Читать книгу The Ray Cummings MEGAPACK ®: 25 Golden Age Science Fiction and Mystery Tales - Ray Cummings - Страница 22

CHAPTER 20

THE WORLD OF THE RING

Next morning after breakfast the four men sat upon the balcony overlooking the lake, and prepared to hear the Chemist’s narrative of what had happened since he left them five years before. They had already told him of events in their world, the making of the chemicals and their journey down into the ring, and now they were ready to hear his story.

At their ease here upon the balcony, reclining in long wicker chairs of the Chemist’s own design, as he proudly admitted, they felt at peace with themselves and the world. Below them lay the shining lake, above spread a clear, star-studded sky. Against their faces blew the cool breath of a gentle summer’s breeze.

As they sat silent for a moment, enjoying almost with awe the beauties of the scene, and listening to the soft voice of Lylda singing to herself in the garden, the Very Young Man suddenly thought of the one thing lacking to make his enjoyment perfect.

“I wish I had a cigarette,” he remarked wistfully.

The Chemist with a smile produced cigars of a leaf that proved a very good substitute for tobacco. They lighted them with a tiny metal lighter of the flint-and-steel variety, filled with a fluffy inflammable wick—a contrivance of the Chemist’s own making—and then he started his narrative.

“There is much to tell you, my friends,” he began thoughtfully. “Much that will interest you, shall we say from a socialistic standpoint? I shall make it brief, for we have no time to sit idly talking.

“I must tell you now, gentlemen, of what I think you have so far not even had a hint. You have found me living here,” he hesitated and smiled, “well at least under pleasant and happy circumstances. Yet as a matter of fact, your coming was of vital importance, not only to me and my family, but probably to the future welfare of the entire Oroid nation.

“We are approaching a crisis here with which I must confess I have felt myself unable to cope. With your help, more especially with the power of the chemicals you have brought with you, it may be possible for us to deal successfully with the conditions facing us.”

“What are they?” asked the Very Young Man eagerly.

“Perhaps it would be better for me to tell you chronologically the events as they have occurred. As you remember when I left you twelve years ago—”

“Five years,” interrupted the Very Young Man.

“Five or twelve, as you please,” said the Chemist smiling. “It was my intention then, as you know, to come back to you after a comparatively short stay here.”

“And bring Mrs.—er—Lylda, with you,” put in the Very Young Man, hesitating in confusion over the Christian name.

“And bring Lylda with me,” finished the Chemist. “I got back here without much difficulty, and in a very much shorter time and with less effort than on my first trip. I tried an entirely different method; I stayed as large as possible while descending, and diminished my size materially only after I had reached the bottom.”

“I told you—” said the Big Business Man.

“It was a dangerous method of procedure, but I made it successfully without mishap.

“Lylda and I were married in native fashion shortly after I reached Arite.”

“How was that; what fashion?” the Very Young Man wanted to know, but the Chemist went on.

“It was my intention to stay here only a few weeks and then return with Lylda. She was willing to follow me anywhere I might take her, because—well, perhaps you would hardly understand, but—women here are different in many ways than you know them.

“I stayed several months, still planning to leave almost at any time. I found this world an intensely interesting study. Then, when—Loto was expected, I again postponed my departure.

“I had been here over a year before I finally gave up my intention of ever returning to you. I have no close relatives above, you know, no one who cares much for me or for whom I care, and my life seemed thoroughly established here.

“I am afraid gentlemen, I am offering excuses for myself—for my desertion of my own country in its time of need. I have no defense. As events turned out I could not have helped probably, very much, but still—that is no excuse. I can only say that your world up there seemed so very—very—far away. Events up there had become to me only vague memories as of a dream. And Lylda and my little son were so near, so real and vital to me. Well, at any rate I stayed, deciding definitely to make my home and to end my days here.”

“What did you do about the drugs?” asked the Doctor.

“I kept them hidden carefully for nearly a year,” the Chemist replied. “Then fearing lest they should in some way get loose, I destroyed them. They possess a diabolical power, gentlemen; I am afraid of it.”

“They called you the Master,” suggested the Very Young Man, after a pause. “Why was that?”

The Chemist smiled. “They do call me the Master. That has been for several years. I suppose I am the most important individual in the nation today.”

“I should think you would be,” said the Very Young Man quickly. “What you did, and with the knowledge you have.”

The Chemist went on. “Lylda and I lived with her father and Aura—her mother is dead you know—until after Loto was born. Then we had a house further up in the city. Later, about eight years ago, I built this house we now occupy and Lylda laid out its garden which she is tremendously proud of, and which I think is the finest in Arite.

“Because of what I had done in the Malite war, I became naturally the King’s adviser. Every one felt me the savior of the nation, which, in a way, I suppose I was. I never used the drugs again and, as only a very few of the people ever understood them, or in fact ever knew of them or believed in their existence, my extraordinary change in stature was ascribed to some supernatural power. I have always since been credited with being able to exert that power at will, although I never used it but that once.”

