“All this is extremely ingenious,” said Marcel, “And denotes the greatest practical sense on the part of your physicists. I’m in haste to experiment with these charming items of apparatus, which no one has yet thought of utilizing in this fashion on Earth.”
“Let’s go, then,” said Merovar; and he took them into a small hermetically sealed room, whose door he was careful to close.
“Here,” he told them, “we’re in an air-lock, and only this wall separates us from the exterior void. It only remains for us to fit the spheres on our heads.”
When they were ready, Merovar opened the door that led to the outside, and scarcely had the bolts securing it been loosened than it escaped of its own accord under the pressure of the interior air, in spite of the springs with which it was furnished. The four men, violently pushed forward, would have fallen if they had not braced themselves on the solid iron staffs with which their guide had taken care to equip them.
At first, they experienced a strange sensation; the apparatus in which they were clad, abruptly inflated by the dilatation of the air it contained, rounded out about their limbs in the form of puffed sleeves in which they seemed to be floating. After the first moment of surprise, however, they realized that, thanks to the elasticity of the fabric of which it was made, the liberty of their movements was not hampered; they scarcely perceived that their fingers were enclosed in gloves.
Marcel was then able to understand how the observatory had been built, the construction of which had previously seemed inexplicable. He realized that an army of Diemides, brought to the lunar surface, had been able, thanks to the apparatus that he was now wearing, to fashion the rocky blocks that the slopes of the crater furnished in abundance, and which it would have been impossible, because of their mass, to bring up by means of the elevator. He took account of the fact that, weight on the moon being six times less than of Earth, the bold constructors had been able to move the masses, whose proportions would have seemed enormous to us, without overmuch difficulty. On the other hand, he calculated that, in order to obtain a stability equal to that of terrestrial monuments, it had been necessary to give the base of the observatory and the thickness of its walls much greater dimensions—with the result that, if the effort seemed less, the proportions given to the project almost restored parity.
The three voyagers then paraded their gazes around them. The Sun, its ardent light untempered by any atmosphere, was inundating the lunar surface with its rays. The spectacle was dazzling.
They found themselves on a kind of platform surrounding the edifice. The orifice of the crater, which measured no less than eight hundred meters in diameter, had been filled in, with the exception of the chimney that served both the cage of the elevators and as a conduit for the air that came from the depths to the observatory, and it was at the center of that artificial ground that the colossal monument rose up from which they had just emerged.
Under the guidance of Merovar, who preceded them, they went along a kind of pathway grossly carved into the rock. Never, since they had arrived in that world, where everything was strange, had they experienced in a more complete manner the singular effects of the law of gravity. Their specific weight was diminished in astonishing proportions; their feet scarcely posed on the ground; the slightest effort enabled them to cross considerable distances; they had descended the steep and tormented slope of the crater with marvelous facility, and when they looked back at the route they had followed, they wondered with a kind of horror how they had not broken a limb a thousand times over.
After an hour, they found themselves at the foot of the crater, in a plain limited in the distance by confused masses of rocks. On the surface of the extinct world, everything was dismally bleak, and the blinding sunlight, inundating the ground, increased that appearance of supreme desolation even further. Everything was dead and motionless, and in that universal silence, untroubled even by the sound of their footfalls, the three inhabitants of the Earth were almost surprised to find themselves alive.
Having recovered from that initial emotion, they paused, penetrated by a profound satisfaction. To tread the soil of that previously inaccessible world; to contemplate from their base those immense mountains and craters of which they had only had distant and fugitive images before their eyes; to fathom with the gaze those monstrous precipices that they had only been able to suspect; to have that unknown world beneath their feet—what a dream and what a triumph!
They felt the souls of conquerors quivering within them. The great Columbus must have experienced something similar on the day when he had planted the standard of Castille for the first time in the new world that his genius had, in a manner of speaking, caused to emerge from the ocean. But how much greater and more astonishing was the conquest due to their courage and perseverance!
For them, what the most audacious imaginations had barely dared to conceive had been realized. The fictions of poets and romancers had been overtaken; the dream was now an accomplished fact.
As if he had divined the thoughts that were agitating them, and understood the sentiments that were making their hearts beat, Merovar left them to their reflections for some time; then, resuming his march, he headed toward the enormous crater of Letronne, followed by his companions.
The ground on which they were advancing was bristling with asperities that often rendered walking slow and difficult, in spite of their agility; there was no trace of soil or sand, but bare rock everywhere, with sharp and trenchant ridges, reflecting the raw white light with an unsustainable intensity. Without the precaution that had been taken of adding a deep blue tint to the crystal plates that permitted them to look out, they would not have been able to tolerate the glare.
About four kilometers away, they found themselves in a completely bare region, the ground of which no longer presented any irregularity. One might have thought it the surface of a tranquil lake, suddenly frozen.
Merovar stopped and hooked his telephone wore to the sphere covering Marcel’s head.
“This,” he said, “is the location we have chosen to set up the luminous signals that will be perceptible from the Earth.
