The Lowest Heaven (12 page)

Cano, the coward, hid his head under his arms; but Moulville wrangled with the Pilot, attempting to get his firearm from him, but there was a terrifick discharge, and smoak in gouts, and Moulville fell away holding his estomach. He was not kill’d, but in great pain, and I held him as well as I could, though his gore soak’d hot into my own shirt and trowsers. Kindermann was in a state of the greatest agitation at these two sanguine offences, and whoop’d like a cockerel, brandishing his gun and jabbering in incomprehensible fashion. I, the while, berated him with great vehemence, that he was a traitor to His Majesty and the basest of villains. But, he told me, amongst a deal of matter I could not follow very clearly, that George was no Majesty of his, that he was a subject of His Catholick Majesty Charles of Spain. And, as it later transpir’d, Don Frederico’s other man had been right; for he was no Prussian, but a born and rais’d Bavariaman, who has secretly and long espous’d the Cisalpine Kingdom, who have thrown their lot, howsoever foolishly, with the Mediterranean Alliance, all of whom recognize none but the Spain king as their Lord.

He turn’d his attention to sealing the door with the sphear, and now it was plain his intent was nothing less than stealing the
Cometes Georgius
and delivering it to his masters, with what consequence for the war who can say? But whilst occupied in this business he dar’d not set down his pistol, and in fact discharg’d it a third time. I do not believe he intended this latter shot, for he yell’d with surprise; but the bullet passed through the open door and pricked the fabrick of the sphear. Conditions
lunarian
are such that this pinhole ripped precipitously into a great gash; and my ears fill’d with roaring, like the surf of some vasty invisible sea, and all the matter inside the vessel flew about in a whirl. In the noyse the door was at last clos’d, tho’ I cannot say whether Cano or Kindermann achiev’d it; and we were left panting.

Kindermann held his pistol upon us, and cough’d fit to burst his lung. But Cano was in too great a terror to affect anything, and Moulville was shifting colour in his face blue and darker.
Await the moment!
Kindermann cry’d, and instruct’d me to
peep through the hole.
My head being convenient beside a porthole I did as he said; but my back was also against the spigot below, which led to our own balon of ayr, and this I kept clos’d.

The sight thro’ the porthole was one to hurt the heart. For it was now apparent that Kindermann has secret’d a fuz’d barrel or device about the Cristal House, and had lit the fuze as we went. I doubt not (tho’ he did not confirm such from his own lips) that the man struck on the forehead was Kindermann’s doing; and that he had been discover’d laying this trap and shot the fellow, the ball grazing his brow and
caroming
away to break a pane in the cristal roof. The fellow was lucky not to have his skull broke, and to have surviv’d the encounter; yet unlucky in what thereafter followed. For I saw the explosion burst the cristal roof; and throw a great mass of debris into the black Selenic sky. The force with which this detonation smote the House is not to be express’d, no more than the agility with which glitterish shards of shatter’d cristal flew in every direction; but the most puzzling part of all was the Perfect Silence in which it all occur’d.

I called Kindermann
Madman
and
Devil
and
Lunar-Fawkes
to his face, but he agitation was no lessen’d by the successful accomplishment of this wicked plot. ‘We shall lay the blame for this at the door of the Patiens,’ he declar’d; and bestirr’d him to the Propulse. I doubted not that he would now pilot the
Cometes
to Spain, and indeed he betook us all into the lunaric sky with celerity. But rather than departing the Moon straight, instead we overflew the wrecked site of the Peruvian house. I saw the dead boddies of some, their names I know not and I know not whether Don Frederico was among them; but there they lay blackn’d and sprawled in the dust, their eyes black as coals. For the ayr at such a hight, as is well known, is so severe that only to step out of door is to cause the skin to bruise as if from a blow. I have spoke with men who have lost eyes and fingers to the tugg of the lunar ayr, which in fact is no ayr at all. Yet also there are men, with whom I have conversed, who swear that, as with the at the top of mountains, it is merely a matter of accustomizing the mouth to the rarity; and schoolemen say that this is the ayr the angels themselves do breathe. Certain, the Patien take no harm from it, and prefer it to the thicker medium, altho they are not incapacitated by the thickest ayr, as I have myself seen, much as pearl divers are at ease at differing depths of water. (And I have read in Nieuwentyt, and do concurr with him, that what we call Water and what we call Ayr are in truth but the same material according to differing degrees to tenuousness, which can plainly be seen in that ayr frequent distils into rain and seeks again to fall).

