In the Year 2889
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Pages: 1 2 3 Next page toward the hall of scientific editors. Heads bent over their electric computers, 30 scientific men are absorbed in transcendental calculations. Mr. Smith's arrival is like the falling of a bomb among them. "Well, gentlemen, what is this I hear? No answer from Jupiter? Is it always to be thus? Come, Cooley, you have worked now 10 years on this problem, and yet--" "True enough," replies the man addressed. "Our science of optics is still defective, and though our mile-and-three-quarter telescopes--" "Listen to that, Peer," breaks in Mr. Smith, turning to a second scientist. "Optical science defective! Optical science is your specialty. But," he continues, again addressing William Cooley, "failing with Jupiter, are we getting any results from the moon?" "The case is no better there." "This time you cannot lay the blame on the science of optics. The moon is immeasurably closer than Mars, yet with Mars our communication is fully established. I presume you will not say you lack telescopes?" "Telescopes? Oh no, the trouble here is about--inhabitants!" "That's it," adds Peer. "So, then, the moon is positively uninhabited?" asks Mr. Smith. "At least," answers Cooley, "on the face which she presents to us. As for the opposite side, who knows?" "Ah, the opposite side! You think, then," remarks Mr. Smith, musingly, "that if one could but--" "Could what?" "Why, turn the moon about-face." "Ah, there's something in that," cry the two men at once. And indeed, so confident is their air, they seem certain of the success of such an undertaking. "Meanwhile," asks Mr. Smith, after a moment's silence, "have you no news of interest today?" "Indeed we have," answers Cooley. "The elements of Olympus are definitely settled. That great planet gravitates beyond Neptune at a mean distance of 11,400,799,642 miles from the sun, and to traverse its vast orbit takes 1311 years, 294 days, 12 hours, 43 minutes, 9 seconds." "Why didn't you tell me that sooner?" cries Mr. Smith. "Inform the reporters of this straightway. You know how eager public curiosity is about these astronomical questions. That news must go into today's issue." Then, the two men bowing to him, Mr. Smith passes into the next hall, an enormous gallery upward of 3200 feet long, devoted to atmospheric advertising. Everyone has noticed those enormous advertisements reflected from the clouds, so large they may be seen by the populations of whole cities or even entire countries. This, too, is one of Mr. Fritz Napoleon Smith's ideas, and in the Earth Chronicle building a thousand projectors are constantly engaged in displaying on the clouds these mammoth advertisements. When Mr. Smith today enters the sky-advertising department, he finds the operators sitting with folded arms at their motionless projectors, and inquires as to the cause of their inaction. In response, the man addressed simply points to the sky, which is a pure blue. "Yes," mutters Mr. Smith, "a cloudless sky! That's too bad, but what's to be done? Shall we produce rain? That we might do, but is it of any use? What we need is clouds, not rain. Go," says he, addressing the head engineer, "go see Mr. Samuel Mark, of the meteorological division in the scientific department, and tell him for me to go to work in earnest on the question of artificial clouds. It will never do for us to be always at the mercy of cloudless skies!" Mr. Smith's daily tour through the several departments of his newspaper is now finished. Next, from the advertisement hall he passes to the reception chamber, where the ambassadors accredited to the American government await a word of counsel or advice from the all-powerful editor. A discussion is going on as he enters. "Your Excellency will pardon me," the French Ambassador is saying to the Russian, "but I see nothing in the map of Europe that requires change. 'The North for the Slavs?' Why, yes, of course; but the South for the Latins. Our common frontier, the Rhine, it seems to me, serves very well. Besides, my government, as you must know, will firmly oppose every movement, not only against Paris, our capital, or our two great prefectures, Rome and Madrid, but also against the kingdom of Jerusalem, the dominion of Saint Peter, of which France means to be the trusty defender." "Well said!" exclaims Mr. Smith. "How is it," he asks, turning to the Russian ambassador, "that you Russians are not content with your vast empire, the most extensive in the world, stretching from the banks of the Rhine to the Celestial Mountains and the Kara-Korum, whose shores are washed by the Frozen Ocean, the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and the Indian Ocean? And what use are threats? Is war possible in view of modern inventions--asphyxiating shells capable of being projected a distance of 60 miles, an electric spark of 90 miles, that can at one stroke annihilate a battalion; to say nothing of the plague, the cholera, the yellow fever, that the belligerents might spread among their antagonists mutually, and which would in a few days destroy the greatest armies?" "True," answered the Russian, "but we Russians, pressed on our eastern frontier by the Chinese, must at any cost put forth our strength for an effort toward the west." "Let's solve your problem at the source," said Mr. Smith. "I will speak to the Secretary of State about this. The attention of the Chinese government will be brought to the matter, and the situation corrected." "Under these conditions, of course--" And the Russian ambassador declares himself satisfied. "Ah, Sir John, what can I do for you?" asks Mr. Smith as he turns to the representative of the people of Great Britain, who till now has remained silent. "A great deal," comes the reply. "If the Earth Chronicle would but open a campaign on our behalf--" "And for what object?" "Simply for the annulment of the Act of Congress annexing to the United States the British islands." By a just turnabout, Great Britain has become a colony of the United States, but the English are not yet reconciled to their status. At regular intervals they are ever addressing to the American government vain complaints. "A campaign against the annexation that has been an accomplished fact for 150 years!" exclaims Mr. Smith. "How can you believe I would do anything so unpatriotic?" "We at home think your people must now be sated. The Monroe Doctrine is fully applied; the whole of America belongs to the Americans. What more do