The Greatest Sci-Fi Books of Erle Cox. Erle Cox
to the "temple," and there went on with her story.
"His name was Odi, and until he committed the deed that altered the whole course of humanity he lived unknown as a poor schoolmaster. At the time he lived (you must remember it was about three thousand years before the great disaster) our world had advanced even then beyond what yours is now in development. To a certain extent it was, however, much as yours is today. We were far more advanced in art and science than you are now. We had commenced as you did in ignorance, pestilence, and war. We had been split into groups and nations with as many languages. The groups and nations gradually coalesced, and with them grew up a common language. War had practically ceased, and from that cause and also from the advance of medical science the increase of the population of the world came to be a serious factor in our history for more reasons than one. The great problem, however, was the problem of the coloured races. Mentally and in everything but physical endurance they were beneath us. They could imitate, but not create. They multiplied far more rapidly than we did, and, led by ambitious men, they threatened to exterminate the white races by sheer force of numbers. In some places, where the two races lived side by side, the position became acute, and everywhere they demanded as a right an equality they were unfitted for. Perhaps you know faintly what I mean."
"We understand, Earani. The problem is not unknown to us," put in Barry.
Earani nodded. "I have read of your problem, Dick, but it was as nothing compared with the one the world had to face then and the one Odi solved. There were at the time over three thousand millions of people on the globe, of whom more than four-fifths were of the lower race. They had all the benefits of our science, and were protected by our laws, but as time went on the bitterness grew on both sides beyond all endurance. They learned the power of numbers, and grew arrogant and overbearing. In one place the mutual jealousy flashed up into a short but fierce and bloody war, the first that had happened for over two hundred years. It was a quarrel over territory; territory that meant existence to one race or the other. That fight resulted in the obliteration of a white outpost of over two million people. Strange as it may seem, very few, except those in actual contact with the coloured races, realised even then the danger to the white." Dundas smiled a little, and interrupted. "I suppose, Earani, there were plenty who preached the doctrine of uplifting the coloured races and treating them as brothers?"
Earani nodded. "That was as it happened, Alan, mostly through the teaching of the priest class; those not directly in contact with them opposed reprisals. They talked evolution, education, and brotherly love, and, I have no doubt, meant it. They argued that it would lower them in their own eyes and in the eyes of the coloured people if they inflicted punishment. 'Why plunge the world again into the crime of war?' shouted the priest class. 'Example on our part will teach them better.'
"But there was one man who read the signs aright. He was Odi, the obscure schoolmaster, living on the fringe of the white nations. All his life he had studied the question in silence. Then it fell out that some of his inventions brought him enough wealth to enable him to live at his ease, and he gave the whole of his time to research.
"It has never been finally decided whether his great discovery was the result of accident or of deliberate experiments with the one object in view. Practically everything he possessed was afterwards destroyed, and his name and the secret of his power alone survived. The secret was afterwards known as the 'Death Ray.'" Earani broke the thread of her story. "What you know as electricity we knew more of then than you would dream now."
"We know precious little about it, anyhow," said Barry.
She laughed and went on:–"That's an honest confession, Dick. There are a few links missing in your chain that I can supply in good time. But to return to the 'Death Ray.' I have often thought of that man, with his terrible secret locked in his heart, and setting about his work absolutely unmoved by the thought of the consequences of his actions to himself or the millions of other lives it involved.
"The first knowledge the world had of his power was that an unknown and appalling disease had broken out amongst the coloured races in the most thickly populated part of the world. At first it started in one city, and from that centre spread in an ever-widening stain. Almost from the first it was noticed that the whites were absolutely immune. But that this was from design never entered even remotely into the speculations of the horde of workers who gathered to fight the plague. Remember that when it once started the disease was no matter of months or weeks in action. It was a question of days. The coloured people, old and young, went down before it with appalling certainty. The unseen death missed none. It swept through the country in an ever-widening wave, the course of which could be marked in a clearly-defined line as it advanced. In vain the whole world fought the growing terror. Every nerve was strained, and every resource of science was used to the uttermost. Fight as the scientists would, the death defeated them. There was not one single instance where a person attacked recovered, and inside the line of the advancing tide there was not one single instance of a coloured person escaping or a white man being affected. I can only make you understand the awful magnitude of the blow that fell by the records of mortality. In the first eight weeks from the outbreak, over one hundred and twenty millions had perished."
The two, who had been listening intently, looked incredulously at Earani. "Why, Earani, apart from anything else, the disposal of such a multitude of dead should be impossible, and delay must have meant an epidemic through the world as bad as the disease that killed the blacks," said Barry.
"That is so, Dick," she answered grimly. "The records of the time showed how fully alive the people were to the danger. Indeed, they left the coloured race in the end to fight for its own salvation in order to cope with the new horror that threatened. Indeed, there were a few small outbreaks, but the world was prepared, and beat them out before they obtained any hold. You must remember, too, that our race was better equipped to deal with such a crisis than yours is now.
"Then a strange thing happened. Just as suddenly as it appeared, the plague stopped, and the world breathed in relief. It seemed as if the danger had passed. There was a month of respite, and then, to the horror of all, it commenced again with redoubled violence in a new quarter. This time in the heart of the territory of the coloured races. What had gone before was as nothing to the fresh outbreak. It swept everything before it, but in the densely-populated districts it killed more swiftly, and spread more widely than formerly. Even now it is difficult to think of that time without a shudder. Five times it ceased and broke out again, and towards the end the word ran through the coloured races that the whites were exterminating them. No vows of innocence, no attempts to reassure the terror-racked multitude, were of any avail, and the horror was added to by a bloody internecine upheaval, in which the doomed race fell as swiftly before the arms of the whites as before the destroying disease.
"The sixteen months that the terror lasted are on record as the most awful period in our history, and when they were passed the coloured races had ceased to exist. Out of two thousand millions, not half a million were left scattered amongst the extreme northern and southern parts of the world, where the disease had not penetrated."
"Good heavens, Earani!" exclaimed Alan. "Do you mean to tell us that this appalling thing was the work of the man Odi?"
"Just so, Alan; his work alone, and even in the end his part might have gone undiscovered but for the determination of a few scientists to probe the matter to the bottom."
"Several remarkable features were recorded apart from the disease itself. In each instance the disease started from a common centre and spread rapidly outwards. When the records were made up it was noticed that in charts of the affected countries its boundaries were a clearly defined circle, except in the later outbreaks where the edges of the circles were broken by already ravaged country. Then again, it was noticed that the intervals between the outbreaks were subject to some regularity. It was by summing up slight details that the investigators came to the conclusion that the intervals would just permit of the perpetuator of the tragedy moving from centre to centre. Even then it seemed a far-fetched hypothesis to assume deliberate human action. Gradually, however, the evidence piled up, and the question became from 'Was it the work of a man?' to 'Who is he?'
"Then Odi spoke up. Openly and fearlessly he announced himself the perpetrator of the deed. Even then the world was incredulous, but in the end there