by Mike Ashley
By this time Zorlin had straightened himself up, and seemed to have grown perceptibly in height and breadth. He was conquering the atmosphere of earth; and after a single sip of sparkling tinted water, he spoke.
“I would have found a way to come,” he said easily, yet with a strange accent; somewhat as though his words were snowflake crystals, cold at first but melting as they fell. “We had not thought it worth while; but you have made so much advance lately that it seemed best to help you. We Kurols move by will-power. It is said many of our people have come to you secretly before. We know a great deal about your life. But until just now it was against the law for our people to visit earth; it lowered them, and always did you harm, and caused wars among you, much against our will and desire. Even now, I fear my coming will make disturbance.”
He was like a man, but endowed much above a man, and with something weird and incomprehensible about him.
“Will you not tell us something about Kuro?” Asked Graemantle serenely. He was the only one of our group who seemed anywhere near equal to Zorlin. “Or would you prefer to rest?”
“The first duty of a missionary,” Zorlin made answer, “is to learn about the country or the world he comes to. After that he can tell things. Not now. I learned much of your speech from our star-talk, the rest from Bronson. But now let us wait.”
We waited accordingly, for the hour was near dawn and streaks of morning were faintly hinting at day in the east through the windows, and even Glissman’s spectacular eyes looked a trifle dim and weary.
When we rose some three hours later in the glory of a crisp and cool forenoon of autumn it was decided that we should begin a jaunt of observation through the country, back to New York. This was partly for Zorlin’s benefit, but it suited me equally well, since I was almost as much a stranger as he. For convenience we took the walking balloon down the mountains, as this was the pleasantest conveyance over rough ground where there were no large air-ships handy.
This vehicle is a shallow car with small hollow sails of silk above it, containing just enough gas to keep it about thirty feet above ground, assisted by a small electric engine in the centre. From the bottom of the car two long rods or mechanical legs, made of aluminum — the lightest metal known — extended down to the ground, where they are reciprocated at regular intervals by an electrometer, which enables them to imitate the motion of walking, and carry the balloon along at the rate of some fifteen miles an hour. They are not meant for high speed, and can travel only, of course, on prepared routes, but are very convenient in certain places.
Air-cutters and the larger air-ships are employed for flying in any direction and with much greater velocity. They are on an entirely different plan from the flying machines which were announced but had not yet come into use when I was last alive. The present air-ships apply the principle shown, for example, in the rapid flutter of the bumblebee’s wing. This is the “shutter” principle. The ship itself is built of latticed aluminum strengthened with a small amount of copper, and enclosed with transparent celluloid for protection against weather (celluloid now being generally used in place of glass). Through the centre of the floor are thrust four short aluminum tubes three feet in diameter with three feet of length below, and these are each filled with 2000 very thin celluloid shutters, so arranged that they can be thrown upward, presenting only their thin edges to the air, offering no resistance to it. The instant they are turned down flat they prevent the passage of air from below, and so compress it into great density. “The inertia of the air in the tubes, you see,” Hammerfleet remarked, “makes it like a rigid column — more rigid than steel. This forces the car upward when it starts, and it ascends on the top of a continually heightening pillar of air that holds it up buoyantly and firmly. The 2000 shutters in each tube work between balanced springs, and reciprocate at the rate of 15,000 strokes a minute — that is, they open and shut 250 times every second.”
The motor by which they worked was, I thought, very ingenious. It is a small electric engine of eleven-horse power, set between the tubes, and has an armature of the finest chemically pure iron wire, wound with silver and insulated with collodion reduced by chemical means to cellulose. The armature, by an automatic device, is balanced to suit all degrees of speed, and has a revolution of 15,000 per minute. The reciprocating parts are of aluminum; the bearings are compressed graphite, lubricated with a volatile oil kept viscous by solid carbonic acid held in a box on the bearings. The motor and mechanism weigh only one hundred and twenty pounds; and the electricity is generated by oxidizing gas-retort carbon in fused soda, with oxide of copper as a reducer.
