While Fricoulet and Gontran were chatting, leaning against the side of the boat and breathing in the sea air appreciatively, Mikhail Ossipoff and the Venusian were making every effort to reach a mutual understanding. First of all, the indigene had spread out a map in front of him, drawn in red lines on a square of yellowish cloth, and the old scientist had not been long delayed in identifying the markings perceived telescopically by the astronomer Bianchini among those that this sketchy representation of the Venusian world-map set before his eyes. He could not retain a sudden joyful exclamation, and put his finger on certain bizarre characters traced on the map. “Vellina!” he said, examining the Venusian’s face curiously.
The latter appeared surprised at first and stared at his interlocutor. Then, clapping his hands, he repeated: “Vellina!”
Ossipoff called his companions. “Hurrah!” he said. “I’ve found the key to their language.”
The two young men could not believe their ears. “You can understand him, then,” said Gontran. “You can talk to him. Have you asked about Selena?”
The old man shook his head. “You’re going a little too quickly, my dear boy,” he replied. “I’ve just discovered a very important fact—that the writing of these people is made up of hieroglyphs, exactly like that of the Egyptians. Fortunately, my love of languages has made me a disciple of Champollion—that’s why I was immediately able to read what was written on their map.”111
A profound disappointment was painted on Flammermont’s features.
“But don’t worry,” added the old man. “I already have two precious elements: I can read their language, and their language has many analogies with ancient Greek. That’s more than I need in order to be able, with a little persistence, to reach an understanding with them within a few days.”
The Sun had already set five times while our voyagers had been sailing the Venusian Ocean—seeing no other horizon but a completely liquid one, immense and deserted—when, as Gontran and Fricoulet were idling sadly on deck one afternoon, Ossipoff came towards them excitedly. From his radiant expression they deduced that he had important news to tell them and they went to meet him.
“I have news,” he called to them from a distance. When he had joined them he added: “I’ve succeeded in making myself understood to Brahmes.”
“Who’s Brahmes?”
“The captain of this boat.”
“What about Selena?” asked Gontran, anxiously.
The old man shook his head sadly. “On that subject, unfortunately,” he said, “I haven’t been able to learn anything—but we shouldn’t despair. From what I understand, Brahmes is coming back from a long voyage, and an event like the one that I attempted to explain to him could easily have occurred without his being aware of it.”
“But what are we waiting for?” cried Gontran, seething with impatience. “With all these delays, we’re losing time.”
“Calm down, my boy, and let me finish. This boat’s final destination is Tahorti, an important city in which we’ll doubtless obtain news.”
“When will we arrive there?”
“In five days, if the weather’s good—but we have to stop in Vellina first.” He unfolded the map and showed the young men a point marked in the middle of the ocean.
“Vellina! Is that a city?” demanded Fricoulet.
“A city on an island, if so,” said Gontran. “But I don’t see any sign of dry land.”
“Perhaps it’s a submarine city,” said Fricoulet, in jest.
Ossipoff looked at him furiously.
“Come on,” said the engineer. “In a world where submarine navigation is so highly developed…” He broke off on seeing a Venusian coming rapidly towards them; he addressed a few words to Ossipoff, who seemed astonished.
“Brahmes want us to go down to the cabin, because the boat is going to dive.”
“What! Dive?” cried Flammermont, looking around in surprise. “But there’s no hint of bad weather. The sea’s like oil and the sky’s superb.”
The Venusian evidently guessed what the young man had said, for he laconically pronounced: “Vellina!”
“Of course!” Fricoulet exclaimed, in his turn. “You’ll see that I was right just now—Vellina is a submarine city!”
Ossipoff shrugged his shoulders, and all three of them went down the few steps leading to the room in which they had initially found themselves, after their shipwreck. Then, in response to a command from Brahmes, the sail was folded away, the mast was retracted into its tube, the panels were sealed and the Terrans heard the water rushing into the reservoirs.
“We’re going down,” said Gontran.
The boat was, indeed, immersed, and fell like a dead weight to the bottom of the sea.
“But we’re not going forward,” the engineer said, in his turn.
“How do you know that?” asked Ossipoff, sharply.
“Simply by virtue of the fact that the human engine isn’t functioning,” replied the engineer, pointing to the cage located at the rear, from which mo sound was escaping. As he finished the sentence, though, the wheel that set the flat-bladed propeller in motion began to grate. “I spoke too soon,” Fricoulet said. “We’re on the move.”
Intrigued, the three voyagers awaited the outcome of this adventure in silence. Fricoulet had his watch in is hand, keeping track of the minutes.
A quarter of an hour passed; then they felt a shock, and the propeller stopped.
“We’ve just touched bottom,” Gotran declared.
Brahmes came in at that moment and beckoned Ossipoff to follow him. All four of them went up on to the deck, already relieved of its metal cover, and the Terrans could not retain an exclamation of surprise at the sight of he spectacle offered to their eyes. The boast on which they were traveling had run aground on a beach of fine sand covered by a few scant centimeters of water, on which a quantity of other boats similar to theirs in all respects were moored. On raising their heads, they saw, 20 meters above them, the vault of a natural crypt formed amid the rocks, and flaming red wax torches everywhere, similar to those that illuminated Brahmes’ boat but thicker, flooding the surroundings with fiery light.
