“What for? They’re made of stone, R’rdô, unusable! Can’t you se that?” And, as we finally came to the terminal wall of the cavern, he gave the shaggy an abrupt order to turn back. “A lacuna of no importance,” he muttered. “No hindrance to the functioning of the Mine.”
The spectral branches of the petrified forest closed upon the vision of the First Men grouped around the First Fire; the helicopter went back to the orifice of the second section of the Tunnel and plunged into it, vertiginously.
A dolorous emotion gripped me. I was no longer looking at anything. I could not tear my thoughts away from that prodigious memory: the distant ancestors of my species, briefly glimpsed, distorted by the hyaline thickness of the cockpit. Me, one of the last humans, confronted by my origin…the entire history of civilization thus reduced to its two extreme terms: anthropopithecoid savages and an heir to the progress won in the course of millennia…equally destined to perish in a few days with the maternal planet. O vanity of vanities…!
“Stop!” Leduc suddenly commanded. He pointed to the needle of a manometer whose progress he had been following with increasing preoccupation. “Eight atmospheres! That’s bad. The walls of the cabin are warping. We can’t go much further without being crushed flat, as if in a hydraulic press. Damn! I didn’t think of that…we’ll have to go back up.”
That the best technician in Mars Central should overlook such a thing astonished me, but I saw it as a new symptom of the hypnotic reaction that the formidable workings of Martian industry exerted on their creators—as if the unknown forces extracted from matter and reduced to slavery were slyly taking their revenge, or as if the imminence of the exodus had saturated the atmosphere with a ferment of folly.
As soon we returned from that failed exploration, the assembly of the Bomb commenced. The several sections cast in the steelyard and brought to the vicinity of the Tunnel, were bolted together and welded into a whole. When the monstrous sphere was complete, chains with links as large as the body of an ox were passed through its ear-flaps, and it was guided towards the gaping opening.
And there is the bomb in place, ready to be charged. Suspended from the steel frame, it is balanced over the mouth of the tunnel like a monstrous spherical 400 cubic meter aerostat. But it is neither hydrogen nor helium gas that will fill it: it is the terrible cracterite, manufactured during the last six months and accumulated in the nearby silos, into which hundreds of thousands of tons of it have been poured. A suspension bridge, furnished with two railway tracks, has been established between the edge of the gulf and the upper orifice of the Bomb, and over this bridge, at great speed, file small wagons full of explosive, which succeed one another without pause and return empty to collect a new load. Untiringly, the wagons, empty their tons of cracterite into the mouth of the Bomb, to be carried into its depths by a spiral conveyor-belt.
Leduc smiles radiantly. Careless of danger, in the midst of his shaggies—although he has set aside his eternal pipe—he goes from the silos to the Bomb and from the Bomb to the silos along the suspension bridge, gauging the diminution of one and the replenishment of he other. He spends hours inside the Bomb, watching over the accumulation of the redoubtable substance. He invites me to accompany him, and, to prove to him that a Terran is as brave as he is, I accept. A wagon full of cracterite—a soft bed on which we sit in the Turkish fashion—carries us vertiginously over the suspension bridge; we leap on to the platform while out improvised chair turns upside-down and departs towards the silos, and a lift takes us down…
Inside the Bomb: an enormous, prodigious spectacle that no grotto, no “giants’ hall,” no Kentuckian “Mammoth cave” could ever equal! The beams of searchlights are dazzlingly reflected from the polished concavity of the sphere in which we are lost like ants in a pumpkin. Up above—high above—the orifice opens: an azure eye, into which the wagons, at ten second intervals, pour their tons of cracterite, which is transferred at the bottom of the spiral conveyor-belt, into other small wagons with rubber wheels. The bottom quarter of the sphere is already stuffed, and each new layer of explosive is carefully tamed by the pestles of a gang of shaggies. One might imagine that they were preparing an immense ballroom, with a floor of green cinders.
