_ CHAPTER VII. RAPID TRANSIT ON MARS
Here Thorwald paused and said he should be obliged to leave us a short time to attend to some duty in the management of the vessel. When he returned I remarked that neither he nor his companions seemed to have to work very hard.
"That," he answered, "is just the thought I want to speak of next, as the doctor has said many earthly troubles arise from severe labor. Here there is no hard work for us. It is all done by some kind of mechanism. Look at the handling of this ship, in which, as you say, no one is burdened. The hard and disagreeable parts of the work are taken out of our hands and are put into the hand of machinery, which in its perfection is almost intelligent. It is so in all departments of work. Inventions looking toward the saving of labor have closely followed each other for so many years that their object is about accomplished, and all the pain and sorrow accompanying daily toil are things of the dead past. Even our animals are relieved from distressing labor and share with us the blessings of an advanced civilization, every heavy weight being raised and every burdensome load being drawn by an arm of steel or aluminum, which neither tires nor feels. We do not need to pity a machine. Why should flesh and blood, whether of dumb beasts or of more intelligent beings, suffer the agony of labor when the work can be better done by mechanical means?
"While speaking of the lower animals I may as well say here that we have no wild beasts. All have been tamed; not merely brought into subjection, but made the friends and companions in a sense of our higher race. Every animal, large and small, has lost its power and will to harm us. The wasp has lost its sting, the serpent its poison, and the tiger its desire to tear. And not only is their enmity to us all gone, but they no longer prey upon each other. Perfect peace reigns in this realm also."
"What has brought about this highly interesting condition?" I asked. "Was there a natural tendency toward perfection on the part of the beasts?"
"No," replied Thorwald, "I think not. The change has been accomplished by us. Nothing that has life could help being uplifted by contact with our ever-expanding civilization. We believe the chief factor in working this great betterment in the animal creation has been our success in entirely eliminating flesh as an article of food. We early came to see it was not necessary for ourselves and that without it we were much better prepared to assume the higher duties belonging to our advanced life. We then began to experiment with the animals nearest us. It was a slow and discouraging task at first, but finally we obtained results that gave us hope of success. We found in the course of many years that the digestive organs of the animals on which we were experimenting were gradually becoming accustomed to a vegetable diet. We continued the work, extending it to one class of animals after another, until in time all carnivorous instincts disappeared."
This interested the doctor exceedingly, and he remarked that he should think there would have been some kinds of animals that would resist all efforts to work such a change in them; but Thorwald answered:
"I have never read of such cases, but if there were any the species must have become extinct, for now, in all this world, no conscious life is taken to support another life. No blood is let for our refreshment and no minutest creature is pursued and slain to appease the appetite of its stronger neighbor."
"Does this condition extend even to the fish of the sea?" inquired the doctor.
"Even to the fish of the sea," answered the Martian.
"Now that you discover," he continued, "what improvement has been wrought in the lower animals, you can understand that their comfort is an object of our solicitude, and that we take great pleasure in knowing that they are relieved from all hard labor."
"But you haven't told us," said I, "what is the source of the power that does all your work."
"Let me ask," replied Thorwald, "if you have begun to use electricity yet?"
"Yes," I answered, "we are trying to harness it, but it is still far from obedient to us."
"I perceive," said our friend, "from this and other things you have told me, that your development is going on in about the order which has prevailed on Mars. Do not be discouraged in your efforts to bring that mysterious and wonderful agent, electricity, into complete subjection. You will find it your most useful servant, and in connection with aluminum it will enable you to solve numerous problems and remove many difficulties from your path of progress.
"Here we have made full use of both of these valuable helps. Electricity enters into every department of life.
"It runs our errands, takes us from place to place, builds our houses, cooks our food, and even is applied to the growth of our food when we are in haste for any article. Its laws are so well understood that there is no fear of personal injury from its use, and I will show you how familiar an aid it is to us. Here," he continued, taking from his pocket a brightly polished case of metal, "is a compact storage battery, containing, not electricity itself, of course, but elements so prepared that a simple touch will start into motion a powerful current, able to perform almost any task I may ask of it. This case, you see, is so small and light that it is no burden, and yet it contains power enough to serve me for many days. Of course, all our work of a fixed character has appliances with the power permanently attached, and these portable reservoirs are carried about with us only for detached and unexpected tasks."
To my experienced eye the doctor's face looked a little skeptical at this last remark, and he said:
"But how can the power be applied in these emergencies? Suppose, for example, it were necessary for you to go from here to the other end of this vessel in half a second, how would the electricity in your box help you do it?"
