Books: The Emancipatrix
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Homer Eon Flint >> The Emancipatrix
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The Sanusian chose rather to back carefully away from the spot. She
walked hurriedly up the street she had just left, and before going
another block came across two skeletons lying right in the middle of the
street. A little farther on, and she began to find skeletons on every
hand. Moreover--and this is especially significant--the buildings in
this locality showed a great many gaps and holes in their walls, such as
might have been made by shell-fire.
This made it easier to understand something else. Every few yards or so
the explorer found a large heap of rust in the gutter, or what had once
been the gutter. These heaps had little or no shape; yet the doctor
fancied he could detect certain resemblances to things he had seen
before, and shortly declared that they were the remains of motors.
"Can't say whether they were aircraft or autos, of course," he added,
"but those things were certainly machines." Later, Rolla paid more
attention to them, and the doctor positively identified them as former
motor-cars.
The sun had gone down. It was still quite light, of course; darkness
would not come for a couple of hours. Rolla munched on what food she
had, and pressed on through the ruins. She saw skeletons and rusted
engines everywhere, and once passed a rounded heap of rust which looked
like nothing so much as a large cannon shell. Had the place been the
scene of a battle?
Just when she had got rather accustomed to the place and was feeling
more or less at her ease, she stopped short. At the same time the doctor
himself fairly jumped in his chair. Somewhere, right near at hand, on
one of the larger structures, a bell began to ring!
It clanged loudly and confidently, giving out perhaps thirty strokes
before it stopped. The stillness which followed was pretty painful. In a
moment, however, it was broken as effectively as any silence can be
broken.
A man's voice sounded within the building.
Immediately it was replied to, more faintly, by several others. Then
came the clatter of some sort of utensils, and sundry other noises which
spoke loudly of humans. Rolla froze in her tracks, and her teeth began
to chatter.
Next moment she got a grip on herself. "What difference doth it make,
whether they be friend or enemy?" she argued severely, for the benefit
of her shaking nerves. "They will give thee food, anyhow. And perchance
they know where liveth the magic stone!"
In the end Rolla's high purpose prevailed over her weak knees, and she
began to look for the entrance to the place. It was partly in ruins--
that is, the upper stories--but the two lower floors seemed, so far as
their interior could be seen through the high, unglazed windows, to be
in good condition. There were no doors on that street.
Going around the corner, however, Rolla saw a high archway at the far
corner of the structure. Approaching near enough to peek in, she saw
that this arch provided an opening into a long corridor, such as might
once have served as a wagon or auto entrance. After a little hesitation
she went in.
She passed a door, a massive thing of solid brassy metal, such as
interested the doctor immensely but only served to confuse the explorer.
A little farther on, and the corridor became pretty dark. She passed
another brass door, and approached the end of the pavement. There was
one more door there; and she noted with excitement that it was open.
She came closer and peered in. The room was fairly well lighted, and
what she saw was clear-cut and unmistakable. In the middle of the room
was a long table, and seated about it, in perfect silence, sat an even
dozen men.
XIII
THE TWELVE
For a minute or two Rolla was not observed. She simply stood and stared,
being neither confident enough to go forward nor scared enough to
retreat. Childlike, she scrutinized the group with great thoroughness.
Their comparatively white faces and hands puzzled her most. Also, she
could not understand the heavy black robes in which all were dressed.
Falling to the floor and reaching far above their necks, such garments
would have been intolerable to the free-limbed Sanusians. To the
watchers on the earth, however, the robes made the group look
marvelously like a company of monks.
Not that there was anything particularly religious about the place or in
their behavior. All twelve seemed to be silent only because they were
voraciously hungry. A meal was spread on the table. Except for the
garments, the twelve might have been so many harvest hands, gathered for
the evening meal in the cook-house. From the white-bearded man who sat
at the head of the table and passed out large helpings of something from
a big pot, to the fair-haired young fellow at the foot, who could
scarcely wait for his share, there was only one thing about them which
might have been labeled pious; and that was their attitude, which could
have been interpreted: "Give us this day our daily bread--and hurry up
about it!"
Apparently Rolla was convinced that these men were thoroughly human, and
as such fairly safe to approach. For she allowed her curiosity to govern
her caution, and proceeded to sidle through the doorway. Half-way
through she caught a whiff of the food, and her sidling changed to
something faster.
