Goldfeller climbed the steps of the temple briskly. An armored door opened in front of us and we went into a bare room, at the center of which a sort of iron balustrade surrounded a basket, as in the Paris Bourse. We had to follow the Gem King into that cage, which limited the platform of an elevator that began to descend rapidly.
In scarcely five seconds, we found ourselves transported into an extraordinary place which, beneath the appearances of a simplicity specified at most by its enormous dimensions, was—as I soon found out—the centralized pandemonium of the audacious work of the men accompanying me.
Laboratory, study—what name should I give to that immense hall, in which, lined up for more than five hundred meters, there was a collection of inactive apparatus: screens, consoles of recording instruments or controls, telephone receivers, microphones…? I identify those whose purpose I could deduce, but had to content myself with gazing uncomprehendingly at the prodigious quantity of wheels, handles, buttons, tubes and speakers gaping like avid mouths that were aligned along the walls or distributed on tables of various heights, linked by elevators and colossal ladders that could be rolled effortlessly along polished rails. Above our heads, the iron arches of the ceiling were rounded into a vault, as high as that of a cathedral.
“Gentlemen,” said Goldfeller, turning toward us, “now is the hour when our work will perhaps change its face. Let’s show this imbecile multitude that we can, if necessary, defend ourselves. Attacked, it will be necessary for us to attack in our turn. Hernu!”
The man he had summoned was busy in the room, using rags to clean the handles, hand-grips and brass parts of innumerable items of apparatus installed around us; with his overalls, his little fitted jacket and his leather cap pulled down over his forehead, he looked like an electrician, and his accent, the purest suburban Parisian, confirmed that in the guttural tone in which he shouted: “M’sieur!”
At the same time, he turned toward us an intelligent and hideous face, lit up by two flame-filled eyes, but pitted by smallpox, and holed by two nostrils perched above a toothless mouth, which two halves of a moustache, pretentiously pointed, uncovered like an infected wound.
“A cloud-chaser to the west, and prepare a telescope. Glubb will help you. This, gentlemen will permit us to see clearly through the mists that have thickened around us since yesterday. Kositch, we’re going to try your asphyxiating vapor.”
Kositch smiled modestly. He was a Russian, a skillful chemical technician and one of the most agreeable of my companions in captivity—but I could not help noticing the slightly cruel quality of the smile that suddenly extended over his thick lips. And on the faces of those surrounding me I saw the same expression of expectation, simultaneously ferocious and delighted. In silence, they all seemed to be anticipating a promised, long-awaited moment, the charm of which would finally satiate the unhealthy instinct that their transformed attitude revealed to me. Goldfeller, for his part, had resumed his impassivity; standing to one side, watched by those concerned and voracious faces, one might have thought him an animal-tamer whose voice had advertised the imminent arrival of a prey to his wild beasts.
Glubb’s nasal voice cried: “Ready!”
The Gem King raised his hand. “Go!” he said.
A formidable detonation rang out, and almost immediately Goldfeller went to a telescope whose barrel, descending automatically along the metal wall of the hall, had come to settle at eye level.
“Good…lower…stop! Ah! Through the gap in the clouds we can see perfectly. The brutes! They imagine that we’re afraid. Now, Hernu, aim tube 614 in the direction of the peasants. Point it at the very center of the groups. Tell me when you’re ready and I’ll turn the release-knob.”
Around me, eyes shone. I was oppressed, emotional, vaguely terrified, no longer daring to say anything. To regain my composure, I moved to the telescope and put my eye to the lens. I saw, beneath us, the countryside, and groups of peasants gathering at the edge of the fortified ditch that surrounded the foot of the tower: men armed with scythes and pitchforks, a few with rifles, laughing, nodding their heads with an air of bravado, examining the stumps of the leather hoses they had cut. A few gendarmes, arrived from a nearby village, were listening to their complaints with slightly embarrassed expressions.
