“It may take a great deal of your time,” interjected Ralph, “and your
time is valuable.”
“Precisely,” agreed Napier. “Mr. Rothmund and I will, with your
permission, arrange the financial details later.”
“That suits me perfectly,” I said, for I detest business and everything
connected with it.
“Now, to get back to the more important and far more interesting phases
of our discussion; what is your reaction to the plan as a whole?”
“Mars is a long way from earth,” I suggested; “Venus is nine or ten
million miles closer, and a million miles are a million miles.”
“Yes, and I would prefer going to Venus,” he replied. “Enveloped in
clouds, its surface forever invisible to man, it presents a mystery that
intrigues the imagination; but recent astronomical research suggests
conditions there inimical to the support of any such life as we know on
earth. It has been thought by some that, held in the grip of the Sun
since the era of her pristine fluidity, she always presents the same
face to him, as does the Moon to earth. If such is the case, the extreme
heat of one hemisphere and the extreme cold of the other would preclude
life.
“Even if the suggestion of Sir James Jeans is borne out by fact, each of
her days and nights is several times as long as ours on earth, these
long nights having a temperature of thirteen degrees below zero,
Fahrenheit, and the long days a correspondingly high temperature.”
“Yet even so, life might have adapted itself to such conditions,” I
contended; “man exists in equatorial heat and arctic cold.”
“But not without oxygen,” said Napier. “St. John has estimated that the
amount of oxygen above the cloud envelope that surrounds Venus is less
than one tenth of one per cent of the terrestrial amount. After all, we
have to bow to the superior judgment of such men as Sir James Jeans, who
says, ‘The evidence, for what it is worth, goes to suggest that Venus,
the only planet in the solar system outside Mars and the earth on which
life could possibly exist, possesses no vegetation and no oxygen for
higher forms of life to breathe,’ which definitely limits my planetary
exploration to Mars.”
We discussed his plans during the remainder of the day and well into the
night, and early the following morning he left for Guadalupe Island in
his Sikorsky amphibian. I have not seen him since, at least in person,
yet, through the marvellous medium of telepathy, I have communicated
with him continually and seen him amid strange, unearthly surroundings
that have been graphically photographed upon the retina of my mind’s
eye. Thus I am the medium through which the remarkable adventures of
Carson Napier are being recorded on earth; but I am only that, like a
typewriter or a dictaphone—the story that follows is his.
II
OFF FOR MARS
As I set my ship down in the sheltered cove along the shore of desolate
Guadalupe a trifle over four hours after I left Tarzana, the little
Mexican steamer I had chartered to transport my men, materials, and
supplies from the mainland rode peacefully at anchor in the tiny harbor,
while on the shore, waiting to welcome me, were grouped the laborers,
mechanics, and assistants who had worked with such whole-hearted loyalty
for long months in preparation for this day. Towering head and shoulders
above the others loomed Jimmy Welsh, the only American among them.
I taxied in close to shore and moored the ship to a buoy, while the men
launched a dory and rowed out to get me. I had been absent less than a
week, most of which had been spent in Guaymas awaiting the expected
letter from Tarzana, but so exuberantly did they greet me, one might
have thought me a long-lost brother returned from the dead, so dreary
and desolate and isolated is Guadalupe to those who must remain upon her
lonely shores for even a brief interval between contacts with the
mainland.
Perhaps the warmth of their greeting may have been enhanced by a desire
to conceal their true feelings. We had been together constantly for
months, warm friendships had sprung up between us, and tonight we were
to separate with little likelihood that they and I should ever meet
again. This was to be my last day on earth; after today I should be as
dead to them as though three feet of earth covered my inanimate corpse.
It is possible that my own sentiments colored my interpretation of
theirs, for I am frank to confess that I had been apprehending this last
moment as the most difficult of the whole adventure. I have come in
contact with the peoples of many countries, but I recall none with more
lovable qualities than Mexicans who have not been contaminated by too
close contact with the intolerance and commercialism of Americans. And
then there was Jimmy Welsh! It was going to be like parting with a
brother when I said good-bye to him. For months he had been begging to
go with me; and I knew that he would continue to beg up to the last
minute, but I could not risk a single life unnecessarily.
We all piled into the trucks that we had used to transport supplies and
materials from the shore to the camp, which lay inland a few miles, and
bumped over our makeshift road to the little table-land where the giant
torpedo lay upon its mile long track.
“Everything is ready,” said Jimmy. “We polished off the last details
this morning. Every roller on the track has been inspected by at least a
dozen men, we towed the old crate back and forth over the full length of
the track three times with the truck, and then repacked all the rollers
with grease. Three of us have checked over every item of equipment and
supplies individually; we’ve done about everything but fire the rockets;
and now we’re ready to go—you _are_ going to take me along, aren’t you,
Car?”
I shook my head. “Please don’t, Jimmy,” I begged; “I have a perfect
right to gamble with my own life, but not with yours; so forget it. But
I am going to do something for you,” I added, “just as a token of my
appreciation of the help you’ve given me and all that sort of rot. I’m
going to give you my ship to remember me by.”
He was grateful, of course, but still he could not hide his
disappointment in not being allowed to accompany me, which was evidenced
by an invidious comparison he drew between the ceiling of the Sikorsky
and that of the old crate, as he had affectionately dubbed the great
torpedolike rocket that was to bear me out into space in a few hours.
“A thirty-five million mile ceiling,” he mourned dolefully; “think of
it! Mars for a ceiling!”
“And may I hit the ceiling!” I exclaimed, fervently.
The laying of the track upon which the torpedo was to take off had been
the subject of a year of calculation and consultation. The day of
departure had been planned far ahead and the exact point at which Mars
would rise above the eastern horizon on that night calculated, as well
as the time; then it was necessary to make allowances for the rotation
of the earth and the attraction of the nearer heavenly bodies. The track
was then laid in accordance with these calculations. It was constructed
with a very slight drop in the first three quarters of a mile and then
rose gradually at an angle of two and one half degrees from horizontal.
A speed of four and one half miles per second at the take-off would be
sufficient to neutralize gravity; to overcome it, I must attain a speed
of 6.93 miles per second. To allow a sufficient factor of safety I had
powered the torpedo to attain a speed of seven miles per second at the
end of the runway, which I purposed stepping up to ten miles per second
while passing through the earth’s atmosphere. What my speed would be
through space was problematical, but I based all my calculations on the
theory that it would not deviate much from the speed at which I left the
earth’s atmosphere, until I came within the influence of the
gravitational pull of Mars.
The exact instant at which to make the start had also caused me
considerable anxiety. I had calculated it again and again, but there
were so many factors to be taken into consideration that I had found it
expedient to have my figures checked and rechecked by a well-known
physicist and an equally prominent astronomer. Their deductions tallied
perfectly with mine—the torpedo must start upon its journey toward Mars
some time before the red planet rose above the eastern horizon. The
trajectory would be along a constantly flattening arc, influenced
considerably at first by the earth’s gravitational pull, which would
decrease inversely as the square of the distance attained. As the
torpedo left the earth’s surface on a curved tangent, its departure must
be so nicely timed that when it eventually escaped the pull of the earth
its nose would be directed toward Mars.
On paper, these figures appeared most convincing; but, as the moment
approached for my departure, I must confess to a sudden realization that
they were based wholly upon theory, and I was struck with the utter
folly of my mad venture.
For a moment I was aghast. The enormous torpedo, with its sixty tons,
lying there at the end of its mile long track, loomed above me, the
semblance of a gargantuan coffin—my coffin, in which I was presently to
be dashed to earth, or to the bottom of the Pacific, or cast out into
space to wander there to the end of time. I was afraid. I admit it, but
it was not so much the fear of death as the effect of the sudden
realization of the stupendousness of the cosmic forces against which I
had pitted my puny powers that temporarily unnerved me.
