Chapter VI: Into the Black Gulf

The peril from the solar attraction did not prove as great as they had feared. Carmichael had chosen the most favourable moment for leaving the earth, when Venus would be travelling directly towards them, and would interpose as a shield between them and the sun.

Before the new orbit was reached they slackened their speed, and that things were going well was soon evident by the planet appearing beneath them as a gradually brightening star in the depths of space. Many anxious hours and many elaborate mathematical calculations had to be spent and taken before the Professor and the engineer felt able to communicate reassuring news. Not till they had got within five millions of miles from Venus did they feel that the solar peril might be regarded as over.

All the members of the party, except Carmichael, seemed to enjoy a rebound of confidence and hope, but the Professor remained anxious and abstracted. He told them repeatedly that the peril they had feared was past, and that they might reach Venus in safety--at least with no greater danger than the earth if they were returning to it--but this did not enlighten them as to the real cause of his concern. If they asked him more closely he returned only evasive answers.

One day he called the engineer aside and they had a long private talk. It lasted more than an hour. At length the two came out of the cabin and went back to the dining-room, where Abercromby was trying to solve a chess problem.

“Is anything gone queer?” he said to the Professor. “Tell us; we can stand it. Is the machine giving out, or what is the trouble?”

“If you want to find a wife in Venus, and Radcliffe a mission, I fear you will both be disappointed. For myself, I am too disgusted and sick at heart to go into the matter. We have run the most awful risks, and for what? to be rewarded at the last with polar ice and worse than tropical furnaces. In all probability there are no inhabitants of Venus--at least none that are human.”

“But, my dear and respected Professor, how have you found out these agreeable facts at five millions of miles distance?” said Abercromby.

Carmichael did not answer. Radcliffe fixed an appealing look at Carysfort, who at once took up the subject.

“Well, gentlemen, I suppose it is about time we told you. I always feared it might be so, but we hoped it would not be. Now our fears are convictions.”

“And our hopes have taken a run round the stars to keep themselves warm,” said Abercromby. “Now I will not talk nonsense again till you have said your say.”

“The truth is that those astronomers are right who thought that Venus revolved round the sun with such an inclination of its axis that the sun was always in the same place, according to latitude; that there were practically no seasons or alternations of day and night, but that while one side of the planet was always lighted, the other was always dark. Now you can judge what that means in the long run. Half the planet is locked in perpetual ice-bound cold, worse than any of our Arctic winters, while the other has a sun always pouring down light and heat upon it, twice as much as the earth receives and that every day and all day long.”

“But surely, even then it must make an enormous difference what height the sun occupies in the sky?” said Radcliffe.

“That is the only hope,” replied Carysfort.

“Well, then, let us steer for the North Pole of the planet and alight near to the boundary between sunshine and shadow. At least we know that there is an atmosphere.”

“Yes, and a very dense one as regards depth; perhaps five hundred miles or more,” said the Professor, at length breaking his silence. “But although we shall certainly do what Radcliffe suggests, for it is the only possible course to take, I can hold out little hope of any result. The chief danger to be dreaded is storm and tempest, electrical and cyclonic disturbances caused by the meeting of opposing currents of heated and cold air. If we can surmount this, we can make our way cautiously over the lighted surface until the heat shall drive us back.”

“There is another very serious trouble,” said the engineer. “We had hoped that, as we drew near to Venus, we should be able to take careful observations of its features as we did in the case of the moon, and could have carried much further had it been necessary; but, as we shall approach Venus on its darkened side, we shall see practically nothing till we get there. A pleasant landing that will be.”

“It is obvious that we ought not to, and must not, alight upon the planet without seeing where we are,” said Carmichael. “When we reach the atmosphere we must throw out the searchlights, but this will be a dangerous operation.”

“It will set all the dogs barking, you mean,” remarked Abercromby. “But seriously, Professor, do you think it is all up with us?”

“Not as to our safety perhaps, but as to the success of our enterprise. What good will it be to reach a world of fire and desolation?”

Before Venus actually crossed the path of the sun they did their best to take whatever observations were possible. But vast belts of clouds hid the lighted surface, screening its actual wonders from their view.

“We have verified Herschel’s opinion that Venus has an extremely dense atmosphere,” said Radcliffe. “I wonder whether we shall presently verify Schroeter’s that its mountains are twenty miles in height.”

“My dear Radcliffe, Herschel is quite antiquated; and as for the other Johnnie you referred to, he is nearly as ancient as Julius Cæsar,” said Abercromby.

