Wormley's Tale
BEFORE starting the tale, however, Wormley first plumped up his pillows and settled himself comfortably. Then he took a sip of water from the glass standing on the table between our beds.
"It is told," he began, "that there once lived a fellow by the name of Howard Mentor, English and Scotch stock, all scientists . . . of sorts, astrologists, alchemists, leeches or whatever they called 'em back in those days. Also some philosophers and prophets as well as some evolutionists in the bunch too. And it seems that from father to son had come an ambition to put wings onto man long before they had the idea that machinery could be made to fly, or did they know anything about machinery in those days? I guess I'm a bit hazy about our ancestors at that.
"Well, anyway after generations of experiments it was this Howard Mentor who managed to grow wings on the back of a rabbit or maybe it was a white rat. Howard was feeling pretty proud about that I guess so what does he decide to do but to try some experiments on his own son!
"His idea seemed to be in taking certain glands from the throats of living birds and replanting them in his victims. He also injected some sort of solution into the body. Of course in those days they did not know that the blood circulated so it was a rather hit or miss proposition, and Doctor Morris seems to believe that little Howard was far ahead of his times.
"It had taken many generations to grow wings on the rabbit, but Grandfather Howard was not discouraged believing rather in posterity and aimed to do as much as he could in his life time. He began right there to attempt to improve the human species by performing the same operation on his own offspring. He forced his wife to take the injections, submit to the operation, and also to swallow another concoction that he brewed himself made from some part of the bird.
"In the next ten years he had produced a pretty fair nucleus for his future generations, his wife giving birth to nine children of both sexes. When she, poor woman, died, he managed to take upon himself another wife and by using the same methods brought a half a dozen more children into the world inoculated with the virus that was eventually to bring about his heart's desire.
"Luckily Mentor had much of the world's goods to his credit. He had a vast estate somewhere in the back-skirts of Scotland so there were no prying eyes to watch and condemn him. His next task was to obtain wives for his growing sons and husbands for his daughters. His oldest son was fifteen when he found a wife for him. She submitted docilely to the old man's administrations and within a year their baby was born. Mentor was not disappointed because it was born like all other babies. He knew how to bide his time.
"In the meantime he had been teaching his sons and daughters his science and nurtured in each one of them the desire to see men and women on wing. Perhaps a few went astray from the fold, but there is no record of such in the annals of Mentorian history. Perhaps some of his son's wives rebelled but our Lord Mentor knew how to quell that. Perhaps the servants rebelled and grumbled at the strange mixture the master of the house demanded be cooked with all foods so that all dishes tasted very much alike. But that was the day of serfs and feudalism, and servants were not problems then.
"The most difficult task that Father Mentor had to do was to marry off his daughters. Young lordlings, counts and the like, did not care for the idea of leaving their own paternal estates to live in the already crowded castle isolated from their kind. One or two whose fortunes were not so secure came attracted by the beauty of Mentor's daughters. A third son of an Earl who had been destined for the church married another of the beauties, but there the supply ended. So Mentor was forced to go down into the cities and buy up youths who had been incarcerated in the debtor's prisons in order to marry off his remaining daughters. It must have been a great pleasure to the old boy when he married the last of the brood off!
"One can wonder what discords must have arisen in the paternal home with more than a dozen different families under the same roof, for now the children were being born so rapidly that it was almost too much to keep count. Mentor was present at each birth anxiously expectant as to what may be brought forth. He all but wept when his youngest daughter brought into the world a little son that had for arms what looked very much like the wings of a fledgling bird.
"There was a soft down on the strange appendages and it looked as if the little fellow would one day be able to fly! Fly he might, but his arms had been sacrificed. The little mother must have wept over her maimed darling and Mentor surely wasn't happy over it, but at the same time he knew that the first rung of the ladder had been climbed. They could only hope that this was an accident. The scientist again went into his laboratories and brought forth another mess that was added to the diet of his family.
"The new baby became the pet of the family and they all tried to keep him from knowing of his loss. At four years old they tried to teach him to fly, but the wings had not matured and were weak sticks. They did act as a sort of support when the little fellow took jumps from the top of a flight of steps and landedat the foot nicely balanced with his feathered arms outspread. The down of the wings had grown into small feathers, unevenly distributed the length of the wing, but they had none of the beauty of the present-day wings of the people of Mentor."
