“How do I look?” she asked.
“Perfect,” I murmured ecstatically.
“What are babies like in your country, Mr Merrick?” she asked suddenly.
I tried to give her a description.
Presently she said – “Have you got any babies of your own?”
I hastened to assure her that I never thought of such a thing.
“We are not allowed to buy one before we are twenty-five years old,” she said musingly. “I am not sure that I shall get one; they are rather a nuisance.”
I was too dumfounded to do more than open my mouth and shut it again.
“We buy them from the age of three to five years – those five years of age are very dear, though,” she added.
I gasped.
“My father bought Abraham very young, he is only two – but, of course, being Chief Adapter he is privileged.”
At that moment her father entered and the conversation dropped. I felt that there was a mystery somewhere, and resolved to question Tennyson when I met him in the morning.
The Chief raised no objection to my accompanying him to the council meeting, rather to my surprise, and neither by his speech nor expression gave any sign of his atrocious intentions with regard to myself.
The next morning, after a hurried breakfast (all my meals were hurried, since I could not keep pace with the chief) I was taken in a “roller” by Tennyson to the great hall where the affairs of the country were decided. We went into a kind of lobby overlooking a vast circular chamber. The lobby only accommodated two persons at a time and there were a series of them. When we were inside, the door, which reminded me of a safe, was locked, but first we were rigorously searched and all my belongings were removed and placed under lock and key. A seal was put over the keyhole and an impression of my thumb taken. I asked Tennyson why all these precautions were taken, but he only replied laconically that the council were not always popular.
The chamber was empty when we arrived, except for one barrel, which was apparently asleep on a raised platform. A long polished metal tube stood by his side. Tennyson said it was to keep order with. “You will see it in use, I expect,” he remarked.
It is difficult to give a clear description of the hall. There were no steps anywhere, nor seats, but the floor sloped in a spiral curve continuously rising, so that the outer circles were at a higher level than the inner. The raised platform was at one end and commanded the whole of the chamber.
Presently the sleeper awoke and beat on a gong. Instantly the big doors at one end slid back and a crowd of barrels of all shapes and sizes rolled in. They mounted the spiral one after the other and up-ended on reaching their respective destinations. This incursion lasted for several minutes and a hubbub of voices arose. I recognised Fairbairn and the Chief Adapter. They sat close together and conversed in an undertone.
Suddenly the creature on the platform banged his gong again, when the doors closed, and he roared out that the meeting was open.
Instantly at least a dozen barrels began speaking together. I could not understand a word. As soon as they had finished other members started. Tennyson seemed to understand quite clearly what they were saying, for he kept silently approving and disapproving.
“Does this always go on before the debate?” I asked.
“This is the debate, idiot,” he replied rudely.
“But they all talk at once.” I said.
“Of course they do. Do you suppose there would be time for them all to talk, if they did it separately?”
“But—” I said, “How do they understand each other?”
“There is no need that they should,” was his reply.
“Well – but how does the business get done?”
“Evidently you are very much behind us in this, as in all things,” replied Tennyson complacently. “Don’t you see that each member votes for his party – it does not matter in the least what they say, so long as they vote properly.”
“Then I don’t see what they want to talk at all for,” I objected.
“Why, you nincompoop, what’s the use of getting elected if you can’t talk? That’s what the House is for.”
“Then don’t they care whether they hear each other or not?”
“No; so long as they hear themselves – that’s quite enough.”
At that moment the platform barrel, who had apparently been asleep again, suddenly struck his gong. Whereupon they all began rolling furiously towards the lobbies or voting chambers amidst a perfect Babel of yells. This lasted ten minutes, when they returned and the performance recommenced. It had not continued for more than a minute, however, when a terrific uproar arose from a group of barrels who had been talking louder than the rest, and directly afterwards a free fight seemed to be taking place. This was the signal for the platform barrel to spring into activity. He touched the tube, which swung round until it pointed directly at the group of excited politicians; then he pressed a button, when a shell from the tube exploded with a hissing sound in their midst. I saw three of them fall to the floor, double up, and shrivel into powder.
“By George!” said Tennyson, “he’s pulverised old Smith.”
The noise lessened considerably, but no other notice was taken. I was horror-stricken.
“Do you mean to say they are dead?” I asked.
“You bet,” he replied. “It’s the only way to keep order. Besides, Smith’s been asking for it for a long time. I’m rather glad – but what’s the matter? You look sick.”
“I feel low-spirited,” I said. “Can we go now?”
He grinned. “Oh, if you like.”
He pressed a bell, whereupon our door was unlocked. My belongings were returned to me, and we left the Council House. They were still jabbering when I went out.
The monstrosity led me to some public gardens, which at any other time I might have taken a keen interest in exploring, for these people had bred flowers on just as startlingly original lines as themselves. But I had my approaching dissection on my mind, and I was also still pondering on my recent conversation with Clarice.
“I should like to know,” I said, “what Clarice meant by telling me that her father bought her two brothers.”
