An Inhabitant of the Planet Mars

by Henri de Parville

  News of the adventure got around. As always, it has been amplified; the marvelous has been mingled with it, and an Indianapolis newspaper naively informed its readers that, in the very midst of the debate, the mummy had suddenly reawakened, to the great amazement of the assembly. All the gossips in the city were carried away by this unexpected news. They swore, in their turn, that it had stood in front of the president and demanded the floor. The majority of the commission’s members had made for the door.

  Someone will write to you some day to tell you that the mummy itself has just left on the last steam-packet, and that it will disembark at Saint-Nazaire. Here, as with you, the public has its weaknesses and weaknesses have their public.

  No more joking. The last session has taken place today and, I repeat, has removed any doubts that anyone might still have had regarding the origin of the interplanetary habitant.

  Messrs. Paxton and Davis have put a stop to the work; the aerolith is almost entirely pierced through and nothing interesting has been found therein. Mr. Wintow, however, called attention to a very curious fact.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, “Mr. Rink and I have extracted inferior organisms, clearly identifiable, from a few fragments from the aerolith. Better still, these little creatures, extremely tiny and preserved in the interstices of the rock, where the heat cannot have been extremely elevated, are very similar to our infusoria. Here they are, gentlemen; everyone may observe them at his leisure.

  “I shall even repeat a striking experiment, which we carried out yesterday with complete success, and which will certainly interest Mr. Ziegler very greatly. I dampen these obviously inert and immobile organisms with a little warm water…you see that these, gentlemen, are gradually beginning to stir, move and return to life, just as the little infusoria, tardigrades and rotifers, which inhabit the gutters of our roofs, die and return to life when the Sun dries them out or the rain moistens them. Here, I am forced to think, with Mr. Ziegler, that it really is a certain quantity of motion that these creatures need to come back to life. The water has given them the requisite conditions, and the organism resumed its functioning.”

  “This provides further evidence that life in the planets really does have the same causes everywhere, and that the evolutions of matter are the same everywhere.

  “In conclusion, gentlemen, do I need to observe that here, before your very eyes, are organisms that have been asleep for thousands of years, which have arrived here from another planet, which can still be resuscitated, visibly alive, as if we had been able to go to examine them in place and explore their primitive environment? Who would have dared suggest that we would ever possess creatures borrowed from a neighboring planet here on Earth?”

  Mr. Stek: “We shall send them to our acclimatization society.”61

  Mr. Newbold: “I shall bring the discussion to a close, gentlemen, but first I shall give the floor to Mr. G. Mitchell, who has some extremely important details to communicate to us.”

  (Loud murmurs. Individual conversations.)

  The hand-bell is shaken; silence is re-established.

  Mr. G. Mitchell, distinguished anatomist from Frankfurt; a fine orator, in spite of a falsetto voice: “Gentlemen, I certainly would not wish to detain you here any longer if I had not been fortunate enough, with the aid of my excellent friend and colleague Mr. Sieman, to discover irrefutable proof of the ultra-planetary origin of the mummy, and if I were not therefore able to crown the edifice that you have built so sagely and skillfully.

  “Gentlemen, the aerolith really has fallen from Mars, and we have before our eyes a veritable man of that planet. Not one of you will leave this place, I hope, without being utterly convinced. Of what the clear and remarkable theories of my illustrious colleagues have permitted us to prejudge, gentlemen, I can give you material and indelible proof.”

  (Sensation! Movement! Profound silence.)

  “Already, several among us have carefully examined the silver plate that covered the tomb. It seemed that we ought to be able to discover the secret of this envoy of other worlds thereupon. That was no mistake, gentlemen.

  “Yesterday, Mr. Sieman and I decided to study the bizarre lines engraved in the metallic surface. First of all, the worlds depicted with their relative distances—the Sun, Mercury, etc.—are the focus of attention; then, higher up, the palm-like trees and the rhinoceros, permit no thought of anything but a world, and a world that is not our own.

  “One of the first arguments that weighs in favor of Mars, as you know, is the large volume of that planet in the design on the plate. It is suggestive of local pride. Who, however involuntarily, does not regard his homeland with a complaisant eye? And for any inferior intelligence, is not size or extent a characteristic of superiority?

  “This reasoning is certainly not worthless, but it is only hypothetical. I have two remarks to make which will, I think, confirm it sufficiently to settle the question.

  “Below and further to the left of the planetary globes, which you can doubtless distinguish here, examine carefully these two groups. Here are four round black marks, and here, facing them, two more.

  “Now, in the middle of the space between these two groups, notice a very clear circle at least ten times as large, in whose interior is inscribed a series of lines curved in a fairly regular manner.

  “The first group represents, without any doubt, the Sun, then Mercury, Venus and the Earth, all planets describing their trajectories around the Sun on this side of Mars. The second group represents Jupiter and Saturn, planets rotating around the Sun beyond Mars. Finally, in the center and quite apart, the planet Mars itself. Why, on this occasion, this double designation? Why, in addition, categorize those which, on Earth, we call the inferior planets and the superior planets?

