Kleon was a very brave man, otherwise he would not have thrust his head without hesitation into the inclosure. This was powerful magic, he was certain, more powerful even than the incantations of the gymnosophists. Aristotle, Zeno, would never have approved of these barbarous practices. But he went-
* * * *
VI.
Back in the council chamber the four men sat again—Gano, Beltan, Sam Ward and Kleon. They understood each other now, spoke the same tongue. But their thought processes were wholly different. Nor could this be helped. Heredity, environment, custom, the training of a lifetime, slow evolutionary molding could not be changed in a moment, not even by the marvelous science of Hispan.
Gano was courteous, if condescending. He listened patiently, first to the story of the Greek, then to the supplemental tale of the American. To him they were primitive savages of an elder day, interesting because of that, but wholly inferior to the Olgarchs and Technicians of Hispan. But Beltan listened with quiet eagerness to their respective pictures of earlier civilizations, of the glory of Greece and the march of Alexander into Asia, of the literature and drama of that ancient conglomerate of city states. It is true that he smiled at the naive scientific conceptions that Kleon brought forth, but the concepts of the Grecian philosophers struck him forcibly.
To Sam’s story of the world of the twentieth century he listened more skeptically and with a certain fastidious distaste. The particular glory of that era—the march of science—he dismissed as mere halting steps toward the future. But the story of war and greed and human conflict, of waste and incredible futility, of shorn forests and mineral resources, of the World War and the League of Nations, of concentration camps and the Spanish madness, brought grimaces to his lips.
“No wonder,” he said slowly, “the whole world died not long after your time. Your twentieth century represented a retrogression, a relapse into futile barbarism from the rather noble era of Kleon.”
Sam bristled at that. No man likes to hear his own century impugned, and another cried up in its place, especially by the member of a third epoch. “Perhaps,” he said heatedly, “I have been a bit more honest in my descriptions than Kleon. For example, he told you nothing of the slavery that existed in his day, the very fundamental upon which his civilization was based.”
“I see nothing wrong in that,” Kleon declared with dignity. “It is only right that those whose brains are dull and whose backs are strong should support in leisure those who can bring forth large thoughts and meditations. Has not this Hispan likewise its slaves—its Technicians and Workers —to bring the flower of Olgarchs like Gano and Beltan into being?”
Gano relaxed not a muscle of his face, but Beltan threw back his head and laughed. “By the hundred levels of Hispan, even in that early age the Greeks had learned the art of flattery. You are not quite right, friend Kleon. These are no slaves; these are but fixed castes of society, each with its duties firmly ordered. Hispan could not long exist without such strict, efficient subdivisions. Neither Workers nor Technicians are other than content with their lot.” He smiled bitterly. “That is left only as the last privilege of the Olgarchs.”
“Rather,” Gano interposed calmly, “it is your peculiar privilege, Beltan. No one else of our class feels the necessity for such a primitive emotion. Sometimes I think you are a sport, a mutant, not a true Olgarch.”
* * * *
Sam turned to the head of the Olgarchs. “What,” he asked with a certain irony, “is the true function of the Olgarchs in this society of Hispan? The Technicians, I understand, supervise and create the scientific mechanism by which the city lives; the Workers lend their brawn and muscle to its functioning; but the Olgarchs?”
Gano frowned. “We live,” he answered sharply. “We are the reason for the creations of the Technicians, the labors of the Workers. We are the flower to which they are the roots and stems and leaves. They work, so that we may enjoy.”
Kleon nodded approvingly. “Hispan is not far apart from Athens,” he said. “There is much good in your system.”
Sam set his teeth. “That,” he declared, “has always been the rationalized justification for slavery, even to this future time. Has it ever occurred to you that the slaves—call them Technicians, Workers, Helots, what you will—would also like to live?”
“They are content, happy,” Gano answered softly. “Ask Tomson, if you will, whether this is not the best of all possible worlds.”
Beltan leaned forward. “Have you already forgotten, Sam Ward,” he mocked, “what you have told us of conditions in your own world? What were the Workers then if not slaves? Slaves who worked at the beck of others, who toiled far longer hours than the Workers of Hispan, who starved in times of depression and starved only more slowly while employed, who went to war to fight and kill for the benefit of others. Did you not have also your Technician class who toiled in laboratories and created new inventions for the benefit of your wealthy, your Olgarchs?”
“Yes, I suppose so,” Sam admitted unwillingly. “But at least they were free to work or not to work.”
“To starve, you mean.” Then, suddenly, the irony was gone from Beltan’s voice, and a certain fierce sincerity took its place. “It isn’t the plight of the Workers and Technicians that matters. They are well taken care of in Hispan; they do their work and are happy and content. No, it is the plight of the Olgarchs, the lords of Hispan, that matters most profoundly.
