After you read this story, check out our interview with translator Erik Simon for some background on it and Alfred Leman.

Translated by Erik Simon
From Der unsichtbare Dispatcher (Berlin, 1980).

Kioshi Tokito and Anatol Bykov are plodding over the black sintered tuff. They are silent. There are some things to be discussed, but right now they prefer just to think. Everywhere here is that black tuff, except for a few snowflakes of real water, mixed with a good deal of ammonia. The two men’s chrome-yellow parkas are glittering pink now. Also the little clouds along the steps behind the men look pink in the horizontal rays of the sun. Bykov carries an extraordinary thing on his shoulder, something like a dented metal sheet, shapeless, with large and small holes, covered with a black crust. He is reflecting on his find. Tokito, too, has a trophy. He walks, holding it in the palm of his clumsy glove in front of himself like a host, a little disc, brownish, smooth and covered with frozen metal pearls. And Tokito, too, is considering certain circumstances. “Stop!” says Bykov after several hundred steps. Tokito stops. Bykov walkes ten or twelve steps sideways, bends down, lifts something from the ground and then freezes in a position that seems strange to Tokito. Therefore he goes to Bykov who stares at another piece of metal sheet he has found. It is almost a big as his paw, the edges are corroded, it looks very old and, in that light, pink as well. “Aluminium”, says Bykov unwaveringly, turns the piece over and adds: “Gold. Vapor-deposited gold.” On this side, shining like new, a drawing can be seen. Lines, crossing each other starwise, and a few scrolls near the edge, remainders of some larger picture that has been beaten or melted off. “Those are pulsar frequencies”, says Bykov laconically, Tokito sees that the lines are cut into very precise patterns. After a while he nods agreement. Bykov’s black eyes are radiant like a child’s. “And this they say is a sterile lump?” he asks and stamps his boot mightily upon the tuff, and the other man understands he means the whole planet. “I don’t know,” answers Tokito the rhetoric question. “Has this developed all by itself?” Bykov waves the metal. “No. Surely not,” answers Tokito. Then they march on, Bykov carrying the piece in his hand like a monstrance. After two hundred paces in silence he stops and looks at Tokito in triumph. “But I know something. I know now what these scrolls mean. It’s three feet and a hand.” Both men bend over the piece of metal. “Well?” Bykov tries to hasten Tokito’s understanding. “It’s true,” confirms Tokito seriously, “three feet and a hand.” Bykov views the drawing mit delight, and his imagination completes the picture. “I’ve always hoped they would exist somewhere around here. Such as … well, such as us … Or similar.” Once again, head crooked, he eyes the image of the three feet, then he turns to move on. “I don’t know”, remarks Tokito after some time, and then he hears Bykov say: “We are experiencing something really great.” Bykov murmurs something, moved by the majesty of his insight. This time Tokito is silent. For the time of many steps his face has an absent-minded look. Now Bykov laughs like a boy and marches on so spaciously that Tokito must double the number of his steps. After a quarter of an hour Tokito starts takling. “I remember now,”, he says. “So? What, Kioshi?” Bykov asks lightheartedly, and Tokito answers a bit teachingly, trying to hide compassion: “In the nineteen-seventies a space probe of the Pioneer type launched from Earth was the first space missile to leave the Solar system. It carried with it a gilded aluminium plate with data of some pulsars known at that time and with a picture of a pair of humans. It was an attempt to give word of our existence to the universe.” Tokito falls silent, and now Bykov stands frozen. “This is true?”, he asks an eternity later, though he knows it is, for it was Tokito who said it. “Two hundred years ago,” he aches. “And there is nobody to find the thing. Nobody but us, us dudes.” Then he starts walking on. Tokito goes behind him. Now he can reduce the number of his steps to normal, and it seems to him that Bykov’s arms have become a bit longer.

***

Those thoughts. Now, right now in the last, irretrievable Moment. What silly ideas: People invent beings, raise them out of the inexhaustible dark of inexistence. Morgenstern’s nasobēms making music. Lem’s Tichy in Tentotam, beyond the Milky Way, hunting after the mysterious sepulkes and finding nothing but the bashful blush of the Ardrites. Vonnegut’s hand-eyed little green men who close their raised hands to fists when they don’t want to see what makes them uneasy. Are all those characters really nothing but invention? Last of the crew, Jiri swings into the airlock, and from now on it’s scarcely twenty minutes to takeoff. What brutal cut! Beyond, only bloodless conserves and memories are waiting, bound to fade away. But there is still an image coming through the hatch before it closes. Still it is possible to look outside into the fragrant, gentle air that can caress and sound like the echo of happy laughter. And down there they are standing! Hundreds. They are not green. They are not little. They are kind, and their palms are smooth and blind. But … We asked them about their songs, and they simply snapped themselves shut. All the time they were singing. Whatever they did lead into songs. For three entire years we have asked them about their songs. And for three years they have snapped themselves shut. As soon as the question was there, they hid it behind the shield of a strange smile, snapped shut, and through their nostrils we heard the song humming inside them. They did not stop singing, not even after a thousand questions. But they preserved their secret. They are singing even now. Suddenly I hear a single voice above the soft undulation of sounds, high-pitched as usual. Jiri stands by the translator, pressing the membranes to his ears. Slowly his mouth opens. “Record!”, he shouts, then, whispering with excitement: “He’s speaking about their songs.” The high-pitched voice is muted by the rumble of the lock hatch. The crack is closing. Jiri tears the amplifier from his ears, for there it is, the cut, the takeoff program has no receptor for revelations. Later we ask Gobar why they answered only when it was too late. Gobar used to understand them best. He laughs soundlessly, and we think it’s their way to smile that has wandered upon his face. “If you interrupt a good story you want your listeners to come back to hear the end”, he says. “For three years they have taken care to make their story good enough.” Gobar is looking straight through us in a strange way. What is on his mind now?

