There was no trace of green on any branch; it was truly a Dead Forest.
On passing over to the far side of the wooded ravines, however, they found brambles and ferns again, and saw undulations in the grass once again. There were also reptiles sliding silently through the grass. Monsieur Cabrol perceived that they were arriving in the region marked on the map as dangerous.
Andoche was pleased; he had his camera in one hand and a machine-pistol in the other. “It would be so nice to take back a little souvenir!”
Monsieur Cabrol wanted to go up to 50 meters, for the sake of his peace of mind, but he agreed to fly over a shiny little pool beforehand, where suspect dots were moving amid thick clumps of reeds.
Andoche exclaimed joyfully; entrusting the camera to Moderan, he showered the suspect dots with gunfire. Still nothing: more or less giant frogs and hideous toads. The Villa Beauséjour gained height in order to search a little further on.
“Come on,” said Monsieur Cabrol. “A very agreeable day—one more little tour and we can go back to offer our compliments to the governor on the tranquility of his island.”
The Villa described a large circle in order to get a better view of the central peak; then, having set a course for the return journey, Monsieur Cabrol stretched himself out in his armchair beneath the disk of the apparatus, the buttons and switches within arm’s reach.
“Oof! It’s going to be hot this evening.”
An exclamation from Moderan made him jump. “Beware beasts!” the latter said. “Look out!”
“Bah! We’re 50 meters above them,” said Monsieur Cabrol.
“They’re coming up!” cried Moderan. “Look out behind!”
Camera in hand, Andoche ran to the balcony, wanting a thrilling prehistoric photograph.
“What? They’re coming up?” repeated Monsieur Cabrol, heading for the rear balcony. “They’ve got wings, then? Oh, damn it! Yes, they have—it’s really them…there was mention of pterodactyls!”
Down below, above the dead forest, bizarre creatures were moving among the branches, shaking their long limbs and ponderously unfurling large membranous wings. Heads in the air, the hideous beasts were clicking their long crocodile-like jaws greedily.
“Don’t worry! Before the beasts are able to free their wings in all that brushwood, we’ll be far away—I’ll increase speed.”
“Quickly, Uncle!” Moderan shouted. “There’s one coming up!”
Without pausing to look, Monsieur Cabrol pressed a button and the Aerovilla fled in the direction of Astraville. Two of the pterodactyls, suspended from the rear of the Villa by their claws, were trying to hoist themselves up to the window, which Moderan and Melanie were in the process of barricading.. Melanie was uttering exclamations, Phanor was barking and Babylas, with his tail bristling, was leaping on chairs, spitting and cursing.
“Dirty beasts!” cried Melanie. “Is that a bird’s beak or a crocodile’s head? You shan’t get in!”
On the balcony, Andoche was trying to take aim with his machine-pistol, but he could not lean over far enough. Fortunately, a cluster of pterodactyls, gripping one another at the rear, putting all their weight on the claws of the first, caused it to let go. The entire group whirled around, without falling right away. They peeled off one by one and resumed the pursuit—but the liberated Villa Beauséjour was now flying at high speed.
Monsieur Cabrol mopped his brow and uttered a sigh of relief. “No more immediate danger, but let’s go back! Those vile birds have impressive jaws.”
At the rear, Andoche kept a lookout for the pursuers; he wanted his photograph and was waiting for an opportunity. Monsieur Cabrol made the concession of pausing slightly before accelerating to top speed.
The pterodactyls did not lack intelligence; they wheeled around in order to try to attack the Villa from the side, where the balconies might facilitate boarding. The huge wings were beating furiously, the ferocious beasts showing their powerful and avid teeth. Raucous cries and whistles were heard.
When Andoche saw that they were within range he succeeded in taking two snapshots.
“A flock of pterodactyls hunting—a rare picture,” he said. “Now let’s get away from them!”
The Aerovilla flew directly to Astraville, whose pink roofs were visible in the distance. The pursuit continued, but the pursuers soon began to show signs of fatigue. They gradually became spaced out in a long line, like a flock of wild ducks, and some, abandoning the pursuit, let themselves drift down to the ground.
