The Humanisphere

by Brian Stableford

  In spite of the interest of these observations of the lunar soil, after having examined its general surface, our minds, accustomed to a scrupulous search for the truth, became weary of struggling against the impossibility of scientific proofs. In fact, for all of the geological fraction, chemistry would have been constantly necessary.

  That is why we were impatient to find organized beings again, lunarians susceptible of indicating the nature of inert substances by the employment they assigned to them, and capable of being analyzed with certainty, given that life retraces its instincts and characteristics in its movements. We have therefore, undertaken in more detail that analysis accessible to the eyes, driven by our system of sacrifices to the search for the truth.

  However, that branch of our discoveries, the most fecund in certainties and irrevocable arguments, is, it seems to us, the most surprising; but that astonishment disappears under the sagacity of a reflection made by my savant collaborator, Mr. Drummond. I ask permission to expose it before going any further.

  “Sir,” I said to him, almost doubting my reason, “this is more fanciful than the islands of Thomas More; will London dare to believe it?”

  “Doctor,” he replied, “the scientists who have spoken about the Moon have imagined glaciers there and have refused it an atmosphere; now, glaciers cannot exist in a void, but they have been believed without hesitation. If we had seen an entire vegetable kingdom without a single animal, the vulgar would have accepted it, and yet a similar organism, if it could exist, would be the most improbable absurdity. We have observed singular things, but which do not contradict the laws of providential harmony; the eye of science will not be deceived thereby. Outside of that, what does it matter to us if his weakness transforms the man in the street into a skeptic?”

  We shared his generous warmth, which, however, I calmed with a word from the great Bacon, a word too commonly employed for there to be any need for it to be cited;5 and it was then that we resolved to show the Selenians as they are, in all their aspects.

  One trait that I have not yet had occasion to mention with regard to Selenians, which I shall consign immediately, is their notion of musical harmony. That observation is of great interest and it is consoling to think that the glories of the author of worlds are suing everywhere.

  We have reason to believe that their melody is very primitive and little different from that of negroes. The beauty of the latter is measured in accordance with the violence of the noise. The effort of the lungs that the attitude and the faces of the Selenians rendered sensible enabled us to presume that. As for the measure, it is not appreciable, to judge by the irregular bounds of dancers excited by the orchestra which is composed, in addition to voices, by two instruments, each formed of eleven tubes terminating in a drum or reservoir open at the summit. Eleven instrumentalists applied to the mouths of the tubes appeared to us to be blowing into them vehemently.

  Fifth Fragment: NUPTIAL CEREMONIES

  The rocky surface of Cleomenes offers little of interest; we have let it go by and have attained Longrenus, which almost touches the longitudinal libration. An expanse of water had entered our field of view, when the landscape was suddenly tarnished by a gray shadow, the cause of which has remained unknown. Soon, vision recovered its clarity. The water previously uncovered had become a thread intersecting the field of view at right angles, and beyond that long narrow lake, whose waves appeared black, a wooded country, cultivated and facile, gave us reason to hope for a further encounter with animate beings.

  Our expectation was not disappointed; an extraordinary movement was manifest at the issue from a somber forest, and we distinctly saw emerging from the wood an entire boscage, which traveled through the atmosphere, glided over the lake, went over a hill and came to rest on a high conical mountain truncated at the summit. Only then was I able to comprehend that displacement and to divine the motors of that vegetable caravan.

  Those branches, taken from the nearby forest, hid the gray wings of an army of Vespertilio domestics, who were transporting shade to the hill with an objective that we had been a long time in suspecting. They planted their branches in a circle around the superior platform with a facility that surprised us all the more because the ground appeared to be formed by a monolithic siliceous crust. The height of the bushes inspired us with a high idea of the strength of the wings of those anthropornithians, in spite of their subservience to the Selenians.

  That work concluded, the valets of the superior inhabitants of the planet extended their flight in the direction of another mountain terminated by a white cylindrical mass, around which were arranged four brown cones. The Vespertilios lined up at the base of these habitations, while one of them began flying to the summit of that kind of castrum, and, suddenly furling his wings, allowed himself to fall vertically on to the summit of an open roof and disappeared. That simple and unornamented construction was, however, beautifully proportioned; its symmetry was perfect. The Vespertilio stayed there for some time, during which Mr. Drummond pointed out to me at two-thirds of the height of the cylinder, or tower, an elliptical frame, in the middle of which we saw the contours of a symbolic design somewhat analogous to certain Indian figures. We had seen the sign before on two huts, and worn by the chief of the Verpertilios. We finally dared to articulate, in a timid voice, the word “coat-of-arms.”

  The invention of that usage in the lunar world astonished us less than one might think, if one did not know that such signs are encountered in all terrestrial peoples, in very different epochs, and that everywhere that the vanity of mortals has separated castes, it has created ornaments to announce conventional grandeur to all eyes. Egypt has known armories; the peoples of India have possessed special characters of the same genre, and the companions of Captain A. del Rio have seen neatly-carved escutcheons under the debris of Mitla.6

  I was, therefore, unsurprising to see that institution in vogue among the Selenians, not for distinguishing the Vespertilios—nature has posed sufficiently sharp distinctions between them—but to mark divisions between beings of the same species corresponding to the hierarchies whose existence we had observed.

