by Mike Ashley
More than two decades after the Frenchman’s only visit to America, the mere mention of the name “Ardan” was still enough to prompt a wave of wistful sighs.
“. . . remarked that the greatest disappointment of his life was to learn there were no Selenites, but I tell you now that the Frenchman was wrong. Ladies, we are the Selenites!”
The entire membership of the society – all seventeen of them – rose to their feet to give Fiona a standing ovation.
“Whatever became of Monsieur Ardan?” Hermione whispered to Evangelina.
“He returned to France some years ago,” Evangelina whispered back, “and the last I heard, was growing cabbages.”
“Cabbages? How perfect! We could invite him to judge our best vegetable competition!”
Evangelina took a slow, deep breath. “Hermione, he lives in France.”
Chapter Five
A garden on the moon
“Over the same period, Boston, with a population of approximately five hundred and sixty thousand, will produce well over four hundred and eighty-one million pounds of garbage,” Fiona informed the trio of gentlemen seated on the opposite side of the table.
“Four hundred eighty-one million and six hundred thousand, to be precise,” said J. T. Maston.
Evangelina sat quietly at Fiona’s side. The only reason for her presence today was her role in arranging this second meeting. Until the occasion two weeks previously, when she had burst in uninvited with three other women, Evangelina had been the only non-member – and the only female – ever allowed into the Gun Club premises. This special status had only been granted to her on account of her generous financial contribution to the scheme to shift the Earth’s axis. Getting Mr Barbicane to agree to a second audience with Fiona had not been easy, but once Evangelina became determined upon something, she usually got her way.
Now there was little for her to do except allow the others to talk while she reflected on her surroundings, and she couldn’t help being pleased by what she saw.
The firearms on display had been restored to their shining former glory, the glass cases sparkled, and the air of gloom had lifted. And it was all due to the return of J. T. Maston, once again at his usual place, his good hand scribbling furiously as he recorded every word spoken at the table into his notebook.
“While New York, with a population of approximately three and a quarter million is predicted to produce –”
“Two billion, seven hundred and ninety five million pounds of garbage,” said J. T. Maston, entering the numbers in his book with a flourish.
“Correct,” said Fiona. “And not only will this raw material cost us nothing, city governments will pay us to take it. The only initial expenses involved would be those of setting up a company and hiring local men to work as our collectors. Once we acquire the garbage, we simply pack it into missiles designed to break open upon impact, and send it crashing into the moon.”
J. T. Maston began sketching a design for the garbage missile. “The opening mechanism, here, will require a small explosives charge . . .”
“Or perhaps just a spring?” Fiona suggested tactfully.
“That would work, too,” Maston agreed, modifying his drawing.
“And you plan to follow this garbage with seeds,” said Barbicane. “What kind of seeds?”
“Whatever is readily to hand, I should imagine,” Captain Nicholl interjected before Fiona could answer. “Surely any plant will do as long it produces oxygen.”
“Acorns,” said J. T. Maston. “If people are going to live on the moon, they will require wood for building houses.”
“Yes, trees must be a priority,” Barbicane agreed, “because they take the longest to grow.”
J. T. Maston drew a large circle to represent the moon. “We could fit an oak forest in here,” he said, marking out a section of the northern hemisphere.
“Apple orchards over there,” said Barbicane, indicating a section over to one side. “Pear trees over there, orange groves down here.”
“We’ll need grasslands for cattle,” Captain Nicholl enthusiastically joined in, while Fiona insisted there also be room for the purely aesthetic, “The Selenite garden must be a place of beauty, a new Eden if you like.”
“Roses, gardenias, et cetera, over there,” said J. T. Maston. “Corn and wheatfields here.” He looked up from his fevered sketching. “But how do we water all this vegetation?”
“India rubber,” said Evangelina, speaking up for the first time.
“What?” said Nicholl.
“Children’s toy balloons made from the sap of the India rubber tree,” Fiona explained. “Every shipment to the moon will include a number of these balloons filled with water . . . thanks to a suggestion from one of our members who caught her grandson throwing a water-filled balloon at the neighbours’ cat.”