Finally, they arrived. There was movement below; Astraville had perceived the pterodactyls and armed men were climbing a rocky point close to which the chase had to pass. Now the Villa descended slowly to resume its place on the grass. Andoche and Moderan followed the rout of their enemies with binoculars, joyfully.
As soon as they had landed, the Governor arrived in front of the Villa. “Well,” he said, as Monsieur Cabrol hastened to lower the boarding ladder for him, “you encountered something, then?”
“Yes, Monsieur le Gouverneur, we’ve been attacked by a flock of nasty beasts, caymans with the long wings of giant bats—ferocious poultry, at any rate—which nearly caught us by surprise in the air and invaded the villa.”
“Pterodactyls,” said the governor. “The last on the island, six dozen at the most. I made the concession of keeping them, in case a scientific commission came. Two of the ones pursuing you have just been shot, but, to recompense you for the anxiety they caused you, I’ll give the order to capture a certain number for stuffing.”
“But we’re very glad of the adventure, Excellency! A nice souvenir of the voyage…”
“And we have two photographs, Monsieur le Gouverneur!” said Andoche.
“You’ll let me see them? You’re content with the excursion, then?”
“We’re delighted! Superb landscapes, bearing in all their contours, the clefts in the rocks and the ravines, something quite different from anything that the Earth can offer. They’re not Terrestrial landscapes; we no longer have them here on our terraqueous globe. And in the somber gorges, beneath the thick vegetation in the depths of ravines, one divines so much that is disquietingly unknown—it must be swarming with so many strange animals.”
“Yes, there are still interesting discoveries to be made there: curious little animals not yet described, inoffensive or very ferocious: little carnivores combining the features of rats and serpents, chickens and lizards; beasts of all shapes slithering on 30 agile feet or galloping with shells on their backs, like those of our dawdling snails; insects armed with mandibles, poison darts, drills, shears and pointed beaks. You’ll see all that—it’s interesting—but you mustn’t touch! I’m expecting a scientific mission before long: botanists, zoologists, entomologists. You might have an opportunity to join them, and in total safety, for the mission will only be exploring under a strong escort.”
“Gladly, Monsieur le Gouverneur.”
The residents of the Villa Beauséjour were delighted with their excursion. Melanie, having recovered from her excitement, swore that she had never been afraid at all, and regretted not having been able to break her broom over the muzzle of one of those huge ridiculous chickens, because she had not been given time. On other excursions, she would always have that weapon close to hand, with the sole aim of defending Babylas if required—poor Babylas, who was sleeping peacefully, having already forgotten his recent terror.
As for Phanor, he went on to the balcony from time to time to look up in the air, barking insults addressed to the vile birds of the locality.
XVIII. On Astra’s Central Peak.
Communication with Paris was renewed. Everything was going well over there, except that the resurfacing work—this was a constant refrain—was dragging on by reason of the immense difficulties that had to be overcome to avoid further collapses in the deep excavations and borings, for the removal of rubble before the construction of definitive underpinnings.
Monsieur des Ormettes laughed heartily when Ando
che told him about the flock of pterodactyls chasing he Villa Beauséjour. As he gave evidence of a hint of incredulity, Andoche had his photographs put on the Tele. Monsieur des Ormettes was obliged to give in and admit that it was, at any rate, difficult and uncommon game.
“What about this?” asked Moderan, putting on the flying toads, larger than Phanor, enormous beasts dragging swollen belies along on four feet, their backs covered with spiky plates with long pointed wing-tips: a genre of pleasant beauty completed by a flat horned head split by an immense mouth and large round eyes with a haggard expression.
“Very pretty, as nightmare beasts,” said Monsieur des Ormettes.
“And these?” said Monsieur Cabrol, putting on a photo of penguins perched on a rocky crest, near the dramatically-gesturing trees of the Dead Forest.
“What’s that? A conference of penguins?”