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Weird Fiction Review: What was Leman’s life like before he became a writer?

Erik Simon: Leman was born in 1925 in Nordhausen and spent his whole life in Thuringia, except a short time around the end of World War II when he was first as a soldier and then as a POW. After returning from an American/British prison camp, he became a teacher, later he studied biology and chemistry in Jena where he spent the whole rest of his life, and earned a diploma (then the German equivalent to a MSc) and a doctor’s degree in biology. He then worked in the Research Department of Carl Zeiss Jena, a rather important optics company, till 1985 when he was allowed to retire for reasons of fragile health. So he never was a full-time writer.

WFR: Can you give us an overview of Leman’s work as an author? What sort of works did Leman write?

ES: His first two books, co-written with two collegues, were scientific textbooks on botanics, still in use at the Universities today. All his fiction is strictly SF: two story collections (1973, 1980), two novels (1986, 1991), and a number of stories published in anthologies which would make up at least one more collection. The first story collection, The Gift from the Transsolarian Guestswritten together with Hans Taubert, one of Leman’s collaborators on the textbooks, was very important for the development of SF in the German Democratic Republic – it was, in fact, the first SF story collection of any quality, and it was international quality right from the start. All the following books and stories were written by Leman alone, without much change in themes, quality, or style. The second collection, The Invisible Dispatcher, contains what I consider Leman’s best story (rather a novellette), „The Revision“; SF criticism in the GDR generally shared this opinion.

Most of Leman’s SF (not all) is centered around two themes: encounters with alien life forms (not necessarily intelligent) or with their traces, and life in a highly computerized and automated near-future world that has become so complex that for the individual, it is almost stochastic and unpredictable except in tems of probability. (No cyberpunk, though.) There is a slight shift from the first theme that dominates in the story collections towards the second theme that becomes more prominent in the novels and the later stories. Biological complexity appears in several of the early stories, but with centering on social complexity rather, the novels themselves grew more complex. The first novel, Black Flowers on Barnard 3, combines not only both themes but also novel and short stories: An interstellar spaceship dumps a group of astronauts together with tons of equipment on the third planet of Barnard’s star simply too loose weight. The people must not explore the planet, their only task is to sit in their camp and wait till the ship will come along on its way back and take them aboard again. Against their will they get into trouble – namely, into contact with the planet’s intelligent aboriginals who are quite different from people not only biologically but even more so psychically. Inserted into this main novel plot are several episodes that might be stand-alone short stories as well, each telling a story from the former life of one of the astronauts, displaying rather different themes of their own but also adding to the protagonist’s character as it shows itself in the main plot.

WFR: How does “Two Episodes” fit in with his oeuvre both historically and thematically?

ES: It appeared in Leman’s second story collection, and it fits in well in both respects except for its form, a kind of stream of consciousness all in one paragraph. Especially the second episode is a kind of highly condensed Leman story. There is a third such miniature in the collection which, at least thematically, in fact can be considered a condensed version of the title story in The Gift from the Transsolarian Guests. All other Leman stories are written in a more traditional style, but in the same very quiet, unexcited tone, only hinting at certain facts and at the protagonists’ thoughts and reasons.

WFR: Have other works by Leman been translated into English or is “Two Episodes” a first?

ES: No translations into English, at least not to my knowledge. Quite a lot of his stories were reprinted in (West) German anthologies in the seventies and eighties (a few even appeared there for the first time), and translated in Eastern (including Eastern Central) Europe.

WFR: In “Two Episodes,” Leman mentions Stanisław Lem and Kurt Vonnegut. What authors influenced or may have influenced Leman’s work?

ES: From the second collection on (and possibly earlier) the influence of Arkady and Boris Strugatsky can be felt. The possible influence of Anglo-American SF on Leman must have been quite limited for the simple reason that very few of it appeared in the German Democratic Republic before the mid-seventies, original books from the West were not sold in the GDR, and for most of the time their import was simply prohibited. In their condensed form, the Two Episodes may be influenced by stories from Herbert W. Franke’s collection The Green Comet; a few of them appeared in the GDR in 1974, and 16 more in 1978. They cannot possibly have influenced the stories in the first collection, but in fact that collection by Leman & Taubert did for SF in the GDR what Franke’s stories had done about ten years ealier for the SF of (West) Germany and Austria: they established a paragon of stories full of the sense of wonder.

There are similarities between Leman’s SF and some stories by Bradbury (the kind we have in The Illustrated Man) or, say, by Le Guin (stories only, not her novels). In the case of Bradbury, there may have been some influence as well, while Le Guin was published too late in the GDR to influence Leman.

A clear but very limited influence can be traced in the title story of the second collection: „The Invisible Dispatcher“ is, as Leman himself stated in a postscript to the story, a SF version of „The Invisible Japanese“ by Graham Greene: the plot is quite exactly the same, with a rather strange alien life form appearing instead of the Japanese tourists, and going completely unnoticed by the protagonist who all the time boasts beeing such a great observer.

