THE CHILDREN OF THE SUN
But the situation was too critical to permit us to think of the
unfortunates whose death we had undoubtedly caused. There seemed less
than an even chance of our getting through with our own lives. As we
tossed and whirled onward the water rose yet higher, and blocks of ice
assailed us on all sides. First the sled on the left was torn loose; then
the other followed it, leaving the car to fight its battle alone. But the
loss of the sleds was a good thing now that their occupants were gone,
for it eased off the weight and the car rose much higher in the water.
Moreover, it gave way more readily when pressed by the ice. To be sure,
it rolled more than before, but still, being well ballasted, it did not
turn turtle, and most of the time we were able to keep on our feet by
holding fast to the inside window bars.
Once we took a terrible plunge, over a vertical fall of not less than
twenty or thirty feet. But the water below the fall was very deep, a
profound hole having been quickly scooped out in the unfathomable ice
beneath, so that we did not strike bottom, as I had feared, but came
bobbing to the top again like a cork. Below this fall there was a very
long series of rapids, extending, it seemed, for miles upon miles, and we
shot down them with the speed of an express train, lurching from side to
side, and colliding with hundreds of ice floes. It must not be supposed
that we went through this experience without suffering any injuries. On
the contrary, our hands were all bleeding, our faces cut, Henry had one
eye closed by a blow, and our clothing, for we were not wearing our
Arctic outfit, was badly used up. Yet none of our injuries was really
serious, although we looked as if we had just come out of the toughest
kind of a street brawl.
But there is no use in prolonging the story of this awful ride. It seemed
to us to last for days upon days, though, in fact, the worst of it was
over within twelve hours after we were lifted from our moorings in the
valley. The tumbling stream gradually broadened out as it left the region
of the high mountains, and then we found ourselves in a district covered
with icy hills of no great elevation. But we could still see, by glances,
as the stream curved this way and that, the glittering peaks behind. It
was an appalling thing to watch many of the nearer hills as they suddenly
sank, collapsed, and disappeared, like pinnacles of loaf sugar melting
and falling to pieces in a basin of water.
Edmund said that all of the ice-hills and mounds through which we were
passing no doubt owed their existence to pressure from behind, in the
belt where the sun never rose, and where the ice was piled up in actual
mountains. These foothills were, in fact, enormous glaciers thrust out
toward the sunward hemisphere.
After a long time the now broad river widened yet more until it became a
great lake, or bay. The surface of the planet around appeared nearly
level, and, as far as we could see, was mostly covered by the water. Here
vast fields of ice floated, and the water was not muddy, as it would have
been if it had passed over soil, but of crystal purity and wonderfully
blue in places where shafts of sunlight penetrated to great depths--for
now the sun was high above the horizon ahead, and shining in an almost
clear sky. Presently we began to notice the wind again. It came fitfully,
first from one quarter and then another, rapidly increasing until, at
times, it rose into a tempest. It lifted the water in huge combing waves,
but the car rode them like a lifeboat.
"There is peril for us in this," said Edmund, at last. "We are being
carried by the current into a region where the contending winds may play
havoc. It is the place where the hot air from the sunward side begins to
be chilled and to descend, meeting the colder air from the night side. It
must form a veritable belt of storms, which may be as difficult to pass,
circumstanced as we are, as the crystal mountains themselves."
"Suppose it should turn out that there is nothing but an ocean on this
side of the planet," I suggested.
"That I believe to be impossible," Edmund responded. "This hemisphere
must be, as a whole, broken up into highlands and depressions. The
geological formation of the other side, as far as I could make it out
from the appearance of the rocks in the caverns, indicates that Venus has
undergone the same experience of upheavals and fracturings of the crust
that the earth has been through. If that is true of one side it must be
true of the other also, for during a large part of these geological
changes she undoubtedly rotated rapidly on her axis like the earth."
"But we traveled five thousand miles on the other side without
encountering anything but a frozen prairie," I objected.
"True enough, and yet I would lay a wager that all of that side of the
planet is not equally level. Remember the vast plains of Russia and
Siberia."
"Well," put in Jack, whose spirits were beginning to revive, "if there's
a shore somewheres, let's find it. I want to see the other kind of
inhabitants. These that we've met don't accord with my ideas of Venus."
"We shall find them," responded Edmund, "and I think I can promise you
that they will not disappoint your expectations."
Yet there seemed to be nothing in our present situation to warrant the
confidence expressed by our leader's words and manner. The current that
had carried us out of the crystal mountains gradually disappeared in a
vast waste of waters, and we were driven hither and thither by the
tempestuous wind. Its force increased hour by hour, and at last the sky,
which at brief intervals had been clear and exquisitely blue, became
choked with black clouds, sweeping down upon the face of the waters, and
often whirled into great _trombes_ by the tornadic blasts. Several times
the car was deluged by waterspouts, and once it was actually lifted up
into the air by the mighty suction. An ordinary vessel would not have
lived five minutes in that hell of winds and waters. But the car, if it
had been built for this kind of navigation, could not have behaved
better.
