CHAPTER XVI. THE AEROPHILE
For a while, as Graham went through the passages of the Wind-Vaneoffices with Lincoln, he was preoccupied. But, by an effort, he attendedto the things which Lincoln was saying. Soon his preoccupation vanished.Lincoln was talking of flying. Graham had a strong desire to know moreof this new human attainment. He began to ply Lincoln with questions.He had followed the crude beginnings of aerial navigation very keenly inhis previous life; he was delighted to find the familiar names ofMaxim and Pilcher, Langley and Chanute, and, above all, of the aerialproto-martyr Lillienthal, still honoured by men.
Even during his previous life two lines of investigation had pointedclearly to two distinct types of contrivance as possible, and both ofthese had been realised. On the one hand was the great engine-drivenaeroplane, a double row of horizontal floats with a big aerial screwbehind, and on the other the nimbler aeropile. The aeroplanes flewsafely only in a calm or moderate wind, and sudden storms, occurrencesthat were now accurately predictable, rendered them for all practicalpurposes useless. They were built of enormous size--the usual stretchof wing being six hundred feet or more, and the length of the fabric athousand feet. They were for passenger traffic alone. The lightly swungcar they carried was from a hundred to a hundred and fifty feet inlength. It Was hung in a peculiar manner in order to minimise thecomplex vibration that even a moderate wind produced, and for the samereason the little seats within the car--each passenger remained seatedduring the voyage--were slung with great freedom of movement. Thestarting of the mechanism was only possible from a gigantic car onthe rail of a specially constructed stage. Graham had seen these vaststages, the flying stages, from the crow's nest very well. Six hugeblank areas they were, with a giant "carrier" stage on each.
The choice of descent was equally circumscribed, an accurately planesurface being needed for safe grounding. Apart from the destruction thatwould have been caused by the descent of this great expanse of sail andmetal, and the impossibility of its rising again, the concussion of anirregular surface, a tree-set hillside, for instance, or an embankment,would be sufficient to pierce or damage the framework, to smash the ribsof the body, and perhaps kill those aboard.
At first Graham felt disappointed with these cumbersome contrivances,but he speedily grasped the fact that smaller machines would have beenunremunerative, for the simple reason that their carrying power would bedisproportionately diminished with diminished size. Moreover, the hugesize of these things enabled them--and it was a consideration of primaryimportance--to traverse the air at enormous speeds, and so run no risksof unanticipated weather. The briefest journey performed, that fromLondon to Paris, took about three-quarters of an hour, but the velocityattained was not high; the leap to New York occupied about two hours,and by timing oneself carefully at the intermediate stations it waspossible in quiet weather to go around the world in a day.
The little aeropiles (as for no particular reason they weredistinctively called) were of an altogether different type. Several ofthese were going to and fro in the air. They were designed to carry onlyone or two persons, and their manufacture and maintenance was so costlyas to render them the monopoly of the richer sort of people. Theirsails, which were brilliantly coloured, consisted only of two pairs oflateral air floats in the same plane, and of a screw behind. Theirsmall size rendered a descent in any open space neither difficult nordisagreeable, and it was possible to attach pneumatic wheels or even theordinary motors for terrestrial traffic to them, and so carry them to aconvenient starting place. They required a special sort of swift car tothrow them into the air, but such a car was efficient in any open placeclear of high buildings or trees. Human aeronautics, Graham perceived,were evidently still a long way behind the instinctive gift of thealbatross or the fly-catcher. One great influence that might havebrought the aeropile to a more rapid perfection had been withheld; theseinventions had never been used in warfare. The last great internationalstruggle had occurred before the usurpation of the Council.