“You have it again now,” said the Doctor smiling.

“Yes, I have, thank God,” answered the Chemist fervently, “though I hope I never shall have to use it.”

“Aren’t you planning to go back with us,” asked the Very Young Man, “even for a visit?”

The Chemist shook his head. “My way lies here,” he said quietly, yet with deep feeling.

A silence followed; finally the Chemist roused himself from his reverie, and went on. “Although I never again changed my stature, there were a thousand different ways in which I continued to make myself—well, famous throughout the land. I have taught these people many things, gentlemen—like this for instance.” He indicated his cigar, and the chair in which he was sitting. “You cannot imagine what a variety of things one knows beyond the knowledge of so primitive a race as this.

“And so gradually, I became known as the Master. I have no official position, but everywhere I am known by that name. As a matter of fact, for the past year at least, it has been rather too descriptive a title—” the Chemist smiled somewhat ruefully—“for I have had in reality, and have now, the destiny of the country on my shoulders.”

“You’re not threatened with another war?” asked the Very Young Man.

“No, not exactly that. But I had better go on with my story first. This is a very different world now, gentlemen, from that I first entered twelve years ago. I think first I should tell you about it as it was then.”

His three friends nodded their agreement and the Chemist continued.

“I must make it clear to you gentlemen, the one great fundamental difference between this world and yours. In the evolution of this race there has been no cause for strife—the survival of the fittest always has been an unknown doctrine—a non-existent problem.

“In extent this Inner Surface upon which we are now living is nearly as great as the surface of your own earth. From the earliest known times it has been endowed with a perfect climate—a climate such as you are now enjoying.”

The Very Young Man expanded his chest and looked his appreciation.

“The climate, the rainfall, everything is ideal for crops and for living conditions. In the matter of food, one needs in fact do practically nothing. Fruits of a variety ample to sustain life, grow wild in abundance. Vegetables planted are harvested seemingly without blight or hazard of any kind. No destructive insects have ever impeded agriculture; no wild animals have ever existed to harass humanity. Nature in fact, offers every help and no obstacle towards making a simple, primitive life easy to live.

“Under such conditions the race developed only so far as was necessary to ensure a healthful pleasant existence. Civilization here is what you would call primitive: wants are few and easily supplied—too easily, probably, for without strife these people have become—well shall I say effeminate? They are not exactly that—it is not a good word.”

“I should think that such an unchanging, unrigorous climate would make a race deteriorate in physique rapidly,” observed the Doctor.

“How about disease down here?” asked the Big Business Man.

“It is a curious thing,” replied the Chemist. “Cleanliness seems to be a trait inborn with every individual in this race. It is more than godliness; it is the one great cardinal virtue. You must have noticed it, just in coming through Arite. Personal cleanliness of the people, and cleanliness of houses, streets—of everything. It is truly extraordinary to what extent they go to make everything inordinately, immaculately clean. Possibly for that reason, and because there seems never to have been any serious disease germs existing here, sickness as you know it, does not exist.”

“Guess you better not go into business here,” said the Very Young Man with a grin at the Doctor.

“There is practically no illness worthy of the name,” went on the Chemist. “The people live out their lives and, barring accident, die peacefully of old age.”

“How old do they live to be?” asked the Big Business Man.

“About the same as with you,” answered the Chemist. “Only of course as we measure time.”

“Say how about that?” the Very Young Man asked. “My watch is still going—is it ticking out the old time or the new time down here?”

“I should say probably—certainly—it was giving time of your own world, just as it always did,” the Chemist replied.

“Well, there’s no way of telling, is there?” said the Big Business Man.

“What is the exact difference in time?” the Doctor asked.

“That is something I have had no means of determining. It was rather a curious thing; when I left that letter for you,” the Chemist turned to the Doctor—“it never occurred to me that although I had told you to start down here on a certain day, I would be quite at a loss to calculate when that day had arrived. It was my estimation after my first trip here that time in this world passed at a rate about two and two-fifth times faster than it does in your world. That is as near as I ever came to it. We can calculate it more closely now, since we have only the interval of your journey down as an indeterminate quantity.”

“How near right did you hit it? When did you expect us?” asked the Doctor.

“About thirty days ago; I have been waiting since then. I sent nearly a hundred men through the tunnels into the forest to guide you in.”

“You taught them pretty good English,” said the Very Young Man. “They were tickled to death that they knew it, too,” he added with a reminiscent grin.

“You say about thirty days; how do you measure time down here?” asked the Big Business Man.

“I call a day, one complete cycle of sleeping and eating,” the Chemist replied. “I suppose that is the best translation of the Oroid word; we have a word that means about the same thing.”

