Life in the 25th Century
We were delayed in starting for quite a while since I had to acquire a
few crude ideas about the technique of using these belts. I had been
sitting down, for instance, with the belt strapped about me, enjoying an
ease similar to that of a comfortable armchair; when I stood up with a
natural exertion of muscular effort, I shot ten feet into the air, with
a wild instinctive thrashing of arms and legs that amused Wilma greatly.
But after some practice, I began to get the trick of gauging muscular
effort to a minimum of vertical and a maximum of horizontal. The correct
form, I found, was in a measure comparable to that of skating. I found,
also, that in forest work particularly the arms and hands could be used
to great advantage in swinging along from branch to branch, so
prolonging leaps almost indefinitely at times.
In going up the side of the mountain, I found that my 20th Century
muscles did have an advantage, in spite of lack of skill with the belt,
and since the slopes were very sharp, and most of our leaps were upward,
I could have distanced Wilma easily. But when we crossed the ridge and
descended, she outstripped me with her superior technique. Choosing the
steepest slopes, she would crouch in the top of a tree, and propel
herself outward, literally diving until, with the loss of horizontal
momentum, she would assume a more upright position and float downward.
In this manner she would sometimes cover as much as a quarter of a mile
in a single leap, while I leaped and scrambled clumsily behind,
thoroughly enjoying the novel sensation.
Half way down the mountain, we saw another green-clad figure leap out
above the tree tops toward us. The three of us perched on an outcropping
of rock from which a view for many miles around could be had, while
Wilma hastily explained her adventure and my presence to her fellow
guard; whose name was Alan. I learned later that this was the modern
form of Helen.
"You want to report by phone then, don't you?" Alan took a compact
packet about six inches square from a holster attached to her belt and
handed it to Wilma.
So far as I could see, it had no special receiver for the ear. Wilma
merely threw back a lid, as though she were opening a book, and began to
talk. The voice that came back from the machine was as audible as her
own.
She was queried closely as to the attack upon her, and at considerable
length as to myself, and I could tell from the tone of that voice that
its owner was not prepared to take me at my face value as readily as
Wilma had. For that matter, neither was the other girl. I could realize
it from the suspicious glances she threw my way, when she thought my
attention was elsewhere, and the manner in which her hand hovered
constantly near her gun holster.
Wilma was ordered to bring me in at once, and informed that another
scout would take her place on the other side of the mountain. So she
closed down the lid of the phone and handed it back to Alan, who seemed
relieved to see us departing over the tree tops in the direction of the
camps.
We had covered perhaps ten miles, in what still seemed to me a
surprisingly easy fashion, when Wilma explained, that from here on we
would have to keep to the ground. We were nearing the camps, she said,
and there was always the possibility that some small Han scoutship,
invisible high in the sky, might catch sight of us through a
projectoscope and thus find the general location of the camps.
Wilma took me to the Scout office, which proved to be a small building
of irregular shape, conforming to the trees around it, and substantially
constructed of green sheet-like material.
I was received by the assistant Scout Boss, who reported my arrival at
once to the historical office, and to officials he called the Psycho
Boss and the History Boss, who came in a few minutes later. The attitude
of all three men was at first polite but skeptical, and Wilma's ardent
advocacy seemed to amuse them secretly.
For the next two hours I talked, explained and answered questions. I had
to explain, in detail, the manner of my life in the 20th Century and my
understanding of customs, habits, business, science and the history of
that period, and about developments in the centuries that had elapsed.
Had I been in a classroom, I would have come through the examination
with a very poor mark, for I was unable to give any answer to fully half
of their questions. But before long I realized that the majority of
these questions were designed as traps. Objects, of whose purpose I knew
nothing, were casually handed to me, and I was watched keenly as I
handled them.
In the end I could see both amazement and belief begin to show in the
faces of my inquisitors, and at last the Historical and Psycho Bosses
agreed openly that they could find no flaw in my story or reactions, and
that unbelievable as it seemed, my story must be accepted as genuine.
They took me at once to Big Boss Hart. He was a portly man with a "poker
face." He would probably have been the successful politician even in the
20th Century.
They gave him a brief outline of my story and a report of their
examination of me. He made no comment other than to nod his acceptance
of it. Then he turned to me.
"How does it feel?" he asked. "Do we look funny to you?"
"A bit strange," I admitted. "But I'm beginning to lose that dazed
feeling, though I can see I have an awful lot to learn."
