*CHAPTER VI.*
*A LANDING EFFECTED.*
It is not my purpose to cumber this narrative with the smaller detailsof our journey, novel and thrilling though some of them proved to be.It is with our experiences on the planet which finally claimed us thatthis account has mostly to do, so I shall glide over intermediateincidents in a somewhat cursory manner.
Our faculties, keyed to an understanding of earthly conditions only,found themselves continually at bay; and at nothing did they stand moreaghast than at the lightning-like speed with which we shot throughspace.
The energy developed by the two insulated cubes gave to our steel carthe stupendous velocity of one hundred miles per second, six thousandmiles per minute, three hundred and sixty thousand miles per hour!Human reason might well falter at the threshold of such immensity.
Yet while I slept peacefully on that bale in the storeroom, thesefigures were verified by the professor and J. Archibald Meigs, whohappened to be the only two who were wide awake. It has been my lastingregret that they did not rouse me so that I might also have had a viewof the noble spectacle for the first time unrolled to earthly eyes.
We passed the moon, a dreary, burned-out world, and the professor wasable to check off two hundred and forty thousand miles of our sunwardplunge. We had traveled a little more than half an hour at our ultimatevelocity; taking this into consideration, and noting the exact minutewhen we crossed the centre of the satellite's orbit, the professor wasable to do some figuring and so test his theories as to speed.
The car skimmed through ether less than five hundred miles above thelunar crust. Quinn was doubly pleased, for he not only proved that ourvelocity was substantially as he had supposed, but also discovered thatthe moon's attraction, so powerful on the tides of our mother sphere,could not swerve the car by a hair's breadth from its direct course, orovercome the influence of the sun.
Meigs told me later that the marvelous beauty of the satellite, gleamingagainst the black void with ghostly radiance, was probably worth thetrip and its attendant inconveniences. He and Quinn had looked theirfill on the hemisphere which is never seen from the earth.
After this the hours literally flew past, the novelty of our journeyprecluding any such thing as monotony. In fact, we hardly allowedourselves a sufficient amount of time for rest and refreshment.
A lookout was kept continually at the eye-piece of the telescope tosignal the approach of any asteroid with which we might possibly comeinto collision. Only once did this danger threaten us, and then, as maybe supposed, it was the professor who proved our salvation.
The lever in the wall of the lower or living room of the carcommunicated with screens, ingeniously arranged for shutting off thepower of the anti-gravity cubes. By lessening our speed, the professorsuffered the asteroid to cross our course, our car ducking through theluminous trail that swept out behind it.
Night reigned around us constantly. Our car caught the rays of the sun,it is true, but the lack of an atmosphere caused the light to be thrownback into space and lost.
The castle was nothing less than a small planet, attended by fivesatellites which, held to our vicinity by the car's attraction, circledaround us continually. These satellites were the four knottedhandkerchiefs containing the tribute I had levied upon the plutocrats,and also the revolver which had assisted me in the work.
These objects went through varied phases exactly as more pretentioussatellites would have done. It would be difficult to describe myfeelings as I watched them from the car windows.
I am prone to think, at the present writing, that this lost booty,waxing and waning under my eyes, planted in my nature those first seedsof regret which finally grew into a reformation.
I recall a conversation that I had with Markham while I sat with my eyeat the lower end of the telescope, watching for stray asteroids.
The millionaires had given me to understand that I was not in their set.Circumstances over which they had no control had brought us togetherwithin the narrow confines of the car, but no social barriers had beenleveled. Occasionally the novelty of our situation, and the consequentexcitement, would cause one or other of the wealthy gentleman to forgetthe gulf that yawned between us.
This attitude of the magnate afforded me a good deal of innocentenjoyment. They had left social prestige, no less than their bankaccounts, behind them, and what little collateral they had had upontheir persons was now "satelliting" about the car. The line they drewbetween themselves and me, in their thoughtful moments, was adistinction without much of a difference.
Markham, I remember, was munching a sandwich, contrived out of twocrackers and a slice of tinned beef.
"Did you never reflect, Mr. Munn," said he, "upon the evil of yourpast?"
"When a man writes books which are mainly drawn from his own experience,Mr. Markham," said I, "he has to go into his past pretty exhaustively."
"Ah, yes, I was forgetting about the books. Were you not horrified withthe results of your retrospection?"
"Horrified? Well, yes, here and there. I lost a big haul once throughthe breaking of a jimmy, and I was horrified to think how any dealer inburglar's kits could have foisted such an unreliable instrument upon awell-meaning cracksman."
Markham stared at me dazedly.
"I have set down the experience in Chapter One of 'Forty Ways forCracking Safes,'" I proceeded, "and one of the first of my ten rules forsuccess in any safe-cracking job was this: Be sure that your kit isreliable, and without flaws."
"Mr. Munn, Mr. Munn!" whispered Markham hoarsely. "Think of the peoplefrom whom you have taken property dishonestly."
"I never think of them but to wish that I had been able to relieve themof more."
"This is awful!" muttered Markham. "You really exult over what you havedone."
