“We must, of necessity, be among the last to seek the peace that oblivion gives, having the direction of all. But that responsibility is not equally on the shoulders of every one. I propose that ten of us, five men and five women, shall volunteer to join the next hundred from this centre, and so go to immediate death. And lest it should be said that those who might volunteer might be of more courage than others, I will not leave it to your own voices, ready though I know you would be, but I will name ten, with the assurance that they will not be backward for the example which is required.”
In an expressionless silence, as of an assembly that had now reverted to the trivialities of routine, he mentioned ten names, and that of Vinetta was second.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Wyndham saw the danger before Vinetta’s name was mentioned, and in sufficient time to control himself to the expressionless calm that the occasion required. For what concern should it be to him?
He even had a premonition, approximating to certainty, of that which he was about to hear. Was it a trap, or no more than an evil chance? And what attitude would Vinetta adopt? What ground of refusal could she advance which would not concentrate suspicion upon herself? Or, if she should consent, what remotest hope of escape, of, evasion, could still remain?
Wyndham looked at her in an idle way, as, hearing her named, was natural enough, and was glad to see that she hid her thoughts, beyond what he would have supposed her able to do. Perhaps she also had guessed correctly what she would hear before the list had begun.
There was no haste to comment upon the proposal, which was received with the same silent, listless gravity by the nine whom, with Vinetta, it most concerned, as by the general body of the assembly. Tomorrow—or three days hence—could it matter much? It appeared to Wyndham that his companions had sunk into more than normal torpidity, as though in reaction from the excitement which had stirred them before.
But the Arabian on his right hand, seeing that no voices came from the lower seats, said, with the infinite weariness in his voice which made objection sound as colourless as assent, “It is unimportant. Let them go, if they will, as I do not doubt that they will be most ready to do. But I am not sure that it is wise. Would it not have been better to regard the incident as so fully explained, so entirely closed, that the resumption of routine might be assumed, and that no example was required?”
Wyndham, still too cautious to speak, heard this with a motion of hope which he must not show.
Vinetta lifted her eyes in a listless way. with a doubtful wisdom—but could she disregard this flicker of objection, which might die if it were not fanned to a wider flame?—she stated, “That was my own thought, but I would not speak it, lest it be misunderstood.”
The voice of one near her offered hope of another kind. “Even though they volunteer, it must come to nought, unless there be ten from the routine list who will yield their places to them. Should we assume that?”
Slowly, one by one, others spoke to the same effect. Vinetta saw that the proposal would be put aside without further intervention from her. It was a danger narrowly missed; but was it as casual as it had appeared? She wished that she could be surer of that.
She heard the chairman withdraw adroitly from a position which was so plainly unsupported. He said, “There is much wisdom in what I hear. And, beyond that, the fact that the ten I named would have been willing to volunteer, as their silence told, is an example of as much force as though it had been done. As for the trouble of Sinto-T9R, it is over now. It is not a thing that would happen twice. Let all men put it from mind, and think only that they are near to the pleasant end of a weary day.”
After that the council turned its attention to other matters, to which neither Wyndham nor Vinetta gave heed, waiting only till the time should come when they would meet, and could discuss what had occurred.
This they did when the hour of solitude came, Vinetta going to Wyndham’s room, as it was her turn to do, at the first moment that prudence allowed. She commenced at once upon the peril through which she had passed, and with a force and freedom of expression which would have—sounded strange in her own ears a few days before.
“The old scoundrel,” she said, “was aiming at me! I was sure of that. I could see that he was more savage to take it back than he would have been had he put it forward with no more purpose than he professed.”
“I cannot say that I noticed that. Munzo-D7D is always expert to conceal his thoughts.”
“So that little will mean much! Well, if you didn’t, I did. I saw that he was hunting me from the first moment he spoke.”
“Then was it prudent to interpose as you did?”
“Perhaps not. But it was a greater risk to keep still. I could not tell then how the others felt. The objection might have died out, and where should we have been then?”
“Not much worse than we are now, if he really suspects.”
“You don’t agree that he does?”
“Yes. I’m afraid I do, more or less. I doubt whether he would have made the proposal without more motive than he explained; and the fact that others thought it needless supports that probability, for it is a fact that his is the best brain in the world today.”
“I will question even that, if it disappear by the week’s end, and we contrive to remain; but I am not thinking that it will be easy for us to do.”
“It is a hard chance, at the best; but it becomes desperate if he have a suspicion of what we plan. It is to fight the world, with all its machines, and its remaining millions of men. For, though he have no more than a small doubt, he will make certain you do not live.”