From the height from which we were contemplating the scene, all my sympathies were with the unfortunates, and I would have liked to be able to shout to them to flee, but I scarcely had time to think about it. I heard Hernu’s guttural voice, the grating of a wheel, the hiss of vapor in an opened tube, and almost immediately, in the open, a mad stampede.
Swirls of light grey smoke permitted me to glimpse the disorderly gestures of hands clutching at throats, open mouths, eyes closing desperately, people tottering, hands blindly extended. The gendarmes, choking, rolled in the sticky mud that covered the ground, soaked by recent endeavors, for several kilometers around. In a few minutes, there was nothing left but two or three inert forms lying, dead or unconscious, on the edge of the armored ditch. The rest of the idlers were fleeing at top speed into the countryside, where gusts of pestilential vapor were still pursuing them.
V. Aeria
I was not alone in contemplating that scene. Taking turns, my companions had replaced me at the telescope, jostling for a better view. They were laughing, amusing themselves with the cruel spectacle.
“I hope that gas isn’t lethal,” I said to the Gem King, “and that those poor fellows…”
He did not take the trouble, or did not have the time, to answer me; already, a new concern was demanding his attention. An electric bell trilled a few meters away and Goldfeller, installed at the automated apparatus, was obliged to receive a dispatch, whose reading absorbed him briefly.
Then he came back toward us, and I heard him murmur, distractedly: “Bah! It’s too late now! I’m master of the situation.” Shaking his head energetically, he went on cheerfully: “For tonight, gentlemen, we can rest easy—but I have an idea that tomorrow won’t pass without incident.”
I did not yet understand the extent of the man’s thinking, but I was disagreeably impressed and I dared not manifest the species of disgust that I had felt at the sight of the brutal attack I had witnessed. As for those surrounding me, the cruel face that I had just glimpsed beneath the mask of conventional benevolence that they had shown me previously inspired me with both fear and repulsion. These “outlaws” with anarchistic imaginations and professions, at the orders of a quasi-demented billionaire, these improved instruments of destruction…what might result from all that?
I felt a need to be alone.
When we had gone back up by means of the elevator to the interior of the building shaped like a temple, from which we had gained access to that disquieting laboratory of destruction, I took my leave of my companions and turned into the first street I came to in order to isolate myself.
I was positively choking; the suddenly-unleashed savagery of the masters of the tower disturbed and frightened me.
What did Goldfeller want? I wondered. What objective did he have in mind, and where was this madly murderous organization heading?
I wandered for some time through streets full of June moonlight, prey to these anxious thoughts, before going back to the apartment I occupied in the house where I was lodged with the Gem King’s general staff.
The next day, during the communal lunch, I saw my companions again.
The meal was rather taciturn; our president, old Rassmuss—somber and preoccupied, as usual—scarcely exchanged a few words in English with his laboratory assistant Kandy, a tall thin Cinghalese with eyes of polished agate, whom I suspected of mixing a little magic with his experiments and whose knowledge of toxicology was frightening. As was my habit, I had sat down between Kositch and Hartwig, but those two, usually chatty, hardly opened their mouth. We were just finishing the last mouthful when the sound of horns blared forth outside.
“What’s that?” I asked, running mechanically to the window, from whi
ch one could see the extent of the countryside, our house being constructed on the edge of the platform.
“It’s the prefect of the département,” Hartwig told me, “who’s been sent to us to sort out yesterday’s affair. Come and see the elevator arrive: the boss is waiting for the government delegation. It’ll be interesting.”
Everyone was going out; I followed the crowd, and we arrived in time to witness the arrival at the top of the tower of Monsieur Massicot, the prefect of the Marne, accompanied by his secretary-general and a departmental senator.
Each of the large service elevators arrived in a sort of glazed station in which it was easy to organize a reception. In front of the door, the two mutes, Siami-Si and Moldo, were holding back the crowd that was beginning to gather, but the order did not apply to us, and we arranged ourselves behind Goldfeller, who was busy exchanging compliments with the prefect. The latter seemed to be emotional, and lowered his voice to explain the purpose of his visit.
