Aleriel/Part 5/Chapter 2
CHAPTER II.
SATURN.
On, on we went through space towards that vast belted globe, the great rings rising overhead like a huge aurora, and the moons in a vast corona around. It grew huger and huger, till its glistening clouds formed a vast expanse before us, and the belts of Saturn grew into huge openings. Into one of these we dashed. The scene of that outer region of mist was not unlike that of the great planet we had left—Jupiter. It seemed as if we were ever going on and on for hundreds of miles, with the huge seas of mist rising around us. At length we came to a resistance, as of some solid expanse of matter, through which we dashed, and then felt our further progress stopped in a great morass, in which our vessel sank. We had some difficulty in extricating it, by using all the force we had in the stored electric force of the machine. When we reached the surface again, it was indeed a strange scene that met our eyes. A huge forest, as it seemed, of gigantic plants was there in rank luxuriance. They looked akin to the lower orders of Earth's vegetation—something like gigantic lichens—in nature, or rather in position in creation, not remote from the forms of vegetation that formed your coal-shales. All were of low type, but of colossal size, such as would suit a world in process of formation,—such as existed on your world in the carboniferous age,—such as our world and, possibly, Mars once knew, when in their earlier stages of development.
"Strange it is," I said, "here in these giant planets we have worlds that seem in the state of formation which we know our world and Earth once passed through; and yet in some of the satellites (for instance, in the Earth's Moon), we find finished, worn-out, dead worlds. How can this be if, as it seems, this world of Saturn is a more ancient world than ours, thrown off long ago by the sun?"
"Perhaps it is simply," said Arauniel, "because this world and Jupiter are so huge that they have more independent existence,—more difficulty in developing, so as to suit the higher types of life. Here we evidently have a very early type of world. Not only has it eight satellites, but you see it even retains the ring which Earth and Jupiter once had, but which ages ago they lost. All here is antique and archaic, as, indeed, men foresaw in their theories of astrology. Here one may study the juventus mundi—an antique, primitive, undeveloped, halfchaotic world."
He had scarcely finished, when beneath the huge shadow of the giant fungi appeared a strange and terrible creature—inchoate like all around, huge in size and ill-formed in aspect,—something of the insect type, but colossal. It moved towards us. For once we felt horror. I had, alas! felt it on earth before, in scenes of woe and crime. But here we felt there was a creature of huge strength, yet of nature not akin to ours. Whether he had intelligence I cannot say. He moved among the gigantic fungi to our ether-car, and then moved it with his huge ciliated limbs. His aspect was horrible. After staying and looking at it with seeming curiosity—though it may be no more than a mere animal might feel at a thing strange and unknown,—he let it go, and then passed on into the huge forest of colossal fungi and lichens.
This was not the only denizen of the forest. Strange forms still appeared, such as men never think of save in nightmares: some gigantic, some of more moderate dimensions, but none apparently of any nobleness of aspect; nothing like what we had seen in other worlds, and all seemed of inferior types, or rather developments in great size of the inferior types of life. We remained in our car, watching these strange beings pass and re-pass.
"This seems," I said, "like some of the dreams of Dante's 'Inferno.' These horrid, inchoate forms are what men dreamt of in the Middle Ages as the eternal companions of the spirits of the wicked. Is this a region given up to sin,—a world more fallen than Earth even,—a realm in rebellion against God?"
"Not necessarily so," said Ezariel; "it may be only a region undeveloped as yet, where Nature is imperfect,—where as yet she cannot produce her masterpieces. It may be that the higher forms of being may even thus be developed in these strange types."
"It would seem," I said, "as if there was some little ground in the notion of the old astrologers of Earth, that this vast planet is inimical in its influence. Saturnine is used even now among men as a term for dark, harsh, evil influences. It may have been that it was because this planet, removed from the Sun's rays, is less brilliant than the others, or it may have been that Man, by some higher instinct or revelation, knew that it was of a form of creation distinct from Earth."
"In one sense it is, and Saturn is more than another world—than ours or Earth; it is another system. His rings and his moons mark a complete system, distinct from the others, though chained to the distant sun by the power of gravitation. May it not be that solar influences, so potent with us, and still energetic in the Earth and Mars, here are weak, and that the planet himself has a force,—an independent existence distinct from the sun? We felt this in Jupiter; here it is more manifest."
"Had we not better secure ourselves first, and afterwards discuss these points? I see another of these strange. Saturnine monsters approaching us."
As he spoke, we turned and saw another huge being of extraordinary aspect rising from the morass and making towards us. We loosened the anti-gravitating force, and rose into the clouds. Here, poised in mid air in the Saturnian atmosphere, we watched the wondrous scene. Night was coming on. The sun, small and cold looking, was sinking in the clouds. It was a very different sort of day to yours or ours. The only thing I can liken it to was the short, dark day of a North Russian winter. But it was not cold. From the planet itself there rose a heated steam, evidently the result of its internal fires—a world yet not half cooled, such as yours was in the carboniferous age of the coal-shales.
As night closed in, the scene grew more than ever grand. Seven of the eight moons were in sight. Titan was at his full, Japetus was half-moon; Mimas, Enceladus, Rhea, were in the first quarter; Dione and Tethys were at the third. This alone—this galaxy of splendid moons—would have made a wondrous spectacle. But there was something still more marvellous. Like a huge yellow comet (only such a comet was never seen by man), from the eastern horizon to the western, stood the huge arc of the rings. It might be also likened to a rainbow, but more firm and solid in aspect, and not of many colours. The chasm between the rings came out clearly, and between them the stars could be seen. We floated on in this wondrous spectacle over the vast world, the glorious rings and the seven moons giving light (for seven only were in sight) to the strange scene of heaving oceans, and here and there low islands clad in mist and cloud, of that strange world. Night soon passed. Again the sun rose to give a clear light to that singular spectacle, but still a dim one compared to that which you and we have. Soon after sunrise, however, the great banks of cloud hid him from our eyes, and we were enwrapped in mist. We resolved to rise out of this. Using our anti-gravitating power, we rose once more into clear space, and then, beneath our feet, for hundreds of miles, we saw the vast clouds rolling around the mist-clad planet, much as, on an overcast day, the aeronaut sees the earth clad in cloud.
"We flew on hundreds, nay, thousands of miles, but still nothing but cloud was visible. The planet and his vast oceans and morass-like islands, and the strange forms that moved through his forests, were all lost to view. It was a huge cloud-land.