The Hidden World: A Golden Age SF Classic

by Stanton A. Coblentz

  At this silent hour, when the house doors stared in black, almost invisible lines along the empty passageways, you might have seen a figure stealthily emerging from one of the doors, and slinking off down a narrow side-corridor.

  Only half a dozen hours had passed since Professor Tan Torm had made his revelation; and I was now resigned to taking whatever risks lay in the outside world. My preparations, it is true, had been less complete than I could have desired; but I had found time to ransack the professor's pantry, and to secrete a pound or two of concentrated food in my clothing, in addition to a flask of water. As for my direction, I must confess that I was none too certain of it, but I had found an old map in the kitchen closet and had studied it as well as my haste permitted.

  Do not suppose that I had not weighed the dangers. I knew that I might be punished as a vagrant or a spy; I might be charged with “disgorging” my Oath of Fidelity, and become subject to the death penalty. But I had knowingly placed these penalties in the scale beside the certainty that, if I remained in Tan Torm's home, I should have to marry his daughter.

  For several hours I advanced with the caution of a cat, and almost with the silence of a cat, since I had removed my heavy native sandals. But I was not certain what to do after the sleep was over. Suddenly I was aware of an ear-ripping sound, like a siren blast; the lights in the galleries flashed into brilliance, and I realized that a new wake had begun.

  I was now in a section I had never before visited. The narrowness and dinginess of the galleries; the dusty, dirt-encrusted walls and floors; the foulness of the air, which was not clear and filtered as in other regions; the unsavory odors; the naked glare of the lights, unprotected by the yellow-green screens common everywhere else—these showed that I was in an inferior district.

  This fact became even more evident when, after a time, little round holes in the ground began to discharge swarms of people into all the passageways. Never before had I seen such desolate-looking chalk-faces. The majority were in rags; some of the men were without even the skirts that betokened masculinity. As for the women, they were equally tattered, but they had the advantage of being less fat and wrinkled than their more prosperous sisters, and I thought many of them quite attractive.

  Was this a district of criminals and outcasts? But no! A prominent sign informed me that this was a “Residential section, Third Class.” Now I understood why the Third Class was called the Hungry Class.

  With these poor wretches I shared the concentrated food I had taken from the Professor's house, and it was pathetic to see how eagerly they snatched at the morsels.

  "What's the matter?” I asked one of the beggars, as I doled out my last mite. “Don't any of you needy folk work?"

  "Don't any of us work?” The man stared at me with hostility and surprise. “What a question! Say, you must be one of those Second Class swells."

  I assured him that, on the contrary, I was Third Class, but from another part of the country. At this, he looked a little mollified. “Well, I don't know how it is where you come from, but here we all work. We have to, on account of the unemployment law. Even the children—those not in the army—work from seven years of age. But we don't get any wages till the First Class citizens take out their dividends, guaranteed by law at fifty per cent a year. What is left is just about enough to pay the landlords, whose returns are also guaranteed on a percentage basis."

  "But aren't there any laws protecting you?"

  "Protecting us? That would be government interference in private affairs."

  Indignant, I proceeded on my way; finally, after several hours, I found myself in a more pleasant and airier section, though one not wholly to my liking. The caverns were much roomier, but the atmosphere was vaguely disagreeable with the odor of smoke.

  I approached an open space, where acres of huge cardboard boxes were piled to a height of fifty feet, surrounded by tall barbed-wire fences. But on consulting my map, I was unable to say whether I was in the “Storage Grottoes,” “The Surplus Food Chambers,” or the “Military Warehouses,” all of which looked alike on the chart.

  Pressing on my way around the mountains of boxes, I soon discovered the source of the smoke. A few hundred yards ahead of me, the door of an enormous furnace opened.

  Two men were working in front of the furnace. Stripped to the waist, grimy with soot and perspiration, they reached for the cardboard boxes, throwing them one after another through the furnace mouth.

