Lord Asriel ignored him. There was a stir of excitement among some of the Scholars, as if, having written treatises on the existence of the unicorn without ever having seen one, theyd been presented with a living example newly captured. “Is this the Barnard-Stokes business?” said the Palmerian Professor.
Under the sizzle of the frying butter and the hum of talk, Lyra shifted around to find a more comfortable position for herself. With enormous care she took one of the robes—a full-length fur—off its hanger and laid it on the floor of the wardrobe.
He took out the slide. Lyra heard the Master say quietly, “If he forces a vote, we could try to invoke the residence clause. He hasnt been resident in the College for thirty weeks out of the last fifty-two.”
“No!” said the Chaplain.
And he put the first slide into the frame and slid it behind the lens. A circular photogram in sharp black and white appeared on the screen. It had been taken at night under a full moon, and it showed a wooden hut in the middle distance, its walls dark against the snow that surrounded it and lay thickly on the roof. Beside the hut stood an array of philosophical instruments, which looked to Lyras eye like something from the Anbaric Park on the road to Yarnton: aerials, wires, porcelain insulators, all glittering in the moonlight and thickly covered in frost. A man in furs, his face hardly visible in the deep hood of his garment, stood in the foreground, with his hand raised as if in greeting. To one side of him stood a smaller figure. The moonlight bathed everything in the same pallid gleam.
“Im afraid so, and I have the proof here.”
The Scholars greeted the visitor and moved into the room, some sitting around the table, some in the armchairs, and soon a buzz of conversation filled the air. Lyra could see that they were powerfully intrigued by the wooden case, the screen, and the lantern. She knew the Scholars well: the Librarian, the Sub-Rector, the Enquirer, and the rest; they were men who had been around her all her life, taught her, chastised her, consoled her, given her little presents, chased her away from the fruit trees in the garden; they were all she had for a family. They might even have felt like a family if she knew what a family was, though if she did, shed have been more likely to feel that about the College servants. The Scholars had more important things to do than attend to the affections of a half-wild, half-civilized girl, left among them by chance.
“Surely—”
“Its a picture of the Aurora.”
“Gentlemen,” he said. “I feel sure I speak for all of us when I bid Lord Asriel welcome. His visits are rare but always immensely valuable, and I understand he has something of particular interest to show us tonight. This is a time of high political tension, as we are all aware; Lord Asriels presence is required early tomorrow morning in White Hall, and a train is waiting with steam up ready to carry him to London as soon as we have finished our conversation here; so we must use our time wisely. When he has finished speaking to us, I imagine there will be some questions. Please keep them brief and to the point. Lord Asriel, would you like to begin?”
There was an intense silence.
“Hes already got the Chaplain on his side...” the Librarian murmured in reply.
“Master,” said Lord Asriel. “I came too late to disturb your dinner, so I made myself at home in here. Hello, Sub-Rector. Glad to see you looking so well.
“If you remember, Grummans expedition vanished eighteen months ago. The German Academy sent him up there to go as far north as the magnetic pole and make various celestial observations. It was in the course of that journey that he observed the curious phenomenon weve already seen. Shortly after that, he vanished. Its been assumed that he had an accident and that his bodys been lying in a crevasse all this time. In fact, there was no accident.”
“That light,” said the Chaplain, “is it going up or coming down?”
That shape you can dimly see is a child.”
“Forgive my ignorance,” said the shaky voice of the old Precentor, “but if I ever knew what the Aurora was, I have forgotten. Is it what they call the Northern Lights?”
No one spoke for several seconds. Then came the voice of the Chaplain.
“Exactly so,” said Lord Asriel.
Was Dr. Grumman investigating this phenomenon too?”
“Yes.It has many names. Its composed of storms of charged particles and solar rays of intense and extraordinary strength—invisible in themselves, but causing this luminous radiation when they interact with the atmosphere. If thered been time, I would have had this slide tinted to show you the colors; pale green and rose, for the most part, with a tinge of crimson along the lower edge of that curtain-like formation. This is taken with ordinary emulsion. Now Id like you to look at a picture taken with the special emulsion.”
“As some of you know, I set out for the North twelve months ago on a diplomatic mission to the King of Lapland. At least, thats what I pretended to be doing.
The Librarian murmured back, “Hes going to ask for funds. If he forces a vote—”
He changed the slide. The next picture was also taken at night, but this time without moonlight. It showed a small group of tents in the foreground, dimly outlined against the low horizon, and beside them an untidy heap of wooden boxes and a sledge. But the main interest of the picture lay in the sky. Streams and veils of light hung like curtains, looped and festooned on invisible hooks hundreds of miles high or blowing out sideways in the stream of some unimaginable wind.
Something in the way he said it made Lyra imagine dust with a capital letter, as if this wasnt ordinary dust. The reaction of the Scholars confirmed her feeling, because Lord Asriels words caused a sudden collective silence, followed by gasps of incredulity.
A ripple of excited apprehension ran round the Retiring Room as, under Lord Asriels direction, two or three of the younger Scholars carried the wooden box to the front of the room. Lord Asriel took out the last slide but left the lantern on, and in the dramatic glare of the circle of light he bent to lever open the box. Lyra heard the screech of nails coming out of damp wood. The Master stood up to look, blocking Lyras view. Her uncle spoke again:
“No. His daemon was at the time coiled around his neck in the form of a snake.
“Its coming down,” said Lord Asriel, “but it isnt light. Its Dust.”
“I thought that was the mans daemon,” said the Enquirer.
“It cant—”
In fact, my real aim was to go further north still, right on to the ice, in fact, to try and discover what had happened to the Grumman expedition. One of Grummans last messages to the academy in Berlin spoke of a certain natural phenomenon only seen in the lands of the North. I was determined to investigate that as well as find out what I could about Grumman. But the first picture Im going to show you isnt directly about either of those things.”