He paced the room as he spoke with a restlessness that he could not still. Apart from this doubt, they had come no nearer to any plan than nebulous projects of flight or violence, or a combination of the two, to be undertaken when her time should arrive, at which moment they hoped that there would not be more than fifty men and women left in the world, which was a large place, giving many choices of secluded retreat, even with its surface stripped and levelled and tamed as it then was.
It was a difficult—indeed, an impossible—problem to guess what that remaining fifty—the best brains in the world—would do, when they should find rebellion just when they would suppose that the last hours of mankind had arrived, and they had composed their own minds to renounce the burden of life.
Would they still pass out in the same way, letting the dream of the extinction of the race go? It seemed too much to hope.
Would they endeavour to coerce by physical violence the woman whose rebellion would mock their plans? It was hard to imagine. Physical violences had become a legend of more barbarous days.
Suppose Wyndham should assault them with a lethal weapon contrived and secreted for the occasion? Would they resist? Would they go to death by way of a bloody scuffle, instead of the dignified, painless path they had designed? Imagination was baffled again.
Or, if they should observe Wyndham and Vinetta in sudden flight at the last hour, would they delay their own deaths for pursuit? Would they risk remaining alive, two or three score, in a world from which their customary amenities would be removed? A world of cold and heat and unfriendly winds, and of snow or rain that might fall in the daylight hours. It was still harder to think.
But Munzo-D7D might contrive to deal with it in other ways. He would be alive till the last, as his place required, as a captain must remain on a sinking deck. He was not to be despised, being bold and subtle and very wise. And he might still be able to control the machines.
Considering that, Wyndham had a doubt of whether he had not been foolish in refusing to spend these last days in obtaining knowledge of their control, as Pilwin-C6P had proposed. But it was useless to regret that. On the whole he could come to no better conclusion than that, if Munzo-D7D did not suspect, they had a most slender chance, but if he did, it was next to none.
So he said, in a mood of depression as strange to his previous experiences as were those of elation o
r self-confidence which he had known since the effects of the drug had cleared from his deadened nerves.
Vinetta, more elatedly conscious of a shadow which had nearly fallen upon her and now moved somewhat away, heard him in a frowning fear which she did not hide.
“You are not leaving hope?” she asked. “I thought you had been resolved that we should not lose! I think I should die if you fail me now.”
She laughed shortly, in the next breath, at the literal truth of her last words, which she had not meant in that way, and, as she did so, their eyes met and the mood of doubt fell from him like a dropped cloak. She found herself caught in muscular arms that strained her close as their lips met. Then he said, “We will live, though the world fall. We will find a way.”
“Yes,” she agreed, made confident by her love, both in her own wit and the strength of those holding arms, “there is much that we must not lose! We will find a way.”
Her words, confident as his own, yet waked him to sudden fear.
At the next moment they became alert to the fact that the hour of safety was done. There might be nothing in that. It was a small chance that she would be encountered in returning to her own room, which was not far. But her face paled as she became aware of the needless peril to which they had exposed themselves through that short failure of self-control. In a moment she was gone through the opaque, impalpable wall.
Next morning, having spent the night in devising resolute plans and subtleties by which suspicions might be turned aside, he went to Vinetta’s room, to meet one who had been as sleepless as he, though she had spent the night in another mood. “I suppose,” she said, “it is over now. I was seen to leave. You must let me die. Or, if we try it in the next hour, will it be less than useless to flee?”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“You will be safe,” Wyndham said, “till the council meet, and even then we may turn suspicion aside by a bold, or perhaps by an indifferent front. Could you lie at sufficient need?”
She regarded him with grave eyes, to which some hope had returned, seeing how he had put the idea of abandoning her aside as not worth a word, and had equally refused to admit despair, or to consider immediate flight, which would have been to call the same thing by another word. “Yes,” she replied. “I could do that.”
It was not a question that would have been asked by the Colpeck-4XP of a week before. He had been of an exact integrity, both in act and word, which had been emphasized even at a time when disorders of speech or act were seldom seen in a placid life from which all forms of competition, all strong emotions, had been discarded, and irregularities of conduct were matters of speculative curiosity or tradition rather than experiences of living men.
But he felt differently now. He fought a battle of life and death, and the odds were millions to one. If others left him and Vinetta alone, so he would leave them. But if they threatened the life which was now of twofold responsibility and value, he would shield himself with whatever might most avail, be it truth or lie.
He had almost lost the feeling that he was one of a common stock, with the obligations that social order entails. The bond of allegiance weakened with every hour.
Apart from that, he had a feeling of responsibility for what had occurred. If he had not allowed love to seize the reins of his mind, to the exclusion of cooler thought, if he had not roused her for the moment, she would not have overstayed her time, and this danger would not have come to her door.
He did her the justice to remember that it was she who had shown the larger measure of self-control, that it was she who had broken away, who had remembered, although too late, the present peril in which they stood.