The Flying Stages of London were collected together in an irregularcrescent on the southern side of the river. They formed three groups oftwo each and retained the names of ancient suburban hills or villages.They were named in order, Roehampton, Wimbledon Park, Streatham,Norwood, Blackheath, and Shooter's Hill. They were uniform structuresrising high above the general roof surfaces. Each was about fourthousand yards long and a thousand broad, and constructed of thecompound of aluminium and iron that had replaced iron in architecture.Their higher tiers formed an openwork of girders through which liftsand staircases ascended. The upper surface was a uniform expanse, withportions--the starting carriers--that could be raised and were then ableto run on very slightly inclined rails to the end of the fabric. Savefor any aeropiles or aeroplanes that were in port these open surfaceswere kept clear for arrivals.
During the adjustment of the aeroplanes it was the custom for passengersto wait in the system of theatres, restaurants, news-rooms, and placesof pleasure and indulgence of various sorts that interwove with theprosperous shops below. This portion of London was in consequencecommonly the gayest of all its districts, with something of themeretricious gaiety of a seaport or city of hotels. And for those whotook a more serious view of aeronautics, the religious quarters hadflung out an attractive colony of devotional chapels, while a hostof brilliant medical establishments competed to supply physicalpreparatives for the journey. At various levels through the mass ofchambers and passages beneath these, ran, in addition to the main movingways of the city which laced and gathered here, a complex system ofspecial passages and lifts and slides, for the convenient interchange ofpeople and luggage between stage and stage. And a distinctive feature ofthe architecture of this section was the ostentatious massiveness of themetal piers and girders that everywhere broke the vistas and spanned thehalls and passages, crowding and twining up to meet the weight of thestages and the weighty impact of the aeroplanes overhead.
Graham went to the flying stages by the public ways. He was accompaniedby Asano, his Japanese attendant. Lincoln was called away by Ostrog,who was busy with his administrative concerns. A strong guard of theWind-Vane police awaited the Master outside the Wind-Vane offices, andthey cleared a space for him on the upper moving platform. His passageto the flying stages was unexpected, nevertheless a considerable crowdgathered and followed him to his destination. As he went along, he couldhear the people shouting his name, and saw numberless men and women andchildren in blue come swarming up the staircases in the central path,gesticulating and shouting. He could not hear what they shouted. He wasstruck again by the evident existence of a vulgar dialect among thepoor of the city. When at last he descended, his guards were immediatelysurrounded by a dense excited crowd. Afterwards it occurred to him thatsome had attempted to reach him with petitions. His guards cleared apassage for him with difficulty.
He found an aeropile in charge of an aeronaut awaiting him on thewestward stage. Seen close this mechanism was no longer small. As it layon its launching carrier upon the wide expanse of the flying stage, itsaluminium body skeleton was as big as the hull of a twenty-ton yacht.Its lateral supporting sails braced and stayed with metal nervesalmost like the nerves of a bee's wing, and made of some sort of glassyartificial membrane, cast their shadow over many hundreds of squareyards. The chairs for the engineer and his passenger hung free to swingby a complex tackle, within the protecting ribs of the frame and wellabaft the middle. The passenger's chair was protected by a wind-guardand guarded about with metallic rods carrying air cushions. It could,if desired, be completely closed in, but Graham was anxious for novelexperiences, and desired that it should be left open. The aeronautsat behind a glass that sheltered his face. The passenger could securehimself firmly in his seat, and this was almost unavoidable on landing,or he could move along by means of a little rail and rod to a lockerat the stem of the machine, where his personal luggage, his wraps andrestoratives were placed, and which also with the seats, served as amakeweight to the parts of the central engine
that projected to thepropeller at the stern.
The engine was very simple in appearance. Asano, pointing out theparts of this apparatus to him, told him that, like the gas-engine ofVictorian days, it was of the explosive type, burning a small drop ofa substance called "fomile" at each stroke. It consisted simply ofreservoir and piston about the long fluted crank of the propeller shaft.So much Graham saw of the machine.