But what a dance! It would only take one spark…
And the temptation grips me to cause that spark—to strike my new Jean Bart lighter and to plunge its burning wick into the ground on which everyone is walking gingerly, barefoot. It would be instantaneous, without suffering. Poor Raymonde! The Tunnel useless henceforth, the Earth saved—perhaps?
Yes, but the Cylinders? I cannot. My hands are tied. So I come every day with Leduc—between visits to the Cylinders, of which only fifty remain to be completed—and I watch the charging progress stoically, and the filling of these great reservoirs, twice the size of the Pharaohs’ ancient Lake Moeris…these reservoirs that will overflow into the Tunnel within ten minutes of their sluice-gates being opened…
The temptation took hold of me again, imperiously—and this time no logical argument militated against it—on the day of the final Banquet. A splendid occasion, not to say unique! The entire population of Mars Central, with the exception of a few shaggies detached to Aswan, Khartoum and Alexandria, and the crews of five or six hunting volvites—400,000 Terromartians and an equal number of maki-mokokos—came together to celebrate the completion of the Tunnel. The Bomb was charged, and primed, the reservoirs full, the apparatus for unlocking and opening the sluice-gates connected to the switches in the Cylinders’ control-booth. If I were able to get away from the feast, to fly out there, to close the activating circuit…or, even better, act directly upon the conductive wires from here! It would mean the explosion of the Mine—perhaps the end of the Earth, if the floodgates opened simultaneously and Leduc’s calculations were not mistaken—but also the total and definitive annihilation of the vile Martians, before the execution of their monstrous designs on Venus.
That result would be well worth the sacrifice of my life!
Alas, throughout the banquet and throughout the odious orgy that developed from kit consecutively, under the floodlights, until daybreak, the deadly Leduc did not leave my side, and lavished his seemingly-respectful attentions upon me—but what a diabolically ironic gleam there was in his green eye!
The wretch had guessed my intention!
Part Three: The Titans Take Off
I. The Cylinders’ Steering-Mechanism
Why didn’t I think of that? The Cylinders’ steering-mechanism! It’s childishly simple. It doesn’t involve a motor, a brake, a tiller, or any kind of rudder—it’s purely a matter of calculation and the exact timing of the departure. I’ve been racking my brains for ten months, devoting mental energy to the problem that could have been better spent, for instance, on figuring out how to contrive the failure of the Mine. Ten months ago, I had this piece of paper within arm’s reach; it passed before my eyes, and I dismissed it as a theoretical calculation in astronomy, of no importance…oh, that habit R’rdô has of never putting titles in his private notes! Just like me, in the old days!
Here it is: using three constants, V being the gravitational attraction of Venus, T the tangential velocity of the Earth at the latitude of Mars Central and Sg the acceleration due to the solar, and the variable t, which equals time, the series of equations is obtainable. Suffice it to say, though, that I have solved the puzzle, whose decipherment took me long evenings—with not a single alegbra textbook to hand!
The trajectory of the Cylinders, on their departure from Earth, is not solely determined, as I thought at first, by the solar whose paradoxical properties made me forget everything else. The also participate in the tangential velocity of the rotation of the Earth, and that impulsion—nearly 400 meters per second at the latitude of Cairo, scarcely diminished by the passage through the atmosphere—will generate a certain angle of deviation. It is a matter of using that deviation, and combining it with the attraction of Venus, so that the Cylinders are captured in pass
ing and land on the planet.
The attraction of Venus can only be effective in opposition to other forces, however, if it is exercised within a certain zone. If Venus is outside that zone when the Cylinders cross its orbit, it will be incapable of counterbalancing the enormous influence of the Sun. And this effective zone is narrow! A few minutes could make the difference between the projectiles landing on Venus or grazing its atmosphere with too great a velocity and flying straight towards the central Star. The possible time of departure is on the tenth of May—the day after tomorrow—between 11:22 and 11:54 a.m. Any sooner or later, and the Sun is assured….
With what somber joy I completed that analysis! With what heroic intoxication I glimpsed the means of affecting the course of the Cylinders by means of the devices in the control-booth!
