Life in a Thousand Worlds

by W. S. Harris

I proceeded on my journey until I had reached Alcyone in the famous constellation of Taurus. On one of the planets revolving around Alcyone, I found a distinctive class of human beings faintly resembling creatures that I had seen in several other constellations, but of which I have, as yet, made no special mention.

Among these people no audible language is used as a means of communication. One might think that high civilization would be impossible without such a vehicle of thought. But on this Mute world humanity has pushed far along in the great interstellar race for supremacy.

A description of the physical features of these Muteites would not only seem absurd, but would be distorting. Can you imagine a beautiful person without ears and void of vocal sound, having a head totally out of shape compared with ours, and with a bodily framework ridiculously new to us? Such would be a brief word sketch of these far-away mortals of unusual intelligence.

These people hold all their conversation by pure thought transmission. The sense-perception is almost infinitely keen, and gestures play no part in emphasizing thought. It is amazing to see with what facility these beings express their ideas one to another.

In our life one may conceal his thoughts from the most searching human eye, but this cannot be done on Mute. As a consequence each one can read the character of his comrades, and the normal citizen well knows what necessary allowance to make for the impure thoughts that flit through the mind of his neighbor.

I studied, with absorbing interest, the many phases of this mental telepathy, or mind talking, between two or more persons even though widely separated. Imagine how glorious it must be to have real fellowship with a friend whose face you cannot see and whose hand you cannot touch.

There are limitations to this delightsome way of talking. A person can hold conversation with only one absent friend at a time and then only when each one concentrates his thoughts on the other. What wireless telegraphy is to our world, this mental conversation is to the world of Mute, and it is possible that we may reach a higher degree of proficiency in this direction after we become still better acquainted with the laws of the human mind.

When I think of the many unaccountable heart-thrills that send their emotions of joy and hatred into our passing life, I am somewhat persuaded that we speak this tongueless language more than we imagine. Some day we may learn the secrets that are now so heavily veiled and thereby put to naught the glory of our present modes of communication. Until then we will plod along with the telegraph, telephone, wireless telegraphy and our ever-changing knowledge of telepathic intercourse.

I will give the philosophy of this perfect means of expressing thought as clearly as I can.

As sound waves are created in our atmosphere by actual vibration, so are thought waves created on Mute by mental activity focused in any one point of the brain. Our way of expressing thought by audible words is not conceivable to these people. If one of their inhabitants were to visit our Earth, he would be at a loss to account for our movements of mouth and gestures of body when we are in the act of conversation.