“How long is a day?” inquired the Very Young Man.

“It seems in the living about the same as your twenty-four hours; it occupies probably about the interval of time of ten hours in your world.

“You see,” the Chemist went on, “we ordinarily eat twice between each time of sleep—once after rising—and once a few hours before bedtime. Workers at severe muscular labor sometimes eat a light meal in between, but the custom is not general. Time is generally spoken of as so many meals, rather than days.”

“But what is the arbitrary standard?” asked the Doctor. “Do you have an equivalent for weeks, or months or years?”

“Yes,” answered the Chemist, “based on astronomy the same as in your world. But I would rather not explain that now. I want to take you, later today, to see Lylda’s father. You will like him. He is—well, what we might call a scientist. He talks English fairly well. We can discuss astronomy with him; you will find him very interesting.”

“How can you tell time?” the Very Young Man wanted to know. “There is no sun to go by. You have no clocks, have you?”

“There is one downstairs,” answered the Chemist, “but you didn’t notice it. Lylda’s father has a very fine one; he will show it to you.”

“It seems to me,” began the Doctor thoughtfully after a pause, reverting to their previous topic, “that without sickness, under such ideal living conditions as you say exist here, in a very short time this world would be over-populated.”

“Nature seems to have taken care of that,” the Chemist answered, “and as a matter of fact quite the reverse is true. Women mature in life at an age you would call about sixteen. But early marriages are not the rule; seldom is a woman married before she is twenty—frequently she is much older. Her period of child-bearing, too, is comparatively short—frequently less than ten years. The result is few children, whose rate of mortality is exceedingly slow.”

“How about the marriages?” the Very Young Man suggested. “You were going to tell us.”

“Marriages are by mutual consent,” answered the Chemist, “solemnized by a simple, social ceremony. They are for a stated period of time, and are renewed later if both parties desire. When a marriage is dissolved children are cared for by the mother generally, and her maintenance if necessary is provided for by the government. The state becomes the guardian also of all illegitimate children and children of unknown parentage. But of both these latter classes there are very few. They work for the government, as do many other people, until they are of age, when they become free to act as they please.”

“You spoke about women being different than we knew them; how are they different?” the Very Young Man asked. “If they’re all like Lylda I think they’re great,” he added enthusiastically, flushing a little at his own temerity.

The Chemist smiled his acknowledgment of the compliment. “The status of women—and their character—is I think one of the most remarkable things about this race. You will remember, when I returned from here the first time, that I was much impressed by the kindliness of these people. Because of their history and their government they seem to have become imbued with the milk of human kindness to a degree approaching the Utopian.

“Crime here is practically non-existent; there is nothing over which contention can arise. What crimes are committed are punished with a severity seemingly out of all proportion to what you would call justice. A persistent offender even of fairly trivial wrongdoing is put to death without compunction. There is no imprisonment, except for those awaiting trial. Punishment is a reprimand with the threat of death if the offense is committed again, or death itself immediately. Probably this very severity and the swiftness with which punishment is meted out, to a large extent discourages wrongdoing. But, fundamentally, the capacity for doing wrong is lacking in these people.

“I have said practically nothing exists over which contention can arise. That is not strictly true. No race of people can develop without some individual contention over the possession of their women. The passions of love, hate and jealousy, centering around sex and its problems, are as necessarily present in human beings as life itself.

“Love here is deep, strong and generally lasting; it lacks fire, intensity—perhaps. I should say it is rather of a placid quality. Hatred seldom exists; jealousy is rare, because both sexes, in their actions towards the other, are guided by a spirit of honesty and fairness that is really extraordinary. This is true particularly of the women; they are absolutely honest—square, through and through.

“Crimes against women are few, yet in general they are the most prevalent type we have. They are punishable by death—even those that you would characterize as comparatively slight offenses. It is significant too, that, in judging these crimes, but little evidence is required. A slight chain of proven circumstances and the word of the woman is all that is required.

“This you will say, places a tremendous power in the hands of women. It does; yet they realize it thoroughly, and justify it. Although they know that almost at their word a man will be put to death, practically never, I am convinced, is this power abused. With extreme infrequency, a female is proven guilty of lying. The penalty is death, for there is no place here for such a woman!

“The result is that women are accorded a freedom of movement far beyond anything possible in your world. They are safe from harm. Their morals are, according to the standard here, practically one hundred per cent perfect. With short-term marriages, dissolvable at will, there is no reason why they should be otherwise. Curiously enough too, marriages are renewed frequently—more than that, I should say, generally—for life-long periods. Polygamy with the consent of all parties is permitted, but seldom practiced. Polyandry is unlawful, and but few cases of it ever appear.

“You may think all this a curious system, gentlemen, but it works.”

“That’s the answer,” muttered the Very Young Man. It was obvious he was still thinking of Lylda and her sister and with a heightened admiration and respect.