At that instant she was seen. A tall, dark-haired chap on the far side
of the table glanced up and gave a sharp, startled exclamation.
Instantly the whole dozen whirled around and with one accord shot to
their feet.
Rolla stopped short.
There was a second's silence; then the white-bearded man, who seemed, to
be the leader of the group, said something peremptory in a deep,
compelling voice. Rolla did not understand.
He repeated it, this time a little less commandingly; and Rolla, after
swallowing desperately, inclined her head in the diffident way she had,
and said:
"Are ye friends or enemies?"
Eleven of the twelve looked puzzled. The dark-haired man, who had been
the first to see her, however, gave a muttered exclamation; then he
cogitated a moment, wet his lips and said something that sounded like:
"What did you say? Say it again!"
Rolla repeated.
The dark-haired man listened intently. Immediately he fell to nodding
with great vigor, and thought deeply again before making another try:
"We are your friends. Whence came ye, and what seek ye?"
Rolla had to listen closely to what he said. The language was
substantially the same as hers; but the verbs were misplaced in the
sentences, the accenting was different, and certain of the vowels were
flatted. After a little, however, the man caught her way of talking and
was able to approximate it quite well, so that she understood him
readily.
"I seek," Rolla replied, "food and rest. I have traveled far and am
weary."
"Ye look it," commented the man. His name, Rolla found out later, was
Somat. "Ye shall have both food and rest. However, whence came ye?"
"From the other side of the world," answered Rolla calmly.
Instantly she noted that the twelve became greatly excited when Somat
translated her statement. She decided to add to the scene.
"I have been away from my people for many days," and she held up one
hand with the five fingers spread out, opening and closing them four
times, to indicate twenty.
"Ye came over the edge of the world!" marveled Somat. "It were a
dangerous thing to do, stranger!"
"Aye," agreed Holla, "but less dangerous than that from which I fled.
However," impatiently, "give me the food ye promised; I can talk after
my stomach be filled."
"Of a surety," replied Somat apologetically. "I were too interested to
remember thy hunger." He spoke a word or two, and one of his companions
brought another stool, also dishes and table utensils.
Whereupon the watchers on the earth got a first-class surprise. Here
they had been looking upon twelve men, living in almost barbaric fashion
amid the ruins of a great city; but the men had been eating from hand-
painted china of the finest quality, and using silverware that was
simply elegant, nothing less! Luxury in the midst of desolation!
Rolla, however, paid little attention to these details. She was scarcely
curious as to the food, which consisted of some sort of vegetable and
meat stew, together with butterless bread, a kind of small-grained corn
on the cob, a yellowish root-vegetable not unlike turnips, and large
quantities of berries. She was too hungry to be particular, and ate
heartily of all that was offered, whether cooked or uncooked. The twelve
almost forgot their own hunger in their interest in the stranger.
It was now pretty dark in the big room. The white-bearded man said
something to the young fellow at the foot of the table, whereupon the
chap got up and stepped to the nearest wall, where he pressed something
with the tip of his finger. Instantly the room was flooded with white
light--from two incandescent bulbs!
Rolla leaped to her feet in amazement, blinking painfully in the
unaccustomed glare.
"What is this?" she demanded, all the more furiously to hide her fear.
"Ye would not trick me with magic; ye, who call yourselves friends!"
Somat interpreted this to the others. Some laughed; others looked
pityingly at her. Somat explained:
"It is nothing, stranger. Be not afraid. We forgot that ye might know
nothing of this 'magic.'" He considered deeply, apparently trying to put
himself in her place. "Know ye not fire?" Of course, she did not know
what he meant. "Then," with an inspiration, "perchance ye have see the
flower, the red flower, ye might call--"
"Aye!" eagerly. "Doth it grow here?"
Somat smiled with satisfaction, and beckoned for her to follow him. He
led the way through a small door into another room, evidently used as a
kitchen. There he pointed to a large range, remarkably like the up-to-
date article known on the earth.
"The flower 'groweth' here," said he, and lifted a lid from the stove.
Up shot the flame.
"Great Mownoth!" shouted Rolla, forgetting all about her hunger. "I have
found it--the precious flower itself!"
