The Revolt of the Machines

by Brian Stableford

  I finally arrived at the palpitating question: “At such close range, your telescopes must have been able to search its surface…?”

  “Oh, you old sea-dog!” exclaimed Merryman, rubbing his hands. “I can see where you’re going! The figures don’t amuse you. You’re not a mathematical astronomer; you’re a sentimental astronomer. Well, Anthea, which is a solid globe, offers various particularities….”

  “Has it got an atmosphere?”

  “Yes, and relative to the smallness of the planet, that atmosphere is heavy—by which I mean dense—and it constitutes an envelope several kilometers thick.”

  “It’s a miniature Earth!”

  “One never knows,” said the American, calmly. “At any rate, no one has yet perceived bipeds there.”

  “What, nothing at all?”

  “Yes, plants—or, at least, dark patches that the telescope resolves into foliage, branches, dendrites…or something similar. But you’ve brought, I believe, lenses more powerful than ours, so you’re going to be the first one to discover whatever there is of interest on Anthea.”

  There were, indeed, magnificent perspectives for me. I could already see myself famous, in consequence of the works I would publish on the flora and fauna of Anthea. Then again, I thought, that minuscule planet might perhaps be carrying creatures analogous to us. What glory if I succeeded in discovering them, in attracting their attention, in communicating with them! Given the short distance that separated us, every supposition, every hope, and every great dream was possible.

  I raised my head and looked at the asteroid. It was a large round patch, a slightly shiny gray-blue in color, suspended like a crystal cup in the pure and ardent equatorial sky. Without wasting any more time studying it with the naked eye, I hastened feverishly to set up the telescope that I had brought from France. The most propitious hours for observation were in the morning and evening, shortly before sunrise and shortly after sunset, because during the night, Anthea enters into the shadow of the Earth, and in the middle of the day it was too close to the sun to be usefully examined.

  In spite of the relatively powerful magnification of my instrument, I perceived nothing more than what my friend Merryman had told me. The surface of our new satellite displayed areas as bright and shiny as those of telescopic planets, but what attracted my attention more particularly was the presence in a few relatively scarce places of bizarre patches reminiscent of the appearance of the entangled dendrites that sometimes form on the windows of our apartments after a frosty night. Were they forests? They were brightly colored and vivid in places, in which blue dominated, shiny raw and sparkling. Obviously, nothing similar had been observed on a planet, but my small telescope did not give me greatly magnified images of the patches, or tree-like masses.

  After having rapidly repeated the calculations and checked the information furnished by my friend, I spent long hours studying Anthea. There were no mountains there, no rivers or streams; the ground seemed to be very uneven, but covered with rocks of various forms; the flat and shiny parts might have been standing water. I could not perceive any mist or cloud, however; the little planet’s atmosphere seemed perfectly limpid and tranquil.

  I studied that atmosphere for a long time. When the solar light was refracted through it, it made the asteroid a magnificent blonde halo. With my imperfect instruments, I could not think of discerning the presence of water vapor there, or any specific gas. The absence of clouds and ice caps at Anthea’s poles did not please me, for that was strong evidence that the satellite was an entirely cold and dead world. However, the existence of an atmosphere and those singular vegetal forms permitted doubt.

  A few days passed during which we did not perceive anything unusual on Anthea. I could not make observations in depth for lack of better—and most of all larger—instruments, and I was desolate. My American friend, seeing that I was irritated and overexcited, succeeded in drawing me away from my vain contemplation by proposing that we undertake a long excursion. He suggested that we attempt an ascension of Chimborazo, the famous volcano whose snowy summit rises to more than six thousand meters above sea level. Thinking that from that height I might be able to see more of Anthea, I agreed.

  I won’t relate the adventures of that picturesque journey in detail here. In any case, compared with those that befell me shortly afterwards, they would seem insignificant. The only important event, and the one that requires the mention I’m making here, happened at the moment when, exhausted by fatigue, we reached one of the summits neighboring the giant of the Andes.

