“Please pay attention, Mr. Stilton!” called Sokolov. Stilton turned back to the young volunteer.
“Now,” said Sokolov, gesturing to the audience, “we begin.” He turned to the older man. “Tell me what you can see.”
The volunteer screwed his eyes tight, and wrinkled his nose. He shook his head slightly, and then the power snapped again and he seemed to relax.
“Oh, a… water. Something small. A… fish. A fish!”
Stilton met his own subject’s wide-eyed glance, then turned the card over to double-check. He held it up again for the audience.
“It is a fish!”
The audience made an appreciative noise, and there was another smattering of applause, but the increasing crackling of the contraption drowned it out and there was another murmur, this time of unease.
“Relax, ladies and gentlemen, relax,” said Sokolov. “The power flow is quite safe. Now, again, Mr. Stilton.”
Stilton complied, as did his subject. The fish card was followed by the wine glass, an open book, a square. Each time the volunteer on Sokolov’s side got it right, and with increasing speed, his hesitations replaced by merely a tight breath and a nod as he listed the symbols almost as soon as Stilton had presented them to his subject.
The power crackled. Stilton was enjoying himself. He was part of the show, part of the spectacle, and while itwas a neat trick, using the impressive equipment, there was a simplicity to it that was a kind of strange relief after the tedium of the lecture.
Perhaps the evening was not yet lost.
The power cracked again. Stilton could feel the hairs on the back of his neck go up. He was standing very near to the device, after all.
“A… light. A … a blue light.”
Stilton turned as Sokolov’s subject spoke. Sokolov was looking down at the man, who was still reposed, apparently relaxed, his fingers curled around the tails of his coat.
With his back to the audience, Stilton saw Sokolov’s eyes narrow, one hand smoothing down his moustache.
“Ah… no, that’s not right,” said the older volunteer. He frowned, his eyes tightly shut. “It’s… a… I can’t quite… there’s something—”
“There’s something in the way.”
Stilton spun on his heel, his head suddenly clear, the dank air of the theatre suddenly cold. His young subject now had his eyes closed, his forehead creased in concentration as he struggled to see something with his mind’s eye.
“There’s something… I can’t see it… there’s a light, but there’s a shadow. Something is in the way. A… man…”
Stilton looked down at the cards in his hand. The next one was a simple triangle. He shuffled through them. Spoked wheel. Knife. Square. Circle. Horse. Another fish. Another wheel. There wasn’t anything that looked like a man.
“The blue light,” said Sokolov’s subject. “It’s too bright.” And then the two subjects spoke as one.
“The blue glow is bright. I feel cold.”
The steady murmuring of the audience was growing involume. Stilton glanced over his shoulder at Sokolov, but the natural philosopher still had his back to the audience, his attention on the crystal held in the claw over his subject’s head. Power arced from the silver sphere to the crystal, Sokolov’s beard illuminated in bright blue flashes. But still he didn’t move.
“A man… I see a man… he’s… he’s…”
Stilton’s subject gasped, his eyes still shut, his chest rising and falling as he gulped for breath. His hands were clenched fists by his sides, and as Stilton watched, he started hammering the couch.
A few people in the audience rose from their seats. Stilton summoned up the voice he used to address his mine crews, and quickly moved to the front of the stage.
“Ladies, gentlemen, please, do not be alarmed. As our illustrious guest has already told us, the power flow is quite safe. What you are witnessing is merely a wonder of our natural world, harnessed by the amazing intellect of Anton Sokolov, renowned thinker and—”
“A knife! I see a knife! There is a man holding a knife! A knife!”
Sokolov’s subject sat up, knocking his head against the crystal frame above him. His eyes were still closed, but his upper body shook. He reached out with his hands, still holding onto the tails of his coat.
“No! No!”
He screamed in terror. Stilton felt the bile rise in his throat as a sizeable portion of the audience also cried out, the sound of the crackling machine this time drowned out by the thunderous roar of feet on wood as the audience panicked and started for the exit.
“The blue light burns, the blue light burns!”
Stilton ignored the ravings of the subject on his couch, and rushed across to Sokolov. He grabbed the naturalphilosopher by the shoulders, spinning the man around. Sokolov didn’t resist, his expression one of curious bewilderment rather than fear.
“Sokolov! What’s happening? Stop this! Stop this at once!”
He shook Sokolov by the shoulders until, finally, he seemed to snap out of it. The natural philosopher looked around, as if seeing the theatre for the first time, then nodded.
“Most fascinating… Oh yes, of course, of course,” he said, moving quickly to the machine. His fingers flew over the switches, and he looked up at the silver sphere at the machine’s apex, but nothing happened. The power still arced, and the two subjects continued to rave about the light, the man, and the knife.
Sokolov stood back, looking up at his machine. “I don’t understand, if the electro-potential squared equals charge to the third power, then surely it should be—”
Stilton’s young volunteer screamed. There was blood trickling from the youth’s nose and from under his closed eyelids.
Stilton shoved Sokolov to one side, sending him tumbling to the boards. Then he ducked down, his fingers closing around something heavy and cold. He stood tall.
“No! Don’t! What do you think you’re doing?” cried Sokolov from the floor.
Stilton ignored him. He swung the crowbar sideways with all his might, smashing the gem hanging over his subject. There was a bang and a bright-blue flash that left Stilton with purple spots floating in his vision; he
