The solidity of matter, which had been an accepted faith of the nineteenth century, had become, in the twentieth, more or less theoretically denied or experimentally refuted, without being recognized for the utter delusion which it was subsequently demonstrated to be.
It was recognized as a mathematical possibility that, as an atom consists of molecules as far apart from one another, and relatively as small, as the planets of the solar system, if each of these molecules should be themselves of no greater density, nor composed of more solid particles, then, if the universe were compressed to an absolute solidity, it might—even on the assumption that the material has objective reality—be compressed into less space than is now occupied by a pin’s head: but this knowledge was incomplete and unapplied.
Vinetta (avoiding the sliding rails by which the food-machines and other services did their silent, punctual work) walked through walls that were opaque to sight, and contained sound, but were no hindrance to her, or to the purple garment she wore. The privacies of the world which Vinetta knew were not secured by bolt or lock, but by an iron rule of routine, which had become stronger than any law.
Now she made a circuitous way through rooms which would be vacant at such an hour, and walked at last, with a quiet face, but a fast-beating heart, into the one she sought.
“Do you mind,” she asked, “if I talk to you now? It is important—to me,” Colpeck-4XP had been sucking mixed fruit-juices through a tube, in small quantities, at the regulation intervals. A plate of some pink substance which, apart from its colour, had the appearance of grated cheese, stood before him to be eaten later. He looked up astonished, perhaps repelled, by this invasion, unprecedented not merely in his individual experiences but in the records of eccentricity or crime during several previous centuries.
“I shouldn’t have come without cause,” she said uncertainly, controlling with difficulty the desire to withdraw from the sight of another human being absorbing drink.
“No,” he agreed dubiously. “I suppose not.” He had ceased to drink. He laid down the glass tubes. Her sense of having outraged both his modesty and her own diminished somewhat with this cessation, though, as his eyes met hers, she could not control a blush such as may not have been observed for three hundred years on a woman’s face.
“I haven’t come to Colpeck-4XP,” she went on, bravely ignoring her burning cheeks, “but to Wyndham Smith.”
That was what she had resolved to and it seemed to have some effect.
“Yes,” he said, though still in that dubious puzzled voice. “There is that. But why have you come?”
“I went to see Colpeck-4XP,” she answered, “an hour ago.”
“You—yes, I see. But why?”
“He will be willing to remain in his present body, if you concur.”
The information was of a nature to cause Wyndham Smith, now that the first shock of traditional unseemliness was over, to forget the circumstances in which they met.
He had been thinking rather sombrely, during the last hour, of the alternatives that lay before him—either to return to a barbarous, bloody world of which he had no recollection now, and of which he could only form a vaguely terrible picture, or to face the utter loneliness of a deserted earth, with no better prospect than solitary death at last, which would end his species with himself—one of these—or else to join the general euthanasia which was the deliberately selected doom of his fellow men.
But the actual choice he had supposed to be even less than that. The accepted rule was that a transferred identity must be adjusted within two days unless both the egos concerned should prefer to continue in their exchanged tenements, and such an occurrence had never been. Was it likely now?
The information she brought gave him a choice which he might not have had, and which might not be easy to make. It was welcome news. But it explained nothing. Before he discussed, he must understand. “Why,” he asked, “did you get him to tell you that?”
“Because it was essential for me to know whether, if I should agree on something with you tonight, I should have to deal with someone else tomorrow.”
Yes. He saw that. That was sense. But what bargain could she wish to make? “To what,” he asked, “do you want me to agree?”
“Before I say that, will you tell me whether you mean to go back to the other life?”
“It sounds the most natural thing to do.”
“History tells us that it was very horrible. Pain. Heat. Cold. Quarrels. Bad food. Diseases. All sorts of muddle and dirt. Even insects under your clothes.”
“We haven’t decided that this life is any good.”
“But that must have been worse in ever so many ways.”
“And yet people wished to live.”
“But you are going to live. You’ve arranged that.”
“Not in a very attractive manner.”
“Then it is just to oblige Colpeck-4XP to come back to that, if he thinks even the twentieth century wouldn’t be so bad? It’s you who’ve done that for him, and then you won’t face it yourself.”
“That’s foolish. He can end his life here, if he will. He’ll be no worse off than he was before. In fact, better. I’ve given him a chance that he wouldn’t have had the initiative to get for himself.”
This was a disconcerting reply. She had hoped something from this argument of justice, knowing that the brain which Wyndham Smith now controlled was of a particular scrupulosity on points for honour. But his reply was difficult to rebut. She had a better hope when he added, “But I haven’t said yet that I won’t let him have his way.”
She said, “There won’t be much pleasure in being the only creature alive, even though the machines go on working, as I suppose they will, more or less”
“I doubt that. No. I don’t see that there will.”
Their eyes met. Prompted by the insurgent ego of twentieth-century barbarism which now controlled it, the brain of Colpeck-4XP became alive to the implication of this amazing interview.
