Worlds Apart

by Alexander Levitsky

  “But how have you achieved such a smooth deceleration and acceleration?”

  “The motive force of the spaceship is provided by a radioactive substance which we have acquired in great amounts. We have found a method for increasing its radiation by a hundred thousand times; this occurs within the motors with the help of relatively simple electrical and mechanical devices. This procedure releases an enormous amount of energy. The particles of the radiating atoms disperse, as you know, at a speed which is tens of thousands greater than that of an artillery shell. When these particles issue from the spaceship in one direction, that is, through a channel with impenetrable walls, the spaceship moves in the opposite direction, as in the recoil of a gun. In accordance with the laws of motion you can calculate that the smallest part of a milligram of such particles in a second’s time is fully capable of giving our spaceship its steady and variable movement.”

  While we were conversing all the other Martians left the room. Menni asked me to join him for lunch in his cabin and I left with him. His cabin was located against the outer wall of the spaceship and it had a large window. We continued with our conversation. I knew that soon I would experience a new feeling of weightlessness and I asked Menni about this.

  “Yes,” said Menni, “although we are still attracted to the sun, this force is insignificant. Tomorrow or the day after, the influence of Earth will also be imperceptible. Thanks only to the spaceship’s constantly increasing speed we will retain 1/400 or 1/500 of our former weight. When this first happens it is not easy to make the adjustment, although the change will come very slowly. As you acquire lightness, you will lose your agility and make many incorrect calculations as you move so that you will commit many clumsy errors. The pleasure of soaring through the air will be of doubtful worth. As regards unavoidable palpitation of the heart, dizziness, and nausea, Netti will be able to help you. You will also have difficulties with water and other fluids, which will escape from their containers when even slightly jarred and disperse in the form of spherical drops in the air. But we have taken strenuous efforts to prevent these inconveniences: furniture and dishes are fastened down, fluids are stored in closed containers, and there are handles and straps everywhere in case of sudden movements or falls. But you will become accustomed to these inconveniences; there is plenty of time.”

  Two hours had elapsed since our departure, and weight loss had already become rather perceptible, although it was still only something of a game; my body had become lighter and my movements freer, but nothing more. We had left Earth’s atmosphere completely by now, but this was no cause for concern because there was an adequate supply of oxygen in our sealed airship. The segment of Earth’s surface which we could see was now exactly like a geographic map—true, with a measure of distortion: larger in the center, reduced toward its edges; here and there it was covered with white puffs of clouds. In the south beyond the Mediterranean Sea, Northern Africa and Arabia could be seen rather clearly through a blue haze; on the north beyond Scandinavia the view was lost in a waste of snow and ice—only the cliffs of Spitzbergen showed dark. In the east beyond the greenish brown mass of the Ura1s, cut here and there by patches of snow, began a great white kingdom, at places with a greenish tint—a faint reminder of the great Siberian coniferous forests. To the west beyond the clear outlines of Central Europe the shores of England and Northern France were lost in clouds. I found myself unable to watch this grand picture for long, because the enormous void below us rapidly evoked a feeling in me close to fainting. I renewed my conversation with Menni.

  “Then are you the captain of this craft?” Menni nodded and said:

  “But that doesn’t mean that I have the power of a commanding officer. It simply means that I have the most experience flying spaceships and my orders are accepted, the same way that I accept the astronomical calculations which Sterni makes, or as we accept Netti’s medical advice because we want to retain our health and strength.”

  “How old is Dr. Netti? He seems very young to me.”

  “I don’t remember, sixteen or seventeen,” Menni answered with a smile.

  That is about what I thought and I was astonished at such learning at his young age.

  “A doctor at his age!” I burst out.

  “And a proficient and experienced doctor at that,” Menni added.

  At the time I did not realize—and Menni intentionally said nothing about it—that Martian years were almost twice as long as ours: Mars’ rotation around the sun requires 686 days and at sixteen Martian years of age Netti was about thirty years old by Earth time.

  CHAPTER VI: THE SPACESHIP

  After breakfast Menni led me on a tour of our “craft.” First we visited the engine room. It occupied the lowest floor of the spaceship directly above its flattened base, and was divided by partitions into five rooms, one in the center and four accessory rooms. The engine stood in the center of the largest room and around it on four sides were round glass-covered windows in the floor, one clear, the three others of various colors; the glass was an inch thick and very pure. At any given time we could see only a part of Earth’s surface.

  The heart of the engine was a vertical metal cylinder about ten feet high and two feet in diameter, made, as Menni explained to me, out of a very dense precious metal related to platinum. Within this cylinder the radiation process took place; a panel six inches thick which glowed red with heat testified powerfully to the energy released by this process. But still it was not excessively warm in the room: the entire cylinder was surrounded by a double shell of some kind of a transparent substance which insulated the surroundings from its heat; above, one of the shells was connected to pipes through which the heated air flowed in all directions to warm the spaceship.

