Transcript

Part 4 · The Fixed Flight

0:00
Section four of the Fixed Flight by Maurice Renard. This LibriVox recording is in
0:07
the public domain. Read by Ben Tucker, Part four and on the instant.
0:16
The glass flooring seemed to sparkle with innumerable facets, and to become a
0:21
bediamond pain with the living fire of a gem in its dancing lights. The
0:26
negro was seized with a foolish gayety. His hoarseness increased with his joy and
0:30
became a raucous hilarity. He choked, heaving his shoulders, and gurgled some
0:35
remarks in honor of the Pacific. Ethel confirmed him. Yes, here's the
0:42
ocean right enough, twenty two minutes past three. It is punctual to its
0:46
tryst. A cry escaped me. If we fail, fear nothing, cowardly,
0:52
brother mine. The Aerofix is solidly built, humph said I, put
0:58
out by her assurance and wishing to make a better effect. Truly, it
1:03
is a very fine, heavier than air, a very fine one. It
1:07
is a balloon, archy, a real balloon filled with gas. No monoplane
1:11
could sustain itself or retain its grip in this atmospheric avalanche. Its hold would
1:15
be too slippery. It is a balloon. But as you can well understand
1:19
in dealing with an aerofix, that portion where the motor is found must be
1:25
absolutely of a piece with the envelope. Otherwise the former, following the rotation
1:29
of the earth, would spread itself on the courting and break it if it
1:32
was not itself crumpled at the very outset. So our vessel is built of
1:37
one single sheath, the metal of which is an alloy of aluminium, and
1:41
of another substance which weighs the same as cork, but unfortunately somewhat lacks resistance.
1:46
This hull is divided into two floors by a horizontal partition. The upper
1:49
floor up above us is filled with a gas whose composition is known only to
1:55
us, and which possesses a lift force six times that of hydrogen. The
1:59
ground floor divided into three compartments, the cabin in the middle, where I
2:02
now have the pleasure of instructing you forward, an exceedingly narrow receptacle where the
2:07
corbet accumulators are stored alive but almost inexhaustible store of electric energy. And lastly,
2:14
aft the engine room ah that motor. It is our pride and glory.
2:19
You think perhaps of millions of horse power, not at all. The
2:22
aerofix has nothing in common with a steamer, which, struggling against a strong
2:24
current, should have just sufficient force to prevent its drifting and to keep it
2:29
in position. If those were our conditions, you could say that the Corbettes
2:32
have invented nothing. Their balloon would simply be the most rapid of aerostats,
2:38
capable of doing its twelve hundred and fifty kilometers an hour, capable therefore of
2:43
appearing motionless, having regard to the center of the earth and to the condition
2:46
of following a certain parallel. Oh. In theory, the thing is understandable
2:51
enough, and the idea might occur to the first comer, given a simple
2:53
multiplication of current rates of speed and the power needed for them. But put
2:59
in to practice, it comes to forcing a blue bottle to fly with the
3:02
energy of a steam engine, And after all it would be a poor result
3:07
and elegant and the mere effect of brute force. Our motor does not propel
3:13
the aerofix, but it delivers it from the drag of the earth. It
3:15
is a generator of the power of inertia, do you understand, And it
3:21
produces the same effect as a flying gas work affair launched from east to west.
3:25
It employs very little strength in so doing. But what is it?
3:30
I asked, on what principle? Ah, just that I cannot tell you.
3:36
Do not bear me any ill. Will Randolph would be so displeased.
3:42
You know my discretion. Look here, Archie, I will put you on
3:45
the road to it. Don't ask me anything further. Do you remember those
3:49
tops called gyroscopes with which we played as children. They spend in all positions
3:53
on a taut string without falling on this support. They formed the most amazing
3:58
angles and seem to five the laws of equilibrium and gravitation. Think of how
4:02
they were recently employed in England. Lewis Brennan, the engineer, fitted a
4:08
series to his two wheeled tramway, in such wise that the machine, as
4:12
ill balanced as a stop bicycle, could rest on a single rail or on
4:15
a cable thrown across an abyss, rest fixed and not to be overturned.