Then Jimmy spoke to me. “Let’s have a last look at things inside the old
crate before you shove off,” he suggested, and my nervousness and my
apprehensions vanished beneath the spell of his quiet tones and his
matter-of-fact manner. I was myself again.
Together we inspected the cabin where are located the controls, a wide
and comfortable berth, a table, a chair, writing materials, and a
well-stocked bookshelf. Behind the cabin is a small galley and just
behind the galley a storeroom containing canned and dehydrated foods
sufficient to last me a year. Back of this is a small battery room
containing storage batteries for lighting, heating, and cooking, a
dynamo, and a gas engine. The extreme stern compartment is filled with
rockets and the intricate mechanical device by which they are fed to the
firing chambers by means of the controls in the cabin. Forward of the
main cabin is a large compartment in which are located the water and
oxygen tanks, as well as a quantity of odds and ends necessary either to
my safety or comfort.
Everything, it is needless to say, is fastened securely against the
sudden and terrific stress that must accompany the take-off. Once out in
space, I anticipate no sense of motion, but the start is going to be
rather jarring. To absorb, as much as possible, the shock of the
take-off, the rocket consists of two torpedoes, a smaller torpedo within
a larger one, the former considerably shorter than the latter and
consisting of several sections, each one comprising one of the
compartments I have described. Between the inner and outer shells and
between each two compartments is installed a system of ingenious
hydraulic shock absorbers designed to more or less gradually overcome
the inertia of the inner torpedo during the take-off. I trust that it
functions properly.
In addition to these precautions against disaster at the start, the
chair in which I shall sit before the controls is not only heavily
overstuffed but is secured to a track or framework that is equipped with
shock absorbers. Furthermore, there are means whereby I may strap myself
securely into the chair before taking off.
I have neglected nothing essential to my safety, upon which depends the
success of my project.
Following our final inspection of the interior, Jimmy and I clambered to
the top of the torpedo for a last inspection of the parachutes, which I
hope will sufficiently retard the speed of the rocket after it enters
the atmosphere of Mars to permit me to bail out with my own parachute in
time to make a safe landing. The main parachutes are in a series of
compartments running the full length of the top of the torpedo. To
explain them more clearly, I may say that they are a continuous series
of batteries of parachutes, each battery consisting of a number of
parachutes of increasing diameter from the uppermost, which is the
smallest. Each battery is in an individual compartment, and each
compartment is covered at the will of the operator by controls in the
cabin. Each parachute is anchored to the torpedo by a separate cable. I
expect about one half of them to be torn loose while checking the speed
of the torpedo sufficiently to permit the others to hold and further
retard it to a point where I may safely open the doors and jump with my
own parachute and oxygen tank.
The moment for departure was approaching. Jimmy and I had descended to
the ground and the most difficult ordeal now faced me—that of saying
good-bye to these loyal friends and co-workers. We did not say much, we
were too filled with emotion, and there was not a dry eye among us.
Without exception none of the Mexican laborers could understand why the
nose of the torpedo was not pointed straight up in the air if my
intended destination were _Marte_. Nothing could convince them that I
would not shoot out a short distance and make a graceful nose dive into
the Pacific—that is, if I started at all, which many of them doubted.
There was a handclasp all around, and then I mounted the ladder leaning
against the side of the torpedo and entered it. As I closed the door of
the outer shell, I saw my friends piling into the trucks and pulling
away, for I had given orders that no one should be within a mile of the
rocket when I took off, fearing, as I did, the effect upon them of the
terrific explosions that must accompany the take-off. Securing the outer
door with its great vaultlike bolts, I closed the inner door and
fastened it; then I took my seat before the controls and buckled the
straps that held me to the chair.
I glanced at my watch. It lacked nine minutes of the zero hour. In nine
minutes I should be on my way out into the great void, or in nine
minutes I should be dead. If all did not go well, the disaster would
follow within a fraction of a split second after I touched the first
firing control.
Seven minutes! My throat felt dry and parched; I wanted a drink of
water, but there was no time.
Four minutes! Thirty-five million miles are a lot of miles, yet I
planned on spanning them in between forty and forty-five days.
Two minutes! I inspected the oxygen gauge and opened the valve a trifle
wider.
One minute! I thought of my mother and wondered if she were way out
there somewhere waiting for me.
Thirty seconds! My hand was on the control. Fifteen seconds! Ten, five,
four, three, two—one!
I turned the pointer! There was a muffled roar. The torpedo leaped
forward. I was off!
I knew that the take-off was a success. I glanced through the port at my
side at the instant that the torpedo started, but so terrific was its
initial speed that I saw only a confused blur as the landscape rushed
past. I was thrilled and delighted by the ease and perfection with which
the take-off had been accomplished, and I must admit that I was not a
little surprised by the almost negligible effects that were noticeable
in the cabin. I had had the sensation as of a giant hand pressing me
suddenly back against the upholstery of my chair, but that had passed
almost at once, and now there was no sensation different from that which
one might experience sitting in an easy chair in a comfortable
drawing-room on terra firma.
There was no sensation of motion after the first few seconds that were
required to pass through the earth’s atmosphere, and now that I had done
all that lay within my power to do, I could only leave the rest to
momentum, gravitation, and fate. Releasing the straps that held me to
the chair, I moved about the cabin to look through the various ports, of
which there were several in the sides, keel, and top of the torpedo.
Space was a black void dotted with countless points of light. The earth
I could not see, for it lay directly astern; far ahead was Mars. All
seemed well. I switched on the electric lights, and seating myself at
the table, made the first entries in the log; then I checked over
various computations of time and distances.
My calculations suggested that in about three hours from the take-off
the torpedo would be moving almost directly toward Mars; and from time
to time I took observations through the wide-angle telescopic periscope
that is mounted flush with the upper surface of the torpedo’s shell, but
the results were not entirely reassuring. In two hours Mars was dead
ahead—the arc of the trajectory was not flattening as it should. I
became apprehensive. What was wrong? Where had our careful computations
erred?
I left the periscope and gazed down through the main keel port. Below
and ahead was the Moon, a gorgeous spectacle as viewed through the clear
void of space from a distance some seventy-two thousand miles less than
I had ever seen it before and with no earthly atmosphere to reduce
visibility. Tycho, Plato, and Copernicus stood out in bold relief upon
the brazen disc of the great satellite, deepening by contrast the
shadows of Mare Serenitatis and Mare Tranquilitatis. The rugged peaks of
the Apennine and the Altai lay revealed as distinctly as I had ever seen
them through the largest telescope. I was thrilled, but I was distinctly
worried, too.
Three hours later I was less than fifty-nine thousand miles from the
Moon; where its aspect had been gorgeous before, it now beggared
description, but my apprehension had cause to increase in proportion; I
might say, as the square of its increasing gorgeousness. Through the
periscope I had watched the arc of my trajectory pass through the plane
of Mars and drop below it. I knew quite definitely then that I could
never reach my goal. I tried not to think of the fate that lay ahead of
me; but, instead, sought to discover the error that had wrought this
disaster.
For an hour I checked over various calculations, but could discover
nothing that might shed light on the cause of my predicament; then I
switched off the lights and looked down through the keel port to have a
closer view of the Moon. It was not there! Stepping to the port side of
the cabin, I looked through one of the heavy circular glasses out into
the void of space. For an instant I was horror stricken; apparently just
off the port bow loomed an enormous world. It was the Moon, less than
twenty-three thousand miles away, and I was hurtling toward it at the
rate of thirty-six thousand miles an hour!
I leaped to the periscope, and in the next few seconds I accomplished
some lightning mental calculating that must constitute an all-time
record. I watched the deflection of our course in the direction of the
Moon, following it across the lens of the periscope, I computed the
distance to the Moon and the speed of the torpedo, and I came to the
conclusion that I had better than a fighting chance of missing the great
orb. I had little fear of anything but a direct hit, since our speed was
so great that the attraction of the Moon could not hold us if we missed
her even by a matter of feet; but it was quite evident that it had
affected our flight, and with this realization came the answer to the
question that had been puzzling me.