  The remainder of the engine connected in various ways with the cylinder—electric coils, batteries, dials, etc.—surrounded it in an attractive fashion and the technician on duty, thanks to a system of mirrors, could watch them all without leaving his chair.

  Of the accessory rooms one was an astronomical observatory, to its left and right were rooms for water and oxygen storage, while opposed to them on the opposite side was the calculating room. In the observatory the floor and the outer wall were of polished optical glass. They were so transparent that when I walked with Menni over the catwalks and decided to glance downward, I saw nothing between me and the void below us—and I had to close my eyes to end the excruciating giddiness. I kept my eyes to the side on the devices which were located in the spaces between the catwalks on complex frameworks suspended from the room’s ceiling and internal walls. The major telescope was about six feet long but with a disproportionately large lens and, apparently also, increased powers of magnification.

  “We use only diamond lenses” said Menni. “They provide the largest possible field of observation.”

  “What is the power of that telescope?” I asked.

  “About 600x,” Menni answered. “But when this is inadequate, we photograph the field of observation and examine the photograph under a microscope. This method provides a magnification up to 60,000 times and more; the photographic process takes not more than a minute’s time.”

  Menni suggested I look into the telescope to see Earth which we had abandoned. He focused the lens himself.

  “We are now at a distance of about 1,200 miles,” he said. “Now do you recognize what you have in front of you?”

  I immediately identified the Gulf of Finland which I had navigated many times in the service of the Party … I could see ships at anchor. With a turn of a lever on the telescope, Menni replaced the eyepiece with a camera, then a second later he removed it in its entirety and placed it in a large piece of equipment standing to one side which turned out to be a microscope.

  “We are developing and fixing the photograph in the microscope without touching the film,” he explained, and after a few minor operations, a half minute later, he offered me the microscope’s eyepiece. With startling clarity I saw a familiar steamship belo
nging to the Northern Company as though it were only a few feet away from me; the photograph seemed to have depth and natural colors although it was translucent. On the bridge stood the gray-haired captain with whom I had talked a number of times. A sailor who was lowering a large container onto the deck was caught as he moved, as well as a passenger who was pointing out something with his hand. And we were 1,200 miles away …

  A young Martian, Sterni’s aide, entered the room. He was to make a precise measurement of the distance covered by the spaceship. We did not wish to disturb him and we left for the water storage room. Here was a large container with fresh water and equipment for purifying it. A host of pipes transmitted this water throughout the spaceship.

  Next came the calculating room. Here stood a multitude of machines with dials and gauges unknown to me. Sterni was working at the largest piece of equipment. A long tape stretched out of it, no doubt the results of Sterni’s calculations; but the symbols on it, as on the dials, were unknown to me. I had no desire to disturb Sterni or even to talk with him. We quickly passed into the last accessory room.

  This was the oxygen room in which were stored more than twenty five tons of oxide compounds from which more than 10,000 cubic yards of oxygen could be extracted when needed; that quantity was sufficient for several journeys such as ours. The equipment necessary for the extraction of the oxygen was also located here. Here, too, was stored a supply of barites and caustic potassium for removing the carbon dioxide from the air, as well as sulphur anhydrides to remove excessive moisture and harmful gases. Dr. Netti was in charge of this room.

  Then we returned to the central engine room and from there in a small elevator we went straight to the spaceship’s upper floor. Here was located a second observatory identical with the first one, but with a glass roof rather than a floor and larger telescopes. From this observatory we could see the other half of space as well as the planet which was our destination. Mars, slightly out of the zenith, glowed red. Menni turned a telescope on it and I could easily see the outlines of the continents, seas, and canal system which I knew from Schiaparelli’s maps. Menni photographed the planet and under the microscope a more detailed map emerged. But I could understand nothing on it without Menni’s explanation: cities, forests, and lakes could only be distinguished from one another by distinctions which were imperceptible and incomprehensible to me.

  “How far away are we?” I asked.

  “Now we are relatively close—about sixty five million miles.”

  “Why isn’t Mars at the observatory’s zenith? Are we flying obliquely to it, and not directly?”

  “Yes, we have no choice. When we left Earth as the result of inertia we retained its motive speed around the sun—about 1,200 miles an hour. But Mars’ speed is only about 960 miles an hour, and if we were to fly perpendicularly to both their orbits we would hit the surface of Mars with a lateral speed of 240 miles an hour. This would be very awkward and we must select a curving route which equalizes the excess lateral speed.”

  “In this case how long will our route be?”

  “About 120 million miles, which will require not less than two and a half months’ travel time.”

  If I had not been a mathematician these numbers would have meant nothing to me. But now I felt almost as though I had been caught up in some nightmare and I was eager to leave the calculating room.

  Six lateral compartments of the spaceship’s upper segment which surrounded the observatory totally lacked windows and their ceiling, which was part of the spherical skin of the spaceship, descended to the floor. In that ceiling were located large reserves of “negative-matter” whose repulsion to the earth counter-balanced the weight of the whole spaceship.

  The intermediate floors—numbers two and three—were occupied by lounges, individual laboratories, living quarters, toilets, a library, an exercise room, etc.

