01 Kings Of Space

by Captain W E Johns

  And so the horrid feast proceeded.

  Rex could easily have been sick. Not in a nightmare could he have imagined a scene so revolting.

  'Truly a remarkable picture,' observed the Professor warmly.

  'Disgusting, if ever I saw one,' muttered Tiger.

  'It's only what we see at home, magnified,' protested the Professor.

  'Size simply makes it appear more repulsive.'

  They watched for a little while, satisfied now that they were in no danger, and then made their way into the Spacemaster. The Professor closed the door. 'Charge up, please, Judkins,' he ordered. 'We can remove our cosmosuits as soon as the needle of the pressure gauge is over the red line.'

  By this time Rex had more interest in the needle than in the scene outside, for perspiration was making his heavy garment uncomfortable.

  An ejaculation from Tiger brought them round. Following his gaze Rex saw one of the beasts coming towards them. Whether or not it had actually seen the machine, and recogniz-ing it for something new was on its way to investigate, was not clear; but it was coming towards it in a purposeful manner.

  The Professor moved quickly, rapping out orders to Judkins; but he could not get the machine off the ground before the creature arrived. For a second Rex stared into its loathsome face, and in that time the picture was photographed on his mind for ever.

  Then, just as it seemed that the beast was about to come even nearer, the Spacemaster shot up, the force of its jets sending the great reptile recoiling in contortions.

  What a brute!' muttered Rex. 'I thought it had got us.'

  `No, no. I don't think the old fellow meant any harm,' opined the Professor. 'Probably just curious. I must admit he was an ugly customer.'

  'Very ugly indeed, sir, if I may take the liberty of saying so,' put in Judkins.

  'Certainly not one I'd choose for a pet,' said Tiger drily.

  Seeing the needle on the red line Rex lost no time in divesting himself of his cumbersome garment. What did you think of the Moon?' he asked Judkins, wiping perspiration from his face with his handkerchief.

  'Quite frankly, sir, I thought very little of it,' replied Judkins. It would appear that the inhabitants are even less attractive than some of those that dwell on Earth.'

  Rex smiled.

  We must come back another day,' declared the Professor. 'Who knows what other strange beasts we may meet.'

  'As you say, who knows?' answered Tiger. If there are many more like those we've seen today, the Moon is obviously no place for a rest cure.'

  Tut-tut. Neither was Africa a hundred years ago. Surely it is better to have the Moon dangerously alive than drearily dead? Think of the possibilities it offers to you big game hunters. Instead of your helpless stags, here may be quarry worthy of your bullets. The skin of a lion ceased to be a thing to boast about after the breech-loading magazine rifle appeared; but the man who first brings home the armour-plated hide of the beast we have just seen will have a trophy that should be the envy of his fellow sportsmen.'

  Further conversation was cut short by the acceleration as the Spacemaster shot on to escape velocity.

  When they had crossed the neutral zone and were falling back to Earth in comfort the Professor let out one of his roguish chuckles. You must admit, gentlemen, that it has been a most instructive outing. But think of the unkind names people would call us if we dared to report what we have seen.'

  'But we shall have photographs,' said Rex.

  The Professor shook his head sadly. They would say we had faked them. No use trying to make people believe what they don't want to believe. Never mind. Would anyone care for a caramel?'

  10 Strange old world

  As can be imagined, the days following the return to Earth were busy ones, for there was much to do and much to talk about. The Professor worked in a fever of activity, checking calculations, studying his photographs and writing up his journal, leaving Tiger to go over the Spacemaster now that he was familiar with its construction. With papers and reference books lying about, the study began to resemble more than ever a wastepaper dump. The Professor became even more untidy in his person, his hair quite out of control and his tie askew. He snatched food at odd moments, impatient of any time not devoted to his obsession, for that is what his work had become. So preoccupied was he that he did not seem particularly concerned when Judkins remarked that the presence over Scotland of the Spacemaster had again been noticed and reported in the Press.