Then the Gem King said, in a loud voice: “Speak up, Monsieur le Préfet, speak freely. These gentlemen are my collaborators, and there is no one here who is not fully aware of what has brought you here.”
“Well,” the prefect replied, a trifle pale in a tone that he tried to make firmer, “perhaps you’re aware of what happened yesterday in the Chamber?”
“I know that the Cabinet has been reduced to a minority, that the President of the Council has been accused of excessive…interest and complaisance in my regard, and that his successor will have the mission of ordering me to renounce my enterprise. It’s a little late, perhaps, but for what am I being reproached?”
“Essentially, of disturbing the order of the State, by not releasing the three million workmen assembled here with a view to carrying out your works; additionally, of disrupting the economy of the surrounding region. You’re taking possession of the water of rivers and wells; with the aid of special apparatus, you’re attracting artificial rain that has drowned the crops, so…”
Goldfeller interrupted him brutally, saying in a loud voice: “Let’s leave aside the accessory charge, which is, in fact, a matter of necessity. As for the first accusation, I’m not keeping anyone here by force, Monsieur le Préfet. Interrogate the people who are listening to us: are they pleased with the city they have created? Are they leading a life in conformity with their tastes here? Do they want to remain here?”
He turned toward the crowd at the station entrance, which was still growing. Cheers and shouts interrupted him.
“Yes! Yes!” cried thousands of voices. “Hurrah! Long live Goldfeller! Evviva! Hoch! Hoch! Bravo!”
In the face of these clamors, the Gem King could not retain a proud smile. He gazed silently at the prefect, who was biting his lip. The senator accompanying him came to the rescue.
“Monsieur,” he said to Goldfeller, “this overreaches the agreement you made with Monsieur Piérard himself; you will understand that the government of the Republic cannot tolerate the establishment of a State within the State…above the State.”
Without replying, Goldfeller turned to Siam-Si and ordered: “The service balloon.” He went on: “Would you like, gentlemen to judge this State for yourselves, and take account of what our suspended city is?”
Having consulted one another with glances, the government’s representatives silently followed the billionaire, who escorted them through the mocking crowd to a small platform, in front of which a balloon had just set its gondola—which accommodated everyone easily, while Goldfeller installed himself at the helm.
Without any jolt, the cigar-shaped tube of varnished silk lifted up us. The summit of the tower sank rapidly beneath us and we rose up vertically for about five hundred meters. There was a dry click and, like a gliding bird, the aeroscaph began to describe a large aerial circle above the immense aggregation of houses, green gardens and streets swarming with crowds in which one could distinguish quite clearly the gestures of minuscule pedestrians, attentively following the maneuvering of our light apparatus.
In the air of that calm summer day, the balloon stopped. With his hand on the steering-wheel, Goldfeller spoke.
“Here is the city! I’ve constructed it above your ancient and marshy cities with all the ingenuity of comfort: all of these houses, some of which are as tall as the skyscrapers of New York, while others don’t exceed the proportions of Yorkshire cottages, have their public or private gardens, some under their very roofs, others around their little brick walls. Every quarter has its park, and all that verdure is watered regularly, either by the artificial rain that we attract during the night or with the aid of the river that you can see shining in the sunlight, and which traverses the length of the city, alimented by the captures that we have made underground, and whose pumping channels and flow-pipes are carefully hidden in the mass of the tower. We have theaters, and even churches and temples for the various religions that are preoccupied with them. An easy life, free and pure air, all needs satisfied by a mysterious industry of which I am the master and the inventor—what more is needed to retain above your painful existence the thousands of individuals who have once tasted it? Henceforth, we demand but one thing: to be left in peace to enjoy that liberty above the world with which we are no longer preoccupied, in this open air city, to which I have given the name I made up for her: Aeria!”
