The Collected Stories

by Earl

  With work easily done, and with our avocations to occupy our time, there is nothing left in the scheme of things. Only two things there are that attract groups of people together; they are drama and music. You would not understand our drama, nor could you appreciate our music as yet, so of them I will say nothing.

  “So you can faintly see what social life means today: perfect individual freedom, absolutely no division into parties, no such fantastic thing as ‘personal property or privacy,’ and a total lack of spiritual friction between the members of this civilization. Furthermore, we have a system of communication that eliminates most of what you would call ‘traveling’ from one part of our ‘city’ to another. There is no reason to ‘travel’ because one end is the same as the other; the citizen in one corner is situated identically as is the citizen in the opposite corner.

  “There is a subsidiary topic suggested by the examination of our social structure. That is human emotion. Emotion, beyond a doubt, is a part of intelligence, but it is dangerous and disastrous if uncontrolled. I would wager that this important aspect was neglected even up until the time of the great civilizations of a billion ‘years’ ago. But today and here, emotion, while recognized as a drawback more than anything else, has been placed in a position where it cannot do harm. Emotion, I am prone to add, is a heritage that came down to us along with the spark of intellectuality from the spores that mark the birth of life in the solar system. We can only guess at the innumerable times rational life has sprung up in this universe and waxed and waned, each leaving its mark on the spores it finally produced—a mark that comes to us as emotion. But I am getting in too deeply to continue on that subject.

  “The next general topic to be considered is religion. What is religion? It is a vague groping toward an explanation, or a reason, behind all things, behind Life itself. It is the attempt of rational life to explain itself. It tries to fix a purpose behind the succession of life and death. In that sense alone do we still have religion. We are even today grasping for evidence of purpose in this sublime scheme of Life that has unfolded under our eyes through the ages that intelligence has flourished. But it is a useless quest. We, the end-product of civilization, are no nearer the solution than were the earliest human beings.

  “But in this we differ; we do not let that spiritual searching infest or overrun our lives in any way. We see it in the true light, as an unanswerable question. We do not set up gods and idols and worship, for the purpose of getting in good grace with a Higher Power. We are content that there is such a Power, but we do not attempt to fall down on our knees before it to ask mercy of it.

  “Religion as a creed of human life began with the birth of intelligence and despite its treacherous influence, never wholly died out until the present era began. It would smolder to ashes and then spring up in flame again time after time, playing a lamentable part in the rise of intelligence. It was a tool in the hands of scoundrels and selfish people, much to the harm of others. It had never been understood as something to be open-minded about, but as something to be clothed in mysticism and secrecy. Probably you will be able to tell me more about that than I can tell you.

  “Now we come to science. Defined, it is the utilization of things concrete and useful. Perhaps your definition was different. But in this our ideas must agree: that the human race fell heir to an immense wealth of energy, manifested in various forms. It has always been the mainstay and support of civilization, lying at hand, waiting for exploitation. Perhaps the Divine Plan is a cosmic experiment of a Higher Power to see what intellect and energy can accomplish when put together. No one knows, but we can readily see that science, which is the exploitation of energy, has always been an essential part of civilization. Science today is totally amongst the avocations. It is necessarily slow and ponderous because of the great amount of it already done that need not be duplicated, but forges yet constantly ahead. I will not attempt to recite the innumerable things science has given us; you will gradually come upon that as you live with us.

  “Education, which is accumulation of fact, is the childhood heritage of every person. It is quickly and efficiently acquired by the growing mind in the same way our language was taught you. And by that same process will you be initiated into this life we live. It would be simplest to say of education that there is not one thing in our lives that is not completely and fully understood by every person living.

  “Of ‘crime’ and ‘war’—both obsolete words—there is nothing to be said except that they are of a dim and remote past to us. We know nothing at all of them. The human mind outgrew them quite naturally. I only mentioned them to forestall your inevitable question concerning them.

  “As a final word on the subject of life today, I will say something of the human body itself. It is, of course, a product of slow growth determined mainly by Nature, which has left us today what we are in outstanding points. But we have replaced Nature’s work in several ways: we have given our lungs the task of absorbing food and water; we have speeded up healing processes; we have eliminated disease; and we have increased the life-span to five hundred ‘years.’ Death and the creation of life have defied the efforts of all mankind. Inside our bodies, in place of the stomach which is removed and now unnecessary, we have a nicely fitted metallic container holding instruments that give us complete individual control of gravitation and motion. Our legs, be it known to you, would collapse if we did not lighten our bodies when we walk with them, as we do at times for the sake of variety. The instruments are connected to the spinal cord so that our brain has perfect control of them and it takes but a thought to send us where we will.

  “I’ve seen you, Andrew Boswell, about to ask me more than once, already, how I am able to go through walls, I will tell you and ease your curiosity. This going through walls and material things is possible by a slight distortion of the time value of the wall so that it ceases to exist for the fleeting instant necessary to go through it. I cannot explain it any more simply. That process, too, is controlled by the instruments in our bodies.

  “Now I am done with this initial introduction to modern life. If you have any questions to ask. . . .?”