To my mind flashed the printer’s story of the first perfect book. It had
been said that no book had ever before been published containing not a
single error. A great publishing house undertook to publish such a book.
The galley proofs were read and reread by a dozen different experts, the
page proofs received the same careful scrutiny. At last the masterpiece
was ready for the press—errorless! It was printed and bound and sent out
to the public, and then it was discovered that the title had been
misspelled on the title page. With all our careful calculation, with all
our checking and rechecking, we had overlooked the obvious; we had not
taken the Moon into consideration at all.
Explain it if you can; I cannot. It was just one of those things, as
people say when a good team loses to a poor one; it was a _break_, and a
bad one. How bad it was I did not even try to conjecture at the time; I
just sat at the periscope watching the Moon racing toward us. As we
neared it, it presented the most gorgeous spectacle that I have ever
witnessed. Each mountain peak and crater stood out in vivid detail. Even
the great height of summits over twenty-five thousand feet appeared
distinguishable to me, though imagination must have played a major part
in the illusion, since I was looking down upon them from above.
Suddenly I realized that the great sphere was passing rapidly from the
field of the periscope, and I breathed a sigh of relief—we were not
going to score a clean hit, we were going to pass by.
I returned then to the porthole. The Moon lay just ahead and a little to
the left. It was no longer a great sphere; it was a world that filled my
whole range of vision. Against its black horizon I saw titanic peaks;
below me huge craters yawned. I stood with God on high and looked down
upon a dead world.
Our transit of the Moon required a little less than four minutes; I
timed it carefully that I might check our speed. How close we came I may
only guess; perhaps five thousand feet above the tallest peaks, but it
was close enough. The pull of the Moon’s gravitation had definitely
altered our course, but owing to our speed we had eluded her clutches.
Now we were racing away from her, but to what?
The nearest star, Alpha Centauri, is twenty-five and a half million
million miles from earth. Write that on your
typewriter—25,500,000,000,000 miles. But why trifle with short distances
like this? There was little likelihood that I should visit Alpha
Centauri with all the wide range of space at my command and many more
interesting places to go. I knew that I had ample room in which to
wander, since science has calculated the diameter of space to be
eighty-four thousand million light years, which, when one reflects that
light travels at the rate of one hundred eighty-six thousand miles a
second, should satisfy the wanderlust of the most inveterate roamer.
However, I was not greatly concerned with any of these distances, as I
had food and water for only a year, during which time the torpedo might
travel slightly more than three hundred fifteen million miles. Even if
it reached our near neighbor, Alpha Centauri, I should not then be
greatly interested in the event, as I should have been dead for over
eighty thousand years. Such is the immensity of the universe!
During the next twenty-four hours the course of the torpedo nearly
paralleled the Moon’s orbit around the earth. Not only had the pull of
the Moon deflected its course, but now it seemed evident that the earth
had seized us and that we were doomed to race through eternity around
her, a tiny, second satellite. But I did not wish to be a moon,
certainly not an insignificant moon that in all probability might not be
picked up by even the largest telescope.
The next month was the most trying of my life. It seems the height of
egotism even to mention my life in the face of the stupendous cosmic
forces that engulfed it; but it was the only life I had and I was fond
of it, and the more imminent seemed the moment when it should be snuffed
out, the better I liked it.
At the end of the second day it was quite apparent that we had eluded
the grip of the earth. I cannot say that I was elated at the discovery.
My plan to visit Mars was ruined. I should have been glad to return to
earth. If I could have landed safely on Mars, I certainly could have
landed safely on earth. But there was another reason why I should have
been glad to have returned to earth, a reason that loomed, large and
terrible, ahead—the Sun. We were heading straight for the Sun now. Once
in the grip of that mighty power, nothing could affect our destiny; we
were doomed. For three months I must await the inevitable end, before
plunging into that fiery furnace. Furnace is an inadequate word by which
to suggest the Sun’s heat, which is reputedly from thirty to sixty
million degrees at the center, a fact which should not have concerned me
greatly, since I did not anticipate reaching the center.
The days dragged on, or, I should say, the long night—there were no
days, other than the record that I kept of the passing hours. I read a
great deal. I made no entries in the log. Why write something that was
presently to be plunged into the Sun and consumed? I experimented in the
galley, attempting fancy cooking. I ate a great deal; it helped to pass
the time away, and I enjoyed my meals.
On the thirtieth day I was scanning space ahead when I saw a gorgeous,
shimmering crescent far to the right of our course; but I must confess
that I was not greatly interested in sights of any sort. In sixty days I
should be in the Sun. Long before that, however, the increasing heat
would have destroyed me. The end was approaching rapidly.
III
RUSHING TOWARD VENUS
The psychological effects of an experience such as that through which I
had been passing must be considerable, and even though they could be
neither weighed nor measured, I was yet conscious of changes that had
taken place in me because of them. For thirty days I had been racing
alone through space toward absolute annihilation, toward an end that
would probably not leave a single nucleus of the atoms that compose me
an electron to carry on with, I had experienced the ultimate in
solitude, and the result had been to deaden my sensibilities; doubtless
a wise provision of nature.
Even the realization that the splendid crescent, looming enormously off
the starboard bow of the torpedo, was Venus failed to excite me greatly.
What if I were to approach Venus more closely than any other human being
of all time! It meant nothing. Were I to see God, himself, even that
would mean nothing. It became apparent that the value of what we see is
measurable only by the size of our prospective audience. Whatever I saw,
who might never have an audience, was without value.
Nevertheless, more to pass away the time than because I was particularly
interested in the subject, I began to make some rough calculations.
These indicated that I was about eight hundred sixty-five thousand miles
from the orbit of Venus and that I should cross it in about twenty-four
hours. I could not, however, compute my present distance from the planet
accurately. I only knew that it appeared very close. When I say close, I
mean relatively. The earth was some twenty-five million miles away, the
Sun about sixty-eight million, so that an object as large as Venus, at a
distance of one or two million miles, appeared close.
As Venus travels in her orbit at the rate of nearly twenty-two miles per
second, or over one million six hundred thousand miles in a terrestrial
day, it appeared evident to me that she would cross my path some time
within the next twenty-four hours.
It occurred to me that, passing closely, as was unavoidable, she might
deflect the course of the torpedo and save me from the Sun; but I knew
this to be a vain hope. Undoubtedly, the path of the torpedo would be
bent, but the Sun would not relinquish his prey. With these thoughts, my
apathy returned, and I lost interest in Venus.
Selecting a book, I lay down on my bed to read. The interior of the
cabin was brightly illuminated. I am extravagant with electricity. I
have the means of generating it for eleven more months; but I shall not
need it after a few weeks, so why should I be parsimonious?
I read for a few hours, but as reading in bed always makes me sleepy, I
eventually succumbed. When I awoke, I lay for a few minutes in luxurious
ease. I might be racing toward extinction at the rate of thirty-six
thousand miles an hour, but I, myself, was unhurried. I recalled the
beautiful spectacle that Venus had presented when I had last observed
her and decided to have another look at her. Stretching languorously, I
arose and stepped to one of the starboard portholes.
The picture framed by the casing of that circular opening was gorgeous
beyond description. Apparently less than half as far away as before, and
twice as large, loomed the mass of Venus outlined by an aureole of light
where the Sun, behind her, illuminated her cloudy envelope and lighted
to burning brilliance a thin crescent along the edge nearest me.
I looked at my watch. Twelve hours had passed since I first discovered
the planet, and now, at last, I became excited. Venus was apparently
half as far away as it had been twelve hours ago, and I knew that the
torpedo had covered half the distance that had separated us from her
orbit at that time. A collision was possible, it even seemed within the
range of probability that I should be dashed to the surface of this
inhospitable, lifeless world.