  Assuming that the boxes contained waste matter or fuel with which to keep the fires burning, I hastened inquiringly forward. And, as I drew near, the men paused to rest from their exertions, while mopping their steamy brows and panting heavily.

  "Well,” I heard one of them declare after closing the furnace door, “that makes eleven gross so far this wake."

  "Nearer twelve, if you're asking me,” stated the other. “Say, have we got to those medical supplies yet?"

  "Not yet! We're still working on the clothes! There's a couple of hundred tons more to burn, and after that I don't know how many thousands of tons of food capsules."

  "Pardon, friends,” I said, stepping to within a few feet of them, “being a stranger around these parts, I'm just a little curious as to what's in those boxes."

  I was now so close to the men that they could not see me clearly.

  "Great caverns! You must be a stranger. I thought everyone knew they were filled with food and clothes, and such things!"

  "Not good food and clothes?"

  The two workers stared at me oddly. “Why not? Aren't we getting rid of the country's overproduction?"

  "Haven't you ever been to school?” challenged the second. “Don't you know overproduction is bad for business? It causes depressions, low dividends, and low wages. So when we've made more of a product than anyone can buy, the only thing to do is to burn it. ‘Burn your way to prosperity'—that's an old motto. The more we burn, the more prosperity."

  "Why, that's elementary,” added the first. “By destroying things, you raise prices, which is the chief object of civilization. The more you have to pay for things, the more prosperous you will be. A high standard of paying is the first test of progress.

  Personally, I have never claimed to know anything of economics, so I humbly asked why the surplus could not be distributed among the Hungry Class.

  Even before the words were out of my mouth, I could see the faces of my hearers growing wry with horror. “How can we give the food and clothing to the Hungry Class? They haven't anything to pay for it, have they?"

  "Raise your standard of paying theme,” I suggested.

  "By my father's pink eyes!” gasped the other man. “He's a revolutionist, that's what he is! Radicals like him want to ruin the country! Now get out of here, with your crazy ideas, or I'll report you to the Overhears!"

  This argument being a clinching one, particularly when backed up with two heavy pairs of fists, I started away hastily.

  CHAPTER X

  VICTORY PARADE

  Half an hour later, when I was still gradually winding my way upward through the labyrinths, I came out unexpectedly on a broad thoroughfare. Great multitudes of chalk-faces had convened there, lining themselves along the sides of the avenue, but leaving the center clear. I mingled with the crowds, and pushed forward so as to secure a position in the front row. Once more, I was protected by the inability of the natives to see things close at hand.

  No sooner had I edged my way to the front than the spectators jumped and stamped in glee, flung their arms high in air, and shouted till their throats were hoarse. Although I made an effort to join in the chorus, it was not quite clear to me what they were shouting about. I thought, however, I could make out something like “Long live the green and vermilion! Long live the green and vermilion !"

  At first, the impression came to me that I was about to witness a football game. But as the tumult subsided, a huge banner hanging from the ceiling reminded me that green and vermilion were the national colors of Wu. A portl
y chalk-face just to my right turned to me genially and remarked, with an expectant smile, “Well, Thuno Flatum be praised! They'll be coming any minute now!"

  "S'pose they will,” I agreed.

  "This is General Bing's greatest triumph!” went on my neighbor. “Just imagine, he's retaken three fifths of the upper left-hand corner of Nullnull, at a cost of only a million and a quarter turnovers! Marvelous!"

  "Marvelous!” I concurred.

  "True, he couldn't hold it very long. He was outnumbered too strongly. But, great caverns! he did keep it a good three quarters of a wake! They say that, when retreating, he didn't have to vacate more than four fifths of the lower left-hand corner of Nullnull, at a cost of another million and a quarter turnovers. An extraordinary strategic victory!"

  "Extraordinary!” I acknowledged.

  "So it's only proper that our good Thuno Flatum should grant a triumphal procession. Look! Here they come!"

