IN THE YEAR 2889 - by Jules Verne and Michel Verne

 Little though they seem to think of it, the people of this twenty-ninth century live continually in fairyland. Surfeited as they are with marvels, they are indifferent in presence of each new marvel. To them all seems natural. Could they but duly appreciate the refinements of civilization in our day; could they but compare the present with the past, and so better comprehend the advance we have made! How much fairer they would find our modern towns, with populations amounting sometimes to 10,000,000 souls; their streets 300 feet wide, their houses 1000 feet in height; with a temperature the same in all seasons; with their lines of aerial locomotion crossing the sky in every direction! If they would but picture to themselves the state of things that once existed, when through muddy streets rumbling boxes on wheels, drawn by horses, yes, by horses! - were the only means of conveyance. Think of the railroads of the olden time, and you will be able to appreciate the pneumatic tubes through which today one travels at the rate of 1000 miles an hour. Would not our contemporaries prize the telephone and the telephote more highly if they had not forgotten the telegraph?

Singularly enough, all these transformations rest upon principles which were perfectly familiar to our remote ancestors, but which they disregarded. Heat, for instance, is as ancient as man himself; electricity was known 3000 years ago, and steam 1100 years ago. Nay, so early as ten centuries ago it was known that the differences between the several chemical and physical forces depend on the mode of vibration of the etheric particles, which is for each specifically different. When at last the kinship of all these forces was discovered, it is simply astounding that 500 years should still have to elapse before men could analyze and describe the several modes of vibration that constitute these differences. Above all, it is singular that the mode of reproducing these forces directly from one another, and of reproducing one without the others, should have remained undiscovered till less than a hundred years ago. Nevertheless, such was the course of events, for it was not till the year 2792 that the famous Oswald Nier made this great discovery. 

 Truly was he a great benefactor of the human race. His admirable discovery led to many another. Hence is sprung a pleiad of inventors, its brightest star being our great Joseph Jackson. To Jackson we are indebted for those wonderful instruments the new accumulators. Some of these absorb and condense the living force contained in the sun's rays; others, the electricity stored in our globe; others again, the energy coming from whatever source, as a waterfall, a stream, the winds, etc. He, too, it was that invented the transformer, a more wonderful contrivance still, which takes the living force from the accumulator, and, on the simple pressure of a button, gives it back to space in whatever form may be desired, whether as heat, light, electricity, or mechanical force, after having first obtained from it the work required. From the day when these two instruments were contrived is to be dated the era of true progress. They have put into the hands of man a power that is almost infinite. As for their applications, they are numberless. Mitigating the rigors of winter, by giving back to the atmosphere the surplus heat stored up during the summer, they have revolutionized agriculture. By supplying motive power for aërial navigation, they have given to commerce a mighty impetus. To them we are indebted for the continuous production of electricity without batteries or dynamos, of light without combustion or incandescence, and for an unfailing supply of mechanical energy for all the needs of industry.

Yes, all these wonders have been wrought by the accumulator and the transformer. And can we not to them also trace, indirectly, this latest wonder of all, the great "Earth Chronicle" building in 253d Avenue, which was dedicated the other day? If George Washington Smith, the founder of the Manhattan "Chronicle," should come back to life to-day, what would he think were he to be told that this palace of marble and gold belongs to his remote descendant, Fritz Napoleon Smith, who, after thirty generations have come and gone, is owner of the same newspaper which his ancestor established!

For George Washington Smith's newspaper has lived generation after generation, now passing out of the family, anon coming back to it. When, 200 years ago, the political center of the United States was transferred from Washington to Centropolis, the newspaper followed the government and assumed the name of Earth Chronicle. Unfortunately, it was unable to maintain itself at the high level of its name. Pressed on all sides by rival journals of a more modern type, it was continually in danger of collapse. Twenty years ago its subscription list contained but a few hundred thousand names, and then Mr. Fritz Napoleon Smith bought it for a mere trifle, and originated telephonic journalism. 

 Every one is familiar with Fritz Napoleon Smith's system, a system made possible by the enormous development of telephony during the last hundred years. Instead of being printed, the Earth Chronicle is every morning spoken to subscribers, who, in interesting conversations with reporters, statesmen, and scientists, learn the news of the day. Furthermore, each subscriber owns a phonograph, and to this instrument he leaves the task of gathering the news whenever he happens not to be in a mood to listen directly himself. As for purchasers of single copies, they can at a very trifling cost learn all that is in the paper of the day at any of the innumerable phonographs set up nearly everywhere.

Fritz Napoleon Smith's innovation galvanized the old newspaper. In the course of a few years the number of subscribers grew to be 85,000,000, and Smith's wealth went on growing, till now it reaches the almost unimaginable figure of $10,000,000,000. This lucky hit has enabled him to erect his new building, a vast edifice with four façades, each 3,250 feet in length, over which proudly floats the hundred starred flag of the Union. Thanks to the same lucky hit, he is today king of newspaperdom; indeed, he would be king of all the Americans, too, if Americans could ever accept a king. You do not believe it? Well, then, look at the plenipotentiaries of all nations and our own ministers themselves crowding about his door, entreating his counsels, begging for his approbation, imploring the aid of his all powerful organ. Reckon up the number of scientists and artists that he supports, of inventors that he has under his pay.

Yes, a king is he. And in truth his is a royalty full of burdens. His labors are incessant, and there is no doubt at all that in earlier times any man would have succumbed under the overpowering stress of the toil which Mr. Smith has to perform. Very fortunately for him, thanks to the progress of hygiene, which, abating all the old sources of unhealthfulness, has lifted the mean of human life from 37 up to 52 years, men have stronger constitutions now than heretofore. The discovery of nutritive air is still in the future, but in the meantime men today consume food that is compounded and prepared according to scientific principles, and they breathe an atmosphere freed from the micro-organisms that formerly used to swarm in it; hence they live longer than their forefathers and know nothing of the innumerable diseases of olden times. 

 Nevertheless, and notwithstanding these considerations, Fritz Napoleon Smith's mode of life may well astonish one. His iron constitution is taxed to the utmost by the heavy strain that is put upon it. Vain the attempt to estimate the amount of labor he undergoes; an example alone can give an idea of it. Let us then go about with him for one day as he attends to his multifarious concernments. What day? That matters little; it is the same every day. Let us then take at random September 25th of this present year 2889.

This morning Mr. Fritz Napoleon Smith awoke in very bad humor. His wife having left for France eight days ago, he was feeling disconsolate. Incredible though it seems, in all the ten years since their marriage, this is the first time that Mrs. Edith Smith, the professional beauty, has been so long absent from home; two or three days usually suffice for her frequent trips to Europe. The first thing that Mr. Smith does is to connect his phonotelephote, the wires of which communicate with his Paris mansion. The telephote! Here is another of the great triumphs of science in our time. The transmission of speech is an old story; the transmission of images by means of sensitive mirrors connected by wires is a thing but of yesterday. A valuable invention indeed, and Mr. Smith this morning was not niggard of blessings for the inventor, when by its aid he was able distinctly to see his wife notwithstanding the distance that separated him from her. Mrs. Smith, weary after the ball or the visit to the theater the preceding night, is still abed, though it is near noontide at Paris. She is asleep, her head sunk in the lace-covered pillows. What? She stirs? Her lips move. She is dreaming perhaps? Yes, dreaming. She is talking, pronouncing a name, his name, Fritz! The delightful vision gave a happier turn to Mr. Smith's thoughts. And now, at the call of imperative duty, light-hearted he springs from his bed and enters his mechanical dresser.

