The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life by Homer Eon Flint (best mystery novels of all time .TXT) 📖

the usual saddellike chairs, and then Myrin answered Van Emmon’s question:

“I knew that this point would arise soon, and you will pardon me if I handle it in a prearranged fashion. I will admit that it is not an easy question Mr. Van Emmon has put; not because the answer is at all complicated but, on the contrary, extremely simple.”

The four were listening unanimously. Despite himself, Van Emmon was highly impressed by the Venusian woman’s serious manner. Perhaps it was because, in her earnestness, she was not quite so affable as before. She went on:

“From where you are sitting, you can see all the rooms in this house. You will look in vain for anything even remotely resembling a kitchen. There is not even a dining-room.

“And yet you must not jump to the conclusion that we all use restaurants. We have no such thing as a public eating place. Or rather,” and here she spoke very carefully, “rather, every place is an eating place.”

The doctor looked Myrin over as though she were a patient with a new kind of disease. “You do not mean that literally, of course,” said he kindly.

But she nodded gravely. “You must not misunderstand. Remember, even on your own planet, the distribution of food is becoming more and more extensive, until you can now buy something to eat at every crossroads. We have merely carried the idea to its logical end, so that all Venusians can obtain food at any time, and at any spot.”

She turned in her chair—all the chairs on Venus were pivoted, Estra said—and touched a button in the wall at her hand. A panel slid noiselessly aside, and revealed a tiny buffet. At least, Billie labeled it a buffet, for want of a more accurate term.

For it consisted of a silver bibb, something like the nozzle of a soda-water fountain above which was a board containing a large number of tiny, numbered push buttons. Below the bibb was a space in which a cup might be set, and projecting from a tube at one side was a solid block of telescoping, transparent cups.

“This,” said Myrin, “is the Venusian Nutrition System. There is a station like this in every room on the planet.” And she proceeded to take a cup from the tube, filling each from the silver faucet while she pressed a variety of the buttons.

The four watched in silence, and eagerly took what was given to them. It comprised liquids entirely; liquids of every degree of fluidity, from some as thin as water to others as thick as gruel. They varied even more as to color, ranging from actual transparency to a deep chocolate.

“Now, I warn you not to be shocked,” said Myrin, “although I fully expect that you will be. The fact is that we have no other kind of food than what you see; there are thousands upon thousands of different kinds and flavors, but they are all fluids. We have nothing whatever in solid form.

“You see,” she explained, “we have no teeth.”

All they could do was to stare at her as, with a return of her smile, she made a sudden gesture across the front of her mouth. Next instant a set of false teeth lay in her hand!

Estra spoke up. “We are both obliged to wear them in order that we might use your language.” He removed his own, to show a mouth as free of teeth as a newborn baby’s. Both Venusians replaced their sets, and smiled afresh at the explorers’ astonishment.

“Teeth will soon be a thing of the past with you on the Earth, too,” commented Myrin. “Dr. Kinney will surely testify to that. Your use of soft, cooked foods, instead of the coarse, hard articles provided by nature, is bound to have this effect in time. With us, it resulted in having teeth reduced to the standing of your appendix; and, like you, we resort to an operation rather than take chances on trouble. I may mention that the appendix is totally absent from all Venusians, while we are beginning to lose all traces of either the first or second molars; just as you are beginning to lose your wisdom teeth.

“However, suppose you try our diet while I explain.”

The four once more looked at each other. The doctor was the first to take a sip of one of the cups handed to him, and Van Emmon was the last; the geologist waited to see the effects upon the others before gingerly tasting of the thickest, darkest liquid of them all. Another taste, and he discovered that it was very good, and that he was exceedingly hungry.

“Very delicately flavored,” commented Billie, after emptying her fourth glass, a golden fluid with a slightly oily appearance.

“Delicately is right,” said the doctor. “This stuff is barely flavored at all, Estra.”

The Venusian was also “eating.” “We much prefer them all that way,” said he. “I suppose you would consider our tastes very finicky, on Earth; but the fact is we are able to distinguish between minute variations in flavoring such as would escape all on earth except a humming-bird.”

“I suppose,” remarked the doctor, smacking his lips over a reddish solution with a winelike flavor, “I suppose we can expect something of that sort on the Earth, too, in time. Originally mankind was only able to distinguish fresh from stale, and animal from vegetable flavors.”

After a while Myrin went on: “You know, the processes of nutrition, as they take place among your people, are extremely wasteful. You have probably heard it said that ‘the average human is only fifty per cent efficient.’ That simply means that digestion, assimilation and excretion require half the energy which they secure from the food.

“Now, the articles you have just swallowed require very little work on the part of your digestive apparatus, and none at all upon your eliminating tract. The food is almost instantly transformed into fresh blood; if I am not mistaken, you already feel much refreshed.”

