That was an example of the first point at issue: Farenheit’s vainglorious character, which helped to blind him, not merely with respect to Sharp’s intellectual merits—the man was a scientist, after all, and audacious—but also his probity and good faith.
Secondly, as a practical man, Farenheit envisaged the voyage as being bound to bring him an ample harvest of dollars; dazzled by Sharp’s wonderful promises, he had not hesitated to put the greater part of his fortune into the business, assuming that the Moon’s gold and diamond mines would multiply the capital pledged by him and his shareholders 100 times over.
Finally, for some years, he had been a member of a New York circle whose mere title—the Eccentric Club—is self-explanatory. To be accepted as a member of that club, it was necessary to be credited with one of those eccentricities that make a man stand out from the banality of life, of one those traits thanks to which people point to you in the New York streets and say: “He’s an original!” In France, people say: “He’s a madman!” But that is not all that is required for admission to the circle; the principal preoccupation of members of the Eccentric Club, once admitted, was to be nominated as members of the committee, secretary, vice-president or president. Needless to say, each of these honorific functions could only be acquired by one’s own efforts—which is to say, by heaping eccentricity upon eccentricity, madness upon madness.
Now, Jonathan Farenheit had a dream, which was to advertise himself by some action so dramatic that all the members of the Eccentric Club would be constrained to vote him in, by unanimous acclamation, as their president. Unfortunately, he was not alone in being gripped by that ambition and, in spite of all his efforts, whenever the annual elections were held, he saw a fellow member elevated above him to the chair that he coveted so ardently. And then, all of a sudden, when he was beginning to despair, he came across Fedor Sharp, with his vertiginous project of a lunar voyage. He surely had his presidency now! What member of the Eccentric Club would be able to rival him on his return from an excursion of 96,000 leagues through space?
We have now said enough for the reader to understand how the worthy American had deceived himself, until the last moment, with regard to the true sentiments of the former permanent secretary of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. If he had been a different man—if he had kept his eyes open and his ears pricked—he would have glimpsed certain enigmatic smiles and ambiguous phrases that would have awakened his suspicions.
Throughout the time spent on Malpelo Island putting the plans stolen from Mikhail Ossipoff into effect, Fedor Sharp had had frequent conferences with his two assistants, Votiguin and Ladislas Rotterdack. What were they saying? It would have been rather difficult to find out, Sharp having taken the precaution of setting up his tent in an isolated and very exposed spot, so that no indiscreet person would be able to prowl around in the vicinity. But if Farenheit had had ears keen enough to hear what these three men were whispering in low voices, he would have been obliged greatly to revise his opinion of the ex-permanent secretary of the Academy of Sciences.
Sharp, in fact, was not at all concerned with the American, now that, thanks to him and the dollars of the society of which Farenheit was president, he had been able to put Mikhail Ossipoff’s great project into execution—a project from which he expected to obtain honor and profit. Yes, profit—for if Fedor Sharp loved science, he loved wealth no less, and his lunar excursion, while permitting him to cover himself with glory, would also permit him to fill his pockets. Moreover, what he plotted so secretly with his two acolytes was also directed to the purpose of ridding himself of the inconvenient encumbrance of Jonathan Farenheit.
Finally, the day of departure arrived. Sharp gathered all the personnel around him and, in a voice that he strove to render emotional, made the following speech: “My dear friends—ah, yes, permit me to give that title to all of you, engineers, overseers, workmen, who have assisted me with so much courage and effort to bring my audacious projects to fruition—my dear friends, thanks to you, we have now arrived at the decisive moment, ready to profit from the most favorable instant to launch ourselves toward the Moon. Permit me, before the emotional moment of the departure, to thank you…”
At this point, Jonathan Farenheit cut in. “And me,” he said, in a vibrant tone, “I thank you too, in the name of the Lunar Mining Company, and in the name of the American government, which takes pride in the audacious attempt by one of its members…” He interrupted himself and turned round; voices whispering behind him had attracted his attention. It was Sharp and his friends, exchanging a few words.
