alive.This body, like those mammoths that are found in the polar ice, has been hidden here for a month without being found.Everything around him—the reagents in the test flasks, the water in the still, the mercury in the basin—still froze!

Although the scene in front of him was horrific, Marcel still had a happy expression on his face.He was thinking that he was lucky to be able to observe the interior of this laboratory from the outside, and if he and Octave rushed in rashly, they would surely die. How did this terrible accident happen?When Marcel noticed that the shell splinters on the floor consisted of little shards of glass, he knew it all at once.It turns out that the inner shell filled with liquid carbonic acid in Mr. Schultz's suffocating shell must withstand enormous pressure, so it is made of a special glass whose resistance is more than ten times that of ordinary glass, but , one of the defects of this material, and it was discovered only recently, is that it sometimes explodes suddenly due to the mysterious activities of molecules, and the reason for the explosion cannot be seen on the surface.That's probably what happened.It is also possible that the internal pressure of the cannonball placed in the laboratory was too high, which inevitably caused an explosion.The liquid carbon dioxide was suddenly decompressed by the explosion and turned into a gas, causing the surrounding temperature to drop suddenly.

In short, the results of the explosion were probably astonishing.Mr. Schultz died suddenly, his body maintained the posture of the moment of explosion, and was frozen into a mummy at minus one hundred degrees. What particularly caught Marcel's attention was that the Iron King was still writing when he was dying. What, then, was he writing on that piece of paper with the pen still clutched in his hand?It might be interesting to know the person's last thoughts, last words. But how can I get that piece of paper?Smash the luminous disc and go down to the laboratory to get it, then don't even think about it.The carbonic acid gas which had accumulated in the laboratory under great pressure was likely to rush out, and any living thing surrounded by this suffocating gas must be suffocated.That would undoubtedly be suicidal, and it was clear that even if he could get the paper, it would not be worth the loss to take such a big risk.

However, although it is impossible to read Mr. Schulz's last thoughts written by his hand from his body, it is still somewhat recognizable, because his writing has been enlarged by the action of a convex mirror.Isn't that brilliant disc there?Its two light bulbs illuminate the laboratory like daylight, and everything is clearly illuminated. Marcel knew Mr. Schultz's handwriting. After reading it carefully for a while, he could see the following ten lines clearly. Like everything Mr. Schultz writes, the ten lines are more an order than an instruction: Order B, K, R, and Z to attack the city of France fifteen days in advance. ——After receiving this order, immediately implement the measures I have taken. ——This time the test must be fatal and thorough. ——Everything I decide must not be changed in the slightest. ——I want to make the city of France a dead city in half a month, and not a single resident is allowed to live. —I want a modern Pompeii, one that will terrify and shock the world. ——As long as you follow my orders completely, that kind of result is bound to happen.

You bring me the bodies of Dr. Sarrazan and Marcel Brickmann. —I want to see them, to possess them. Shure... The final signature was not finished, and the last word "ci" and the abbreviation of the customary signature were not written. Marcel and Octave remained stupefied and silent for a while before this strange spectacle, before the almost hallucinatory vision of this villainous genius. However, they finally got rid of this tragic scene. So the two friends left the room above the laboratory with great excitement. After all, one day, when the lights go out due to lack of electricity, this tomb will be shrouded in darkness, only the corpse of the Iron King remains here, like a pharaoh's mummy, it will not be weathered into ashes for two thousand years ! ...

At the end of an hour, Octave and Marcel, having untied Sidhimes and bewildered him, left Stalstadt and set out on their way back to the city of France that night. Dr. Sarrazan was working in his office when the return of the two young men was announced. "Let them in!" cried Dr. Sarrazan. "Let them in!" The first thing he said when he saw them was: "How about it?" "Doctor," replied Marcel, "the news we bring you from Staalstad will surely relax your mind forever. Herr Schulz is gone! Herr Schulz is dead! " "Dead!" cried Dr. Sarrazan.