Well, what of it? Am I not already doomed? What difference can it make
to me if the end comes a few weeks sooner than I had anticipated? Yet I
was excited. I cannot say that I felt fear. I have no fear of death—that
left me when my mother died; but now that the great adventure loomed so
close I was overwhelmed by contemplation of it and the great wonder that
it induced. What would follow?
The long hours dragged on. It seemed incredible to me, accustomed though
I am to thinking in units of terrific speed, that the torpedo and Venus
were racing toward the same point in her orbit at such inconceivable
velocities, the one at the rate of thirty-six thousand miles per hour,
the other at over sixty-seven thousand.
It was now becoming difficult to view the planet through the side port,
as she moved steadily closer and closer to our path. I went to the
periscope—she was gliding majestically within its range. I knew that at
that moment the torpedo was less than thirty-six thousand miles, less
than an hour, from the path of the planet’s orbit, and there could be no
doubt now but that she had already seized us in her grasp. We were
destined to make a clean hit. Even under the circumstances I could not
restrain a smile at the thought of the marksmanship that this fact
revealed. I had aimed at Mars and was about to hit Venus; unquestionably
the all-time cosmic record for poor shots.
Even though I did not shrink from death, even though the world’s best
astronomers have assured us that Venus must be unfitted to support human
life, that where her surface is not unutterably hot it is unutterably
cold, even though she be oxygenless, as they aver, yet the urge to live
that is born with each of us compelled me to make the same preparations
to land that I should have had I successfully reached my original goal,
Mars.
Slipping into a fleece-lined suit of coveralls, I donned goggles and a
fleece-lined helmet; then I adjusted the oxygen tank that was designed
to hang in front of me, lest it foul the parachute, and which can be
automatically jettisoned in the event that I reach an atmosphere that
will support life, for it would be an awkward and dangerous appendage to
be cumbered with while landing. Finally, I adjusted my chute.
I glanced at my watch. If my calculations have been correct, we should
strike in about fifteen minutes. Once more I returned to the periscope.
The sight that met my eyes was awe inspiring. We were plunging toward a
billowing mass of black clouds. It was like chaos on the dawn of
creation. The gravitation of the planet had seized us. The floor of the
cabin was no longer beneath me—I was standing on the forward bulkhead
now; but this condition I had anticipated when I designed the torpedo.
We were diving nose on toward the planet. In space there had been
neither up nor down, but now there was a very definite down.
From where I stood I could reach the controls, and beside me was the
door in the side of the torpedo. I released three batteries of
parachutes and opened the door in the wall of the inner torpedo. There
was a noticeable jar, as though the parachutes had opened and
temporarily checked the speed of the torpedo. This must mean that I had
entered an atmosphere of some description and that there was not a
second to waste.
With a single movement of a lever I loosed the remaining parachutes;
then I turned to the outer door. Its bolts were controlled by a large
wheel set in the center of the door and were geared to open quickly and
with ease. I adjusted the mouthpiece of the oxygen line across my lips
and quickly spun the wheel.
Simultaneously the door flew open and the air pressure within the
torpedo shot me out into space. My right hand grasped the rip cord of my
chute; but I waited. I looked about for the torpedo. It was racing
almost parallel with me, all its parachutes distended above it. Just an
instant’s glimpse I had of it, and then it dove into the cloud mass and
was lost to view; but what a weirdly magnificent spectacle it had
presented in that brief instant!
Safe now from any danger of fouling with the torpedo, I jerked the rip
cord of my parachute just as the clouds swallowed me. Through my
fleece-lined suit I felt the bitter cold; like a dash of ice water the
cold clouds slapped me in the face; then, to my relief, the chute
opened, and I fell more slowly.
Down, down, down I dropped. I could not even guess the duration, nor the
distance. It was very dark and very wet, like sinking into the depths of
the ocean without feeling the pressure of the water. My thoughts during
those long moments were such as to baffle description. Perhaps the
oxygen made me a little drunk; I do not know. I felt exhilarated and
intensely eager to solve the great mystery beneath me. The thought that
I was about to die did not concern me so much as what I might see before
I died. I was about to land on Venus—the first human being in all the
world to see the face of the veiled planet.
Suddenly I emerged into a cloudless space; but far below me were what
appeared in the darkness to be more clouds, recalling to my mind the
often advanced theory of the two cloud envelopes of Venus. As I
descended, the temperature rose gradually, but it was still cold.
As I entered the second cloud bank, there was a very noticeable rise in
temperature the farther I fell. I shut off the oxygen supply and tried
breathing through my nose. By inhaling deeply I discovered that I could
take in sufficient oxygen to support life, and an astronomical theory
was shattered. Hope flared within me like a beacon on a fog-hid landing
field.
As I floated gently downward, I presently became aware of a faint
luminosity far below. What could it be? There were many obvious reasons
why it could not be sunlight; sunlight would not come from below, and,
furthermore, it was night on this hemisphere of the planet. Naturally
many weird conjectures raced through my mind. I wondered if this could
be the light from an incandescent world, but immediately discarded that
explanation as erroneous, knowing that the heat from an incandescent
world would long since have consumed me. Then it occurred to me that it
might be refracted light from that portion of the cloud envelope
illuminated by the Sun, yet if such were the case, it seemed obvious
that the clouds about me should be luminous, which they were not.
There seemed only one practical solution. It was the solution that an
earth man would naturally arrive at. Being what I am, a highly civilized
creature from a world already far advanced by science and invention, I
attributed the source of this light to these twin forces of superior
intelligence. I could only account for that faint glow by attributing it
to the reflection upon the under side of the cloud mass of artificial
light produced by intelligent creatures upon the surface of this world
toward which I was slowly settling.
I wondered what these beings would be like, and if my excitement grew as
I anticipated the wonders that were soon to be revealed to my eyes, I
believe that it was a pardonable excitement, under the circumstances.
Upon the threshold of such an adventure who would not have been moved to
excitement by contemplation of the experiences awaiting him?
Now I removed the mouthpiece of the oxygen tube entirely and found that
I could breathe easily. The light beneath me was increasing gradually.
About me I thought I saw vague, dark shapes among the cloud masses.
Shadows, perhaps, but of what? I detached the oxygen tank and let it
fall. I distinctly heard it strike something an instant after I had
released it. Then a shadow loomed darkly beneath me, and an instant
later my feet struck something that gave beneath them.
I dropped into a mass of foliage and grasped wildly for support. A
moment later I began to fall more rapidly and guessed what had happened;
the parachute had been up-tilted by contact with the foliage. I clutched
at leaves and branches, fruitlessly, and then I was brought to a sudden
stop; evidently the chute had fouled something. I hoped that it would
hold until I found a secure resting place.
As I groped about in the dark, my hand finally located a sturdy branch,
and a moment later I was astride it, my back to the bole of a large
tree—another theory gone the ignoble path of countless predecessors; it
was evident that there was vegetation on Venus. At least there was one
tree; I could vouch for that, as I was sitting in it, and doubtless the
black shadows I had passed were other, taller trees.
Having found secure lodgment, I divested myself of my parachute after
salvaging some of its ropes and the straps from the harness, which I
thought I might find helpful in descending the tree. Starting at the top
of a tree, in darkness and among clouds, one may not be positive what
the tree is like nearer the ground. I also removed my goggles. Then I
commenced to descend. The girth of the tree was enormous, but the
branches grew sufficiently close together to permit me to find safe
footing.
I did not know how far I had fallen through the second cloud stratum
before I lodged in the tree nor how far I had descended the tree, but
all together it must have been close to two thousand feet; yet I was
still in the clouds. Could the entire atmosphere of Venus be forever fog
laden? I hoped not, for it was a dreary prospect.