“That’s understood?” asked the Russian, in conclusion.
“Agreed,” replied the others.
The ex-secretary of the Academy of Sciences came forward then, and called for silence with a gesture of his hand.
“At 8:35 p.m.,” he said, “the charges of selenite will be ignited, and the projectile in which in which the honorable gentleman Jonathan Farenheit, my friend Voriguin and I will take our places, will take flight for the planetary regions. I therefore request that you re-embark without delay and set out to sea to avoid the terrible shock that the abrupt deflagration of the selenite will cause.” He stopped talking.
A formidable cheer escaped the throats of all the workmen; then they filed in front of the voyagers and shook them by the hand. Afterwards, the embarkation process began. The process threatened to last a long time, for the ship had been obliged to anchor some way out to sea for fear of the subsurface rocks that surrounded the island; they had to transport the men to the vessel by means of two rowing-boats.
“But how will the selenite be ignited?” Farenheit suddenly asked.
“My excellent friend Ladislas Rotterdack,” Fedor Sharp replied, tranquilly, “will be responsible for starting, at the appropriate moment, the clockwork mechanism that regulates the electric current thanks to which, at a precise second, the cannon’s charges will ignite.” He turned to Rotterdack and, taking out his chronometer, said: “What time do you have, my friend?”
The other consulted his watch. “7:15 p.m.,” he said.
“You’re 37 seconds fast, my dear friend,” said Sharp, in a perfectly natural tone. “Synchronize your watch with mine, for it’s important not to advance the moment of departure by a second.” As he spoke, an imperceptible smile played upon his lips. “There,” he said. “We have to remain here for a further one hour, 20 minutes and 47 seconds. If you wish, my dear Voriguin, we can take advantage of that respite to carry out one last inspection of the shell’s equipment.”
Unsuspectingly, Jonathan Farenheit helped the two men to descend, with the aid of a skip, into the depths of the enormous engine; then he busied himself hurrying along the embarkation of the personnel.
Half an hour went by; about 50 workmen still remained on the shore, waiting to climb into the row-boats, when an immense column of fire suddenly sprang from the ground, shaking the island to its foundations, splitting the ground and upsetting the waves. Advancing the fixed departure-time by half an hour, Ladislas Rotterdack had just triggered the mine, launching Fedor Sharp and Voriguin into space by themselves.
The latter pair had successfully resisted the formidable recoil of the departure and the first days of the journey had been effected in the best possible conditions. It was only on the fourth day, on measuring the angular distance between the Earth and its satellite, that Sharp frowned and strangled an oath in his throat.
The shell’s velocity was slowing in an alarming fashion.
Very pale, Voriguin murmured: “As long as we get past the neutral point.”
The other nodded his head. “We’ll certainly get as far as that,” he muttered. “At least, I hope so…”
“Perhaps it’s because we left early,” Voriguin stammered, reproachfully.
“Imbecile!” replied Fedor Sharp. “Do you think I’d so anything so stupid? No, we left at the precise second—but to fool that idiot Farenheit, Ladilas and I had deliberately set our watches ba
ck half by an hour.”
“After all…” murmured Voriguin, in a resigned tone.
All night, the two men were up and about, checking the deceleration of the shell at hourly intervals. Then, Sharp suddenly uttered a cry of terror. The projectile was motionless at the boundary where the Earth’s zone of attraction was counterbalanced by the Moon’s.
“Destiny’s thunder!” he groaned. “We’ve stopped.” And he let himself fall on to the seat that ran around the vehicle, his features distraught, his eyes haggard, his teeth clenched and his fingernails tearing the upholstery petulantly.
“We’re doomed! Doomed!” Voriguin repeated, like some mournful echo. After a few seconds, he fixed his companion with a mad stare and added, in a hoarse voice: “We have no chance of being rescued from here, have we?”
