Wyndham Smith

by S. Fowler Wright

  “I have selected a number from our museum already.”

  “Well, you see what I mean. Even though you may be quite alone, you will have too much to carry about. Primitive people had domestic beasts of burden and perhaps carts. But there are none of these left in the world. You might have a machine. But would it last under your single control?”

  “I will have no machines. They have wrecked the world.”

  “Well, if they have, they have. But what is it to you? You need not consider that. You are not founding a new race. But I see reason to doubt how long a machine sufficiently simple to control would be obedient to you. You may be wise to commence as you must go on.”

  “Then where should you advise me to be?”

  “I have thought that a mountainous district may be best, in what was the temperate zone, and will doubtless be so again, As the seasons change, you can go up or down. You will find a great difference in climate can be reached in that way by no more than an uphill walk, or a short descent.

  “I have thought whether you could move growing food in the same way, planting it in boxes, and drawing it up or down, but I doubt whether you will find it a satisfactory plan.”

  “No. I don’t think I should. But what mountain do you recommend?”

  “Well, you might find it best to choose one where we are growing trees, of which there are few. I believe that wood is required for many purposes in a primitive life. There is Mount Ida, in Asia Minor, where men lived, I believe, in remote times. You must not think that I recommend it. Go where you will, I suppose you will be a most miserable man. But I can think of nowhere better than that.”

  “Neither can I. It sounds to me a good choice.” Wyndham recognized advice that seemed to be honestly given, and in itself sound. After some further talk, he said definitely that that was where he would go.

  “You will gather what you require, and go tomorrow, I suppose, while the means of transit are still reliable.”

  “No. I have decided to wait the end. I will have the comforts of decent life for as many days as I can.”

  Pilwin did not argue about that, though he pointed out that the running of the long-distance automatic cars might be affected almost immediately by the changed conditions of the earth and the new uses to which its major plants would be put. “You might go safely,” he said, “or you might end in a ghastly death, or be maimed in a disconcerting manner which you will wish to avoid.”

  But even on this matter he was helpful. Why should not one of the aeroplanes which were accustomed to cross the world with certain supplies such as were required while they were fresh be used for this final service?

  “It is true,” he said, “that they are not designed for human occupation, but you would have courage for that, and the question of skill would not arise, I could even procure you one which is accustomed to alight in the district to which you propose to go.”

  “It would be a service of kindness,” Wyndham agreed, “for I could not go in a quicker or better way, and it will carry the tools and garments that I require.”

  “Well, I am glad to help you in so simple a matter. Considering that my own troubles are so nearly done, and the nature of that which, at the best, you will have to face, it is a small thing to assist you the best I can.”

  Wyndham thought that this sounded sincere, as it partly was. With repeated thanks, he would have risen to go, but Pilwin changed the subject abruptly. He said, “This is a queer business about Vinetta and Munzo-D7D. I should not have thought him one to design that which would be both folly and crime.”

  “You have heard something of that?”

  “Yes. I listened in, at his own request, when he was talking to you.

  “Well, when you call it crime, I suppose you are right. You cannot expect me to call it folly, except in thinking that Vinetta would agree. I suppose few women would.”

  “I should have supposed none. He must have placed his hope in her as the Lawless Child. I wonder how he thought to save her life when her turn came in the procession of death, she being nearly sixty before the last?”

  “She didn’t know. He told her no more than that he would provide her a way.”

  “Well so he would have done, I suppose, had she agreed. He has a fine brain. It was well that she had discretion to refuse, and to come to you. I wonder why she did that?”

  “She may have thought that I should believe her tale better than most. But it is a question to be asked of her rather than me. As she refused, it can be put out of our minds. Why should we vex the thoughts of others before they die?”

  “So I think. Would you have taken her yourself, if she had been willing to go?”

  “Yes, I would. For two are better than one. But it is not a life to persuade any woman to share; and when I heard them all vote for their own deaths, I put such thoughts from my mind.”

  Wyndham went, and Pilwin pondered the conversation without coming; to any definite conclusion, though he wondered whether Vinetta had offered to go with Wyndham, and might still hope to do so.

  “Well,” he said to himself at last, “be it as it may, there will be provision for all.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Wyndham went to the council prepared to meet whatever accusation might be made against himself and to support Vinetta in the tale which he had prompted her to tell. Doubtless she went in the same mood. But they found that they had armed themselves for a battle which did not come. Seeing that there was to be no open conflict, he watched narrowly for a flank attack—for some proposal which would make certain of Vinetta’s death, without disclosing that as its direct purpose. He did not underrate the ability of the brain that was in opposition to his, nor the fact that it had the overwhelming advantage of being on the side of the universal decision, with all the material forces of civilization in its support.