  'He's having a wonderful time,' Tiger told Rex once,when they were alone.

  'He's a genius, and a genius isn't to be judged by ordinary standards.

  Such men are seldom normal in their behaviour. It hasn't even occurred to him that his invention is worth a fortune or that he could become the most famous man in the world today. All that matters is science. Money couldn't buy the joy his discoveries are giving him. It's a good thing there are such men.'

  The Professor, as he himself averred, was being torn two ways. He wanted to complete his notes on the Moon while everything was fresh in his mind and he wanted to analyse some pieces of rock he had put in his pocket and brought home. He was equally impatient to proceed with his investigation of the two nearest planets, Mars and Venus.

  Even when he announced that he was ready to go ahead with the next trip he fretted and fumed because he couldn't make up his mind which planet to visit first. Both had their attractions, he explained, for entirely different reasons. Mars was the best known of all the planets and he was desperately anxious to settle several outstanding arguments about it. He wanted to go to Venus because it was wrapped in mystery. In this case, curiosity concerning the unknown was the magnet.

  Tiger suggested that as they couldn't go to both at once he had better decide on one or the other. 'At the rate you're living on your nerves you'll get to neither,' he said seriously. '

  You'll finish up in a nursing home.' This was one day after lunch when the Professor had been persuaded to eat something.

  'Quite right, my dear fellow,' admitted the Professor, picking up a crust of bread and tearing it with ink-stained fingers. 'I don't mind confessing that these marvellous discoveries have got me all worked up.'

  Tiger smiled. 'There's no need to confess. We know.'

  'Well, what do you say? Where shall we go? I must, of course, return to the Moon some time, before all life there ends.'

  'You think it is ending?'

  'Yes. Now that I've had time to devote serious thought to the subject I have a theory which will be difficult to disprove. It introduces a factor which so far I haven't had time to discuss with you, because it is an extremely complex one and was not vital to our present experiments.' The Professor smiled over his glasses. 'At least, I hoped it wouldn't arise.

  Flying about in space are masses of matter, partly solid and partly gaseous, which we call comets. Some have long tails. About sixty follow regular orbits inside our own solar system. Others visit us from the outer universe, retire, and are never seen again.

  Exactly what they are, what causes them, where they come from and where they finally go, we don't know. There are too many theories for me to discuss them all now, but there is good reason to suppose that the Earth has passed dangerously close to one on several occasions - close enough to be seriously affected. As recently as 1946 we missed collision with one by a mere matter of eight days. It may have been collision with the tail of a comet that caused the fearful catastrophes we read of in the Scriptures, when, you may recall, the sky rained fire and red hot stones, creating deserts and killing great numbers of people. The waters, including the Red Sea, turned red - with, I suspect, meteoric dust. This, at the time, was put down, naturally, as the vengeance of God. I believe that the Moon got the full blast of that, or a similar collision. Masses of solid matter struck it from all directions, causing those enormous craters. Other missiles, arriving diagonally, tore up those grooves which we call rills. Blazing gases and burning oil scorched the surface and destroyed most of the atmos
phere.

  You must have noticed those charred areas.'

  'Oil?' queried Rex.

  Why not? Where do you suppose all the oil in the earth came from?

  Petroleum is merely a mixture of the two elements, carbon and hydrogen. I believe that before the disaster the Moon was not unlike our own Earth, but the holocaust killed everything except a few low forms of life that were able to find refuge underground. Those who said the Moon was dead are nearly correct. A few creatures are making a last stand in almost hopeless conditions. The end - unless the Moon can collect or generate a new atmosphere - is not far off.' The Professor regarded them with a curious expression. 'Another strange feature arises in connection with what we saw on the Moon, one for which science has been unable to provide an explanation. Such creatures as we saw, I think you will agree, would come under the heading of vermin?'

  'Yes,' agreed Tiger slowly, obviously wondering what was coming.

