The Cosmic Courtship

THE twenty-second of June, of the year 2001, was Miriam Mayne’s birthday—her twenty-first. She and her father, Terence Mayne, the billionaire contractor, had arranged to meet at the Long Island house for dinner. After an early breakfast, she kissed him good-by; he went down-town to business, and she to her room, to put on her traveling dress.

A glorious day it was! When the tall girl stepped from the window of her room on to the balcony, the sun embraced her graceful figure as if it loved her; the perfume of flowers rose up like incense; two humming-birds, busy with the morning-glories, buzzed a welcome; the air was warm but exhilarating. She mounted to the wide parapet of the balcony and stood poised for a moment before starting on her journey.

She was clad in a dove-colored suit of a tunic and trousers to the knee, fitting snugly, but allowing freedom of movement. On her feet she wore a pair of sandals, with appendages on the heel resembling the talaria of Greek myth, ascribed to Iris and Mercury; but for the wings were substituted triangular projections of a pliable metal with a silvery sheen. Over her head was drawn a close-fitting cap, fastened securely under the chin, and bearing wing-like excrescences similar to the foot-gear. A wide belt or girdle encircled her waist; it was formed of narrow vertical pieces connected together, and four buttons or small knobs appeared on the front of it, where they could be readily reached by either hand. In her right hand she carried a light staff.

The art of personal flight was still a novelty at this period, though the principle of it had been known for several years. Only persons of sound physical and mental coordinations were apt to attempt it. Miriam had not only passed the government tests, but was considered an expert.

With an upward swing of the arms, she leaped into the air; the drop to the pavement of the court below was some fifty feet; but she rose upward as if she had no weight, and continued her ascent until she hovered at a height of a couple of thousand feet above the far-extending city of New York. There she paused, gazing hither and thither at the magnificent prospect.

From the Battery to Harlem, the surface of Manhattan Island was covered with handsome villas and mansions, of white or tinted marble, standing each in an ample enclosure of green turf studded with trees and flower-beds. Several miles to the south rose the superb turreted pile of the new Madison Square Garden, like a fairy palace, of white marble set off with pinnacles and trimmings of gold. It was Terence Mayne’s crowning achievement, and was still unfinished. The East and North Rivers were spanned by between three and four hundred bridges, lofty and wide, made of a metallic substance that glittered and shone in the sun. The beds of the rivers themselves were laid with white concrete, over which the water flowed blue and transparent. Northward, beyond the island, the city proper stretched for forty miles, following the course of the Hudson, but extending westward over a breadth of five miles into New Jersey; the home of nearly fifteen millions of people. From side to side, and from end to end, no smoke fouled the clear air, and no sign of factories or of business traffic was visible. But the entire area had been excavated to a depth of a thousand feet, and here, layer beneath layer, were housed the business activities of the metropolis.