The four felt that they understood the situation quite well, indeed.
It was really simple, this far-off world with its standardized life,
this petrified civilization in which everything was guaranteed
except the one real essential--progress.
But what was Fort going to do about it? Billie was not the only one
who was interested; Van Emmon was equally curious, and Smith
privately believed that the geologist was slightly jealous of the
distant athlete. Certainly he was as eager as any one to continue
the investigation, and stoutly defended Powart against any
criticism.
"He's the right man in the right place!" he insisted. "Lord, I wish
I was in his boots!"
"Well, I'm rather thankful you're not, dear," commented Billie with
a look which quickly brought an answering light to his eyes. Yet,
behind her remark there was a certain wistfulness which the doctor
did not overlook.
Yes, the four felt that they were very well acquainted with
Capellette.
But the most amazing part of the whole proposition was yet to be
discovered. It was not until after nearly two weeks of daily
investigation, in fact, that the whole astonishing truth of the
matter was uncovered.
It came through Billie. Fort was now calling regularly at Mona's
house, evidently trying his best to understand the girl and make
himself understood; for he said not a word about his suit. And one
day he suggested that they make a much longer flight than any they
had so far taken together.
"I haven't been down into the contact for a long while. Have you?"
And the two set out, Billie wondering mightily what "the contact"
might be. They flew for several hours in a direction which would
have been called "westerly" on the earth; and during the time they
were above land, Billie saw no sign of factories, farms, or other
forms of industry. In fact, hill and valley alike were laid out with
handsome residences, beautifully kept grounds, vast parks and
extensive greens, suggesting golf. That was all.
Then she noticed something that made her marvel. The sun, which had
stood directly overhead when they left the house, within less than
three hours began to descend with increasing rapidity; so that in
half the length of an ordinary afternoon it had approached to within
an hour of setting. Its motion was so rapid that it could almost be
seen.
Soon Billie concluded that the two fliers were bound for the bottom
of some unusually wide and exceptionally deep canon. She tried to
remember what she had read of the earth's greatest chasms; was it
possible for the sun to disappear in mid-afternoon in such? And yet
the flight went on and on, until Billie began to wonder if a chasm
could be a hundred miles deep.
Soon she could dimly discern the dark mass of the opposite side. The
fliers were steadily approaching this, and all the time going deeper
and deeper. Once Mona turned her eyes searching to the right and
left; whereupon Billie was still further mystified to see that,
although the cleft was fifty or sixty miles in length, yet its
extreme ends seemed entirely open to the world. Nothing but a deep
"V" of blue sky was to be seen in either direction.
The sun disappeared altogether. Always the two walls grew closer and
closer together, until at last Billie could see, despite the
semidarkness, a heavy growth of vegetation on the opposite wall.
Beneath her, as well, the surface was densely wooded.
Still they descended! It was unbelievable; surely the chasm did not
extend right into the heart of the globe. They had been flying for
hours!
At last came a time when the far wall of the cleft was so near that
Billie could have shot a deer upon it. She estimated the distance at
two hundred yards; and then, and not until then, did she realize
that Mona, in order to inspect this bank, was now LOOKING up. The
wall which had seemed right ahead, all along, was now actually
overhead!
Were they entering some sort of a cave? If so, it had dimensions
that staggered the imagination. What was more, if it were a cave,
how could the mind of man account for vegetation on its roof?
Within a few minutes Fort called from his machine; whereupon Mona
located a landing-place, a small clearing dimly visible in the
distance. The opposite wall of the chasm--or the roof of the cave,
whichever it was--now approached to within five yards of the tops of
the two machines. Mona and the athlete stepped out, and looked
around.
Billie's senses swam. This clearing, as has been said, was only a
few yards away from the tops of the bushes on the roof. Moreover,
all this vegetation, instead of growing at right angles from the
surface in the usual way, was all lying flat against the soil, and
all pointing in one direction--back, the way they had come!
The sky was not overhead any longer; it was a mere strip of very
dark blue, lying far off on the horizon. That is, to the right; on
the left, the cavelike cleft extended still further, its limits
shrouded in darkness.
"Queer, isn't it?" laughed Fort. "Shall we walk around?"
Whereupon the two young people set out on a narrow, but much worn
trail. Keeping the sky always at their right, they passed through
the thicket, Mona's eyes telling Billie that the queer horizontal
vegetation grew always toward the light.
It was much like the growth at the bottom of any gulch; only the two
were walking in the normal way, upright, at right angles to the
surface, quite as though it were level ground!
Overhead the thicket grew in the same fashion; Billie thought the
foliage much like ferns. Here and there, however, was a small
flowering shrub; and it was to one of these that a tiny,
orange-colored bird came flying.
And Billie wondered why Mona did not gasp in astonishment. For the
bird, when it alighted upon the shrub, was not over eight feet above
Mona's eyes; and unless there was something decidedly wrong with the
girl's vision, the bird had alighted upside down!
There it clung, chirping flatly, moving its head from side to side
and watching the two with bright, unfrightened eyes. But Mona was
not much interested; she and Fort moved on. And shortly Billie was
gazing at a fresh wonder.
