The Man Who Mastered Time (Jerry eBooks) by Ray Cummings

Author:Ray Cummings [Cummings, Ray]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jerry eBooks
Published: 2016-05-30T04:00:00+00:00

THEY were down on the beach in five minutes more. The plane stood there undisturbed. Half a dozen figures rose from the sand beside it and stood respectfully waiting for Loto to approach.

Rogers took his seat behind the Frazia controls. They were presently in the air, flying northward over the palm-covered island that lay calm, serene in its false sense of utter security and peacefulness.

Loto sat close to his father, with Georgie beside them.

“I must tell you briefly the conditions here,” Loto said. “Then you will be able to understand—be able to help with your advice and Judgment as well as actions.”

He spoke briskly, but carefully, and his manner had regained its poise. Georgie was gazing down through one of the side windows.

“That’s Azeela’s messenger,” Loto commented. “Going back to Anglese City.”

They were flying hardly five hundred feet above the palms. A white road lay beneath them. Along it a huge, shaggy dog was running, with the figure of a man on its back. The dog’s neck was stretched forward, its body low to the ground as it rain with almost incredible speed, the man lashing its flanks with a leather thong. The plane passed very slowly and drew away.

“We will not land in the heart of the city,” Loto added. “He’ll be with Azeela before we are.”

“Go on and tell us about things,” Georgie urged. “We’ve got the time now; maybe we won’t have it later.”

Loto nodded. “I will. We have here on the island—three social classes. How they developed throughout the centuries you will have to imagine for yourself. Ancient, almost prehistoric Egypt was no more than a quarter as far into the past of our time world as we are now ahead of it. Considered in that light, the changes have been rather less radical than you would anticipate.

“The lowest class—you would call them peons in our old Latin America—are now termed the Bas. They include more than nine-tenths of all the inhabitants of the island. They are most of them ignorant, uneducated; yet they include also many intelligent, almost learned individuals.

“It is the lowest class which is now plunged into almost intolerable conditions. They are the workers—red-brown skinned from the sun through generations. The higher class—the nobility—are the Arans. They are the governing class; they live for the most part in idleness and luxury—while the Bas are held down to almost universal poverty.

“You have not seen the Arans yet. We will shortly be in their chief city. You will find them white-skinned—their women especially, milk white, for they shield themselves carefully from the sun. They are cultured, yet without great learning.

Can you appreciate that condition? It is they who really show the decadence of this time world.”

“There is a third class,” Rogers prompted.

“Yes. The scientists—to me the most interesting of all. You will appreciate that in long past ages, science was supreme. In war It was everything. The Anglese came to this island—grew apathetic. But the scientists, in some measure, clung to their learning. Gradually, their attitude must have changed to secrecy.

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