From the Earth to the Moon; and, Round the Moon

CHAPTER IX

THE CON­SE­QUENCES OF A DE­VI­ATION

Bar­bi­cane had now no fear of the is­sue of the jour­ney, at least as far as the pro­jec­tile’s im­pul­sive force was con­cerned; its own speed would car­ry it be­yond the neu­tral line; it would cer­tain­ly not re­turn to earth; it would cer­tain­ly not re­main mo­tion­less on the line of at­trac­tion. One sin­gle hy­poth­esis re­mained to be re­al­ized, the ar­rival of the pro­jec­tile at its des­ti­na­tion by the ac­tion of the lu­nar at­trac­tion.

It was in re­al­ity a fall of 8,296 leagues on an orb, it is true, where weight could on­ly be reck­oned at one sixth of ter­res­tri­al weight; a formidable fall, nev­er­the­less, and one against which ev­ery pre­cau­tion must be tak­en with­out de­lay.

These pre­cau­tions were of two sorts, some to dead­en the shock when the pro­jec­tile should touch the lu­nar soil, oth­ers to de­lay the fall, and con­se­quent­ly make it less vi­olent.

To dead­en the shock, it was a pity that Bar­bi­cane was no longer able to em­ploy the means which had so ably weak­ened the shock at de­par­ture, that is to say, by wa­ter used as springs and the par­ti­tion breaks.

The par­ti­tions still ex­ist­ed, but wa­ter failed, for they could not use their re­serve, which was pre­cious, in case dur­ing the first days the liq­uid el­ement should be found want­ing on lu­nar soil.

And in­deed this re­serve would have been quite in­suf­fi­cient for a spring. The lay­er of wa­ter stored in the pro­jec­tile at the time of start­ing up­on their jour­ney oc­cu­pied no less than three feet in depth, and spread over a sur­face of not less than fifty-​four square feet. Be­sides, the cis­tern did not con­tain one-​fifth part of it; they must there­fore give up this ef­fi­cient means of dead­en­ing the shock of ar­rival. Hap­pi­ly, Bar­bi­cane, not con­tent with em­ploy­ing wa­ter, had fur­nished the mov­able disc with strong spring plugs, des­tined to lessen the shock against the base af­ter the break­ing of the hor­izon­tal par­ti­tions. These plugs still ex­ist­ed; they had on­ly to read­just them and re­place the mov­able disc; ev­ery piece, easy to han­dle, as their weight was now scarce­ly felt, was quick­ly mount­ed.

The dif­fer­ent pieces were fit­ted with­out trou­ble, it be­ing on­ly a mat­ter of bolts and screws; tools were not want­ing, and soon the re­in­stat­ed disc lay on steel plugs, like a ta­ble on its legs. One in­con­ve­nience re­sult­ed from the re­plac­ing of the disc, the low­er win­dow was blocked up; thus it was im­pos­si­ble for the trav­el­ers to ob­serve the moon from that open­ing while they were be­ing pre­cip­itat­ed per­pen­dic­ular­ly up­on her; but they were obliged to give it up; even by the side open­ings they could still see vast lu­nar re­gions, as an aero­naut sees the earth from his car.

This re­plac­ing of the disc was at least an hour’s work. It was past twelve when all prepa­ra­tions were fin­ished. Bar­bi­cane took fresh ob­ser­va­tions on the in­cli­na­tion of the pro­jec­tile, but to his an­noy­ance it had not turned over suf­fi­cient­ly for its fall; it seemed to take a curve par­al­lel to the lu­nar disc. The orb of night shone splen­did­ly in­to space, while op­po­site, the orb of day blazed with fire.

Their sit­ua­tion be­gan to make them un­easy.

“Are we reach­ing our des­ti­na­tion?” said Nicholl.

“Let us act as if we were about reach­ing it,” replied Bar­bi­cane.

“You are scep­ti­cal,” re­tort­ed Michel Ar­dan. “We shall ar­rive, and that, too, quick­er than we like.”

This an­swer brought Bar­bi­cane back to his prepa­ra­tions, and he oc­cu­pied him­self with plac­ing the con­trivances in­tend­ed to break their de­scent. We may re­mem­ber the scene of the meet­ing held at Tam­pa Town, in Flori­da, when Cap­tain Nicholl came for­ward as Bar­bi­cane’s en­emy and Michel Ar­dan’s ad­ver­sary. To Cap­tain Nicholl’s main­tain­ing that the pro­jec­tile would smash like glass, Michel replied that he would break their fall by means of rock­ets prop­er­ly placed.