  “There is one I would like to ask,” said Professor Reinhardt after a minute’s silence. “You have mentioned infancy and childhood at times, but you have not specifically stated any thing about your children. Where are they, and what place do they occupy in this age?”

  l Like sundown in the tropics of the earth of long ago, a look of infinite sadness clouded Monituperal’s face, suddenly and with swift gathering darkness. His great head bowed for an instant and his soul seemed to be crying out in voiceless agony. The two men from the past felt a wave of sorrow engulf them, but it did not come from the man in front of them alone; it seemed to pour in-on them from all sides as if a great people were in mourning. “What can it be?” wondered Boswell to himself.

  Finally Monituperal recovered and spoke. “My friends from the Dawn, you have touched a vital spot that brings us endless pain. But it is not your fault. It is inevitable that I should have to tell you this. I had planned to leave it for some other time, but perhaps it is best that you should know it now.

  “My friends, you have journeyed from the beginnings of civilization to the very end. The human race is doomed to extinction!”

  “Why, how is that?” cried Professor Reinhardt. “Surely with the control of Nature that you have and the ideal life you lead, there can be no end. . . . oh, do you mean that with the dying of the sun, civilization also dies?”

  “No,” answered Monituperal in a grave low voice. “We are independent of the sun. That is immaterial to civilization—the dying of the sun. But there is a greater force. . . .

  “But I will answer your other question. There are no children. It was only some hundred thousand ‘years’ ago that the alarming fact first became known that for some unknown reason, the human race was becoming sterile!”

  “Sterile?” repeated the professor. “Unable to produce young?”


  “Yes,” answered Monituperal tonelessly. “It came slowly, like the plagues of history, touching a woman here and there with that black mark. Of course, a concerted effort was made to find the cause of the blight and remedy it. All efforts led to nothing. We have battled against it in all those ‘years’ with all our vast knowledge and science. . . . and we are still battling, but to no avail. When I was born three hundred ‘years’ ago, the majority of women were absolutely sterile. Today”—he wrung out the words with an effort—“all of them are. The last child was brought to life just thirty ‘years’ ago.”

  The two listeners were stunned and horror-stricken, unable to believe the crushing fact that they had come upon the very tail end of civilization, the finish of rational life.

  Then Monituperal spoke again with a low voice in the brooding silence.

  “It seems that some Higher Power has seen fit to end our kind. With our immense knowledge of biology, we can yet find no plausible reason for the catastrophe. Unable to create life with intelligence, and unable to stave off ultimate death, it will be just a few hundred ‘years’ till the end. My people are dying off at the rate of about 2,000 a ‘year.’ Our race has become sexless and unreproductive. Soon Mercury too will be winging through space as the other planets—dead and bearing no life . . .

  Monituperal’s voice trailed out to nothingness. He raised eyes that had become inert and dull.

  “My friends, it was almost ironical that I should tell you of the life of this age, boasting of its perfectness, its great achievements, its mastery of the darker things of human life, only to finish up with the prophecy of its immediate end. But that is human nature—to live in hope. Not until the last man dies will we admit defeat. But defeat is here for we have already given up the struggle in all but spirit. For as long as I can remember, we have pursued regular lives as it was pursued a million ‘years’ ago before the coming of the blight. Why? Because the stark naked truth was revealed hundreds of ‘years’ ago that man could do nothing. I could detail for you the gigantic experiments whereby human intellect strove to halt the unconquerable march of extinction, experiments that hit the roof of endeavor at times, but it would mean nothing to you or to me. The end is upon us.

  “We will live our ordered lives to the end. . . . because that is the spirit of life. We have tried to close our minds to the dread thought of the absolute end of intelligent life, to live with that bravery of spirit that has come down to us from our vast ancestry, but it has found its way into our psychology. . . . has left its mark in our faces and actions. Our only consolation is the belief that we have not lived in vain, that we are part of some colossal cosmic plan whose proving ground is the entire universe from one end of space to another. Into those countless billions of spores which have been scattered in the void has been compressed whatever part of their intellectual composition can be attributed to mankind in this solar system. We will live again through those spores as the subsconscious undertow of the forms of rational life which will come into being in future ages. Our intellectual children, profoundly different though they might be, will spring up on some favorable world of which there are an almost infinite number constantly forming in the crucibles of the laboratories of space, the nebulae, and grow to their destiny. Our exploring ships to other stars have found strange, indestructible monuments on some of the dead worlds, relics of separate intellectual peoples, left there as the sole reminder that once in the remote past—of a remoteness, some of them, that would be incomprehensible to our minds—that world harbored intelligence. So too are we building on earth now a monument of solid diamond. Perhaps in the distant future a strange ship bearing life which grew from our spores will land there and flash lights on the sparkling stone and wonder what race of rational life left that as their epitaph.”

  l The speaker’s voice died to silence; his eyes were filled with the tragic wisdom of all eternity. A gleam was born in their depths, a gleam that became a living spark of Truth. When he next spoke, it was not the mind of Monituperal that revealed itself but something Higher—something greater.

