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General Parsons’ countenance lighted up for an instant with a gleam of joy. Then he turned his head away. The features that had been set in inexorable determination in the battle softened with infinite sadness; the eyes that had so sternly viewed the frightful slaughter, brimmed with tears.

“At what a cost,” he murmured.

“Oh, God! At what a cost.”

Three months later in the circular chamber that occupied the eastern wing of the Edifice of Deliberations, the Council of Earth were seated. Upon the table before them was spread an official document.

The Head, Mr. Sasoa, was speaking:

“Gentlemen,” he said, “you are here assembled to pass upon the proposed treaty with Mercury as prepared by our commissioners. You are familiar with the contents. Those points insisted upon by our delegates have been ceded to us. Will you ratify this treaty? Will you vote for peace or war?”

General Parsons rose slowly to his feet.

“Most Honorable Head, and Gentlemen,” he said, quietly, “I vote for peace.”

The honorable member on his left, and after him in rotation each member of the council, rose, and in solemn tones repeated the general’s formula:

“I vote for peace.”

In the silence that followed, Mr. Sasoa drew the document toward him, then the scratching of his pen proclaimed the ratification of the “Second Treaty of Washington.”

THE LAST DAYS OF EARTH

George C. Wallis

When the idea for this anthology arose this was the first story that came to mind. It struck me that it epitomised the steampunk imagery, for although the story is set 13 million (yes, million) years in the future, the couple — who happen to be the last two humans alive — are still staunchly Victorian. It is full of wonderful ideas about the future, but ideas clearly limited by the technology of the day. And yet it is a potent story and one that I feel packs as big a punch now as it did when it first appeared in 1901.

George C. Wallis (1871-1956) was a printer turned cinema manager who produced a fair quantity of boys’ books and science fiction from at least 1896 to 1947, a career thus equalling that of H. G. Wells’s in span if not in influence. He was, though, the only Victorian writer of science fiction who also contributed to both the American and British science fiction genre magazines of the twenties and thirties. His last book was a lost-race novel, The Call of Peter Gaskell (1947). — M.A.

A MAN AND A WOMAN sat facing each other across a table in a large room. They were talking slowly, and eating — eating their last meal on earth. The end was near; the sun had ceased to warm, was but a red-hot cinder outwardly; and these two, to the best of their belief, were the last people left alive in a world-wilderness of ice and snow and unbearable cold.

The woman was beautiful — very fair and slight, but with the tinge of health upon her delicate skin and the fire of intellect in her eyes. The man was of medium height, broad-shouldered, with wide, bald head and resolute mien — a man of courage, dauntless purpose, strenuous life. Both were dressed in long robes of a thick, black material, held in at the waist by a girdle.

As they talked, their fingers were busy with a row of small white knobs let into the surface of the table, and marked with various signs. At the pressure of each knob a flap in the middle of the table opened, and a small glass vessel, with a dark, semi-liquid compound steaming in it, was pushed up. As these came, in obedience to the tapping of their fingers, the two ate their contents with the aid of tiny spoons. There was no other dining apparatus or dinner furniture upon the table, which stood upon a single but massive pedestal of grey metal.

The meal over, the glasses and spoons replaced, the table surface clean and clear, a silence fell between them. The man rested his elbows upon his knees and his chin upon his upturned palms. He did not look at his fair companion, but beyond her, at a complicated structure projecting from the wall. This was the Time Indicator, and