“Suppose,” she said, refusing to withdraw the gaze which he met so disconcertingly, “that you were not quite alone?”
He did not affect to misunderstand. He answered directly, “You could not do that, even if I would agree—if you would dare. You have voted for your own death.”
“But I was the rebel child.”
It was an audacious assertion, even though it might be a true guess. Yet what penalty could it now bear, even though it were believed, even though it should be broadcast to the 4,999,998, who would be shocked by its shameless boast? There can be little for fear or hope, for resentment or retribution, among those who have united to end their race.
After this, there were some minutes of silence. The ego of Wyndham Smith warred with the brain, the acquired character, the traditions of Colpeck-4XP, and the conflict was confused beyond speedy determination or assurance of victory for either side.
Vinetta understood something of this. She judged correctly that to ask too much at this moment might be to get nothing at all, which she must not risk.
But these new sharp emotions of hope and doubt had a fighting quality which would not be still. She asked, “You will not go back?”
He considered this. “No,” he said, with deliberation. “I will stay here. I will see it out. That is, if he agrees.”
“He will agree,” she said confidently. Her voice had a note of victory, of exaltation, such as had not been heard for centuries from a human throat.
With cautious boldness, she pushed forward her lines of attack, asking more, though much less than all. “You will not expose me that I have come here?”
No,” he answered, with the same reluctant-seeming deliberation as before, as though being forced along a path that he feared to tread, “I will not do that.”
“I wish,” she said, “you would eat. Why should you stay for me? It is I, not you, who transgress. The time is short now. You will miss your meal.”
“So,” he answered, “will you.” He added, “I
cannot eat while you are here. It is not done.”
She saw, as he said this, that he waged a fight which she must help him to win. She must not forget that he was handicapped with a Colpeck brain, or rather with one that had been trained to value the Colpeck traditions, cautions, and inhibitions.
She said, “There was a time when men ate in each other’s presence.”
“There was a time,” he replied, “as you have reminded me, when insects might crawl upon human flesh.” His hand made a spasmodic shrinking movement as he said this. It was a vile thought for one before whose birth most insects had left the world.
“There was a later time when it became a marriage custom to eat together, though all other men, except young children, would feed apart.”
“But,” he replied, “that custom is long since dead in more decent times. It is left behind.”
She asked, “Where will our customs be in a week’s time? We do well to boast! But there will be one custom that is ended now.”
She reached over. She took his spoon. She ate a mouthful of food. After that, she went with averted eyes. Neither did he look at her. They were both ashamed at what she had done. But she had raised a chaos within his heart that he could not still.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“I am not Colpeck-4XP. I am Wyndham Smith.” So he told himself a score of times as he paced his room during the night, sometimes in explanation, sometimes in self-excuse, sometimes in the endeavour to mould desire to the point of settled resolve.
Yet it was hard to realise, if not to believe. Its truth was evident in the fact alone that he was awake and disturbed with conflicting thoughts. Every memory, every tradition of conduct, every argument with which his mind was stored was on the side of the race to which he was otherwise so remote, yet which, by one irrevocable word, had become his in its hour of death.
He saw that he had three questions to vex his mind, of which he must dispose in an orderly rotation:
(1) Did he really intend to survive the general race-suicide which he had been solitary to oppose?
(2) If so, did he wish Vinetta to be his wife in the future days?
(3) If he did, was there any possible method by which she could escape the common fate, after she had consented thereto?
He saw that, if he should answer the first question in the negative, the other two did not arise, and that it should therefore have prior consideration. Similarly, if the second should be negatived, the third need not be asked, and that was further evidence that he had numbered them rightly.
Yet their precedence was less simple than that, for, had the first stood alone, he would have had a week for its leisured consideration, whereas an affirmative answer to the second might entail prompt action in various ways, so that, for its sake, the prior question must be promptly resolved.
Again, the reply to the second might be influenced by those which could be given to the other two, so that, at the last, he saw that he must reverse their order. As he debated these questions, he saw, more clearly than he had done before, the fundamental upheaval of all the habits and experiences of life, as he had hitherto lived it, which a lonely survival would mean; which, in most ways, would be little different if the survivors were two.
Vaguely, he saw that the machines must go—that fertility must be released, to recapture an earth from which it had been driven as an insanitary, obscene, insubordinate force, too barbarous for modern man to endure. The results of such changes must be beyond the forecasting of human wit. A new balance of nature must be established. It might not occur without much wastage, amidst which his own life, or that of his children, might be overwhelmed. He had thought that, whether there should be one or two that survived, there would be no more than minor resulting differences. And so, in many ways, it must be.
