Time Travel Omnibus, page 123
“Why not?” I said, a little defensively. “Only the accident of my recognizing you prevented me from . . .”
“Leaping for the lever,” she smiled, “as doubtless you planned to do. Well, Bayers, I would have just stamped on this raised tile—so—and the lever would automatically have locked; and then—watch what would have happened.” She stamped as she spoke. The huge mechanical swung from the wall with inconceivable rapidity. From the lawn outside came the sudden shrill whistling of machines, the clang of metal falling. The wide-open entrance closed shut. She and I were alone in the central control room. Editha smiled slowly at my wide-eyed astonishment.
“The men,” she remarked, “don’t know as much of this place as they imagine they do. We see that all their information is—false. It takes quite another method to unlock the switch, return the mechanical, and open the doors again. You are a prisoner. My prisoner,” she said, softly.
“And what is to be my punishment?” I asked, trying to speak lightly. She did not answer that question, putting one of her own.
“Are all men of 1950 as tall as you?”
“Not all,” I answered.
“The men of today are so puny.”
“It puzzles me to account for it,” I remarked.
“I suppose they are just naturally smaller and weaker than women.”
“How does it happen, then, that in my day men were, on the whole, stronger physically, and taller?”
“I can hardly credit that.”
“It is true, nevertheless.
“But I have been taught . . . that is, I always understood men were inferior to us by nature.”
SHE shook her head in perplexity. “It’s nice, though, to see a man as tall as one’s self. The other men have bored me so! You’re as tall as I, aren’t you? But are you as strong? Let me see.”
She took hold of me, as she spoke, with her strong young arms and began to wrestle. The touch of her hands, the contact of her body with mine, ran through me like electricity. But I soon found that no spirit of play or flirtation animated Editha. She was like an aroused Amazon. Her eyes blazed with the light of battle, her face tensed. The breath came quickly through her tightly shut white teeth. At first I tried to be on the defensive only, but before I knew it I was fighting back with every atom of my strength. It didn’t take thirty seconds to make me realize here was no ordinary woman.
As you know, I am a heavy-weight amateur wrestler of some note. Three years ago it was even said I could give the champion his congé if I turned professional. In my day I’ve pitted myself against many strong men; but I can truthfully say I met none stronger or harder to handle than this beautiful woman of Arcadia. Her muscles writhed like whipcord. They tensed under my grip like iron bands. Not only her muscles, but her flesh was hard like iron, or smooth ivory. Twice she threw me to the floor, but each time I was on my feet again before she could make good her advantage. Once we met in headlong rush, and it was I who went back from the collision, almost bowled over. By this time every idea of chivalry to a weaker sex had been battered out of my head. Literally, I was fighting to save myself from ignominious defeat. The woman was more powerful, proving herself more than my match.
We met in a deadly embrace, and she wrapped her arms around me and squeezed. I felt my senses swimming, my ribs caving in under the awful pressure. Back I went—back. At that crucial moment I recollected a trick Hashiro, the Jap wrestler, had taught me. There was a nerve just above the small of the back that if a thumb pressed . . . Wildly, almost gone, I found the spot and with the remnants of my failing strength bored. Under my fainting grasp I could feel the spasmodic quiver of her lithe body. The grip of her arms relaxed. But I had no mercy. I had been too near the ignominy of defeat to feel anything but an exultant thrill of victory. Up I straightened, up, and it was she who now went back. The pressure on the nerve must have been excruciating and paralyzing, but like the born fighter she was, Editha fought against submission to the last. But fight as she would the end was now inevitable. Yet though her breath came in agonized gasps, her eyes glared untamed into my own. Over I bent her, over, until she sank nervelessly to the floor.
Then seeing her there, stretched helplessly beneath me, I remembered again she was a woman, and a thing to be desired. Perhaps the feel of her warm arms, the contact of her body with my own, had subconsciously wakened in me all the male in a man. However that may be, I suddenly leaned over and . . .
“Don’t you dare!” she gasped. “Don’t you dare!”
But in spite of her struggles I pressed my burning lips on hers. So we lay for a breathless moment, her body like tensed steel. Then suddenly with a little sob she went limp. Two arms came up around my neck. The blood sang wildly in my ears as my kisses were returned!
SO began my romance with Editha. The possession of her love was a wonderful, a glorious thing; and yet had I known what my fate was to be, I would have . . . But would I? The heart of a man is a curious thing. But I didn’t know. Nothing warned me. So I went blindly on.
After that night I saw nothing more of Manuel or of any other member of the League for Masculine Equality. And, truthfully, I did not care. I consoled myself with the fact that I had betrayed no one. The plan had gone awry, that was all, and any further attempt on the part of the men to capture the central control station would equally miscarry. In mentioning the revolutionists, Editha only said: “You needn’t say a word, but I know Manuel is in this movement and that Val is a leader. Someday, of course, we shall have to deal with them drastically.”
“Imprison them?” I queried.
“Oh, no. There are no prisons in Arcadia.”
“You don’t mean—kill them?”
“Of course not! Won’t you realize that we have left the dark ages behind? Life is sacred with us.”
