The Nude In The Microscope
Originally appearing in Fantastic Science Fiction Vol. 1 No. 1 in 1952.
A young professor makes a startling discovery inside his microscope.
Carl Thorton was young, not yet quite out of his twenties. He didn’t look or act like a professor, but he was one at the University of Dale, a fabulously wealthy institution in Texas where spouting oil wells poured out unlimited cash into the endowment fund.
Young Professor Carl Thorton sat in front of what he called his “Butcher’s Refrigerator.” It was a box-like affair and looked something like a refrigerator, but there were no ice cubes and no food of any kind. It was a super revolutionary microscope, the result of three years work on his part, aided by unlimited funds from the University of Dale.
It possessed a potential electronic power of over a million, fifteen times greater than the most powerful known electronic microscope and three hundred times greater than any using light.
It had cased-in projections and tubes in the front and two small screens in the style of television or radar screens.
The 150,000 volts that went through it tore away the satellite electron from the hydrogen proton, and a gun directed the proton in a regular flow into the microscope tube, where it was concentrated by three electrostatic lenses the object to be examined. Enlargements were projected on a television-like screen.
Construction of the giant microscope had taken three years, and through it, Professor Thorton hoped to see previously invisible viruses, opening up new fields of medical knowledge. It was also expected to bring out invisible molecules and heavy atoms, such as those in uranium.
He sat in front of it to make his first test. Behind him were three years of painstaking work, of fear that what he dreamed would never come up to expectation, and of impatience to try it out. On the slide was only a bit of common earth, taken from a depth of three thousand feet, a part of the slimy mud pumped out of one of his father's an oil well.
The powerful dynamos began sending 150,000 volts to tear away the satellite electron. The hum had a definite vibration, so controlled that it was something Thorton sensed rather than felt. The gun directed the proton of hydrogen into the tube. A mass of grayish-black appeared on the screen. It moved in a mass of darkening color, the molecules whirling around, all seemed to go toward the center.
Then slowly, the mass stopped moving, and outlines of what looked like vast and misshapen rocks appeared. These stood still for a moment as if suspended in the air. The hum increased. The molecules seemed to fuse into another mass, with glittering blue and red colors at the edges and deep green in the center.
The picture grew more substantial, and the colors changed until there was movement in it, a life that seemed to be hurrying back and forth, And then came the outline, dimly at first, of what looked like a woman.
Thorton stared at the picture, his brain whirling with excitement. The woman became more real, and around her, objects moved, forming into figures of small men. The woman was tall, and her flesh and face became vivid and clear.
Her hair was long and flowing, a golden color, her body, trim, face long with classic features, her neck swan-like, and her breasts large and well-formed. Her waist and her legs tapered off in a perfect line, graceful and lithe.
At first, Thorton couldn’t realize what he was seeing. The woman was utterly nude, and slowly her hand rose, palm up as if she were motioning to Thorton. Small and strange-looking animals and small men were around her. They walked with a jumpy step, always keeping close as if they were her protectors.
There were trees and rocks and land, rugged and hilly, and the woman and the little men were in a valley. Overhead a giant bird, with wings like an eagle, but five times the size of an eagle was flapping wildly.
Thorton rubbed his sleeve across his face to ensure he wasn’t dreaming. He felt the vibrant hum of the powerful dynamos and the whirling sound of the gun as it sent the proton in a regular flow into the tube of the microscope.
The box-like structure of his “Butcher’s Refrigerator” was there in front of him. The white walls of the lab room loomed to the right and left, and overhead was the white ceiling.
No, he wasn’t dreaming. It was reality, strange, unbelievable, fantastic. There had only been a splotch of slimy water and mud, taken from the bowels of the earth, three thousand feet below the surface.
And now...
The woman was waving at him, and from somewhere behind her had come a tall, handsome man who was also naked. Thorton didn’t notice this companion at first. Only the strange, intoxicating beauty, the exquisitive and delicate grace of the woman’s movements.
Then the man at her side talked to her angrily, as if jealous of her actions. She was laughing and throwing her head back merrily. The man reached for her, but as he did, the little guards around him grabbed his arms and legs and pulled him away. It made Thorton think of Gulliver’s Travels, the little people swarming all over a giant.
Thorton studied the typography of the land around the woman, her jealous lover, and the little men. They all stood in a small valley, and the hill behind them looked like a rock. The trees were stunted and had no leaves. Their branches rose upward like the arms and hands of ghosts.
Studying the hills closely, Thorton saw that beyond them was a vast area of water, held back from that little valley by dams and the hills. These dams sometimes seemed to move as if suddenly they would break. A feeling of nervousness and fear came over Thorton for the beautiful woman, a feeling he had difficulty controlling. He wanted to scream at her to be careful. But no words came from his mouth, and as the fear increased, he turned off the switches, and the great microscope was still, and the picture was gone.
It all seemed like a weird and unbelievable nightmare to him. He wanted to think, to assure himself again that all this was real and that he had seen it. He had tried his first experiment with the super-electron microscope, hoping that he might view molecules that man had never before seen.
Instead, he had seen a form of life that came from the earth, a strange manifestation of a belief held in ancient times by scientists—that life existed in the bowels of the Earth, just as on the surface.
His head swimming from the excitement, he went to the cafeteria to have a cup of coffee. He debated whether to announce his amazing discovery at that moment. Old Professor Henry Minton, who had been his guiding star in his advancement in physics, would be as excited as a little boy.
Thorton sipped his coffee slowly. Then gulping down the last few swallows, he rushed back to the microscope, seated himself before the screen, turned on the voltage, and watched the same process take place that had occurred when he first looked at the splotch of slimy mud.
