The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars Part 6

"It formed an equally striking scene. I turned to my companion and asked him how it was that the mathematicians, chemists, physicists, astronomers, were so crowded together. He said, 'The Patenta covers, with all its buildings, a s.p.a.ce about one mile square, and here in laboratories and in the great observatories these men have flocked because of a sympathy in their tastes and talents. Although astronomy is the great profession, and, as I will show you, the marvels of the Universe are being more and more fully known, yet the study of the elements and the laws of matter is popular and also followed unremittingly. It is true that we know these people are from your earth; they have reported all that to the Registeries, to whom I will soon conduct you; they yet retain strong memories of the earth, though it is confined more largely to knowledge than to experience. In some, the Martian life and habit has almost obliterated their earthly notions and designs. It is singular that of the scientific workers of the earth the astronomers, physicists, and chemists alone reach Mars. The biologists, zoologists, botanists, geographers, and geologists rarely are booked at the Registeries as coming from the Earth. Their lives may be prolonged elsewhere, they seldom reach us.

"'There are some exceptions. The plants of Mars are numerous, its rocks and animal life curious, and they are well understood. A few doctors from the earth are here, but medicine and surgery are not so much needed, yet in the study of life our philosophers have made great strides. Your thinkers and poets, artists, composers, dramatists, musicians, come here, but of all the wonderful students of Nature the earth has produced, as far as I know or have heard, Lamarck and Aga.s.siz, Owen, and Cuvier alone have been reincarnated on our globe. And the warriors and generals of the earth are unknown here.'

"We had reached a table unnoticed, unheard. There was a constant rush of words about us. The melodic charm of the Martian tongue, like the soft vocalization of Italian pleased me. If the Martians are without books or papers, they possess all the resources of conversation. Animation, pleasure, salutation, cheerfulness and joy was everywhere, the perfume of flowers filled the air, the shafts of sunlight broken into the most enticing iridescence filled the great n.o.ble rooms with lovely colors, and the clear white tables, beautifully spread with fruit, seemed to chasten appet.i.te into something ethereal and rare.

"As we stood an instant at our places the people arose, and from some distant and concealed place, so situated I afterwards learned, as to gain access to all the dining halls, there came a swell and burst of jubilant music. It was so fresh and free and bewitching in its glee and ringing cadences, so consonant and accordant with the glad and ill.u.s.trious feeling of the place and time, that my heart seemed to leap within me; and then it softened, and changing into notes of melodic gravity, ended in a splendid outcry of soaring, piercing notes--the salute to the morning. Long after the voices had finished, the rolling notes of an organ continued the loud outburst.

"As we sat down, the conversation was again resumed and I noted then the singular clearness and suavity of this Martian language. I must hasten my narrative. I have so much to tell you. We ate the great cereal of Mars--the Rint--a delicious food, in which, as it seemed to me, the substance of a sort of rice was mingled with a creamy exudation in all of which was enclosed the flavor of the orange and the peach. This, with a fruit, a kind of milk, and many wines, forms the nourishment of the Martians. The fruits are most various, and every hidden or patent fancy of the gourmet seems elicited or satisfied in them. I cannot now describe them even if I recalled them. One commended itself to my taste strongly, a sort of nodular banana, holding a fragrant nucleus, like a large strawberry immersed in a savory juice, and coated with a rind stripped from it by the hand. It is of most stimulating qualities. It is called Ana.

"Few implements are in use; the Rint is taken in short spoons and the fruit is usually manipulated with the fingers. The milk and wine are drunk from the most ingeniously devised and ornamented gla.s.ses, napkins of the Tofa weed are used, a pale green cloth, and large bowls of acidified water in which floats a morsel of soap are served at the end of meals. Great variety prevails, and individual fancy, taste, desire, or invention sway as with you on earth.

"The breakfast over, the companies arose and moved out in cl.u.s.ters and trains to the avocations of the day. Many of these workers in the Patenta have houses throughout the city, while others living singly congregate in the numerous apartments, and enjoy these commons. The extraordinary a.s.semblage I saw here is repeated in the other great communal halls where the artists, philosophers and inventors congregate.