A numerous and busy crowd was moving around the boats, unloading those that had just arrived and stowing numerous packages aboard those that were ready to depart. Ossipoff and his friends were, however, amazed and almost horrified to see strange and hideous beings mingling with the Venusians, from whom they were entirely different. Their structure was very nearly human, but smaller; they went completely nude, their bodies being covered by thick glossy fur like that of seals. Their short legs terminated in large, flat webbed feet, like ducks’ feet. Long, thin arms emanated from the top of the torso, terminating in hands that were also webbed. The rounded head, as hairy as the rest of the body, rested directly on the shoulders. Two glaucous eyes devoid of the light of intelligence opened in a bestial face divided horizontally by a large mouth garnished with sharp teeth. On each side of the head, in the place where the ears should have been, a mobile membrane similar to the gill of a fish opened partially at frequent intervals.
“Axolotls,” said Fricoulet, after scrupulously studying several of the monsters that were talking to Brahmes.
The latter listened to them with increasing surprise; finally, he turned to Ossipoff and said a few rapid words to him. The old man immediately became anxious. Addressing his companions. He said: “They’ve just told Brahmes that an individual similar in all respects to us has been picked up by a boat and brought here.”
“Sharp!” cried Gontran, all a-tremble. “It’s Sharp!”
“Unless it’s Farenheit,” Fricoulet put in.
“Oh, don’t delay Monsieur Ossipoff, I beg you,” Flammermont continued, seizing the old man by the arm. “Let’s run…”
Brahmes obligingly offered to accompany the old scientist in his search. Taking as a guide one of the strange beings who had brought him the news, he left his companions to supervise the unloading of the boat by t
hemselves.
While they walked, he gave Ossipoff an explanation of the inhabitants of this strange submarine land, which the latter transmitted to his friends. Although they were inferior in nature and intelligence to the other peoples of Venus, no one was reluctant to trade with them, for their soil contained mineral riches of every sort. Their strange conformation permitted them to live and breathe in the water by means of gills like those of fish, but they could also live on the planetary surface and Brahmes told the Terrans that some peoples even recruited their slaves from the aquatic tribes. Their houses resembled immense beehives in their form; like the latter, they were pierced in their underside by a hole that allowed their inhabitants to go in and out.
“They doubtless operate like Earthly water-spiders,” Fricoulet explained to the astonished Gontran. “They allow themselves to drift up to the surface of the sea but their own lightness; there they take their provision of air and swim back down to their habitations.”
“But one thing I don’t quite understand,” said Gontran, “or, rather, don’t understand at all, is the complete absence of water in this part of the ocean.”
“It’s simply because the fissures in the rock are filled with air that the water can’t get in there,” the engineer replied.
The axolotl had stopped in front of a dwelling into which it crawled. Soon, the Terrans heard the noise of some sort of struggle in the interior, accompanied by forceful oaths, and a voice cried in English: “By God! Can’t one rest in peace is this accursed land?”
“Farenheit!” cried Mikhail Ossipoff. “Jonathan Farenheit!”
He had not finished the last word when the American came out of the narrow opening on all fours, leapt to his feet and hurled himself towards his traveling comparisons with his arms outspread. “You! You!” he cried, in a voice into which sincere emotion put a tremor. “By God! I never expected to see you again! By God!” And the worthy Yankee, in spite of unimaginable efforts to hide his distress, had tears brimming in his eyes. Gontran noticed that but, being aware of the American’s principles with regard to self-possession, was afraid offending him; he said nothing and contented himself with shaking his hand energetically.
After they had told one another, briefly, how they had been saved, Ossipoff asked: “Have you heard any mention of Sharp?”
The American shrugged his shoulders furiously. “I might well have heard mention of him,” he complained, “without being any the wiser—these animals speak neither English not French, and as my parents completely forgot to teach me the local patois…”
When they returned to the boat, it had taken on its cargo and was only waiting for its passengers to depart. Brhahmes offered to delay his departure for 24 hours in order to permit Ossipoff’s party to take stock with their own eyes of the mineral wealth of the submarine land, but they were all too anxious to find out what had become of Sharp to delay the moment of their arrival in Tahorti, even for five minutes.
Unfortunately, that city—the very same, according to Brahmes, in which the optical telephone post that put Venus in communication with the Moon was located—was on the far side of the Equatorial Ocean, nearly 800 leagues from Vellina. Fricoulet, who estimated that the submarine boat could not travel faster than four leagues an hour, calculated that the voyage would take at least eight days.
Ossipoff took advantage of this interval by holding long conversations with Brahmes about the planet and its civilization. He acquired the conviction that, in general, the Venusian race was much less knowledgeable and inferior in all but a few respects to the Earthly human race.
