City of Endless Night

M >> Milo Hastings >> City of Endless Night

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I, Karl Armstadt, twenty-seven years of age, was the fourteenth child of
my mother and was born when she was forty-two years of age. According to
the record I was the ninety-seventh child of my father and born when he
was fifty-four. As I read this I thought there was something here that I
misunderstood, although subsequent discoveries made it plausible enough.
There was no further record of my plentiful fraternity, but I took heart
that the mere fact of their numerical abundance would make unlikely any
great show of brotherly interest, a presumption which proved
quite correct.

On the second page of this folder I read the number and location of my
living quarters, the sources from which my meals and clothing were
issued, as well as the sizes and qualities of my garments and numerous
other references to various details of living, all of which seemed
painstakingly ridiculous at the time.

I put this elaborate identification paper back into its receptacle and
opened the notebook. It proved to be a diary kept likewise in thorough
German fashion. I turned to the last pages and perused them hastily.

The notes in Armstadt's diary were concerned almost wholly with his
chemical investigations. All this I saw might be useful to me later but
what I needed more immediately was information as to his personal life.
I scanned back hastily through the pages for a time without finding any
such revelations. Then I discovered this entry made some months
previously:

"I cannot think of chemistry tonight, for the vision of Katrina dances
before me as in a dream. It must be a strange mixture of blood-lines
that could produce such wondrous beauty. In no other woman have I seen
such a blackness of hair and eyes combined with such a whiteness of
skin. I suppose I should not have danced with her--now I see all my
resolutions shattered. But I think it was most of all the blackness of
her eyes. Well, what care, we live but once!"

I read and re-read this entry and searched feverishly in Armstadt's
diary for further evidence of a personal life. But I only found tedious
notes on his chemical theories. Perhaps this single reference to a woman
was but a passing fancy of a man otherwise engrossed in his science. But
if rescuers came and I succeeded in passing for the German chemist the
presence of a woman in my new role of life would surely undo all my
effort. If no personal acquaintance of the dead man came with the
rescuing party I saw no reason why I could not for the time pass
successfully as Armstadt. I should at least make the effort and I
reasoned I could best do this by playing the malingerer and appearing
mentally incompetent. Such a ruse, I reasoned, would give me opportunity
to hear much and say little, and perhaps so get my bearings in the new
role that I could continue it successfully.

Then, as I was about to return the notebook to my pocket, my hopes sank
as I found this brief entry which I had at first scanning overlooked:

"It is twenty days now since Katrina and I have been united. She does
not interfere with my work as much as I feared. She even lets me talk
chemistry to her, though I am sure she understands not one word of what
I tell her. I think I have made a good selection and it is surely a
permanent one. Therefore I must work harder than ever or I shall not
get on."

This alarmed me. Yet, if Armstadt had married he made very little fuss
about it. Evidently it concerned him chiefly in relation to his work.
But whoever and whatever Katrina was, it was clear that her presence
would be disastrous to my plans of assuming his place in the
German world.

Pondering over the ultimate difficulty of my situation, but with a
growing faith in the plan I had evolved for avoiding immediate
explanations, I fell into a long-postponed sleep. The last thing I
remember was tumbling from my chair and sprawling out upon the floor
where I managed to snap out my light before the much needed sleep quite
overcame me.

~3~

I was awakened by voices, and opened my eyes to find the place brightly
lighted. I closed them again quickly as some one approached and prodded
me with the toe of his boot.

"Here is a man alive," said a voice above me.

"He is Captain Armstadt, the chemist," said another voice, approaching;
"this is good. We have special orders to search for him."

The newcomer bent over and felt my heart. I was quite aware that it was
functioning normally. He shook me and called me by name. After repeated
shakings I opened my eyes and stared at him blankly, but I said nothing.
Presently he left me and returned with a stretcher. I lay inertly as I
was placed thereon and borne out of the chamber. Other stretcher-bearers
were walking ahead. We passed through the engine room where mechanics
were at work on the damaged liquid air engine. My stretcher was placed
on a little car which moved swiftly along the tunnel.