But the Halls are of quite different construction in each quarter of the City.

"Accompanying or a.s.sociated with these Halls are the Courts of Announcement and Recreation. Here lectures, conferences, entertainments, are given, and the people of the City flock in droves not infrequently accompanied by numbers of the new Spirits who here are often enabled to gain their final solidification; '_Gell_' as the Martians say.

"My companion led me out of the Hall. Men and women were moving slowly in various directions and as we made our way over the campus and between the many n.o.ble buildings I saw many of the lambent spirits half emergent into fleshly shapes accompanied by the watchers, who are in great numbers in the City, carrying over their arms the white and blue dresses with which to clothe them as the spirits fall into solid forms.

"Amongst these buildings I easily noted the marvellous observatories where objectives twenty feet in diameter are used with which the astronomers actually discern the life of our earth. The reports they make from week to week of their inspection of the Solar system, and of the commotions, changes, births and demolition of Stars, are the sensations of Mars. These Reports are read aloud in the Halls of Announcement and Recreation. But astounding beyond belief, they photograph the surfaces of these distant bodies, and report in moving pictures the disturbances of the cosmic universe. No wonder that the whole Mind, as it were, of Mars is concentrated on the fabulous results of their cosmic studies.

"We descended from Patenta Hill in an avenue that led between the white columned houses with their spheres of Phosphori and their umbrageous squares around them. It was a season of flowers, though I understood that by the use of fertilizing injections the number of flowers in a shrub and even in an herb can be here greatly multiplied. The windows of the houses were open and their sills crowded with blossoms. The use of the red blossoming vine was strangely extravagant. In many cases it had thrown its branches over an entire house, clambering over the roof and encircling the phosphoric cage, so that the white house was dissected by its twigs and tendrils, while the red honeysuckle flowers depended in cl.u.s.ters from the walls, the roof gutters, and the light house globes above them.

"The Court of the Registeries was a long low structure made of the prevalent white stone with a roof of what seemed to be red copper. It was built upon one of the ca.n.a.ls which here enter the city and formed one side of a long pier or dock to which and from which interesting little boats were constantly approaching and as constantly departing.

"A hum of business and everyday work surrounded the place, and it seemed refreshing to note the stir and bustle of affairs. Streams of people were entering the Court as we arrived. They were inhabitants and watchers bringing the new incarnations to the Registeries to have their origin recorded if they could recall it. Indeed many spirits fail utterly to remember their former condition, and happen, as we might say, upon Mars, unexplained and inexplicable. They even are without speech and learn the Martian language as a child learns to talk.

"We pushed in with the jostling crowd, and even as I entered I could hear the murmurous chant of the Chorus Halls, borne hither-ward on the morning wind. It now seemed a long time, although but one day apparently had elapsed since I sat, a trail of luminous ether, undergoing the strange process of materialization.

"How incredible it all was, how incomprehensible. I pinched myself until I could have cried out with pain, and at that very instant a voice saluted me, calling me by name and a rushing figure encountered me. I stood transfixed. Before me was Chapman, the mechanic, workman, and photographer for Mr. Rutherford, in New York in the seventies, a man whom I knew well, from whom I had learned much, and whose skill helped so largely in the production of Rutherford's negatives of the Moon. My repulsion was over in an instant. I clasped him heartily. It seemed so good, so human, to embrace something in this strange world. An equal resistance met my own. We were indeed substance.

"'Mr. Dodd,' exclaimed my old acquaintance, 'are you here? This is wonderful. Have you just become one of us? What luck! what a great providence for me! I am in the observatory. Must sail to-morrow to Scandor to report a sudden confusion in Perseus. They call it here _Pike_. You shall go with me. I have a long leave of absence I will show you many marvels. And you can tell me everything about Tony. He was a baby when I knew you.' Turning to my smiling companion, he spoke in Martian, of which to give you some semblance I cipher these words: 'Aru meta voluca volu li tonti tan dondore mal per vuele vonta bidi ami.'

