Across the Zodiac (18 page)

"Which seems to show that even in Mars logic does not always dominate
life and prevail over instinct. But what is the most usual cause of
death, where neither disease nor senility are other than rare
exceptions?"

"Efflux of time," Esmo replied with an ironical smile. "That is the
chief fatal disease recognised by our physicians."

"And what is its nature?"

"Ah, that neither I nor any other physician can tell you. Life 'goes
out,' like a lamp when the materials supplying the electric current
are exhausted; and yet here all the waste of which physic can take
cognisance is fully repaired, and the circuit is not broken."

"What are the symptoms, then?"

"They are all reducible to one—exhaustion of the will, the prime
element of personality. The patient ceases to
care
. It is too much
trouble to work; then too much trouble to read; then too much trouble
to exert even those all but mechanical powers of thought which are
necessary to any kind of social intercourse—to give an order, to
answer a question, to recognise a name or a face: then even the
passions die out, till the patient cannot be provoked to rate a stupid
ambâ or a negligent wife; finally, there is not energy to dress or
undress, to rise up or sit down. Then the patient is allowed to die:
if kept alive perforce, he would finally lack the energy to eat or
even to breathe. And yet, all this time, the man is alive, the self is
there; and I have prolonged life, or rather renewed it, for a time, by
some chance stimulus that has reached the inner sight through the
thickening veil, and shocked the essential man into willing and
thinking once more as he thought and willed when he was younger than
his grandchildren are now.... It is well that some of us who know best
how long the flesh may be kept in life, are, in right of that very
knowledge, proof against the wish to keep the life in the flesh for
ever."

Immediately after breakfast the next morning my host invited me to the
gate of his garden, where stood one of the carriages I had seen before
in the distance, but never had an opportunity of examining. It rested
on three wheels, the two hind ones by far larger than that in front,
which merely served to sustain the equilibrium of the body and to
steer. The material was the silver-like metal of which most Martial
vessels and furniture are formed, every spar, pole, and cross-piece
being a hollow cylinder; a construction which, with the extreme
lightness of the metal itself, made the carriage far lighter than any
I had seen on Earth. The body consisted of a seat with sides, back,
and footboard, wide enough to accommodate two persons with ease. It
was attached by strong elastic fastenings to a frame consisting of
four light poles rising from the framework in which the axles turned;
completely dispensing with the trouble of springs, while affording a
more complete protection from anything like jolting. The steering gear
consisted of a helm attached to the front wheel and coming up within
easy reach of the driver's hand. The electric motive power and
machinery were concealed in a box beneath the seat, which was indeed
but the top of this most important and largest portion of the
carriage. The poles sustained a light framework supporting a canopy,
which could be drawn over the top and around three sides of the
carriage, leaving only the front open. This canopy, in the present
instance, consisted of a sort of very fine silken material, thickly
embroidered within and without with feathers of various colours and
sizes, combined in patterns of exquisite beauty. My host requested me
to mount the carriage with him, and drove for some distance, teaching
me how to steer, and how, by pressing a spring, to stop or slacken the
motion of the vehicle, also how to direct it over rough ground and up
or down the steepest slope on which it was available. When we
returned, the Regent's carriage was standing by the gate, and two
others were waiting at a little distance in the rear. The Regent, with
a companion, was already seated, and as soon as we reached the gate,
Eveena appeared. She was enveloped from head to foot in a cloak of
something like swans-down covering her whole figure, loose, like the
ordinary outer garments of both sexes, and gathered in at the waist by
a narrow zone of silver, with a sort of clasp of some bright green
jewel; and a veil of white satin-looking material covered the whole
head and face, and fell half-way to the waist. Her gloved right hand
was hidden by the sleeve of her cloak; that of the left arm was turned
back, and the hand which she gave me as I handed her to the seat on my
left was bare—a usage both of convenience and courtesy. At Esmo's
request, the Regent, who led the way, started at a moderate pace, not
exceeding some ten miles an hour. I observed that on the roofs of all
the houses along the road the inhabitants had gathered to watch us;
and as my companion was so completely veiled, I did not baulk their
curiosity by drawing the canopy. I presently noticed that the girl
held something concealed in her right sleeve, and ventured to ask her
what she had there.

