A Columbus of Space
CHAPTER XVII
EARTH MAGIC ON VENUS
We were no sooner installed again at the capital than Edmund began his"readjustment of the atomic energies."
"Blessed if I know what he means," said Jack; "but he gets the goods, andthat's enough for me."
In reality I did not understand it any better than Jack did, only I hadmore knowledge than he of the nature of the forces that Edmund employed.We went with him to the place in the great tower where the car had beenstored, and where it seemed to be regarded with a good deal ofsuperstitious awe. But they had not yet the least idea of its marvelouspowers. We were preparing for them the greatest surprise of their lives,and our impatience to see the effect that would be produced when we madeour first flight grew by day, while Edmund, shut up alone in the car,labored away at his task.
"I wonder what they think he is doing in there," I said, the third dayafter our return, as we sat on a balcony of the floating tower, with ourfeet nonchalantly elevated on a railing, and our eyes drinking in themagnificent prospect of the vast city, as brilliant in variegated colorsas a flower garden, while a soft breeze, that gently swayed the giganticgossamer, soothed us like a perfumed fan.
"Worshipping the sun god, I reckon," laughed Jack. "But, see here, Peter,what do you make of this religion of theirs, anyway?"
"I don't know what to make of it," I replied. "But if the sun really doesappear to them once in a lifetime, or so, as Edmund thinks, it seems tome natural enough that they should worship it. We have done moresurprising things of the kind on the earth."
"Not civilized people like these."
"Oh, yes. The Egyptians were civilized, and the Romans, and theyworshipped all sorts of strange things that struck their fancy. And whatcan you say to the Greeks--they were civilized enough, and look what acollection of gods they had."
"But the wise heads among them didn't really believe in their gods."
"I'm not sure of that; at any rate they had to pretend that theybelieved. No doubt there were some who secretly scoffed at the popularbelief, and it may be the same here. I shouldn't wonder if Ingra were oneof the scoffers. Edmund has a great opinion of his intelligence, and ifhe really doesn't believe in the thing, he is all the more dangerous forus, because you know that now we are depending a good deal on theirsuperstition for our safety."
"But Ala is very intelligent, a regular wonder, I should think, from whatEdmund says; and yet she accepts their superstition as gospel."
"Lucky for us that she does believe," I said. "But there's some greatmystery behind all this; Edmund has convinced me of that. We don't beginto understand it yet, and there are moments when I think that Edmund isafraid of the whole thing. He seems dimly to foresee some catastropheconnected with it, though what it may be I cannot imagine, and I think hedoesn't know himself."
Henry listened to our conversation without proffering a remark--quite theregular thing with him--and at this point Jack, yielding to theoverpowering sense of well-being, and the soothing influence of thedelicious air and delightful view, closed his eyes for a nap.
Presently Edmund came and roused us all up with the remark that he hadfinished his work. Jack was instantly on his feet:
"Hurrah!" he exclaimed. "Now for another trip that will open the eyes ofthese Venusians. Where shall we go, Edmund?"
"We shall go nowhere just at present. I want first to make sure by atrial trip that everything is in perfect shape. For that purpose I shallwait for the hours of repose when there will be nobody to watch us."
I must here explain more fully what I have already said--that in thisland of unceasing daylight, everybody took repose as regularly as on theearth. That is a necessity for all physical organisms. When they slept,they retired into darkened chambers, and passed several hours in peacefulslumber. We had learned the time when this periodical need for sleepseized upon the entire population, and although, naturally, there were afew wide-awakes who kept "late hours," yet within a certain time afterthe habitual hour for repose had arrived it was a rare thing to seeanybody stirring. We had, then, only to wait until "the solemn dead ofnight" came on in order that Edmund might try his experiment with almosta certainty of not being observed. This was the easier, since latterlythere had been no guard kept over our movements. We were not confined inany way, and could go and come as we pleased. Evidently, if anybodythought of such a thing as an attempt to escape on our part, they trustedto the fact that we had no means of getting away, for after our firstexploit of that kind, all the air ships were carefully guarded, andplaced beyond our reach. As to the car, there was nothing about it tosuggest that it could fly, and probably they took it simply for some kindof boat, since they had seen us employ it only in navigating the sea. Ihave often thought, with wonder, of their unsuspiciousness in permittingEdmund to spend so much time alone and undisturbed in the car. Possibly,there was something in Jack's suggestion, that they supposed it to beconnected with our religious observances. Anyhow, so it was; and I canonly ascribe the fact to the kindness of that overlooking Power which sooften interfered in our behalf, making it no disparagement of our claimupon its protection that we had abandoned our mother earth and venturedso far away into space!