The senator, M. Massicot, and his secretary-general looked at one another, nonplussed. At Goldfeller’s last words, however, the prefect had begun to smile.
“Oh!” he said, staring fixedly at the Gem King. “You’re sufficiently preoccupied with the despised old world to trade the produce of your diamond factory with it, and to exchange the gold of your transactions for the raw materials necessary to your existence.”
Goldfeller remained silent momentarily. He put the gondola in motion again, which began to descend, then said, in a disdainful tone: “Certainly,” he said, “and there you can see the esteem in which we hold you: your society is good for nothing but exploitation…”
Monsieur Massicot interrupted swiftly: “But it is possible for us to put an end to these transactions that allow you to live. We know your warehouse managers, your bankers…”
In his turn, Goldfeller cut into his interlocutor’s speech; his grey eyes sparkled, and his voice took on the tone of hateful anger that had surprised me the day before. “It will be war, then,” he said. “I will show you how we can defend ourselves.”
Obedient to his guidance, the balloon descended with lightning rapidity. As we arrived at the height of the landing-platform, an unexpected gust of wind threw us back over an immense garden, a few meters from a small pavilion covered with a glazed dome, from which I heard faint music emerging. I turned my head sharply in that direction: a few feet from the pavilion, along the wall, I recognized the tall figure of Siam-Si, and, in the little building, I had time to glimpse a white form, an inclined neck and magnificent blonde tresses.
I immediately recognized the mysterious garden, and the feminine form whose face I could scarcely make out, but in which I rediscovered the features of the beautiful traveler on the pond, the sight of whom had earlier cost me my liberty.
I uttered an exclamation, the echo of which was lost in the tumult of the rapid maneuver thanks to which Goldfeller took us back up into the open air.
A smooth glide, and we entered a sort of bay, around which 20 balloons similar to ours were lined up.
“Here,” said the Gem King, “is our fleet of dirigibles.”
The secretary-general, a stout dark-haired man who had not said anything yet, began to laugh and murmured in a strong southern accent: “You don’t count that among the number of your instruments of defense, do you? One rifle-bullet and poof! Eh?”
Goldfeller took a large-caliber revolver from a bag hanging in the gondola and held it out. He simply said: “Try.”
Awkwardly, the other took the weapon, aimed it at one of the yellow envelopes lined up within range, and fired. The bullet was seen to ricochet from
the fabric, which gave way slightly in response to the impact. A second shot had the same result, and all the other bullets in the gun.
Once again the prefect and the senator looked at one another without saying anything, and disembarked after Goldfeller on to the little pier running through the middle of the array of balloons.
Already the crowd was gathering around us.
Monsieur Massicot made one last effort, and took the Gem King to one side. “Monsieur,” he said, “it’s not a question of threats. All that we ask of you, for the moment, is to give a good welcome to the commission of inquiry appointed yesterday by the Chamber to…”
“No commission,” Goldfeller interrupted. “My work is finished and I intend to enjoy it freely. Tell those who sent you what you have seen…and what you’re about to see.”
He had, with one bound, climbed back on to the pier. He pulled the cord of a flag that began to flutter in the air. To this agreed signal, a frightful roar replied. One might have thought that 20 monstrous mouths, opening beneath us in the depths of the tower, were inhaling air like so many vent-holes. Within a few seconds, the horizon was blackened by dark clouds; down below, in the fields, the trees began to bend beneath a storm-wind.
“This,” said Goldfeller, “is an experiment and an advertisement.”
“What is it, then?” murmured the bewildered senator.
“A cyclone. I dispose the weather at my will, thanks to apparatus whose construction is the secret of a few skilled men, whose talents I have been able to utilize. Your society made these men wretched outcasts, as it has made manual workers of all those that listen to us and whom I have undertaken to make free men and conquerors.”
The World Above The World Page 20