We came into a large subterranean station and I was removed and brought
before a bevy of white garbed physicians. They looked at my
identification folder and then examined me. Through it all I lay limp
and as near lifeless as I could simulate, and they succeeded in getting
no speech out of me. The final orders were to forward me post haste to
the Imperial Hospital for Complex Gas Cases.

After an eventless journey of many hours I was again unloaded and
transferred to an elevator. For several hundred metres we sped upward
through a shaft, while about us whistled a blast of cold, crisp air. At
last the elevator stopped and I was carried out to an ambulance that
stood waiting in a brilliantly lighted passage arched over with grey
concrete. I was no longer beneath the surface of the earth but was
somewhere in the massive concrete structure of the City of Berlin.

After a short journey our ambulance stopped and attendants came out and
carried my litter through an open doorway and down a long hall into the
spacious ward of a hospital.

From half closed eyes I glanced about apprehensively for a black-haired
woman. With a sigh of relief I saw there were only doctors and male
attendants in the room. They treated me most professionally and gave no
sign that they suspected I was other than Capt. Karl Armstadt, which
fact my papers so eloquently testified. The conclusion of their
examination was voiced in my presence. "Physically he is normal," said
the head physician, "but his mind seems in a stupor. There is no remedy,
as the nature of the gas is unknown. All that can be done is to await
the wearing off of the effect."

I was then left alone for some hours and my appetite was troubling me.
At last an attendant approached with some savoury soup; he propped me up
and proceeded to feed me with a spoon.

I made out from the conversation about me that the other patients were
officers from the underground fighting forces. An atmosphere of military
discipline pervaded the hospital and I felt reassured in the conclusion
that all visiting was forbidden.

Yet my thoughts turned repeatedly to the black-eyed Katrina of
Armstadt's diary. No doubt she had been informed of the rescue and was
waiting in grief and anxiety to see him. So both she and I were awaiting
a tragic moment--she to learn that her husband or lover was dead, I for
the inevitable tearing off of my protecting disguise.

After some days the head physician came to my cot and questioned me. I
gazed at him and knit my brows as if struggling to think.

"You were gassed in the mine," he kept repeating, "can you remember?"

"Yes," I ventured, "I went to the mine, there was the sound of boring
overhead. I set men to watch; I was at the desk, I heard shouting, after
that I cannot remember."

"They were all dead but you," said the doctor.

"All dead," I repeated. I liked the sound of this and so kept on
mumbling "All dead, all dead."

~4~

My plan was working nicely. But I realized I could not keep up this role
for ever. Nor did I wish to, for the idleness and suspense were
intolerable and I knew that I would rather face whatever problems my
recovery involved than to continue in this monotonous and meaningless
existence. So I convalesced by degrees and got about the hospital, and
was permitted to wait on myself. But I cultivated a slowness and brevity
of speech.

One day as I sat reading the attendant announced, "A visitor to see you,
sir."

Trembling with excitement and fear I tensely waited the coming of the
visitor.

Presently a stolid-faced young man followed the attendant into the room.
"You remember Holknecht," said the nurse, "he is your assistant at the
laboratory."

I stared stupidly at the man, and cold fear crept over me as he, with
puzzled eyes, returned my gaze.

"You are much changed," he said at last. "I hardly recognize you."

"I have been very ill," I replied.

Just then the head physician came into the room and seeing me talking to
a stranger walked over to us. As I said nothing, Holknecht introduced
himself. The medical man began at once to enlarge upon the peculiarities
of my condition. "The unknown gas," he explained, "acted upon the whole
nervous system and left profound effects. Never in the records of the
hospital has there been so strange a case."

Holknecht seemed quite awed and completely credulous.

"His memory must be revived," continued the head physician, "and that
can best be done by recalling the dominating interest of his mind."

"Captain Armstadt was wholly absorbed in his research work in the
laboratory," offered Holknecht.

"Then," said the physician, "you must revive the activity of those
particular brain cells."

With that command the laboratory assistant was left in charge. He took
his new task quite seriously. Turning to me and raising his voice as if
to penetrate my dulled mentality, he began, "Do you not remember our
work in the laboratory?"

"Yes, the laboratory, the laboratory," I repeated vaguely.

