“Maître,” Saint-Clair put in, with respectful haste, gazing attentively at the august visage, which he recognized from photographs he had previously seen, “I learned by chance of your presence in the hotel. Excuse me for having had myself introduced at this scarcely-appropriate hour, but I have come to make you a proposition which is most extraordinary, unexpected and amazing, and yet as logical and scientific as could possibly be made to a savant and curious astronomer like you.”
The smile that had been straying over Monsieur Flammarion’s lips suddenly disappeared. Saint-Clair’s tone had something solemnly strange about it.
“Sit down, Monsieur, I beg you, and speak—I’m listening.”
The two men sat down facing one another, and Saint-Clair went on: “Maître, you have written an admirable and revealing book, Les terres du ciel, and you have published a book of enormous scientific value, La planète Mars et ses conditions d’habitabilité.11 Well, I propose to you that we verify the observations of your colleagues and yourself in the place itself; I propose that you leave the study and the observatory behind for the material and direct study of the real and active life…”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m proposing that you come with me to the planet Mars!”
Flammarion’s eyes widened.
“Yes,” said Saint-Clair, with an irresistible ardor. “Mars is not only inhabited by Martians, as we have known for certain since the invasion of which Mr. Wells has been the historian. Mars is also inhabited by men like us—by a certain number of Terrans!”
Flammarion got to his feet abruptly. Saint-Clair did likewise—and, while veritable lightning-flashes sprang from his enormous eyes, he said: “Maître, do you know that 15 young women have been mysteriously abducted from Paris?”
“Yes, but what has that to do with…”
“Well, the kidnappers are on Mars.”
Flammarion took a step backwards, raising his arms in front of him in an instinctive gesture.
With a smile, Saint-Clair said: “You think I’m mad, my dear Maître. Keep listening, I beg you…”
And he spoke, without interruption. He explained how he had picked up the obscure trail of the XV, how he had been betrayed by Bastien, thrown into the sea by Koynos, saved by the Carnatic, given a little information by the dying Bastien, finally enlightened by Admiral de Ciserat’s radiotelegram, and then put on the trail of the inventor Klepton.
“Yes, Maître, men exist who have solved the problem of interplanetary travel. By what means? I don’t know, but we shall discover those means, and we shall use them—or I’ll die trying—by reaching one degree of south latitude and 20 degrees of east longitude before October 18. Maître, this is what Bastien revealed to me, and which, in order not to forget a single word, I have transcribed in this notebook. Here is the radiotelegram from Monsieur de Ciserat containing the copy of my fiancée Xavière’s letter. Here am I, too, with my reputation as a man of cold, scientific and audacious intelligence. Are you convinced? Will you come? If I have to threaten him with death, I’ll obtain what I need from Klepton...”
There was a pause of some 30 seconds.
“I’ll come,” said Flammarion, simply. “May I send a telegram to my wife?”
“You may. There’s no need now to demand secrecy. Your telegram will prepare humanity for the extraordinary revelations that we shall reserve for it.”
Camille Flammarion left the hotel, went to the telegraph office, and presented a dispatch at the window. Strangely enough, though, that dispatch was not addressed to Madame Flammarion, as Saint-Clair’s interlocutor had announced. Even stranger, it was inscribed in an unfamiliar, unknown language. Moreover, this is what the dispatch—so far as could be discovered when inquiries were made at a much later date into the distressing affair of the XV—said:
Monsieur Franz Montal, Aéro-Garage Universel, Paris.
Ludivio sigma ut abrenti dyriag consaria te di ornimu, bartir xilos at romanu porta rasigno ut myrtilas. Nan io mazos armet Saint-Clair costa emno bartir caledon. Ustalla.
Thoth.
Ten minutes later, three men leapt from the quay into a boat whose moorings had already been cast off. They were Monsieur Flammarion, Saint-Clair and Pary O’Brien, who was carrying two heavy suitcases. The boat immediately set out.
