CHAPTER VI
Farewell to Earth
The next day I quietly bought in my wheat, and told Flynn I was thinkingof taking a little vacation. I said I was worn out fighting the contrarymarket, and told him to run the office as if it were his own until Ireturned. At home I said nothing about the vacation, for I didn't careto have my stories agree very perfectly. I simply packed a fewnecessities for the trip in a dress-suit case. My uncle was used toseeing me carry my evening clothes to the Club in this manner, and Icasually told him I should remain the night this time.
I could not leave without kissing cousin Ruth good-bye, but this excitedno suspicion, as it was a thing I did on every pretext. Then I slippedout and took back streets till I was several blocks away from the house.Taking a closed carriage here, I was driven to the same station and tookthe same train for Whiting as on the previous evening. I found thedoctor awaiting me with a lantern. As we walked down the tracks in thetwilight I said to him,--
"I never made so quick a preparation, nor attempted so long a trip. Ihave left my friends a lot of guessing! Now, how soon shall we be off?"
"Within an hour," he answered. "Mars will not be directly overhead untilmidnight, but there is a little side trip I wish to make first, to testthe projectile before we get too far above the Earth's surface."
The sky was densely cloudy, there was no Moon, and it was alreadygrowing very dark. As we began to have difficulty in finding the way,the doctor lighted his lantern. Peering up into the darkness, I said tohim,--
"There is not a star visible. How are you to find your way in theheavens a night like this?"
"That is all perfectly easy. We shall soon rise far above those clouds,and then the stars will come out. Besides, I shall show you perfectdaylight again before midnight."
"I don't see just how, but I will take your word for it, Doctor. Idaresay you have thought it all out, and the whole trip will contain nosurprises for you."
"I have tried to think it all out and prepare for everything. But I amcertain I have forgotten something. I have a feeling amounting to adreadful presentiment that I have overlooked something important. I wishyou would see if you can think of anything I have omitted."
"The only really important thing I have remembered is half a dozen boxesof the best cigars," I replied.
"Leave them right here in Whiting," he said with emphasis. "We arecarrying only a limited supply of pure air, and we cannot afford tocontaminate it with tobacco smoke. No, sir, you can't smoke on thistrip."
"Then I won't go! Imagine not smoking for two whole months! Do you thinkI have sworn off?"
"No, not yet. But you must. It pollutes the air, which we must keepclean and fresh as long as possible."
"Now, Doctor, you must let me have a good smoke once a day, just beforepumping the air out of my compartment."
"No, not even that. It is impossible to pump all the air out, and whatis left mixes back with what is in my compartment. Once contaminatedwith tobacco smoke, we could never get it perfectly pure again."
"Well, may I smoke on Mars, then? I will take them along for that. But,I warn you, I eat like a farm horse when I can't smoke."
"I have provided plenty to eat, but I know I have forgotten something.Mention something now, mention everything you can think of, so that Imay see if it is provided for."
"Have you any money?" I asked. "I have changed some into gold, and havea fairly heavy bag here."
"Oh, yes, I have some gold and silver money, besides a lot of beads,trinkets, and gaudy tinsel things, such as earthly savages have beenwilling to barter valuable merchandise for."
"So you are going on a trading expedition, are you?" I asked.
"Not exactly. I leave all that to your superior abilities. But we mayfind these things valuable to give as presents. Many of them are of tin,and if they do not happen to have that useful metal on Mars, they willbe of rare value there."
We had now reached the little grove where the projectile was hidden. Iproceeded to open the rear port-hole, saying,--
"Let me look inside, and when I see what you have, some other necessarything may suggest itself."
"Let me go in first, for I am afraid you will allow the menagerie toescape," he said, as he peered in by the light of the lantern. Adiminutive fox terrier barked from the inside, and wagged his tailfaster than a watch ticks, so glad he was to see us. The bright lightalso awakened a small white rabbit that had been asleep in the doctor'scompartment.
"You are taking these along for companions, I suppose?"
"Yes, for that and for experiments. We may reach places where it willbe necessary to determine whether living, breathing things can existbefore we try it ourselves. Then we shall put one of these out andobserve the effects."
"You may experiment on the rabbit all you please, but this little puppyand I are going to be fast friends, and we shall die together; shan'twe, Two-spot?"
"Why do you call him Two-spot? There is only one spot on him, and hisname is _Himmelshundchen_."
"Rubbish! The idea of such a long, heavy name for such a little puppy! Ishall call him Two-spot because he is the smallest thing in the pack.Heavenly-puppy, indeed!"
The doctor had entered and lighted a small gas jet, supplied on thePintsch system from compressed gas stored in one of the chambers. Therear compartment, which was to be mine, looked half an arsenal and halfa pantry. On the right side a cupboard was filled with newly-cookedmeats. I remember how plentiful the store looked at the time, but, alas!how soon it vanished and we were reduced to tinned and bottled foods!There was a cold joint of beef, a quarter of roast mutton, three boiledhams and four roast chickens.