Directly opposite them, on what Billie was now calling the roof,
instead of the wall, there appeared a deep furrow in the ferns. She
saw that it was a path, much like the one Mona was treading; it
meandered in and out of sight from time to time. What was the
meaning of it? Billie began to wonder if "the contact" was the name
of some mechanical illusion, like a distorted mirror.
The two had been walking for nearly an hour when, right ahead of
them, the thicket opened up, and another clearing presented itself.
That is, Billie called it another clearing, until she looked more
closely and made out two flying-machines in it. They were the ones
the pair had come in!
Now Billie was positive that they had not turned around in their
walk; they had kept the sky on their right all the while. In fact,
the sky was still on that side. They were approaching the clearing
from the side opposite the one they had gone out from!
Yet, neither the athlete nor the surgeon seemed to see anything
peculiar in the fact. Instead, they looked at one another as much as
to say, "Well, time to go, isn't it?"
Then Fort stared up at the mysterious roof. There was another
clearing there, a little to one side; which accounted for Billie's
overlooking it at first. Fort led the way over opposite.
"Shall we try it?" he dared Mona.
"You first," she replied, indifferently.
Whereupon the athlete, without another word, pulled his cap down
tight, made sure his pockets were buttoned, cleared the shrubbery
away from his feet and--leaped! Leaped straight into the air, and as
he went up, he flipped his body as only an acrobat can, so that he
turned a mid air somersault.
But he did not come back to where he jumped from. Instead, his jump
took him five yards, which separated the ground from the roof; and
when he landed HIS FEET WERE RESTING ON THE ROOF, AND HIS HEAD WAS
POINTING DOWNWARD, TOWARD MONA.
"It's easy," he remarked, craning his neck so that he could look at
the girl. "Come on; I'll catch you!"
And then Billie's senses whirled as the surgeon duplicated the feat.
Next second Mona was standing beside Fort, five yards above the spot
she had just left; and in that second everything had become
precisely reversed; the two were now looking up! Looking up, to
behold their machines, apparently upside down, just over their
heads!
As though this were not enough, Mona picked a leaf from a shrub and
threw it some seven or eight feet up. It remained motionless in mid
air!
It was too much for Billie. She felt that she could not contemplate
the thing any longer with safety to her sanity. She exerted her
will, and broke the connection with Mona; so that a few minutes
later her three friends on the earth were listening to her account.
The doctor waited until she was all through; then, "While you were
having that experience I was in touch with young Ernol again. The
boy has recovered and is still in jail, but they let him have his
books now. And I've been helping him study geography."
"Well?" eagerly.
"Very simple. Capellete is a double world!"
"Double!"
"Yes! There are two globes, instead of one. They're twins, and
Siamese twins at that!" He drew a figure on his knee, thus:
[Illustration: two circles touching each other]
"Just imagine the earth and Venus of the same size, and so near to
one another that their combined gravity has brought them together!
That's Capellette! And the contact is the place where they touch!"
They considered this in wondering silence for a while. Then the
doctor continued:
"It's just as we had deduced; each of the planets is larger than the
earth. I saw the figures in that geography.
"But astronomically they are one. They revolve around Capella
together; the rotate about a common center daily, just as the earth
rotates on its axis. This common center is, of course, in the
contact."
"Are both globes inhabited?" Billie was greatly interested.
"Yes. All parts of both planets are developed to the same extent,
and evenly settled. They are just one great nation, with a common
language. This, of course, is traceable to the great density of the
air, enabling the people to fly wherever they wanted to go. There
never has been such a thing as an 'Old World' and a 'New World' with
them.
"The really remarkable fact, however, Billie has already hinted at.
The country near Mona's home shows no sign of industry; there's
nothing but parks and magnificent estates. And the geography
explains it all. One of the planets is devoted entirely to industry
and the homes of those who are engaged therein; the workers inhabit
that globe exclusively. There are about ten billion of them.
"The other globe is exclusively a residence tract, set aside for the
homes of the rich; what they call the owners. There is no industry
of any kind. No workers live there, excepting the army of servants
and park attendants which the owners need for their own comfort. The
population is about a hundred million, of which only one in ten is a
capitalist. The rest are serving people."
Van Emmon seemed to feel that it was his place to comment. "In other
words, Newport on a grand scale!"
"Is that the way Powart seems to regard it?" from Billie.
"Apparently. There were a lot of things in his talk which I couldn't
understand until now; but it's clear enough--the doctor's right."
"Then," pursed the girl deliberately, "the Capellans have divided
the world between them, so that the working classes inhabit
one-half, and the capitalists the other?"
The doctor explained that the dividing was all done by the owners.
"Every bit of the land on the residence planet is privately owned,
with the exception of certain small amusement tracts. Theoretically,
the planet is open to one and all; practically no worker is welcome
there for more than a few hours, and then only in one of those
parks. There is no hotel."
Van Emmon was straining his memory. "Let's see--I heard Powart name
the place. He called it--called it--Hafen!"
"Yes. And the other--the world which is the home of the working
people, but which they do not own; the world whose factories and
farms provide a standard living for the workers and lives of luxury
for the owners--this world is known as Holl. But if I read young
Ernol's mind aright, these words mean nothing more or less
than--Heaven and hell!"