A Columbus of Space

  CHAPTER XII

  MORE MARVELS

  It was not until long afterwards that we fully comprehended all that Alahad done in that simple act; but I will tell you now what it meant. Bythe unwritten law of this realm of Venus, she, as queen, had the right tointerpose between justice and its victim, and such interposition wasalways expressed in the way which we had witnessed. It was a right rarelyexercised, and probably few then present had ever before seen it put intoaction. The sensation which it caused was, in consequence, exceedinglygreat, and a murmur of astonishment arose from the throng in the greatapartment, and hundreds pressed around the throne, staring at us and atthe queen. The majestic look which had accompanied her act graduallyfaded, and her features resumed their customary expression of kindness.The old judge had risen as she stepped from her place beside him, and heseemed as much astonished as any onlooker. His hands trembled, he shookhis head, and a single word came from his mouth, pronounced with acurious emphasis. Ala turned to him, with a new defiance in her eyes,before which his opposition seemed to wither, and he sank back into hisseat.

  But there was at least one person present who accepted the decision witha bad grace--Ingra. He had been sure of victory in his incomprehensiblepersecution of us, he had played a master card, and now hisdisappointment was written upon his face. With surprise, I saw Alaapproach him, smiling, and I was convinced that she was trying topersuade him to cease his opposition. There was a gentleness in hermanner--almost a deference--which grated upon my feelings, while Jack'sdisgust could find no words sufficient to express itself:

  "Beauty and the beast!" he growled. "By Jo, if _he's_ got any influenceover her, I'm sorry for her."

  "Well, well, don't worry about him," I said. "He's played his hand andlost, and if you were in his place, you wouldn't feel any better aboutit."

  "No, I'd go and hang myself, and that's what he ought to do. But isn't_she_ a queen, though!"

  Ala now resumed her place upon the throne, and issued orders whichresulted in our being conducted to apartments that were set aside for usin the palace. There were four connecting rooms, and Juba had one ofthem. But we immediately assembled in the chief apartment, which had beenassigned to Edmund. There was much more deference in the manner of ourattendants than we had observed before, and as soon as they left us wefell to discussing the recent events. Jack's first characteristic act wasjoyously to slap Juba on the back:

  "Bully old boy!" he exclaimed. "Edmund, where'd we have been withoutJuba?"

  "I ought to have foreseen that," said Edmund. "If I had been as wise as Isometimes think myself, I'd have arranged the thing differently. Ofcourse it should have been obvious all the while that Juba would be ourtrump card. I dimly saw that, but I ought to have instructed him inadvance. As it was, his own intelligence did the business. He understoodmy claim to an origin outside this planet, when they could not. It musthave come over him all at a flash."

  "But do you think that they understand it now?" I asked.

  "To a certain extent, yes. But it is an utterly new idea to them, and allthe better for us that it is so. It is so much the more mysterious; somuch the more effective with the imagination. But this is not the end ofit; they will want to know more--especially Ala--and now that Juba hasbroken the ice, it will be comparatively easy to fortify the new opinionwhich they have conceived of us."

  "But Ingra nearly wrecked it all," I remarked.

  "Yes, that was a stunning surprise. How devilish cunning the fellow is;and how inexplicable his antipathy to us."

  "I believe that it is a kind of jealousy," I said.

  "A kind of natural cussedness, _I_ guess," put in Jack.

  "Why should he be jealous?" asked Edmund.

  "I don't know, exactly; but you know we are not simple barbarians intheir eyes, and Ingra may have conceived a prejudice against us, somehow,on that very account."

  "Very unlikely," Edmund returned, "but we shall find out all about it intime; in the meanwhile, do nothing to prejudice him further, for he is apower that we have got to reckon with."

  The conversation then turned upon the mysterious language that had beenemployed at what we called the trial. I expressed the admiration which Ihad felt for such a means of communication when I had observed the effectthat Juba had been able to produce.

  "Yes," said Edmund, "it seems as wonderful as it is beautiful, but thereis no reason why it should not have been acquired by the inhabitants ofthe earth. We have the elements, not merely in what we call telepathy, ormind reading, but in our everyday converse. Try it yourself, and you willbe astonished at what the eyes, the looks, are able to convey. Evenabstract ideas are not beyond their reach. Often we abandon speech forthis better method of conveying our meaning. How many a turn in thehistory of mankind has depended upon the unspoken diplomacy of the eyes;how many a crisis in our personal lives is determined, not by words, butby looks."

  "That's right," said Jack, "more matches are made with eyes than withlips."

  Edmund smiled and continued: "There's nothing really mysterious about it.It has a purely physical basis, and only needs attention and developmentto become the most perfect mode of mental communication that intellectualbeings could possibly possess."

  "And the music and language of color?" I asked. "How has that beendeveloped?"