Somat humored her childlike view-point. "We have the seed of the flower,
too," said he. He secured a box of matches from a shelf, and showed her
the "little sticks."
"Exactly what the angel showed me!" jubilated Holla. "I have come to the
right place!"
Back she went to her food, her face radiant, and all her lurking
suspicion of the twelve completely gone. From that time on she had
absolute and unquestioning confidence in all that was told her. In her
eyes, the twelve were simply angels or gods who had seen fit to clothe
themselves queerly and act human.
Supper over, she felt immensely tired. All the strain of the past three
weeks had to have its reaction. Like a very tired, sleepy child, she was
led to a room in another part of the building, where she was shown an
ordinary sleeping-cot. She promptly pulled the mattress onto the floor,
where she considered it belonged, and fell fast asleep.
Meanwhile, back on the earth, Van Emmon and Smith had lost no time in
making use of the doctor's description of the twelve. Within a few
minutes they had new agents; Van Emmon used Somat's eyes and ears, while
Smith got in touch with the elderly bearded man at the head of the
table. His name was Deltos.
"A very striking confirmation of the old legends," he was saying through
a big yawn, as Smith made connection. He used a colloquial type of
language, quite different from the lofty, dignified speech of the
Sanusians. "That is, of course, if the woman is telling the truth."
"And I think she is," declared the young fellow at the foot of the
table. "It makes me feel pretty small, to think that none of us ever had
the nerve to make the trip; while she, ignorant as she is, dared it all
and succeeded!"
"You forget, Sorplee," reminded Somat, "that such people are far hardier
than we. The feat is one that requires apelike ability. The only thing
that puzzled me is--why did she do it at all?"
"It will have to remain a puzzle until she awakens," said Deltos, rising
from the table. "Lucky for us, Somat, that you saw fit to study the root
tongues. Otherwise we'd have to converse by signs."
Neither Smith nor Van Emmon learned anything further that night. The
twelve were all very tired, apparently, and went right to bed; a
procedure which was straightway seconded by the four watchers on the
earth. Which brings us in the most ordinary manner to the events of the
next day.
After breakfast all but Somat left the place and disappeared in various
directions; and Rolla noted that the robes were, evidently, worn only at
meal time. Most of the men were now dressed in rough working garments,
similar to what one sees in modern factories. Whimsical sort of gods,
Rolla told herself, but gods just the same.
"Tell me," began Somat, as the woman sat on the floor before him--he
could not get her to use a chair--"tell me, what caused thee to leave
thy side of the world? Did ye arouse the wrath of thy fellow creatures?"
"Nay," answered Rolla, and proceeded to explain, in the wrong order, as
a child might, by relating first the crossing of the ridge, the flight
from the bees, the "masters'" cruel method of dealing with Corrus and
Dulnop, and finally the matter of the fire itself, the real cause of the
whole affair. Somat was intelligent enough to fill in such details as
Rolla omitted.
"Ye did right, and acted like the brave girl ye are!" he exclaimed, when
Rolla had finished. However, he did not fully appreciate what she had
meant by "the winged masters," and not until she pointed out some bees
and asked if, on this part of the planet, such were the rulers of the
humans, that the man grasped the bitter irony of it all.
"What! Those tiny insects rule thy lives!" It took him some time to
comprehend the deadly nature of their stings, and the irresistible power
of concerted effort; but in the end he commented: "Tis not so strange,
now that I think on it. Mayhap life is only a matter of chance, anyway."
Presently he felt that he understood the Sanusian situation. He fell
silent; and Rolla, after waiting as long as her patience would allow,
finally put the question temporarily uppermost in her mind:
"It is true that I have crossed the edge of the world. And yet, I
understand it not at all. Can ye explain the nature of this strange
world we live upon, Somat?" There was infinite respect in the way Rolla
used his name; had she known a word to indicate human infallibility,
such as "your majesty," she would have used it. "There is a saying among
our people that the world be round. How can this be so?"
"Yet it is true," answered Somat, "although ye must know that it be not
round like a fruit or a pebble. No more is it flat, like this,"
indicating the lid of the stove, near which they sat. "Instead, 'tis
shaped thus"--and he took from his finger a plain gold band, like an
ordinary wedding ring--"the world is shaped like that!"