  He saw that, if such oblique attack should be made, it might be difficult for either Vinetta or himself to resist it without drawing suspicion upon themselves and perhaps leading to a position which would discredit them in advance, if Munzo-D7D should subsequently charge them with the conspiracy he had discovered. But he could do little even mentally to prepare for an attack the nature of which was so vague a conjecture. He was like a general who cannot tell from what quarter his foes will burst out of the fog that surrounds his lines. And, in the result, there was no attack at all. The meeting went on its quiet, leisurely course, already laden with the atmosphere of approaching peace and with the news from all centres that men and women slid punctually to their easy deaths.

  And the next day passed in the same way, with its reduction of a further million of remaining lives, and Munzo-D7D still gave no sign. He had even abandoned his previous intention of asking Colpeck-4XP for a solemn pledge that he would not seduce a companion to share his renunciation of this final gesture by which mankind would reject their Creator’s will. It had become too plain that the confidence he would have felt in his companion’s veracity—he would have said in his honour—would be misplaced. The position must be dealt with—was being dealt with already—in other ways.

  The day passed without Wyndham and Vinetta meeting except by casual, public chance, when they did not speak. They had both seen, without consultation, that the secret meal-time contacts must be abandoned. While there had been no suspicion directed upon themselves, the lawless audacity of the proceeding, joined to the fact that all men were in retirement at the same hour, had rendered it a matter of little hazard. But now, if any could be found who would shorten their own retirement for so great a cause, there would be no difficulty in stationing them in innocent, neutral positions, such as would enable them to observe the crossing from one room to another. And who would believe that they could engage in indecencies so profound with less motive than in fact they had?

  They were long hours for Vinetta who must spend them in the customary indolent manner, but for Wyndham, making preparations which must appear to be for one only, so that many things which he would have collected
for Vinetta he must not touch, they were soon gone.

  In the early afternoon the aeroplane from Asia Minor arrived and settled with the seeming discrimination of an alighting bird, upon the landing-place to which it was drawn by its self-regulating magnetic controls; and he began to load it at once, finding a curiously exciting pleasure in a sense of ownership more particular and absolute than he had previously known. He knew it to be a barbarous atavistic instinct, but what thrill it gave of exultant conquering life! And when he should add Vinetta—dearest acquisition of all—to the cargo he would bear away through the skies, he would have found life, which he saw that those around him had never had. That was why they were destroying themselves. They were not doing anything more than to recognize an existing fact.

  He felt himself to be alone already, among the walking dead—more alone, far more than he would be when two dawns had come, for the dead kept him from the one other who was alive. In this mood he went too near to despising the sluggish brains and timid pain-dreading bodies of those among whom he moved. What power was theirs to contend with the undrugged brain of a living man? He moved with confident steps, feeling a disposition to sing, but having no words or tune for so primitive an exhibition.

  In the afternoon the museum, from which most of his ancient treasures were taken, became vacant, and entirely at his own disposal. The curator, one of the fourth hundred and also a Colpeck (-4GZ), had been friendly, and given him much curious and possibly useful information respecting articles in his charge.

  He had shown him replicas, ancient in themselves, of still more ancient things, among which had been weapons such as had been used in very barbarous times. Short broadswords, such as the savage Romans had used to stab upward under their enemies’ hearts: long Polish lances of a later millennium, which had been the still more curious weapons of men who sat on the backs of animals more primitive than themselves.

  Showing these, he had mentioned a tradition of those savage, quarrelsome days, that the nation which used the shorter weapon would always dominate those who tried to reach their foes at a longer range. Remembering this, Wyndham selected the Roman sword. He made himself grotesque to his own eyes by girding it to his side with a leather belt. He practised with it, cleaving a block of oak, till he observed that he had dulled its keenness of edge, and must labour awkwardly to sharpen it to his own satisfaction again. He did not show this weapon abroad, having a thought which he feared, probably without foundation, might arise also in other minds.

  He spent some time also in apparent indolence, loitering round the furnace, and watching the process of dissolution to which the men and women he knew submitted themselves in a placidly contented, mildly excited, unbroken stream.

  They did not object to his presence there. Rather it was a sight to reconcile any who might otherwise have felt a pang of reluctance, a disposition to regret the mystery of existence which they were casting away before the inevitable hour when it would have been taken from them. To think of the fearful life which would be the penalty of his unnatural rebellion against the universal verdict was enough to hasten them contentedly through the humid atmosphere and intoxicating odours of the conservatory toward the consuming heat of the central fire, which would be as pleasant to feel as it would be beautiful to see.

  He even penetrated into the preliminary hothouses which his exceptional position enabled him to do without causing it to be supposed that he was seeking dissolution before his time. Idly he watched a crawling automaton passing from pot to pot, raising itself to drive a long sensitive proboscis into the soil of each, and then going off to communicate the information it had recorded to another automaton, which would subsequently give to each the water that it required. With equal indolence he lounged round the outside of the antechamber to the final portal, where others stood to watch the disappearance of friends into the irrevocably devouring flames.