He would have started down the iron stairs had I not restrained him witha word.
"Let me ask you something, Mr. Markham," said I. "Last fall, bread wentto ten cents a loaf because the wheat market was cornered--and a man bythe name of Markham did the cornering. The people who had to put up thatextra five cents missed it more than did those from whom I took fivehundred dollars."
Markham coughed. "Any asteroids in sight?" he inquired absently.
"I wonder if _you_ ever did any reflecting?" I asked tartly.
"What do you think of Quinn?" and Markham looked away as I took my eyefrom the telescope and gave him an expressive wink.
"I don't think," I continued, "that you ever wrote a book called 'FortyWays to Starve the Poor.' You have material enough for a prettyeffective volume on the subject, but you haven't my nerve."
"No," he returned slowly, "I haven't your nerve. It requires unalloyedimpudence and a mind incapable of clear thinking to liken the results ofhigh finance with those of your own petty and highly criminalproceedings. You are too bright a man, Mr. Munn, to allow yourself tobe led afield by sophistries of that kind."
"Mr. Markham, Mr. Markham!" I breathed, in horrified protest.
"You have bolstered up your nefarious business with false ideals," hewent on, "and you are unregenerate and lost!"
"This is awful!" I murmured.
"When we get to where we are going," pursued Markham, either failing tonote my sarcasm or else hoping to ride it down, "I trust you will holdyour criminal instincts in check. If there are any people there, don'tgive them any false ideals or implant the notion that your standardsbelong to the rest of us."
"I would not so belittle my ideals," I returned bluntly.
"Sir," he cried sharply, "am I to understand that you set yourself up asbeing any better than Mr. Popham, Mr. Gilhooly, Mr. Meigs, or myself?"
"What you understand doesn't concern me in the least," I answeredairily. "What you don't understand, it strikes me, is the matter thatought to claim your attention."
"Confound you, sir! Your overwhelming ignorance is equalled only byyour colossal egotism. I am sorry that I al
lowed myself to be beguiledinto any talk with you."
"Our regrets are mutual," said I, "for your conversation isdemoralizing. You are a past master in successful trickery--trickery ofthe sort that ought to be stamped out. If the law was as quick to dealwith you as with me----"
"Hold!" fumed Markham, plunging for the stairs, "I have heard enough."
I have said that I was a hard man, in those times. I could call a spadea spade with never a thought that my angle of vision was distorted. Ihave regretted expressing my views in this frank fashion to Markham, yetI believe that there was injustice in his remarks no less than in mine.
Being the only person in the car who possessed a watch, the professorappointed me official time-keeper. It was my duty to bulletin the hour,with its equivalent in days such as we were accustomed to, upon ablackboard in the lower room; I had also to enter this information upona book, which the professor called the "log-book."
Every ten hours we had a class in astronomy, with the professor asinstructor and with every man save Gilhooly and the lookout as students.The railway magnate's aberration continued; all we could do was to watchhim solicitously and prevent him from doing any injury to himself or toour paraphernalia.
The class learned that the nearest planet with an atmosphere, andsupposedly habitable, was Venus, which, at inferior conjunction, isdistant some twenty-five million miles from Terra, as Quinn called ourown planet. Counting out the delays at starting, and in maneuvring toescape the asteroid, our instructor asserted that we should reach Venusin something like seventy-five hours.
Markham, Meigs, and Popham, on consulting the bulletin board and findingthat seventy hours had passed, began to brush their clothes and tidythemselves against the hour of landing. But they were destined todisappointment.
Unable to locate Venus at the point where he had hoped to find it, theprofessor decided that it was nearing superior conjunction and wassomewhere on the other side of the sun. Meigs made a deplorable displayof temper.
Quinn was a mighty poor astronomer, he said sneeringly, if he could findhimself so far wide of the mark on such a simple matter. Meigs furtheradded--with a good deal of childishness as I thought--that the role of aderelict was distasteful to him: a derelict, he argued, was nothing morethan a tramp, and he objected to being a tramp, even a celestial tramp.
I was out of patience with the man. Admiration for the professor hadtaken fast hold of me and I would not have him sneered at or maligned.
A war of hot words was on between myself and the Wall Street broker whenQuinn interfered.
"True," said he, "we have missed Venus by a few millions of miles, butwe are aimed directly at the orbit of another world, and I can somanipulate the lever as to wait for it, if necessary, and drop upon itssurface when it overtakes us."
"What world is that?" said Popham, pricking tip his ears.
"Mercury," answered the professor. "It is the smallest orb in our solarsystem and measures some three thousand miles in diameter."
"I thought Venus was rather contracted for men with such large schemesas ourselves," remarked Meigs, shaking his head, "but this other planetseems to be smaller still."
"I wonder if they have coal mines there?" murmured Popham meditatively.
"And if they grow wheat and cotton?" added Meigs.
"If Mercury is inhabited," spoke up Markham eagerly, "food willcertainly be as necessary there as on the earth. I don't know,gentlemen, but it strikes me we might fall into worse places."
"Poor Gilhooly!" sighed Meigs. "What a pity it will be if theMercurials prove to have traction interests!"
