One by one the Mentor called upon the other presidents to make their reports and each had practically the same fearful facts to relate. After the last had spoken the Mentor sat in his straight backless chair without speaking.
The others were also wrapped in their own dreary thoughts.
Had there been a man of the twentieth century present he would have been more than astounded by the facts divulged by this meeting. He could not have understood! And he would have been vastly surprised to learn of the many changes that had taken place in the map of the world during the ten centuries that had slipped by. In his day it might, indeed, have been possible to foresee that the United States of America would one day include the entire North American continent, together with the islands of the South Seas, and that the numerous nations of Latin America would be fused in one.
It would also have been conceivable to him that England would gain jurisdiction over one half of Europe and Germany over the other half; that Arabia would swallow all of Asia Minor, Turkey and Egypt; the African Negro would come into his own and, with the exception of Egypt, control all of the Dark Continent; that the Hindu of India would have possession of all of southern Asia; China would control Siberia, Manchuria, Korea and Japan, while Australia and New Zealand would join hands as an independent state.
The Coming of Wings
BUT our early-twentieth-century man might well have raised his brows upon hearing that all these great nations now owed their allegiance to the greater office of the Mentor or Planet Ruler whom the nine lesser potentates elected from their own number, and who ruled from the Great Palace at Havana, Cuba, where their conference was now taking place. And what would have surprised him most of all was the remarkable physical change that had come over the inhabitants of the world, as the appearance of these ten men with their strange problems bore witness . . . and the source of his wonder would have lain in the fact that they possessed natural wings, great, powerful, living wings—more powerful than the wings of the eagle!
To understand how Mankind had come into the heritage of wings one must turn back the yellowed pages of history to the sixteenth century[1] to one Howard Mentor, who with his science made wings possible to man. One can thrill anew on reading the history of the centuries in the Brazilian wilds when the little race of Mentorites struggled to put wings upon their offspring, and fought off the great nations of the earth who sought to punish them for their abduction of women. It will be recalled that the Mentorites stole unwinged women that they might continue to breed an dated[2] race. Schoolchildren know the date when Horace Mentor, descendent of the original Mentor, faced the World Court that existed at that time and demanded that his nation be given recognition by the World, since the winged people had without a doubt proved their superiority over the other nations. And he won his point. It was a great day for the planet when the Mentorites were given that sanction and when America opened her arms to them and even gave permission for the Mentorites to breed wings upon her citizenry.
And so with the years the world acknowledged that wings had proved more efficient than flying-machines with their smell of burning oils and their clattering noise and awkwardness of maneuver as well as the hazards of their construction. One after another America had conquered her fellow-nations with her hordes of winged men, with her electro-thunderbolts and aero-electrovoid machines,[3] until the time came when she could have possessed the Earth. Wisely, however, she refrained from enforcing such sovereignty, contenting herself with enabling her fellow-beings to grow wings. And over them all she established her protectorate, claiming only the right to interfere in their control when it meant a disrupting of the world’s peace. But men with wings are a peaceable people, little given to wars or rebellion. When Man is enabled to fly like a bird into the sky, he is little troubled with the narrow, selfish outlook of the grubbing worm. Some of the great wonder and peace of the Universe, the beauty of the horizon, is instilled in his soul and he knows that progress and brotherhood are so interwoven as to become one!
THE peace and contentment that now belonged to the Earthlings was evident in the faces of the ten gathered for conference. Color was of no consequence to these broad-visioned men who, as representatives of the various races of Earth, bespoke the new understanding of this great truth. The Mentor (the Planet Ruler assumed this title and name on taking office) was a man of some fifty years, as fine a figure of a man as could be found upon the planet. His hair was as crisp as a youth’s and his eyes were dark wells of understanding. His face was the face of a leader, but his leadership was tempered with a compassion for those he ruled. He stood a few inches over six feet and the great wings that rose from between his shoulder-blades had a span, when open, of twenty feet; for with the centuries the wings of the alated had grown in size. Those of the Mentor were covered with golden-brown feathers that were soft and silky to the touch. His clothing was close-fitting, the garments affording a minimum of resistance to the wind, and to lessen that resistance still more they were made of a sleek silky material. In color they were tinted a delicate shade of yellow that blended well with the golden-brown of the wings.
The other men at his table differed but little from the Mentor. Their wings, it is true, were of a variety of colors—some solidly hued, some variegated—and their clothing usually was pigmented to correspond to the wing coloring, for the winged people liked harmony of color, learned, as it were, from Nature’s carefully manipulated brush. The only radical difference to be noted in the group was their racial colorings, and each one was the finest specimen of his own race. Their faces were usually very regular in contour, for with the knowledge that it is possible to grow new parts upon their bodies had come the knowledge of perfecting their physical features, until, except in color, they were almost counterparts of one another. Gone was the racial flatness of the Chinese face and its bland inscrutable eyes, while the Negro had as regular, clear-cut features as the Englishman who sat beside him.
