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 middle of the room, in this blinding light, a lensed, gigantic figure, somewhat 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 one of his terrible shell explosions , whose corpse was frozen at 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.All around him the reagents in the test flasks, the water in the still, the mercury in the basins were still frozen!

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 containing 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. However, One of the defects of this material, which has only recently been discovered, is that it sometimes explodes suddenly due to mysterious molecular activities, 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 from Mr. Schulz's body his last thoughts written by hand, they are still somewhat recognizable, because they have all been magnified by the action of a convex lens.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, 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 need a modern Pompeii, one that will terrify and shock the world. As long as I follow my orders completely, that kind of result is bound to happen. You send me the bodies of Dr. Sarrazan and Marcel Brickmann. I want to see them, to own them. Shure The last signature was not finished, the last letter 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 Stahlstad will surely relax your mind forever.Mr. Schultz is gone!Mr. Schultz is dead! died!cried Dr. Sarrazan. The good doctor remained thoughtful before Marcel, and for some time said nothing more. My poor boy, he said to Marcel when he recovered, 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 injustice , The most unreasonable war!But you know, this news is contrary to common sense and makes me feel sad!ah!Why should this brilliant man be our enemy?Why should he not use his rare talents for a useful cause?How much labor wasted!How good would those wasted labors have been, had we united them with our intellect, and made them serve a common purpose!When you tell me: Mr. Schultz is dead.This is the first thing that comes to my mind when IBut now, my friend, tell me what you know about this unexpected conclusion.

Mr. Schultz died in his mysterious laboratory, Marcel said, he was so clever that no one could enter that laboratory when he was alive.No one except him knew of such a laboratory, so no one could break in and save him.He was thus the victim of that inconceivable dictatorship which concentrated all power in his own hands, by means of which he falsely believed he could manage all his careers alone, but, God forbid, this The dictatorship suddenly ran counter to his purpose! This matter can only have such an ending!Dr. Sarrazan replied that Mr. Schultz was based on an absolutely false theory.In truth, the best government is only that which, after the death of its leader, can easily find a successor, and can continue with the old policies, because its various departments cooperate with each other.Is it not?

You will see right away, doctor, Marcel replied, that what happened at Stalstadt justifies what you just said.I found that Mr. Schultz was sitting at his desk when he died, from which orders were issued and Steel City had to obey them, but not a single order was discussed.When he died, his posture and expression were exactly the same as when he was alive, so when I first saw it, I thought this ghost was talking to me!But the inventor has become a victim of his own invention!He was killed by the shells that were supposed to destroy our city!Just as he was about to issue the last attack order, his weapon shattered in his hands!you listen! Marcel then read aloud the dreadful passage which Mr. Schultz had transcribed in his own hand. Then, he added: If I had thought about it before, it would have proved to me that Mr. Schultz was dead, and that was that everything around him had ceased to move!Everything in Stahlstad has stopped breathing!As in Sleeping Beauty's palace, all life is in deep sleep, all activity ceases!The master is paralyzed, the servants are also paralyzed, and even all tools are paralyzed! Yes, replied Dr. Sarrazan, that is the truth of God!Mr. Schultz died because he acted blindly in his unscrupulous eagerness to destroy us! Indeed, Marcel replied, but now, let us stop thinking about the past and focus on the present.Mr. Schultz is dead, if safe for us, but ruinous, temporarily paralyzed, for the marvelous city he created.By acting rashly, as blindly as everything the Iron Magnate imagined, great hidden dangers are created.Blinded by his own success on the one hand, and by his hatred of the City of France, and you, on the other, he, without certainty, offers his prodigious weapons to all who might be our enemies. people.But, notwithstanding, 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 get Stalstadt back on his feet and put it in order to do evil. The strength gathered by deeds is used for good.Mr. Schultz has only one possible heir, doctor, and that heir is you.His cause should not be allowed to perish on its own.In this world, everyone thinks that there is nothing but good to be gained from the demise of a hostile power.This is so wrong, and I hope you will agree with me, that on the contrary, we must salvage everything that is good for mankind from this great enterprise that is being destroyed.And for this mission, I am ready to go through fire and water, no matter what. Marcel was right, continued Octave, pressing my friend's hand firmly, and I am ready to work under his command if my father agrees. I agree with you, my dear children, said Dr. Sarrazan. Yes, Marcel, we will never lack funds.With you, we will restore the arsenal of Stahlstad, so that no one will dare to use their brains to attack us from now on!While we will be the most powerful, we will also strive to be the most righteous, and we will make those around us love the cause of peace and justice.ah!Marcel!How many beautiful visions there are!When I feel that through you and with you, I will be able to see a part of my dream come true, I wonder why!Why do I not have two sons!Why are you not Octave's brother!As long as the three of us are together, I don't see anything we can't do!