“Yes, a tribe of old penguins in lively and animated conversation—oh, very animated, believe me! We heard the charming concert they gave by clicking their thickly-moustached beaks and beating their bony wings. I think they were expressing their amazement—or their admiration—at the sight of our Villa exploring the ravines of Astra, but the governor has promised us much more; we’re delighted, awaiting the results of our next excursion.”
“There’s not too much danger, though?”
“Don’t worry—we’ll be prudent.”
A few charming and interesting weeks passed on the extraordinary island. They were on the best possible terms with the Governor, who often came to have lunch at the Villa, and they also went to refresh themselves on the terraces of the Palace in the evenings.
His Excellency’s wife, a very charming lady, had a great liking for the island where she had lived since the early months of Astra’s fall. Having arrived quite reluctantly, solely to be with her husband, she had known the difficulties and dangers of the early years. Now that the island had almost been purged of its monsters, she found life there pleasant, and only complained of the lack of social intercourse and the rarity of visitors, annoyances due to Astra’s bad reputation.
“Oh, the difficulties of the early days!” she said. “The first explorations into the unknown! It was necessary to live under guard, everywhere and at all times. With what was one going to be confronted in those profound mountain gorges, in all those caves, those dark holes serving as the lairs of huge unknown wild beasts? The first governor was only here six months before being devoured by a giant saurian; my husband succeeded him, and you’ve been able to observe the accidents that overcame his left arm and leg…unfortunate encounters with plesiosaurs of a sort, I think. But today, serious accidents are rare; the island and its surprises are familiar. Since the early days, my husband has undertaken its complete exploration. Above all, it’s necessary to get to know this little gift fallen from the sky, isn’t it?”
“Naturally,” said Monsieur Cabrol. “And it must have been exciting—that step-by-step march toward discovery, on this planetary fragment, which had not yet been seen by anyone!”
“Indeed—and my husband devoted himself to it with a passion that he always wanted me to share, but I was truly fearful of too many unfortunate encounters in all that unknown! My husband organized great beatings with big game hunters sent from Tokyo. The first explorations had revealed amazing things: the existence of an extraordinary fauna that no region of our own planet now possessed, fantastic beasts that the first ages of the Earth had known, but which no longer existed except as fragments of skeletons found by excavating the deep layers of the ground. Well, we have all those beasts here, alert and very much alive, some of mediocre size, others gigantic, but all endowed with an excessively hearty appetite! Annoying and troublesome neighbors! Our hunters beat the plains and mountains, woods and ravines; ditches were dug and traps set…”
“It caused me some distress,” the Governor said, in a desolate voice, “to destroy all the animals that had come so far to find us in that fashion. I would rather have been able to preserve the ones that were not too nasty. I studied the character and mores of the game, which was abundant enough in the early days, in the hope of encountering a few species new to us and suitable for adaptation to the Earth—useful species, or merely harmless ones. I haven’t despaired; I have a few animals that I’m caring for with a view to acclimatization—I’ll introduce them to you. There’s a kind of giant fowl with very pretty plumage, which can talk like our parrots, repeating what it hears, human voices or animal cries. Can you imagine that? A chicken-run chattering away at full volume, replying to the farmer’s voice? There’s a furry tortoise that trots over the meadows, where it feeds on a shelled rabbit that has no need of a hutch, carrying its house on its back…”
“Very interesting species,” said Monsieur Cabrol.
“My dream,” the Governor continued, “has been to discover some species of prehistoric horse among our large-footed quadrupeds, the members of which gallop almost upright on their hind legs, lifting up a small head on the end of a long neck—a kind of horse-bird, sometimes with wings of a sort—or even some large pack-animal, solid and docile, to compete with the dromedary or the llama. Can you imagine? What a gift to make to our planet! But I’ve only found ferocious beasts, stupidly greedy, which only think about chewing and swallowing everything they encounter…nothing but dangerous animals to shoot and stuff for zoological museums! Our hunters have destroyed a great many of them. Of those that aren’t too malevolent or stupid, we take fine specimens that we keep locked up, or raise in our park in order to attempt their domestication. We also supply curious and unknown animas to menageries and circuses. The important thing is to eliminate all the dangerous or harmful species and thus ensure the complete security of our island, but we can’t yet guarantee that security everywhere…”
“Yes,” said Monsieur Cabrol.
