Life in a Thousand Worlds/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI.
The Nearest Fixed Star.
LL that was required on my part was a mere act of the mind, and I went where I wished. I visited Uranus and Neptune, after which I stretched my swift wings for the great flight, away from our Solar System, over billions of miles of space. I alighted on the burning star nearest to our Earth. This star is called, by our astronomers, Alpha Centaurus, and it is said to be 20,000,000,000,000 miles away. This star is much greater than our Sun and is the center of a system of worlds larger and more numerous than those that compose our Solar System.
You cannot imagine my surprise when I reached Alpha Centaurus and found that it was inhabited by a class of human creatures who were created to live and flourish in fire. Their customs and habits are so strange that I am not capable of giving an intelligent description of them. I know that it is inconceivable to us how life can be developed and sustained in the midst of a burning sun, and I found that these beings in turn could not conceive how life can exist in a cold world like ours.
These creatures have no digestive organs. They live, in part, on the chemical action produced by fire breathing. The hotter the fire, the more easily is life sustained. If they were to get away from the heat, this chemical action would cease and therefore death would be as certain to them as being enveloped in fire would spell death to us.
In our eyes, their bodies are misshapen, composed of elements most of which are not found in our world. There are many cold places, or sun spots, on Alpha Centaurus, but these are shunned by the people as death traps. However, the centers of population gather on the more solid sections, most of which lie around the sun spots.
You could scarcely believe your eyes were you to look upon the durable works of architecture built by these strangely shaped mortals.
Still more wonderful are the seas of boiling fire which are sometimes comparatively quiet, and then again, in all madness, their majestic flames shoot upward thousands of miles.
When the sea is quiet, life is oppressive in the centers of population just as it is in our world when the air is still and the summer sun is pouring down upon us. Breathing is easier and life is quickened when the molten sea boils furiously. These terrible heat blasts are most exhilarating and refreshing to the inhabitants living near enough to receive the benefit of them.
You may imagine that these people of Alpha Centaurus are idlers, being fed by the ceaseless heat waves that beat upon them. Such a conception is totally false, for I saw that industry was plainly evident, and labor had its reward in securing the necessaries and luxuries of life.
These life-sustaining foods are composed of elements which can be appropriated into muscle and bone (if you will permit me to use these terms), and are obtained by re-uniting and re-combining spent forces. This explanation is somewhat mystical, but I can do no better in describing the food production and assimilation in a pure fire-world like this one on which I had arrived.
To imagine and believe that fertility can be possible in a seething world-furnace, is too far beyond our philosophy to be conceivable. Alpha Centaurus is so large a sun that although it has a population ten times greater than our globe, yet its surface is sparsely settled.
The oceans of fire occupy the greater part of the surface of this wonderful sphere. In these great red-hot seas live the monsters of the deep, as well as a motley variety of other species, veritable salamanders, some grotesquely hideous, others surpassingly beautiful in form and hue.
On this sphere man is extraordinarily intelligent. He is almost totally ignorant of anything akin to astronomy, although some of the greater scholars have ventured the theory that there might be other worlds containing human life, providing there be fire enough to sustain them.
In some other particulars, these star-creatures have made astonishing progress. They believe that the time is coming when the fires of their world will be blown out and all life become extinct. This they would call, in our language, the coming Judgment when every human being that ever lived will receive his just recompense of reward.
With interest I studied the manner of government, and the admirable system of education which is the secret of their progress.
I made a special effort to ascertain whence this sun receives its continued supply of fuel. The question had often perplexed my mind when I gazed toward our Sun from the shores of our world. None of the theories advanced by our scientists and astronomers fully satisfied my mind. And now I looked and studied in vain. Although the awful burnings had been in progress for thousands of years, I could see no fuel that was added to the flames. Hence I was driven to believe that Alpha Centaurus was on fire and was gradually being consumed; this must be true of all the stars that bedeck the canopy of Heaven.
The inconstancy of this star's surface is the greatest menace to its inhabitants. At times the solid crusts break in the contracting of the surface. All this makes terrible havoc, but the new generations take fresh courage and pluckily restore the fallen habitations.
One of the luxuries enjoyed by these fire beings at certain times is to get where the chemical action of heat is at a low ebb. That has a similar effect upon them as calming our nerves has upon us.
One of the great inventions consists in an instrument that neutralizes this chemical action of heat even where it is most intense. It is a common sight to see creatures basking under one of these instruments in a somewhat comatose state. The inventor of this instrument is worshiped almost as a god.
One of the most startling inventions of all is a machine that counteracts gravity. This, to my mind, is the greatest invention I had yet seen, and, strange to say, these fire creatures know nothing about means of propulsion except by hand power. If you were able to stand on the seething furnace of Alpha Centaurus, you would see these machines rise far into the shooting fire and beyond, as far as occupants can go without freezing to death. Then at a reverse of the lever you would see the mysterious car descend.
These star residents have enjoyed this invention so long that they no longer appreciate its marvels. You ask me if I tried to get the secret. I saw the whole apparatus and the more I studied it, the more I was convinced that its storage battery contained heat energy. So I concluded to solve the mystery. I learned that there was a certain element found only in combination. When this element is set loose by chemical process, it will rise at once toward a large planet that revolves around this sun. This planet draws that particular element with six times more force than it is held by Alpha Centaurus. The brilliant chemists, when they first made this discovery, separated enough of this element to carry a man upward from the sun's surface. Later on they made a counter discovery of equal value.
They found a substance that would destroy this attraction if it was placed the element and the planet. The discovery enabled a person to rise as high as he wished and then, by swinging the plate in position, the aerial carriage would either stand still or descend according to the wish of the operator.
What a boon it would be to our world if we had such an element for which Jupiter or the Sun would have so much fondness! Then with our superior knowledge of propulsion we could forever settle the perplexing problem of aerial navigation.
These exceptional people, living in such terrible fire, wear pieces of garments made of the finest texture. The hair-like threads are composed of metallic substances far more enduring than gold or platinum.
Of all the unthinkable things on this star none are so extreme as the manner in which these people hold conversation. They have no organs to produce vocal sounds.
They convey their ideas one to another by a vibration of the conversation flaps. Either the air waves, or substantial emissions, excite the sensitive face of the listener so
Fire Life on a Fixed Star.
that the thought intended can be accurately received.
Having a strong curiosity, I remained and studied this fire life. It opened to me new channels of thought and illustrated more emphatically than ever that all things are possible with Him who created the universe and upholds it by the word of His power.
Finally, I left this strange abode and proceeded to visit some of the eighteen worlds that revolve around Alpha Centaurus.