Page:Amazing Stories Volume 01 Number 08.djvu/61

732 rival, had passed the stage of human civilization and that to them our customs, habits and mode of life would appear as barbarous and primitive as those of the prehistoric cave dwellers to us.

There is no agriculture, so no demand for agricultural machinery. No vast transportation of foodstuffs and raw materials, for with power wherever required and food and all things needed—with the exception of sulphur—available anywhere, there is little to be carried and airships are all that are required. All resources are equally at the disposal of every member of the community and hence there is no struggle for existence or for wealth, and as every member of the nation is developed, trained and predestined, from the day of hatching, for some definite place in life, there is no ambition, no desire for advancement. In short these beings are mere automatons, machines endowed with life, intelligence and minds, and nothing more. They only differ from insensate mechanisms inasmuch as they have their times for rest and recreation, and I daily thank God that human beings have not yet come to such a pass.

Often, when among my fellow men, I have heard arguments and have read articles in favor of a communistic or socialistic life and government, and picturing the ideal Utopia that the earth would be if men could all be equal, if all wealth could be equally divided and there could be no class distinctions, no struggle for supremacy. Often, too, I have in the past felt that such a state would be desirable, and many a time, when fortune frowned upon me and I compared my lot as a sailor with the ease and luxury of wealthy passengers upon my ships, or with the rich ship owners, I have felt bitterness that some should be so favored and others forced to struggle through life in poverty. But now I realize what dire results would follow were these socialists' ideas fulfilled. Now I realize that there could be no ambition, no desire for betterment, no real happiness in life and no pride if such conditions prevailed. No, a thousand times no. Better dire poverty, unending toil, the abuses and vices, the wars and strife, all the wrongs and woes of mankind and civilization than to become the heartless, impersonal beings that such conditions would lead to. What would the world of men be without love, sentiment, art, music, affection, ambition? What would it be if the human race had no ideals beyond existence and the propagation of the species? What would it be if there was nothing to spur men on, to send them to sleep weary with the day's work but filled with dreams and visions of accomplishments on the morrow; to awaken them filled with determination to succeed, to force their way to the top? What would life amount to if men had no aims, no ideals in life, no necessity to exert themselves, to prove superiority to their fellows, to force their individuality upon the world and to choose their path in life and to be independent, free, leading their own lives as they see fit and with no limit, save their own intelligences and their labors, to what they may accomplish?

It is this, this supposed idealistic sort of life of these beings that made me so heartily sick of my existence among them. Would that those who have found such fault with our civilization, who have endeavored to revolutionize human life and human ways, and to upset conditions that the Almighty in His infinite wisdom has established, might be here with me. Would that those socialistic agitators might be forced to exist here among these creatures.

Anything rather than this state of affairs. At times it seems as if I should go mad, and I find myself longing for something, anything, to upset this machine-like monotonous life about me. Anger, strife, battle—aye, even a war with all its horrors would be welcome.

LONG time has passed since I penned my lines. And now I know that beyond question I am doomed to spend all my days among these weird beings. Over and over again I have attempted to find a way out, to discover a means of scaling the mountains, for desperation drove me, and death upon the ice-covered wastes of the polar regions seemed preferable to life here. But though strong, healthy and as able-bodied as ever, yet, for some strange reason, I could not climb those cliffs. Perhaps it is the food or drink that has robbed me of the power to ascend even to moderate heights, perchance dwelling in this air with its unending blue light has had its effect, and like the creatures who dwell here, I cannot live where once I felt no ill effects. But whatever the reason, the fact remains that each time I have reached a height of a few hundred feet, my muscles have failed me, my strength has given out, and I have been forced to give up. I am as hopelessly caged here as though in a prison and yet the birds come and go at will and I envy them beyond words to express, as I watch the broad-winged albatrosses and great white molly-mokes and screeching gulls and know on their pinions they can rise above the surrounding mountains and leave this side of the world for the other that I shall never see again; that no doubt they gaze upon my fellow men, upon the wide blue sea, and upon white sailed ships and great palatial steamships with the same expressionless eyes they turn upon me and upon the beings dwelling here in this undreamed-of land.

To one of these free winged creatures, these friends of old who come over the edge of the world each year, I shall soon entrust this narrative. Perchance it may never reach a human being. The bird may meet with disaster or it may never look on a civilized man. Or again, even though scores, hundreds, of my fellow men see the creatures, yet it may pass unnoticed and the message may not be read. But there is a chance that, with the metal cylinder, in which I shall place my story, dangling from its leg, the albatross will attract the attention of some one. Perhaps its nesting ground may be near some party of whalemen, or even near a settlement, and it is this chance I cling to. I have no fear that the cylinder will become detached or even broken, despite the rough treatment it will no doubt receive, and even if the bird is not found or the cylinder discovered for years, it and its contents will be intact. I have selected the toughest and hardest of the many varieties of metal for the cylinder, a metal which is far harder than steel and which can be opened or broken only by tremendous force or by a heat greater than fire, and I have used a trans-