They Must Be Saved!
NOW the Patriarch was speaking again.
“Something must be done immediately about our women, my friends, else we shall find ourselves a doomed race. It means race suicide to continue as we are.”
“There has been talk, Mentor, of sending out an expedition to other planets in search of more women!” President Chang of the Chinese Empire said, slowly.
The Mentor looked up sharply. “Even were that possible, sir,” are we marauders?”
“This is not a time for ethics, Mentor. The first of the alated did not balk at stealing women so that they could continue to propagate the race!”
“That is true enough, but still we cannot tolerate such a procedure. And after all, that is but half a solution. Our women—our sisters, our mothers, our wives—are dying! It is our individual women as well as our race that we must save!”
“Have you a solution, sir, that you summoned us to hear?”
Slowly and sorrowfully the Mentor shook his head. “The only solution that I can see is one that should not be considered except in the most extreme circumstances. Yet, it may be that the time has come when we must admit that course. I called you here today with the hope that some one of you may have a plan, or else that you will signify your willingness for us to go on with the program I am forced to lay before you. It is nothing less than removal of the wings from the backs of your peoples! For I am convinced that the disease that attacks our women came with the winging of the race. In this way we may hope to save these millions of women who will go inevitably to their deaths. For although a mother may escape with one child, statistics prove that either the second, third, fourth or fifth child invariably brings her to her death! We have tried every other means we know, but every experiment proves a failure!”
“I am certain that the answer lies rather in our seeking women from one of the known inhabited planets, Mentor,” insisted the Chinese president.
Again the Mentor shook his head. “You may be correct, President Chang, but even if you were right, wh
ere is the means of our crossing space to another planet? True, attempts have been made, but each invention has proven impractical!”
CHANG smiled. “In Japan there is a group of men who tell us that they have perfected such a machine, sir!”
The Mentor jerked to alertness. “What do you mean? Why have I not been informed of this?” His eyes blazed, for although the protectorate was not severe with the nations, the planet ruler must needs know all the events worthy of note without fail. For only in that manner was it possible to keep the world balanced, and to administer to one nation as to another, so that jealousies and antipathies might not be given encouragement.
“The reports have been duly submitted at Havana, Mentor. Even now they probably repose in your files. We have been surprised that no word was received from you concerning this great discovery, for we only await your permission to begin work on the astralnautic flyer. That you were not informed points to negligence on the part of your secretaries.”
“It shall be looked into immediately, President Chang, and the person whose duty it was to acquaint me with this momentous matter shall suffer for his carelessness.”
“ ‘A slovenly clerk is a menace to a well-ordered office,’ ” quoted the Chinese.
The Mentor nodded and wrote some words upon the autographic pad at his side that would convey his message instantaneously to the proper office.
“And now, gentlemen, have you any suggestions to make concerning our great problem? For us to set about de-winging our future generations is a drastic step, and I realize that none of you wish to place your sanction on it if there is hope that our dilemma may be solved in some other manner. Have you any suggestions?”
When there was no reply the conference turned to other affairs. Then an attendant appeared at the door to announce that it was the hour of the mid-day meal. The Mentor led the way from the conference room to one of the open shafts that were set at intervals throughout the Governmental Building. These shafts were fully fifty feet square and reached from the ground level to the open sky above. Doorways pierced the shafts upon all sides opening off every floor of the building. Before the advent of wings, men had used mechanical lifts to take them from level to level, but the alated ascended or descended upon their own power. One by one the ten stepped from the doorway and with outstretched wings lifted themselves to the broad roof above.
CHAPTER II
Atop the City
UPON the roof were tables set under wide awnings with large mechanical fans beating the air to keep it refreshingly cool. A number of tables were already occupied by diners who rose from their seats at the approach of the ten terrestrial leaders and seated themselves again when the official party had taken its places at the large table set for them. Under another awning half a dozen musicians were playing upon various musical instruments, filling the languid midday air of Havana with their sweet notes.
Havana was scarcely different from the city of the twentieth century except that it was now larger and more beautiful. From the parapet of the roof could be seen the lovely city below, like a jewel in the setting that nature herself had created, the harbor scintillating and iridescent under the noonday sun, the gleam of its facets flashing with every underlying movement of the water. Overhead was the cerulean blue of the sky, forming an infinite domed roof. And to the beauty of the city with its houses of many hues and its palm-lined streets was added the flash of wings of every color of the rainbow as the flying people moved about on their matters of business, mostly keeping to the traffic lanes, but once and again taking a flight toward the sun for the pure joy of living.
THE Mentor’s party was served by efficient servants with delicately prepared foods and a great variety of the fruits for which the tropics are noted. For an hour or so they sat upon the roof listening to the music of the trained players. And all over the globe Earthlings were listening to the same music, if such was their wish, through the radio sets. Or they could switch on their Visual-screens and see their leaders sitting together. The world was aware that the ten were gathered here together, and were anxiously-awaiting some portent of good news.
