It's undoubtedly difficult to live with someone who is Different. He must, because he is Different, live by other ways. But what makes it so difficult is that, for some reason he thinks you are Different!
In perspective, theoretically the vanishing point is at infinity, and therefore unattainable. But reality is different; vanishment occurs a lot sooner than theory suggests.
There will be fine, glittering, streamlined automobiles in 2000 A.D. Possibly they will run themselves while the driver sits back with an old-fashioned in his hands. Perhaps they will carry folks down the highways at ninety miles an hour in perfect safety. But picking up a hitch-hiker will still be as dangerous as it is today.
Bringing proofs which will satisfy the most skeptical Dr. William G. Kinney G. Van Emmon E. Williams Jackson and John W. Smith who left the earth on December 9 in a powerful sky-car of the doctor's design returned on the 23rd after having explored the two planets which lie between the earth and the sun.
In The Lord of Death, four scientists, aided by reverse-magnetism, travel to a dead planet where they discover that one human's lust for power destroyed all life there-except for him. In suspended animation, he awaits the newcomers. In The Queen of Life, (considered a feminist tale) the scientists (one has revealed herself as a woman) travel to a planet encased in a glass sphere to protect the overpopulated planet from the sun's radiation. Conflict leads to a riot.
Social living requires the elimination, or at very best, the modification of many elements necessary to survival in "nature". And when an emergency arises, very often it is the person who would be considered a "criminal", in other situations, who alone is able to cope with the necessities. If we manage to eliminate "violence" from human affairs, what will we find when a need for "violence" arises--a need outside of man's artificial control of his environment?
Before reading this story, prepare yourself for a jolt and a chill in capsule form. O. Henry could have been proud of it. It could well become a minor classic.
Across the void came a man who could not ever have been born--from a world that could never have been conceived--to demand his birthright of an Earth that would have to die to pay it!