While Flammermont started in surprise on hearing his friend speak in this manner, the American ran to the engineer and gave him a bone-breaking handshake. “Then you think….” he stammered.
“I think that Gontran has not studied the matter sufficiently—in which he is, of course, following the example of Monsieur Ossipoff and Citizen Sharp.”
“What do you mean?”
“That none of you three, in calculating the route that the comet will follow, has taken account of planetary perturbations.”
“Eh?” retorted the young Comte, with an emphatic shrug of the shoulders. “What do planetary perturbations matter to us?”
“A great deal—and if you care to listen to me for a few moments, you’ll come round to my opinion. The comet that is carrying us, being much lighter than the different worlds whose orbits it crosses, is strongly influenced by them—to the extent that the curve it is following is no longer regular, but is formed of a succession of sinuosities inflected toward the planets in proximity to which it passes. Now, if my calculations are accurate, one of the most accentuated sinuosities will be that provoked by the Earth’s attraction.”
Flammermont nodded his head. “At what distance do you expect us to pass our native world?”
“Pooh! Scarcely 2,000,000 leagues—which is to say that the tail of our comet will envelop the entire Earth.”
“But won’t that have any harmful result for our compatriots?” asked Farenheit, a trifle anxiously.
“That’s something we can’t know. If, by chance, it’s carbon that is the dominant element in the caudal appendage of the world we’re riding, it might result in a partial poisoning or even a general asphyxiation of the human race.”
The Yankee uttered an alarmed exclamation.
“What would be even more serious,” Fricoulet continued, “is if the nucleus itself were to crash into the Earth: a continent smashed…a kingdom crushed…Paris or New York pulverized…they would certainly be the least consequences of such a collision.”
Farenheit had straightened up; he was very pale. “By God!” he groaned, in a strangled voice. “The United States destroyed! But that would be the end of the world!”
The two young men could not help smiling at this formidable national pride.
“The end of the New World, at least,” added Gontran.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Farenheit,” Fricoulet went on. “No such thing will happen…this time, at least. Besides, the great Arago has calculated that the odds against a comet hitting the Earth during its flight through space are 280 million to one. Our native planet has already, on two separate occasions, passed through the tail of Biela’s comet without suffering any other damage than a hail of aeroliths and shooting stars.145
The American breathed deeply, his heart freed from a dire anguish.
“You think it’s not unreasonable to imagine returning to Earth, then?” said Flammermont.
“My dear friend,” the engineer replied, gravely, “When people have been made enough to undertake the vertiginous folly that we have undertaken, the more unreasonable they are, in my opinion, the closer they are to the truth.”
“2,000,000 leagues, though?”
“We’ve already covered a good 30,000,000.”
“That’s true, but the conditions weren’t the same.”
“What do conditions matter to men like us?”
“Are you ready to make the attempt, then?”
“Absolutely—I’m beginning to feel nostalgic for the Boulevard Montparnasse. Then again, to tell you the truth, old Ossipoff’s conversation isn’t much of a distraction. Fedor Sharp is repulsive—and as for Mademoiselle Selena, I’m obliged to admit that she’s very charming, but she’s your fiancée, alas, and that situation of future execution…”
“Alcide!” Gontran complained, furrowing his brows.
“What do you expect, my dear chap? It’s stronger than me. I detest the institution called marriage and I have a supreme horror of women; thus, I repeat, Mademoiselle Selena, whom, in any other circumstances I might perhaps find sympathetic, gets on my nerves terribly, because I know that you’re going to marry her some day. My conclusion is that I’m entirely disposed to accompany Mr. Farenheit and attempt to go back home.”
“But I’ll be ruined!” Flammermont exclaimed, involuntarily. “You know full well that, without you…” Prudently, he did not finish his sentence.
“In that case, come with us,” said the engineer.
“Abandon Selena! Do you think I would?”
“Persuade old Ossipoff to come with us.”
