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

by Georges Le Faure; Henri de Graffigny

  “You’re not mistaken,” the young Comte replied, with a smile. “They are diving suits.”

  “Are we going to travel underwater, then?” asked the American.

  “No—in the void.” From his interlocutor’s surprised expression, Fricoulet deduced that his reply was meaningless to him. “Briefly,” he said, “you’ll understand that the electrical force that is propelling us forward will, according to our calculations, be sufficient to get us into the Venusian zone of attraction—but there it will stop, and the apparatus will be no further use to us. On the contrary, its weight will only render our fall more rapid—which is to say, more dangerous. Do you understand?”

  The American replied affirmatively.

  “Then, we’ll abandon the sphere that supports us and continue our voyage in this cabin, transformed into a gondola. That’s why we’ve brought these devices with us, designed in the past by adventurous Selenites. Whereas diving-suits serve to protect the body against the pressure of water, however, these guarantee it against the mortal effect of the abrupt disappearance of atmospheric pressure…there!”

  “Very ingenious,” murmured the American. Stifling an enormous yawn with his hand, he added: “By God! I seem to be falling asleep.”

  “There’s nothing astonishing in that,” Fricoulet replied, very seriously. “For a fortnight, you’ve done nothing but that. You don’t get over such bad habits in a matter of hours.”

  “What do you advise, then?” asked Farenheit, interrogating him with his gaze.

  “Take a nap, to begin with. Then we’ll see…”

  This advice doubtless coincided exactly with the American’s secret desire for, after muttering an incomprehensible goodnight, he stretched himself out on the cushions and was not long delayed in filling the cabin with sonorous snoring.

  Five minutes later, Fricoulet said in his turn: “Mr. Farenheit’s full of common sense. It’s past midnight in Paris now; it’s the hour when honest men go to sleep.” He rolled himself up in his travel-blanket and stammered, somnolently: “I wish you good night, Messieurs…”

  Only a few minutes had gone by when a shrill sound was heard, dominating he American’s basso profundo; it was the engineer, adding his part to the concert of snores. Gontran tried to fight, but in vain. Drowsiness claimed him. “It’s definitely contagious,” he murmured. Addressing Ossipoff, who was still busy writing, he said: “Is there anything to see between the Moon and the orbit of Venus?”

  The scientist looked up, slightly surprised. “Absolutely nothing,” he said, “as you know.”

  “In that case,” retorted the young Comte, “As nothing else offers itself to me by way of recreation, I ask your permission to get a few hours’ sleep.”

  The old man shook his hand and Gontran took his place on the cushions beside his companions. He soon fell into a strange dream. After recovering Selena, he married her, and they spent their honeymoon touring the celestial worlds. Soon, transformed into stars themselves and united for eternity in the celestial immensity, they became the favorite stars of terrestrial lovers.

  Left alone, Mikhail Ossipoff had let his head fall into his hands and was also dreaming about his beloved daughter, who had disappeared in space. Would he ever see the girl he had sacrificed to his passion for science again? Would the desperate attempt he was making at this moment have any other result than to carry him one step further into the intersidereal desert? Oh, if only, at least, Sharp might fall into his hands! And it was no longer the rancor of the scientist but the hatred of the father that swelled the old man’s heart and made the blood boil in his veins…

  Little by little, however, his thoughts became clearer; the silhouettes of Sharp and Selena faded away into a sort of mist. Soon, they disappeared completely and all sensation of life disappeared. Mikhail Ossipoff was also fast asleep.

  It was 11 a.m. on the Yankee’s chronometer when a vigorous hand shook the old man, who woke up with a start.

  “What’s the matter?” he stammered, surprised to have dozed off in that position. “What’s happening?”

  “Nothing, Monsieur,” the American replied, “but it’s getting late…”

  The old man looked around. Gontran was trimming his beard with the aid of a small pocket mirror and Fricoulet was using a micrometer to measure the arc subtended by the plant Venus, which was framed in a porthole in the ceiling.

  Ossipoff went toward him, excitedly. “Well?” he demanded, with a slight anxiety in his voice.

