The Bright Tomorrow
By Charles R. Tanner
Since Joel Saunders told me the story of his remarkable
adventure, I have lived in doubt. That the story was
truth, I am convinced, although it sounded like one of
the strangest of science fiction tales, and if it was
truth… well, I am not certain that I would want any of
my descendants living on the earth, a couple of
centuries from now. For Joel Saunders has proved, at
least to my satisfaction, that he traveled into the
future, saw these things of which I am about to tell,
and returned.
You see, I saw Joel Saunders return. That’s one
of the reasons that I believe his story. I cannot make
you believe as I do, of course, because you are a
disinterested person without any of the proofs that I
have had. But if I can even make you think, perhaps the
things that Saunders saw may be averted. Though,
frankly, I don’t see how we can change them. Anyway,
here is the story…
I was sitting under a tree out on my
father-in-law’s farm in Sardinia, Ohio. It had been one
of those warm, hazy days in November that are known as
Indian summer, and I might have been dozing, for I know
that it was sometime after the mist appeared before I
became conscious that I was watching it. Then I sat up
in surprise. There was something odd about the way the
mist preserved its shape and size. In spite of the fact
that a breeze was blowing, that I could feel its breath
upon my face, this mist hovered a few feet away from me,
and did not seem to dissipate. I got up and moved over
toward it. About a foot and a half from it, I was
suddenly stopped, forcibly, as thought I had struck a
stone wall. I stepped back with a cry of alarm, and
then… the mist had suddenly thickened, became the body
of a man suspended in the air, and the body fell heavily
to the ground with a grunt that was decidedly material
in its origin.
For a moment, I gave way to fear and started to
run away. I looked back over my shoulder and saw that
the man was apparently unconscious and bleeding from
several scratches that he had suffered in his fall. By
whatever supernatural means he had gotten here, this was
evidently a normal human being, and one who needed
help. I returned cautiously to the spot and examined
the man. He was young, not thirty yet, I judged, and
with a crop of red hair and a freckled face that
certainly had no place on a denizen of another world.
I’ve never yet heard of a red-haired ghost, nor, I
imagine, has anyone else. It was astonishing how this
reflection soothed my fears. I approached the young
fellow and began an attempt to restore him to
consciousness. He was probably about to waken, anyhow,
for I had no more than taken up his hand when he opened
his eyes and looked about him.
“Where am I?” he asked, and on my informing him;
“Well! Only forty miles off! That’s hopeful. What year
is this?”
“Oh, say!” I replied incredulously. “Isn’t that
just a little too vague? Surely you’re not in such a
daze as all that?” You see, I thought he was putting it
on. But he insisted.
“I really want to know,” he said. “I’ll tell
you why in a minute.” So I told him. “Nineteen
thirty-two!” he cried. “Say that’s fine. And what’s
the date?”
Well, I told him and he frowned. “Looks like
I’ve lost a few months somehow,” he mumbled. “It was
April when I left.”
“Left where?” I thought it was about time he
was answering a few of the questions that were flocking
through my mind. “Where did you leave? Where have you
been? How does it happen that you don’t know how long
you’ve been gone? And say! How in thunder did you get
here anyway?”
He grinned. He seemed to be regaining his
strength and composure extremely rapidly for one who had
so recently materialized before my very eyes. He
grinned, as I said, and sat up and looked about him.
“Joel Saunders, my name is,” he began. “I left
Cincinnati, four days ago. At least it was four days
ago to me. But it was last April then. And since then,
I’ve had… well, one hell of an adventure. I’ve been
knocking about in the twenty-second century. And I
didn’t like the place a bit! So I came back!”
“I wished you’d be a little more explicit,” I
said, with some heat. “What do you mean twenty-second
century?”
“Just what I say, you see, I’m a student under
Amos Lambert, down in Cincinnati. One of the biggest
physicists in the world, he is. You know, the fellow
Einstein visited last year? Well, he and I have been,
had been, I should say, working on a certain train of
thought for nearly two years when we found something
that enabled us to bring our theories right into
practice. Plainly, our theorizing had led us to
postulate an atom that could, theoretically be rotated
into a fourth dimension. Of course, to us, it was
merely a hypothetical atom, with an atomic number far
above uranium. And so we expected our theories merely
to remain theories. Until a meteor fell about six miles
north of Cincinnati, last year, and in the examination
of it, a strange element was discovered, which proved to
be the element which we had conceived!”
“Of course, Dr. Lambert secured as much as he
could of it, and set about at once to experiment with
it. There wasn’t much of the element, but we found that
there was enough, nevertheless, to construct a true,
workable time machine. And so it was that, on the
twelfth of last April, we launched ourselves into a trip
that ended, for me, just now.”
“But where’s Dr. Lambert?” I asked,
skeptically. “And, still more important, where’s your
time machine?”
Saunders smiled ruefully.
“Dr. Lambert decided to remain in the
twenty-second century,” he replied. “And the time
machine… I couldn’t stop it. So I jumped out, when we
passed the right year… and the time machine is still
going!”
“Going? Going where?”
