The Feminine Future: Early Science Fiction by Women Writers (Dover Thrift Editions)

by Mike Ashley

  “A ruse, of course,” he confessed. “It just was my way of testing what your Professor Michael told about you—that you are extraordinarily intelligent, virile, and imaginative. Had you sent the wallet to me, I should have sought elsewhere for my man. Come in.”

  Northwood followed him into a living room evidently recently furnished in a somewhat hurried manner. The furniture, although rich, was not placed to best advantage. The new rug was a trifle crooked on the floor, and the lamp shades clashed in color with the other furnishings.

  Dr. Mundson’s intense eyes swept over Northwood’s tall, slim body.

  “Ah, you’re a man!” he said softly. “You are what all men would be if we followed Nature’s plan that only the fit shall survive. But modern science is permitting the unfit to live and to mix their defective beings with the developing race!” His huge fist gesticulated madly. “Fools! Fools! They need me and perfect men like you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you can help me in my plan to populate the earth with a new race of godlike people. But don’t question me too closely now. Even if I should explain, you would call me insane. But watch; gradually I shall unfold the mystery before you, so that you will believe.”

  He reached for the wallet that Northwood still held, opened it with a monstrous hand, and reached for the photograph. “She shall bring you love. She’s more beautiful than a poet’s dream.”

  A warm flush crept over the young man’s face.

  “I can easily understand,” he said, “how a man could love her, but for me she comes too late.”

  “Pooh!” The scientist snapped his fingers. “This girl was created for you. That other—you will forget her the moment you set eyes on the sweet flesh of this Athalia. She is an houri from Paradise—a maiden of musk and incense.” He held the girl’s photograph toward the young man. “Keep it. She is yours, if you are strong enough to hold her.”

  Northwood opened his card case and placed the picture inside, facing Mary’s photograph. Again the warning words of the mysterious stranger rang in his memory: “The thing inside never will be yours.”

  “Where to,” he said eagerly; “and when do we start?”

  “To the new Garden of Eden,” said the scientist, with such a beatific smile that his face was less hideous. “We start immediately. I have arranged with Professor Michael for you to go.”

  Northwood followed Dr. Mundson to the street and walked with him a few blocks to a garage where the scientist’s motor car waited.

  “The apartment in Indian Court is just a little eccentricity of mine,” explained Dr. Mundson. “I need people in my work, people whom I must select through swift, sure tests. The apartment comes in handy, as to-night.”

  Northwood scarcely noted where they were going, or how long they had been on the way. He was vaguely aware that they had left the city behind, and were now passing through farms bathed in moonlight.

  At last they entered a path that led through a bit of woodland. For half a mile the path continued, and then ended at a small, enclosed field. In the middle of this rested a queer aircraft. Northwood knew it was a flying machine only by the propellers mounted on the top of the huge ball-shaped body. There were no wings, no birdlike hull, no tail.

  “It looks almost like a little world ready to fly off into space,” he commented.

  “It is just about that.” The scientist’s squat, bunched-out body, settled squarely on long, thin, straddled legs, looked gnomelike in the moonlight. “One cannot copy flesh with steel and wood, but one can make metal perform magic of which flesh is not capable. My sun-ship is not a mechanical reproduction of a bird. It is—but, climb in, young friend.”

  Northwood followed Dr. Mundson into the aircraft. The moment the scientist closed the metal door behind them, Northwood was instantly aware of some concealed horror that vibrated through his nerves. For one dreadful moment, he expected some terrific agent of the shadows that escaped the electric lights to leap upon him. And this was odd, for nothing could be saner than the globular interior of the aircraft, divided into four wedge-shaped apartments.

  Dr. Mundson also paused at the door, puzzled, hesitant. “Someone has been here!” he exclaimed. “Look, Northwood! The bunk has been occupied—the one in this cabin I had set aside for you.”

  He pointed to the disarranged bunk, where the impression of a head could still be seen on a pillow.

  “A tramp, perhaps.”

  “No! The door was locked, and, as you saw, the fence around this field was protected with barbed wire. There’s something wrong. I felt it on my trip here all the way, like someone watching me in the dark. And don’t laugh! I have stopped laughing at all things that seem unnatural. You don’t know what is natural.”

