"And now," said the Professor, "before we go any further there is one
point on which I wish to be assured. You came from the house of MZ04
just now?"
"I did."
"Did you observe in him as he came up to slope from his front-door any
tendency to puff and blow?"
"He certainly did seem slightly short of breath."
"Poor fellow! Poor fellow! It breaks my heart to hear it. I don't give
him another hundred years to live. Sad that so intelligent a being
should be snuffed out like a candle."
The Professor did not look in the least as if it had broken his heart.
So far as I was able to judge he seemed rather pleased than not.
"That being settled," he continued, "I may now devote myself to you. You
made some protests just now, based, as most protests are, on ignorance.
You are not going to be a slave. You may regard me as your host. I shall
treat you as a guest and I shall look upon you as a curiosity. Tell me
at once what I can do for you."
"I want to know where I am. I want to know the history of this
place--the meaning of first-class and second-class beings--how sex came
to be abolished--what is implied by a power of order from the Central
Office. I have been here but a few hours and I find everything puzzling
and incomprehensible."
"This," said the Professor, "is Thule. I cannot give you its exact
geographical relation to the world, for it has no geographical relation.
How do you imagine that you came here?"
I gave him some account of the shipwreck and of my fight with the
sharks, showing him in proof my large clasp-knife, which, together with
my perspective-glass and some other trifles, I had found means to
secrete in the clothing provided for me by my former host.
"I have no doubt," said the Professor, "that you speak with sincerity.
But you are wrong. That is not how you came here. Nor shall I put you in
possession of the actual facts, or you would be able to use them to
ensure your return. You are not a prisoner, but at present I wish to
detain you. And now, if you will, I will give you roughly and in as few
words as possible a sketch of our history and constitution. This being
in the nature of a lecture, I shall lie down. It is the custom in this
country for every lecture or public speech to be delivered in a
recumbent position, the greatest physical ease being consistent with the
greatest mental concentration. Come to the sleeping-room."
He led the way to a room provided with a pneumatic mattress. It was in
all respects the counterpart of the room I had seen at my former host's
house. He stretched himself on this mattress, and as there was plenty of
room I saw no reason why I should not do the same. He noticed it and
approved.
"You are wise," he said. "Your carcass will now cease to attract your
attention and you will be able to attend to me."
He lay on his back with his eyes fixed on the ceiling, and his two long
arms crossed over his protuberant stomach. Presently he began to speak
in a solemn and magisterial voice, as if he were addressing a large
class. I did from time to time interrupt him with question or remark,
but have not thought it worth while to place such interruptions on
record.
"To understand the conditions of Thule at the present day we must go
back to the great social upheaval of centuries ago. At that time the
equality of all men was claimed and the community of property.
Successful agitation backed by armed force carried the matter. Community
of property does to some extent remain to this day, although a more
civilised view of the value of property is now held by us. But within a
very few years of the social upheaval the fallacy of universal equality
declared itself. It is a rare thing for two men to be facially alike,
and no two men are ever equal in all respects. Such inequalities soon
declared themselves. We had on the one side a minority who contributed
more to the State in actual benefit than they received from it, and on
the other side a majority who received more from the State than they
contributed to it. The minority naturally became a discontented class,
and healthy discontent produces activity. The majority, getting more
than they gave, were quite satisfied with the state of affairs. They
babbled of the blessings of an assured democracy. They took no trouble
with themselves. They thought they were at the end of the social
revolution when they were only at the beginning of it.
"The formation of a secret society, including most of the minority, was
the natural result. You must not make the mistake of confusing this
minority with the old aristocracy. The old aristocracy was based on
lineage and wealth. The minority of which I speak was based on mind.
They were the people who could acquire knowledge and could use
knowledge. They included in their number some members of the old upper
classes, but many also of the old lower classes. The aim of the secret
society which they formed was not only the acquisition of knowledge,
principally of a practical character, but also the seclusion of it. The
members were sworn not to impart the secrets of the society to any of
the great but inactive majority. In this secret society we have the
origin of what are now called first-class beings. In the glutted and
lazy democracy who formed the majority we have the origin of what we
call second-class beings--beings who to-day are permitted to acquire no
other knowledge whatever than that which is necessary for the work which
they do under compulsion from us. At this moment by far the greater
number of them are unable to read or to write or to perform the simplest
operations of arithmetic.
"It is of course a commonplace of the text-books that no social
evolution follows exactly on lines laid down and planned. The secret
society, which was known as the Crypt, was formed originally for the
purposes of self-defence. The only means by which a few superior beings
could protect themselves against the aggression of the many inferior was
by the possession of secret knowledge. To take a case in point:
improvements of the first importance in the accumulation and
transmission of electricity were made by a member of the Crypt whose
formula was H401. H401 was called upon to specify and to explain what he
had done. He produced a written statement which was from the first word
to the last abject nonsense veiled in pompous scientific phraseology. It
was accepted as perfectly satisfactory and deposited in the archives.
