The Extraordinary Adventures of a Russian Scientist Across the Solar System (Vol. 1)

by Georges Le Faure; Henri de Graffigny

  “Before abandoning yourself to despair, though,” Fricoulet objected, “you need to be certain that Sharp intends to make use of your plans. Even if we assume that he does want to make use of them, it’s necessary to acquire the certainty that he’s sufficiently far advance to neutralize the efforts that you can make…”

  Selena kissed the old man on the forehead. “What Monsieur Fricoulet says is very reasonable, Father,” she said. “Come on—you mustn’t get discouraged. You have to react. Write to your friends in St. Petersburg to ask for information. If the man intends to utilize your plans, your friends will already have heard talk of it, and they’ll be able to tell you whether the situation is as desperate as you fear.”

  “For my part,” added Gontran, “I’ll write to my former ambassador asking him to make inquiries—his information will serve as a check on those we obtain from other sources.”

  Ossipoff and Flammermont immediately sat down at the table and made a start on their correspondence. They had written half a dozen letters apiece when Fricoulet, who had gone out to roam around the Observatory came back in precipitately. “Monsieur Ossipoff,” he said, “one of your colleagues from the United States has just arrived at the Observatory.”

  The scientist put down his pen and raised his head. “What’s his name?” he asked.

  “Jonathan Farenheit.”

  Ossipoff seemed to interrogate his memory. “That’s odd,” he said. “I don’t know him.”

  “Perhaps he’s involved himself in astronomy since your departure from St. Petersburg,” Gontran suggested.

  The young man had made this observation with all the sincerity in the world but, fortunately for him, Ossipoff thought he was joking and replied in the same spirit: “You’re probably right…but what is he doing here?”

  “One of the students I met told me that he’s come to carry out some observations of the Moon with the aid of the big 18-meter telescope.”

  The old scientist’s brows furrowed slightly “With what purpose? Did he tell you?”

  “No—but it seems that he’s going to give a lecture on that subject in the Observatory library, to which we’re invited.”

  An hour later, Ossipoff offered his arm to his daughter and, accompanied by Gontran and Fricoulet, made his entrance into the room where the entire Observatory staff was already assembled.

  A man was sitting in an armchair at one of the ends of the table that occupied the middle of the room, with a stack of files in front of him, through which his fingers were nervously riffling. This was Jonathan Farenheit. His highly-colored face was framed by a full red beard, whose hairs seemed as coarse as wild boar’s bristles. His hair, of the same shade, was cut very short, with a meager fringe. His red and bushy eyebrows overhung a set of prominent eyelashes, sheltering small grey eyes that shone in the depths of their orbits, full of malice. The shaven upper lip created, by its lack of a moustache, an impression of cunning and spitefulness that gave the lie to the lower lip, which was markedly curved and replete with bonhomie. The fleshy chin fell in two stages to a wide-open collar, doubtless designed to allow more room to an enormous and apoplectic neck. To judge by his powerful torso, the man had to be almost gigantic in stature, and to judge by the diamonds glittering in his cravat, in his cuffs and on his fingers, he had to be very rich.

  “Damn!” Fricoulet murmured in Gontran’s ear. “The profession of scientist in free America seems to be very lucrative.”

  The young man was about to reply when Jonathan Farenheit stood up. “Messieurs,” he said, bowing to his audience. “I shall begin by thanking you for the more than congenial welcome that you’ve given me, although I must confess, in all frankness, that I expected no less from illustrious scientists who belong to the most civilized and most amiable nation in the entire world.” At this point the American paused, which permitted his audience to thank him with a slight murmur of approval for the flattering words he had just uttered. “Messieurs,” he continued, with a slight smile, “I have a confession to make. I do not belong, properly speaking, to the scientific community. I am simply the president of an American company, which proposes to resolve one of the greatest problems that has confronted the genius of human curiosity for centuries. I’m talking about establishing communication between our terrestrial globe and the celestial worlds that we see gravitating around us.”