One thing decidedly in our favor was that, since our return from the mine(the adventure in the land of bogs and monsters was, as far as Edmundcould ascertain, unknown at the capital, except by those who had takenpart in it), we had been accustomed to pass the hours of repose in thetower. We should thus be close to the car when we got ready to start.Another equally favorable circumstance--and perhaps it was even moreimportant--was the absence of Ingra, who, either because he did not carejust now to face Ala, or because he had gone off somewhere after throwingus to the animals and was not yet aware of our escape, had not shownhimself. If he had been present it might not have been so easy for Edmundto make his preparations.
Never had the great city seemed to me so long in quieting down for itsperiodical rest as on this occasion. After all was deserted in thestreets below, people were still moving about on the tower, and it didseem as if they had taken a fit of wakefulness expressly to annoy us andinterfere with our plans. We kept stealing out of our sleeping room, andlooking cautiously about, for at least two hours, but always there wassome one stirring in the immediate neighborhood. At last a tall fellow,who had been standing an interminable time at the rail directly in frontof the storage place of the car, and whom Jack had half seriouslythreatened to throttle if he stood there any longer, turned and wentyawning away. No sooner was he out of sight than Edmund led the way, andwith the slightest possible noise, aided by Juba, who was as strong asthree men, we got the car out on the platform. I was in a fever lestthere should be a squeak from the little wheels that carried it. But theyran as still as rubber.
"Get in," whispered Edmund; and we obeyed him with alacrity.
Would it go?
Even Edmund could not answer that question. He pulled a knob, and I heldmy breath. There was the slightest perceptible tremor. Was it going tobalk? No, thank Heaven! It was under way. In a few seconds we were offthe tower in the free air. Edmund pressed a button, and the speedinstantly increased. The gorgeous tower seemed to be flying away from uslike a soap bubble. Jack, in ecstasy, could hardly repress a cheer.
"Hurrah, if you want to,"' said Edmund.
"They won't hear you, and now I don't care if they do. The apparatus isall right, and we'll give them something to wake up for. My only anxietywas lest they should witness a failure, which might have led todisagreeable consequences. There must be no dropping of knives in ourjuggling."
"Good!" cried Jack. "Then let's give 'em a salute."
Edmund smiled and nodded his head:
"The guns are in the locker," he said.
Jack had one of the automatic rifles out in a hurry.
"Shoot high," said Edmund, "and off toward the open country. Theprojectiles fly far, and I guess we can take the risk."
He threw both windows open, and Jack aimed skyward and began to pull t
hetrigger.
Bang! bang! bang! Heavens, what a noise it was! The car must have seemeda flying volcano. And it woke them up! The sleeping city poured forth itsmillions to gaze and wonder. Surely they had never heard such athundering. Within five minutes we saw them on the roofs and in thetowers. Many were staring at us through a kind of opera glasses whichthey had. Then from a dozen aerial pavilions the colors broke forth andquivered through the air.
"Saluting us!" exclaimed Jack, delighted.
"Asking one another questions, rather," said Edmund.
They certainly asked enough of them, and I wondered what answers theyreturned.
"Probably they think we're off for good," said I.
"And aren't we?" asked Henry anxiously.
"Not yet," Edmund replied, and Henry's countenance fell.
The car turned and approached the great tower again. We swept round itwithin a hundred yards, and could see the amazement in the faces thatwatched us. But if they were astonished they were not terror-stricken.Within ten minutes twenty air ships were swiftly approaching us. Edmundallowed them to come within a few yards, and then darted away, rushedround the whole city like a flying cloud, and finally rose straight upwith dizzying velocity, which made the vast metropolis shrink to acolored patch, as if we had been viewing it through the wrong end of atelescope.
"I'll go right up through the cloud dome now," he said. "Nothing couldmore impress them with a sense of our power than that; and when we comeback again they will know that we have no fear, and the very act will bea proof of origin from the sky."
When we were in the midst of the mighty curtain of vapor, I wasinterested in noticing the peculiar quality of the light that surroundedus. We seemed to be immersed in a rose-pink mist.