  'Of course, it may be coincidence, but the Old Testament has much to say about vermin appearing after great catastrophes on Earth. For instance, in Exodus, we are told that divers vermin appeared among the people of Egypt. The land brought forth frogs in abundance, even in the palaces of kings, so that people were devoured by them. Four of the famous plagues were caused by vermin. Locusts, dragonflies and caterpillars without number ate up the crops. It is a very odd thing, you will agree, that these very creatures are to be found on the Moon - which, mark you, has been subject to something similar to what must have happened in Egypt at the time of the departure of the Children of Israel. It is unlikely that many people today take those stories literally. I mean, one can hardly imagine frogs devouring people. But the creature we saw in the crater, frog or toad - much the same thing - would have no difficulty in doing that. I'm not attempting to prove anything, but we may have thrown new light on an old story.'

  'Yes,' conceded Tiger. 'It's odd, to say the least of it.'

  If the surface was ravaged by fire how did those plants survive?' asked Rex.

  Seeds may have been deep down in the ground. They could have been brought up by the movements of the worms.'

  Rex was looking shaken. If that could happen to the Moon I suppose it could happen to us.'

  'Just as easily. It could happen any day. It probably will. A comet has only to pass near enough to move the Earth a little in its orbit, or even tilt it a little more on its axis, to bring on another Ice Age. Men would do well to remember that.'

  'Perhaps it's better that they don't realize it,' put in Tiger. 'Let's talk of something less harrowing. All right, Professor. If that's how you feel let's go back to the Moon. I'll take my rifle and collect the hide of one of those dragons for the Science Museum before they become extinct.'

  I didn't mean go back immediately,' answered the Professor quickly. We have more important things to do. We can return to the Moon later. I can hardly wait to have a close look at the canals on Mars; and if I don't soon get behind that veil that hides the face of Venus I shall go crazy.'

  Tiger shrugged and filled his pipe. 'You can't have it both ways. Suppose you tell us something about the two propositions and we'll weigh them in the balance.'

  'Excellent idea,' agreed the Professor. 'I knew you'd make a practical suggestion. Very well. Let us first consider Mars, the planet that has excited popular imagination ever since the Italian astronomer Schiaparelli made his momentous discovery of canals on it.

  He didn't mean our sort of canals, literally. He called them in his own language canali, meaning channels. As some are hundreds of miles long and quite straight it has been assumed that they are artificial, which in turn implies the activities of creatures of intelligence. Hence the popular word for them — Martians. More than forty canals have been observed on occasion. Mars is, in fact, the only planet on which indications of life have been seen.'

  'What are these canals supposed to be?' inquired Tiger.

  'Irrigation channels to distribute water from the melting polar ice-caps.

  It's a guess, but not an unreasonable one, because there are certainly signs of vegetation, with seasonal changes of colour as they occur on Earth in spring and autumn. If there is vegetable life, as you saw on the Moon, there is almost certainly animal life.'

  'No more dragons, I hope,' murmured Rex.

  'We shall see,' declared the Professor. 'You must know that Mars is much smaller than Earth — only about half the size, in fact. It travels round the Sun just outside our own orbit. The day is a trifle longer than ours but conditions should be similar. No extremes of temperature. There are two moons, Phobos and Deimos, both tiny and very close to their parent.

  Gravity is about one-third of ours. Reckoning Rex to weigh a hundred pounds, he would weigh only thirty-eight pounds on Mars. Apart from the canals we can see no features of import ance, such as mountains or large sheets of water. There must be some water for we can occasionally see clouds, and there is either ice or snow at the poles. Incidentally, we can sometimes see brown clouds, which, for want of any other explanation, are assumed to be dust storms. Mars itself is often quite red. If there are clouds there must be some air, although it is likely to be thin. At any rate, it's transparent.

  With an invisible atmosphere, from Mars the sky will appear black, not blue. Our blue sky is caused by the dense atmosphere. Being farther away from the Sun we may suppose that the daylight is not as bright as ours.