"How long before we shall reach this planet you speak of, professor?"inquired Popham.
"Well," answered Quinn thoughtfully, "Mercury is rather slow. Ittravels along its orbit at the rate of thirty miles per second, while weare moving at one hundred miles. At a rough estimate, I should say wecan effect a juncture with the planet in ten hours, although an extrahour may be required for maneuvres to secure a landing."
The ten hours that followed were hours of great anxiety and feverishlabor. Believing that my nerves were the steadiest, the professorplaced me at the telescope to act as pilot while he served as engineerand manipulated the lever.
The responsibilities of my position so worked upon me that I had no timefor the glories of the planet we were endeavoring to intercept. Throughthe telescope I saw huge mountains and broad plains, but they wereblurred over with a reddish light and the lesser details of topographywere lost.
When five hours were gone, the professor left the lever and cameupstairs to have a look through the telescope for himself.
"You have done very well indeed, Mr. Munn," he was pleased to say, "butI think that I had better take this post from now on, while you go belowand station yourself at the switch board. The slightest mismanagement,when the critical moment arrives, might hurl us against Mercury with aforce that would result in annihilation.
"The lever turns in a half circle, as you may know. The arc is dividedinto spaces, numbered from zero to ninety. I will call down to you thenumber to which you must throw the lever; you will repeat the numberback to me, and instantly obey my order."
"Trust me, sir," said I.
But the professor was loath to let me go without still furtherimpressing upon me the importance of the work before us.
"In order to alight safely, Mr. Munn," he continued, "we must graduatethe power of the anti-gravity cubes to the Mercurial atmosphere. Byproceeding intelligently in the matter, we shall make the car weighslightly more than the atmosphere we encounter; then, when we are aboutto land, we will let the car just counterbalance the 'pull' of theplanet and there will not be the slightest jar."
"I understand, professor," I answered and went downstairs.
Markham, Meigs, and Popham ascended to the upper chamber, this positionbringing them a few feet nearer the goal of our desires as well asgiving them a point of vantage from which to watch events. Gilhooly wasthe only one besides myself in the lower room; he was kneeling on thedivan writing imaginary stock quotations on the steel wall with thepoint of his finger.
For four hours or more the professor called out for slight variations inthe speed of the car, but in the main the lever was held on the number,90, which gave a maximum velocity. The tension of the minutes usheringin the last hour of the ten is beyond my power to describe.
Once in my evil days I manipulated the tumblers of a combination andpulled open a vault door. Behind the door stood two men with revolvers.For two seconds I stared agape at the trap which I had sprung uponmyself; and when I got away I had a bullet in my shoulder.
Intensify my feelings fourfold as I stood looking into the leveledrevolvers of those two men, then spread out the two seconds to cover ahalf hour. In this way only can I describe my state of mind while wefought for a safe landing on the planet Mercury.
Cries of wonder and apprehension echoed to me from overhead. Above themI heard the shrill voice of the professor:
"Zero."
"Zero," I repeated, throwing the lever clear over.
There followed a jolt as the screens covered the cubes and shut offtheir energy. Instantly there came the sickening sensation of a fall,accompanied by a rush of displaced air that roared and bellowed allabout the car.
"Forty-five!" shrieked Quinn.
"Forty-five!" I yelled, throwing the lever half over.
Then we caught ourselves with a suddenness that threw me to my knees.We were moving upward again--I could feel the steel floor rising underme.
"Twenty!" came down from above.
"Twenty," I answered hoarsely, struggling erect and shifting the lever.
I felt that we were still rising, but slowly. The professor wasjuggling with an unknown atmosphere, and on the success of his judgmentdepended our lives.
"Fifteen!"
"Fifteen!" and over went the lever for five degrees.
We were swinging stationary in mid-air. From the window by the switchboard I looke
d outward and downward with bulging eyes.
A dazzling glow covered peak and plain, and I turned away that my sightmight not be blinded to the lever numbers.
"Ten!" cried the professor.
"Ten it is!" and I threw the switch to the number given.
Then again we dropped, but slowly, very slowly.
"Five!"
I repeated the order, and again the air rushed against the blunt base ofthe car, yet not so fiercely as before. Then, all of a sudden, I felt agrip of fingers about my throat, and I was hauled from the lever andthrown back on the floor.
Gilhooly had a knee on my breast and was strangling me with fingers ofsteel. The fire of an insane purpose gleamed in his eyes, and he seemedpossessed of the strength of a dozen demons.
I struggled, but I might as well have tried to rise under thethousand-tons pressure of a hydraulic press.
"Ten!" cried Quinn.
I did not answer--I could not, for my tongue was lolling between mylips.
"Ten!" screamed Quinn. "_Ten--or we're lost!_"
A groan, hardly audible, escaped my gasping throat. I heard a franticclamor above and then there was such a jar and crash as I hope I shallnever experience again.
All tangible life slipped away from me, and I collapsed into anunconsciousness that I felt might be death itself.
Adrift in the Unknown; or, Queer Adventures in a Queer Realm Page 6