Rolla examined the ring with vast curiosity. She had never seen the like
before, and was quite as much interested in the metal as in the thing it
illustrated. Fortunately the band was so worn that both edges were
nearly sharp, thus corresponding with the knifelike ridge over which she
had crawled.
"Now," Somat went on, "ye and your people live on the inner face of the
world," indicating the surface next his skin, "while I and my kind live
on the outer face. Were it not for the difficulties of making the trip,
we should have found you out ere this."
Rolla sat for a long time with the ring in her hand, pondering the great
fact she had just learned. And meanwhile, back on the earth, four
excited citizens were discussing this latest discovery.
"An annular world!" exclaimed the doctor, his eyes sparkling
delightedly. "It confirms the nebular hypothesis!"
"How so?" Smith wanted to know.
"Because it proves that the process of condensation and concentration,
which produces planets out of the original gases, can take place at
uneven speeds! Instead of concentrating to the globular form, Sanus
cooled too quickly; she concentrated while she was still a ring!"
Smith was struck with another phase of the matter. "Must have a queer
sort of gravitation," he pointed out. "Seems to be the same, inside the
ring or outside. Surely, doc it can't be as powerful as it is here on
the earth?"
"No; not likely."
"Then, why hasn't it made a difference in the inhabitants? Seems to me
the humans would have different structure."
"Not necessarily. Look at it the other way around; consider what an
enormous variety of animal forms we have here, all developed under the
same conditions. The humming-bird and the python, for instance.
Gravitation needn't have anything to do with it."
Billie was thinking mainly of the question of day and night. "The ring
must be inclined at an angle with the sun's rays," she observed. "That
being the case, Sanus has two periods each year when there is continuous
darkness on the inner face; might last a week or two. Do you suppose the
people all hibernate during those seasons?"
But no one had an answer to that.
Van Emmon said he would give all he was worth to explore the Sanusian
mountains long enough to learn their geology. He said that the rocks
ought to produce some new mineral forms, due to the peculiar condition
of strain they would be subjected to.
"I'm not sure," said he thoughtfully, "but I shouldn't be surprised if
there's an enormous amount of carbon there. Maybe diamonds are as
plentiful as coal is here."
At the word "diamonds" Smith glanced covertly at Billie's left hand. But
she had hidden it in the folds of her skirt. Next moment the doctor
warned them to be quiet; Somat and Rolla were talking again.
He was telling her about his world. She learned that his people, who had
never concerned themselves with her side of the planet, had progressed
enormously beyond the Sanusians. Rolla did not understand all that he
told her; but the people on the earth gathered, in one way or another,
that civilization had proceeded about as far as that of the year 1915 in
Europe. All this, while fellow humans only a few thousand miles away,
not only failed to make any progress at all, but lived on, century after
century, the absolute slave of a race of bees!
But it was a fact. The ancient city in which Rolla found herself had
been, only a generation before, a flourishing metropolis, the capital of
a powerful nation. There had been two such nations on that side of the
planet, and the most violent rivalry had existed between them.
"However," Somat told Rolla, "'twas not this rivalry which wrought their
downfall, except indirectly. The last great war between them was
terrible, but not disastrous. Either could have survived that.
"But know you that the ruler of one of the nations, in order to carry on
this war--which was a war of commerce (never mind what that means)--in
order to carry it on was obliged to make great concessions to his
people. In the other nation, the ruler oppressed the workers, instead,
and drove them mad with his cruelty. So that, not long after the end of
the war, there was a great rebellion among the people who had been so
long oppressed, and their government was overthrown."
Back on the earth the four investigators reflected on this in amazement.
The case was wonderfully like that of Russia after the great war.
Perhaps--
"Immediately the other nation forced its soldiers to fight the
victorious rebels. But at home the workers had tasted of power. Many
refused to work at all; and one day, behold, there were two rebellions
instead of one! And within a very short time the whole world was
governed by--the working class!"
So this was what the Venusians had meant when they wrote that Sanus was
ruled by the workers!
"What became of these rebellions?" Rolla asked, little understanding
what it meant, but curious anyhow.
"Devastation!" stated Somat solemnly. He waved a hand, to include all
that lay within the ruined city. "Not altogether because of the workers,
although they were scarcely fit for ruling but because the former rulers
and others of that kind, who liked to oppose their wills upon others,
saw fit to start a fresh rebellion. Conflict followed conflict;
sometimes workers were in power, and sometimes aristocrats. But the
fighting ended not until"--he drew a deep breath--"until there were none
left to fight!"
