Ossipoff darted a rapid glance at his instruments. “About an hour,” he replied.
For a while longer he left the valve half-open, then closed it. He dropped a metallic cable overboard, to which a selenium bar curved in the form of a hook had been fixed, by way of an anchor.
Suddenly, the gondola received a shock; it had just touched the ground. Then, after lifting up again, the balloon fell back a few 100 meters further on, to rise up and fall back once again. After that, it began sliding on its side, dragging the gondola—to which the voyagers, roughly shaken, clung with all their might.
Finally, they came to an abrupt and conclusive halt. The anchor had evidently just dug in and immobilized the sphere—which, retained by its cable, swayed back and forth a few meters above the soil. Leaning over the edge, the Terrans examined the strange configuration of the new world on which they had landed, with anxious curiosity.
By virtue of a singular optical illusion, it seemed to them that the ground was covered with a sort of net, with a regular and rather narrow mesh, which extended as far as the eye could see.
“Oh!” Ossipoff said, immediately, to Gontran. “We must lose no time investigating one of the most interesting questions of astronomy.” In response to the young man’s interrogative expression, he added: “I’m talking about the canals of Mars. Perhaps what we see here, beneath our feet, will serve as a clue to resolve that curious problem right away.”
Meanwhile, Fricoulet, aided by Farenheit, had thrown the rope ladder that would enable the voyagers to leave their vehicle out of the gondola. The American went down first; then it was Selena’s turn. After that, Ossipoff and Gontran also climbed over the edge to rejoin their companions. Fricoulet was about to follow them when, all of a sudden, the sphere—which the old scientist had not completely drained of hydrogen and which had just been lightened by the departure of the greater part of its load—exerted such a formidable tension on its cable that the anchor broke free and it regained its liberty. Before the Terrans had time to realize what was happening, the metallic balloon was no more than a dot in the sky.
“Fricoulet! Fricoulet!” cried Flammermont, waving his arms desperately in the direction in which his friend had just disappeared—but the young man’s voice did not get past the envelope of his respirol.
“Don’t be afraid,” said Ossipoff, putting a hand on his shoulder. “The young man may not be very knowledgeable but he’s very courageous. Besides, he knows more about balloons than astronomy…I have an idea that he’ll get himself out of this.” Then, drawing Gontran’s attention to the ground with a gesture, he asked him: “What do you think of this?”
He showed him a veritable metal net on which he had set his foot, in one of the knots of which the balloon’s hook had taken hold. What was the net covering? It was impossible to get an idea, by reason of the relative darkness that reigned on Phobos; it seemed that a perpetual opaque fog hid the appearance of the little world on which they had landed from the Terrans’ eyes.
Receiving no answer, Ossipoff repeated the question. Gontran remained mute, plunged as he was in profound reflection. In addition to the fact that the accident that had overtaken Fricoulet was troubling him greatly, he was not without anxiety with regard to the modification that the sudden disappearance of his source of inspiration would bring to his relationship with the old scientist—not to mention that the gondola had carried off, along with all the luggage, the blessed copy of Les Continents célestes that had rendered him so much service. Deprived at a stroke of his prompter and his vade mecum, Flammermont thought it would be absolutely impossible to continue to play the role that he has sustained so cleverly for several months. Was it necessary for him, after so many proofs, to renounce the hope of ever becoming Selena’s husband? No, that could not be, that would not be! And he begged the Martian divinities to send him an inspiration.
Amazed by this mutism, Ossipoff shouted at him with all the force of his lungs: “Are you deaf?”
Gontran shook his head negatively and placed his index finger on the point of his respirol corresponding to his mouth.
“Mute!” exclaimed the old man. “You’re mute?” Turning to his daughter, he said: “The poor boy! How exquisitely sensitive he is! The loss of his friend has produced such an upset that he’s suddenly lost the power of speech.”
The young woman threw herself into her father’s arms. Her rubber mask prevented anyone from seeing the tears that were running down her cheeks, but it was easy to divine from her breast, which was rising and falling in abrupt jerks, that she was sobbing.