"I do not understand," I said to Edmund, "how this dome is maintained atso great an elevation, and in apparent independence of the rain cloudswhich sometimes form beneath. No rain ever falls from the dome itself,and yet it consists of true clouds."
"I think," he replied, "that the dome is due to vapors which assemble ata general level of condensation, and do not form raindrops, partlybecause of the absence of dust to serve as nuclei at this great height,and partly because of some peculiar electrical condition of the air,arising from the relative nearness of Venus to the sun, which preventsthe particles of vapor from gathering into drops heavy enough to fall.You will observe that there is a peculiar inner circulation in the vaporsurrounding us, marked by ascending and descending currents which aredoubtless limited by the upper and lower surfaces of the dome. The truerain clouds form in the space beneath the dome, where there seems to bean independent circulation of the winds."
On entering the cloud vault Edmund had closed the windows, explainingthat it was not merely the humidity which led him to do so, but thediminishing density of the air which, when we had risen considerablyabove the dome, would become too rare for comfortable breathing. In alittle while his conjecture about a peculiar electrical condition wasjustified by a pale-blue mist which seemed to fill the air in the car;but we felt no effects and the mechanism was not disturbed. Owing to ourlocation on Venus, still at a long distance from the center of thesunward hemisphere, the sun was not directly overhead, but inclined at alarge angle to the vertical, so that when we began to approach the uppersurface of the vault, and the vapor thinned out, we saw through one ofthe windows a pulsating patch of light, growing every moment brighter andmore distinct, until as we shot out of the clouds it instantly sharpenedinto a huge round disk of blinding brilliance.
"The sun! The sun!" we cried.
We had not seen it for months. When it had gleamed out for a short timeduring our drift across the water from the land of ice into the belt oftempests, we had been too much occupied with our safety to pay attentionto it; but now the wonder of it awed us. Four times as large and fourtimes as bright and hot as it appears from the earth, its rays seemed tosmite with terrific energy. Juba, wearing his eye shades, shrank into acorner and hid his face.
"It is well that we are protected by the walls of the car and the thickglass windows," said Edmund, "for I do not doubt that there are solarradiations in abundance here which scarcely affect us on the earth, butwhich might prove dangerous or even mortal if we were exposed to theirfull force."
Even at the vast elevation which we had now attained there was stillsufficient air to diffuse the sunlight, so that only a few of thebrightest stars could be glimpsed. Below us the spectacle was magnificentand utterly unparalleled. There lay the immense convex shield of Venus,more dazzling than snow, and as soft in appearance as the finest wool. Wegazed and gazed in silent admiration, until suddenly Henry, who had shownless enthusiasm over the view than the rest of us, said, in a dolefulvoice:
"And now that we are here--free, free, where we can do as we like--withall means at our command--oh! why will you return to that accursedplanet? Edmund, in the name of God, I beseech you, go back to the earth!Go now! For the love of Heaven do not drag us into danger again! Go home!Oh, go home!"
The appeal was pitiful in its intensity of feeling, and a shade ofhesitation appeared on Edmund's face. If it had been Jack or I, I believethat he would have yielded. But he slowly shook his head, saying in asympathetic tone:
"I am sorry, Henry, that you feel that way. But I _cannot_ leave thisplanet yet. Have patience for a little while and then we will go home."
I doubt whether afterwards, Edmund himself did not regret that he hadrefused to grant Henry's prayer. If we had gone now when it was in ourpower to go without interference, we should have been spared the mosttragic and heart-rending event of all that occurred during the course ofour wandering. But Edmund seemed to feel the fascination of Venus as amoth feels that of the candle flame.
When we emerged again on the lower side of the dome we were directly overthe capital. We had been out of view for at least three hours, but manywere still gazing skyward, toward the point where the car haddisappeared, and when we came into sight once more there were signs ofthe utmost agitation. The prismatic signals began to flash from tower totower, conveying the news of the reappearance of the car, and as we drewnear we saw the crowds reassembling on every point of vantage. We wentout on the window ledges to watch the display.
"Perhaps they think that we have been paying a visit to the sun," Isuggested.
"Well, if they do I shall not undeceive them," said Edmund, "although itgoes against the grain to make any pretense of the kind. Ala,particularly, is so intelligent, and has so genuine a desire forknowledge, that if I could only cause her to comprehend the real truth itwould afford me one of the greatest pleasures of my life."
