Wyndham Smith

by S. Fowler Wright

  “We might save it,” he said thoughtfully, “for a great need, at a later time.”

  “I thought of that,” she answered, “and then not. I threw it away.”

  She spoke with a hardening of eyes and lips which he did not miss. Had he been familiar with that ancient, profound fable of evolution, he might have recalled how Eve had plucked the fruit from the tree of knowledge, and given it to a less resolute hand. But he saw her to be determined in what she did, and knew that, happen what might, he would not doubt her again.

  Still, he was unsure of the wisdom of this. Surely, such a power, such a protection, might be held for a great need? And then he remembered something which he supposed that she did not know, and saw what its implications were.

  “You were right,” he said. “I will do the same.”

  “What shall you say to Pilwin-C6P?”

  “I will let him talk. He may think I am not yet resolved.”

  “But you will not let him persuade you to doubt indeed?”

  “No. Now that I know your mind is equally fixed, I have ended doubt. You have my word upon that.”

  “Which I know well that you would not break.”

  “Yes. You can trust that. But I have not been thinking so much of Pilwin-C6P as of talking with Avanah-F3B. He could tell me much of the time from which I came, and among the barbarities of which I found means to live.”

  “Yes, you might get some ideas from him. Have you thought how you can get me clear without making more trouble than we could meet?”

  “I have had many ideas, but none good.”

  “So have I, but yours is the better brain.”

  She added confidently, “But there is time yet. We shall find a way.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  A few minutes later, Wyndham went to see Avanah-F3B, who specialized in history. That was according to the rule that those of lower rank in each hundred should become expert in a single subject, while those above exercised their minds in more general ways.

  By the same rule, Colpeck had a wide knowledge of many subjects, but without particularity in any, he being ranked as one of the better brains. That was the custom throughout the whole organization of the five million of living men. It did not, beyond a point mathematically trivial, require or imply the inferiority of the specialist, as those at the head of each hundred were (very slightly) inferior to those at the foot of the hundred next above them, and there was thus no absolute superiority, except in the hundred, to which Colpeck-4XP and Avanah-F3B both belonged. But the arrangement was doubtless based upon the theory that it is a less severe test of human capacity to attain proficiency in a single subject than to have a well-balanced perception of all.

  Actually, the subject was one that gave its professor a breadth of vision superior to that of the majority of his companions, for it had become habitual to him to consider this quiet twilight of the humanity to which he belonged, not only absolutely of itself, for satisfaction or scorn, but relatively to those earlier, more tempestuous ages from which it came.

  He was a man who had lived an eventless life of a hundred and sixty years, and who was now conscious of some weakening of bodily reactions which, while they had not reached the point of definite disease, had been sufficient to suggest to an indifferent mind that the time to seek a pleasant, dignified exit could not be far.

  “I have come to you,” Wyndham began, “because I know that you can tell me much of that twentieth century to which I vitally belong, concerning which I have a natural curiosity, and which may include matters with which it may be profitable for me to be acquainted, in view of the difficult life which I may be leading after this week.”

  “It is a request,” Avanah-F3B replied, “which it will be a pleasure to grant”—and indeed, where in any age could a professor be found who would not be glad to talk on his own subject?)—“but I must tell you honestly, not merely that there is a limit to what I know, but that I understand even less. How can I hope to make clear that which is confusion to me?”

  “Perhaps,” Wyndham suggested, “there may be some hope in the fact that my ego will be native to what I heard.”

  “Well,” Avanah-F3B replied, “we can hope that.” But his words did not have a sanguine sound. “You have no memory of those days. Can you stir that which you have not got?” He added, “Perhaps it will be best for you to ask whatever questions are in your mind, and I will give what answers I can.”

  Wyndham agreed that that would be a good way. He began: “My first question must be, if it were truly such a barbarous and bloody time, how did the men of that day endure it to the end, as we, under more tolerable conditions, are unwilling to do? And, in particular, how could the brain that was once mine, knowing all that it must have done, advise its ego that it would be preferable to return there?”

  “The answer to these questions,” Avanah-F3B replied, “is not easy to give, and I am conscious of my incompetence for the attempt. But it may be observed, in the first place, and on the evidence of one of themselves whom we had here, and whom I questioned for several days, that a large number did destroy themselves, even by most painful and repulsive methods. You must also allow for the fact that the majority of the men of that time appear to have been more or less mad. The actual number which had been segregated for that reason by their fellow-citizens in Great Britain alone during the year concerning which enquiry was made amounted to about two hundred thousand, this being the element of the population whose insanity was too absolute to allow of their walking loose; and there are abundant separate evidences that this mental unsoundness was more widely distributed. It was a matter of degree only. In many cases the warders may have had a measure of mental health little superior to that of those whom it was their duty to guard.”

  “It has,” Wyndham allowed, “a very probable sound, and would explain much. I know already, that they sacrificed the safety and most of the amenities of life—such as they then were!—to the pleasure which they derived from sitting in machines which moved them about.”