I do not know how long all this lasted. It grew worse and worse.
Sometimes a flood of rain fell, and then would come a storm of lightning,
and a downpour of gigantic hailstones that rattled upon the steel shell
of the car like a rain of bullets from a battery of machine guns. Half
the time one window or the other was submerged by the waves, and when we
got an opportunity to glance out, we saw nothing but torn streamers of
cloud whipping the face of the waters. But when the change came at last,
it was as sudden as the dropping of a curtain. The clouds broke away, a
soft light filled the atmosphere, the waves ceased to break and rolled in
long undulations, and a marvelous dome appeared overhead.
That dome, at its first dramatic appearance, was one of the most
astonishing things that we saw in the whole course of our adventures. It
was not a cerulean vault like that which covers the earth in halcyon
weather, but an indescribably soft, pinkish-gray concavity that seemed
nearer than the sky and yet farther than the clouds. Here and there, far
beneath it, but still at a vast elevation, floated delicate gauzy
curtains, tinted like sheets of mother-of-pearl. The sun was no longer
visible, but the air was filled with a delicious luminousness, which
bathed the eyes as if it had been an ethereal liquid.
Below each window was a steel ledge, broad enough to stand on, with
convenient hold-fasts for the hands. These had evidently been prepared
for some such contingency, and Edmund, throwing open the windows, invited
us to go outside. We gladly accepted the invitation, and all, except
Juba, issued into the open air. The temperature was that of an early
spring day, and the air was splendidly fresh and stimulating. The rolling
of the car had now nearly ceased, and we had no difficulty in maintaining
our positions. For a long while we admired, and talked of, the great dome
overhead, which drew our attention, for the time, from the sea that had
so strangely brought us hither.
"There," said Edmund, pointing to the dome, "is the inside of the shell
of cloud whose exterior, gleaming in the sunshine, baffles our
astronomers in their efforts to see the surface of Venus. I believe that
we shall find the whole of this hemisphere covered by it. It is a shield
for the inhabitants against the fervors of an unsetting sun. Its presence
prevents their real world from being seen from outside."
"Well," said Jack, laughing, "I never heard before that Venus was fond of
a veil."
"Not only can they not be seen," continued Edmund, "but they cannot
themselves see beyond the screen that covers them."
"Worse and worse!" exclaimed Jack. "The astronomers have certainly made a
mistake in naming this bashful planet Venus."
We continued for a long time to gaze at the great dome, admiring the
magnificent play of iridescent colors over its vast surface, until
suddenly Jack, who had gone to the other side of the car, called out to
us:
"Come here and tell me what this is."
We hurried to his side and were astonished to see a number of glittering
objects which appeared to be floating in the atmosphere. They were
arranged in an almost straight row, at an elevation of perhaps two
thousand feet, and were apparently about three miles away. After a few
moments of silence, Edmund said, in his quiet way:
"Those are air ships."
"Air ships!"
"Yes, surely. An exploring expedition, I shouldn't wonder. I anticipated
something of that kind. You know already how dense the atmosphere of
Venus is. It follows that balloons, and all sorts of machines for aerial
navigation, can float much more easily here than over the earth. I was
prepared to find the inhabitants of Venus skilled in such things, and I'm
not surprised by what we see."
"Venus with wings!" cried Jack. "Now, Edmund, that sounds more like it. I
guess we've struck the right planet after all."
"But," I said, "you spoke of an exploring expedition. How in the world do
you make that out?"
"It seems perfectly natural to me," replied Edmund. "Remember the two
sides of the planet, so wonderfully different from one another. If we on
the earth are so curious about the poles of our planet, simply because
they are unlike other parts of the world, don't you think that the
inhabitants of Venus should be at least equally curious concerning a
whole hemisphere of their world, which differs _in toto_ from the half on
which they live?"
"That does seem reasonable," I assented.
"Of course it's reasonable, and I imagine that we, ourselves, are about
to be submitted to investigation."
"By Jo!" exclaimed Jack, running his hands through his hair, and
smoothing his torn and rumpled garments, "then we must make ready for
inspection. But I'm afraid we won't do much honor to old New York. Can I
get a shave aboard your craft, Edmund?"
"Oh, yes," Edmund replied, laughing. "I didn't forget soap and razors."
But Jack would have had no time to make his toilet even if he had
seriously thought of it. The strange objects in the air approached with
great rapidity, and we soon saw that Edmund had correctly divined their
nature. They were certainly air ships, and I was greatly interested in
the observation that they seemed to be constructed somewhat upon the
principles upon which our inventors were then working on the earth. But
they were neither aeroplanes nor balloons. They bore a resemblance to
mechanical birds, and seemed to be sustained and forced ahead by a
wing-like action.
This, of course, did not escape Edmund's notice.