  My feet had scarcely landed on that narrow plateau when I turned toward the star, which was no longer directly overhead. Dusk was falling. The sun was setting in a scarlet atmosphere above the shiny waters of the Pacific, and in the sky, long pink and mauve streamers testified to the presence of a great quantity of water vapor in the normally dry and pure atmosphere of that side of the Andes. Anthea had not darkened yet, for at that height, the solar rays would illuminate it for some time after the disappearance of the sun below our horizon.

  Between the violet-tinted mists of the setting sun, at one moment, the sun darted a long beam of light. Then, between my eyes and the green and red spaces flamboyant on the occidental horizon, an immense pink column was interposed, which appeared to link the Earth to Anthea.

  Broadening out at each extremity, that long diaphanous stem was perfectly distinct throughout its span. One might have thought that a stalagmite and a stalactite of pure crystal were forming and meeting between the Earth and the asteroid.

  My intelligence seemed paralyzed by incredulity before that miraculous apparition.

  Merryman did not lose possession of his faculties. After half a minute, triumphantly, he gave me an explanation of the phenomenon.

  “It’s a column of air!” he said. “It’s perceptible because it contains water vapor, which the light is striking very obliquely. From Quito it was always invisible because we were plunged into its base. Its presence proves to us that there’s sufficient reciprocal attraction between Anthea and the Earth to provoke a protuberance in the atmospheric envelope on either side; those protuberances have met up, and there’s the communication they’ve established!”

  I understood then that something had occurred analogous to what happens at the surface of a liquid in which bubbles of air are floating; one sees the smallest bubbles grouping into a chaplet between two large bubbles. With Anthea remaining constantly above the same point on the terrestrial surface, a suction had been established between the two atmospheres, which, as each is attracted by the neighboring star, had elongated to the extent of meeting up.

  In consequence, while returning to Quito, I examined the great problem of traveling to Anthea! The air offered me a route. But who could tell: perhaps the gases surrounding the satellite were deleterious?

  No matter: it was necessary to go and see; the chance was too good to miss.

  A little later, I revealed my plans to the scientists of the city. All of them, including my intrepid American, thought that I was mad. They kept up appearances and were very polite, but I could see that they had doubts about my mental state.

  Once an idea has taken root in oneself, however, and when one has sworn to accomplish a striking feat no matter what the cost, one no longer listens to anything or anyone. I therefore resolved to reach my goal alone.

  I shall not weary the reader with a description of my research nor the story of my preparations. This is simply what I did after having meditated my expedition for a long time and ripened my plan.

  Secretly, I bought from the government of the little Ecuadorian republic its one and only—but immense—dirigible. The balloon was designed to take eight people up to three thousand meters, along with machinery, reserves of fuel, projectiles, and so on, the whole weighing several tens of thousands of kilos. I had all that scrap iron taken out and replaced by ballast. I had a light glass case fitted into the nacelle, which could be hermetically sealed. From within the case, without
giving access to the exterior air, I could operate the valve and drop, by means of successive releases, any quantity of ballast I desired. I took water and food supplies for a week. I added to my provisions a few canisters of compressed oxygen, weapons and blankets.

  All these preparations remained unknown to my colleagues and friends. Ten days after my return from Chimborazo my balloon was fully inflated in an enclosure situated in a remote quarter of the city. I was ready to attempt the great adventure.

  It was on a tranquil blue night that I walked through the deserted streets of Quito toward the hangars where a few Indians in my service were watching over my balloon. I checked the hydrogen tension and the solidity of the nacelle’s attachments. In spite of my ardent enthusiasm, I felt a little embarrassed then, and my bold project appeared to me to be a crazy escapade from which I would obviously not come back alive. Sinister thoughts assailed me at that moment, and I believe it would not have taken much to make me abandon the whole thing at the last moment. My workmen were there, however, waiting calmly for me to go aboard my nacelle.