Off To Mentor
"AND so," went on Wormley after sipping some more water, "All went well until the third generations began to arrive. For his grandchildren Mentor had taken the easiest course and married cousin to cousin, hoping in this way to hasten his evolutionary trick.
"His cry of joy was heard throughout the castle and into the valley below when the first great-grand child came into the world with odd protuberances on his little shoulders. They were no more than little lumps with the least suggestion of down upon them, but they were the first link of the long chain. It mattered not to the grandfather that the mother of the babe died in giving it birth, for that night was one of celebration. There were no invited guests to the feast; Mentor had no desire to make the world aware of the nature of his experiments.
"More children were born, some had the humps on their shoulders, some did not; but two were born with more definite suggestions of the sought-for wings. Then the son of the arm-less grandchild was born, and lo, he had wings, true wings almost as long as his body and arms as well!
"Mentor might have been able to rear his family in Scotland and there the race might have grown as well as in the jungles of South America had not word slipped out to the authorities in Edinburgh. Had a servant told or had one of Mentor's offspring slipped away and tattled? The truth can't be learned, but it was enough that a small army of soldiers of the king came to the stronghold and demanded in the name of God, the Pope and the King as to what sacrilege had been perpetrated here in this fastness.
"Mentor had in some way been forewarned and the monstrosities had been secreted away so that the officers retreated somewhat disgruntled and empty-handed. Still Mentor wisely foresaw that this was the beginning of the end. Word of the discovery of new land to the westward had reached Scotland and the stalwart old gentleman who was not to be thwarted decided to leave the narrow confines of his native country.
"So it happened that the Mentor clan embarked for the new world, and the old world was left in ignorance. Mentor first went to the nearest seaport and there with his money bought men and women who were willing to go to the new country across the sea. He chartered a ship, provisioned it and with some plausible excuse to the authorities, no doubt, started out for a nice quiet place where he could carry on his good work for the betterment of humanity!
"The ship was headed for North America, but a storm arose out of the night when the ship lay presumably not far from the Virginian coasts. The storm drove them south and then out to sea again and raged for three days and three nights driving the ship ahead in its fury. Somewhat crippled, they limped on taking bearings by sun and stars and hoping that land was near. The captain was new to this part of the world and only the offer of more money than he had ever heard of before had brought him this far. He had no idea where the storm had carried them and hopefully had headed west and a little south. One when they saw land they made for it, but a great number of Indians put out in their canoes and in fright the captain ran away.
"Then, when they were possibly off the coast of Florida, a second time a storm caught them, a storm of hurricane dimensions and again bore them out to sea. During the storm's wildness the crew in fright and frenzy murdered not only the captain but the two mates, so that when the storm abated at last, the ship's company found themselves without a single navigator aboard. The crew would have murdered Mentor, too, but he defended himself well.
"A month passed and now the almost wholly crippled vessel wallowed through the seas and drifted without guidance. Food and water was low and disease was stalking the deck. Mentor, old and broken, now died and was buried at sea.Horace Mentor, the eldest son, took charge.
"Realizing that all would be lost unless something drastic was done, he ordered the planks torn from the deck's floor and the women give up their petticoats to make a sail for the single slender mast that stood. Every able-bodied man was forced to take his turn at rowing so that after the sixth day the lookout atopthe mast cried 'Land!'
"Thus the Mentors came to the coast of Brazil. They found food in plenty, made friends with the Indians and built palm thatched houses for themselves. Spaniards came, but they looked with friendly eyes upon the growing settlement knowing that the Scotch were as deadly enemies of the English as they themselves."
The Founding of A Nation
"GEE," broke in Wormley, "this is a story and a half. Doctor Morris told it to me, but I'm sort of condensing it."
"Go on, you're doing fine."
"Well, to make the best of the long tale . . . the Spaniards continued as friends. They were for the most part pushing into the interior of the country searching for gold and they did not see much of the Mentorites, but by that time children were being born with appendages that were true wings. Birds there were in plenty so that the Mentors had all the serums and solutions and glands they needed. The Indians were the first to discover that children with wings were appearing among the white settlers and there began a time of persecution for the children of Mentor.