"I returned Chapman's hearty salutation. I yet retained the human speech of earth and I was struck with the miraculous incident that in the planet Mars, in a populous city, I was addressing a friend in the English tongue.

"But the joy of it was inexpressible. Oh, the sweetness of old acquaintanceship in strange, and as here, impossible surroundings! I gazed on him with unspeakable curiosity. I talked to him just to hear my own voice and his in response, to realize if words were still words with the old meaning, if the intangible mutation I had undergone was a reality, if I was indeed alive, if my lungs and throat, the configuration of my mouth, the vocalic impact of the air, was a fact, a sound, a meaning, or whether it all was some phantasmagoria, beautiful and fair indeed, to be dispelled with a shock of annihilation.

"No! we were breathing, sensate things, were human kin and kind. The sudden vertigo sent me throbbing, like a stricken animal, against the high pillars of the room we had entered, and a reflex tide of emotion swept over me in a storm that shook me with convulsive sobs.

"My companion handed me a black wafer. I took it, it dissolved, a fierce acridity seemed formed in my mouth, and in an instant I felt strong and bold.

"The Registeries were offices in the alcove-like openings in the sides of this very long building. In the same building were the Courts, which are few, and here the rooms for the reception and storage of supplies for the City. The Hall of Registeries is prolonged into a series of huge buildings extending along the walls of the Ca.n.a.l.

"I was led by my unknown friend and Chapman to one of these recesses on which I recognized a globe of our earth with its continents in relief.

Here upon simple tables were spread great bound books made up of thick creamy leaves of white paper. These were the Registers. The original home, planet, world, or star, from which each emigrant spirit had departed was, as far as possible, determined, and appropriately recorded. The details of their lives were inquired into, the condition and history of the sphere they had left examined, and thus by the revision and comparison of these narratives the history of the various worlds was in a fair way known, almost as accurately as their present inhabitants knew them.

"The alcoves of the Registeries were really ample rooms. Cases holding voluminous records were ranged upon their walls; maps, charts, even paintings and drawings, as made by the arriving spirits hung upon the walls, and in broad alb.u.ms were gathered the portraits, in small size, of the incarnated persons. The Registeries were young men who, from long intercourse with the affairs and occupants of each of the different extra-Martian bodies, whence spirits came, had become familiar with their languages and circ.u.mstances and avocations.

"The keeping, indexing, compiling, ill.u.s.tration, of these extraordinary records is a difficult and inexhaustible task.

"The results are often reproduced to the Martians in lectures, bulletins, or in sections of the great newspaper Dia.

"The young men approached us as we entered the room, and after saluting my guide and also Chapman with the Martian cry, Tintot.i.ta, led me to a chair, and giving me one of the black wafers, whose acidity had a short time before so vigorously renewed my consciousness, began their inquiry.

"The photograph of each visitor is taken, and a process quite like our collodion or wet process is used. The portraits are more permanent than with the perishable dry plates. It is a curious thing to learn that for 100 years these records and pictures have been taken, and that there are on Mars hosts of unidentified spirits, who entered its wondrous precincts before that time.

"The duration of life in Mars is very various. There seems here an undiscovered law, and a group of observers in Mars are to-day trying to penetrate this mystery. It is a.s.serted that there is evidence that Egyptians of the ante-Christian epoch are to-day living in Mars, but their identification is now almost impossible. On the other hand, it is a fact ascertained and recorded that in one hundred years many Martians die, while others scarcely survive the ordinary limit of our human life on earth. This gives a great interest to Martian society. Here for ages have possibly flown disembodied spirits from our earth; in their reincarnation they have a.s.sumed the features and faculties of youth; they have also, under changed conditions of life, and moderated functions and activity in living, been physically, perhaps mentally, modified. Their own memory of their past on Earth, however vivid, and then in exceptional beings, has slowly disappeared or left only vague cloud-like waverings and congeries of reminiscences.

