THE SOCIAL CODE

By ERLE COX

From “The Lone Hand,”

January, 1908

 

 

“I ENVY you, Gray; you don't know how much!" said Tarrant, head of the Commonwealth Astronomical Department. Think of your chance! Youth, in the first place, and then the bridge we have built for you. You're two‑and‑thirty now, with perhaps 35 priceless years in front, and to­night you start. Oh, yes, I envy you!"

Warren Gray, the international officer in charge of the Mount Kosciusko Stelascope, walked smartly over the snow to the great circular building that crowned 'the summit. To‑night, for the, first time, he was to take sole charge of that wonder of the age. Chosen for the office from over a thousand candidates by an international committee, his task was to carry on, to the best of his powers, the work of formulating practicable means of communication between the earth and Mars that the great Bar­stow's invention had made possible, and to give the results of his investigations to the world. The work was one of tremendous difficulty, on account of the almost entire absence of a basis to work on, and the great dissimilarity of the conditions of life existing on the two planets.

Gray nodded good‑evening to the two assistants in the ante‑room, and passed straight on to the instrument chamber. This was a vast domed apart­ment, 150 feet from wall to wall, unbroken by a single pillar; but the great size was dwarfed by the tube of a giant telescope, some 20ft. in diameter, that was reared to the open roof, its muzzle being almost lost in a maze of guys and stays that held it in posi­tion. Radiating from the main column ran a series of stands, each bearing its appointed instrument, many of them under glass, all glittering like an array of jewellers' treasures under the steady glow of the electric light. Gray wandered amongst them with keenly observant eyes‑‑here adjusting a screw with delicate touch, there noting care­fully the reading of some beautiful piece of mechanism with anxious precision. Satisfied at last, he walked to the frame and unveiled a circular reflector, 15ft. across, that was set in it, then took his place in an easy chair some 10ft. away, and busied himself with the array of delicate machinery on a table beside him. All around were telephone­ receivers, speaking‑tubes, and buttons. He frowned` over the reading of a thermometer, and called down a tube that the temperature of the observation chamber was three‑tenths of a degree too high. Even that variation affected the adjustment of the instruments that were built for absolute accuracy at 601 C. His face only cleared when the mercury re­ceded the offending fractions and became stationary.

At last his critical survey was complete. Gray leaned back in his chair, and taking up a telephone­ receiver, gave a few brief orders. Each was fol­lowed by a movement through the room as the great telescope slowly picked up its appointed spot in the heavens. A small voice from the receiver told him that his orders were carried out. Then he switched off all the lights in the room, except a carefully‑shaded one at his elbow, and as the velvety darkness settled down, the reflector glowed with a soft light. Gradually the light became brighter, and vast, dis­torted images began to flit across the polished sur­face‑images that became clearer every moment, until they showed a weird and fleeting landscape, as from a great height in a balloon. Seas and lands, cities and rivers, sped past in the field of view in bewildering succession. Gray still held the receiver, and as he caught sight of a familiar mark, his orders altered the movement of the stellascope.

At last a great city spun into view, and was held in answer to a swift call. Reaching his hand in the dark, his fingers worked swiftly on screws and but­tons. The towered and domed buildings seemed to rush upwards to meet him. In the midst of all was one of tremendous proportions, and Gray worked it swiftly into the centre of the reflector. Nearer and nearer it came. First the reflector held it all, then only the central dome, then only a window‑like aperture in the roof, until at last the whole interior was exposed, and then Warren saw in the mirror a view of a portion of a room almost the exact counter­part of the one he occupied, except for strange and subtle differences of detail of workmanship and architecture. Practically the instruments were the same, and he knew he was in contact with what was officially known as the No. 10 Martian Observatory, at that time some one hundred and twenty millions of miles away from the earth. A glance showed him that the chair in front of the reflector was empty, and Gray turned impatiently to a chrono­meter on the table. It wanted three minutes to the half hour. “My friend is nothing if not punctual," he mur­mured to himself, and settled to wait with an occasional glance at the large hand of the clock. Precisely as it touched the point of the half hour there was a movement on the reflector, and a man clad in a long dark robe stepped into view and faced him. He was below the average terrestrial height, and would pass for perhaps 60 on this planet. His long hair was quite white, and under his high, round forehead, were two dark, deep‑set eyes, as brilliant as an eagle's. The face was hairless, and showed a straight, firm mouth, under his thin, hooked nose. It was a stern face, almost cruel, but one that told of great intellectual force. Gray had become familiar with the man's appearance during his pro­bationary period under Tarrant. To‑night, how­ever, he regarded him with keener interest. He arose from his chair as the Martian stopped, and held out both arms towards him in salutation. War­ren repeated the action with a nod and a smile, and then each took his seat. The far‑off observer seemed quite unaffected by the absence of Tarrant, and gravely commenced to carry out a chemical ex­periment for the edification of Gray, who watched every movement with close attention. It was by means of such demonstrations that much of the common knowledge of the two planets was made manifest. Warren followed the progress of the work, judging from experience and results the used, and subsequently he repeated the work under the eyes of the Martian, to show that 1.1w formula was known on earth, and understood. Notnetintes, they would come to a deadlock, as some operation foreign to one or the other was uncomprehended, and then would follow an earnest search for the missing link in the chain. It often happened that weeks were spent over some trifling detail until the solution of the trouble was found.