Now in the sky there were hundreds of people who sought to catch a glimpse of their leaders. The manner in which they satisfied their curiosity was not trying to the potentates, for the flying people did not ogle, but flew quietly by. Some dropped flowers on the roof’s tiled floor and the awnings as they passed, but these attentions were paid in a discreet manner.
As the sun climbed higher and higher, the fans were not enough to prevent the air under the awnings from becoming warm; so after their meal was over the Mentor suggested that they descend to the garden below. Descent was made down the shaft by which they had arrived. During a rain a glass roof slid across the shaft top to protect those moving from floor to floor, but at other times the shafts were open to the sky, for the winged people more often left their buildings by way of these shafts than through the doorway on the ground floors. The full length windows of the chambers were also used for exits and entrances. In the private buildings and homes the same features existed, and the old Spanish type of building with its inner patio open to the sky was well suited to the flying people.
Thus the party dropped the five floors and emerged into a cool garden shaded by a movable roof. There they sat for several hours discussing questions that had come up in their various domains. At four they left the governmental building for the beautiful one-floored home of the Mentor where they took a siesta. There they met the beautiful mate of the Mentor, his three sons and one daughter. The family name of the planet ruler was Page, although in his official capacity he was known as “the Mentor.”
There were no other women in the home beside the wife and daughter. Nor were there any other servants than the mechanical robots that had been perfected to such a high degree of efficiency that the care of the house and the kitchen was left to them. The housewife had only to set their dials for the prescribed task and knew it would be carried out far better than any human servant could do it.
That evening, after the dinner in the Mentor’s well appointed home, they listened to a program of music, then watched some dancing and a drama that was being enacted at one of the great radio broadcasting stations of the world. Needless to say, for two centuries now a universal tongue had been adopted and was spoken all over the world.
The following morning the Mentor’s nine guests bade him farewell and with the coming of the sun were ready to return to their own capitals. This was to be accomplished by wing and one by one the presidents, each accompanied by his personal retinue, departed either for the East, the West, the North or the South.
There were thousands of the winged people abroad at that early hour, for they were early risers, and with flowers and songs saw the departing administrators on their way into the heavens.
The Space-Flyer
AN hour later the Mentor was again in his office, and before him was spread the report of the invention of the Japanese scientists. Already the clerk who had been at fault in not informing the Mentor of its arrival had been demoted. After studying the plans the Mentor gave an order to have himself put in touch with the inventors of the interplanetary machine. Over a private radio hook-up, he spoke for an hour or so to the two men whose brains had conceived the stupendous work. Shortly thereafter, the two were in the air on their way to Havana where they were to confer with the Mentor upon the possible construction of the flyer.
In the meantime the Mentor had brought together a half dozen renowned engineers to study the diagrams. And after many hours spent in a study of the plans they admitted that such a machine was theoretically feasible.
Flying, as the Japanese did, at one hundred and fifty miles per hour, it would take them a little over sixty hours to reach Havana. They carried food and drink with them but descended at way stations to rest and refresh themselves. From childhood the winged people were taught endurance in flight, and a youth did not come to manhood until he had made a single sustained journey of
at least three thousand miles. The muscles of the back and wing-cases were carefully developed, so that their owners would not become knotty and muscle-bound nor give out under the long strain of enforced flights. In the beginning the winged men might have perfected the flying-machines along with their wings, but their leaders had been wise in realizing that the wings would deteriorate if the machines were to be depended upon, and history has proved time and time again that men who placed their dependence upon artificial mechanisms were apt to become physically decadent. The winged people of Earth could never be called that.
ON arriving in Havana, the two Japanese, San Tu Ackwa and Yoto Murca, went to one of the city’s beautiful hotels where they took a few hours of rest before presenting themselves to the Mentor. Unselfishly the two scientists had given themselves for many years to the perfection of a machine designed to release their fellow-men from the gravitational shackles of Earth and allow them to soar into the great void, to extend their conquest of space still more. They had no thought for monetary reward, for gold as a means of barter and wealth had gone out of existence. Instead, their names would go down in history, as benefactors of the race—men who had given the world a boon that was invaluable.
With them they had brought the model of their invention and set about to demonstrate it to the Mentor and the engineers he had gathered about him. The model was a perfect sphere made of the light and durable dialumim. Set as a girdle around it was a series of round mirrors, concave and convex. In the bottom of the sphere was the manhole for entrance, and from its top ran a vertical strip of quartz crystal that would serve as windows for the interplanetary travelers. By unscrewing bolts San Tu Ackwa exposed the inside of the globe. Here was a large wheel that almost entirely filled the sphere, but did not touch the sides of the globe. The wheel was suspended upon a hollow shaft that ran across between the two supporting walls of the sphere, and around its hub was a series of crystal openings.
Collected Tales (Jerry eBooks) Page 24
