MECHANA
The next afternoon the Sorcerer told Raphael and Cassandra that he
would show them the wonders of his city.
‘Then you will observe,’ he said pleasantly, ‘how much more cheaply we
can live than man. When you have seen my wonderful mechanicos, you will
never want to return to Uniontown.’
They left the tower and walked slowly through the city. Cassandra
skipped gayly along beside Raphael, who tried to keep step with
Mechanus. They soon became accustomed to the noise of the automobiles
and trucks which rushed up and down the streets, the screaming brake
bands, and the racing motors. With the high buildings leaning above
them, it was like walking in the bottom of a deep river canyon.
At last they came to a skyscraper, taller than the rest, which had
carved in stone over its mammoth doors, _Big Business Building_. Into
this the Sorcerer turned followed by Raphael and Cassandra. The great
marble hallway was decorated with colored pictures of lumps of coal and
tins of oil, while over the elevator shafts which faced the door there
hung a life-size portrait of the Sorcerer himself done in oils. They
walked to one of the elevators and stepped in. A mechanico sat on a
stool in one corner, his hand on the starting lever.
‘Go-Getter or Will-to-Power, sales or production?’ he asked.
‘What does that mean?’ asked Raphael.
‘The Executive Offices,’ commanded the Sorcerer. Then he explained to
Raphael that Mechanico Limited was divided into two large groups, those
that manufactured and those that sold what was manufactured, Go-Getters
sold and Will-to-Powers produced.
‘Oh,’ said Raphael. Cassandra did not bother to listen.
[Illustration: CASSANDRA SKIPPED GAYLY ALONG BESIDE RAPHAEL WHO TRIED
TO KEEP STEP WITH MECHANUS]
In the meantime the elevator flew to the top of the building thirty
stories high and returned twenty-nine. The elevator man opened the
door and pointed to the right, ‘First door on your left.’
They stepped out. Before them stretched a corridor of doors with
pearl-gray glass panels which bore the words _Millions Ltd_ in raised
gilt letters, while below it was traced the slogan, _The Go-Getter
Gets_. Raphael wondered what the Go-Getter got, but the Sorcerer had
opened the door and they walked in.
As they entered, a hundred mechanical clerks seated before a hundred
flat-topped desks whirled in a hundred revolving chairs and stared at
them and then whirled back again. Goodness, thought Raphael, they must
do a lot of business. For on each desk were ten shiny black telephones.
‘Wait here a moment,’ said the Sorcerer, and disappeared behind a door
marked _Private_.
‘Please,’ said Raphael to one of the nearest clerks, ‘what are you
doing?’
‘I’m figuring production and sales.’
‘Production of what?’
‘Why, mechanicos, of course.’
‘Are you a Will-to-Power?’
‘No. I’m the sales department.’
‘Then you’re a Go-Getter.’
‘The Go-Getter gets,’ began the figure automatically. ‘He increases his
personal efficiency. No man is bigger and better than his sales. That’s
what keeps me busy--bigger and better.’ And he continued cranking the
adding machine in front of him.
Just then the Sorcerer beckoned to them from a door in the wall. There
were three doors lettered _Very Private_, _Really Very Private_, and
_Not So Very Private_. Through this last one they followed Mechanus.
‘Raphael and Cassandra, these are the Executives. They plan the work
and are responsible for its success.’
At this ten mechanicos with immense bulging foreheads rose and bowed.
‘Pleased to see you,’ they said with one voice. ‘Pleased indeed.’
‘Gentlemen,’ went on the Sorcerer, ‘here are the children I have spoken
about. They are young and fairly adaptable. Study them. Our working
mechanicos can be improved. For instance, these children feel pain. It
is a wise provision of nature. If our mechanicos felt pain they would
do themselves less injury, and there would be less work for the repair
shop. A repair shop is a sign of inefficiency.
‘Gentlemen, I repeat that much may be learned from this boy and girl.’
‘If only,’ breathed an Executive softly, ‘mechanicos could create other
mechanicos as the animals give birth to other animals, it would save a
great deal of raw material.’
‘Some day, perhaps, we may manage that,’ answered the Sorcerer
casually. Then he turned to the children. ‘Come on, Raphael and
Cassandra, I want to show you the rest of the city before dark.’
They all bowed politely to one another.
Mechanus, Raphael, and Cassandra left _Big Business Building_ and took
a taxicab for the outskirts of the city. While they were being jerked
along at a tremendous speed, Raphael asked the Sorcerer if they made
any child mechanicos.
‘Goodness, no,’ answered Mechanus. ‘Childhood is nothing but waste. A
child mechanico could not do the work of a man, and he would drink
almost as much oil.’
‘Don’t mechanicos have any fun at all?’
‘A mechanico,’ said Mechanus, ‘doesn’t know what fun is.’
‘I’m glad I’m not a mechanico,’ said Cassandra.
‘Are you, my dear?’ said Mechanus and gave her a queer look.
The taxicab stopped with a jerk outside of a huge factory of concrete
and glass on the side of which was painted in gold letters, _Mechanico
Mammoth Machine Works_. The Sorcerer opened a side door and Raphael and
Cassandra followed him inside. As the door shut behind them the roar of
machinery sounded like an angry waterfall.