They usually worked for about five hours, and succeeding nights were much like the first, the only breaks being due to meteorological troubles on the earth that prevented free observation, and this time was utilised by Gray to write up his notes and re­ports, and to compare them with those of other stations.

Six months passed, and left Warren Gray still as far as ever from the faintest clue to the work he had promised himself to undertake. The Mar­tian observer absolutely ignored all overtures to­wards elucidation of their social code. Gray had prepared an elaborate series of enlarged photo­graphs of scenes from our every‑day work and occu­pations, and exhibited them to his far off vis‑a‑vis. Some were examined with curious care, but others in which women figured always had the one result. The Martian immediately covered his face with the flowing sleeve of his robe‑‑a decided hint that the subject was distasteful, and would not be investi­gated‑and on such occasions Gray swore vividly at the reflector. He instructed Mars in the use of photography, in the hope that the result would give him a clue. It took three months' hard work, and when the Martian observer proved he had mastered the art he quietly but firmly dropped it.

About this time, too, Gray had another annoyance to contend with, for the observer in No. 10 Martian station on several occasions went to sleep at his post. At first Warren was able to rouse him when he nodded by flashing a magnesium lamp, the sud­den glare recalling him to his senses, but at other times the man slept for two or three hours, leaving the terrestrial observer in a state of helpless anger.

Then came a wonderful night. Gray had started early, and after an hour's work the old observer nodded and finally sank to sleep. Warren shook his fist at the unconscious figure, and started to write quietly by the shaded lamp. For an hour he worked, when a movement on the reflector brought him to his feet with a start. For the first time on record there was a second figure imaged in the

Martian observatory. Gray held his breath with astonishment. It was a woman! She was leaning over the man in the chair. She was veiled, as was usual, from head to foot; not even her hands were uncovered, but Gray knew from her attitude that she was intently watching the sleeper. Apparently she had not yet noticed the reflector. As he watched her she straightened herself, and as she did so her figure seemed to start with astonishment under the robes. He could see every movement with perfect distinctness, even the quick heaving of her breast.

Gray held out his, arms in salute, but the figure remained motionless. He cursed his inability to make her understand. He caught up a rug from his chair, and throwing it over his head, he suddenly tossed it back, as though unveiling. He saw his meaning was understood from the start she gave. For a moment she bent over the sleeper again, and then turned her back and made as though to leave. Gray threw out his arms in entreaty. Suddenly, almost as she was lost to view, the woman paused, turned, and walked slowly back again. Watching her, Gray commenced in his excitement to speak aloud: "Ye gods! what a chance. Daughters of Eve! She hesitates. They're the same all over the universe! I win! 1 win! She'll do it!"

The figure had paused behind the sleeping man and bent again, alert intentness in her every atti­tude. She appeared to be listening to his breathing. As though satisfied, she stood erect. Gray saw the hands moving under the veil. Then, while he scarcely drew breath from anxiety, she paused a moment. Then suddenly two slender white hands parted the shimmering fabric from head to foot, and Warren gave a gasp of mingled pleasure and amaze­ment. He was looking straight into the woman's eyes.