  We have said that the organization of those singular peoples seemed to us to be a patriarchy degenerated into feudalism—which is to say that individual pride was beginning to break up the family; it is therefore no longer necessary to be surprised that that sentiment had created a form, that of sentiment itself, and to recognize the universality of the divine word. Did not King Solomon exclaim: All is vanity under the sun?—and it is the Sun that illuminates the Lunarians.7

  However, all this rests on a series of observations whose sum is not equivalent to a geometrical proof; I offer them for what they are; in due course, other facts will provide them with further support.

  The first sentiment that ought to ensue from this discovery is that of humility: perhaps everything has not been created for humankind. The second is a hymn of admiration in honor of the creator of several worlds so varied. God is great in is works, and the heavens, seen at close range, give us a very imposing lesson.

  Let us return to our observations, too long interrupted.

  One of the Vespertilios had penetrated into the habitation while the others were perhaps awaiting new orders. He emerged again after a quarter of an hour, holding something of which it would be as difficult to describe the utility as the form, and of which only a drawing could reproduce the contours. He put that unknown object to his mouth, and the air was suddenly populated by a multitude of Lunarians coming toward him from all directions.

  The winged domestics lined up to either side of the troop, and the ensemble went to alight on the mountain artificially shaded by the Vespertilios, who arranged themselves in a circle at the base of the cone. They remained at rest momentarily, after which several Selenian males descended over the lake in single file, at rather long intervals.

  In that blue-black streak an isolated rocky islet rose up, as transparent as crystal and somewhat pointed. At the summ
it of the reef a Selenian female was posed, easy to recognize by the length of her wings, their colors, and by her costume. She was motionless, her wings folded against her body like two bucklers—except that she turned her mat white head from time to time.

  The Selenian male who arrived above her began circling, drawing closer, thus tracing in his flight a cylindrical helix from top to bottom, as far as the level of the rock. Having arrived there, his plumes described the basal circle three times in the air, while his head was directed toward the female, who remained still, and he drew away, swimming.

  After him came another Selenian male, and then a third; then forty male Selenians succeeded one another, so rapidly that their combination seemed to form a living tower around the female Selenian’s head. That crowd thinned out; the fluttering relented, and we were able to observe that the beings who formed it, after throwing themselves into the water, did not turn to look back at the motionless female, and did not come back. Other Selenians were still fluttering around the latter; there was one of them who stayed in the air longer than the others, and suddenly descended in front of the rock. The Selenian female extended her wings and flapped them several times.

  Immediately, the whole troop disappeared.

  Left alone, those two individual flew back to the mountain. We thought that the Selenian female had just chosen a spouse.

  That solemn election proved to us the liberty of the Selenian female; a liberty in which she shares all the advantages of the male, as we have observed in fishing, in hunting and elsewhere. In the battle against the Vespertilios, the Lunarian females shared the hazards of war.

  We have found, I believe, the reason for the casual attitude of the Lunarians with regard to their females, in observing that the latter are as strong as them. It appears, in addition, that the mentality of the males is not yet sufficiently developed to lead them to repudiate the assistance and labor of the females and reduce them to inaction.

  As for the solemnity deployed in the choice of a lover, the Selenian women surprised us, for we knew already, after numerous inspections, that fidelity is not a virtue of the Lunarian females, that they do not enchain themselves eternally, and search for mates rather than husbands.

  We have concluded from that the custom in question that nature has more authority than morality in their legislation, which is a poor argument in favor of their civilization.

  However, with regard to that reprehensible independence, I have seen so much decency, a mixture of simplicity and mystery so praiseworthy—if one remembers that they do not link themselves together for life—that I have found it difficult to reach a conclusion.

  Our Selenian couple had found the mountain deserted. Alighted on the summit, facing the sky and us, they were about to consummate the act of reproduction.

  “Oh!” exclaimed my collaborator, Andrew Grant, “those are individuals who have sought solitude, and who do not suspect that from one world to the other...”

  That reflection inspired us with a kind of shame for partaking of such a sight; but the duty of a scientist cannot be intimidated by such thoughts. At least we agreed, for the sake of decency, that I would be the only witness, and that observations of that sort would only be made by one person at a time.

  The union of lunar beings only offered me two curious observations, which are only of interest to physiologists, to which we shall transmit them.

  1. Nec istis sicut feminis vulva supposita; sed altius et propter umbilicum. Stant in copulando Lunarii; brevis conjunctio et duplex; namque ab ore simul et genetricibus membris amplectuntur, ut duobus modis aligerum et terrestrium donati, duobus ideo fruantur in copulate.

