CHAPTER XIV
"Five hundred million miles from the Earth, and forty-seven millionmiles from Jupiter," said Redgrave as he came into breakfast on themorning of the twenty-eighth day after leaving Venus.
During this brief period the _Astronef_ had recrossed the orbits of theEarth and Mars and had passed through that marvellous region of theSolar System, the Belt of the Asteroides. Nearly a hundred million milesof their journey had lain through this zone in which hundreds andpossibly thousands of tiny planets revolve in vast orbits round the Sun.
Then had come a world less void of over three hundred million miles,through which they voyaged alone, surrounded by the ever-constantsplendours of the heavens, and visited only now and then by one of thoseSpectres of Space, which we call comets.
Astern the disc of the Sun steadily diminished and ahead the grey-blueshape of Jupiter, the Giant of the Solar System, had grown larger andlarger until now they could see it as it had never been seen before--agigantic three-quarter moon filling up the whole heavens in front ofthem almost from zenith to nadir. Three of its satellites, Europa,Ganymede, and Calisto, were distinctly visible even to the naked eye,and Europa and Ganymede, happened to be in such a position in regard tothe _Astronef_ that her crew could see not only the bright sides turnedtowards the Sun, but also the black shadow-spots which they cast on thecloud-veiled face of the huge planet. Calisto was above the horizonhanging like a tiny flicker of yellowish-red light above the roundededge of Jupiter, and Io was invisible behind the planet.
"Five hundred million miles!" said Zaidie, with a little shiver; "thatseems an awful long way from home--I mean America--doesn't it? I oftenwonder what they are thinking about us on the dear old Earth. I don'tsuppose any one ever expects to see us again. However, it's no goodgetting homesick in the middle of a journey when you're outward bound.And now what is the programme as regards His Majesty King Jove? We shallvisit the satellites of course?"
"Certainly," replied Redgrave; "in fact, I shouldn't be surprised if ourvisit was confined to them."
"What! do you mean to say we shan't land on Jupiter after coming nearlysix hundred million miles to see him? That would be disappointing. Butwhy not? don't you think he's ready to be visited yet?"
"I can't say that, but you must remember that no one has the remotestnotion of what there is behind the clouds or whatever they are whichform those bands. All we really know about Jupiter is that he is ofenormous size, for instance, he's over twelve hundred times bigger thanthe Earth and that his density isn't much greater than that ofwater--and my humble opinion is that if we're able to go through theclouds without getting the _Astronef_ red-hot we shall find that Jupiteris in the same state as the Earth was a good many million years ago."
"I see," said Zaidie, "you mean just a mass of blazing, boiling rock andmetal which will make islands and continents some day; and that what wecall the cloud-bands are the vapours which will one day make its seas.Well, if we can get through these clouds we ought to see something worthseeing. Just fancy a whole world as big as that all ablaze like molteniron! Do you think we shall be able to see it, Lenox?"
"I'm not so sure about that, little woman. We shall have to go to workrather cautiously. You see Jupiter is far bigger than any world we'vevisited yet, and if we got too close to him the _Astronef's_ enginesmight not be powerful enough to drive us away again. Then we shouldeither stop there till the R. Force was exhausted or be drawn towardshim and perhaps drop into an ocean of molten rock and metal."
"Thanks!" said Zaidie, with a shrug of her shapely shoulders. "That_would_ be an ignominious end to a journey like this, to say nothing ofthe boiling oil part of it; so I suppose you'll make stopping-places ofthe satellites and use their attraction to help you to resist HisMajesty's."
"Your Ladyship's reasoning is perfect. I propose to visit them in turn,beginning with Calisto. I shouldn't be at all surprised if we foundsomething interesting on them. You know they're quite little worlds ofthemselves. They're all bigger than our moon, except Europa. Ganymede,in fact, is two-thirds bigger than Mercury, and if old Jupiter is stillin a state of fiery incandescence there's no reason why we shouldn'tfind on Ganymede or one of the others the same state of things thatexisted on our moon when the Earth was blazing hot."