“You know full well that he’ll never consent, before having accomplished the circular voyage that he’s planned.”
“In that case, leave the father and kidnap the daughter.”
Gontran shrugged his shoulders magnificently. “I’m an honest man,” he replied, with dignity.
Fricoulet made a gesture of impatience. “Well,” he grumbled, “you can’t force us into eternal exile. You’re welcome to roam the celestial world at your leisure, but don’t prevent us from taking advantage of an opportunity, which might never present itself again, to see our motherland again…”
A terrible perplexity was painted on Flammermont’s features.
“Remember,” the engineer went on, “that there’s no reason why this clodhopping journey should ever reach a conclusion. When he’s visited the known worlds, Ossipoff will want to go on to the unknown ones. All that will take time, and while you have a perfect right, with regard to Selena, to spend your future like this, you’ll both be so old and exhausted that you’ll only want one thing: eternal sleep.” Folding his arms comically, he added: “Just between us, your role as a perpetual fiancé is beginning to seem ridiculous, and it’s high time that the mayor settled that situation.”
“You’re right,” Gontran replied, utterly disconcerted. “Absolutely right—but what can I do?”
“Make all your preparations with a view to departure…and when the moment comes, we’ll act.”
“In what manner?”
“That, we can’t know yet. Everything depends on circumstances. For the moment, we’re not concerned with that, but with the means to employ in getting away.”
“And do you have that means?”
“Very nearly.”
Farenheit and the young Comte drew nearer to the engineer, curiously “What is it?” the asked, simultaneously.
“A balloon.”
A double exclamation of surprise replied to this word. The American spoke first. “You’re not thinking of leaving here in a balloon! Traveling 2,000,000 leagues through space in a balloon is crazy!”
The engineer looked at them both, calmly. “Why is it crazy?” he replied. “As I told you a little while ago, the tail of the comet that’s carrying us will, at a given moment, extend as far as the Earth. Once we’re in the terrestrial atmosphere, it will be sufficient to open the valve to set foot on our native planet.”
Gontran, mouth agape and eyes wide open, listened to his friend’s speech, thinking that it was a hoax. After a moment’s reflection, though, he said: “Admitting that the route through space of which you speak is open to us…it’s the balloon we lack.”
“What about our selenium sphere? Doesn’t that count?”
This time, Flammermont’s bewilderment was complete.
“What?” cried Farenheit. “You’re thinking of using that metal machine?”
“Why not? The sphere’s weight, compared to its volume, is minimal, and once full of gas, it will be powerful enough to transport all the voyagers who entrust themselves to it to Paris or New York.”
“Gas…gas,” repeated Farenheit, shaking his head. “I’d like to know how you expect to find that.”
“I don’t have any such expectation, simply the intention of manufacturing it.” While speaking, he took the inevitable notebook out of his pocket and scribbled rapidly on one of the pages. “Here,” he said, eventually, “is the calculation I’ve made, t
aking account of the intensity of the surface gravity on the world we’re on.”
They read:
Weight of selenium sphere 400 kilograms.
Weight of six voyagers 300 kilograms.
Apparatus, rigging, gondola, etc. 250 kilograms.
Luggage, food, instruments, etc. 250 kilograms.
Total 1,200 kilograms.
“Our sphere measures exactly 10.50 meters in diameter, or 630 cubic meters of capacity,” Fricoulet continued. “By filling it with pure hydrogen—which, by virtue of the great density of the atmosphere that surrounds us, gas an ascensional force of two and a half kilograms—we’ll have sufficient force to lift us all with a breach of equilibrium more than sufficient to allow us to reach our goal.”
“What will that difference of equilibrium be?” Gontran asked.
“That of the sphere filled with pure hydrogen, everything included and ready to depart, and the weight of air displaced—no less than 300 kilograms.”
“You have an answer for everything, then,” said Flammermont. “It only remains to set to work.”
“And as soon as possible, for even though we have three months before us, we haven’t a moment to lose.”