4:20
In short, everybody that is fitted with the gyroscope remains stable in unstable equilibrium,
4:27
as if it were going at a great speed. So the gyroscope takes
4:30
the place of acquired speed. It is this power which a special arrangement of
4:36
machinery has allowed us to increase behind you. Six gyroscopes, six perfected tops,
4:43
revolve and avoid good heavens. Supposing they stop without notice, it would
4:48
have to be very unlikely accident. Brennan is shown that after one has cut
4:53
off the motive power, a gyroscope will continue to revolve for twenty four hours,
4:57
eight of which can be turned to account spite, more than sufficient to
5:00
resume without shock the rush of the atmosphere and choose a good landing place.
5:05
An accident could only come about by the destruction of of certain special machinery,
5:12
and unless it were done on purpose. Ethel, Ethel, I am simply
5:16
astounded. You can imagine I suppose went on my sister. How I managed
5:23
to move the vessel so easily. Weights hung underneath it, equalizing the lifting
5:28
force, which was thus neutralized, so that our balloon only weighed a few
5:31
pounds necessary to keep it down on the ground. These compensatory weights were detached
5:36
automatically from the cabin. It was the simplest kind of let go all.
5:42
Oh, yes, the smallest detail is thought out. We first made experiments
5:45
with a model on a reduced scale, no bigger than a canoe. But
5:48
by some inadvertence we started the motor in the workshop, whereupon our little aerow
5:54
fix left us without taking leave, smashing the wall. It buried itself in
5:58
a hillside at Belmont. It is there still, but said I quickly,
6:03
Is here no chance of this heat flashing the gas. Don't be alarmed.
6:08
Even the enormous and explosive bag of a balloon cannot explode except by contact with
6:12
a flame or spark. It is a chimera. Very good, Say no
6:16
more. I understand the system thoroughly. Though at first I took your auto
6:20
immobile for an indubitable motor. I bet that was on account of the wheels.
6:26
The wheels and springs. Those are simple buffers which are of use in
6:30
coming to earth. We come down to land without shock under the impetus,
6:33
and run a few meters before stopping. Every aeroplane is provided with them.
6:39
Good good, I said, feebly, that's all right. My stoopefaction in
6:46
living this paradoxical dream in my own person dulled my understanding, and I could
6:49
not take my eyes from the revolving globe, whose slow and regular revolution showed
6:55
our passage along the fortieth parallel ethel saw the state I was in. I
7:00
guess the reason of your discouragement, she said. It is the peculiar property
7:05
of unexpected discoveries to appear contrary to the laws of nature, and to seem
7:11
in their origin in fractions of the universal order of things. On every invention,
7:15
the world cries a miracle for eight days and with a kind of terror.
7:18
And certain victims of science have a false appearance of being criminals, justly
7:23
punished for having contravened the existing code. Archibald Clark thinks he is witness to
7:29
a sinister outrage. But I had no wish to take her up. The
7:33
psychology of crowds in the presence of scientific phenomena left me cold. Terrible,
7:40
I muttered, terrible, All this water without end? What depth have we
7:44
beneath our feet? What is the depth of the sea here? Anything from
7:47
one thousand to two thousand meters. We are somewhere between the one hundred fortieth
7:51
and one hundred sixtieth Meridians. Yes, true, it will soon be five
7:58
o'clock five o'clock at Philadelphia, but not at any place we visit here,
8:03
it is always midnight. Midnight goes on with us today the aerofix fulfills her
8:09
midnight journey motionless in the terrestrial space, and as we count time, fear
8:15
clutched at my throat. True, the sun never rises, I observed naturally
8:22
the sun is always on the other side of the Earth. After a fashion,
8:24
it plays hide and seek with the machine. Midday begins to rewarm the
8:28
flying antipodes. Since we are in the center point of that darkness which sweeps
8:33
or seems to do so round the globe, Archibald, we shall lose a
8:37
day of light, and shall have lived, on the other hand, a
8:39
night too long later on, when our discovery will be made use of,
8:43
when every one will possess his own aerofix, daytime journeys will no doubt be
8:48
made, probably at least by foes to darkness, who will be able to
8:52
live facing eternal sunsets, or bathed in the glories of unending dawn. Look
8:58
at the sky on the ground of the periscope, the cupola of one is
9:01
