The Mammoth Book of New Jules Verne Adventures (24 page)

De la terre a la lune
was
not serialized in Hetzel’s
Magasin
(which was intended for younger
readers) but ran in the more literary
Journal des débats politiques et
littéraires,
during September and October 1865. Using today’s vernacular, it
was the world’s first ‘hard’ science-fiction story, meaning it was
ultra-technological, drawing heavily on known sciences and projecting their
development.

Perhaps it is no
surprise that the exploits of the Baltimore Gun Club inspired several
contributions to this book with stories based either on the original Moon
voyage, or as sequels to their other adventures, which feature later in this
book. It is perhaps also not too surprising that the authors made connections
with that other great pioneer of science fiction, H. G Wells. Here then are the
further adventures of the world’s first intrepid astronauts.

The whole world knows of
the voyage to the moon undertaken in 1865 by three adventurers: two Americans,
Impey Barbicane and myself, Captain Nicholl, as well as a daring Parisian,
Michel Ardan. The amazing project of sending a projectile to the moon was
Barbicane’s initiative. Ardan, that inspired hot-head, brought about our voyage
to the night-star by proposing to replace the initial spherical ball with a
cylindrical and conical projectile which would serve as a passenger
compartment. More surprisingly, he succeeded in reconciling me with Barbicane,
who had always been my enemy.

My own role is at last
revealed. It is to relate what truly happened exactly thirty-seven years ago,
during the six days of our inter-planetary journey. This tale will, no doubt,
remain apocryphal. I have taken care that it should not be known during my
lifetime, nor for several generations after me, if God wills it.

(Contrary to the usual
practice of scientific memoirs, I will refrain from weighing my story down with
calculations and technical notes. The reader should excuse any lack of style.
Unlike Monsieur Verne and Mr Wells, my forte is not that of literature, but
that of arms and armour-plating. Also, I will leave unsaid any episodes of the
tale which appear accurately in the original accounts.)

Before arriving at the
truth, it is necessary to return to the facts.

The events lavishly
described in Monsieur Verne’s
From the Earth to the Moon
and
Around
the Moon
are essentially true, as are the portraits of the protagonists.
Impey Barbicane is depicted as a forty-year-old man of average build, with
features as severe as his character. Endowed with an unshakeable yet frosty
calm, proud and enterprising, he presented the image of a Yankee cut from one
cloth. He was President of the Baltimore Gun Club, a society of artillery men
consumed by idleness (the war of secession was only just over, following Lee’s
surrender to Grant on 9th April 1865), and had the idea of launching a sphere
to the moon, sending out an international call for subscription which turned a
crazy idea into a reality.

As for myself, I regret
to say that Barbicane resembles me on all points. I think, however, that I have
a more thoughtful temperament, and perhaps, in an equal proportion, less
genius. Monsieur Verne’s story sensitively plays down the disputes we had with
each other, and which Michel Ardan sometimes had the greatest difficulty in
stopping. This Frenchman, American in character as he took a broad view of
things, had an exuberant nature and could only end tip by defying the experts.
His moustache bristled like an angry cat at the slightest word; on the other
hand, his mane of hair and his boldness resembled those of a lion. If Barbicane
and I were the two wheels of the celestial chariot, he was its axle.

On 1st December at 10.46
and 40 seconds p.m., a grey cannon, set into the side of Stone’s-Hill, Florida,
at 27° 7’ latitude north by 5° 7’ longitude west shot the aluminium shell which
housed us in the direction of the Moon.

Our vehicle measured
nine feet wide by twelve feet high. It was endowed with four lens-shaped
portholes six inches thick, and stocked with provisions for a year, water (and
brandy) for several months, and fuel for one hundred and fifty hours. A Reiset
& Regnaut machine would recycle the air for sixty days. Our quarters had
padded walls, as well as a chest containing tools and instruments. Once
launched at a speed of twelve thousand yards a second, the projectile should
travel approximately 86,500 miles before reaching the Moon at the apex of its
flight, four days after its departure.