On the left, folding up into the concavity of the wall, like the upperberth of a Pullman sleeping car, was my bunk. On the walls not thusoccupied the arms were hung. There were two repeating rifles, eachcarrying seventeen cartridges; two large calibre hammerless revolvers;two long and heavy swords, designed for cleaving rather than forstabbing; two chain shirts, to be worn under the clothing to protectagainst arrows; and finally two large shields, made of overlapping steelplates and almost four feet high. The doctor explained to me that theidea was to rest the lower edge of these on the ground and crouch behindthem. They were rather heavy and cumbersome to be carried far, and weregrooved in three sections, so that they slipped together into an arcone-third of their circumference.
I examined everything closely and asked a hundred questions, but thedoctor seemed to have provided for every necessity or contingency.
"Let us waste no more time," said I. "If we have forgotten anything, wemust get along without it. All aboard! What is our first stop?"
"The planet Mars, only thirty-six million miles away, if we aresuccessful in meeting him just as he comes into opposition on the thirdday of August. This is the most favourable opposition in which to meethim for the past quarter of a century. Back in the year 1877 he was onlyabout thirty-five million miles away, and it was then that we learnedmost that we know of his physical features. But we shall not have a morefavourable time than this for the next seventeen years."
"Still it seems like nonsense to talk about travelling such anincomprehensible distance, doesn't it?" I ventured.
"Not at all!" he replied positively. "If the Earth travels a millionmiles per day in her orbit, without any motion being apparent to herinhabitants, why should we not travel just as fast and just asunconsciously? We are driven by the same force. The same engine of theCreator's which drives all the universe, drives us. When we have leftthe atmosphere we shall rush through the void of space without knowingwhether we are travelling at a thousand miles per minute or standingperfectly still. Our senses will have nothing to lay hold on to form ajudgment of our rate of speed. But if we make an average of only fivehundred miles per minute we shall accomplish the distance in about fiftydays, and arrive soon after opposition."
"But have you given up stopping on the Moon?" I asked. "I had greathopes of making those rich discoveries there."
"We must
leave all that until our return trip. I have chosen thisstarting time in the dark of the Moon in order to have the satellite onthe other side of the Earth and out of the way. She would only impedeour progress, as we wish to acquire a tremendous velocity just as soonas we leave the atmosphere. We must accelerate our speed as long asgravity will do it for us. When we can no longer gain speed, we shallat least continue to maintain our rapid pace.
"But if we stopped on the Moon, we should only have her weak gravity torepel us towards Mars, and we could make but little speed. On ourreturn, the stop on the Moon will be a natural and easy one. We shall benear home and can afford to loiter."
While the doctor was saying this, he had been busy making tests of hisapparatus. He now called me to see his buoyancy gauge, which was ahalf-spherical mass of steel weighing just ten pounds. It was piercedwith a hole at right angles to its plane surface and strung upon avertical copper wire. Small leaden weights, weighing from an ounce tofour pounds each, were provided to be placed upon the plane surface ofthe steel. The doctor explained its action to me thus:--
"The polarizing action of the gravity apparatus affects only steel andiron, and has no effect upon lead. Therefore, when the current isconducted through the copper wire into the soft steel ball, it willimmediately rise up the wire, by the repulsion of negative gravity. Now,if the leaden weights are piled upon the steel ball one by one, until itis just balanced half way up the wire, our buoyancy is thus measured orweighed. For instance, with the first two batteries turned in we have abuoyancy a little exceeding one pound. That means, we should rise withone-tenth the velocity that we should fall. Turning in two morebatteries, you see the buoyancy is three pounds, or our flying speedwill be three-tenths of our falling speed. With all the batteries actingupon the gauge, you see it will carry up more than ten pounds of lead,because the pressure of the air is against weight and in favour ofbuoyancy. So long as we are in atmospheres, then, it is possible to fallup more rapidly than to fall down; but, on account of friction and theresultant heat, it is not safe to do so."
"So we have been doing the hard thing, by falling all our lives, whenflying would really have been easier!" I put in.
"We have been overlooking a very simple thing for a long time, just asour forefathers overlooked the usefulness of steam, being perfectly wellacquainted with its expansive qualities. But let us be off. Close yourport-hole, and screw it in tightly and permanently for the trip. Thenlet down your bunk and prepare for a night of awkward, crampedpositions. We shall be more uncomfortable to-night than any other of thetrip. You see, when we start, this thing will stand up on its rear end,and that end will continue to be the bottom until we begin to fall intoMars. Then the forward end will be the bottom. But after the first nightour weight will have so diminished that we can sleep almost as wellstanding on our heads as any other way. Within fifteen hours you willhave lost all idea which end of you should be right side up, and wewill be quite as likely to float in the middle of the projectile as torest upon anything."