WFR: I’m interested to know more about German speculative fiction. Who were Leman’s contemporaries? How does German scifi/fantasy works differ from American/British ones (if at all)? 

ES: First of all I must say that I am more interested in short stories than in novels, so I tend to see things from that point of few. Second, SF in the German language consists of four parts: pre-war, SF in the Federal Republic of Germany and Austria till 1990 (the two forming a single marked) opposed to SF in the GDR, and SF in Germany and Austria since 1990. The four sections show different features, a common feature is that German SF (and later, fantasy) was and is much more oriented towards novels instead of short stories. There never was any fully professional SF magazine in the German language (except for several short-lived attempts).

Post-war German SF has been shaped more or less according to patterns of Anglo-American SF. This is, to some extend, true even for the SF in the GDR, where the influence was indirect and came later, namely, via Russian SF which, in turn, was influenced by a large number of American/British SF published in the Soviet Union in the sixties and early seventies. (Mainly the classical big names: Asimov Bradbury Clarke Simak Sheckley … Wells, of course, and a few less typical names like Vonnegut.) SF in the German language preserved, though, some more typical traits of European literature, including (sometimes) a less straight narrative, which in the best case results in more complexity, and in the worst, in a boring attitude of teaching morals. With a lot of “normal” stories in between, i.e. those in the tradition of Anglo-American magazine SF.

The most specific feature of GDR SF (in its best specimina only) was the existence of a specific type of reader: Life under censorship (sometimes rather liberal, sometimes rigid and entirely illogical) teaches the reader to read carefully, to look for hints, for meanings behind the surface of the narrative. It also increased interest in a kind of literature like SF which in fact very seldom criticised the official politics and ideology but quite often told of things far away from the official propaganda. SF in the GDR was a branch of literature not much respected, not much controlled by the state, not much important, and extremely popular with the readers.

German fantasy is quite different. Some of it simply apes the standards (Sword & Sorcery, etc.), and usually doesn’t do it well, but a few writers like Cornelia Funke have written some interesting things indeed. I am not qualified to discuss this in much detail, though.

WFR: Are there other notable German authors that may be of interest to speculative fiction fans?

ES: Sure, but this is a wide field, and a complex question. Have a look at the anthology The Black Mirror (ed. by Franz Rottensteiner, Wesleyan Univ. Press, 2008), this is the best overview to start with, but of course you cannot cover such a large field in one volume. For GDR SF the book’s main blind spot is Leman; other notable GDR writers not covered there are Gert Prokop and Bernd Ulbrich. For the period from 1990 on, important authors missing in that anthology include Karsten Kruschel and Heidrun Jänchen, both of the next generation after my own. Especially Heidrun was an incredibly good writer of SF short stories, but she seems to have fallen silent two years ago, probably disappointed by the fact that for about 15 years, no big publishing house has ever printed any new German SF short stories, so the entire field is limited now to semi-pro magazines and small press. Very small press, alas.

The post Erik Simon on Alfred Leman’s “Two Episodes” appeared first on Weird Fiction Review.

Karl Hans Strobl (1877–1946) was an Austrian author and editor of fantasy and weird fiction. His writing was strongly influenced by Edgar Allan Poe and Hanns Heinz Ewers, author of such weird horror classics as “The Spider.” After World War I, Strobl relocated to Germany, where he founded the magazine Der orchideengarten: Phantastische blätter (The Orchid Garden: Fantastic Pages) in 1919 with Alfons von Czibulka, which is now regarded as the world’s first specialized fantasy magazine, predating Weird Tales in the United States by two years.

Strobl carved out a space for himself as a unique writer of macabre fiction, earning comparisons to the Czech writer Gustav Meyrink and to Alfred Kubin. However, Strobl also became increasingly extremist as an advocate for German nationalism. This impulse led to Strobl’s adopting right-wing and anti-Semitic views late in the 1920s. Some of the racism inherent in Strobl’s worldview had been visible as early as the illustrations commissioned for Der orchideengarten but metastasized when Strobl joined the Nazi Party before World War II, spending the rest of his literary career producing pro-Nazi propaganda. As a result, his works were banned by the Allies at the end of the war.

“The Triumph of Mechanics” (1907) originally appeared in The Big Book of Science Fiction where it was translated for the first time into English. It is only one of many interesting stories Strobl wrote prior to the hardening of his radicalized rightwing views. What comes through behind the apparent faith and optimism about industry and industrialization is the threat inherent to a mechanized society: the rebellious artificial legions stealing the world from their masters, foreshadowing one of the themes of classic science fiction. This stance is in direct opposition to the “can-do, gee whiz” attitude about humanity’s endeavors on Earth and beyond the stars that dominated some early American science fiction.

***

The town’s toy industry had grown considerably in the last few years. All civilized countries placed orders upon orders, eager to own mechanical toys—multicolored, marvelously precise: the Punchinello puppets banging drums, the indefatigable fencers, the madly fast automobiles, the proud war vessels propelled by veritable steam engines. Through some forceful entreat, one could export the toys to unsophisticated lands—though the demand was not as imperious. One could often find— deep in the forests and out in the deserts of Africa—little indigenous children playing with what remained of those remarkable products. A famous explorer even confessed to having been fooled in the jungle, at the edge of the Malagarassi, by a very peculiar monkey: the beast sat in a palm tree, and the explorer had convinced himself he had discovered another simian species, when he glimpsed his country’s trade mark, D.R.P.^[1] N. 105307, which destroyed his hopes. But the independent press soon placed this story in the usual category (as far as explorers of Africa were concerned) of imaginary ravings, and condemned it as one more conspiracy conceived by the abhorred colonial policy.

