An Unknown World

by Pierre de Sélènes

  A few had indeed perceived, beyond a doubt, luminous points in the indicated region, the existence of which had never been observed before, but they recalled, triumphantly, with supportive evidence, that analogous phenomena had been reported in other areas of the satellite in various epochs, which had then ceased to appear, never to be repeated. They did not hesitate to affirm that this time, as on previous occasions, the more or less authentic signs would quickly disappear without leaving any trace.

  There was, however, one person that the important communication emanating from Long’s Peak had thrown into a veritable stupor, and that was the astronomer F. Mathieu-Rollère.

  On reading the telegram addressed personally to him by his American colleague, which had been handed to him in his study at about ten o’clock in the evening, when he was still at work, he had been struck dumb, his limbs agitated by a nervous tremor. He had read the text of the dispatch several times, as if, at first, he had not fully grasped its meaning. He could have been heard to say, as if talking to himself: “Is it really them?”

  Then he had hastened to the Observatory and, bustling everything out of his way, had glued his eye to the ocular of the large Foucault telescope.

  But the night was foggy, as it often is in Paris, and veils of vapor were passing before the disk of the Moon, which was then approaching its first quarter. He searched the region of the satellite indicated by the telegram, which was then in shadow, but he could not discover anything definite. It sometimes seemed to him that he glimpsed a few fugitive gleams, but was it an illusion? Might his ardent desire to discover something be deceiving him? He could not affirm anything.

  Daylight surprised him in his hesitation. He went home, where a further surprise awaited him. On his work-table there was a new telegram that had just arrived. It was conceived as follows:

  Long’s Peak Observatory, Rocky Mountains.

  Confirming yesterday’s dispatch. Reliably observed at one hour intervals recurrence of luminous letters MJR. Height of letters measured by micrometer 300 feet. Friends found. Please come for observation next lunation. Cordial felicitations.

  W. Burnett

  And the old astronomer, exultant and triumphant, launched himself toward his daughter’s room.

  “Hélène, my child,” he stammered, “they’re alive—they’ve sent us news. Your presentiments were right. Get ready—we’re leaving.”

  A cry escaped the young woman’s throat. She went pale and almost fainted into her father’s arms.

  When the astronomers in the Rocky Mountains, following the flight of the projectile though space with the giant eye of the telescope, had seen it suddenly disappear into the fissure that opened almost at the foot of the crater Aristillus, they had thought that it was all over for the bold explorers and that three more names had just been added to the martyrology of science.

  However, even though they were convinced of their loss, they had not wanted to abandon all hope. They knew their friends’ strength of character, and they knew that men of that exceptional stripe would attempt anything to escape the threat of death. They told themselves that, after all, if they had not perished in the fall, they might be able to get back up to the surface of the satellite and give some sign of life.

  Thus, they had resolved not to quit the field of observation until they had acquired a definitive certainty. In any case, the French astronomer was urged by his daughter not to give up. Having recovered from the emotion that had overwhelmed her at the moment when it was believed that the projectile had been lost, Hélène had felt reanimating in her soul a robust faith that had never abandoned her; she wanted to hope against all probability.

  François Mathieu-Rollère had, therefore, remained in the Rocky Mountains, and the observations had continued with an untiring zeal and perseverance. Every time the Earth’s satellite had shown some part of its illuminate disk above the horizon, the astronomers’ indefatigable eyes had scrutinized the luminous field. But nothing had appeared, and every time the ardently-observed star had disappeared, in order to return later, it was with a profound sigh of regret that the scientists had said: “Nothing yet; let’s wait for the next phase.”

  But weeks, and then months, had gone by; six times already the Moon had shown her face illuminated by the sun, and six times she had plunged into celestial darkness again. No sign had been glimpsed that might offer hope that the travelers had reached the goal of their enterprise safe and sound. Discouragement had overtaken all hearts, and when the old astronomer had resigned himself to returning to the Observatoire de Paris, even Hélène no longer felt in her heart, where doubt was beginning to take root, the courage to stay on.

  Since she had moved back into the little house in the Rue Cassini, she had worn the costume of a widow. If the man to whom she had pledged herself was no more, she would spend the time that remained for her to live in mourning; she would not belong to anyone.

  Scarcely recovered from the surprise caused by the unexpected news from America, the young woman read the telegram addressed to her father over and over again, avidly.

  “God be praised!” she said. “M, J, R—Marcel, Jacques, Rodilan: they’re all alive. They’ve reached their goal; they’ll be able to come back.”

  The preparations for departure did not take long. Soon, an express train was carrying the astronomer and his daughter to Le Havre. They disembarked from the Transatlantic Company’s Labrador a week later in New York, and on 17 August 188- they arrived at the astronomical station of Long’s Peak, where the greatest animation reigned.

  Mathieu-Rollère obtained a long explanation of the conditions in which the observation of 28 July, which had caused such a stir in the scientific world, had been obtained.