"The next two centuries of their existence appears to have been made up of flight, fleeing from haven to haven until at last they founded this settlement here on the edge of Peru with only a few savage tribes as neighbors, savages who look upon the alate as gods of some sort and have no intercourse with the white men.
"Wings have come to them to stay, and they have prospered out here in the wilderness. Eventually the need of importing new blood drove them to stealing women. Occasionally, too, it appears that men have been picked up and brought to Mentor for the same purpose. Mentor, I believe, could account for the disappearances of whole scientific expeditions that have never been heard of again. They refuse to breed with any but people of their own race, hence the fact that Latins, Semites et cetera are never captured by them. Many of their women die, too in giving birth to their children, and of late they have found it necessary to bring in as many women as they can find so that the dynasty they have planned can be brought into being . . . "
Wormley sighed, "And that's that. Simple, eh what?"
"It all sounds highly improbable," I noted. "I think that if I pinch myself I'll wake up."
"Don't do that," laughed Wormley, "for here comes our pretty nurse Miss Lois .. . And if I am not mistaken you are very much taken . . . eh?"
She came in smiling brightly and inquired as to how we were. She seemed to guess that we had been talking and she shook her finger at us and admonished us for exciting ourselves. She took our pulse and temperature and left us with directions to sleep.
"Some baby," commented Wormley when she had gone.
"It appears to me," I said, "that I could learn to like Mentor after all!"
CHAPTER FIVE
Convalescence
THE next week I spent in bed convalescing though I had very little pain. At first I was given a liquid diet and later more substantial food. Fruits, green vegetables, bread of corn and wheat flour and a few different varieties of wheat and fowl constituted the menu of Mentor. I noted immediately a strange foreign taste that I put down to some new condiment, but Wormley quickly put me straight. The strange flavor he said was due to Ingredient "B" that was fed to every man, woman and child in Mentor. Once a week Ingredient "A" was injected into our blood and twice monthly Ingredient "C" was added to the menu. I can't say that any of it was very tasty. I learned later that I had already had a gland operation.
"They're making full-fledged Mentorites out of us, old man," Wormley declared.
The second week I was allowed to sit up in a chair to take short walks in and around the hospital. I discovered just how complete an institution it was. Everything was kept spotlessly clean. Most of the work was devoted to the maternity wards where the young Mentorites were brought into the world scientifically and as easily as possible. One mother out of eight usually died in giving birth to the winged babies. The death rate had been higher before the coming of Doctor Morris and he was doing all he could to reduce it still more.
There was a dispensary to attend the every-day sicknesses and accidents such as those brought about by deadly insects or by the winged people who sometimes misjudged distances and hurt themselves on limbs of trees, etc.
Diseases were practically unknown even in this fever-infested land--for every precaution was taken. Healthy people are not prone to become diseased and the alate were healthy without a doubt. Then too, I discovered that every new captive was quarantined miles from the city for the duration of a month before they were allowed to intermingle with the Mentorites, and during that time their blood was purified and thoroughly cleansed of any lurking germ-cells. The reason that Wormley and I were not quarantined, of course, was due to our session in the hospital; and I learned that we had been completely de-germed.
On the fifth day of my convalescence, I was allowed to climb the flight of steps that led upward and into the jungle. The trees grew high and thick and the sunlight had difficulty in finding its way through the branches. To offset this lack of sun in their underground cities every citizen whose work did not bring him into the sunlight was forced each day to take a sun-bath either in the clearings or else on platforms reared high in the trees--where the beneficial rays of the sun could penetrate. And once daily a strong violet ray was switched on and swept throughout the city.
A path led away from the entrance to the doorway through which I had come. The door itself was in the trunk of a giant tree that had been hollowed out and the bark placed on the door-panel so ingeniously that it was difficult to detect that it was a doorway from the outside. Nor was the path I trod a distinct one. It might have been one made by animals or the Indians.