you want? Besides, we will pay for what we ask." "Indeed!" answers Mr. Smith, without manifesting the slightest irritation. "Well, you English will ever be the same. No, no, Sir John, don't count on me for help. Give up our fairest province, Britain? Why not ask France generously to renounce possession of Africa, that magnificent colony the complete conquest of which cost her the labor of 800 years? You will be well received!" "You decline! All is over then!" the British agent murmurs sadly. "The United Kingdom falls to the share of the Americans; the Indies to that of--" "The Russians," Mr. Smith completes the sentence. "Australia--" "Has an independent government." "Then nothing at all remains for us!" sighs Sir John, downcast. "Nothing?" asks Mr. Smith, laughing. "Well, now, there's Gibraltar!" With this sally the audience ends. The clock is striking 12, the hour of breakfast. Mr. Smith returns to his chamber. Where the bed stood in the morning a table all spread comes up through the floor. For Mr. Smith, being above all a practical man, has reduced the problem of existence to its simplest terms. For him, instead of the endless suites of apartments of yesteryear, one room fitted with ingenious mechanical contrivances is enough. Here he sleeps, takes his meals--in short, lives. He seats himself. In the mirror of the phonotelephote is visible the same chamber at Paris which appeared in it this morning. A table furnished forth is likewise in readiness here, for notwithstanding the difference in hours, Mr. Smith and his wife have arranged to take their meals simultaneously. It is delightful thus to breakfast tete-a-tete with someone 3000 miles or so away. Just now, Mrs. Smith's chamber has no occupant. "She is late! Woman's punctuality! Progress everywhere except there!" mutters Mr. Smith as he turns the tap for the first dish. For like all wealthy folk in our day, Mr. Smith has done away with the domestic kitchen and is a subscriber to the Grand Alimentation Company, which sends through a vast network of tubes to subscribers' residences all sorts of dishes, as a varied assortment is always in readiness. A subscription costs money, to be sure, but the cuisine is of the best, and the system has this advantage, that it does away with the pestering race of the cordons bleus. Mr. Smith receives and eats, all alone, the hors d'oeuvres, entrees, roast meat, and legumes that constitute the repast. He is just finishing the dessert when Mrs. Smith appears in the telephote mirror. "Why, where have you been?" asks Mr. Smith through the telephone. "What! You are already at the dessert? Then I am late," she exclaims, with winsome naivete. "Where have I been, you ask? Why, at my dressmaker's. The hats are just lovely this season! I suppose I forgot to note the time, and so am a little late." "Yes, a little," growls Mr. Smith; "so little that I have already quite finished breakfast. Excuse me if I leave you now, but I must be going." "Oh certainly, my dear; goodbye till evening." Smith steps into his air-coach, which awaits him at a window. "Where do you wish to go, sir?" inquires the coachman. "Let me see; I have three hours," Mr. Smith muses. "Jack, take me to my accumulator works at Niagara." For Mr. Smith has obtained a lease of the great falls of Niagara. For ages the energy developed by the falls went unutilized. Smith, applying Jackson's invention, now collects this energy, and sells it. His visit to the works takes longer than anticipated. It is four o'clock when he returns home, just in time for the daily audience he grants to callers. One readily understands how a man in Smith's situation must be beset with requests of all kinds. Now it is an inventor needing capital; then it is some visionary who comes to advocate a brilliant scheme which must surely yield millions in profits. A choice must be made between these projects, rejecting the worthless, examining the questionable, accepting the meritorious. To this work Mr. Smith devotes two full hours a day. The callers are fewer today than usual--just 12. Of these, eight have only impracticable schemes to propose. In fact, one of them wants to revive painting, an art fallen into desuetude owing to the progress made in color photography. Another, a physician, boasts that he has discovered a cure for nasal catarrh! These impracticalities are dismissed in short order. Of the four projects favorably received, the first is that of a young man whose broad forehead betokens his intellectual power. "Sir, I am a chemist," he begins, "and as such I come to you." "Well!" "Once the elementary bodies," says the young chemist, "were held to be 62 in number; a century ago they were reduced to 10; now only three remain irresolvable, as you are aware." "Yes, yes." "Well, sir, these also I will show to be composite. In a few months, a few weeks, I shall have succeeded in solving the problem. Indeed, it may take only a few days." "And then?" "Then, sir, I shall simply have determined the absolute. All I want is money enough to carry my research to a successful conclusion." "Very well," says Mr. Smith. "And what will be the practical outcome of your discovery?" "The practical outcome? Why, that we shall be able to produce easily all bodies whatever--stone, wood, metal, fibers--" "And flesh and blood?" interrupts Mr. Smith. "Do you pretend that you expect to manufacture a human being out and out?" "Why not?" Mr. Smith advances $100,000 to the young chemist, and engages his services for the Earth Chronicle laboratory. The second of the four successful applicants, starting from experiments made so long ago as the 19th century and again and again repeated, has conceived the idea of moving an entire city all at once from one place to another. His particular interest is the city of Granton, situated, as everyone knows, some 15 miles inland. He proposes transporting the city on rails, turning it into a beachfront resort. The profit, of course, would be enormous. Mr. Smith, captivated by the scheme, buys a half-interest in it. "As you are aware, sir," begins applicant No. 3, "by the aid of our solar and terrestrial accumulators and transformers, we are able to make all the seasons the same. I propose to do something better still. Transform into heat a portion of the surplus energy at our disposal; send this heat to the poles; then the polar regions, relived of their snowcaps, will become a vast territory available for man's use. What think you of the scheme?" |
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