A Columbus of Space

  CHAPTER VIII

  LANGUAGE WITHOUT SPEECH

  "That breaks the ice," said the irrepressible Jack. "We're introduced! Nowfor the conquest of Venus."

  We had all instinctively returned the smile of our beautifulinterlocutor, with bows and gestures of amity, and it looked as though wemight soon be within touch of her hand, for the vessels continued todrift nearer, when suddenly Juba clambered out of the window and stoodbeside us, his moon eyes blinking in the unaccustomed light. The greatestagitation was immediately manifest among the crowd on the deck of the airship. They seemed to be even more startled than they had been by thesound of Jack's voice. They interchanged looks, and, apparently, a fewwords, spoken in very low voices, and glanced from Juba to us in a waywhich plainly showed that they were astonished at our being together.

  Edmund, whose perspicacity never deserted him, immediately penetratedtheir thoughts.

  "It is clear," he said, "that these people recognize Juba as aninhabitant of the dark hemisphere, while, as to us, they are puzzled, andall the more so now that Juba has made his appearance. I think it certainthat they have never actually met any representative of Juba's racebefore, but no doubt he bears, to their eyes, ethnologicalcharacteristics which escape our discernment, and it is likely thattradition has handed down to them facts about the inhabitants of theother side of their planet which accord with his appearance."

  "Then, they must conclude that we have come from the other side, andbrought Juba along as a captive," I said.

  "Undoubtedly."

  "And what must they think of us--that we are inhabitants of the darkhemisphere also?"

  "What else can they think?"

  I do not know into what train of speculation this might have led us if anew incident had not suddenly changed the current of our thoughts.Unnoticed by us the second air ship had drawn near. Signals wereinterchanged between it and the first, and we observed that she whoseemed to be the commander in chief gave orders that the second air shipshould lay us aboard. The order was no sooner given than executed, and wefound ourselves face to face with a dozen of the blond-haired natives,led by one who was clearly their captain. The deck of the air shiptouched the side of the car, and, as if instinctively recognizing ourleader, the captain laid his hand on Edmund's arm, but with a smile whichgave assurance that no violence was intended.

  "Come," said Edmund, in a low voice, "it is best that we should go aboardtheir craft. We are in their hands, and luckily so, for they will take uswhere we want to go."

  Accordingly, all, including Juba, passed upon the deck of the air ship.You will readily imagine the intensity of interest with which we studiedthe faces and forms of those whom I will call our captors. Now that wewere in contact with them we could better observe their resemblances to,and differences from, ourselves. In all the main features of body theywere human beings, but of a somewhat superior stature. Noses and mouthswere small and delicate; hair long, silken, and either light gold or richchestnut in color; skin white and smooth; ears small and peculiarlyformed, with a curious mobility; and eyes large, round, invariably lightblue, and possessing that strange luminousness of which I have alreadyspoken. One could not look directly into these eyes without a certainshrinking, for some wonderful power seemed to radiate from them, and onehad the feeling that the intelligence behind them could dip to the bottomof his mind. We were gently treated and could perceive no indication ofperil to ourselves. Nevertheless, we were glad to feel our pistols in ourpockets. There were seats on the deck to which we were civilly conducted,but Edmund refused to sit.

  "I must see the commander herself," he whispered. "These are onlysubordinates, and I cannot deal with them. It will not do to leave thecar here at the mercy of the waves. I must find the means of making themunderstand that it is to go with us."

  Accordingly, he approached the captain, and we watched him with beatinghearts, not being able to divine what an attempt to dictate terms on ourpart might lead to. Jack shook his head, and put his hand on his pistol,which Edmund had restored to him while we were in the ice mountains.

  "I'll drop the jackanapes in his tracks if he shows up ugly," he said.

  "You'd better keep quiet," I whispered, "and don't let them see yourweapon. They appear to have no arms, and you should trust to Edmund tomanage the affair. When he gives the word it will be time enough to beginshooting."

  Jack grumbled, but kept the pistol in his pocket, although he did notwithdraw his hand from it.

  I have already told you how, at the caverns, Edmund had discovered thatthe inhabitants there possessed a means of converse which he likened totelepathy, and from what I had seen of the people here I was convincedthat they had the same mysterious power, and probably in a higher degree.To be sure, they used words occasionally, but for the most part theycommuned together in some other way. I felt sure that Edmund was nowabout to apply what he had learned, and his actions quickly demonstratedthat my conjecture was well founded. Just what he did, I do not know, butthe result of his conference was promptly apparent.

