by Earl
“No electricity!” gasped Ellory. Antarkan science dropped again in his estimation, a great drop this time.
But then, he reflected, electricity was really unnecessary, in this compact community. Gasoline could be piped to every corner of the city with little effort. Electricity had become the dominant factor in the twentieth century only because it was the best way to ship power.
His thoughts rolled on.
“Now I see why you don’t have radio. But you have mercury-arc lamps, for your gardens. And how did you amplify your voice, in the square at Norak?”
“Mercury vapor, highly heated by gasoline jets, shines with ultra-violet light. My voice was amplified by sending it through a vibrating series of pipes delicately pitched to the human voice.”
“Organ-pipe principle.” Ellory nodded. He laughed suddenly. “Man, could I show you some things, with electricity! You don’t have telegraph, telephone?”
Ermaine shook her head. “No. Many of your twentieth century secrets have escaped us. Records are so incomplete.”
Ellory was more amazed each second. Antarkan science was badly spotted with blanks.
“But how do you communicate with the other cities—only by going there?” He laughed again, thinking of clumsily written messages going back and forth.
“In other words,” he went on, “you have twentieth-century machinery, with only eighteenth-century modes of communication. Not what I expected after the wonders you’ve shown me.” His tone was mocking.
Ermaine however appeared only slightly nettled.
“You still have much to learn, Humrelly. It’s true that we have no telegraph or telephone. You must tell me about them some time. But from the little we know of them, I should say that we do quite well with our own devices.” She smiled.
“We have something similar—sono-phone, we call it. Solid matter transmits sound-waves much more readily than air. The rock stratum between cities carries voice messages. We have developed a way to speed them a hundred miles a second. I’ll show you.”
She led them to a sound-proof chamber and sat before a great hide drum, enclosed in glass. Straight metal pipes pierced from this sounding board deep into the rock wall of the city.
“Lady Ermaine calling Queemarlan. Connect me with Lady Tassan.”
“Queemarlan”—Queen Mary Land, Ellory surmised, the coast of Antarctica about a quarter-circle away. Strange how the past left its impress on the future, in man’s language.
They waited; then—
“Yes? Is that you, Ermaine?”
The voice came back, low but distinct, after an interval of thirty seconds, through the medium of fifteen hundred miles of rock. Ermaine smiled at Ellory in triumph. He, in turn, was wondering how thunderously earthquakes must register at times, in this rock-borne phone system.
FORGETTING her companions for the moment, Ermaine began an interchange of half-personal comment. Ellory grinned. Just like two girls of his day chatting over the phone. It was a little queer, though, because of the thirty-second blank intervals of transmission. Little of their conversation meant anything, until suddenly the distant speaker said:
“Still heart-free, Ermaine? Kalor didn’t mean anything after all? Lillamra still needs a Lord! There are little rumors here that the rebel leader—Humrelly, is it?—has been in your company long hours and days. Tell me, Ermaine, what is he—” The voice clipped off as Ermaine snapped tight a voice-shutter, in vexation. A scarlet flush had leaped into her marble-white face. She regained her composure instantly, but excused herself from further touring of the city that day.
As they walked back to the palace, Ermaine turned her eyes from the strolling crowd to Ellory.
“Notice how the pissing girls watch you, Humrelly,” she observed casually. “Married ones, too, I’m afraid. You cut quite a figure in our style. Be honest, Humrelly, you like our clothing?”
He looked down at his costume, ran fingers over it. Like it?
He did. He had been given an Antarkan costume the first day, to replace his half-burned Norak outfit. The feel of silk and trim cut lines had grown pleasant. The colorful style was such that on a slight man it was foppish, but on a sturdy, broad-shouldered frame it looked well. Ellory’s six feet topped tie average Antarkan height by a half-head. He thought now of the Norak broadcloth with a slight repugnance.
“No,” he lied stubbornly, with her eyes on his. “This style is too lacy to suit me. I like the simple Outland clothing better.”
