Homer Eon Flint

“ 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! ”

“ Corrus laid a hand upon his arm. "Nay, Dulnop; fear not. I have no feeling for thy Cunora; I may marry her, but as for fathering her children—no!"
"Suppose," through set teeth, "suppose They should threaten to kill thee?"
"I should rather die, Dulnop, than be untrue to Rolla!"
The younger man bounded to his feet. "Spoken like a man! And I tell thee, neither shall I have aught to do with Rolla! Rather death than dishonor!"
Next moment silence fell between them; and then Van Emmon and Smith noted that both men had been bluffing in what they had said. ”

“ Corrus followed his own sigh with a frank curse.
"By the great god Mownoth!" he swore fiercely. "It be a shame that we cannot come hence a great deal oftener! Methinks They could allow it!"
"They care not for our longings," spoke Cunora, her eyes flashing as angrily as his. "They give us enough freedom to make us work the better —no more! All They care for is thy herd and my crops!"
"And for the labor," reminded the big man, "of such brains as Rolla's and Dulnop's. It be not right that They should drive us so!" ”

“ We all of us listened, the doctor most of all. “Go on,” he said.
“Can't you see?” repeated Watson. “There is affinity between substance and shadow; and therefore your spirit or shadow or what you will is concrete, is in itself a substance. It is material just as much as you are. Because you do not see it is no proof that it is not substance. That pot palm yonder does not see you; it is not blessed with eyes.”
The doctor looked at Watson; he spoke gently.
“This is very old stuff, my boy, out of your abstract philosophy. No man knows the secret of life. Not even yourself.” ”

“ All but Billie were convinced that the humans were deserving people, whose position was all the more regrettable because due, so far as could be seen, the insignificant little detail of the barbless sting.
Were these people doomed forever to live their lives for the sake of insects? Were they always to remain, primitive and uncultured, in ignorance of the things that civilization is built upon, obeying the orders of creatures who were content to eat, reproduce, and die? For that is all that bees know! ”

“ For I know, the electricity split the very ground apart. But I gazed out of a window in the top of my palace, and saw that I had succeeded.
Not a soul but myself remained alive.
None but buildings made of the alloy were standing. Not only man, but most of his works had perished in that awful blast. I, alone, remained!
I, Strokor, am the survivor! I, the greatest man; it were but fit that I should be the last! No man shall come after me, to honor me or not as he chooses. I, and no other, shall be, the last man! ”

“ The corridors were long and high, all with the wide-coved ceiling, and of colours that melted from one shade to another as they turned, not corners, but curves. Apparently each colour had its own suggestive reason. Such rooms as Chick could look into were uniformly large, beautiful, and distinctly lighted.
The guard moved in silent rhythm; the chief sound was that made by Watson's leather-heeled shoes, drowning out, for once, the everlasting tinkling undertone of those unseen fairy-bells; that running cadence, never ceasing, silver, liquid, like the soul of sound. ”

“ Watson took a sip; and he made a mental note that if all things in the Thomahlia were on a par with this, then he certainly was in a world far above his own. For the one sip was enough to send a thrill through his veins, a thrill not unlike the ecstasy of supreme music—a sparkling exuberance, leaving the mind clear and scintillating, glorified to the quick thinking of genius. ”

“ Rolla and Cunora knew of it first. They heard the buzzing of that winged cloud as it passed through the air above their heads; but such was the bees' intent interest in the village ahead, the two women were not spied as they hid among the bushes.
By this time twilight was half gone. The firelight lit up the crowd of humans as they surged and danced about their new deity. For, henceforth, fire would replace Mownoth as their chief god; it was easy to see that.
Moreover, both Corrus and Dulnop, as primitive people will, had been irresistibly seized by the spirit of the mob. ”

“ And despite all this, we have not been able to get rid of sex jealousy!
"We still have the beast within us! No matter how pure our love may be, it is always tainted with rivalry! Always the husband and wife are held down by this mutual envy, forever dragging at their heels, constantly holding them back from the lofty heights of spiritual power to which they aspire!"
He paused, and Savarona's voice broke in, triumphantly: "You are right, Estra! You are right, except you did not mention that this jealousy becomes less and less as one grows older! ”

“ Van Emmon's "gold mine" had not been a pit in any sense of the word; it had been the inside of the blossom of a very simple, poppy-like flower. The "nuggets" had been not mineral, but pollen. As for the incredible thing which Van Emmon had seen on the ground; that living statue; that head without a body—the body had been buried out of sight beneath the soil; and the man had been an ordinary human, being punished in this manner for misconduct. ”

“ Chick got his first glimpse here of what lay outside—an iridescent landscape, at first view astonishingly like an ocean of opals; for it was of many hues, red and purple and milky white, splashed violantin blue and fluorescence—a maze and shimmer of dancing, joyful colours, whirring in an uncertainty of polychromatic harmony. Such was his first fleeting impression.
At the next landing he looked closer. It was not unlike a monster bowl of bubbles; the same illusion of movement, the same delicacy and witchery of colour, only here the sensation was not that of decomposition but of life ”

“ I told him. "It is useless, for 'tis made of iron. Ours, and all our tools of war, are formed of an alloy which is immune from the magic."
He took the ax in wonderment. "What means it, Strokor?" asked he again, meanwhile stripping himself in a businesslike fashion that it were good to see.
"It means," said I, throwing off my robe, "that I have unchained the magnetism of this world. Know you, Klow, that all of the children of the sun are full of his power; it is like unto that of the tiny magnet which ye give children for to play; but it is mighty, even as our world is mighty."
"Good Jon!" ”

“ The bees attacked with unabated fury. Not once did the insects falter; orders were orders, and always had been. What mattered it if death came to them, so long as the Hive lived? For that is bee philosophy.
And then, just when it seemed that the wisest thing would be to withdraw, Supreme got the greatest idea she had ever had. For once she felt positively enthusiastic. Had she been a human she would have yelled aloud for sheer joy.
"Attention!" to her subordinates. "We attack no more! Instead, go into the huts and drive all the inferiors here! Compel them to bring their tools! ”

“ AND THE FIRE HAD GONE OUT. The bees came closer. Several thousands of them were stricken by smoke from the embers, and the rest of the swarm took good care to avoid it. They hovered over the prostrate forms of the aborigines and made sure that they were unconscious.
"Is there nothing we can do?" whispered Cunora, straining her eyes to see.
"Nothing, save to watch and wait," returned Rolla, her gaze fixed upon the dark heap which marked her lover's form. And thus an hour passed, with the four on the earth quite unable to take a hand in any way. ”

“ A heavy feeling lay against my heart. I had grown accustomed to dread and isolation; but this was different. Perhaps it was premonition. I do not know. And yet I was terribly sleepy; I remember that.
I struck a match and looked at my watch on the bureau—twelve thirty-five. No sound—not even Queen—not even a rumble from the streets. I lay back and dropped into slumber. Just as I drifted off to sleep I had a blurring fancy of sound, guttural, whining, fearful—then suddenly drifting into incoherent rumbling phantasms—a dream. I awoke suddenly. Someone was speaking. It was Jerome.
“Harry!” ”

“ She spoke with feverish earnestness.
"There may be some hitch in the idea, Estra. If God meant for man to become—to become obsolete, He would not have hidden the method all this time. Suppose some flaw should develop—later on?"
In the cube, Billie Jackson would not have stumbled over such a speech. She would have ignored the fact that Estra was holding her hand all this time, and gazing deep into her eyes; she would have been filled with what she was saying and not with what she was seeing. On the other side of the room, Van Emmon watched and glowered; he could not hear. ”