Thus, pow­er­ful fire­works, tak­ing their start­ing-​point from the base and burst­ing out­side, could, by pro­duc­ing a re­coil, check to a cer­tain de­gree the pro­jec­tile’s speed. These rock­ets were to burn in space, it is true; but oxy­gen would not fail them, for they could sup­ply them­selves with it, like the lu­nar vol­ca­noes, the burn­ing of which has nev­er yet been stopped by the want of at­mo­sphere round the moon.

Bar­bi­cane had ac­cord­ing­ly sup­plied him­self with these fire­works, en­closed in lit­tle steel guns, which could be screwed on to the base of the pro­jec­tile. In­side, these guns were flush with the bot­tom; out­side, they pro­trud­ed about eigh­teen inch­es. There were twen­ty of them. An open­ing left in the disc al­lowed them to light the match with which each was pro­vid­ed. All the ef­fect was felt out­side. The burn­ing mix­ture had al­ready been rammed in­to each gun. They had, then, noth­ing to do but raise the metal­lic buffers fixed in the base, and re­place them by the guns, which fit­ted close­ly in their places.

This new work was fin­ished about three o’clock, and af­ter tak­ing all these pre­cau­tions there re­mained but to wait. But the pro­jec­tile was per­cep­ti­bly near­ing the moon, and ev­ident­ly suc­cumbed to her in­flu­ence to a cer­tain de­gree; though its own ve­loc­ity al­so drew it in an oblique di­rec­tion. From these con­flict­ing in­flu­ences re­sult­ed a line which might be­come a tan­gent. But it was cer­tain that the pro­jec­tile would not fall di­rect­ly on the moon; for its low­er part, by rea­son of its weight, ought to be turned to­ward her.

Bar­bi­cane’s un­easi­ness in­creased as he saw his pro­jec­tile re­sist the in­flu­ence of grav­ita­tion. The Un­known was open­ing be­fore him, the Un­known in in­ter­plan­etary space. The man of sci­ence thought he had fore­seen the on­ly three hy­pothe­ses pos­si­ble– the re­turn to the earth, the re­turn to the moon, or stag­na­tion on the neu­tral line; and here a fourth hy­poth­esis, big with all the ter­rors of the In­fi­nite, surged up in­op­por­tune­ly. To face it with­out flinch­ing, one must be a res­olute sa­vant like Bar­bi­cane, a phleg­mat­ic be­ing like Nicholl, or an au­da­cious ad­ven­tur­er like Michel Ar­dan.

Con­ver­sa­tion was start­ed up­on this sub­ject. Oth­er men would have con­sid­ered the ques­tion from a prac­ti­cal point of view; they would have asked them­selves whith­er their pro­jec­tile car­riage was car­ry­ing them. Not so with these; they sought for the cause which pro­duced this ef­fect.

“So we have be­come di­vert­ed from our route,” said Michel; “but why?”

“I very much fear,” an­swered Nicholl, “that, in spite of all pre­cau­tions tak­en, the Columbi­ad was not fair­ly point­ed. An er­ror, how­ev­er small, would be enough to throw us out of the moon’s at­trac­tion.”

“Then they must have aimed bad­ly?” asked Michel.

“I do not think so,” replied Bar­bi­cane. “The per­pen­dic­ular­ity of the gun was ex­act, its di­rec­tion to the zenith of the spot in­con­testible; and the moon pass­ing to the zenith of the spot, we ought to reach it at the full. There is an­oth­er rea­son, but it es­capes me.”

“Are we not ar­riv­ing too late?” asked Nicholl.

“Too late?” said Bar­bi­cane.

“Yes,” con­tin­ued Nicholl. “The Cam­bridge Ob­ser­va­to­ry’s note says that the tran­sit ought to be ac­com­plished in nine­ty-​sev­en hours thir­teen min­utes and twen­ty sec­onds; which means to say, that _soon­er_ the moon will _not_ be at the point in­di­cat­ed, and _lat­er_ it will have passed it.”

“True,” replied Bar­bi­cane. “But we start­ed the 1st of De­cem­ber, at thir­teen min­utes and twen­ty-​five sec­onds to eleven at night; and we ought to ar­rive on the 5th at mid­night, at the ex­act mo­ment when the moon would be full; and we are now at the 5th of De­cem­ber. It is now half-​past three in the evening; half-​past eight ought to see us at the end of our jour­ney. Why do we not ar­rive?”