My bed was hinged in the middle, and one end lifted up until it lookedlike a letter L, with the shorter part extending across the projectileand the longer part reaching up the side. I could sit in it in a halfreclining posture. The doctor then pulled out a fan-like, extendinglattice-work of steel slats, to form a sort of false floor over theport-hole. This was full of diamond-shaped openings between the slats,so that the view out of the rear window was not obstructed. Then he didthe same to form a false floor for his compartment. Finally he said tome,--
"Now, if you are all ready, I will stand her on end;" and by applyingthe currents to the forward end only he caused her to rise slowly untilshe stood upright. The cupboard in my compartment and the desk in hisend were each hung upon a central bolt, and they righted themselves asthe projectile stood up, so that nothing in them was disarranged. I wassitting on the lower hinge of my bed, clutching tightly and watchingeverything, when the doctor called to me to turn the little wheel whichoperated a screw and served to push out the rudder.
"But the whole weight of the projectile is now on the rudder," Iobjected.
"You will have to make over all your ideas of weight," he said, withsome impatience. "Run the rudder out. The gauge shows an ounce ofbuoyancy, which is nearly enough to counteract all the dead weight wehave. You can lift the rest with the rudder-screw."
And, true enough, it was perfectly easy to whirl the little wheel aroundwhich made the rudder creep out. There was a steering wheel in thedoctor's compartment and one in my own. He set it exactly amidships, andtold me to prepare for the ascent. I turned out the gas in mycompartment and crouched nervously over the port-hole window to watchthe panorama of Earth fade away.
"Here go two batteries!" he cried. I held on frantically, expecting thatwe would leap into the heavens in one grand bound, as I had seen themodel do. But we began to rise very slowly, a foot and a half the firstsecond, three feet the next, and so on, as the doctor told meafterwards. It was all so slow and quiet that I was suddenly possessedwith a fear that after all the projectile was a failure. Had a balloonstarted so slowly, it would never have risen far. This fear held me foronly a minute, for when I looked down again, the landscape below wasbeginning to look like a dim map or a picture, instead of the reality.The doctor was steering to the northward, directly over the lake. Icould see its great purple, restful surface below me, but more plainlycould I discern the outline where its silvery edge bathed the whitesands of the shore. Following this outline I could see a web ofrailroads, like ropes bent around the lower end of the lake. The nightwas too dark to see it long. The hundreds of huge oil tanks of Whitinghad now disappeared, and I could see only the flaming tops of the ironfurnaces of South Chicago. Suddenly they went out in an instant, as if athick fog had smothered them, and there was a long minute of pale mist;and then suddenly a bright blue sky, the twinkling stars and a veil ofgrey shutting off all view of the Earth.
"We have passed through the clouds," said the doctor cheerily. "Whatdoes the barometer register?"
I looked, and was astonished to see the mercury down to fifteen. I askedhim if he thought the barometer might be broken.
"No, that is quite right," he replied. "That is half the surfacepressure, which shows that we are two and a half miles high. I have fourbatteries in, and we are going at a constantly increasing speed now."
I could easily believe it, for the wind howled around my compartment andwhistled over the rudder aperture in a most dismal way. Whenever therudder was changed, there was a new sound to the moaning. Still, as Ilooked back at the clouds, I saw that no wind was moving them. It wasnot wind, but only the air whistling as we rushed through it.
"Watch the barometer, and let me know the exact time when it registersseven and a half inches," said the doctor. "We shall be five miles highthen, and we started at nine o'clock to a second."
I noted the rapidly sinking mercury and opened my watch. When it wasjust at seven and a half, I looked at the watch, and it said half aminute after nine. Knowing that could not be correct, I held it to myear and discovered it was stopped. I attempted to wind it, but found italmost wound up.
"Something wrong with my watch, Doctor. You will have to look."
"Half a minute after nine, that can't be right!" he exclaimed. Then asthe truth flashed upon him he added,--
"There is the first thing I have overlooked! Our watch springs aresteel, and the magnetic currents affect them. It is strange I did notthink of that, for I knew a mariner's compass would be of no use to usin steering on account of the currents. For that reason I have risenabove the clouds so as to steer by the stars. I am making for the NorthStar yonder, now."
"We will have to get back to the same primitive methods of measuringtime," I put in. "Neither weight clocks nor spring clocks would havebeen of any account. And an hour glass would tell a different tale justas gravity varied. We will have to rely on the Moon and stars, and itmay be rather awkward." But I did not then appreciate how awkward itwould be when even the markings of d
ay and night would be taken awayfrom us.
"We can count our pulse or go by our stomachs," said the doctor, who wasreally disappointed at having forgotten anything. But he was destined toget used to that. Presently he inquired,--
"What is the barometer now? Perhaps we are high enough for the present."
"There is scarcely two inches of mercury in the tube!" I cried out.
He hesitated for a moment as if calculating, and then said,--
"That makes us ten miles high. Work the rudder gradually very muchfarther out for this thinner atmosphere, and we will try falling awhile,with a long slant to northward."
And so saying, the doctor detached all the polarizing batteries, and Icould hear the monotonous howling of the wind die down; and thewhistling ceased altogether as the feeble resistance of the rarefied airslowly but surely overcame our momentum. As we began to fall, the doctorturned the rudder hard down, in order to give us a long sailing slant.This modified the position of the projectile so that it lay almost flatagain, with a dip of the forward end downward.
"Lie down and have a nap while she is in this comfortable position," hesaid to me. "When you waken, I shall have a surprise for you."