  “I was at my observation post,” Burnett told him. “The big telescope was aimed at the Moon, and I was observing the part in shadow when an unusual gleam attracted my attention. I couldn’t make out its nature and disposition very clearly at first, and in order to be able to define it more clearly I adapted a lens of greater magnification to the ocular. Then I seemed to make out a kind of irregular streak, whose contours were vague and sometimes seemed to be interrupted. I didn’t hesitate to employ the greatest magnification at my disposal. This time the image appeared clear and precise; they were neatly-drawn straight lines, forming angles of which, at first glance, I couldn’t take account. It vaguely resembled a geometric figure; one might have thought it two parallel lines cut by secants.

  “I sought in vain for a explanation of the phenomenon, when an idea suddenly crossed my mind ‘It’s an M!’ I exclaimed. ‘It’s the engineer Marcel who’s signaling his presence.’ My emotion was so intense that my vision was disturbed, and for a few seconds it was impossible for me to make out anything.

  “At that moment I was alone. Beside myself, I quit the ocular of the telescope and went down into the observatory. My face was so distraught that my colleagues hastened around me, asking me anxiously what had happened. It was a few moments before I could reply; then I said: ‘If my eyes aren’t deceiving me, I’ve just had proof that the Columbiad’s voyagers are alive on the Moon. Come on, see for yourselves whether or not I’m mistaken.’

  “Everyone ran, climbing the ladder that led to the telescope with the same urgency. The first to arrive had scarcely fixed his eye to the ocular than he cried: ‘I can distinctly see an M!’ Everyone made the same observation in his turn. So, I hadn’t been the victim of an illusion; my eyes had really seen it; it really was our friends giving us news. Another surprise awaited us. While the last one was looking in his turn we heard him exclaim: ‘I can no longer see anything—it’s disappeared.’

  “For an hour nothing appeared on the dark part of the Moon, and we were about to go back downstairs to discuss the miraculous event when I took one last look n the ocular. Imagine my astonishment on perceiving a new letter: the letter J. This time, it was the first letter of the name Jacques. If any doubt had remained about the identity of those who were corresponding with u
s in that manner, that second apparition would have dispelled it completely. We resolved to remain at our post all night.

  “We saw the letter R succeed the first two; then the others reappeared in their turn, and we established that each of them remained visible for an hour, and an hour separated it from the next one. Everything was calculated with mathematical precision to produce certain impressions and avoid any confusion.

  “We continued the observations for the ten nights that followed, and always, in that region of the Moon, which remained plunged in shadow, we saw the same signs with the same intensity of light.”

  Mathieu-Rollère had listened to that story with visible satisfaction. He rubbed his hands together vigorously and murmured in a low voice: “Oh, the brave fellows! What a triumph for science and for France!”

  When Burnett had finished speaking, the old astronomer stood up and, striding back and forth resolutely, said: “What a pity that I wasn’t here to receive the first message from our friends personally. Now we’ll have to wait for another two weeks before we can recommence our observations.” Then, shaking the hand of the director of Long’s Peak Observatory energetically, he said to him effusively: “It’s to you, my dear colleague, to your perseverance, that we owe this important observation, whose consequences, I can already foresee, will be incalculable.”

  “It’s also, and primarily,” said Burnett modestly, “to the admirable instrument at our disposal that we owe this magnificent result.”

  It will be remembered, in fact, that the Rocky Mountain telescope had been specially constructed in order to be able to distinguish objects having a dimension of nine feet—which is to say, equal to that of the shell—on the lunar surface. There was, therefore, nothing astonishing about the fact that the luminous lines, measured by the American astronomer’s micrometer as 300 feet long, should appear distinctly in the instrument’s field.

  Mathieu-Rollère’s daughter had listened to the conversation, and her heart had blossomed tenderly at the good news. When the sign representing her fiancé’s name had been mentioned her face had been tinted vividly red, and a serene confidence had animated her gaze. The future now appeared to her illuminated by a ray of hope; she had been right not to doubt.

  The days that separated the astronomers from the next observation were fruitfully employed. As they were already sure of not being mistaken, they devoted themselves to thinking of means by which they could let the three voyagers know that their signals had been perceived and understood. It was necessary, in fact, not to leave them in uncertainty for a long time; it was not known how they had succeeded in producing the signals, or whether the resources at their disposal permitted them to renew them frequently.

  In order to have a specialist on hand, they had hastily summoned the engineer Georges Dumesnil, the friend of Marcel’s who, after having triggered the electric spark in the depths of the Columbiad, had remained on the site to guard the installation and see to the maintenance of all the machinery. The telegram sent from the Long’s Peak Observatory had not surprised him overmuch; Marcel had infected him with his masculine confidence. Without knowing anything about the conditions of lunar humankind, he was firmly convinced that the Earth’s satellite was inhabited, and expected every day to learn that the audacious explorers had succeeded in their enterprise.

