However, we did not know what the result would have been if it were not for the Machines. Still, we were to learn that at a later period. The world knows now that the Mentorites are invincible, and they have learned to respect the nation.
CHAPTER TEN
Life Continues in Mentor
SCOUTS were now stationed as look-outs day and night, for we had fear of a second attack, although our spies Outside reported that the enemy had not yet rallied from their ignominious defeat. Still public opinion ran high, and North America was demanding that Mentor be wiped off the map. It was now estimated that we were a million strong, and they had no way of telling just how wide an area we covered. The returning planes had reported the locations of the machines, and it was evident that the next attack would be made upon them.
Plans were being made to establish bases in the jungle lands, for it had been proven that the air planes needed a port closer to the scene of the battle. America and Canada were both mobilizing troops, and airplanes were being hastily built.
And while all these preparations were being made on the Outside, Mentor continued on with her business of living. Our new recruits were being initiated into our manner of living, babies were being born, settlements enlarged.
I made it a point to visit the fifty-odd aviators who had survived the wrecking of their planes at the Detention Camp. They all expressed their admiration for their captors, and were intensely interested in the progress of the nation. On being freed from the Camp they quickly accepted their new life, and many of them appeared highly contented with their lot and expressed the hope that we should not be attacked again.
One, Harry Mellor, a Canadian, approached the Patriarch with the plan for the construction of a number of bombing planes to combat the enemy. The Patriarch did not approve the notion. He admitted that his ancestors had not conceived the thought that man should ever rise in the air in mechanical devices, but he saw no reason for their offspring to take to machinery. He meant to prove to the world that wings were an improvement over the planes.
The task of bringing new women to Mentor persisted, but the abductors were more cautious and worked only by night. Too, they had to travel further and further for their prey. There were no more spectacular aerial kidnappings or hotel scares. Flying for hundreds of miles, sometimes as far as the border states of the United States, the marauders abided their time alighting as a rule near some outlying post where from previous observation they had discovered the woman of their choice. There they would await her coming. Swooping suddenly down upon her, burying her cries in a muffler they bore off with her not halting till they reached home.
The world was more uproarious than ever in their demands that the criminals be punished. Germany were turning out Zeppelins and planes that were being rushed across the Atlantic. England was also aroused, and even France and Italy were incensed although the Mentorites did not molest their peoples.
In the settlements of the winged people, however, war appeared forgotten. The Arts were being pursued avidly by the youths of the nation.
A writing club had been organized and gathered together weekly to discuss their writings and methods. New plays were being written and acted. I often printed the stories of these authors. Eugene Moore was making great progress with his Art school. He had been driven to take rooms in the city because of the growth of the school and some fine pieces of work were turned out. There were many other schools of endeavor besides those of Art—mechanics, electrical and architectural, and they were all making progress.
I now added a sporting page to my paper. It aroused as much attention as the sport’s section in a New York daily. The endurance tests for flyers continued. The record for staying aloft in one spot above the city was for fifty-two hours, forty-three minutes and ten seconds for male, and forty-nine hours, twenty-seven minutes and fifty-two seconds for female. This was apart from the long sustained flights.
Weekly contests were held for different types of flying, the winner receiving a prize as well as the high regard of his race. There were contests for children in which they were classed according to age. These races did much in teaching the most valuable lessons of endurance.
We did not confine ourselves to flying contests alone. There were the ground games for the flying people as well as the Earthbound, a type of baseball, basket ball and marbles in which the adults as well as the children took great pleasure.
A New Mentorian
WE still kept in touch with the Outer world by radio, and I printed all the news that came over it. Several bases were being built in various localities. One was on a plateau of the Andes on the Peruvian border, another in Bolivia, a third on the Amazon River. Our scouts flying by night watched the progress that was being made. Infantry was being brought into the jungles and roads constructed. Artillery was also being brought in at the cost of tremendous labor, and the sky was becoming overrun by airplanes and Zeppelins.
Some of us in Mentor wondered that the Patriarch did nothing; why he was content to allow the enemy to build its big army of offense. Most of the Mentorites, however, were as phlegmatic as their ruler, and to our protest that something should be done, shrugged their shoulders and averred that the matter rested in the Patriarch’s hands.
I went so far as to approach him and ask what this inaction was going to mean. We were now intimate enough so that my audacity did not bring a reprimand.
“Why?” asked the Patriarch, “should we show our hand before the time is ready, Jim Kennedy? You have an expression that says, ‘Give a man enough rope and he’ll hang himself!” We will instead give them the rope and then do the hanging . . . Bridges are to be crossed only when we come to them.” He smiled wryly. “I should suggest,” he added, “that you write an editorial on that.”