From that moment onward Gray knew he was a changed man. In a second his office and his train­ing were forgotten. Science and the work he was living for, that had hitherto occupied the sole place in his thoughts, fell into a distant background, and in their place was the image of a woman. He could always remember her as he saw her then shadowed in the great mirror. Her pale oval face was framed in the soft folds of the parted veil. Its wonderful, its appealing beauty, and changing expressions of timid curiosity and surprise moulded themselves on his memory. He never knew how long they stood watching each other. He knew that she feared something, for her glance went uneasily now and again to the sleeper, and he realised that she was listening as though for some unseen danger. Once when he involuntarily held his arms towards her, she placed her finger on her lips as though to warn him to silence, not realising the vast gulf that parted them. But across the gulf the man bowed his heart In mute worship of the being whose voice he could never hear, and who could never be more than an Intangible shadow in his life. Minute after minute' went by. He was wondering vaguely what fascina­tion kept her there, until slowly she held her arms towards him and then let the veil drop forward till it hid her completely, and turned with halting footsteps and disappeared.

It was long before Gray roused himself from the stupor that held him, and sank into his chair with his mind in a whirling hurricane of self‑questioning. His first rational action was to work swiftly at an elaborate calculation, and when he finally solved the problem he sat staring first at the figures and then at the reflection of the Martian station in the mirror. Hitherto he had looked on the con­stantly varying space that separated the two planets as merely a scientific fact on which comment was unnecessary. Now, for the first time, he rea­lised its meaning. Between himself and that woman who had so suddenly flashed into his life lay the awful distance of one hundred and twenty three million miles of space! The whole idea was monstrous. He was mad, he told himself. What wan the woman to him? He would never see her again. Hours passed, but still he sat there gazing straight before him with unseeing eyes, one moment feeling the intoxication of passionate love, and the next all the despair of its absolute hopelessness. At last he roused himself, and, seeing the Martian still Accepting, he left his post and walked slowly back again. Watching her, Gray commenced in his excitement to speak aloud: "Ye gods! what a chance. Daughters of Eve! She hesitates. They're the same all over the universe! I win! 1 win l She'll do it!"

The figure had paused behind the sleeping man and bent again, alert intentness in her every atti­tude. She appeared to be listening to his breathing. As though satisfied, she stood erect. Gray saw the hands moving under the veil. Then, while he scarcely drew breath from anxiety, she paused a moment. Then suddenly two slender white hands parted the shimmering fabric from head to foot, and Warren gave a gasp of mingled pleasure and amaze­ment. He was looking straight into the woman's eyes.

From that moment onward Gray knew he was a changed man. In a second his office and his train­ing were forgotten. Science and the work he was living for, that had hitherto occupied the sole place in his thoughts, fell into a distant background, and in their place was the image of a woman. He could always remember her as he saw her then shadowed in the great mirror. Her pale oval face was framed in the soft folds of the parted veil. Its wonderful, its appealing beauty, and changing expressions of timid curiosity and surprise moulded themselves on his memory. He never knew how long they stood watching each other. He knew that she feared something, for her glance went uneasily now and again to the sleeper, and he realised that she was listening as though for some unseen danger. Once when he involuntarily held his arms towards her,

She placed her finger on her lips as though to warn him to silence, not realising the vast gulf that parted them. But across the gulf the man bowed his heart In mute worship of the being whose voice he could never hear, and who could never be more than an intangible shadow in his life. Minute after minute' went by. He was wondering vaguely what fascina­tion kept her there, until slowly she held her arms towards him and then let the veil drop forward till it hid her completely, and turned with halting footsteps and disappeared.

It was long before Gray roused himself from the stupor that held him, and sank into his chair with his mind in a whirling hurricane of self‑question­ing. His first rational action was to work swiftly at an elaborate calculation, and when he finally solved the problem he sat staring first at the figures and then at the reflection of the Martian station in the mirror. Hitherto he had looked on the constantly varying space that separated the two planets as merely a scientific fact on which comment was unnecessary. Now, for the first time, he rea­lised its meaning. Between himself and that woman who had so suddenly flashed into his life lay the awful distance of one hundred and twenty three million miles of space! The whole idea was monstrous. He was mad, he told himself. What was the woman to him? He would never see her again. Hours passed, but still he sat there gazing straight before him with unseeing eyes, one moment fooling the intoxication of passionate love, and the next all the despair of its absolute hopelessness. At last he roused himself, and, seeing the Martian ostill sleeping, he left his post.

Next night he waited anxiously for signs of weari­ness in the old observer, but quite a month passed before he fell from grace and dozed again; but even then, although Gray waited eagerly, watching for a sign of her coming, his hopes were unrewarded, and so they remained for three months, and then she came once more.

