Time Travel Omnibus, page 120
I stared, enchanted. The air was clear, untainted with smoke, but darting through it were what appeared to be vast droves of birds. Far off across the Bay, in the direction where San Francisco now stands, other white buildings gleamed; and in great layers, stretching across the water from the eastern shore to the peninsula, were black streams of the same birds, coming and going. So amazed, yes, and enthralled, was I by the distant scene, that it was some time before I noticed an immense building some hundreds of yards to the right of me and further down the hillside. It was open on all sides, the roof supported by great colonial columns. And coming towards me from its direction was a man.
Now I had expected to meet human beings. I had even expected to see them curiously garbed. Oddity of dress and customs I was prepared for. It wasn’t the fact, then, that this man was strangely clad that startled me. No, it was the manner of his approach. He was clothed in a form-fitting garment of one piece. Attached to his feet were flat, almost disc-like devices resembling snow-shoes, and in his hands he carried a short rod evidently of the same metal. Yet it was none of those things that made me stare at him incredulously, doubting the evidences of my own eye-sight. It was the fact that the man was walking on air!
Yes, believe it or not, he was some ten feet above the ground, not gliding through space, not flying, but coming toward me with purposeful, springy strides. At that moment he looked not unlike the old Greek figures of Mercury, the god of speed. When he lowered over me, I saw that physically the stranger was even a bigger man than myself, gracefully built, with fine features, and skin as dark as that of a Eurasian. Then for the second time within the same minute my equanimity received a jolt. The being striding through the air was not a man but a woman!
IF I regarded with the utmost astonishment this strange woman and her mode of approach, she seemed no less surprised at viewing me and my dress. She spoke, and somehow the language sounded familiar. Intuitively I understood the question.
“Who are you?” she demanded in a sweet, yet commanding voice.
“A traveler,” I replied, “an American.”
“American.” She pronounced the word, but with an odd accent. Then, with a command I could not misunderstand, she started off and gestured for me to follow. Greatly excited, a little dubious, I did so. A few steps in advance of myself, keeping about a foot above the ground, she walked effortlessly, while I tolled in her wake and perspired under the hot sun. In a few minutes we reached the immense building which I have already mentioned. The roof, of some transparent substance, covered a single floor that was perhaps an acre in extent. In the center of this floor was a massive machine of some sort, with wheels ceaselessly yet silently revolving. What its function was I could not determine. A mechanical contrivance stood to one side of this machine, a robot-like device, gliding to and fro in front of a metal board in which was set a bewildering mass of dials, cogs, and switches. Evidently it was susceptible to certain words of command, for when the woman spoke it changed its occupation abruptly and advanced towards her, bearing an odd looking disc in extended “hands.” In a low tone she spoke rapidly into this disc for perhaps a minute. Then, again commanding the mechanism, which returned to its former occupation, she motioned me to follow her to where stood a vehicle not unlike an automobile. That is, it had a body and four wheels, seats for several people, and a steering gear. But here the resemblance to a motorcar ceased. There was no place for an engine!
The front came up in a sheer curve, like the prow of an ancient galley, extending as a roof over the length of the car. The wheels had perfectly flat exterior rims uncushioned with rubber or any other kind of tires. On those wheels, setting out from the hubs and coming level with that portion of the wheel-rims touching the floor, were large replicas of the same flat devices that adorned the feet of the woman who walked on air. Still obeying my guide, and not without an inward feeling of trepidation, I climbed into this strange automobile, and we were away.
The vehicle ran across the floor and took off from the farthest edge of it, not onto a road or runway, but into space. For a moment I was guilty of clutching at my companion’s arm, so startled was I. Then I saw that we were not falling but running as if down hill. The action wasn’t that of an airplane gliding; it was that of an automobile rolling over an incredibly smooth road. There was a faint hissing sound, the slightest vibration of the seat beneath me; otherwise I could detect no indication of any motor. Set into the prowlike front of the car was a windshield, but even casual inspection showed it to be made of a peculiar glass. In fact I wasn’t at all sure that it was glass as we know it. The instruments set in, the face of a metal strip below the windshield were utterly strange to me.