In fact, a stranger might have walked all about the 'city' or rather atop it and not know that life seethed beneath his feet. He might have even made his camp on the top of one of the sky-lights of the underground community without being aware that glass and concrete were his bed.
The jungle had been cleared to some degree so that the winged people might move about more easily, but the clearing had been done in such a natural manner that one passing through the area would not have noticed particularly that it had been cleared. Strangers had in fact actually passed this way or camped hereabouts without being the wiser. No wonder Mentor could not be discovered by plane!
As I came into the forest I met Miss Lois who was also out for an airing. She joined me and pointed out the points of interest as we strolled along. Never before had I met a girl who was so natural, so simple-- without any little coquetries or subterfuges that one usually looks for in the sex. She accepted me merely as a companion and expected me to do the same with her.
Several Mentorites passed us, men and women with their variegated wings dragging in the dust behind, all clad in the tight fitting costume that gave no resistance to the wind in flying. One fellow passed who had the half formed wings of the "Earthbound" as they called them, the people bred of the two races, winged and unwinged.
There were many of these people in Mentor destined never to fly but to give birth rather to children that would, one day, fly. They took their place in the ranks as did the others. They were, in fact, the workers, holding responsible positions in the underground stronghold. They were merely a part of this strange evolution.
Once, overhead I heard the beating of wings and Miss Lois bade me look up. Doing so I saw perhaps a half a dozen or so winged people flying down toward us through the trees. At first I believed they would surely tear their wings uponthe branches of the trees, but in looking more closely I saw that the great branches of the trees had been cut away to allow about twenty feet clearance, giving the alated an entrance and exit to the world. These avenues were cut at regular intervals so that there would be no danger of crowding when danger lurked above.
Sightseeing
LATER by carrying me up a distance of about fifty feet Miss Lois showed me other avenues cut horizontally through the trees to give passage to those who did not wish to expose themselves above the trees. They could fly many miles within the protection of the jungles in this manner. There were many of these paths criss-crossing through a great area. Where the trees became thin and gave way to glades and clearings wingless men were usually stationed to give warning if danger was about.
We now approached one of the natural clearings where many people, children and adults alike were playing or sunning themselves. Here were groups of woman sitting or lying in the grass talking and working over lengths of cloth, embroidering feathers on jackets, shaping garments. Here, for the first time, I saw a number of fellow "captives."
Upon our entrance into the glade a tall, slender, dark-haired girl jumped to her feet and came running toward me. Almost immediately I recognized her from the picture I had seen in the papers. It was Miss Marion Hally. She stopped short a few feet in front of us.
"You are a newcomer, aren't you?" she asked me in a low, throaty voice.
"Yes, Miss Hally," I averred.
"Ah, you know me!"
"Only by your photos."
"Tell me, then," she said, "have you heard anything about my father? I have been sick with worry about him. How is he taking my disappearance . . . he had only me . . . you see . . ."
I told her of her father's offers of rewards for her recovery. Beyond that I knew nothing else. She sighed and without another word returned to the group she had deserted.
"That," said Miss Lois, "is the trouble of stealing these poor girls. They could be happy with us, I believe, if only they could get in touch with their people and let them know that they are well . . . "
"Yes," I said, "the world is not going to stand for this wholesale abduction of yours very long!"
Up came Miss Lois' chin. "We do not have any fear of that, Jim Kennedy, Mentor knows how to protect herself!"
"Well, why don't you come above board and show your hand to the world instead of this miserable woman-stealing?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "It is not for us to ask, Jim Kennedy. The Patriarch will deal with the world when the Time comes!"
"Then there will be a Time?"
She smiled. "Yes, the time is coming when the world will realize that we are a factor to be reckoned with! They will gladly give us our place in the World Court!"
"Unless they annihilate you entirely!"
"And that is impossible of course."
I said nothing to that, but I felt it highly improbable that this handful of people could stand against the world.
"May I ask . . . how many people have you here, Miss Lois?"
She nodded. "Surely. We divide our population into two parts, the winged and the Earthbound. Of the former we have here in Number One a little less than thirty thousand! Of the latter there are about ten thousand! Of children under the ages of sixteen there are forty thousand! Then in each other community there is almost a like number."
