The SF Hall of Fame Volume Two B (41 page)

He shook his head.

"Go on. Nothing that you say can distress me now. I am
hardened."

"I had meant to tell you the rest, but I cannot: I know
that I cannot: good-bye."

Vashti stood irresolute. All her nerves were tingling with
his blasphemies. But she was also inquisitive.

"This is unfair," she complained. "You have
called me across the world to hear your story, and hear it I will. Tell me—as
briefly as possible, for this is a disastrous waste of time—tell me how you
returned to civilisation."

"Oh—that!" he said, starting. "You would like
to hear about civilisation. Certainly. Had I got to where my respirator fell
down?"

"No—but I understand everything now. You put on your
respirator, and managed to walk along the surface of the earth to a vomitory,
and there your conduct was reported to the Central Committee."

"By no means."

He passed his hand over his forehead, as if dispelling some
strong impression. Then, resuming his narrative, he warmed to it again.

"My respirator fell about sunset. I had mentioned that
the fountain seemed feebler, had I not."

"Yes."

"About sunset, it let the respirator fall. As I said, I
had entirely forgotten about the Machine, and I paid no great attention at the
time, being occupied with other things. I had my pool of air, into which I
could dip when the outer keenness became intolerable, and which would possibly
remain for days, provided that no wind sprang up to disperse it. Not until it
was too late, did I realize what the stoppage of the escape implied. You
see—the gap in the tunnel had been mended; the Mending Apparatus, the Mending
Apparatus, was after me.

"One other warning I had, but I neglected it. The sky
at night was clearer than it had been in the day, and the moon, which was about
half the sky behind the sun, shone into the dell at moments quite brightly. I
was in my usual place—on the boundary between the two atmospheres—when I
thought I saw something dark move across the bottom of the dell, and vanish
into the shaft. In my folly, I ran down. I bent over and listened, and I
thought I heard a faint scraping noise in the depths.

"At this—but it was too late—I took alarm. I determined
to put on my respirator and to walk right out of the dell. But my respirator
had gone. I knew exactly where it had fallen—between the stopper and the
aperture—and I could even feel the mark that it had made in the turf. It had
gone, and I realised that something evil was at work, and I had better escape
to the other air, and, if I must die, die running towards the cloud that had
been the colour of a pearl. I never started. Out of the shaft—it is too
horrible. A worm, a long white worm, had crawled out of the shaft and was
gliding over the moonlit grass.

"I screamed. I did everything that I should not have
done, I stamped upon the creature instead of flying from it, and it at once
curled round the ankle. Then we fought. The worm let me run all over the dell,
but edged up my leg as I ran. 'Help!' I cried. (That part is too awful. It
belongs to the part that you will never know.) 'Help!' I cried. (Why cannot we
suffer in silence?) 'Help!' I cried. Then my feet were wound together, I fell,
I was dragged away from the dear ferns and the living hills, and past the great
metal stopper (I can tell you this part), and I thought it might save me again
if I caught hold of the handle. It also was enwrapped, it also. Oh, the whole
dell was full of the things. They were searching it in all directions, they
were denuding it, and the white snouts of others peeped out of the hole, ready
if needed. Everything that could be moved they brought—

brushwood, bundles of fern, everything, and down we all went
intertwined into hell. The last things that I saw, ere the stopper closed after
us, were certain stars, and I felt that a man of my sort lived in the sky. For
I did fight, I fought till the very end, and it was only my head hitting
against the ladder that quieted me. I woke up in this room. The worms had
vanished. I was surrounded by artificial air, artificial light, artificial
peace, and my friends were calling to me down speaking-tubes to know whether I
had come across any new ideas lately."

Here his story ended. Discussion of it was impossible, and
Vashti turned to go.

"It will end in Homelessness," she said quietly.

"I wish it would," retorted Kuno.

"The Machine has been most merciful."

"I prefer the mercy of God."

"By that superstitious phrase, do you mean that you
could live in the outer air?"

"Yes."

"Have you ever seen, round the vomitories, the bones of
those who were extruded after the Great Rebellion?"

"Yes."

"They were left where they perished for our
edification. A few crawled away, but they perished, too—who can doubt it? And
so with the Homeless of our own day. The surface of the earth supports life no
longer."

"Indeed."

"Ferns and a little grass may survive, but all higher
forms have perished. Has any air-ship detected them?"

"No."

"Has any lecturer dealt with them?"

"No."

"Then why this obstinacy?"

"Because I have seen them," he exploded.

"Seen
what?"

"Because I have seen her in the twilight—because she
came to my help when I called—because she, too, was entangled by the worms,
and, luckier than I, was killed by one of them piercing her throat."

He was mad. Vashti departed, nor, in the troubles that
followed, did she ever see his face again.

During the years that followed Kuno's escapade, two
important developments took place in the Machine. On the surface they were
revolutionary, but in either case men's minds had been prepared beforehand, and
they did but express tendencies that were latent already.

The first of these was the abolition of respirators.