I will not dwell upon
the various incidents that enlivened the voyage itself while we were
approaching the Moon’s pockmarked face: the initial shock that caused us to
lose consciousness for several minutes; the meteor that altered our trajectory
enough to make us miss our objective; the death of our canine companion
Satellite and his ejection from the shell, which he continued to accompany on
its course — literally now a satellite; the strange moment of drunkenness due
to an excessive influx of oxygen into the confined space the equally
intoxicating experience of weightlessness; the flight at low altitude across
the lunar landscape; the intense cold of the moon’s hidden face, followed by
intense heat; the second meteor that exploded in front of us, and which we
still believed to be the gift of fortune. Finally, Barbicane’s miraculous
discovery which enabled us to escape the circumlunary orbit destined to become
our tomb.

But these few trees hide
a veritable forest, for it was evidently not towards the Earth that Barbicane
pointed his rockets,
but towards our original objective.
What else could
be expected, indeed, of such an energetic, such a stubborn, character as
Barbicane!

We studied Beer and
Moedler’s
Mappa selenographica,
the best map available at that time, in
order to determine our landing-point. The shell flew over the lunar landscape
at an altitude of less than eighty miles, so that its major configurations were
visible in detail through the side windows. We admired the Sea of Clouds
bordered by volcanoes, then Mount Copernicus, so high that it can be seen from
Earth; then came a succession of ring-shaped mountains and palisades. Jagged
and angular coastlines marked out fictional continents, vast archipelagos,
oblong islands. There was no sign of vegetation or construction. The
configurations of the soil indicated nothing more than the work of geology,
with its stony avalanches, its mountains and its abysses, its runnels of cooled
lava and its volcanic deposits. All was dead.

I reported my
observations to my companions: “I can see nothing but mineral strata: no trace
of an atmosphere, which would make the horizon iridescent.”

Barbicane shook his long
beard in a gesture of annoyance. “The atmosphere could be hidden away at the
bottom of the cirques; some of them are over five thousand yards high.”

“All the same,” I
protested, “it would not be dense enough to breathe. Experiments have proved
that man cannot acclimatize himself to a pressure of less than half that of the
Earth’s atmosphere.”

“To be sure. But we will
not remain outside for long. It is time to prepare ourselves; I fear another
meteor, which would certainly carry us off.”

Barbicane and I covered
page upon page with ballistic calculations, determining the ideal moment to
ignite the twenty fire-pieces mounted in the rear of the projectile. Thanks to
the fact that the Moon’s mass was eight times less than that of the Earth and
its diameter four times less, the fall would be six times easier to soften.

We were aiming at a vast
crater in the western hemisphere. To my great shame, I must admit that I have
forgotten its name. Could this be one of those effects of the “unconscious”
speculated upon by Professor Freud, who is so much in fashion at present in the
bourgeois salons of New England? I know not.

Following our plan,
Barbicane removed the metal shutters in the rear, and replaced them with an
array of cannon, already charged with powerful explosives.

At 3.50, he put his
lighter to the common wick. His tone was solemn. “Gentlemen, the time has come
to find out whether there is a god of ballistics.”

A sharp thrust below
betrayed the ignition. The visible portion of the lunar disk began to grow, its
horizon to level out, as if the porthole had suddenly changed into a telescope.

“We’re going to
crash!”
I cried in spite of myself.

The shell vibrated
horribly, forcing us into immobility. I don’t know by what miracle Barbicane
managed to light the four forward-facing, braking rockets at the exact second
required. The god of ballistics inspired him, no doubt. An instant earlier, and
the manoeuvre would have had no effect. Three seconds later, and the lunar
surface would have pulverized us. A huge impact shock shot us up to the
ceiling, arms and legs all mixed together. Without the sprung leather padding,
my limbs would have been broken.

