“So it was you, Arnold,” said Sanson quietly. “Well ... what do you think of Sir Spofforth’s theories now?”
All my hatred and fear of him had died in that blinding revelation. Bewilderment so intense that it made all which had occurred since my awakening dim, a sense of pathos and futility at once deprived me of my fears and robbed him of his power; and we might have been the fellow-workers of the old days again, discussing the problem of consciousness.
He seated himself on the mud mound, and his voice was as casual as if we had just returned to the laboratory after escorting Esther home. And indeed I could with great difficulty only convince myself that I had not fallen asleep and dreamed this nightmare.
“You see, it has all come to pass, Arnold,” said Sanson, twirling the Ray rod idly between his fingers. “A world such as I foretold—a world set free. Enlightenment where there was ignorance; the soul delusion banished from the minds of all but the most foolish; the menace of the defective still with us, but greatly shrunken; the logical State so wonderfully conceived by Wells, with Science supreme, and almost a world citizenship. It is a glorious free world, Arnold, to which humanity has fallen heir, and the fight for it has been a stupendous one. And it is a world of my creation! I have done what Caesar, Charlemagne, and Napoleon failed to do; I have brought humanity under one sway, out of the darkness into light, out of ignorance to knowledge. I have set man, poor plantigrade, on his feet firmly. He looks up to the skies, not in the blind and foolish hope of bodiless immortality, but knowing himself the free heir of the ages. Wasn’t it worth the battle, Arnold?”
My sense of pity deepened. Surely there can be no worse fate for any man than to accomplish his desires! I thought of all the unknown idealists who had given their lives to the accomplishment of great projects and failed, achieving nothing—inventors, dreamers, a gray, fantasmal legion whose lost hopes ranged back from age to age; and I saw how their works were blessed and their failures glorified in contrast.
“Yes, I thought that it must be you as soon as I examined the sheets from the Strangers’ Bureau,” continued Sanson, in his matter-of-fact manner. But it seemed so incredible that the cylinder had erred that I allowed my pressing duties to let me forget my impulse to take immediate action. Unfortunately, while we were fellow-workers I did not take your finger prints, but I had, of course, observed your characteristic indexes, and also, if you remember, you were kind enough to my fad to permit me to take your cranial measurements. I did not think that there could exist two heads like yours, combined with those indexes, within a single century. For your occipital region is excellent, approximating my norm, while your frontal area is that of a moron. In short, you are a typical Grade 2 defective, Arnold—essentially so; and I have no doubt that, thanks to your five centimeters of asymmetrical frontal development, you have emerged into this universe of reality still clinging fondly and affectionately to your dualistic soul theory.
“But never mind!” he continued, smiling rather grimly. “I have no intention of handing you over to Lembken’s ridiculous priests to be tried for heresy. There will be no more priests after a little while. The public mind is now ripe enough for the abolition of this stupid compromise of the transition period from God to Matter. One more animist will do little harm in a world in which they are still far from uncommon. And then, I am not a man of cruel impulses, Arnold, and I do not want to penalize you for having come into a world in which you are an anachronism. So you have spent three weeks in London?” he ended, scrutinizing me sharply.
“Yes.”
“And came back by night to see your birthplace, I suppose,” he said maliciously. “I don’t know how you escaped the battleplanes. Unless they are growing slack.... I found one scoutplane without its searchlight working, and shall send its commander to the leather vats if I discover him ... well, Arnold,” he resumed, “I could not believe that you had come out of your cylinder before your time. You came within an ace of disrupting my work, my world, if you only knew it—you with your missing five centimeters! I put implicit faith in Jurgensen’s mechanism, and, as it proves, I was to blame. I came here tonight to see if you could really be gone.”
“You knew that I was here?”