  The first air ship had withdrawn a short distance when the other boardedthe car, but now the two mutually approached until it was possible tostep from one deck to the other. As soon as they touched, Edmund wasconducted by the captain, at whose side he had remained standing, to thepresence of the important personage whom Jack had begun to designate asthe queen. We remained where we were, watching with all eyes, while Jackpersisted in keeping his hand on the pistol in his pocket. A crowdimmediately surrounded Edmund and we were unable to see exactly what wenton, a fact that rendered Jack so much the more impatient. But it turnedout that there was no cause for alarm. In about ten minutes the crowdopened and Edmund appeared. Uninterfered with, he came to the edge of thedeck, close by us, and said:

  "It is all arranged. The car will be towed by one of the air ships. I amto stay here and you will remain where you are until we reach ourdestination."

  "Have you had a talk with her?" asked Jack.

  "Not in any language that you understand," Edmund responded, smiling."But I have made good use of what I learned in the caverns. These peopleare intellectually vastly superior to the others, and, as I guessed, theypossess a more perfect command of the sort of telepathy that I told youabout. I have not found much difficulty in making my wish understood, andyour amazon is a very obliging person. It is only necessary to bediscreet and we shall have no trouble."

  "But why are you to be separated from us?" asked Jack anxiously. "Thatlooks bad, for it is exactly what they would do if they meant to kill usone at a time."

  "Why should they kill us?" retorted Edmund.

  "And why should we be separated?" persisted Jack. "I tell you, Edmund, Idon't like it."

  "Very well, then," Edmund said, after a moment's thought; "if that's theway you feel about it, I'll see what I can do. It will be anotherexercise for me in this new kind of language. But, mark this, if Isucceed in persuading the chieftainess to keep us together, you will haveto acknowledge that your fears were groundless. Perhaps it's worth tryingon that very account."

  He disappeared from our eyes again--for as soon as he approached theirleader the people of the air ship crowded close around as if to affordher protection--and, after another ten minutes' conference, came backsmiling to the edge of the deck.

  "Dismiss your fears, friend Jack," he said cheerfully. "You are all tocome aboard here with me. So you see there could have been no thought oftreachery; but I'm glad that we are not to be separated, and I thank youfor your solicitude on my account. I'm sure that the originalarrangement was made only because of lack of room aboard this craft, andyou'll see that that was the reason."

  He was right, for immediately half a dozen of the crew of the principalair ship were sent aboard ours while we were transferred to take theirplace.

  We now had an opportunity to study the countenance of the "amazon"commander, and we found her to be an even more remarkable personage thanshe had appeared at a distance. Of the beauty of her features and form Ish
all say no more, but about her eyes I could write a chapter. Thepupils, widely expanded amidst their circles of sky-blue iris, seemed tospeak. I can describe the impression that they made in no other way. I nolonger wondered at Edmund's ability to converse with her, for I feltthat, with a little instruction, and more of our leader's mentalpenetration, I could do it myself. At times I shrank from encounteringher gaze, for I verily believed that she read my inmost thoughts. And Icould see that _thought came out of her eyes_, but it escaped all myefforts to grasp it; it was too evanescent, or I was too dull. SometimesI imagined that the meaning was at the threshold of comprehension, butyet it evaded me, like forgotten words whose general sense dimlyirradiates the mind, while they refuse to take a definite shape, and keepflitting just beyond the reach of memory. Still, charity and good willshone out so plainly that anybody could read them, and I do not know howto express the feeling that came over me at this evidence of friendlinessexhibited by an inhabitant of a world so far from our own. It was as if adim sense of ultimate fraternity bound her to us. Jack's enthusiasm, asyou may guess, was without bounds, and strangely enough it rendered himalmost speechless.

  "By Jo!" he kept repeating to himself in an undertone, without venturingupon any further expression of his feelings.

  Henry, as usual, was silent, but I know that he felt the influence noless than the rest of us. Edmund, too, said nothing, but it was plainthat he was continually studying the phenomenon, and I felt sure that hisanalytic mind would find a more complete explanation than we yetpossessed. Of course you are not to suppose that the power that I havebeen trying to describe was peculiar to this woman. On the contrary, as Ihave already intimated, it was common to all of them; but with her itseemed to have reached a higher development, and, what was of specialinterest, she alone exhibited a marked benevolence toward us.

