ONE OF THE LAST MEN

CHAPTER 4

The collapse of this first world-civilization was due to the sudden failure of the

supplies of coal. All the original fields had been sapped centuries earlier, and it should

have been obvious that those more recently discovered could not last for ever. For

some thousands of years the main supply had come from Antarctica. So prolific was

this continent that latterly a superstition had arisen in the clouded minds of the worldcitizens

that it was in sspite of strict censorship, the news began to leak out that even the deepest possible

borings had failed to reveal further vegetable deposits of any kind, the world was at

first incredulous.

The sane policy would have been to abolish the huge expense of power on ritual

flying, which used more of the community's resources than the whole of productive

industry. But to believers in Gordelpus such a course was almost unthinkable.

Moreover it would have undermined the flying aristocracy. This powerful class now

declared that the time had come for the release of the secret of divine power, and

called on the S.O.S. to inaugurate the new era. Vociferous agitation in all lands put

the scientists in an awkward plight. They gained time by declaring that, though the

moment of revelation was approaching, it had not yet arrived; for they had received a

divine intimation that this failure of coal was imposed as a supreme test of man's

faith. The service of Gordelpus in ritual flight must be rather increased than reduced.

Spending a bare minimum of its power on secular matters, the race must concentrate

upon religion. When Gordelpus had evidence of their devotion and trust, he would

permit the scientists to save them.

Such was the prestige of science that at first this explanation was universally

accepted. The ritual flights were maintained. All luxury trades were abolished, and

even vital services were reduced to a minimum. Workers thus thrown out of

employment were turned over to agricultural labour; for it was felt that the use of

mechanical power in mere tillage must be as soon as possible abolished. These

changes demanded far more organizing ability than was left in the race. Confusion

was widespread, save here and there where serious organization was attempted by

certain Jews.

The first result of this great movement of economy and self-denial was to cause

something of a spiritual awakening among many who had formerly lived a life of

bored ease. This was augmented by the widespread sense of crisis and impending

marvels. Religion, which, in spite of its universal authority in this age, had become a

matter of ritual rather than of inward experience, began to stir in many hearts––not

indeed as a movement of true worship, but rather as a vague awe, not unmixed with

self-importance. But as the novelty of this enthusiasm dwindled, and life became increasingly

uncomfortable, even the most zealous began to notice with horror that in moments of

inactivity they were prone to doubts too shocking to confess. And as the situation

worsened, even a life of ceaseless action could not suppress these wicked fantasies.

For the race was now entering upon an unprecedented psychological crisis, brought

about by the impact of the economic disaster upon a permanently unwholesome

mentality. Each individual, it must be remembered, had once been a questioning child,

but had been taught to shun curiosity as the breath of Satan. Consequently the whole

race was suffering from a kind of inverted repression, a repression of the intellective

impulses. The sudden economic change, which affected all classes throughout the

planet, thrust into the focus of attention a shocking curiosity, an obsessive scepticism,

which had hitherto been buried in the deepest recesses of the mind.

It is not easy to conceive the strange mental disorder that now afflicted the whole

race, symbolizing itself in some cases by fits of actual physical vertigo. After

centuries of prosperity, of routine, of orthodoxy, men were suddenly possessed by a

doubt which they regarded as diabolical. No one said a word of it; but in each man's

own mind the fiend raised a whispering head, and each was haunted by the troubled

eyes of his fellows. Indeed the whole changed circumstances of his life jibed at his

credulity.

Earlier in the career of the race, this world crisis might have served to wake men into

sanity. Under the first pressure of distress they might have abandoned the

extravagances of their culture. But by now the ancient way of life was too deeply

rooted. Consequently, we observe the fantastic spectacle of a world engaged,

devotedly and even heroically, on squandering its resources in vast aeronautical

displays, not through single-minded faith in their rightness and efficacy, but solely in

a kind of desperate automatism. Like those little rodents whose migration became

barred by an encroachment of the sea, so that annually they drowned themselves in

thousands, the First Men helplessly continued in their ritualistic behaviour; but unlike

the lemmings, they were human enough to be at the same time oppressed by unbelief,

an unbelief which, moreover, they dared not recognize. To gain a clearer view of this strange state of mind, let us watch the conduct of an

individual. An important but typical incident occurred on the north coast of Baffin