"I hope old Beak Nose is getting his fill of this show," put in Jack."He'll be likely to treat us with more respect after this. By the way, Iwonder what's become of my money. I think I'll sue out a writ of replevinin the name of the sun to recover it."
Nobody replied to Jack's sally, and the car rapidly approached the greattower.
"Are you going to land there?" I asked.
"I certainly shall," Edmund responded with decision.
"But they'll seize the car!" exclaimed Henry in affright.
"No, they won't. They are too much afraid of it."
Any further discussion was prevented by a sight which arrested the eyesof all of us. On the principal landing of the tower, whence we haddeparted with the car, stood Ala with her suite, and by her side wasIngra!
His sudden apparition was a great surprise, as well as a greatdisappointment, for we had felt sure that he was not in the city, and I,at least, had persuaded myself that he might be in disgrace for hisattempt on our lives. Yet here he was, apparently on terms of confidencewith her whom we had regarded as our only sure friend.
"Hang him!" exclaimed Jack. "There he is! By Jo, if Edmund had onlyinvented a noiseless gun of forty million atom power, I'd rid Venus of_him_, in the two-billionth part of a second!"
"Keep quiet," said Edmund, sternly, "and remember what I now tell you; inno way, by look or act, is any one of us
to indicate to him the slightestresentment for what he did. Ignore him, as if you had never seen him."
By this time the car had nearly touched the landing. Edmund steppedinside a moment and brought it completely to rest, anchoring it, as hewhispered to me, by "atomic attraction." When the throng on the tower sawthe car stop dead still, just in contact with the landing, but manifestlysupported by nothing but the air--no wings, no aeroplanes, no screws, nomechanism of any kind visible--there arose the first _voice of a crowd_that we had heard on the planet. It fairly made me jump, so unexpected,and so contrary to all that we had hitherto observed, was the sound. Andthis multitudinous voice itself had a quality, or timbre, that was unlikeany sound that had ever entered my ears. Thin, infantine, low, yetmultiplied by so many mouths to a mighty volume, it was fearful to listento. But it lasted only a moment; it was simply a universal ejaculation,extorted from this virtually speechless people by such a marvel as theyhad never dreamed of looking upon. But even this burst of astonishment,as Edmund afterwards pointed out, was really a tribute to theirintelligence, since it showed that they had instantly appreciated boththe absence of all mechanical means of supporting the car and the factthat here was something that implied a power infinitely exceeding anythat they possessed. And to have produced in a world where aerialnavigation was the common, everyday means of conveyance, such a sensationby a performance in the _air_ was an enormous triumph for us!
No sooner had we gathered at the door of the car to step out upon theplatform than an extraordinary thing occurred. The front of the crowdreceded into the form of a semicircle, of which the point where we stoodmarked the center, and in the middle of the curve, slightly in advance ofthe others, stood forth the tall form of the eagle-beaked high priestwith the terrible face, flanked on one side by Ala and on the other bythe Jovelike front of the aged judge before whom our first arraignmenthad taken place. Directly behind Ala stood Ingra. The contrast betweenthe three principal personages struck my eye even in that moment ofbewilderment--Ala stately, blonde, and beautiful as a statue of her ownVenus; the high priest ominous and terrifying in aspect, even now when wefelt that he was honoring us; and the great judge, with his snow-whitehair and piercing eyes, looking like a god from Olympus.
"Do you note the significance of that arrangement?" Edmund asked, nudgingme. "Ala, the queen, yields the place of honor to the high priest. Thatindicates that our reception is essentially a religious one, and provesthat our flight sunward has had the expected effect. Now we have the headof the religious order on our side. Human nature, if I may use such aterm, is the same in whatever world you find it. Touch the imaginationwith some marvel and you awaken superstition; arouse superstition and youcan do what you like."
It would be idle for me to attempt to describe our reception becauseEdmund himself could only make shrewd guesses as to the meaning of whatwent on, and you would probably not be particularly interested in hisconjectures. Suffice it to say that when it was over, we felt that, for atime at least, we were virtually masters of the situation.
Only one thing troubled my mind--what did Ingra think and what would hedo? At any rate, he, too, for the time being, seemed to have been carriedaway with the general feeling of wonder, and narrowly as I watched him Icould detect in his features no sign of a wish to renew his persecution.