The automated rabbits from the firm Stricker & Vorderteil were by far in greatest demand. These small animals, exact replicas of the natural creatures, were capable, when their spring was fully wound up, to hop around like their living models, in five or six circles.

A mechanical engineer of universal genius, an American, of course, whose inventions seemed to fall from the heavens directly onto his lap, had designed the humble inanimate beasts specifically for the company. Unfortunately, the moment when the firm’s performance and celebrity peaked, everything collapsed like a house of cards. With the impertinence of the man who believes himself indispensible, Hopkins requested to be paid double, work half hours, and have access to a personal laboratory and a vacation property out of town. Stricker was inclined to accept, but Vorderteil opposed this decision in the strongest possible terms: “We can’t do that, if only for the sake of management’s principles; otherwise, in six months’ time Hopkins will come up with some new whim.”

Stricker agreed. The American, a grin hovering about his face, listened to his boss’s decision and responded by handing over his notice.  The slight consternation and discontent caused by this reaction vanished when the owners realized all the crucial secrets of fabrication were safe and the enterprise risked nothing.

“What if,” said the anxious Stricker, “Hopkins creates a competing firm?”

“Leave it to me,” said Vorderteil in a soothing tone, as he was, through a few discreet dealings, acquainted with the town’s mayor. The defector would receive no permission to start his business.

Meanwhile, Hopkins worked as if nothing had happened. He continued to supervise the factory’s production, changing a few small-scale details, as if he intended to work for Stricker and Vorderteil forever. One could say he invented as easily as he drew breath. During these last weeks, important orders of rabbits came in, and the firm was forced to increase its means of production, to fabricate those legions of small animals. Hopkins, wearing his customary smile, left at the end of his notice, doffed his impeccable top hat and bowed low to his former employers. He remained worryingly quiet about his future projects, and what Stricker’s fretful nature had correctly intuited turned out to be true. Through his discreet dealings with the Mayor’s office, Vorderteil learned that Hopkins had bought a vacant lot and had filed a building permit, to build a new factory.

“Guess,” Vorderteil cried, “what he’s going to fabricate?”

“I have no idea,” Stricker answered, and this time he really had no clue.

“Toys made of glazed colored glass. That’s what he wants to do. Glazed colored glass! Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

Stricker had never heard of such a thing, but he deemed Hopkins capable of anything, even of making glazed colored glass toys, which is why he blanched, nodded, shrugged his shoulders, and hunched over, thus losing three centimeters in height.

Vorderteil yelled: “Glazed glass. And colored! Nonsense!”

“Calm down. It’s probably a mistake. Maybe Hopkins meant to say ‘gasified air.’ I think I heard something about it.”

At these words, Vorderteil banged his fist on the table, so forcefully the huge Shannon recorder placed over his head oscillated. He cried:

“This is a serious matter. Don’t be facetious, now that everything we worked for is crumbling around our ears. When Hopkins says glazed glass, he thinks glazed glass, and, if I understand well, he gave an overview of his project, from which it would appear that he has discovered a process to solidify air, a method that allows submitting air to very high temperatures, giving it all the properties of glass, except for fragility.”

“That would be an industrial revolution, and he is very obliging, given that he intends to use this breakthrough technology to make toys. Who knows where he’ll stop?”

“Very obliging, yes. But what if, all of a sudden, children were given dice, skittles, puppets, locomotives made of colored glass that never break, and the toys are completely safe? Maybe he will even make automated rabbits, oh!”

Vorderteil threw himself back so violently in his armchair that the huge Shannon recorder fell on his head. While papers flittered around him, he bounded to his feet.

“That must be avoided at all costs, and if you, Mister Stricker, indulge in incomprehensible nonchalance, I myself must thank God for having connections that will help me foil Hopkins’s nefarious plan.”

The following weeks, many discussions took place through the usual discreet channels, between the Mayor and Vorderteil. It ensued that these secret dealings caused a firm refusal of all the requests, appeals and revisions filed by Hopkins. To the point that Stricker, crushed by his associate’s repeated victories, saw himself shrink about two centimeters in height every day.

After the seventeenth rejection of Hopkins’s request, a peculiar din resounded before the City Hall’s door, and the American, flanked by two enormous mastiffs, entered the anti-chamber, which was made narrow by thick folders, all sorts of carefully kept clutter, and rolled-up sheets of paper containing building plans.

Secretaries and clerks took refuge in the adjacent rooms, while the doors moaned under the weight of the mastiffs that were leaning into the panels. Thanks to the two monsters, whose heads reached up to his shoulders, Hopkins was able to get into the Mayor’s office. Here he stood, Hopkins, facing the Mayor, hat in hand, while the mastiffs, giving in to their instinct, sniffed the cabinets all around the room, upending vases and unabashedly leaving the marks of their huge paws on the delicate patterns of the rug, and the Mayor tried to find something to say:

“Don’t you know that dogs are not allowed inside?” he ended up yelling.

“Of course I know,” Hopkins answered, smiling. “Dogs must stay outside.”

