The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix | Page 9

large enough to hold a score. Most were gaudily painted.
The surgeon's own machine was a two-seater, small but powerful in design. She stepped up a short ladder into a comfortable cockpit, provided with a folding top, which at that time was laid back out of the way. She proceeded to adjust various levers and hand-wheels, glanced at certain dials, touched a button, and immediately the craft took flight, its wings beating the air with a dull leathery rhythm which drowned out the faint clanking of the machinery.
A moment later the flier was high above the street. To Billie's disappointment, the surgeon did not glance down enough to tell the architect whether the street belonged to a city of any size. Instead, her agent drove carefully through the traffic, which Billie would have called dangerously dense. She remembered that she had seen nothing but aircraft in that street; no automobiles at all.
And then the flier was rushing through the air at a lively rate. Billie caught quick glimpses of innumerable machines, few of which were moving in the same direction as the surgeon's.
A few minutes more elapsed, and then Billie was experiencing a much higher level, with the machine flying at what must have been a tremendous velocity. Shortly it was all but alone in the sky.
After a while the surgeon's eyes made out something far below, which puzzled Billie exceedingly. It seemed to be a ship under full sail; only, so far as she could see the craft was resting upon clouds, not air. It was still a long way ahead.
And then Billie was given a glance aloft, where she saw another craft, a small flapping affair like the surgeon's. It was just rising on a long slant so as to cross above her course. And at that very instant there came a sharp crack, followed by a splintering crash. The surgeon's flier lurched heavily to one side.
Next second the woman was staring at her left wing. It was broken about the middle and thrashing wildly. Another instant, and a part of the thing came loose, flew off, and struck the surgeon on the top of her head. A muffled cry, and then blackness came.
And the next thing Billie saw was the emergency ward of Smith's great skycruiser, with the surgeon, blinking as she recovered, looking up into the smiling face of her big blond rescuer.

V
CAPELLA'S DAUGHTER

The first thing that met the doctor's gaze, when his mind entered that of his distant agent, was a clock. It was a very ordinary sort of an instrument, such as one sees in schools and offices; it had two hands, and a pendulum of the usual size and length.
However, this pendulum was swinging at a very rapid rate; nearly twice as fast, judged the doctor, as that of his own chronometer. And its dial was divided into twenty-five equal parts, instead of twelve, each of these parts being further divided into five equal portions. At the moment, these two hands indicated what would have been called, on the earth, about half past three.
Before the doctor could speculate on this, his unknown agent shifted his gaze to a newspaper on a desk before him. Apparently he was thinking of something entirely different; for he absently turned the pages, one by one, his subconscious mind taking it all in.
And the doctor saw that the paper was called simply The Hourly Journal; that it was of very nearly the size of most sheets; and that it consisted of about ten pages. The front and back pages, only, contained news items; the remainder were packed solid with advertisements. Not one of these were striking enough for the doctor to remember; he said they were exactly like large-size professional "cards," except that they applied to every business, from candy to bridges. As for the news items, each was short, unsensational, with the simplest kind of head-lines. More the doctor had no chance to observe.
Abruptly the agent stowed the paper away, and looked up. Presumably he was seated in some sort of a theater. Directly ahead was the familiar white rectangle of a photoplay-house screen. And all about him were heads and shoulders, seemingly belonging to young folks, of about high-school age. Even to "low necks" for the girls and white collars for the boys, they were identically like people of the earth.
In fact, if it had not been for that clock the doctor would have concluded that there was some mistake, and have ended the experiment. For some time he learned little; the place was filled with a confused murmur. His agent, however, took no part in the conversation that produced this effect; once or twice he yawned.
Suddenly the buzz came to a stop; and next moment a tall figure stepped upon the platform in front of the