The Golden Age of Science Fiction Novels Vol 05

by Anthology

"Then," asked Michel, "the moon is an older world than the earth?"

  "No," answered Barbicane with conviction, "but a world that has grown old more quickly, whose formation and deformation have been more rapid. Relatively the organising forces of matter have been much more violent in the interior of the moon than in the interior of the celestial globe. The actual state of this disc, broken up, tormented, and swollen, proves this abundantly. In their origin the moon and the earth were only gases. These gases became liquids under different influences, and the solid mass was formed afterwards. But it is certain that our globe was gas or liquid still when the moon, already solidified by cooling, became habitable."

  "I believe that," said Nicholl.

  "Then," resumed Barbicane, "it was surrounded by atmosphere. The water held in by the gassy element could not evaporate. Under the influence of air, water, light, and heat, solar and central, vegetation took possession of these continents prepared for its reception, and certainly life manifested itself about that epoch, for Nature does not spend itself in inutilities, and a world so marvellously habitable must have been inhabited."

  "Still," answered Nicholl, "many phenomena inherent to the movements of our satellite must have prevented the expansion of the vegetable and animal kingdoms. The days and nights 354 hours long, for example."

  "At the terrestrial poles," said Michel, "they last six months."

  "That is not a valuable argument, as the poles are not inhabited."

  "In the actual state of the moon," resumed Barbicane, "the long nights and days create differences of temperature insupportable to the constitution, but it was not so at that epoch of historical times. The atmosphere enveloped the disc with a fluid mantle. Vapour deposited itself in the form of clouds. This natural screen tempered the ardour of the solar lays, and retained the nocturnal radiation. Both light and heat could diffuse themselves in the air. Hence there was equilibrium between the influences which no longer exists now that the atmosphere has almost entirely disappeared. Besides, I shall astonish you--"

  "Astonish us?" said Michel Ardan.

  "But I believe that at the epoch when the moon was inhabited the nights and days did not last 354 hours!"

  "Why so?" asked Nicholl quickly.

  "Because it is very probable that then the moon's movement of rotation on her axis was not equal to her movement of revolution, an equality which puts every point of the lunar disc under the action of the solar rays for fifteen days."

  "Agreed," answered Nicholl; "but why should not these movements have been equal, since they are so actually?"

  "Because that equality has only been determined by terrestrial attraction. Now, how do we know that this attraction was powerful enough to influence the movements of the moon at the epoch the earth was still fluid?"

  "True," replied Nicholl; "and who can say that the moon has always been the earth's satellite?"

  "And who can say," exclaimed Michel Ardan, "that the moon did not exist before the earth?"

  Imagination began to wander in the indefinite field of hypotheses. Barbicane wished to hold them in.

  "Those," said he, "are speculations too high, problems really insoluble. Do not let us enter into them. Let us only admit the insufficiency of primordial attraction, and then by the inequality of rotation and revolution days and nights could succeed each other upon the moon as they do upon the earth. Besides, even under those conditions life was possible."

  "Then," asked Michel Ardan, "humanity has quite disappeared from the moon?"

  "Yes," answered Barbicane, "after having, doubtless, existed for thousands of centuries. Then gradually the atmosphere becoming rarefied, the disc will again be uninhabitable like the terrestrial globe will one day become by cooling."

  "By cooling?"

  "Certainly," answered Barbicane. "As the interior fires became extinguished the incandescent matter was concentrated and the lunar disc became cool. By degrees the consequences of this phenomenon came about--the disappearance of organic beings and the disappearance of vegetation. Soon the atmosphere became rarefied, and was probably drawn away by terrestrial attraction; the breathable air disappeared, and so did water by evaporation. At that epoch the moon became uninhabitable, and was no longer inhabited. It was a dead world like it is to-day."

  "And you say that the like fate is reserved for the earth?"

  "Very probably."

  "But when?"

  "When the cooling of its crust will have made it uninhabitable."

  "Has the time it will take our unfortunate globe to melt been calculated?"

  "Certainly."

  "And you know the reason?"

  "Perfectly."

  "Then tell us, sulky savant--you make me boil with impatience."

  "Well, my worthy Michel," answered Barbicane tranquilly, "it is well known what diminution of temperature the earth suffers in the lapse of a century. Now, according to certain calculations, that average temperature will be brought down to zero after a period of 400,000 years!"

  "Four hundred thousand years!" exclaimed Michel. "Ah! I breathe again! I was really frightened. I imagined from listening to you that we had only fifty thousand years to live!"

  Barbicane and Nicholl could not help laughing at their companion's uneasiness. Then Nicholl, who wanted to have done with it, reminded them of the second question to be settled.

  "Has the moon been inhabited?" he asked.

  The answer was unanimously in the affirmative.