Two minutes later the machine deposited him all dressed at the threshold of his office. The round of journalistic work was now begun. First he enters the hall of the novel-writers, a vast apartment crowned with an enormous transparent cupola. In one corner is a telephone, through which a hundred Earth Chronicle littérateurs in turn recount to the public in daily installments a hundred novels. Addressing one of these authors who was waiting his turn, "Capital! Capital! my dear fellow," said he, "your last story. The scene where the village maid discusses interesting philosophical problems with her lover shows your very acute power of observation. Never have the ways of country folk been better portrayed. Keep on, my dear Archibald, keep on! Since yesterday, thanks to you, there is a gain of 5000 subscribers." 

 "Mr. John Last," he began again, turning to a new arrival, "I am not so well pleased with your work. Your story is not a picture of life; it lacks the elements of truth. And why? Simply because you run straight on to the end; because you do not analyze. Your heroes do this thing or that from this or that motive, which you assign without ever a thought of dissecting their mental and moral natures. Our feelings, you must remember, are far more complex than all that. In real life every act is the resultant of a hundred thoughts that come and go, and these you must study, each by itself, if you would create a living character. 'But,' you will say, 'in order to note these fleeting thoughts one must know them, must be able to follow them in their capricious meanderings.' Why, any child can do that, as you know. You have simply to make use of hypnotism, electrical or human, which gives one a two-fold being, setting free the witness - personality so that it may see, understand, and remember the reasons which determine the personality that acts. Just study yourself as you live from day to day, my dear Last. Imitate your associate whom I was complimenting a moment ago. Let yourself be hypnotized. What's that ? You have tried it already ? Not sufficiently, then, not sufficiently!"

Mr. Smith continues his round and enters the reporters' hall. Here 1500 reporters, in their respective places, facing an equal number of telephones, are communicating to the subscribers the news of the world as gathered during the night. The organization of this matchless service has often been described. Besides his telephone, each reporter, as the reader is aware, has in front of him a set of commutators, which enable him to communicate with any desired telephotic line. Thus the subscribers not only hear the news but see the occurrences. When an incident is described that is already past, photographs of its main features are transmitted with the narrative. And there is no confusion withal. The reporters' items, just like the different stories and all the other component parts of the journal, are classified automatically according to an ingenious system, and reach the hearer in due succession. Furthermore, the hearers are free to listen only to what specially concerns them. They may at pleasure give attention to one editor and refuse it to another.

Mr. Smith next addresses one of the ten reporters in the astronomical department, a department still in the embryonic stage, but which will yet play an important part in journalism. 

 "Well, Cash, what's the news ?"

"We have phototelegrams from Mercury, Venus, and Mars."

"Are those from Mars of any interest ?"

"Yes, indeed. There is a revolution in the Central Empire."

"And what of Jupiter  ?" asked Mr. Smith.

"Nothing as yet. We cannot quite understand their signals. Perhaps ours do not reach them."

"That's bad," exclaimed Mr. Smith, as he hurried away, not in the best of humor, toward the hall of the scientific editors. With their heads bent down over their electric computers, thirty scientific men were absorbed in transcendental calculations. The coming of Mr. Smith was like the falling of a bomb among them.

"Well, gentlemen, what is this I hear ? No answer from Jupiter ? Is it always to be thus? Come, Cooley, you have been at work now twenty years on this problem, and yet..."

"True enough," replied the man addressed. "Our science of optics is still very defective, and through our mile-and-three-quarter telescopes"

"Listen to that, Peer," broke in Mr. Smith, turning to a second scientist. "Optical science defective! Optical science is your specialty. But," he continued, again addressing William Cooley, "failing with Jupiter, are we getting any results from the moon ?"

"The case is no better there."

"This time you do not lay the blame on the science of optics. The moon is immeasurably less distant than Mars, yet with Mars our communication is fully established. I presume you will not say that you lack telescopes ?"

"Telescopes ? O no, the trouble here is about inhabitants!"

"That's it," added Peer.

"So, then, the moon is positively uninhabited?" asked Mr. Smith.

"At least," answered Cooley, "on the face which she presents to us. As for the opposite side, who knows?"

"Ah, the opposite side! You think, then," remarked Mr. Smith, musingly, "that if one could but"

"Could what?"

"Why, turn the moon about face."

"Ah, there's something in that," cried the two men at once. And indeed, so confident was their air, they seemed to have no doubt as to the possibility of success in such an undertaking.

"Meanwhile," asked Mr. Smith, after a moment's silence, "have you no news of interest today?"

"Indeed we have," answered Cooley. "The elements of Olympus are definitively settled. That great planet gravitates beyond Neptune at the mean distance of 11,400,799,642 miles from the sun, and to traverse its vast orbit takes 1311 years, 294 days, 12 hours, 43 minutes, 9 seconds."

"Why didn't you tell me that sooner?" cried Mr. Smith. "Now inform the reporters of this straightway. You know how eager is the curiosity of the public with regard to these astronomical questions. That news must go into today's issue." 

 Then, the two men bowing to him, Mr. Smith passed into the next hall, an enormous gallery upward of 3200 feet in length, devoted to atmospheric advertising. Every one has noticed those enormous advertisements reflected from the clouds, so large that they may be seen by the populations of whole cities or even of entire countries. This, too, is one of Mr. Fritz Napoleon Smith's ideas, and in the Earth Chronicle building a thousand projectors are constantly engaged in displaying upon the clouds these mammoth advertisements.

When Mr. Smith to-day entered the sky-advertising department, he found the operators sitting with folded arms at their motionless projectors, and inquired as to the cause of their inaction. In response, the man addressed simply pointed to the sky, which was of a pure blue. "Yes," muttered Mr. Smith, "a cloudless sky! That's too bad, but what's to be done? Shall we produce rain? That we might do, but is it of any use? What we need is clouds, not rain. Go," said he, addressing the head engineer, "go see Mr. Samuel Mark, of the meteorological division of the scientific department, and tell him for me to go to work in earnest on the question of artificial clouds. It will never do for us to be always thus at the mercy of cloudless skies!"

Mr. Smith's daily tour through the several departments of his newspaper is now finished. Next, from the advertisement hall he passes to the reception chamber, where the ambassadors accredited to the American government are awaiting him, desirous of having a word of counsel or advice from the all-powerful editor. A discussion was going on when he entered. "Your Excellency will pardon me," the French Ambassador was saying to the Russian, "but I see nothing in the map of Europe that requires change. 'The North for the Slavs?' Why, yes, of course; but the South for the Latins. Our common frontier, the Rhine, it seems to me, serves very well. Besides, my government, as you must know, will firmly oppose every movement, not only against Paris, our capital, or our two great prefectures, Rome and Madrid, but also against the kingdom of Jerusalem, the dominion of Saint Peter, of which France means to be the trusty defender."