  Netti’s room was next to mine.

  CHAPTER VII: PEOPLE

  My loss of weight was constantly more apparent and the increasing feeling of lightness was no longer pleasant. It was accompanied with a certain uneasiness and vague restlessness. I left for my room and lay on my bunk.

  After an hour or two of immobility and serious thought I imperceptibly drifted into sleep. When I awoke Netti was sitting in my room next to the table. Involuntarily I sat up in bed, and as though something had thrown me I hit my head against the ceiling.

  “You must be more careful when you weigh less than twenty pounds,” Netti said in a genial voice.

  He had come to see me with the special purpose of giving me advice in the case of “sea-sickness” which I already felt as the result of loss of weight. There was a special alarm in my cabin which I could employ to summon him if his help were needed.

  I utilized the opportunity to talk with the young doctor—something attracted me to this appealing, very learned, but very vivacious lad. I asked how it had happened that he alone of all the Martians, with the exception of Menni, knew my language.

  “There’s a very simple explanation,” he explained. “When we were searching for a human, Menni chose himself and me to visit your country and we spent more than a year there until we were able to conclude our business with you.”

  “That is to say, others were ‘searching for a human’ in other countries as well?”

  “Certainly, they searched among all the major peoples of the world. But, as Menni foresaw, we found him first of all in your country, where people live most vigorously and vividly and where they must look to the future more than others. When we had found our human, we notified the others; they gathered together from all over the world and then we left.”

  “What do you really mean, when you say you were ‘searching for a human’ or ‘found a human’? I realize that you were seeking a subject who could play a certain role, as Menni explained to me. I am very flattered to see that you chose me, but I would like to know too what you expect from me.

  “I can tell you that, in general terms. We needed a human who possessed so far as it was possible the traits of good health and sturdiness, a capacity for intellectual labor, few personal ties on Earth, and a weak sense of his own individualism. Our physiologists and psychologists assumed that the transformation from your society, sharply divided by incessant internal warfare, to ours which is organized, as you would say, socialistically, would be a very difficult change for any individual and would require a very special personality. Menni decided that you came closer than anyone else.”

  “And did all of you accept Menni’s opinion?”

  “Yes, we all have complete trust in his analysis. He is a man of exceptional mental powers and insight, and he is rarely wrong. He has had more experience with humans than any of us; it was he who established our contact.”

  “And who was it that established the method of interplanetary communication?”

  “That was the result of many individuals’ labor, and not one man’s. ‘Negative-matter’ was first obtained several decades ago. At first it was produced only in insignificant quantities, and it required the efforts of many workers to find and develop methods for producing it in large amounts. Then it was necessary to perfect a technique for obtaining a decomposing radioactive material so we would have an effective engine for our spaceship. That also required a great effort. Then, there were many problems resulting from the difficult conditions of space travel with its terrible cold and burning sunlight not tempered by Earth’s atmosphere. The calculations necessary for the journey also turned out to be not an easy task and presented difficulties which no one had foreseen. In a word, former expeditions ended with the death of all their participants until Menni succeeded in organizing the first successful flight. But, now, by employing his methods we recently reached Venus, too.”

  “If that’s so, then Menni is a great man,” I added.

  “Yes, if you wish to give that title to a man who can indeed work long and well.”

  “That’s not what I meant: ordinary people, those who take
instructions, can work long and well. But Menni is obviously something else: he is a genius, a creative talent who has invented something new and thus led humanity forward.”

  “That’s not clear, and it seems to me, it’s not true. Every workman is creative, but it is humanity and the world which create in that workman’s form. Isn’t it true that Menni possesses in his hands all the experience of the preceding generations as well as that of contemporary scientists and wasn’t this the source of all of his discoveries? And wasn’t it the world which granted him all the elements and the germs of his new ideas? And weren’t all the stimuli for these ideas the result of a struggle between humanity and its world? Man is a person, but his work is impersonal. Sooner or later he will die with all his joys and sorrows, but his work remains as part of the vast current of life. In this respect there is no difference between workmen; the only difference is between the scale of what they have experienced and what they leave behind them.”

  “But isn’t it true that the name of such a man as Menni will not die with him, but will remain in the memory of humanity when the names of innumerable others have disappeared without a trace?”

  “The name of every man is preserved so long as those are alive who knew him. But humanity does not need the dead symbol of a person when he is no more. Without regard for persons, our learning and our art preserve what has been accomplished by the commonality. The dead weight of names from the past is useless for humanity’s tradition.”

  “Perhaps you are right; but our feelings reject that logic. For us the names of thinkers and doers are living symbols essential for our learning, our art, and our social life. It often happens that in the struggle for ideas and accomplishments a name says more than an abstract slogan. And the names of geniuses are not a dead weight in our tradition.”

  “That is because the common cause of humanity is still not yet a common cause; thanks to the illusions which arise as the result of the struggle among men, it is fragmented and appears to be a cause of men and not humanity. It is as difficult for me to understand your point of view as it is for you to understand ours.”