“A garden on the moon,” Mr Barbicane said wistfully. “If only it were possible.”
Fiona’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. Even Captain Nicholl seemed a little startled.
“But it is possible,” Fiona protested, sifting through her notes. “There’s much more I haven’t gone into yet. Bees, for example. I didn’t mention the bees because they don’t come in until a later stage. And there’ll be worms. Lots of worms . . .”
“My dear Mrs Wicke, I am sure that your idea is more than possible in theory, it’s just impossible in practice.”
“But . . .”
“The one thing you have not considered is: how on earth do you expect to send all these missiles to the moon?”
“But you’ve done it before,” Fiona sputtered. “The Columbiad cannon . . .”
“The cannon to which you refer fired one projectile containing three men, two dogs, and a handful of chickens towards the moon on one occasion more than twenty years ago. Firing that one – comparatively lightweight – missile, one time only, required four hundred thousand pounds of fulminating cotton. What you are proposing would seem to involve the firing of an immense number of much heavier projectiles on a daily basis over a period of many years, possibly a century or more. I doubt there is that much explosive in the world, and even if there were, the cost would be prohibitive.”
Fiona scoured her pages of notes, searching for an answer.
“But the cannon still exists,” said Evangelina.
Barbicane shook his head. “Melted down, years ago.”
“And Moon City?” Fiona asked, referring to the Florida base the Gun Club had constructed for that one, long-ago, trip to the moon.
“Long since reclaimed by jungle,” said Barbicane. “There was no reason to maintain it.”
Fiona turned an imploring gaze to Captain Nicholl.
The Captain responded with a sympathetic shrug.
“What is going on here?” J. T. Maston demanded, slamming his good fist down on the table. “When did Impey Barbicane ever fail to rise to a challenge? When did Captain Nicholl ever withdraw from the prospect of difficulty with a shrug? These are not the men I know! The men I know do not retreat from problems, they thrive on them!”
“Calm down, Maston,” said Mr Barbicane. “I merely said it was impossible. I never said we wouldn’t find a way to do it.”
That evening, Evangelina sat down at her roll-top desk to compose an overseas cablegram.
Scorbitt House
New Park, Baltimore
Dear Monsieur Ardan,
We have never met, but my husband has always said he considers you the best of men, and I thought you would want to know what is happening here in Baltimore . . .
Chapter Six
The great work begins, and a cablegram arrives
Over the next few weeks, a company was formed, workers were hired, and rubbish collection contracts were signed with cities up and down the eastern coast of America. A team was dispatched to the Florida wilderness to begin the rebuilding of Moon City, the ladies of the gardening society worked on refining their designs for the Selenite garden, Barbicane and Nicholl attacke
d the problem of the explosives, and J. T. Maston spent his days and nights at the chalkboard, covering it in strange arithmetical symbols that meant nothing to Evangelina, but which he assured her were absolutely vital to the project at hand.
And the following cablegram arrived:
Le Plessis-Brion
France
Dear Madame Maston,
Thought my travelling days were over, but your news has rekindled the only passion still burning in this old man’s heart. Pull of Selene too strong for this Endymion, cannot stay away. Passage booked on steamer Nereus, arriving Baltimore 7th September. Tell Barbicane: explosives problem solved. Explanation on arrival.
Ardan
P. S. Sorry husband did not notice new hat. Am sure it was very lovely.
Chapter Seven
A Frenchman, a Norwegian, and a cannon
The ladies of the New Park Gardening Society gathered along a railing at the dockside, the new-style S-bend corsets beneath their gaily-coloured outfits contorting their spines into the latest fashionable silhouette: torso thrust forward as if leaning into a wind. Evangelina stood near the front of the group, feeling rather splendid in her ensemble of leg-of-mutton-sleeved dress, white gloves, lace-trimmed parasol, and hat bedecked with silk flowers.