“There, there, darling,” said Ossipoff, softened by that great distress. “It’s the initial emotion…with time, it will pass.”
Suddenly, Farenheit—who had remained silent until then, positively dumbfounded by the loss of his precious diamond rock—began to gesticulate, waving his arms about wildly.
His companions ran to him, and uttered cries of horror on perceiving that one of the American’s feet had been gripped by claws of some sort emerging from inside the net. These claws were fitted at the extremity of long membranous wings, which themselves belonged to a hairy body, along which they extended, attached to the anterior and posterior limbs, which closely resembled the arms and legs of the human species. To a rather long neck was attached a proportionate head: a completely hairless head in which two animated glaucous eyes gleamed between lashless lids. The nose was long and mobile, like a tapir’s trunk; the mouth, entirely round, was rimmed with powerful lips, partly opened to reveal formidable jaws. Hanging on to the metallic net by its claws, this strange and horrible being had seized the American by the lower leg.
Finally, with a violent effort, Farenheit freed himself, leapt 20 feet into the air, and came down again 50 meters away.
“A singular world and singular inhabitants,” muttered Ossipoff. He drew his daughter away, half-dead with fright
Gontran, who was only partly reassured, followed them. Perhaps, he thought, the net is designed for no other reason than to transform Phobos into a vast aviary… And he added, with a profound sigh: O imperfection and inanity of human science! What would the gentlemen of the Observatoire de Paris say if they could see through their telescopes that the Martian satellite is surrounded by a net like a vulgar chignon!
“If you ask me,” said Farenheit to the old man, “We should try to get away from this cage thing; apart from the fact that these vile beings inspire a profound disgust in me, walking on it isn’t at all easy, and to maintain one’s balance it’s necessary to perform acrobatic exercises that have never been my forte.”
“Bah!” replied the old scientist. “So far as this world’s inhabitants are concerned, what have you to fear? By reason of our weight, which is 100 times less than on the Earth’s surface, our strength will be 600 times greater. You could break the skull of one of these individuals with a flick, as if with a sledgehammer blow. As for walking, if you care to try it out, you’ll see that a simple pressure of the foot will carry you like a bird for four kilometers. Go ahead and try it, if you’re not convinced.”
The American shook his head. “I’d be too scared of losing you,” he replied.
“On the other hand,” Ossipoff went on, “I’d like nothing better than to walk for a while. Firstly, it would get the numbness out of our legs, and secondly, I wouldn’t be displeased to get a better idea of this microscopic world….”
“Microscopic!” Farenheit repeated.
“Why, yes! What other label would you put on a worldlet that we could explore in its entirety in ten hours?”
For five hours the Terrans marched, or rather advanced, at a steady speed, by a series of successive bounds of equal height. Suddenly, however, without any transition, night fell and thick darkness overtook Phobos. At the same time, an enormous sparkling star rose above the horizon, similar to a gigantic Moon.
“Mars!” Ossipoff declared.
“Phobos has rotated,” said Selena.
“No, darling,” the old
man relied. “Like all satellites, Phobos always presents the same face to its planet. We’re the ones who have turned, having just passed from the solar face to the Martian face.”
“It’s frightening to see!” cried the young woman, hiding her face in her hands. “One might think that the mass is about to fall on us and smash us to pieces.”
The old scientist smiled gently and shook his head. “The sensation you’re experiencing doesn’t surprise me at all,” he said. “It would be the same for the inhabitants of our planet if they suddenly saw the apparent diameter of the Moon become 24 times larger and its volume 6400 times greater.”
“6400 times!”
“Yes, that’s the exact proportion of Mars by comparison with the Moon…it would be enough to make Mr. Farenheit fear for his beloved United States.”
Eventually, after an hour’s progress by Marslight, the voyagers came to a place where the metallic mesh seemed to come to an end. It was near the summit of a hill, which Ossipoff immediately declared to have an elevation of 100 meters, and on which they decided unanimously to get a little rest.
“Tomorrow,” Ossipoff said to Gontran, who was still struck dumb, “we’ll continue on our way, and perhaps we’ll obtain news of Monsieur Fricoulet.”