‘Wait a moment here,’ said the Sorcerer, ‘while I look for the
Superintendent. You may go through that door there, if you want to.’
And he pointed to a steel door on which was painted, _For Employees
Only_.
Raphael and Cassandra went and peeked through. As they opened the door
the noise of revolving machinery became louder, almost deafening them.
Inside at a work bench stood two mechanicos adjusting artificial arms
and hands.
‘If you don’t produce better goods, twenty thousand fifty-one, the
Master will take you apart,’ one was saying to the other. ‘The last lot
were a little stiff at the elbow.’
Raphael could not imagine what they were talking about.
‘Well, it isn’t my fault, two thousand fifty-six. The Master ordered
clerks and I gave him clerks. Then what do you suppose he did? Slapped
those arms right onto workers. Of course, they couldn’t stand the
strain. They weren’t built for it.’
‘Well, you want to watch out or you will land in the repair shop.’
The men continued passing metal arms onto a moving band that ran slowly
by. Raphael suddenly realized that they were making parts to mechanical
men. The men were made and put together like automobiles.
‘It’s curious,’ twenty thousand fifty-one went on, ‘how sometimes
things seem to go wrong. I remember a painter who took to putting spots
on a building when he should have been painting stripes. He said it
looked prettier that way, and called it art or something. Of course
the Master took him apart. Sent his head back to the factory with a
complaint. They fixed it, and now that fellow paints as good stripes as
any one. Three thousand and seven, I think his number was.’
Just then the Sorcerer appeared and motioned Raphael and Cassandra to
follow him. They walked down a long corridor, following the belt, on
which lay thousands of arms. As they drew near the end of the concrete
passageway, the noise of moving wheels and pounding hammers grew
deafening.
‘What do you think of this?’ shouted the Sorcerer as they entered a
huge room covered with a dirty glass roof.
Raphael, holding Cassandra’s hand, stared in wonder at the broad belts
which passed endlessly along, and at the great wheels that revolved
in this gloomy cavern. Hundreds of mechanicos bent over complicated
machinery. Daylight filtered dimly through the glass roof and windows,
and was made more hideous by electric lights, which shone hard and
blue over the moving chaos.
[Illustration: THE THING CAME SUDDENLY TO LIFE MARCHING OFF IN COMPANY
WITH FIFTY OTHERS]
As he grew used to the seeming disorder, Raphael saw that heads, legs,
bodies, and arms were being brought by lesser belts to a great central
one, where workmen were busy putting the pieces together.
‘We can make ten thousand mechanicos a day in this one room alone,’
shouted the Sorcerer, ‘and there are a hundred rooms bigger than this
within the city.’
It reminded Raphael of an automobile factory he had seen in Uniontown.
When the parts were all assembled, numbers were engraved on the back of
each figure and a letter indicating the type of work the mechanico was
suited for. Then the lifeless body was encased in a gray uniform and
stood on its feet. Other mechanicos poured oil down its throat, shook
it violently, and the thing came suddenly to life, marching off in
company with fifty others to take up the burden of work. Over all these
Mechanus was master.
‘Come,’ said Mechanus, ‘I have something more to show you.’ Again
Raphael and Cassandra followed him from the room down a corridor lit by
electric lights.
‘Do mechanicos ever die?’ asked Raphael in the comparative quiet.
‘No,’ said Mechanus. ‘But every mechanico has so many motions he can
make and no more. Then he has to go to the repair shop and be remade.
If there is a mistake in his assembly, then he may have to go sooner.’
They came in a few moments to an unlit passageway which branched off at
right angles.
‘What is down there?’ asked Raphael.
‘That is the repair shop,’ said the Sorcerer.
‘Oh,’ said Cassandra, ‘I don’t want to go there.’
It looked very dark down that corridor.
They walked on about a hundred yards to a door which the Sorcerer
unlocked. When they stepped inside, they were in a gigantic warehouse
full of metal cylinders and complicated electrical machines. The
Sorcerer stopped, and they stood looking about them.
‘What are these things?’ asked Raphael.
‘These,’ said the Sorcerer proudly, ‘are what I particularly wished to
show you. They are poison gas and death-ray machines.’
‘Oh,’ said Raphael, awed.
‘I have here,’ went on the Sorcerer, ‘enough gas and sufficiently
powerful death-ray machines to destroy all the living things on this
earth. A man invented me. I have invented these. The time is close at
hand. Already I have fifty million mechanicos to people the earth, when
every living thing is gone.’
‘Then what do you want Cassie and me for?’ asked Raphael, frightened by
the terrible seriousness of the Sorcerer.
Mechanus smiled. ‘There are still a few imperfections in our
mechanicos. There are certain qualities possessed by man with which we
wish to equip our mechanical men. When we kill the living, we shall
lose our useful models unless precautions are taken. This is the reason
I stole your sister--to study her. This is also why I haven’t killed
you. You have been a nuisance, but now I think I have rather clipped
your wings, eh?’
Raphael shuddered. Mechanus would wipe out every living thing: Aunt
Mary, Uniontown, the animals. Cassandra began to cry.
‘You had better join me and the mechanicos,’ said the Sorcerer slowly.
‘Together we shall rule the world.’
[Illustration]