The flying stage about him was empty save for Asano and their suite ofattendants. Directed by the aeronaut he placed himself in his seat. Hethen drank a mixture containing ergot--a dose, he learnt, invariablyadministered to those about to fly, and designed to counteract thepossible effect of diminished air pressure upon the system. Having doneso, he declared himself ready for the journey. Asano took the emptyglass from him, stepped through the bars of the hull, and stood below onthe stage waving his hand. Suddenly he seemed to slide along the stageto the right and vanish.
The engine was beating, the propeller spinning, and for a second thestage and the buildings beyond were gliding swiftly and horizontallypast Graham's eye; then these things seemed to tilt up abruptly. Hegripped the little rods on either side of him instinctively. He felthimself moving upward, heard the air whistle over the top of thewind screen. The propeller screw moved round with powerful rhythmicimpulses--one, two, three, pause; one, two, three--which the engineercontrolled very delicately. The machine began a quivering vibration thatcontinued throughout the flight, and the roof areas seemed running awayto starboard very quickly and growing rapidly smaller. He looked fromthe face of the engineer through the ribs of the machine. Lookingsideways, there was nothing very startling in what he saw--a rapidfunicular railway might have given the same sensations. He recognisedthe Council House and the Highgate Ridge. And then he looked straightdown between his feet.
For a moment physical terror possessed him, a passionate sense ofinsecurity. He held tight. For a second or so he could not lift hiseyes. Some hundred feet or more sheer below him was one of the bigwindvanes of south-west London, and beyond it the southernmost flyingstage crowded with little black dots. These things seemed to be fallingaway from him. For a second he had an impulse to pursue the earth. Heset his teeth, he lifted his eyes by a muscular effort, and the momentof panic passed.
He remained for a space with his teeth set hard, his eyes staring intothe sky. Throb, throb, throb--beat, went the engine; throb, throb,throb,--beat. He gripped his bars tightly, glanced at the aeronaut, andsaw a smile upon his sun-tanned face. He smiled in return--perhaps alittle artificially. "A little strange at first," he shouted before herecalled his dignity. But he dared not look down again for some time.He stared over the aeronaut's head to where a rim of vague blue horizoncrept up the sky. For a little while he could not banish the thoughtof possible accidents from his mind. Throb, throb, throb--beat; supposesome trivial screw went wrong in that supporting engine! Suppose--! Hemade a grim effort to dismiss all such suppositions. After a while theydid at least abandon the foreground of his thoughts. And up he wentsteadily, higher and higher into the clear air.
Once the mental shock of moving unsupported through the air wasover, his sensations ceased to be unpleasant, became very speedilypleasurable. He had been warned of air sickness. But he found thepulsating movement of the aeropile as it drove up the faint south-westbreeze was very little in excess of the pitching of a boat head on tobroad rollers in a moderate gale, and he was constitutionally a goodsailor. And the keenness of the more rarefied air into which theyascended produced a sense of lightness and exhilaration. He looked upand saw the blue sky above fretted with cirrus clouds. His eye camecautiously down through the ribs and bars to a shining flight of whitebirds that hung in the lower sky. For a space he watched these. Thengoing lower and less apprehensively, he saw the slender figure ofthe Wind-Vane keeper's crow's nest shining golden in the sunlight andgrowing smaller every moment. As his eye fell with more confidence now,there came a blue line of hills, and then London, already to leeward,an intricate space of roofing. Its near edge came sharp and clear, andbanished his last apprehensions in a shock of surprise. For the boundaryof London was like a wall, like a cliff, a steep fall of three or fourhundred feet, a frontage broken only by terraces here and there, acomplex decorative facade.
That gradual passage of town into country through an extensive spongeof suburbs, which was so characteristic a feature of the great cities ofthe nineteenth century, existed no longer. Nothing remained of it buta waste of ruins here, variegated and dense with thickets of theheterogeneous growths that had once adorned the gardens of the belt,interspersed among levelled brown patches of sown ground, and verdantstretches of winter greens. The latter even spread among the vestigesof houses. But for the most part the reefs and skerries of ruins, thewreckage of suburban villas, stood among their streets and roads, queerislands amidst the levelled expanses of green and brown, abandonedindeed by the inhabitants years since, but too substantial, it seemed',to be cleared out of the way of the wholesale horticultural mechanismsof the time.