  "As naturally as the silent speech. We have it, and we feel it, inpictures, in flower gardens, and in landscapes; only with us it is afrozen music. Living music exists on the earth only in the form ofsonorous vibrations because we have not developed our sense of theharmony of colors except when they lie dead and motionless before us. Agreat painting by Raphael or Turner is to one of these color hymns ofVenus like a printed score, which merely suggests its harmonies, comparedwith the same composition when poured forth from a perfect instrumentunder the fingers of a master player."

  "Well, Edmund," interposed Jack, "I've no doubt it's all as you say, andI'd like to know just enough of their speechless speech to tell Ingrawhat he ought to hear; and if I understood their music, I'd play him adead march, sure."

  "But," continued Edmund, disregarding Jack's interruption, "mark me,there's something else behind all this. I have a dim foreglimpse of it,and if we have luck, we'll know more before long."

  I find that the enthusiasm which these wonderful memories arouse, as theyflood back into my mind, is leading me to dwell upon too many details,and I must sum up in fewer words the story of the events whichimmediately followed our acquittal, although it involves some of the mostastonishing discoveries that we made in the world of Venus.

  As Edmund had surmised, Ala lost no time in seeking more light upon themystery surrounding us. Within twenty-four hours after the dramatic scenein the hall of judgment, we were summoned before her, in a splendidapartment, which was apparently an audience chamber, where we found hersurrounded by several of her female attendants, as well as by what seemedto be high officers of the court; and among them, to our displeasure, wasIngra. He, in fact, appeared to be the most respected and importantpersonage there, next to the queen herself, and he kept close by herside. Edmund glanced at him, and half turning to us, shook his head. Itook his meaning to be that we were not to manifest any annoyance overIngra's presence.

  The queen was very gracious, and seats were offered to us. Immediatelyshe began to question Edmund, as I could see; but with all my efforts Icould make out nothing of what was "said." But Juba evidently was able tofollow much of the conversation, in which he manifested the liveliestinterest. The conference lasted about an hour, and at its conclusion, weretired to our apartments. There we eagerly questioned Edmund concerningwhat had occurred.

  He seemed to be greatly impressed and pleased. He told us that he hadlearned more than he had communicated, but that he had succeeded, as hebelieved, in making clearer to Ala our celestial origin. Still, hedoubted if she fully comprehended it, while as for Ingra, he was surethat the fellow rejected our claim entirely, and persisted in regardingus as inhabitants of the dark hemisphere.

&
nbsp; "Bosh!" cried Jack. "He's too stupid to understand anything above thelevel of his nose, and I'd like to flatten that for him!"

  "No," said Edmund, "he's not stupid, but I'm afraid he's malicious. If hewere a little more stupid, it would be the better for us."

  "But does Ala comprehend the difference between us and Juba--I mean inregard to origin?" I asked.

  "I think so. In fact Juba bears unmistakable signs that he is of theirworld, although so different in physical appearance. His remarkablecomprehension of their method of mental communication is alone sufficientto stamp him as ancestrally one of them. And yet," Edmund continued,musing, "think of the vast stretch of ages that separates the inhabitantsof the two sides of this planet, the countless eons of evolution thathave brought about the differences now existing! I am delighted tofind that Ala has some understanding of all this. She has had goodteachers--do not smile--for what you have seen of their mechanicalachievements proves that science exists and is cultivated here; and fromher savants she has learned--what our astronomers have deduced--thatformerly Venus turned rapidly on her axis, and had days and nightsswiftly succeeding one another. But they do not know the scientificreasons as completely as we do. With them this is knowledge based largelyupon tradition, 'ancestral voices' echoing down through periods of timeso vast that our most ancient legends seem but tales of yesterday.Whatever may be the measure of man's antiquity on the earth, I am certainthat here intellectual life has existed for millions upon millions ofyears, and its history stretches back beyond the time when the brake oftidal friction had so far destroyed the rotation of the planet that itssurface became permanently divided between the reigns of day and night."

  I listened with amazement and could not help exclaiming:

  "But, Edmund, how could you learn all this in so short a time?"

  "Because," he replied, smiling, "the language of the mind, unhampered bydragging words and blundering sentences, plays back and forth with thequickness of thought. There is another thing, too, which I have learned,a thing so amazing that it daunts me. I have found, I believe, theexplanation of that minor note of infinite sadness which, as I told you,I always feel, even in the most joyous-seeming paeans of their colormusic. I think it is due to their forereaching science, which assuresthem that this world has entered upon the last stage of its existencewhich began with the arrest of its axial rotation, and which will endwith the total extinction of life through the evaporation of all thewaters under the never-setting sun, and the consequent completedesiccation of this now so beautiful land."

  "But," I objected, "you have said that they never see the sun."

  "That was, I believe, a mistake, I am sure that they never see the starsor the planets, but I think that sometimes they see the sun, or, at leastthat there is a tradition of its having been seen. The whole thing is yetobscure to me, but I have received an inkling of something very, verystrange in that regard."

  "Then, Ala may think that it is from the sun that we claim to come," Isaid, disregarding his last remark, which had a significance which evenhe could not then have appreciated.

  "I am not sure; we must wait for further light. But I have still anothercommunication not so instinct with mystery. We are to be shown thesources of their mechanical power--the means by which they run all theirmotors."