“Is everyone all right?”
I quavered weakly.

No light appeared
through the lateral portholes; the exterior was plunged into total darkness and
we had to light the gas-lamps.

“We’ve arrived!” Michel
Ardan exclaimed, his moustaches bristling with excitement. “Us, Christopher
Columbuses of the Moon!”

“Oh,” Barbicane joked, “Who
knows if Cyrano de Bergerac . . .”

“In that case, long live
Cyrano de Bergerac and all the Columbuses of the Moon who went before him! Long
live us!”

And the Frenchman went
in search of the bottle of Dom Perignon that, unbeknownst to us, he had
immersed in the water barrel in the depths of the hold. The shell was leaning by
several degrees. We toasted the Moon, the Earth, the Gun Club and all the
subscribing countries in one go; finally we drank to the honour of the poor dog
Satellite, first victim of the conquest of space.

“Now we must go out and
explore,” said Barbicane, setting down his glass. “If, that is, the composition
and the density of the air are suitable for us.”

I regretted that we had
not brought with us one of those waterproof diving suits attached to a pump,
which have recently allowed divers to breath ten metres below the surface of
the waves. Barbicane shrugged his shoulders and unlatched the circular door in
the centre of the shell’s base. I crouched down and breathed in deeply. A dry,
cold fragrance, straight out of a laboratory, suffused my throat, but no
liquid, blood or lymph-fluid, began to run from my ears or nostrils.

“Air,” I said in a
hoarse voice. “Barbicane, you were right. There is no substantial vacuum. We
can go outside without fearing illness.”

Michel Ardan cheered
again, and we set ourselves to opening the exit-door. I wasn’t sorry to leave
the shell. At the end of the first day of the voyage the fifty-four square feet
of its floor-space had shrunk in my mind until they seemed much less than ten.

Barbicane claimed the
right to exit first, which Michel Ardan and I accorded him without quibble. I
followed him. A brief vertigo seized us one after the other, a sharp pain
penetrated our ears, then we breathed freely.

We had landed on a
promontory jutting out from the side of the great crater, which descended
steeply for fifty metres. The fire of the descent had blackened the portholes,
so obscuring our view. We could see, however, that the landscape was a muddle
of rocks of all kinds thrown together in powdery desolation as far as the
distant walls that circled the crater.

The vision was
accompanied by a long silence. Now we were sure: no-one had come to the Moon
before us, for literature had nowhere evoked a similar spectacle, nothing with
the power of this prospect.

Low clouds veiled part
of the starry sky. A blue crescent marbled with white crested the horizon.

“Mother Earth,”
Barbicane murmured. “Will we ever return there?”

“Home-sickness already?”
said Michel Ardan, in spurious indignation, “When a whole world awaits
discovery! Don’t you find that this crater lacks nothing, in dimensions or
rotundity, when measured against Greek amphitheatres or Roman arenas? Who knows
if the philosophers of ancient Greece were not Selenite tourists? Here, not only
could thousands of spectators pack themselves in, but millions . . .”

“And the spectacles
would employ myriad extras!” Barbicane said, “Certainly, you’re right. The
Earth is not so vast that the heavens cannot deliver us with new territories to
be mapped out . . .”

Michel Ardan blushed
with pleasure. “You are not a geographer, but a poet, like all scholars . . .
But look!” He was suddenly pointing below. Something crept from a crevice,
towards our promontory.

“A lichen,” he
announced, having the keenest sight among us.

There are no words
strong enough to express what I felt then. “A life beyond Earth, a life beyond
Earth . . .” For several minutes it was impossible to think of anything else.

Each one of us was in
agreement, following Plutarch, Swedenborg or more recently Flammarion, on the
possibility, and even the necessity, of life on other planets. Why should a
great horologer have set a sun in place just to light mankind! What derisory
vanity.

The apparent absence of
atmosphere had closed the door on the subject. But here, through the window,
was ample evidence of life!