"I shouldn't wonder," said Zaidie; "I've often heard my father say thatthat was probably what happened. It's all very marvellous, isn't it?death in one place, life in another, all beginnings and endings, and yetno actual beginning or end of anything anywhere. That's eternity, Isuppose."
"It's just about as near as the finite intellect can get to it, I shouldsay," replied Redgrave. "But I don't think metaphysics are much in ourline. If you've finished we may as well go and have a look at therealities."
"Which the metaphysicians," laughed Zaidie as she rose, "would tell youare not realities at all, or only realities so far as you can thinkabout them. 'Thinks,' in short, instead of real things. But meanwhileI've got the breakfast _things_ to put away, so you can go up on deckand put the telescopes in order."
When she joined him a few minutes later in the deck-chamber thethree-quarter disc of Jupiter was rapidly approaching the full.
Its phases are invisible from the Earth owing to the enormous distance;but from the deck of the _Astronef_ they had been plainly visible forsome days, and, since the huge planet turns on its axis in less than tenhours, or with more than twice the speed of the Earth's rotation, thephases followed each other very rapidly.
Thus at twelve o'clock noon by _Astronef_ time they might have seen agigantic rim of silver-blue overarching the whole vault of heaven infront of them. By five o'clock it would be a hemisphere, and by fiveminutes to ten the vast sphere would be once more shining full-orbedupon them. By eight o'clock next morning they would find Jupiter "new"again.
They were now falling very rapidly towards the huge planet, and, sincethere is no up or down in Space, the nearer they got to it the more itappeared to sink below them and become, as it were, the floor of theCelestial Sphere. As the crescent approached the full they were able toexamine the mysterious bands as human observers had never examined thembefore. For hours they sat almost silent at their telescopes, trying toprobe the mystery which has baffled human science since the days ofGalileo, and gradually it became plain that Redgrave was correct in thehypothesis which he had derived from Flammarion and one or two others ofthe more advanced astronomers.
"I believe I was right, or, in other words, those that I got the ideafrom are," he said, as they approached the orbit of Calisto, whichrevolves at a distance of about eleven hundred thousand miles from thesurface of Jupiter.
"Those belts are made of clouds or vapour in some stage or other. Thehighest--the ones along the Equator and what we should call theTemperate Zones--are the highest, and therefore coolest and whitest. Thedark ones are the lowest and hottest. I daresay they are more like whatwe should call volcanic clouds. Do you see how they keep changing?That's what's bothered our astronomers. Look at that big one yonder abit to the north, going from brown to red. I suppose that's somethinglike the famous red spot which they have been puzzling about. What doyou make of it?"
"Well," said Zaidie, looking up from her telescope, "it's quite certainthat the glare must come from underneath. It can't be sunlight, becausethe poor old Sun doesn't seem to have strength enough to make a decentsunset or sunrise here, and look how it's running along to the westward!What does that mean, do you think?"
"I should say it means that some half-formed Jovian Continent has beenflung sky high by a big burst-up underneath, and that's the blaze of theincandescent stuff running along. Just fancy a continent, say ten timesthe size of Asia, being split up and sent flying in a few moments likethat. Look! there's another one to the north! On the whole, dear, Idon't think we should find the climate on the other side of those cloudsvery salubrious. Still, as they say the atmosphere of Jupiter is aboutten thousand miles thick, we may be able to get near enough to seesomething of what's going on.
"Me
anwhile, here comes Calisto. Look at his shadow flying across theclouds. And there's Ganymede coming up after him, and Europa behind him.Talk about eclipses! they must be about as common here as thunderstormsare with us."
"We don't have a thunderstorm every day--at least not at home,"corrected Zaidie, "but on Jupiter they must have two or three eclipsesevery day. Meanwhile, there goes Jupiter himself. What a differencedistance makes! This little thing is only a trifle larger than our Moon,and it's hiding everything else."
As she was speaking the full-orbed disc of Calisto, measuring nearlythree thousand miles across, swept between them and the planet. It shonewith a clear, somewhat reddish light like that of Mars. The _Astronef_was feeling his attraction strongly, and Redgrave went to the levers andturned on about a fifth of the R. Force to avoid too sudden contact withit.