The idea of the ship is radically unlike former machines, which either depended on disturbing and churning up the air or relied on aeroplanes or the rush of air under an upward slant.
This latter and successful contrivance rests on the solid building up of a compressed air foundation beneath it, so that it cannot possibly fall. The direction is controlled in two or three ways; the usual one being by ordinary artificial silk sails, together with a large rudder of stretched silk for tacking and steering, as on the water. By using an aluminum screw, with an auxiliary engine, instead of the silk rudder, one is independent of the wind, and can raise the speed of the air-ship to between sixty and eighty miles an hour.
At the foot of the mountain we changed to one of these equipages, and, as we flew along, we saw many others scudding by in all quarters, far and near. The flotation sail — i.e., the hollow silk sail inflated with gas — I learned, had come into universal use for water-vessels as well, and had added immensely to the speed and excitement of yacht-racing. In fact, as we skirted the great lakes and passed over rivers and ponds, I had a chance to observe craft of all sorts and sizes with these sails, whizzing like arrows before the wind or leaning gracefully away from it and skimming the liquid surface as lightly as water-bugs, but much more beautiful and useful in their movements.
The shutter principle, also, Graemantle told me, had been adapted to steam-ships, or, rather, electric ocean liners and freighters; by using several hundred thin blades at the stern, in lieu of the old propeller, and also on the sides, which — by direct thrust when turned flat against the water — utilized the motion of the waves to condense air, and drove the vessel forward. Sun-engines, which derived electricity directly from sunlight, and another process that extracted it from coal in cloudy weather, supplied the motive power; and electrolysis along the sides of the ship reduced the skin friction of her passage through the deep.
Here and there Eva and I noticed, with curiosity — and Zorlin was with us in this certain little air packets that were flying around — “all by their lonesome;” as Eva said — always north and south and east or west. They were too small for anyone but a pigmy to hide in, and, in fact, there was no one in them. They went automatically. Zorlin, at last, was unable to maintain his reserve any longer. “What are they?” He asked.
Hammerfleet came to the fore with: “Merely express and mail earners. We have any quantity of them all over the country and the world. The magnetic lines generally keep them straight on their course; but if they are blown aside, a current is generated by their mechanism that puts them in line again. An automatic aneroid barometer, working a valve, keeps them at the right altitude.”
“But where do they go to?” Asked Eva.
“Look now this minute, and you will see. Watch that one. You notice it is driving straight for that tall skeleton wooden tower yonder?”
“Yes.”
We fixed our gaze upon the tower. The little express carrier drew near; and, as it touched the top of the tower, was clutched and held firm by an iron frame that caught its sails and stopped it. Then a man in the tower began to unpack the contents of the carrier, and sent them down by chute to an enclosed yard below.
“But I don’t see why you need these things, with all your other facilities for transportation,” I objected.
“They save an immense amount of bother and of surface traffic,” s
aid Hammerfleet, “besides doing away with hand labour. They are also very swift.”
“I should think, though, they could easily be robbed by air-thieves.”
“No. That almost never happens. There are too many people watching. A thief in the air is much easier to deal with than a thief on the ground. He has no obscure refuge; he is in full view. A limited number of police airboats can give all the protection we need for carriers. They patrol the routes, and carry grappling-hooks with which they can easily arrest any prowling thief-car.”
I seemed to win the secret, eye-winking approval of Stanifex, the official skeptic, by asking somewhat peevishly — “What is the use of all this air traffic, anyhow?” I felt a desire to combat Hammerfleet on any subject that came up, because he was jealous of me, or I of him — I hardly knew which-regarding Electra. It also irritated me that he was so well informed as to the details of the twenty-second century, when I felt that I had just as good a right to be in it as he.