Holknecht described the laboratory in detail and gradually his talk
drifted into an account of the chemical research. I listened eagerly to
get the threads of the work I must needs do if I were to maintain my
role as Armstadt.

Knowing now that visitors were permitted me, I again grew apprehensive
over the possible advent of Katrina. But no woman appeared, in fact I
had not yet seen a woman among the Germans. Always it was Holknecht and,
strictly according to his orders, he talked incessant chemistry.

~5~

The day I resumed my normal wearing apparel I was shown into a large
lounging room for convalescents. I seated myself a short distance apart
from a group of officers and sat eyeing another group of large, hulking
fellows at the far end of the room. These I concluded to be common
soldiers, for I heard the officers in my ward grumbling at the fact that
they were quartered in the same hospital with men of the ranks.

Presently an officer came over and took a seat beside me. "It is very
rarely that you men in the professional service are gassed," he said.
"You must have a dull life, I do not see how you can stand it."

"But certainly," I replied, "it is not so dangerous."

"And for that reason it must be stupid--I, for one, think that even in
the fighting forces there is no longer sufficient danger to keep up the
military morale. Danger makes men courageous--without danger courage
declines--and without courage what advantage would there be in the
military life?"

"Suppose," I suggested, "the war should come to an end?"

"But how can it?" he asked incredulously. "How can there be an end to
the war? We cannot prevent the enemy from fighting."

"But what," I ventured, "if the enemy should decide to quit fighting?"

"They have almost quit now," he remarked with apparent disgust; "they
are losing the fighting spirit--but no wonder--they say that the World
State population is so great that only two per cent of its men are in
the fighting forces. What I cannot see is how a people so peaceful can
keep from utter degeneration. And they say that the World State soldiers
are not even bred for soldiering but are picked from all classes. If
they should decide to quit fighting, as you suggest, we also would have
to quit--it would intolerable--it is bad enough now."

"But could you not return to industrial life and do something
productive?"

"Productive!" sneered the fighter. "I knew that you professional men had
no courage--it is not to be expected--but I never before heard even one
of your class suggest a thing like that--a military man do something
productive! Why don't you suggest that we be changed to women?" And with
that my fellow patient rose and, turning sharply on his metal heel,
walked away.

The officer's attitude towards his profession set me thinking, and I
found myself wondering how far it was shared by the common soldiers. The
next day when I came out into the convalescent corridor I walked past
the group of officers and went down among the men whose garments bore no
medals or insignia. They were unusually large men, evidently from some
specially selected regiment. Picking out the most intelligent looking
one of the group I sat down beside him.

"Is this the first time you have been gassed?" I inquired.

"Third time," replied the soldier.

"I should think you would have been discharged."

"Discharged," said the soldier, in a perplexed tone, "why I am only
forty-four years old, why should I be discharged unless I get in an
explosion and lose a leg or something?"

"But you have been gassed three times," I said, "I should think they
ought to let you return to civil life and your family."

The soldier looked hard at the insignia of my rank as captain. "You
professional officers don't know much, do you? A soldier quit and do
common labor, now that's a fine idea. And a family! Do you think I'm a
Hohenzollern?" At the thought the soldier chuckled. "Me with a family,"
he muttered to himself, "now that's a fine idea."

I saw that I was getting on dangerous ground but curiosity prompted a
further question: "Then, I suppose, you have nothing to hope for until
you reach the age of retirement, unless war should come to an end?"

Again the soldier eyed me carefully. "Now you do have some queer ideas.
There was a man in our company who used to talk like that when no
officers were around. This fellow, his name was Mannteufel, said he
could read books, that he was a forbidden love-child and his father was
an officer. I guess he was forbidden all right, for he certainly wasn't
right in his head. He said that we would go out on the top of the ground
and march over the enemy country and be shot at by the flying planes,
like the roof guards, if the officers had heard him they would surely
have sent him to the crazy ward--why he said that the war would be over
after that, and we would all go to the enemy country and go about as we
liked, and own houses and women and flying planes and animals. As if the
Royal House would ever let a soldier do things like that."

"Well," I said, "and why not, if the war were over?"