A few moments later, in spite of his anxiety, Flammermont was sound asleep—in which he was imitated by his dear Selena and by Farenheit. As for Ossipoff, gently taking possession of the marine binoculars that the American was wearing around his neck, he aimed them at the Martian landscape displayed before his avid eyes.
Chapter XXXIII
Six thousand kilometers in eight hours
One of the most singular and remarkable things about the celestial system is the difference that exists between the movement of the two satellites of Mars around their planet. While one of them, Deimos, orbits in 30 hours 17 minutes and 54 seconds, the planet itself rotates in 24 hours, 37 minutes and 23 seconds; in consequence that satellite appears to move slowly from east to west in the Martian sky. If the duration of its revolution were equal to the duration of Mars’s rotation, it would be constantly visible to the inhabitants of one hemisphere, and unknown to the inhabitants of the other. The difference between that revolution and that rotation being 5 hours 41 minutes, the result is that Deimos seems to accomplish its circuit of the Martian sky in 131 hours—which is five Martian days. If, therefore, the inhabitants of the planet have, like their terrestrial brothers, a calendar regulated by the revolutionary period of their satellite, the months would be no more than five days long—which, for a year of 608 days, gives a total of 133 months.151
Very different conditions apply to the revolution of Phobos, the nearer satellite, which completes its entire orbit in the space of 7 hours 39 minutes. From the difference between this movement and that of Mars, which rotates in the same direction in 24 hours 37 minutes, it results that the satellite rises in the west and sets in the east, after having traversed the Martian sky with a velocity corresponding to the difference between the two movements—which is to say, about 11 hours. This is a unique example in the system of the world.
This special condition of revolution was particularly favorable to the examination of Mars that Mikhail Ossipoff wanted to make; carried by Phobos as if by a celestial racehorse at the gallop, he would race all the way around the new world, whose faces would file past his delighted eyes.
The Sun was rising on the part of the continent Huygens that is bathed by the Huggins Sea, and the satellite, overtaking in its rapid course the more slowly-rotating planet, followed the day star. As if he were in a balloon, the old scientist floated above bizarrely outlined oceans in the midst of yellowish continents, striped haphazardly by numerous streams extending in every direction. In the equatorial region, the continents Herschel and Copernicus appeared to him clearly; then to the north the Lands of Fontana. Laplace and Le Verrier; to the south the isles of Green, Jacob, Cassini, Rosse, Secchi and the isthmus of Niester attaching the Land of Hall to that of Green.152
Dark amid the brighter oceans, bathing the equatorial coasts, the Newton Ocean and the Maraldi and Flammarion Seas extended. Then there was the strange Sablier Sea, which, after winding its bizarre contours between the continents Herschel and Copernicus, was linked to the Delambre and Beer Seas. Eventually, shining in the sunlight with an admirable brightness, the white patch of the polar snows extended from the fiftieth degree, almost at the tip of Le Verrier Land, to the South Pole.
For long hours, the scientist remained motionless, his chest strangely constricted, his gaze fixed in a sort of hypnosis on the world he had studied from the Pulkova Observatory at a distance of 19,000,000 leagues, from which he was now separated by only a few 1000 kilometers. Successively, he saw the Kepler Ocean, with the Kaiser Gulf and the curious Mediian Bay, so bizarrely cut out by the waters, and then the continents of Galileoi and Huygens, bathed to the south by the Schiaparelli Sea and to the north by the Oueman Sea, appeared and disappeared in the oriental occident.
At that moment, Phobos, drawn by its rotation, presented the face on which the Terrans had stopped to the Sun, and day dawned abruptly, without transition. Mikhail Ossipoff released a sight of regret at having been thus interrupted in his contemplative studies. Then he straightened up, and only then did the memory of his companions return to him. He turned to look at them, lying on the ground in the same positions in which drownsiness had taken them by surprise a few hours earlier, still asleep.
