A Thousand Years Hence/Chapter 19
Man; his physical components everywhere diversified, his mental everywhere alike.—Author, passim.
The very first news that greeted our landing was of the fall of Bullings. Poor Bullings! The merciless Bears had tripped him up at last. He fell, and great indeed, for the passing moment, was the fall. But as usual, no doubt, as I reflected to myself, small now is the man, if not indeed entirely forgotten, since he has fallen. And with this moralizing, Bullings had soon well-nigh entirely slipped out of my own mind and memory also, seeing that, fortunately, as compared with many others, I had at the time no account, speculative or otherwise, outstanding with him.
For some little time I was now up to the eyes with work, bringing up arrears, and getting ready for an inner voyage, along with my promised companion, old Brown. I had to keep the latter well up to the scratch, as I half suspected him of regretting his promise, and of thinking that there might be more cry than wool in this rather adventurous solar voyage. By way of reassuring him, however, I mentioned my solid expectations of profit from the work I had just been engaged with; and how much more, then, from that of a trip to the sun!
I was tramp-tramping, along with the passing crowd one day, in deep musings over business things in general, and my own immediate profits and prospects in particular, when a voice fell of a sudden upon my ears, whose remembered notes, arousing a kind of instinctive awe, caused me in a moment to pull up, and to find that I had slid out of the marching rank. I was in a small business recess, and confronting me was no other than the lately redoubtable Bullings. My annoyance with my stupid self was excessive, and was anything but dissipated when the old fellow rushed upon me, with a warm handshaking, to acknowledge, as he vexatiously put it, my most kindly and considerate feeling, in thus, at his salute, purposely stopping to see him. He had been in the very act of drawing up some hams from their laboratorial cellarage, and he now pointed to these with a knowing wink, as though to say that we were brothers in trade now. But I fear I made no genial response, as I glanced at the raw new sawdusty-looking cheap ham rubbish lying before me. But he seemed in no mood to be discouraged, and, with the very best of spirits, entered warmly into all his new plans and prospects. He had already, as he told me, launched a grand restaurant system, for the supply of business luncheons over the world—the prompt, the ready, the ubiquitous, for business needs. He had called the concern "The Great Consolidated Restaurant;" and it was to disperse or swallow up all other and rival concerns of the same kind, and eventually girdle the earth with countless and continuous lines of luncheon bars, accessibly at hand to even the most hurried business man, he himself, as general manager, being seated in the central pivot, with cross-electrical connection, to supply and control instantaneously every individual bar and station. I was just in time, he added, with friendly eagerness, to secure a large share allotment, which a cash-down payment on my part would make free to me of the immediately expected high premium.
I turned impatiently away from the incurable old schemer, and, bidding him a rather curt adieu, had, in the next second, regained a place in the passing rank, and had soon tramped myself safe beyond sight and hearing of my enemy. But my last glance at poor Bullings' crestfallen and woebegone face, as I turned upon him thus, clung to my memory and conscience. Poor old fellow! Thrown off, perhaps, by every one else, I might have seemed to him, for just the fleeting moment, the one sole remaining friend to help him up again from the very dust. And after all, thought I, the too forgetful world owes something to Bullings, whose great schemes still stand and flourish, although he himself has tumbled down. I will confess it, that, on reaching my house, my very first act was to write out a cheque for Bullings, for the deposit upon the proposed allotment of shares. The cheque too might prove the more gratifying to him, as being drawn upon his own creation, "The Whole Compass Finance," a fairly prosperous concern, in which I had opened an account. So you see, good reader, that the family motto of "Business first" has, for once at any rate, been transgressed.
This particular inner circuit trip was to be a great and special occasion, White himself, in view of the still reputedly dangerous solar navigation, having consented to take the helm. How far my own personal influence on the occasion secured this important result, I will not, in all modesty, decide. Anyway, it secured us an unusually large company, while also greatly reducing the force of old Brown's objections, although he still emitted a growl over the sacrifice of business time, and the possibly inadequate results in publication profits or any other proceeds. By our present programme, we first touched at Venus, passing thence direct to Vulcan, as Mercury's position would be more in line about the time of our return. From Vulcan, Brown senior and I were to go on to the sun. Young Brown, having business with only the three planets, would, by arrangement, take a loop-line packet homewards from Vulcan to Mercury, where he was to await our return from our solar trip, and from whence the reunited party would make a straight course for the earth.