“What she said, I suppose,” he replied. “What are you getting at? Oh! I see where you’re stuck.
“Yes. You see when the Founder started his campaign he had several things to consider. One was that in the ordinary way all races of people depend to a great extent on chance for their development. You’ve read your Darwin, who was a keen sort in his way, but right out of it when you come to practical science. The Founder decided that leaving nature to improve the race was too slow to begin with, and also too haphazard, so he arranged that we should lay eggs – see? These eggs are examined scientifically and hatched by incubators. All the inferior ones are destroyed. Only the best are hatched, after a careful selection by the Adapters. I believe he took ants as a model, and our society is built on something like the same basis as theirs in that respect. So you see, when anyone arrives at years of discretion and is able to educate and care for a kid, he or she buys one from the Incubator House.”
“But can’t they hatch their own eggs?” I asked, feeling as though I were dreaming some awful nightmare.
“Against the law – all eggs have to be handed over to the Adapters at once – anyone failing to notify the authorities that he or she has laid an egg is pulverised.”
“He or she?” I said feebly.
“Oh, we all lay; there’s strict equality over here, you bet,” said the monstrosity, with a grin.
“Do you know your own eggs again?” I asked.
“They’re all registered and a receipt given, but the Adapters reject many of them, as I said before, and those rejected ones are destroyed.”
I may as well state here that I took the opportunity later on to revisit the National Museum, and there I read the following from the original specification of the Founder:
“It is considered that t
he abolition of sex is the only sure means of preventing those crimes and wickednesses prevalent in the old world which we have abandoned. The new race of humans shall therefore be adapted after the manner of certain elementary protoplasms of the deep seas, who produce their young by severing portions of their organisms, so that each severed portion becomes in turn a perfect creature. Analogously our descendants shall produce their offspring, not by severing portions of their person, but by producing eggs, each of which shall be perfect of itself and capable of being hatched at the will of the community, or destroyed if of bad proportions, either physically or mentally. This is for the betterment of the race and the sure prevention of the disease misnamed love by the class of madmen known as poets. But in order that the intellectual emotion or union of the spirit – which but rarely existed among the old humans – shall be fostered amongst us, the new race shall still possess the characteristics of men and women.”
When I returned I was met by the battered relic who had taken my watch. He held out a very fine violin and informed me that Miss Clarice desired my presence in the music-room. I followed him into a large domed hall, furnished, to my astonishment, quite after the style of a modern drawing-room. Clarice was seated at a piano. She greeted me with a smile.
“I did not know you were musical,” she said. “I should like to hear you play.”
I did my best, and was pleased to observe the effect. Her eyes became dreamy-looking and she gazed at me with an expression of delighted admiration.
“Why, you are infinitely superior to Tennyson!” she exclaimed, as I finished a selection from “The Mikado.”
We discussed music for some time, and she proved herself no mean performer on the piano. Suddenly she sighed.
“Mr Merrick, I want to confide in you.”
I bowed.
“I feel that our great ancestor made a dreadful mistake in altering us as he did. I have read many of your books and it seems to me that you are much happier than we are.”
She clasped her hands and a far-away look came into her beautiful eyes.
“You do not know so much, of course, but there is more variety in your lives. Sometimes I wish I were an ordinary woman such as your great authors describe. I feel so much like a machine – and we live such clockwork kind of lives – everything is settled for us by the Adapters, of whom my father is, as you know, the Chief. I wonder if—”
She paused and looked at me doubtfully.
“You have never seen me in my proper shape?”
I lied. I said I was quite satisfied to see her as she was and I had never seen her otherwise than beautiful.
“Yes – but if you saw me in my shell with my face expanded you would hate the sight of me – I have noticed that you can hardly suppress your horror of the people here.”
“I find it difficult to get accustomed to them,” I replied.
“I know, and I know you are frightened about something. Tell me, has my father made any suggestion to you about operating on you?”
I told her of the conversation I had overheard between her father and Fairbairn.
“It is as I suspected,” she said. “My father has no feelings at all – he is the embodiment of science, and would sacrifice anything for its sake. But listen – there are others besides myself who are opposed to the Adapters. It is true I do not know of anyone else who has ventured to think the Founder was wrong, and I have never spoken my thoughts to anyone before. I will prevent this horrible thing he wants to do to you. He dare not do it openly without the consent of the Council, and I know enough of the members to insure their refusal to agree. He might try to do it without their knowledge, but not if the whole thing was made public. So have no fear – oh ! it is awful. I must go to my room.”
“What is it?” I asked, alarmed at the sudden change in her expression.
“I have to go back to my own form – you do not know how hard it is to keep like this for long.” She held out her hand to me. I kissed it. The next instant I was alone.
I did not see her again until the next morning, when the relic again led me to the music-room.
