I have always kept clear of mass movements, so on meeting the president of the committee in a lonely upper corridor one evening, I said, “Hullo, Mildred,” and would have passed on, but she gripped my arm and said, “Come with me.”
She led me a few yards to the open door of what I had thought was a disused service lift. She said, “You’d better sit on the floor,” and closed the gates behind us and pulled a lever. The lift fell like a stone with a noise so high-pitched that it was sometimes inaudible. After fifteen minutes it decelerated in violent jerks, then stopped. Mildred opened the gates and we stepped out.
In spite of myself I was impressed by what I saw. We stood in a corridor with an arched ceiling, asphalt floor and walls of white tile. It swept left and right in a curve that prevented seeing more than a mile in each direction. “Very good,” I said, “very good indeed. How did you manage it? The fluorescent lighting alone must have cost a fortune.”
Mildred said gloomily, “We didn’t make this place. We only reached it.”
At that moment an elderly man passed us on a bicycle. He wore a peaked cap, an armband with some kind of badge on it and was otherwise naked, for the air was warm. As he passed he raised a hand in a friendly gesture. I said, “Who was that?”
“Some kind of official. There aren’t many of them on this level.”
“How many levels are there?”
“Three. This one has dormitories and canteens for the staff, and underneath are the offices of the administration, and under that is the engine.”
“What engine?”
“The one that drives us round the sun.”
“But gravity drives the world round the sun.”
“Has anyone ever told you what gravity is and how it operates?”
I realized nobody ever had. Mildred said, “Gravity is nothing but a word top-level scientists use to hide their ignorance.”
I asked her how the engine was powered. She said, “Steam.”
“Not nuclear fission?”
“No, the industrial design boys are quite certain it’s a steam engine of the most primitive sort imaginable. They’re down there measuring and sketching with the rest of the committee. We’ll show you a picture in a day or two.”
“Does nobody ask what right you have to go poking about inside this thing?”
“No. It’s like all big organizations. The staff are so numerous that you can go where you like if you look confident enough.”
I had to meet a friend in half an hour so we got into the lift and started back up. I said, “Well, Mildred, it’s interesting of course, but I don’t know why you brought me to see it.”
She said, “I’m worried. The others keep laughing at the machinery and discussing how to alter it. They think they can improve the climate by taking us nearer the sun. I’m afraid we’re doing wrong.”
“Of course you’re doing wrong! You’re supposed to be studying art, not planetary motion. I would never have suggested the project if I’d thought you would take it to this length.”
She let me out on the ground floor saying, “We can’t turn back now.”
I suppose she redescended for I never saw her again.
That night I was wakened by an explosion and my bed falling heavily to the ceiling. The sun, which had just set, came up again. The city was inundated by sea. We survivors crouched a long time among ruins threatened by earthquakes, avalanches and whirlwinds. All clocks were working at different speeds and the sun, after reaching the height of noon, stayed there. At length the elements calmed and we examined the new situation. It is clear that the planet has broken into several bits. Our bit is not revolving. To enjoy starlight and darkness, to get a good night’s sleep, we have to walk to the other side of our new world, a journey of several miles, with an equally long journey back when we want daylight.
It will be hard to remake life on the old basis.
THE COMEDY OF THE WHITE DOG
On a sunny afternoon two men went by car into the suburbs to the house of a girl called Nan. Neither was much older than twenty years. One of them, Kenneth, was self-confident and well dressed and his friends thought him very witty. He owned and drove the car. The other, Gordon, was more quiet. His clothes were as good as Kenneth’s but he inhabited them less easily. He had never been to this girl’s house before and felt nervous. An expensive bunch of flowers lay on his lap.
Kenneth stopped the car before a broad-fronted bungalow with a badly kept lawn. The two men had walked halfway up the path to the door when Kenneth stopped and pointed to a dog which lay basking in the grass. It was a small white sturdy dog with a blunt pinkish muzzle and a stumpy tail. It lay with legs stuck out at right angles to its body, its eyes were shut tight and mouth open in a grin through which the tongue lolled. Kenneth and Gordon laughed and Gordon said, “What’s so funny about him?”
Kenneth said, “He looks like a toy dog knocked over on its side.”
“Is he asleep?”
“Don’t fool yourself. He hears every word we say.”
The dog opened its eyes, sneezed and got up. It came over to Gordon and grinned up at him but evaded his hand when he bent down to pat it and trotted up the path and touched the front door with its nose. The door opened and the dog disappeared into a dark hall. Kenneth and Gordon stood on the front step stamping their feet on the mat and clearing their throats. Sounds of female voices and clattering plates came from nearby and the noise of a wireless from elsewhere. Kenneth shouted, “Ahoi!” and Nan came out of a side door. She was a pleasant-faced blonde who would have seemed plump if her waist, wrists and ankles had not been slender. She wore an apron over a blue frock and held a moist plate in one hand. Kenneth said jocularly, “The dog opened the door to us.”
“Did he? That was wicked of him. Hullo, Gordon, why, what nice flowers. You’re always kind to me. Leave them on the hallstand and I’ll put them in water.”
“What sort of dog is he?” said Gordon.
“I’m not sure, but when we were on holiday up at Ardnamurchan the local inhabitants mistook him for a pig.”
A woman’s voice shouted, “Nan! The cake!”
“Oh, I’ll have to rush now, I’ve a cake to ice. Take Gordon into the living room, Kenneth; the others haven’t arrived yet so you’ll have to entertain each other. Pour yourselves a drink if you like.”
The living room was at the back of the house. The curtains, wallpaper and carpets had bright patterns that didn’t harmonize. There was an assortment of chairs and the white dog lay on the most comfortable. There was a big very solid oval table, and a grand piano with two bottles of cider and several tumblers on it. “I see we’re not going to have an orgy anyway,” said Gordon, pouring cider into a tumbler.