“Might it not be an ex­cess of speed?” an­swered Nicholl; “for we know now that its ini­tial ve­loc­ity was greater than they sup­posed.”

“No! a hun­dred times, no!” replied Bar­bi­cane. “An ex­cess of speed, if the di­rec­tion of the pro­jec­tile had been right, would not have pre­vent­ed us reach­ing the moon. No, there has been a de­vi­ation. We have been turned out of our course.”

“By whom? by what?” asked Nicholl.

“I can­not say,” replied Bar­bi­cane.

“Very well, then, Bar­bi­cane,” said Michel, “do you wish to know my opin­ion on the sub­ject of find­ing out this de­vi­ation?”

“Speak.”

“I would not give half a dol­lar to know it. That we have de­vi­at­ed is a fact. Where we are go­ing mat­ters lit­tle; we shall soon see. Since we are be­ing borne along in space we shall end by falling in­to some cen­ter of at­trac­tion or oth­er.”

Michel Ar­dan’s in­dif­fer­ence did not con­tent Bar­bi­cane. Not that he was un­easy about the fu­ture, but he want­ed to know at any cost _why_ his pro­jec­tile had de­vi­at­ed.

But the pro­jec­tile con­tin­ued its course side­ways to the moon, and with it the mass of things thrown out. Bar­bi­cane could even prove, by the el­eva­tions which served as land­marks up­on the moon, which was on­ly two thou­sand leagues dis­tant, that its speed was be­com­ing uni­form– fresh proof that there was no fall. Its im­pul­sive force still pre­vailed over the lu­nar at­trac­tion, but the pro­jec­tile’s course was cer­tain­ly bring­ing it near­er to the moon, and they might hope that at a near­er point the weight, pre­dom­inat­ing, would cause a de­cid­ed fall.

The three friends, hav­ing noth­ing bet­ter to do, con­tin­ued their ob­ser­va­tions; but they could not yet de­ter­mine the to­po­graph­ical po­si­tion of the satel­lite; ev­ery re­lief was lev­eled un­der the re­flec­tion of the so­lar rays.

They watched thus through the side win­dows un­til eight o’clock at night. The moon had grown so large in their eyes that it filled half of the fir­ma­ment. The sun on one side, and the orb of night on the oth­er, flood­ed the pro­jec­tile with light.

At that mo­ment Bar­bi­cane thought he could es­ti­mate the dis­tance which sep­arat­ed them from their aim at no more than 700 leagues. The speed of the pro­jec­tile seemed to him to be more than 200 yards, or about 170 leagues a sec­ond. Un­der the cen­tripetal force, the base of the pro­jec­tile tend­ed to­ward the moon; but the cen­trifu­gal still pre­vailed; and it was prob­able that its rec­ti­lin­eal course would be changed to a curve of some sort, the na­ture of which they could not at present de­ter­mine.

Bar­bi­cane was still seek­ing the so­lu­tion of his in­sol­uble prob­lem. Hours passed with­out any re­sult. The pro­jec­tile was ev­ident­ly near­ing the moon, but it was al­so ev­ident that it would nev­er reach her. As to the near­est dis­tance at which it would pass her, that must be the re­sult of two forces, at­trac­tion and re­pul­sion, af­fect­ing its mo­tion.

“I ask but one thing,” said Michel; “that we may pass near enough to pen­etrate her se­crets.”

“Cursed be the thing that has caused our pro­jec­tile to de­vi­ate from its course,” cried Nicholl.

And, as if a light had sud­den­ly bro­ken in up­on his mind, Bar­bi­cane an­swered, “Then cursed be the me­te­or which crossed our path.”

“What?” said Michel Ar­dan.

“What do you mean?” ex­claimed Nicholl.

“I mean,” said Bar­bi­cane in a de­cid­ed tone, “I mean that our de­vi­ation is ow­ing sole­ly to our meet­ing with this erring body.”

“But it did not even brush us as it passed,” said Michel.

“What does that mat­ter? Its mass, com­pared to that of our pro­jec­tile, was enor­mous, and its at­trac­tion was enough to in­flu­ence our course.”

“So lit­tle?” cried Nicholl.

“Yes, Nicholl; but how­ev­er lit­tle it might be,” replied Bar­bi­cane, “in a dis­tance of 84,000 leagues, it want­ed no more to make us miss the moon.”