“Why, my boy,” he replied, with a patronizing emphasis on the word “boy,” “don’t you see that it is an immense relief to the congestion of surface travel to have all these other means of conveyance? Civilization and the general occupancy of land have spread to such an extent that we must economize ground area. Formerly, human beings, in their degraded desperation, actually burrowed underground like moles, to get from one point to another. We rise into the pure air instead. Land, and the right in it, are enormously valuable. Air costs nothing. The race claims a certain right in the air, though; and franchise dues are paid to the people by public vehicles; while private ones are subject to a small tax. Air-ships are not so reliable as other modes of locomotion, but they relieve the railways and highways, and are immensely useful in sailing over mountains, deserts, forests, or impassable rivers, and in times of freshet and flood, besides their ordinary uses. The air-ships have also been of vast service in Polar and African exploration. You ought to realize that our population is large, and is spread out all through the country. So in order to accomplish traffic easily, it is best to divide it between earth and air. We do not live in large cities now, and we have to have plenty of room:
What he said was entirely justified by the landscape beneath us, where we could see the country beautifully laid out in small towns, villages, and hamlets with perfect roads leading from one to another, and large groves or tracts of wild woodland interspersed. Every acre of the open ground, excepting the fields reserved for sports and public meetings, was thoroughly tilled, with electric arrangement for the fixature of nitrogen in the soil, so as to produce vegetables containing sustenance like that of meat, and for raising apples, pears, and peaches a foot in diameter by electric light, and other fruits in proportionate sizes.
Our first stop was at Chicago, which we found was simply a vast trading post, a business fort or stronghold — like all other cities now — where a garrison of clerks and other laborers was stationed in the immense buildings once teeming with superfluous people. This garrison attended to business details with military precision, and was relieved at intervals by other men and women drafted from the population for the same purpose. All around Chicago were the impressive ruins of various World’s Fairs, these institutions having now become obsolete. The ruins had been carefully preserved, and drew many thousand sightseers and tourists every year, who paid a small fee in memorial silver for the privilege of viewing them. These fees were afterwards distributed in charity, and caused a good deal of grumbling because their value was so small.
V
THE FOREST OF STEEL
When we descended from the air-ship at Chicago I was horrified to notice that Eva retained the hideous old feminine nineteenth century habit of grabbing her skirt violently at the rear with one hand and holding it up, ostensibly to prevent its dragging on the pavement. She did this only on street crossings or wherever, according to her theory, there ought to be dust or dirt or mud or dampness — no matter how dry and clean the crossing might be. Then she would complacently let the skirt fall again and trail at will as a sidewalk sweeper, with the proud consciousness that she had done her whole duty. I wondered whether our vanished sisters of the past had ever realized how objectionable they made themselves appear by this ugly trick, and what would have been thought of men if they had adopted the custom of hoisting their trousers by such a rearward seizure.
There was not much to be seen in Chicago beyond the big garrison buildings, from fifteen to twenty storeys in height, and the deserted streets shaded by these piles of stone. No one lived in the city now unless drafted by Government and compelled to do so. There were even pleasant little borders of grass and flowering weeds along the once tumultuous thoroughfares, which were now covered with noiseless asphalt or gutta-percha pavement; and some of the unnecessary great buildings had been allowed to crumble into mounds or hills, which were planted with trees and shrubs and laid out as pleasure-grounds, giving a variety to the topography and landscape which was sadly lacking in the old times. On the whole, we were much refreshed by the ruralization and the quietness of Chicago; and I enjoyed some delightful strolls with Electra over the crumbled buildings and among the ruins of the ancient World’s Fairs.
I could more than fancy that Hammerfleet did not approve of these excursions. He made his distaste for them very clear in his solemn, undemonstrative way. But I took the opportunity to have one or two frank conversations with Electra. Briefly, I made love to her in a strictly honorable, above-board way. That is, I explained that I had been in love with Eva Pryor three hundred years and more ago, that Eva had then rejected me, and that I had since undergone some change of feeling myself.
