***
Vincent was much charmed by Alain’s family home—it was something more than a farm, something less than a chateau, but of an obvious vintage and standard. Perched as it was on a high cliff over a wave-lashed shore, it was a most picturesque spot, albeit rather savage in comparison to the precise scientific work being undertaken in the large medieval barn at the rear of the property.
The barn was filled to the brim with a veritable cornucopia of instruments, none of which Vincent recognized in the slightest, but which gleamed and glistened in huge cabinets of copper and gold and polished wood that looked like walnut. The centerpiece in the middle of the lofted barn was a small rocket, scarcely larger than the height of a man that was mounted on a pedestal that seemed to quiver and shake, a silver, flowing metal that Vincent took to be some kind of quicksilver.
“You mean to go to the moon in that?” he asked. “Will it not be a rather cramped journey?”
Alain laughed, so loud that he disturbed a rook high up in the rafters and send several jet black feathers floating in the air above them.
“No, this is merely my working model, and the second of my test rockets. But I do not intend to put this one into flight until I know that it will not be in vain—I have put far too much work and too much of myself—into it to see it lost forever.”
“And the first test?”
Alain laughed again.
“Now, that I can show you,” he said. “Indeed, it is precisely why I have asked you here—in the hope that I can persuade you to run a story that will at least make people take notice, for as you know I will require a great deal of financing before any further work can be undertaken.”
Alain went to a tall cupboard and removed a small box. He opened it to reveal another rocket — but this one was tiny, no longer than his index finger, sitting on a similar, but smaller befitting its scale, quicksilver base to the larger model in the center of the barn.
“How does it work? Can you explain it to me?” Vincent asked.
Alain shrugged.
“Explanation may be beyond your comprehension my friend, for I have spent a lifetime to reach this point, and if I told you that the quintessential mercury acted as a repulsion mechanism, would you be any wiser?”
It was Vincent’s turn to smile.
“I should not think so,” he replied. “But if it works, I can at least write about it.”
“Oh, it works,” Alain said softly. “It works most splendidly. Come and see.”
He took the box outside and walked to the edge of the cliff, where he placed the rocket and pedestal on the ground, lit a short fuse, and stood away.
“You would be advised to stand back a bit further, Vincent,” he said. “The reaction can be rather violent.”
Vincent watched the fuse burn down, then had to shield his eyes as an explosive flash turned the whole area into white lightning for a split second.
“Look up,” Alain said. “Quickly now, I do not wish to lose it.”
They both looked up. A small black speck, getting even smaller very quickly, flew upward at a vertiginous speed, higher and higher, until it seemed lost in the clouds. Then it became quickly larger again as it finally stopped rising and fell, plunging in a dive that took it out away from the cliff and into the sea beyond with a splash they could clearly mark from the ledge.
Vincent could not find any words for the longest time, and when he finally spoke it was with a nervous stutter that was almost a laugh.
“That was indeed remarkable, Alain. But what comes next?”
“Now we get wet while I retrieve my rocket, then I ply you with some of our strong farm cider and try to get you to convince the world to help me build a bigger one of those. A much bigger one.”
***
In the end, all it took was a much larger demonstration—not on a Breton cliff top this time, but in the center of Paris. Vincent had been as good as his word; he ran a story in Le Monde about Alain’s inventiveness and his dreams. Then he invited Alain, and the second rocket, to an event in the city. He had promised the citizens of Paris a show that would never be equaled, and a huge crowd of the great and good were gathered, hoping either for a spectacle, or for a hearty laugh at the strange man from the country.
A large area was cleared by the side of the Seine—Alain had insisted that the demonstration take place near water in case of fire. Vincent had not known how much of a blaze his new friend might be expecting, but thought it best to be circumspect, and had the crowd kept well back, also ensuring there was nothing flammable in the immediate vicinity of the cleared area where the rocket would stand. The engineer had also asked that the demonstration take place at night, on an evening when the moon might be in view, and after some consultation of almanacs, Alain chose this, of all possible days. And their luck was with them, for the sky was clear, and the lady moon looked down on the park, as if wondering what manner of assault was being considered on her virtue.
Alain set his rocket and quicksilver pedestal on the cobbles on the riverbank—he had furnished a most exquisite small wooden cart for the purpose of transporting the whole structure at one time, and he had it in place in a matter of minutes.
The crowd were in high spirits, and there were more than a few laughs and jeers as Alain explained—having to shout to make himself heard—his avowed intent to travel to the moon. Vincent heard someone call out: ‘Bring me home some Brie,’ and thought it so witty that he intended to commit it to memory to use in his report.
But all such thoughts were immediately extinguished when Alain lit the fuse. There were several moments of perfect silence, as if the old city held its breath in anticipation, then the whole park lit up in blazing white light. The crowd screamed—some in panic, some in delight, as, slowly at first, then with ever increasing velocity the rocket lifted off the ground. The cart beneath the pedestal was consumed in flame within a matter of seconds but the fire did not spread. In any case, all eyes were on the rocket as it sped up, and up, a shooting star in the heavens that went up and away in a long arc; the silver trail it left hung in the sky for several minutes before dispersing in the night air.