“Back to the dawn of history, I guess…back to
the Jurassic period… back to the Paleozoic Era. I don’t
know where it will keep on until its energy is
expended.”
“Then you can’t prove your story? To the
satisfaction of men of science, I mean.” I hasten to
add this last, for somehow, I didn’t want this frank,
clear-eyed young fellow to think that I doubted him.
Anyway, I don’t think I did, even then.
“No-o,” he answered hesitantly. “I don’t
believe I can. But look here.” He drew several
articles from his pocket as he spoke. “Here are some of
the inventions in the twenty-second century. Let’s see
if they’ll still work.”
The first object he tried was a rod with a
handle that looked not unlike a pistol. He pointed it
at an old glacial boulder that lay some distance away,
and pressed some kind of a button. There was a sudden
rush of cold air toward the instrument. I saw a
phosphorescent glow in the air, on a line between the
instrument and the rock… and then the rock was gone!
“Disray,” he said, enthusiastically. “The same
weapon you’ve probably read about in the science fiction
stories. What do you think of it?”
“Wonderful! If that don’t convince your
doubters, nothing will.”
“Not a chance. It gets its power from the
powercasters. And there won’t be a powercaster in the
world for another hundred and twenty years. That little
bit of power that disintegrated that rock was left in it
from the last charge. It’s all expended now. The
disray is useless.”
“But you have other articles?”
“Ye-e-ah, but nothing that could really prove my
trip. The others might easily be mere clever inventions
of my own.”
“Well you’ve proved it to me, all right. Come
on up to the house and let me hear the rest of your
story.”
So we went up to my father-in-law’s house, and I
introduced him as a friend who had just come up from the
city, and he had supper with me, and after supper, I got
him alone and heard from him the entire story of his
adventure.
We had been working on the time machine for
about six months (said Joel Saunders) when Dr. Lambert
called me up and announced that the ultimium had been
placed in the machine to his satisfaction. Ultimium,
that’s what we had named this new element. Well I was
all enthusiastic. That was practically the last thing
that we had to do. I knew that we would have the time
machine finished that night, and so, of course, I
hurried over to do what I could to help finish. By
midnight, the huge globe was ready, and I for one,
couldn’t wait to test it out. Theoretically, of course,
it was perfect, but you know, theories have a way of
getting mixed up with the facts that are still unknown
and producing strange results. If the theories of time
that we had based our problems on were right, well and
good, but if there were a few unknown facts interfering,
Lord only knows what might happen. But, nevertheless,
we were about to find out.
So we stepped into the time machine (we had to
experiment on ourselves, for we couldn’t send guinea
pigs into the future and expect them to guide the
machine back again), and Dr. Lambert set it a couple of
hundred years ahead. There was a rising hum from the
apparatus, and then a queer flattening of the
perspective of everything, and I knew that we were
really moving through time, on into the unknown future.
The room seemed, for just a few seconds, to be a
shadow picture on a flat screen. I couldn’t have told
the distance of any object except for the fact that I
was already familiar with the arrangement. But the most
distant object in the room was suddenly as close to me,
apparently, as the objects right in front of me. This
phenomenon persisted for a brief space, and then
dissipated. The hum from the machine stopped, and I
looked at Lambert inquiringly. He smiled
encouragingly.
“We’re here, Saunders,” he exclaimed. “All out
for the twenty-second century.”
In surprise, I looked out the window, unable to
believe that we had come so far in so little time. I
might have known that we had, though. Our flight
through time had been, to us, instantaneous. The
phenomenon I had observed had been caused by the
starting of the machinery. Of course, if you are moving
through time, there can be no auxiliary phenomenon to
take the place of time. In a moving time machine, you
have no sense of time at all, and the flight seems
instantaneous.
Well, as I say, I looked out of the window, and
sure enough, we were elsewhere. Certainly not in the
big barn-like laboratory of Dr. Lambert. As a matter of
fact, we were sitting in the middle of a large field, a
field of corn, to be exact; and extending in all
directions from us were rows of foot high stalks.
We got out of the machine and looked around. No
house in sight. Just corn. Corn everywhere. In some
places we could see a good mile. And we could see
nothing but corn.
“Good gosh!” I cried, “Is this what Cincinnati
is going to be like in a couple of hundred years?
Where’s the town gone to?”
“We’re not necessarily in the vicinity of
Cincinnati,” answered Lambert. “Although the
calculations show that the gravity of the earth would
hold the time machine so that it would stick to the
earth during its time travels, there’s nothing that
would keep it anchored to one spot. We may have
wandered over a considerable area in two hundred years.
However, let’s see if we can’t find some sign of human
habitation where we can prove that we really are in the
age we think we are. So we started to walk. And
presently, in the distance, we saw a huge machine
approaching us. It drew nearer and nearer and presently
we saw that it must be the twenty-second century
equivalent of a weeding machine.
“Somebody will be running that thing,” I said.
“Let’s go and ask them when we are.”
Lambert smiled at the phrase and we struck off
toward the approaching machine. As we drew near, we saw
to our surprise that there was no one operating it.
