Transcript

Part 2 · The Fixed Flight

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Section two of the Fixed Flight by Maurice Renaud. The LibriVox recording is in
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the public domain. Read by Ben Tucker, Part two. An hour later,
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the Pennsylvania Railroad, having put me down at West Philadelphia station, I
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was driving in a hansom to Belmont, That is where the Corbettes live in
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beautiful Fairmont Park, on the banks of the Schuylkill River, extremely handy for
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all kinds of boating and even subopqueous navigation. The cab passed through the western
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suburbs, crossed a bridge, and reached the open country. During the journey,
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night had fallen. But so starfield was it that I could recognize afar
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off my brother in law's house, a modest little house forsooth, and looking
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yet smaller, more modest, nestling against the huge workshop, close to the
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enormous shed and facing the trial ground for automobiles and aeroplanes, I recognized that
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messieurs and my heart sank, and the whole imposing block of buildings only one
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window of the living room was illuminated. Now the Corbett's night work is common
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talk in Pennsylvania. Nightly, the Festival of Labor illuminates the glass roof of
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the workshop and long windows of the shed. You can imagine, then,
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what an alarming effect such silence an obscurity had. The other night, Jim
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the Negro opened the door to me in the dark and led me to Corbett's
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bedroom, the only one lit up. I saw that my brother in law
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was in bed, and that he looked feverish and yellow. At that moment,
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my sister came in. During the last four years I had only seen
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her face in the magazines. She had scarcely changed at all. Her dress
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had the same boyish cut, and her short hair was scarcely touched with gray,
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in spite of her years. How do you do, Archie, said
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Randolph. I had no doubt you would come as quickly as you could.
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We are in need of you, so I should imagine, Randolph, what
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can I do? Help? Don't don't tired yourself interrupted my sister. I
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will tell him everything quickly for the time presses Archie. We have built no.
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There is no need for anxiety. Rudolph is in no danger. It
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is merely an attack of influenza. But he is absolutely obliged to keep his
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room and his bed. I must beg you not to interrupt me. Again.
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We have built, in deepest mystery, Randolph, Jim and myself a
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highly interesting machine, Archie, And for fear that some one should once again
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forestall us, we have always vowed to give our machine a trial as soon
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as it should be finished. As ill luck will have it. Influenza has
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interfered with our plans to day. At this identical moment, the thing is
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ready and Randolph on the road to recovery. Nevertheless, it is impossible to
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postpone the experiment, and three people are necessary for the maneuver. Who is
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to take Randolph's place? I am? Who is to take mine? Jim?
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And who will take Jim's place? Why you? I thought your post
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exacts no strength or presence of mind. It will merely need a little self
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control on the trial trip and much discretion afterwards. I know your good qualities,
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Archie. You can help us better than any one else. Will you
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do it? All right? Forget what is over and done with ethel,
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I have come to make myself useful. We shall run some danger, so
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be warned, Pooh. Moreover, how should I put this? This sport?
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In short, that we are going to try as quite out of the
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way extraordinary, most odd, almost monstrous. That is all the same to
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me. I have come to make myself useful. Show me my bed room.
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I'll go to bed at once so as to be quite fit tomorrow morning,
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to morrow, exclaimed Corbett. It isn't to morrow, it's now at
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once. There it is striking eleven o'clock. Go, my dear boy,
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go and don't waste time. What the experiment now in the middle of the
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night. Yes, it has to take place out of doors. And if
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it were daylight? Would our secret remain a secret? I ask you,
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from all those inquisitive and jealous engineers who are continually spying upon us out of
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doors? Good? After all, what is it really? But Ethel was
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full of impatience. Come along, then, as it is all settled,
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she cried, Everything is ready. The working of the apparatus will enable you
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to understand its aim better than any description. What change your clothes, No
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need for a disguise. We are not going on the stage. Come along,
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au revoir, archie, said Randolph. Till tomorrow evening. What till
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tomorrow evening? I exclaimed, as I followed my sister taking me on a
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journey. It seems till tomorrow evening. But Randolph said, we were not
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to be seen in broad daylight. So we are to stop somewhere before dawn.
