> fascination in me, as the personification of this (to him) strange and

mysterious race of super-men who had so magically developed overnight

from "beasts" of the forest.



But though I saw little of him after this, I remained a member of his

household, if one may speak of a "household" where there is no semblance

of house.



The imperial apartments were located at the very summit of the Imperial

Tower, the topmost pinnacle of the city, itself clinging to the sides

and peak of the highest mountain in that section of the Rockies. There

were days when the city seemed to be built on a rugged island in the

midst of a sea of fleecy whiteness, for frequently the cloud level was

below the peak. And on such days the only visual communications with the

world below was through the viewplates which formed nearly all the

interior walls of the thousands of apartments (for the city was, in

fact, one vast building) and upon which the tenants could tune in almost

any views they wished from an elaborate system of public television and

projectoscope broadcasts.



Every Han city had many public-view broadcasting stations, operating on

tuning ranges which did not interfere with other communication systems.

For slight additional fees a citizen in Lo-Tan might, if he felt so

inclined, "visit" the seashore, or the lakes or the forests of any part

of the country, for when such scene was thrown on the walls of an

apartment, the effect was precisely the same as if one were gazing

through a vast window at the scene itself.



It was possible too, for a slightly higher fee, to make a mutual

connection between apartments in the same or different cities, so that a

family in Lo-Tan, for instance, might "visit" friends in Fis-Ko (San

Francisco) taking their apartment, so to speak, along with them; being

to all intents and purposes separated from their "hosts" only by a big

glass wall which interfered neither with vision nor conversation.



These public view and visitation projectoscopes explain that utter depth

of laziness into which the Hans had been dragged by their civilization.

There was no incentive for anyone to leave his apartment unless he was

in the military or air service, or a member of one of the repair

services which from time to time had to scoot through the corridors and

shafts of the city, somewhat like the ancient fire departments, to make

some emergency repair to the machinery of the city or its electrical

devices.



* * * * *



Why should he leave his house? Food, wonderful synthetic concoctions of

any desired flavor and consistency (and for additional fee conforming to

the individual's dietary prescription) came to him through a shaft, from

which his tray slid automatically on to a convenient shelf or table.



At will he could tune in a theatrical performance of talking pictures.

He could visit and talk with his friends. He breathed the freshest of

filtered air right in his own apartment, at any temperature he desired,

fragrant with the scent of flowers, the aromatic smell of the pine

forests or the salt tang of the sea, as he might prefer. He could

"visit" his friends at will, and though his apartment actually might be

buried many thousand feet from the outside wall of the city, it was none

the less an "outside" one, by virtue of its viewplate walls. There was

even a tube system, with trunk, branch and local lines and an

automagnetic switching system, by which articles within certain size

limits could be despatched from any apartment to any other one in the

city.



The women actually moved about through the city more than the men, for

they had no fixed duties. No work was required of them, and though

nominally free, their dependence upon the government pension for their

necessities and on their "husbands" (of the moment) for their luxuries,

reduced them virtually to the condition of slaves.



Each had her own apartment in the Lower City, with but a single small

viewplate, very limited "visitation" facilities, and a minimum credit

for food and clothing. This apartment was assigned to her on graduation

from the State School, in which she had been placed as an infant, and it

remained hers so long as she lived, regardless of whether she occupied

it or not. At the conclusion of her various "marriages" she would return

there, pending her endeavors to make a new match. Naturally, as her

years increased, her returns became more frequent and her stay of longer

duration, until finally, abandoning hope of making another match, she

finished out her days there, usually in drunkenness and whatever other

forms of cheap dissipation she could afford on her dole, starving

herself.



Men also received the same State pension, sufficient for the necessities

but not for the luxuries of life. They got it only as an old-age

pension, and on application.



* * * * *



When boys graduated from the State School they generally were "adopted"

by their fathers and taken into the latter's households, where they

enjoyed luxuries far in excess of their own earning power. It was not

that their fathers wasted any affection on them, for as I have explained

before, the Hans were so morally atrophied and scientifically developed

that love and affection, as we Americans knew them, were unexperienced

or suppressed emotions with them. They were replaced by lust and pride

of possession. So long as it pleased a father's vanity, and he did not

miss the cost, he would keep a son with him, but no longer.



Young men, of course, started to work at the minimum wage, which was

somewhat higher than the pension. There was work for everybody in

positions of minor responsibility, but very little hard work.



Upon receiving his appointment from one or another of the big

corporations which handled the production and distribution of the vast

community (the shares of which were pooled and held by the

government--that is, by San-Lan himself--in trust for all the workers,

according to their positions) he would be assigned to an

apartment-office, or an apartment adjoining the group of offices in

which he was to have his desk. Most of the work was done in single

apartment-offices.



The young man, for instance, might recline at his ease in his apartment

near the top of the city, and for three or four hours a day inspect,

through his viewplate and certain specially installed apparatus, the

output of a certain process in one of the vast automatically controlled

food factories buried far underground beneath the base of the mountain,

where the moan of its whirring and throbbing machinery would not disturb

the peace and quiet of the citizens on the mountain top. Or he might be

required simply to watch the operation of an account machine in an

automatic store.



There is no denying that the economic system of the Hans was marvelous.

A suit of clothes, for instance, might be delivered in a man's apartment

without a human hand having ever touched it.



Having decided that he wished a suit of a given general style, he would

simply tune in a visual broadcast of the display of various selections,

and when he had made his choice, dial the number of the item and press

the order button. Simultaneously the charge would be automatically made

against his account number, and credited as a sale on the automatic

records of that particular factory in the account house. And his account

plate, hidden behind a little wall door, would register his new credit

balance. An automatically packaged suit that had been made to style and

size-standard by automatic machinery from synthetically produced

material, would slip into the delivery chute, magnetically addressed,

and in anywhere from a few seconds to thirty minutes or so, according to

the volume of business in the chutes, and drop into the delivery basket

in his room.