"So that great human souls that have entered Mars in the early centuries of our earth's historic periods may be living here almost unrecognized.

They have drifted into occupations suitable to their genius in some of the many great cities, and no vestige of their past remains. The system of the Registeries is scarcely a century old, and while now from the marvellous industry and persistence of the investigators, the great ones of the neighboring worlds, and even the most obscure are in some cognizable way identified, yet from the long ages before that there is almost no authentic registration.

"This is more to be regretted as the law of life on the planet might then be better formulated. Essentially it seems necessary for existence here to be in unison with the conditions; contentment means longevity.

Of course, the remarkable men and women I saw at the Patenta were all well known. They had made themselves known, and not only were their earthly names and lives put down on the pages of the Registers, but all their knowledge had been as inquisitively and scrupulously impressed.

Nor is this all. From many worlds and earths there is flowing constantly to this planet new, strange, wonderful beings. Here is a cosmos of races, tastes, nationalities, destinies, civilizations, and instincts, from whose amalgamated and fused vortices of tendency this marvellous life has been formed.

"However completely the mere memory of detail vanishes, the traits of nature remain, and these mingling beings present a kaleidoscope of contrasted or blending talents. But union of beings comes in here as in our States to combine all together and create this unique expression of social beauty, tenderness, scientific power, progress and spiritual exaltation. Marriage is here as with us, and love holds its deathless sway among the white and n.o.ble Martians as on earth, while the affection of friendship seems to weave every atom of society to every other atom in a social texture over which only moves the refining powers of thought and aspiration.

"Mars does indeed seem a sort of Paradise, for it is quite certain that the best, the truest, the deeper and emphatic souls come here; and while a sort of sin or social incompatibility is found here, and there are crimes, and while death and sickness and accidents occur here, as I have told you, yet these things have a moral or mental, rather than physical expression. At least, in a great measure, and they are rare. No!

accidents of matter pertain to Mars; its materiality is complete. As I send this to you I feel my warmth, the heat of my body, the expiration of my breath, the movements of my eyes, the beating of my heart, all, all, these bodily phenomena seem unchanged--their physiology is changed, their corporate reality seems the same, their corporeal consequences are different. But I cannot explain clearly this to you. Do I know it clearly myself?

"I was questioned by the Registeries, both of whom had come from the earth, though in them, as in all the less highly endowed, memory was fading. Because of this, Registeries quickly succeed each other, since the later arrivals from the other worlds are better adapted to elicit the information needed from the new spirits. And this applies to other worlds, to Mercury and Venus, etc., whose Registeries are, so far as possible, appointed from previous occupants of those spheres.

"The larger, far larger percentage of spirits come from the three planets, Mercury, Venus and the Earth; but there are singular inexplicable arrivals from distant stars, and of these the records are in many instances of extraordinary wonderfulness. I must not pause to recount this. I know it very imperfectly.

"My examiners had little to do. My memory seemed of great power, and I told them the story of our experiments, discoveries and our compact to communicate with each other. This portion of my story was listened to with admiration. Chapman, my guide, and the two Registeries leaped to their feet, exclaimed with delight and embraced each other in ecstacy.

'At last! At last!' cried out all of them, while hastily calling officers of the building to them they rapidly explained my singular announcement. It seemed to run like fire through the throngs. A great crowd was soon pressing in upon us on every side, while the Martian e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n '_Hi mitla_' rang in all directions. I was astounded. What was this strange excitement, and why had my simple tale awakened this fierce commotion?

"My guide noting my dismay and alarm, laughingly explained the reason of the confusion. 'For years and years,' he said, 'it has been hoped by the Martians to send some message to the Earth. We understand wireless telegraphy, we can bridge almost infinite distances with the monstrous waves of magnetic disturbances, it is possible for us to generate. We have bombarded the earth with magnetic waves, but no response, no single indication has been returned to us that our messages were received. Our knowledge of the earth language is complete, even our knowledge of the telegraphic codes is partially so. But we have hopelessly repeated, are even now repeating these efforts.