"Maybe we can learn some things from you, too," he said. "So you fought
in the First World War. Do you know, we have very little left in the way
of records of the details of that war, that is, the precise conditions
under which it was fought, and the tactics employed. We forgot many
things during the Han terror, and--well, I think you might have a lot of
ideas worth thinking over for our raid masters. By the way, now that
you're here, and can't go back to your own century, so to speak, what do
you want to do? You're welcome to become one of us. Or perhaps you'd
just like to visit with us for a while, and then look around among the
other gangs. Maybe you'd like some of the others better. Don't make up
your mind now. We'll put you down as an exchange for a while. Let's see.
You and Bill Hearn ought to get along well together. He's Camp Boss of
Number 34 when he isn't acting as Raid Boss or Scout Boss. There's a
vacancy in his camp. Stay with him and think things over as long as you
want to. As soon as you make up your mind to anything, let me know."
We all shook hands, for that was one custom that had not died out in
five hundred years, and I set out with Bill Hearn.
Bill, like all the others, was clad in green. He was a big man. That is,
he was about my own height, five feet eleven. This was considerably
above the average now, for the race had lost something in stature, it
seemed, through the vicissitudes of five centuries. Most of the women
were a bit below five feet, and the men only a trifle above this height.
For a period of two weeks Bill was to confine himself to camp duties, so
I had a good chance to familiarize myself with the community life. It
was not easy. There were so many marvels to absorb. I never ceased to
wonder at the strange combination of rustic social life and feverish
industrial activity. At least, it was strange to me. For in my
experience, industrial development meant crowded cities, tenements,
paved streets, profusion of vehicles, noise, hurrying men and women with
strained or dull faces, vast structures and ornate public works.
Here, however, was rustic simplicity, apparently isolated families and
groups, living in the heart of the forest, with a quarter of a mile or
more between households, a total absence of crowds, no means of
conveyance other than the belts called jumpers, almost constantly worn
by everybody, and an occasional rocket ship, used only for longer
journeys, and underground plants or factories that were to my mind more
like laboratories and engine rooms; many of them were excavations as
deep as mines, with well finished, lighted and comfortable interiors.
These people were adepts at camouflage against air observation. Not only
would their activity have been unsuspected by an airship passing over
the center of the community, but even by an enemy who might happen to
drop through the screen of the upper branches to the floor of the
forest. The camps, or household structures, were all irregular in shape
and of colors that blended with the great trees among which they were
hidden.
There were 724 dwellings or "camps" among the Wyomings, located within
an area of about fifteen square miles. The total population was 8,688,
every man, woman and child, whether member or "exchange," being listed.
The plants were widely scattered through the territory also. Nowhere was
anything like congestion permitted. So far as possible, families and
individuals were assigned to living quarters, not too far from the
plants or offices in which their work lay.
All able-bodied men and women alternated in two-week periods between
military and industrial service, except those who were needed for
household work. Since working conditions in the plants and offices were
ideal, and everybody thus had plenty of healthy outdoor activity in
addition, the population was sturdy and active. Laziness was regarded as
nearly the greatest of social offenses. Hard work and general merit were
variously rewarded with extra privileges, advancement to positions of
authority, and with various items of personal equipment for convenience
and luxury.
In leisure moments, I got great enjoyment from sitting outside the
dwelling in which I was quartered with Bill Hearn and ten other men,
watching the occasional passers-by, as with leisurely, but swift
movements, they swung up and down the forest trail, rising from the
ground in long almost-horizontal leaps, occasionally swinging from one
convenient branch overhead to another before "sliding" back to the
ground farther on. Normal traveling pace, where these trails were
straight enough, was about twenty miles an hour. Such things as
automobiles and railroad trains (the memory of them not more than a
month old in my mind) seemed inexpressibly silly and futile compared
with such convenience as these belts or jumpers offered.
Bill suggested that I wander around for several days, from plant to
plant, to observe and study what I could. The entire community had been
apprised of my coming, my rating as an "exchange" reaching every
building and post in the community, by means of ultronic broadcast.
Everywhere I was welcomed in an interested and helpful spirit.
I visited the plants where ultronic vibrations were isolated from the
ether and through slow processes built up into sub-electronic,
electronic and atomic forms into the two great synthetic elements,
ultron and inertron. I learned something, superficially at least, of the
processes of combined chemical and mechanical action through which were
produced the various forms of synthetic cloth. I watched the manufacture
of the machines which were used at locations of construction to produce
the various forms of building materials. But I was particularly
interested in the munitions plants and the rocket-ship shops.