  Northwood shivered. “Maybe someone is concealed about the ship.”

  “Impossible. Me, I thought so, too. But I looked and looked, and there was nothing.”

  All evening Northwood had burned to tell the scientist about the handsome stranger in the Mad Hatter Club. But even now he shrank from saying that a man had vanished before his eyes.

  Dr. Mundson was working with a succession of buttons and levers. There was a slight jerk, and then the strange craft shot up, straight as a bullet from a gun, with scarcely a sound other than a continuous whistle.

  “The vertical rising aircraft perfected,” explained Dr. Mundson. “But what would you think if I told you that there is not an ounce of gasoline in my heavier-than-air craft?”

  “I shouldn’t be surprised. An electrical genius would seek for a less obsolete source of power.”

  In the bright flare of the electric lights, the scientist’s ugly face flushed. “The man who harnesses the sun rules the world. He can make the desert places bloom, the frozen poles balmy and verdant. You, John Northwood, are one of the very few to fly in a machine operated solely by electrical energy from the sun’s rays.”

  “Are you telling me that this airship is operated with power from the sun?”

  “Yes. And I cannot take the credit for its invention.” He sighed. “The dream was mine, but a greater brain developed it—a brain that may be greater than I suspect.” His face grew suddenly graver.

  A little later Northwood said: “It seems that we must be making fabulous speed.”

  “Perhaps!” Dr. Mundson worked with the controls. “Here, I’ve cut her down to the average speed of the ordinary airplane. Now you can see a bit of the night scenery.”

  Northwood peeped out the thick glass porthole. Far below, he saw two tiny streaks of light, one smooth and stationary, the other wavering as though it were a reflection in water.

  “That can’t be a lighthouse!” he cried.

  The scientist glanced out. “It is. We’re approaching the Florida Keys.”

  “Impossible! We’ve been traveling less than an hour.”

  “But, my young friend, do you realize that my sun-ship has a speed of over one thousand miles an hour, how much over I dare not tell you?”

  Throughout the night, Northwood sat beside Dr. Mundson, watching his deft fingers control the simple-looking buttons and levers. So fast was their flight now that, through the portholes, sky and earth looked the same: dark gray films of emptiness. The continuous weird whistle from the hidden mechanism of the sun-ship was like the drone of a monster insect, monotonous and soporific during the long intervals when the scientist was too busy with his controls to engage in conversation.

  For some reason that he could not explain, Northwood had an aversion to going into the sleeping apartment behind the control room. Then, towards morning, when the suddenly falling temperature struck a biting chill throughout the sun-ship, Northwood, going into the cabin for fur coats, discovered why his mind and body shrank in horror from the cabin.

  After he had procured the fur coats from a closet, he paused a moment, in the privacy of the cabin, to look at Athalia’s picture. Every nerve in his body leaped to meet the magnetism of her beautiful eyes. Never had Mary Burns stirred emoti
on like this in him. He hung over Mary’s picture, wistfully, hoping almost prayerfully that he could react to her as he did to Athalia; but her pale, over-intellectual face left him cold.

  “Cad!” he ground out between his teeth. “Forgetting her so soon!”

  The two pictures were lying side by side on a little table. Suddenly an obscure noise in the room caught his attention. It was more vibration than noise, for small sounds could scarcely be heard above the whistle of the sun-ship. A slight compression of the air against his neck gave him the eery feeling that someone was standing close behind him. He wheeled and looked over his shoulder. Half ashamed of his startled gesture, he again turned to his pictures. Then a sharp cry broke from him.

  Athalia’s picture was gone.

  He searched for it everywhere in the room, in his own pockets, under the furniture. It was nowhere to be found.

  In sudden, overpowering horror, he seized the fur coats and returned to the control room.

  Dr. Mundson was changing the speed.

  “Look out the window!” he called to Northwood.