“I have seen Mr Tennyson and several others,” she began abruptly. “Your case will be discussed in the Council to-day. I think you are safe, but Mr Tennyson is jealous of you. He regards me as his affinity and I hate him, except when I am in my own true shape; then I seem to alter. I don’t know why or how, but it is so, and it is horrible. Oh, how I wish I were a real woman and – tell me, do I look as nice as the women you used to know?”
“You are a thousand times more beautiful than anyone I ever knew,” I said fervently.
She looked at me for a long time in silence.
“There is something I have thought of,” she said.
“If my father can turn you into one of us, as he thinks he can, would it not be possible to turn me back into a woman such as I appear to be now?”
“Can I believe my ears?” said a terrible voice behind us – it was her father.
“Clarice,” he said, “I have suspected you for some time. I had misgivings when I selected you as being fit for hatching twenty-four years ago. There was something abnormal about you even then, and your passion for masquerading as a prehistoric woman since you grew up has filled me with grave anxiety. You have deeply sinned in your thoughts and must expiate them. As for you—” he added, turning to me with a look of cold-blooded ferocity, “your case shall be settled to-night.”
“You shall not carry out your abominable ideas on Mr Merrick,” cried his daughter. “I have told the Council.”
“What!” he thundered. “Stand still!” He made some rapid passes before her face. She seemed to writhe for a few minutes, and to fight against the influence he exerted. Then, before my agonised eyes, she fell into a shapeless heap on the ground.
Her father looked malignantly at her; then, calmly ringing the bell, which was answered by the relic –
“Fetch her shell,” he said.
The relic departed, and returned rolling a shell in front of him.
“Get in,” he commanded.
My poor, shapeless love crawled feebly along the floor and flopped into the casing. “Not before him,” she wailed.
“Get up,” was the stern reply.
She languidly thrust forth three legs and three arms. Her face now filled the opening in the end of the shell. She looked despairingly at me, great tears pouring from her eyes.
“Remember,” he said, “you cannot leave your shell for twenty days. Now go to your room.”
She withdrew her legs and arms, and rolled slowly and sadly from the room.
“You abused my kindness,” he said to me coldly, “by encouraging my daughter in her disgraceful imaginings. Pending the decision by the Council to-morrow, you will be confined in your room.”
My thoughts were not pleasant ones that night. At daybreak Tennyson appeared.
“It’s all up with you, Monty,” he said. “I’ve been beating up the sentimentalists, but they seem pretty indifferent about you. Most of them haven’t even heard of you. However, I’ve got one point in your favour. You’ll be allowed to speak in your own defence, and I am requested to bring you before the Council.”
I started to thank him, but he interrupted me.
“Don’t thank me – I don’t care a cast-off shell whether you die or live. I’m simply obliging Clarice, who seems to have taken a crazy fancy to you. I shall come for you in two hours’ time.”
He had hardly been gone two minutes when the door again opened and the Chief Adapter entered, followed by Fairbairn and two other younger barrels.
Fairbairn eyed me curiously for a few minutes and then said to the Chief:
“I doubt if he will stand it, you know.”
“It is hardly of consequence whether he does or not,” was the reply. “I am resolved to make the attempt. Bring him along.”
I was seized by the two younger creatures, and carried, in spite of my struggles, out of the room and along several inclines u
ntil we arrived at the laboratory where I had first come to my senses.
An ominous array of instruments lay exposed to view on a bench, and a pungent odour of anæsthetics filled the apartment.
They released me for a moment, when in sheer desperation I made a plunge forward, snatched up a formidable-looking knife or lancet, and put myself in a position of defence.
“Seize him,” cried the Chief.
There was a whirl of arms and tentacles. I fought for my life and slashed right and left at my tormentors. So furious was my onslaught that they drew back in alarm. I had actually severed one of their arms – there being no bone to stop the thrust. Then I felt a murderous desire to slay them all, and I sprang straight at the Chief Adapter, who barely succeeded in avoiding me. He began to make passes in the air, but they had no effect, for I was for the moment a madman. I possessed myself of a long sickle-shaped blade, and aimed a terrific sweeping cut at Fairbairn, who jumped right out of his shell and slithered along the floor to the doorway, out of which he crept, undulating like a serpent.
“Quick – the current!” shouted the Chief to the one of his assistants who was unhurt, pointing to a button in the wall, but taking care to keep out of my reach himself. I ran in the same direction myself and the younger monstrosity fled at my approach.
“Come on, all of you!” I shouted. “I’ll let you see how an American can die!”
The Chief was evidently nonplussed, and what the upshot would have been I do not know – but just as I was preparing for a final onslaught – Tennyson, followed by a number of others, burst into the room. One of them – evidently someone in authority – called out:
“What is the meaning of this?”
“Do you permit an innocent stranger to be dissected alive in your country?” I shouted.
He turned to the Chief –
“So you’ve been trying your abominable experiments again. Is not this the man of whom you spoke?” he added to Tennyson, pointing at me.
The Mammoth Book of Extreme Science Fiction Page 35