“It seems perfectly suitable to me,” Marcel replied, “but I don’t see any of the preparations you seemed to be announcing.”
“Have no fear—you’ll soon be edified in that regard.” He explained that the astronomers of the observatory had thought of attracting the attention of their colleagues on Earth by means of powerful electric lamps, and that everything had already been done to the laboratory to realize the project. They were convinced that the signals would be seen this time, especially now that attention had been awakened by the fortunately-successful attempt made by the voyagers. It only remained to settle with them the form of signals capable of being understood and of reassuring their friends.
Jacques and Lord Rodilan, who had attached their wires to Marcel’s sphere, listed to that communication and, to the extent that their strange costume permitted, manifested considerable excitement. Jacques especially, who thought that Mathieu-Rollère and his daughter would still be at Long’s Peak, felt his heart beating faster at the thought that he was finally going to reassure the young woman who, he had no doubt, was waiting for news of him with cruel anxiety.
As for Lord Rodilan, in spite of his skepticism, which was more apparent than real, he was agitated by other sentiments; his pride was secretly flattered by the idea that his name would be flying from mouth to mouth with those of his two companions in both terrestrial hemispheres.
They all approved the choice of location enthusiastically, and Marcel, after consulting his companions rapidly, settled on the idea of depicting, with the aid of prepared lamps, the three initial letters of their names as the surest way of making their safe arrival in the lunar world known to their friends.
They returned in haste to the observatory, into which they went, employing the same precautions that they had taken when emerging from it.
They were approaching the period when tha
t part of the Moon was about to enter into darkness. Merovar had calculated that they still had a duration of daylight before them of approximately seventy-two Earthly hours, and that time seemed to him to be sufficient to arrange everything. A hundred Diemides received the necessary instructions, and at the appointed time, they were ready to attempt the experiment. It had been agreed, after long and scrupulous calculations, that each of the letters to be traced would be three hundred feet high. To form them, six thousand enormous lamps had been disposed, linked together by wires that terminated inside the monument, in the observation hall. Powerful accumulators installed in the lower section of the edifice would furnish the current that was to animate the entire gigantic apparatus.
The observatory had been reached by the line of shadow about twenty-four hours before, and it was now plunged in thick darkness.
All the astronomers had gathered around Marcel and his companions; there was no one who was uninterested in the unprecedented experiment, which might, if it succeeded, have incalculable and decisive consequences. Until now they had acted at hazard; it was without any certainty of being understood or even perceived that they had attempted to attract the attention of the inhabitants of Earth. Now they were sure of being awaited. The telescope at Long’s Peak could distinguish objects on the lunar surface nine feet in height; the luminous letters were three hundred; there was no doubt that the message would reach its addressee.
Evidently, it would be necessary to wait for some time before receiving a response from the friends with whom they had been put in communication, but doubt was no longer possible; success was assured—and after so many centuries of waiting, they could easily resign themselves to a few days of patience before obtaining absolute confirmation.
Marcel wanted the first letter to be the R—Lord Rodilan’s initial.
“It’s you, my dear friend,” he said to him, “who furnished us with the means of getting here. You should have the honor of inaugurating the series of interplanetary communications.”
“Oh, no!” said Lord Rodilan. “You have been the soul of the enterprise; that honor belongs to you.”
“Well then, to settle the argument we’ll start with our friend Jacques; there’s someone down there who’s suffering from his absence and in haste to be reassured.”
“I oppose that formally,” Jacques put in, forcefully. “But for you, we wouldn’t have attempted anything; but for you, I’d still be plunged in despair. If the future has any happiness in store for me, it’s to you that I owe it.”
“Oh well, so be it, since that’s what you want,” said Marcel, cheerfully. And, seizing a crystal handle fitted into a metal plinth serving as a support, and at which all the wires coming from outside terminated, he pulled it down with an abrupt gesture.
Everything suddenly lit up: two thousand electric lamps of an incomparable power had just been switched on at the same time. A flood of beams of blinding light traversed space, bearing with them the exiles’ wishes and hopes. A fiery M of colossal proportions stood out in the darkness, and to judge by the glare that spread around them, one might have thought that daylight had replaced the darkness, so clearly apparent were the craters, the mountain chains and distant peaks that limited the horizon.
For an hour, the two thousand lamps radiated into space, and the hearts of the three men quivered at the thought that at the same moment, those who loved them would, after long anguish, be reassured on their account. Then everything was extinguished, and the darkness that enveloped the entire landscape again seemed even darker after that dazzling illumination.
They let an hour go by before sending a new signal, and a J as colossal as the M initially traced was soon resplendent in its turn. It shone for an hour; another interval went by, and then it was the turn of the letter R. The three voyagers had signaled their presence.
And for the rest of the time when that part of the lunar disk remained in shadow, the signals were assiduously repeated, rigorously giving each one the same duration. That regularity ought to be certain proof for the terrestrial observers that nothing about the phenomena was random, and ought to dissipate all doubts.