The rains came again before our enemy was ready to strike, and it was during that time that Jimmy Junior, as Lois insisted on naming him, was born. The day he arrived almost became one of mourning for me, for Lois, the dear little mother, almost died in giving him life. But Doctor Morris saved her as he had saved many mothers, and we were both to look with joy and pride on the most perfect specimen of alate babyhood.
The nurses were profuse in their admiration of him. They were not cooing over his appearance, for he was like all babies, and even I, the proud father, could not say that the little red creature was different. It was his wings that held their attention, for never had there been born a babe with such wings, wings that already were longer than the fat little youngster himself, and gave promise of a growth that had never been seen before. The soft fuzz that covered them was a downy yellow, although in the sun’s glow we could detect the faintest tint of what were later to be white and blue.
On the third day of his birth the Patriarch condescended to pay him a visit and congratulated Lois on the fine baby she had given to Mentor. A month later he was feted by all of Mentor and it was easy to see that Jimmy Jr. was going to be the pride of the nation.
One might stop to question the thoughts of the father as he realizes that he had in truth fathered a monstrosity—for such the baby would be considered in ‘unwinged’ circles. Yet I was so happy in the presence of my little family, in my work, in my new life that such an idea never ocurred to me. In fact, I was so wholly of Mentor that it was seldom or ever that I thought in the terms of the world. It was not until later years when I presented my son to my family in the States that I felt any discomfiture in his strange appearance. However, by that time he was a handsome child with a body that matched the splendor of his giant wings.
Now to return to the Mentorian situation. The rains ceased, and airplanes and fighting men were coming into the jungle in hordes. Word came to us from our emissaries that within two weeks time, on the twelfth of the month, the day had been set for the concerted attack on Mentor.
It was not until on the eve of the twelfth that the Patriarch struck, and so forceful was the blow he gave the world, that they had reason to know that they were reckoning with a power t
hat could not be crushed.
At noon the order went out that the flying men were to gather above the trees immediately after the evening meal, and they were to carry six thunderbolt wands apiece. These were distributed among them before they took to the air. Mentor was on its toes. There was to be action at last.
The next order came for the Earthbound. They were to be separated into companies, and by a quick march they were hurried to the boundaries of Mentor, in every direction.
A small number of Earthbound were to stay within the cities, to care for the children, to guard the Captives, for no chance was to be allowed of any of them escaping. A detail of winged women were also left to guard each settlement.
A Decisive Victory
LOIS was not called out, for mothers of babes up to six months old were not required for service. Again I was forced to stay behind, and hear the reports of what took place from other’s lips.
We learned that the flying men made descent upon the three camps of the enemy and with their thunderbolts entirely demolished all that had been accomplished in the last months. Thousands of airplanes were demolished that night, the artillery was completely wrecked and there were thousands left dead and dying.
What airplanes managed to take to the air were wrecked and went up in smoke before they had so much as fired a single shot. Zeppelins exploded and added terror to the awful carnage.
The infantry that had already been making its way through the jungles under the cover of night were met by the Earthbound and entirely routed, and many of them, captured, helped to swell the population of Mentor. However, several thousand Earth-bound died in those battles, for they did not have the advantage of wings or of machine guns. The infantry made a name for themselves that night, even, though in the end they were forced to retreat as the thunderbolts entirely demoralized them.
With the morning all fight was driven out of the invaders, and once again Mentor was declared victor. The world cried out in chagrin.
For a week following, we of Mentor were busy with our wounded. All day and night our people worked in the jungles to save the living and to bury the dead. It was left for Mother Nature to heal the raw wounds that had been inflicted on her forests.
The world was now in turmoil. The newspapers came out with editorials against the winged people, for they saw a new scourge sweeping the planet. Even Asia was touched by it. Individuals in the southern part of the United States commenced arming themselves against the inroads of the abductors and proposals were made for a fleet of airships that should bombard the entire jungle area so that the menace might be wiped off the face of the earth. Indeed several private parties sent out two long cigar-shaped Zeppelins in an effort to do a little warring of their own. They no sooner appeared in the sky before they were attacked by a horde of the alated and the ships went up in smoke as soon as the thunderbolts reached their vital parts.
And Mentor went on about its business quietly and efficiently. Its area was growing as new settlements were continually being filled. The number of captives now ran into thousands and the work of rearing the young continued. Two years went by and nothing more had been done, for now Mentor was alert and ready, and every attempt that was made to establish bases in the jungle was thwarted. Every plane that appeared in the skies was immediately attacked, and no matter how large a fleet might come the flying men always conquered, having grown surprisingly efficient in bringing the machines to earth in a minimum of time with scarcely any loss to themselves.
The ranks of the winged were growing, for the youth of sixteen were being enlisted, and now the count of able-bodied alated was well over two hundred thousand.