"Well said!" exclaimed Mr. Smith. "How is it," he asked, turning to the Russian ambassador, "that you Russians are not content with your vast empire, the most extensive in the world, stretching from the banks of the Rhine to the Celestial Mountains and the Kara-Korum, whose shores are washed by the Frozen Ocean, the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and the Indian Ocean? Then, what is the use of threats? Is war possible in view of modern inventions asphyxiating shells capable of being projected a distance of 60 miles, an electric spark of 90 miles, that can at one stroke annihilate a battalion; to say nothing of the plague, the cholera, the yellow fever, that the belligerents might spread among their antagonists mutually, and which would in a few days destroy the greatest armies?" 

 "True," answered the Russian; "but can we do all that we wish? As for us Russians, pressed on our eastern frontier by the Chinese, we must at any cost put forth our strength for an effort toward the west."

"O, is that all? In that case," said Mr. Smith, "the thing can be arranged. I will speak to the Secretary of State about it. The attention of the Chinese government shall be called to the matter. This is not the first time that the Chinese have bothered us."

"Under these conditions, of course..." And the Russian ambassador declared himself satisfied.

"Ah, Sir John, what can I do for you?" asked Mr. Smith as he turned to the representative of the people of Great Britain, who till now had remained silent.

"A great deal," was the reply. "If the Earth Chronicle would but open a campaign on our behalf"

"And for what object?"

"Simply for the annulment of the Act of Congress annexing to the United States the British islands."

Though, by a just turn-about of things here below, Great Britain has become a colony of the United States, the English are not yet reconciled to the situation. At regular intervals they are ever addressing to the American government vain complaints.

"A campaign against the annexation that has been an accomplished fact for 150 years!" exclaimed Mr. Smith. "How can your people suppose that I would do anything so unpatriotic?"

"We at home think that your people must now be sated. The Monroe doctrine is fully applied; the whole of America belongs to the Americans. What more do you want? Besides, we will pay for what we ask."

"Indeed!" answered Mr. Smith, without manifesting the slightest irritation. "Well, you English will ever be the same. No, no, Sir John, do not count on me for help. Give up our fairest province, Britain? Why not ask France generously to renounce possession of Africa, that magnificent colony the complete conquest of which cost her the labor of 800 years ? You will be well received !" 

 "You decline! All is over then!" murmured the British agent sadly. "The United Kingdom falls to the share of the Americans; the Indies to that of..."

"The Russians," said Mr. Smith, completing the sentence.

"Australia "

"Has an independent government."

"Then nothing at all remains for us!" sighed Sir John, downcast.

"Nothing?" asked Mr. Smith, laughing. "Well, now, there's Gibraltar!"

With this sally the audience ended. The clock was striking twelve, the hour of breakfast. Mr. Smith returns to his chamber. Where the bed stood in the morning a table all spread comes up through the floor. For Mr. Smith, being above all a practical man, has reduced the problem of existence to its simplest terms. For him, instead of the endless suites of apartments of the olden time, one room fitted with ingenious mechanical contrivances is enough. Here he sleeps, takes his meals, in short, lives.

He seats himself. In the mirror of the phonotelephote is seen the same chamber at Paris which appeared in it this morning. A table furnished forth is likewise in readiness here, for notwithstanding the difference of hours, Mr. Smith and his wife have arranged to take their meals simultaneously. It is delightful thus to take breakfast tête-à-tête with one who is 3000 miles or so away. Just now, Mrs. Smith's chamber has no occupant.

"She is late! Woman's punctuality! Progress everywhere except there!" muttered Mr. Smith as he turned the tap for the first dish. For like all wealthy folk in our day, Mr. Smith has done away with the domestic kitchen and is a subscriber to the Grand Alimentation Company, which sends through a great network of tubes to subscribers' residences all sorts of dishes, as a varied assortment is always in readiness. A subscription costs money, to be sure, but the cuisine is of the best, and the system has this advantage, that it does away with the pestering race of the cordons-bleus. Mr. Smith received and ate, all alone, the hors-d'oeuvre, entrées, rôti, and legumes that constituted the repast. He was just finishing the dessert when Mrs. Smith appeared in the mirror of the telephote.

"Why, where have you been?" asked Mr. Smith through the telephone.

"What! You are already at the dessert? Then I am late," she exclaimed, with a winsome naïveté. "Where have I been, you ask? Why, at my dress-maker's. The hats are just lovely this season! I suppose I forgot to note the time, and so am a little late."

"Yes, a little," growled Mr. Smith; "so little that I have already quite finished breakfast. Excuse me if I leave you now, but I must be going."

"O certainly, my dear; good bye till evening."

Smith stepped into his air-coach, which was in waiting for him at a window. "Where do you wish to go, sir?" inquired the coachman.

"Let me see; I have three hours," Mr. Smith mused. "Jack, take me to my accumulator works at Niagara."

For Mr. Smith has obtained a lease of the great falls of Niagara. For ages the energy developed by the falls went unutilized. Smith, applying Jackson's invention, now collects this energy, and lets or sells it. His visit to the works took more time than he had anticipated. It was four o'clock when he returned home, just in time for the daily audience which he grants to callers. 

 One readily understands how a man situated as Smith is must be beset with requests of all kinds. Now it is an inventor needing capital; again it is some visionary who comes to advocate a brilliant scheme which must surely yield millions of profit. A choice has to be made between these projects, rejecting the worthless, examining the questionable ones, accepting the meritorious. To this work Mr. Smith devotes every day two full hours.

The callers were fewer today than usual, only twelve of them. Of these, eight had only impracticable schemes to propose. In fact, one of them wanted to revive painting, an art fallen into desuetude owing to the progress made in color-photography. Another, a physician, boasted that he had discovered a cure for nasal catarrh! These impracticables were dismissed in short order. Of the four projects favorably received, the first was that of a young man whose broad forehead betokened his intellectual power.

"Sir, I am a chemist," he began, "and as such I come to you."

"Well!"

"Once the elementary bodies," said the young chemist, "were held to be sixty-two in number; a hundred years ago they were reduced to ten; now only three remain irresolvable, as you are aware."

"Yes, yes."

"Well, sir, these also I will show to be composite. In a few months, a few weeks, I shall have succeeded in solving the problem. Indeed, it may take only a few days."

"And then ?"

"Then, sir, I shall simply have determined the absolute. All I want is money enough to carry my research to a successful issue."

"Very well," said Mr. Smith. "And what will be the practical outcome of your discovery ?"

"The practical outcome? Why, that we shall be able to produce easily all bodies whatever - stone, wood, metal, fibers..."

"And flesh and blood ?" queried Mr. Smith, interrupting him. "Do you pretend that you expect to manufacture a human being out and out?"

"Why not ?"

Mr. Smith advanced $100,000 to the young chemist, and engaged his services for the Earth Chronicle laboratory.

The second of the four successful applicants, starting from experiments made so long ago as the nineteenth century and again and again repeated, had conceived the idea of removing an entire city all at once from one place to another. His special project had to do with the city of Granton, situated, as everybody knows, some fifteen miles inland. He proposes to transport the city on rails and to change it into a watering-place. The profit, of course, would be enormous. Mr. Smith, captivated by the scheme, bought a half-interest in it.

"As you are aware, sir," began applicant No. 3, "by the aid of our solar and terrestrial accumulators and transformers, we are able to make all the seasons the same. I propose to do something better still. Transform into heat a portion of the surplus energy at our disposal; send this heat to the poles; then the polar regions, relieved of their snow-cap, will become a vast territory available for man's use. What think you of the scheme?"

