The Navigators of Space

by J. -H. Rosny aîné

  As for the living (?) formations, everywhere a rupture was produced, they were projected into the black expanse. A few lingered there; others rejoined a column or the segments of interrupted columns.

  “Phantasmagorical!” Antoine muttered. “If they’re not living organisms, no more are they entities analogous to our meteorological phenomena…much less to solid minerals or liquids!”

  “I opt deliberately for life!” Jean declared. “The inhabitants of Mars, with which we were hoping to exchange elementary verities, exit on planes that will probably not permit any intellectual communication.”

  “Really?” I put in. “Firstly, there might be other forms; then again, what do we know about the possibilities of these? Why shouldn’t there be at least abstract analogies between them and us? Already, if they’re alive…”

  Antoine cut me off. “We’ll think about that later. I’d like, if possible, to establish observational details…”

  “The one doesn’t get in the way of the other!” I said. “I’m continuing to watch—and while watching, I’m asking myself whether Mars might not be more complex than Earth—in an evolutionary sense—and whether there might be a third plane of life somewhere.”

  “I approve! But we’ve already got the outline of a classification—oh, the most rudimentary possible. You’ve noticed that the formations include paler sections, which form something like vacuoles in the mass. Now, I observe that the more rapid and precise the movements seem, and the better-executed the changes of direction, the more numerous the vacuoles are. Compare those that have five or six vacuoles with those that only have one or two; the contrast is striking.

  That was correct. The “formations” with multiple vacuoles attained speeds of three to seven kilometers an hour; the formations with single or double vacuoles scarcely attained a tenth of those speeds.

  In every direction, certain formations were pausing; we observed that during the pause, exceedingly thin lines linked formations that possessed the same number of vacuoles together. The intensity of these lines was unstable; we saw it increase and decrease without being able to discern any rhythm. As soon as the formations started moving again, the lines were invariably broken.

  “Do you know what?” Antoine exclaimed. “The variations of the lines express spontaneous changes…they probably constitute a language that uses infinitesimal vibrations in a manner analogous to our sound-waves!”

  “So,” said Jean, “you no longer doubt that these formations are alive—dissimilar as they are to anything that has been conceived by the most imaginative of our scientists and artists!”

  We continued to study the strange spectacle for some time, without discovering anything that added significantly to what we had already observed; then we switched on the light, which rendered the formations invisible, and we had our evening meal.

  If everything goes as it did today, we will only see the manifestations of these existences during the night…

  III.

  “What shall we do now?” asked Jean, when we had finished the meal.

  “If you want my opinion,” I said, “I’d like to return to the diurnal zones.”

  “In the hope of encountering organisms more like ours?”

  “Yes. Besides, the ones we saw during the day were much less distant from us than the luminous formations.”

  “What if we were to analyze the atmosphere more minutely first?” said Antoine.

  Naturally, we found the substances revealed by the summary analysis again, but the unknown fluid could not be classified; it seemed to be extremely complex.

  The carbon and nitrogen comprised isotopes, so the atomic weight of the carbon reached 12.4, while the atomic weight of the nitrogen was reduced to 13.7.46 Argon, neon, etc. were present in infinitesimal quantities. As already mentioned, the proportion of oxygen was surprising.

  “The presence of nitrogen and carbon dioxide makes the existence of organisms with a similar composition to terrestrial organisms possible,” Antoine remarked.

  “Yes, but what about the isotopes?” Jean exclaimed. “The nitrogen may not matter, but the carbon surprises—even astonishes—me. So faithful to helium on our own world, here it seems to join with other atoms! That’s inconceivable!”

  “The fact speaks for itself! I suspect that a carbon thus composed might act differently from our own in an animate world. We shouldn’t be astonished, therefore, to find sharp differences between our fauna and flora and Martian fauna and flora.”

  “Add to that the physical influences: the density of Mars, the intensity of gravity, temperature, the duration of the seasons…”

  “Are you tired?” Jean asked. “If not, we can go back to the daylit regions…”

  “My chrono indicates that it’s bedtime,” Antoine replied. “Since there’s nothing urgent, let’s take one more look at the aerial formations, and make another sortie after we’ve slept. It’s best to proceed in an orderly manner.”

  Having no good reason to object, Jean accepted the need for sleep. For another half-hour we observed the aerial formations—which permitted us to classify them more accurately and confirm the belief that they really were vital manifestations of a more subtle nature than the most subtle terrestrial manifestations.

  After that, we sank into unconsciousness until the Martian dawn—which arrived after a similar number of hours as it would have back home, at a comparable latitude.

  When I woke up, Jean was making the morning coffee, whose aroma concentrated the dreams of my pilgrimage twice a day. The re-expanded bread was already warm, as fresh as if it had just come out of the oven; combined with vitamins, condensed sugar and butter it became a perfect nutriment.

  A cook by vocation, Jean offered us irreproachable coffee and toothsome slices of bread and butter.

  “The body of Christ!” said Antoine, who was the most epicurean among us. “Let us be thankful for this breakfast…”

  “To think that we are still mortal, who are drinking our coffee on another planet!”