I must have Klepton and his aeronef! the Nyctalope repeated, mentally. He had decided, at all costs, whatever sacrifice or violence might be required, to land on the rock of Ibiza, followed by Monsieur Flammarion and Pary. The owner of the boat was named Francisco. It had already been agreed that he would take his passengers as far as the main entrance to Klepton’s establishment.
They scaled a sheer cliff by the fiery light of a torch that Francisco carried and, 20 minutes after disembarking, arrived before the gate of a fenced enclosure, in the interior of which the roofs of low buildings could be seen, vaguely silhouetted against the night.
“This is it,” said the Spaniard. “Touch that button there. A bell will wake the sentry, who will open up if he feels like it. Is my part finished?”
“It’s finished,” Saint-Clair replied. “You may go home.”
“God protect you, then.”
“God protect you—and remember, Francisco, that you’ve sworn never to tell anyone that you brought strangers here!”
“I’ll remember.” The man turned his back and withdrew into the darkness with his smoking torch.
Saint-Clair had pressed his thumb on the button embedded in the wood next to the gate. Two minutes went by; then an electric light mounted on top of the wooden fence suddenly came on, brightly illuminating the three travelers. At the same time, a little spy-hole opened in middle of the gate and a voice growled in English: “Who’s there?”
Saint-Clair understood the language of the United Kingdom, so he was the one who replied: “Two visitors for Mr. Klepton.”
“At this hour of the night?” said the voice.
“One comes when one can.”
“But there are three of you!”
“Indeed—my servant is with us.”
“What do you want with Mr. Klepton?”
“I can only tell him that in person,” Saint-Clair relied. “It’s an extremely important matter, well worth the trouble of waking Mr. Klepton up.”
“Where have you come from? Palma?”
“No—from France.”
“Directly?”
“Yes; my ship is anchored two miles away, to the west.”
“What’s your name?”
“It won’t mean anything to your master—but here’s a note. Go and give it to him. As soon as he’s read it, he’ll order you to let us in.”
“All right!”
The sentry, who had not even shown his face at the grille, but who had been able to examine the motionless nocturnal visitors quite well himself by the bright light of the electric lamp, took the rolled-up note that Saint-Clair slid through the opening, which was immediately closed again. The light went out and the three men remained alone in the relative darkness of the night.
They waited for a good quarter of an hour without saying a word, but Saint-Clair and Flammarion were fully capable of exercising patience. As for Pary, he had been warned not to open his mouth unless he were asked a question or had received permission to speak.
Finally, the lamp came on again. There was a considerable noise of locks being tuned and bolts withdrawn behind the gate. Then the gate opened and a tall man confronted the visitors, saying: “Follow me. Mr. Klepton’s waiting for you.”
Ten minutes later, having marched into the midst of the wooden barracks, Saint-Clair, Flammarion and Pary crossed the threshold of a little brick house. They were introduced by a servant, whose eyes were puffed with sleep, into a study that was entirely taken up by an enormous bookcase stuffed with books, a trunk, three chairs and a big table covered with drawings, plans and various instruments. An electric light-bulb suspended from the ceiling spread a harsh light throughout.
; Scarcely had the visitors been introduced than a door opened at the corner of the bookcase and a man appeared. He was short, thin, wiry and sprightly, with piercing eyes hidden beneath enormous black eyebrows. His forehead was extraordinarily large, and he was clean-shaven—including his head as well as his lip, cheeks and chin. His face was strangely ascetic, being wrinkled, bony and stern; it was a face replete with intelligence and originality. “Good morning, gentlemen,” he said, in English. “I’m Klepton.”
“This is Monsieur Camille Flammarion, and I’m Leo Saint-Clair, the explorer, whom you met briefly in France three years ago,” said the Nyctalope, taking two steps forward, while Pary O’Brien stood modestly in rear, his cap in his hands.
