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"Science fiction has gotten more accurate as we've gotten closer to the present, because science fiction stories have not only attracted, but also generated current scientists."
- Larry Niven
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| Poison Space Cloud (Etheric Poison) | ||
| A deadly cloud of gas large enough to envelop the solar system. |
Again there was silence. It was broken by the high trill of the telephone-bell.
"There is one of our bacilli squeaking for help," said he with a grim smile. "They are beginning to realize that their continued existence is not really one of the necessities of the universe."
He was gone from the room for a minute or two. I remember that none of us spoke in his absence. The situation seemed beyond all words or comments.
"The medical officer of health for Brighton," said he when he returned. "The symptoms are for some reason developing more rapidly upon the sea level. Our seven hundred feet of elevation give us an advantage
"You will conceive a bunch of grapes," said he, "which are covered by some infinitesimal but noxious bacillus. The gardener passes it through a disinfecting medium. It may be that he desires his grapes to be cleaner. It may be that he needs space to breed some fresh bacillus less noxious than the last. He dips it into the poison and they are gone. Our Gardener is, in my opinion, about to dip the solar system, and the human bacillus will in an instant be sterilized out of existence."
| "Poison!" I cried.
Then, even as I said the word, my mind flashed back over the whole morning's experiences, past Lord John with his buffalo, past my own hysterical tears, past the outrageous conduct of Professor Summerlee, to the queer happenings in London, the row in the park, the driving of the chauffeur, the quarrel at the oxygen warehouse. Everything fitted suddenly into its place. "Of course," I cried again. "It is poison. We are all poisoned." "Exactly," said Challenger, rubbing his hands, "we are all poisoned. Our planet has swum into the poison belt of ether, and is now flying deeper into it at the rate of some millions of miles a minute. Our young friend has expressed the cause of all our troubles and perplexities in a single word, 'poison.'" |
| From The Poison Belt,
by Arthur Conan Doyle. Published by The Strand Magazine in 1913 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the galactic damping field from Brain Wave (1953) by Poul Anderson the more modestly-sized meteoric dust cloud from Secret of the Buried City (1939) by John Russell Fearn.
Similar space clouds have menaced Earth in novels like "Exit Earth" by Martin Caidin and in the short story "Transience" by Arthur C. Clarke.
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Additional
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More Ideas
and Technology from The Poison Belt
More Ideas
and Technology by Arthur Conan Doyle
Tech news articles related to The Poison Belt
Tech news articles related to works by Arthur Conan Doyle
Poison Space Cloud (Etheric Poison)-related
news articles:
- Did Giant Space Clouds Cause Mass Extinctions?
- We Live In A Space Cloud
- Tunnel Of Magnetized Filaments May Enclose Solar System
| Could Increased Space Rocketry Damage The Ozone Layer? |
| China Wants 'Hard Kill' Capability To Counter Starlink Satellites |
| MOOSE: Man Out Of Space Easiest or Manned Orbital Operations Safety Equipment |
| NASA 'Holoports' Doctor Onto Space Station |
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'the registration number which the traffic control automatically photographed as she left the controlway...'
'It could maintain a steady six miles per hour...'
'Then they press one of these here thirteen buttons...'
'...without burning a single hydrocarbon molecule to injure the diseased atmosphere any further.'
'Bird-like robots now descended from the ceiling of the theatre...'
'The efficient robot waiter of the Sky Club had cleared away the remnants of an epicurean meal.'
'...in the tank the new body and the new mind and memory and life has taken almost instant form.'
'pirate three-vee satellites sanded out of orbit...'
'The atmosphere yielded its moisture with reluctance. It had to be coaxed down...'