“Three months!” cried Farenheit, in a disappointed tone. “I have to tolerate the sad and repulsive appearance of that devil Sharp for three more months!”
“What do you expect, Mr. Farenheit? You’ll have to arm yourself with patience.”
“If you only knew how my fingers are itching to get within range of that wretch and fasten themselves around his throat! Seriously, you think there’s no other means of getting out of here before the time you’ve just specified?”
“I said three months, for that’s certainly the minimum time that it will take the comet to reach Earth’s orbit. Fortunately for us, in fact, for we won’t be ready.”
“Not ready!” exclaimed Gontran. “But one can do a great many things in three months.”
“We don’t have three months,” Fricoulet continued, “because we have to deduct the time during which we’ll be obliged to go underground to flee the solar fire. Within a few days, it will be impossible for us to remain where we are….and we’ll have to stay underground until the comet, having passed its perihelion, had resumed its journey toward its aphelion. Only then can we begin work…is that agreed?”
“It’s agreed.”
As a sign of alliance, the three men shook hands.
“Above all, not a word to anyone—even Mademoiselle Selena.”
Gontran blushed slightly. “I’ll be as mute as a carp!”
When they went back up to the camp, Ossipoff’s daughter had already gone to bed. Up above, on the observation platform, they could hear the old scientist arguing with Fedor Sharp in loud voices.
“So be it, my dear colleague,” said the latter, bitterly, “I yield to your reasoning; I admit that the solar protuberances are produced by incandescent gaseous masses—but what force projects them in that manner into the superior regions? On that point, I believe you’ll agree with me in attributing the phenomena to low specific gravity.”
“Not at all, not at all,” replied Ossipoff. “The phenomena are nothing other than veritable eruptions, due to a propulsive force born within the Sun itself. How, otherwise, can we explain the protuberances? If the latter were due solely to the lightness of the gas, they would simply rise up in a straight line. Does what I just said seem logical to you?”
Sharp uttered a sort of grunt, which might, strictly speaking, have qualified as acquiescence.
“As for the origin of the masses of hydrogen thus projected,” Ossipoff went on, “I cannot admit that they originate in the Sun itself, as you affirmed just now.”
“For what reason, if you please?”
“The reasons, if you please, are twofold. The first is that the volume of the Sun would be diminished by them, since the number of daily eruptions averages 200; the second is that the ambient atmosphere would increase indefinitely by virtue of the adjunction of that gas, which arrives there from every direction.”
“Then what’s your opinion, my dear colleague?”
“That, by virtue of a phenomenon we can now explore, the gaseous masses projected by the Sun fall back on its surface, to be projected again and to fall again.”
“And so on, until the end of time,” retorted Fedor Sharp, in a mocking voice.
“Exactly like the jet of water in the Tuileries,” whispered Gontran in Fricoulet’s ear. The latter shut him up with a jab of his elbow in order to listen to the ex-permanent secretary’s reply.
“You do understand, my dear colleague,” he said, “that your argument about the diminution of the solar mass can’t be sustained for an instant. The hydrogen contained in the interior of the Sun is subject to such a formidable pressure and, on the other hand, it occupies a space so large, that for the eruptions by which it recovers its liberty to deflate the central star would take millions and millions of centuries.”
“Then what would happen?”
“What would happen, no doubt, is that the Sun would go out, as other suns have doubtless done before it… Nature is not immutable, my dear colleague; it’s eternal transformation that makes eternal life.”
Ossipoff remained silent for a moment. Then the two young men heard an impatient click of a tongue, followed by these words pronounced in a dry tone: “It’s getting late…we should get some rest.”
“As you wish, my dear colleague,” Fedor Sharp replied, softly.
The two young men only just had time to jump into their hammocks; the scientists’ footsteps were already resonating on the stairway.
“You know,” said the engineer, leaning over toward Flammermont, “it seems to me that your future father-in-law has been stumped.”
“It’ll only make him grumpier tomorrow, mark my words.”