reflected on the cap of the other. Nothing moves but the moon, even
9:05
the constellations advanced no longer. You might think the clock of the heavens has
9:09
stopped. I no one that goes admirably. Nevertheless, said I. It
9:15
is in my stomach and repeatedly strikes the dinner hour. I've had no dinner,
9:18
My dear girl, we dined. You will have noticed, gentlemen,
9:22
by the manifestations of my hunger, that your humble servant's courage has risen a
9:26
little. It rose a good deal more after our meal, brisked up with
9:31
excellent tinned provisions and a glass of brandy, I found myself no more uncomfortable
9:37
in this narrow sheath than in the corridor of a pullman car. Only a
9:39
general lassitude bore witness to the nervous strain I had just undergone, but folded
9:46
in the warm half light. The piece following a good dinner weighed down my
9:50
eyelids. They closed to the monotonous cradle song of the whistling air and the
9:54
humming gyroscopes. As if through a fog. I heard the clock strike,
9:58
an ethel murmur that we had done a quarter of our journey, and then
10:01
sleep entirely overcame me, aye, ay, none of that, my dear
10:05
boy, you are asleep, I believe. Come, Come, I made
10:09
need of you at a minute. You must keep a look out. You
10:11
must be vigilant. Humph, think of the charms of Japan which we are
10:16
now traveling over to the devil with your Japan, I retorted, it is
10:22
as black as if it had snowed's soot. Jim seemed intensely amused. And
10:28
as to you, shut up, I said, drawing myself up. You
10:31
have no right to be so amused at the words soot, old chimney,
10:33
sweep, hush, hush, ar ye, keep your seat. The negro
10:39
was bent double, his shoulders shook with a secret joy, and across his
10:43
heavy face I caught sight of a thick lipped smile. But Ethel's imperious tone
10:46
had quieted me, I asked her dryly, Still a little vexed, where
10:50
are we some miles south of Pekan, that is the desert of Alaska,
10:56
still fifteen hundred meters above the earth. No, of course, not fifteen
11:01
hundred meters above the level of the sea. The mean altitude of the desert
11:07
brings us as near as five hundred meters to the land. Then silence fell
11:11
again. Truly, I may call it silence, the perpetual noise made by
11:15
the air and the motor. I no longer heard it any more than we
11:18
hear the thousand and one rustlings with which our greatest solitude is filled. For
11:24
a long while I struggled against sleep to overcome, and I tried to interest
11:26
myself in various things, my companion's attitudes, the changing faces in Ethel's curling
11:33
hair, and all these soupine countries where strange men slept on extraordinary beds under
11:37
twisted roofs. But imagination, in no wives takes the place of knowledge.
11:43
And I knew nothing of all these out of the way lands, and I
11:46
could not even distinguish a tree. I was reduced to inventing the world after
11:50
the fashioned children who stride across a wooden hobby horse and remained lost in deep
11:54
thought, imagining the road they have traveled. None the less, I suffered
11:58
two alarms. The first was caused by a shock, a very slight one
12:01
at the ram of the aerostat something soft had got in its way. My
12:07
sister dissipated with a word the fear which had made me jump. She had
12:09
seen in the periscope two large wings, which were no sooner viewed than they
12:13
were eclipsed. The second alarm was due to the Negro looking half wild He
12:16
suddenly got up in his seat, asking were we always in the right direction?
12:20
It would be too terrible if we had deviated because of the Cashmere mountains
12:24
thirty eight hundred meters in height. He himself was too unnerved to have taken
12:28
note. A glass of brandy put fresh life into him. Becoming once more
12:33
lucid and self possessed, he took up his place again before the clock.
12:37
At length, my sister announced gaily, like the steward of a dining car,
12:41
the first luncheon is served. It is midday midday, I repeated,
12:46
assuring myself of the darkness midday. At midnight, the Chinese firmament starred the
12:52
shade of the periscope with its cosmographic dome, like those maps of the heavens
12:58
curved in their imitation and called uranoramas. The knight's blackness seemed tinged with green
13:03
cloud similar to our cumuli hid and revealed the same stars, the solitary exception
13:09
being the moon, which rising had enlarged its melon slice and traveled to the
13:15
southeast. Lunch seemed like supper, and dinner resembled it. We did not
13:20
do the latter much justice. The nocturnal afternoon had slipped by the Caspian Sea.
