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confine him here," he said to Gapth, "in chamber eight of the twenty- fourth section, at the seventh
elevation, and you will produce him upon orders from The Twentyfour when next they meet," and then to
me: "It is impossible for you to escape from the city, but if you attempt it, it may be difficult for us to find
you again immediately and when we do you will be tortured to death as an example to other slaves. Go!"
I went; following Gapth and the others who had conducted me to the presence of this creature. They led
me back into the very corridor from which we had emerged upon the terrace and then straight into the
heart of that amazing pile for fully half a mile, where they shoved me roughly into an apartment at the right
of the corridor with the admonition that I stay there until I was wanted.
I found myself in a dimly lighted, rectangular room, the air of which was very poor, and at the first glance
I discovered that I was not alone, for upon a bench against the opposite wall sat a man. He looked up as
I entered and I saw that his features were very fine and that he had black hair like Nah-ee-lah. He
looked at me for a moment with a puzzled expression in his eyes and then he addressed me.
"You, too, are a slave?" he asked.
"I am not a slave," I replied, "I am a prisoner."
"It is all the same," he said; "but from whence come you? I have never seen your like before in Va-nah."
"I do not come from Va-nah," I replied, and then I briefly explained my origin and how I came to be in
his world. He did not understand me, I am sure, for although he seemed to be, and really was, highly
intelligent, he could not conceive of any condition concerning which he had had no experience and in this
way he did not differ materially from intelligent and highly educated Earth Men.
"And you," I asked, at length -- "you are not a Kalkar? From whence come you?"
"I am from Laythe," he replied. "I fell outside the city and was captured by one of their hunting parties."
"Why all this enmity," I asked, "between the men of Laythe and the Kalkars -- who are the Kalkars,
anyway?"
"You are not of Va-nah," he said, "that I can see, or you would not ask these questions. The Kalkars
derive their name from a corruption of a word meaning The Thinkers. Ages ago we were one race, a
prosperous people living at peace with all the world of Va-nah. The Va-gas we bred for flesh, as we do
today within our own city of Laythe and as the Kalkars do within their city. Our cities, towns and villages
covered the slopes of the mountains and stretched downward to the sea. No corner of the three oceans
but knew our ships, and our cities were joined together by a network of routes along which passed
electrically driven trains" -- he did not use the word trains, but an expression which might be liberally
translated as ships of the land -- "while other great carriers flew through the air. Our means of
communication between distant points were simplified by science through the use of electrical energy,
with the result that those who lived in one part of Va-nah could talk with those who lived in any other
part of Va-nah, though it were to the remotest ends of the world. There were ten great divisions, each
ruled by its Jemadar, and each division vied with all the others in the service which it rendered to its
people. There were those who held high positions and those who held low; there were those who were
rich and those who were poor, but the favors of the state were distributed equally among them, and the
children of the poor had the same opportunities for education as the children of the rich, and there it was
that our troubles first started. There is a saying among us that 'no learning is better than a little,' and I can
well believe this true when I consider the history of my world, where, as the masses became a little
educated, there developed among them a small coterie that commenced to find fault with everyone who
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had achieved greater learning or greater power than they. Finally, they organized themselves into a secret
society called The Thinkers, but known more accurately to the rest of Va-nah as those who thought that
they thought. It is a long story, for it covers a great period of time, but the result was that, slowly at first,
and later rapidly, The Thinkers, who did more talking than thinking, filled the people with dissatisfaction,
until at last they arose and took over the government and commerce of the entire world. The Jemadars
were overthrown and the ruling class driven from power, the majority of them being murdered, though
some managed to escape, and it was these, my ancestors, who founded the city of Laythe. It is believed
that there are other similar cities in remote parts of Va-nah inhabited by the descendants of the Jemadar
and noble classes, but Laythe is the only one of which we have knowledge. The Thinkers would not
work, and the result was that both government and commerce fell into rapid decay. They not only had
neither the training nor the intelligence to develop new things, but they could not carry out the old that had
been developed for them. The arts and sciences languished and died with commerce and government,
and Va-nah fell back into barbarism. The Va-gas saw their chance and threw off the yoke that had held
them through countless ages. As the Kalkars had driven the noble class into the lofty mountains, so the
Va-gas drove the Kalkars. Practically every vestige of the ancient culture and commercial advancement
of Va-nah has been wiped from the face of the world. The Laytheans have held their own for many
centuries, but their numbers have not increased.
"Many generations elapsed before the Laytheans found sanctuary in the city of Laythe, and during that
period they, too, lost all touch with the science and advancement and the culture of the past. Nor was
there any way in which to rebuild what the Kalkars had torn down, since they had destroyed every
written record and every book in every library in Va-nah. And so occupied are both races in eking out a
precarious existence that there is little likelihood that there will ever again be any advancement made
along these lines -- it is beyond the intellectual powers of the Kalkars, and the Laytheans are too weak
numerically to accomplish aught."
"It does look hopeless," I said, "almost as hopeless as our situation. There is no escape, I imagine, from
this Kalkar city, is there?"
"No," he said, "none whatever. There is only one avenue and we are so confused when we are brought [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]