Venus, worthy of her name, is a beautiful planet, and already a favourite resort of our Eartheans. As we approached the bright cloud-encompassed orb, we lovingly watched her for a few seconds, as she came towards us, trudging along in her orbit. Up at last she duly rolls, and we easily effect our landing at one of the high latitude stations, where the climate is found so suitable to us. We always jump ashore upon Venus with the easy and confident familiarity of feeling entirely at home. This is especially the case amongst these arctic latitudes; for the chief feature of difference in the two planets, namely, the comparatively huge sun in the Venus sky, is appreciably toned down, alike in heat and light, by the cloud and cold, and the lofty mountain heights of those localities. The fair planet, with her dense cloud system, has, in fact, a remarkably equable climate, night and day temperatures differing much less than ours. Indeed, our earth seemed to the Venusians so extremely different, in those and other respects, from their own, that before their science had detected unmistakable signs of population, their conclusions had been all on the negative side, and consequently there were many pulpit and other homilies about great, but lifeless, worlds around them.
The inconvenience of the partially different atmospheric composition in Venus is being gradually rectified by successive contrivances, one of the latest of which, a most simple arrangement, I had now brought with me, and found to answer its purpose admirably. A small chlorine generator is fixed under the mouth, in connection with the respiratory movements, and, at every breathing inhalation, emits a tiny stream of the chlorine gas, which catches up the noxious metallic gas, Venerium, out of the Venus atmosphere, ere it enters our lungs. A small admixture of this, to us, new gaseous metal, which Venus has added to our chemistry, is the chief cause of the disagreement of Venus's atmosphere with our Earthean constitution.
The large business that goes on daily with Venus is now terribly cut up with competition. Still, with the large scale of modern operation, and the prompt and cheap deliveries through the salutary opposition of the fast expresses, the thing can be made to pay. Brown and I, ever on the alert for a business turn, strolled through the Venus markets, picking up some promising wares; for, in view of any such chances, we had both provided ourselves with adequate energy-credits. Brown junior, too, reported to us very satisfactory arrangements in his hardware and energy trade. But, not to waste more time over this now so familiar scene, let us pass to what will afford us much greater diversity of feature and incident, namely, our—
I may here mention, as good illustration of interplanetary travel, that all of our large and varied company, excepting perhaps a few young children, had previously travelled as far as Venus—many indeed had been there many times over. A large proportion had been also as far as Mercury. A good many had been still further on to Vulcan. But few indeed, excepting old White himself and his select crew, had been to the Sun. Indeed the risks of this voyage, to say nothing of the awful physical aspects
of the near approach, made it still a novelty to the great mass of even our more curious sightseers. None of us three had been there, although both old Brown and myself had been previously as far as Vulcan on business, and our junior as far as Mercury. The natural consequence of such comparative few making the sun passage was a very high passage-money; and just here we had old Brown's most formidable objection, seeing that, from Vulcan to the sun, the comparatively few millions of miles cost quite the double of the far greater distance from Earth to Vulcan. One must not, however, forget the enormous expenditure required in cross-electric protective energy for this shorter voyage; for White, who had so often successfully made it, had guaranteed the most assuring arrangements in that way.
We bade cordial adieus to the bright and intelligent Venusians. Our hand-shaking has come quite into vogue with them, although they still laugh at the odd-looking custom all the same as at first. Passing Mercury's orbit, we descried the little planet in the near offing, toiling along in our direction. And now, as we approach little Vulcan, the dimensions and fierce power of the sun are something to notice, and to afford us some warning of what a still nearer approach, even beyond Vulcan himself, may look and feel like. With every million or two of miles' approach, the careful old White added a charge extra to our anti-light and anti-heat cross-electric protector surroundings, thus keeping us always in safety and comfort.
The usual custom is to land on Vulcan by night. Loss of business time is an objection to this practice, but the greatly reduced night temperature is a material saving of money or energy on the other side. The comparative cold, especially close on to sunrise, is so great, that we Eartheans could almost stand the night climate here unprotected; while a thousand feet aloft, in the thin Vulcanian atmosphere, we feel at night, so far as temperature is concerned, almost quite comfortable. Thus any shipping from the earth or other outside planet, laid up for any short season in Vulcan, find it most convenient, and much the most saving, to get into counter-axial motion, and so remain continuously within the protecting shade of Vulcanian night.
We calculated to arrive at our Vulcan station just one hour before daybreak, so as to give us time to mount our complete protective panoplies, get our breakfast, and be ready for business. Some of our company were out betimes to see the grand sunrise. The slight forewarning dawn which the thin air affords, hardly at all heralds the sudden flash of the grand solar limb that rises upon the horizon. Almost in one instant we were immersed in a blaze of light and heat. The Vulcanians all around amused us just then by rubbing their hands to take off the chill of the morning, and welcome the coming heat of day. We, on our part, in order to secure coolness, stood well within our strongly fortified cross-electro protectors.