13:26
Turkey, Greece, Calabria, Spain, and Portugal had succeeded one another
13:31
invisible, in lacking all interest For us, an unreasoning irritation made me beat
13:37
my foot on the transparent floor, through which we could discern nothing. I
13:41
became restless, I moved about in the confined space, and I was childishly
13:46
overjoyed when towards a quarter to twelve I received the command to be at my
13:48
post. My sister added that they were going to stop the engine and put
13:52
a brake on the gyroscopes, so as to gradually regain little by little the
13:56
drag of the earth and ultimately be enabled to let at Philadelphia. The electric
14:03
light shone with a hard glitter. Jim pressed a big button and pulled over
14:05
several levers, which caught in a serrated rack. In the after hold,
14:09
one could hear the steel shoes grinding against the spinning tops. The humming grew
14:15
deeper, the air whistled less and less strongly, and the speedometer's indicator began
14:18
to run backwards. I clutched the handles of the steering gear feverishly. My
14:24
sister had ordered me not to make use of them without a given signal.
14:26
At times, beneath my feet, some great Atlantic steamer, glitteringly illuminated,
14:31
stripped the glistening stretch of sea with its white and red lights. The situation
14:37
lasted for what seemed to me an excessively long period. Leaning over my sister's
14:41
shoulder to catch sight of her face, I found it expressing great annoyance.
14:46
We are not slowing down enough, she said, in answer to my question,
14:50
I am afraid of passing by Philadelphia. The clock pointed to half past
14:54
twelve, and the air whistled still violently. I wiped my brow with a
14:58
nervous gesture. Do you not think we might land in one of the suburbs,
15:03
even if it were more than a hundred kilometers out of the town.
15:07
The negro shook his head. No, Jim, we had better not,
15:11
had we. It is no good to toil upon it. I set to
15:15
work too late. Well, what's the trouble, I exclaimed, once stopped.
15:20
You back your engine, archie, You are an ass. The balloon,
15:24
as you yourself very sensibly observed, is not an automobile, but an
15:28
auto immobile. To go back on our flight, the earth would have to
15:31
begin revolving in the opposite direction, and the end of the world would follow
15:35
your little fantasy because of the shock. No, no, we are well
15:39
supplied with gas, ballast, electricity and victuals. The only sensible thing to
15:43
do is make us second tour the planet into slow down earlier, start the
15:48
engine again, Jem, and take off the brakes. While she was forming
15:52
this exasperating decision, which was immediately put into action, a misty patch seemingly
15:58
spangled with fireflies unrolled its the bottom of the abyss Philadelphia was passing. Poor
16:03
Randolph sighed ethel how anxious he will be, and without taking breath, she
16:10
launched out on a small, dry, wordy discourse, after the manner of
16:14
people who expect to be blamed by their opponent and will not let him speak
16:18
accordingly. She took it on herself to inform me of the best method of
16:22
making Belmont after the next day's descent. As she wished things, the apparatus
16:26
must not come to ground at more than twenty kilometers from the town. From
16:30
there a horse could haul it to the hangar, which would be re entered
16:33
before daybreak. In spite of her verbosity, the word loosened the flow of
16:37
my lamentations. Daybreak alas you may well say, so, my good Ethel,
16:42
I am just longing for it. It seems to me that the sun
16:45
has gone out forever. Well, there I came to make myself useful.
16:48
I am resigned, But promise me that we shall be at Philadelphia tomorrow without
16:52
fail. I swear it tomorrow at one o'clock or a little after. In
16:57
one way or another, by our maneuvers, we have lost sixty minutes.
17:02
Jim put back the globe of the clock twelve hundred and fifty kilometers. But
17:07
now Ethel busied herself with procuring necessary repose for herself and her assistance. She
17:12
and Jim were to take watch and watch about. As for me, the
17:15
strayed outsider of this expedition, I unexpectedly got leave to do what I liked.
17:19
I think our captain rather feared the jumpiness that I had shown before in
17:23
my abuse of Jim. End of Part four