The light from below had increased a little as I descended, but not
much; it was still dark about me. I continued to descend. It was
tiresome work and not without danger, this climbing down an unfamiliar
tree in a fog, at night, toward an unknown world. But I could not remain
where I was, and there was nothing above to entice me upward; so I
continued to descend.
What a strange trick fate had played me. I had wanted to visit Venus,
but had discarded the idea when assured by my astronomer friends that
the planet could not support either animal or vegetable life. I had
started for Mars, and now, fully ten days before I had hoped to reach
the red planet, I was on Venus, breathing perfectly good air among the
branches of a tree that evidently dwarfed the giant Sequoias.
The illumination was increasing rapidly now, the clouds were thinning;
through breaks I caught glimpses far below, glimpses of what appeared to
be an endless vista of foliage, softly moonlit—but Venus had no moon. In
that, insofar as the seeming moonlight was concerned, I could fully
concur with the astronomers. This illumination came from no moon, unless
Venus’s satellite lay beneath her inner envelope of clouds, which was
preposterous.
A moment later I emerged entirely from the cloud bank, but though I
searched in all directions, I saw nothing but foliage, above, around,
below me, yet I could see far down into that abyss of leaves. In the
soft light I could not determine the color of the foliage, but I was
sure that it was not green; it was some light, delicate shade of another
color.
I had descended another thousand feet since I had emerged from the
clouds, and I was pretty well exhausted (the month of inactivity and
overeating had softened me), when I saw just below me what appeared to
be a causeway leading from the tree I was descending to another
adjacent. I also discovered that from just below where I clung the limbs
had been cut away from the tree to a point below the causeway. Here were
two startling and unequivocal evidences of the presence of intelligent
beings. Venus was inhabited! But by what? What strange, arboreal
creatures built causeways high among these giant trees? Were they a
species of monkey-man? Were they of a high or low order of intelligence?
How would they receive me?
At this juncture in my vain speculations I was startled by a noise above
me. Something was moving in the branches overhead. The sound was coming
nearer, and it seemed to me that it was being made by something of
considerable size and weight, but perhaps, I realized, that conjecture
was the child of my imagination. However, I felt most uncomfortable. I
was unarmed. I have never carried weapons. My friends had urged a
perfect arsenal upon me before I embarked upon my adventure, but I had
argued that if I arrived on Mars unarmed it would be _prima facie_
evidence of my friendly intentions, and even if my reception were
warlike, I should be no worse off, since I could not hope,
single-handed, to conquer a world, no matter how well armed I were.
Suddenly, above me, to the crashing of some heavy body through the
foliage were added hideous screams and snarls; and in the terrifying
dissonance I recognized the presence of more than a single creature. Was
I being pursued by all the fearsome denizens of this Venusan forest!
Perhaps my nerves were slightly unstrung; and who may blame them if they
were, after what I had passed through so recently and during the long,
preceding month? They were not entirely shattered, however, and I could
still appreciate the fact that night noises often multiply themselves in
a most disconcerting way. I have heard coyotes yapping and screaming
around my camp on Arizona nights when, but for the actual knowledge that
there were but one or two of them, I could have sworn that there were a
hundred, had I trusted only to my sense of hearing.
But in this instance I was quite positive that the voices of more than a
single beast were mingling to produce the horrid din that, together with
the sound of their passage, was definitely and unquestionably drawing
rapidly nearer me. Of course I did not know that the owners of those
awesome voices were pursuing me, though a still, small voice within
seemed to be assuring me that such was the fact.
I wished that I might reach the causeway below me (I should feel better
standing squarely on two feet), but it was too far to drop and there
were no more friendly branches to give me support; then I thought of the
ropes I had salvaged from the abandoned parachute. Quickly uncoiling
them from about my waist, I looped one of them over the branch upon
which I sat, grasped both strands firmly in my hands, and prepared to
swing from my porch. Suddenly the screams and snarling growls ceased;
and then, close above me now, I heard the noise of something descending
toward me and saw the branches shaking to its weight.
Lowering my body from the branch, I swung downward and slid the fifteen
or more feet to the causeway, and as I alighted the silence of the great
forest was again shattered by a hideous scream just above my head.
Looking up quickly, I saw a creature launching itself toward me and just
beyond it a snarling face of utter hideousness. I caught but the
briefest glimpse of it—just enough to see that it was a face, with eyes
and a mouth—then it was withdrawn amidst the foliage.
Perhaps I only sensed that hideous vision subconsciously at the time,
for the whole scene was but a flash upon the retina of my eye, and the
other beast was in mid-air above me at the instant; but it remained
indelibly impressed upon my memory, and I was to recall it upon a later
day under circumstances so harrowing that the mind of mortal earth man
may scarce conceive them.
As I leaped back to avoid the creature springing upon me, I still clung
to one strand of the rope down which I had lowered myself to the
causeway. My grasp upon the rope was unconscious and purely mechanical;
it was in my hand, and my fist was clenched; and as I leaped away, I
dragged the rope with me. A fortuitous circumstance, no doubt, but a
most fortunate one.
The creature missed me, alighting on all fours a few feet from me, and
there it crouched, apparently slightly bewildered, and, fortunately for
me, it did not immediately charge, giving me the opportunity to collect
my wits and back slowly away, at the same time mechanically coiling the
rope in my right hand. The little, simple things one does in moments of
stress or excitement often seem entirely beyond reason and incapable of
explanation; but I have thought that they may be dictated by a
subconscious mind reacting to the urge of self-preservation. Possibly
they are not always well directed and may as often fail to be of service
as not, but then it may be possible that subconscious minds are no less
fallible than the objective mind, which is wrong far more often than it
is right. I cannot but seek for some explanation of the urge that caused
me to retain that rope, since, all unknown to me, it was to be the
slender thread upon which my life was to hang.
Silence had again descended upon the weird scene. Since the final scream
of the hideous creature that had retreated into the foliage after this
thing had leaped for me, there had been no sound. The creature that
crouched facing me seemed slightly bewildered. I am positive now that it
had not been pursuing me, but that it itself had been the object of
pursuit by the other beast that had retreated.
In the dim half-light of the Venusan night I saw confronting me a
creature that might be conjured only in the half-delirium of some horrid
nightmare. It was about as large as a full-grown puma, and stood upon
four handlike feet that suggested that it might be almost wholly
arboreal. The front legs were much longer than the hind, suggesting, in
this respect, the hyena; but here the similarity ceased, for the
creature’s furry pelt was striped longitudinally with alternate bands of
red and yellow, and its hideous head bore no resemblance to any earthly
animal. No external ears were visible, and in the low forehead was a
single large, round eye at the end of a thick antenna about four inches
long. The jaws were powerful and armed with long, sharp fangs, while
from either side of the neck projected a powerful chela. Never have I
seen a creature so fearsomely armed for offense as was this nameless
beast of another world. With those powerful crablike pincers it could
easily have held an opponent far stronger than a man and dragged it to
those terrible jaws.
For a time it eyed me with that single, terrifying eye that moved to and
fro at the end of its antenna, and all the time its chelae were waving
slowly, opening and closing. In that brief moment of delay I looked
about me, and the first thing that I discovered was that I stood
directly in front of an opening cut in the bole of the tree; an opening
about three feet wide and over six feet high. But the most remarkable
thing about it was that it was closed by a door; not a solid door, but
one suggesting a massive wooden grill.
As I stood contemplating it and wondering what to do, I thought that I
saw something moving behind it. Then a voice spoke to me out of the
darkness beyond the door. It sounded like a human voice, though it spoke
in a language that I could not understand. The tones were peremptory. I
could almost imagine that it said, “Who are you, and what do you want
here in the middle of the night?”
“I am a stranger,” I said. “I come in peace and friendship.”
Of course I knew that whatever it was behind that door, it could not
understand me; but I hoped that my tone would assure it of my peaceful
designs. There was a moment’s silence and then I heard other voices.