  During this discussion, fruitful in somewhat hazardous theories, although it resumed the general ideas of science on the subject, the projectile had run rapidly towards the lunar equator, at the same time that it went farther away from the lunar disc. It had passed the circle of Willem, and the 40th parallel, at a distance of 400 miles. Then leaving Pitatus to the right, on the 30th degree, it went along the south of the Sea of Clouds, of which it had already approached the north. Different amphitheatres appeared confusedly under the white light of the full moon--Bouillaud, Purbach, almost square with a central crater, then Arzachel, whose interior mountain shone with indefinable brilliancy.

  At last, as the projectile went farther and farther away, the details faded from the travellers' eyes, the mountains were confounded in the distance, and all that remained of the marvellous, fantastical, and wonderful satellite of the earth was the imperishable remembrance.

  CHAPTER XIX.

  A STRUGGLE WITH THE IMPOSSIBLE.

  For some time Barbicane and his companions, mute and pensive, looked at this world, which they had only seen from a distance, like Moses saw Canaan, and from which they were going away for ever. The position of the projectile relatively to the moon was modified, and now its lower end was turned towards the earth.

  This change, verified by Barbicane, surprised him greatly. If the bullet was going to gravitate round the satellite in an elliptical orbit, why was not its heaviest part turned towards it like the moon to the earth? There again was an obscure point.

  By watching the progress of the projectile they could see that it was following away from the moon an analogous curve to that by which it approached her. It was, therefore, describing a very long ellipsis which would probably extend to the point of equal attraction, where the influences of the earth and her satellite are neutralised.

  Such was the conclusion which Barbicane correctly drew from the facts observed, a conviction which his two friends shared with him.

  Questions immediately began to shower upon him.

  "What will become of us after we have reached the neutral point?" asked Michel Ardan.

  "That is unknown!" answered Barbicane.

  "But we can make suppositions, I suppose?"

  "We can make two," answered Barbicane. "Either the velocity of the projectile will then be insufficient, and it will remain entirely motionless on that line of double attraction--"

  "I would rather have the other supposition, whatever it is," replied Michel.

  "Or the velocity will be sufficient," resumed Ba
rbicane, "and it will continue its elliptical orbit, and gravitate eternally round the orb of night."

  "Not very consoling that revolution," said Michel, "to become the humble servants of a moon whom we are in the habit of considering our servant. And is that the future that awaits us?"

  Neither Barbicane nor Nicholl answered.

  "Why do you not answer?" asked the impatient Michel.

  "There is nothing to answer," said Nicholl.

  "Can nothing be done?"

  "No," answered Barbicane. "Do you pretend to struggle with the impossible?"

  "Why not? Ought a Frenchman and two Americans to recoil at such a word?"

  "But what do you want to do?"

  "Command the motion that is carrying us along!"

  "Command it?"

  "Yes," resumed Michel, getting animated, "stop it or modify it; use it for the accomplishment of our plans."

  "And how, pray?"

  "That is your business! If artillerymen are not masters of their bullets they are no longer artillerymen. If the projectile commands the gunner, the gunner ought to be rammed instead into the cannon! Fine savants, truly! who don't know now what to do after having induced me--"

  "Induced!" cried Barbicane and Nicholl. "Induced! What do you mean by that?"

  "No recriminations!" said Michel. "I do not complain. The journey pleases me. The bullet suits me. But let us do all that is humanly possible to fall somewhere, if only upon the moon."

  "We should only be too glad, my worthy Michel," answered Barbicane, "but we have no means of doing it."

  "Can we not modify the motion of the projectile?"

  "No."

  "Nor diminish its speed?"

  "No."

  "Not even by lightening it like they lighten an overloaded ship?"

  "What can we throw out?" answered Nicholl. "We have no ballast on board. And besides, it seems to me that a lightened projectile would go on more quickly."

  "Less quickly," said Michel.

  "More quickly," replied Nicholl.

  "Neither more nor less quickly," answered Barbicane, wishing to make his two friends agree, "for we are moving in the void where we cannot take specific weight into account."

  "Very well," exclaimed Michel Ardan in a determined tone; "there is only one thing to do."

  "What is that?" asked Nicholl.

  "Have breakfast," imperturbably answered the audacious Frenchman, who always brought that solution to the greatest difficulties.

  In fact, though that operation would have no influence on the direction of the projectile, it might be attempted without risk, and even successfully from the point of view of the stomach. Decidedly the amiable Michel had only good ideas.

  They breakfasted, therefore, at 2 a.m., but the hour was not of much consequence. Michel served up his habitual menu, crowned by an amiable bottle out of his secret cellar. If ideas did not come into their heads the Chambertin of 1863 must be despaired of.

  The meal over, observations began again.