“So how dare you introduce your tykes here!”

“These? But they’re not dogs.”

“Oh, yes? What are they then?”

“They’re machines, Mr. Mayor.”

And Hopkins called one of the mastiffs closer, and unscrewed its head so that it was possible to glimpse the gearwheels inside; he also explained how the animals moved their limbs, and sniffed, particularly insisting on the clever mechanism that allowed the dogs to wag their tails.

“What in the Hell is this for—?” asked the Mayor, an almost imploring expression on his nonplussed face, while the cogs, wheels, springs, and electrical batteries spun frenetically.

Hopkins switched his dogs’ mechanisms off and riposted through another question:

“Why wouldn’t you let me build my factory?”

“For that, you should address the Civil Engineering Office, in order to learn whether it is possible to obtain a building permit.”

“I have already put the same question to the Civil Engineering Office. There, I was told to address the Police Office.”

“Well, then, and—?”

“From there, I was sent to the Technical Assistance Office.”

“Well, then, and—?”

“There, they wanted me to go to the Civil Engineering Office again, but at this point I decided to address you directly.”

The Mayor, seeing himself abandoned by all his auxiliary offices, resigned himself to replying.

“We didn’t respond favorably to your request because the legal requirements were not met.”

“But everything’s perfect, and if you don’t believe me, I shall do whatever it takes to obtain your agreement, one way or another.”

Under the dogs’ lackluster stare, which seemed as threatening as the glint in their master’s eyes, the Mayor dared not to contradict his interlocutor. The three creatures that fenced the Mayor inside a magical circle resembled receptacles of accumulated force waiting for a switch-on to explode into action, unleashing destruction.

In a wavering voice, he asked: “And now, what do you intend to do?”

“Oh, I can choose one among hundreds of possibilities … like … rabbits, for example.”

“Ra—rabbits?”

“Yes … I can set a billion mechanical rabbits on the town.”

There, the Mayor burst into laughter. “A billion! And … mechanical … ah ah.”

“I’m under the impression you have no idea what a billion is, and you don’t know a thing about the perfection of mechanics, not to mention the effects of inanimate objects to which one lends movement …”

But the Mayor, who couldn’t control his fits of laughter, kept saying, “Ra—rabbits. Au-tomated … ra—rabbits. Ha ha.”

“Then you take responsibility for it?”

“But of course … of course.”

“All right,” said Hopkins, and he tipped his hat by way of a farewell.

He turned on his dogs’ switches, and followed by the monsters, exited, an amiable smile at the corner of his mouth. It took the Mayor two hours to recover, and only after all the heads of departments succeeded in restraining their serious cases of the giggles, he went home, a vague air of satisfaction about him. Exhausted by his unusual exertions, he couldn’t wait to tell his wife about the joke. In front of the door, he saw in a corner, shyly nestled against the wall, looking miserable, a cute little white rabbit produced according to the renowned process of the Stricker & Vorderteil firm. Amused by the thought that Hopkins had already placed a little white rabbit by his door, the Mayor extended a hand to seize the small beast, but the rabbit hopped away, quickly escaping him. Still intent on the idea of pursuit, the Mayor saw with satisfaction that not far down the street, a few rascals had trapped the animal. The story told by the Mayor was sheer pleasure to his wife as her thrifty nature immediately envisaged the opportunity of procuring children’s toys at no cost. When little Edwige appeared clutching a little white rabbit she had found on the porch, the Mayor’s wife laughed joyously. She burst out laughing again when Richard brought in a rabbit, which settled in on the kitchen table, and again when Fritz and Anna emerged from the dark depths of the cave, each carrying a rabbit.

These animals with dull glass eyes hopped to-and-fro in a frenzy: one had to stack them up into a corner, from which they escaped, causing the children to become noisily nervous. But when Cook, pale in the face, reported that one of the creatures had all of a sudden leaped into a marmalade jar, the mother’s hilarity gave place to the housewife’s carefulness. During the afternoon, the rabbits multiplied in a worrisome manner. They seemed to lurk in every corner, erupt from the cracks in the floorboards; they sat on all the moldings and doorframes; sprang blindly everywhere, so that the general amusement quickly ceased, while a murmur of disapprobation filled the house.

The Mayor, fleeing from the nuisance, went to his club through a twilight peppered with hopping white smudges. There he met friends who, as perplexed as he, had convened to discuss the phenomenon, while rabbits, in ever increasing numbers, came to disrupt the men’s reflections. From time to time, Joseph, the club’s barman, swept the animals out of the rooms, but the next minute, the things shot up from every corner, leaping at one another, their glass eyes red and bulging. Upon the reading table, the creatures devilled the sacred placement of the newspapers. The gentlemen traded furious glances, deeply disturbed by this aggravating intrusion, and left as soon as it appeared that Joseph and his broom were unable to get rid of the vermin.

That same evening, the Mayor felt a hard lump under his bedclothes, and, when he anxiously groped for it, his hand came up filled with a rabbit that stared at him stupidly. Cursing, he threw the thing, but the animal contented itself with uttering a weak high-pitched scream, like a struck instrument, and then resumed hopping. At this proof of resilience, the Mayor flipped his lid, and the effects of his anger troubled his sleep as his dreams teemed with rabbits. Written in letters that reached the sky, the terrible word “UNDESTRUCTIBLE” loomed in the midst of a crowd of rabbits, which went up and down the sign, as agile as the proverbial enchanted cats. The red eyes converged on the same point, the Mayor, who lay paralyzed in bed.