Blended with this, there was a feeling of fierce regret that they had made no more of a chance they had had—perhaps the last that they ever would.
They were alone again now, but their minds must be on different matters, in different moods.
Wondering half-consciously at himself, he proposed a plan, prompting her in what she should say to support the denial he had resolved, but he found it to be a matter on which she had no scruple at all. Loyalty and truth were as natural to her as to him, but they were to be given where they belonged. Chivalrous and abstract altruisms have always been the devisings of men rather than of those who must guard their young.
Vinetta said, “He will be slow to talk when he hears that.” She approved a plan at once subtler and bolder than would have been likely to rise in her own mind. She added, “You had better go. We may not meet again till the last hour. But I understand. You can count on me.”
They parted with few words, as having put emotion aside now the battle joined.
Wyndham went to his gymnasium exercises, which were a dead routine, as all was, now that competition had been condemned. These exercises were of a routine as exact and invariable as the meals, but took place in a common room. It was strange to observe men and women who would compass their own destructions on the next day, or before, exercising themselves lest their muscles stiffen or their digestions fail, but the force of custom was very strong, and what else was there to do?
Munzo-D7D entered the gymnasium. He looked round as one having an object in what he did. He saw Wyndham and crossed over to him. He said, “We must talk. Will you come to me when the hour of converse arrives, or shall I come to you?”
Wyndham looked at him carelessly. He said, “I have much to do. But you can come to me if you will. I suppose the talk will be soon done.”
There was lack of customary courtesy here, though nothing at which Munzo-D7D could legitimately take offence. He said, “I will come.” He went at that, having other matters with which to deal.
He came to Wyndham at the first moment he could. He knew enough to guess more, and his guess was good. He thought he could make a decisive end of the last trouble which humanity had to face as its twilight came.
There was no privacy in the conversation which followed, because anyone in the whole world who desired to do so could listen in. On the other hand it was an abstract improbability, apart from prior arrangement, that anyone would. Wyndham had no doubt that Vinetta would have tuned in to his own room of reception, which was why he had declined to visit Munzo-D7D, as courtesy had required. Otherwise than by her, he could not tell that he would be overheard, though he hoped he might.
Munzo-D7D knew that Pilwin-C6P and Avanah-F3B would be witness to every word that was said. He thought he had been wise to arrange that. It would have been wiser to have talked first in a more private way.
He began quietly, as was his natural manner. He did not think to make trouble, but rather to end it with a finality which he supposed that it would be easy to reach. He said, “The days pass. You have said that you have not been fully resolved, either to live or die. But it is a decision you cannot much longer defer.”
“As to that,” Wyndham replied, “I am now resolved. I have decided to live.”
He saw that he must make provisions for continued existence which could not be concealed. Within a few hours, or a day at most, he must make his decision plain. Having one lie in his mind which must be stoutly sustained, he could not cumber himself with another of less evident use.
Munzo-D7D did not look surprised to hear that. It was, he believed, the truth, though he had not supposed that it would be so roundly declared. He went on, with a friendliness which he felt in a tepid way, though he knew it to be an alien ego to whom he spoke. “But do you think you are wise? You will be alone. You can have little comfort and less joy, but you will be sure of privations and many pains, for which your body is, by its training, unfit. And at last you must die in a futile way, and in a misery you can only dimly imagine, for it is certain that the furnaces will not endure. Is it worthwhile, for so certain and so unseemly an end?
He thought this question would lead to what he had come to say by a short path, but Wyndham’s reply was unexpected, and delayed them both from the real issue to which they must come at last.
“Have you considered
,” he asked, “the old belief that we may be possessed of immortal spirits, and that what we do here may have consequences we cannot guess?”
Munzo-D7D looked with questioning surprise at the speaker of that which it was hard to take in a serious way; and jesting was an indecency which had long died from the mouths of men. He asked, “Will you tell me you believe that?”
“It is possible, and beyond disproof.”
Munzo answered patiently, as one would bear with the incredible foolishness of a child. (Was it possible, he asked himself, that an alien ego could make no better use of a Colpeck brain?) “There are many grains of dust on the surface of the earth?”
“Yes, there are.”
“There are countless millions even in a square yard of earth?”
“Yes. We agree there.”
“If each of those specks of dust represented a million years, the aggregate would be beyond our power to conceive?”
“It would be very long.”
“But to eternity it would be nothing, though it were multiplied a million million times, and by that again?”
“So, to our finite minds. it appears to be.”
“So it is. Can you think of that, and imagine that all our futile human births will continue thus? It is not for wisdom to entertain.”
“Yet, we are now. We may be then. Not understanding what reality is, we may refuse to assert, but must we not equally refuse to deny?”
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