"Leave your plans with me, and come back in a week. I will have them examined in the meantime." 

 Finally, the fourth announced the early solution of a weighty scientific problem. Every one will remember the bold experiment made a hundred years ago by Dr. Nathaniel Faithburn. The doctor, being a firm believer in human hibernation, in other words, in the possibility of our suspending our vital functions and of calling them into action again after a time, resolved to subject the theory to a practical test. To this end, having first made his last will and pointed out the proper method of awakening him; having also directed that his sleep was to continue a hundred years to a day from the date of his apparent death, he unhesitatingly put the theory to the proof in his own person. Reduced to the condition of a mummy, Dr. Faithburn was coffined and laid in a tomb. Time went on. September 25th, 2889, being the day set for his resurrection, it was proposed to Mr. Smith that he should permit the second part of the experiment to be performed at his residence this evening.

"Agreed. Be here at ten o'clock," answered Mr. Smith; and with that the day's audience was closed.

Left to himself, feeling tired, he lay down on an extension chair. Then, touching a knob, he established communication with the Central Concert Hall, whence our greatest maestros send out to subscribers their delightful successions of accords determined by recondite algebraic formulas. Night was approaching. Entranced by the harmony, forgetful of the hour, Smith did not notice that it was growing dark. It was quite dark when he was aroused by the sound of a door opening. "Who is there?" he asked, touching a commutator.

Suddenly, in consequence of the vibrations produced, the air became luminous.

"Ah! you, Doctor?"

"Yes," was the reply. "How are you?"

"I am feeling well."

"Good! Let me see your tongue. All right! Your pulse. Regular! And your appetite?"

"Only passably good."

"Yes, the stomach. There's the rub. You are over-worked. If your stomach is out of repair, it must be mended. That requires study. We must think about it."

"In the meantime," said Mr. Smith, "you will dine with me."

As in the morning, the table rose out of the floor. Again, as in the morning, the potage, rôti, ragoûts, and legumes were supplied through the food-pipes. Toward the close of the meal, phonotelephotic communication was made with Paris. Smith saw his wife, seated alone at the dinner-table, looking anything but pleased at her loneliness.

"Pardon me, my dear, for having left you alone," he said through the telephone. "I was with Dr. Wilkins."

"Ah, the good doctor!" remarked Mrs. Smith, her countenance lighting up.

"Yes. But, pray, when are you coming home?"

"This evening."

"Very well. Do you come by tube or by air-train?"

"Oh, by tube." 

 "Yes; and at what hour will you arrive?"

"About eleven, I suppose."

"Eleven by Centropolis time, you mean?"

"Yes."

"Good bye, then, for a little while," said Mr. Smith as he severed communication with Paris.

Dinner over, Dr. Wilkins wished to depart. "I shall expect you at ten," said Mr Smith. "Today, it seems, is the day for the return to life of the famous Dr. Faithburn. You did not think of it, I suppose. The awakening is to take place here in my house. You must come and see. I shall depend on your being here."

"I will come back," answered Dr. Wilkins.

Left alone, Mr. Smith busied himself with examining his accounts - a task of vast magnitude, having to do with transactions which involve a daily expenditure of upward of $800,000. Fortunately, indeed, the stupendous progress of mechanic art in modern times makes it comparatively easy. Thanks to the Piano Electro-Reckoner, the most complex calculations can be made in a few seconds. In two hours Mr. Smith completed his task. Just in time. Scarcely had he turned over the last page when Dr. Wilkins arrived. After him came the body of Dr. Faithburn, escorted by a numerous company of men of science. They commenced work at once. The casket being laid down in the middle of the room, the telephote was got in readiness. The outer world, already notified, was anxiously expectant, for the whole world could be eye-witnesses of the performance, a reporter meanwhile, like the chorus in the ancient drama, explaining it all viva voce through the telephone.

"They are opening the casket," he explained. "Now they are taking Faithburn out of it, a veritable mummy, yellow, hard, and dry. Strike the body and it resounds like a block of wood. They are now applying heat; now electricity. No result. These experiments are suspended for a moment while Dr. Wilkins makes an examination of the body. Dr. Wilkins, rising, declares the man to be dead. 'Dead!' exclaims every one present. 'Yes,' answers Dr. Wilkins, 'dead!' 'And how long has he been dead?' Dr. Wilkins makes another examination. 'A hundred years,' he replies."

The case stood just as the reporter said. Faithburn was dead, quite certainly dead! "Here is a method that needs improvement," remarked Mr. Smith to Dr. Wilkins, as the scientific committee on hibernation bore the casket out. "So much for that experiment. But if poor Faithburn is dead, at least he is sleeping," he continued. "I wish I could get some sleep. I am tired out, Doctor, quite tired out! Do you not think that a bath would refresh me?"

"Certainly. But you must wrap yourself up well before you go out into the hall-way. You must not expose yourself to cold."

"Hall - way ? Why, Doctor, as you well know, everything is done by machinery here. It is not for me to go to the bath; the bath will come to me. Just look!" and he pressed a button. After a few seconds a faint rumbling was heard, which grew louder and louder. Suddenly the door opened, and the tub appeared.

Such, for this year of grace 2889, is the history of one day in the life of the editor of the Earth Chronicle. And the history of that one day is the history of 365 days every year, except leap-years, and then of 366 days for as yet no means has been found of increasing the length of the terrestrial year. 

WORLD OF MOCKERY - by Sam Moskowitz

When John Hall walked on Ganymede, a thousand

weird beings walked with him. He was one man

on a sphere of mocking, mad creatures—one

voice in a world of shrieking echoes.

John Hall wiped away blood that trickled from his mouth. Painstakingly he disengaged himself from the hopeless wreckage of the control room. He staggered free, his lungs pumping with terrific effort to draw enough oxygen from the thin, bitterly cold air of Ganymede, that had rushed in when his helmet had been shocked open.

Feeling unusually light he walked over to an enormous tear in the side of his space-cruiser. A bleak scene met his eyes. Short, grotesquely hewn hills and crags. Rocky pitted plains. And a bitter, wild wind blew constantly, streaming his long hair into disarray.

He cursed through tight lips. Fate! He had been on his way to Vesta, largest city of Jupiter, when his fuel had given out. He had forgotten to check it, and here he was.

Despondently he kicked a small rock in front of him. It rose unhindered by the feeble gravitation fully thirty feet in the air.

Suddenly there were a dozen scuffing sounds, and a dozen stones winged themselves painstakingly through the air and began to descend in slow motion.

Surprise struck, he gazed furtively about him. Momentarily his heart seemed caught in some terrible vise.

There was a sudden movement behind a close ridge. Momentarily John Hall was rendered paralyzed. Then he backed slowly toward the ship and safety behind a Johnson heat ray. The vague form abruptly materialized, etched in black against the twilight horizon of Ganymede. The effect was startling. The creature stood upright, on two legs, with two gnarled, lengthy arms dangling from its bony shoulders. Human? The question registered itself on his brain, and the thing in front of him gave unwitting reply, as it moved to a clearer position. No, not human. Maybe not even animal. Two great eyes bulged curiously from a drawn, shrunken, monkey-like face. The body was as warped and distorted as the bole of an old oak tree. With pipe-stem arms and legs, bulging at the joints. Its most natural position seemed to be a crouch, with the arms dragging on the ground. Somehow this travesty of human form struck him as being humorous. He chuckled throatily, and then stopped with a start as the same chuckle crudely vibrated back, echo-like. But it was no echo! No, that wasn't possible. John raised his hand to scratch his head through force of habit; forgetful that this was impossible through the thick glassite helmet he wore. The tall, gangling creature in front of him watched closely for a moment, then stretched one preposterously long limb up and scratched briskly on his leathery skull in imitation of John Hall.

