Chapter I: The Gathering of the Friends

“I say, you fellows, can any of you oblige by throwing an illuminating light on the movements of old Carmichael?”

The question was addressed by Maurice Sheldon to a party of undergraduates assembled in his college rooms in Cambridge, one lazy afternoon near the end of the summer term.

“Well,” said Gilbert Rice, after some moments of acute reflection, “the dear old owl has taken advantage of the close of his lecture course to take himself off to some unknown hole in Northumberland called ‘Newbiggin-on-the-Sea,’ I believe.”

“Anxious to turn over a new leaf and make a new beginning,” ejaculated Joe Vallance.

“Why on earth did he stop there and not go on to Edinburgh or to the Highlands like any sensible man?” queried Sheldon.

“I was dangerously near suggesting that he wasn’t one, but I see Abercromby getting ready a missile to shy at my head,” answered Gilbert Rice, “but I don’t mind saying Carmichael is an awfully decent sort when you really get to know him.”

“Well, I _have_ got to know him,” retorted Frank Abercromby, with emphasis, “and I tell you this, he is working body and soul at something that will astonish the world when the secret is out.”

“Stagger humanity like old Kruger,” said the teasing Vallance. “Put some whisky into his coffee, and he will tell us all about it.”

“I shan’t tell you anything till Carmichael gives the word. He has gone up to that quiet spot to meet Carysfort the engineer whom some of you know, and also Clarence Radcliffe the Oxford curate. The last is a queer sort of a chap, rather a dreamer you know, been through an awful lot of trouble, lost his wife during their honeymoon, but he did me a regular good turn and I mean to stick to him. I’m going to ask him to come and meet the Professor and the engineer and we will see if we can’t get a bit ahead.”

“But, my dear chap, how long is this job going to take?” said Sheldon. “Carysfort is a pledge there will be _one_ sane person in the enterprise, but how are you to start again for your degree?”

“I’m not going to start again.”

“Great Scott! are you going down after this term?”

“I’ve no alternative. My uncle hates me, and has taken an unjust advantage of my failing to pass to give up all further support of me.”

“I’m awfully sorry, but what the dickens will you do?”

“Join myself to Carysfort and the Professor.”

“And what will _he_ do?” slyly put in Gilbert Rice.

“Well, of all the extraordinary things I ever heard, this about beats the record,” said Sheldon. Then he resumed--

“Carmichael the scientific don, whose lectures were so dry that they well-nigh killed the Vice-Chancellor. Carysfort a hard-headed engineer, Radcliffe a poor parson nearly knocked silly by melodrama in his honeymoon, and you Abercromby--well, present company always excepted you know--meeting to carry on some work in Northumbria about which our distinguished selves are for an indefinite time to know nothing,” and he finished with the most expressive of gestures.

“I think we had better go a walk to Cherry Hinton,” said Joe Vallance; “won’t you come with us, Abercromby?”

“No, comrades of a bygone day,” said Abercromby, with a distinct catch in his voice, “I have a less pleasurable duty to do: to pack my box.”

“Well, I’m beastly sorry,” said Gilbert Rice, “hope the clouds will roll by soon, old fellow.”

* * * * *

A few weeks later a small group of friends were seated in the parlour of a house in a lonely situation facing the North Sea, a few hundred yards from St. Bartholomew’s Point at Newbiggin. The July sun was setting in splendour and the watery expanse was calm as a lake. The Professor had placed upon the table a small model, shaped after the fashion of a submarine boat constructed of a greyish-white substance, divided into several tiny compartments and pointed at the end with a steel prow.

“Gentlemen,” said the Professor, “I will ask my good friend Mr. Carysfort to explain to you in outline the significance of what you now see.”

“Well, gentlemen,” answered the engineer, “this is only a small model, but the first step is often the most important, and it will certainly be so, we trust, in this case. This machine is capable of doing more than solving the problem of aerial navigation. It is an airship and can be used as such by the action of the revolving fans, but it can do more. When there is no air sufficient for the fans to beat, it can still go onward farther and farther from the earth. You know that in theory any particle of attraction can be converted into a particle of repulsion whereby the law of gravitation may be suspended for an adequate time. But the practical difficulty has been to find a power that will effect this change. The power has been found. A new substance has been discovered by the joint labour of the Professor and myself, two new chemical elements both having certain affinities with radium, which can, by the help of electric energy, impart to this model, or to a machine of larger size, the power to resist the gravitation force of the earth until we are sufficiently far away from it to fall into some other centre of attraction. This simply means that the secret of interplanetary communication has been solved.”

The others listened in profound silence. Then Clarence Radcliffe said: “How long will it take to construct a machine on the requisite scale and finish?”

“About two years at the most,” answered Carysfort, “but I hope a less time will suffice.”

“And where the dickens are we going?” asked Abercromby. “To the moon, I suppose, first, and then onwards to Mars. Mars seems to be the goal of scientific enterprise just now.”

“I shall not go to Mars,” replied the Professor; “we know as much about Mars already as we can ever hope to know without actually visiting it. People rave about the canals, but that semi-arctic planet, which I do not believe is inhabited after all, has little interest for me. But there is a planet equal in size to our own earth, much nearer to us than Mars, aglow with light and probably with life. We are going to Venus. This is the enterprise which will enrich humanity with the larger knowledge. You can get a map of Mars with all the continents named, but no one ever drew a map of Venus. No one ever will except he goes there.”

“What is to be approximately the speed of the machine?” said Radcliffe.

“Ten miles a second when we are in the airless void,” replied Carysfort, “but we can regulate our speed at will when it becomes advisable to do so. The distance to be travelled is between twenty-three and twenty-seven millions, according to the precise positions of the two planets. Mars is never less than thirty-five millions and that only once in about fifteen years; its ordinary minimum of nearness is at least forty-eight millions.”

“How many people will the machine be constructed to hold?” said Abercromby in a rather excited tone.

The Professor hesitated, then he slowly replied, “For myself, my servant Jackson, Carysfort, and one other.” There was a moment’s pause, then the Professor looked fixedly at Abercromby.

“May I take a turn with you on the sands?” asked Abercromby, his face somewhat flushed.

The Professor assented, leaving Radcliffe talking with the engineer. The two others opened the garden gate and stepped out on to the fine dry sands for which Newbiggin is famous.

“Come, my friend,” said the Professor, “you must not take refuge in shyness, but to end all dispute, I want _you_. You have had rough luck, and you are just the young fellow whose services an older man like me would gladly enlist.”

“Professor,” said Abercromby, “I am awfully keen on the work, few could be more so, but I will give up my share to the man who saved me from a beastly scrape when I was visiting Oxford.”

“I know to what you refer,” replied Carmichael a little impatiently; “some rascal accused you of stealing one of the inter-Varsity athletic prizes, and Radcliffe cleared you by unmasking the real culprit. No one rejoiced more than I, but I cannot see why this should cut you out of the greatest enterprise ever attempted by man.”

“Have you heard of Radcliffe’s awful trial?”

“Not full particulars.”

“Well, I will tell you all I know, and then you will see that the only chance of saving him from utter shipwreck lies in giving him a new object in life.”

“Will the story take long in the telling?”

“Ten minutes.”

“Drive ahead then.”