Whatever the result of my intervention might be, the sacrifice of my life is made, and there is an element of Martian pitilessness in my resolution.
Raymonde? I don’t say that I’ve grown used to her absence. No, I don’t proffer that blasphemy. On the contrary, the purest part of her soul lives in me and my idealized memory of happy days—but in confrontation with the grandiose gesture to be accomplished, it is as if my egotistical personality has been resorbed into something vaster, into the consciousness of the Earth; even the joys of love, the highest of individual existence, seem paltry to me, seen from that heroic summit. Have they not been tasted already, in their plenitude? Have we not lived? What would a year, ten years, 20 years more bring to our sublime union? The re-attainment, on a few occasions, of the sublime level that we reached in the fullness of our strength and our trust? From then on…
Thus I exert myself to stoicism; I must harness all the energy of my soul, so that I experience the vibrant tension of the catapult that my will must become at the decisive moment, to project my life into a planetary holocaust.
The sly insinuations of the survival instinct strive in vain to reassure me, to persuade me that I still have a chance, that I can accomplish my duty in full and get out of it…I prefer not to lie to myself.
For certain technical reasons into whose details I have not enquired—difficulties of electrical isolation, I think—Leduc has terminated all the command-wires for the final hour in the control-booth, not in the interior of a cylinder. This does not mean that the operator charged with the maneuver will be condemned to remain on Earth after the departure of the trans-sidereal vehicles and to fall victim to the Tunnel. Once the mechanisms are activated, he will have twenty minutes to get into his cylinder and close the seal, having previously activated—in this order and at the requisite intervals—firstly, the parasol hoods; secondly, the bomb; and thirdly, the sluice-gates.
This supreme function thus involves nothing perilous, in principle—and it is me, the Sovereign Pontiff and Emperor of the Martians, who will be charged with launching my people towards the solar paradise, via Venus. This was officially announced to me today, at noon, at the banquet celebrating the completion of the last cylinder, by a deputation of overseers and shaggies, in the midst of unanimous applause.
Leduc said nothing. He could not protest, the honor being due to me—but all the evidence suggests that he has taken his precautions.
What precautions? If the famous “Terran” is, as I have every reason to believe, more than an improvised and meaningless insult, he must—never having taken notes himself—suppose that I am ignorant of what R’rdô knew. He must therefore presume that I shall trigger the Cylinders at the appointed hour—neither too early nor too late—but that I will deliberately leave the controls for the Bomb and the Tunnel untouched. In consequence, he will have taken care not to separate the one from the others, in order that the catastrophe will unfold automatically.
That seems to me to be the most probable means.
Should I attempt to verify the connections? What good would it do? I am too much the novice in these matters to contend with the tricks of the Technical Director: the control-booth is under observation, I would be seen handling the wires, and Leduc would be alerted…he would the have the material proof that he needs against me.
No. Nothing of that sort. My duty is to die with the Earth—but Venus will be saved.
Adieu, then! Thirty-one hours more!
II. The Penultimate Rotation
I would have liked to collect myself on the morning of the day when, for the last time since its origin, the Earth would execute a complete revolution on its axis. I would have liked to meditate upon the unprecedented adventure that was in preparation, to say farewell to humankind’s past and the memories of my ephemeral being, which will be dispersed tomorrow in the gulf of sidereal space…but the means of reflection is lacking, with the tumultuous redoubling of the Martian orgy, which has not ceased all night to unfurl beneath the windows of the Red Palace…
For everything is ready. Since the evening of the day before yesterday. Nothing more to do; everyone is awaiting the departure—and that enforced idleness is becoming more and more irritating, as anxiety and excitement mount. The Monument orchestra—organs and electric brass instruments, noise-makers and sirens—alternates the tunes of “shaggy” and “pumpkin” hymns, whose choruses are repeated by the entire city, and which mingle on the Esplanade with wild dance tunes. The latter lead formidable sarabands, which terminate in confused scuffles in which simian males, pursuing and knocking down females of every sort, are abused in their turn by the Terromartians, amid the unbridled capers and delirious couplings of the maki-mokokos, whose shrill yelping dominates the paroxysms of exclamations emerging from every throat at once.