“Well, then,” I said, “I don’t see what it is you do.”
“We remove subversive ideas from their heads by means of the dememorizing principle, and replace them with contented, placid ones. The effect usually wears off in time, in the case of really strong minds; but with the average person the cure is permanent. Val has been treated twice already.”
The dememorizing principle, I discovered, was that of an electro-hypnotism[5] exercised on the individual through the medium of the machine. Soon afterwards I saw one, a hideous mechanical, whose staring eye focussed a red ray on those of the patient. There was a musical device, too, and subtle vibrations which rocked the body into quiescence. But more of this anon.
It was from Editha I learned something of the cultural side of life in Arcadia. To a question of mine she replied, “Of course we have great writers and poets and actors. Would you like to have Meta read?”
“Meta?”
“Yes, the outstanding novelist of today.”
I nodded.
“Very well, what reader do you prefer?”
“What is a reader?”
“Oh, I forgot. You don’t understand, of course. But just as in your time songs might be sung or poems recited by different individuals, so we have our novels read. Some readers are better liked than others. A certain reader can do better with philosophy, say, than with fiction. People also have different tastes regarding them. A good reader can often make a success of a poor novel or poem.”
“But don’t you read for yourselves any more?”
“Very seldom. Only those of us who are scholars and who delve into that sort of thing. Reading and writing in your sense of the words have really gone out of fashion. A poet or writer, any creative artist, dictates to a recording machine, the recording plate is slowed up for the benefit of the reader, who learns from it each chapter by heart and then in turn reads it to another permanent record. This record is then placed in a disk in the broadcasting department library and can always be played for you on request, if no one else is listening to it. Just watch me, now.”
CHAPTER VI
Some Entertainment
SHE manipulated various dials and devices inset in the wall. A metallic voice said: “LF, section ten.”
“Meta, by Elinor,” said Editha.
“That means,” she explained in an aside, “that I am willing to listen to any of Meta’s novels read by Elinor.”
“Who was it that answered?” I asked, curiously.
“A mechanical,” answered Editha. “All routine jobs like that are done by mechanicals.”
A sweet, penetrating voice filled the room. The “reader” told us a romantic story—an old-fashioned romance, she termed it, yet I gathered that the scenes were set in the period immediately following the women’s rise to power. Much was strange and practically unintelligible to me, yet that the story was what we call “well and powerfully written,” could not be gainsaid. And the reading of it was superb. It was not only reading, but, in its way, inimitable acting, though the voice of the reader alone registered. Yet that voice could run all the gamut of emotions. Without losing a certain basic and enthralling feminine quality, it nevertheless changed with the speaking of every character; and even with the delineation of character and the description of scenery, the voice subtly and magnetically varied; and in its varying timbre one could almost see the various persons, the scenes so graphically depicted. To such great heights had the Arcadians carried the art of reading.
An hour passed like a minute. Finally the voice ceased. After a while Editha asked: “Perhaps you’d like to see a play—by some ancient playwright of your day?”
She readjusted the dials, turned a crank, spoke rapidly, and a section of the wall slid up and revealed a stage quite in the old manner. It was but the counterpart of a stage, televisioned on a blank wall, as a projecting camera might show a moving picture; it was three-dimensional in character, with the settings and the costumes of the actors naturally colored. The play was Shakespeare’s King John, and never had I seen the old tragedy acted better. The poignant scene where Hubert comes to burn out the little prince’s eyes and Arthur pleads for his sight, the pathetic plea of the Lady Constance at the tent of King Philip of France, brought tears to my eyes. Finally the little prince died on the cruel stones, the lords entered and accused Hubert; King John denounced his henchman and protested his own innocence; the last scene faded. Editha rested in my arms and now and then stroked my cheek with her soft hand.
“It’s only a play,” she said.
“But a play founded on bitter truth,” I replied.
I told her something of early English history; of the kings and the barons; of the cruel intrigues of both and their murderous rises and falls to and from power. She was surprised, having thought Shakespeare’s plays imaginative works only. English history prior to 1900 A.D. was practically unknown. From such talk we drifted to a discussion of her own times.
“Those actors,” I said after a while, “were all women. Even the readers you mention are feminine. Are there no men poets, actors, writers, or reciters?”
“Oh, yes,” she said, “there are some very good ones, but not so many as there are women. The men are not talented generally.”
I made no comment. “Even Shakespeare was a woman,” she remarked.
“But he wasn’t,” I burst out, astonished.
“Oh, yes, we have an authentic bust of her in the Pantheon of Fame.”
I LATER saw this bust. It was that of a noble-looking woman done in marble. On its time-worn base, in faint letters, was undeniably chiseled the name “Shakespeare.” Whom it really represented, and how it had come to be passed off as the head of the great English dramatist, must forever remain a mystery. But I could not help suspecting a conspiracy on the part of the women to steal celebrities of the past for their own sex when I discovered that Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Carl Sandburg, Robinson Jeffers and others had also been labeled as women, though in most of these cases the busts had once been genuine enough, a skillful chisel having merely smoothed their features into a more feminine mold. However, such stealing and fraudulent misrepresentation had evidently been accomplished in the early days of Arcadia, centuries before Editha’s time, and she had no suspicion of the truth. In fact, when I sought to enlighten her regarding the matter, she suspected me of lying for the purpose of glorifying the men, so I gave up; it was a hopeless job.
