Nequa; or, The Problem of the Ages

by Alcanoan O. Grigsby; Mary P. Lowe

"Anything suits me that looks toward success," I said. "Since you have already completed the inventions that I had contemplated, it is but fair that you dictate how they should be used until we can improve on your improvements, which, by the way I hope may not be necessary."

"Oh yes, it will," said Battell. "Just as soon as there is no room for improvement, everything will be perfect, and with nothing to do, nothing to live for and no improvements to make, constituted as we are now, we would very likely be just as unhappy, as we are now anxious to improve the airship or to accomplish any other object that is dear to us. This is a working world and we are workers, and when there is no work to do, there will be no use for us on our present plane of development."

"You talk like a philosopher," I said. "One would think you had graduated from an Altrurian university."

"So I have," said Battell. "Were you not talking Altrurian philosophy all the time we were together on the Ice King? So I was to some extent prepared for what we have found in this highly developed country."

"But what's the matter?" I asked, as Battell's airship came to a full halt, and seemingly began to fall. Before I recovered from my surprise, it had settled lightly on the top of a stupendous structure, and MacNair was evidently aiming for the same place, as he set our ship to circling around in the way I have often described. I had seen the practical workings of one of Battell's improvements, and could not help seeing that it was an undoubted success. The mechanism that would control the vessel while dropping toward the earth, seemed to me, more difficult of construction than that which would hold it on its course against contrary side winds.

A minute later and we had reached the surface. Polaris, and her crew, so to speak, had disembarked and we had a cordial handshaking, and then took a stroll around the roof of this immense building. Everything about it seemed to indicate that it was especially designed for the accommodation of business on a gigantic scale. It was built of the semi-transparent material which we had found so common in the district where we had made our homes. The cornice, windows and doors were trimmed with aluminum, which gave it a peculiar grandeur of appearance.

MacNair, who was ever ready to make explanations, informed us that this was the Continental Department of Exchange through which all the commercial transactions between the various districts throughout the continent were carried on. This was the chief center of distribution, and bore the same relation to the continent, that the District Exchange bore to the several communities of which it was composed. The community stores made the actual distribution of products to the people. These larger exchanges, District and Continental, did not really handle the products at all, but collected the orders from the consumers and sent them direct to the communities where the goods were wanted, in this way saving very much unnecessary labor in handling and transportation. The actual exchange of commodities was always direct between the producers and the consumers.

I did not quite comprehend all this, but it prepared me for the object lesson which was to come. I was keenly alert to everything that was to be seen and heard, as it was valuable material for the book which I now felt sure I would be able to lay before the people of the outer world.

It was now noon, and MacNair suggested that it was about time for dinner. "No doubt," he said, "your fifteen hundred miles of travel has given you an appetite." And suiting the action to the suggestion, we all stepped upon an elevator, and descended to the largest dining hall I had ever seen. It seemed that thousands of people were seated at the tables, quietly conversing and enjoying their midday meal. We seated ourselves at a vacant table and Oqua said:

"I shall order for all, as our American visitors are not yet perfectly familiar with our customs." And manipulating a button at her side, I was surprised to see the center of the table disappear, but it reappeared before I had sufficiently recovered my equilibrium to ask questions, and it was loaded with the most tempting viands. Oqua explained that these central tables which carried the food stood on the top of an elevator that connected with the kitchen below. That when an order was received, a table was already prepared to take the place of the one which the elevator brought down. Everything moved with quiet celerity; no bustling waiters, and no waiting for orders to be filled.