  “I consider it more astonishing still that we have drunk it in interplanetary space,” I said. “Here, at least, we find ourselves in a world homologous to our own.”

  “We’re invading the house next door. Thus far, it doesn’t seem very comfortable. Let’s get ready to go out.”

  “But first, let’s consult the birds.”

  We had brought six—two sparrows, a chaffinch and three canaries—which, like us, had remained healthy during the journey.

  Picking up the chaffinch’s cage, Antoine took it into the compartment that communicated with the exterior on demand. A little suction pump was able to condense the Martian air. When he had finished breakfast and our toilette, we observed that the finch had not suffered in the least.

  “As was to be expected!” said Jean.

  “Almost—but the effect of the unknown gas might have been harmful. It seems that it’s not. Nevertheless, we’ll take a few precautions.”

  Ten minutes later, equipped with ordinary respirators, condensers, weapons and tools, we set foot on the surface of the planet, where we walked as lightly as if our strength had been tripled. Thanks to the condensers, we were breathing without difficulty.

  “Forgive a small fit of enthusiasm!” Jean exclaimed, brandishing his ice-axe.

  His explanation made a singularly pleasant impression on us; in that rarefied milieu we had expected to be able to talk and hear only with extreme difficulty—but for some enigmatic reason, the atmosphere conducted sound quite well.

  The air was perfectly clear. The Organisms were abundant, some immobile, like our plants, others mobile, like our animals, the fastest moving at the speed of pythons, the slower ones scarcely at the speed of slugs. None seemed to be bilaterally symmetrical, and yet they bore no resemblance to our radially symmetrical organisms.

  “First of all, how many feet do they actually have, if these ceaselessly deforming ribbons are feet?”

  “They seem, at any rate, to be taking the pl
ace of feet.”

  These…zoomorphs make use of them for movement, but their slithering is also reminiscent of crawling.”

  “One, two…three, four…eight! They have eight feet?”

  “Yes, but…ah! Here’s a ninth—which only appears at intervals…”

  The movements of the appendages were bizarre: sometimes folded back, sometimes zigzagging, sometimes approximately helical, these pseudo-limbs were obviously very transformable.

  “We need to turn some of them over, if possible,” I said.

  “Come on, then!” Jean replied, approaching an organism almost as long as a rat, which was moving sluggishly.

  With a deft movement of his ice-axe, he succeeded in turning the creature over, whereupon it was enveloped by a fluorescent halo, which faded away after a few seconds. It waved its appendages desperately, trying to recover its natural position.

  “That fluorescence is interesting!” Antoine muttered.

  “Nine feet!” Jean announced.

  “Correct!”

  “Let’s see, then! The appendages are fixed in threes; each triad forms a shallow curve…”

  “That’s true…and perhaps quite characteristic.”

  “Extremely characteristic, because…” Antoine stopped, hesitantly. Before he had resumed speaking, we had made the same observation as him: the three series were separated by two delicate furrows, which delimited three zones.

  “I’d hazard a guess,” said Antoine, “that instead of being radially or bilaterally organized, these creatures are ternary!”

  “Let’s make sure…”

  Jean successively turned over two other organisms different in size and form. Like the first, they were enveloped by the fluorescent halo and they revealed two furrows and nine appendages arranged in threes.

  “All ternary—as if the duality manifest in the majority of terrestrial species were represented here by a trinity.”

  “But what if these are inferior creatures?”

  We looked for agile organisms. Visibly conscious of our presence, when we tried to approach them, they made off.

  Eventually, we succeeded in cornering a zoomorph of fairly considerable size in a crevice, and Jean set about using the same method to turn it over. A broad violet halo shone forth.

  Uttering a cry of surprise, Jean dropped his ice-axe. “Damn it!” he said, feeling his arm—and as we looked at him anxiously, he added: “Not broken—but the strangest sensation! An intense cold—a sort of prickling that extended all the way to the bone. It didn’t resemble anything I’ve felt before! At any rate, these animals—if one can call them animals—can defend themselves. I felt something before, with the slow ones…but very slight.”

  “I don’t think that fluorescence is negligible!” muttered Antoine.

  As we moved toward our friend, we had opened an exit, through which the Martian animal escaped.

  “It could have been worse,” I said. “The haloes of the largest ones must be fatal.”

  “Very dangerous, at least. In sum, this planet doesn’t lack character…”

  “We haven’t seen anything yet! How are these entities put together? What are they made of? If it’s oxygen, hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen their life could be homologous to terrestrial life, but if they’re made of other elements the gap increases.”

  “The chemical analysis will be relatively simple, but the composition of the organs might be terribly complicated.”

  “Let’s begin at the beginning,” Jean concluded, capturing a small-sized creature.

  We went back to the Stellarium, which was barely five hundred meters away.

  Antoine was still pensive. “Do living creatures exist here that are capable of attacking this?” he murmured, when we arrived at the vessel.

  “None that we’ve seen,” Jean affirmed.

  “Imagine colossi comparable in size to the diplodocus of old and our present day whales. Wouldn’t their immense haloes have an effect on our hull—or couldn’t they simply radiate a homicidal energy through it?”

