Aleriel/Part 2/Chapter 5
CHAPTER V.
A STRANGE PROPOSAL.
I came home to my city. I rested there a quarter of a year (we have no months, because we have no moon). Many came from distant cities to ask about earth and what I had seen or heard. Myriads of questions were put to me—some that I could, and many that I could not, answer.
The pictures of earth—your cities, mountains, river scenes and so on—were examined by myriads of our comrades, copied again and again, and copies sent to every city and every museum of our world. My journey was given in writing, and ten million copies scattered through every country. Many were the comments on it. Some even foolishly suggested that a party of our citizens should go forth as missionaries to your world to teach men to be better and happier; but I at once checked this idea. "The Church on earth does her work," I said, "and God deals with men in His way. Our going openly to men would only make them worse—might disturb the good and form a mere pastime to the wicked." So the wise ones of our world stifled the proposal in its germ.
One evening, as I was returning from the service of our course in the great temple of the city, I found our prince waiting for me in my home. With him there was a stranger, who, by his robes and insignia, I recognised must be one of the princes of Saldonio, the city of the stars, in our northern continent, where the study of astronomy was chiefly carried on, more than anywhere else. "have long read and re-read the narration of your visit to the earth," he said, "and it has filled me with interest. It seems to me that the time has come when we may, by subduing the forces of nature, travel from world to world; not only to the earth, but to the farther worlds of our system. Our mechanician, Azoniel, has constructed a globe fitted for such journeys, and has perfected your mode of conquering gravitation. My friend Ezariel, one of the leading masters of the laws of nature in our city, will join us."
I gave reflection to the proposal. At first the love of home, stronger than ever since I had seen earth's miseries and sorrows, made me unwilling again to launch forth into immeasurable space; but I was unwilling to deny myself the pleasure of beholding new works of the Creator's love, new evidences of His mercy and His majesty, and also I reasoned that, perchance, other worlds might be as beautiful as earth, but less fallen and spoilt by sin. So, perchance, in other worlds I might behold better and fairer things, by which I might learn more. I consulted with the chief sages of our city. They were of opinion that now I had been able to pass to two of our sister orbs, it would be well to try if we could proceed further. Some suggested Mercury as suitable for a trial; but my own feeling, and that of the great majority of our senate, was that, if we should again plunge forth into space, we should select the outer worlds rather than the inner planet of our system. The gorgeous realm of Mars, and even the huge systems of the giant and the ringed worlds (as we call Jupiter and Saturn) might be visited.
I went to Saldonio in our air car. It was a long journey of three days, half round our world, for Saldonio was in a far-off continent. Thousands of fair cities, vast territories of beauteous vegetation, lakes, rivers, and seas did we pass over, night and day. Still on we flew, until, at last, we reached the mighty mountain ring, upon one peak of which Saldonio was reared. It was built on a plateau of rock some twenty miles above the plains, far above the fleecy clouds which usually cover our planet. Thus the astronomers could usually watch in clear nights the expanse of heaven, and all the wonders therein contained. Around the city, from many miles afar, were to be seen the lower mountains of the chain rounded into the form of spheres, each of which depicted some world in the solar system, carved over and stained as gigantic models of the planets around us. Close to the city was the model of the earth, a globe far vaster than any man has ever made, six hundred yards around, on which the loftier Himalayas were raised some four or five inches, and where London was marked as a dark spot about the size of a large leaf.
I came to the city over which enormous instruments of study towered above every spire and roof. It was a wondrous place. All that art could do was done to know the other worlds. They were observed, mapped, examined, measured. Science had done everything, save open the gates to visiting them. And now Arauniel was planning that also.
He welcomed me in the Palace of the Stars. He showed me the treasures of the city—the results of the studies of thousands of astronomers for many ages past, and inspired me with his interest and curiosity to know more. At last he showed me, in Azoniel's hall (where his works of mechanism were stored) the globe for a voyage through space. It was a sphere of some twenty feet diameter, of strongest polished steel. At its top there was a rounded door which could be lifted up, and around its equator were four crystal windows, to observe as we travelled through space. Within were copies of my instruments for conquering gravitation, but of enormous power. Mighty electromagnets were there, and within there was a room with every comfort for the travellers during their long and perilous voyage. In the side were a thousand instruments of every kind for observing, measuring, registering natural forces, and so forth. A long bar pierced the base of the sphere in which were the explosive forces to impel or direct the sphere. It was a wonderful triumph of skill—a little artificial world, as it were, fitted to dart through interplanetary space with every triumph of our skill and science comprised within its globe and stored in its many cells. All accidents appeared provided against, while the apparatus gave us an immense power over nature.
I admired the ether car, as we called it, and felt inclined to join once more in a great expedition into space beyond the earth's orbit, and into the vast outer regions of the giant planets.
I returned from Saldonio to our city, calling, as I went on, at most of the great cities on the way, and studying, in their museums, both of the things which might relate to earth and also to my coming voyage. I talked with the wisest sages of many lands on our project, and on the things we might hope to see, and what should be the special points of our researches. I found the general opinion was that life was universal in the solar system, except in some few of the smaller worlds (like the moon) on which it had existed, but had passed away, or which were, as yet, not enough developed to receive it. The idea was that, as in the spectroscope we had seen that the elements of the solar system were everywhere the same as on our world, probably derived from the sun—and, as on your earth, only the same metals and gases were proved to exist as we had—so also, in life, that the same types of life were everywhere existent, only developed more in one world than in another. I satisfactorily had proved that, as the metals and the common forces, so the life-types were the same in your world as in ours; so, also, we hoped to find whether they could be traced all through the solar system, just as the metals were traced.