“Even on me?”
Ellory was forced to make the comparison out of the corner of his eye. Sharina, refusing Antarkan dress, in plain dull white, covering her from neck to ankle. Ermaine in creamy rose and regal purple, contrasting vividly with her whiteness of complexion. Rounded lines were accentuated by a short, clinging skirt, and her legs were silken-clad.
“Clothes are like beauty—skin deep,” quoted Ellory, but he saw the mocking glint in the Antarkan girl’s eyes, as she left them in the hall.
Sharina lingered before going to her room, staring with a strange air at Ellory.
“Humrelly, you do like these clothes!” she accused sadly. “You are beginning to like all the things of Antarka—”
“No,” muttered Ellory. “The clothes maybe, but not what’s underneath. Sharina”—he grasped her shoulders fiercely—“you don’t think I’d ever be disloyal to Norak and all I’ve fought for!”
Sharina averted her eyes.
“Ermaine is interested in you, Humrelly. I know; I’m a woman.”
Ellory laughed grimly.
“Nonsense, angel! Don’t you see her game? Dangling me, enticing me with the good things of Antarka—cat and mouse. Making me suffer. Then, when the trial is over, when she tires of the sport—”
He smiled gently. “I’m doomed, Sharina. Never forget that. That’s why I’m sorry you’re here—”
Sharina ran for her room, but not before Ellory had seen the tears in her eyes. He slept little that night, his thoughts a squirrel-cage.
Doomed! Doomed! The word reverberated dully in his mind.
TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK
LORDS OF CREATION
WHEN Homer Ellory young twentieth century scientist, awakes in the year 5000, he is amazed to discover that the world has returned to the Stone Age, North America’s supply of ore has been exhausted, and the tribe of Noraks dwell primitively under the leadership of John Harm. With him, with wise old Sent Onger and with the “warrior Mai Radnor, Homer Ellory becomes fast friends and he is strongly attracted to the lovely Sharina.
Then Homer Ellory learns that civilization does still exist—in the Land of Antarka, The Lords of Antarka descend upon the Noraks in their rocket ships every few months, to carry away supplies and slaves. Ellory (called Humrelly) manages to produce metal from a supply of ferrous oxide; and armed with swords, the Noraks vanquish all the other tribes, enrolling the captives in their army. With this huge legion of liberty Homer Ellory hopes to defy the Antarkans; but the weapons of the rocket ship swiftly quell the rebellion, and Ellory and Sharina are carried away to Antarka.
“HERE, in that vast city below the surface of the earth, they are the guests, and prisoners, of the beautiful Ermaine, Lady of Lillamra. She is deeply interested in Humrelly, the man from the past; and her beauty fascinates him, in spite of himself. But when Sharina tells him that Ermaine has fallen in love with him, Ellory insists that the cold, lovely queen is merely playing with him—that soon he will be sentenced to death. . . .
CHAPTER XX
THE REVELS
“YOU skipped showing us the lowest level of all,” Ellory reminded Ermaine, the Lady of Lillamra, the next day, already guessing the reason. “What’s down there—your Outland slaves?”
“Servants,” she corrected blandly.
“Their living quarters.” She looked at his grim face. “Come,” she said reluctantly.
The lowermost level, resting a mile down on bedrock, though only slightly dank, made Ellory mutter the word, “Du
ngeon!”
It was well lighted, however. Neat rows of tiered little houses, with sodded areas, spread in all directions. The air was just as fresh here as above. Shifts of workmen returning and leaving did not show maltreatment. They looked well-fed, well taken care of.
Ellory was forced to admit, inwardly, that it wasn’t the grinding sort of slavery that spotted past history with black pages.
“Fairly decent, isn’t it, Humrelly?” Ermaine said. She went on with a faint shrug as he maintained a stony silence. “Frankly, though, their lot was harsher, at the beginning. But in the past six or seven centuries, they have been treated well.”
“That isn’t the issue!” charged Ellory. “What’s your moral right in the first place to have them as servants?”