  So much, briefly, for Mars.' The Professor popped a caramel into his mouth.

  'Now for Venus,' he resumed. 'Although she comes nearer to us than any other planet we know little about her because, as I have told you, she hides under a cloud of vapour.

  What that vapour consists of we would very much like to know, because it must have an effect on what is underneath. You see, she moves round the Sun closer than we do, so unless those clouds tone down the solar rays it's likely to be pretty warm. Even with cloud, the atmosphere, which is thought to be more dense than it is here, is likely to resemble that of a greenhouse. We don't know. We don't really know anything, except that she is practically the same size as the Earth, the diameter being a mere two hundred miles less, which should make the gravity about the same as ours.

  Because her orbit is nearer to the Sun than ours a year on Venus is only 224 of our days; but we don't know what the length of her day is because of those confounded clouds. It might be anything.

  She may rotate slowly or she may spin like a top. However, there should be plenty of atmosphere, but all we know of its composition — again on account of the clouds — is that it may contain a high percentage of carbon dioxide. That's as much as I can tell you without going into technicalities or indulging in speculation. You will understand why I am so anxious to have a peep behind her veil.'

  `Do I understand that nobody has yet seen the actual surface of Venus?'

  'Nobody.'

  'Then it's time somebody did.'

  I agree.' The Professor chuckled. 'I approve modesty in ladies, but not to that extent.'

  Then suppose we go and have a look at her.'

  'Very well. You have made up my mind for me. It so happens that Venus is in good opposition. That is to say, she is now coming round in her orbit to a closer position in relation to Earth.'

  'How far away is Venus?' asked Rex.

  'A natural question, my boy, but one that shows you don't quite understand the position.

  The distance varies enormously. Let us put it like this. The Sun is the centre, the hub of the solar system. All the planets are going round it in their own orbits at different distances. The nearest is Mercury. Then comes Venus. Farther away still is Earth. Then we have Mars, and the rest of them in turn. Now then. As Venus goes round the Sun faster than we do, being closer to it and not having so far to go, there must be a time when she is on the far side of it. She is then at her greatest distance from us. As she comes round to our side she must obviously come closer to us.

  There is a great deal of difference. When she is farthest from us
she is six times as far away as when she is at her nearest point. For that reason, at her nearest point she appears six times as large. As a result of her journey, although you can't see it with the naked eye, she waxes and wanes just like the Moon — as the light of the Sun happens to strike her. The reason why she shines so brightly is because her cloud acts as a wonderful reflector to the light of the Sun. She is now fairly close, and still coming towards us.'

  'I see,' said Rex. Then how long will the journey take?' The Professor hesitated. That's another poser, because I can't say definitely what the effect will be of the several gravities to which we shall be exposed. The Sun and Mercury will pull. So will the Earth and the Moon. So will Venus herself. Nor do I know the maximum velocity the Spacemaster may reach in ideal conditions, but I expect it to be something almost unbelievable. If it is as high as I expect, we ought to reach Venus in five or six days.

  Of course, that means we shall have to take more food and a large supply of oxygen. These present no difficulties. We shall also have to take mattresses to sleep on. I'd advise you to take a book, too, or you may be bored with nothing to do. I'll lend you a book on astronomy, with a chart of the heavens, so that you can study the stars at your leisure under almost perfect conditions.'

  'When do you suggest we start?' asked Tiger.

  'As soon as possible. Tomorrow?'

  'That suits me,' agreed Tiger.

  'Then let's get ready,' decided the Professor.

  When, the following morning, Rex was awakened before dawn by Judkins, he was again conscious of that thrill of expectation, not entirely free from apprehension, at the prospect before him. The Moon had seemed an ambitious project, but this, he felt, was plunging from the realms of unreality into stark fantasy. The humdrum world of everyday life was getting more and more remote, a life apart from the one he was now living. It was almost as if he had died that night they were lost on the hill, and had arrived in a different world to lead a new existence. The surprising thing about that was the ease with which he had become accustomed to it.