Fletcher Pratt & Laurence Manning

“ For in all that land of the Anglesk I found no living man nor heard any voice save those of the wild dogs as they bayed now near, now far, For days I journeyed thus; many villages I passed, all well built and strong and beautiful, most of them made of shining glass, testifying to the glory of the Anglesk. All were filled with Machines of much marvel—and all were fallen to ruin and rust, befouled by beasts, streaked with the wet of rains and rent by tempests. ”

“ Much have I seen and heard and read, and of one thing I am sure—that you are a part of a race which for thousands of summers has been shut away from the progress of civilization. You have no business in this dying world today, and when you have heard how it is with us, you had best go back over your mountain, there to stay. Or perhaps you will gather companions, and out of your dale come to people a new world. ”

“ The man with the metal face was stricken by the brilliance of the day when outside, and not a little overcome at the appearance of those mighty towers. Yet the thought of meeting living people sustained him and he showed me the trick of these wings, calling them gilders, and training me in their use until I could fly with them, both fast and far, soaring down the currents of the wind like a bird. ”

“ Now in the days of which I speak, the English spoke into their Radio and their tongue spread across the whole world. Then the quarrelling of nations ceased, for there is no quarrel that may not be settled by simple words when men may speak these words understanding to one another. ”

“ Thus if the operator wished to make the Adventurer feel that he was hunting, the record of a hunting adventure was placed in the Machine, and the cable leading from the adventurer’s nerves was connected to it. The nerves of the adventurer’s foot would assure him that he trod the mould of the forest; the nerves of his eyes would bring him a vision of the dim vista of trunks and a wild animal bounding through them; the nerves of his hands and arms would tell him he was making the correct motions to take aim and bring the animal down ”

“ Know that long centuries ago—about the year 1950 A. D.—the world held countless hundreds of millions of people. There were men whose skins were black, and men with yellow skins and even with red skins; but they were mostly barbarians, and hence I was surprised at your own arrival, for I thought all the men with white skins had died long ago. The men with white skins were, in truth, the greatest of peoples; they had spread out and conquered all the rest of the world, so that the black and yellow and red men toiled for them. Now of all the white men, the greatest were the English ”

“ The likeness to the form of a man increased as I approached, and when I came and stood directly over it, I saw that it was indeed a man, but a dead one—all swathed and wound in silver wires which, as they drew near his body, drew into finer and finer wires till right over the skin they were spread out like silver spider webs, half-concealing his features. ”

“ One day I came to a place where the houses grew thicker and the forest had retreated until the village was the greatest ever seen by the eye of man. Some of these houses were like those I had heard of in legends—mighty towers whose tops soared to the clouds, built all of stone and bronze so that the tooth of time had hardly touched them. ”

“ The sources of Power were so inexhaustible, and the amount of work necessary to make them available so slight, that half an hour’s labor a day sufficed to earn a man his living. And the Machines continued to grow ever more complex and more ingenious.
“Adventure, which is the pastime of many men, disappeared, when war became obsolete. For some people, art filled the vacant hours. But as the scientists grew in knowledge, the Machines they made executed the arts better than the artists themselves. Music was the first of the arts to disappear. ”

“ Back of each eye is one of these nerves, which carries the message of what you see to the brain. For this man they made a new pair of eyes, fitted with machines called photo-sensitive cells, such as those I bear on my own face. In them is a marvel-metal called potassium, which, when light falls upon it, changes in resistance to an electrical current. Thus, for every speck of light there was a change in the electrical current that ran through the Machine, and the change was communicated to one of a net of wires, which in turn communicated it to the nerve of the eye. ”

“ The adventure associations died as quickly as they had been born. After all, the majority of men and nearly all women soon tired of the crude excitements these adventure associations provided. In a short time whole groups of people undertook Machine Adventures; and the world’s population, which had been rising ever since the apes first descended from their trees, began to fall.
"At this point the very scientists who had developed the Machines began to become alarmed at the great rush of people to use them. ”

“ Some of the more complex adventures, like those in which the subjects found themselves in the roles of world conquerors, lasted over a period of years, and as soon as one was ended, the operators in the offices of the Adventure Houses switched the subject onto a new adventure.
"People readily abandoned the outside world in which everything was rapidly becoming dead. ”

