A Honeymoon in Space
servants. That's what will happen on Earth, and there is no reason why
it shouldn't have happened here."
As he said this the car swung out round a broad curve into the centre of
the great square, and a little cry of amazement broke from Zaidie's lips
as her glance roamed over the multiplying splendours about her.
In the centre of the square, in the midst of smooth lawns and
flower-beds of every conceivable shape and colour, and groves of
flowering trees, stood a great domed building, which they approached
through an avenue of overarching trees interlaced with flowering
creepers.
The car stopped at the foot of a triple flight of stairs of dazzling
whiteness which led up to a broad arched doorway. Several groups of
people were sprinkled about the avenue and steps and the wide terrace
which ran along the front of the building. They looked with keen, but
perfectly well-mannered surprise at their strange visitors, and seemed
to be discussing their appearance; but not a step was taken towards
them, nor was there the slightest sign of anything like vulgar
curiosity.
"What perfect manners these dear people have!" said Zaidie, as they
dismounted at the foot of the staircase. "I wonder what would happen if
a couple of them were to be landed from a motor-car in front of the
Capitol at Washington. I suppose this is their Capitol, and we've been
brought here to be put through our facings. What a pity we can't talk to
them! I wonder if they'd believe our story if we could tell it."
"I've no doubt they know something of it already," replied Redgrave;
"they're evidently people of immense intelligence. Intellectually, I
daresay, we're mere children compared with them, and it's quite possible
that they have developed senses which we have no idea of."
"And perhaps," added Zaidie, "all the time that we are talking to each
other our friend here is quietly reading everything that is going on in
our minds."
Whether this was so or not their host gave no sign of comprehension. He
led them up the steps and through the great doorway, where he was met by
three splendidly dressed men even taller than himself.
"I feel beastly shabby among all these gorgeously attired personages,"
said Redgrave, looking down at his plain tweed suit, as they were
conducted with every manifestation of politeness along the magnificent
vestibule into which the door opened.
"And I'm sure I am quite a dowdy in comparison with these lovely
creatures," added Zaidie, "although this dress was made in Paris. Lenox,
if things are for sale here you'll have to buy me one of those costumes,
and we'll take it back and get one made like it. I wonder what they'd
think of me dressed in one of those costumes at a ball at the
Waldorf-Astoria."
Before he could make a suitable reply, a door at the end of the
vestibule opened and they were ushered into a large hall which was
evidently a council-chamber. At the further end of it were three
semi-circular rows of seats made of a polished silvery metal, and in the
centre and raised slightly above them another under a canopy of sky-blue
silk. This seat and six others were occupied by men of most venerable
aspect, in spite of the fact their hair was just as long and thick and
glossy as their host's or even as Zaidie's own.
The ceremony of introduction was exceedingly simple. Though they could
not, of course, understand a word he said, it was evident from his
eloquent gestures that their host described the way in which they had
come from Space and landed on the surface of the World of the Crystal
Cities, as Zaidie subsequently re-christened Ganymede.
The President of the Senate or Council spoke a few sentences in a deep
musical tone. Then their host, taking their hands, led them up to his
seat, and the President rose and took them by both hands in turn. Then,
with a grave smile of greeting, he bent his head and resumed his seat.
They joined hands in turn with each of the six senators present, bowed
their farewells in silence, and then went back with their host to the
car.
They ran down the avenue, made a curving sweep round to the left--for
all the paths in the great square were laid in curves, apparently to
form a contrast to the straight streets--and presently stopped before
the porch of one of the hundred palaces which surrounded it. This was
their host's house, and their home during the rest of their sojourn on
Ganymede.
CHAPTER XVI
The period of Ganymede's revolution round its gigantic primary is seven
days, three hours, and forty-three minutes, practically a terrestrial
week, and on their return to their native world both the daring
navigators of Space described this as the most interesting and
delightful week in their lives, excepting always the period which they
spent in the Eden of the Morning Star. Yet in one sense, it was even
more interesting.
There the inhabitants had never learnt to sin; here they had learnt the
lesson that sin is mere foolishness, and that no really sensible or
properly educated man or woman thinks crime worth committing.
The life of the Crystal Cities, of which they visited four in different
parts of the satellite, using the _Astronef_ as their vehicle, was one
of peaceful industry and calm, innocent enjoyment. It was quite plain
that their first impressions of this aged world were correct. Outside
the cities spread a universal desert on which life was impossible. There
was hardly any moisture in the thin atmosphere. The rivers had dwindled
into rivulets and the seas into vast, shallow marshes. The heat received
from the Sun was only about a twenty-fifth of that which falls on the
surface of the Earth, and this was drawn to the cities and collected and
preserved under their glass domes by a number of devices which displayed
superhuman intelligence.
