NEW METROPOLIS

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 226, 24 September 1938, Page 14 (Supplement)

NEW METROPOLIS

Serial Story

SYNOPSIS. Lon^o^-V look * • hM <» to the London of 100 years hence. Philip Gordon, London'* chief analytical chemist, after long experiment, produces synthetic food. Hi* son, John, who Is engaged to Kate Green, a coun#2 J. VolC ** th * Blowing hostility of the Country State John is summoned to the presence of David Kent, the Chief Governor, first head of the vast new Metropolitan State. Kent, JO hi ! n,n * li «t* year, tells John that they know of the growing opposition from the Country State, and reminds him of his obligations to the New metropolis. Kate Green hears of * plan of the Country State to revolt, and hides in a grain lorry which is going to London. CHAPTER 111. r FI If-.N a difficulty arose. The 1 shutters were meant to be •worked only from the outside. She leaned out perilously, jabbed the button and drew herself in sharply, just sharply enough to prevent her hand from being t rapped I' «.i- i.'-k in '!. i ■ n.i!;. >|n- (.Moped her "•'> !" .1 > | 'it •■ I•.tw .• ii the tins nrid p-iit I i 11.-fully n. Hie hii.l not de>cr\i'il her I: i • -k. -1 •»! 111. in his quirt, t-ru.-li uiiy, would li.uc said Mio had riot planned her campaign properly, that ►he had been too hurried, nnd had t riir-t «-<l too greatly to sheer luck. Hut it had alarmed her, more than she liked to n.hnit to herself, to learn th.it lier family were plotting without her knowledge, plotting ngainst the City State, atid against .John himself. She could not hear to be separated from him now Hut she knew what the tyranny of the family could be, in the social scfiemu of the Country State. since the post war freedom of the last century, which came to a. head in the tinhrid led license of the "forties," city tun! country cultures, both reacting against the extreme, which was ugly, had gone different ways.

In 1110. City, youthful freedom, within civic limits, was legalised, encouraged, became natural. But in the Country tlio pendulum had swung the other way, towards the strictness of Victorianism. Suitors were accustomed to ask their lady's father for permission to address the daughter.

John, she remembered, had told her how revolting he had found the emotional scene on this occasion, with Mr. llreen, kind man though he was.

<Jirls lived at home in the country while they were unmarried. No Community Houses for them. Kate's family could easily have forbidden her association with John, and put marriage for her, at any rate, out of the question. .111— r now she had done a thing almost unheard of in the Country State. She had run away, taken the law into her own hands.

As she sat there and listened complacently to the stirring of the van into life, sho thought to herself that by the time her parents realised what was happening, and had set tele-wirus and wireless waves humming with descriptions and pictures of her, she would be safe with John. She began to calculate how long she had.

They would suppose she had gone down to the communal dairy to work there. By supper time they would be helpless, for then she should be at John's homo in London. There «he would be secure. Even dried-up Mr. Cordon, she •aid to herself, would be pleased to see a fugitive from the part of Britain lie despised so greatly. A Difference In Pretences The wider code of the Metropolitan Stato would protect her. She was over tho legal age both of consent and of property. No one could coerce her once ohe was inside the lines of London. It. was curious that while John found a delight in the archaic life of the countryside, Kate longed for the free social endo of the Metropolis. Once there, provided she did not infringe the rights of other citizen*, her private life would be entirely her own. A niddm jerk bumped her head against the tin barrel behind her back. I he electric motor was humming loudly. Kate wished she coukl see out. Tt was stuffy, its well a« dark. As best sho could, she arranged herself more, comfortably among the barrels. She tried to occupy her mind by imagining what her future woul<l be like with John. Increasingly sho found the discomfort of her position, the pitch blackness, the stifling air, riding out her thoughts of what to come. The present gradually became all-important, and tho present was, to nay the least, decidedly unpleasant.

An idea struck her. She looked round. ♦ riwl to pierce the darkness. It. whs impossible. .hist an even "loom, and «o deep it did not enable her to distinguish the roughest outline of the lmrrel-i among which she sat. She tried to kee|> ralm and to think coolly. Surely, then; would be a ventilator of "some kind.

Swiftly, terribly, it dawned on her, no air could get in. Small wonder she was feeling constricted in that narrow swaying cell. Her throat was tightening, whether with tear or the beginning of suffocation she could not tell.

No use, she thought desperately. How long did it take to reach the borders of the Metropolis? How long? God, how long.' She started to hammer on the walls and shout, and erv. But nothing disturbed the smooth hum of the engine pursuing its appointed way.

Then ehe flung herself against the walls, and screamed and screamed. Xo use. \Y ith a terrible vividness she realised that if no air could get in, 110 voice could get out.

Urgently, with a madness born of desperation, she drummed fists and heels against the unyielding felt of the inner wall. And then, with a queer access of coolness, she began to calculate, marking with her fingers in the dark like a blind child, how long it would take the driver to reach the distributor station. ... It was like trying to solve a puzzle in a nightmare.

Something constricted in her client. She tore at her tiro: it ripped to the waist. And yet still, in her half -era z<»d state, it seemed as if a rope were

Then—"why should them be?"—sh« asked herself desperately. The van was not intended for human freight. Tt was built with airtight walls and shutters that fitted to a hundredth of an ineli, no that the foodstuffs might be kept from Any variatiou of outdoor atmosphere.

tightening round her throat. She plucked That evening John received a sumat her neck with shaking lingers. Thenf mons frri ,„ ~ . e ~ Slowly, and quite gracefully, as a bal- lhe Cb,ef GoverDo r> lerina at the end of her dance, she sank oncc a ° ain st00(1 face to fae e with the to her knees, and to the floor, and lay ol d man in liis tower above London, a twisted figure among the shining bins. "John, lam going to ask vou to do something that you will dislike." "Yes, sir?"