"Now there you go again--how do you mean the war was over, what would
all us soldiers do if there was no fighting?"

"You could work," I said, "in the shops."

"But if we worked in the shops, what would the workmen do?"

"They would work too," I suggested.

The soldier was silent for a time. "I think I get your idea," he said.
"The Eugenic Staff would cut down the birth rates so that there would
only be enough soldiers and workers to fill the working jobs."

"They might do that," I remarked, wishing to lead him on.

"Well," said the soldier, returning to the former thought, "I hope they
won't do that until I am dead. I don't care to go up on the ground to
get shot at by the fighting planes. At least now we have something over
our heads and if we are going to get gassed or blown up we can't see it
coming. At least--"

Just then the officer with whom I had talked the day before came up. He
stopped before us and scowled at the soldier who saluted in hasty
confusion.

"I wish, Captain," said the officer addressing me, "that you would not
take advantage of these absurd hospital conditions to disrupt discipline
by fraternizing with a private."

At this the soldier looked up and saluted again.

"Well?" said the officer.

"He's not to blame, sir," said the soldier, "he's off his head."

CHAPTER III

IN A BLACK UTOPIA THE BLOND BROOD BREEDS AND SWARMS

~1~

It was with a strange mixture of eagerness and fear that I received the
head physician's decision that I would henceforth recover my faculties
more rapidly in the familiar environment of my own home.

A wooden-faced male nurse accompanied me in a closed vehicle that ran
noiselessly through the vaulted interior streets of the completely
roofed-in city. Once our vehicle entered an elevator and was let down a
brief distance. We finally alighted in a street very like the one on
which the hospital was located, and filed down a narrow passage-way. My
companion asked for my keys, which I found in my clothing. I stood by
with a palpitating heart as he turned the lock and opened the door.

The place we entered was a comfortably furnished bachelor's apartment.
Books and papers were littered about giving evidence of no disturbance
since the sudden leaving of the occupant. Immensely relieved I sat down
in an upholstered chair while the nurse scurried about and put the
place in order.

"You feel quite at home?" he asked as he finished his task.

"Quite," I replied, "things are coming back to me now."

"You should have been sent home sooner," he said. "I wished to tell the
chief as much, but I am only a second year interne and it is forbidden
me to express an original opinion to him."

"I am sure I will be all right now," I replied.

He turned to go and then paused. "I think," he said, "that you should
have some notice on you that when you do go out, if you become confused
and make mistakes, the guards will understand. I will speak to Lieut.
Forrester, the Third Assistant, and ask that such a card be sent you."
With that he took his departure.

When he had gone I breathed joyfully and freely. The rigid face and
staring eye that I had cultivated relaxed into a natural smile and then
I broke into a laugh. Here I was in the heart of Berlin, unsuspected of
being other than a loyal German and free, for the time at least, from
problems of personal relations.

I now made an elaborate inspection of my surroundings. I found a
wardrobe full of men's clothing, all of a single shade of mauve like the
suit I wore. Some suits I guessed to be work clothes from their cheaper
texture and some, much finer, were evidently dress apparel.

Having reassured myself that Armstadt had been the only occupant of the
apartment, I turned to a pile of papers that the hospital attendant had
picked up from the floor where they had dropped from a mail chute. Most
of these proved to be the accumulated copies of a daily chemical news
bulletin. Others were technical chemical journals. Among the letters I
found an invitation to a meeting of a chemical society, and a note from
my tailor asking me to call; the third letter was written on a
typewriter, an instrument the like of which I had already discovered in
my study. This sheet bore a neatly engraved head reading "Katrina,
Permit 843 LX, Apartment 57, K Street, Level of the Free Women." The
letter ran:

"Dear Karl: For three weeks now you have failed to keep
your appointments and sent no explanation. You surely know
that I will not tolerate such rude neglect. I have reported
to the Supervisor that you are dropped from my list."

So this was Katrina! Here at last was the end of the fears that had
haunted me.

