ldest beast that roams our waste places lairs in the frozen north
or the frozen south within a government reserve, where the curious may
view him and feed him bread crusts from the hand with perfect impunity.

But beyond thirty! And I have gone there, and come back; and now you
may go there, for no longer is it high treason, punishable by disgrace
or death, to cross 30d or 175d.

My name is Jefferson Turck. I am a lieutenant in the navy--in the
great Pan-American navy, the only navy which now exists in all the
world.

I was born in Arizona, in the United States of North America, in the
year of our Lord 2116. Therefore, I am twenty-one years old.

In early boyhood I tired of the teeming cities and overcrowded rural
districts of Arizona. Every generation of Turcks for over two
centuries has been represented in the navy. The navy called to me, as
did the free, wide, unpeopled spaces of the mighty oceans. And so I
joined the navy, coming up from the ranks, as we all must, learning our
craft as we advance. My promotion was rapid, for my family seems to
inherit naval lore. We are born officers, and I reserve to myself no
special credit for an early advancement in the service.

At twenty I found myself a lieutenant in command of the aero-submarine
Coldwater, of the SS-96 class. The Coldwater was one of the first of
the air and underwater craft which have been so greatly improved since
its launching, and was possessed of innumerable weaknesses which,
fortunately, have been eliminated in more recent vessels of similar
type.

Even when I took command, she was fit only for the junk pile; but the
world-old parsimony of government retained her in active service, and
sent two hundred men to sea in her, with myself, a mere boy, in command
of her, to patrol thirty from Iceland to the Azores.

Much of my service had been spent aboard the great merchantmen-of-war.
These are the utility naval vessels that have transformed the navies of
old, which burdened the peoples with taxes for their support, into the
present day fleets of self-supporting ships that find ample time for
target practice and gun drill while they bear freight and the mails
from the continents to the far-scattered island of Pan-America.

This change in service was most welcome to me, especially as it brought
with it coveted responsibilities of sole command, and I was prone to
overlook the deficiencies of the Coldwater in the natural pride I felt
in my fir