We were standing on the moldering crest of the old Auditorium, the slope of which went down towards the shore of Lake Michigan in charmingly broken terraces of verdure and blossom and gurgling fountains. Electra had been recalling to me how, when women first entered politics, they had swayed large conventions of intelligent reasoning men by swinging a parasol or a flag and raising some wild shout for a candidate. But this was a so much greater tribute to the blind intelligence of women than it was to that of men that the women decided it would be more convenient to sway a small group of men than to excite a mob of several hundred or a couple of thousand male creatures calling themselves delegates. So the women had reduced the membership of political conventions to a few dozen, every man being carefully selected for his sensitiveness to parasols and feminine influence and outcry. The lessening of the number of delegates had been a great advantage to the women, and it saved them effort, and incidentally it was good for the country. Hence there was no more need for auditoriums, coliseums, or large halls. A convention could now be held anywhere, and quite inexpensively, under the spread of a few Japanese umbrellas held by women and judiciously waved by them at the proper moment.
“Well, Electra,” I asked, “Why should not women rule the world?”
“Ah! If the world is willing,” she said softly, deprecatingly.
“It would be willing,” I responded, “since every man is ruled by a woman.”
“But how is that?” She inquired.
“By his love for her,” said I. “You, Electra, can rule me, and precisely by that means. I love you!”
She smiled, with a clear, pure, genial amazement. Then suddenly she wept; and there was the light of a rainbow on her face, the mingling of sunshiny mirth and of tearful sorrow — such a thing as I never beheld in any other woman, and do not expect ever to see again.
“Why,” she exclaimed sweetly, “it gives me great happiness to hear you say so.” Then, with a cadence as of a forest rill dropping plaintively into some rocky pool: “You must know that nothing can come of this. Dear Gerald Bemis, it is hopeless. I am pledged; I am bound to someone else. I am what they call a ‘Child of the State’ and the Government has promised me to another man.”
“Who is he?” I asked, thrilled with a sudden fierce defiance of the State and of the man.
As I spoke. Hammerfleet came up behind
us, over the crest of Auditorium Hill. Electra moved one hand, indicating him silently.
“You?” I exclaimed, turning savagely to Hammerfleet.
“He is the man,” Electra whispered.
“I have heard your conversation unwillingly,” Hammerfleet observed to me, unmoved. “But we will not discuss it. I came up here to look for you, and to say that it has been arranged that you and I shall start tonight by train for New York, and make some little side excursions on the way — so that you may see more of the country.”
This announcement I recognized as a challenge and a threat, united; but I was resolved to meet whatever it might imply unflinchingly.
“Very well,” I answered. “If Graemantle approves I will accept his decision.”
We three then went down the hillside, not speaking further, and joined the rest of our party. Whether Graemantle suspected anything sinister in Hammerfleet’s plan or not, I could not guess; but I was reassured by his approving it; since it was certain that he could not wish me any ill.
I set out that night with Hammerfleet as a sort of advance guard. Our first stop, early in the morning, was somewhere near Buffalo, when we got out and walked for a while along the highways. Here I noticed the method of getting on and off trains. The cars never stopped. A spring platform bounced passengers from the station on to the end platform of the cars, where they were received on spring cushions. In the case of quick express trains, a parallel train was run at a swifter rate along a neighboring track for a short distance, and the passengers were hurled from this lightly, and upright into the express.
Bicycles, I found, were no longer a fad or a nuisance. Separate paths were provided for them, and, on these, electric bicycles, tricycles, and carriages were run, with power supplied from stations at regular intervals, and at all hotels, by recharging the storage batteries. Horses were but little used for travel, and existed mainly as a form of preserved life, like deer, in parks, or for racing purposes; although, even in racing, their speed was so greatly surpassed by that of flotation sails and rubber-oared boats, and various mechanical four-legged machines for running, that they were now not much more than domestic pets, like cats and dogs. However, although mowing was done chiefly by electric trolley mowers, we saw some draught-horses and carriage-horses in use on farms or on the road we were traveling afoot. In sandy regions, the wheels of horse-wagons had outward curving flanges, which prevented the sinking of sand into the wheel-ruts, and did away with friction and the loss of power by displacement of the sand. Many wagon wheels also were coated with naphthalene, to counteract the friction and the retarding effect of mud in the roads.