  At that moment, Flammermont, gripped by a painful presentiment, glanced sideways at Mikhail Ossipoff. The old man was leaning slightly forwards, his fingers clenched on the arms of his chair. His face was pale, his forehead covered in sweat, his eyes feverishly bright and his lips partly open as if to cry out.

  “Going to the Moon!” exclaimed Jonathan Farenheit. “How many geniuses have devoted themselves to researching that problem? How many human lives have been spent cherishing that dream, reckoned until now to be impossible…mad? Well, Messieurs, that dream is no longer a dream…it is on the point of becoming a reality.”

  There was another pause here, which permitted the orator to establish that the interest of his audience was increasing.

  Jonathan Farenheit went on: “The analysis of the lunar spectrum has permitted the discovery, on our satellite’s surface, of considerable deposits of crystallized carbon—which is to say, diamonds. An American company, formed for the exploitation of these deposits, has acquired—for a considerable sum—the plans of a scientist that render practicable a journey from the Earth to the Moon. Before appealing for funds from shareholders, however, it has been decided to carry out an initial voyage to make certain, by sight, of the existence of these deposits. Now, although I have every confidence in the project, I nevertheless desire to have the advice of the scientific world. That’s why, while the work is in progress, I’m going from one country to another, exposing the plan in question and asking everyone what they think of it. That, Messieurs, is why I’m here…”

  Ossipoff stood up. “Would it be indiscreet, Monsieur,” he asked, in a tremulous voice, “to ask you the name of the scientist from whom you obtained these plans?”

  “On the contrary, Monsieur,” the American replied. “I have every reason to spread throughout the entire world the name of the bold genius thanks to whom humankind will, in a few months, have taken a giant step along the path of progress. That audacious man is the permanent secretary of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences; his name is Fedor Sharp.”

  Ossipoff uttered a terrible cry, while his friends got to their feet alongside him, prey to indignant wrath. “This Sharp is a thief!” cried the old man. “The plans that he has sold did not belong to him.”

  Jonathan Farenheit seemed surprised; nevertheless, he retained his composure. “That’s a serious accusation,” he said. “On what do you base it?”

  “On this: that the plans to which Sharp claims paternity are mine!”

  A murmur of astonishment ran through the audience.

  “It’s necessary to prove that,” objected the American.

  Briefly, Ossipoff told the story of the trap that Sharp had laid for him in order to be free to steal the produce of his research and labor. “You doubtless have in those files,” he added, “the plans that you have been sold. Well, if you wish, I shall put on a demonstration for these gentlemen.”

  Jonathan Farenheit nodded his head approvingly, and Ossipoff began: “You know, Messieurs, that a moving object can only conclusively escape terrestrial ground by traveling at great speed. In fact, launched horizontally with an initial velocity of 8000 meters a second, where would such a projectile end up?”

  “The projectile would never fall back to Earth,” a voice replied. The voice belonged to Gontran; seeing the scientist’s eyes fixed upon him, he had assumed that the question—to which Fricoulet had whispered the answer—was addressed to him.

  “Yes,” Ossipoff continued. “The object would orbit the Earth as a new satellite without ever falling back, maintained in equilibrium by its own tangential momentum, which would then become equal to the intensity of t
he Earth’s gravitational attraction. But the case that concerns us is another one; it is, in fact, a matter of reaching the Moon—of launching a vessel toward the zenith in order to escape the Earth’s gravity as rapidly as possible. Now that gravitational attraction, Messieurs, diminishing as the square of the distance, will never become equal to zero, and one can therefore only be freed from it by penetrating the zone of attraction of another celestial body. That is what will probably happen if one were to succeed in launching the vessel with a velocity superior to 11,300 meters a second. I therefore investigated whether human agency could produce a velocity as great as that, and I arrived at a satisfactory solution.”

  While the scientist was speaking, the American consulted his files and shook his head.

  “Two things were necessary to attain the goal I had set myself: a powerful explosive and a cannon capable of launching an engine weighing 3000 kilos over a distance of 80,000 leagues. The explosive, which I named selenite, was a mixture of potassium carbazotate40 and gelatine; as for the cannon, permit me to sketch it for you with a few strokes of pencil.”