The lunar astronomers, who never ceased to observe the star with which they were seeking thus to enter into communication, and were following its phases, were careful to interrupt the signals throughout the time when the Rocky Mountain region was in daylight. They applied themselves, moreover, to calculating the exact epoch when the Moon, during its period of shadow, ought to be above the horizon of observers at Long’s Peak.
The first interplanetary message had been launched from the Moon to the Earth; it was now up to the Earth to respond.
XII. Catastrophe
Marcel resigned himself quite easily to waiting, but Jacques and Lord Rodilan were tormented by impatience and demanded incessantly why, throughout the time that their signals had lasted, which represented six terrestrial rotations, no response had been made to them.
Jacques, especially, was alarmed.
“Oh,” he said, “in order for no one to have replied to our appeal, some frightful misfortune must have occurred. Who can tell whether some cataclysm might not have destroyed the observatory at Long’s Peak, and whether Mathieu-Rollère might be dead, and Hélène...”
“Gently, my dear Jacques,” Marcel put in. “At the pace you’re going you might as well predict the end of the world. Believe me, your imagination’s running away with you; you’re seeing everything in black for no reason.”
“But after all,” exclaimed Lord Rodilan, “Why aren’t they replying? What are they waiting for? Oh, if they were English, they wouldn’t have left us in uncertainty for so long. But these Americans, these Yankees, are a bunch of loudmouths who can’t do anything right.”
“Calm down, my dear friend, and think about it. It’s seven months since we left. Evidently, in the first weeks, the big telescope at Long’s Peak will have been aimed incessantly at the Moon throughout the time the world was observable. Then…well, the surveillance must have relaxed.”
“Why?” said Jacque. “Personally, I’d have kept it up for ten years if necessary.”
“Undoubtedly; but remember that our friends, who were easily able to follow us to the lunar disk, must have seen us fall into the fissure that swallowed us up. Do you think they were able to conserve any great hope that we had escaped death?”
“Personally, I would have conserved hope regardless,” said Jacques.
“An Englishman never despairs,” growled Lord Rodilan.
“I believe too,” Marcel went on, “that our friends haven’t despaired, and that’s why I haven’t hesitated to attempt to enter into communication with them. But it’s necessary to take account of the manner in which things might have happened. We’ve sent signals for the space of eight terrestrial nights; it’s quite possible that they weren’t perceived immediately, for it would have been an extraordinary stroke of luck if there had been someone there to observe them, at the exact moment we began. Several nights might have ne by before they were seen.”
“Well,” said Lord Rodilan, “Why, if they ended up perceiving them, haven’t they replied straight away?”
“Damn! How fast you go, my dear lord! Supposing that they only recognized the signals during the later nights of their appearance, it was first necessary for them to think about means of responding, to examine and discuss what it was appropriate to do, and, once the matter was settled, to execute he plan. In my opinion, they can scarcely have thought of anything but establishing some luminous signal. Now, the Rocky Mountains are poorly equipped for such an enterprise. It would be necessary to procure the necessary equipment at a distance, dispose them and get them into a functional state, and all that will obviously take a lot of time. Add that perhaps, when our signals arrived, there were only junior staff at the observatory; it’s quite probable that Mathieu-Rollère, recalled to Paris by his important work there, left America some time ago.”
“Oh,” said Jacques, in a sad tone, “Hélène
wouldn’t have allowed him to leave.”
“But my poor friend, you’re not taking account of the situation: you know that you’re alive, but your fiancée doesn’t. She must, in fact, believe you to be irredeemably lost. After seven months, what arguments could she have opposed to her father, if he had judged it futile to wait any longer? I understand your fever and your fears; I also understand your impatience, Milord, but in truth, you’re not being reasonable. The wisest thing is to wait. Besides which, what else can we do?”
“That’s true,” said Lord Rodilan. “But are we going to wait like this, arms folded?”
“Until the next period of shadow there’s nothing else to do. But as soon as the region we’re in is dark again, we’ll direct our telescopes toward North America. If we don’t perceive anything, we recommence our signals—and this time, I have a profound conviction, we’ll get a response. I don’t know what, but we’ll get one.”
“Well then, let’s wait,” said Jacques, with a sigh.
There resigned themselves to it, since there was no alternative—but the period of time that separated them from the moment so ardently desired was perhaps the cruelest they had spent since leaving the terrestrial world. They felt ready to resume contact with everything they had left behind them, and wondered anxiously whether their hopes were finally about to be realized. The fever of waiting had affected Marcel too, in spite of his self-control, and Lord Rodilan was more agitated than he had been for a long time, The most troubled of all was, however, Jacques, all of whose love seemed to have reawakened with a new ardor now that he felt that he was close to the goal he was pursuing.
The three friends went back and forth incessantly, incapable of staying in one place, their nerves always taut, their eyes shining, their minds haunted by obsession; they wandered at hazard, continually putting their eyes to the ocular of a telescope, as if they might catch sight of what was happening in the Rocky Mountains.
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