Ultron is a solid of great molecular density and moderate elasticity,
which has the property of being 100 percent conductive to those
pulsations known as light, electricity and heat. Since it is completely
permeable to light vibrations, it is therefore _absolutely invisible and
non-reflective_. Its magnetic response is almost, but not quite, 100
percent also. It is therefore very heavy under normal conditions but
extremely responsive to the _repellor_ or anti-gravity rays, such as the
Hans use as "_legs_" for their airships.
Inertron is the second great triumph of American research and
experimentation with ultronic forces. It was developed just a few years
before my awakening in the abandoned mine. It is a synthetic element,
built up, through a complicated heterodyning of ultronic pulsations,
from "infra-balanced" sub-ionic forms. It is completely inert to both
electric and magnetic forces in all the orders above the _ultronic_;
that is to say, the _sub-electronic_, the _electronic_, the _atomic_ and
the _molecular_. In consequence it has a number of amazing and
valuable properties. One of these is _the total lack of weight_. Another
is a total lack of heat. It has no molecular vibration whatever. It
reflects 100 percent of the heat and light impinging upon it. It does
not feel cold to the touch, of course, since it will not absorb the heat
of the hand. It is a solid, very dense in molecular structure despite
its lack of weight, of great strength and considerable elasticity. It is
a perfect shield against the disintegrator rays.
[Illustration: Setting his rocket gun for a long-distance shot.]
Rocket guns are very simple contrivances so far as the mechanism of
launching the bullet is concerned. They are simple light tubes, closed
at the rear end, with a trigger-actuated pin for piercing the thin skin
at the base of the cartridge. This piercing of the skin starts the
chemical and atomic reaction. The entire cartridge leaves the tube under
its own power, at a very easy initial velocity, just enough to insure
accuracy of aim; so the tube does not have to be of heavy construction.
The bullet increases in velocity as it goes. It may be solid or
explosive. It may explode on contact or on time, or a combination of
these two.
Bill and I talked mostly of weapons, military tactics and strategy.
Strangely enough he had no idea whatever of the possibilities of the
barrage, though the tremendous effect of a "curtain of fire" with such
high-explosive projectiles as these modern rocket guns used was obvious
to me. But the barrage idea, it seemed, has been lost track of
completely in the air wars that followed the First World War, and in the
peculiar guerilla tactics developed by Americans in the later period of
operations from the ground against Han airships, and in the gang wars
which, until a few generations ago I learned, had been almost
continuous.
"I wonder," said Bill one day, "if we couldn't work up some form of
barrage to spring on the Bad Bloods. The Big Boss told me today that
he's been in communication with the other gangs, and all are agreed that
the Bad Bloods might as well be wiped out for good. That attempt on
Wilma Deering's life and their evident desire to make trouble among the
gangs, has stirred up every community east of the Alleghenies. The Boss
says that none of the others will object if we go after them. So I
imagine that before long we will. Now show me again how you worked that
business in the Argonne forest. The conditions ought to be pretty much
the same."
I went over it with him in detail, and gradually we worked out a
modified plan that would be better adapted to our more powerful weapons,
and the use of jumpers.
"It will be easy," Bill exulted. "I'll slide down and talk it over with
the Boss tomorrow."
During the first two weeks of my stay with the Wyomings, Wilma Deering
and I saw a great deal of each other. I naturally felt a little closer
friendship for her, in view of the fact that she was the first human
being I saw after waking from my long sleep; her appreciation of my
saving her life, though I could not have done otherwise than I did in
that matter, and most of all my own appreciation of the fact that she
had not found it as difficult as the others to believe my story,
operated in the same direction. I could easily imagine my story must
have sounded incredible.
It was natural enough too, that she should feel an unusual interest in
me. In the first place, I was her personal discovery. In the second, she
was a girl of studious and reflective turn of mind. She never got tired
of my stories and descriptions of the 20th Century.
The others of the community, however, seemed to find our friendship a
bit amusing. It seemed that Wilma had a reputation for being cold toward
the opposite sex, and so others, not being able to appreciate some of
her fine qualities as I did, misinterpreted her attitude, much to their
own delight. Wilma and I, however, ignored this as much as we could.