* * * * *



Daily his wages were credited to his account, and monthly his share of

the dividends likewise (according to his position) from the Imperial

Investment Trust, after deduction of taxes (through the automatic

bookkeeping machines) for the support of the city's pensioners and

whatever sum San-Lan himself had chosen to deduct for personal expenses

and gratuities.



A man could not bequeath his ownership interest in industry to his son,

for that interest ceased with his death, but his credit accumulation, on

which interest was paid, was credited to his eldest recorded son as a

matter of law.



Since many of these credit fortunes (The Hans had abandoned gold as a

financial basis centuries before) were so big that they drew interest in

excess of the utmost luxury costs of a single individual, there was a

class of idle rich consisting of eldest sons, passing on these credit

fortunes from generation to generation. But younger sons and women had

no share in these fortunes, except by the whims and favor of the

"Man-Dins" (Mandarins), as these inheritors were known.



These Man-Dins formed a distinct class of the population, and numbered

about five percent of it. It was distinct from the Ku-Li (coolie) or

common people, and from the "Ki-Ling" or aristocracy composed of those

more energetic men (at least mentally more energetic) who were the

active or retired executive heads of the various industrial,

educational, military or political administrations.



A man might, if he so chose, transfer part of his credit to a woman

favorite, which then remained hers for life or until she used it up, and

of course, the prime object of most women, whether as wives, or

favorites, was to beguile a settlement of this sort out of some wealthy

man.



When successful in this, and upon reassuming her freedom, a woman ranked

socially and economically with the Man-Dins. But on her death, whatever

remained of her credit was transferred to the Imperial fund.



When one considers that the Hans, from the days of their exodus from

Mongolia and their conquest of America, had never held any ideal of

monogamy, and the fact that marriage was but a temporary formality which

could be terminated on official notice by either party, and that after

all it gave a woman no real rights or prerogatives that could not be

terminated at the whim of her husband, and established her as nothing

but the favorite of his harem, if he had an income large enough to keep

one, or the most definitely acknowledged of his favorites if he hadn't,

it is easy to see that no such thing as a real family life existed among

them.



Free women roamed the corridors of the city, pathetically importuning

marriage, and wives spent most of the time they were not under their

husbands' watchful eyes in flirtatious attempts to provide themselves

with better prospects for their next marriages.



* * * * *



Naturally the biggest problem of the community was that of stimulating

the birth rate. The system of special credits to mothers had begun

centuries before, but had not been very efficacious until women had been

deprived of all other earning power, and even at the time of which I

write it was only partially successful, in spite of the heavy bounties

for children. It was difficult to make the bounties sufficiently

attractive to lure the women from their more remunerative light

flirtations. Eugenic standards also were a handicap.



As a matter of fact, San-Lan had under consideration a revolutionary

change in economic and moral standards, when the revolt of the forest

men upset his delicately laid plans, for, as he had explained to me, it

was no easy thing to upset the customs of centuries in what he was

pleased to call the "morals" of his race.



He had another reason too. The physically active men of the community

were beginning to acquire a rather dangerous domination. These included

men in the army, in the airships, and in those relatively few civilian

activities in which machines could not do the routine work and

thinking. Already common soldiers and air crews demanded and received

higher remuneration than all except the highest of the Ki-Ling, the

industrial and scientific leaders, while mechanics and repairmen who

could, and would, work hard physically, commanded higher incomes than

Princes of the Blood, and though constituting only a fraction of one per

cent of the population they actually dominated the city. San-Lan dared

take no important step in the development of the industrial and military

system without consulting their council or Yun-Yun (Union), as it was

known.



Socially the Han cities were in a chaotic condition at this time,

between morals that were not morals, families that were not families,

marriages that were not marriages, children who knew no homes, work that

was not work, eugenics that didn't work; Ku-Lis who envied the richer

classes but were too lazy to reach out for the rewards freely offered

for individual initiative; the intellectually active and physically lazy

Ki-Lings who despised their lethargy; the Man-Din drones who regarded

both classes with supercilious toleration; the Princes of the Blood,

arrogant in their assumption of a heritage from a Heaven in which they

did not believe; and finally the three castes of the army, air and

industrial repair services, equally arrogant and with more reason in

their consciousness of physical power.



* * * * *



The army exercised a cruelly careless and impartial police power over

all classes, including the airmen, when the latter were in port. But it

did not dare to touch the repair men, who, so far as I could ever make

out, roamed the corridors of the city at will during their hours off

duty, wreaking their wills on whomever they met, without let or

hindrance.



Even a Prince of the Blood would withdraw into a side corridor with his

escort of a score of men, to let one of these labor "kings" pass, rather

than risk an altercation which might result in trouble for the

government with the Yun-Yun, regardless of the rights and wrongs of the

case, unless a heavy credit transference was made from the balance of

the Prince to that of the worker. For the machinery of the city could

not continue in operation a fortnight, before some accident requiring

delicate repair work would put it partially out of commission. And the

Yun-Yun was quick to resent anything it could construe as a slight on

one of its members.



In the last analysis it was these Yun-Yun men, numerically the smallest

of the classes, who ruled the Han civilization, because for all

practical purposes they controlled the machinery on which that

civilization depended for its existence.



Politically, San-Lan could balance the organizations of the army and the

air fleets against each other, but he could not break the grip of the

repairmen on the machinery of the cities and the power broadcast plants.