by Earl
Then the room became light again. Boswell blinked his eyes in the sudden brilliance and saw a half-smile on Monituperal’s face. Then it became expressionless again as he spoke.
“That was a view of the sun at present from the distance of the earth. Now you can perhaps more fully credit that you saw it last two billion ‘years’ ago.”
“We believe you, Monituperal,” said the biologist who had regained some of his normal poise, “but I would like to ask you this: how is it that the sun has burned out so quickly? In our time there was a popular theory that the sun would last for perhaps a thousand billion ‘years’ before it became reduced to the state it is in now.”
“I cannot answer your question until I hear more of your theory. Obviously, the theory was much in error. But we will not go into that now. Let us stick to generalities,” said Monituperal.
“Is there any life on Earth now?” asked the professor.
Monituperal shook his head slowly. “There is no life at all in the solar system now except here on Mercury. All the planets are cold, practically airless, and completely lifeless. Even this planet, the only one to harbor life, is in that condition. Mankind has entombed himself underground, to make a last stand against oblivion. . . .”
Suddenly the lines of sadness in Monituperal’s face deepened, became accentuated till the melancholia that had always hovered in his eyes became a living force, radiating waves that struck the other two like a terrific blow. A distressing pain grew in Boswell’s heart, for, after all, his interests were one with Monituperal’s. They were all of the same stock, brothers in purpose and aim. They were simply separated by time in the scale of advancement.
Then Monituperal brightened somewhat and spoke in more cheerful tones. “But, my friends from the Dawn, let us not dwell on that. I will relate how you were found. Just recently I made a journey to Earth—which is the cradle of mankind as I will relate sometime—to look for further records of the past of humanity. Little did I think I would find such priceless things as mental caskets dating back to a period of which we today have not one existing record, except vague, almost mythical references which exist in much later records. Am I right when I suggest that at the time you lived, before your burial, there were wild animals and plants around you?”
“Many of them,” assured the biologist. “We ate them as food.”
“Just as I thought,” continued Monituperal. “And you had night and day, and diseases, and oceans, and rivers, and crime, and governments, and wars. Those are things we know nothing of. But more of that later.
“We could see, we that found the caskets, that here was something earlier than anything we had previously found. We took our find back to Mercury and examined the insides. We saw your two forms, much to our astonishment, apparently unharmed. Let me say here that suspended animation for the purpose of visiting a future age was indulged in quite frequently throughout the ages, but the earliest man to succeed, in our records, lived in an age at least one hundred thousand ‘years’ after you. Not very long ago there was found a sealed tomb containing twelve men who added much to our knowledge of their time, but they were a million ‘years’ after you.
“But they had obviously prepared for the immense ages during which the forces of nature would batter them, and placed themselves in infinitely strong and un-damageable containers of metals that knew no corrosion. You, my friends, are alive today only by the sheerest chance. Your caskets were far too inadequate to last two billion ‘years’ under standard conditions. No one will ever know, of course, to what you owe that slim chance that saved you from a multitude of destructive forces. Ah we know is that your caskets and frame were found lying in the bottom of a gigantic rent in the ground which we passed over in our ship.
l “We opened your casket first, Andrew Boswell, prepared to revive you if you failed to awaken by yourself. I told my companions then that I thought you dated from a period even earlier than the ‘Man from the Dawn of Life’ who has come down in our history. My companions thought it doubtful as you looked so nearly like the pictures of him that we have, but now we find that you preceded him by one hundred thousand ‘years.’ You are indeed a priceless find to us in a historical sense, for you are that much nearer the ultimate source of life on Earth, of which we know absolutely nothing. Am I right that during your time much was known about the first beginnings of life on earth?”
“Yes,” answered the biologist, “but unfortunately, only in a vague way. At the time we lived, the study of the rise of intelligence had just begun. If we had lived another thousand ‘years’ and then departed, we would have known more of fact and less of theory, for I am sure our immediate descendants must have unearthed much valuable information.”
“Even so, the information you have will every bit of it be new to us. We have lived in hope that a man from your period would some day be found. The ‘Man from the Dawn of Life’ seems to have lived in a period following a devastating ‘Ice Age’ which, I presume, separated his period from yours. His information revealed that almost all traces of previous civilization had been destroyed, that man bad had to rise again from what he called ‘barbarism’ after that ‘Ice Age.’ From that period until a million ‘years’ after your period, not one single record exists, so you can see how little we know of the beginnings of mankind. All we do know is that intelligence comes from outer space in the form of spores and . . .
“What’s that you say?” almost shouted the professor. “Is it a known fact then that intelligence does not just spring up unbidden?”