  It was next morning that he passed Vinetta, and said casually, “Do not object to enter the furnace when your time shall come. You will have nothing to fear.”

  It was unlikely that any would notice or overhear, but, if they should, what was there in that to raise objection or cause remark? The words were not spoken in a furtive or significant manner, and their substance was no other than excellent advice. Vinetta heard them with an instant’s blankness of incomprehension, an instant of incredulity, of fear. But it was no longer than that. With a recovered serenity, she answered, “No, of course. I shall go when my turn comes! There will be nothing to fear.”

  After that, he appeared to take no further notice of her. But he watched in a constant dread. His fears fluctuated between the doubt that the aeroplane which had been suggested for his use might be the bait of some fatal trap, and the greater probability that Munzo-D7D, or perhaps Pilwin-C6P, of whom he had an almost equal distrust, might have devised something against Vinetta from which, as he could not guess it, he might fail to give her the protection that she required. Well, he must trust something to her. She was no fool. Her thoughts would move on the same lines as his own. And of her courage he had no doubt.

  The latter was the more probable danger, both because he could imagine no possible way in which the aeroplane could involve him in any peril, though he exhausted his imagination upon it, and he did not think that the probity of Munzo-D7D—which he did not credit the less because of the criminality of his own mind—would allow him to practise against the life of one whom the council allowed to live, without obtaining formal revocation of that decision. Vinetta was in a different position. To ensure her death was to enforce the popular will, which was also ratified by her own consent.

  But the day came and went, and nothing sinister happened at all. The last council was held. The last dispositions for the slackening control of the earth which men had shown themselves so incompetent to possess had been made. The night passed. The dawn rose which mankind had resolved should be the last it would ever see.

  As it broadened across the sky, the last million of humanity began their procession toward the annihilation which they considered to be the final end of their separate lives. At Wyndham’s centre the incineration of the Second Hundred commenced. That of the First Hundred was to follow immediately after the usual two-hour interval, for which, however, there would be no occasion at the other centres, at which the destruction of the penultimate would be followed immediately by that of the final Hundred. This arrangement was possible because the resources of the furnaces were sufficient for the last act without renewal or renovation of their resources, and was convenient because it allowed the council time for a brief final session, at which it could receive reports that the last Hundreds had entered upon the procession of death.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  As it turned out, Pilwin-C6P was not actually late for the last council, but he would have been so in the next second, and he was the ninety-ninth to take his place, the hundredth seat remaining vacant, for Colpeck-4XP did not come.

  There was little regard for that vacant seat. He who had renounced the decision of all his race might go his own way, as the time was obviously arriving for him to do. He had been seen until a few minutes before, hanging round the furnace with that absurd weapon swinging against his thigh, and what his fate would be in the coming days was not pleasant to think. It would have been easy to feel a gentle sorrow—the strongest emotion which a well-controlled human ego should be permitted to experience—for a man so enamoured of dirt and pain, had it not been neutralized by an equally faint contempt.

  Munzo-D7D, looking down the two familiar rows, was more interested to observe that Vinetta’s seat was filled. Her face showed the same placidity that was the common expression of those around her. A placidity beneath which there was a faint pleasure, a mild relief, as of those who have come through a boring day, but who know that the hour of repose is near.

  Pilwin-C6P had delayed for a message to reach him from a distant station—HI4—which, when it came, would have had no meaning to any but him. His eyes met those
of the chairman as he took his seat, and he gave a slight but sufficient nod. Munzo-D7D understood that the necessary dispositions had been made. Vinetta might go to her death in a seemly dignified way, such as would be painless for her. It might be supposed that she would. But if some evasion had been contrived, it would be the worse for her. Much the worse. There would be no difference beyond that.

  Munzo-D7D put her out of his thoughts. He had a speech to make, and that was an occupation that gave him the greatest pleasure he had, which may not have been overmuch. He spoke the funeral oration of mankind, which, to mankind at least, was to deal with a momentous event.

  But what he said was simple and short. The decision to which they had come, and which would be consummated and concluded before the next sun should rise, was not hurried, nor such as might have been altered had it been subject to longer debate. It was a decision to which mankind had been slowly tending, as Avanah-F3B would have told them, from the barbarous ages—from as far back as the twentieth century, when mankind had blasphemed and rejected the traditional God by telling Him flatly from a half-populated earth that a few children were much better than more.

  What natural alternative was there? To beat vainly at doors which would never open to human cries? Or to go the way of endless futility—the way the ant had gone in remote times, and in which it had endured as a monumental warning to men?

  He was followed by grave, assenting voices to which there is no occasion to listen. “Let the dead bury their dead,” is a good text.

  With the living we may be concerned, and Wyndham Smith was alive. He had seen in this council meeting an interval during which he would be as entirely alone as though he were already the only man in the world, and it was upon this he had relied for the success of the plan, at once audacious and simple, for Vinetta’s rescue.