For a moment, he hesitated over waking them; unlike him, they did not have the passion for science that devoured his entire being to make them forget their fatigue; they were exhausted—but he thought about Fricoulet, who, given his knowledge of aerial navigation, might perhaps have succeeded in landing on the world on which they were located, and in search of whom it was necessary to set out as soon as possible. He went to Farenheit, who happened to be nearest to him, and applied his speaker to the sleeper’s helmet. “Ahoy!” he cried. “Get up!”
This summons resonated in the selenium helmet with a terrible loudness—so terrible that the frightened American bounded to his feet. That same bound, though, by virtue of his body’s scant weight, launched him 1000 meters into the air. “By God!” grumbled the citizen of the United States, on perceiving his companions below him, who seemed to him to be reduced to half their size, “I’m a dead man, or at least badly damaged!”
Instinctively, he closed his eyes so as not to witness his fall. To his great surprise, though, several seconds passed, then one…two…three…four minutes, and no point of contact had yet been made between Phobos and himself. Then he risked opening his eyes. How great was his amazement and bewilderment on observing that he was still at least a dozen meters from the ground, and that he was descending no more rapidly than a feather released in mid-air. Beneath him, Mikhail Ossipoff, Selena and Gontran were waving their arms desperately.
Finally, with a slowness that did not lack majesty, the American arrived within range, and was immediately grabbed by the feet by the Comte de Flammermont, impatient to regain possession of his traveling companion.
Immediately, Ossipoff signaled that he wanted to enter into communication with the young man. When the two speakers were adjusted, the old man exclaimed, victoriously: “Hey! Mr. Farenheit has just given us proof that Proctor was correct in his prognostications regarding the satellites of Mars.”153
Gontran felt a slight shiver run down his spine at the thought that Ossipoff might take it into his head to engage in an astronomical discussion; he had already opened his mouth to reply with a non-commital “Ah!” when he suddenly remembered the mutism with which his prudence had suggested to him that he declare himself afflicted the day before. He therefore suppressed the interjection that as ready to escape his lips and contented himself with sketching a vague gesture with his head, which might have passed for an affirmation as easily as a negation.
Ossipoff, however, gripped by the urge of scientific communication, continued. “On the basis that the dia
meter of Phobos might, at the maximum, be 32 kilometers—which is to say, 100th of the lunar diameter—the English astronomer established that the surface area of Phobos must be 1/10,000th that of the Moon and that it volume, compared to that of the Earth’s satellite, must be in the proportion of one in a million.”154 He paused momentarily, then added: “You can see the consequences immediately, can’t you? The intensity of a world’s surface gravity being proportional to its mass and density, as Proctor takes the Moon as a term of comparison with respect to the volume of Phobos, it is not unreasonable for us to imitate him with respect to its mass and density. It therefore follows that the intensity of gravity here is 100 times weaker than on the surface of the Moon, or 600 times weaker than on the Earth’s surface…have you got that?”
Gontran nodded his head several times.
“That’s why Mr. Farenheit,” Ossipoff said, by way of conclusion, “whose terrestrial weight is 74 kilos, weighs no more than 115 grams here—which permits him to jump, as he has just done, by the simple pressure of his feet…”
The old man, taking his fact as his point of departure, was undoubtedly about to launch into one of those philosophical dissertations to which he was accustomed, when a hand falling on his shoulder made him turn round. He found himself face to face with Farenheit—who immediately put himself in communication with him and said in a surly tone: “What are we going to do now?”
“Continue our exploration. We can’t think of leaving Phobos without having done everything in our power to retrieve Monsieur Fricoulet. Don’t you think so, Mr. Farenheit?”
“How can you ask me such a question?” replied the American. “Not only does humanity make it our duty to conduct such a search, but our own interests concur.”
Misunderstanding the meaning of his words, Ossipoff shrugged his shoulders and replied in a scornful tone: “On that score, you have nothing to fear; from the viewpoint of our personal interests, it’s 1000 times preferable that Providence has separated us from Monsieur Fricoulet and left us Gontran, whose science and ingenuity have got us out of trouble several times. Monsieur Fricoulet is, perhaps, a charming fellow, but he’s the fifth wheel on a cart…”
The Extraordinary Adventures of a Russian Scientist Across the Solar System (Vol. 1) Page 65