“Robot!” I cried in astonishment. “It must be
the future, all right.”
“Yes. But I’d like to find out the exact year.
And if I’m not mistaken, I’m going to get a chance.” He
pointed as he spoke over a distant hill; and, looking
where he pointed, I saw an airplane rapidly
approaching. It seemed to be an autogyro type, or
perhaps a helicopter, and it flew very low and it flew
silently. When it reached a point about a hundred feet
over our heads, it stopped and a man looked over the
side.
“Hi, folks!” he called, genially. “What are
you doing down there? You’re out of bounds.”
“We’re strangers,” called back Lambert. “And
we’re lost. Can you tell us how to get to town?”
The man looked at us queerly. “Strangers?” he
said. He hesitated, then, “Wait a minute.”
A moment later, the autogyro sank to about
twenty feet from the ground, and a rope ladder fell to
our feet.
“Come on up,” he cried, and soon we were seated
in the cockpit in front of him. The rope ladder was
drawn up and away went the plane into the south.
We road along for a minute or two in silence. I
had never ridden in an airship of any kind before and
the scene below interested me, tremendously. We
continued to fly over interminable fields of corn, and
still no sign of habitation was visible. Evidently this
was all one vast farm, and I was convinced, as I flew
along, that farming, in this day, had become
industrialized as the other businesses had been in my
time. This enormous cornfield was probably all the
property of one vast company. And later events were to
prove that I was right.
But if I was content to sit and speculate, Dr.
Lambert was not.
“We’ve come a long way, in that machine that you
saw in the field,” he was saying to the flyer. “We’ve
had a queer adventure and so we’re a little bit mixed
up. Can you tell us where we are?”
“Sure,” grinned the man. “This is Section 47,
Cultar 1861, and U.S.N.A. You’re astronauts, I guess,
eh?”
“Not exactly,” answered Lambert, but I could see
that the idea of astronautics appealed to him. “No, not
exactly that. And please, just one more silly question
and then I’ll shut up. What date is this?”
The man’s grin grew even wider. “You’re
astronauts, all right.” He insisted. “Well, the date is
June 16th, 2132. How’s that?”
“Excellent,” asserted Lambert, and winked at
me. “And now, please, where are you taking up?”
“Home,” said the man. “You can get in touch
with the authorities, there.”
And so we flew on until we came, at last, to a
house. It was not a large house; jut a bungalow, in
fact, and the barns in the back of it dwarfed it by
their immensity. But it was a beautiful house, and I
don’t think I ever saw a place with such an atmosphere
of contentment about it. It was composed of some
synthetic stone, of a rose-pink color, that contrasted
vividly with the green of the leaves of a vine that grew
over it and almost covered it. In the front of this
house grew two great cedar trees and under those trees
upon the close-cropped grass, two rosy cheeked
youngsters were plain playing with a dog. It was a
remarkably tame dog, for the children were pulling it
tail and mauling it around unmercifully, yet it never
offered to snap at them or even to get up and go away.
And on the porch sat a woman, obviously their mother,
and most likely, this flyer’s wife.
The plane descended in the rear of the house,
and the flyer motioning us to follow, ran around to the
front, where he was at once attacked by the children
who, with cries of delight, forsook the dog and devoted
their attentions to him. Laughingly, he tore them loose
and turned to the woman.
“Some men I found in the corn.” He announced, as
an introduction and then turned to us. “This is my
wife,” he explained, needlessly, “Madame Sarah-antimi-dor.
And that reminds me, I haven’t introduced myself. I am
George-intimi-kai, superintendent of the S Cultar.”
We bowed and Dr. Lambert told him our names. He
looked a little puzzled as he heard them but said after
a moment or two of hesitation, “I’ll get you in touch
with the authorities if you wish.” This time it seemed
to me that he put a certain emphasis on the word
“authorities”, that’s the way he seemed to say it.
Somehow I didn’t just like the way it sounded.
But Dr. Lambert was eager to get in touch with
someone other than this twenty-second century equivalent
of a farmer. If he could find some man of knowledge to
whom he could confide the story of his time flight, he
would be in the seventh heaven. And so he cautioned me
with a glance and we allowed the man with the strange
name to do as he wished.
Which he proceeded to do in this manner… He went
to the drawer and brought out a little machine not
unlike a magic lantern of the old days. He even put a
little silver screen in front of it, and when he turned
it on, a light sprang out of the lantern and covered the
screen. Then he began to twist the dials on the back of
the machine and in a moment images began to flash upon
the screen. Hazy at first, they gradually became more
and more distinct, and suddenly, there was the image of
a man, seated at a little desk and facing us. And a
voice came from the machine, and the man’s lips moved -
- it was the voice of the man, talking.
“Cincinnati-central,” he barked, mechanically.
“Agricultural Headquarters. John-anti-mar speaking.”
“Our host’s voice took on a tone as mechanical
as that of the other man. “Cultar 1861, George-intimi-kai
speaking. Report on discovery of unknown strangers in
Section 47, believed to be astronauts from the moon or
Venus. Give names of old-fashioned nomenclature. Did
not know whereabouts or date of the year.”