Jim Learns Much
TO say I was astounded was putting it too mildly. I turned upon Miss Lois in wonder. "You mean that there are eighty thousand people living here in this area?"
She nodded. "Certainly."
"And this is only one of several like settlements?" I queried.
"Yes, at present we have six communities, and the Patriarch is directing the construction of a seventh city. He has decided that it would be well for us to have two cities devoted entirely to children. Our quarters here are becoming too crowded."
"Hum, then you have a population of almost a half a million people. Good Lord it sounds impossible."
She laughed up at me. "We have forgotten to include the 'captives'. There are about two thousand of them at the present time! And by the end of the year the Patriarch expects us to have about ten thousand!"
"My God !" I was flabbergasted. "A half a million people here in this jungle."
"Mentor now covers about sixty square miles and still continues to grow. Each settlement is about four miles in circumference for we always build from a hub, and each settlement is laid about fifteen miles apart to give room for spreading."
"A few well laid bombs could almost demolish it!"
"And who is going to lay the bombs?"
"Outside they now have a pretty fair idea of where Mentor lies."
Miss Lois shrugged her shoulders. "That really matters very little. You shall see how little one of these days!"
"You mean that no plane could ever reach here because of that infernal machine of yours?"
She nodded her head. "I am afraid so."
"Oh, well, I guess the future will have to decide that."
She did not answer me but now we had turned back to the city. I was thoughtful during the remainder of the walk. Gosh, if only I could get out of this place and tell my story to the world! What a scoop this was going to be. The girl's words, however, made me realize just how hard it was going to be to escape. If, as she said, the surrounding country was populated so thickly with her people what chance would I, a puny man without wings, to fight my way out into the world again. And with what I now knew it was evident that they were not going to allow me to escape.
Miss Lois appeared to have read my thoughts. "It is impossible for anyone to escape from Mentor. Our Patriarch is not quite ready for the world to know and it is death to any who makes the attempt." She went on to explain just how great an organization her nation was, how it had already thrown out its tentacles into the world in general all unbeknown to the Outside.
I questioned her about the food supply, and her words told me that Pedro Majes had not lied when he spoke of the plantation to which he had been borne by the winged men. Mentor had not only one plantation to raise her food, but many in some of the most fertile countries of the continent.
It appears that those born entirely devoid of wings were used for the purpose of going out into the world establishing themselves and working only for the good of their race. By taking Spanish names a dozen or so Mentorites owned and controlled the plantations from which the winged men carried off by night the foods that they needed. It was from the estate of one of these men that Marion Hally had been spirited away!
They owned mines in the same manner, rubber plantations, and air lines were controlled by the far reaching arm of the Patriarch of Mentor! The wealth from these enterprises of course flowed in a steady stream into his coffers.
And to further the interests of the nation were another corps of men and women, the diplomatic corps that found places of responsibility all over the world. They insinuated themselves into positions of trust in Washington, in London, in Paris and in fact in all the capitals of the world and were accepted by their fellow- men as one of them, while in truth their lives were dedicated to the interests of their own race. It was possible therefore for them to accomplish much for its welfare.
It was through one of these "spies," that that infernal engine that had brought our plane down was bought and brought to Mentor. It had been invented by a German just after the Great World War and under the Patriarch's direction had been purchased for this jungle home ere the world was able to learn about it; and all but one blue print destroyed.
In the same manner Doctor Morris had been brought to Mentor enticed by the tales of one of the Patriarch's agents who proved to the Doctor the need of the jungles for medical aid. And because he had tired of the humdrum life of New York City he had come to take complete charge of the health of the five hundred thousand souls within the confines of the jungle.
Every necessity that was needed was brought from the Outside, just as electricity was carried hundreds of miles across the continent by cables and conduits from three or four points in South America. The cables were cleverly laid; either in the trees or underground as the topography of the country demanded.
Only a continent such as South America with its great unexplored spaces, its great natural resources, its jungles, could have held the secret of Mentor. I could only gasp as I thought of what a prodigious organization had grown out of the aimless fumblings of Howard Mentor with man-made evolution. Could this strange though powerful nation some day put its mark on the world?