"That is almost a quotation of what they said. Not a translation, either, for they spoke English and indeed all the languages of Earth perfectly. They had observed us so minutely as to learn our tongues!
"Opinion was divided as to the course that lay before us. There were those who claimed that by hoarding the minute quantity of yttrium remaining to us we might be able to hold off the invaders when they should come. But while we were discussing the idea the supply was all consumed.
"Some declared themselves for absorption with the Martian race on its arrival. Simple laws of biogenetics demonstrated effectively that such a procedure was likewise impossible.
"A very large group decided to wage guerilla warfare, studying the technique from Clausewitz's "Theory and Practise". Unfortunately, the sole remaining copy of this work crumbled into dust when it was removed from its vault.
"And then ...
"A man named Selig Vissarion, a poet of Odessa, turned his faculties to the problem, and evolved a device to remove the agonies of waiting. Three months ago – my time, remember – he proclaimed it to all mankind.
"His device was – the Biosomniac. It so operates that the sleeper – the subject of the device, that is – is thrown into a deep slumber characterized by dreams of a pleasurable nature. And the slumber is one from which he will never, without outside interference, awake.
"The entire human race, as I speak, is now under the influence of the machine. All but me, and I am left only because there is no one to put me under. When I have done here – I shall shoot myself.
"For this is our tragedy: Now, when all our yttrium is gone, we have found a device to transmute metals. Now we could make all the yttrium we need, except that ...
"The device cannot be powered except by the destruction of the atom.
"And, having no yttrium at all left, we can produce no such power ...
"And so, unknown friend, farewell. You have heard our history. Remember it, and take warning. Be warned of sloth, beware of greed. Farewell, my unknown friend."
And, with that little sermon, the shifting glow of the panel died and I sat bespelled. It was all a puzzle to me. If the Martians were coming, why hadn't they arrived? Or had they? At least I saw none about me.
I looked at the mummified figures that stretched in great rows the length of the chamber. These, then, were neither dead nor ill, but sleeping. Sleeping against the coming of the Martians. I thought. My chronology was fearfully confused. Could it be that the invaders from the red planet had not yet come, and that I was only a year or two after the human race had plunged itself into sleep? That must be it.
And all for the want of a little bit of yttrium!
Absently I inspected the appendages of the time travelling belt. They were, for the most part, compact boxes labeled with the curt terminology of engineering. "Converter," said one. "Entropy gradient," said another. And a third bore the cryptic word, "Gadenolite." That baffled my chemical knowledge. Vaguely I remembered something I had done back in Housatonic with the stuff. It was a Scandinavian rare earth, as I remember, containing tratia, eunobia, and several oxides. And one of them, I slowly remembered…
Then I said it aloud, with dignity and precision "One of the compounds present in this earth in large proportions is yttrium dioxide."
Yttrium dioxide? Why, that was —
Yttrium!
It was one of those things that was just too good to be true. Yttrium! Assuming that the Martians hadn't come yet, and that there really was a decent amount of the metal in the little box on my belt ...
Quite the little heroine, I, I thought cheerfully, and strode to the nearest sleeper. "Excuse me," I said.
He groaned as the little reading-lamp flashed on. "Excuse me," I said again.
He didn't move. Stern measures seemed to be called for. I shouted in his ear, Wake up, you!" But he wouldn't. I wandered among the sleepers, trying to arouse some, and failing in every case. It must be those little wires, I thought gaily as I bent over one of them.
I inspected the hand of the creature, and noted that the silvery filaments trailing from the fingers did not seem to be imbedded very deeply in the flesh. Taking a deep breath I twisted one of the wires between forefinger and thumb, and broke it with ease.
The creature groaned again, and – opened its eyes. "Good morning," I said feebly.
It didn't answer me, but sat up and stared from terribly sunken pits for a full second. It uttered a little wailing cry. The eyes closed again, and the creature rolled from its slab, falling heavily to the floor. I felt for the pulse; there was none. Beyond doubt this sleeper slept no longer – I had killed him.
I walked away from the spot, realizing that my problem was not as simple as it might have been. A faint glow lit up the hall, and the lights above flashed out. The new radiance came through the walls of the building.
It must be morning, I thought. I had had a hard night, and a strange one. I pressed the "Slavies' ring" again, and took the revolving staircase down to the lobby.
The thing to do now was to find some way of awakening the sleepers without killing them. That meant study. Study meant books, books meant library. I walked out into the polished stone plaza and looked for libraries.
There was some fruitless wandering about and stumbling into several structures precisely similar to the one I had visited; finally down the vista of a broad, gleaming street I saw the deep-carven words, "Stape Books Place," on the pediment of a traditionally squat, classic building. I set off for it, and arrived too winded by the brisk walk to do anything more than throw myself into a chair.
A panel in the wall lit up and an effeminate voice began, "Greetings, unknown friend. You have seated yourself in a chair; please be advised —"
"Go to hell," I said shortly, rose, and left the panel to go through a door inscribed "Books of the Day."
It turned out to be a conventional reading room whose farther end was a maze of stacks and shelves. Light poured in through large windows, and I felt homesick for old Housatonic. If the place had been a little more dusty I'd never have known it from the Main Tech Library.
A volume I chose at random proved to be a work on anthropology : "A General Introduction to the Study of Decapilation Among the Tertiates of Gondwana as Contrasted with the Primates of Eurasia." I found one photograph – in color – of a hairless monkey, shuddered, and restored the volume.
The next book was 'the Exagmination into the incamination for the resons of his Works in pregress," which also left me stranded. It appeared to be a critique of the middle work of one James Joyce, reprinted from the original edition of Paris, 1934 A.D.
I chucked the thing into a corner and rummaged among the piles of pamphlets that jammed a dozen shelves. "Rittenhouse's Necrology" – no. 'statistical Isolates Relating to Isolate Statisticals" – likewise no. "The Cognocrat Manifest" – I opened it and found it a description of a super-state which had yet to be created. "Construction and operation of the Biosomniac" – that was it!
I seated myself at one of the polished tables and read through the slim pamphlet rapidly once, then tore out some of its blank pages to take notes on. The arrangement of the regulating dials is optional," I copied on to the paper scraps, and sketched the intricate system of Bowden wires that connected the bodies with the controls. That was as much of a clue as I could get from the little volume, but it indicated in its appendix more exhaustive works. I looked up Tissarion," the first on the list.
"Monarch! may many moiling mockers make my master more malicious marry mate —" it said. Mankind, artist to the last, had yet found time to compose an epic poem on the inventor of the Biosomniac. I flung the sappy thing away and took down the next work on the list, "Chemistry of the Somniac." It was a sound treatise on the minute yet perceptible functionings of the subject under the influence of the Vissarion device. More notes and diagrams, collated with the information from the other book.