“Yes,” replied Monituperal. “We know that because of the fact that although every planet and planetary satellite has become ideal for rational life at various times, depending on their rate of cooling down, none have evolved intelligence except earth. That points to the obvious fact that intelligence must come from outer space. We know too that it comes in manmade or rather intelligence-made spores, because we have made them and scattered them in outer space ourselves ever since the process was perfected—that was some half-million ‘years’ ago. We, like the rational beings who made the spores that touched earth and evolved, are seeding the void that intellect will not die out. But how is it, Professor Reinhardt, that you are so interested in that? Surely in your age, such a fact could not have been even vaguely suspected. The theory did not spring up till at least fifty million ‘years’ after your age, and its proof, not until a half-million ‘years’ ago.”
“I am proud to say,” said Boswell as the biologist had found himself unable to speak in excitement, “that Professor Reinhardt announced the theory on Earth two billion ‘years’ ago and progressed in some degree in producing the spores.”
“Very remarkable,” commented Monituperal while the biologist reddened in confusion. “Well, we will leave that as it stands.
“My friends from the past, I have outlined a program which I think will be best to follow. My plan for the present consists of an outlined description of present life to you. After your next sleeping period I will outline for you the Story of Mankind—as much of it as is recorded. Then, whenever you are ready for it, I will borrow your brains for a certain period to extract from them all information of the age in which you lived. We have a much more efficient method of extracting such information than by word of mouth. We will remove your brains from your skulls and submit them to certain instruments we have that will record the data much more quickly and accurately than any other way. It will not harm your physical bodies nor your mental powers in the least. After that we will give you as much of present knowledge as is possible by the same method we used to teach you our tongue. In due time you will become a member of our society for the rest of your life which we will prolong to about five hundred ‘years’. Have you any objections to those plans—for we will do nothing without your uninfluenced free will?”
“None whatsoever,” answered Professor Reinhardt for them both. “We place ourselves absolutely in your hands.”
“Good,” said Monituperal. “The
n I will carry out the plan for now which is to sketch for you present civilization.”
“Pardon me, Monituperal,” said Boswell, unable to contain himself any longer, “but what is that spherical affair hanging above us in mid-air?”
l Monituperal smiled his characteristic half-smile before he answered: “That is an instrument that broadcasts both sound and light in this room. I would willingly wager that almost every person on Mercury is watching your every move and drinking in your every word, for although emotions have been placed under absolute control in the ages of civilization, they still exist, for they are an essential part of intelligence. You can readily see what avid interest we have in you when you remember that you come from an age which is two billion ‘years’ removed in time. In fact, that period of time almost completely spans the duration of rational life in the solar system. But don’t ask me to enlarge on that just yet. That will come out in the Story of Mankind.
“Now for a description of present human life as it exists here on Mercury. Human life has been here on this planet in full for the last fifty million ‘years.’ We number at present about one hundred million lives. It is a small number in your conception, is it not?”
“Very,” replied Professor Reinhardt. “In our age there were over two billion inhabitants.”
“Yet that is a small number compared to hordes that lived about a billion ‘years’ ago, when it reached the astonishing total of a half trillion. Nevertheless, the present population is one hundred million—all that remains of mankind in the solar system. I will touch upon government, religion, social life, crime, war, science, labor, education, and the intellectual level, all of which are vastly different from what you knew them to be.
“To begin—we have nothing in this age that resembles what you know as government. Let me define it first: government is a system of preserving unity. It is necessary only while rational life is divided into individual opinion and concept. It can be done away with when mass opinion flows one way, or when individual ideas do not disagree. The latter prevails in this age. Perhaps you will find it hard to believe that of our millions living, not one ever conceives differences with the others, not because he fears weight of opinion in the majority, but because there is nothing to find fault with! This is an age of reason, and logical reasoning has long ago uprooted anything that might stir to life discord, which was buried along with other non-reasonable things in the past.
“So the human race in this age has no government. Yet we live in perfect harmony as a community and individualism in the extreme is unknown. Nothing, my friends from the Dawn, is done today against the will of any person. And no person today has a will in discord with the things done. This naturally leads to the topic of intellectual level. Every person living in this age has gone through the same school of thought—a school of thought that has been upheld by millions of ‘years’ of existence—so that each mind is based on truth. Any individual thought beyond that becomes so involved and far-removed, that it can no longer affect the life of the originating mind. Have you any questions?”
“This,” said Professor Reinhardt. “If there is no government, no regulating body, who or what apportions the work to be done?”