The vegetation of this waste undulated and frothed amidst the countlesscells of crumbling house walls, and broke along the foot of the citywall in a surf of bramble and holly and ivy and teazle and tall grasses.Here and there gaudy pleasure palaces towered amidst the puny remainsof Victorian times, and cable ways slanted to them from the city. Thatwinter day they seemed deserted. Deserted, too, were the artificialgardens among the ruins. The city limits were indeed as sharply definedas in the ancient days when the gates were shut at nightfall and therobber foreman prowled to the very walls. A huge semi-circular throatpoured out a vigorous traffic upon the Eadhamite Bath Road. So the firstprospect of the world beyond the city flashed on Graham, and dwindled.And when at last he could look vertically downward again, he saw belowhim the vegetable fields of the Thames valley--innumerable minuteoblongs of ruddy brown, intersected by shining threads, the sewageditches.
His exhilaration increased rapidly, became a sort of intoxication. Hefound himself drawing deep breaths of air, laughing aloud, desiringto shout. After a time that desire became too strong for him, and heshouted.
The machine had now risen as high as was customary with aeropiles, andthey began to curve about towards the south. Steering, Graham perceived,was effected by the opening or closing of one or two thin strips ofmembrane in one or other of the otherwise rigid wings, and by themovement of the whole engine backward or forward along its supports. Theaeronaut set the engine gliding slowly forward along its rail andopened the valve of the leeward wing until the stem of the aeropile washorizontal and pointing southward. And in that direction they drove witha slight list to leeward, and with a slow alternation of movement, firsta short, sharp ascent and then a long downward glide that was veryswift and pleasing. During these downward glides the propellor wasinactive altogether. These ascents gave Graham a glorious sense ofsuccessful effort; the descents through the rarefied air were beyond allexperience. He wanted never to leave the upper air again.
For a time he was intent upon the minute details of the landscape thatran swiftly northward beneath him. Its minute, clear detail pleased himexceedingly. He was impressed by the ruin of the houses that had oncedotted the country, by the vast treeless expanse of country from whichall farms and villages had gone, save for crumbling ruins. He had knownthe thing was so, but seeing it so was an altogether different matter.He tried to make out places he had known within the hollow basin ofthe world below, but at first he could distinguish no data now that theThames valley was left behind. Soon, however, they were driving over asharp chalk hill that he recognised as the Guildford Hog's Back, becauseof the familiar outline of the gorge at its eastward end, and because ofthe ruins of the town that rose steeply on either lip of this gorge.And from that he made out other points, Leith Hill, the sandy wastesof Aldershot, and so forth. The Downs escarpment was set with giganticslow-moving wind-wheels. Save where the broad Eadhamite PortsmouthRoad, thickly dotted with rushing shapes, followed the course of the oldrailway, the gorge of
the Wey was choked with thickets.
The whole expanse of the Downs escarpment, so far as the grey hazepermitted him to see, was set with wind-wheels to which the largest ofthe city was but a younger brother. They stirred with a stately motionbefore the south-west wind. And here and there were patches dottedwith the sheep of the British Food Trust, and here and there a mountedshepherd made a spot of black. Then rushing under the stern of theaeropile came the Wealden Heights, the line of Hindhead, Pitch Hill, andLeith Hill, with a second row of wind-wheels that seemed striving to robthe downland whirlers of their share of breeze. The purple heather wasspeckled with yellow gorse, and on the further side a drove of blackoxen stampeded before a couple of mounted men. Swiftly these sweptbehind, and dwindled and lost colour, and became scarce moving specksthat were swallowed up in haze.