But it was not chiefly the vehicle nor its manipulation that claimed my attention. For in a few minutes we were in the city itself and rolling along about twenty feet above the ground. Looking downward I could see no roads, no pavement such as we have ribboning our cities. What I had taken from a distance to be vast droves of birds now proved to be people and motor-cars using various levels of the air for their pathways. The sight was uncanny. Nor were there any business or shopping districts to be seen in the city below me. Every building was surrounded by flowers and waving palm trees. The effect was that of a thousand beautiful estates merging one into another without any hedges or dividing lines. Yet, thought I to myself, these people have machines, they wear clothes of a sort. Factories must exist somewhere, and workers. Even this Eden must have a drab industrial quarter, disguise it as the inhabitants may. You see, my mind was really envisioning things as they are in our cities.
The News is Broadcast
BUT the air-vehicle’s flight, which I judged to be at the rate of forty or fifty miles an hour, gave me little leisure to indulge in such thoughts. Besides, from what was undoubtedly a radio receiver in the body of the car a low but distinct voice was continually speaking. Then I discovered that the language, which had sounded familiar, but which I had been unable to understand when my guide addressed me in it, began to be intelligible. I listened attentively to the low, clear voice, grasping the meaning of a phrase here and there, and suddenly enlightment came to me. It was Esperanto[1] that was being spoken, the universal language that a few people are advocating today. For a year or two I had studied it myself and had corresponded with enthusiasts in Europe. That was before my interests veered into other channels. But the fundamentals of the language were still mine. However, this Esperanto to which I was listening had changed somewhat had evolved as was to be expected. But in spite of modifications, additions, strangeness of accent, I began, though with difficulty, to understand most of what was being said.
“Station RI,” said the low, even voice, “reports the discovery of a strangely-clad man in hills back of station.” There was a steady flow of language, the sense of which I could not follow; and then suddenly I heard the following words:
“The stranger is being brought to General Intelligence Division 27 for questioning. Interview will be broadcast visually and orally over—” There was a gap here—“All citizens who desire . . .”
I strained my ears to hear further, for the news being broadcast related to myself. But, at that moment, with a sickening downward rush like that of a fast elevator, the car came to rest within a few inches of a wide lawn surrounding a large building. I had hardly time to notice that mechanical devices were mowing and watering this lawn, seemingly without any human guidance, when my, companion courteously led me through a wide open entrance into the interior of the building. I found myself in an immense room, the complex furnishings of which are beyond my power to describe. Silently, smoothly, what could be nothing less than metal robots glided to and fro, performing strange tasks. I stared at these marvels, fascinated.
There were no windows in the walls of this room, yet everything was bathed in the rays of the afternoon sun. Evidently the wonderful material of which the walls and ceiling were composed was pervious to the rays of light. It glowed, I noticed, with the hue of old rose and faint purple,—a glorious sight,—yet the room was cool. Either its temperature was regulated by some refrigeration device, or the heat rays of the sun were filtered out by the material through which the sunlight passed. Later, I learned that the latter guess was the correct one. It was possible, I discovered, through the control of mild magnetic currents within the stone itself, to shut out the infra-red[2] or heat rays of the sun, or to admit and augment them. But I am going ahead of my story.
IN this vast and utterly strange room (and you can imagine with what amazement I viewed it), were nearly a dozen human beings, clothed in the same fashion as my companion and having the same golden-brown skin. All were heroically built, none of them being under six feet in height, and all of them were women. Yet these women were not awkward, being well proportioned, gloriously so, and beautiful in a fashion that had nothing to do with clothes or make-up. All of them wore their hair cropped short, man-fashion, and there was something dominant and powerful about their faces; something, yes, that came from a feeling of conscious strength and the habit of command. Involuntarily I thought of Amazons, that warlike race of women of whom I had read so much. But if these women were Amazons, they were a highly civilized and advanced variety. What, in this community, was the status of men, I wondered? Men, of course, there must be; but so swift had been our flight through the city, I had failed to note any.
