It was in the capacity of assistant secretary that Estelle was often present at discussions between Sulfatin and Philox Loris, and conferences with very important people—conferences and discussions related to the three great, not to say immense, affairs, very different from one another, that were then occupying Philox Loris’ mediations almost exclusively. In order to be initiated into the scientist’s preoccupations, it is sufficient for us to listen indiscreetly to a few of his conferences.
Today, in the great hall of the secretariat, in discussion with Philox, there are gentlemen with bronzed faces, curly hair and shiny black beards, clad in foreign military uniforms. They are diplomats from Costa Rica, commissioned as generals, negotiating a deal for the supply of machines and products. Let us listen to Philox Lorris, in the process of summarizing the question with the conciseness of a man who insists on never wasting a quarter of a minute.
“In brief, gentlemen,” says Philox Lorris, cutting off a loquacious diplomat, “the republic of Costa Rica, for its war with Danubia...”
“Pardon me!” says the diplomat. “Not a war! The Republic of Costa Rica, in order to ensure the maintenance of peace with Danubia…the negotiations are ongoing, we’re not yet at the stage of ultimata. To ensure the maintenance of peace...”
“Desire to acquire an ample provision of our new explosives,” Philox continues.
“That’s right.”
“As well as machines manufactured by us designed to transport those explosives, in case of need, to the locations most favorable to inflict as much damage as possible on the enemy...”
“Precisely.”
“You’ve witnessed the trials of our new products, you’ve seen—at a distance—the machines whose secret we’re keeping, and you want to acquire machines and products. You’ve transmitted our conditions to your government; those conditions are not negotiable. Certain of the superiority of our product over everything made thus far, we won’t lower our asking price. It’s take it or leave it!”
“However...”
“Nothing at all. Say yes or say no, but let’s get it over...”
“A simple observation: the Republic of Costa Rica will make any sacrifice, for the love of peace…but in consenting to these heavy sacrifices, it desires to have, in order to lead the armies charged with experimenting with your new machines, the man who has conceived them…the illustrious scientist…yourself!”
“Me!” Philox Lorris exclaimed. “Do you think I have the time? What’s more, I’m the Engineer-General of the Artillery here; I can’t go into service elsewhere...”
“Oh, temporary service! The authorization will be easy to obtain, by paying a large fee to your government. You can see what a high price we put on your precious collaboration.”
“It’s no use, Messieurs. Other projects require me...”
“At least give us one of your collaborators—Monsieur Sulfatin, for example...”
“I need Sulfatin. I can give you some of my engineers, but only for a time. And I reserve the right to exploit my machines and products as it suits me, and to deliver to any powers, including Danubia, what they request of me...”
“To Danubia! The same products as us!”
“It’s also for the maintenance of peace...”
“Oh, nothing doing!”
“So be it. I won’t conceal from you that Danubia has, within the last few days, accepted all my conditions and taken delivery of the machines that you’re refusing to buy. It will have the sole provision.”
“It’s taken delivery! We accept, then.”
“That’s the best course of action for you. It only remains to settle the method of payment and the guarantees.”
“Will you take mortgages on governmental palaces?”
“No, I prefer to receive regular assignments of the products of taxes and duties...”
Although the matter of supplying improved machines and chemical products to the two present belligerents, and any future belligerents, for a certain time was of colossal importance, the second affair, absolutely different in character, was of no less gigantic proportions. Let us bow down before the sovereign power of science! If, as impassive as destiny, it furnishes humans with the most formidable means of destruction, if it puts into human hands, with the liberty to abuse them, the very forces of nature, it provides means of combating natural destruction just as liberally; it is equally abundant in furnishing powerful weapons in the great combat of life against death!
This time, Philox Lorris is no longer dealing with soldiers, with generals in haste to try out new chemical compounds on the battlefield; it is a matter of new medical treatments—and yet, it is not physicians who are in discussion with him in the great laboratory, but politicians.
It is true that among these politicians is His Excellency the Minister of Public Hygiene, a celebrated advocate, one of the masters of the French bar, who has already played a part, over the last twenty years in a hundred and forty-nine ministerial combinations, with the most various portfolios, ranging from War, Industry and Religion to Aerial Communications; in sum, he is a man of universal competence.
“Alas, Messieurs,” said Philox Lorris, “modern science has some responsibility for the poor state of general health; that hurried, inflamed, horribly busy and exhausting existence, electric life, we must admit, has overburdened the race and produced a kind of universal enfeeblement...”
“Cerebral overstimulation,” said the minister.
“No more muscles,” said Sulfatin, scornfully. “The working brain alone absorbs the vital flux at the expense of the rest of the organism, which atrophies and deteriorates; future humans, if we don’t put them in order, will be nothing more than enormous brains within a skull like a dome, mounted on the thinnest of legs.”
