Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction (103 page)

As he spoke, a young man—evidently his son— entered the thread room and stared at his father and the Forester with cold, supercilious eyes. “Wassum!” said the attendant, but the youth merely scowled in reply. He examined Winters silently with distrust, then went out again without speaking.

“Your son is a solemn chap!”

“Yes. So is his generation—they take life too seriously.”

“But do they never enjoy themselves?”

“Oh, yes! There is the hunting moon in fall. The young men track the deer on foot and race him— sometimes for days on end—then throw him with their bare hands. My son is a famous deer chaser. He practices all year long for the autumn season.”

“But are there no…er…lighter pastimes?”

“There are the festivals. The next one is the festival of autumn leaves. At the time of the equinox the young people dress in russets and reds and golds, and dance in a clearing in a wood which has been chosen for its outstanding autumn beauty. The young women compete in designing costumes.”

“But the younger ones—the children?” “They are at school until they are twenty years of age. School is a time of hard work and study. The young people are not permitted games or pastimes except such exercise as is needed to keep them in health. When they finish school, they enter upon the rights and pleasures of their generation—a prospect which makes them work harder to finish their schooling as soon as possible.”

* * * *

As they went out into the sunlight once more, Winters observed a small airship settling down in the village campus. It was the airwheel, the Forester said, and it would not leave again until dusk.

“I have never been in one,” said Winters.

“You
are
a trogling!” the Forester exclaimed. “Suppose we go up for a short flight, then?” Winters eagerly agreed. They walked over to the machine which Winters examined curiously. Here, at least, three thousand years of improvements were visible. The enclosed cabin would seat about twenty persons. There were no wings at all, but three horizontal wheels (two in front and one in the rear) above the level of the cabin. A propeller projected from the nose and this was still idling when they arrived. The Forester explained his wishes to the pilot who asked which direction they should prefer to take.

“South to the water and back!” put in Winters, with visions of the thriving New York metropolitan area of his day running through his memory. They took their places and the airwheel rose gently with only a faintly audible hum—it was a practically silent flight made at enormous speed.

In ten minutes the sea was in sight. Winters gazed breathless through the crystal windows upon several islands of varying sizes—clothed in the green blanket of dense forest. Slowly he pieced out the puzzle: there was Long Island, evidently, and over there he saw Staten Island. Beneath him then lay the narrow strip of Manhattan and the forest towered over everything alike.

“There are ruins beneath the trees,” said the Forester, noting his interest. “I have been there several times. Our historians believe the people of ancient times who lived here must have been afraid of the open air, for they either lived beneath the ground or raised stone buildings which could be entered without going out-of-doors: There are tunnels, which they used for roadways, running beneath the ground in every direction.”

CHAPTER 3

“He Has an Appendix!”

Then the airship turned about and as it did so Winters caught sight of one gray pile of masonry—a tower tip—showing above the forest. Surely it must have taken thousands of years to accomplish this oblivion of New York! And yet, he thought to himself, even one century makes buildings old.

He scarcely looked out of the window on the way back, but sat engrossed in sad thoughts and mournful memories. They landed once more in the village clearing, and he continued his tour under the Forester’s guidance. When the afternoon was over he had gathered a confusing mass of general information about life in the new age. Metals were carefully conserved and when a new colony was started its supply of metal utensils and tools was the final great gift of the parent villages. Farming was entirely unknown, and grain— which the Forester did not know except as “plant-seed”—was not used for food, although primitive races had once so used it, he said. Everything came from trees now: food, houses, clothing—even the fuel for their airships, which was wood alcohol.

The life of a villager was leisurely and pleasant, Winters decided. Hours of labor were short and the greater part of the day was devoted to social pleasures and scientific or artistic hobbies. There were artists in the village, mostly of some new faddist school whose work Winters could not in the least understand. They painted trees and attempted to express emotions thereby. But many beautiful pieces of sculpture were set about in some of the houses. Electric power was received through the air from the great Falls, where it was generated; and each socket received its current without wiring of any sort. The village produced its own food and made its own clothes and building materials, paper, wood alcohol, turpentine and oils. And as this village lived, apparently so did the rest of the world.

As Winters pictured this civilization, it consisted of a great number of isolated villages, each practically self-sufficient, except for metals. By taking the air-wheel from one village to the next and there changing for another ship, a man could make a quick trip across the continents and oceans of the globe. But science and art were pursued by isolated individuals, the exchange of ideas being rendered easy by the marvelously realistic television and radio instruments.

* * * *

At dusk they returned to the Chief Forester’s house for dinner.

“I must apologize to you for the food,” said he. “We are on slightly curtailed supplies, due to our population having grown faster than our new plantings. Oh, you will have a good meal—I do not mean to starve you—but merely that you will be expected not to ask for a second service of anything and to excuse the absence of luxuries from my table.” His great body dropped into an upholstered chair.

“Is there any way to arrange things except by rationing yourselves while you wait for the new forests to bear crops?”

The Forester laughed a trifle bitterly. “Of course—but at a price. We could easily fell some trees for mushroom growing (they grow on dead logs) and also we could cut into the crop of edible pith-trees a little before maturity—and so all along the line. That would set us back in our plans a few years at the most, but there is no use talking about it. The Council of Youth has claimed the Rights of its Generation. The future is theirs, of course, and they object to our spending any of their resources now. We older people are a little more liberal in our views—not selfishly, but on a principle of commonsense. There have been some bitter words, I’m afraid, and the matter is by no means settled yet—for their attitude is almost fanatical and lacks all reason. But there is no need to bother you with our local affairs,” and he turned the conversation into other channels.