Island, now a great timber area dotted with residential pylons. The final preparations

were being made for the great New Year Flight, in which the island intended to dazzle

the rest of the archipelago. In every building the aerial landings thronged with planes

and busy fliers. One of these planes was being given its finishing touches by a mother,

while her boy watched, or lent a hand. Like many others, that afternoon she was in an

overwrought state. Food had long been unwholesome and scanty. The central heating

had been cruelly diminished, and the upper stories of the pylon were arctic. The lad

had made matters worse by ragging her with innocently blasphemous suggestions,

with which at heart she could not but sympathise. Why bother about the ceremony?

Why not use their ration of power to go shopping in the South? Sure Gordelpus could

not want his people to waste power in air shows when they were starving and

freezing. She would never want him to starve, just to show he loved her. Gordelpus

must be a beast if he liked that sort of thing. And anyhow it was dangerous to do

flying-stunts when she was all empty and wobbly. In vain she had silenced him with

the correct answers, for she herself was not convinced by them. Her hands blundered,

her vision was obscured by tears. A spanner slipped, and she barked her knuckles.

The two drifted to the window and looked out across the dark carpet of forest, actually

so hilly, yet so level in this lofty view. The western sky was colouring. Two distant

buildings stood against it, giants of dark rectitude.

“The sun is setting,” she said, “and we are not ready.” Silently the two worked on the

place for a while, till a siren sounded wailing, threateningly. While they hurried into

their flying clothes, the great air-doors slid open, and an arctic wind leapt at them.

Both climbed into the machine and waited. The boy crunched a precious biscuit.

Another scream of the siren, and they shot out into the glowing void. They became an

insignificant unit in a swarm of planes that had issued from every floor of the building

to climb the violet zenith. From the distant pylons arose a similar smoke of fliers.

At first the exhilaration of flight, and the hypnotic presence of a vast aerial multitude,

banished all troubles. Almost every flier attained for a while that ecstasy of action

which was both the glory and the undoing of the First Men. Hour after hour they

looped and wheeled, climbed, poised and dived, weaving kaleidoscopic patterns onthe darkness with their coloured lights. They were a tumultuous yet ordered galaxy,

spread out from horizon to horizon.

Overhead, Sirius winded; Orion lounged unimpressed.

Now in the New Year ceremony the movement of the dance was arranged to

accelerate steadily from midnight up to the climax of dawn. And the dancers expected

to be strengthened with an increasing fervour which should blot out fatigue. But on

this occasion many of the fliers were shocked to find themselves hampered by

physical exhaustion and spiritual lassitude. Amongst these were the mother and her

boy. In him, exhilaration had given place to brooding, to furtive critical introspection

of the whole circumstance of his life. He thought of himself as a fledgling that a hawk

had snatched up aloft, crushing its incompetent wings. The hawk was not his mother,

but some invisible spirit of flight, in whose grip she was also powerless. Presently this

reverie gave way to anxiety, for he noticed that he control of the plane was becoming

erratic. And now the supreme moment was at hand. Already the Eastern sky was warm. The

whole aerial population raced toward it, and soared vertically, higher and higher, till

they flashed into the sunlight, inscribing the holy name on the sky in letters of massed

flight. Then they dropped backwards into the darkness. Again and again they leapt,

flashed, dropped, until at last the sun touched the hill tops beneath them.

The mother’s icy hands fumbled at their work. Her head reeled. All night she had

fought alternately against two enemies, despair, and increasing tendency to fall asleep.

Again and again she had plucked herself from the rising tide of somnolence; again

and again she had wakened to the stark fact that her boy and herself were helpless in a

doomed world. At last, in a vision born of exhaustion and misery, she seemed to

herself to see beneath her the whole globe of the earth in all its detail, its squared

forests and tillage, its long-shadowed towers, its arctic channels, where old men

vainly sought for a way to the golden East, and naively gathered pyrites, its

Greenland’s icy mountains, its India, and Africa, and through its oddly transparent

depths to irrigated Australia. How queer the people looked there, all upside-down!

