The Feminine Future: Early Science Fiction by Women Writers (Dover Thrift Editions) Read online

  Meantime, in the feminine Republic matters moved on serenely but it must be confessed a little slowly. The most absolute order prevailed; the homes were scrupulousy tidy; the streets of the city were always clean. The public money, which was no longer needed for the support of police officers and jails, was spent in the construction of schoolhouses, and other beautiful public buildings. Artificers of all sorts had been found among the women whose natural talents had heretofore been suppressed. Female architects designed houses with innumerable closets. Female contractors built them without developing a female Buddensick, and female plumb-ers repaired pipes and presented only moderate bills.

  But despite the calm and peaceful serenity that prevailed, it was not to be denied that life was rather dull. Women who would not admit it publicly, whispered to themselves that existence would be a little gayer if there were some men to talk to occasionally. Mothers longed in secret for news from their sons; wives dreamed of their husbands, and young girls sighed as they thought of lovers left at home.

  Certain great advantages had undoubtedly flowed from the new order of things. Women thrown wholly on their own resources had grown self-reliant, their imposed out-door lives had developed them physically. A complete revolution in dress had taken place; compressed waists had totally disappeared, and loose garments were invariably worn. For out-door labours blouse waists, short skirts and long boots were in fashion; for home life graceful and flowing ones of Grecian design were worn. Common-sense shoes were universal. The schools under the care of feminine Boards of Education were brought to great perfection; the buildings, large and well ventilated, offered ample accommodation, as overcrowding was not permitted. Individual character was carefully studied and each child was trained to develop a special gift. Ethical instruction was daily given and children were rewarded for good conduct even more than for proficiency in study.

  Music was carefully taught, and, undismayed by men, women wrote operas and oratorios. Free lectures were given on all branches of knowledge by scientific women who were supported by the State, and debating societies met nightly for the discussion of questions of public policy.

  Still, despite all this the women, as we have seen, sent many a thought across the rocky barrier that separated them from the East, and under the leadership of Rose some of the younger ones had formed a league having for its object the opening of communication with husbands and brothers in the masculine Republic.

  Thus matters stood when, on a soft June morning, word came to the Capital from the sentinels on the watch-towers of the mountains, that a great horde of men was advancing up the South Pass. Now across this road, the most convenient to the other world, there had been built a wall in the center of which was a massive gate of silver, and at this point the masculine army had halted. The news of the arrival of the men occasioned great commotion, and a joyful host of women started forth to meet them, so that when Volumnia and the other dignitaries of the State reached the Pass, the heights above were filled with a great throng of women who, recognizing in the crowd below sons and brothers, husbands and fathers, were waving joyous greetings, which were answered by the men with every demonstration of delight.

  By the order of Volumnia the great silver gate was opened, and the envoys were admitted. They were received in a tent of purple satin which had been quickly erected and their leader made haste to lay before the assembled women the terms they proposed. If the women would only return to their homes the men promised that all wage-workers should have equal pay for equal work; that women should be equally eligible with men to all official positions; that the fortifications should be turned into schoolhouses; that the control of the sale of liquors should be in the hands of women; and that universal suffrage, without regard to sex, should be everywhere established.

  When the women heard these words they raised a chorus that was caught up and re-echoed by the crowd outside. At this moment, Cecilia, who saw her father just behind the envoys, went forward to embrace him, and Flavius, taking advantage of the movement advanced to where Rose stood beside her mother. Clasping the blushing girl by the hand he whispered, “At last, love, at last.”

  Wives rushed into their husband’s arms, mothers kissed their sons; the men hurried up from the Pass, the women came down from the mountain; there were broken whispers and fervent prayers, sobs mingled with smiles, and bright eyes shone through tears, as loved ones separated by the stern call of duty were reunited.

  After this, there followed a mighty movement, in prairie and forest, by lakeside and river. Over all the land, homes were rebuilt, and society reconstructed. The divided States, now reunited, formed a Republic where all the people were in reality free.

  VIA THE HEWITT RAY

  M. F. Rupert

  I have deliberately paired this story with the previous one because, although written over forty years later, it also portrays a female society and its relationship with men—or, at least, the few that survive. The story is quite shocking in parts, not least in the description of the merciless genocide of another race, making it all the more surprising that the story was by a young woman.

  M. F. Rupert, though, is a real mystery. All that we know about her comes from a small sketch that accompanied the original publication of the story in the Spring 1930 issue of Science Wonder Quarterly, and a letter of comment that was published in the July 1930 Wonder Stories. The first shows a woman of perhaps mid-30s or early 40s, and the second, which still only uses her initials preceded by ‘Miss,’ reveals that she lived in Chicago. But a search of census and other records for the time reveals no individual that fits those criteria. It has been suggested her first name was Margaret and, if so, she may be the Margaret Rupert who became a doctor and was practising in Cleveland, Ohio, in the 1940s.

  Whoever she was, this is her only known story and it has never been reprinted outside of the old pulp magazines until now.