Evidently the situation was being discussed; then I saw that the
creature facing me upon the causeway was creeping toward me, and turned
my attention from the doorway to the beast.
I had no weapons, nothing but a length of futile rope; but I knew that I
must do something. I could not stand there supinely and let the creature
seize and devour me without striking a blow in my own defense. I
uncoiled a portion of the rope and, more in despair than with any hope
that I could accomplish anything of a defensive nature, nicked the end
of it in the face of the advancing beast. You have seen a boy snap a wet
towel at a companion; perhaps you have been flicked in that way, and if
you have, you know that it hurts.
Of course I did not expect to overcome my adversary by any such means as
this; to be truthful, I did not know what I did expect to accomplish.
Perhaps I just felt that I must do something, and this was the only
thing that occurred to me. The result merely demonstrated the efficiency
of that single eye and the quickness of the chelae. I snapped that rope
as a ringmaster snaps a whip; but though the rope end travelled with
great speed and the act must have been unexpected, the creature caught
the rope in one of its chelae before it reached its face. Then it hung
on and sought to drag me toward those frightful jaws.
I learned many a trick of roping from a cowboy friend of my motion
picture days, and one of these I now put into use in an endeavor to
entangle the crablike chelae. Suddenly giving the rope sufficient slack,
I threw a half hitch around the chela that gripped it, immediately
following it with a second, whereupon the creature commenced to pull
desperately away. I think it was motivated solely by an instinctive urge
to pull toward its jaws anything that was held in its chelae; but for
how long it would continue to pull away before it decided to change its
tactics and charge me, I could not even guess; and so I acted upon a
sudden inspiration and hurriedly made fast the end of the rope that I
held to one of the stout posts that supported the handrail of the
causeway; then, of a sudden, the thing charged me, roaring furiously.
I turned and ran, hoping that I could get out of the reach of those
terrible chelae before the creature was stopped by the rope; and this I
but barely managed to do. I breathed a sigh of relief as I saw the great
body flipped completely over on its back as the rope tautened, but the
hideous scream of rage that followed left me cold. Nor was my relief of
any great duration, for as soon as the creature had scrambled to its
feet, it seized the rope in its other chela and severed it as neatly as
one might with a pair of monstrous tinner’s snips; and then it was after
me again, but this time it did not creep.
It seemed evident that my stay upon Venus was to be brief, when suddenly
the door in the tree swung open and three men leaped to the causeway
just behind the charging terror that was swiftly driving down upon me.
The leading man hurled a short, heavy spear that sank deep into the back
of my infuriated pursuer. Instantly the creature stopped in its tracks
and wheeled about to face these new and more dangerous tormentors; and
as he did so two more spears, hurled by the companions of the first man,
drove into his chest, and with a last frightful scream, the thing
dropped in its tracks, dead.
Then the leading man came toward me. In the subdued light of the forest
he appeared no different from an earth man. He held the point of a
straight, sharp sword pointed at my vitals. Close behind him were the
other two men, each with a drawn sword.
The first man spoke to me in a stern, commanding voice, but I shook my
head to indicate that I could not understand; then he pressed the point
of his weapon against my coveralls, opposite the pit of my stomach, and
jabbed. I backed away. He advanced and jabbed at me again, and again I
backed along the causeway. Now the other two men advanced and the three
of them fell to examining me, meanwhile talking among themselves.
I could see them better now. They were about my own height and in every
detail of their visible anatomy they appeared identical with terrestrial
human beings, nor was a great deal left to my imagination—the men were
almost naked. They wore loincloths and little else other than the belts
that supported the scabbards of their swords. Their skins appeared to be
much darker than mine, but not so dark as a negro’s, and their faces
were smooth and handsome.
Several times one or another of them addressed me and I always replied,
but neither understood what the other said. Finally, after a lengthy
discussion, one of them reëntered the opening in the tree and a moment
later I saw the interior of a chamber, just within the doorway,
illuminated; then one of the two remaining men motioned me forward and
pointed toward the doorway.
Understanding that he wished me to enter, I stepped forward, and, as I
passed them, they kept their sword points against my body—they were
taking no chances with me. The other man awaited me in the center of a
large room hewn from the interior of the great tree. Beyond him were
other doorways leading from this room, doubtless into other apartments.
There were chairs and a table in the room; the walls were carved and
painted; there was a large rug upon the floor; from a small vessel
depending from the center of the ceiling a soft light illuminated the
interior as brightly as might sunlight flooding through an open window,
but there was no glare.
The other men had entered and closed the door, which they fastened by a
device that was not apparent to me at the time; then one of them pointed
to a chair and motioned me to be seated. Under the bright light they
examined me intently, and I them. My clothing appeared to puzzle them
most; they examined and discussed its material, texture, and weave, if I
could judge correctly by their gestures and inflections.
Finding the heat unendurable in my fleece-lined coveralls, I removed
them and my leather coat and polo shirt. Each newly revealed article
aroused their curiosity and comment. My light skin and blond hair also
received their speculative attention.
Presently one of them left the chamber, and while he was absent another
removed the various articles that had lain upon the table. These
consisted of what I took to be books bound in wooden and in leather
covers, several ornaments, and a dagger in a beautifully wrought sheath.
When the man who had left the room returned, he brought food and drink
which he placed upon the table; and by signs the three indicated that I
might eat. There were fruits and nuts in highly polished, carved wooden
bowls; there was something I took to be bread, on a golden platter; and
there was honey in a silver jug. A tall, slender goblet contained a
whitish liquid that resembled milk. This last receptacle was a delicate,
translucent ceramic of an exquisite blue shade. These things and the
appointments of the room bespoke culture, refinement, and good taste,
making the savage apparel of their owners appear incongruous.
The fruits and nuts were unlike any with which I was familiar, both in
appearance and flavor; the bread was coarse but delicious; and the
honey, if such it were, suggested candied violets to the taste. The milk
(I can find no other earthly word to describe it) was strong and almost
pungent, yet far from unpleasant. I imagined at the time that one might
grow to be quite fond of it.
The table utensils were similar to those with which we are familiar in
civilized portions of the earth; there were hollowed instruments with
which to dip or scoop, sharp ones with which to cut, and others with
tines with which to impale. There was also a handled pusher, which I
recommend to earthly hostesses. All these were of metal.
While I ate, the three men conversed earnestly, one or another of them
occasionally offering me more food. They seemed hospitable and
courteous, and I felt that if they were typical of the inhabitants of
Venus I should find my life here a pleasant one. That it would not be a
bed of roses, however, was attested by the weapons that the men
constantly wore; one does not carry a sword and a dagger about with him
unless he expects to have occasion to use them, except on dress parade.
When I had finished my meal, two of the men escorted me from the room by
a rear doorway, up a flight of circular stairs, and ushered me into a
small chamber. The stairway and corridor were illuminated by a small
lamp similar to that which hung in the room where I had eaten, and light
from this lamp shone through the heavy wooden grating of the door, into
the room where I was now locked and where my captors left me to my own
devices.
Upon the floor was a soft mattress over which were spread coverings of a
silky texture. It being very warm, I removed all of my clothing except
my undershorts and lay down to sleep. I was tired after my arduous
descent of the giant tree and dozed almost immediately. I should have
been asleep at once had I not been suddenly startled to wakefulness by a
repetition of that hideous scream with which the beast that had pursued
me through the tree had announced its rage and chagrin when I had eluded
it.
However, it was not long before I fell asleep, my dozing mind filled
with a chaos of fragmentary recollections of my stupendous adventure.