I learned that ordinary books and plays of some months’ standing could always be seen or listened to In the home, but that special or recently turned out features were first given in theatres. One could always go there for a premier rendition, and those occasions were looked forward to as great social events.
In Arcadia, I discovered, great artists were not rewarded in a monetary fashion (in fact the Arcadians possessed no monetary system), but all over the community stood the statues of inventors, writers, actors and the like. The really famous personages were depicted everywhere and buildings were named in their honor. Crowds flocked to pay homage to them whenever they appeared in public. Thousands of admirers showered them with spontaneous gifts and applause. Only the most famous, however, could ever expect to have their statues and pictures in the Pantheon of Fame, in the company of the fabled geniuses of the past, or to be decorated with a garland of roses by the Mothers. Naturally, competition for those honors was very keen.
Men and women toiled long and weary hours, through tedious months and even years, to perfect a picture, an idea, a story, with which to win public acclaim. To be the idol of a whole country, lionized, looked up to—was not that enough incentive for one’s ambition? I began to question whether our own idea that men must be spurred to the heights by money was not false at bottom. But to proceed with my story.
In spite of the status of men in Arcadia I was overwhelmingly happy. Yet even in my happiness I knew moments of doubt. Editha could be likened to a beautiful tigress chafing at the bonds of affection. Mixed with her passionate love for me was a subtle antagonism, even a hatred, that could express itself in sudden gusts of anger. She was like a truckling boy one has conquered, who nevertheless returns again and again to the attack. Often she would throw her arms around me in caress, hugging, kissing, and just as suddenly rush at me to subdue me physically. Save for the utilizing of the jiu-jitsu trick I was no match for her strength. So I did not always try to fight back. More often I allowed myself to go passive in her arms, to smile tolerantly in her scowling face. This form of tactics baffled her.
“Ha!” she’d taunt me, “you’re like all the men—afraid to fight back!”
“Why should I,” I countered easily. “Haven’t I proved myself the better already? Besides, we men of the twentieth century don’t fight with girls—they’re too weak.”
On Raising Children
“WEAK!” she would cry furiously. “Weak!” and whirl me up in her strong arms. But sometimes it was I who would take her by surprise, deliberately, cruelly, pressing on the paralyzing nerve and bending her back, back, under my ferocious glare, until her tensed body went limp.
I am prone to tell the story as if we lived in and by ourselves alone, but this was not so. All around us the swirling life of a great city went on. Editha took me to see the children. I had wondered where the young were. They were raised in great nurseries, boys and girls, without any attempt to separate the sexes. I had expected to see babies; but the absence of any children under five or six caused me to inquire where the infants were. Editha smiled, as did the women with her. “Oh, children are not delivered from the ecto-genetic incubators until their growth is well along. The Mothers used to bear them in their bodies nine months. But the machine is capable of bearing them much longer than that, years if necessary, so why not safeguard them against children’s diseases and ailments, and all sorts of bad environmental influences by keeping them in the container until they are five or six?”
“You mean,” I asked in amazement, “that those tots aren’t born until that age?”
“Yes.”
“But isn’t it awkward to handle them so big? To teach them to feed and talk and form other habits?”
“Why should it be? In fact they learn much more rapidly. However, there is a conditioning chamber where the new-born child is placed in special contrivances and taught its first social habits.”
I meditated on such surprising information.
“But,” I exclaimed, “you bring the young up in huge nurseries, without individual mothering. Now our scientists have proved that children do not thrive in an institution, away from the individual care and love of their parents.”
Editha smiled tolerantly. “Well, in the first place,” she answered, “your scientists were thinking of infants of nine months, just born, or those under two years of age. Again, if I am not mistaken, your statistics were compiled from the showing of institutions where the nurses who did the mothering were often doing it merely for a living and not from an interest in the children. Believe me, that makes a big difference; a pyschic difference. Besides, the institutions of your day were very crude and inadequate, and the statistics based on them consequently faulty. Now with us, even when children were born from the incubators at nine months, only women psychologically capable of mothering them and giving babies the genuine affection they must have were allowed the care of them. Besides being good for the children this provided an outlet for the maternal instinct of those women who still desired intimate contact with offspring. There were fewer of them,” she said drily, “than you might imagine.”
“Look at them,” remarked another woman; “don’t they seem absolutely healthy and happy?”
AND in very truth they did. The children romped about entirely naked. There were swimming pools and instructors, and a variety of devices strange to me. We went into the reading room. Here stories and poems of imaginative character were read to the children. In another department, history, science and philosophy could be heard. The themes of the stories and the lectures on the various subjects were often interestingly Illustrated. Thus I saw early Arcadian history being read, while the incidents described were depicted on a three-dimensional screen. The two were synchronized (the reader and the picture) so that there was no break in the narrative nor hiatus in the action. So it was with all that was being taught the young. I found the schools absorbingly interesting.