With beating heart he saw her advancing through the gloom. This time she went straight to the sleeper, and, after bending over him and satisfying herself that he was unconscious, she threw back her veil and faced him. To his famished eyes she ap­peared more beautiful than ever. Her expression was alert, and she moved quickly as with a fixed pur­pose. She held a scroll in her hands, which she unrolled and held towards him. Gray saw at a glance that it was a rough but accurate chart of the Solar system, on which the earth and Mars were deeply ringed with red. She indicated first Mars, and then touched her breast, and then the earth, and pointed to him as though to verify her ideas. Gray nodded in affirmation, and she let the chart fall to her feet. She smiled at him with infinite sadness, realising the gulf that separated them. Then, to his great wonder, she held out her arms to him and slowly sank to her knees. There was no need of spoken word to read her meaning. There is just one language that is formed neither of sounds nor written characters, but is most eloquent to those who have learned it, and that language passed between this man and this woman through countless miles of infinite space. It was the com­mencement of the strangest wooing the worlds have ever known. For over an hour that night she stayed with him, but he understood by her restless anxiety that there was risk in the meeting, and, though he feared her departure, he began to fear still more for her in staying. At last she went, lingering as though loth to leave him, but he knew she would come again.

For three days after, a storm that forbade work howled round the summit of Mount Kosciusko, and Gray raged with increasing impatience. The storm passed, and Gray was early at his post.  The familiar old observer came as usual. They started their work, but in ten minutes the Martian was in the deepest slumber. In ten more the impatient man saw the girl beside him. This time their was no hesitation. She immediately commenced to shake the sleeper vigorously, but without rousing him. Then, being apparently quite satisfied, she stood before him unveiled and smiling. After their first mute greeting she took a metal vessel, and, pointing to the sleeping observer, raised it to her lips as though drinking. Next she rested her face in her hands and closed her eyes in imitation of sleep. Then she looked up laughing merrily, and shook the Martian again. Gray knew that she had drugged the watcher to clear the way for their meet­ing, and signalled his appreciation.

That night was the first of many. The man was too deeply in love to stop to ask himself where it would end. He was living only in the present. With a speed far beyond his hopes a thorough under. standing was established, but the understanding was one that Gray considered would not interest the inhabitants of the earth. They formed hundreds of ways of recording their impressions. Every spray of flowers was laid before night a splendid the girl as an offering, and she never failed to ex­press her delight with them. She learned to kiss the tips of her dainty fingers to her terrestrial lover, and taught him many quaint devices that gave them both infinite amusement. They even quarrelled once, because he was late at the tryst and had kept her waiting. For an hour or more she declined to move the veil from her face, in spite of his en­treaties. Then he turned his back in anger, and when he looked again she was standing with tearful eyes, an exquisite picture of penitence, and did not smile until she read full forgiveness in his face.

In Melbourne, Tarrant, head of the Astronomical Department, reading Gray's reports, observed un­easily the frequency of interruption through neglect at No. 10 Martian station. It was not so in his time, and he was worried. Not that there was any falling off in Gray's work; it was always keen and brilliant, but latterly it had become woefully brief. But one day, when Gray wrote asking him to purchase and forward a diamond ring costing over a month's pay and enclosing a cheque for the money, Tarrant did as he was asked, but packed his bags for a visit to Mount Kosciusko. "Some infernal woman," he said to himself. "I must investigate. We can't afford to spoil so good a man."

Gray's greeting, though warm, did not deceive his old friend. There was something being kept back, a reticence that could only be due to one cause. Over dinner that evening, Tarrant boldly taxed his chum with the heinous crime of being in love. He did it not unkindly, but firmly as between father and son. Gray squirmed and floundered hopelessly, and finally confessed to his amazed hearer the truth of the matter. Warming up to the subject, he raved as only a lover can to a sympathetic friend.

"It's no use, Tarrant,” he concluded. "It would kill me if I lost her. I'm only living now to watch for her coming. She's my life, and all there is in it. Don't laugh, old man; it must sound mad to you, but it's all in all to me."

Tarrant listened with increasing gravity. Never did a man feel less like laughing. Ahead he saw inevitable tragedy. "What is the end to be?" was all he said.

"I haven't dared to think of the end. I simply dare not," was the answer he got. He would have asked to be present at a meeting between the two, but he knew that Warren would never consent, and therefore his anxiety made him decide to prolong indefinitely a visit he had only intended to last for a few hours. Something warned him that the end was not far off, and that Gray would want him then.