  The young man looked and started violently. Day had come, and now that the sun-ship was flying at a moderate speed, the ocean beneath was plainly visible; and its entire surface was covered with broken floes of ice and small, ragged icebergs. He seized a telescope and focused it below. A typical polar scene met his eyes: penguins strutted about on cakes of ice, a whale blowing in the icy water.

  “A part of the Antarctic that has never been explored,” said Dr. Mundson; “and there, just showing on the horizon, is the Great Ice Barrier.” His characteristic smile lighted the morose black eyes. “I am enough of the dramatist to wish you to be impressed with what I shall show you within less than an hour. Accordingly, I shall make a landing and let you feel polar ice under your feet.”

  After less than a minute’s search, Dr. Mundson found a suitable place on the ice for a landing, and, with a few deft manipulations of the controls, brought the sun-ship swooping down like an eagle on its prey.

  For a long moment after the scientist had stepped out on the ice, Northwood paused at the door. His feet were chained by a strange reluctance to enter this white, dead wilderness of ice. But Dr. Mundson’s impatient, “Ready?” drew from him one last glance at the cozy interior of the sun-ship before he, too, went out into the frozen stillness.

  They left the sun-ship resting on the ice like a fallen silver moon, while they wandered to the edge of the Barrier and looked at the gray, narrow stretch of sea between the ice pack and the high cliffs of the Barrier. The sun of the commencing six-months’ Antarctic day was a low, cold ball whose slanted rays struck the ice with blinding whiteness. There were constant falls of ice from the Barrier, which thundered into the ocean amid great clouds of ice smoke that lingered like wraiths around the edge. It was a scene of loneliness and waiting death.

  “What’s that?” exclaimed the scientist suddenly.

  Out of the white silence shrilled a low whistle, a familiar whistle. Both men wheeled toward the sun-ship.

  Before their horrified eyes, the great sphere jerked and glided up, and swerved into the heavens.

  Up it soared; then, gaining speed, it swung into the blue distance until, in a moment, it was a tiny star that flickered out even as they watched.

  Both men screamed and cursed and flung up their arms despairingly. A penguin, attracted by their cries, waddled solemnly over to them and regarded them with manlike curiosity.

  “Stranded in the coldest spot on earth!” groaned the scientist. “Why did it start itself, Dr. Mundson!” Northwood narrowed his eyes as he spoke.

  “It didn’t!” The scientist’s huge face, red from cold, quivered with helpless rage. “Human hands started it.”

  “What! Whose hands?”

  “Ach! Do I know?” His Teutonic accent grew more pronounced, as it always did when he was under emotional stress. “Somebody whose brain is better than mine. Somebody who found a way to hide away from our eyes. Ach, Gott! Don’t let me think!”

  His great head sank between his shoulders, giving him, in his fur suit, the grotesque appearance of a friendly brown bear.

  “Doctor Mundson,” said Northwood suddenly, “did you have an enemy, a man with the face and body of a pagan god—a great, blond creature with eyes as cold and cruel as the ice under our feet?”

  “Wait!” The huge round head jerked up. “How do you know about Adam? You have not seen him, won’t see him until we arrive at our destination.”

  “But I have seen him. He was sitting not thirty feet from you in the Mad Hatter’s Club last night. Didn’t you know? He followed me to the street, spoke to me, and then—” Northwood stopped. How could he let the insane words pass his lips?

  “Then, what? Speak up!”

  Northwood laughed nervously. “It sounds foolish, but I saw him vanish like that.” He snapped his fingers.

  “Ach, Gott!” All the ruddy color drained from the scientist’s face. As though talking to himself, he continued:

  “Then it is true, as he said. He has crossed the bridge. He has reached the Light. And now he comes to see the world he will conquer—came unseen when I refused my permission.”

  He was silent for a long time, pondering. Then he turned passionately to Northwood.

  “John Northwood, kill me! I have brought a new horror into the world. From the unborn future, I have snatched a creature who has reached the Light too soon. Kill me!” He bowed his great, shaggy head.

  “What do you mean, Dr. Mundson: that this Adam has arrived at a point in evolution beyond this age?”

  “Yes. Think of it! I visioned godlike creatures with the souls of gods. But, Heaven help us, man always will be man: always will lust for conquest. You and I, Northwood, and all others are barbarians to Adam. He and his kind will do what men always do to barbarians—conquer and kill.”