Then Lord Asriel said calmly, “An entire child. Which, given the nature of Dust, is precisely the point, is it not?”
Excuse my rough appearance; Ive only just landed. Yes, Master, the Tokays gone. I think youre standing in it. The Porter knocked it off the table, but it was my fault. Hello, Chaplain. I read your latest paper with great interest.”
“Gentlemen!” came the voice of the Chaplain. “Let Lord Asriel explain.”
He indicated the blurred shape of the smaller figure.
“A severed child—?” said someone, and the way he stopped showed that he knew this was something that shouldnt have been voiced.
“Its a very fine photogram,” said the Palmerian Professor. “One of the best Ive seen.”
Lyra marveled at her uncles skill. The old Sub-Rector was nearly blind, so it was courteous to make room for him nearer the screen, and his moving forward meant that the Master would be sitting next to the Librarian, only a matter of a yard or so from where Lyra was crouched in the wardrobe. As the Master settled in the armchair, Lyra heard him murmur:
“If he does that, we must just argue against, with all the eloquence we have.”
“A city in another world, no doubt?” said the Dean, with contempt in his voice.
“Thank you, Master,” said Lord Asriel. “To start with, I have a few slides to show you. Sub-Rector, you can see best from here, I think. Perhaps the Master would like to take the chair near the wardrobe?”
Lord Asriel called, “Could someone turn the lamp down?”
Lord Asriel began:
The lantern began to hiss as Lord Asriel pumped it hard. Lyra moved slightly so that she could see the screen, where a brilliant white circle had begun to glow.
He moved away with the Chaplain, leaving Lyra with a clear view of the Masters face. It was impassive, but the daemon on his shoulder was shuffling her feathers and moving restlessly from foot to foot. Lord Asriel was already dominating the room, and although he was careful to be courteous to the Master in the Masters own territory, it was clear where the power lay.
“Master,” said Lord Asriel. “Yes, Im back. Do bring in your guests; Ive got something very interesting to show you.”
“Ah,” he said, like a thirsty man who, having just drunk deeply, puts down the glass to let out the breath he has held while drinking. “And the streams of Dust...”
“What is that?” said the voice of the Sub-Rector.
“—Come from the sky, and bathe him in what looks like light. You may examine this picture as closely as you wish: Ill leave it behind when I go. Im showing it to you now to demonstrate the effect of this new emulsion. Now Id like to show you another picture.”
“But how—”
The Master lit the spirit lamp under the little silver chafing dish and heated some butter before cutting half a dozen poppy heads open and tossing them in.
“Its Dust,” Lord Asriel repeated. “It registered as light on the plate because particles of Dust affect this emulsion as photons affect silver nitrate emulsion. It was partly to test it that my expedition went north in the first place. As you see, thefigure of the man is perfectly visible. Now Id like you to look at the shape to his left.”
He lifted out the first slide and dropped another into the frame. This was much darker; it was as if the moonlight had been filtered out. The horizon was still visible, with the dark shape of the hut and its light snow-covered roof standing out, but the complexity of the instruments was hidden in darkness. But the man had altogether changed: he was bathed in light, and a fountain of glowing particles seemed to be streaming from his upraised hand.
“Thats what I want to find out,” said Lord Asriel. He stood to one side of the illuminated screen. Lyra could see his dark eyes searching among the Scholars as they peered up at the slide of the Aurora, and the green glow of his demons eyes beside him. All the venerable heads were craning forward, their spectacles glinting; only the Master and the Librarian leaned back in their chairs, with their heads close together.
“That photogram was taken with a standard silver nitrate emulsion,” Lord Asriel said. “Id like you to look at another one, taken from the same spot only a minute later, with a new specially prepared emulsion.”
towers, domes, walls...Buildings and streets, suspended in the air! She nearly gasped with wonder. The Cassington Scholar said, “That looks like...a city.”
“I believe he was, and I believe he had a good deal of information about it. But he wont be able to tell us what it was, because hes dead.”
Lord Asriel put a new slide in the lantern frame. It showed the same scene. As with the previous pair of pictures, many of the features visible by ordinary light were much dimmer in this one, and so were the curtains of radiance in the sky.
“The devil! He knew about the wine, Im sure of it.”
But in the middle of the Aurora, high above the bleak landscape, Lyra could see something solid. She pressed her face to the crack to see more clearly, and she could see the Scholars near the screen leaning forward too. As she gazed, her wonder grew, because there in the sky was the unmistakable outline of a city:
“Lord Asriel,” said the Master heavily, and came forward to shake his hand. From her hiding place Lyra watched the Masters eyes, and indeed, they flicked toward the table for a second, where the Tokay had been.
“If I do, its your job to wake me up,” she replied.
“It is, isnt it?”
The Chaplain was saying, “You said you were searching for news of the Grumman expedition, Lord Asriel.
Poppy was always served after a feast: it clarified the mind and stimulated the tongue, and made for rich conversation. It was traditional for the Master to cook it himself.
“What have you got there?” said the Dean. “Is that a vacuum container?”
She sat and listened to the talk. Mighty dull talk it was, too; almost all of it politics, and London politics at that, nothing exciting about Tartars. The smells of frying poppy and smoke-leaf drifted pleasantly in through the wardrobe door, and more than once Lyra found herself nodding. But finally she heard someone rap on the table. The voices fell silent, and then the Master spoke.
“You should have used a scratchy old one,” whispered Pantalaimon. “If you get too comfortable, youll go to sleep.”
One of the Scholars got up to do that, and the room darkened.