  2. Lunariam inter et Vespertilionem horrescit natura coitum; huic namque repugnans intemperantia virgae.

  After a few moments, our lovers leaned over the edge of the hill. Immediately, all the branches with which the Vespertilios had dressed it were taken up and heaped at the summit on the nuptial bed of the two spouses. Vespertilios penetrated into the circle and set fire to the branches, which burned with promptitude. When the smoke appeared we saw Selenians arriving in a host from all around the mountain and lining up there.

  As soon as everything was burned, the crowd precipitated into the theater of that singular marriage; they fluttered for a long time at ground level over the warm ashes, as if to respire some amorous trace that had escaped the flame. After which Selenians of each sex sought one another, selected one another and formed couples that took flight in all directions, lavishing caresses more tender than chaste in mid-air.

  Long before their return, however, the two lovers who were the objects of the ceremony—we conjectured that such details only took place in connection with the marriage of Selenian virgins—had quit the “hymeneal mountain,” as we agreed unanimously to call it, and directed their swift and precipitate flight above uninhabited crests, beyond which they left our field of view, the narrow perimeter of which rendered them the mystery that they seemed to be pursuing with so much anxiety.

  Sixth Fragment: HABITATIONS

  The majority of the summits were crowned by constructions, conical in form, which seemed at first glance to be part of the mountain itself, to the extent that, on seeing the Selenians introduce themselves into the interior of those masses through rather narrow openings, we assumed at first that the interior cavities into which we saw them penetrate and remain in large numbers must have been hollowed out in the mountains, like the subterranean galleries that one encounters in the mountains of Upper Egypt and in those of the countries of India. In brief, we were persuaded that the Selenians were completely ignorant of the art of building and had thus been reduced to enlarging natural grottos, or carving out artificial ones, for their habitations.

  We did not take long to be completely undeceived on that subject, however, and we remained penetrated by admiration for the art of the Selenians and the resources of their intelligence, when we had had the opportunity to observe the immense and magnificent constructions that they had built in certain regions of the globe they inhabit. But let us not anticipate the progress of our discoveries.

  The Vespertilios, we had noticed, also came to alight on the immense conical towers inhabited by the Selenians, although they penetrated into them by different opening, usually placed in the lower part of the edifice. It required several weeks, though, before we had sufficiently complete observations on the relationship between the two races for it to be possible for us to form a precise opinion on the relative importance that we ought to assign to each of the thousand details of their social life. However, as we have established previously, it was easy for us to observe that the Vespertilios lived in a kind of servitude, in an incontestable dependency of the Selenians, for they lived in the interior part of the communal edifice, and every time they made a journey or undertook an action of any importance, they seemed to be obeying a signal from a Selenian, whom their leader sometimes approached in an attitude of submission, as if to receive his orders.

  If you have followed our description of the mountains of the Moon attentively you will recall that they are ordinarily terminated by a mound emerging in the middle of a crater whose rim has conserved very recognizable traces of their volcanic origin; on that crest, separated by a fairly deep natural ditch from the central hillock that dominates it, four lodgments are built, similar to cages, or sentry-boxes, to put it better, constructed with materials that appeared to us to be remarkably solid. Each of them is regularly pierced in its upper part by narrow circular openings. The opening at the summit is always vertical, while those that come after it incline successively toward all the parts of the sky; all are defended by long metallic spikes of a sort, very sharp and very close to one another, which, from our viewpoint, gave each of the sentry-boxes the appearance of a rolled-up porcupine.

  A sentry-box of the same form, but much smaller and much more solid in appearance, was placed at the top of all most all the edifices that we had seen thus far. The lower sentry-boxes were placed precisely in acc
ordance with the four cardinal points—which led us to observe that, in spite of their usually circular form, the edifices of the Moon are all perfectly orientated by the openings contrived for entry into them as well as their exterior decoration. Those four sentry-boxes are occupied by four Vespertilios who come out from time to time—capriciously, it appeared to us-in order to walk or fly around the surrounding area. Several times a day, at regular intervals, which we recognized to be two hours and forty-five minutes, on the signal of a Selenian, they are relieved by their comrades.

  On substituting lens Zz for lens Dz, of which we had made use to make the preceding observations, we saw distinctly that the individuals placed in the sentry-boxes had their eyes directed at the sky, which caused us to suppose that they were occupied in astronomical work. The perfect orientation of their monuments proved to us, moreover, that they were not complete strangers to the ancient science of the Chaldeans, which is today the object of our most interesting studies.

  We were further encouraged to admit that interpretation because the sentry-box remarked at the summit of the edifice was always inhabited by a Selenian, who, looking alternately toward the sky and the Vespertilios in the inferior sentry-boxes, seemed to be communicating with them by means of signs; thus, the latter, whose intellectual inferiority we had already recognized, must have been employed in simultaneously observing the facts on their own part, and keeping, each on his side, an exact note of them under the direction of the Selenian, while the later, then speculating on the combination of the five simultaneous observations would be able at leisure to coordinate scientifically the facts so methodically observed. But it was not possible for us, that night, to form an exact idea of the nature of their observations, and we redirected all our attention to the edifice we had before our eyes.