How completely different everything is and looks here as compared to our earth, or rather as compared with the earth, Venus, Mars, and various smaller worlds, whose climatic circumstances permit of the presence and important functions of water! Mercury, indeed, supplies a step of decided departure towards Vulcan; but having this time given Mercury the slip, we plunged at once into Vulcanian peculiarities. The whole of the little planet looks like a lump of metal, and the leaden hue throughout has at first a non-natural and depressing effect. But this soon wears off as we get accustomed to the people, their gentle and pleasant ways, and their remarkably intelligent faces, in spite of their somewhat planetoid contour of figure. Certain metals enter largely into the organic physique, and give a curious aspect alike to animal and plant substance. The atmosphere is partly composed of metallic vapours, and there are small lakes or seas which supply those vapours, especially during the heat of the day, and between which and the atmosphere there is constant interchange.
Nothing is more amusing to us, or indeed more utterly astonishing, than to see the Vulcanians washing and bathing in these very odd "waters."
They cannot do this until the day is well on, for all their seas are regularly frozen every night, the ice, as we might call it, beginning on the surface even ere the scorching mighty sun has quite touched the horizon, and not being completely thawed until a good hour or two of morning. Hence the dangers which attend incautious bathing. Repeatedly young children, taking, perhaps, a refreshing dip towards the evening of a hot day, have been caught by the ice, and been got out with difficulty. In one case lately, in some shallow water, a boy was so caught by the feet, and both limbs considerably injured, as well as frostbitten, ere he could be released.
The Vulcanians are not much given to business. There are no speculations and crises here. The people are much attached to all scientific pursuits, but withal there is not much reasoning power in their heads. They are remarkably harmless, and one can't help liking them. Of course you and they can't come into contact, friendly or otherwise—no handshaking here. While their temperature would roast us, contact with us is not less terrible to them; for a finger, thrust through our panoply, and touching even our dress, would be skinned by the excessive cold, much as our own tongues would be served in touching bodies in extreme cold at our own poles. We and the Vulcanians stand therefore in great mutual awe and respect. We had a hearty joke with young Brown about a pleasant young daughter of the agent he had come to terms with here. What a warm embrace might be in prospect in certain contingencies! and how such a fair partner might stir up the fire of love in more than one sense of the words!
With a considerably reduced company, we now resumed our voyage to the sun; and now every one was on the alert for the grand and the terrible, and all the novelties in store for us. I marked White's coolness. He put us up to speed almost at once, pulling the second and third electrics consecutively, ere we were a good fifty and a hundred thousand miles, respectively, outside of Vulcan. So on we flew, expecting to enter the coronal outskirts within five hours. And so we did. Of course our shades were all up, and we could thus gaze harmlessly upon the growing magnificence of the sun's contour, until at length its vast expanse was too great for grasp of eye. Just then a peculiar agitation around us, and a slightly pinkish hue in our rear, told that we had already passed the coronal outskirts, and entered within the hydrogen flames of the solar atmosphere.
There is no difficulty, and no danger whatever, nowadays, in steering through these flames, terrible as they look at a distance, seeing they are perfectly amenable to the powers of our cross-electro protectors. The chief danger to us, in the solar approaches, arises from, on the one hand, the frequent ejection of hot solid or liquid materials, and, on the other, the circulating meteoric bodies, which are ever falling into the sun's photosphere. As regards this latter danger, we have to adopt our accommodating slanting method of motion, as with the many little planetoids, although with not always the same success, seeing that these solar meteorites, although mostly, are not always running in the same direction. In the other case, again, the momentum of some large masses might possibly exceed the force-convertibility of our protectors. The chief safety from this danger consists in our getting our vessel into the tide of a "downrush," passing through one of the "spot" openings, and thus being wafted, swiftly and almost free alike of danger and of energy-cost, into the sub-photospheric solar atmosphere, where every cause of alarm is at once ended.
All this was what White had admirably planned. Presently we found ourselves sailing, rapidly but quietly, through what, although comparatively a small "spot," was none the less a vast expanding gulf of some ten thousand miles across. The "spotty" seasons are thus the readiest for solar ingress; but the bold and experienced navigator can always find and make good his entrance somewhere over the ever-disturbed equatorial and sub-equatorial region,—the lesser openings, in fact, of a mile or even less breadth, being often safer than the greater, owing to their comparative freedom from the dreaded dangers of the storm-raised faculæ.
And now, passing through penumbral walls or precipices, we enter within the mighty sun. As soon as we had sunk beneath the level of the dazzling photosphere, our eyes could open upon the genial scene that expanded in all its vastness before and beneath us. The light clear hydrogen atmosphere stretched for many thousands of miles below, resting its lower strata upon the diversified surface of the sun's solid body. White had to slacken speed, of course, when he approached the corona and the hydrogen atmosphere outside, and now, as we descended, and had still more to slacken speed with the growing atmospheric density, we had some leisure to survey and admire the broad and varied landscape spread out beneath. But now, after our brief survey, all is bustle and curiosity in another direction, as we are rapidly approaching the solar landing-place.