  Chapter I

  LETTER TO LUCILE HEWITT from her father, John J. Hewitt:

  My Dear Daughter:

  It is now eleven o’clock and I have one hour in which to give you my farewell message. Do not be alarmed, Lucile. I am not contemplating suicide, but as a climax to my life-long studies, I am now going to put to the final test my latest discoveries. Should I be successful in this experiment, you will not see me for a long time. When you find that I am missing, do not fear for me but rejoice that I have succeeded in the great undertaking.

  You have now finished college and are engrossed in your own work so, although I shall miss you and do not doubt you will miss me, I feel free to make this experiment. Financially, you do not need me as you are now a self-supporting young woman and I have left provision wherein you will receive this house and all that I own after a year. The greatest hardship is severing, for the time being, our dear comradeship, but I know you will join with me in making this sacrifice.

  Do you remember, dear, that about a year ago I told you of the experiments I was making in light waves? It is about those experiments and what they led up to that I wish to write. I will try not to be too technical.

  In the laboratory you will find my equipment, electrical apparatus, and light-wave machine, and also the Hewitt Ray machine. In the top right-hand drawer of my desk is a manuscript explaining fully the new discoveries I have made. Please do not allow anything to be disturbed in the laboratory while I am gone. If I do not return within a year, you may publish the manuscript. I hope to be back before the year is up and attend to those things myself, but if I do not return then you, my beloved daughter, may present to the world my life’s work.

  No doubt, you remember when I erected the light-wave machine. I told you then that it was similar to a radio receiving set, but instead of receiving radio waves, it was intended to receive light waves. Just as sound is transmitted from a source through the air by a series of waves, so light is transmitted through space by a series of ether waves. This machine receives the light waves just as radio receives the radio waves. Of course the real explanation
is much more complicated and only a physicist could really understand and appreciate the beauty and immensity of the idea, but as I am writing simply for your benefit, the explanation I gave you a year ago is sufficient.

  Messages from Beyond

  When I built the machine I had no idea of the astounding revelations I was to receive. But one day, while twirling the dial, I noticed a peculiar arrangement of spectral lines showing on the screen.

  Do you remember enough of your physics to understand what this means? The spectrum is the colored band which is produced by placing a prism in the path of a beam of light. When the spectrum is studied minutely with a spectroscope it is found not to be a continuous band of colors, but to be crossed by many dark lines called Fraunhofer lines, which are familiar to all who study light waves. It is also well known that the difference in color in the spectrum corresponds to the difference of wavelength. Keep this explanation in mind as you read what follows.

  As soon as I noticed these peculiar lines showing through the spectrum I immediately ceased twirling the dials and studied the spectral lines, the characteristics of which were totally unfamiliar. I made a careful note of the arrangement of the lines; I also noted at what numbers the dials were set, and the time, which was five o’clock in the evening. For fifteen minutes this peculiar spectrum appeared on the screen and was then displaced by the usual Fraunhofer lines. Not touching the dials, I waited carefully for a reappearance of the dark lines, but not until five o’clock the next evening did they come. I compared them line for line with my drawing of the day before and they were exactly the same! For many nights at five o’clock these unusual lines appeared on the screen. Finally I dared to change the dials, to see whether, if I restored those numbers, the phenomenon would occur.

  It did, but only at five o’clock. With the help of Professor Hendricks, who died last month, I built a light-wave sending set and after a vast amount of research and labor we found the combination of prisms and lenses that produced the correct spectrum. By manipulating the wavelengths we produced the dark line spectrum which had at first amazed me when beholding it on my own screen.

  Do not be impatient with me for this long, dry discourse on light waves and spectra. I am apt to forget that you are not as intensely interested in the details as I. I know that by now you are impatiently asking yourself, “But what’s it all about?”

  I will try to tell you. You know that Professor Hendricks and myself have always believed in the reality of the fourth and even the fifth and sixth dimensions. Remember how you laughed at us and told us that theoretically we were correct, but you declared actual and tangible proof was impossible? Now do not laugh, dear, when I say that Professor Hendricks and myself believed that these unusual lines were being sent by intelligent beings but not of our dimension! The elements of these lines are not known to us.

  Do I make myself clear? If these strange spectral lines showed on my receiving screen, they were being sent by someone. The fact that they showed night after night at the same time and only when the dials were set in a certain manner proved that it was no accidental short-circuiting of the wavelength but that they were being sent deliberately. The precise and undeviating arrangement of lines argued that a message of some kind was being sent. What the message meant and who was sending it we did not know but we intended to find out if possible.

  One evening immediately after receiving what we had by now come to call ‘our message’, we switched on our sending set and repeated the message line for line. After a few moments, there flashed back on our receiving screen the identical lines! For the first time the message had come through again! We were highly elated, you may be sure, and figured that whoever was sending that message had received our repetition of their code and was indicating that.

  What to do now? We could, of course, repeat the message every night after we received it and in this way keep in touch with the beings who were communicating with us. But as we had no means of finding out what the lines meant, we could not get very far by that method.