This was decidedly true. All four felt actually stimulated; Van Emmon instantly suspected the food of being alcoholic. As he continued to watch its effect, however, he saw that there was no harmful reaction as in the case of the notorious drug.

“I think I can now tell you how we produce enough food for the three and a half trillion of us, despite our lack of farms and orchards,” said Myrin rising.

Returning to the aircraft, the four were taken a short distance in a new direction, and again descended, this time transferring to an elevator which dropped far below the surface. They came to a stop about ten floors down.

“Naturally,” said Myrin, “we reserve all the surface for residence purposes; although, it is possible to live down here in comparative comfort, since we have plenty of electrical energy to spare.” And she operated a switch, flooding the place with a brilliant glow. Thrown from concealed sources, this light was quite as strong as the subdued daylight which they had just left. “But unless we were free to fly about as much as we do, we should feel that life was a bore. Nobody stays below any longer than is necessary.

“Now, this is where our food comes from.” Whereupon she showed them a series of automatic machines, all working away there in the solid rock of the planet; and of such an extraordinary nature that Smith, the engineer, moved about in an atmosphere of supreme bliss.

“You will understand,” said Myrin, “that the usual processes of nutrition, on the Earth, depend entirely upon plant life. We, however, cannot spare room enough for any such system; so we had to devise substitutes for plants.

“In effect, that is what these machines are. They convert bed-rock into loam, take the nitrates and other chemicals [Footnote: The geology of Venus is thoroughly described in Mr. Van Emmon’s reports to the A. M. E. A.] directly from this artificial soil, and by a pseudo-osmotic process secure results similar to those produced by roots.

“Likewise we have developed artificial leaves,” pointing out a huge apparatus which none but a highly trained expert in both botany and mechanics could half understood. “This machine first manufactures chlorophyl—yes, it does,” as the doctor snorted incredulously; “not an imitation, but real chlorophyl—and then transforms the various elements into starch, sugar, and proteids through the agency of the sunlight recovered from the granite.

“In short, to answer your question, Mr. Van Emmon, as to how we are all fed—we do not grow our food at all; we go straight to the practically unlimited supply of raw materials under our feet, and manufacture our food, outright!”

XI THE SUPER-AMBITION

Billie was very quiet during their return to the surface. She said nothing until they had reached the two cars; and then pausing as she was about to step in, she said:

“Well, I never saw our old friend, the high cost of living, handled quite so easily!

“If that’s the way you do things here, Estra,” and the girl did not flinch at the gazes the others turned upon her, “if that’s your way, it’s good enough for me! I’m going to stay!”

For the first time, Estra looked astonished. He and Myrin exchanged lightninglike glances; then the Venusian’s face warmed with the smile he gave the architect.

“It is very good of you to say that,” he said impressively. “I was afraid some of our—peculiarities—might arouse very different feelings.”

They stared at one another for a second or two, long enough for the doctor to notice, and to see how Van Emmon took it. The geologist, however, was smiling upon the girl in a big-brotherly fashion, which indicated that he thought she didn’t mean what she had said. Had he been looking up at her, however, instead of down upon her, he would have seen that her chin was most resolute.

Just as they were about to start again, both Estra and Myrin stopped short in their tracks, with that odd hesitation that had mystified the four all along; and after perhaps five seconds of silence turned to one another with grave faces. It was Estra who explained.

“It is curious how things do pile up,” said he, a little conscious of having employed an idiom. “Our planet has gone along for hundreds of generations without anything especially remarkable happening, so that recently many prophets have foretold a number of startling events to take place on a single day. And this seems to have come true.

“You have been with us scarcely ten hours,” and the visitors stared at each other in amazement that so much time had passed; “scarcely ten hours, and here comes an announcement which, for over a hundred years, has been looked forward to with—”

He stopped abruptly. The doctor gently took him up: “‘Looked forward to with’—what, Estra?”

Estra and Myrin considered this for perhaps three seconds. It was the woman who replied: “The fact is, your approach to the planet has stimulated all sorts of research immensely. Matters that had been hanging fire indefinitely were revived; this is one of them. In that sense, you are to blame.” But she smiled as reassuringly as she could, allowing for a certain anxiety which had now come to her face.

“Don’t you think you could make it clear to us?” asked Billie encouragingly. At the same time all four noted that the air, which before had fairly thronged with machines, was now simply alive with them. People were flitting here and there like swarms of insects, and with as little apparent aim. Both Estra and Myrin were extra watchful; also, they displayed a certain eagerness to get away, setting their course in still another direction. In a minute or two the congestion seemed relieved, and Myrin began to talk slowly:

“You have doubtless guessed, by