  Suddenly the mob let out such a howl that I had to clap my palms to my ears. To the accompaniment of blaring horns, and of a clanging instrument known as a “banger,” which made a noise resembling a cannonade, an elegant-looking procession of dignitaries rode into view on slow moving little scoots. On one of the foremost cars, surrounded by a bodyguard of a hundred warriors and several scores of obsequious valets, rode a man in a gorgeous crimson uniform. His exalted rank would have been apparent from the long ear-tubes, the projecting eye-tubes, the nose-tubes and mouth-tubes, and his dwarfish stature and wizened legs—all of which proved him to be a First Class citizen!

  Just why the General should have been so popular with the Second and Third Classes was more than I could understand. But countless eyes shed tears of joy.

  "You see, he bears a charmed life,” stated my portly neighbor. “All generals bear charmed lives. In order to keep their lives charmed, they direct the battles from strongholds fifty galleries to the rear, for what a loss to the country if they should be—eh—turned over!"

  The main body of the procession was now passing—and a gallant sight it was! There were several other generals, who, like Commander-in-Chief Bing, were dressed either in crimson, or in crimson striped with black; there were hundreds of banners of green and vermilion, and several yellow-and-purple banners, said to have been captured during the strategic retreat from Nullnull. There were scores of large scoots laden with blackened uniforms taken from the enemy. There were several dozen war heroes, who had received the Dictatorial Badge of Honor, and were so covered with decorations that it was impossible to see their faces. There were innumerable placards proclaiming the vastness of the recent victories, which, it seemed, were without precedent “in the history of civilized massacre.” And there were, finally, thousands of common soldiers, who walked twenty abreast, with the peculiar high-swinging foot motion of the native infantry.

  All these men wore helmets, of the peculiar hatchet shape I had already observed; but instead of swords or rifles, they carried long poles. On the top of each of these I observed curious round glittering objects which, at the first glimpse, looked most attractive, for their wiry sheaths caught the light and flashed it back. But on a closer view, I shuddered; under each of the gleaming metal coverings was a skull.

  While I reeled backward, I heard the cheers of the throng. “Look at the proofs of our victory! Proofs of our victory! Proofs of our victory! All praise! All praise! All praise!"

  Following the foot soldiers, dozens of huge vans came rumbling down the avenue, electrically propelled, and bearing great machines that I can only describe as dragons of a hundred necks, since their steel bodies bristled with scores of long tapering tubes, twenty feet high, and pointing in all directions, like the throats of siege guns.

  "Just look at them! Great caverns, just look,” sputtered my neighbor. “The lightning-spitters!"

  "Lightning what?"

  "Lightning-spitters! Of course, you've heard of them! One of the most remarkable inventions of modern times!"

  Even as he spoke, a blade of orange electricity shot from one of the machines, darting to the ceiling in a swift zigzag; and was succeeded instantly by blades of green and crimson, while miniature thunders rolled.

  Now I understood; these machines were the source of the lightnings that had wiped out whole armies in the battle cavern.

  "Of course, those were only toy lightnings, for exhibition purposes,” my neighbor rambled on.

  "What's the principle behind them?"

  My neighbor shrugged. “How do I know? It's a carefully guarded secret. However, they do say that the power of Mulflar is used to generate electricity in the machine, and generate it in such excess that the engine becomes supercharged, and releases its energy through the tubes in tremendous lightning blades."

  "I see,” said I. “The machine becomes somewhat like a thundercloud supercharged with positive electricity—"

  "Thunder what?"

  I realized that I had used the wrong illustration, for, of course, thunderclouds were not known underground.

  "The only trouble,” proceeded my neighbor, after I had vainly tried to explain the nature of a thundercloud, “is in controlling the lightnings. Of course, the army boasts of its precision aiming, but everyone knows it's only the aiming that's precise, not the actual shooting. You can never tell just where the lightning will strike."

  "I should call that a fatal difficulty."

