Sleepers Of Mars

‘ “Though much of it will defy your minds, you will have all the accumulation of wisdom and invention that the wit of man has produced since he began. All save one thing—the secret of Time; that is our safeguard, which even we must use with care lest order become chaos.”

‘Still the scenes flashed and faded before us. Mighty machines, beautiful cities, intricate flowers, limitless plains, vast halls, huge flying cylinders: a panorama of a world shown to us half a million years before it should exist. Most of us were dazed, but we did not doubt. Conviction that this was the truth came not entirely from the voice nor yet entirely from the pictures, but from some power which seemed to accompany both.

‘In the presence of the dwarf, the fantastic ceased to be fantastic, and any thought of bluff had long been banished. The case was stated with plain force. He had made us feel that the plan was as feasible as for two nations to change territories —as feasible, and as inconceivable.

‘That our population could, if it chose, move half a million years, we had no doubt; but that it would not so choose, we were certain. If the invaders thought that they had but to say the word and we would relinquish our healthy, middle-aged world for one tottering on the brink of senility, they could not know much of our stubbornness.

The tall professor Toone, of Harvard, rose from his seat.

‘ “On behalf of all of us, I should like to know the reason for this plan,” he said. ‘‘You appear to offer us much. What do you gain that we lose?”

‘ “You lose,” replied the voice, “nothing but familiar surroundings. We offer better surroundings.”

‘ “But,” objected someone, “what about our children? Several generations are safe, you say, but you condemn the rest to extinction?”

‘ “Some, but not all. You ensure for the others an infinite future—if you understand such a term. That is the object of the plan.”

‘ “But-”

‘ “Do you not yet realise that we are your descendants—the descendants of your children? We are the race your stock has bred and, though we have climbed far, the end is too near for us. Were we to stay in our age we should die when the Earth died.

‘ “Instead we shall take the more youthful Earth, for our need is the greater. From it we shall climb to infinity, as life climbed from the sea to the land. Thus will we, your children, approach the closer to our destiny. It was not meant that life should cease with the Earth—evolution was delayed. Do you understand?”

‘ “Hanged if I do,” murmured the man next to me. “What he getting at? Is it religion?”

‘I did not answer him. I was trying to understand. The speech had been far longer than the repetition I have give you. Much of it I still cannot grasp. The vista was too big, the muddle of time too involved, but I thought I had the main drift. The next speaker almost voiced one of the questions which troubled me, though his manner was facetious. He was an Englishman, whose voice sounded tired as he asked:

‘ “Am I to understand that, though we are at present your ancestors, you are shortly likely to become your own ancestors?”

‘ “Yes,” said the voice, “and no.” The Englishman looke helplessly around.

‘ “I give it up,” he announced, in tones even more tired than before.

‘ “You cannot understand that until you know the nature of time,” was the reply. “While you continue to imagine time in terms of progression, you put more stumbling blocks before you than did ever the flat-Earth theorists.”

‘Professor Toone arose again to put a question. I cannot remember what it was, for at that point the discussion started to leave me behind. Voices went on wriggling into an abstruseness beyond my mental grasp. It was a kind of knock-out contest—the survival of the mentally fittest. When Sir Henry Deen rose to his feet, a long time later, there can only have been two or three of the company who retained any pretensions to following the slender thread of explanation. He broke the spell.

‘ “Can we be shown something of your works, something concrete upon which we can report? So far, we have done nothing which will profit either you or those who sent us. The public we represent will scarcely be impressed by hearing merely of a philosophical discussion which most of us have failed to follow. Any intimation we could give them of the forms of armament upon which you rely to carry out this plan would be vastly more impressive than an unlimited amount of discussion.”

‘ “You shall look around our building, though there is little to see. In the matter of armament, we must disappoint you,” the voice replied. Sir Henry grunted.

‘ “Intending to keep that secret, eh? Very sensible too, from our point of view; but if you could give a demonstration of your weapons’ power ..

“You mistake us,” the voice reproved. “We cannot show armament because we have none.”