The dwindling supplies of water were hoarded in vast subterranean
reservoirs, and, by means of a perfect system of redistillation, the
priceless fluid was used over and over again both for human purposes and
for irrigating the land within the cities. Still the total quantity was
steadily diminishing, for it was not only evaporating from the surface,
but, as the orb cooled more and more rapidly towards its centre, it
descended deeper and deeper below the surface, and could now only be
reached by means of marvellously constructed borings and pumping
machinery which extended several miles below the surface.
The fast-failing store of heat in the centre of the little world, which
had now cooled through more than half its bulk, was utilised for warming
the air of the cities, and to drive the machinery which propelled it
through the streets and squares. All work was done by electric energy
developed directly from this source, which also actuated the repulsive
engines which had prevented the _Astronef_ from descending.
In short, the inhabitants of Ganymede were engaged in a steady,
ceaseless struggle to utilise the expiring natural forces of their world
to prolong their own lives and the exquisitely refined civilisation to
which they had attained to the latest possible date. They were, indeed,
in exactly the same position in which the distant descendants of the
human race may one day be expected to find themselves.
Their domestic life, as Zaidie and Redgrave saw it while they were the
guests of their host, was the perfection of simplicity and comfort, and
their public life was characterised by a quiet but intense
intellectuality which, as Zaidie had said, made them feel very much like
children who had only just learnt to speak.
As they possessed magnificent telescopes, far surpassing any on Earth,
their guests were able to survey, not only the Solar System, but the
other systems far beyond its limits as no others of their kind had ever
been able to do before. They did not look through or into the
telescopes. The lens was turned upon the object, and this was thrown,
enormously magnified, upon screens of what looked something like ground
glass some fifty feet square. It was thus that they saw, not only the
whole visible surface of Jupiter as he revolved above them and they
about him, but also their native Earth, sometimes a pale silver disc or
crescent close to the edge of the Sun, visible only in the morning and
the evening of Jupiter, and at other times like a little black spot
crossing the glowing surface.
But there was another development of the science of the Crystal Cities
which interested them far more than this--for after all they could not
only see the Worlds of Space for themselves, but circumnavigate them if
they chose.
During their stay they were shown on these same screens the pictorial
history of the world whose guests they were. These pictures, which they
recognised as an immeasurable development of what is called the
cinematograph process on Earth, extended through the whole gamut of the
satellite's life. They formed, in fact, the means by which the children
of Ganymede were taught the history of their world.
It was, of course, inevitable that the _Astronef_ should prove an object
of intense interest to their hosts. They had solved the problem of the
Resolution of Forces, as Professor Rennick had done, and, as they were
shown pictorially, a vessel had been made which embodied the principles
of attraction and repulsion. It had risen from the surface of Ganymede,
and then, possibly because its engines could not develop sufficient
repulsive force, the tremendous pull of the giant planet had dragged it
away. It had vanished through the cloud-belts towards the flaming
surface beneath--and the experiment had never been repeated.
Here, however, was a vessel which had actually, as Redgrave had
convinced his hosts by means of celestial maps and drawings of his own,
left a planet close to the Sun, and safely crossed the tremendous gulf
of six hundred and fifty million miles which separated Jupiter from the
centre of the system. Moreover, he had twice proved her powers by taking
his host and two of his newly-made friends, the chief astronomers of
Ganymede, on a short trip across Space to Calisto and Europa, the second
satellite of Jupiter, which, to their very grave interest, they found
had already passed the stage in which Ganymede was, and had lapsed into
the icy silence of death.
It was these two journeys which led to the last adventure of the
_Astronef_ in the Jovian System. Both Redgrave and Zaidie had
determined, at whatever risk, to pass through the cloud-belts of
Jupiter, and catch a glimpse, if only a glimpse, of a world in the
making. Their host and the two astronomers, after a certain amount of
quiet discussion, accepted their invitation to accompany them, and on
the morning of the eighth day after their landing on Ganymede, the
_Astronef_ rose from the plain outside the Crystal City, and directed
her course towards the centre of the vast disc of Jupiter.
She was followed by the telescopes of all the observatories until she
vanished through the brilliant cloud-band, eighty-five thousand miles
long and some five thousand miles broad, which stretched from east to
west of the planet. At the same moment the voyagers lost sight of
Ganymede and his sister satellites.
The temperature of the interior of the _Astronef_ began to rise as soon
as the upper cloud-belt was passed. Under this, spread out a vast field
of brown-red cloud, rent here and there into holes and gaps like those
storm-cavities in the atmosphere of the Sun, which are commonly known as
sun-spots. This lower stratum of cloud appeared to be the scene of
terrific storms, compared with which the fiercest earthly tempests were
mere zephyrs.
After falling some five hundred miles further they found themselves
surrounded by what seemed an ocean of fire, but still the internal