A short distance away from the women, a committee of Gun Club members waited in loose formation, the men almost indistinguishable from one another in their uniform attire of dark frock coats and stovepipe hats.
At long last, the ship’s passengers began to disembark.
The ladies twittered in excitement while the men went through a ritual of solemnly clearing their throats, straightening their backs, and tugging at their waistcoats.
A man emerged from the crowd, heading straight for the line of waiting ladies. Tall and broad-shouldered, with weathered skin and a shock of white hair as thick and wild as a lion’s mane, he wore no coat or hat, and was dressed more like a farmhand than a gentleman in his open-necked shirt and trousers of the coarsest material. Evangelina asked herself if this could possibly be the person she was here to greet, but her doubts were soon dispelled as the men surged forward to shake the oddly-dressed stranger’s hand and slap him on the back. “Is that him?” she asked Prunella Benton.
Prunella nodded, apparently too overcome to speak.
And then before she knew it, the Frenchman was standing before her, taking her gloved hand in his large, callused paw and raising it to his lips. “My dear Madame Maston, it was your siren call that lured this simple man of the soil away from his little cabbage patch. And now I am, and shall ever remain, your devoted admirer,” he said, his dark eyes gazing at her with an intensity that made her feel, for that one moment, as if she were the only woman in the world.
“I . . . I . . .” she said.
“Your husband is the most fortunate of men,” Monsieur Ardan told her before moving on to give his full attention to the next woman down the line.
A forty-ish bearded man in a brown wool suit approached the group, followed by at least a dozen stevedores wheeling an assortment of trunks and crates.
“Ah, there you are at last!” Ardan exclaimed, striding over to the man. He threw an arm around his shoulders and introduced him to the assembled party. “My travelling companion, Professor Stefan Halstein of the University of Christiania.”
The professor bowed to the assemblage before turning to say something to Ardan.
“My friend the professor begs your indulgence as he speaks little English, and asks me to present you with his gift of Norwegian pine cones,” Ardan explained, indicating one of the crates, “so there may be a little bit of Norway on the moon. While I . . .” he went on, touching the crate beside it, “have brought you cabbage seeds from France.”
The group started to applaud, but Ardan raised a hand for silence. “And herein,” he said, denoting the remaining crates and trunks with a sweeping gesture, “lies the solution to the problem of explosives.”
“What is it?” everyone demanded to know.
The Frenchman once again signalled silence. “My friend the professor is a pioneer in the field of electromagnetism. Later we will organise a demonstration.”
Evangelina sat in a box at the Baltimore Opera House, which Monsieur Ardan and the Norwegian professor had hired for their demonstration. A row of thick wooden planks and metal sheets hung suspended from the ceiling above the central aisle, the seats below them cordoned off. On the stage, Michel Ardan and the professor stood either side of a tiny cannon connected to an array of Leyden jars. Professor Halstein spoke in French; Ardan translated his words into English.
Ardan said something about coils of wire and electromagnetic forces of attraction and repulsion – none of which she understood – then held up a piece of metal so small she could barely see it. “Please keep in mind, the apparatus we are using today is merely a miniature model expressly designed for this indoor demonstration, to fire a projectile barely one pound in weight. The full-sized version of the professor’s electromagnetic cannon will be not be powered by Leyden jars, but by a steam-driven dynamo the size of this room, and will be capable of firing missiles weighing up to two tonnes, with almost no sound, and no recoil.” He then went on to talk about the row of targets hanging from the ceiling. There were thirty of them, fifteen metal and fifteen wood, none less than five inches thick.
Ardan handed the piece of metal back to the professor. The professor popped it down the barrel, then threw a switch. Something inside the cannon began to glow bright red; the only sound was a low, deep hum. The professor threw the switch a second time. There was a sudden sound of metal hitting wood, then metal, then wood, then metal, and then everything went silent once more. The targets were lowered from the ceiling. Every single one had a big round hole through the middle.