“These people, you see,” the scientist said, to summarize his impressions, “can be compared to the earliest civilizations on Earth: the Chaldeans, the Egyptians and the Greeks.” In certain matters, they were more advanced, but in general, their sciences were only at their outset. The only motive force they knew was that of humans and animals, although hey also made use of wind and water, the natural forces they had at their disposal. Although electricity and its forces were known to them, they had no knowledge of steam-power, balloons and a great number of other applications of science. In astronomy, though, they had succeeded in making an accurate calculation of their situation in the universe; they knew that the Sun was the center of the Celestial System and they knew of the existence of the Earth, Mercury, Mars and Jupiter.
Finally, after nine days of navigation, the boat carrying our voyagers came within sight of Tahorti. In a few more hours, they would know whether they had crossed the 12,000,000 leagues separating Venus from the Moon in vain.
Chapter XXV
Venusian Excursions
As one can imagine, those few hours seemed as long as centuries to the Terrans. Fricoulet tried in vain to extract them from the muteness into which each of them had enclosed himself; they would reply in monosyllables and then silence would reign between the voyagers again. Sometimes, they did not even reply at all, contenting themselves with simple nods of the head or shrugs of the shoulders.
Ossipoff, installed in the bow of the boat, had balanced his telescope on the rail, and his eye remained glued to its ocular lens, searching the horizon for the first indication of the coast on which they were about to land. Gontran, immobile in a corner, bleakly considered the progress—to slow in his view—of the hands of the watch he held in his hand. As for Farenheit, to cover up his impatience, he marched back and forth along the vessel’s deck with long strides, like a bear prowling around its cage.
Finally, Ossipoff spotted a low coastline barring the horizon with a long blue line, which rapidly became more apparent, eventually rounding out into a profound gulf full of boats similar to the one that was carrying them.
Less than an hour afterwards they disembarked and headed, under Brahmes’ guidance, towards the city where, before anything else, they were to be introduced to the king.
After a few steps taken in silence, Gontran—who was marching in front of his companions—suddenly stopped, arising his arms in a gesture of amazement. “A mushroom-field!” he cried.
“My word, it’s true!” said the engineer, in his turn—and, with a gesture calling Brahmes to him, he pointed with his hand to request an explanation of the singular panorama extending before them.
On the side of a low hill whose foot bathed in the Central Ocean, an agglomeration of bizarre and uniform constructions was laid out, disposed with geometric regularity in long avenues departing from the summit to extend all the way to the sea, like the vanes of an enormous fan. These avenues were bordered to the right and left by dwellings whose umbelliform roofs overlapped one another like the scales of fish, or as Roman soldiers once disposed their shields—testudo fashion, as historians put it—to mount an assault and protect themselves from the missiles that beleaguered forces might rain down on them from above.
It was in Fricoulet’s mind that the sight of the singular city awoke this memory of antiquity. “Your comparison is very just,” Flammermont retorted, “but, given that we’re dealing with a human intelligence, you must admit that there has to be some reason for this mode of construction.”
“It resembles an army of umbrellas, don’t you think?” said Farenheit.
“Mr. Farenheit might perhaps have provided the explanation we’re looking for, without realizing it,” said the engineer.
The American straightened up and an expression of offended dignity crossed his face. “What!” he said. “Without realizing it? By God, by virtue of your saying that, I understand perfectly well that these people could not have built their city any other way, and I’d wager $100 to a red cent that all the cities of the Venusian world must resemble it.”
“Bah!” said Gontran, with a mocking smile. “And what reasons furnish you with support for that thesis?”
“The reasons that the honorable Monsieur Ossipoff himself has furnished.”
The old scientist, very surprised to be dragged into the argument, directed an interrogatory gaze at the American.
“By God!�
� groaned Farenheit. “Was I dreaming a few days ago when, talking about the special climatology of this planet, you gave us details of the deluges of water that must result from the thickness of the clouds floating in its atmosphere? Anyway, we’ve experienced a rather convincing specimen ourselves, I think…”
“So you think that’s the cause to which it’s necessary to attribute this.” The engineer said.
Ossipoff had turned to Brahmes and was listening intently to what the Venusian was telling him. “Mr. Farenheit is right,” he said, after a few seconds. “All these roofs that you see are formed from bronze plates adapted to one another in such a way as to form an enormous carapace over which the torrents of water that fall from the sky at certain times of year flow without any infiltration. Thanks to the disposition of the city, these torrents empty into the Central Ocean without having done any damage.
“But the streets must be washed away,” objected Gontran.
“The streets, it appears, are paved with bronze.”
While they were talking, the little company had reached the first houses of the city. There they found another cause for astonishment. Their guide took them into one of the dwellings. Fricoulet, notebook in hand, made sketches accompanied by rapid notes. When Farhenheit has mentioned umbrellas he certainly had not known how accurate he was; these houses were, in fact, nothing more than enormous metallic umbrellas backed up against one another. The shaft of the instrument was provided by an enormous bronze pillar rising from the floor to the roof, supporting the three floors comprising the dwelling. The walls were formed of reservoirs filled with water, 20 centimeters in breadth. The roof itself, convex externally but flat internally, was also transformed into a vast basin. By its constant evaporation, this water protected the inhabitants against the heat of the Sun.
The Extraordinary Adventures of a Russian Scientist Across the Solar System (Vol. 1) Page 48