“They lead a safer, saner life here,” countered the Antarkan girl urbanely. “What did they have in their former life? Senseless border wars, back-breaking toil in the fields, lack of necessities. Here they have better clothes, shorter working hours, implements of metal for their comfort—”
Echo from the past! Ellory grinned mirthlessly at the girl.
“Don’t try to throw ideological dust in my eyes!” he interposed. “I heard the cream of it, three thousand years ago.”
He went on steadily. “You know, in your heart, that it’s a substitution of shallow well-being for freedom. You can’t get away from that. Your propaganda fools even yourselves. Or else, like true realists, you argue with tongue in cheek. I suppose you’ve done this for their sake, not because it happens to benefit you!”
Ermaine outfaced it without a flicker.
“You’re still on trial, Humrelly,” she warned him coldly. “Your arguments happen to be an ideology too, not a fundamental truth.”
Ellory felt helpless. He hadn’t won a point yet, in this strange, undefined mental duel with the Antarkan girl.
“How did it all begin?” he asked, hoping to strike at the roots of their propaganda.
“Well—”
Ermaine thought a moment. “That first century of upbuilding was done entirely by Antarkans. Half the people worked at the cities, half in their homeland, raising food. The transfer of supplies across the oceans like that became cumbersome. With the development of rocket craft, and the flame-weapon, the solution came. The Outland was conscripted, under threat of attack, to supply food, and then servants. They yielded. All our people moved to Antarka. Life here became stabilized, easy, luxurious.”
Ellory had to admire her. She hadn’t pulled her punches. It was realism, cold and efficient.
“And why not?” she concluded. “Life is meant to be lived beautifully, by those who can achieve it.”
A THOUSAND years of oligarchic rule, and its corresponding psychology. There was no hope of battering it down, Ellory saw clearly. And why should he argue with her, in the first place?
“How many Outlanders do you have in each city?” he asked.
Ermaine glanced at him quickly, mockingly.
“Not enough for revolt, Humrelly! About two hundred thousand in each city of a million Antarkans. The total population of the Outland is about two hundred million. Each ninth month we take ten young men, at the age of twenty, from every million of Outland population. This keeps exact pace with the death-rate of our servant group, whose average span is thirty-five years, from age twenty to age fifty-five. It also keeps pace with the gestation period of the human race, so that the Outlanders are not drained too heavily of their young.”
Her voice was impersonal, as if she spoke of coins or bales of wool.
Earth’s grand total of two billions in 1940, then, had sunk to a mere two hundred million, through the Dark Time. These two hundred million were dominated by the ten million of Antarka. Every nine months, two thousand Outlander youths were brought to Antarka, to work for an average of thirty-five years before natural death.
Ellory darted his eyes about the Outlander community suddenly. He saw no children playing in the park areas, although women’s faces peered dully from windows.
Ermaine saw his glance.
“They have no children. They are all sterilized. It is trouble enough raising our own children. Their women, among other things, are nursemaids fir our babies.”
The cold, scientific logic of it struck Ellory in the face. Youths ready to work, at the age of twenty, all parental care already invested in then in their home world, brought here as if they were assembled machines. Thirty-five man-years of usefulness in them, in return for simple shelter and food. The greatest bargain in human labor, in all history! A piracy of human lives!
“I see the storm-clouds in your face already, Humrelly. Save your tongue. I weary of denunciations, based on conditions and beliefs obtaining three thousand years ago. Come now. There are the ten upper levels to view.”
Ellory subsided for a simple reason. He pictured himself as a “radical” of three thousand years ago, on a soap-box at Columbus Circle, exhorting a crowd of tuxedoed “capitalists” to end the economic slavery of the “working man.” There, he would have been speaking against a few centuries of industrial tradition. Here, against a thousand long years of tradition still more firmly entrenched.
“The ten upper levels,” Ermaine explained, “hold our living quarters and centers. We have something of a caste here. By heredity, the highest-born occupy the top level, and run all government affairs. My family has carried the royal mark since the beginning of Antarka.