“Any details?” queried the man on the screen.
“None. Got in touch with you immediately upon
return to the house.”
“Report received. Will have a flyer sent for
them at once,” and the screen darkened and was blank.
George - - well, let’s just call him George - -
turned to us with his perpetual smile.
“Well, gentlemen, now that business is attended
to, let’s have a little fun. What recreation class are
you in? I rate Athletic 22. And historical plays,
third grade. And flying, of course. And for hobbies,
botany of this district and the collection of early
twentieth century radiator caps.”
That certainly didn’t mean very much to us. I
caught glimpses of an enormous system that regulated
men’s lives, even in their recreation, and I wondered
just how much we might affect this system - - two
strangers, coming apparently from nowhere. But the
professor had caught one of the phrases of George’s list
and was answering him, already.
“I’m sure we’d like to see your collection,” he
was saying, and following George, we went into a back
room, where he moved over to a cabinet and through open
the drawers. And there, in those drawers, old and
tarnished, worn and scratched, was a collection that
made George’s eyes glisten, and that made me smile
sympathetically - - for I have been a collector, to, in
my time. These things were rare old antiques to George,
but to me they were just what he called them - -
radiator caps of the early twentieth century.
Well, we admired his collection, and in this at
least we could feel at home. George at once decided
that we were experts in this line, and was overcome with
joy when we identified a couple of whose origin was in
doubt. I saw a lot of radiator caps that had cost our
host a pretty penny - - I could buy them by the gross
today. There were some from every year from 19010 to
1940; and there was a 1936 Ford cap, - - wait till you
see it, it’s going to be a beauty. But never mind about
that, before we lost our interest, Madame Sarah came to
announce that dinner was ready. So we went out under
the trees, and there was a table, and we all sat down,
and a funny little robot shaped like a tea table came
out from behind the house and served us. Served us
brown and milk, and strawberries, and a meat paste that
was made from, I don’t know, some kind of animal, and we
talked and laughed, and the children made up with us,
and we had a grand time. Andover all this happiness was
hovering a shadow, if only we had known it…
The plane from the city arrived about three in
the afternoon. George and Sarah welcomed the man who
brought it with elaborate ceremony, and seemed greatly
honored by his presence. But I can’t say that I took
such a liking to him as I might. There was - - I don’t
know – something different about him. He wasn’t the
same kind of person as George and Sarah. I could see at
once why George had used the word “Authorities” as he
had. This man was just the sort that suggested the
capital “A”.
But my feelings were not shared by any of the
rest. That was obvious. George and Sarah, as I have
said, were honored, flattered. And Dr. Lambert was too
interested in the thought of going on to the city to pay
any attention to the character of the man who was taking
us there. So I suppose I was the only one who had any
misgivings.
The man talked to George for a moment and then
turned to us.
“I’m Hanno-sec-gariti,” he snapped, sharply.
“What’s your names and titles?” I was about to answer
hotly when Lambert interrupted me.
“I am Doctor Amos Lambert,” he said mildly.
“And this is my assistant, Joel Saunders. We have been
engaged in an experiment…”
“And I guess you fought in the Revolutionary
War!” barked the man. “What do you mean, handing me such
old style names? Come across with your right names and
titles!”
This time I managed to answer before Lambert
could stop me.
“Keep a decent tongue in your head”, I snapped.
“Who do you think we are anyway? If you want to find out
anything about us, ask us in the right way.”
The man’s change of front was remarkable, it was
so abrupt. He stiffened, snapped into attention, and
saluted.
“Hanno-se-gariti, Intelligence Section,
Cincinnati-Central, Number 181. Asking pardon of the
Authorities for his abrupt manner.” He barked out the
words in a manner as abrupt as ever, but it was not a
superior tone that he used now. It was decidedly
servile. I was amazed, but I pursued my advantage.
“You have orders, I suppose? Well, carry them
out.”
“Very good, sir. I am to bring you to
Cincinnati,” he turned to the machine as he spoke and
with a bow, gestured that we were to cater it. I turned
to say goodbye to George, and he, too, was bowing and
had a decidedly frightened look on his face.
“I didn’t know you were Authorities,” He said
in a low tone. “Pardon, sirs, I didn’t know.”
“Aw, that’s all right, George,” I said
uncomfortably. “Mistakes will happen”
He looked up with a surprised expression on his
face, but I thought that I had better let well enough
alone, and so I stepped into the flyer. Dr. Lambert
followed, as did the man Hanno, and in a moment we had
left the home of George-intimi-kai, and were flying away
to Cincinnati.
I wouldn’t have recognized the city. There
wasn’t a single landmark to suggest the city of the
twentieth century. An Enormous dam had been thrown
across the Ohio River some miles above the city, and
where the river had formerly been, great skyscrapers and
now reared their heads into the sky. No doubt about
this being a city of the future, I thought. I looked
again, and saw thousands of airships buzzing around the
great group of buildings like bees around a hive.