When he decided to wash away the sweat caused by the nightmare, the man found the top of his washing stand invaded by rabbits, and one of them, with its fur thin and dull, twitched pitifully at the bottom of his pitcher. With a satisfying malignant pleasure, he hurled the creature to the floor, but the rabbit slowly straightened and resumed hopping with the usual enthusiasm.

In the streets, the passersby could not take a step without stumbling upon one of the little monsters, which survived the most incredible torments applied by urchins, and even the passage of the heaviest trucks.  Rabbits on the steps of the City Hall. Rabbits in every corridor. Perching on the highest folders, they glanced down at the poor Major, who passed among his employees fighting against more rabbits, to enter his office. Thirteen rabbits welcomed him from his desk, causing the papers to rustle and scattering them in splendid disarray. The Mayor let himself fall into his armchair, invoking all the destroying powers. He cried out in anguish when his hands landed on soft fur. It seemed to him that over the vacuous muzzles hovered an expression resembling a smile. Thanks to the multiplication, the smile seemed to amplify, growing stronger, and finally the Mayor had the impression of seeing Hopkins’s grin repeated a hundred thousand times.

Mustering all his energy, the Mayor called Vorderteil. Aghast, they gazed at each other for some time, until the Mayor recovered a shade of dignity.

“This Mr. Hopkins …” he began.

“Yes, this Mr. Hopkins,” Vorderteil said.

“A billion automated rabbits …”

“Indestructible … Indestructible,” Vorderteil confirmed.

“It’s horrible … A billion automated ra—” The Mayor had to brush away a rabbit that had brusquely leaped onto his shoulder and wanted to climb his head. “Damned mechanics!” he cried, on the brink of tears.

“Yes, yes, but I don’t understand …”

“What is it that you don’t understand?”

“My factory has never produced so many rabbits before.”

“Where do they come from then?”

Vorderteil was unable to answer as he found himself inundated by the red ink a rabbit had just spilled. His elegant black trousers were ruined. The Mayor laughed convulsively.

Then Vorderteil said, “I think Hopkins has hoarded all the latest orders. That man is the Devil incarnate … and he’s out to get us … but …”

And, ignoring the red tide that continued to spill out between them, he whispered: “But I’m thinking of something even more terrible …”

“What?”

“Have you noticed that two generations of rabbits have presented themselves?”

Yes. It was true. Among the twenty-three rabbits that frolicked on the Mayor’s desk, a few seemed to be smaller, more delicate … younger than the others. Even though all of them hopped about, eyeing the world with the same fixed, stupid gaze, smiling the same hideous smile.

“You see, when Hopkins was still working for us, he alluded to some revolutionary process, something … a kind of natural reproduction of mechanical rabbits, which he called ‘asexual reproduction.’ We made fun of him at the time, but now, apparently, he is using this process. It’s clear now: he’s using it to terrorize us. Yes. These rabbits are admirable replica of life. They’re reproducing, and tonight we’ll see the third generation. Tomorrow morning, we’ll welcome the fifth, and the day after tomorrow, we will sail toward the two billion beasts …”

This conversation met a quick and strange conclusion, which also ended the discreet dealings between the two men. Seized by the irrepressible desire to avoid going insane, and maybe a combination of rage and desperation, the Mayor grabbed by the neck the author of this disaster, spun him around and had him thrown out. Unfortunately, this violent act brought no resolution to the problem of the rampant rabbits. When they had appeared, the town was amused, and then enraged, but now the general sentiment was horror, and disgust. White beasties hopped among the dishes on the tables. They could only be destroyed with axes and fire. With the magistrate’s authorization, bonfires were lit on the streets, and rabbits were brought in buckets, aprons, and hutches. But despite these measures, the number of rabbits increased by the hour until the town’s population gave up. The fires consumed, a reek of burned fur stank up the air. Without anything to keep them at bay, the rabbits destroyed every trade, jammed the traffic, invaded all activities, and even insinuated themselves into the secret of amorous passions.

But it happened that in a region nearby, in Switzerland, a woman gave birth to a stillborn child. The terror experienced by the mother had caused this premature birth, and the child had on its face a mark in the shape of a rabbit. Indignation erupted, and the City Hall was almost assailed by a rioting, armed crowd. In this crucial moment, the Mayor remembered Napoleon III, who succeeded in calming the miserable masses with raucous parties. Fighting an internal disquiet with external actions seemed the right solution, even more so since he had glimpsed the fifth generation of monsters in his own house. So he ordered festivities of the greatest splendor commemorating the poet Schiller. Like a captain casting a last glance from the mast of his floundering ship, the Mayor contemplated his town from the highest spot of the City Hall. Even though the month was September, the rooftops, the streets and parks seemed to disappear under layers of snow, but this peculiar blanket twitched, decomposed and recomposed. It was only the billion rabbits—as promised. Like an old man, the Mayor stepped down from the tower, slipping over the soft backs of a few thousand rabbits, and, as soon as he reached the ground floor, he heard the report of a policeman he’d sent to Hopkins’s home. The man was nowhere to be found, which did not surprise the Mayor in the slightest.