“Each lower level is a step down in prestige and family. Yet they all, except the top-level class, work at the machines, the lower down the more hours. Those on the tenth level are called Commons. They do most of our policing, technical work and scientific routine.”
“Is there much research, in new fields?” Ellory’s interest was more than casual.
“Little,” vouched Ermaine. “All problems have been solved. Their main duty is to increase efficiency, if they can, so that our coal and metal supplies will last longer.”
“And when they are finally gone?”
Ermaine waved a careless hand. “Time enough for that consideration—two thousand years. That is not the wink of an eye, you know.”
“I was buried three thousand,” murmured Ellory, “and awoke to find my world gone! If you were buried two, Ermaine—”
Ignoring the implication, the Antarkan girl went on.
“All Antarkans mingle socially at the fifth level. But those of the upper four never descend to the lower five, and vice versa. I’ll take you now to the fifth level. I’ve not been there for some months.”
“Slumming,” Ellory called it, and explained to her. It brought an amused smile to her lips.
The fifth level hummed with what Ellory mentally labeled “night life”, though it was the day period.
VARIOUS great balls were in progress.
Orchestras—of Commons, Ellory learned—ground out music that even to his untrained ear was mediocre. A monotonous four-four rhythm dominated every theme. Their dancing was stilted, less appealing even than the most savage prancing would have been. Ellory grinned to think what a sensation a swing-band of his time would cause here.
Everywhere, the Lords and Ladies of Antarka sought social amusement in one grand round of parties. Liquor was imbibed freely, though seldom to the point of intoxication. Ellory sat at a table, sipping a heady champagne, and watched a dramatic play of love intrigue so involved and shoddy that he instantly knew it was the key to their romantic life.
“We are more decorous in the upper levels,” apologized Ermaine, watching him. Vaguely, Ellory was relieved.
Later he found himself dancing with the Antarka girl-queen. The full power of her nearness overwhelmed him suddenly. She was supple in his arms. The perfume in her argent hair stung his blood.
“Humrelly,” she murmured in his ear, “I’m beginning to be sorry you led the revolt. You don’t deserve to—die!”
He steeled himself against showing any reaction. That was the way to spoil her cruel little game. They went ba
ck to their table.
Ellory suddenly leaped ahead, for the last half of the distance. He grasped the shoulder of the jaunty Antarkan standing over Sharina, pulling at her arm. He spun him around.
“Get away from here, before I—” Ellory said savagely, enraged to see the pained flush on Sharina’s face.
“She’s just an Outland gal—” began the Antarkan, and then Ellory’s fist leaped out in a short-arm punch that rocked the Antarkan off his heels. He went down with a glassy stare.
Instant quiet came over the ballroom. “He’s that revolt-monger, the man from the past!” shrilled a voice suddenly. Antarkan men moved up threateningly. “Stop!”
Ermaine, Queen of Lillamra, said quietly, but they paused. Two men in uniform, with flame-guns, came up—Commons again, Ellory surmised.
“Resume the dancing.” Ermaine commanded.
Men scattered. The babble and artificial gaiety bubbled up again. Ellory wondered how men could change so suddenly, guns and queen to the contrary. It was almost as if their first hostile move against Ellory had been an instinctive reaction on their part, dying as soon as it was born.
“Let’s go,” Ermaine said in annoyance. “The upper levels are quieter.”
But only in degree, Ellory found. The pace of revelry was slower, but as wide spread. What mid spirit had gripped these people to indulge in one continuous round of sham enjoyment? Even in Ermaine more sedate level, the blue-blooded Antarkans played hard, as if each moment were precious. And yet before them stretched lifetimes of a more absolute security and luxury than any other human beings had ever enjoyed.
By bedtime, Ellory had drawn a great truth from what he had seen. He slept more peaceful than he had since the horror on the Hudson.
CHAPTER XXI