"Ye mean," demanded Rolla incredulously, "that your people killed
themselves off in this fashion?"
Aye," sorrowfully. "There were a few of us--they called us 'the middle
class'--who urged equality. We wanted a government in which all classes
were represented fairly; what we called a democracy. Once the experiment
was started, but it failed.
"Saw ye the skeletons in the streets?" he went on." 'Twas a dreadful
sight, those last few days. I were but a lad, yet I remember it all too
well." He paused, then broke out fiercely: "I tell ye that I saw brother
slay brother, father slay son, son slay mother, in those last days!
"Lucky am I that I fled, I and my parents! They took me to a mountainous
country, but even there the madness spread, and one day a soldier of the
army killed my father and my mother. He sought me, also, that he might
slay me; but I hid from him beneath a heap of manure. Aye," he gritted
savagely, "I owe my life to a pile of manure!
"These other eleven men all have like tales to tell. Only one woman
survived those awful days. Young Sorplee is her son; his father was a
soldier, whom she herself slew with her own hands. Even she is now dead.
"Well," he finished, after a long pause, "when the madness had spent
itself, we who remained came from our hiding-places to find our world
laid waste. 'Tis now thirty years since Sorplee's mother died, since we
first looked upon these ruins, and we have made barely a beginning. We
have little heart for the work. Of what use is it, with no women to
start the race afresh?"
Rolla started despite herself. Was this the reason why she, despite her
savagery, had been made so welcome?
"Ye have not told me," said she hurriedly, "why ye and the others all
wear such curious garments when ye eat."
Somat was taken off his guard. He had been chuckling to himself at the
woman's childlike mind. Now he had to look apologetic and not a little
sheepish as he made reply:
"The robes are a mere custom. It were started a great many years ago, by
the founders of a--a--" He tried to think of a simpler expression than
"college fraternity." "A clan," he decided. "All of we men were members
of that clan."
"And," pursued Rolla, "will ye give me the magic stone, that I may take
the flowing blossoms back to my people, and release my loved one from
the masters' cruelty?"
The great question was put! Rolla waited in tremulous anxiety for the
answer.
"Aye, stranger!" replied Somat vigorously. "More; ye shall have some of
the little sticks!"
Whereupon Rolla leaped to her feet and danced in sheer delight. Somat
looked on and marveled. Then, abruptly, he got up and marched away. He
had not seen a woman in thirty years; and he was a man of principle.
That night, when the twelve were again seated at the table, Somat
related this conversation with Rolla. Since he used his own language, of
course she did not understand what was said. "And I told her," he
concluded, "how we came to be here; also the reason for the condition of
things. But I doubt if she understood half what I said. We have quite a
problem before us," he added. "What shall we do about it?"
"You mean this woman?" Deltos asked. Rolla was busy with her food. "It
seems to me, brothers, that Providence has miraculously come to our aid.
If we can handle her people rightly the future of the race is assured."
Somat thought it was simple enough. "All we need to do is send this
woman back with a supply of matches, and implicit instructions as to how
best to proceed against the bees. Once released, their friends can make
their way over the edge and settle among us. Let the bees keep their
country."
The two who had seconded him before again showed agreement. Sorplee and
Deltos, however, together with the other seven, were distinctly opposed
to the method.
"Somat," protested Deltos, as though surprised, "you forget that there's
an enormous population over there. Let them come in of their own free
will? Why, they would overrun our country! What would become of us?"
"We'd have to take our chances, replied Somat energetically, "like good
sports! If we can't demonstrate our worth to them, enough to hold their
respect, we'd deserve to be snowed under!"
"Not while I'm alive!" snarled Sorplee. "If they come here, they've got
to give up their wilderness ways, right off! We can't stand savagery!
The safest thing for us, and the best for them, is to make an industrial
army of 'em and set 'em to work!" His enthusiasm was boundless.
"I must say," admitted Deltos, with his usual dignity, "that you have
the right idea, Sorplee. If I had stated it, however, I should have been
more frank about it. The arrangements you propose simply means that we
are to take possession of them!"
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