Aleriel/Part 4/Chapter 1
PART IV.— THE GIANT WORLDS.
CHAPTER I.
DEIMOS, AND THE VOYAGE FROM MARS THROUGH SPACE.
Higher and higher did we rise from the Ice Mountain. At our feet the green expanse of the Delarue Ocean opened wider and wider, with the verdant billows rolling one after another in long lines, like the huge pampa-grass of your American plains, with now and then a white snow-cloud resting on expanse.
Higher and higher we rose, till the red cliffs of Schroeter's land were in sight, and the white and red plains of Tycho's Island now dappled by snow, with the Lockyer Sea in its centre, and then the wide ruddy plains of the Copernicus, Galileo, and Huyghens' continents. Still higher and higher, till, from a sea of green, the world we had left seemed, as it does to you, of red and white, the ruddy plains and forests glowing like fires beneath the blazing sun. It looked very rich and gorgeous in its varied colours—a splendid and majestic spectacle; none the less so, because every point we could see had now for us some pleasing reminiscence of what we had beheld when viewing it more nearly. Higher still we went, till Mars seemed as a huge globe beneath our feet.
Our first start was, as I said, for the moon of Deimos, one of the two little satellites of Mars. It is one of the smallest of the worlds of the solar system, for few even of the planetoids are so minute. Its surface is smaller than that of the Isle of Wight. London might have almost covered one of its hemispheres, and Paris would have taken up a great part of it. It was a half-moon when we approached it, and its aspect, part black as night, part shining in the sunlight, was very striking. At first it seemed as a huge balloon rolling through space; but, as we drew nearer, the rocks and cliffs showed it a tiny world, hardly deserving the name of world, were it not for its regular orbit and its position in space as definite a satellite as, comparatively, huge Titan or your Moon.
The aspect of Deimos is very striking. Its size is so small, that you feel that it is a globe even when upon it; indeed, it appears little more than a colossal meteor, an expanse of rock and rugged canons of piled cliffs and stones. We rested on one of its largest rocks, and thence surveyed the dreary little world around us, and the great ruddy planet, with its green seas and its snow-clad hills, and polar ice and glaciers. It was a lovely sight! Mars is so glorious in colour—one of the loveliest, the most varied, the most gorgeous of the many worlds that roll around the mighty sun. In other worlds one colour is prevailing: on the earth blue and green; in our lovely Venus white, and the paler, or more glowing tints; but in Mars all colours save blue—the very antithesis to the earth, where blue is dominant. Mars has the dominant hue of red, and the earth of blue.
Glorious he looked from that tiny moon, and from its rugged cliffs and rocks, and as we rolled on around him, like a moving panorama, he opened to us new splendour. Seas, continents, oceans, and mountain chains, ruddy plains and green lakes, all dappled by the white fleecy clouds, and, in some places, glittering with snows—all appeared before us as we moved with more than railway speed around this world. It was like a balloon view of earth, only on a far vaster scale. The motions of Phobus, the other satellite, varied the scene as he also dashed through space around the gorgeous and many-coloured orb — the sovereign world to both. It was a wonderful and splendid scene of glowing hues, and in the evening, when the stars decked the sky, the cities' lights made it appear hardly less glorious than by day.
We lingered several days on that tiny moon, rolling round the ruddy planet, thus watching the oceans and continents opening to our vision. There was a fascination in the scene, so that we could hardly tear ourselves from it. It was like rolling in a car through space—a car so small and rapid that one felt and perceived its motion, which one cannot do in larger satellites.
As we spent our time watching Mars, we also compared notes. I told my companions of my travels, and pointed to them the cities and long lines of roads of Mars. They in their turn showed me the natural treasures they had collected—the plants, the rocks, the smaller animals. They explained the variations of nature they had observed, the operation of the natural laws, the combinations of the elements. They pointed out to me the lakes and rivers, the mountains and morasses of Mars, and told me of the measures they had taken and the wonders they had seen in the many ruddy lands that we saw rolling before us.
Then at length Ezariel, wearied at our long delay and our rapt dwelling upon Mars, said: "Let us behold more. Perchance, Mars is not to be compared with the mightier orbs beyond. Let us go on—forward into space to behold new splendours, new miracles of Divine love and power."
We assented to the justice of what he said, and tore ourselves unwillingly from the ruddy orb and its tiny satellite, and went onwards into space. We put our machine into action. The compensating force was set against gravitation. The little moon and the orb of Mars lost their attractive power, and we launched into infinity—far into the black ether, studded with its myriads of distant systems—the huge measureless ocean of the infinite. The satellite Deimos rushed away from us in his course around Mars, and we plunged in our little ether-car into infinity.
Our first work, as before, was to seek for one of the meteoric streams rolling away from the sun. We soon, flying through ether, came on one of these—a long crowd of rocks, poised in space, rolling on through ether around the sun in an ellipse. We attached our car to one of the larger of these, and then swept on with it.
The journey was long, and would have been somewhat tedious had we not had abundant occupation in arranging the wonders we had collected in the ruddy world we had left behind. The rock, or meteor, on which we rested offered but little to employ us. It was but a few scores of yards across, and was formed irregularly. It was a mass of iron and manganese, chromium, and sodium. Still it was easier than the ether-boat we had attached to it. Sometimes we landed on it, sometimes remained in the ether-car. We analyzed its rocks, and examined microscopically their texture, and found in them vestiges of infusorial life of many orders.
On, on we went; on towards the vast system of worlds to which we aimed. On day by day (speaking of the earth or Venusian days), up to a year, ever forward we flew, with the long flow of myriads of meteors around us dimly reflecting the sunlight, and Jupiter slowly growing larger and brighter, till we felt that we might get within his influence.
Then Ezariel called us into the ether-boat, and he detached it from our friendly little rock, and we launched out again into space. But now purposely the anti-gravitating power was not used. We were within the influence of the planet and his vast mass. We rushed through space as fast as a cannon-ball fired from a rifle cannon—hundreds of miles a minute—on towards the great world before us.