"If I really thought, Doctor, you wanted to be rid of me I would be tempted to try it; but, as I told your companion just now, you had better learn all you can of our history before you begin to see what we can do.
"I haven't told you half of the wonders performed by this marvelous power. It has long been our chief reliance for rapid traveling. You find us in this ship; but, although navigation is a perfected science, this mode of traveling is tedious, and ships are used only for pleasure and such out- of-the-way trips as this. Journeys from place to place over established routes are made in large tubes, in which the cars are propelled by electricity. These tubes run both on land and water, being suspended in the latter a little way below the surface. Both tubes and cars are air- tight, and the adjustment is so perfect that the cars slide along with the greatest ease. Riding in an air-tight chamber would not be pleasant if much time were to be occupied in that way, but the cars are propelled so swiftly that the time from one station to another is hardly appreciable. At every stop the cars are opened and apparatus set in motion which changes the air completely almost in a moment. Where the tubes run under water shafts for air are put in at the stations. There is always a double line, one tube for each direction. No chance is left for accidents.
"Of course we navigate the air, swiftly and safely. If not in too much haste we always take the aerial passage, and often on a pleasant day the sky over a great city will be as full of air ships, or balloons as we still sometimes call them, as its harbor is of pleasure boats. In this department inventors had a fruitful field, the use of aluminum offering abundant opportunity for the greatest variety of devices, and the development of the flying machine was one of the most interesting features in the march toward our present high civilization. Perhaps the presence of so many electrical machines in the air and the utilization of so much electricity on land and water have, after thousands of years, done much toward freeing us from the thunderstorm, with its deadly lightning. We have fairly robbed the clouds of their electricity and taught it to do our work.
"Swift and economical as our modern electric cars are, there is one mode of traveling sometimes adopted which is more rapid still, and the cheapest and in some respects the easiest way of getting over the surface of the globe ever dreamed of. It was discovered by accident, just before accidents entirely ceased, in the following manner:
"A couple of scientific enthusiasts, of the kind we call cranks--I don't know what you call them on the earth--conceived the idea that they could find something better to take the place of the highly purified and buoyant gases which we used in our flying machines. They observed, in the lofty flights they were accustomed to make into the air, that as they ascended the atmosphere grew lighter, and this led them to think they might go far into the upper regions, collect large quantities of rarefied air, bring it down, and use it for floating flying machines. Of course, they understood that any vessel this thin air was put into must be strong enough to prevent being collapsed by the weight of the denser atmosphere on the surface. But they thought small spherical vessels of very thin metal could be made that would withstand this pressure and still hold enough to float and carry some weight besides. They had a large number of these hollow balls made and started on a trial trip, expecting to bring down only a small quantity each time. But, in their endeavor to obtain the very best quality of lifting material possible, they went much higher than they intended, although this did not cause them as much inconvenience as might have been expected, since they were provided with the latest improved breathing apparatus. The result of their adventure, however, was a discovery of such magnitude that it drove from their minds all thought of their real errand and we never again heard of that project. After remaining at an extreme height a few hours, the surface of the planet being hidden by clouds, they began to descend, and when they were near enough to see the features of the country below them, everything looked strange and unknown. They could not account for this, but continued their fall, fully persuaded that it must be their own world and not some other which they were approaching. But even if they had not been correct in that, they could hardly have been more surprised than they were to find, on landing, that they were almost exactly on the opposite side of the globe from the place where they made the ascent. They seemed to have traveled half way around the world in that incredibly short space of time, when in reality they had remained stationary and the world had traveled around them. The fact is, they had risen above all the denser portion of the planet's atmosphere, and had reached a stratum of extremely rarefied air, which, it seems, does not accompany the globe in its revolution. Of course, the facts were at once heralded to the four quarters of the world, and the two aerial travelers found themselves famous. But they did not wish to let such an astounding discovery rest upon the results of a single experiment, and so they proved themselves worthy of their new fame by going home the way they came. That is, they mounted their flying machine, rose again to the same lofty height, remained there about the same time as before, descended, and were near their home."
Here the doctor asked:
"And has this singular mode of traveling become popular, Thorwald?"
"For long distances east and west it is often resorted to. But I presume you are asking yourself whether you could introduce it on the earth. When you return and begin to think it over you will probably see so many practical difficulties in the way that you will not attempt it. You must have patience. All these things will come to your race in time." _