o, when life was simple and natural, when men
hunted and killed their meat, instead of drinking synthetic stuff, when
men still had the joys of conflict, instead of living under glass, like
hot-house flowers."

"If we could only go somewhere--"

"There isn't anywhere to go. I write about the West, Africa, South Sea
Islands. But they were all filled up two hundred years ago. Pleasure
resorts, sanatoriums, cities, factories."

"If only we lived on Venus! I was listening to a lecture on the
television, last night. The speaker said that the Planet Venus is
younger than the Earth, that it has not cooled so much. It has a thick,
cloudy atmosphere, and low, rainy forests. There's simple, elemental
life there--like Earth had before civilization ruined it."

"Yes, Kinsley, with his new infra-red ray telescope, that penetrates the
cloud layers of the planet, proved that Venus rotates in about the same
period as Earth; and it must be much like Earth was a million years
ago."

"Eric, I wonder if we could go there! It would be so thrilling to begin
life like the characters in your stories, to get away from this hateful
civilization, and live natural lives. Maybe a rocket--"

* * * * *

The young author's eyes were glowing. He skipped across the floor,
seized Nada, kissed her ecstatically. "Splendid! Think of hunting in the
virgin forest, and bringing the game home to you! But I'm afraid there
is no way.--Wait! The Cosmic Express."

"The Cosmic Express?"

"A new invention. Just perfected a few weeks ago, I understand. By
Ludwig Von der Valls, the German physicist."

"I've quit bothering about science. It has ruined nature, filled the
world with silly, artificial people, doing silly, artificial things."

"But this is quite remarkable, dear. A new way to travel--by ether!"

"By ether!"

"Yes. You know of course that energy and matter are interchangeable
terms; both are simply etheric vibration, of different sorts."

"Of course. That's elementary." She smiled proudly. "I can give you
examples, even of the change. The disintegration of the radium atom,
making helium and lead and _energy_. And Millikan's old proof that his
Cosmic Ray is generated when particles of electricity are united to form
an atom."

"Fine! I thought you said you weren't a scientist." He glowed with
pride. "But the method, in the new Cosmic Express, is simply to convert
the matter to be carried into power, send it out