  The car was attached by a cable to the air ship that we had just quitted,and our voyage into a new unknown began. The other air ships, which hadbeen hovering about, moved up into line, and, with the exception of theone which towed the car, all rose to an elevation of perhaps a thousandfeet, and moved rapidly away from a row of dark clouds which we could nowsee low on the horizon behind. We found the air ship splendidly fittedup, with everything that could contribute to the comfort of its inmates.And what a voyage it was! "Yachting on Venus," as Jack called it. We saton the deck, with a pleasant breeze, produced by the swift, steadymotion, fanning our faces; the temperature was delightful; the air waswonderfully stimulating; the light, softly and evenly diffused from thegreat shell-like dome of the sky, seemed to bewitch the eyesight; and thesea beneath us, reflecting the dome, was a marvel of refluent colors.

  We had left the calendar clock in the car, but, with our watches, whichwe had never ceased to wind up regularly, we were able to measure thetime. The voyage lasted about seventy-two hours, but could, perhaps, havebeen performed in less time if we had not been somewhat delayed by thetowing of the car. They had on the air ship ingenious clocks, driven byweights, and governed by pendulums, but the divisions of time were unlikeours, and there was nothing corresponding to our days. This, of course,arose from the fact that there was never any night, and, being unable tosee either sun or stars, they had no measure of the year. With them timewas simply endless duration, with no return in cycles.

  "What interests me most," said Edmund, "is the fact that they should haveestablished any chronological measure at all. It would puzzle some of ourmetaphysicians on the earth to account for the origin of their sense oftime. To me it seems evident that the consciousness of duration isfundamental in all intelligent life, and does not necessarily demandnatural recurrences, like the succession of day and night, and thepassage of sun and stars across the meridian, to give it birth. Did youever read St. Augustine's reply to the question, 'What is time'--'I knowif you don't ask me'?"

  "If they haven't any years," said Jack, "how do they know when they areold enough to die?"

  "They have the years, but no measure for them," replied Edmund, and thenadded quizzically, "Perhaps they _don't_ die."

  "Well, I shouldn't wonder," Jack returned, "for this seems to me to beParadise for sure."

  When we felt sleepy, we imitated the natives themselves, and, just as wehad done during the voyage from the earth, created an artificial night byshutting ourselves up in the cabins that had been assigned to us. Restwas taken by all of them in this manner as regularly as it is taken atnight on the earth.

  One subject which we frequently discussed during the voyage was theastonishing resemblance of our hosts to the _genus homo_. Influenced byspeculations which I had read at home about the probable unlikeness toone another of the inhabitants of different planets, I was particularlyinsistent upon this point, and declared that the facts as we found themwere utterly inexplicable.

  "Not at all," Edmund averred. "It is perfectly natural, and quite as Iexpected. Venus resembles the earth in composition, in form, in physicalconstitution, and in subordination to the sun, the great ruler of theentire system. Here are the same chemical elements, and the same laws ofmatter. The human type is manifestly the highest possible that could bedeveloped with such materials to work upon. Why, then, should you besurprised to find that it prevails here as well as upon our planet?Intelligent life could find no more suitable abode than in a human body.The details are simply varied in accordance with the environment--aprinciple that works on the earth also."

  I was not altogether satisfied with the reasoning--but as to the facts,we had to believe our eyes.

  Palatable food was served to us, and during the waking time Edmund wasfrequently engaged in his mysterious conversation with the "queen."Within forty-eight hours after we had set out in the air ship, he came tous, wearing one of his enigmatic smiles, and said:

  "I've got another aphroditic word for you to remember. It is the name ofour hostess--Ala."

  We were not so much surprised by this news as we should have been but forwhat had occurred at the caverns, where he had discovered the patronymicof Juba.

  "Good!" cried Jack, "it's a fine name. I was going to call her Aphrodite,myself, but this is better as well as shorter."

  "But, Edmund," I said, "how does it happen that these people, if theyconverse by 'telepathy' as you say, and as I fully believe, neverthelessoccasionally use sounds and words? I should think it would be all onething or all the other."