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Where shall we spend the day? In fact, where are we going
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to? To Philadelphia? I beg your pardon to Philadelphia? But we are
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there already quite so, my worthy but stupid brother. We shall make a
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sercent in return. I kept silence, knowing that she would not tell me
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any more, and I was fully occupied in feeling my way in the dark.
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Ethel did not want to arouse the curiosity of the inquisitive or the watchfulness
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of spies, which a moving light probably would have done. She led the
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way along an interminable passage, then through the workshop. There one could see
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clearly through the glass roof the stars and the rays of the rising moon shone
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on a chaos of strange forms. To reach the further end of the room,
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we had to walk in zigzag fashion among the most fantastic disorder, stepped
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across barriers of iron ties which seemed to rise up against us, avoid weird
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creatures of steel crouching on their four wheels, and also creep past unexplained mills
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with sails twisted screw fashion. Ethel threaded her way amidst this queer conglomeration without
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knocking up against anything. As for me, I but escaped the wiles of
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a rubber tire coiling round my feet, to succumb to the noose of a
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rope twisted in artful folds. Then, after a successful battle against this hempen
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python, a sort of spider caught me in its net, and I was
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entangled in a web of stretched cords. I ended by casting myself on the
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yielding bosom of what proved to be the cover of a half deflated balloon.
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Catching hold of what seemed to be an iron shark, I managed to free
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myself, but only now to knock up against some sort of a wooden bird.
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But probably the presiding sprite of invention had put my valor sufficiently to the
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test. For all at once I found myself face to face with in the
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shed. This shed was as big as the nave of a cathedral, and
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served as a garage for the balloons. They were standing all round it.
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The moon shone on their more or less inflated bodies. Spherical, oval,
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spindle shaped. All these balloons standing against the wall seemed to be drawn back
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with deference from a kind of shining partition which stretched itself along the middle of
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the hall. Ethel pointed it out to me and said, there is our
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engine. Then she started a low voiced conversation with jim oh Ho said,
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I, so that is the engine an automobile astonishing or perhaps a boat,
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As far as I could judge in the half light where electric arcs uselessly dangled
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their foolish globes, the thing was a gigantic knife blade, not with a
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cutting edge, but extremely pointed. I can find no better comparison. It
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measured about forty meters in length than eight meters high, what was only one
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meter deep or thick from stern to midship. For to that it tapered away,
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as if to cut air or the water. But taper away it did
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to such a point that it positively stabbed one in the eye. At the
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stern, I made out a triangular rudder. Oh it's a boat, I
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said to myself. And yet no, it's an automobile. In fact,
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this enigma of a vessel rested on small stout wheels, which were furnished with
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rubber tires and mounted on extraordinarily powerful springs. Between them. Under the concern,
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I could half make out certain dark blocks. As I have said,
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the whole thing glittered, and yet if one could employ such contradictory terms,
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it was a dull sort of glitter. Pushing away with their foot some stools
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which were lying on the ground, Ethel opened the door on the side of
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this titanic blade. Immediately a dazzling electric light bulb lit up the interior of
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the thing and revealed the existence of a cabin arranged in the lower part of
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its width. It was of exceedingly small compass, to be exact four meters
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in length to and high one in width. This cabin held three seats,
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one behind the other. They were comfortable tub shaped automobile seats. In front
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of the two first glittered a whole system of levers, handles and petals.
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Behind the third were the ends of two handlebars, which I guessed to be
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the steering gear. There is your seat, said Ethel. You will be
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at the helm. I in front of you, Jimmy in front of me.
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Oh, don't let us have any false modesty. Please, we shan't
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ask for you for your pilot's certificate. My dear boy. The use of
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the rudder is an exception. Perhaps you will not have occasion to touch it.