IV
TO THE HOUSE OF THE KING
When I awoke, it was quite light in the room, and through a window I saw
the foliage of trees, lavender and heliotrope and violet in the light of
a new day. I arose and went to the window. I saw no sign of sunlight,
yet a brightness equivalent to sunlight pervaded everything. The air was
warm and sultry. Below me I could see sections of various causeways
extending from tree to tree. On some of these I caught glimpses of
people. All the men were naked, except for loincloths, nor did I wonder
at their scant apparel, in the light of my experience of the
temperatures on Venus. There were both men and women; and all the men
were armed with swords and daggers, while the women carried daggers
only. All those whom I saw seemed to be of the same age; there were
neither children nor old people among them. All appeared comely.
From my barred window I sought a glimpse of the ground, but as far down
as I could see there was only the amazing foliage of the trees,
lavender, heliotrope, and violet. And what trees! From my window I could
see several enormous boles fully two hundred feet in diameter. I had
thought the tree I descended a giant, but compared with these, it was
only a sapling.
As I stood contemplating the scene before me, there was a noise at the
door behind me. Turning, I saw one of my captors entering the room. He
greeted me with a few words, which I could not understand, and a
pleasant smile, that I could. I returned his smile and said, “Good
morning!”
He beckoned me to follow him from the room, but I made signs indicating
that I wished to don my clothes first. I knew I should be hot and
uncomfortable in them; I was aware that no one I had seen here wore any
clothing, yet so powerful are the inhibitions of custom and habit that I
shrank from doing the sensible thing and wearing only my undershorts.
At first, when he realized what I wished to do, he motioned me to leave
my clothes where they were and come with him as I was; but eventually he
gave in with another of his pleasant smiles. He was a man of fine
physique, a little shorter than I; by daylight, I could see that his
skin was about that shade of brown that a heavy sun tan imparts to
people of my own race; his eyes were dark brown, his hair black. His
appearance formed a marked contrast to my light skin, blue eyes, and
blond hair.
When I had dressed, I followed him downstairs to a room adjoining the
one I had first entered the previous night. Here the man’s two
companions and two women were seated at a table on which were a number
of vessels containing food. As I entered the room the women’s eyes were
turned upon me curiously; the men smiled and greeted me as had their
fellow, and one of them motioned me to a chair. The women appraised me
frankly but without boldness, and it was evident that they were
discussing me freely between themselves and with the men. They were both
uncommonly goodlooking, their skins being a shade lighter than those of
the men, while their eyes and hair were of about the same color as those
of their male companions. Each wore a single garment of a silken
material similar to that of which my bed cover had been made and in the
form of a long sash, which was wrapped tightly around the body below the
armpits, confining the breasts. From this point it was carried half way
around the body downward to the waist, where it circled the body again,
the loose end then passing between the legs from behind and up through
the sash in front, after the manner of a G string, the remainder falling
in front to the knees.
In addition to these garments, which were beautifully embroidered in
colors, the women wore girdles from which depended pocket pouches and
sheathed daggers, and both were plentifully adorned with ornaments such
as rings, bracelets, and hair ornaments. I could recognize gold and
silver among the various materials of which these things were
fabricated, and there were others that might have been ivory and coral;
but what impressed me most was the exquisite workmanship they displayed,
and I imagined that they were valued more for this than for the
intrinsic worth of the materials that composed them. That this
conjecture might be in accordance with fact was borne out by the
presence among their ornaments of several of the finest workmanship,
obviously carved from ordinary bone.
On the table was bread different from that which I had had the night
before, a dish that I thought might be eggs and meat baked together,
several which I could not recognize either by appearance or taste, and
the familiar milk and honey that I had encountered before. The foods
varied widely in range of flavor, so that it would have been a difficult
palate indeed that would not have found something to its liking.
During the meal they engaged in serious discussion, and I was certain
from their glances and gestures that I was the subject of their debate.
The two girls enlivened the meal by attempting to carry on a
conversation with me, which appeared to afford them a great deal of
merriment, nor could I help joining in their laughter, so infectious was
it. Finally one of them hit upon the happy idea of teaching me their
language. She pointed to herself and said, “Zuro,” and to the other girl
and said, “Alzo”; then the men became interested, and I soon learned
that the name of him who seemed to be the head of the house, the man who
had first challenged me the preceding night, was Duran, the other two
Olthar and Kamlot.
But before I had mastered more than these few words and the names of
some of the foods on the table, breakfast was over and the three men had
conducted me from the house. As we proceeded along the causeway that
passed in front of the house of Duran, the interest and curiosity of
those we passed were instantly challenged as their eyes fell upon me;
and it was at once evident to me that I was a type either entirely
unknown on Venus or at least rare, for my blue eyes and blond hair
caused quite as much comment as my clothing, as I could tell by their
gestures and the direction of their gaze.
We were often stopped by curious friends of my captors, or hosts (I was
not sure yet in which category they fell); but none offered me either
harm or insult, and if I were the object of their curious scrutiny, so
were they of mine. While no two of them were identical in appearance,
they were all handsome and all apparently of about the same age. I saw
no old people and no children.
Presently we approached a tree of such enormous diameter that I could
scarcely believe the testimony of my eyes when I saw it. It was fully
five hundred feet in diameter. Stripped of branches for a hundred feet
above and below the causeway, its surface was dotted with windows and
doors and encircled by wide balconies or verandas. Before a large and
elaborately carved doorway was a group of armed men before whom we
halted while Duran addressed one of their number.
I thought at the time that he called this man Tofar, and such I learned
later was his name. He wore a necklace from which depended a metal disc
bearing a hieroglyphic in relief; otherwise he was not accoutered
differently from his companions. As he and Duran conversed, he appraised
me carefully from head to feet. Presently he and Duran passed through
the doorway into the interior of the tree, while the others continued to
examine me and question Kamlot and Olthar.
While I waited there, I embraced the opportunity to study the elaborate
carvings that surrounded the portal, forming a frame fully five feet
wide. The _motif_ appeared historical, and I could easily imagine that
the various scenes depicted important events in the life of a dynasty or
a nation. The workmanship was exquisite, and it required no stretch of
the imagination to believe that each delicately carved face was the
portrait of some dead or living celebrity. There was nothing grotesque
in the delineation of the various figures, as is so often the case in
work of a similar character on earth, and only the borders that framed
the whole and separated contiguous plaques were conventional.
I was still engrossed by these beautiful examples of the wood carver’s
art when Duran and Tofar returned and motioned Olthar and Kamlot and me
to follow them into the interior of the great tree. We passed through
several large chambers and along wide corridors, all carved from the
wood of the living tree, to the head of a splendid stairway, which we
descended to another level. The chambers near the periphery of the tree
received their light through windows, while the interior chambers and
corridors were illuminated by lamps similar to those I had already seen
in the house of Duran.
Near the foot of the stairway we had descended we entered a spacious
chamber, before the doorway to which stood two men armed with spears and
swords, and before us, across the chamber, we saw a man seated at a
table near a large window. Just inside the doorway we halted, my
companions standing in respectful silence until the man at the table
looked up and spoke to them; then they crossed the room, taking me with
them, and halted before the table, upon the opposite side of which the
man sat facing us.
He spoke pleasantly to my companions, calling each by name, and when
they replied they addressed him as Jong. He was a fine-looking man with
a strong face and a commanding presence. His attire was similar to that
worn by all the other male Venusans I had seen, differing only in that
he wore about his head a fillet that supported a circular metal disc in
the center of his forehead. He appeared much interested in me and
watched me intently while listening to Duran, who, I had no doubt, was
narrating the story of my strange and sudden appearance the night
before.
When Duran had concluded, the man called Jong addressed me. His manner
was serious, his tones kindly. Out of courtesy, I replied, though I knew
that he could understand me no better than I had understood him. He
smiled and shook his head; then he fell into a discussion with the
others. Finally he struck a metal gong that stood near him on the table;
then he arose and came around the table to where I stood. He examined my
clothing carefully, feeling its texture and apparently discussing the
materials and the weave with the others. Then he examined the skin of my
hands and face, felt of my hair, and made me open my mouth that he might
examine my teeth. I was reminded of the horse market and the slave
block. “Perhaps,” I thought, “the latter is more apropos.”