~2~

As I was scanning the chemical journal I heard a bell ring and turning
about I saw that a metal box had slid forth upon a side board from an
opening in the wall. In this box I found my dinner which I proceeded to
enjoy in solitude. The food was more varied than in the hospital. Some
was liquid and some gelatinous, and some firm like bread or biscuit. But
of natural food products there was nothing save a dish of mushrooms and
a single sprig of green no longer than my finger, and which, like a
feather in a boy's cap, was inserted conspicuously in the top of a
synthetic pudding. There was one food that puzzled me, for it was
sausage-like in form and sausage-like in flavour, and I was sure
contained some real substance of animal origin. Presuming, as I did at
that moment, that no animal life existed in Berlin, I ate this sausage
with doubts and misgivings.

The dinner finished, I looked for a way to dispose of the dishes.
Packing them back in the container I fumbled about and found a switch
which set something going in the wall, and my dishes departed to the
public dishwasher.

Having cleared the desk I next turned to Armstadt's book shelves. My
attention was caught by a ponderous volume. It proved to be an atlas and
directory of Berlin. In the front of this was a most revealing diagram
which showed Berlin to be a city of sixty levels. The five lowest levels
were underground and all were labelled "Mineral Industries." Above these
were eight levels of Food, Clothing and Miscellaneous industries. Then
came the seven workmen's residence levels, divided by trade groups.
Above this were the four "Intellectual Levels," on one of which I, as a
chemist had my abode. Directly above these was the "Level of Free
Women," and above that the residence level for military officers. The
next was the "Royal Level," double in height of the other levels of the
city. Then came the "Administrative Level," followed by eight maternity
levels, then four levels of female schools and nine levels of male
schools. Then, for six levels, and reaching to within five levels of the
roof of the city, were soldiers' barracks. Three of the remaining floors
were labelled "Swine Levels" and one "Green Gardens." Just beneath the
roof was the defence level and above that the open roof itself.

It was a city of some three hundred metres in height with mineral
industries at the bottom and the swine levels--I recalled the
sausage--at the top. Midway between, remote from possible attack through
mines or from the roof, Royalty was sheltered, while the other
privileged groups of society were stratified above and below it.

Following the diagram of levels was a most informing chart arranged like
a huge multiplication table. It gave after each level the words
"permitted," "forbidden," and "permitted as announced," arranged in
columns for each of the other levels. From this I traced out that as a
chemist I was permitted on all the industrial, workmen's and
intellectual levels, and on the Level of Free Women. I was permitted, as
announced, on the Administrative and Royal Levels; but forbidden on the
levels of military officers and soldiers' barracks, maternity and male
and female schools.

I found that as a chemist I was particularly fortunate for many other
groups were given even less liberty. As for common workmen and soldiers,
they were permitted on no levels except their own.

The most perplexing thing about this system was the apparent segregation
of such large groups of men from women. Family life in Germany was
evidently wonderfully altered and seemingly greatly restricted, a
condition inconsistent with the belief that I had always held--that the
German race was rapidly increasing.

Turning to my atlas index I looked up the population statistics of the
city, and found that by the last census it was near three hundred
million. And except for the few millions in the mines this huge mass of
humanity was quartered beneath a single roof. I was greatly surprised,
for this population figure was more than double the usual estimates
current in the outside world. Coming from a world in which the ancient
tendency to congest in cities had long since been overcome, I was
staggered by the fact that nearly as many people were living in this one
city as existed in the whole of North America.

Yet, when I figured the floor area of the city, which was roughly oval
in shape, being eight kilometres in breadth and eleven in length, I
found that the population on a given floor area was no greater than it
had been in the Island of Manhattan before the reform land laws were put
into effect in the latter part of the Twentieth Century. There was,
therefore, nothing incredible in these figures of total population, but
what I next discovered was a severe strain on credence. It was the
German population by sexes; the figures showed that there were nearly
two and a half males for every female! According to the usual estimate
of war losses the figure should have been at a ratio of six women living
to about five men, and here I found them recorded as only two women to
five men. Inspection of the birth rate showed an even higher proportion
of males. I consulted further tables that gave births by sexes and
groups. These varied somewhat but there was this great preponderance of
males in every class but one. Only among the seventeen thousand members
of Royalty did the proportion of the sexes approach the normal.

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