  The engineer calmly replied: “Telinga’s predictions were correct. It’s 20 hours since we left the lunar surface, and we’ve already crossed 1,800,000 kilometers. “We’ve already completed a sixth of our journey. We’re exactly where we need to be…” Surrendering his place to the old man, he added: “See for yourself, anyway. You can already make out the phases of Venus.”

  “Venus has phases!” exclaimed Gontran. Fricoulet looked at him in a terrible fashion, and the young Comte immediately continued, in a loud voice: “Yes, Mr. Farenheit, Venus has phases like the Moon.”

  “But I never doubted it,” the American replied, in a plaintive voice.

  The engineer came to stand in front of him and declared, in a professorial voice. “Venus has been baptized with various names by Terrans: sometimes it’s the Shepherd’s Star or the Morning Star, sometimes Vesper and sometimes Lucifer. It’s the second planet of the Solar System and it orbits the central star—the Sun—at a mean distance of 26,750,000 leagues.”

  “And the Earth?” queried the American.

  It was Gontran who spoke, in a self-important tone. “The Earth is further away from the Sun than Venus. Its orbit has a radius of 148,000,000 kilometers, or 37,000,000 leagues.”

  Fricoulet looked at him in surprise. “You’re more of a scientist than I thought,” he whispered in his ear.

  “Doctus cum libro!” replied Flammermont, smiling.

  “What do you mean?”

  Gontran winked, and pointed to his traveling-blanket. “Guess what I’ve got hidden under there,” he said.

  “How should I know?”

  “A book I found in Sharp’s cannonball.”

  “A book?”

  “Yes, Les Continents célestes. I brought it with me, and while you were all asleep just now, I spent two hours boning up on Venus…”

  “Bah!”

  “And I promise you that I know my subject. Ossipoff can give me an oral…with my vade mecum,97 I no longer have anything to fear…”

  “Except that you forgot the phases…”

  “That’s true—I forgot them.”

  While the two friends chatted in this fashion, Farenheit talked astronomy with Mikhail Ossipoff to pass the time. “There’s nothing else beyond the Earth, is there?” he asked.

  “What about Mars, at 56,000,000 leagues—doesn’t that count for anything?” said Ossipoff, catching his breath at such ignorance.

  The American, who had no reason to pose as a fount of astronomical knowledge with respect to the old man, replied to Ossipoff’s suffocation with a slight shrug of indifference. Then, clicking his tongue in irritation, he muttered: “Mars! The patron planet of soldiers—that’s one I’d eliminate from the celestial map, if it could be done.”

  “Bah!” said Fricoulet and Gontran, in unison. “Why’s that?”

  “Because I’m a tradesman…and war puts an end to commerce. If you knew the harm the Civil War did to the pork-fat trade…my losses were numbered in millions of dollars that year…”

  “You don’t like soldiers, then?” asked Flammermont, laughing.

  “I consider them to be a useless element of society. Look, have we in the United States an army? And our affairs are no worse for it…on the contrary.”

  “You’re in favor of the suppression of permanent armies?” said the engineer.

  “Absolutely. I only like uniforms in the theater…and the uniforms of the last century at that, with huge hats and white feathers, sparkling breastplates, silk scarves, velvet dou
blets…from the decorative point of view, that’s quite pretty. In life, though…an honorable tradesman at his counter makes more of an impression on me than a colonel at the head of his regiment.”

  “Ugh!” replied Flammermont. “Your situation as a citizen of free America permits you to utter such paradoxes, but you’d change your tune if, like us, you were obliged to play your part in the European concert.”

  Fricoulet began to laugh and Ossipoff nodded his head in approval of the young Comte’s reply.

  By way of response, Farenheit released a dull groan and, turning slowly on his heel, described a circular promenade with his gaze, taking visual inventory of the equipment that the travelers had brought with them. “Say!” he exclaimed. “It seems to me that you haven’t given much thought to the rigors of temperature. If we find that Venus has nights of 15 times 24 hours, like the Moon…”

  “On that score, you can rest easy,” Gontran replied. “On Venus we’ll find days and nights alternating regularly, exactly as on our native planet, except that the quantity differs…”

  “Really?” said he American. “Why?”