And the gluttonous revels mingle pell-mell with the dances and the drunken stupors. The refrigerated stores are pillaged and squandered; no one wants to leave anything behind on Mars Central’s last day. Because it cannot be carried away, it is being absorbed; they are gorging themselves on foodstuffs. Mountains of fruit cascade underfoot, causing pedestrians to stumble. Whale-meat steaks and the carcasses of elephants are strewn on the pavements, picked to pieces at hazard as appetite allows. Barrels are rolled out, pierced and emptied straight down avid throats. Larger ones are stoved in and individuals bathe in them; maki-mokokos dive in with frog-like plops and drink as they swim, until they finish up floating, dead drunk, their bellies inflated like balloons—whereupon they are immediately ripped by 20 avid paws, thrown out of the vessel and replaced by others…
The chiefs of my general staff, accompanied by Leduc and his foremen, are coming to render me their customary homage. They seem to have departed already. I had almost got used to these hybrid beings, these monsters with foreign souls. I had adapted myself to them—just as they have partly adapted themselves to terrestrial life, subjugated by the influence of the milieu that created the races. At present, though, they are more distant from me and more odious than ever. They are Martians en route to the conquest of the Sun, and first of Venus, of whose devastation they are already dreaming.
Leduc and his foremen, most of all, are yawning, disorientated, as if prey to the stupefying vapors of nitrous oxide—the demoralization of workless technicians, of mechanized souls and brains of steel that no longer have anything to do but wait…
A loud clatter of scrap metal, followed by roars of demonic gaiety, resounds from outside. “Our faithful shaggies are having a good time!” says the Boss, guessing its source. And the north-western periscope screen shows us the tangled wreckage of locomotives and trains on the tracks at Alexandria station, which shaggy railway workers have launched against one another at top speed in order to watch the result.
Here and there, among the enormous rumor of the city, the sounds of broken glass, collapses and explosions are audible, still isolated and modest, but which are charging the atmosphere like a heady whirlwind of destruction. Evidently, all of this could be left as it is, since the Earth itself will be blown up—but no; that mass execution, which they will not witness, cannot satisfy the Martians. It is necessary that they exercise their methodical mania in det
ail. All this is no longer needed? Then all this must go!
And Leduc and his shaggy-chiefs watch, fascinated, the destructive work that is beginning on every side. They are dreaming of ways to make it technical and industrial, to conduct a general rehearsal of what will happen on Venus, just to pass the time. They cough, and wish to absent themselves, on the pretext of “surveillance.” It is with regret that they first accompany me to the Hall of Reincarnation.
For the solenoids are still operating. Thanks to the elimination of the food-stocks, there are more places aboard the Cylinders than are needed and I have made a feigned concession to the charitable maki-mokokos, in order to disembarrass the Earth—in case it might be saved—of the greatest possible proportion of the errant souls that are fouling its atmosphere. For a week, the solenoids have been accepting small animals; it is anticipated that there will be an entire cylinder of rats and guinea-pigs, anesthetized by nitrous oxide and heaped up in regular layers to the thickness of each stage. Around the outskirts of the Hall, and in the Hall itself, there is a seething procession of rodents.
Just as, according to Diodorus, the gods of the Greek Olympus once took refuge in Egypt, fleeing the revolt of the Titans, hiding in the forms of the vilest animals, here, by a singular irony, the Titans are constrained in their turn—and in that same Egypt!—to put on disguises more abject still!
Yes, more abject, for the souls, panicked by the imminence of the exodus, are making frenetic attempts to be reincarnated. No more choice: anything that is alive is acceptable, including spiders, woodlice, millipedes, even flies! Even before the actual decree of tolerance, the attendants in charge of the solenoids were being harassed by an increasing invasion of insects. Now, there are swarms of Diptera buzzing in the Hall. When we leave, a veritable whirlwind of winged gratitude escorts us through the city to reach the Cylinders.
The Martian Epic Page 40