The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities

And then, as dawn began to touch the horizon with a delicate grey, Wolt’s image popped onto the microscope lens, and soon he was looking up at them and showing them that apart from his crucifix, he was empty-handed.

Another ten minutes, and a breathless, grinning Wolt stepped from his plinth with stories of wonderful landscapes, new spectra, and sometimes dangerous types of flora and fauna—all, he felt sure, waiting to be instructed in the ways of the Bible. He was full of the emotions and feelings he had experienced in the other world. He had feared he might be descending into Hell, but instead he had been close to Heaven. “Ah, the ecstasy.” He had felt at one with the raw stuff with which God made the world. Far from reporting failure, Wolt was almost raving about his success. There were intelligent creatures in our bloodstreams, discussing ideology that could destroy or save our world, and when their fight was decided, so our fate was decided. Not only could these creatures learn from the Bible; it was a matter of grave urgency that they be converted to the Christian faith as quickly as possible. “Whole armies of missionaries are needed down there!” Wolt insisted. He would help train them, perhaps draw maps from the sketches he had made.

Overjoyed, the three Methodists congratulated Tesla, who was anxious to remind them that the work was still at an early stage. Privately, he wondered if Wolt had experienced a series of delusions and was merely mad.

As Begg wrote in his report to the Home Office: “They did not know what the effects on a living human brain might be, let alone to what harm his body had been exposed. There could be terrible side-effects, which might materialise in days or even years, produced by the rapid change of size while retaining the same mass.”

Wolt spoke of “making holes in the cosmos,” and nobody was sure what that meant. Nonetheless, the experiment seemed to have proven everything they had considered in theory. Bannister, in particular, was anxious to make the next trip. Wolt drew him a map, showing where, protected from the strange elements of the submicroscopic world, he had left the Bibles, the Portable Harmonium, and all the other materials that had accompanied him. With more Bibles, perhaps some firearms for self-defence, and provided with food and a few other necessities, they could probably remain in the Second Aether for months. The four men celebrated, inflamed by the knowledge that they had found new worlds to conquer for their beloved Saviour.

Although Wolt was anxious to return, they decided to send another of their company and drew lots, Frieze-Botham winning the right to be the next to descend. He took another case of Bibles, more supplies of soap, tinned butter, bully beef and so forth, ammunition and firearms. His experience was pretty much identical to Wolt’s. He reported a rather peaceful scene, with herds of oddly shaped herbivores moving placidly through dimensionless veldts and forests whose crowns were invisible. More like fresh coral than anything above the waves, said Frieze-Botham on his return. He said he felt like some heavy sea-beast brought by gravity to the only depths it could comfortably negotiate. And, at last, it was the eager cleric’s turn to experience what he had, after all, first sought to explore. Equipping himself with more Bibles, bully beef, and bullets, he gave the signal to Tesla and ultimately was gone.

This time, however, the hours became slow days as the trio prayed that no accident had come to Bannister. Tesla cursed himself for not rigging up some kind of subatomic telephone. A week was to pass before the apparatus began to flicker and spark, and still the men did not dare to hope. When all was over, they stared into an empty stage. Only the controls and wires were to be seen, perfectly intact, as also were the levers and gauges.

Before the others could stop him, Wolt had vaulted the brass rail and given the signal to raise the bell. “It’s up to me to find him. Don’t try to stop me. I know those timeless, dimensionless spaces like the back of my hand.” He then remembered to call for the last Portable Harmonium, the only instrument to send out sounds loud enough for the reverend to hear. His crucifix clutched to his chest, Wolt gave the signal to begin the descent across the planes of the multiverse into what were essentially alternate worlds. Tesla and Frieze-Botham remained to operate the equipment and rack their brains for further means of communicating with the micronauts.