Strangely, this skyscraper district didn’t take up more
than a mile or two! In the center, a great spire that
must have been over a thousand feet high reared its
nose, and around it were dozens of others whose height
grew less and less as they reached the boundary of the
district. And beyond was the residential section. Mile
upon mile of bungalows, all lay out in straight streets
that climbed over the hills and sank down into the
valleys without a turn right or left. There must have
been hundreds, yes, hundreds of thousands of these
bungalows. Homes! The homes of the million or more
inhabitants that were employed in the in the might
center on the river.
We hung over the group of skyscrapers and I
found time to marvel at their beauty. No hodgepodge of
buildings such as there had been in my day. This entire
great group was in fact, one great architectural
masterpiece, each unit complete in itself, yet each a
part of one harmonious whole. And the colors, the forms
of the buildings and the immensity of the whole concept
testified to the mastery which the artists had by now
attained over their materials. I had hardly had time to
admire the stupendous beauty of it all when we swept
down to a landing on one of the towers.
Hanno opened the door of the cockpit and we
stepped out. The flyer led us over to a little cupola
and we entered what seemed to an elevator. It was. We
dropped a dozen or more stories and then stopped. Hanno
motioned to us to get out, we did so, and he swung the
door closed and disappeared.
Well, for a moment we didn’t know which way to
turn. But that was all right. We were n a place where
there were plenty of people to tell us what to do - -
and a darned sight more to see that we did it! We were
approached by a woman in a blue, mannish uniform.
“You are to appear before Arnold of the
Authorities,” she said. “Will you please come with me?”
Well she said it nicely enough. We complied,
were taken into a huge private office and in a moment
were standing before a heavy beetle-browed man, who was
plainly straining to appear pleasant.
“Well, gentlemen,” he said, with a puzzled frown
on his face. “I must admit you have me at a
disadvantage. You’re none of mine, are you?”
We denied, promptly and heartily, that we were
any of his. He raised his eyebrows at this and looked
his next question. I was about to try the same methods
on him that I had used so successfully with Hanno when
Dr. Lambert spoke up.
“You are on in authority here, are you not?”
The beetle-browed man looked amazed.
“Confound it, I am Authority,” he
snapped. “Come on, now, who are you? Eh?”
“I am Dr. Amos Lambert. This is my assistant,
Joel Saunders. These names, no doubt, seem queer to
you, seem old fashioned, but it’s because we are a good
deal older than you give us credit for. To be brief,
sir, in the fourth decade of the twentieth century, I
discovered certain physical facts that enabled me to
construct a time machine. We got into it, set it for
two hundred years in the future, and here we are. I
think we can prove to you that this is the truth, if you
will give us a little time. If I could talk with some
of the mathematicians or physicists of this age, for
example…”
“Authority” was holding out his hand.
“Gentlemen, amazing as your statements seem, I
am inclined to believe you.” He was smiling genially,
and it seemed to pain his face, yet he went on: “No
other explanation could be given that would explain your
sudden appearance in Cultar 1861. You’re not
astronauts, that’s certain; and I’m positive you’re not
of my district. So you must be time travelers. Eh?”
Yes, we answered, that’s just what we were. He
got up.
“Well, gentlemen, it behooves me, then to be
your Virgil. You know, show you through the place, as
Virgil showed Dante. Eh?” He chuckled hugely at his
own joke and moved to the door, stopping as he did so,
to press a button on his desk. By the time he reached
the door, it opened and a young man entered.
“Starrant, these gentlemen are visitors to our
century from the twentieth. They have come to see our
remarkable civilization.” He dropped his voice for a
moment, said something to the young man that I couldn’t
catch, and then went on: “Show ‘em everything you can,
Starrant, and then bring ‘em back here. I want to talk
to ‘em.”
And so began our strange journey through that
astounding city of the future. I cannot tell a third of
the remarkable things I saw there. My mind was in a
daze from jerking my attention from one remarkable thing
to another. I saw great freighters, air-freighters,
leaving the city, as though it were a seaport, leaving
on destinations unknown to me, but which may have been
cities far across the sea. I saw a huge metallic
“skyscraper” rising in the distance across the Kentucky
hills and was told that it was an experimental rocket,
ready for a flight to the moon. I watched, on the edge
of the skyscraper district, while a disray excavator
gouged out an excavation for a new building. It took it
about half an hour, and it would have taken twentieth
century labor over two weeks to do it. And I rode in
the wonderfully simple automobiles of the time, and
wondered at complications of the cars of our day.
And at last the day ended and Starrant took us
to what corresponded to a hotel in this time, and whose
us to our rooms.
“I will come again, tomorrow,” he said. “You
must see how our people live. You will be delighted.”
Ah! That was what would interest me. Never
mind these marvelous inventions. They had all been
anticipated in the science fiction of my day. But how
did the people live? Were they contented and were they
happy, under the rule of these mysterious “Authorities?”
I knew I was going to be interested, next day.