___________

The answer struck him instantly. Why hadn't he thought of it. This animal, this thing, whatever it was, was a natural mimic. Such a thing was not unknown on earth. Monkeys often imitated the gestures of humans. Parrots prattled back powerful expletives and phrases. He rather welcomed his new find now. It would be pretty dismal all alone on desolate Ganymede with no one to talk to but himself, and this strange animal would undoubtedly help to lighten the long, dreary hours, perhaps days, that stretched ahead of him until rescue came. Certainly there was nothing to fear from this creature; not at least by himself, born to resist the pull of a gravity force many times more powerful then that of Ganymede's.

__________

He walked slowly toward the creature viewing its reactions carefully. It held its ground. Evidently fear was not an element in its makeup. Why should it be? Doubtlessly these things were the only animate life on the globe. Masters of all they surveyed. No other beings to contest their supremecy. No need then for fear or even for savageness. They were, undoubtedly, happy-go-lucky beasts who scavenged the bleak, rocky surface of the moon for hardy mosses or whatever they lived on. He heard a scuffing noise to his left. Another creature, similar almost in every detail to the first had popped into view. That seemed to be a signal for a dozen others to haphazardly appear from the most unexpected places and niches. One rose up within a few feet of Hall and blinked its great eyes at him in greeting.

"What the...", Hall spluttered to himself, "seems to be a family reunion of some sort." Suddenly, prompted by some impish quirk he shouted to his bizarre audience, "Hello there." A moment of silence and then a chorus of rasping sounds sent back "Ah-low-da." Probably the closest that their crude vocal apparatus could interpret his alien accents. Continuing his mock procedure, John stretched his hands aloft, and then in stiff, prim fashion bowed low. With solemn dignity the assembly emulated his action. John leaped twenty feet into the air with glee, and as he floated slowly to the ground he watched the pitiful attempts below to equal his feat.

For a moment everything was still and John good-naturedly surveyed the grotesque caricatures of human beings that surrounded him. "Well," John finally commented candidly, "at least we are in agreement over what line of action to follow, which is more than I could say for a lot of human friends of mine." A blurred attempt at imitation followed.

Then abruptly it was dark. Just like that. Perhaps you have seen darkness fall in the tropics? Just ten or fifteen minutes of twilight and then it's dark. The thin atmosphere of Ganymede did not maintain twilight very long. John cursed a little as he backed his erratic way back to the ship, revealed only by the gleam of the stars on its rounded hull. He groped about for the tear in the surface of the glimmering shell, found it and tumbled hastily in to escape the terrible cold that was forming in the absence of the sun's heat. The pilot room was rapidly assuming the aspect of an underground cavern with long, gleaming icicles hanging from the top. John grumbled a bit, and then opened the door to the small supply room. Closed it quickly behind him and sat down on a box of canned beans. Funny, he reflected, that they had never been able to produce synthetic foods in feasible form. Perhaps habit was harder to change than the scientists had thought. People still liked their meals solid. He reached out and switched on the feeble storeroom light which operated from an independent source. Its yellow glow brought back a comforting nostalgia. He dined frugally on a can of beans and some biscuits; turned the heating units of his suit up to 70 degrees, and dozed into fitful slumber.

_____________

Some indeterminate period later he awoke. His mind still a little numbed by sleep he slipped the catch on his helmet and threw it back in order to take advantage of the bracing effect the sharp, thin air of Ganymede had displayed on the previous evening. He was totally unprepared for the furnace-like blast of heat that swept across his exposed features. He stood for a moment, stupefied, while the oven-heat dried the juices of his face and started to take on a blistering effect. Comprehension dawned magically and he snapped back the helmet and breathed with distinct relief the air supplied by his space suit which was scientifically kept at a pleasant temperature. The explanation was simplicity itself. The air cover of Ganymede was so thin, and its cloudless skies so clear, that the sun, though distant, beat down like old fury itself. He opened the door that led from the supply room into the pilot room. The long, pointed icicles which had formed the previous night were gone. The only clue to show that they had once existed was a rapidly rising cloud of steam from the steel floor. His glassite helmet misted swiftly as he walked through the room, then cleared slowly as he stepped out into the full glare of the sun. He could not help but admire the potency of this yellow star, even from a distance at which it appeared hardly larger than a standard sized base ball.

He cupped one heavily encased hand over the top of his helmet to protect his eyes from the sun, and searched the skies thoroughly for any sign of a rescue ship. Sighting nothing he dropped his hand despondently to his side and stumbled thoughtfully along the rough terrain. His mind worked desperately, attempting to devise some feasible means of signaling the rescue parties which must, at this very moment, be combing the space lanes searching for him. Some huge flare might be useful, but a simple glance about him revealed that the largest form of plant life, which might serve as fuel, were small grey mosses that grew on the underside of occasional outcropping rock formations. They were useless for anything but a tiny smudge fire. His mind turned back to his ship. Possibly there was something highly combustible aboard that might be used for a flare. His mind flitted thoughtfully over every item in the ship's supplies and retired with the conclusion that the anti-fire campaigns which had been conducted for so long on the inhabited planets were going too far! His only hope lay in the possibility that one of the rescue ships might briefly scan the surface of Ganymede with one of their telescopic vision plates and notice the gleaming wreck of his auxiliary space ship. That gave him an idea. Something he had once used in an old book. About a castaway on a desert island arranging rocks to spell out giant words in the hope that some passing airplane might see the message and land to investigate. Slim chance, but still nothing could be overlooked if he hoped for eventual rescue.

Swiftly he set about gathering rocks. He planned to form the simple four letter word HELP, with an exclamation point added for emphasis. So engrossed was he in his work that he scarcely noted the unusual volume of noise about him, or if he did notice it attributed it to the small slides caused by his unearthing rocks from their natural formation. Hours passed while he painstakingly formed the shape of an enormous letter "H," a letter fully a tenth of a mile long. Exhausted by the unaccustomed manual labor he straightened up a moment and cast an approving eye across the extent of his handiwork. A gasp rose involuntarily from his throat as a strange sight crossed his line of vision. The land about him fairly swarmed with the peculiar, bony creatures he had encountered the evening before, and as far as his eyes could see there stretched an uninterrupted series of H's, all exactly similar in shape, size and peculiarities of the original! And at the edge of each of the letters sat a puffing group of emaciated, leathery skinned Ganymedians! Their great, watery eyes blinking patiently and soulfully in his direction!

He didn't know whether to laugh or to cry. It was impossible to proceed. In order to lay out another letter he would have to accomplish the tremendous task of removing all the other H's as well. He shuddered as he realized that he would have to repeat the process again and again until finally the one word help, with a string of exclamation points miles in length remained. Suddenly a thought struck him. Wasn't this seemingly endless row of huge H's sufficient to attract the attention of any searching party that happened to see it without going to the trouble, double trouble at that, of adding the rest of the letters that spelled out the word HELP? It seemed logical enough to him. With a distinct air of relief he turned away, his arduous task of the past few hours completed, thanks to these freakish creatures that inhabited this moon.