“ Long before their six months’ cruise was up, they were all eyeing each other with suspicion and fright, prowling about the corridors of the airship at night and doing all the things men do under the influence of fear. ”

“ But the governments of the world, successful and peaceful and secure as no governments had ever been before, turned their backs on the scientists and built more and greater Adventure Houses. The scientists attempted to appeal to the people over the heads of the governments. ”

“ And even here the Machines did away with all those occupations which provide adventure; for adventure is always the outcome of some lawless act, and the scientists had eliminated lawlessness by eliminating criminals soon after the coming of universal peace. Machines tested every child psychologically and supplied the proper remedies to make him a good citizen. ”

“ As one set of nerves after another yielded its secrets to the scientists, the government Adventure Machines began to grow popular. They had enormous advantages over the adventure associations. The associations offered personal adventure that was often deadly; the Government Machines were absolutely safe. The adventure associations were costly; the Government device cost nothing, for when the subject submitted to the operation he was regarded by the courts as legally dead and his property passed to the Government. The adventure associations could offer only violent, physical adventures ”

“ Instead of jailing him for murder, they hailed him as a deliverer, the founder of a new idea. The idea was taken up with enthusiasm, and everywhere men were hired by others to involve them in wild and impossible, often bloody, adventures. ”

“ At the time these associations came into being, the scientists had achieved so high a state of perfection with the device of providing blind persons with sights they did not actually see, that the result was, the blind could be made to see almost anything, even a whole series of nonexistent events.
Chapter V: A Drastic Experiment “THIS was the situation when the growth of the adventure associations began to threaten the basis of organized government. For the adventure associations promoted disorder among those very elements of the people who should most desire security. ”

“ Then came Machines that gave these reproductions to vast audiences, and others that showed the audiences such lifelike pictures of the musicians that they seemed to be present in person. And finally Machines were invented that altogether eliminated the musician, striking the correct tones and shades of tones with scientific accuracy. ”

“ And to one of our scientists (Professor Bruce) there came a new idea: If a man could by these means see what really happened, why should he not see also things that have never occurred? ... Do you understand?
"After a long experimentation Bruce found that if the photo-sensitive cell of a blind man were removed, and the silver wires that led to his optic nerve were attached to other wires, electrical currents could be sent down these other wires that would make him see things that were not actually there at all.
"All this was before the adventure associations sprang up. ”

“ The scientists made Machines that felt gently over living persons and carved their likenesses out of enduring stone or wood.
Chapter IV: Adventure is Dead “BUT why tell you more? You have heard enough to understand that art, the last refuge of men of leisure, was destroyed by the very Machines that gave man the leisure to enjoy art.... So it was with everything. Adventure of all kinds died. The last depths in the earth were plumbed, the last mountains were climbed or flown over by the might of the Machines. Men even made Machines to travel to the other planets that circle around the sun ”

“ Even the black barbarians succumbed, for they had their Adventure Machines as the white men had theirs. In the Machines, be he never so fond of the pleasures of life, every man found every pleasure enhanced to the nth degree. The glutton, the drunkard, the man mad over women found here his own special paradise. Everything else became useless . . ."
The Demon Power “WITH these words,” continued Hal Halstrom, looking over the hall, “the voice of the man with the metal face trailed off and he sat babbling in his chair like one grown mad. ”

“ In elder ages men quarreled, this group and that, and fought destructive wars in which thousands were slain by the use of guns, which hurled great pieces of steel that rent and tore asunder all that stood in their path. But among the English and the colonies of the English were many great scientists. These scientists designed Machines called Radio, fashioned so cunningly that a man had but to speak in them to he heard afar by many men in other lands. ”

“ Presently a red light shone from the board and the man with the metal face rose, and with slow and halting steps, like one of great age, went to the board and transferred one of the loops from one hole to another ”

“ This led to the formation of great companies to furnish adventures to people.
"Now the governments of the world grew worried, for with the coming of universal freedom from labor, pleasure and its pursuit had become the main concern of government. They accordingly set the scientists to work to find an antidote to the adventure companies, which had succeeded in eluding government control . ”

“ Know then, that among the silver wires on each Adventurer’s leg is clamped the end of an electric circuit, and at such times as meals are necessary, they are given electric meals of low and high frequency currents. ”