The crowd waited, as if hoping for some further excitement, but Alain announced that the show was over and, rather anti-climatically, everyone went home, although there was much excited chatter as to what they had just seen.
The real story—and the one Vincent ending up having under his name on the front page of Le Monde—came three days later. Alain had been insistent that all telescopes in the country should be trained on the moon. He would not say what might be observed, only that a watch must be kept. It became obvious what he was waiting for just before midnight on the third day after the launch; a distinct—and very large—plume of dust was seen rising from the lunar surface, as if it had been struck by something that had been moving at great speed.
Alain’s rocket had reached its destination.
***
After the most singular demonstration of both his ingenuity and capability, Alain had no trouble in finding his finance for the great project, with donations arriving from industrialists the length and breadth of France, all of them keen to gain a share of any patents arising from the proposed mission. For the first few months the newspapers of the land were in frenzied anticipation, but it quickly became clear that the way to the moon would be a slow, meticulous process. Alain’s technical talk of repulsion mechanisms for steering and his detailed discussion of the use of Potassium Hydroxide for the removal of excess Carbon Dioxide from the air meant that the industrialists received promise that their money was being spent wisely. The general public, however, quickly moved on to less intellectually taxing, more salubrious matters.
Alain did not mind this development in the slightest, and was able to throw his whole being into the development and construction of a large rocket capable of undertaking his long dreamed of mission.
***
Victor finally got a telegram almost two years to the day from his fir
st trip along the Quiberon coast.
“Come and see, my friend. It is ready.”
The rocket was visible from far away along the coast road, standing high and proud on the cliff, some way to the west of Alain’s property. It towered above the treetops—a high modern spire of copper and steel and hardwood that glistened and gleamed in the sunlight, a promise of a new future.
Alain took great pride in showing Vincent both the exterior and interior of this wondrous object, and although the reporter understood less than a quarter of what was said to him, Alain’s enthusiasm was most contagious.
“It will be a great wonder,” Vincent said. “The whole world will wish to see it launched.”
“The world can go to blazes. I plan to launch tomorrow,” Alain said.
“But you cannot. There must be a ceremony—a public announcement and a gathering of great personages. Surely such an achievement should not go unmarked?”
“And yet,” Alain said, “Neither the public, not the mighty and great men of Paris, have done any of the work required. Many of those same great men mocked me mightily when I first approached them with the idea, why should they share one iota of the achievement? No, I will go on the morrow. Medals and grandstands and public plaudits can wait for my return.”
Vincent was remembering the puff of dust that had been seen on the lunar surface on the arrival of the demonstration rocket.
“There will be a return, then? You will be able to land, and leave again without difficulty?”
Alain laughed loudly at that.
“I am a scientist, not a suicide, my friend. Although I cannot promise there will not be some degree of difficulty involved.”
“Then in that case,” Vincent said, with more bravado than he actually felt, “I shall go with you to take notes and preserve the details of the trip for prosperity.”
***
Vincent was already regretting his impulsive decision the next morning as Alain strapped him, tight, into a wing-backed chair high up in the spire of the rocket.
“I feel like I am being tied to a bomb,” he said.
“That is because, in a very real sense, you have been,” Alain replied, getting into the other chair alongside him.
“I rather wish you had not told me that.”
They were tilted over, almost lying on their backs, staring out of a thick glass window and seeing nothing but cloud and sky above them. Before strapping Vincent in the chair, Alain had made him put on a heavy suit made of what seemed to be thick rubber—a suit that was connected at the back via three hoses to a hefty machine at the rear of them. The machine took up the bulk of the space in this part of the rocket, and Vincent soon found out its purpose for as soon as Alain was seated he turned to Vincent and winked.
“This is going to feel rather peculiar, but it is necessary, I assure you.”
Alain turned a knob on a control panel on the arm of his chair and Vincent felt a strange sensation of warmth course through the suit between the layers of rubber as hot water poured in. The suit swelled, gripping tight to his body and continuing to fill until it felt as if he was completely encased inside a large balloon filled with hot water. It was not an unpleasant experience, and indeed Vincent felt himself becoming rather drowsy, as if being lulled gently into sleep.
He was brought back to full wakefulness with a start as Alain turned another knob. Everything went white in a lightning flash, and a deafening roar filled the rocket, shaking the structure such that Vincent feared that the whole thing might collapse into a heap taking him down into fiery ruin with it. But slowly, very slowly, they started to rise from the ground. Vincent felt weight press against him, felt the suit and the water in it press back against the growing force, then was aware of nothing else as the spire shot up into the sky at such a velocity that he lost his senses completely and everything went dark.
***
He woke sometime later, feeling snug, warm and strangely lightweight, but that was not his first concern, for, hanging outside the window—seemingly just out of reach—was a vast globe of shifting blue and white color. It was the Earth—his Earth—and it appeared to be receding away from them at some great pace.