  He turned to a large blackboard that occupied an entire panel of the wall behind him and rapidly drew a bizarre sketch that made the eyes of the audience grow wide.

  “It has been established,” he said, while sketching, “that in all artillery pieces, the greater the trajectory traversed in the barrel of the device, the greater will be the muzzle velocity. The best result is obtained when the entire charge burns during the time it takes the shell to leave the piece. If, during the time that the shell is traveling along the barrel, animated by increasing force, one can recharge and ignite a second charge, the muzzle velocity will be further increased. In consequence, to impel a projectile to a considerable velocity, it is necessary to increase the length of the cannon and ignite several charges successively, combining to give the shell an increasingly considerable velocity.”

  He paused briefly and looked at Jonathan Farenheit, but the latter had his eyes fixed on his papers and his face was impassive.

  “This,” Ossipoff continued, “is the provision I had made for causing several charges to detonate, within a second and at perfectly calculated intervals. I should begin by telling you that my shell would have been 3.50 meters in height and 2 meters in diameter. Now, the cannon in which I would have lodged it would itself have been 40 times as long as that diameter, or 80 meters. That enormous tube would have been founded in steel in a single block, by means of a technique that I have invented as which is much more economical than Bessemer’s. Its total weight would have been 600 tonnes—600,000 kilograms—and, as it would have been embedded in the ground its resistance would have been infinite. The most important aspect of my invention, however, was the adjunction to this tube of several powder-chambers situated along the barrel.

  Ossipoff paused again at this point. “That’s correct, isn’t it?” he asked Jonathan Farenheit.

  The latter, who was following the scientist’s explanation in one of the files spread out before him, replied impassively: “That’s correct.”

  A triumphant smile lit up the scientist’s face. He went on: “These powder chambers are made of steel, 15 centimeters thick, in order to be able to resist the most formidable pressures. They number 12, and each of them contains 500 kilograms of selenite. The bottom of the cannon itself contains 1000 kilograms, and I leave an empty space of 50 centimeters between that charge and the bottom of the shell. The powder chambers and the initial charge are all connected to an extremely delicate electrical mechanism. At the exact moment when the projectile has to leave terrestrial ground, a current is released into the basal charge; the charges are ignited; a million cubic meters of gas are instantaneously produced, and the shell is driven forward, in such a way that, as it travels through the tube, it unmasks the orifices of the powder-chambers. The deflagration of the selenite they contain adds further impulsion to that of the initial charge, with the effect that, on leaving the cannon, the projectile is endowed with a velocity of 12 kilometers a second.”

  Osipoff, electrified by his subject, had pronounced the last sentences of his demonstration in a vibrant tone, and when he finished the audience burst into applause.

  The old scientist raised his had to restore silence. “I will add,” he said, “that in my plan, the founding of the cannon, the fabrication of the powder and the departure itself were to be effected in the southern hemisphere, not far from the Gambier archipelago, on Pitcairn Island, situated on the 26th degree of latitude. It is, in fact, necessary to find a point on the globe possessing the geographical position indispensable for the cannon to be aimed appropriately at the Moon, and also far enough away from any inhabited place. It is easily understandable, of course, that the instantaneous production of several million cubic meters of explosive gas would inevitable give rise to a terrible atmospheric perturbation, which would destroy everything in the immediate vicinity of the cannon.” He fell silent; then, after a moment’s pause, he said: “Well, Monsieur Farenheit, have I reproduced almost exactly the information contained in your dossiers?”

  The American stood up. “To render homage to the truth,” he said, “I have to declare that Mr. Sharp’s plans are similar in every respect to the explanations that you have just furnished.”

  Ossipoff could not retain a cry of joy and, racing towards Farenheit, he shook his hands with a vigorous grip. “Thank you,” he stammered. “Thank you, Monsieur!”

  “What are you going to do, then?” said Fricoulet.

  The American started at that question. “What am I going to go?” he asked. “What do you expect me to do?”