"Pardon me," she said; "if we had been less hurried, I meant to have
asked your permission to bring my pet
esvè
with me." Drawing back
her sleeve, she showed a bird about the size of a carrier-pigeon, but
with an even larger and stronger beak, white body, and wings and tail,
like some of the plumage of the head and neck, tinted with gold and
green. Around its neck was a little string of silver, and suspended
from this a small tablet with a pencil or style. Since by her look and
manner she seemed to expect an answer, I said—

"I am very glad you have given me the opportunity of making
acquaintance with another of those curiously tame and manageable
animals which your people seem to train to such wonderful intelligence
and obedience. We have birds on Earth which will carry a letter from a
strange place to their home, but only homewards."

"These," she answered, "will go wherever they are directed, if they
have been there before and know the name of the place; and if this
bird had been let loose after we had left, he would have found me, if
not hidden by trees or other shelter, anywhere within a score of
miles."

"And have your people," I asked, "many more such wonderfully
intelligent and useful creatures tamed to your service, besides the
ambau, the tyree, and these letter-carriers?"

"Oh yes!" she answered. "Nearly all our domestic animals will do
anything they are told which lies within their power. You have seen
the tyree marching in a line across a field to pick up every single
worm or insect, or egg of such, within the whole space over which they
move, and I think you saw the ambau gathering fruit. It is not very
usual to employ the latter for this purpose, except in the trees. Have
you not seen a big creature—I should call it a bird, but a bird that
cannot fly, and is covered with coarse hair instead of feathers? It is
about as tall as myself, but with a neck half as long as its body, and
a very sharp powerful beak; and four of these
carvee
would clear a
field the size of our garden (some 160 acres) of weeds in a couple of
days. We can send them, moreover, with orders to fetch a certain
number of any particular fruit or plant, and they scarcely ever forget
or blunder. Some of them, of course, are cleverer than others. The
cleverest will remember the name of every plant in the garden, and
will, perhaps, bring four or even six different kinds at a time; but
generally we show them a leaf of the plant we want, or point out to
them the bed where it is to be found, and do not trouble their memory
with more than two different orders at a time. The Unicorns, as you
call them, come regularly to be milked at sunset, and, if told
beforehand, will come an hour earlier or later to any place pointed
out to them. There were many beasts of burden before the electric
carriages were invented, so intelligent that I have heard the rider
never troubled himself to guide them except when he changed his
purpose, or came to a road they had not traversed before. He would
simply tell them where to go, and they would carry him safely. The
only creature now kept for this purpose is the largest of our birds
(the
caldecta
), about six feet long from head to tail, and with
wings measuring thrice as much from tip to tip. They will sail through
the air and carry their rider up to places otherwise inaccessible. But
they are little used except by the hunters, partly because the danger
is thought too great, partly because they cannot rise more than about
4000 feet from the sea-level with a rider, and within that height
there are few places worth reaching that cannot be reached more
safely. People used to harness them to balloons till we found means to
drive these by electricity—the last great invention in the way of
locomotion, which I think was completed within my grandfather's
memory."

"And," I asked, "have you no animals employed in actually cultivating
the soil?"

"No," she replied, "except the weeding birds of whom I have told you.
When we have a piece of ground too small for our electric ploughs, we
sometimes set them to break it up, and they certainly reduce the soil
to a powder much finer than that produced by the machine."

"I should like to see those machines at work."

"Well," answered Eveena, "I have no doubt we shall pass more than one
of them on our way."