First, there was the moving mass of dark objects with the molecules; then, the picture grew robust with the changing colors and the first indication of life. The outline of the beautiful nude woman slowly began to take shape. This time, she seemed to form faster and more precise lines.
Staring at the exquisite beauty of her naked body, Thorton felt an overwhelming thrill of excitement. She seemed to move as if floating in the air, and as she floated backward and then forward, the small men moved with her. The tall giant had disappeared.
Then she threw up her hands, and her mouth showed she was laughing. She backed away and disappeared behind a small hill, only to reappear again, this time carrying a long flowing scarf that she wrapped around her body, unwrapping it in a whirling, dancing movement, started to dance. All the little men around her danced in unison as if they were all having a happy time.
Again the tall, powerfully-built man with the brutally handsome face was at her side. He was talking angrily, and she was floating away from him, just out of his reach. Thorton could almost hear her taunting laughter. As the man moved toward her, the little men were all around him, waiting to grab him as they had done before.
Thornton had no idea how long he had stared at this strange scene. Then he ran out of the room, headed across the hall for Professor Minton’s office. The professor had gone home, as it was now well after six in the evening. Thorton got in his car and drove to the professor’s home.
The older man was sitting down to his dinner when Thorton burst into the dining room. “Professor,” he cried, “come at once . . . my new microscope ... I have just seen life in it, life from some mud taken from an oil well three thousand feet down. A beautiful woman and trees and a valley — life ... it exists down there ... I have seen it ...”
“Sit down and have some dinner,” Professor Minton said, "You mustn't let yourself get too excited. Your mind doesn’t work well if you do."
“But it’s there . . . I saw it,” Thorton exclaimed. “I tell you I saw it . . .”
“Take it easy,” Professor Minton answered with a laugh. “Have some food and calm down and tell me what you are talking about.”
Thorton sat down at the dinner table. He didn’t eat anything, but he sipped a cup of hot coffee as he gave Professor Minton the details of what the screen showed from the drop of mud. Professor Minton listened, eating slowly, breaking in now and then to ask Thorton a question.
When Thorton had finished, Professor Minton continued to eat without a word. Then suddenly, he laid down his knife and fork, drank deeply of a glass of water. “What you have seen,” he said, “is a miracle that is based on reality. The protoplasm under the Earth's surface can be the same as we know, and it has long been the belief of certain scientists, ancient and modern, that life exists there. Your microscope may have picked up this life.”
“It was there,” Thorton cried. “I tell you, it is the most amazing thing I ever saw. I’ll show it to you.”
“You say you put some mud on the slide?”
“Yes, just a small amount. I was going to try out the microscope.”
Professor Minton drank his coffee, and when he had finished, he got up, said: “Let’s see this protoplasm you say you saw in that mud.”
It was around seven-thirty when Thorton and Professor Minton arrived at the lab. Thorton was trembling with excitement. Professor Minton watched him with a smile on his lips.
“Nothing as exciting as a new discovery, is there, Thorton?” he asked.
“Nothing—absolutely nothing,” Thorton replied, adjusting the switches on the microscope.
“And nothing can be as cruelly disappointing,” Professor Minton added.
“What do you mean?” Thorton demanded.
“We’ll see in a moment,” Professor Minton answered.
The hum of the generators started, and the muffled roar of the gun as it directed the proton into the tube of the microscope to be concentrated by the three electrostatic lenses.
Again, the differing masses appeared on the screen and the first outlines of a life after this. The colors changed again, and then the hills, stunted trees, and beautiful nude woman were visible. The little men were gone, but the tall man was there, hovering near the woman, watching her every move.
Professor Minton gave an exclamation of amazement. Thorton’s eyes were glued on the woman. The water beyond the low hills seemed to be rising slowly, and the dams were heaving back and forth.
“Look out,” Professor Minton, in his excitement, cried, “It’s going to happen. Turn off the microscope . . . turn it off quickly . . .”
Thorton didn’t move. His eyes were on the tall man. He was reaching for the woman, grabbing her by the shoulders in his furious jealousy. Then it came, a raging, inexorable torrent of water, breaking the dams as if they were sheets of paper. The waters swallowed up the woman and her male companion.
For a moment, the woman seemed to be floating effortlessly on the surface of the whirling current. Then only the water appeared on the screen. The trees, the hills, the woman, and the male counterpart were gone.
Thorton turned off the switches. “What . . . what . . . what happened?” he gasped.
“A straightforward thing,” Professor Minton said. “Examine the material on the slide.”
Taking out the slide, Thorton looked at it. The small piece of mud he had placed there was now only a rivulet of water.
“The electronic current tearing away the proton from hydrogen melted the mud and made it only water,” Professor Minton explained. “I was afraid this would happen. There was only water and no mud when it did, and the protoplasm under the earth has to exist in air and molecules just as we do. The water washed your picture away.”
“But I have more mud,” Thorton exclaimed. “We can try it again.”
Professor Minton shook his head. “You may have to try it for many, many years,” he said. “Protoplasm isn’t in every piece of mud. You made a startling and valuable discovery when you picked that one hunk of mud . . .”
“It has to be there again,” Thorton cried. “That woman ... I can’t lose her.”
He took more mud, placed it on the slide. He turned on his super microscope again. The medley of colors danced on the screen, and unknown molecules whirled around. But no woman or any other form of life came out of the moving masses.
Thorton got up and strolled out of the room. He had lost all interest in the super microscope. Nothing interested him now but the haunting memory of the gorgeous creature he had seen on the screen. And with this, the sickening realization that he would never see her again.
END