"'You, my friend, are the first man from Earth who tells us that wireless telegraphy is understood upon Earth, that receivers have been invented; but above all it amazes and transports us to know that you have perfected means, before leaving the Earth, to have such messages as you may deliver from Mars properly received. There is, though,' he exclaimed, as he turned to the eager, shining faces about me, 'still a grave doubt whether our good friend can a.s.sure us of the ability of the _Earthlings_ to send us back any communication. They may be unable to force through this enormous distance waves of sufficient magnitude to reach us.'

"There was a loud murmur of disappointment, mingled with exclamations of dissent and reproach. Once more I was plied with questions, and then, my son, there came to me, singularly clouded in forgetfulness until that instant, the memory of that fruitless message which we received about a year before my death on Earth.

"I arose, and amid a hush of expectation excited by this motion, accompanied as it were with a gesture inviting silence, spoke aloud in English:

"'My friends, I recall a night in August, 1890, in the Earth's chronology, when my son and myself, then hoping against hope that the carefully adjusted receiver we had, would ever be called upon to herald a message from another world, were suddenly surprised to see and hear the register of our instrument move and sound. It was indeed animated by some extra terrestrial power. Could that power have come from your Mars; were we the first to receive one of your messages that you have so long been raining on the Earth?'

"I looked around in enthusiasm, and with a conscious sense of companionship, pride and affection. I do not think I was altogether understood, except by a few, but the contagion of my own pleasure seized the mult.i.tude, and a great melodious shout arose, while cries of '_Hi mitla_' echoed in the Hall, and then, carried away with an emotional impulse, these excited Martians broke into a song, a swinging chant, that brought to the doors of the room new accessions of spectators whose instantaneous sympathy was expressed by the added volume of sound they contributed, until beneath the vibrant power of the great chorus the building seemed itself to tremble.

"And then a curious and astounding thing happened. My old acquaintance, Chapman, leaped up in the dense cl.u.s.ters, and springing on a table shouted, 'To the Patenta.' The words seemed understood by almost all. I was seized by powerful arms, swung upon the shoulders of two splendid, vigorous youths. While by one impulse the throng surged through the doors in a sort of triumphal progress, I found myself moving in the midst of the excited populace up a broad avenue to the central hill of the city again, which was crowned by the many towers, halls, domes and aggregated arms and facades of the wonderful Patenta, the great communal home of Experiment and Observation.

"The clamor of our approach brought to the scene the dwellers in the houses and the wanderers in the streets. And amongst the great density of forms and faces I saw the phosph.o.r.escent figures of many forming spirits swept on in this friendly anarchy of delight and antic.i.p.ation.

"My son, as I send these words out into the ether-filled realms of s.p.a.ce across the millions of miles that intervene between that speck of light on which even now I know you lament my departure, and this new home of mine, which to you also is but a speck of light, I feel in a desperation of doubt that you will never hear them.

"How thrilled and awe-struck I became as I gazed around me, and looking over the surging mob beheld their mult.i.tudinous lineaments, the faces of the races of our earth, its many nations, the faces of men or women who had lived in Venus, in Mercury, in the fixed stars, perhaps, as we call those globes from whose lambent surface light reached the earth after the expiration of a century of years. What a beautiful exhilaration of feeling it imparted, these flushed and shining faces, the liquid eyes of the south now charged with the fires of transporting expectation, the steady gaze of blue-eyed northerners firm and rapt and steadfast; the power of huge, colossal frames of muscle, the sinuous activity of spare and slender forms all attired in that consummate garb of blue and white, their caps of metal reflecting the light in cerulean l.u.s.tres.

"On, upward, we moved, impelled by an impulse quite indefinable but sufficient to condense about us by its contagion the Martian populace, quick, responsive, inquisitive, intelligent and excitable as children.

We were approaching the Patenta by an ever widening avenue, our rustling approach announced by a chant of vociferous and yet melodious notes.