  I had not confided in them, but I assume that they had guessed what I planned to do, for they were looking at me with a sort of superstitious terror that frightfully contracted their grave features. I spared a thought for my friends, my masters….

  Having no family, I could certainly risk my life to conquer the fame that is so slow to come nowadays to the most knowledgeable and hard working….

  I shut myself in the glazed case of the nacelle. I switched on a little electric lamp, and made sure once again of the presence of my provisions, my implements and my oxygen canisters. Finally, I gave the agreed signal.

  The muscular arms of the Indians rose and fell in unison; the axes that cut the mooring ropes gleamed in the night, and the balloon suddenly rose up with a prodigious bound to a thousand meters above the capital of Ecuador.

  The die was cast! I was off!

  I had deliberately chosen a night free of wind. The balloon therefore continued to rise, albeit more slowly, and to head directly toward the marvelous flower of the heavens, around which shone the pure equatorial stars.

  I had calculated that with the reduced weight that it was carrying, my balloon ought to rise initially to a height of about ten kilometers without it being necessary to discard any ballast. I suspended my electric lamp from the ceiling of my glass case and, with my eyes fixed on the barometer, I waited.

  The instrument lowered constantly, but much more slowly than I had thought. Knowing that in order to bring my reckless enterprise to a successful conclusion it was necessary to act quickly, and so I hastened to activate the hook that was retaining my ballast and to drop a considerable fraction of it.

  The balloon must certainly have made an enormous bound, but, strangely enough, the barometric level hardly quivered. I remained perplexed for a moment, but then I reflected that I was inside the column of air extending between the Earth and the new star, and I realized that all along that column, the atmospheric pressure did not diminish as one drew away from the Earth, because I had air above me all the way to the other atmosphere.

  I obtained precious encouragement from that: as a consequence of the constancy of the atmospheric pressure, my balloon would continue to rise indefinitely. I aided it by getting rid of almost all my ballast, and I waited….

  Whatever the undoubtedly prodigious speed was at which I was drawing away from the Earth, a journey of three hundred and eighty kilometers could not be accomplished in two or three hours, and as one never has any sensation of displacement when in a balloon, I remained very anxious and impatient.

  Beneath me, the Earth was plunged in shadow, and the last lights of Quito had faded away into the distance a long time ago. Above my head, the enormous mass of the balloon prevented me from seeing the star. I was afraid, most of all, of a sudden gust of wind that might have caused me to deviate from my route and driven me outside the column of air, but in that case the barometer would have warned me about my actual elevation.

  Slowly—very slowly—the night went by. Day returned. I saw the Earth again. There was no longer anything below me but an enormous round surface around which the sky made a blue halo. I concluded that I was a long way away.

  At that moment, an unexpected phenomenon occurred. I felt a great shock, as if my balloon, projected through the air, had suddenly stopped; then it appeared to me to deviate from the perpendicular. It was as if it were being pushed sideways by an invisible force, which my nacelle remained beneath the point that it had occupied a moment before.

  For a second I saw Anthea, enormous and very close. I did not have time to cry “Hurrah!” The body of the balloon inclined further, sufficiently to reach the height of the nacelle, and then it performed a pirouette, changing its orientation completely, and, suspended once again immediately beneath the balloon, I perceived the unknown world beneath my feet.

  I understood that the attraction of the star had just made itself felt, and that if I didn’t do something, I would rise up again toward the Earth, or at least remain in suspense between the two attractive forces of our immense globe and its tiny satellite. I hastened to open the valve, and then saw the barometer rise progressively again as I descended slowly toward Anthea.

  Having arrived a few hundred meters above the ground, I let a little air into a cage containing a canary. Before anything else, I wanted to make sure that the atmosphere that I had entered was breathable. The little animal did not appear to experience any inconvenience. This time, I did utter a resounding “Hurrah!” and I tugged the cord of the valve again.