“That immediately brings me to the explanation of vocation and avocation, about which I promised enlightenment to you before. With the advancement that the human race knows today, work has become a relatively minor thing in our lives. To keep our gigantic machines running, to mine, to manufacture, to improve, to supply the necessities of life, involves but a very small part of our total time. Furthermore, any person living can duplicate the ‘labor’—to call it that, although to you it would seem more like play—of any other person. In plain words, everyone’s vocation is the same. We have just one vocation—to keep our machines and instruments running. For the most part, they run without attention. Automatic signals inform us when a human being is needed. Thereupon any person who wishes to fill his work-record another space or so—everyone’s work-record has the same number of spaces—flashes his name there by a method you cannot understand at present. If his name is first, he goes. If not, he awaits the next opportunity.
“Now you wonder what is done with the rest of an individual’s time, as I have shown that so little of it is occupied with work. Avocation is the answer. My avocation is ancient history, the reason why I scoured Earth and found your caskets. Another person’s may be astronomy, chemistry, or any other science, drama, or exploration or a multitude of other things that I cannot begin to describe because you would not understand. Thus you see that only in avocation do we individualize. Yet through all this runs our basis of thought which can be summed up in one word—brotherhood. There is no such thing as ‘money’—an obsolete word—or ‘personal property’ or monopoly. Everything we have is common property to be had for the taking. This never leads to trouble for two grand reasons; because of our unity of thought, and because there is more than enough of everything material needed for any type of endeavor.
“Perhaps you find it hard to follow me. I am trying to simplify it as much as possible and to project it into your line of thinking which I am able to do only because of my intensive studies in past human history. I am using obsolete words and antiquated ideas simply because the true picture of our existence will not he revealed to you till you have lived with us for many ‘years.’ I know perfectly well that to everyone listening to this conversation concerning ray fellow men and women, my expression seems crude and ‘barbaric’ but they understand at the same time that it is impossible to explain these things in any other way to humans from the Dawn of Life. Yet, Professor Reinhardt and Andrew Boswell, you must not think that I am belittling you. Rather think of this as the necessary introduction to a life that would cloud your mind with fatal bewilderment were it to be revealed at one stroke.”
“We understand perfectly,” assured Professor Reinhardt, “that anything you say and do must be far more fitting than anything we could suggest or even think of in the slightness of our poor understanding.”
“Very well spoken,” said Monituperal and Boswell thought he detected a momentary gleam of commendation in his eyes, “and let me tell you a little secret; during your convalescence, we made certain tests on your brains which, I can honestly say, surprised us considerably. Your intellectual capacity—putting it in words you can comprehend—far outstrips the logical capacity that would seem more correct in view of your early origin. It falls in with a certain theory of mine that human life in the Dawn was gifted with much more of the original intellectuality of the spores than post-Dawn life. In fact, you, Andrew Boswell, by some quirk of nature, are endowed with a mental capacity that surprised us beyond all measure. Tell me, as a matter of curiosity, did not the both of you yearn for other things in your life—not material things but a new and better world—with an intenseness that left you no peace?”
Boswell and Professor Reinhardt looked at each other in awed wonder.
“You have placed a finger at the core of our previous life,” answered the biologist. “We called it ‘Imagination.’ ”
“And that is why you are here with me, because that ‘imagination’ drove you from an age that suited you no more than it would me?”
“It amounts to that in brief,” answered the biologist.
CHAPTER VII
A Tragic Revelation
l Monituperal nodded’ his bulbous head and went on with his discourse.
“Now that I have explained, in brief, vocation and avocation, the question of social life follows. The unified thought behind our social life is ‘brotherhood’ We, the product of aeons of rational life, are so completely standardized as to be almost like the arms of some greater being which we could call Intellect. Ages of natural merging of different qualities has been attained in this race whose members are prototypes, one of the other. We differ very little physically and just a little more mentally, none at all spiritually. We have no personal life, unless one would call the pursuance of our avoc
ations a personal life; but even in that, never have we known of any person making a personal secret of anything he did or thought. Equality—which in the history I have followed so avidly seemed ever to be beyond reach—exists today and has existed so long in our civilization that we have to probe back ages to find anything different.
“There are no classes, sects, castes, strata, or levels of society—all obsolete words in the social sense—in this age. We are one and all equal—not merely in treatment, but in effect—and have but one thought to ward one another—‘brotherhood.’ There are no family ties that divide us into groups. Sex has long ceased to be a differentiation point in social life. Our sexual relations are far too removed from what you can understand for me even to touch upon it.
“Our social relationship consists of individually willed contacts. No one attempts in any way to restrict the actions of another. This ‘city’ we live in is a vast underground system of rooms and chambers, ranging from the machine-rooms to individual lounging rooms. There are no ‘doors’ and we are free to go anywhere without restriction. We have no personal ‘privacy.’ Such a thing was a misconception of early rational life, as my researches in the past have revealed. Reason alone, which is in our members from infancy on, guides our individual action. ‘Recreation’ in our lives is replaced by the perfect content that we have in our lives.