PIRATIANS BEGONE

Chapter 13

"Oh, happy Mars!" here broke in the usually prosaic ship healer. "That soundslike a story. And yet what is it," he continued, addressing me, "butthe effect of perfect obedience to our golden rule? If men should reallylearn to do to others as they would have others do to them, what atransformation it would accomplish."

"So that is what you call the golden rule, is it?" asked Harod. "Andare you all trying to live by it?"

"Well," I replied, "that is what many of us profess to be doing, but Imust say we fall far, very far short of the mark. I do not know a singleinhabitant of the earth, with the possible exception of my companionhere, who fully obeys that command."

The ship healer's smile was not lost on Harod, who replied:

"It was rather too bad of you to bring so far away from the earth theonly good man the planet contained; but I am glad to know the goldenrule, as you may well call it, has been given to men. We have hadthe same here, and, oh! if I could make you realize something of thestruggle our race has had in working it into life and practice, youwould gain some hope for the people of the earth. I mean, the result ofthis struggle would give you hope, for I am not ashamed to say thatwe are now living up to the full requirements of this law, and if youshould spend the remainder of your lives with us I am sure you would notfind my statement untrue. It is only by actually loving our neighborsas ourselves that we are able to live as we do. The law of love hasreplaced the law of force. It is well for you to understand this atthe beginning, for it is the secret of our wonderful success in all thehigher forms of civilization."

"It must have helped you greatly," said I, "in the matter of which youhave just been speaking, that of government."

"Yes, it has," he replied. "In our histories we have full accounts ofthe long course of events when we were divided into hundreds of nations,each with its own pride and ambition, and each striving to build upitself upon the misfortunes or the ruins of its neighbors. You canperhaps imagine what a mass of material we have for reading and study."

"We can," spoke up the student ship healer, "and it fairly makes my mouthwater. But tell us briefly, Harod, how you ever passed from thosetroublous times to the blissful state in which we now find you."

"The transition was exceedingly slow; it seemed, in fact, impossiblethat such a change could ever be effected. But it began with theestablishment of universal peace, which was demanded by the growingspirit of brotherly love, and assisted by commercial reciprocity and aw

orld language. Gradually national boundaries were found to be only anannoyance, and in time--a long time, of course--we became one nationand finally no nation. For now no one exercises any authority over hisneighbors, since the need for all artificial distinctions has long sincepassed away."

"Then," said I, "you have no doubt lost all fear and anxiety over theconflicting interests of capital and labor."

"Yes," replied Harod, "for we have no such distinctions in society asrich and poor, workingmen and capitalists. We all work as we please,but there is so little to do that no one is burdened, and one cannot bericher than another because all the material bounties of nature and artare common to all, being as free as the air. I suppose, as this seems tobe strange talk to you, that you cannot realize what it is to belong toa society where everyone considers the interests of his neighbor as muchas his own. You will find when you reach that point that most of yourtroubles will be gone, as ours are."

"Our troubles!" said the ship healer. "Many of our troubles, to be sure,arise from our passions and appetites--in other words, from ourselfishness--and these will no doubt disappear when we reach thatblessed state of which you have spoken, a condition prayed for anddimly expected by many of our race. But other troubles of ours come fromsickness and severe toil, from accidents, famines, and the convulsionsof nature. How, for example, can you have escaped the latter, unless,indeed, God has helped those who have so wisely helped themselves?"

"Your last thought is right," answered our friend. "Nature has certainlyassisted us. While the crust of the planet was thin we know the centralfires heaved and shook the ground and burst forth from the mountains,causing great destruction and keeping the world in fear. We do not knowhow thick the crust of the planet now is, but nothing has been felt ofthose inner convulsions for many ages. One of our feats of engineeringhas been to see how far we could penetrate into the surface of theglobe. A well of vast size has been dug, the temperature being carefullynoted and observations made of the many different substances passedthrough--water, coal, gas, oil, and all kinds of mineral deposits. Thework has progressed from one generation to another, and no one can tellwhen it will be called finished, as it is determined to dig toward thecenter of the planet as fast as our ever-increasing skill will permit."

"Did you find out how thick the crust is?" I asked.

"No," he answered, "we are not much nearer the solution of that questionthan before, but we have made valuable discoveries as to what the crustis composed of. The temperature has gradually, though slowly, increased,and we believe the time will come when the work will have to beabandoned on account of the heat. We have gone far enough to know thatwhen the fuel on the surface of our globe is all used up we shall onlyhave to tap the center to get all the heat we want."

"What a capital idea that will be," I interrupted, "to throw at some ofour pessimistic friends on the earth, ship healer."

"We see now, Harod," my companion said, "that your planet is too oldto give you any more trouble from earthquake and volcano, but how aboutother natural phenomena, the tempest and cyclone for example?"

"Well," replied Harod, "we have a theory that time, the great healer,has cured these evils also. Let me ask, ship healer, if the earth everreceives any accretions of matter from outside its own atmosphere?"

"Yes, we have the fall of meteorites, foreign substances which webelieve the earth encounters in its path around the sun."

"I supposed such must be the case," Harod continued. "And now, whenyou consider the great age of Mars, perhaps you will not be surprisedto learn that this new matter, coming to us from