The Greatest Sci-Fi Books of Erle Cox. Erle Cox

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      "You might demonstrate on us," Barry began.

      "Dick, if you are offering me up as a subject, I'll regard it as an unfriendly action, as the diplomats say," broke in Alan.

      "Profound self-consciousness, Alan," said Barry, with a laugh. "Let's hear the rest, Earani, and we'll find a subject afterwards."

      "The work was not done in a day," said Earani, laughing at their nonsense; "and for thirty years the world at large heard nothing of Eukary. During that thirty years he worked silently at his tremendous plan. It seems incredible now that what was afterwards known as the 'Great Conspiracy' could be formed in secret, but it was so. I can give you no clearer idea of his character than that he could enrol hundreds of thousands of followers under his banner in a plot to place the control of the world in one man's hands, and do it undetected."

      "A secret society," said Alan.

      Earani nodded. "Exactly, and its members embraced every race and every creed in the world without a single traitor."

      "He could not have known them all," said Barry.

      "Naturally not," replied Earani; "but that is where the wonderful system and organisation came in. He had a faultless judgment of men in the first place, and selected his immediate followers without making a single error. Then again he had that quality of leadership that turns followers into worshippers.

      "When the final blow was struck which made Eukary the master of the world, you must understand that conditions of life were different from those you know at present. War had ceased, and with it the necessity for armaments. By international agreement no weapon of offence might be improved, and the small armed force kept by each confederation had become merely an adjunct of State ceremonial. Amongst the conspirators were the greatest brains of the age, and these invented a weapon that made the movement irresistible."

      "It must have been a fairly easy victory, Earani," interrupted Barry; "the resistance could not have been much against such an organisation."

      "It was at first. People were too stunned by the blow to offer resistance. It was when they had had time to think that the trouble came. However, Eukary struck, and between the setting of one sun and the rising of another the old order had passed away. So perfectly were the plans laid that in one night the governing bodies of every confederation were removed, and a new administration was substituted."

      "Without resistance at all?" asked Barry.

      Earani shrugged her shoulders. "Eukary was not a man to allow sentiment to interfere with his plans, and the small regular armed forces might have been used as a nucleus for organised resistance, and so he made such a step impossible. They were exterminated to the last man."

      "Eukary seems to have taken Odi for a model," said Dick.

      "Possibly," answered Earani, without heeding the tinge of sarcasm in Barry's voice. "His methods never lacked decision, and he was not the man to risk failure through fear of public opinion. However, what you take exception to was nothing to what followed. The success of the revolution was absolute from the beginning. When people came down to their cities on the first day (they still lived in cities at that time) nothing was changed, except that they found proclamations notifying them that their government would be carried on as before, except that all existing and future laws would be subject to revision by a central council, of which Eukary would be the president.

      "Eukary was not slow to use his advantage. First he dealt with all public men outside the organisation. They had the position fully explained to them, and were given the option of giving their allegiance without being told the alternative. Many fell in with the plan gladly. Others, for conscientious reasons, refused. Can you guess what happened to them, Dick?" said Earani, with her slow smile, turning to Barry.

      "Placed under restraint, I suppose," answered Barry.

      "Think, Dick. Under restraint they would always be a menace, and a centre of disaffection, and certainly a centre of antagonism. Eukary's method was kinder in the long run. He had a maxim, 'Where there is no head there can be no body,' and so he took care there would be no head," she concluded grimly.

      "From the first day I saw his statue," said Alan, "I concluded that he was a gentleman who knew his own mind. He certainly was thorough."

      "It cleared the way," answered Earani. "Then he brought the great plan into operation. It was very simple. All laws were left unchanged that did not conflict with the one law that was made uniform throughout the world. No marriage would in future be permitted without the sanction of the controlling body. Every unmarried man and woman of marriageable age was obliged to report for registration. Each was told, then and there, whether he or she would be permitted to marry. But it was not the end of the matter, for no marriage could be performed without the consent of the authorities. Here Eukary's Law of Transmission came into operation. If, subject to the clearly defined clauses of that law, the children likely to result from that union would be an improvement on at least one of the parents, then the marriage would be permitted; otherwise it would be forbidden. Later on, but not until long afterwards, the law became more stringent; the offspring had to show an improvement over both parents."

      "And how did the world take the new order?" asked Barry. "Surely not quietly?"

      "The world took the new order just as a child takes a nauseous drug, unwillingly; but"–she went on with grim emphasis–"it took it in the long run–Eukary saw to that."

      "There must have been what we call 'ructions,' Earani," said Alan.

      "There was a revolt; only one, though," she answered. "Eukary allowed the disaffection to come to a head; he even allowed it a measure of success, so as to induce all of his opponents to show their hand. In his grim summary of the situation 80 per cent of the revolting faction were defective, either mentally or physically, therefore their elimination cleared the atmosphere. When the revolt was crushed he was asked the fate of the survivors, and his orders were brief and merciless–'They were warned. I cannot and will not allow opposition. Spare none.'"

      "Why," put in Barry, angrily, "he was a worse fiend than Odi."

      Earani looked him over reflectively. "Dick, your profession has made you hopelessly sentimental. I could almost think you would weep over the fate of a tumour you were obliged to remove."

      Dick laughed in spite of his anger. "No parallel, Earani," he answered. "I would be saving a life, not destroying it."

      She shook her head. "Your horizon is too limited. What use to save the life if it were not worth saving? What use would the life be without civilisation? These people that Eukary removed were a malignant growth, nothing else, on civilisation."

      "And the result?" asked Alan.

      "Don't think that came in a generation. Eukary did not hope for that, but he lived long enough to know that the world would never revert to the old order. But his mighty brain was there to help the world through the first troublous period. He had to contend with an enormously reduced birth-rate, owing to the restriction on marriage, but this was to a great extent counteracted by a lowered death-rate.

      "As time went on the reality of Eukary's work became manifest, and the standard of humanity rose to heights even beyond the expectation of its founder. Gradually the percentage of defectives became lower and lower, until there rose a feeling that to become the parents of a child who was classed as unfit became a disgrace–as great even as the shame of unchastity. It was from this feeling came the cult of the unborn. The restrictions and the regulations СКАЧАТЬ