"Another dead world!" said Redgrave, as the surface of Calisto revolvedswiftly beneath them, "or at any rate a dying one. There must be anatmosphere of some sort, or else that snow and ice wouldn't be there,and everything would be either black or white as it was on the Moon. Wemay as well land, however, and get a specimen of the rocks and soil toadd to the museum, though I don't expect there will be very much to seein the way of life."
In another hour or so the _Astronef_ had dropped gently on to thesurface of Calisto at the foot of a range of mountains crowded withjagged and splintery peaks, and a mile or two from the edge of a sea ofsnow and ice which stretched away in a vast expanse of rugged frozenbillows beyond the horizon. Redgrave, as usual, went into theair-chamber and tried the atmosphere. A second's experience of it wasenough for him. It was unbreathably thin and unbearably cold, although,when mixed with the air of the _Astronef_, it distinctly freshened itup. This proved that its composition was, or had been, fit for humanrespiration.
"There's only one fault about it," he said, when he rejoined Zaidie inthe sitting-room. "You know what the schoolboy said when he startedkissing his first sweetheart, 'It takes too long to get enough of it.'"
"You seem to be very fond of referring to that particular subject,Lenox."
"Well, yes; to tell you the truth I am," and then he referred to itagain in another form.
After this they went and put on their breathing-dresses and went for awelcome stroll along the arid shores of the frozen sea after theirlengthy confinement to the decks of the _Astronef_. The Sun was stillpowerful enough to keep them comfortably warm in their dresses, andthere was enough atmosphere to make this warmth diffused instead ofdirect. So they were able to step out briskly, and every now and thenopen their visors a little and take in a breath or two of the thin,sharp air, which they found quite exhilarating when mixed with the airsupplied by their own oxygen apparatus.
The attraction of the satellite being only a little more than that ofthe Moon--or, say, about a fifth of that of the Earth--they were able toget along with a series of hops, skips, and jumps which might havelooked rather ridiculous to terrestrial eyes, but which they found avery pleasant mode of locomotion. They were also able to climb thesteepest mountainsides with no more trouble than they would have had inwalking along a terrestrial plain.
On the heights they found no sign either of animal or vegetablelife--only rocks and gravel and sand of a brownish red, apparentlyuniform in composition. They took a few lumps of rock and a canvas bagfull of sand back with them from the mountain-side. In the valleysloping towards the ice-sea they found what had once been watercoursesopening out into rivers towards the sea; and in the lowest parts therewas a kind of lichen-growth clinging to the rocks under the snow. On thesurface of the snow they saw traces of what might have been the tracksof animals, but, as there was no breath of wind in the attenuatedatmosphere, it was quite possible that these might have been frozen intopermanent shape hundreds or thousands of years before. It was alsopossible that if they had explored long enough they might have foundsome low forms of animal life, but as they had landed almost on theequator of the satellite, under the full rays of the Sun, and seennothing, this was hardly likely.
"I don't think it is worth while stopping here any longer," said Zaidie,who was getting a little bit _blase_ with her interplanetaryexperiences. "We've got lots to see further on, so if you don't mind Ithink I'll just take two or three photographs, then we can get back tothe ship and have dinner and go on and see what Ganymede is like. He'sbigger than Mercury, and nearly as big as Mars, so we ought to findsomething interesting there. This is only a sort of combination of theMoon and the polar regions and I don't think very much of it. Suppose wego back."
"Just as your Ladyship pleases," laughed Redgrave over the wire whichconnected their helmets, as, with joined hands, they turned back anddanced along the snow-covered ocean shore towards the _Astronef_.
Zaidie took a couple of photographs of the mountain range and theice-sea and another one of the general landscape of Calisto as they rosefrom the surface. Then, while she went to get lunch ready, Redgrave tookthe pieces of rock and the bag of dust into the laboratory which openedout of the main engine-room and analysed them. When he came out about anhour later he saw Murgatroyd going through his beloved engines with anoil-can and a piece of common cotton-waste which had come from a farawayYorkshire mill.