“But where is the projectile?” someone asked. A search was instigated, which continued until one of the men noticed a hole in the wall at the back of the upper balcony. Everyone hurried upstairs and into the lobby beyond the balcony, where they found a hole punched through to the outside of the building. One of the men looked through and reported seeing a broken window in the top floor of a building across the street.
“Tell the professor we need to get started immediately,” Mr Barbicane instructed Ardan.
Chapter Eight
A new beginning
It was after 11 p. m., but thanks to the array of dynamos thrumming in the night, the crowded streets of Moon City were awash with light. Even the tall cannon looming over the rooftops at the edge of town had been bathed in light for the occasion, and it was to the cannon that everyone was heading. It was the 31st of December, 1899, and the first Earth-to-Moon garbage missile was scheduled for deployment at the stroke of midnight.
Evangelina and J. T. joined the throng making their way past rows of vast warehouses filled with vats of percolating garbage, to the specially-erected stands where the Mastons were to have seats of honour alongside Fiona Wicke, Monsieur Ardan, and the head of the worm department. By 11.30, everyone was seated and glasses of champagne had been distributed to those in the seats of honour.
Monsieur Ardan dabbed at his eyes as the cannon was levered into position. “Oh, to be a piece of rubbish inside that capsule!”
At one minute to midnight, Professor Halstein placed a hand on the switch, and at midnight exactly, he pulled the switch down. There was a brief dimming of the lights combined with a whooshing sound, and then someone shouted, “There it goes, the first of thousands!”
Mr Barbicane raised his glass of champagne. “To the moon, and a new century.”
“To the moon, and a new beginning,” Fiona said, clinking her glass against his.
Monsieur Ardan and the head of the worm department drank a toast to “the lovely Selene, soon to turn green,” then joined in a chorus of Auld Lang Syne. Evangelina turned to face her husband. “Just think about it, J. T., a hundred years from now, people will be living on the moon.”
J. T. Maston turned
his face up to the blackness into which the projectile had vanished, his mind already racing into the future. “When we get home,” he said, “I really must dig out that ornamental pond.”
A MATTER OF MATHEMATICS
Tony Ballantyne
“Then, Mr Fuller, you pretend that a woman’s personality will never be suitable for the making of mathematical or experimental science progress?”
The American peeled a little yellow square of paper from the pad that he kept in his pocket and folded it carefully down the centre.
“To my extreme regret, I am obliged to Miss Scrobot.” He gave the mechanical woman a warm smile, his fingers working busily the while. “There have been some . . . very remarkable women in mathematics, especially in Russia, I fully and willingly agree with you. But with her cerebral conformation, she cannot become an Archimedes, much less a Newton.”
“Allow me to protest in the name of my sex!” intoned Miss Scrobot indignantly, the calmness of her metal face contradicting the emotion of her reply. Max gave a little bow.
“A sex, Miss Scrobot, much too charming to give itself up to the higher studies.” He straightened and continued the folding of the paper. Miss Scrobot put her metal arms to her hips.
“Well, then, according to your opinion, no female personality seeing an apple fall could have discovered the law of universal gravitation?”
There was a whirring of gears coming from within Miss Scrobot’s gunmetal casing. Max Fuller smiled at her, feeling it typical of the weaker sex to become so emotional in an argument.
“I think, Mr Fuller, you criticize me unfairly,” continued Miss Scrobot. “You fail to accord me due respect not only because I am female, but also because I am a mechanical intelligence!”
“And a most delightful mechanical device at that, Miss Scrobot!” exclaimed Max Fuller. “Seldom have I seen a casing of such grace and form.” Indeed he hadn’t. Despite being formed of gunmetal, the upper body of Miss Scrobot superbly resembled a young woman. If you ignored the wheeled cube of her base, concealing the machinery that caused her to move and think, she was quite attractive in her static, statuesque way. “The lines of your body, the engineering of your cogs and gears speaks of nothing but the highest manufacture!” continued Max. “I have the highest regard for your intelligence, but each must take their place in the natural order of things. Look over there . . .”