“So,” Philox continued, “overloading; consequence, enfeeblement. Hence, defense against the maladies that lay siege to us becomes increasingly difficult. Point one: the location is weakened. Point two: the enemies besieging it are becoming increasingly numerous and increasingly dangerous.”
“New diseases!” said the Minister.
“You said it! When one seeks to combat dangerous microbes with enemy microbes charged with destroying them, those microbes develop into enemies of the poor human race in their turn and give birth to unknown diseases, momentarily disconcerting the men of science who have studied microbial toxicology most intensely...”
“And let me tell you, Messieurs,” said the Minister, “that the sins of chemistry have a great deal to do with the present sad state of our health...”
“What! Sins?”
“Let’s say, in order not to offend science, the inconveniences of over-refined and overused chemistry—which is to say, chemistry applied to everything, to the large-scale scientific fabrication of foodstuffs, liquid or solid, of everything eaten or drunk, in imitation of all honest and natural products, or their sophistication... Alas, everything is fake, everything is feigned, everything is manufactured, imitated, sophisticated, adulterated, and we have all been, in a word, poisoned by the Borgias of our overly scientific industry.”
“Alas,” said a député, who had once been a bon viveur and was now ravaged by an incurable disease of the stomach.
“Not to mention a thousand other causes, such as the general nervosity produced by ambient electricity, by the fluid that circulates around us everywhere and penetrates us; the industrial maladies afflicting the people employed in one dangerous industry or another and spreading around the factories; and the frightful agglomeration of swarming human ant-hills, increasingly tightly packed in our poor cramped world...”
“The continents, America, Europe, crowded Africa, Asia overflowing with the Chinese,” said one of the politicians, “are like rafts floating on the seas, loaded to the brink of foundering by starving passengers ready to devour one another!”
“In spite of the large-scale application to agriculture of the chemical modification of the old exhausted humus and the electrical excita
tion of fields ensuring rapid germination and growth.”
“Oh, if we didn’t have a sixth continent under construction, in order to take our surplus population in the near future, under the direction of a man of creative genius, the great engineer Philippe Ponto, out there in the immense and thus far useless Pacific Ocean…what an endeavor, Messieurs, what an endeavor!”
“Let’s get back to the business in hand,” Philox Lorris put in, seeing that the conversation was threatening to go astray. “The overly large human agglomerations and the enormous development of industry have led to a rather sad state of affairs. Our atmosphere is soiled and polluted; it’s necessary to go up to a very great height in our airships to find air that is almost pure; you know that we still have, six hundred meters above ground, 49,656 microbes and assorted bacilli per cubic meter of air. Our rivers transport veritable purées of the most dangerous bacilli; our streams are pullulating with pathogenic ferments; piscicultural establishments repopulate the rivers every five or six years, but in vain—fish can no longer live in them. Freshwater fish are only found in the rivulets and ponds of the remotest rural areas.
“That’s not all, alas! There’s still another cause of our sad deterioration, stemming from modern customs and universal and imperious pecuniary necessities, the torment of our horribly costly civilization. That cause is marriage by inverse selection. As philosophers, we rise above that nasty habit, and as fathers, we allow ourselves, and also our sons, to practice that inverse selection. What do we generally seek when the time comes to marry and found a family? What brides are most sought-after? Orphans—which is to say, young women whose parents are unable to surpass the meager average duration of human life, or, for want of orphans, those whose parents are at least sickly and infirm—which permits one to count on the rapid realization of great expectations, a mirror for fiancés’ high hopes, a supplement to the generally appreciated dowry!
“A fatal calculation! The lack of vitality and the brevity of endurance are transmitted to the descendants, and that inverse selection brings about and increasingly rapid deterioration of the family... What can all the conferences of physicians, physiologists and hygienists do against those multiple causes? You have passed a law, Monsieur Minister of Public Hygiene, compelling iodides and tonics to be supplied by the alimentation companies via their tubes on certain days, which can only be done in towns big enough for such companies to set up in business there, but general health remains as poor in the large towns as the small...”
“Not to mention,” Sulfatin added, “with respect to our own concerns, the dangerous epidemic of migranite that, in spite of the efforts of the Medical Corps, has desolated our regions…and which is still continuing, even attacking animals.”
“The migranite affair has been explained by the committee of physicians appointed to study its effects and trace them back to their causes,” said one of the politicians. “Henceforth, it’s permissible to suspect that it’s due to the malevolence of a foreign nation, which, by means that we’re on the brink of discovering, involving electric currents laden with cunningly-prepared miasmas, has sent us the unknown malady in question, fabricated from scratch, so to speak—a disease benign to begin with and merely inconvenient, but rapidly becomes in some cases, depending on the terrain where it breaks out, malignant and disastrous. But that’s strictly between us, Messieurs; it’s politics, and it’s up to the government to take whatever measures of reprisal it sees fit, some day.”