Every electrician--every man of sufficient education to detect the
fraud--was already a member of the Crypt. With this came the first
inkling of the tremendous power which was now in the hands of
comparatively few men. By the simplest dislocation of machinery they
could deprive the great majority of light and heat, and could, if they
would, choose a severe mid-winter for the operation. Many other secrets
of knowledge came into the hands of the Crypt. I will not weary you with
a catalogue of them, but I will mention one of which our friend MZ04
gave you just now a practical demonstration. I refer to the power to
dissipate and subsequently to reconstruct identically at some different
point the atoms of any organism or group of organisms. You saw just now
how MZ04 dissipated himself as it were into smoke in order to
reconstruct himself instantaneously at the Heat and Light Control, over
which he presides. It is a secret of this kind which makes one being the
master of many armies. This was realised by the Crypt and a course of
offensive action was at last decided upon.
"At this juncture the voice of the Crypt was practically the voice of
that extraordinary and commanding personality Q666--a formula that will
be for ever remembered in our history. He was not a being of high
scientific attainments. His life was irregular. He had neither scruples
nor mercy; but he saw clearly the thing to be attained and the means
towards it. At his instigation the General National Assembly was
declared to be dissolved, and the whole of the second-class beings were
enjoined under penalty of death to yield the strictest obedience to the
orders of the Crypt as issued.
"The proclamation was received with ridicule by the second class.
Democracy had always triumphed and would triumph again. It relied much
upon the fact that the army was entirely democratic. That is to say, no
officer or man was a member of the Crypt. The army was not deficient in
courage. Its officers included even some few men who took their
profession seriously. It was confidently anticipated that after a few
days of civil war the Crypt would be compelled to submit.
"I have said that Q666 was a being without scruple. His declaration was
made in mid-winter and the whole land was ice-bound. And on the night
that followed the declaration heat and light were cut off from the
dwellings and camps of his opponents. Some thousands died that night and
many more in the course of the next few days. The water which they drank
was mysteriously tainted and produced death. Their army found no
objective for attack, so rapidly, by virtue of that power which I have
described, did the members of the Crypt come and go. On the day when the
democracy submitted and received the new constitution by which they
ranked as second-class beings, they had actually become inferior in
numbers to the beings of the first class. The rule which Q666
established remains to this day. Sentimentalists had in the old days
clamoured for the abolition of capital punishment. Q666 abolished every
other kind of punishment except this. The punishment for idleness after
three warnings was death. The punishment for any intentional
disobedience was death without any warning at all.
"I have given you quite roughly and simply with little or no detail the
story of the struggle between the Crypt and the democracy, ending in the
establishment of first-class and second-class beings.
"I have shown how from an attempt to establish universal equality and to
abolish all class distinction there came into being two classes between
which there was a distinct cleavage--a class of masters and a class of
servants. The end of the struggle was only what could have been
expected. While all the harnessed forces of wind and tide provided
radiance and warmth for the members of the Crypt, their opponents froze
in the darkness. The same water that poisoned the democracy that drank
it refreshed the masters without injuring them. The old-fashioned
disciplined stupid army was powerless against opponents whose
mobilisation, swift as lightning, rendered them practically invisible.
There is still much to relate to you, but I grow weary of talking. I
propose to take you to see my plants."
"Got a nice garden?"
"We have no gardens. I keep my plants as pets here in my house. Without
awakening any emotion which might be prejudicial to longevity, they
provide a mild interest and a salutary change from more serious
occupation. Follow me and I will show you them."
He rose from the mattress and I noticed that he did so with more ease
and agility than had characterised the movements of my poor friend MZ04.
I followed him to a room so small that it might almost have been called
a cupboard. It was intensely lit by a tinted electric light. In it were
two tall plants in tubs.
The leaves of the plants were large and of a tropical character. Each
had a stem about three feet in height, surmounted by a ball which looked
as if it were made of fine silk. The colour of the ball or flower in one
case was a peacock-blue and in the other dead black. I noticed a slight
movement of the leaves as we entered the room and assigned it to the
opening of the door.
"The plant with the blue head is Edward," said my host. "He is rather an
affectionate little thing. Observe."
He called Edward twice in a caressing voice, and immediately the stem of
the plant bent downwards and the silky blue ball rubbed itself
caressingly against my host's cheek. Almost immediately the other plant
began to agitate its leaves violently and to waggle its black ball
backwards and forwards.
"You observe?" said my guide. "Frederick is jealous."
He gave each of them a little water and we then went back to the
sleeping-room again.
"I never saw anything like that in my life before," I said. "Plants with
us cannot move of their own volition. They----"
"Surely you mistake," said the Professor. "I am no botanist, but I have
made a special study of what went on in the old world, and I think I am
correct in saying that there were creeping plants there which moved to
find their supports, and plants whose leaves shrivelled up at a touch,
and others that actually devoured the insects which formed their
sustenance. Almost anything can be done with plants and knowledge. The
old world produced many new varieties--some of them of real utility, as
for instance the thornless cactus. We have merely gone a little further.
We live in solitude and a companion of some kind is a necessity. I think
you will find that every first-class being here keeps one or two pet
plants."
"You don't keep dogs or cats?"
"We keep nothing which can be both offensive and provocative of strong
affection. Cats and dogs, common though they were in the old world,
stand condemned under both categories."