“We’re getting there! Killing all those fantastic beasts, those apocalyptic animals, makes me very melancholy! If we don’t want to be spitted by their horns, disemboweled by their terrible claws or crunched by their teeth, though, it’s necessary to clear them out of our forests! Our hunters are working on it—but it causes me a great deal of grief, Monsieur.”
“You must console yourself, Monsieur le Gouverneur, since you are conserving living or naturalized specimens of them.”
“Alas! But you’ve come to study the inmates in my menagerie and farmyard. In the course of our early explorations we discovered, lying in ambush in a cave, a kind of gigantic plesiosaur, which we had to kill and which did us a great deal of harm. It had consumed a vast number of animals of every sort, large beasts as well as small game; its cave was full of bones, as was the lugubrious gorge into the depths of which it opened. Perhaps we have lost a few interesting animals to its gluttony. The monster’s vast carcass—18 meters from head to tail—is in Tokyo.”
Andoche and Moderan were enchanted; when the Aerovilla was not taking them on excursions, often with the Governor or Madame Kirosita, they were at the Governor’s house—or, rather, with his prehistoric prisoners.
“We’re going hunting,” said Andoche, who never put down his camera any longer, “hunting for photographs, while awaiting more serious hunts—for I don’t want to go back without some glorious trophy, the head of some abundantly horned, toothed and clawed mastodon that I’ve shot myself!”
“I’ll watch over you!” said Moderan.
“We already have the feathery frog, which fills a lacuna, as Monsieur Kirosita says, between birds and fishes…”
“And the winged salamander, a near relative of lizards and bats.”
“And the furry tortoise, which runs on four legs along the bottom of its pool in the menagerie to catch little fish!”
“Yes, and we’ll have others still.”
In the Menagerie—not in the section of dangerous beasts, of course, but in that of mild, inoffensive animals—Andoche and Moderan were watching a couple of shelled rabbits, which were calmly grazing the grass, face to face, with their shells on
their backs. All that emerged from each shell was the head, the long ears and the forelimbs, with the tips of the rear feet.
Moderan was trying to attract them further out of their shells with cabbage-leaves, and Andoche was quietly taking their portrait, when a furry tortoise suddenly slipped tortuously through a gap in the fence directly behind the framed scene and leapt on the rabbits, clicking its teeth in a ferocious manner. Moderan abruptly stretched out a leg, however, and interrupted its leap.
The two rabbits, uttering shrill squeals, withdrew their heads and feet into their shells and hunkered down. The tortoise leapt on top of the shells, one after another, trampling them and attempting to turn them over, but the shells remained glued to the ground.
It was a nice picture, much enlivened; Andoche was pleased. At the cost of a few scratches, the benevolent Moderan saved the two animals; he shoved the furious tortoise toward a cage and shut it in.
Monsieur Cabrol did not remain inactive, in spite of all the charms of a siesta in the shade of the rocks on the beach, or pleasant conversations in the Governor’s garden. He was taking notes too. Alas, no clue had been discovered on the island that revealed the identity of the planet from which it had been torn away. Was it Mars, or some other, more distant planet? They would never know. It would have been so interesting to venture, on the basis of a few archeological fragments, hypotheses regarding the political institutions of the planet Mars, or the mores of the Martians!
Nothing remained, therefore, but zoology and botany. The amiable Governor, inexhaustibly obliging, supplied him with as much information as possibly, and gave him access to his collections.
Afterwards, they often talked about an excursion. The Governor wanted to make an ascent of Astra’s central peak, in company with Madame Kirosita. She had not yet climbed that beautiful mountain, which reminded her of Fujiyama in her native Japan. Monsieur Cabrol seized the opportunity to please the Governor, and one morning, the Villa Beauséjour took Monsieur and Madame Kirosita to the mountain. It was an excellent way to go mountain-climbing in one’s own home. The climb was undertaken slowly, spiraling around the peak so as to get a better view of all its faces and all its details.
Chalet in the Sky Page 26