And I was. We started out early, before eight
o’clock, and went at once down to levels where the
trains came in from the districts where the people
lived. Everyone commuted, it seemed, everyone lived in
the great outer section where thousands of almost
identical bungalows covered the countryside, and, every
morning, everyone took train that brought them to the
great commercial center to work. We stopped our car at
the entrance to a mammoth building that housed one of
the depots, and in a moment, were in the midst of a
laughing, jostling, good-natured crowd that struggled
past us and out of the building on its way to work.
“This is the eight o’clock crowd,” said Starrant.
“There’s another wave that comes at nine o’clock, and
another at ten. They all work five hours. That’s all.
Five hours a day, four days a week. That’s all that’s
necessary. Splendid, isn’t it?”
“It’s got our age beat,” I answered. We worked
eight hours a day, five and a half days a week.”
Starrant grunted.
“Don’t see how you could stand it,” he said.
Things must have been a regular been a regular hell,
back in those days. And you weren’t even trimmed! How
did you ever stand it?”
“Trimmed!” Thus I heard it for the first time.
If I had known what it meant then…
We followed one of the gay laughing crowds that
ended their way out of the depot. The crowd consisted
of young men and women of about twenty-five, and
Starrant had singled them out for a particular reason.
“The group,” he murmured to us as we trialed
after them, “is composed of young people just of
college. Everyone, you know, gets college education.
It’s as free and as compulsory as grade school
education of your day. And after their education is
finished, everyone has a job waiting for him. Trust the
Authorities for that.
In a short while, the group turned into a
building and we followed. After a talk with a
hard-faced individual at the elevator, Starrant motioned
us to come on, and we soon found ourselves in the
twenty-second century equivalent of a tailoring shop.
Some of the same group that we had followed from the
train were working here, and I was amazed at the change
in them. From a laughing, happy throng, they had
suddenly changed to what seemed, to all intents and
purposes, a group of mindless robots. Like automatons
they performed their labor, without a remark or a glance
at the companions that they had laughed with and chaffed
at, but a few moments before. Their movements were
lightning quick, their work was perfect, but never have
I seen such a total forgetfulness of self and such a
perfect concentration on the work at hand.
“What’s the matter with them?” I whispered to
our guide. “What’s changed them so?”
“Nothing’s the matter with them. They’re doing
just what they should. They get paid for working, don’t
they? Well they’re working.”
“True enough, but they didn’t work like that in
my day.” How can they concentrate so int3ently on their
work?”
“How can… what?” Starrant was as amazed by my
question as I had been at the workers. “Why, they’ve
been trimmed! How can they act any other way?”
“Say!” I ejaculated. “What is this trimming,
anyway?”
“I think I had better let the Authorities
explain that,” answered Starrant, evasively. “After
I’ve shown you around, you know!”
And so we left the tailoring establishment and
soon were out in the street again. We visited another
building, and another, and every one that we visited, I
saw the same intent concentration on the job that I had
seen elsewhere. Dinner time came, and we entered a
restaurant, had a brief meal and again took up our
exploring. By the time we had visited another building,
it was one o’clock and Starrant announced that he was
going to show us now to some of the homes.
“The first wave is through work for the day,
now,” he said. “I’ll show you how we live when we’re
not working. And you now, we don’t work very much.” He
laughed, a little apologetically, as though he thought
they ought to work a lot more, and then went on: “You
didn’t like our workers very much. I hope you like us
better at play.”
We entered a flyer, we flew up over the city,
and after a while we landed in the “public square”, if
I might call it that, of one of the groups of bungalows
outside of the skyscraper district. Even as we left the
car, I heard a cheery voice hail Starrant, and looked
around to see one of the young men that we had followed
into the tailoring building.
“Hello, Starry, old man! Who are your
friends?”
Starrant brought us forward and introduced us.
One could hardly believe that this cheery,
happy-go-lucky youth whom Starrant introduced as Harry
something-or-other was one of the dull-eyed robots that
I had seen in the morning, yet I am sure that I had seen
him there in the great factory. Nevertheless, there was
nothing dull about him, now. When he heard whom we
were, he went through all the stages of disbelief,
incredulity amaze and astonishment that you would expect
him to, and then rather bashfully bade us welcome to his
house.
“Is it really true,” he asked, as we walked down
the street, “that you have never been trimmed? Say, how
does it feel, anyhow?”
“What is this trimming?” I asked. “I don’t
think it’s ever been done to me, but since I don’t know
what it is, I can’t say if I’ve ever had it done or
not. What is it?”
Starrant interfered suavely.
“The Authorities will tell him, Harry,” he
stated. “You just act as our host for a while, will
you?”
So the four of us, and after a while a couple
of merry young girls that were evidently friends of
Harry, set out to continue our sightseeing.
“There is little use to go into detail about
the various sights that we saw until the time that we
returned to our hotel. We took a trip to a huge
swimming pool, a public swimming pool, Starrant said,
free to all the people, and saw hundreds merrily playing
in the water. We passed a golf course, or what passed
as a golf course, and saw many playing the strange,
complicated game that had, by this time evolved from
golf. We visited a dance pavilion, and watched dances
that really were dances, and not the rhythmic stalking
about that we indulge in today. And wherever we went,
we found people happily at play, for, as Starrant said,
once their work was done, their time was their own, and
the Authorities saw to it that nobody was unhappy. And
at last, as night came on, we turned our steps toward
the center of the city again, and then a thought came to
me...