“Leo Saint-Clair?” said Klepton. “Indeed, I recognize you. I remember—I know you as the explorer who made his way through the regions of Central Africa that Stanley had left unexplored while still young. I’m happy to shake your hand. As for Monsieur Flammarion, who in the world does not admire him? I’m very honored to have him in my home and to make his acquaintance other than by way of books and journals.” The inventor was smiling amiably. As he took a chair he added: “This nocturnal visit and the urgent note that you sent me can only have very serious motives. What are, they, sir? I’m listening—and you can speak in French; your language is as familiar to me as my own.”
Saint-Clair bowed, and said, in French: “Let’s be brief and precise. Can you construct an aeronef similar to, but larger than, the scale model with which I saw you experimenting three years ago?”
“Yes, Monsieur—and improved, too, for I’ve been working on it for three years. It was in order to complete the improvements that I have refused until now, at any cost, to make any public trials of my aeronef…”
“And now?”
“I’m ready. I had intended to go to Palma tomorrow to announce by way of the newspapers that I was ready to manufacture aeronefs, deliverable after trials, for a price of two million apiece.”
“Perfect!” said Saint-Clair. “I’ve arrived just in time, neither too soon nor to late. I’ll buy the first aeronef from you.”
“Deliverable at sunrise,” said Klepton, impassively.
“Agreed!” riposted Saint-Clair, quivering with joy.
“You’ll pay the full amount.”
“The full amount—but that’s not all.”
“I’m listening, Monsieur.”
“I’ll engage you as captain of the aeronef, which you’ll operate under my command. The arrangement will be for a period of six months, renewable at my sole discretion for a second six-month period.”
“That’s all?” said Klepton, still impassive.
“Not quite. During the time you’re with me, your workshops will be shut and your workmen released with the balance of their contracts settled, which I shall pay. You’ll pick up everything when you return. Your plans, estimates and drawings will be taken aboard the aeronef or, if you prefer, secretly deposited in a strong-box in the bank at Palma.”
“Good! But how much will you pay for my engagement? What compensation will you give me for the interruption of my business?”
“A million for the engagement, even if it only lasts for a single period of six months.”
“Accepted. And?”
“A million in compensation for the interruption, one the same conditions of duration.”
“Accepted!” said Klepton. “That makes four million in all.”
“Exactly, payable right away.”
“Done! One last thing: where will the first aeronef be going, and what will the purpose of its journey be?”
Saint-Clair smiled. He had evidently expected that question. “Monsieur Klepton,” he said, “I demand the most absolute secrecy with respect to the words already spoken and those I am about to pronounce. I’m not here merely to conduct a matter of commercial business with you. I’m here primarily to ask for your collaboration in a work of unprecedented grandeur.”
Klepton raised his eyebrows. “Speak,” he said. “State clearly what you expect of me. If I don’t accept, everything will be as if I had not seen or heard anything.”
“Thank you, Monsieur.” And Saint-Clair told the full story, exact and detailed, of all the events in which he had been involved since the afternoon of the September 18, when he had found out about the disappearance of Xavière and Yvonne de Ciserat and 13 other Parisian young women. He also expressed his private thoughts: the conjectures that the facts, and his deductions therefrom, had suggested with regard to the extraordinary situation. He concluded thus: “Would you like to be one of us, Monsieur Klepton? You would be risking your life…”
“And if I refuse,” said the engineer, “what will you do?”
“I shall take over the handling of the aeronef, for which I will pay you two million. Leaving you free to continue your commercial enterprise, I shall depart with the crewmen that you will provide. However, I shall pay you a million for the promise that you will not deliver another aeronef to any buyer whatsoever before October 18. The interests of my expedition will thus be safeguarded, for on that day, I shall either be dead or on my way to Mars. It will then be a matter of indifference to me that your aeronef trade follows its course.”
Klepton smiled, stood up and offered both his hands to Saint-Clair. “Put it there,” he said. “I will be your ally.”
Despite his habitual impassivity, the Nyctalope shivered and got up abruptly, exclaiming: “You accept?”