“Gano, here, at least has the illusion that he is performing a necessary function. The chief Technicians listen respectfully to his orders, obey them. But the city would flourish just the same if Gano never gave an order. As for the rest of us, we haven’t even that poor illusion. We sit and dawdle and wrap ourselves in fine garments, listen to fine music, eat delicate fare, strut and stroll and discuss in noble-sounding, empty phrases. We are parasites, aimless, unnecessary. We are excrescences on the body politic. The city could see us vanish and continue its course without a single jar.”
Gano was on his feet, his black brow clouded. “Beltan,” he said sharply, “even an Olgarch may go too far.”
Beltan’s nostrils quivered. There was defiance in his gaze. Then he subsided with a quizzical smile. “You are right, Gano,” he murmured. “Even an Olgarch may go too far.”
Kleon was puzzled. He was mightily taken with Beltan, but he did not understand his dissatisfaction. “If the uses of philosophy fail,” he interposed, “as they sometimes do, there is always the heady pursuit of war against the barbarian, the stranger.”
The young Olgarch said sadly: “There are no barbarians or strangers, unless it be you two. The city of Hispan is all that remains of the world.”
Sam gasped. “Do you mean that New York, London, Paris, the great countries, have been wiped out? How? Why?”
Beltan did not seem to see Gano’s frown, or seeing, paid no heed.
* * * *
“The story,” he replied, “is not often told, and then only to Olgarchs. But since you already know about the once external world, there is no harm in telling it to you. Not long after your time, Sam Ward, in about the twenty-seventh century, the nations then existing had withdrawn more and more into their own boundaries. It was the logical, if mad development of tendencies in your own era. Nationalism, self-sufficiency, I believe, were the watchwords.
“The process accelerated, so our records report,” Beltan continued. “Soon even the national borders grew too large. The nationalistic tendencies, the patriotisms, grew fiercer, more local. Each nation, cut off from intercourse with other nations, bounded by impregnably fortified frontiers, dependent only on itself for its economy, found quarrels arising within its own confines. The fires of localism, of hatred for aliens, of patriotic fervor, finding nothing outside to feed upon, gnawed at their own vitals. Men of one community, a subdivision, a State, a city, decried the men of other communities, boasted of their superiority. They began to fight in internecine warfare.
“New nationalisms sprang up—nationa
lisms and hates based on smaller units. The countrysides became deserted, as the undefended farms and villages were devastated by the armies of opposing cities. The people collected in the towns, where there was a measure of protection. Soon the cry arose: New York for New Yorkers; London for the men of London; Paris for the Parisians!”
It was now Kleon’s turn to nod. Evolution, he reflected, was but an eternal recurrence. For what was this Olgarch of the future describing but Greece in the time of Pericles and the Peloponnesian War?
“Soon,” Beltan went on, “earth was broken up into a vast number of self-contained, heavily fortified cities. The old national boundaries were gone; newer and smaller ones took their place. Science advanced. Food was synthesized from inorganic elements; the secret of atomic power was discovered. The units grew smaller and smaller, drew away from each other. They fought, but the defenses were impregnable. The unfortified countryside became wholly deserted, unnecessary. It grew in the course of years into a tangle of wild forests, of desert stretches. All intercourse ceased. The cities rose vertically instead of horizontally along the earth, inclosed themselves in impassable barriers.
“Generation on generation added to these barriers, improved them with new methods of science. Such a one incloses Hispan, once a colony of your United States, now the sole survivor of all the teeming cities that once populated earth. A shield of neutron metal, impassable by any means known even to our science, was built up, layer on layer, around our city. No one knows how unimaginably thick it may be. No one has ever tried to penetrate its width.”
* * * *
Sam was appalled. He tried to grasp the story entire. It was logical, he admitted, up to a certain point. The forces involved were already at work in his own time. But to think that all the world had died, except for this enshrouded city of Hispan! “What happened to the others?” he insisted.
He saw the quick, warning glance that Gano flashed. He noted Beltan’s hesitation. “On that,” the latter admitted reluctantly, “the records are somewhat garbled. It seems there was a cataclysm some time in the forty-first century. A celestial body from outer space, traveling at high speed, smashed into the earth, destroyed a goodly part, laid waste all the cities but Hispan.”
“Why Hispan alone?”
“Because our city was the only one inclosed with neutron walls. Not even the impact of millions of tons could penetrate its solidity.”
“And no attempt was ever made to explore outside, to investigate conditions?”
Gano rose suddenly. “There is no way out,” he said smoothly, “and there have been questions enough. We have been patient with your rather primitive ignorance, but it is time to call a halt. And remember,” he finished meaningly, “these tales which Beltan, who should have known better, has told you must go no further. Only the Olgarchs know of these, and Tomson, the chief Technician, the Workers, the other Technicians even, have no faintest idea that there is a world, a universe beyond this city of Hispan. To them there never was a sun or moon or stars, or earth of other cities and peoples. This is the round entire, the circumscription of their destinies. See to it that they hear no other.”
“I see,” Sam answered grimly. He was beginning to understand. It was only by a tremendous effort that he held back the rising wrath within him. But Kleon, child of an earlier, franker era, held no inhibitions. “I am a Greek,” he declared proudly, “and bow to no man. My speech is my own, and subject to no restrictions.”