____________

Again the beginning of the short twilight was progressing and the sun was settling rapidly in the sky, its glare and heat diminishing with each passing moment. The massive bulk of Jupiter above could be seen only as a long, thin, crescent that stretched one quarter of the way across the visible sky. He experimentally lifted his helmet an inch or two. A sharp gust of air scurried hurriedly around the contours of his face and slightly ruffled his hair. He threw the helmet all the way back and with exultation breathed in tremendous gulps of crisp, fresh air. For the first time that day his powerful frame rose to its full six feet of height and he stood statuesque, his shadow cast before him, a symbol of man against the cosmos.

Still, somehow his mind could not shift from the ever-present danger. Possible exhaustion of his food supply; the energy heating units of his space suit, of water. Once again his thoughts turned to the humor provided by the strange inhabitants of Ganymede. He called out sharply to one of them: "How are you old chap?"

"How're you all chap," the grating reply floated back, thinned by the sparse atmosphere. Some guttural effect in the creature's voice seemed to place the emphasis on the word "you." And it sounded uncannily like a return question, infinitely more so than the echo-like effect it should have had! And also the speech had improved! Very definitely improved! Where before they had relayed back his sentences in an indistinguishable blur of sound, now some of the words stood out, sharp, clear!

"This chap doesn't need enunciation lessons," John muttered softly to himself. And as if to prove it the lips of the creature moved erratically, as if talking to itself in the identical manner that John had just done.

"Nice weather we're having," John phrased ironically as small flakes of ice formed on the end of his nose.

"Like hell it is!" came back the surprise retort.

John stood there aghast. The creature had emitted the very same reply that he had been thinking, but had not voiced!

The Ganymedian in front of him took on a more surprising aspect with each passing moment. For some reason nature had bestowed upon this travesty of human form a telepathic mental pick-up. Similar, in results, to the ones in use on earth, except that this was not a mechanical device. It was, undoubtedly, a far more efficient receiver of flesh and blood, or whatever substance this thing was composed of, capable of picking up thought waves as simply as a radio receiver picks up radio waves.

"It can do anything but understand," John found himself saying. He could only wonder why some scientist had not discovered these creatures before and dissected them to find out just how their peculiar brains operated.

And then, for the first time in many hours, his mind turned back to his fiancee, Joan Crandell. He cursed the stolid fates that had stranded him here on this god-forsaken satellite with a bunch of damn-fool mimics. In his mind he visualized Joan as he had last seen her. The golden, glory-sheen of her hair flowing softly down to her shoulders; her straight little nose and small, firm chin; her piquant expression and oh, so desirable lips. And last, but certainly not least her short, trim figure. Perhaps she wasn't the Venus ideal, but to his mind at least, she was infinitely more lovable, an ancient phrase, "and what's more she's got arms," seemed to go well with that thought. For a little more he accorded himself the luxury of seeing her in his mind's eye, and then slowly, sadly, shook his head, and looked up. His eyes popped in disbelief of what he saw! His hands trembled with fearful delight, wonder and amazement. It couldn't be! It wasn't possible! But there she stood - Joan Crandell ! To the tiniest detail as he had seen her last! Here on this crazy moon! In an agony of bewilderment he cried out, "Joan! Joan!" He could say no more. The paralysis of surprise left his limbs and he dashed wildly forward. "Joan!" and his arms reached out to grasp her, and twined about a hard, bony, misshapen, distorted, leathery form! He recoiled in abject horror. These strange creatures, an instant before new toys to amuse and astound him were transformed into terror-ridden monsters. No longer a joke, but a tragedy! Joan, or rather the illusion of Joan was there no longer. In her place stood a stupid, blinking, thing that threatened his very sanity, his existence. Something snapped in his mind!

He ran. Miles he ran. His powerful, earthly muscles lending magic powers to his feet. Across broken, rock-hard plains, stumbling, falling, slipping, across stretches of mountain region and through dim valleys. And night descended upon him. Unfailing, relentless, it settled leaving everything pitch dark. And they followed him. Miles behind, but never giving up, never faltering. A mad man they followed who did not run, but leaped, fifty feet into the air, and screaming at his slow rate of descent barely touched the ground before he was off on another leap, even greater than the preceding one. A dozen times he was speared upon dangerous rocks, the tough substance of his suit the only thing between him and death. And as tiny leaks formed in his suit, the insidious cold crept in slowly, surely, numbing his body until each leap was a little shorter, a little less powerful than the other. Until lost in a maze of bleak mountains he collapsed.

_______________

Dawn bolted deer-like over the black hills of Ganymede, and as if it had never interrupted its work, the distant sun beat down upon the frozen landscape with renewed vigor. A lone earth figure rolled over and groaned. Shakily it got to its feet and took a few trembling steps. John Hall, exhausted physically and mentally was all right again. The madness of the preceding night had left him, almost as suddenly as it had come upon him. It was almost as if kind nature had blotted out the portion of his brain which preserved memory, and left his mind, dulled, numb. In a daze, his once proud figure tripped along the devious mountain passes. Too tired to leap, barely capable of moving, John Hall threaded his tortuous way through regions only half recalled. No thoughts, simply a guiding instinct that urged him, warned him, that he must go this way to return to the space ship, and food, maybe rescue.

And a hundred yards behind him, unnoticed, trailed multiple, black, ungainly creatures, who stumbled when he stumbled, fell when he fell.

It was nearing twilight again when John Hall panted back into the region of his space ship. Barely cognizant of what he was doing, he smashed a can of beans against the steel hull of the ship and devoured them without ceremony, animal-like. Then he sat wearily down upon a ruined metal bench and tried to relax. Weakly, but nevertheless desperately, he fought with himself. Trying to clear the cobwebs that cluttered up his brain and reason rationally again. Thoughts, like flitting ghosts, aroused tantilizingly, only to whisk down some hidden channel of his mind before he could fully grasp and comprehend them. One of the grotesque things, creatures, objects, whatever they were, drew close to him, its bulging eyes peering not inquisitively, but fearfully into his. He knew! The eluding coherency of thought came. The answer to the enigma lay in his own mind! His powerful earth mind. Scientists had always been aware that the mind radiates energy thoughts away from it. That one mind is capable of hypnotizing another, even across great distances. These inhabitants of Ganymede, with their acute mental receptivity, were slaves to his more powerful will, his every thought. And against their own desires they followed and imitated him. And through some unknown chemical reaction even took the form, momentarily, of some wished-for object. It was clear. But now again it wasn't. His mind was failing. Falling back into the abyss of blackness and incoherency ! He stared a moment at one of the peculiar faces before him and as he stared it changed, grew smooth, black, ebony black and God - blank ! Blank like his mind - part of his mind, for through the rest of it swirled a fantasmagoria of images, and disconnected phrases. He was alone, or almost so. Those things were still here. It was getting darker ... colder ... so cold ... was this all a dream? Then he stopped! For over the blank face of the thing in front of him flickered images, mirroring his thoughts, like some disconnected motion picture!