As she said this we reached the great road I had crossed on my
arrival, and turning up this for a short distance, sufficient,
however, to let me perceive that it led to the seaport town of which I
have spoken, we came to a break in the central footpath, just wide
enough to allow us to pass. Looking back on this occasion, I observed
that we were followed by the two other carriages I have mentioned, but
at some distance. We then proceeded up the mountain by a narrow road I
had not seen in descending it. On either side of this lay fields of
the kind already described, one of which was in course of cultivation,
and here I saw the ploughs of which my companion had spoken. Evidently
constructed on the same principle as the carriages, but of much
greater size, and with heavier and broader wheels, they tore up and
broke to pieces a breadth of soil of some two yards, working to a
depth of some eighteen inches, with a dozen sharp powerful triangular
shares, and proceeding at a rate of about fifty yards per minute.
Eveena explained that these fields were generally from 200 to 600
yards square. The machine having traversed the whole field in one
direction, then recommenced its work, ploughing at right angles to the
former, and carrying behind it a sort of harrow, consisting of hooks
supported by light, hollow, metallic poles fixed at a certain angle to
the bar forming the rearward extremity of the plough, by which the
surface was levelled and the soil beaten into small fragments; broken
up, in fact, as I had seen, not less completely than ordinary garden
soil in England or Flanders. When it reached the end of its course,
the plough had to be turned; and this duty required the employment of
two men, one at each end of the field, who, however, had no other or
more difficult labour than that of turning the machine at the
completion of each set of furrows. In another field, already doubly
ploughed, a sowing machine was at work. The large seeds were placed
singly by means of an instrument resembling a magnified ovipositor,
such as that possessed by many insects, which at regulated intervals
made a hole in the ground and deposited a seed therein. Eveena
explained that where the seed and plant were small, a continuous
stream was poured into a small furrow made by a different instrument
attached to the same machine, while another arm, placed a little to
the rear, covered in the furrow and smoothed the surface. In reply to
another question of mine—"There are," she said, "some score of
different wool or hair bearing animals, which are shorn twice in the
year, immediately after the rains, and furnish the fibre which is
woven into most of the materials we use for dress and other household
purposes. These creatures adapt themselves to the shearing machines
with wonderful equanimity and willingness, so that they are seldom or
never injured."

"Not even," I asked, "by inexperienced or clumsy hands?"

"Hands," she said, "have nothing to do with the matter. They have only
to send the animal into the machine, and, indeed, each goes in of his
own accord as he sees his fellow come out."

"And have you no vegetable fibres," I said, "that are used for
weaving?"

"Oh yes," she answered, "several. The outer dress I wear indoors is
made of a fibre found inside the rind of the fruit of the algyro tree,
and the stalks of three or four different kinds of plants afford
materials almost equally soft and fine."

"And your cloak," I asked, "is not that made of the skin of some
animal?"

"Yes," she replied, "and the most curious creature I have heard of. It
is found only in the northern and southern Arctic land-belts, to which
indeed nearly all wild animals, except the few small ones that are
encouraged because they prey upon large and noxious insects, are now
confined. It is about as large as the Unicorns, and has, like them,
four limbs; but otherwise it more resembles a bird. It has a bird's
long slight neck, but a very small and not very bird-like head, with a
long horny snout, furnished with teeth, something between a beak and a
mouth. Its hind limbs are those of a bird, except that they have more
flesh upon the lowest joints and are covered with this soft down. Its
front limbs, my father says, seem as if nature had hesitated between
wings and arms. They have attached to them several long, sharp,
featherless quills starting from a shrivelled membrane, which make
them very powerful and formidable weapons, so that no animal likes to
attack it; while the foot has four fingers or claws with, which it
clasps fish or small dragons, especially those electric dragons of
which you have seen a tame and very much enlarged specimen, and so
holds them that they cannot find a chance of delivering their electric
shock. But for the
Thernee
these dragons, winged as they are, would
make those lands hardly habitable either for man, or other beasts. All
our furs are obtained from those countries, and the creatures from
which they are derived are carefully preserved for that purpose, it
being forbidden to kill more than a certain number of each every year,
which makes these skins by far the costliest articles we use."