  “We have what we need to respond—by radiation or by explosives.”

  “Yes, but…what about surprises?”

  As he was speaking, Jean started, and he extended his arm toward the Martian orient.

  Antoine’s hypothesis was revealed in a formidable reality. Three hundred meters away, a colossal and frightful creature had just appeared, comparable in size to an iguanodon, the Biblical Leviathan, and sperm whales. Flattened, like all the structures of its realm, it was nevertheless elevated, by reason of its size, three feet above the ground.

  “About forty meters long…fifteen broad,” I murmured.

  “Let’s go back in,” said Antoine, evidently worried.

  Sheltered within the Stellarium, we examined the monster with our binoculars.

  “It might perhaps be prudent to go up a little way,” I suggested.

  “Let’s wait and see,” Antoine replied.

  As the colossus remained motionless, we were able to analyze the details of its form—its “formless form,” as Jean put it—at leisure. It seemed to us to be similar to those of other organisms, save for a few details, but the enormity of the zoomorph made it seem more hideous.

  “That’s because we don’t yet know how to differentiate these structures.”

  The animal (?) began to move, quite slowly. It stopped close to the Stellarium. We had the impression, perhaps illusory, of a hesitation. Whatever it was, it soon drew away, and its speed became extraordinary.

  “A hundred kilometers an hour!” said Jean.

  “In spite of the trepidations of its appendages, it doesn’t seem to be running or crawling…if it weren’t touching the ground, I’d say that it’s flying.”

  “Who knows whether it might not be using a movement between flight and sliding,” said Antoine. “We’ll see. In the meantime, let’s get to work!”

  We divided up the task. I was to carry out the dissection; Antoine and Jean removed a little of the substance—with some difficulty—for chemical, spectrographic and radiographic analysis.

  The organism was dry, devoid of liquids. Its gases and solids were of an incomparably elastic nature: submitted to powerful pressure and traction, the solids flattened out or stretched considerably, but as soon as the experiment ceased they resumed their original form.

  We had a great deal of difficulty tearing or cutting them. Their porosity proved to be remarkable. The interior of the body, very close to the surface, where the creature flattened out, included numerous vacuoles but nothing that resembled organs.

  I continued to palpate it, rather vainly, but my companions had already made some impressive discoveries. The analysis revealed very small quantities of nitrogen, carbon and hydrogen; the essential substance was formed of oxygen compounds, nitrocarbon and boron oxide, with small proportions of magnesium, arsenic, silica, calcium and phosphorus, plus as-yet-undefined traces of various substances known and unknown.

  “These things compose a realm completely different from ours,” Jean declared.

  Antoine acquiesced with a nod of the head, and I said in my turn: “The difference, in my opinion, is rendered more striking by the absence of liquid. I suspect that circulation is essentially gaseous.”

  “One could also imagine solid circulation—after the fashion of particles moving in inter-atomic spaces.”

  “In any case, the primary anatomical analysis remains fruitless.”

  “Given that you’re a prince of histology,” said Antoine, amiably, “I conclude that the enigma is profound.”

  “What are we going to do now?”

  “First, it’s particularly important to extend our exploration of the surface. Let’s take a look at other regions…”

  “Another one!” cried Jean.

  “Another what?”

  “Another giant—even vaster than the first.”

  We turned round, and discerned a monster that must have been at least fifty meters long. It was heading straight fo
r the Stellarium.

  “Let’s lift off!” I said.

  Gripped by an ardent curiosity, Antoine put a hand on my shoulder, while Jean, petrified, seemed not to have heard. The enormous creature approached our transparent vessel rapidly—undoubtedly aware of its presence, for it stopped as soon as it reached it.

  An immense halo was manifest, and I felt chilled to the bone. Antoine, who was livid, shivered. Jean leaned on the wall, his eyes haggard.

  A second, weaker, halo froze us further; at the same time as I felt an indescribable sensation, extremely disturbing, which was not reminiscent of any known sensation. It caused a constriction in my chest and seemed to stop my heart beating.

  How long our torture—for it was a torture—lasted, I don’t know; perhaps 30 seconds, perhaps several minutes.

  When we recovered our senses completely, the enormous organism had disappeared.

  Antoine, as usual, was the first to recover his strength and self-possession. “We’ve just escaped death!” he remarked, in a voice that hardly betrayed his emotion. “If it weren’t for the Stellarium, we’d have sunk into the eternal night.”

  I couldn’t help saying, with a hint of reproach: “Because nobody listened to me!”

  “We were wrong—quite wrong…especially me, who yielded to an unhealthy curiosity. Mea culpa! All the same, it’s as well to know. Tomorrow night, we won’t run the immense danger that we ran unconsciously last night. It would only have required two or three of those monsters to gather around us to annihilate us in our sleep, in spite of the walls!”

  “Provided that they’re active at night,” Jean remarked.

  “The second halo was far less powerful than the first,” Antoine went on. “Proof, it seems, that these emissions require a great expense of energy.”

  “Was that brute conscious of what it was doing?” Jean muttered. “Or was it acting under the influence of a physical excitation provoked by the proximity of unusual substances?”