But with the thought of children, he observed one enormous variation. If he were to survive alone, it could but defer for a few more years the final passing of the race of men from the earth which they had lacked wisdom to make a tolerable home. But if there were two—that would be, indeed, to mock the whole purpose of this gesture by which man was to reject the gift of life, casting it back with contempt at the feet of God. Suppose the two who lived should found, to better purpose, a better race? Those who died might be judging themselves rather than their Creator, and their verdict might not be wrong.
As he thought this, the brain of Colpeck-4XP, driven by the ego of Wyndham Smith, stirred itself to a passionate hope, to hard resolve. It roused itself to a great game, which must be played for the greatest stake that a man could have. And the mere thought of taking on such conflict against fate, and against his kind, brought a sense of bewildering freedom, of escape from the smooth, soft, eventless servitude which had gained no more than the absence of all the adverse impacts which had pained or thwarted those heroic ancestors who had endured under different skies. He saw that, in a blind folly, man had sought to change the nature and purpose of human life, saying that it was evil only of which they would make an end, and, arm-in-arm, good and evil together had left the world.
From many conflicting thoughts he was aware of one resolution finally formed. He would live, if he could—with her.
Would he live alone? He was less sure. He was less inclined to that than before. After this new dream, it had a barren, abortive aspect which he would be tardy to choose.
Could he contrive that not only his life, but hers should endure? It was hard to see how that could be done. Yet a way there must surely be. But first he would communicate with him who now had the body of Wyndham Smith—which it was not easy to think that any would wish to hold—and agree that they should continue as they now were.
From the high dream he had had, he came to a sharp fear that this agreement would not be made; but he found that Vinetta had been right about that, for the ego of Colpeck-4XP was content to flee from a dying world to one which was more familiar to the brain that now served its will.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Wyndham Smith—as it may be preferable to call him, if it be allowed that the ego is more than the body in which it dwells—did not sleep till late, and waked some minutes after the universal hour. It was a fault of routine which it would have been his normal duty to report to the physician of his hundred, who would have examined him, and either rebuked whatever deviation of conduct might have caused this eccentricity, or recommended either an immediate operation, or an early visit to the nearest euthanasia furnace if he had observed any indication of failing health; for it had long been an axiom of worldly wisdom that, however absolute the control of pain might have become, the beginning of a disease is the better end of it at which to die.
But even the most docile member of the community might have felt it needless to take such precaution when it was understood that the thousand of such refuges which the world contained were to be visited by the whole of its inhabitants in a week’s time. To Wyndham Smith it came as no more than a moment’s recollection of the precepts that childhood learned, to be rejected in the instant that followed. The illegality which he had in mind was more serious in itself, and less to be condoned by the resolution that the last night’s council had taken. He waited until the hour of the morning meal arrived, drank and ate with a brevity which would leave him a clear forty minutes free from fear of interruption in what he did, and went to Vinetta’s room.
Having reached it, he knew that he had come to a place where no one would intrude unasked, if the present order should continue for many years; nor could those who were within be seen or overheard. These personal rooms, with their opaque though penetrable walls, were the only real privacies that the earth contained at a time when any sound, near or far, excepting themselves, could be picked up by a million receivers, if they should chance to be directed upon the area from which it came.
His caution must be that he should not exceed his time, and that Vinetta should neither be observed to be in consultation with him, nor to neglect the normal occupations that passed the tedium of her w
aking hours.
She looked up as he entered with sudden joy, her eyes shone with something of the buoyant courage of youth, meeting in his own an excitement, if not an elation, that equalled hers, for she guessed at once what his coming meant, and that the first battle was almost won.
She said, “I was sure you would. I have not let myself doubt. Not even when I was most afraid in the night.”
He answered gravely, but with the same buoyancy in his voice and the thought he spoke, “Yesterday it was five millions to one. We have halved it now! But we must not think that it will be easy to do.”
Her bowl of food was half-emptied. She pushed it towards him with its single spoon. She said, “You must eat with me. You reckon well. But you must not call us two. We are one from now.”
He took up the spoon, but not as readily as she would have liked, so that she added, “It is no more than your custom was.”
“Yes,” he agreed, with a puzzled look, as of one who strives to recall a forgotten dream, “I suppose it was.” He put the spoon to his mouth. But having taken this in a ritual way, he pushed the bowl back. “I had some,” he said, “before I came here. I need not rob you of food. I have come to talk.”
“So we must,” she agreed. “And they will not guess. It would be useless to propose that they leave me alive. They would never consent to that.”
“No. They would destroy you at once, if they had the least suspicion of what we plan. They would tell the machines. After the vote you gave, they would have all men’s support.”
She knew that to be true. The order of the First Hundred would be obeyed by those who attended on the machines, and the automata had a terrible power. It would be useless to evade or resist. They both knew that; too surely for the wasting of words.
She asked, thinking of the machines, “Will they order them to destroy themselves, or will they let them go on?”
“I have wondered that. But we shall hear. As I am to remain alive, they may be willing to consult my preference in what they do.”
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