That evening, the townspeople gathered for the commemoration, after braving the mountains of rabbits filling the streets, particularly the crossroads, where the beasties superposed in double and triple layers. Even inside, it was difficult to move about as the rabbits leaped among the revelers’ legs, occupied the chairs and filed up and down the galleries, like a bas-relief conceived by a mad sculptor.

An eminent professor who had considerably contributed to the town’s intellectual life delivered a speech, and when he extracted a rabbit from his suit pocket to toss it away, the gesture seemed to punctuate his words in a customary manner.  A more lugubrious impression occurred when the trumpets released a discordant tune, caused by the rabbits obstructing the instruments. Only the young dramatic singer Beate Vogl created a harmonious atmosphere when she sang a lied in Schiller’s honor. Until a terrible scream broke the crystalline sounds as the singer extracted a rabbit from her cleavage. A rabbit, yes, with nine more newborn rabbits hanging from it. The turmoil had reached a peak when a powerful voice rose above the din.

Hopkins stood on stage, beside the unconscious singer. He waved his impeccable top hat and bowed to the audience.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I beg you to please pay attention to what I have to say.  The painful events visited on you these last days could have been avoided if the authorities had been able to grasp the meaning of the word ‘billion,’ also showing greater consideration for the accomplishments of modern technology. I desire nothing more than putting an end to these disagreements. The rabbits will disappear as soon as my request is accepted.  Although, if my projects should meet more obstacles, then, and only then, would I, against my desire, rest assured, make your situation a little worse.”

Smiling, Hopkins, fished a squirming rabbit out of his pocket, and held it up by the ears. “So far, you’ve seen an innocuous species of rabbit, but, tomorrow at midday, you’ll encounter a new variety: the rabbit that can eat.”

With these words, he presented the animal with a bunch of clover.

The silent crowd watched in consternation as the animal’s muzzle twitched and turned toward the vegetable to swallow it with mechanical delight.

Everyone pictured an army of indestructible, voracious rabbits devouring everything in sight. Dread crushed the assembly. Nobody dared utter a sound.

That night, an extraordinary meeting of the City Council was called, and, come morning, an employee was dispatched to the American’s house with an invitation to the Mayor’s office. This time, Hopkins was at home.

The inventor, upon hearing the decision that gave him permission to build his factory, listened gravely to the question he surely expected.

The Mayor, tired and pensive, his face expressing a deep doubt, said:

“Tell me now.” His hand caressed his forehead as if wanting to dispel an oppressive impression. “I get most of your science. There’s something, though, I don’t understand. It’s the fact that, thanks to your savoir-faire in mechanics, by mastering the process of life, you have created rabbits that can eat. How is it possible? The rabbit you showed us …”

Hopkins gave a smile that was more bitter than usual, and tipped his impeccable top hat. “Well, that one … ‚” he said. “That rabbit, Mayor, the one I showed you, was, quite exceptionally, a real, living rabbit.”

_____

[1] Translator’s note: Deutsche Reichspatent

The post The Triumph of Mechanics appeared first on Weird Fiction Review.

This summer at Weird Fiction Review, we’re featuring weird science fiction stories that we uncovered while doing research for The Big Book of Science Fiction. To kick off this series, we’re featuring a story by early-20th-century German writer Paul Scheerbart. Another one of Scheerbart’s stories, “The New Overworld,” appears in The Big Book of Science Fiction.

Illustration by Helmut Glatz

“How is it possible,” said Mr. Töpfer, “to bear so quietly all the transformations that are allotted to us here on earth! Great innovations happen every day. Our culture develops at such a rapid pace that elderly people just can’t keep up anymore.”

“Take comfort in reading,” said Mrs. Malwine Pate, “we all must try to comfort ourselves by reading. Why else are so many books written and printed? That’s because we are supposed to read them. Forget the newspapers – read books.”

And so the conversation went between two old people in the great Andean hotel on the summit of Chimborazo, in the spring of the year 3300. Outside the snow was meters high, but in the guest room of the hotel a pleasant warmth prevailed. The morning sun glittered on the frost patterns of the big mirror windows, and Mrs. Malwine Pate asked Mr. Töpfer if she should read something to him.

“Yes,” said Mr. Töpfer, “do read. It helps to forget Europe and America. We are not obliged to always think about the transformations we witness on the surface of the earth. It doesn’t make anything better.”

“On other stars,” said Mrs. Pate, “you will find even greater transformations. I’m going to read a chapter to you which tells about such a transformation.” And Mrs. Pate read the following:

A Spoke In the Wheel

Klips looked like a round loaf of bread. And at the center of the star the Long-Legged Ones wanted to build a great palace. They began by ramming huge, long poles through the center, but that didn’t work out too well, because the poles sank into the ground too easily and went deeper and deeper – and found no support below. All efforts to prevent the sinking of the poles failed – the entire ground gave way and the Long-Legged Ones were forced to withdraw to the outer rim of the star. The builders got a spoke in their wheels: They were forced to give up constructing a palace in the middle of their star. Right there, a large, wide hole formed – a new abyss. And this abyss grew deeper day by day, and on the other side of the star, a huge mountain emerged. The mountain grew higher and higher, while the abyss became deeper and deeper. As the Long-Legged Ones were forced to live on the outer rim of the star, all of their life habits underwent a sudden change. They couldn’t climb the mountain that had formed on the other side, because the mountain grew hotter every day. Soon, the star looked like a pointy hat, and the Long-Legged Ones strolled along their new abyss and looked down into the opening. And they couldn’t enter the abyss, because it was very hot as well. Every inhabitant of the star had six long legs, which made it was impossible to walk much on the rim, because the rim became narrower and narrower. The worst thing was that many residences on both sides of the star were destroyed by the emergence of the mountain and the abyss. They had no idea where to stay. Everybody settled very closely to each other on the rim, and the Long-Legged Ones started to erect very high houses with hundreds of storeys. Then the Klipsians looked out of their windows into the new abyss, and they had no idea what it would lead to. One day, there was a horrible bang at the bottom of the abyss. And the abyss was torn apart deep inside, so that a huge hole was formed, through which one could see other stars in space. No one could explain the cause for this stellar transformation. But all the Six-Legged Ones lived now closely together and got to know each other – in the past everybody would have avoided everybody else as much as possible.