Advanced thinkers, like Vashti, had always held it foolish
to visit the surface of the earth. Air-ships might be necessary, but what was
the good of going out for mere curiosity and crawling along for a mile or two in
a terrestrial motor? The habit was vulgar and perhaps faintly improper: it was
as unproductive of ideas, and had no connection with the habits that really
mattered. So respirators were abolished, and with them, of course, the
terrestrial motors, and except for a few lecturers, who complained that they
were debarred access to their subject-matter, the development was accepted
quietly. Those who still wanted to know what the earth was like had after all
only to listen to some gramophone, or to look into some cinematophote. And even
the lecturers acquiesced when they found that a lecture on the sea was none the
less stimulating when compiled out of other lectures that had already been
delivered on the same subject. "Beware of first-hand ideas!" exclaimed
one of the most advanced of them. "First-hand ideas do not really exist.
They are but the physical impressions produced by love and fear, and on this
gross foundation who could erect a philosophy? Let your ideas be secondhand,
and if possible tenth-hand, for then they will be far removed from that
disturbing element—direct observation. Do not learn anything about this subject
of mine—the French Revolution. Learn instead what I think that Enicharmon
thought Urizen thought Gutch thought Ho-Yung thought Chi-Bo-Sing thought
Lafcadio Hearn thought Carlyle thought Mirabeau said about the French
Revolution. Through the medium of these eight great minds, the blood that was
shed at Paris and the windows that were broken at Versailles will be clarified
to an idea which you may employ most profitably in your daily lives. But be
sure that the intermediates are many and varied, for in history one authority
exists to counteract another. Urizen must counteract the scepticism of Ho-Yung
and Enicharmon, I must myself counteract the impetuosity of Gutch. You who
listen to me are in a better position to judge about the French Revolution than
I am. Your descendants will be even in a better position than you, for they
will learn what you think I think, and yet another intermediate will be added
to the chain. And in time"—his voice rose—"there will come a
generation that has got beyond facts, beyond impressions, a generation
absolutely colourless, a generation

'seraphically free From taint of personality,'
<
which
will see the French Revolution not as it happened, nor as they would like it to
have happened, but as it would have happened, had it taken place in the days of
the Machine."

Tremendous applause greeted this lecture, which did not
voice a feeling already latent in the minds of men—a feeling that terrestrial
facts must be ignored, and that the abolition of respirators was a positive
gain. It was even suggested that air-ships should be abolished too. This was
not done, because air-ships had somehow worked themselves into the Machine's
system. But year by year they were used less, and mentioned less by thoughtful
men.

The second great development was the reestablishment of
religion.

This, too, had been voiced in the celebrated lecture. No one
could mistake the reverent tone in which the peroration had concluded, and it
awakened a responsive echo in the heart of each. Those who had long worshipped
silently, now began to talk. They described the strange feeling of peace that
came over them when they handled the Book of the Machine, the pleasure that it
was to repeat certain numerals out of it, however little meaning those numerals
conveyed to the outward ear, the ecstasy of touching a button, however
unimportant, or of ringing an electric bell, however superfluously.

"The Machine," they exclaimed, "feeds us and
clothes us and houses us; through it we speak to one another, through it we see
one another, in it we have our being. The Machine is the friend of ideas and
the enemy of superstition: the Machine is omnipotent, eternal; blessed is the
Machine." And before long this allocution was printed on the first page of
the Book, and in subsequent editions the ritual swelled into a complicated
system of praise and prayer. The word "religion" was sedulously
avoided, and in theory the Machine was still the creation and the implement of
man. But in practice all, save a few retrogrades, worshipped it as divine. Nor
was it worshipped in unity. One believer would be chiefly impressed by the blue
optic plates, through which he saw other believers; another by the mending
apparatus, which sinful Kuno had compared to worms; another by the lifts,
another by the Book. And each would pray to this or to that, and ask it to
intercede for him with the Machine as a whole. Persecution —that also was
present. It did not break out, for reasons that will be set forward shortly.
But it was latent, and all who did not accept the minimum known as
"undenominational Mechanism" lived in danger of Homelessness, which
means death, as we know.

To attribute these two great developments to the Central
Committee, is to take a very narrow view of civilisation. The Central Committee
announced the developments, it is true, but they were no more the cause of them
than were the kings of the imperialistic period the cause of war. Rather did
they yield to some invincible pressure, which came no one knew whither, and
which, when gratified, was succeeded by some new pressure equally invincible.
To such a state of affairs it is convenient to give the name of progress. No
one confessed the Machine was out of hand. Year by year it was served with
increased efficiency and decreased intelligence. The better a man knew his own
duties upon it, the less he understood the duties of his neighbour, and in all
the world there was not one who understood the monster as a whole. Those master
brains had perished. They had left full directions, it is true, and their
successors had each of them mastered a portion of those directions. But
Humanity, in its desire for comfort, had over-reached itself. It had exploited
the riches of nature too far. Quietly and complacently, it was sinking into
decadence, and progress had come to mean the progress of the Machine.

As for Vashti, her life went peacefully forward until the
final disaster. She made her room dark and slept; she awoke and made the room
light. She lectured and attended lectures. She exchanged ideas with her
innumerable friends and believed she was growing more spiritual. At times a
friend was granted Euthanasia, and left his or her room for the Homelessness
that is beyond all human conception. Vashti did not much mind. After an
unsuccessful lecture, she would sometimes ask for Euthanasia herself. But the
death-rate was not permitted to exceed the birth-rate, and the Machine had
hitherto refused it to her.

The troubles began quietly, long before she was conscious of
them.

One day she was astonished at receiving a message from her
son. They never communicated, having nothing in common, and she had only heard
indirectly that he was still alive, and had been transferred from the northern
hemisphere, where he had behaved so mischievously, to the southern—indeed, to a
room not far from her own.

"Does he want me to visit him?" she thought.
"Never again, never. And I have not the time."

No, it was madness of another kind.

He refused to visualize his face upon the blue plate, and
speaking out of the darkness with solemnity said:

"The Machine stops."

"What do you say?"

"The Machine is stopping, I know it, I know the
signs."

She burst into a peal of laughter. He heard her and was
angry, and they spoke no more.

"Can you imagine anything more absurd?" she cried
to a friend. "A man who was my son believes that the Machine is stopping.
It would be impious if it was not mad."

"The Machine is stopping?" her friend replied.
"What does that mean? The phrase conveys nothing to me."