“I have turned us around for a moment,” he heard Alain say beside him. “Close your eyes if you get nauseous or dizzy, I am about to correct our course.”
The engineer turned another knob. The view of the Earth seemed to slide aside in the window, followed quickly by a rapidly shifting star field until the pale globe of their destination, the Moon herself, hung ahead of them. Vincent was suddenly struck by the enormity of their situation, with only metal and wood between themselves and the vastness of space, and with everyone that had ever lived left behind them, there on the blue globe.
He suddenly felt quite, quite alone.
“Do not despair, my friend,” Alain said. “The part of the journey that concerned me the most is already behind us, for I considered it likely that we were indeed strapping ourselves to a bomb—one that would blow us far and wide across the sky rather than propel us up to our present circumstance.”
“It may have served me better had you informed me of that earlier,” Vincent replied. “For my good sense might then have overcome my flush of courage and I might even now be back on the ground watching you from afar.”
“Nevertheless, I find I am glad of the company,” Alain said. “And we are set on our course, Vincent. We may as well settle ourselves in, for we have three days ahead of us with only our conversation to amuse us.”
Indeed, despite their situation as the first men to venture into this vast dark arena, the trip proved remarkably dull. The space between the Earth and her companion was deathly quiet, perfectly still, and were it not for the fact that the Moon loomed ever closer in the window, Vincent may have thought they were becalmed in the Doldrums. Alain had at least had the foresight to provide for their sustenance, and they dined well on cold meats, bread and cheeses, for the most part, and even partook of some brandy, which seemed to allow each of them to snatch periods of unbroken sleep.
Alain’s inventions all performed admirably and they had no want of hot water—necessary because of the extremity of cold that seeped in through their hull and might otherwise have overwhelmed them. Nor did they want for air, their oxygen being provided by a Reiset and Regnaut machine, which function proved beyond Vincent’s ken, but indeed was not necessary to understand as long as he continued to be able to breathe. All in all, it proved to be a far more comfortable journey than Vincent might have feared.
***
Thirty two hours after leaving the Breton clifftop, the Moon’s surface filled the window ahead of them. Vincent searched for any sign that there might once have been anything other than dust and craters on the face of the satellite but could see nothing but endless gray. He remembered the joke called out at the Paris demonstration. It may well have looked like a round of Brie from back in the park, but from this close the surface reminded him all too much of the cold, dusty death that might yet wait for them should they attempt a landing.
“There is nothing here that merits closer examination,” he said to Alain. “Mayhap it would be for the best to merely take a turn around the globe and make our way home without further taking of risks?”
Alain smiled grimly.
“I would not forgive myself if I returned having come all this way and not set foot on the surface,” he said. “And consider how much more effective your reports will be—how many more people of the world will see them—how history itself will see you, if you can relay how we were the first of our kind to ever set foot on another celestial body?”
That appeal to Vincent’s vanity was enough for the decision to be fixed. Less than an hour later Alain started making preparations for their descent.
This process proved to be rather lengthy, involving as it did divesting themselves of the rubber suits—a cumbersome task in itself. Then there was a slow descent by ladder to the rear of the rocket. Even then they were only ha
lfway done. First of all, they climbed into an even heavier version of the rubber suits, these ones seemingly independent of any hoses but with cunningly wrought tanks at the backs for water and air. Then, clumsily, for the suits were indeed cumbersome, they squeezed into the small spherical capsule that would be their carriage for descending and returning from the moon’s surface. Vincent was rather worried about this particular part of the journey, but Alain insisted that all calculations had been made and that he was confident in their success.
“I have brought us this far, have I not? Courage, mon brave,” he said. “Remember your future readers, they will require you to act like a hero should you wish them to believe such a tale.”
And once again Vincent’s pride would not allow him to do anything other than continue on the chosen path, and he joined Alain in the cramped carriage as the engineer made the final preparations. Finally, after what seemed like hours, the engineer announced that all was ready. Alain pulled a lever, and they fell away from the main rocket—dizzying quickly at first, until several small exterior rockets, repulsors as Alain called them, burst into life and slowed their descent. There were only small windows in this carriage and unlike in the main rocket, Vincent had little view of the lunar surface as they approached it—and given the rapidity of their descent, he was rather glad of the fact.
But he need not have worried unduly. Five minutes later they landed, with a soft thud and a puff of ash and dust, on the surface.
The first men on the moon had arrived.
***
Despite their cramped conditions—the carriage in which they had descended was little more than an eight-foot diameter ball—Alain moved confidently and quickly among the controls. He extended a drill bit outside the hull to dig up soil samples that were quickly retracted into an interior chamber. He also collected a bottle of atmospheric gases, an immediate study showed it to be fatal should any human attempt to breathe in it. Then he made some swift calculations to determine their latitude and longitude position on the satellite so that he might find the spot later with a scope from back on Earth. Only when he was satisfied with these scientific endeavors did he suggest it might be time to make the historic step,
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