Fedor Sharp replied, in a dejected tone: “We’re condemned to remain here eternally, fixed at this point…unless…”
“Unless…?” Voriguin repeated, with a glimmer of hope.
“Unless,” Sharp continued, “some foreign influence draws us backwards or forwards from this accursed line of attraction.”
“In that case,” the other stammered, “we’re irredeemably doomed.”
A week went by, then another week, and then an entire month without anything happening to modify the situation. From the first day, they had been obliged to lash all the furniture firmly to the floor because it was displaced by the slightest impulsion, the shell no longer having any up or down, by virtue of the complete suppression of gravity. They had to abstain from all excessively violent movements themselves, to avoid unpleasant shocks.
Voriguin, with nothing to do and completely demoralized, spent his time drinking, seeking in drunkenness to forget the terrible death that awaited him. As for Fedor Sharp, with his eye riveted to his telescope, he never ceased searching space in the absurd hope of perceiving some providential cause capable of drawing him out of his eternal immobility. Every day he went to the reservoir of air to calculate how much longer he and his companion still had to live—and more than once, having observed that the provision was rapidly running out, he had darted sharp glances in the direction of the hammock on which Voriguin was snoring peacefully, sleeping off his intoxication. A rictus twisted his thin lips, while his hand clenched in a gesture of strangulation. Voriguin’s death would have doubled the lifespan remaining to Fedor Sharp.
“Ah, that wretch Ossipoff!” the ex-permanent secretary of the Academy of Sciences cried one ay, after having scanned the sidereal desert for hours. “Who would have thought that his calculations were false, the propulsive force of his selenite insufficient and his steel fragile?” Striking his fist hard on the table on which lay the calculations he had gone over for the 100th time the day before, he added: “Ah, if not for his powder and his cannon…” The villain gave no thought to the fact that he had only taken possession of that powder and cannon by means of theft.
The following morning he was lying in his hammock, with his eyes closed but not asleep—since he had been imprisoned in the vehicle he had been unable to sleep—when he heard his companion get up.
As was his habit, Voriguin had gone to bed the previous evening half-drunk and Sharp had been obliged to tie him down, following the habit he had acquired when he saw him in that state and for fear of some violence. Astonished that he had been able to fee himself from his bonds, when he usually asked to be untied, the scientist had a presentiment that something abnormal was happening. He turned his head slightly and saw through his lowered eyelashes that Voriguin was, indeed, leaning over the edge of his hammock, examining him intently.
The other remained motionless for a moment; then a hideous smile spread his lips, while a wild gleam came into his eyes. “He’s asleep,” he murmured. “So much the better…it’ll be over quicker.” One after the other, he put his legs out of the hammock, placing his feet on the floor. A slight creak made him shiver and he resumed his immobility, his eyes still fixed on Sharp.
The latter continued to simulate sleep.
Reassured, Voriguin took a few steps across the room, but in a direction opposite to that in which the Russian was located, heading for the only item of furniture, which served simultaneously as a bookcase and a storage-unit for instruments and tools. He bent over, searched silently in a cabinet, straightened up and turned round, then marched straight toward Sharp’s hammock.
By the light of the lamp that he left on all night to serve as a night-light, Sharp saw a glint of steel in his companion’s hand, and a convulsive shudder shook his limbs. The idea that he had had several times, of killing his companion, Voriguin was about to put into execution; he was armed with an enormous ice-pick and intended to stab him in the chest with one well-directed blow.
Sharp sat up abruptly and said, in a terrible voice: “What do you want?”
Surprised to find the man that he had intended to kill in his sleep, without a struggle, was awake, the other took a step back. Then, with a savage snigger, he replied: “What do I want? That’s a joke! I want to kill you, of course!”
“What have I done?” asked Sharp.
“You brought me here.”
“Is it my fault if that accursed Ossipoff’s plans weren’t accurate?”
Voriguin shrugged his shoulders. “When one steals,” he growled, “one steals intelligently.”