"Look," he said admiringly, "how easily and gracefully they fly. Perhaps
with our relatively light atmosphere we shall never be able to do that
on the earth; but no matter," he added, with a flush, "for with the
inter-atomic energy at our command, we shall have no need to imitate the
birds."
"Perhaps they have made that discovery here, too," I suggested.
"No, it is evident that they have not, else they would not be employing
mechanical means of flight. Once let me get the car fixed up and we'll
give them a surprise."
"Yes, and if you had used common sense," growled Henry, nursing his
injured eye, "you would not be here fooling away your time and ours, and
risking our lives every minute, but you'd be making millions and
revolutionizing life at home."
"And where'd the Columbus of Space be then?" demanded Jack. "Hanged if
Edmund is not right! I'd rather be here meeting these doves of Venus than
grinding out dollars on the earth. And can't we go back and scoop in the
money when we get ready?"
The discussion went no further, for, by this time, two of the air ships
were close at hand. And now we perceived, for the first time, the beings
that they carried. Our surprise at the sight was even greater than that
which we had experienced upon meeting the inhabitants of the dark
hemisphere. The latter were extraordinary--but we were looking for
extraordinary things. Indeed they were, except for certain peculiarities,
much more like some members of our own race than we should have deemed
possible. How great, then, was our astonishment upon seeing the two air
ships apparently in charge of _real human beings_!
At least that was our first impression. In the midst of the strange
apparatus, which evidently fulfilled the function of wings for the air
ships, we saw decks, spacious enough to contain twenty persons, and
surmounted with deck houses, and along the railings inclosing the decks
were gathered the crews, among whom we believed that we could recognize
their officers. The two vessels had approached within a hundred yards
before being suddenly arrested. Then they settled gracefully down upon
the water, where they floated like swans.
At first, as I have said, the resemblance of their crews to inhabitants
of the earth seemed complete. One would have said that we had met a
yachting party, composed of tall, well-formed, light-complexioned,
yellow-haired Englishmen, the pick of their race. At a distance their
dress alone appeared strange, though it, too, might easily be imitated on
the earth. As well as I can describe it, it bore some resemblance, in
general effect, to the draperies of a Greek statue, and it was specially
remarkable for the harmonious blending of soft hues in its texture.
During a space of at least five minutes we gazed at them, and they at us.
Probably their surprise was greater than ours, because we had been on the
lookout for strange sights, being, of our own volition, in a foreign
world, while they could have had no expectation of such an encounter,
even if, as Edmund had conjectured, they were engaged in exploration. We
could read their astonishment in their gesticulations. Slowly the car and
the nearer of the two air ships drifted closer together. When we were
within less than fifty yards of one another, Jack suddenly called out:
"A woman! By Jo, it's Venus herself!"
His excited voice rang like a rattle of musketry in the heavy air, and
the beings on the air ship started back in alarm. But although, like the
inhabitants of the dark hemisphere, they were, evidently, unaccustomed
to hearing sounds of such forcefulness issue from a living creature no
larger than themselves, they were not faint-hearted, and the air ship did
not, as we half expected it would, take flight. The momentary commotion
was quickly quieted, and our visitors continued their inspection. All of
us immediately recognized the personage whom Jack had singled out as the
subject of his startling exclamation. It was clear that he had rightly
guessed her sex, and she appeared worthy of his admiring designation.
Even at the distance of a hundred feet we could see that she was very
beautiful. Her complexion was light, with a flame upon the cheeks; her
hair a chestnut blond; and her large, round eyes were sapphire blue, and
seemed to radiate a light of their own. This last statement (about the
eyes) must not be taken for a conventional exaggeration, such as writers
of fiction employ in describing heroines who never existed. On the
contrary, it expresses a literal fact; and moreover, as the reader will
see further on, this peculiarity of the eyes was shared, in varying
degrees, by all these people of Venus, and was connected with the most
amazing of all our discoveries on that planet. I should say here that,
while the eyes of the inhabitants of the day side were larger than ours,
they did not, in respect of size, resemble the extraordinary organs of
vision possessed by the compatriots of Juba.
In a few minutes we became aware that the beautiful creature we had been
admiring was not the only representative of the female sex on the air
ship. Several others surrounded her, and the fact quickly became manifest
that they recognized her as a superior. Still more surprising was the
discovery, which we were not long in making, that she was actually the
commander of the craft. We could see that the orders which determined its
movements emanated from her.
"Amazons!" exclaimed Jack, taking pains this time to moderate his voice.
"And what a queen they've got!"
During all this time the car and the air ship were slowly drifting nearer
to one another, drawn by that strange attraction which seems to affect
inanimate things when in close neighborhood, and when they were not more
than fifteen yards apart the personage we had been watching slowly lifted
her arm, revealing a glittering bracelet, and, with an ineffably winning
smile, made a gesture which said plainer than any words could have done:
"Welcome, strangers."