"Andrew," he said, "should you be surprised if I told you that that moonwe've just left seems to be mostly made of a spongy sort of alloy ofgold and silver?"
"My lord," said the old engineer, straightening himself up and lookingat him with eyes in which this announcement had not seemed to kindle aspark of interest, "after what I have seen so far there's nothingthat'll surprise me unless it be that the grace of God allows us to getback safely."
"Amen, Andrew, that's well said," replied Redgrave, and then he wentback to the saloon and Murgatroyd went on with his oiling.
When he told her ladyship of his discovery she just looked up from thetable she was laying and said:
"Oh, indeed! Well, I'm very glad that it's five or six hundred millionmiles from the Earth. A dead world bigger than the Moon, and made ofgold and silver sponge, wouldn't be a nice thing to have too near theEarth. There's trouble enough about that sort of thing at home as it is.Still, it'll be a nice addition to the museum, and if you'll put it awayand go and wash your hands lunch will be ready."
When they got back to the deck-chamber Calisto was already a half moonin the upper sky nearly five hundred thousand miles away, and the fullorb of Ganymede, shining with a pale golden light, lay outspread beneaththem. A thin, bluish-grey arc of the giant planet overarched its westernedge.
"I think we shall find something like a world here," said her ladyship,when she had taken her first look through her telescope; "there's anatmosphere and what look like thin clouds. Continents and oceans too, orsomething like them, and what is that light shining up between thebreaks? Isn't it something like our Aurora?"
"It might be," replied Redgrave, turning his own telescope towards thenorthern pole of Ganymede, "though I never heard of a satellite havingan aurora. Perhaps it's the Sun shining on the ice."
As the _Astronef_ fell towards the surface of Ganymede she crossed hisnorthern pole, and the nearer they got the plainer it became that alight very like the terrestrial Aurora was playing about it,illuminating the thin, yellow clouds with a bluish-violet light, whichmade magnificent contrasts of colouring amongst them.
"Let us go down there and see what it's like," said Zaidie. "There mustbe something nice under all those lovely colours."
Redgrave checked the R. Force and the _Astronef_ fell obliquely acrossthe pole towards the equator. As they approached the luminous cloudsRedgrave turned it on again, and they sank slowly through a glowing mistof innumerable colours, until the surface of Ganymede came into plainview about ten miles below them.
What they saw then was the strangest sight they had beheld since theyhad left the Earth. As far as their eyes could reach the surface of theGanymede was covered with vast orderly patches, mostly rectangular, ofwhat they at first took for ice, but which they soon found to be asom
ething that was self-illuminating.
"Glorified hot-houses, as I'm alive," exclaimed Redgrave. "Whole citiesunder glass, fields, too, and lit by electricity or something very likeit. Zaidie, we shall find human beings down there."
"Well, if we do I hope they won't be like the half-human things we foundon Mars! But isn't it all just lovely! Only there doesn't seem to beanything outside the cities, at least nothing but bare, flat ground witha few rugged mountains here and there. See, there's a nice level plainthere near the big glass city, or whatever it is. Suppose we go downthere."
Redgrave checked the after engine which was driving them obliquely overthe surface of the satellite, and the _Astronef_ fell vertically towardsa bare, flat plain of what looked like deep yellow sand, which spreadfor miles alongside one of the glittering cities of glass.
"Oh, look, they've seen us!" exclaimed Zaidie. "I do hope they're goingto be as friendly as those dear people on Venus were."
"I hope so," replied Redgrave, "but if they're not we've got the gunsready."
As he said this about twenty streams of an intense bluish light suddenlyshot up all round them, concentrating themselves upon the hull of the_Astronef_, which was now about a mile and a half from the surface. Thelight was so intense that the rays of the Sun were lost in it. Theylooked at each other, and found that their faces looked almost perfectlywhite in it. The plain and the city below had vanished.