  A kind of council was held to discuss the surest and quickest means of responding to the signals whose return was impatiently awaited. Dumesnil put forward a plan whose ingenious simplicity rallied all support. It was a matter of choosing, in the desert region of southern Algeria, an open plain in which a kind of network could be laid out, a hundred meters square, divided like the canvas of a tapestry into one meter squares. At the center of each square a powerful electric light would be placed, each one connected by wires to a commutator permitting it to be switched on and off instantaneously. On a network thus disposed, it would be easy, with the aid of the lights, to spell out the various letters of the alphabet.

  “I’ve drawn up a plan of a kind of keyboard,” the engineer continued,” each of whose twenty-five keys marks one letter, and which will permit the lights depicting the letter one wants to produce to be switched on at will. One can form words and phrases in that fashion quite easily.

  “It’s evident that in making the signals that you’ve perceived, our friends, who know the power of your telescope, have calculated the luminous intensity of the signals in such a way as to be clearly perceived by the instrument. We have to assume that they too have optical instruments at their disposal sufficiently powerful to be able to distinguish on the Earth signals of the same intensity as those they’ve sent to us. In any case, we ought, for the sake of prudence, to exaggerate the dimensions of our luminous letters and establish our signals in a country where the limpidity of the atmosphere is as complete as possible.”

  “It’s doubtless for that reason,” said Mathieu-Rollère, “that you’ve chosen Algeria to set up your electrical network.”

  “Precisely,” the engineer replied. “It’s the purity and transparency of the air in that region that initially attracted my attention to it. Then again, I won’t hide the fact that it seemed just to me, since the idea came from a Frenchman, that the experiment should remain completely French.” He nodded to the American astronomers. “I hope that your honorable collaborators won’t think that pretention excessive. The glory will always remain to them of having been the first to perceive the signals sent from the Moon. Without the Long’s Peak telescope, nothing would have been possible.”

  “Oh, our part is very slight,” replied Burnett. “The principal glory reverts, in reality, to the great Barbicane, who was the first to think of the possibility of a voyage to the Moon, constructed the Columbiad and audaciously launched into space with unprecedented confidence, and would have succeeded in his enterprise if forces impossible to avoid hadn’t deflected him from his route.”

  At these words, pronounced with a legitimate pride, everyone nodded their heads in assent.

  “But I’ve thought of something else,” Dumesnil went on. “Before we can establish our alphabetical network a certain amount of time will necessarily go by. First, we need to obtain the authorization of the French government.”

  “Oh, that won’t take long,” Mathieu-Rollère put in. “I have influential friends at the Ministry, and anyway, the question that might have held us back—that of the expense—won’t be an obstacle, because we have disposable funds at the Observatory.”

  “Good,” said the engineer. “But to install our network in the middle of the desert, forty kilometers south of Biskra, we’ll need to transport everything on the backs of humans or camels, unless we can set up a Decauville railway—which would be infinitely more practical.”

  “We’ll set one up,” affirmed Mathieu-Rollère, who now had no more doubt about anything.

  “Perfect—but we’ll need steam engines, and thus considerable provisions of fuel, numerous powerful dynamo-electric machines, ten thousand large arc-lamps, each one equipped with a parabolic reflector, and kilometers of wire. That’s not all; it will be necessary to shelter all that; it will be necessary to lodge, feed and supply all the personnel necessary for the permanent functioning of the signaling system, because you can assume that once regular communications are established, they won’t stop.”

  “Undoubtedly. All that can be done.”

  “Yes, but it will take time. I’ll get back to my idea. Don’t you think it would be useful to let our friends know as soon as possible that their signals have been seen? If we have to take several months—and I don’t see any alternative—before giving them and sign of life, isn’t there a danger that they’ll become discouraged and renounce their attempts?”

  “Perhaps you’re right—but what can we do?”

  “Well, this: we can install a powerful system here—1,500 lamps, for example—that we can switch on at an opportune moment and then switch off, in order to light it up again at regular intervals. Obviously, they�
��ll have aimed the instruments available to them at North America, where they know that the only telescope capable of distinguishing their signals is located. They’ll see the luminous point; they’ll understand that we’ve seen them, and they’ll wait patiently for us to organize a means of correspondence analogous to theirs.”

  “Bravo!” exclaimed Burnett. “I’ll take charge of all that.”

  That same day, they telegraphed New York, and a fortnight later, fifteen hundred electric lamps combined in an immense array were ready to function. Everything had been foreseen and arranged, and they waited impatiently for the next lunar phase.

  On 26 August the Moon was approaching its first quarter, and the concordance of lunar and terrestrial nights rendered observations easy.

  The telescope was aimed at the night star, and each of the observers took turns anxiously interrogating the mirror in which the satellite was reflected. They succeeded one another at the ocular in vain, but nothing appeared on the dark surface.

  During the days that followed, the ardent observation continued, passionately. At first, they were not overly surprised not to see anything. Mathieu-Rollère had, in fact, explained that the moment when the illuminated lunar crescent appears is also the one when the Earth, being full in relation to its satellite, sends it the greatest quantity of reflected light. In consequence, on the dark portion of the Moon, there is a reflection that astronomers call “ashen light.” It is not until the approach of the first quarter that that reflection disappears, the Earth, then in its final quarter, no longer sending half as much light.