And when these had vanished in the distance Graham heard a peewitwailing close at hand. He perceived he was now above the South Downs,and staring over his shoulder saw the battlements of Portsmouth LandingStage towering over the ridge of Portsdown Hill. In another moment therecame into sight a spread of shipping like floating cities, the littlewhite cliffs of the Needles dwarfed and sunlit, and the grey andglittering waters of the narrow sea. They seemed to leap the Solent ina moment, and in a few seconds the Isle of Wight was running past, andthen beneath him spread a wider and wide extent of sea, here purple withthe shadow of a cloud, here grey, here a burnished mirror, and herea spread of cloudy greenish blue. The Isle of Wight grew smaller andsmaller. In a few more minutes a strip of grey haze detached itself fromother strips that were clouds, descended out of the sky and became acoastline--sunlit and pleasant--the coast of northern France. It rose,it took colour, became definite and detailed, and the counterpart of theDownland of England was speeding by below.
In a little time, as it seemed, Paris came above the horizon, and hungthere for a space, and sank out of sight again as the aeropile circledabout to the north again. But he perceived the Eiffel Tower stillstanding, and beside it a huge dome surmounted by a pinpoint Colossus.And he perceived, too, though he did not understand it at the time, aslanting drift of smoke. The aeronaut said something about "trouble inthe underways," that Graham did not heed at the time. But he marked theminarets and towers and slender masses that streamed skyward above thecity windvanes, and knew that in the matter of grace at least Parisstill kept in front of her larger rival. And even as he looked a paleblue shape ascended very swiftly from the city like a dead leaf drivingup before a gale. It curved round and soared towards them growingrapidly larger and larger. The aeronaut was saying something. "What?"said Graham, loath to take his eyes from this. "Aeroplane, Sire," bawledthe aeronaut pointing.
They rose and curved about northward as it drew nearer. Nearer it cameand nearer, larger and larger. The throb, throb, throb--beat, of theaeropile's flight, that had seemed so potent and so swift, suddenlyappeared slow by comparison with this tremendous rush. How great themonster seemed, how swift and steady! It passed quite closely beneaththem, driving along silently, a vast spread of wirenetted translucentwings, a thing alive. Graham had a momentary glimpse of the rows androws of wrapped-up passengers, slung in their little cradles behindwind-screens, of a white-clothed engineer crawling against the galealong a ladder way, of spouting engines beating together, of thewhirling wind screw, and of a wide waste of wing. He exulted in thesight. And in an instant the thing had passed.
It rose slightly and their own little wings swayed in the rush of itsflight. It fell and grew smaller. Scarcely had they moved, as it seemed,before it was again only a flat blue thing that dwindled in the sky.This was the aeroplane that went to and fro between London and Paris. Infair weather and in peaceful times it came and went four times a day.
They beat across the Channel, slowly as it seemed now, to Graham'senlarged ideas, and Beachy Head rose greyly to the left of them.
"Land," called the aeronaut, his voice small against the whistling ofthe air over the wind-screen.
"Not yet," bawled Graham, laughing. "Not land yet. I want to learn moreof this machine."
"I meant--" said the aeronaut.
"I want to learn more of this machine," repeated Graham.
"I'm coming to you," he said, and had flung himself free of his chairand taken a step along the guarded rail between them. He stopped for amoment, and his colour changed and his hands tightened. Another step andhe was clinging close to the aeronaut. He felt a weight on his shoulder,the pressure of the air. His hat was a whirling speck behind. The windcame in gusts over his wind-screen and blew his hair in streamers pasthis cheek. The aeronaut made some hasty adjustments for the shifting ofthe centres of gravity and pressure.
"I want to have these things explained," said Graham. "What do you dowhen you move that engine forward?"
The aeronaut hesitated. Then he answered, "They are complex, Sire."
"I don't mind," shouted Graham. "I don't mind."