  “Simply because, the orbit followed by Venus being interior, and therefore shorter, instead of being composed of 365 and a third days, as on Earth, the Venusian year only has 280 and a third days.”98

  Farenheit scratched his head energetically, which was, in him, an indication of intense cerebral tension. “While having a smaller orbit, though,” he said, “Venus might spend as much time completing it as Earth takes to complete its own.”

  “It might,” Fricoulet replied, “but it doesn’t. There’s even a law establishing that the planets rotate more rapidly around the Sun the closer they are. Thus, Mercury travels at 47 kilometers a second, or more than a million leagues a day, Venus 35 kilometers a second, or 750,000 leagues a day, the Earth 29 kilometers and 643,000 leagues, Mars 24 kilometers and 214,000 leagues, Saturn 10 kilometers and 205,000 leagues, Uranus 7 kilometers and 144,000 leagues.”

  The engineer had reeled off this long tirade without hesitation, which made the American open his marveling eyes wide. “What a memory!” he murmured. “But if you think I’ll remember a single one of those figures…” And he added: “What does it matter, anyway—the main thing is that we’ll find conditions out there very similar to those on Earth…”

  “Oh, similar in every respect,” Flammermont hastened to say. “Its axial rotation takes exactly 23 hours, 21 minutes, 22 seconds; the duration of the day is very nearly the same.”

  “Except that the year’s shorter,” observed the American.

  “Indeed—but what does that matter to us, who have no intention of spending a year there?” said Gontran. Getting carried away by his subject, he continued: “Add to that the same density, the same atmosphere, the same gravity, the same volume…you might say that Venus is the Earth’s younger sister.” He jogged Fricoulet’s elbow and whispered: “Hey! Haven’t I studied them hard, my Continents célestes?”

  A few words from Ossipoff, however, diminished the young man’s self-satisfaction almost immediately. “You’re very hasty to offer your opinions, it seems to me,” the old scientist said. “When we arrive, you’ll see that Venus is far from being the enchanting abode you imagine…”

  “Why is that?” asked the young Comte, almost involuntarily.

  “One single figure—the one that every astronomer has written beside the planet Venus—will give you your answer. That figure is 55 degrees.”

  Flammermont was none the wiser; quite the contrary, the figure embarrassed him considerably. At first he said nothing, and, as the possibility of a further question from Ossipoff hung over his head, the unfortunate turned his pleading gaze to Fricoulet.

  The engineer, understanding this mute supplication, said to Farenheit: “Yes, my dear Mr. Farenheit, these figures have their eloquence, and this 55 degrees, which represents the angle formed to the ecliptic plane by the rotational axis of Venus contains, in itself alone, everything that is special about the planet: seasons, climates, the length of days, celestial aspects, vegetation, animal life, etc., etc.”99

  The Yankee listened open-mouthed, wondering why he had been dragged into it. He was even more surprised when the engineer continued, after a brief mocking laugh: “Ah, my lad, you’ve got a taste for celestial matters! What I’ve just told you intrigues you, and you want to know what that figure of 55 degrees really means…”

  The American made an energetic gesture of negation. Fricoulet took no notice of it and cried: “Why deny it, Mr. Farenheit? I appeal to Monsieur Ossipoff—in what circumstances could curiosity be more legitimate than when it’s a matter of lifting the veil that will reveal the mysteries of celestial infinity to us? So there’s no point in your denying it. It’s written on your face: your eyes are sparkling with curiosity and your lips brimming with questions.”

  Quite astounded by this flood of words, the American nevertheless found the strength to utter a burst of disdainful laughter. “In truth,” he tried to say, “if my eyes are sparkling and my lips brimming, I don’t understand…”

  “But of course!” exclaimed Fricoulet, with perfectly feigned impatience. “How can you understand? You keep interrupting me. Know, then, that Venus has a mass almost equal to that of our native planet and a density 90% that of the Earth, but even though the surface gravity is almost the same as our globe’s, Venus is not Paradise. Far from it—mass, density and weight don’t make for happiness…”

  The American’s bewilderment was increasing, to the extent that his lips, quite mechanically, stammered: “Why?”