  “Well,” said the young engineer, “it seems to me that in the presence of the proofs that Monsieur Ossipoff has given you…”

  Jonathan Farenheit cut him off with a gesture. “Monsieur,” he said, “as I had the honor of telling you at the outset, a company has been formed for the exploitation of the lunar mines with a capital of half-a-billion dollars, of which five millions have already been spent, to pay Mr. Sharp for the plans and to met the expenses of the first exploratory expedition…we are, after all, practical people for whom questions of sentiment count for very little.”

  “Which is to say?” asked Ossipoff, in a tremulous voice.

  “Which is to say that, while finding the profound knowledge that you have of Mr. Sharp’s plans bizarre, I don’t see that you can prevent us from continuing our project. We have paid for them; we own them; and we intend to exploit our property!”

  On hearing these words, the unfortunate Ossipoff felt as if a formidable weight had descended upon his skull. He fell back in his armchair. His eyes closed, his head fell back and he became motionless, devoid of consciousness.

  When he came round, the old man was in his bed, his head covered with a bag containing ice and his legs burning under the effect of mustard plasters intended to draw the blood to his lower extremities. Selena was beside him, holding his hand and looking at him anxiously. Slumped in an armchair at the foot of the bed, Gontran de Flammermont was immersed in reading a book that must have been very interesting, to judge by the fever that heated his cheeks and the glitter in his eyes.

  “Father!” cried the young woman, seeing the old man open his eyes. “Do you recognize me, Father?”

  Ossipoff looked at Selena affectionately, but made no reply for a moment. Then, finally, a sad smile creased his mournful features.

  “My child,” he stammered. “My beloved Selena.” Then, noticing Gontran, who had got to his feet in order to come closer, he put out his hand, saying: “My son.”

  An emotional silence gripped the three individuals for a few seconds. Eventually, Ossipoff said: “I’ve been very ill, haven’t I?”

  “There was a danger of brain fever,” Gontran replied.

  “And I was in that condition for a long time?”

  “It will be ten days tomorrow.”

  Suddenly, two large tears appeared in the corners of the old man’s eye, and he sai
d: “Why aren’t I dead? I wouldn’t have the pain of seeing of seeing that accursed fellow, that diabolical Sharp, enjoying the fruits of his theft with impunity!”

  “Come on, Father,” said Selena. “Be reasonable. Don’t think about that any more, or you’ll fall ill again.”

  “Especially as all hope is not lost,” said Gontran. “At this very moment, my friend Fricoulet is in Nice organizing a great conference, as great as any that has ever been convened.”

  “What god will it do now?” groans Ossipoff. “You heard what Jonathan Farenheit said the other day. Sharp is too far ahead of us now for me to think of beating him to it.”

  “Can’t you devise a more rapid method?” the young Comte persisted.

  Ossipoff shook his head. “My dear friend,” he said, “I expended my whole life before arriving at the marvelous result that that wretch has stolen from me—and now death is looming over me—may it come quickly, to relieve me of a burdensome existence.”

  Gontran looked silently at Selena, whose eyes were swelling with tears, and the young woman’s dolor put his heart to the torture.

  Suddenly, he uttered a cry of triumph and, seizing the book that he had been reading when Ossipoff had regained consciousness he said in a vibrant voice: “Monsieur Ossipoff, the answer is here!”

  Selena and her father thought the young man had gone mad; nevertheless, the scientist asked: “What book is that?”

  “A work by Father Martinez da Campadores,41 the prior of the Society of Jesus at the convent of Salamanca: The Subterranean World.”

  “Well?” prompted Selena—whose heart, involuntarily, had reopened to hope.

  “Well, Mademoiselle,” cried Flammermont, “the Devil with all the cannons, aeroplanes, balloons, steam-engines and selenite itself, thus far imagined in order to visit other planets. All those means are obsolete, antiquated, out of date…” He paused for breath and went on, in an ironic voice: “And to think that men put their minds to the torture to invent terrible engines and powerful explosives, when nature has taken the trouble to construct apparatus for us that leaves all that human genius has invented far behind!”