“But I’m just as badly off as you are.”
“What do I care? It’s not to avenge myself, but to live that I’m getting rid of you…the air that you breathe you steal from me.” And he came forward, recklessly.
Fedor Sharp had quit his bed and, seizing a stool, had assumed a defensive pose, determined to fight to the last. Immobile, the two adversaries silently looked one another up and down. “To live!” Fedor Sharp finally exclaimed, in a pitying voice. “By how many days, then, do you hope that my death might prolong your life?”
“By as many days as you would live yourself.”
“It would advance, rather than delay, your death by several weeks!”
Voriguin laughed. “It would advance your own so much that you’re ready to defend your skin. When one has principles, one applies them…since you claim that it doesn’t matter whether one dies a few days sooner or later, let yourself be killed without resistance.”
This reasoning was logical, and Sharp remained silent for a few moments, with his head bowed, not knowing what to say in response.
“Come on,” said the other, in a dull voice. “Let’s get on with it. I’ve already told you that we’re one too many. You’re the oldest—give way to me voluntarily. If not…” He came forward, his arm raised.
The Russian went very pale. “Listen,” he said, finally. “Give me till the end of the day.”
Voriguin shrugged his shoulders. “What good would that do?” he said. “You’ll use up a few more cubic meters of air needlessly…better to finish it now.”
Suddenly, an idea occurred to Sharp. “Perhaps,” he murmured, “we really might be able to save ourselves.”
An expression of incredulity appeared on Voriguin’s face. “Go on, then,” he said. “What makes you think that?”
“My calculations and my observations.”
“Your observations?” Voriguin sniggered. “What observations?”
“The ones I made last night. I seemed to perceive a celestial body, with the aid of my telescope, a few 1000 leagues away, that might well be capable of modifying our situation.”
“You’re lying. You’d have woken me up to tell me news like that.”
“You were so drunk that it wasn’t worth the trouble to try.”
Voriguin’s lips pursed with profound thought; he was wondering how much credence to lend his companion’s words. It seemed very improbable to him—but if it were true…
He watched Fedor Sharp from the corner of his eye, trying to read his thoughts in his face.
Sharp remained impassive, however, looking at his companion from beneath his spectacles, gladly noticing
traces of the indecision in which the other was languishing. If Voriguin believed his lie—for he had just lied brazenly, since he had spent the night in his hammock—he would want to see it for himself and he would go up to the makeshift observatory built into the top of the shell. However little time he stayed there, it would be enough to permit Sharp to take an excellent pair of revolvers from the cupboard drawer, which would put him in the position of having all the advantages on his side, if violent conflict became inevitable.
Unfortunately, Voriguin seemed to read the wretch’s thought. After remaining motionless and silent for a few moments, he shook his head in a fashion that clearly meant: “Furthermore, what am I risking?” Then he went straight to the drawer, took the revolvers, calmly put them in his pockets, and headed for the ladder that led to the upper floor.
Fedor Sharp’s chagrin was so violent that he could not hide it; a livid pallor overwhelmed his features. Seeing that, his assistant burst out laughing. “Hey!” he said, in a jeering tone. “So you wanted to blow someone’s brains out, did you, old man? Fortunately, someone still has his head screwed on.” Then, laughing in Sharp’s face again, he slowly went up the steps.
The Russian sensed that he was doomed. In a few moments, Voriguin would come back down, furious at having been tricked, and would lodge a bullet in his chest. The strength ebbed out of him then, and he remained inert, waiting for the mortal blow.
Suddenly, there was a loud exclamation overhead: a cry of joy and triumph. Almost immediately, the door of the little observatory opened noisily, giving passage to Voriguin, who hurtled down the steps and came to throw himself into Fedor Sharp’s arms.
“What’s the matter?” cried the latter, straightening up again. “Are you mad?”
The Extraordinary Adventures of a Russian Scientist Across the Solar System (Vol. 1) Page 26
