The Skylark of Space - E. E. Smith (e book reading free txt) 📗

saw the supreme joy in Margaret’s eyes, and his own assumed a new light as he drew her into the hollow of his arm.

“Peggy has known me only a short time, but nothing else in the world is as certain as our love. It is the bride’s privilege to set the date, so I will only say that it cannot be too soon for me.”

“The sooner the better,” said Margaret, with a blush that would have been divine in any earthly light, “did you say ‘today,’ Dick?”

“I’ll see the Karfedix as soon as he gets up,” he answered, and walked with Dorothy to his door.

“I’m just too supremely happy for words,” Dorothy whispered in Seaton’s ear as he bade her good night. “I won’t be able to sleep or anything!”

XVI An Osnomian Marriage

Seaton awoke, hot and uncomfortable, but with a great surge of joy in his heart⁠—this was his wedding day! Springing from the bed, he released the full stream of the “cold” water, filling the tank in a few moments. Poising lightly upon the edge, he made a clean, sharp dive, and yelled in surprise as he came snorting to the surface. For Dunark had made good his promise⁠—the water was only a few degrees above the freezing point! After a few minutes of vigorous splashing in the icy water, he rubbed himself down with a coarse towel, shaved, threw on his clothes, and lifted his powerful, but musical, bass voice in the wedding chorus from “The Rose Maiden.”

“Rise, sweet maid, arise, arise,
Rise, sweet maid, arise, arise,
‘ ’Tis the last fair morning for thy maiden eyes,”

he sang lustily, out of his sheer joy in being alive, and was surprised to hear Dorothy’s clear soprano, Margaret’s pleasing contralto, and Crane’s mellow tenor chime in from the adjoining room. Crane threw open the door and Seaton joined the others.

“Good morning. Dick, you sound happy,” said Crane.

“Who wouldn’t be? Look what’s doing today,” as he ardently embraced his bride-to-be. “Besides, I found some cold water this morning.”

“Everyone in the palace heard you discovering it,” dryly returned Crane, and the girls laughed merrily.

“It surprised me at first,” admitted Seaton, “but it’s great after a fellow once gets wet.”

“We warmed ours a trifle,” said Dorothy. “I like a cold bath myself, but not in ice-water.”

All four became silent, thinking of the coming event of the day, until Crane said:

“They have ministers here, I know, and I know something of their religion, but my knowledge is rather vague. You know more about it than we do, Dick, suppose you tell us about it while we wait.”

Seaton paused a moment, with an odd look on his face. As one turning the pages of an unfamiliar book of reference, he was seeking the answer to Crane’s question in the vast store of Osnomian information received from Dunark. His usually ready speech came a little slowly.

“Well, as nearly as I can explain it, it’s a funny kind of a mixture⁠—partly theology, partly Darwinism, or at least, making a fetish of evolution, and partly pure economic determinism. They believe in a Supreme Being, whom they call the First Cause⁠—that is the nearest English equivalent⁠—and they recognize the existence of an immortal and unknowable life-principle, or soul. They believe that the First Cause has decreed the survival of the fittest as the fundamental law, which belief accounts for their perfect physiques⁠ ⁠…”

“Perfect physiques? Why, they’re as weak as children,” interrupted Dorothy.

“Yes, but that is because of the smallness of the planet,” returned Seaton. “You see, a man of my size weighs only eighty-six pounds here, on a spring balance, so he would need only the muscular development of a boy of twelve or so. In a contest of strength, either of you girls could easily handle two of the strongest men upon Osnome. In fact, the average Osnomian could stand up on our Earth only with the greatest difficulty. But that isn’t the fault of the people; they are magnificently developed for their surroundings. They have attained this condition by centuries of weeding out the unfit. They have no hospitals for the feebleminded or feeble-bodied⁠—abnormal persons are not allowed to live. The same reasoning accounts for their perfect cleanliness, moral and physical. Vice is practically unknown. They believe that clean living and clean thinking are rewarded by the production of a better physical and mental type⁠ ⁠…”

“Yes, especially as they correct wrong living by those terrible punishments the Kofedix told us about,” interrupted Margaret.

“That probably helps some. They also believe that the higher the type is, the faster will evolution proceed, and the sooner will mankind reach what they call the Ultimate Goal, and know all things. Believing as they do that the fittest must survive, and thinking themselves, of course, the superior type, it is ordained that Mardonale must be destroyed utterly, root and branch. They believe that the slaves are so low in the scale, millions of years behind in evolution, that they do not count. Slaves are simply intelligent and docile animals, little more than horses or oxen. Mardonalians and savages are unfit to survive and must be exterminated.

“Their ministers are chosen from the very fittest. They are the strongest, cleanest-living, and most vigorous men of this clean and vigorous nation, and are usually high army officers as well as ministers.”

An attendant announced the coming of the Karfedix and his son, to pay the call of state. After the ceremonious greetings had been exchanged, all went into the dining hall for darprat. As soon as the meal was over, Seaton brought up the question of the double wedding that kokam, and the Karfedix was overjoyed.

“Karfedix Seaton,” he said earnestly, “nothing could please us more than to have such a ceremony performed in our palace. Marriage between such highly-evolved persons as are you four is wished by the First Cause, whose servants we are. Aside from that, it is an unheard-of honor for any ruler to have even one karfedix married