  “Why? Well, it’s that 55 degrees that’s the cause, of course.” He had seized one of the buttons on the unfortunate Farenheit’s jacket, and there was nothing the latter could do about it. Not understanding the engineer’s intention, Farenheit took it for an act of aggression and took a step backwards.

  The young man reassured him with a gesture and continued, smiling: “By virtue of that axial inclination, the seasons, which succeed one another on Venus every 56 days, are very abrupt. The polar zone extends as far as 35 degrees from the equator, and by the same token, the tropical regions extend to 35 degrees from the poles, with the result that two zones, much larger than the temperate zones of our globe, encroach upon one another continually, belonging simultaneously to polar and tropical climates. These regions are therefore subjected to enormous changes in temperature.”

  “You complained about the heat on the Moon!” said Ossipoff, intervening in the conversation. “Know that on Venus, in summer, the Sun turns around the pole, rising spirally and dispatching a quantity of light almost twice as great as that which it transmits to Earth.”

  “As for winter,” said Fricoulet in his turn, “the cold must be comparable to that which reigns on the Moon during the 350 hour night, for the Sun never gets near the horizon and stays considerably below it.”

  “The equatorial regions are no more favored than the polar regions; every year, they have two summers during which the Sun climbs to the zenith and pours forth rays that are certainly more ardent than those which roast our equatorial regions…”

  “Well?” Fricoulet asked. “Do you understand now?”

  “I don’t know whether I understand or not,” replied the unfortunate Yankee, who was utterly overwhelmed, in a dejected tone. “All I know is that it’s stiflingly hot in here.” He had taken off his cap and was sponging his sweat-covered forehead.

  “It is very warm in here, in fact,” Fricoulet admitted. To Gontran, he said: “What’s the matter? You’re as red as a lobster.”

  “I’m dying,” murmured the young Comte, taking off his coat.

  “It’s doubtless the Sun,” said Ossipoff. “The further we go, the closer we get to it. The exterior walls of the vehicle must be red hot.”

  “Indeed,” murmured Flammermont, “it must be the Sun; our distance therefrom is palpably diminishing.”

  “Oh, palpably,” replied the old man. “2,000,000 leagues out o
f 37,000,000…that’s not very much…”

  Farenheit was panting like an ox. “By God!” he groaned. “It must be unbearable on your diabolical planet!”

  “Don’t worry, my dear Mr. Farenheit,” Ossipoff replied, smiling. “That diabolical planet, as you call it, doubtless because you think it’s as hot as Hell, has a very thick envelope of clouds to protect it from the solar heat, so the temperature there isn’t much higher than on Earth. That’s very fortunate for its inhabitants, but very inconvenient for astronomers, who have only been able to perceive Venusian geography through gaps in that cloudy veil…”

  “So we only have imperfect data, believed to be unreliable,” Gontran said, earnestly.

  Fricoulet, however, could no longer keep still. He wandered about the cabin, taking off items of clothing one by one, until he was only dressed in his shirt and underpants. “This heat is intolerable!” he shouted, suddenly, in veritable agony.

  “What do you want us to do about it?” asked the old man, dryly. “You knew what you were exposing yourself to in coming with us. You could have stayed with Telinga.”

  “Isn’t there any means of shielding ourselves from the solar rays?” asked Gontran, grieved by his friend’s apparent distress.

  “I have an idea!” said the American. “If we were to moisten all our blankets and hang them on the walls, the evaporation…”

  “Yes,” gasped Fricoulet, completely breathless. “We can try that…”

  He bent down to pick up one of the blankets that had slipped on to the floor, but immediately uttered a cry of pain and got up very pale, his eyes distraught.

  “What’s wrong?” asked the voyagers, hurrying toward him.

  “The floor is red hot,” Fricoulet replied.

  “Red hot! That’s not possible!” they exclaimed, all at the same time.

  “See for yourselves!” retorted the engineer, a trifle bitterly.