  “It is indisputable that the grouping of the two series can only have been made by an inhabitant of Mars. If the intelligent being which designed these figures had lived on Venus, for example, it would have categorized the stars thus: the Sun and Mercury, then the Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. I do not think anyone can refuse to see the light emerging from this simple distribution of planets, according to their distances from Mars itself.

  “An astronomer on Mars would have ascribed the center of the system of the universe to the planet that he inhabited, just as the original terrestrial astronomers ascribed it to the Earth. In addition, this justifies the excessive volume of the depiction of Mars.

  “Finally, the characters traced in the center of the large circle, representing the planet Mars, undoubtedly designate it as the pivot of the system.

  “There is even more, gentlemen—I said that doubt was not possible! See for yourself. Mr. Sieman has distinguished all around the central disk, which separates the two groups, a large circle, effaced for the most part, then a second, the a third, much clearer, and finally a fourth, half-covered by bizarre lines whose significance escapes us. Is it not necessary to see these circles as the orbits of planets? It is quite certain that the astronomer of Mars believed that the Sun and all the other worlds rotated around him.

  “I have said that I was in the process of demonstrating the astonishing precision of the theory’s deductions. Listen to this; it is better than everything that has gone before. Mr. Owerght claims that the mummy has been torn away from the summit of a mountain by a bolide deviated from its course. Mr. Owerght is correct.

  “By washing the plate with nitric acid, Mr. Sieman caused to appear, to our great astonishment, very faint lines that can be followed with a microscope. They are very extensive and occupy the greater pat of the plate. We have made a reproduction on a large scale, which we now set before your eyes.

  “It is impossible, in following this line, not to recognize the vague contours of a veritable mountain. Two fairly clear peaks still surmount it to the right, and give it a great height. The line is lost as it curves to the left, where it is also hidden by a palm-tree. Is not that, gentlemen, the massive mountain anticipated by scientific reasoning?

&nb
sp; “There is better still; follow the escarpments of this tortuous line, then descend abruptly, following the vertical; who will not admire the astonishing concordance of facts which conclusions already reached?

  “At the base of the plate, near the middle, are engraved—this time profoundly—four strokes forming a rectangle; fix your attention upon them.

  “Mr. Oupeau was the first to have the honor of studying the lines that intersect in this document of sorts. After washing it twice with acidic water, he showed us quite distinctly a very faint image of the plate itself—the plate that we now have in our hands.

  “There is more and better to come, gentlemen. Near the base, a little lower down, one can quite easily make out a form that must be that of the mummy laid out in its coffin. Even lower down—this time outside the rectangle—a sequence of closely-packed strokes can be distinguished, incomprehensible to us, but which are certainly letters and must form words.

  “Finally, lower still, but half-effaced, one can, with a little imagination, make out several mummies analogous to the specimen that has fallen to Earth, which seem to be contemplating the summit of the mountain.

  “In case anyone thinks that I am letting myself be carried away by imagination, ever one of you, gentleman, will be able to verify it.

  “I can only see these designs as a faithful representation of the mountain. At the base, a plaque must doubtless have been embedded in the rock, representing the coffin and the image of the dead man; these characters are simply an inscription, whose meaning unfortunately escapes us completely, but which would doubtless have been placed there to remind future generations of a name henceforth immortal.

  “Perhaps we now have at Paxton House a great king whose power would have astonished the peoples of Mars. Perhaps, and we are inclined to believe it, we possess one of the initiators of astronomy on that world, of which we know so little. From the summit of the mountain that you see here, the great scientist might have discovered what were then believed to be the veritable laws of the universe.

  “In any case, it is indubitable that the mummy had a spectacular renown and an immense influence in his own country; perhaps he was even venerated as the equivalent of a demigod, as he might have been supposed to be by the creatures who are bowing before his remains. One can probably measure the importance of the person by the importance of his sepulcher.

  “He must have been buried far away from the other mortals of Mars, at the summit of the mountain, in such a way that he looked down on his peers after his death from as great a height as he had looked down on them in life.

  “Gentlemen, who can tell whom we might have here, before us, and what glory of another epoch and another world we have been contemplating since Mr. Paxton’s discovery?

  “Who knows whether, at this very moment, while we are all gathered in this arena, out there, the scientists of Mars might not be discussing on their own behalf the strange disappearance of this great illustration of ancient times? For the base of the mountain must still be there, along with its commemorative plaque, and—unless a tradition has revealed the event of which the country was a theater—they must be lost in conjectures regarding the problematic existence of a sepulcher of which no trace remains. The archaeologists of Mars must have spent more than one sleepless night over these incomplete vestiges of another age, these singular remains of the planet’s first humans.

  “Is it not strange that it has perhaps been given to the inhabitants of the Earth to discover, before those of Mars, the key to the enigma—or, at any rate, to possess irrefutable proof of a historical fact that will forever escape them?

  “The scientists of Mars still have the base of the mountain; but what we have is a faithful representation of the entire mountain, the sepulcher and the dead man. We know, better than they do, what happened on their world, and we now possess an extremely well-preserved specimen of their first humans! There is much truth in the dictum that one is not always a prophet in one’s own land.