  The objects they had thrown out of the projectile still followed it at the same invariable distance. It was evident that the bullet in its movement of translation round the moon had not passed through any atmosphere, for the specific weight of these objects would have modified their respective distances.

  There was nothing to see on the side of the terrestrial globe. The earth was only a day old, having been new at midnight the day before, and two days having to go by before her crescent, disengaged from the solar rays, could serve as a clock to the Selenites, as in her movement of rotation each of her points always passes the same meridian of the moon every twenty-four hours.

  The spectacle was a different one on the side of the moon; the orb was shining in all its splendour amidst innumerable constellations, the rays of which could not trouble its purity. Upon the disc the plains again wore the sombre tint which is seen from the earth. The rest of the nimbus was shining, and amidst the general blaze Tycho stood out like a sun.

  Barbicane could not manage any way to appreciate the velocity of the projectile, but reasoning demonstrated that this speed must be uniformly diminishing in conformity with the laws of rational mechanics.

  In fact, it being admitted that the bullet would describe an orbit round the moon, that orbit must necessarily be elliptical. Science proves that it must be thus. No mobile circulation round any body is an exception to that law. All the orbits described in space are elliptical, those of satellites round their planets, those of planets around their sun, that of the sun round the unknown orb that serves as its central pivot. Why should the projectile of the Gun Club escape that natural arrangement?

  Now in elliptical orbits attracting bodies always occupy one of the foci of the ellipsis. The satellite is, therefore, nearer the body round which it gravitates at one moment than it is at another. When the earth is nearest the sun she is at her perihelion, and at her aphelion when most distant. The moon is nearest the earth at her perigee, and most distant at her apogee. To employ analogous expressions which enrich the language of astronomers, if the projectile remained a satellite of the moon, it ought to be said that it is in its "aposelene" at its most distant point, and at its "periselene" at its nearest.

  In the latter case the projectile ought to attain its maximum of speed, in the latter its minimum. Now it was evidently going towards its "aposelene," and Barbicane was right in thinking its speed would decrease up to that point, and gradually increase when it would again draw near the moon. That speed even would be absolutely nil if the point was coexistent with that of attraction.

  Barbicane studied the consequences of these different situations; he was trying what he could make of them when he was suddenly interrupted by a cry from Michel Ardan.

  "I'faith!" cried Michel, "what fools we are!"

  "I don't say we are not," answered Barbicane; "but why?"

  "Because we have some very simple means of slackening the speed that is taking us away from the moon, and we do not use them."

  "And what are those means?"

  "That of utilising the force of recoil in our rockets."

  "Ah, why not?" said Nicholl.

  "We have not yet utilised that force, it is true," said Barbicane, "but we shall do so."

  "When?" asked Michel.

  "When the time comes. Remark, my friends, that in the position now occupied by the projectile, a position still oblique to the lunar disc, our rockets, by altering its direction, might take it farther away instead of nearer to the moon. Now I suppose it is the moon you want to reach?"

  "Essentially," answered Michel.

  "Wait, then. Through some inexplicable influence the projectile has a tendency to let its lower end fall towards the earth. It is probable that at the point of equal attraction its conical summit will be rigorously directed towards the moon. At that moment it may be hoped that its speed will be nil. That will be the time to act, and under the effort of our rockets we can, perhaps, provoke a direct fall upon the surface of the lunar disc."

  "Bravo!" said Michel.

  "We have not done it yet, and we could not do it as we passed the neutral point, because the projectile was still animated with too much velocity."

  "Well reasoned out," said Nicholl.

  "We must wait patiently," said Barbicane, "and put every chance on our side; then, after having despaired so long, I again begin to think we shall reach our goal."

  This conclusion provoked hurrahs from Michel Ardan. No one of these daring madmen remembered the question they had all answered in the negative--No, the moon is not inhabited! No, the moon is probably not inhabitable! And yet they were going to do all they could to reach it.

  One question only now remained to be solved: at what precise moment would the projectile reach that point of equal attraction where the travellers would play their last card?

  In order to calculate that moment to within some seconds Barbicane had only to have recourse to his travelling notes, and to take the different altitudes from lunar par
allels. Thus the time employed in going over the distance between the neutral point and the South Pole must be equal to the distance which separates the South Pole from the neutral point. The hours representing the time it took were carefully noted down, and the calculation became easy.

  Barbicane found that this point would be reached by the projectile at 1 a.m. on the 8th of December. It was then 3 a.m. on the 7th of December. Therefore, if nothing intervened, the projectile would reach the neutral point in twenty-two hours.

  The rockets had been put in their places to slacken the fall of the bullet upon the moon, and now the bold fellows were going to use them to provoke an exactly contrary effect. However that may be, they were ready, and there was nothing to do but await the moment for setting fire to them.