There was a moment's pause. "Aeronautics is the secret--the privilege--"
"I know. But I'm the Master, and I mean to know." He laughed, full ofthis novel realisation of power that was his gift from the upper air.
The aeropile curved about, and the keen fresh wind cut across Graham'sface and his garment lugged at his body as the stem pointed round to thewest. The two men looked into each other's eyes.
"Sire, there are rules--"
"Not where I am concerned," said Graham. "You seem to forget."
The aeronaut scrutinised his face. "No," he said. "I do not forget,Sire. But in all the earth--no man who is not a sworn aeronaut--has evera chance. They come as passengers--"
"I have heard something of the sort. But I'm not going to argue thesepoints. Do you know why I have slept two hundred years? To fly!"
"Sire," said the aeronaut, "the rules--if I break the rules--"
Graham waved the penalties aside.
"Then if you will watch me--"
"No," said Graham, swaying and gripping tight as the machine lifted itsnose again for an ascent. "That's not my game. I want to do it myself.Do it myself if I smash for it! No! I will. See. I am going to clamberby this to come and share your seat. Steady! I mean to fly of my ownaccord if I smash at the end of it. I will have something to pay formy sleep. Of all other things--. In my past it was my dream to fly.Now--keep your balance."
"A dozen spies are watching me, Sire!"
Graham's temper was at end. Perhaps he chose it should be. He swore.He swung himself round the intervening mass of levers and the aeropileswayed.
"Am I Master of the earth?" he said. "Or is your Society? Now. Take yourhands off those levers, and hold my wrists. Yes--so. And now, how do weturn her nose down to the glide?"
"Sire," said the aeronaut.
"What is it?"
"You will protect me?"
"Lord! Yes! If I have to burn London. Now!"
And with that promise Graham bought his first lesson in aerialnavigation. "It's clearly to your advantage, this journey," he said witha loud laugh--for the air was like strong wine--"to teach me quickly andwell. Do I pull this? Ah! So! Hullo!"
"Back, Sire! Back!"
"Back--right. One--two--three--good God! Ah! Up she goes! But this isliving!"
And now the machine began to dance the strangest figures in the air. Nowit would sweep round a spiral of scarcely a hundred yards diameter, nowit would rush up into the air and swoop down again, steeply, swiftly,falling like a hawk, to recover in a rushing loop that swept it highagain. In one of these descents it seemed driving straight at thedrifting park of balloons in the southeast, and only curved aboutand cleared them by a sudden recovery of dexterity. The extraordinaryswiftness and smoothness of the motion, the extraordinary effect of therarefied air upon his constitution, threw Graham into a careless fury.
But at last a queer incident came to sober him, to send him flying downonce more to the crowded life below with all its dark insoluble riddles.As he swooped, came a tap and something flying past, and a drop like adrop of rain. Then
as he went on down he saw something like a white ragwhirling down in his wake. "What was that?" he asked. "I did not see."
The aeronaut glanced, and then clutched at the lever to recover, forthey were sweeping down. When the aeropile was rising again he drew adeep breath and replied. "That," and he indicated the white thing stillfluttering down, "was a swan."
"I never saw it," said Graham.
The aeronaut made no answer, and Graham saw little drops upon hisforehead.
They drove horizontally while Graham clambered back to the passenger'splace out of the lash of the wind. And then came a swift rush down,with the wind-screw whirling to check their fall, and the flying stagegrowing broad and dark before them. The sun, sinking over the chalkhills in the west, fell with them, and left the sky a blaze of gold.
Soon men could be seen as little specks. He heard a noise coming up tomeet him, a noise like the sound of waves upon a pebbly beach, andsaw that the roofs about the flying stage were dark with his peoplerejoicing over his safe return. A dark mass was crushed together underthe stage, a darkness stippled with innumerable faces, and quiveringwith the minute oscillation of waved white handkerchiefs and wavinghands.