“Well, then, the United States is an independent nation. We have made proposals for a union, but the bosses have not yet come to terms. Spain stamped out her revolution. We were on the point of compelling her to come in when she discovered the secret of the Glow Ray, which would have made the effort unremunerative.” “What is this Ray?” “It is a combustion by old light, stored solar energy being transmitted for that and all other power purposes from the great solar works on the Vosges Mountains. Its invention made the old warfare obsolete. Our small-arms are miniature Ray mirrors, charged with a single unit; our big ordnance is supplied from the Vosges by cable connection. The Ray destroys everything that it encounters, not protected by the glow paint which you may have observed on the fronts of our buildings. This is the last and greatest of the coal tar discoveries, and its manufacture is based upon the exact relationship between the disintegrating glow rays and an exact color having a fixed number of vibrations. “Russia,” he continued, “crushed her revolution, too, as she had crushed earlier anarchistic outbreaks. But though she has discovered the glow paint, she has not the Ray. The Federation is consequently at war with her, for her antiquated ideals make her a menace to civilization. Besides, we need her wheat-fields. We have an army of ten thousand men, two from each of the five Provinces, and have cooped up the young Tsar, Alexander, with his army of a million men, in Tula. His surrender is expected daily.” “Ten thousand against a million?” “Yes, with the Ray. However, even ten thousand were difficult to secure, though the pay of each soldier is five units hourly. Twelve men have been killed already. That is the weak point in our civilization, Arnold. In spite of daily lectures by the most gifted orators that the Council can obtain, showing that the desire for immortality is an inherited perversion, and that we are immortal anyway, in the germ-plasm, man is unwilling to die. In time the Council hopes, by reason and education, to rid men of this ancient terror.” “What is the ethical basis of our government?” I asked. “Science, which alone survived the destruction of knowledge. The scientific books were saved from the twelve million tons of printed paper, chiefly from the British Museum shelves, that burned for twelve days upon Blackheath; and from the contents of the Bibliotheque Nationale that heated Paris during an entire month. “A commission quickly synthesized the discoveries of earlier investigators. World councils of scientists laid down the dogmas of universal knowledge in the Vienna Creed, which was adopted without dissentients after those who objected had been put to death. The famous quarrel whether Force is of the same substance as Matter, or a like substance, was decided here. The Sames conquered the Similars, by virtue of a proclamation from Boss Rose.