  "Think a moment," he replied. "Is it so with us? Do we not use signs andgestures as well as words? And what do we mean by 'silent converse,' whenmind speaks to mind and soul to soul without the intervention of spokenlanguage? We have the potentiality of telepathic intercommunication, butwe have not yet developed it into a kinetic form as these people havedone. Ah, when will men begin to appreciate _what mind means?_"

  I made no reply, and after a moment's musing, he continued:

  "I suspect that here, too, speech preceded the higher form of converse,and that the spoken language remains only as a survival, presentingcertain advantages for particular cases. But we shall learn more as timegoes on."

  There was no disputing Edmund's conclusions. He was the greatest accepterand defender of facts as he found them that I have ever known.

  It was written that before this voyage ended we should have another phaseof language without speech presented for our wonderment. It came aboutnear the end of the trip. We were standing apart in a group, greatlyinterested and excited by the discovery, which had just been made, ofland ahead. Far in advance we could see a curving, yellow shore line,and, dim in the distance behind it, a range of mountains. Edmund had justcalled our attention to these, with the remark that now I must admit thathe had reasoned correctly about the existence of elevated regions on thisside of Venus, when Jack, always the first to note a new phenomenon,exclaimed:

  "Hurrah! Here they come! We're going to have a royal reception."

  He pointed toward the land in a different direction from that in which wehad been gazing, and immediately we beheld an extraordinary assemblage ofair ships, perhaps te
n miles off, but rapidly making toward us. More werecoming up from behind, as if rising out of the land, and soon theyresembled flocks of large birds all converging to a common center. In alittle while they became almost innumerable, but their number soon ceasedto be as great a cause of surprise to us as their peculiar appearance.Viewed with our binoculars they showed an infinite variety of shapes andsizes. Chinese kites could not, for a moment, be compared ingrotesqueness with the forms which many of them presented. Some soared invast circles at a great height, with the steady flight of eagles; othersspread out to right and left, as if to flank us on either hand; and inthe center, directly ahead, about a hundred advanced in column deployedin a semicircle, each keeping its place with the precision of a soldierin line of battle.

  As we continued to gaze, fascinated by the splendor and strangeness ofthe spectacle, suddenly the air was filled with fluttering colors. I donot mean flags and streamers, but _colors in the air itself_! Colors themost exquisite that ever the eye looked upon! They changed, flickered,melted, brightened, flowed over one another in iridescent waves, mingled,separated, turned the whole atmosphere into a spectral kaleidoscope. Andit was evident that, in some inexplicable way, the approaching squadronswere the sources of this marvelous display. Presently from the craft thatcarried us, answering colors flashed out, as if the air around us hadsuddenly been changed to crystal with a thousand quivering rainbows shotthrough it, their beautiful arches shifting and interchanging so rapidlythat the eye could not follow them.

  Then I began to notice that all this incessant play of colors was basedupon an unmistakable rhythm. I can think of no better way to describe itthan to say that it was as if a great organ should send forth from itskeys harmonic vibrations consisting not of concordant sounds but of evenmore perfectly related undulations of color. The permutations andcombinations of this truly chromatic scale were marvelous and magical intheir infinite variety. It thrilled us with awe and wonder. But none wasso rapt as Edmund himself. He gazed as if his soul were in his eyes, andfinally he turned to us, with a strange look, and said, almost under hisbreath:

  "This, too, is language, and more than that--it is music!"

  "Impossible!" I exclaimed.

  "No, not impossible, since it _is_. They are not only exchangingintelligence in this way, but we are being greeted with a great anthemplayed in the heaven itself!"

  There was the force of enthusiastic conviction in Edmund's words, and wecould only look at him, and at one another, in silent astonishment.

  "Oh, what a people! What a people!" he muttered. "And yet I am notsurprised. I dimly fore-read this in Ala's eyes."

  Even Jack's levity was subdued for the time, but after a while he said tome with a shrug, half in earnest, half in derision:

  "Well, this Yankee-doodling in the air gets me! I'd prefer a little plainEnglish and the Old Folks at Home."

  After about ten minutes the display ceased as suddenly as it had begun,and the nearer of the approaching air craft began to circle around us.Finally one of them ran so close alongside that an officer of high rank,for such he seemed to be, leaped aboard us, and was quickly at Ala'sside. There was a rapid interchange of communications between them, andthen the newcomer was, I may say, presented. Ala led him to where we werestanding, and I could read in his eyes the astonishment that the sight ofsuch strangers produced in him.