  Determined to Go

  Then came the illness and death of Professor Hendricks and I was left to carry on alone. I almost despaired of making any progress when there flashed into my mind another possible way of communicating with these strangers.

  Several years ago I was working on a series of experiments in short wavelengths, especially cathode and X-rays. As you may remember, cathode rays are streams of electrons shot off from a surface at very high velocity. Just as the X-ray was discovered by experimenting with the cathode rays, so one day, experimenting with the X-ray, I discovered an entirely new ray which I called the Hewitt Ray. No doubt you remember the excitement that the publication of its discovery caused.

  Like the X-ray, the Hewitt Ray will penetrate any substance opaque to ordinary light, but the great difference is that it does not, like the X-ray, stop at forming a shadow picture, for by diminishing the gas pressure within the tube and by increasing the voltage across the electrodes, the penetrating power of the resulting rays is increased to such an extent that the object on which the ray is focused is disintegrated. And what is stranger still, not the picture of the object appears at the focal point, but the actual object itself is reassembled and reappears, none the worse for its experience.

  You were just a young girl then, but you must remember all the talk and conjecture aroused by the discovery of this new ray. It was thought for a time that it would revolutionize transportation. In fact, it was proved practical for swift traveling. Huge Hewitt Ray machines were built with a focus of many miles and a few intrepid souls were found to lend themselves to the experiment; but although they arrived safely at their destination and were loud in their praise of this method of traveling, the general public would have none of it. Humanity has not yet evolved to the point where it is willing to travel 186,000 miles per second. So my Hewitt Ray, conceded to be a marvelous thing, was put on the shelf like many other revolutionary inventions. No doubt, a few thousand years from now, it will be used universally.

  So, as I thought of this ray, I wondered if, by experimenting a little further, I could possibly change the ray so that it would not merely reassemble the object which it disintegrated but allow the object to travel on. Into what, you may ask? Space? The fourth dimension, or wherever it is that a light wave goes when it has passed beyond our eye?

  I will not weary you, Lucile, with the details but I have succeeded in changing the rays as I wanted to and have discovered that the light waves do not die out but by an energy transformation they pass off into another plane of energy.

  You ask how I know? I know because with my improved Hewitt Ray I have disintegrated objects such as books, vases, flowers, and live animals and sent them traveling as part of the wave of light into the unknown world from which I have been receiving messages.

  With the dials of my light-wave machine set to receive an answer from the beings with whom I have been in communication, I sent through the medium of the Hewitt Ray these objects and animals; and every time I sent something through, no matter at what time of the day or night, I received a message which I interpreted to mean that the objects were received.

  Now, Lucile, all this preliminary explanation over, we come to the vital part of my letter. I have determined to go to this new world. It will be a simple accomplishment. I have built a large Hewitt Ray projector which will be automatically shut off after I have passed through. What sort of world I will find or what kind of people or beings I will meet I do not know. I believe they are friendly and will welcome me, but anyway I will soon find out.

  Now, dear daughter, I will leave you. Enclosed you will find the keys to the laboratory and detailed instructions for working the light-wave receiving and sending set. Every evening at five o’clock I will endeavor to send you a message, according to the light-wave code I have worked out. It will make me very happy if you will answer.

  Goodbye, dear. That you may keep well and happy is the wish of

  Your loving father,<
br />
  JOHN J. HEWITT.

  CHAPTER II

  Lucile Hewitt’s Story

  TO SAY THAT I was astonished and alarmed to receive this letter is describing my feeling feebly. Darling old Dad, to travel along a light wave, into a new world filled, no doubt, with unknown dangers! Why, he was forever cautioning me to be careful! Even as late as 1945 he thought airplanes were dangerous! I have often begged him to let me take him for a ride in my fly-about but he declared he did not have the necessary courage. Yet he risked his life daily in his beloved laboratory.

  It is really too bad that I am not scientifically inclined. What a help I might have been to Dad! But I honestly tried to fit myself for a scientific career and it was not my fault that I failed miserably.

  When Dad got out his Hewitt Ray and there was talk of utilizing it for travel, then my interest in science awoke. To travel with the speed of light! Imagine the thrill! Unknown to Dad, for I knew he would forbid me, I slipped away from school and volunteered for a demonstration trip along the Hewitt Ray. I was one of the ‘intrepid souls’ Dad speaks of. It was glorious! To place yourself before the ray and in a flash be hundreds of miles away! That is traveling!

  When the use of the Hewitt Ray was discontinued my interest in science dropped. But my one great interest in life had been revealed to me. Travel—and travel with limitless speed! The next speediest thing I could find was the airplane and you may be sure I got one.

  At the time I learned to operate my first plane I was sixteen years old, a wild, harum-scarum girl. As public interest in aviation grew, I grew right with it, until now, at twenty-six, I have been piloting a huge commercial airliner between New York and Honolulu for five years.

  At first the public was sceptical about trusting its life to a woman’s hands but now the New York-Honolulu Air Line uses only women pilots, as statistics show that a plane is ten percent safer with a woman pilot than with a man.