“Say, Starrant,” I said, “What about the night
life of the city? Can’t you show us some of that?”
For a moment our guide was puzzled.
“Night Life? Oh! You mean staying up at night
and seeking pleasure then? Why, there isn’t any more
night life. We have plenty of time in the day for
pleasure. We sleep at night. And so must you. We’re
going home, now.”
And home we went - - “and so to bed.”
Next day we got a notice to appear before old
“Authority.” We were taken back to his room in the
skyscraper, and were immediately escorted into his
presence. No long waiting in the anteroom, aw we would
have had to do in our time. The old fellow went to the
pint at once by asking us just what we had seen and what
we thought of it. Dr. Lambert was enthusiastic. Their
civilization, he said, was splendid. The most advanced
thinkers of our time had only hoped for a Utopia such as
had, by now, actually been accomplished. He went on at
a great rate and I waited for him to finish his eulogy,
for there was something that I had to say. When he
stopped:
“There’s two things I’d like to know about,” I
said. One is: What’s the matter with everybody when
they start to work; and the other is: what’s trimming?”
“Authority” smiled. “I can answer both of
those questions with a single answer, for trimming is
what makes such excellent workers of the people.
Trimming, my dear sir, is what you are to see, today.”
He rang for Starrant.
“Today, I want you to take these gentlemen to
the Trimmer’s,” he said. “I have left instructions
there to see that they are taken care of. You may
return when you leave them there.”
“And so Starrant took us to the “Trimmer’s”. I
began to get suspicious as soon as I found out that it
was kind of a hospital. But the man in whose charge we
were placed, a white-frocked, bald-headed little fellow,
was so cheerful, so anxious to be friendly, that I soon
let my suspicions die. Yes, this was the “Trimmer’s”,
as they called it, he said in answer to our questions.
That was what the people called it. Actually, it was
the “Institute of Regulatory Pediatrics”. It was the
place where children were brought to have their inborn
irregularities “ironed out” as you might say.
“You understand,” said this surgeon, “every
human being is born with certain traits of the beast in
him. In a civilization like ours, these traits would
undoubtedly work harm to society in general. And modern
science, modern surgical science, has found a way to
remove these traits by operation on the endocrine
glands, the glands of internal secretion. In that way,
we have been enabled to totally remove all traces of
insanity, and of criminality from our world.”
“Do you mean that there are no more
criminals?” asked Dr. Lambert, in delight.
“Not even radicals,” asserted the other. “We
remove the cause within a year after birth. Every child
is brought to the institute, at the proper time, and by
the time we are through with him, he is an ideal
citizen. There are no more criminal traits left in him,
he is an ideal citizen. There are no more criminal
traits left in him, there is no ability to rebel against
constituted authority, and the mind has been so trained
that - - well, you have seen our people at work, have
you not?” He hesitated a moment, then added: “Of
course, the children of the Authorities have a totally
different type of training.”
“But say!” I ejaculated. “What if the parents
don’t want their child carved up like that? Haven’t
they anything to say about it?”
“Oh, it’s quite compulsory,” answered the man.
“And no one would think of disobeying that law. In
fact, no one has the power to disobey the law. The
desire has been removed!”
“Been removed? Even the desire to - - say,
aren’t these people free agents at all?”
“Oh, yes! So long as they don’t go counter to
the will of the Authorities. They can’t do that. They
don’t even think of doing that. It never occurs to
them.”
Well, it sound pretty bad to me. But the
people seemed happy. A short while later, I saw a group
of mothers bringing their babies in to be trimmed and
they seemed tickled to death to think that the time had
come for the operations. That almost decided me that it
must be all right - - and then he took us into an
operating room and I saw those poor little tots lying in
the long rows of cots, with their heads bound up and
scars on their necks - - and I was right back where I
started from. No trimming for me, even if it did enable
me to live in Utopia.
But Dr. Lambert was enthusiastic over what, to
him, was a triumph of science over brute nature,. He
was so delighted that he began to entertain the idea of
staying here in the twenty-second century. He asked if
that could be done.
“No doubt the authorities could arrange it,”
answered the surgeon. “in fact, I can safely say that
it can be arranged. You’d have to be ‘trimmed’ of
course.”
I thought that would settle Dr. Lambert, but it
didn’t. He seemed to think that would be quite okay. I
didn’t say anything, but I was quite certain that I
wasn’t going to stay here and be carved up like a
cadaver in a medical school. But I was to find out that
I didn’t have much to say about it. The surgeon took us
through the entire institute, and when we had seen
everything, he brought us back to the office.
