REVOLT IN THE ICE EMPIRE
By RAY CUMMINGS
Frozen little Zura was a stellar Utopia, until
the Earthmen came to topple the rule of its gentle
queen with the cankerous weapons of revolt.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Fall 1940.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
So much has been written into the permanent chronologies of scienceconcerning our pioneer voyage to the little asteroid of Zura—factsand figures and sociological deductions, most of which are, ofactuality, erroneous—that even now after these many years, I feelconstrained to set down, as simply as I can, exactly what occurred.All my life I have shunned publicity; my wife has shunned it. Zura,weird little wandering world, has never returned. Why, after comingin from the realms of outer space at least twice and rounding our Sunupon an elliptic orbit, it should now have failed to reappear—I willleave that to the astronomers to imagine. But no one from Earth, quiteobviously, will ever go to Zura again. Tara and I, so to speak, aresole survivors.
So at least I think I am qualified to tell what happened; to correctthe Official Chronolograph in its implications that Zura was a modellittle world, from which our Earth might learn much. As my grandfathermight have quoted his grandfather saying, that is the bunk. When youput humans on a planet, you will get love—but also hate; honesty, butdishonesty; peace, but also war. The weird people of Zura were weirdto us only because their environment had made them outwardly differentfrom us. Like us they were human—and there could never have beenUtopia evolved from them.
I am no philosopher, but at least I must have my say on this. Tara wasmisguided. She admits it now. Indeed, at heart she is more opposed thanmost of you who read this, to those crusaders here on earth who talkof revolutions and bloodshed so that some new Social Order may evolveand bring the world Utopia. The ideals are often sound, but alwaysimpossible of fulfillment. And those who sponsor them usually areintelligent enough to know it, advancing themselves upon the pitifulhopes of the ignorant, who think they are being led upward when inreality they are often worse off than before.
Do I seem prefacing some weighty analysis of mankind's frailties? Thatis wrong. I am prefacing what might better be called a love story. Iam an old man now, but it colors my memory still with a warm glow likea sunrise spreading glorious colors on the drabness of a twilight sky.That, to my young life, was the coming of Tara....
I was just twenty, that spring morning of 1990 when Dr. RobertLivingston's message came to me.
"Strange good news, John. I have picked our destination, but it mustbe secret. Fly up and see me tonight."
Strange good news! There was a note of suppressed excitement in thosethree words which somehow communicated to me so that as I flew mylittle car up to the Maine woods that evening I was tensed to hear whatit could be. My name is John Taine, as naturally you must have realizedfrom my preface. There is nothing of me that can be of interest to thisnarrative previous to that spring morning of 1990. I quite imagine Iwas a drab enough sort of young fellow. Certainly my work as mechanicin the building of stratosphere ships had brought me little money andno claim to achievement.
But Dr. Livingston liked me; for a year now I had been working forhim, building to his specifications that prim