  “That was so. But in the course of my researches I have come recently upon an even more curious evidence. They had at that period a large number of buildings which they called prisons, in which they segregated a substantial part of the population. These people were housed, clothed, fed, and even amused without being required to undertake any compensating labour, such as was normally necessary at that period. Most of them belonged to sections of the population which, when outside these walls, lived precarious lives, liable to extremes of hunger, cold, or over-crowding in tenements less sanitary than the prisons were. They could not enter or leave such places by their own decisions, but only by that of tribunals which were set up to consider the case of each applicant separately.

  “It has an incredible sound, but the evidence appears to be conclusive, that it was regarded as a penalty to be taken into one of these hostels, and a privilege to be expelled from them to face the rain or wind of the outer street.”

  Wyndham asked, “Does your knowledge of subsequent history enable you to tell me whether those men of the twentieth century were struggling in an opposite direction, or had they already set out on the road which is ending here?”

  “Perhaps it would be the best guess that the evidence supports to say that they stood where the ways parted, and were uncertain which they would take. They acted, in consequence, as one of their own quadrupeds might have done had it been controlled by a rider who pulled it back from either road in turn, so that it reared and plunged, as the reins jerked and swung it, now left, now right, indicating each course in turn, and then refusing to let it go.”

  “I have no doubt,” Wyndham replied, “that you are right. The men of that time may have been mad, and those of this may be saner than they. Or perhaps you may intend me to understand that insanity, which commenced at that day, has now come to the point which it was natural for it to reach. But, in fact—as perhaps,” he admitted courteously, “I might have made plainer before—this was not t
he point on which I was most anxious to benefit from the special knowledge you have.

  “I sought rather to improve my knowledge of the rough and perilous manners of life, such as may have approximated to what my own experiences are likely to be when this week is done.”

  “Then perhaps,” the historian replied, “we may talk again at another time, when I may tell you things which will turn your mind from such an idea as that you can exist tolerably after your fellows have left the earth; if you have ever really had such a thought, which is very difficult to believe.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The chairman of the Council of the First Hundred (Munzo-D7D by name) had a great though placid pride in the place he held, and a special satisfaction now, that he should have such a position at a time of the culminating and concluding act of the race of which he was the intellectual head.

  His fine mind was now exercised continually, and not the less acutely because it was without the stir of a hastened pulse, upon the coming consummation of human destiny, which he was resolved should be guided to its resolved end without fluke or blunder, and in a dignified manner.

  In this connection he naturally gave prolonged thought to the case of Colpeck-4XP, which had developed in so unexpected a manner, and though the fact that it was no more than a barbarous ego that would survive tended to reduce both its intrinsic importance and its ulterior significances, he was not disposed to dismiss it from consideration without exhaustive examinations.

  The facts that the race could not be continued by one individual, and that all their discoveries, their surgical devices, and cunning drugs, had taken them but a short step upon the path of enduring life, while they would rob the survival of anything more than residual importance, also made the decision of Colpeck-4XP more difficult to understand, and therefore to be examined with the more sceptical care.

  So exhaustively did his mind penetrate the possibilities of the position that he even considered whether there might be any ape-like creatures existing in some remote, secluded part of the earth, from which a semi-human race could be born anew; and though he dismissed the possibility after sufficient enquiry, the idea that Colpeck-4XP must have some plan hidden in a lawless mind, such as would make mockery of that which his fellows did, still remained. Suppose, he thought, he were planning to save, at the last moment, some wretched woman against her will?

  This occurred to him at once as being the most probable explanation, and the most dangerous possibility. It roused him to visit Avanah-F3B immediately that he heard that Wyndham had been talking with him; and learning little from the report of that conversation, which was readily given, he went on to consult Pilwin-C6P.

  Avanah-F3B had said cautiously, “He had, as I think, doubts. His intention stands; but he is, as yet, less than firmly resolved.”

  Munzo-D7D felt even that hesitant intention difficult to believe without more explanation than he yet had, but he found that Pilwin-C6P could say even less, Colpeck-4XP not having yet made the promised call upon him. But he was willing to talk, and he took the question less impersonally than Avanah-F3B.

  In fact, he asked bluntly, “If you have such a doubt, should he not be put to a quick end?”

  Munzo-D7D shook his head gravely at this suggestion. “He has done no wrong. He has had permission to live.”

  “Which, if he thinks to be left alone, it is sure that he will not choose.”

  “So he may decide of himself. That would be the better way, and would end all doubt.”

  Pilwin-C6P did not dispute that, nor did he repeat his lawless idea that a man should be put to death who had not committed a legal offence, for he perceived it to be one which Munzo-D7D would not approve. But he thought—with which it is possible to agree—that men need not be over-careful of laws which are to end with themselves in the next week. Yet the tyrannies of convention and common order are very strong, and with these people they had acquired an almost irresistible power, so that he remained still, and Munzo-D7D went on:

  “We are not discussing a likely danger, for it is most improbable that any woman would be willing to consider so intolerable a condition of life, and there has been no sign of such a tendency in any of those who, being in our own Hundred, are known to him: and if his purpose be to take one away with him against her will in the last hour—well, it would not be easy to do, and we can make it beyond his power.”