“I agree to leave within the hour, to command and pilot the aeronef myself, and to shut down my workshops until we return…”
“Thank you!”
“Wait! I don’t want to be paid. You will only cover the expense of constructing the aeronef, and you will give each of my workmen, who will take their leave at sunrise, an advance of a year’s salary. They are loyal to me; they will keep your secret while they wait.”
“But what about you!” cried Saint-Clair, deeply moved.
“If I come back, I’ll have made my fortune in no time. Imagine the renown that the expedition, accomplished in my aeronef, will give to my invention—such an enormous value that I’ll be able to sell it to any government for as many millions as I please. But I don’t want to think about that future yet. You have seduced me; the adventure you have proposed to me is one of those that does honor to humankind; I shall go with you and put myself at your service unconditionally.”
Saint-Clair trembled with joy. He no longer doubted that he would be successful. The two allies exchanged a vigorous handshake, worth more than the most legal of signatures on the most solemn of contracts.
For the remainder of the night there was a prodigious activity on the island—and at 6 a.m., the first aeronef, baptized the Condor, was standing on a promontory ready to depart.
The Condor, an enormous cigar-shaped vessel constructed in a special metal alloy, as light as aluminum and rendered electrifiable as a means of defense, was fitted out internally to contain 20 men, including the crew. Two enormous wings, composed of exceedingly thin steel lamina, similarly electrifiable, combined with an ascensional airscrew, could lift and maintain it in the air; a propulsive airscrew, aided by the wings, could generate a maximum velocity of 350 kilometers per hour. A rudder regulated lateral direction and a system of mobile ballast determined the angle of descent or ascent. Moreover, once speed was acquired, a modification of the angle of the extended wings sufficed to establish level flight in long extended glides. It was a bird, an immense and formidable bird: the eternal dream of partisans of heavier-than air flight—a dream that Klepton had been able to realize thanks to his invention of a liquid-air engine of an inconceivable lightness and amazing dynamic power. It was the solution to the problem posed by all the scientists, and summarized thus by Flammarion himself:
“A man can never fly by means of their own muscular force. To succeed in that, he would have to develop wings which, while being very solid and very light, would also have an enormous span. These wings would have to form
a surface sufficient to make a parachute in case of a forced—or even voluntary—descent, if that descent were from a height and nearly vertical. It would also be necessary for the axis of the body to be weighted in such a way as to maintain a horizontal position and always to return to it. These dispositions being made and the winged man weighing, I suppose, 120 kilos in total, he would need to be endowed with enormous strength to open a pathway in the air by means of the anterior ribs of his wings. It would be necessary that, by an upward or downward movement, the apparatus of flight could counterbalance the weight and surpass that force by a certain quantity. If he succeeded in producing very rapid alternative movements of this sort, he would obtain the desired result, given that a falling body covers 4.90 meters in the first second of its fall, but in a uniformly accelerating progression—so that it only falls 30 centimeters in the fist quarter-second. If, therefore, the flying man has the strength to deliver four wing-beats per second, capable of elevating him more than 30 centimeters, he will be able to fly—but that is impossible; calculation proves that he would require the strength of two horses.”
Of the two hypotheses combined by Flammarion, Klepton had made realities. The body of the aeronef, the immense metallic cigar, replaced the body of the man; the wings in lamina of steel were the wings anticipated by Flammarion, and their action could multiply tenfold the action of the ascensional airscrew placed beneath the Condor. The propulsive airscrew enormously increased the force of forward motion already produced by the wings. Finally, the liquid-air engine, a marvel of Klepton’s genius, produced a proportional force very much greater than the two horse-power demanded of the man in the calculation. In addition, in order to set down without damage and to take off again without difficulty, by means of the action of the ascensional airscrew and the beating of the wings, the Condor was equipped with three steel legs, automatically flexible, on which the principal body could rest at a height of thirty meters. During flight, these mechanical legs were folded back against the Condor’s flanks.
The Nyctalope on Mars 1: The Mystery of the Fifteen Page 8