Lunatics! All the planet was seen to be peopled with lunatics; and over it spread thefiery and mindless desert of the sky. She put her hands over her eyes. The plane

strayed for a few seconds unguided, then spun, and crashed among the pine trees.

Others also came to grief that night. There were casualties in every land. Some

blundered in the wild acrobatics at dawn, and went headlong to death. Some, appalled

by disillusion, deliberately wrecked themselves. Some few dared to break rank and fly

off in sacrilegious independence—till they were shot down for treason against

Gordelpus.

Meanwhile the scientists were earnestly and secretly delving in the ancient literature

of their science, in hope of discovering the forgotten talisman. They undertook also

clandestine experiments, but upon a false trail laid by the wily English contemporary

of the Discoverer. The main results were, that several researchers were poisoned or

electrocuted, and a great college was blown up. This event impressed the populace,

who supposed the accident to be due to an over-daring exercise of the divine potency.

The misunderstanding inspired the desperate scientists to rig further impressive

"miracles," and moreover to use them to dispel the increasing restlessness of hungry

industrial workers. Thus when a deputation arrived outside the offices of

Cosmopolitan Agriculture to demand more flour for industrialists, Gordelpus

miraculously blew up the ground on which they stood, and flung their bodies among

the onlookers. When the agriculturists of China struck to obtain a reasonable

allowance of electric power for their tillage, Gordelpus affected them with an evil

atmosphere, so that they choked and died in thousands. Stimulated in this manner by

direct divine intervention, the doubting and disloyal elements of the world population

recovered their faith and their docility. And so the world jogged on for a while, as

nearly as possible as it had done for the last four thousand years, save for a general

increase of hunger and ill-health. But inevitably, as the conditions of life became more and more severe, docility gave

place to desperation. Daring spirits began publicly to question the wisdom, and even

the piety, of so vast an expenditure of power upon ritual flight, when prime necessities

such as food and clothing were becoming so scarce. Did not this helpless devotion

merely ridicule them in the divine eyes? God helps him who helps himself. Already

the death rate had risen alarmingly. Emaciated and ragged persons were beginning to

beg in public places. In certain districts whole populations were starving, and the Directorate did nothing for them. Yet, elsewhere, harvests were being wasted for lack

of power to reap them. In all lands an angry clamour arose for the inauguration of the

new era.

The scientists were by now panic-stricken. Nothing had come of their researches, and

it was evident that in future all wind and water-power must be devoted to the primary

industries. Even so, there was starvation ahead for many. The President of the

Physical Society suggested to the Directorate that ritual flying should at once be

reduced by half as a compromise with Gordelpus. Immediately the hideous truth,

which few hitherto had dared to admit even to themselves, was blurted out upon the

ether by a prominent Jew: the whole hoary legend of the divine secret was a lie, else

why were the physicists temporizing? Dismay and rage spread over the planet.

Everywhere the people rose against the scientists, and against the governing authority

which they controlled. Massacres and measures of retaliation soon developed into

civil wars. China and India declared themselves free national states, but could not

achieve internal unity. In America, ever a stronghold of science and religion, the

Government maintained its authority for a while; but as its seat became less secure, its

methods became more ruthless. Finally it made the mistake of using not merely

poison gas, but microbes; and such was the decayed state of medical science that no

one could invent a means of restraining their ravages. The whole American continent

succumbed to a plague of pulmonary and nervous diseases. The ancient "American

Madness," which long ago had been used against China, now devastated America.

The great stations of water-power and wind-power were wrecked by lunatic mobs

who sought vengeance upon anything associated with authority. Whole populations

vanished in an orgy of cannibalism.

In Asia and Africa, some semblance of order was maintained for a while. Presently,

however, the American Madness spread to these continents also, and very soon all

living traces of their civilization vanished.

Only in the most natural fertile areas of the world could the diseased remnant of a

population now scrape a living from the soil. Elsewhere, utter desolation. With easy

strides the jungle came back into its own.