  “We could make a special law for a special case,” Pilwin-C6P suggested, putting forward his first idea in a different dress, and with more wit than before.

  Munzo-D7D considered this. It was not an unreasonable suggestion in itself, there being precedent for resolutions that one or more should die for the common good. But he saw that there would be a paradoxical absurdity here. They had given the man permission to live as long as he could, and would execute him at once lest he should abuse the license which they had allowed.

  He saw that it was a proposal to rescind rather than pass a law. And he knew that there was an inertia of mind which made the men of his time reluctant to reconsider any decision to which they had deliberately come. If he were to propose it with any prospect that it would receive the necessary support, there must be, at least, some evidence, however slight, to explain his fear. He said, “Well, he will be coming to talk to you. You will judge his words with a fine care.”

  Pilwin was quite willing to undertake that. He added the best suggestion he had yet made: “You could ask him to pledge his faith in a formal way.”

  Munzo replied thoughtfully. “Yes. We could do that.”

  He went out through the wall of the apartment, which was violet shot with a dull red, and a moment later Wyndham Smith entered, as might be done without ceremony, it not being a private time.

  It was only a few hours since, at Vinetta’s prompting, he had rejected the daily potion of the drug which it was the universal habit to take, but already he felt a difference which had been puzzling to himself till he guessed its cause.

  He felt more alive, more alert both to ill and good, more aloof from those among whom he moved, more independent of mind. It was as though he watched a moving pageant he did not share.

  He took the visitor’s seat, and Pilwin-C6P took that which custom allocated to him.

  “I have come to discuss what help, if any, I might be able to give to your plans, if I should continue to live, as I may not yet have decided to do.”

  He was conscious as he said this that his voice had become somewhat brisker, more decisive in tone than he was accustomed either to use or hear, and he reminded himself that he must be cautious not to expose the difference which he felt. He might succeed in that. His greater danger was that he might come to underestimate the quality of the drug-ridden intellects against which he was obliged to contend.

  Already Pilwin-C6P had noticed the change of manner. He looked slightly puzzled, faintly resentful, which meant much among this people of tepid emotion and measured thought. He answered, “I have given it some consideration, and I am not sure that there is much you could do, even with a better will than I believe that you have.”

  “Why should you think that? It was my own proposal that you should have the opportunity of realizing your ancestor’s plan.

  The retort, which came from the new freedom which Wyndham felt, seemed to him to have a convincing quality. As a debating point it may have been all he thought. The long moment of silence with which it was met seemed to give it his own value. But in the end Pilwin-C6P said only, “Well, so I think.”

  Wyndham could not get much change out of that. He reverted to that which he had been glad to hear, and which had sounded as though this matter might be disposed of more easily than he had feared. “Will you tell me,” he asked, “why you think that I should be of so little use?”

  “Because you have not the knowledge of the machines which the occasion requires. And even if you had, their control would be beyond the capacity of a single man, the major concentrations being so widely apart. You may ask why sho
uld not the success of one only be assured, if all cannot, but the problem is less simple. An error in instruction to one might destroy all in the next hour, for, though they are separate, their effects are interdependent in vital matters.”

  “Then it will be best for me to leave them alone?”

  “There are some things you might do, if you have a good will, and can give your time for the next three or four days to mastering the rudiments of control, but I do not say they are much.”

  “Would they be beneficial to myself in the coming days?”

  “No. Nothing would, as I suppose. You have made an impossible choice, unless you are friendly to dirt and pain.”

  “There may be even worse things.”

  “So there may. But that would be a poor reason for choosing them. The fact is,” Pilwin-C6P went on, following his own thought, “it would be useless to attempt to continue control of the machines unless from twenty to thirty men should be left alive to give them the full guidance that they require. Short of that, it may be best to set them on a routine path, and leave them to their own ways, which may continue a long time.

  “It might have been a good plan to leave that number, if they would have been willing to sacrifice themselves, or indeed, we might have resolved that the women only should go to a present death which would have been to make sure end of the race, while dealing with such matters as this in a leisured way.”

  Wyndham saw that this was true, but it was an unwelcome suggestion. Suppose it should be adopted at this late hour, even in a modified form, the hope of saving Vinetta would become even less than it now was. But he was sufficiently wary not to disclose his fear. He said, “So, no doubt, it would be. But men will not change a plan to which all have agreed, without more reason than that.”

  Pilwin did not dispute this. The talk turned to the conditions which would have to be faced on the earth by one man who would be alone, and with the machines either stopped or diverted from their present services. It was a subject on which the engineer had no useful suggestions to make, and his opinions were not pleasant to hear. “You may find food of a kind,” he allowed, “though I suppose it will make you ill. But in a week you will be alive—if you still are—in a howling hell. Why do you not come with us in a decent manner?”