The end was nearer than even Tarrant dreamed. That Very evening he sat up before the fire long after Gray had left to take up his post at the ob­servatory. He was nearly dozing. The hour was after midnight, when suddenly a furious ring at the telephone brought him to his feet. He snatched the receiver to his ear. "What? What, Gray? Yes! Yes! Right! I'm coming!" Without waiting for hat or cloak he ran from the house to the obser­vatory. There was something in the agonised cry from the far end of the wire that told of disaster.

Gray met him at the door of the instrument‑room, wild‑eyed, and with his face deathly pale. He seized Tarrant's arm without a word, and hurried him to the reflector. There a strange scene met his gaze. Crouched on the floor was the cowering figure of a veiled woman, and over her stood, storming with furious gestures, the old Martian observer. His face was twisting with rage. With impassioned violence he was evidently addressing a dozen or more men grouped round him, pointing first at the shiver­ing woman and then at the mirror. When he saw Gray he shook his fist savagely, and looked as though spitting venom in his fury. To the two watchers, helpless as they were to interfere, it seemed like a vile dream. Though they knew they were confronted with a terrible crisis, the very silence of it all appalled them.

When he ceased his harangue, a man much older than all present stepped forward, and, after first speaking a few words to the old Martian, he looked down on the girl at his feet. He held out one hand over her. They saw his lips moving, and as he spoke she rose slowly and stood before him with bowed head. The others closed round her, as, though preparing to move her away, but as they did so she broke from amongst them, and swiftly tore her veil aside and faced the reflector, and for a brief moment stood gazing at Gray in mute farewell. Then, with a rush, the men closed on her and dragged her from view.

When they were gone, Tarrant heard the story, told in a voice alternating between rage and despair. They had met as usual. The old Martian was ap­parently soundly asleep. Gray was trying to make the girl understand the significance of the ring he had procured, when suddenly he observed that the man was only feigning sleep, and was observing their every action. Gray had tried, but in vain, to warn her of the danger, when suddenly the man had sprung to his feet and flung her to the floor, and the others had rushed in.

Tarrant persuaded Gray to return to his quarters. Nothing could be done, and they could only wait events, but there was no sleep for either that night. Tarrant had a terrible foreboding that he dared not mention to his friend. With keen anxiety they waited the night, and when the time came they found the No. 10 Martian station empty. Gray refused to leave the obser­vatory, and Tarrant stayed out of sympathy. The night dragged on, until in the small hours of the morning a telephone bell broke the aching silence. Gray mechanically picked up the receiver. It was the Singapore station speaking. It reported an unusual excitement in the city in which the No. 10 station was situated. He repeated this message to Tarrant, who grew pale when he heard it.

"Gray, you had better go," he said. Tarrant was thinking of the one time previously he had seen an unveiled woman in Mars.

"I must know," said Gray. "The doubt would be worse than the truth. Turn the instrument on to the great square."

Tarrant obeyed, and then almost wished he had refused to humour his friend. Each one of the Martian cities had this feature in common --an enormous square in its midst, and in the centre of it a cone‑shaped mound of dark stone. When it swung into the field of the reflector, both the watchers saw that it was occupied by countless thousands of men, and the cone, usually sombre and forbidding, was wreathed and festooned with masses of vivid scarlet flowers.

Tarrant knew his surmise was correct, and the memory of a similar awful scene came back to him. At all costs Gray must be spared the end.

"Gray, you must go."

"No, Tarrant, I'll see her once more if it kills me. I must stop."

Even as he spoke the head of a procession ap­peared, and the crowd fell back to right and left to give it room. Straight for the cone it came, and parted on either side. Tarrant saw the girl's figure separate from the rest, and again he urged Gray to leave, but the other remained staring into the re­flector, rigid and motionless.

Then she stood alone on the summit, and as she threw back her veil the thronging thousands fell prostrate. Gray made no sound or movement, but an involuntary cry of wonder came from Tarrant. On the supremely beautiful face there was no sign of fear. Her gaze turned upwards as though seeking something above her, and her eyes were full of pride. So she raised her arms as though in signal. Then came a blazing blue flash, but Tarrant had shut out the scene with his hands. When he turned again he saw that Gray was sitting smiling vacantly, and when he realised what had happened he was glad, for he knew that it was not good for a man to see what they had seen and live to remember it.

 

End