  My landing was easy; no wind hindered the operation. I descended slowly on to a fairly large rock surrounded on all sides by a shiny expanse that I took at a distance to be ice. Before jumping out of the nacelle I was able to hook my anchor onto a fissure in the stone. Once disembarked, I coiled my rope around a large block of granite, and was finally able to look around.

  My rocky outcrop was a few meters square. Around that islet, a shiny substance was sparkling in the sunlight. I drew nearer to it; it was as hard and unified as glass; one might have thought it an immense sheet of mica. The extent was not very considerable, however; a few hundred meters away I perceived a line of rocks, and further away, entangled branching forms that looked something like gray trees, live olive trees.

  I took a tentative step onto the shiny substance surrounding the islet. It was so smooth and polished that I nearly lost my footing. I returned to my nacelle, equipped myself with weapons and a sack of provisions and returned to the edge of the lake of glass. It was not ice, but a kind of rock analogous to hyaline quartz. I took off my shoes, and was able to venture on to the slippery surface carrying my shoes in my hand.

  A strange arrival for a Terran on a new world! It made me think of a Muslim going into a mosque. And to be sure, a certain religious dread and apprehension of the unknown slipped into my sentiments.

  Having reached the other shore, I put my shoes back on and climbed up onto the ridge.

  The air was diaphanous, light and slightly chilly, akin to a frosty white morning in autumn. So far as I could see ahead of me, there was nothing but stony surfaces strew with stone blacks with clear-cut ridges, and in the marvelous light that bathed the rocks with rich and various colors there was a perpetual steaming of colored rays reflected by innumerable facets of crystals, gems and sparkling pebbles.

  At first, I did not pause to examine those minerals, so brilliantly colored and illuminated, but searched avidly for traces of organic beings, for I had not yet perceived a blade of grass or a flying bird—nothing suggestive of active life. There was nothing in the vicinity but one of the patches of vegetation already glimpsed from the Earth. I ran toward it, so desirous was I of making contact with a living being, even a simple tree.

  Alas, the dendrites were made of stone!

  They offered such striking resemblances to real vegetables, however, being provided with leaves, thorns and even fruits in pods, that I wanted to exa
mine them more closely. I broke a few branches and studied the interior material with the aid of a pocket magnifying glass. The cross-sections revealed a perfectly normal structure; within the thickness of the leaves the cells were perfectly recognizable, and in the center of the branches, the medullary sheath was also quite distinct. I had, therefore, petrified vegetables before my eyes.

  Nothing can give an idea of the picturesque appearance of those forests of stone. They displayed their rigid lacework far and wide beneath the brilliant sky. The mineral substances that had been incorporated into the plant cells were all coated with delicate tints of opal and pearl. Here and there, entire branches seemed to have been penetrated by violet fluorine; elsewhere, stems had been changed into wands or steles of amethyst quartz.

  I observed that the mosses and lichens that grew in the cracks in the rocks, as well as the grasses and small plants in the fields had not escaped the disaster either. Even the nourishing soil seemed to have been metamorphosed into stone everywhere. It was only some time later that I discovered humus beneath the vitrified layers resembling glass or mica.

  Saddened, I was about to continue the exploration of that globe, on which some frightful cataclysm had fallen in the course of the ages, when I perceived that the sun was declining toward the horizon. I was surprised, because I thought it was still the middle of the day. Had my chronometer stopped and then stated working again without my realizing it?

  Disconcerted, I studied the dazzling occidental regions, where the sky was a gilded green. The sun was descending rapidly below the horizon. But then, to my great astonishment, the light did not diminish, and my body projected a huge shadow in front of me….

  I turned around swiftly. In the direction opposite to the one in which the sun had just disappeared, an enormous and luminous star was rising rapidly. The ascent of the gigantic globe into a deeply tinted, almost violet sky dissipated the initial shadows of dusk, bathing the green and pink spaces, the red rocks and the blue and opaline petrifications with blonde light.