  "Yes, fatal is the word. Wherever it hits, it's certain to kill—that is to say"—here my neighbor paused, greatly embarrassed, “that is to say, to turn over some of the enemy. And that, after all, is the only thing that counts."

  I was about to reply that I probably owed my life to the nature of the enemy's precision aiming, when all at once the crowd broke into the National Anthem.

  Unfortunately, I have forgotten all the stanzas except the first, which I give in a translation that does scant justice to the magnificence of the original, but will illustrate the theme and spirit of the whole:

  Let us fight forever!

  We'll be conquered never

  While we've heads to sever

  From our brutish foes!

  Let us fight forever

  With a gay endeavor!

  We are keen and clever

  With electric blows!

  The crowd had just completed the twenty-first stanza, and was singing the chorus with resounding gusto, when I made an observation that instantly ended all my interest in the celebration. Among the throngs across the gallery, I caught sight of an ugly-looking chalk-face, with thin slits of eyes and a twisted nose, who was staring at me with such an intent scrutiny that I felt a chill traveling down my spine.

  Now I remembered that I was a fugitive from the law. With a tremor of terror, I pushed my way back into the crowd, resolved on instant flight; the dread of being taken back to face the violet ray or marry Loa lent haste to my footsteps.

  CHAPTER XI.

  THE PHONOSCOPE

  I can scarcely recall where I wandered in my haste; I only know that I put on my best sprinting gait as I slipped around a bend in the corridor and off along a narrow, down-curving passage way. Later, I passed another turn in the gallery and came out, to my surprise, among a crowd in a wide grotto dominated by a sign in glowing crystalline letters: PHONOSCOPE THEATRE: ADMISSION ONE BRASS FINGER.

  Now I knew that a “brass finger” was a fair sized sum of money-equivalent to the return from an average day's labor. Needless to say, had never yet had such a sum; nevertheless, mingling with the crowd, I pressed forward in a long line filing past a ticket-taker. I had worked out my strategy, based upon the chalk-faces’ inability to see things near at hand. There was a little strip of cardboard in my pocket (it had been used for jotting down notes during my lessons with Loa) I thrust this into the ticket-taker's hand, an cried, “Free pass!” He would have to hold it at a distance, and examine it with binoculars, before he discovered the fraud; meanwhile, I allowed the impatient mob to press me forward past the theatre door.

 
It seemed to me that, as I entered, I heard a confused shouting outside, and some imprecations calling down the Seven Furies on someone's head. However, I remained nicely hidden among the crowd as I shuffled down a long aisle in the most peculiar amusement place I had ever seen.

  Beneath a ceiling that arched to a hundred feet or more, long rows of benches sloped downward toward an open central space or stage, on which a tall chalk-face with a long three-pointed beard was holding forth sonorously. All spectators, however, were looking and listening through queer instruments projecting from the benches and rarely seemed to heed the speaker.

  I slipped into one of the seats as quickly and inconspicuously as possible, and began to examine the instruments in front of me. There were tubes like earphones, attached by wires to a little electric socket; and there were other tubes resembling small telescopes, also attached by wires to a socket.

  While I was struggling with the tubes, I heard the voice of the speaker:

  "Fellow citizens of the Second and Third Class, you are about to witness an extraordinary exhibition. Until three years ago, when that marvelous invention the Phonoscope was perfected, it would not have been possible safely to witness what you are now about to see. For the benefit of those still unacquainted with this masterly machine, I would say that if you will arrange the eye and ear pieces, and step on the little lever to your left, you will be just in time for the beginning of the performance."

  In a few seconds more, I had arranged to adjust the earphones and telescope-like tubes; and, following instructions, witnessed a remarkable transformation.

  The theatre, the long rows of benches, the tall form of the speaker had vanished from view; the shuffling, grating noises of people passing down the aisles, the sonorous voice of the long-bearded man in front had all been obliterated. But new sounds, new sights crowded upon my senses.