green Martians, as
parental and filial love is as unknown to them as it is common among
us. I believe this horrible system which has been carried on for
ages is the direct cause of the loss of all the finer feelings and
higher humanitarian instincts among these poor creatures. From
birth they know no father or mother love, they know not the meaning
of the word home; they are taught that they are only suffered to
live until they can demonstrate by their physique and ferocity that
they are fit to live. Should they prove deformed or defective in
any way they are promptly shot; nor do they see a tear shed for a
single one of the many cruel hardships they pass through from
earliest infancy.
I do not mean that the adult Martians are unnecessarily or
intentionally cruel to the young, but theirs is a hard and pitiless
struggle for existence upon a dying planet, the natural resources of
which have dwindled to a point where the support of each additional
life means an added tax upon the community into which it is thrown.
By careful selection they rear only the hardiest specimens of each
species, and with almost supernatural foresight they regulate the
birth rate to merely offset the loss by death.
Each adult Martian female brings forth about thirteen eggs each
year, and those which meet the size, weight, and specific gravity
tests are hidden in the recesses of some subterranean vault where
the temperature is too low for incubation. Every year these eggs
are carefully examined by a council of twenty chieftains, and all
but about one hundred of the most perfect are destroyed out of each
yearly supply. At the end of five years about five hundred almost
perfect eggs have been chosen from the thousands brought forth.
These are then placed in the almost air-tight incubators to be
hatched by the sun's rays after a period of another five years. The
hatching which we had witnessed today was a fairly representative
event of its kind, all but about one per cent of the eggs hatching
in two days. If the remaining eggs ever hatched we knew nothing of
the fate of the little Martians. They were not wanted, as their
offspring might inherit and transmit the tendency to prolonged
incubation, and thus upset the system which has maintained for ages
and which permits the adult Martians to figure the proper time for
return to the incubators, almost to an hour.
The incubators are built in remote fastnesses, where there is little
or no likelihood of their being discovered by other tribes. The
result of such a catastrophe would mean no children in the community
for another five years. I was later to witness the results of the
discovery of an alien incubator.
The community of which the green Martians with whom my lot was cast
formed a part was composed of some thirty thousand souls. They
roamed an enormous tract of arid and semi-arid land between forty
and eighty degrees south latitude, and bounded on the east and
west by two large fertile tracts. Their headquarters lay in the
southwest corner of this district, near the crossing of two of
the so-called Martian canals.
As the incubator had been placed far north of their own territory
in a supposedly uninhabited and unfrequented area, we had before us
a tremendous journey, concerning which I, of course, knew nothing.
After our return to the dead city I passed several days in
comparative idleness. On the day following our return all the
warriors had ridden forth early in the morning and had not returned
until just before darkness fell. As I later learned, they had been
to the subterranean vaults in which the eggs were kept and had
transported them to the incubator, which they had then walled up
for another five years, and which, in all probability, would not
be visited again during that period.
The vaults which hid the eggs until they were ready for the
incubator were located many miles south of the incubator, and would
be visited yearly by the council of twenty chieftains. Why they did
not arrange to build
parental and filial love is as unknown to them as it is common among
us. I believe this horrible system which has been carried on for
ages is the direct cause of the loss of all the finer feelings and
higher humanitarian instincts among these poor creatures. From
birth they know no father or mother love, they know not the meaning
of the word home; they are taught that they are only suffered to
live until they can demonstrate by their physique and ferocity that
they are fit to live. Should they prove deformed or defective in
any way they are promptly shot; nor do they see a tear shed for a
single one of the many cruel hardships they pass through from
earliest infancy.
I do not mean that the adult Martians are unnecessarily or
intentionally cruel to the young, but theirs is a hard and pitiless
struggle for existence upon a dying planet, the natural resources of
which have dwindled to a point where the support of each additional
life means an added tax upon the community into which it is thrown.
By careful selection they rear only the hardiest specimens of each
species, and with almost supernatural foresight they regulate the
birth rate to merely offset the loss by death.
Each adult Martian female brings forth about thirteen eggs each
year, and those which meet the size, weight, and specific gravity
tests are hidden in the recesses of some subterranean vault where
the temperature is too low for incubation. Every year these eggs
are carefully examined by a council of twenty chieftains, and all
but about one hundred of the most perfect are destroyed out of each
yearly supply. At the end of five years about five hundred almost
perfect eggs have been chosen from the thousands brought forth.
These are then placed in the almost air-tight incubators to be
hatched by the sun's rays after a period of another five years. The
hatching which we had witnessed today was a fairly representative
event of its kind, all but about one per cent of the eggs hatching
in two days. If the remaining eggs ever hatched we knew nothing of
the fate of the little Martians. They were not wanted, as their
offspring might inherit and transmit the tendency to prolonged
incubation, and thus upset the system which has maintained for ages
and which permits the adult Martians to figure the proper time for
return to the incubators, almost to an hour.
The incubators are built in remote fastnesses, where there is little
or no likelihood of their being discovered by other tribes. The
result of such a catastrophe would mean no children in the community
for another five years. I was later to witness the results of the
discovery of an alien incubator.
The community of which the green Martians with whom my lot was cast
formed a part was composed of some thirty thousand souls. They
roamed an enormous tract of arid and semi-arid land between forty
and eighty degrees south latitude, and bounded on the east and
west by two large fertile tracts. Their headquarters lay in the
southwest corner of this district, near the crossing of two of
the so-called Martian canals.
As the incubator had been placed far north of their own territory
in a supposedly uninhabited and unfrequented area, we had before us
a tremendous journey, concerning which I, of course, knew nothing.
After our return to the dead city I passed several days in
comparative idleness. On the day following our return all the
warriors had ridden forth early in the morning and had not returned
until just before darkness fell. As I later learned, they had been
to the subterranean vaults in which the eggs were kept and had
transported them to the incubator, which they had then walled up
for another five years, and which, in all probability, would not
be visited again during that period.
The vaults which hid the eggs until they were ready for the
incubator were located many miles south of the incubator, and would
be visited yearly by the council of twenty chieftains. Why they did
not arrange to build
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