“Now, gentlemen,” he said, as we seated
ourselves. “I have a duty that will, no doubt, be
rather unpleasant, although I am much encouraged by the
remarks of Dr. Lambert. Briefly, the Authorities have
decided that you cannot return to your own time. It
would be too dangerous to our civilization.” I started
up in anger, but he waved me to silence and went on:
“Just imagine yourself returning to the twentieth
century, and bringing people by the hundred into our
time - - unregulated people, people with all kinds of
brutish minds; radical, criminals, lunatics - - why,
gentlemen, our civilization wouldn’t last a year. No,
gentlemen, it’s unthinkable. The Authorities are right,
you cannot return. But you can remain here, and
we will be glad to welcome you to our glorious
commonwealth - - Provided, of course, that you allow us
to undertake the proper operations.”
My anger burst all bounds. “But I don’t want to
stay here,” I cried. “And I know damn well I don’t want
any operations!”
The surgeon looked amazed. It was funny, the
way he looked. He looked as though he couldn’t believe
his ears.
“If there was one thing in the world needed to
prove the truth of your story,” he said at length, “it’s
that astounding outbreak! Rebellion against the wishes
of the Authorities! I never expected to live to see
such a wonder. But, of course, I have prepared for it.
Banion!”
His call brought a man into the room, a huge,
red-faced fellow; and at the surgeon’s order, this
fellow literally picked me up and walked off with me.
In short order I found Myself in a little room in the
cellar of the institute, and as there were no locks on
the doors in this age, Banion sat down outside of the
door to guard over me. And there I was.
It seemed an age before anything happened. I
tried to draw Banion into a conversation, but he was
“working”. That is, he had the same rapt look on his
face that I have seen on the faces of the people in the
factories. And I couldn’t get him to say a word to me.
Lambert came to plead with me to abandon my
rebellious attitude. He felt sure, he said, that there
would be no danger to me, in submitting to their
wishes. And I would win the inestimable privilege of
becoming one of these happy people of this age. But I
stuck to my guns and at last he went regretfully away.
And with him went my last hope.
I don’t know how long I had been in this room
when my idea came to me. A day, at least. And when I
did think of it, I wondered that I hadn’t thought of it
before. It might not work, or course, but when I
thought of the way the fellow Hanno had acted, when he
came to bring us to the city - - These people were used
to obeying orders spoken with the voice of authority. I
went to the door and shouted to the guard without.
“Attention is orders,” I barked, and was
delighted to see him at once stand up. “What do you
mean by detaining me here?” I went on, angrily. “Are
you armed?”
“Yes, sir,” he answered, meekly. “A disray,
sir.”
Starrant had told me about disrays, had told me
how they worked and what they would do. If I could get
hold of one of them…
“Give it to me!” I commanded. “And get out of
here!”
He did it! Did just as he was told, and in a
moment or two, I was dashing madly through the hall and
up the stairs to the roof. And there, on the roof, just
as I had hoped, was a flyer. Could I run it, I
wondered? I thought so, for I had watched Starrant
carefully, and I have always been clever about
mechanics. And it was almost foolproof. Well, I had to
run it. And I did.
But I was not to get off as easily as I hoped.
Somehow my escape had been discovered - - I suppose the
guard reported to the surgeon; and in a short while a
dozen flyers were pursuing me. But I had a good start
and the plane was a fast one, and for a while it looked
as though I might elude them entirely. But I had
decided not merely to flee from them but to reach the
time machine if I could, and as I didn’t know just where
it was located, they had me at a disadvantage. They
drew nearer and nearer, and just when I had about given
up hope, I spied the farmhouse of George-intimi-kai. I
knew where I was then, and five minutes later, I dropped
into the field, not far from the time machine.
But even as I leaped from the flyer, my pursuers
were also dropping out of their own and giving chase.
By the time I reached the machine and thrown open its
door, I was sure they had me. I stumbled in at the
door, fell on my face, and, I tell you, it’s lucky I
did. For a beam from a disray stabbed over me and
struck into the vital parts of the machinery! I swung
the door shut, and, gasping for breath, sank to the
floor again. There wasn’t a minute to spare. I hurled
shut the switches that started the machine’s operation
and the next minute saw the dial spin around from
seventy to nothing. That meant something was wrong!
For a moment I lost hope. Then I began a frantic
check-up, and at the end of it, I breathed a little
easier. The time machine had been damaged in such a way
that, once started, it would swing through time to its
point of origin and then, after a brief hesitation,
would travel on until its energy was expended. How I
thanked the powers that be for the phenomenon that
caused that hesitation at the original point where the
dials had started off, and as the queer flattening of
the perspective returned to normal, I threw open the
door and leaped out…
Well you know the rest. I’m back again, and
believe me, I have no more desire to go exploring in
time again. I’d rather live my life out as a tramp in
the world than have all the happiness that age can
bring.
… And that is the story, just as Joel Saunders
told it to me. I have given much thought to it since,
and I must confess that I feel about it as Joel felt. I
would rather starve, living here in the early twentieth
century, than to be one of those “dumb, driven cattle”
that will live out their lives in peace and plenty and
contentment, two hundred years from now. So would a
good many other people I know. But I realize that in
all that world of the twenty-second century, there is
not one man that would change place with me. I think
that I’m right, but they, no doubt, are equally
convinced that they are. What do you think about
it?
THE END