The women were standing by what appeared to be a large flat-topped table. One of them, taller and more majestic even than her sisters, evidently a person in authority, spoke a few words, another pressed a button. Immediately what appeared to be a concave rostrum rolled forward and I was asked to take a seat immediately in front of it. Two metal creatures busied themselves with levers and dials. A large metal mirror set in the face of the flat-topped table suddenly became thronged with reflected images—of houses, people, air-motors, trees and flowers, all very minute, but rapidly growing distinct and clearcut. At first I couldn’t understand the purpose of this mirror. Then suddenly it came to me: this place was undoubtedly a television and radio-broadcasting station. The area to be served with pictures and oral news was being visualized in the mirror. I watched the reflections intently. On an infinitely smaller scale I was seeing the surrounding country, not only of the East Bay but of the Peninsula across the Bay. Not until the pictures were perfectly clear, and a certain radius assured, did the tall majestic woman begin to question me.
At this point let me state that the conversation which follows did not take place with the clarity and directness with which I am going to relate it. Questions and replies had to be repeated over and over again. For the most part I found it easier to understand what was being said to me than to answer. For the sake of brevity, however, I am going to give this, and all other conversations which take place in the story, without further allusion to the difficulties attending them.
“Who are you?” asked the majestic woman.
“My name,” I said, “is Bayers.”
“Bayers?”
“Professor Bayers of the University of California.”
“California,” said the woman slowly. “There is no place by that name in the world today.”
“Perhaps not, today,” I replied, “but in the past. . . .”
“Our history teaches us,” answered the woman, “that in olden times this part of Arcadia was called California.”
“It is from there I come,” I said.
She stared at me silently.
A woman in the background, the one who had conducted me to the place, spoke suddenly.
“But how is that possible?”
“By traveling in time,” I said.
“Time!” echoed one of the women.
“Perhaps,” I said, “you don’t believe that possible.”
An Examination
THE majestic woman rebuked me with a look.
“We have long ago ceased believing anything is impossible.”
Glancing at the intelligent faces around me, I could well credit it. The woman went on:
“We, too, have pondered the possibility of time machines. More than that, we . . . But now we have given up such labors.”
“But why?” I asked.
“Because we want no men from the past entering our country and interfering with the rule of women.”
The rule of women! What I had thought about Amazons came back to me. “You mean—”
“That Arcadia is governed by a matriarchate.”[3]
A matriarchate! I had read Lewis Morgan’s Ancient Society, and Friedrich Engels’ Origin of the State, Private Property, and The Family, but these books touched on matriarchal forms of society of the past, while this was the future. Who was it that said all progress is a spiral, that history undoubtedly repeats itself, but on higher stages or levels? “What date is this?” I asked.
“Since the Change, 1001.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “What do you mean by ‘Since the Change’ ?”
“Why,” replied the majestic woman, “it means that one thousand and one years have passed since we women took over the power.”
“And that-was . . .”
“By the old methods of dating time, A.D. 1998.”
So I had traveled over ten hundred and fifty years into the future!
“In my day,” I said, “the men were the dominant force in society.”
“Yes,” said the woman, “but that was before the Great Conflict.”
I thought at first that she meant the World War of 1938, but she said no, that the Great Conflict took place in 1963.
“It was principally men,” she said, “at the head of nations, who started the ghastly slaughter. For years they had been talking and professing peace, while secretly preparing poison gases and deadly germ bombs. All the ancient countries hated and distrusted one another. France was jealous of England, England of the United States, and the United States made little of England and of Europe. Russia, under the Dictatorship of The Proletariat, talked of universal disarmament, but the criminal chicanery of imperial diplomats, the rival ambitions of at least two great powers to rule the seas, the insane desires to extend spheres of influence over this territory and that, made any real policy of disarmament unpopular.