“Deplorable!” exclaimed one of the gentlemen. “A worrying situation! There’s no longer any security for nations, with this continuous progress of science! The Minister of War is overwhelming the budget, incessantly demanding supplementary credit for the creation of new devices for the aerial defense cruisers. If it’s necessary now to defend ourselves against invasions of miasmas, at the risk of seeming blasphemous, I’ll allow myself to deplore the incessant and desolating progress of science...”
“Don’t blaspheme!” cried Philox Lorris. “Science is still pursuing its forward course; from the military viewpoint, we’re in the process of putting an end to the barbaric era of explosives and chemical products with ever more frightful effects. The last word in that matter is about to be spoken, Messieurs, and it is Philox Lorris Inc. that will pronounce it. One could not find better machines and products than those we’re presently putting into circulation. The conflict between the American Republic of Costa Rica and Danubia will demonstrate that to you. I’m happy to have that opportunity to try them out. You’re going to see a fine war, Messieurs. My explosives are truly superior to all others with regard effect and ease of deployment. I am confident that with one single capsule of my product, I could blow up a town twenty kilometers away. Pfft—it’s gone! Simple and neat! Truly, the ideal explosive. It is, I repeat, the last word in progress. Let’s hasten to pronounce it and move on to something else...”
“So it’s necessary to reform our provision of armaments yet again? You terrify me! Our budget’s already terribly heavy.”
“That’s progress, Monsieur Minister of Finance. Don’t worry, though. I’ll find you something better than that—much better—within two years.”
“What! But then it’ll be necessary to start all over again in two years’ time!”
“Undoubtedly! But wait, and don’t speak ill of science. I tell you that the era of explosives is nearing its end. We’ve had the era of iron, the time of knights enclosed in their carapaces, charging with their lances forward, or striking like mercenaries with massive cudgels, maces and broadswords. Then came the era of gunpowder, the time of cannons launching—at first rather awkwardly—cannonballs and shells. Then came the era of various explosives, murderous chemical products and improved engines, carrying destruction over longer and longer distances. That era is nearing its end; chemical warfare has become obsolete in its turn.
“Shall I reveal to you the object of my current research—the project to which I intend to devote myself entirely as soon as we’ve settled the one that is the object of our meeting? The time seems to me no have come to make medical war. No more explosives or miasmas! We’ve already begun, as you know, since we include an Offensive Medical Corps in our army, provided with a small artillery of noxious miasmas, but that’s only a trial—a timid trial! Our Offensive Medical Corps hasn’t yet served any serious purpose…and yet, Messieurs, that’s the future! On every side, the scientists are searching; migranite, the indisposition that no one has been able to escape, is a proof of it: migranite was launched against us by an enemy nation.
“Before long, no one will any longer fight with any means other than miasmas. I shall conduct my research in the utmost secrecy, and in two years I shall have transformed the art of war completely. No more weapons—or, at least only enough as are necessary to reap the fruits of the action of the Offensive Medical Corps.
“Let’s suppose that we’re in a state of war with some notion or other: I cover that nation with choice miasmas; I spread whatever combination of maladies I please—and the army auxiliary to the Medical Corps has only to present itself and impose the conditions of peace upon that entirely disease-stricken nation. It’s simple, it’s easy and it’s humane, Messieurs I’m certain in advance that it’s not as a chemist but as a philanthropist that the future will appreciate me...”
“But that diffusion of miasmas on the other side of the frontier is not without danger to us...”
“Pardon me, General! I have taken care to cover our frontier in advance with a curtain of insulating gas impenetrable to the miasmas, as much to prevent the return of our own miasmas as to stop the enemy’s. I’m not underestimating the difficulties, but it’s just a matter of time; within two years I’ll have found the methods and overcome all the problems; the project will be mature and we’ll enter into the period of realization. You’ll see science transform warfare once again, and, from being fearfully barbaric in its results, it will suddenly be rendered mild and humane.
“When our Offensive Medi
cal Corps alone will be ready, you’ll no longer see those frightful hecatombs of young and healthy individuals that every conflict of peoples provided during the eras of gunpowder and explosives. What is the objective of a general on the day of a battle? It’s a matter of putting as many enemies as possible in a state in which they cannot harm his troops or impede their forward march, isn’t it? Until now, it has been necessary in order to do that, to resort to ferocious slaughter, by means of cannon, explosives and chemical products—asphyxiating gases and so on. Well, when I’ve mastered all the procedures, I’ll take responsibility for lying all the armies that the enemy launches at us flat on the ground, just as sick as I want them to be, incapable of lifting a finger for some time.
“Science, by virtue of perfecting war, renders it humane—I insist on that word. Instead of men in the full flower of health and vigor, reduced in hundreds and thousands to a bloody pulp, war by means of Medical Offensive Corps will leave not strike down anyone on the battlefield but weak valetudinarians, whose organisms are burdened by crippling mortgages, who will not have been able to withstand the effects of the miasmas! Thus, war, by eliminating weak and sickly individuals, will always work to the advantage of the race...
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