A man entered now whom I took to be a servant and, receiving
instructions from the man called Jong, departed again, while I continued
to be the object of minute investigation. My beard, which was now some
twenty-four hours old, elicited considerable comment. It is not a
beautiful beard at any age, being sparse and reddish, for which reason I
am careful to shave daily when I have the necessary utensils.
I cannot say that I enjoyed this intimate appraisal, but the manner in
which it was conducted was so entirely free from any suggestion of
intentional rudeness or discourtesy, and my position here was so
delicate that my better judgment prevented me from openly resenting the
familiarities of the man called Jong. It is well that I did not.
Presently a man entered through a doorway at my right. I assumed that he
had been summoned by the servant recently dispatched. As he came
forward, I saw that he was much like the others; a handsome man of about
thirty. There are those who declaim against monotony; but for me there
can never be any monotony of beauty, not even if the beautiful things
were all identical, which the Venusans I had so far seen were not. All
were beautiful, but each in his own way.
The man called Jong spoke to the newcomer rapidly for about five
minutes, evidently narrating all that they knew about me and giving
instructions. When he had finished, the other motioned me to follow him;
and a few moments later I found myself in another room on the same
level. It had three large windows and was furnished with several desks,
tables, and chairs. Most of the available wall space was taken up by
shelves on which reposed what I could only assume to be books—thousands
of them.
The ensuing three weeks were as delightful and interesting as any that I
have ever experienced. During this time, Danus, in whose charge I had
been placed, taught me the Venusan language and told me much concerning
the planet, the people among whom I had fallen, and their history. I
found the language easy to master, but I shall not at this time attempt
to describe it fully. The alphabet consists of twenty-four characters,
five of which represent vowel sounds, and these are the only vowel
sounds that the Venusan vocal chords seem able to articulate. The
characters of the alphabet all have the same value, there being no
capital letters. Their system of punctuation differs from ours and is
more practical; for example, before you start to read a sentence you
know whether it is exclamatory, interrogative, a reply to an
interrogation, or a simple statement. Characters having values similar
to the comma and semicolon are used much as we use these two; they have
no colon; their character that functions as does our period follows each
sentence, their question mark and exclamation point preceding the
sentences the nature of which they determine.
A peculiarity of their language that renders it easy to master is the
absence of irregular verbs; the verb root is never altered for voice,
mode, tense, number, or person, distinctions that are achieved by the
use of several simple, auxiliary words.
While I was learning to speak the language of my hosts, I also learned
to read and write it, and I spent many enjoyable hours delving into the
large library of which Danus is the curator while my tutor was absent
attending to his other duties, which are numerous. He is chief physician
and surgeon of his country, physician and surgeon to the king, and head
of a college of medicine and surgery.
One of the first questions that Danus had asked me when I had acquired a
working knowledge of his language was where I came from, but when I told
him I had come from another world more than twenty-six million miles
from his familiar Amtor, which is the name by which the Venusans know
their world, he shook his head skeptically.
“There is no life beyond Amtor,” he said. “How can there be life where
all is fire?”
“What is your theory of the—” I started, but I had to stop. There is no
Amtorian word for universe, neither is there any for sun, moon, star, or
planet. The gorgeous heavens that we see are never seen by the
inhabitants of Venus, obscured as they perpetually are by the two great
cloud envelopes that surround the planet. I started over again. “What do
you believe surrounds Amtor?” I asked.
He stepped to a shelf and returned with a large volume, which he opened
at a beautifully executed map of Amtor. It showed three concentric
circles. Between the two inner circles lay a circular belt designated as
Trabol, which means warm country. Here the boundaries of seas,
continents, and islands were traced to the edges of the two circles that
bounded it, in some places crossing these boundaries as though marking
the spots at which venturesome explorers had dared the perils of an
unknown and inhospitable land.
“This is Trabol,” explained Danus, placing a finger upon that portion of
the map I have briefly described. “It entirely surrounds Strabol, which
lies in the center of Amtor. Strabol is extremely hot, its land is
covered with enormous forests and dense undergrowth, and is peopled by
huge land animals, reptiles, and birds, its warm seas swarm with
monsters of the deep. No man has ventured far into Strabol and lived to
return.
“Beyond Trabol,” he continued, placing his finger on the outer band
designated as Karbol (Cold Country), “lies Karbol. Here it is as cold as
Strabol is hot. There are strange animals there too, and adventurers
have returned with tales of fierce human beings clothed in fur. But it
is an inhospitable land into which there is no occasion to venture and
which few dare penetrate far for fear of being precipitated over the rim
into the molten sea.”
“Over what rim?” I asked.
He looked at me in astonishment. “I can well believe that you come from
another world when you ask me such questions as you do,” he remarked.
“Do you mean to tell me that you know nothing of the physical structure
of Amtor?”
“I know nothing of your theory concerning it,” I replied.
“It is not a theory; it is a fact,” he corrected me gently. “In no other
way may the various phenomena of nature be explained. Amtor is a huge
disc with an upturned rim, like a great saucer; it floats upon a sea of
molten metal and rock, a fact that is incontrovertably proved by the
gushing forth of this liquid mass occasionally from the summits of
mountains, when a hole has been burned in the bottom of Amtor. Karbol,
the cold country, is a wise provision of nature that tempers the
terrific heat that must constantly surge about the outer rim of Amtor.
“Above Amtor, and entirely surrounding her above the molten sea, is a
chaos of fire and flame. From this our clouds protect us. Occasionally
there have occurred rifts in the clouds, and at such times the heat from
the fires above, when the rifts occurred in the daytime, has been so
intense as to wither vegetation and destroy life, while the light that
shone through was of blinding intensity. When these rifts occurred at
night there was no heat, but we saw the sparks from the fire shining
above us.”
I tried to explain the spherical shape of the planets and that Karbol
was only the colder country surrounding one of Amtor’s poles, while
Strabol, the hot country, lay in the equatorial region; that Trabol was
merely one of two temperate zones, the other one being beyond the
equatorial region, which was a band around the middle of a globe and
not, as he supposed, a circular area in the center of a disc. He
listened to me politely, but only smiled and shook his head when I had
finished.
At first I could not comprehend that a man of such evident intelligence,
education, and culture should cling to such a belief as his, but when I
stopped to consider the fact that neither he nor any of his progenitors
had ever seen the heavens, I began to realize that there could not be
much foundation for any other theory, and even theories must have
foundations. I also realized, even more than I had before, something of
what astronomy has meant to the human race of earth in the advancement
of science and civilization. Could there have been such advancement had
the heavens been perpetually hidden from our view? I wonder.
But I did not give up. I drew his attention to the fact that if his
theory were correct, the boundary between Trabol and Strabol (the
temperate and the equatorial zones) should be much shorter than that
separating Trabol from Karbol, the polar region, as was shown on the
map, but could not have been proved by actual survey; while my theory
would require that the exact opposite be true, which was easily
demonstrable and must have been demonstrated if surveys had ever been
made, which I judged from the markings on the map to be the case.
He admitted that surveys had been made and that they had shown the
apparent discrepancy that I had pointed out, but he explained this
ingeniously by a purely Amtorian theory of the relativity of distance,
which he proceeded to elucidate.
“A degree is one thousandth part of the circumference of a circle,” he
commenced. (This is the Amtorian degree, her savants not having had the
advantage of a visible sun to suggest another division of the
circumference of a circle as did the Babylonians, who hit upon three
hundred sixty as being close enough.) “And no matter what the length of
the circumference, it measures just one thousand degrees. The circle
which separates Strabol from Trabol is necessarily one thousand degrees
in length. You will admit that?”
“Certainly,” I replied.
“Very good! Then, will you admit that the circle which separates Trabol
from Karbol measures exactly one thousand degrees?”