To look downwards was like staring straight into the focus of a tenthousand candle-power electric arc lamp. It was so intolerable thatRedgrave closed the lower shutters, and meanwhile he found that the_Astronef_ had ceased to descend. He shut off more of the R. Force, butit produced no effect. The _Astronef_ remained stationary. Then heordered Murgatroyd to set the propellers in motion. The engineer pulledthe starting-levers, and then came up out of the engine-room and said tohim:
"It's no good, my Lord; I don't know what devil's world we've got intonow, but they won't work. If I thought that engines could bebewitched----"
"Oh, nonsense, Andrew!" said his lordship rather testily. "It'sperfectly simple: those people down there, whoever they are, have gotsome way of demagnetising us, or else they've got the R. Force too, andthey're applying it against us to stop us going down. Apparently theydon't want us. No, that's just to show us that they can stop us if theywant to. The light's going down. Begin dropping a bit. Don't start thepropellers, but just go and see that the guns are all right in case ofaccidents."
The old engineer nodded and went back to his engines, lookingconsiderably scared. As he spoke the brilliancy of the light fadedrapidly, and the _Astronef_ began to sink slowly towards the surface.
As a precaution against their being allowed to drop with force enough tocause a disaster, Redgrave turned the R. Force on again and they fellslowly towards the plain, through what seemed like a halo of perfectlywhite light. When she was within a couple of hundred yards of the grounda winged car of exquisitely graceful shape rose from the roof of one ofthe huge glass buildings nearest to them, flew swiftly towards them, andafter circling once round the dome of the upper deck, ran closealongside.
The car was occupied by two figures of distinctly human form but rathermore than human stature. Both were dressed in long, close-fittinggarments of what seemed like a golden brown fleece. Their heads werecovered with a close hood and their hands with gloves.
"What an exceedingly handsome man!" said Zaidie, as one of them stoodup. "I never saw such a noble-looking face in my life; it's halfphilosopher, half saint. Of course, you won't be jealous?"
"Oh, nonsense!" he laughed. "It would be quite impossible to imagine_you_ in love with either. But he is handsome, and evidentlyfriendly--there's no mistaking that. Answer him, Zaidie; you can do itbetter than I can."
The car had now come close alongside. The standing figure stretched itshands out, palms upward, smiled a smile which Zaidie thought was verysweetly solemn, next the head was bowed, and the gloved hands broughtback and crossed over his breast. Zaidie imitated the movements exactly.Then, as the figure raised its head she raised hers, and she foundherself looking into a pair of large, luminous eyes such as she couldhave imagined under the brows of an angel. As they met hers a look ofunmistakable wonder and admiration came into them. Redgrave was standingjust behind her; she took him by the hand and drew him beside her,saying, with a little laugh:
"Now, please look as pleasant as you can; I am sure they are veryfriendly. A man with a face like that couldn't mean any harm."
The figure repeated the motions to Redgrave, who returned them, perhapsa trifle awkwardly.
Then the car began to descend, and the figure beckoned to them tofollow.
"You'd better go and wrap up, dear. From the gentleman's dress it seemspretty cold outside; though the air is evidently quite breathable," saidRedgrave, as the _Astronef_ began to drop in company with the car. "Atany rate, I'll try it first, and if it isn't we can put on ourbreathing-dresses."
When Zaidie had made her winter toilet, and Redgrave had found the airto be quite respirable, but of Arctic cold, they went down the gangwayladder about twenty minutes later. The figure had got out of the car,which was laying a few yards from them on the sandy plain, and cameforward to meet them with both hands outstretched.
_Came forward to meet them with both hands outstretched._]
Zaidie unhesitatingly held out hers, and a strange thrill ran throughher as she felt them for the first time clasped gently by other thanearthly hands, for the Venus folk had only been able to pat and strokewith their gentle little paws, somewhat as a kitten might do. The figurebowed its head again and said something in a low, melodious voice, whichwas, of course, quite unintelligible save for the evident friendlinessof its tone. Then, releasing her hands, he took Redgrave's in the samefashion, and then led the way towards a vast, domed building ofsemi-opaque glass, or rather a substance that seemed to be somethinglike a mixture of glass and mica, which appeared to be one of theentrance gates of the city.
A Honeymoon in Space Page 15