With incredible strength he tore away the protecting mass of his space suit. The cold wind hit him, knifed him through and through. And he stepped forward. Walking, walking, and suddenly his great hands rose aloft in an agony of sorrow. His mighty voice bellowed above the elements of loneliness, of despair. And always, those grotesque, storm-swept, misshapen creatures fastened their wet, glistening eyes upon him and in the depths of them displayed rage as he displayed it; despair as he displayed it. And when he pounded his clenched fists in powerful blows upon his resounding chest, they pounded their gnarled limbs upon their shrunken chests in powerful mimicry.

________________

When the crew of the rescue ship "Space - Spear" landed, they turned back in horror at a planet of mad-things that shrieked, wept, raged and despaired in a manner that was more than imitation - that was real ! And they could not help but shudder inwardly at the terrible fate that had befallen John Hall, and his horrible, unknowing revenge!

I, EXECUTIONER - by Ted White and Terry Carr

I always shook when I came out of the Arena, but this time the tension wrapped my stomach in painful knots and salty perspiration stung my neck where I had shaved only a little over an hour earlier. And despite the heavy knot in my stomach. I felt strangely empty.

I had never been able to sort out my reactions to an Execution. The atmosphere of careful boredom, the strictly business-as-usual air failed to dull my senses as it did for the others. I could always taste the ozone in the air, mixed with the taste of fear—whether mine, or that of the Condemned, I never knew. My nostrils always gave an involuntary twitch at the confined odors and I felt an almost claustrophic fear at being packed into the Arena with the other nine hundred ninety-nine Citizens on Execution Duty.

I had been expecting my notice for several months before it finally came. I hadn't served Execution Duty for nearly two years. Usually it had figured out to every fourteen months or so on rotation, so I'd been ready for it. A little apprehensive—I always am—but ready.

At 9:00 in the morning, still only half awake (I'd purposely slept until the last minute), vaguely trying to remember the dream I'd had, I waited in front of the Arena for the ordeal to begin. The dream had been something about a knife, an operation. But I couldn't remember whether I'd been the doctor or the patient.

Our times of arrival had been staggered in our notices, so that a long queue wouldn't tie up traffic, but as usual the checkers were slow, and we were backed up a bit.

I didn't like waiting. Somehow I've always felt more exposed on the streets, although the brain-scanners must be more plentiful in an Arena than almost anywhere else. It's only logical that they should be. The scanners are set up to detect unusual patterns of stress in our brain waves as we pass close to them, and thus to pick out as quickly as possible those with incipient or developing neuroses or psychoses—the potential deviates. And where else would such an aberration be as likely to come out as in the Arena?

I had moved to the front of the short line. I flashed my notification of duty to the checker, and was waved on in. I found my proper seat on the aisle in the "T" section. It was a relief to sink into its plush depths and look the Arena over.

Once this had been a first-run Broadway theater—first a place where great plays were shown, and then later the more degenerate motion pictures. Those had been times of vicarious escape from reality—times when the populace ruled, and yet the masses hid their eyes from the world. Many things had changed since then, with the coming of regulated sanity and the achievement of world peace. Gone now were the black arts of forgetfulness, those media which practiced the enticement of the Citizen into irresponsible escape. Now this crowded theater was only a reminder. And a place of execution for those who would have sought escape here.

- - - - - - - - - 

Perhaps thirty people were sitting on the floor of the Arena, where once there had been a stage. They sat quietly in chairs not so different from mine, strapped for the moment into a kind of passive conformity. I looked at them with interest. Strangeness has as much attraction as the familiar at times. As usual, most of them were young—from about ten to the early twenties. But at whatever age, they were rebels. They were potential enemies of society. Criminals. Probably some of them hadn't yet realized it. But they were on the verge of anti-social insanity, and the brain-scanners had singled them out.

They were so young.... How long does it take a boy to become neurotic, psychotic, dangerous?

A flurry of movement at the gates caught my eye. Apparently at least one of them was a full-fledged Rebel. He struggled furiously, and the three proctors were having an awkward time carrying him into the Arena without hurting him.

Then, as they moved into the floodlights, I saw with a faint shock that it was a girl.

She was dressed in man's clothing, but betrayed by her neurotic and unsanitary long hair.

Long, blonde hair. For a moment I forgot where I was, and allowed myself to revel in this nearly forbidden sight. The soft waves fell halfway down her neck, disarrayed now. The floodlights shined on it, a strangely gentle mockery of sunlight. Something within me stirred, and I almost remembered....

Then they were strapping her into one of the chairs, carefully pulling the soft leather straps with their attached metal electrodes around her, pinioning her. One set joined her arms to the armrests, another her legs to the specially devised footrests. Her tunic was opened, and a third set was passed around her chest, the metal plate fastened just under her left breast.

And then she was alone.

I stared at her, drawn at first to her hair, and then, as my vision focused across the distance, to her eyes.

Strange eyes; light blue irises, surrounded by a ring of dark blue, and flecked with gold. They were shining. She had been crying. Her eyes seemed to melt, like a pool of clear water growing deeper; I could almost see into them, into the darkness beneath. I was no longer aware of the chair in which I sat ... only of her, alone before me, so close.

Her eyes widened for just an instant when she recognized me.

"Bob."

"Hello, Rosebud."

"I knew you'd be here. I knew."

"It's been a long time.... I think I was trying to forget."

"Don't," she said. "Don't ever forget."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Sun drenched me, and I was rocked back into time.

"Hey, you pushed me!" I shouted at her.

"Yes," said a faint voice, and then, "I'm sorry," the little golden-haired girl said.

I sat up. Mother was going to be mad at me again, I knew. I wiped the seat of my pants with my hand, and then stared at the muddy hand with interest.

"Look," I said to her, and showed her my hand. When she stepped forward to look closely at it, I pushed it at her, and smeared mud onto her face. Then I laughed....

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

My laughter faded, blending with hers ... and then ... and then we were no longer standing separately in the sun.

It was a dark night, the air fresh and cool to my skin, and the leaves of the trees which stretched over us rustled with a faint wind.

I laughed again, a soft girlish sound that brought discomfort to the boy's face before me.

"Your mother says. Your father says. Don't you ever say anything for yourself, Bob?"

"Look, Rosalie, I'm sorry. Maybe I just don't think the way you do. My father says sex at our age is just another escape from reality. You've got to face yourself as an adult first. He..."

"Your father is a bigger nincompoop than you are!" I shouted at him. "I thought you said you loved me. I thought you had some feelings buried under that so-called rational mind of yours! Or does your father say you're too young to love somebody?"

He tried to say something, but I was right. He pressed his lips together and looked away. I was almost enjoying it now; with deliberate coolness I buttoned up my tunic, feeling the soft fibers on my skin.

"How long does it take to love somebody?" I said, but my voice was beginning to tremble. I turned away from his still figure in the night, and began the slow walk back along the path to the house. Tears stung my eyes, and spilled onto my cheeks; I started to run through the dark.

I slammed the door when I ran in, and went directly to my room. At one end of it was a small studio, where an easel was lit coldly by a fluorescent light. Almost blindly I began beating my fists on the still-wet canvas, blurring and then ripping the nearly finished portrait of a young man.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

I was crying quietly when the low, calm voice stopped me on the street.

"Just a moment, Miss."

I felt the sudden skip in my heart which signaled danger, and when I turned I saw the light green uniform of a proctor in the vague street light. My eyes were still blurred with tears. I couldn't make out his face.