The good doctor stood before Marcel thoughtfully, and for some time said nothing more. "My poor boy," he said to Marcel, recovering, "you know, I should have been very happy to hear the news, because it saved us from what I hate most—war." , and the most unjust and unreasonable war! But you know, this news is contrary to common sense, and it pains me! Ah! Why does this brilliant man want to be our enemy? Why doesn't he put himself How much labor is wasted! What would have been wasted labour, had we united them with our intellect, and made them serve a common purpose? Good! That was the first thing I thought of when you told me, 'Mr. Schultz is dead.' But now, my friends, you give me what you know about this unexpected Tell me about the outcome."

"Mr. Schulz died in his mysterious laboratory," said Marcel. "He was so clever that no one could enter that laboratory while he was alive. No one knew that there was such a thing but him." a laboratory, so that no one could break in to save him. He thus became the victim of that inconceivable dictatorship which concentrated all power in his own hands, by virtue of which he falsely believed he could be alone. Take control of all your own careers, but, God knows, this kind of dictatorship suddenly runs counter to him and his purpose!" "It can only end like this!" replied Dr. Sarrazan. "Mr. Schulz is based on an absolutely false theory. In fact, the best government can only be such a government: After the death of the leader it is easy to find a successor and continue with the original policy because its various departments work together. Isn't that the case?"

"You will know in a moment, doctor," replied Marcel, "that what happened at Stahlstad just proves what you have just said. I found out that Mr. Schulz was sitting in the In front of my writing desk, all kinds of orders are issued from here, and Steel City must obey them, but none of the orders have been discussed. His posture and expression when he died are exactly the same as when he was alive, so when I first saw him, he still Thought this phantom was going to talk to me!... But the inventor fell victim to his own invention! He was killed by the shell that should have destroyed our city! Just as he was about to issue the last order to attack , his weapon shattered in his hands! Listen!" Marcel then read aloud the dreadful passage which Mr. Schultz had transcribed in his own hand. Then, he added: "If I had given much thought to this before, it would have proved to me that Mr. Schulz was dead, and that was that everything around him had ceased to move! Everything in Stahlstad had ceased to breathe. !Like in Sleeping Beauty's palace, all life is in a deep sleep, all activities are suspended! The master is paralyzed, the servants are paralyzed, and even all tools are paralyzed!" "Yes," replied Dr. Sarrazan, "that's the truth! Mr. Schultz died because he acted blindly in his unscrupulous eagerness to destroy us!" "Indeed," replied Marcel, "but now, let us stop thinking about the past and focus on the present. Mr. Schulz is dead, and if it is safe for us But it was doom, for the time being, paralysis to the awe-inspiring city he had built. By a rash act, as blind as all that the Iron Magnate could have imagined, a colossal Blindfolded by his own success on the one hand, and by his hatred of the City of France, and you, on the other hand, without any certainty, he offers his arsenal of weapons to all who may be with us An enemy. But, nevertheless, and though it will be a long time before most of his debts are paid off, I think it only takes one strong man to put Stalstadt on his feet again, and Use the power it gathers for evil to do good. Mr. Schultz has but one possible heir, Doctor, and that heir is you. His career should not be allowed to perish of itself. In this world, everyone thinks There is nothing but good to be gained from the destruction of hostile powers. That is quite wrong, and I hope you will agree with me that, on the contrary, we must salvage all that is good for mankind from this great enterprise that is being destroyed. something. And for this mission, I'm ready to go through fire and water." "Marcel is right," continued Octave, clasping his friend's hand, "and I am ready to work under my father's command, if he will." "I agree with you, my dear boys," said Dr. Sarrazan. "Yes, Marcel, we will never lack for funds. With you, we will surely make the arsenal of Stalstadt Recover so that from now on no one will dare to use their brains to attack us! While we will be the strongest, we will also try to be the most righteous, and we will make all around us love peace And the cause of justice. Ah! Marcel! What a vision! When I feel that through you and with you I shall be able to see a part of my ideal come true, I wonder why... yes Why don't I have two sons!...Why aren't you Octave's brother!...I don't see anything impossible as long as the three of us are together!...'