  “It is not what Mankind gets from life, but what Mankind puts into life, that scores in the records of the Sublime Plan. Only a series of epitaphs mark the births and deaths of civilizations, but each. . . . every one, has contributed its little share in the development of Intellect. . . . until sometime, perhaps, that Essence of all intelligent life will come to its Ultimate Reward. What that will be is not given to the separate civilizations to understand; it is something beyond the ken of our minds.”

  Professor Reinhardt sat like a graven image, his face a picture of dim understanding and vague hope. Boswell had left the material world behind, his powerful imagination winging to unending heights, following the eagle that was Monituperal. His mind soared into a dawn of misty understanding.

  “So, my friends,” continued Monituperal in a more natural voice, “our sorrow over the end of mankind in the solar system must be modified by that sublime philosophy. It has been the philosophy of my people ever since the numbing realization of our unconquerable extinction came upon us thousands of ‘years’ ago. It has enabled us to face the doom with unquailing spirit for, after all, we are but a stepping stone. We in ourselves are nothing of importance to the cosmos; only in relation to brethren civilizations do we have a significance. Life will go on without us.

  “And now, my brothers from the Dawn, we will part for the time being. Do not let your spirits be depressed by these crushing revelations; there is much left in life. . . . if one can but forget death. After you ‘sleep’ and allow your minds to file away what I have revealed of our life, I will tell you the fascinating Story of Mankind in the solar system. I have placed in your ‘bedroom’ an instrument for your diversion in case you lack for something to occupy your time. It will picture for you, at but the suggestion of a thought, any body of our solar system at any distance. Come, hold my hands.”

  Monituperal had arisen from his chair. Coincidentally, the spherical object above them had vanished, much to Boswell’s astonishment. Then, holding their leader’s hands, they were whisked back to the room that had become a sort of permanent ‘bedroom’ for them.

  Monituperal’s face had again assumed its unusual lack of expression except for that subtle tinge of sadness for which the men from the past now knew the reason. He attempted a half-smile as Boswell stumbled a bit when their headlong flight ended abruptly.

  “You find our methods of transportation a bit unbalancing?”

  “A little,” admitted Boswell. “But very unique and admirable. There is one thing I’ve noticed, Monituperal, that has puzzled me. Although we are on Mercury, how is it that the force of gravity is like that of Earth? Do you have this whole ‘city’ under intensified gravity?”

  “No, Boswell,” replied Monituperal. “Only the rooms in which you are stationed at any time have a greater gravity for your own convenience. I am afraid that you would get along very badly with Mercurian gravity as it is so much less than that to which you are accustomed. We that live in this age, however, motivate ourselves with a gravity that is even less than Mercury’s. In fact, with the absolute control that our ‘stomach’ machines give us over the force of gravity, we can cause ourselves to skim over a surface at any height without using our limbs. When you are duly initiated into our life, you will see some of the oldest people, who have lost almost all muscular power, floating about with their useless legs hanging limp. Perhaps in your minds you men from a vigorous physical past think of us as degenerate specimens of mankind in point of physique. True it is that, unaided by our ‘stomach’ machines, we would be puny children in your more powerful hands, but that is unquestionably a minor consideration. Your physical body is a product of crude Nature; my body is a modification of that same body, altered by the easier circumstances introduced by the mind of man. Those same changes brought about by the application of science are not a degeneration, but an advancement. Ancient man used most of his energy in a physical way,
starving the brain; modern man uses most of his energy in his brain, giving the body only what is necessary for it to function smoothly and quietly. You will get a clearer picture of the relation of intelligence to its housing, the body, when I tell the Story of Mankind. And now I leave you.”

  He was gone in a flash, leaving the two men from the past gazing at each other.

  CHAPTER VIII

  Dead Worlds

  l Boswell leaned himself up against one wall thoughtfully.

  “Two billion years!” he said as if that thought had been circulating in his mind all that time since they had heard of it.

  “Yes, Andrew,” remarked Professor Reinhardt in English, finding it stiff and stilted in comparison to the new language they had learned. “It was that many years ago that you and I and. . . . Callahan and Goodwin shook hands and said an revoir, and then laid ourselves down in our caskets.”

  His voice was soft and awestruck. The thought, despite all the other strange things they had learned, could still strike a cold wonder in their hearts.

  “You remember the story of Rip Van Winkle?” continued the professor, finding a nameless relief from the pressure of things new and bewildering in the thoughts of a life that seemed far less remote than the mechanical expression “two billion years.” His brown eyes sparkled. “How he slept for twenty long years?—and awoke to find a puzzling change in his world? It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? Twenty years. Two billion years. After all, they are just numbers. He was just as bewildered in the new life as we are in this.”

  “Rip Van Winkle,” mused Boswell, swirling up from a well of deep thought. “Twenty years and he found a change. They are just numbers when you stop to think of it. If we had awakened ten thousand years after our burial as we planned, our reaction would have been just as great as here. Only one thing makes this awakening distinctively different than any other awakening—that doom that hovers over human life. . . .”