"I'm sorry, but I'll have to ask you a few questions."

Shielding my face from the light, I tried to make my voice calm. I hoped my homesick tears were hidden, that my cheeks wouldn't glisten in the light. I wanted very badly for him not to see I had been crying.

"Yes?"

"I'll have to know why you're out on the streets at this time of the morning," the proctor said. "There's a curfew, you know. Unless you can show cause...."

Oh God; I had completely forgotten the city's curfew!

"I—I'm sorry, Officer. I'm new to the city and I didn't realize...."

"You're transient? Where are you staying?"

"The Statler Dormitory for Women," I answered meekly.

"And why are you out at this hour, so far from the dorm? That's down near 34th Street, almost thirty blocks south."

"I know. I couldn't sleep—" His eyes narrowed at that; had I made a mistake? I plunged on: "—and I wanted to see Central Park. I didn't realize there was any harm...."

"I guess not this time, Miss, but you'd better get back to your dorm. Take this pass." He scribbled a few words on a pad and then detached a slip of green paper for me. "You can take a train down to 34th Street. Now."

"I'd just as soon walk, sir."

He stared at me for a moment and then I turned and started for the nearest subway entrance.

It had been horrible, those first few days in the Dorm. I'd never dreamed that a sane society could be so ... not cruel, but unthinking. Back home in Woodstock we were all supposed to be sane too, but neither Father nor Mother had ever forced any rigid rules on me. They had let me roam the woods, scuffing the dry leaves in autumn, drinking water from the creeks in my cupped hands. They hadn't objected when I was gone for hours. Usually I was just sitting on a log and staring into the sky, and what harm was there in that ?

They had encouraged my painting. "It's supposed to be a sign of escapism," Dad said, "but there are a lot worse ways of escaping." He made an easel for me, and I used tubes of house-paint tint-colors and stretched canvas and burlap over frames Dad made. He even gave me a book of reproductions of the Old Masters that he'd saved.

Life in Woodstock had been pleasant for me, I realized now, even if it had often seemed lonely. I couldn't have told the proctor that I'd really woken up from a dream about Bob before I'd gone out walking. I'd seen Bob's face so clearly, standing in the night, unable to say anything to me. Suddenly it had seemed that my voice was stopped too, and I'd woken up gasping....

I boarded a local train, not caring that an express would be much faster, and began the trip back to my cubicle at the Statler Dorm. If only they hadn't taken my parents....

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I had succeeded in setting up a makeshift easel in my room at the Dorm, and was working on a painting, wearing some of Dad's old clothes, when the proctors broke in.

One of them pointed a small indicator at me, glanced at it and nodded.

"She's the one. Instability and escapism. And look at the kind of clothes she wears."

"What are you doing?" I whispered. This was how they'd taken my parents !

"You're under detention as a criminal against society. Miss," one of the proctors said. "We're all sorry."

Another one stepped forward and held out a hand to me as one might a child. "Come along now."

"No !" I backed away from them, and when they trapped me in the corner I kicked and screamed at them. "Leave me alone, leave me alone! You're killers!" One of them grabbed me and held me around my waist, my arms pinned to my sides.

"We're not killers, Miss," he said, and his voice was incredibly calm. "We have nothing to do with it."

I twisted free and struck at him, tearing skin from his face with my nails. "Weren't my parents enough?"

One of them pointed another device at me, and I blacked out.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

When I came to, I was being carried by three proctors through a door and down a hall. My head was fuzzy and throbbing. I caught a glimpse of a stenciled sign in the corridor, lettered neatly over an arrow pointing in the direction we were going. The words leaped out at me: Execution Arena Floor.

One of the proctors saw that I was conscious and looked down at me pleasantly. "No sense struggling now," he said. "It'll be over soon."

I stared back at him for a moment, not understanding. But then the kindness in his face became clear. He pitied me! The proctors were carrying me as gently as possible, as though I were a dog with a broken leg.

I felt incredibly sad, and so tired that I was sure I must suddenly weigh twice as much. But they carried me through the door and out onto the floor of the Arena, and there were a thousand people up in the dark waiting for me. There were floodlights on the chairs where the others of the Condemned were strapped. They sat quietly, dully, as though they were the Executioners and the people above were waiting for them to press the buttons.

But it was insane! How could they take it so calmly...were they dead already? Did they want to die?

Or was I really insane? Where was the sanity in this Arena?

I couldn't lie still while they carried me to that chair. I was frightened. I was terrified! They were all so silent, so calm, so kindly. As though nothing at all were happening—nothing at all!

I struggled, trying to fight my way free. I kicked and screamed; I had to make some noise in that black silence. But they held me, and strapped me into the chair. And still there was no sound in the Arena.

I felt a shock, a tension, and I looked up.

There, in the audience, sitting before his little panel with the blue light and the red Executioner's button, was a young man staring at me.

I could feel his stare, like a cool hand touching me. It drew me up, into the dimness....

I felt my eyes widen with recognition.

"Bob," I said.

His reply sounded deep inside my mind, "Hello, Rosebud."

"I knew you'd be here," I said, and then I drew him close to me.

"It's been a long time."

"Don't ever forget," I said, and opened myself to him at last.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The lights in the Arena dimmed, rose, dimmed again. The first signal I pressed against the straps, but they were firm and unmoving. Yet I, we, leaned forward, and watched the panel with its blue light. Our stomach was knotted like tight leather cords.

The blue light flashed. I reached out a hand to the small red button. The straps bit into our flesh. The panel was dim, ghostly beneath the glaring lights from the dark above.

A thousand hands touched a thousand red buttons.

One of them was the first to touch the button, the first to complete the circuit. No one knew who he was. No one even knew if every button was connected, but someone touched a button and somewhere the circuit was completed.

Shock! Pain jerked our body rigid! We screamed; our skin blistered as hair singed and fell away. And there was a greater shock, a pain somewhere else, as our images cleaved and I fell away from her. I reached out my hand to her, and almost felt her touch ... but my hand was on the button, and she was slumped in her chair on the floor of the Arena.

I jerked my hand away from the button as though it were hot electricity. My whole body was moist with perspiration.

I stared about me, suddenly and deeply frightened. Which of us had screamed ? I'd felt it surging up in me, felt it tearing at my throat, bursting from my mouth, but next to me the others were unconcernedly waiting for me to rise from my seat so that we could file in an orderly fashion from our places in the Arena. They had noticed nothing.

When I stood up my legs were trembling. I could still feel where the leather straps had bitten into them. I stepped carefully up the stairs and went out into the morning sunshine. Though the floodlights had been bright in the Arena, still the sunlight hurt my eyes. I paused at the door, and looked at my ring-watch. It was nine-thirty. Only half an hour had passed.

How long does it take to destroy a few spoiled lives?

It was over. I forced my breathing into a more normal rate and stepped onto the sidewalk. Don't think about it, I told myself. After all, it had been years earlier that I had really lost her....

I had almost made it to the corner when I felt the tap on my shoulder, began to turn, saw the green-sleeved arm extending toward me a familiar black indicator, and heard the proctor say:

"This is the one. Definite case: schizoid condition, latent telepath."

"We're all sorry," said another of them.

And they led me away to face it again.

Ted White - born  1938

Terry  Carr  1937 –  1987