“I think you’d better look over your Continents célestes,” retorted Fricoulet.
“We’ll see about that when it’s light. For now, I’m going to sleep. Goodnight!”
And Flammermont was not long delayed in going to sleep, to dream that the selenium balloon that had carried them through space had just set down on the racecourse at Longchamp on the day of the Grand Prix.
Chapter XXXII
The Selenium Balloon
Since the day of their reconciliation, Mikhail Ossipoff and Fedor Sharp had established a rota between themselves, which ensured that the celestial phenomena would not remain unobserved for an instant. Two days after the scene that has just been reported, therefore, Sharp, perched on the platform of the observatory, was doing his astronomical shift when he suddenly uttered a loud cry. Immediately, all the members of the little colony abandoned their occupations and ran to the stairway, surrounding the ex-permanent secretary in a matter of minutes.
The latter, his limbs agitated by a nervous tremor, was clutching the telescope in both hands; he kept his eye glued to the ocular lens, without paying any heed to the questions that were addressed to him. Finally, Fricoulet took hold of him and wrenched him away from the instrument, muttering: “Come on, you’re playing games. What did that cry that brought us running signify?”
“You don’t disturb people for nothing,” complained the American.
Sharp, who was struggling, succeeded in escaping the hands that held him. “The Sun!” he stammered. “The Sun!” And he hastened to resume his place at the telescope.
Ossipoff, seized by a presentiment, leapt on the marine binoculars that Farenheit wore constantly around his neck and aimed them at the flaming star. “Great God!” he exclaimed. Then he fell silent, entirely given over to contemplation.
Seeing that, Fricoulet threw himself downstairs and climbed back up armed with one of the spare telescopes found in Fedor Sharp’s shell. A few moments later, the entire colony was installed on the platform studying the Sun, some with the aid of telescopes, others with binoculars. All of them stood still, mute and breathless, fixed in a stupefied immobility.
/> In truth, the spectacle the offered itself to them was fantastic. It seemed that the entirety of the occidental nimbus of the Sun had suddenly exploded, and that a formidable blaze had been projected into space from the flanks of the star. It was as if whirlwinds of flame, in which rockets blazed with marvelous intensity, extended for several 1000 kilometers. Gradually, however, the eruption appeared to calm down; the glare of the flames diminished, and there was soon nothing but a mass of faintly iridescent gas, floating 240,000 kilometers from the solar surface, about 88,000 kilometers deep and 160,000 long. This mass seemed tranquil, even motionless, and it was attached to the solar surface by three or four vertical columns, shining with an exceedingly bright light, and, by contrast, animated by a lively movement.
Suddenly, without any anterior perturbation to presage it, a titanic dust-cloud appeared, coming from the solar mass. The gaseous cloud tore apart and broke up, scattering into space in brilliant threads, which climbed, in less than ten minutes, to a height of 300,000 kilometers. As they rose up, they diminished in size and brightness, melting into space like bursting soap-bubbles. Soon, nothing remained to recall the memory of that marvelous firework display but a few hazy clouds with, close to the chromosphere, a few slightly brighter flames.
Soon, a flaming cloud emerged from the solar surface, small in dimension at first, but which grew rapidly to considerable proportions. Jets of flame sprang forth from the flanks of the cloud, which began by colliding tumultuously with one another as if they were losing their balance, until a sudden surge of solar pressure, doubtless more violent than its predecessors, raised them up to a height of 80,000 kilometers. Once there, they evaporated.
The Terrans waited for some time, hoping that the admirable vision might appear once again to their dazzled eyes—but the solar disk had resumed its ordinary appearance, offering no presumption of a further eruption. They remained mute, though. Immobilized by the spell of the magnificent spectacle.
Fricoulet broke the silence first. “My word!” he exclaimed, in a voice still tremulous with emotion. “That alone was worth the trip.”
The Extraordinary Adventures of a Russian Scientist Across the Solar System (Vol. 1) Page 62