  “Gentlemen, it was given to our century and to the New World to become the cradle of the greatest scientific discovery of times past and present. I bow to destiny, and I thank God for choosing us—his humble creatures of the terrestrial world—to learn that we are not isolated in space, and that every world that shines in the sky is a new oasis of life and of eternal creation.”

  (Loud applause. People crowd around Mr. G. Mitchell.)

  Mr. Newbold, agitating his hand-bell: “Gentlemen, has anyone anything to add to the interesting communication that you have just heard?”

  (Silence.)

  “In that case, I will briefly summarize the debate and pass on to the assembly’s vote.

  “The conclusion of the geological considerations developed by my illustrious colleagues is that the aerolith discovered by Messrs. Paxton and Davis cannot have a terrestrial origin.

  “The conclusion of the arguments invoked by Mr. Greenwight is that a creature of the nature of the one that has been brought to the Earth can only have come from one planet, Mars.

  “Mr. Ziegler, by his fine analysis of the conditions of existence on each world, and Mr. Owerght, by his argument regarding the transportation of matter through space, have permitted us to consider it as not impossible that creature from one world might fall upon another.

  “Finally, the interpretation, so unexpected and so remarkable, that Mr. G. Mitchell has just drawn from his examination of the plate with Messrs. Sieman and Oupeau, provides a complete confirmation of the theoretical views expressed in this arena.

  “Such are the consequences to which we are led by the logic of the facts.

  “It remains for me to submit this conclusion to the assembly: Yes, the creature discovered by Mr. Paxton definitely comes from the planet Mars.”

  The urn was passed and the conclusion was adopted; there was one blank paper.

  Mr. Newbold: “You have heard the assembly’s decision, gentlemen; our work is therefore terminated. The doubts have been dispelled and we can only anticipate the confirmation of our research by the entire scientific world. The verbal proceedings of our sessions will be distributed to the academies of the New and Old Worlds.

  “It remains for me, on my own behalf, to thanks my illustrious colleagues for the constant attention that they have been willing to lend us, and for their assiduous cooperation, which have made my task so easy. I shall carry away from here a memory that will never be effaced.

  “The Paxtons have asked me to express their wholehearted gratitude and to ask each one of you to accept, before we part, this commemorative medal. It bears on one side a faithful reproduction of the inhabitant of Mars, and on the other, the date of our meeting. Each of them will remain for posterity a sort of irrefutable testimony of the Commission’s debates and judgment.

  “Finally, gentlemen, the sanction of the august body of European scientists is worth a great deal to us. It is necessary that petty party rivalries and paltry preoccupations of pride and nationality should give way to respect for the truth and the love of science. Thus, the Paxtons have resolved to sacrifice their discovery and send the remains of the inhabitant of Mars to Europe. It is necessary that doubts should not spring forth anywhere, and that the most enlightened centers of the Old World have material proof that will permit them to check our assertions.

  “America will keep the aerolith, the amphorae and the metal rods. Europe will have the mummy and the plate.

  “It is with pride, we admit, that we can inscribe on the Commission’s dispatch this testimony of our liberality and our devotion to science:

  “FROM THE NEW WORLD TO THE OLD WORLD.”

  (Loud applause; Mr. Paxton is congratulated.)

  Mr. Newbold: “Gentlemen, the Institut de France and the Royal Society of London seem to us to be worthy in every respect, by virtue of the high esteem they enjoy and their incontestable authority, of becoming the depositories of the remains so miraculously discovered on American soil. To England, therefore, the plate and its convincing design
s! To France, the cradle of art, literature and good taste, the inhabitant of Mars!”

  (Thunderous applause. Prolonged cheering.)

  “This unanimous support, gentlemen and dear colleagues, will be the most welcome recompense to the Paxtons for their generosity; for us, there will be a new and glorious page to add to our scientific annals.

  “We have done our duty, and we can await the judgment of posterity with confidence.”

  Postscript. Almost all the members of the Commission are leaving tomorrow morning. Travel arrangements are being made. I shall follow shortly thereafter.

  A very pleasant surprise was reserved for me, about which I want to tell you before closing this letter. I am the one who will have the honor of going to Europe to offer the interplanetary man to your Académie des Sciences. I already have the authority in hand, along with Messrs. Newbold and Paxton’s instructions.

  I shall soon be able to thank you personally for the publicity that you have been willing to give our debates. I shall reserve the first fruits of our discovery for you; you shall be the first to see the inhabitant of Mars.

  I hope to arrive, with my precious baggage, by the end of December at the latest. Until then.

  Paxton House, September 27.

  POSTFACE

  We waited—and with what impatience!

  December passed—nothing. Then January, February and March.

  Our disappointment was complete when, on waking up a little while ago, our eyes finally fell upon a letter, open as usual.

  What a letter! What a stupefying signature!

  Richmond, March 15

  Are we forgotten, then? For two full months you have had the inhabitant of Mars in your hands, and not a word from you.

  Mr. Newbold has asked me to tell you how grateful we shall be if you will translate, in your turn, the debates to which the interplanetary man will have given birth in the bosom of the Institut de France.