“But there is this to be noted,” remarked the engineer, “that the foreign astronomers of a past day could often use their telescopes in a brilliant sky, like Italy, for instance, whereas in England the most perfect and up-to-date instruments are apt to be put out of use by constant bad weather. Give me an old-fashioned telescope and I will make something of it if there be only a clear sky. Moreover, I think in the olden days men turned more attention to the physical side of astronomy than they do now.”

“As to the supposed stupendous mountains in Venus, we shall soon find out all about it if we are not knocked to pieces,” said the Professor; “but I will point out that the highest earthly mountains are really ten miles high, because they ought to be measured, not as we see them, but from the ocean bed itself. As to Venus, astronomers have noticed certain slight roughnesses on the edge of the crescent, when it appears to us crescent in shape, and these may indicate the tops of mountains caught by the sun’s rays.”

“It’s a great nuisance that Venus is not on the outer side of the earth instead of on the sunward,” said Carysfort. “As the matter stands, when she is furthest off she appears as a full moon, when she is nearest she is only a crescent. Add to this, that she recedes but a short distance from the sun, and is therefore only a morning and evening star.”

So they chatted on while the gulf which separated them from their goal grew less and less. When they retired to rest they were only three millions of miles away.

Meeting at the breakfast-table next morning, the Professor was asked when he thought the journey would be over.

His answer was in about sixty hours; he was gradually reducing the inherent speed, and when the time drew near for the actual descent he would pull against it by increasing the repulsive force of the engines.

Their supply of air, which had been manufactured by chemical process, had worked perfectly, the inner temperature of the Asteroid being always at a moderate level.

As the hours advanced they all noticed a dimness spreading over the heavens; this was caused by the disk of Venus gradually encroaching upon that of the sun. The diminution of the solar light was at first not unpleasing, but when at last it faded out altogether and an intense darkness supervened, relieved only by the stars, the travellers knew by instinct that they were nearing their last and their greatest peril. By lunch-time the size of Venus had become very enlarged, but, unhappily, they could see no feature nor landscape, they could only tell where the planet was by the increasing eclipse of the stars upon the floor of the heavens.

Abercromby wanted them to cut this short, for it was getting on his nerves.

Slowly, and more slowly still, they felt their way down and down into the black gulf.

The Professor and the engineer never left their posts, but only took hurried mouthfuls of refreshment which Jackson brought to them. Poor Jackson was shivering with alarm, which he tried to conceal under a fussy attention to his duties. Even his polishing and scrubbing failed to soothe him.

Frank Abercromby was in a perpetual fidget, now and then asking what the dickens was going to happen, and sometimes making use of unclassical language. Radcliffe stood beside the windows silent, but his face was deadly pale.

When the black globe beneath them covered the whole depth of the sky, Carmichael began to set in motion the repelling power.

It was a terribly anxious crisis, for if he used it too much he might be actually retreating from his destination, if too little, they might be dashed to pieces.

“You had better go down on your knees, Radcliffe,” said Carmichael, “and do for us what is more becoming in you perhaps than in me.”

Radcliffe prayed earnestly and simply that at this awful moment help might be given them, that if they had been presumptuous it was for the good of their fellow-men, not for their own advancement.

Suddenly as he rose from his knees Abercromby shouted, almost crazy with excitement, “Come here, all of you. What is this going on down yonder?”

A dull red illumination appeared, of no great size, but they could not tell how vast it might be in reality.

“It is a volcano, glowing in the atmosphere of Venus, near to the Pole,” said Carmichael. “Now we know to what point to steer.”

Not long after, though minutes seemed ages, a slight rise of temperature became noticeable.

“We are in the atmosphere,” said Carysfort. “Start the fans.”

“They can be set going from within,” exclaimed Carmichael.

The levers were turned and the fan wheels were seen to revolve, though very feebly. Half the peril was over, as far as the descent was concerned, for they had now the means of using their machine as an airship. They steered in a diagonal line towards the burning mountain, and, keeping exactly at the same height, they made use of the summit to guide them as to their level of altitude. A few moments more and a line of brilliant light appeared on the horizon. They were on the North Pole of Venus, four miles from its surface.

In front spread an apparently boundless ocean, encumbered with blocks of bluish and purple-white ice, which of course tended every mile southwards to become smaller and smaller, while, to the north, they were crystallised into vast masses thrown up into the most weird and fantastic shapes. The great sun of Venus, twice as large as the terrestrial sun, flamed in rosy splendour upon the southern horizon. The sea was restless and agitated and a keen wind was blowing. The sky was laden with fleecy clouds of wild and stormy appearance. They were at a vast height, higher even than the Asteroid.

“Well, gentlemen,” said the Professor, “we have faced the greatest hazard ever dared by man, and we look upon what the mortal eyes of humanity have never seen. Now let us take courage and face the problems of the future, resolved that, come what may, we will do our duty.”