  “Are there more like him?” Northwood struggled with a smile of unbelief.

  “I don’t know. I did not know that Adam had reached a point so near the ultimate. But you have seen. Already he is able to set aside what we call natural laws.”

  Northwood looked at the scientist closely. The man was surely mad—mad in this desert of white death.

  “Come!” he said cheerfully. “Let’s build an Eskimo snow house. We can live on penguins for days. And who knows what may rescue us?”

  For three hours the two worked at cutting ice blocks. With snow for mortar, they built a crude shelter which enabled them to rest out of the cold breath of the spiral polar winds that blew from the south.

  Dr. Mundson was sitting at the door of their hut, moodily pulling at his strong, black pipe. As though a fit had seized him, he leaped up and let his pipe fall to the ice.

  “Look!” he shouted. “The sun-ship!”

  It seemed but a moment before the tiny speck on the horizon had swept overhead, a silver comet on the grayish-blue polar sky. In another moment it had swooped down, eaglewise, scarcely fifty feet from the ice hut.

  Dr. Mundson and Northwood ran forward. From the metal sphere stepped the stranger of the Mad Hatter Club. His tall, straight form, erect and slim, swung toward them over the ice.

  “Adam!” shouted Dr. Mundson. “What does this mean? How dare you!”

  Adam’s laugh was like the happy demonstration of a boy. “So? You think you still are master? You think I returned because I reverenced you yet?” Hate shot viciously through the freezing blue eyes. “You worm of the Black Age!”

  Northwood shuddered. He had heard those strange words addressed to himself scarcely more than twelve hours ago.

  Adam was still speaking: “With a thought I could annihilate you where you are standing. But I have use for you. Get in.” He swept his hand to the sun-ship.

  Both men hesitated. Then Northwood strode forward until he was within three feet of Adam. They stood thus, eyeing each other, two splendid beings, one blond as a Viking, the other dark and vital.

  “Just what is your game?”
demanded Northwood.

  The icy eyes shot forth a gleam like lightning. “I needn’t tell you, of course, but I may as well let you suffer over the knowledge.” He curled his lips with superb scorn. “I have one human weakness. I want Athalia.” The icy eyes warmed for a fleeting second. “She is anticipating her meeting with you—bah! The taste of these women of the Black Age! I could kill you, of course; but that would only inflame her. And so I take you to her, thrust you down her throat. When she sees you, she will fly to me.” He spread his magnificent chest.

  “Adam!” Dr. Mundson’s face was dark with anger. “What of Eve?”

  “Who are you to question my actions? What a fool you were to let me, whom you forced into life thousands of years too soon, grow more powerful than you! Before I am through with all of you petty creatures of the Black Age, you will call me more terrible than your Jehovah! For see what you have called forth from unborn time.”

  He vanished.

  Before the startled men could recover from the shock of it, the vibrant, too-new voice went on:

  “I am sorry for you, Mundson, because, like you, I need specimens for my experiments. What a splendid specimen you will be!” His laugh was ugly with significance. “Get in, worms!”

  Unseen hands cuffed and pushed them into the sun-ship.

  Inside, Dr. Mundson stumbled to the control room, white and drawn of face, his great brain seemingly paralyzed by the catastrophe.

  “You needn’t attempt tricks,” went on the voice. “I am watching you both. You cannot even hide your thoughts from me.”

  And thus began the strange continuation of the journey. Not once, in that wild half-hour’s rush over the polar ice clouds, did they see Adam. They saw and heard only the weird signs of his presence: a puffing cigar hanging in midair, a glass of water swinging to unseen lips, a ghostly voice hurling threats and insults at them.

  Once the scientist whispered: “Don’t cross him; it is useless. John Northwood, you’ll have to fight a demigod for your woman!”

  Because of the terrific speed of the sun-ship, Northwood could distinguish nothing of the topographical details below. At the end of half-an-hour, the scientist slowed enough to point out a tall range of snow-covered mountains, over which hovered a play of colored lights like the aurora australis.