“Japan wanted a free hand in China and had reason to be afraid of America. Germany was anxious to wipe out the rankling disgrace of an earlier defeat and to punish her victorious enemies. Oh! they were all mad, mad with envy, greed and hatred; and on August 1st, 1963, the storm broke!
“There were no declarations of war. Each group of idiotic statesmen thought they would take their enemies by surprise. Four score planes of the French aerial squadron, each carrying three deadly bombs, one of gas, one of germs, one of explosives, swept across the English Channel on a cloudy night, and a few hours later London, Bristol, Portsmouth and Liverpool lay in ghastly ruins. And while this work of destruction was being perpetrated, swarms of airplanes from the mother ships of Britain’s Atlantic fleet, and from strategic points in Canada, swept in over the seaboard and across the border of the United States, and by morning New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Buffalo, and cities as far west as Detroit and Chicago, were wiped out. Washington, with all the government officials, was one of the first to be destroyed. In almost the same hour that the French air fleet deluged England with a rain of death, a German force of bombers assailed Paris, Marseilles, and countless other cities. Italy showered death on Turkey, and Poland on Russia, Japan raided the Pacific seaboard of the United States, destroying Los Angeles and San Francisco; and American airships visited ruin on the cities of Japan. Oh, the asininity of it! In a few fatal hours the work of the mad, plutocratic statesmen was done. No nation arose to claim the victory over other nations, because the great capitals of the world and the jingo rulers in them had ceased to exist. Millions of people perished from the corroding gases from which no mask could protect them, and from the virulent disease germs loosed by insane governments. All over the world they died, and where they died they rotted.”
CHAPTER III
The Aftermath
I LISTENED to the woman in horror. The events of which she spoke were to take place but thirteen years in the future from the time of my departure in 1960. It was impossible to believe that they could occur.
“But you forget!” I exclaimed. “What of the protection against air-raids, the use of anti-aircraft guns, and other weapons?”
The woman smiled pityingly. “Yes,” she said, “it sounds incredible, but our histories tell us that people actually believed—were persuaded to believe—that such things safeguarded them. Weren’t there, however, even in your day, writers—I believe you called them writers—who showed the inadequacy of such methods of defense?”
There came to my mind the names of various authors who had described the horrors of a war waged from the air, and of an article on that subject by that elderly prophet, Stuart Chase, that I had read in a recent magazine. It almost seemed as if the woman could read my thoughts.
“Yes,” she said, “their gloomiest predictions were verified. Whole governments were wiped out. But that was really a blessing. Corrupt, fossilized in the strata of old traditions, their elimination was a boon to suffering humanity. The pity of it was that man had to pay such a terrible price for his freedom from them. However, in time the people recovered. Pestilence, it is true, swept through the various countries and decimated the inhabitants. But from a thousand cities that had been unharmed by the initial air-raids there radiated forces of succor and upbuilding. Ten, twenty years passed. You will have to listen to a History Record of those ancient times to understand clearly all that transpired. Suffice it to say, that at the cost of losing fully half the world’s population, the people acquired the wisdom to outlaw war. At an international meeting held in Berlin, representatives of the masses pledged themselves to everlasting peace. Exploitation of virgin territory for profit—that insidious source of all past wars—was declared abolished. An international language was adopted as mother tongue of the citizens of the world. It was decided at this first world congress that birth should, from henceforth, be controlled, that an endeavor should be made to limit the supply of food, clothing, and other essentials to the demand, and that the more advanced countries, industrially, should use all their resources to build up and make self-supporting the backward ones. Under this program, negroes desiring to do so, both in America and other parts of the world, were returned to Africa. Those wishing to remain in America, were allowed to stay.