The fact that the Mentorites had their home in the jungle, of course, had much to do with their continued success. In any other part of the globe all might not have gone so well with them, but here they had control of an area of many hundreds of square miles about, an area that was a natural protection since the enemy had difficulty in securing any footing. The Indians were also our friends, for they saw in this new race a savior who would give them their own again. In fact, large tribes of them were drawing close to Mentor and offering themselves to the Mentorites. They did much in keeping us informed of all that the enemy did within the jungles.
Word next came that an attempt was going to be made on Mentor with poisonous gases, but again ere they could begin this new attack the Mentorites were upon them, and every city that had received a supply of gases was attacked at night, and the supply was bombarded so that the cities themselves felt the attack, and cried out against the governments to stop bringing any more of the bombs into the strongholds.
A Startling Proposal
AT LAST the day came when Mentor sent out orders to his emissaries to begin negotiations with the World Court for recognition of the Nation of Mentor. He demanded that all hostilities cease, that the new race be accepted in fellowship. And, he went on to advise, that if his demands were not accepted Mentor would hereafter take the offensive and the World would regret its refusal of Mentor!
To me it appeared a very audacious step for a people of less that a million to take. Yet they had proved time and time again their strength, and I knew that Mentor meant what she said. In our laboratories our scientists had discovered a gas that was more potent than even cacodyl isocyanide the gas that had been discovered some fifteen years earlier and which destroyed any life it touched.
Another year went by, and in that time the World Court had come to no decision, for the world still clamored for our destruction. Again attempts were made upon us with plane and gases, but again Mentor thwarted every move. And to prove that she had meant what she had said a small contingent of winged men clothed entirely in a sheath of protection headed for Cuzco. They went armed with gas bombs, and the morning found the city black and scarred with not a living creature within its walls!
A cry of distress went up from South America and this time the World Court acquiesced. Two representatives went out from Mentor with a large guard armed with thunderbolts and bombs. They landed in Washington D. C. and with an armed guard proceeded to the Capital. There were demonstrations in the city as the Americans fought to reach the enemy and tear them limb from limb, but the United States had offered them protection so that they might confer with the President.
The result of that conference was that the representatives embarked on an air-liner for Europe. Where they flew on to Geneva, Switzerland, where the World Court was then in session.
Brazilian representatives were there also and they fought against the usurping of such a large area of their nation by the Mentorites. Their protest was overruled as the other nations were glad that the winged people were willing to stay within bounds and not move to some other part of the globe. However, bpundaries were laid, and the Mentorite representative signed an agreement that Mentor would not overreach her borders.
It took almost five years for the world to forget her animosity toward Mentor, and during that time flying people were not welcome in any of the cities of the world. But gradually the antagonism wore off, and it was not an uncommon sight to see the winged people in the cities of Quito, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires as well as in American and European cities.
And Mentor was now coming out into the sunlight. The giants of the jungle were being torn down, and the cities were rising above ground. Fine buildings were reared and the nation was coming into her own. She had been allotted an area of one hundred miles wide and two hundred long. Her plantations continued to feed her, and her mines were working at full tilt.
Tourists were now coming into Mentor’s cities, merchants had brought their wares, and the nation looked forward to a fine future. The Aerial was no longer the only newspaper in Mentor. All of the cities had their own dailies, but the Aerial was considered the leading paper, and people looked to it to give them the real news of the world.
Mentor became less and less communistic. The dormitories had been forsaken, and men and women were beginning to establish their own homes, their
children attending the city schools conducted by educationalists from America.
Ah, could only Howard Mentor see what strides had been made by that little band of refugees who had fled to South American shores!
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Into A New Land
TEN years passed and it could be seen that Mentor was soon to outgrow her boundaries. Brazil was watching jealously for one infringement on the treaty that had been made in Geneva. I saw that Patriarch Mentor, who was now nearing his sixtieth year was growing restless under the limitations of his country.
I was now very close to him, for our friendship had deepened with the years, and I knew that he was looking for Jimmy Jr. to take his place when he would succumb to old age. Jimmy had grown handsomer with the years. He topped the Patriarch by an inch in height, and his tremendous wings far surpassed those of the ruler. In walking they dragged almost two feet behind him and had a spread of over sixteen feet. He held the present record of Mentor, having flown entirely around the Earth in a little over fifteen days!
I now went to the Patriarch with the plan I had had in mind for several years. He agreed with me that in another generation Mentor would not be able to stay within her boundaries, that eventually she must seek new territories. At first he was not fired with the idea of seeking that territory in North America, but eventually I convinced him that America was the only feasible part of the world where he could hope to find succor, a country that for all its two hundred million or so of population had vast lands scarcely touched. And after hours of deliberation the Patriarch called upon his councellors to discuss the question with them. In the end it was decided to send emissaries to Washington to ask that we be allowed to come into American territory.
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