***

“Ah!” said Mr. Töpfer, “so the star has transformed only to bring the long-legged gentlemen closer to one another.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Malwine, “this seems to be the cause for the transformation. When something is transformed here on earth, then there is surely a good reason for that as well. We just can’t figure it out fast enough.” In the meantime, the frost patterns on the mirrors had thawed, and they looked out into the magnificent mountainscape. But when their eyes started hurting from the sheer brightness of all the snow, Mrs. Pate asked if she may read another chapter from her “Klips” novel. Mr. Töpfer agreed, and Mrs. Malwine read the following:

The Telescope

The view into the new abyss was very interesting for the Long-Legged Ones; they didn’t get tired at all of looking downwards, for it was very busy down there. Bubbles constantly rose up – and then a glassy mass took shape and gradually formed into a lens. And one day the Long-Legged Ones saw all the stars below greatly enlarged: A natural telescope had formed down there. Now everybody on the star Klips felt blissful, for the sight of the great stars was far more magnificent than everything else they had experienced until now. One could also see comets – just as if they were nearby. And there one could see distinctly that the comets were colossal light serpents with diamond heads – yes, it was quite visible that the heads sparkled like diamonds. And the strangest beams emanated from those diamond heads – in manifoldly arched curves. And then one saw in close proximity a multitude of little stars of all possible forms and shapes. Klips’ entire environment suddenly seemed to liven up. Some of the Long-Legged Ones were now climbing down into the great cauldron, and they realized that its walls were getting cooler bit by bit. And then there was much more to be seen down there; the whole world suddenly came alive for the Long-Legged Ones. Now they started building chain bridges which then connected both sides of the funnel. That’s how they discovered the locations/spots with the best view through the natural glass lens. And then so many bridges were built that all the Klipsians could settle in the center of the great crater. And there, right in the middle of it, they lived even closer together. But this transformation of the star was still not the last one in a long series of transformations. Single parts of the crust from the lower big mountain cone came off like pieces of skin. Slowly, they bent upwards and over the rim, so that on the rim of the planet high walls were formed behind those 100-storey-high houses; this finally rendered the entire star a colossal tube. And afterwards other natural glass lenses formed on top of one another in the lower part of the crater so that the Long-Legged Ones had to detach their chain bridges from the inner walls of the funnel. One had to constantly mount the chain bridges at much higher positions, which allowed an even better view through the ever-enlarging lenses. And as once again more and more lenses formed in the higher parts of the abyss, one had to go higher and higher inside the huge tube, until finally the peaks of the new walls were connected by chain bridges. This natural telescope improved more and more, and one could see better and better through the lenses. And one saw more and more – and more. And the Long-Legged Ones exclaimed in awe: “Who built us this telescope? Is our star so kind that it transformed into a telescope in order to please us?” And they didn’t know what to think of it. But they had no doubt anymore that their star, which they had called Klips, was an almighty, living giant; only they weren’t quite able to explain how it came about that a giant could transform into a telescope. But then they gazed even more closely through their star telescope and discovered now in many other stars so many more transformations that the transformation of their home star seemed perfectly natural. In order to honor their star, they called it from now on “The Great One” – and spoke of it with great adoration.

***

“That,” said Mr. Töpfer after Mrs. Pate had closed her book, “is quite a comforting story. If such transformations with those kinds of results take place on other stars, we actually don’t need to worry much anymore about the transformations our earth’s surface is destined to suffer.”

“Yes,” Mrs. Malwine replied, “the new swimming islands that have formed in the Great Ocean are likely to make our life only richer in the end.”

“And the great plateau in North Asia,” said Mr. Töpfer, “is probably also going to create something wholly new.”

At this very moment, the landlord entered the guest room and exclaimed breathlessly: “Ladies and gentlemen, just now I’ve received a telegram which says that rift formations appeared in the North Asian plateau. And out of these rifts brand-new, fire-red dragons came flying. And these dragons are very intelligent creatures; they claim that they’ve lived inside the earth for many millennia – and that they are glad to finally see the great sunlight.”

“That certainly sounds like a fairy tale!” said Mrs. Pate, but she read the telegram and threw her hands up in despair.

“How are we,” said Mr. Töpfer, “to endure all these transformations?”

“But,” exclaimed the landlord, “that’s no disaster! Now we don’t need to socialize only with humans anymore. I’m inviting the red dragon people over to stay a few years in my Andean hotel. That way I’ll always have a full house.”

And eight days later there already were two dragon people in the Andean hotel – and the landlord was beside himself with delight – and Mr. Töpfer, too – and Mrs. Malwine Pate – as well –

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