INTO THE BLACK GULF
The peril from the solar attraction did not prove as great as they had
feared. Carmichael had chosen the most favourable moment for leaving
the earth, when Venus would be travelling directly towards them, and
would interpose as a shield between them and the sun.
Before the new orbit was reached they slackened their speed, and
that things were going well was soon evident by the planet appearing
beneath them as a gradually brightening star in the depths of space.
Many anxious hours and many elaborate mathematical calculations had
to be spent and taken before the Professor and the engineer felt able
to communicate reassuring news. Not till they had got within five
millions of miles from Venus did they feel that the solar peril might
be regarded as over.
All the members of the party, except Carmichael, seemed to enjoy a
rebound of confidence and hope, but the Professor remained anxious and
abstracted. He told them repeatedly that the peril they had feared
was past, and that they might reach Venus in safety--at least with no
greater danger than the earth if they were returning to it--but this
did not enlighten them as to the real cause of his concern. If they
asked him more closely he returned only evasive answers.
One day he called the engineer aside and they had a long private talk.
It lasted more than an hour. At length the two came out of the cabin
and went back to the dining-room, where Abercromby was trying to solve
a chess problem.
“Is anything gone queer?” he said to the Professor. “Tell us; we can
stand it. Is the machine giving out, or what is the trouble?”
“If you want to find a wife in Venus, and Radcliffe a mission, I fear
you will both be disappointed. For myself, I am too disgusted and sick
at heart to go into the matter. We have run the most awful risks, and
for what? to be rewarded at the last with polar ice and worse than
tropical furnaces. In all probability there are no inhabitants of
Venus--at least none that are human.”
“But, my dear and respected Professor, how have you found out these
agreeable facts at five millions of miles distance?” said Abercromby.
Carmichael did not answer. Radcliffe fixed an appealing look at
Carysfort, who at once took up the subject.
“Well, gentlemen, I suppose it is about time we told you. I always
feared it might be so, but we hoped it would not be. Now our fears are
convictions.”
“And our hopes have taken a run round the stars to keep themselves
warm,” said Abercromby. “Now I will not talk nonsense again till you
have said your say.”
“The truth is that those astronomers are right who thought that Venus
revolved round the sun with such an inclination of its axis that the
sun was always in the same place, according to latitude; that there
were practically no seasons or alternations of day and night, but that
while one side of the planet was always lighted, the other was always
dark. Now you can judge what that means in the long run. Half the
planet is locked in perpetual ice-bound cold, worse than any of our
Arctic winters, while the other has a sun always pouring down light and
heat upon it, twice as much as the earth receives and that every day
and all day long.”
“But surely, even then it must make an enormous difference what height
the sun occupies in the sky?” said Radcliffe.
“That is the only hope,” replied Carysfort.
“Well, then, let us steer for the North Pole of the planet and alight
near to the boundary between sunshine and shadow. At least we know that
there is an atmosphere.”
“Yes, and a very dense one as regards depth; perhaps five hundred
miles or more,” said the Professor, at length breaking his silence.
“But although we shall certainly do what Radcliffe suggests, for it is
the only possible course to take, I can hold out little hope of any
result. The chief danger to be dreaded is storm and tempest, electrical
and cyclonic disturbances caused by the meeting of opposing currents
of heated and cold air. If we can surmount this, we can make our way
cautiously over the lighted surface until the heat shall drive us back.”
“There is another very serious trouble,” said the engineer. “We had
hoped that, as we drew near to Venus, we should be able to take careful
observations of its features as we did in the case of the moon, and
could have carried much further had it been necessary; but, as we shall
approach Venus on its darkened side, we shall see practically nothing
till we get there. A pleasant landing that will be.”
“It is obvious that we ought not to, and must not, alight upon the
planet without seeing where we are,” said Carmichael. “When we reach
the atmosphere we must throw out the searchlights, but this will be a
dangerous operation.”
“It will set all the dogs barking, you mean,” remarked Abercromby. “But
seriously, Professor, do you think it is all up with us?”
“Not as to our safety perhaps, but as to the success of our enterprise.
What good will it be to reach a world of fire and desolation?”
Before Venus actually crossed the path of the sun they did their best
to take whatever observations were possible. But vast belts of clouds
hid the lighted surface, screening its actual wonders from their view.
“We have verified Herschel’s opinion that Venus has an extremely dense
atmosphere,” said Radcliffe. “I wonder whether we shall presently
verify Schroeter’s that its mountains are twenty miles in height.”
“My dear Radcliffe, Herschel is quite antiquated; and as for the other
Johnnie you referred to, he is nearly as ancient as Julius Cæsar,” said
Abercromby.