It is imperative that wc know more definitely what is in the minds of the Country leaders. The hullabaloo in the papers does not matter. But we have reaeon to believe that behind the 6ccnes some madness is being plotted. \\ e have no intelligence servicc there. God knows, we hoped all that barbarism was dead and buried. But it seems it is not so. I want you to go back into the country, to vour lady's family, to your friends there. Talk "to tliein. Pretend you tympathise with them.

Find out what the hotheads are proposing to do, whether this fantastic luniour that they are proposing to wreck your father's work by sonic sort of physical violence has any foundation. ou may have to pretend to be one of iliPin, to join in whatever scheme they are preparing. Hut keep us supplied with such information whenever >on can; let us hear from vou to-night every night; the situation is developing rapidly; our need is urgoiit." ""

"In other words, sir, you want me to be a spy?"

"You do like to give things their old world names, don't you, John?"

"Sir, the date and place can't change the esseutials of honesty and dishonesty, can they? A spy! I can't do it, Mr. Kent."

"Remember your promise to me. Remember the debt to London that you said you would be willing to repay."

John paced up and down the room, his brow furrowed, his hands clenched. Kent did not speak again. Two, three minutes passed while John sought to make up his mind. At last he turned, * qua red his shoulders: "All right, sir, I'll do it. I hate the idea, but I'll do what vou ask."

Kent held out his hand. ... "I shall expect to hear from you iu six hours from now."

Less than an hour later, John in his gyro had left the floodlights of the Metropolis behind him, and had moved into dark skies. Tor a time he guided himself by the ribbon of lamps along the arterial road.

The little place ho sought had its landing stage on what was still called the village green. It was a little difficult to tise in the night time, when you were used to brilliantly-lit hangar roofs and the vertical beams with which London guided homing aircraft in the dark.

Jolm managed it neatly, however, left t he top light of his gyro on as a warning to any other traveller?, and walked through the wood to Kate's house. It late. Kate might be in bed.

However, as tie came near, lie saw that the living; rooms were still lighted np. The door was open. He stepped in, but the greeting died on his lips. There was no one in the hall. He knocked at the drawing room door. No answer. He looked in. It wa« empty.

He visited the 6unroom and the library. Still no one. Finally, though he knew it was long after the hour when the Greens dined, he went to the dining room at the back of the house. What John Found At Kate's Home A meal was spread, home-cooked meat, wheat bread, home-pasteurised milk, fruit from the orchard. But it was only half eaten. Forks lay on plates. Glasses were still full. One had been overturned, and the liquid dripped silently on to the rugs.

On the plates the gravy had congealed. The chairs had been pushed back suddenly. A breeze blew the curtains billowing across the room away from the open French windows. Six people had been dining, it seemed; liad been interrupted, had vanished.

John ran upstairs, calling their names: "Kate! Mr. Green! Rupert! Mrs. Green!" But there was no reply. He searched the bedrooms. The couche« were undisturbed. Until he came to the nursery where Kate's small brother slept. Here the blankets were rumpled a& if someone had lain there, and then been rudely awakened and snatched away— where ?

The same evidences of sudden, headlong flight presented themselves all over the house. He ran out again through the wood to the village green. He pressed the bell of the first house he came to. Silence and stillness. But the lights were 011 and the windows were open. Tie made as if to enter, and then shrank back from the thought of another empty home. He stood in the middle of the green and looked around. There were the li<rht«. There were the unlocked doors. But he was alone, with inanimate things. The folk had fled. "Kate. Kate!" he ci ied, but the echo of his voice was the only reply he got. Blindlv, in the pnp of some unnamable fear, he turned back to his gyro. He must get awav— back to London, back to people. Startled lie realised that he could not face the Chief Governor with a tale like this, a tale without an explanation. He still had his job to do. Then with a rush came another thought, blotting out the reminder of duty. Where Mas Kate? Was she hurt? What was the danger that had made her fly? C He decided his best plan was to go up to live or six hundred feet and cruise along the tops of the woods to the nearest roads, to the next village, and find out it there was anything to be j .-ecu of the fugitives.

As he reached the machine, a new uneasiness canie to him. There was something different about it. He looked again. Xo lights were on. He felt his way inside, groped for the master key that switched 011 lights and engine. The keyhole was blank. He felt in his pockets. There was 110 kev there. He had not troubled to take it out when he had landed.

Now lie was really frightened. It was a new sensation for John. Even when he had learned to fly as a boy. there was always the sense of excitement to carry him through the sudden dives and turns and sideslips.

But now, worse than the feeling of being alone, worse than the mystery of the empty village, was the sense that somewhere in the darkness was another human being who- had hostile intentions towards him. For that in such strange surroundings it was a practical joker who had taken the kev, lie could not credit. His skin crept and another new sensation flooded his brain, a fierce, pricking anger, a desire to give hurt for hurt.

He peered through the darkness but there was still no one to be seen and nothing to be heard. He turned to teel 111 the tool-box for an adjustable spanner that would do the key's work when there was a rustle in the grass It might have been the wind, or an animal. But tense with the strain of the last half-hour, he swung quicklv round. J

Not (juickly rnoiijrh. however. A sudden sharp pain darted through the back of Ins head, and then seemed to run through every nerve in his bodv. He threw up his hands in a va<*Vie attempt to ward off another blow. ° Then, to his astonishment, the ground suddenly changed its position, as though tired of being flat for so long, and stood upright like a wall •John leaned against it. He was very v j ' i „There was a soft thud as his body fell heavily in the grasg. (To be continued)