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Good. But what on earth are all these contraptions? For Ethel did
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not hear me. Jim had called her to the prow, and she left
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me in ecstasy at the cabin. What a cabin, messrs, what a
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conning tower? What switches? What graduated rings, sectors, piston rods,
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cords, serpentining pipes, keys, wires, buttons, indicators in other mysterious
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instruments. There was nothing resembling civilized furniture save the three seats, and perhaps
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the clock in at the pitch Pine case, fastened on the wall of the
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forward bulkhead. On the whole it bore the face of an honest, accurate
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timekeeper. But why this terrestrial globe, half sunk in the clockcase, incapable
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of revolving on a vertical axis, as if to demonstrate to some young blockhead
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the alternations of day and night? Why this curve needle fixed in the pitch
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pine case and curved to the convexity of the globe, its point marking Philadelphia,
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incapable of solving the query? I continued my inspection. A basket filled
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with victuals and bottles interested me greatly. What about the inns? Could one
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not spend a day in a secluded inn near road or river? I had
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it a fear of meeting some indiscreet person. Really, these precautions were somewhat
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excessive. But where were the windows? No windows going to see our way?
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I murmured, How are we going to know the road? If it
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is an automobile the shoals, if it is a submarine the mountains. If
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improbable as it seems, it proves to be an aeroplane. And to start
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with, what on earth is this machine? Where is the driving power launched?
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And its head or in its tail? Above the cabin? The tiny
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room occupies a fourth of the height and one tenth of the length of the
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concern It is, if I may so put it, the very body of
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the thing, like the stomach in a whale. What is there in the
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rest of this factitious satation? Whose jonahs we are about to become? At
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that moment, my sister's voice rang out, intrepid and quivering with joy.
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Jim opened the doors of the shed. It is time to let our pet
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loose, and the negro burst into a roar of laughter. I confess I
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have no great affection for blacks. In their guttural talk, they always speak
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as if suffering from a sore throat. But Jim, with his husky laugh,
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you can't imagine how he disgusted me. However, the darky slid back
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a doormous folding doors, and from top to bottom of the building a star
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filled opening widened out. The track lay before us, quite white and encircled
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by silvery hills. A little lake reflected the shimmering sky, and in face
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of it all our formidable swords seemed to stand on guard. What terrible and
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hidden force was going to move this powerful weapon and start this wheeled direction going
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as weighty to all appearance as a stranded ship. We must make haste,
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Ethels said, I want to start punctually at midnight. Well what is it,
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Archibald, You are you not going to start the engine? Oh?
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Exclaimed Ethel, as if I had proposed something perfectly ridiculous. That would be
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a nice job, wouldn't it. Jim, Yes, ma'am, gurgled the
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Negro with an irritating laugh. Yes, Jim remembers the accident to the come,
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Archie, give us a helping hand, continued my sister, and she
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leaned with all her weight against the back of the enormous machine, as if
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trying to move it. Jim and I myself, notwithstanding my amazement, stepped
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forward to help her. When we saw the metal colossus, moved by the
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merest touch of a woman's shoulder, advanced gently towards its unknown destination. Oh,
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she is well poised to day, said Ethel, simply. I thought
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it would take two of us to get her under way. No note,
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leave it to me. It is mere child's play. As she turned her
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back to the Scholkill River, an action which effectually did away with any nautical
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hypothesis, she pushed the vessel towards the center of the track in a westerly
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direction. I escorted her. Jim, at the height of bliss, lightly
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executed a fan dango on our wake. You must forgive me, my dear
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boy, but I will explain the mechanism of the thing and root for the
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moment. I am too anxious. What a world of emotion sounded in her
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words. Through How many months of laborious anxiety had my companions awaited this thrilling
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moment? At present, its size diminished by the grandeur of its background,
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the engine seemed less terrifying. Seen from the front, one saw nothing more
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than a huge sword blade. Looking at from the point, walking a little
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way off to look at the whole effect, I discovered one or two slight
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excrescences on the top invisible in the shed, and there were several more on
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the right and left sides. Ethel tested the blocks between the wheels. Come
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along all is as it should be, no breath of wind, absolutely ideal
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weather. Let us get on board. We entered the great blade. Jim
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shut the hermetically closing door, and those soft natural sounds that I had taken
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for absolute silence died in our ears. End of Part two.