“But there is this to be noted,” remarked the engineer, “that the
foreign astronomers of a past day could often use their telescopes
in a brilliant sky, like Italy, for instance, whereas in England the
most perfect and up-to-date instruments are apt to be put out of use
by constant bad weather. Give me an old-fashioned telescope and I will
make something of it if there be only a clear sky. Moreover, I think
in the olden days men turned more attention to the physical side of
astronomy than they do now.”
“As to the supposed stupendous mountains in Venus, we shall soon find
out all about it if we are not knocked to pieces,” said the Professor;
“but I will point out that the highest earthly mountains are really
ten miles high, because they ought to be measured, not as we see them,
but from the ocean bed itself. As to Venus, astronomers have noticed
certain slight roughnesses on the edge of the crescent, when it appears
to us crescent in shape, and these may indicate the tops of mountains
caught by the sun’s rays.”
“It’s a great nuisance that Venus is not on the outer side of the earth
instead of on the sunward,” said Carysfort. “As the matter stands, when
she is furthest off she appears as a full moon, when she is nearest she
is only a crescent. Add to this, that she recedes but a short distance
from the sun, and is therefore only a morning and evening star.”
So they chatted on while the gulf which separated them from their goal
grew less and less. When they retired to rest they were only three
millions of miles away.
Meeting at the breakfast-table next morning, the Professor was asked
when he thought the journey would be over.
His answer was in about sixty hours; he was gradually reducing the
inherent speed, and when the time drew near for the actual descent he
would pull against it by increasing the repulsive force of the engines.
Their supply of air, which had been manufactured by chemical process,
had worked perfectly, the inner temperature of the Asteroid being
always at a moderate level.
As the hours advanced they all noticed a dimness spreading over the
heavens; this was caused by the disk of Venus gradually encroaching
upon that of the sun. The diminution of the solar light was at first
not unpleasing, but when at last it faded out altogether and an intense
darkness supervened, relieved only by the stars, the travellers knew by
instinct that they were nearing their last and their greatest peril. By
lunch-time the size of Venus had become very enlarged, but, unhappily,
they could see no feature nor landscape, they could only tell where the
planet was by the increasing eclipse of the stars upon the floor of the
heavens.
Abercromby wanted them to cut this short, for it was getting on his
nerves.
Slowly, and more slowly still, they felt their way down and down into
the black gulf.
The Professor and the engineer never left their posts, but only took
hurried mouthfuls of refreshment which Jackson brought to them. Poor
Jackson was shivering with alarm, which he tried to conceal under a
fussy attention to his duties. Even his polishing and scrubbing failed
to soothe him.
Frank Abercromby was in a perpetual fidget, now and then asking
what the dickens was going to happen, and sometimes making use of
unclassical language. Radcliffe stood beside the windows silent, but
his face was deadly pale.
When the black globe beneath them covered the whole depth of the sky,
Carmichael began to set in motion the repelling power.
It was a terribly anxious crisis, for if he used it too much he might
be actually retreating from his destination, if too little, they might
be dashed to pieces.
“You had better go down on your knees, Radcliffe,” said Carmichael,
“and do for us what is more becoming in you perhaps than in me.”
Radcliffe prayed earnestly and simply that at this awful moment help
might be given them, that if they had been presumptuous it was for the
good of their fellow-men, not for their own advancement.
Suddenly as he rose from his knees Abercromby shouted, almost crazy
with excitement, “Come here, all of you. What is this going on down
yonder?”
A dull red illumination appeared, of no great size, but they could not
tell how vast it might be in reality.
“It is a volcano, glowing in the atmosphere of Venus, near to the
Pole,” said Carmichael. “Now we know to what point to steer.”
Not long after, though minutes seemed ages, a slight rise of
temperature became noticeable.
“We are in the atmosphere,” said Carysfort. “Start the fans.”
“They can be set going from within,” exclaimed Carmichael.
The levers were turned and the fan wheels were seen to revolve, though
very feebly. Half the peril was over, as far as the descent was
concerned, for they had now the means of using their machine as an
airship. They steered in a diagonal line towards the burning mountain,
and, keeping exactly at the same height, they made use of the summit to
guide them as to their level of altitude. A few moments more and a line
of brilliant light appeared on the horizon. They were on the North Pole
of Venus, four miles from its surface.
In front spread an apparently boundless ocean, encumbered with blocks
of bluish and purple-white ice, which of course tended every mile
southwards to become smaller and smaller, while, to the north, they
were crystallised into vast masses thrown up into the most weird
and fantastic shapes. The great sun of Venus, twice as large as the
terrestrial sun, flamed in rosy splendour upon the southern horizon.
The sea was restless and agitated and a keen wind was blowing. The sky
was laden with fleecy clouds of wild and stormy appearance. They were
at a vast height, higher even than the Asteroid.
“Well, gentlemen,” said the Professor, “we have faced the greatest
hazard ever dared by man, and we look upon what the mortal eyes of
humanity have never seen. Now let us take courage and face the problems
of the future, resolved that, come what may, we will do our duty.”