  "Hurrah," cried Jack. "Now, that's something I like! I can understand amachine--if you don't ask me to run it--but as for this talking throughthe eyes, and playing Jim Crow with rainbows, it's too much for me."

  It was not many hours later when we were conducted by Ala, accompanied asusual by the inevitable Ingra, and a brilliant cortege of attendants,upon our first excursion through the capital. We embarked in a gorgeousair ship, and flying low at first, skirted the roofs of the innumerablehouses which constituted the bulk of the city resting on the ground. Theoriental magnificence of the views which we caught in the winding streetsand frequent squares crowded with people, excited our interest to theutmost. But we kept on without descending or stopping until, at length,we passed the limits of the immense metropolis, and, flying more rapidly,and at a greater elevation, soon approached what, at a distance, appearedto be a waterfall, greater than Niagara, pouring out of the air!

  "What marvel can this be?" I asked.

  "A fountain," responded Edmund.

  "A cataract turned upside down," exclaimed Jack. "Well, I've ceased to besurprised at anything I see here. I wouldn't be astonished now to findthat their whole old planet was hollow, and full of gnomes, or whateveryou call 'em."

  When we got nearer we saw that Edmund's description was substantiallycorrect. The vast mass of water gushed from the top of a broad plateau,in the form of a gigantic vertical fountain, with a roar so stupendousthat Ala and her attendants immediately covered their ears withprotectors, and we should not have been sorry to follow their example,for our eardrums were almost burst by the billowing force of the soundwaves. The water shot upward four or five hundred feet with geyser-likeplumes reaching a thousand feet, and then descended in floods on allsides. But the slope of the ground was such that eventually it was allcollected in a river, which flowed away with great swiftness, past thedistant city, and disappeared in the direction of the sea from which wehad come. The solid column of rising water must have been, at its base,three hundred feet in diameter!

  But our amazement was redoubled when we recognized, at various points ofvantage, squat, metallic towers of enormous strength, which caught thedescending water, allowing it to issue in roaring torrents from theirbases.

  "Those," shouted Edmund in our ears, "are power houses. I knew alreadythat these people had learned the mechanical uses of electricity; and ifwe have seen no electric lights as yet, it is because, in a world ofperpetual daylight, they have little or no use for them. They employ thepower for other purposes."

  "But how do you account for this incredible fountain?" I asked.

  "It must be due to geological causes, if I may use a terrestrial term.You observe that the land all has a slope hitherward from the distantrange of mountains, and that between us and the sea there is a chain ofhills. The metropolis lies at the lower edge of a vast basin, and it mustbe that the relatively porous surface, over many thousands of squaremiles, is underlain by an almost unbroken shell of rock, impermeable towater. The result is that the drainage of this whole immense region,after being collected under ground, flows together to this point, wherethe existence of a huge vent in the upper layer offers it a way ofescape, and it comes spouting out of the great crater with theconsequences which you behold."

  Many objections to Edmund's theory occurred to my mind; but he spoke soconfidently, the course of things on this strange planet had so oftenfollowed his indications, and I felt myself so incapable of suggesting amore satisfactory hypothesis, that I made no reply, as a geologist,perhaps, would have done. At any rate the wonderful phenomenon existedbefore our eyes, explanation or no explanation. We learned afterwardsthat the river formed by the giant fountain passed through a gap in thehills to the seaward, and the more I reflected upon Edmund's idea themore acceptable I found it.

  A great deal of the water was led away from the foot of the plateau outof which the fountain issued by ditches constructed to irrigate the richgardens surrounding the metropolis and the open agricultural country formany miles around. At the queen's invitation, although she did notaccompany us, we inspected one of the power houses, and Edmund found thegreatest delight in studying the details of the enormous dynamos and thesystem of cables by which, quite in our own manner, the electric powerwas conveyed to the city. We noticed that everywhere the most ingeniousdevices were employed for killing noise.

  "I knew we should find all this," said Edmund--"although I did notprecisely anticipate the form that the natural supply of energy wouldtake--as soon as I saw the aerial screws that give buoyancy to the greattowers. In fact, I foresaw it as soon as I found, in inspecting themachinery of the air ship which brought us from the sea, that theirmotors were driven by storage batteries. It was
obvious, then, that theyhad some extraordinary source of energy."

  "Oh, of course, you knew it all!" muttered Henry under his breath. "Butif you were as omniscient as you think yourself, you'd not be in thisfool's paradise."

  "What's that you're saying?" demanded Jack, partly catching the import ofHenry's remark, and beginning to ruffle his feathers.

  "Oh, nothing," mumbled Henry, and I shook my head at Jack to keep quiet.We all felt at times Edmund's assumption of superiority, but Jack and Iwere willing to put up with it as one of the privileges of genius. IfEdmund had not believed in himself, he would never have brought usthrough. And besides, we always found that he was right, and if hesometimes spoke rather boastingly of his knowledge and foresight, atleast it was real knowledge and genuine foresight.