He was forever using the expression “thanks to our ancestors,” a point which Winters noted with surprise. So far one thing had eluded Winters completely: that was the history of the past ages during which all these drastic changes had come about. When the tune came that he was bade to tell his story at the conclusion of the meal, he thought a moment as to how he might best obtain this information.

“I have traveled far,” he said. “But in time—not in distance.”

The Forester held a forkful of food poised in the air, eyebrows raised.

“What nonsense is this?” he demanded.

“No nonsense…your mushrooms
are
delicious…I have succeeded in controlling the duration of a state of suspended animation. I went to sleep many years ago; woke up this morning.”

The Forester was incredulous.

“How long do you pretend to have slept?”

“I don’t know for sure,” replied Winters. “My instruments showed a certain figure, but to be at all certain I should prefer that you tell me the history of the world. No need of anything but the rough outlines.”

“Ha, Ha! You promised me a story and you are most ingenious in fulfilling your promise, stranger!”

“I am, on the contrary, absolutely serious!”

“I cannot believe it—but it may be an amusing game. Let me see…Last year the first breadfruit trees bore in the lower temperate zones of the earth (that is a piece of it in your plate). It has greatly changed our mode of life and it may soon be unnecessary to grind chestnut flour for baking.”

“Interesting,” replied Winters. “But go back a thousand years more.”

The Forester’s eyes opened wide. Then he laughed delightedly. “Good! It is no lowly boaster, eh! A thousand years…That would be about the time of the great aluminum process. As you know, prior to that time the world was badly in need of metals. When Koenig perfected his method for producing aluminum from clay the economics of the world was turned topsyturvy and…what! Farther back than a thousand years!”

“I think you might try two thousand.”

The Forester exploded with laughter and then sobered at a sudden thought. He glanced shrewdly at his companion a moment, and a slight coldness appeared in his eyes.

“You are not by any slightest chance serious?” he asked.

“I am.”

“It is absurd! In those days the human body still had an appendix—that was just after the Great Revolution when the Wasters were finally overthrown, and True Economics lifted her torch to guide the world on its upward path. Two thousand years ago! Thence dates all civilized history! Such archaic customs as organized superstitions, money and ownership by private people of land and a division of humanity into groups speaking different languages—all ended at that time. That was a stirring period!”

“Well then, go back another five hundred years.”

“The height of the false civilization of Waste! Fossil plants were ruthlessly burned in furnaces to provide heat; petroleum was consumed by the billion barrels; cheap metal cars were built and thrown away to rust after a few years’ use; men crowded into ill-ventilated villages of a million inhabitants—some historians say several million. That was the age of race-fights where whole countrysides raised mobs and gave them explosives and poisons and sent them to destroy other mobs. Do you pretend to come from that shameful scene?”

“That is precisely the sort of thing we used to do,” replied Winters, “although we did not call it by the same set of names.” He could barely repress his elation. There could no longer be the slightest doubt of it—he was alive in the year 5000! His clock had been accurate!

The Forester’s face was growing red. “Timberfall! You have been amusing long enough—now tell me the truth: Where is your orig?”

“I don’t understand. I have told you the truth.”

“Stupid nonsense, I tell you! What can you possibly hope to gain from telling such a story? Even if people were such fools as to believe you, you could hardly expect to be very popular!”

“Why,” said Winters in surprise, “I thought you were so thankful for all your ancestors had done for you? I am one of your ancestors!”

The Forester stared in astonishment. “You act well,” he remarked dryly. “But you are, I am sure, perfectly aware that those ancestors whom we thank were the planners for our forests and the very enemies of Waste. But for what should we thank the humans of three thousand years ago? For exhausting the coal supplies of the world? For leaving us no petroleum for our chemical factories? For destroying the forests on whole mountain ranges and letting the soil erode into the valleys? Shall we thank them, perhaps, for the Sahara or the Gobi deserts?”

“But the Sahara and the Gobi were deserts five thousand years before my time.”

“I do not know what you mean by ‘your’ time. But if so, all the more reason you should have learned a lesson from such deserts. But come! You have made me angry with your nonsense. I must have some pleasant sort of revenge! Do you still claim to be a living human from the Age of Waste?”

Winters’ caution bade him be silent. The Forester laughed mischievously: “Never mind! You
have already
claimed to be that! Well then, the matter is readily proved. You would in that case have an appendix and…yes…hair on your chest! These two characteristics have not appeared in the last two thousand years. You will be examined and, should you prove to have lied to me, a fitting punishment will be devised! I shall try to think of a reward as amusing as your wild lies have proved.”

His eyes twinkled as he pressed a button hidden ia his chair arm. A minute later two young men entered. Winters, in no physical condition to resist, was soon stripped of his clothing. He was not particularly hairy of chest, as men of his age went, but hair there was unquestionably. The Forester stepped forward offering an incredulous exclamation. Then he hurriedly seized the discarded clothing and felt the material carefully —examining the linen closely in the light of the electric lamp concealed in the wall.

“To the health room with him!” he cried.

Poor Winters was carried helplessly down a corridor and into a room lined with smooth white glass and set about with apparatus of an evident surgical nature. The place was odoriferous with germicide. He was held against a black screen, as the Forester snapped on an X-ray tube and peered at Winters’ nude body through a mask of bluish glass. After a minute he left —the room and returned again almost instantly, a book now in his hands. He opened to a page of photographs and studied them carefully, once more peering at Winters through the mask. Finally he grunted in stupefaction and with close-pressed lips and puzzled eyes turned to the two attendants.

“He has an appendix—there can be no doubt of it! This is the most amazing thing I have ever imagined! The stranger you see before you claims to have survived from the ancient days—from the Age of Waste! And he has an appendix, young comrades! I must talk to the biologists all over the country—the historians as well! The whole world will be interested. Take him along with you and see that he is provided with walling for the night.”