Sam nudged him sharply. The brave fool was making trouble for them both.
Gano surveyed them thoughtfully, then nodded to Beltan as though he had not heard. “We shall decide on our course later,” he said evenly, “when the council meets. In the meantime let these two be held in your quarters. You will take care of them.”
Kleon’s hand strayed to his sword. Sam’s mouth set in a straight line. Very casually, his fingers touched the butt of his revolver. He knew what Gano meant. They were prisoners. The Greek, by his defiance, had brought this upon them. Yet he liked the headstrong warrior all the more for his folly. He was a man!
Beltan said with peculiar intonation, “Please come without delay.”
Sam relaxed. He sensed the warning against resistance in the Olgarch’s voice. Gano’s delicately veined forefinger rested on a green square on the signal board. Intuitively, Sam felt that the slightest pressure would release blasting death against them.
“O. K.,” he said laconically, in the elder speech. “Let’s go, Kleon.”
* * * *
VII.
In silence the three entered a waiting car; in silence they sped over the noble park lands to a small, blank-walled building near the center of the level. In silence Beltan escorted them inside, the slide panel clicking smoothly behind them.
Sam cast a swift glance around. The walls were bare and smooth, the furnishings simple. There were no windows or doors other than the way they had entered. “We are prisoners, are we not?” he demanded.
Beltan looked at them with a certain pity. “I am afraid worse than that,” he admitted. “Your presence in Hispan will give rise to talk, to questionings. You must eventually come in contact with the other castes. You know things of which they have no knowledge. Discontent may arise, dissatisfaction. The ordered peace and security of Hispan may be broken. You especially, Sam Ward, have subversive ideas. You do not like our distribution of functions?”
“I do not,” Sam answered emphatically.
Beltan sighed. “I thought as much. As for you, Kleon, you are more sympathetic. But you spoiled it with your defiance of Gano. Still,” he meditated, “if you would but admit your hastiness of speech, perhaps an exception might be made in your favor.”
Kleon gazed at him with candid blue eyes. “Would that mean I must desert Sam Ward?”
“I’m afraid so.”
The Greek stood poised like a young god. “Then I remain with him.”
“Even if it means death?”
“Even so.”
Beltan turned swiftly to the American. “And you,” he inquired, “would you be willing to give an oath that your tongue would always remain submissive to the Olgarchs? Remember,” he added hastily, “an answer to the contrary will mean a quiet dissolution. I am but one against many. In any event I shall plead your cause in the council, but my fellow Olgarchs will feel as Gano does.”
Sam swallowed hard, but there was no tremor in his voice. “Kleon was right,” he answered steadily. “We are not slaves. We can give no such promises.”
Beltan sighed again. There was regretful admiration in that sigh. “You are both brave men,” he said. “It seems that elder, more primitive day bred sturdier frames than now. Yet you must die. I see no way out.”
Sam fingered his gun. He glanced significantly at Kleon. “At least,” he remarked evenly, “we’ll go out fighting.”
Kleon rattled his sword. “By Zeus and Ares,” he swore, “you speak sooth, friend Sam. We’ll take a goodly number of these Olgarchs to the lower realms along with us.”
“You won’t have the chance,” Beltan assured them. “Gano controls your fates literally at his finger tips. A pressure on the proper square before him and lethal rays sweep through this structure.”
Somehow Sam’s gun was in his hand, its cold muzzle pressed against the Olgarch’s ribs. “I’m sorry to have to do this,” he said crisply, “but we don’t give up very easily. You, Beltan, will show us a means of escape, or you die along with us.”
* * * *
The Olgarch looked at the two desperate men. Kleon’s sword was out, its keen point pressed against his other side. He shook his head slowly. “I am not afraid to die,” he answered with simple dignity. “I am weary of this aimless dalliance to which I am bound. Slay, if you will.”
Sam stepped back, sheathed his gun. Kleon raised his sword in salute. “You, too, are a man,” the American approved. “We three, I think, given the chance, could conquer the universe.”
A slow, unaccustomed red spread over
the Olgarch’s aristocratic features. “Believe me,” he spoke earnestly, “I am your friend.” Then he made a despairing gesture. “But there is no escape. I cannot help you. No nook or cranny of Hispan is remote from the search screens of the Olgarch council.”
“I wouldn’t stay here if I could,” Sam declared harshly. “Your city of Hispan is a stench in my nostrils, with its brutal caste system, its limited round. Me—I prefer freedom and space and a bit of anarchy even, where men are human beings and not mere soulless cogs in a hierarchic society, no matter how efficient. There must be a way to get out.”
“There isn’t,” Beltan replied somberly. “The neutron walls are impassable. And outside, besides wild desolation in which no man may live, there are lethal gases: Cyanogen, carbon monoxide, phosgene, products of the collision. The atmosphere has been destroyed. We do not even know what, if anything, remains of earth, of the sun itself.”
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