Kindermann divided his attentions between holding his pistol upon us, and steering the craft towards the Tranquil Sea; which destination he announced to all of us in that vessel. The landscape of the Moon below is grey to a degree hardly to be believ’d; where the sunlight is hard upon it a silver and in patches quicksilver hue may be seen; but elsewhere it is dreary leaden and poyson’d blue in colour. I order’d cowering Cano to fetch some water for Moulville, altho’ I had littel hope for his survival; and when Cano had oblig’d me, trembling, he return’d to his corner.

There is a Patien’s camp at the Tranquil Sea,
I observ’d.

There is,
he replied.
And thither we shall do to make what mischief we may, before returning to the Earth and the court of King Charles of Spain.
When I press’d him as to his reasons, he expatiated, growing increasing breathless as he went on. That
the Patiens were the enemy, common to all mankind; and that the war between King Charles and his enemies was a tragickal distraction;
that
mankind must unite against the common threat before it was too late.

I rebuk’d him for his folly, hoping in truth only to hurry him along with speaking, for I could feel in the strictness of my own throat the shortest way the air was going, and I kept the spigot tight under my right hand, behind my small-back, and in no wise did circulate fresher air with that handle.

Said I,
if the Patien creatures had such nefarious intention, then why had they not acted sooner?

Said Kindermann
, that we only suppos’d the Patien superior to us; and in fact their numbers being so small, and the main part of their devices and ordnance mere junk, as a hundred speculators have discover’d, their odds of overcoming so large and populous a world as
Earth
were long.
To this end, Kindermann insisted, they were fomenting war between the nations of the globe, and would wait until we had spent our force upon one another, and the seas of the world ran purple with our blood, before moving upon us and enslaving those who survived.

It seem’d to me that, as the Poet says, tho’ this was folly, yet was some wisdom in it. For the Patien do act most peculiar, eccentric to common sense; and it is true both that we outnumber they, and that they are as sensible to hurt and corporeal death as we. But still I could not credit they would permit us to lay our hands upon their devices, without some attempt to restore them to themselves, if their intent were hostile.

But why,
Kindermann press’d me,
have they come hither at all?

As to that,
I reply’d (though all the time judging my moment)
it was idle to speculate, since we lack’d all evidential circumstance. And whist the plan of amity amongst all nations was both noble and prudent, it would be more directly accomplish’d by Charles of Spain suing for peace than in struggling on with a battel beyond his powers to win.

At this Kindermann began a pompous speech, and thereby elaborated a precarious stratagem; that we would steal ordnance from the Patien camp on the Tranquil Sea, and return heroes to Spain; that the blame for the destruction of the
Casa Cristala
would be thrown on the Patiens, and humanity unite in outrage against these alien creatures, aided by the fact that His Catholick Majesty would be newly arm’d with a Propulse (plus whatsoever else we obtain’d from our current raid). That a new alliance of all the world’s people would unite to return to the Moon and vanquish the Patien.
They ly’d, he repeated, by way of refrain or slogan, when they claim’d to have come from the Star Sirius
(such a provenance being a patent impossibility);
what else have they ly’d about?

I judged my moment to have come. Moulville, I am sorry to say, had stopp’d breathing some minutes previous; and as I hope to stand straight before CHRIST after my last day so I do swear I intended no disrespect to that brave fellow in how I used him. But needs must when the
Devil
drives us, as the proverb goes &c., and the fate of nations was weigh’d in the balance, against only my meager purposiveness. So I lifted him (easy to do, since the Selenic charm upon his corpus had rendered it littel more than a small
Child’s
in weight) and toss’d him at Kindermann.

This naturally surpriz’d the Pilot, for he did not expect to have a human adult thrown as one might throw an apple at a beggar. The collision startl’d him from his position and press’d him against the wall, tho’ he took no serious hurt. Luck did not wait upon me, however; for I hop’d to rush him and wrangle him down (for tho’ he was younger and larger than I, yet the thinness of the ayr must incommode him) before he could discharge his pistol; but I found my limbs ineager and rebellious to my commands, and only with great weariness could I move across the floor towards him. I know not how to excuse my sluggishness in prosecuting my attack, save only that the thinness of ayr may have debilitated me more than I knew.

My heart lollop’d, if truth be told, when I saw Kindermann aym his pistol direct in at my face. A moment stood between me and death; but then the trigger tripp’d the hammer, and the weapon did not discharge. For fire, even when bundl’d so small as a
Spark,
needs ayr, and there was an insufficiency thereof in that place, then.

I am sorry to say my grappling with the Pilot was but a poor fistfight; and I panted and strain’d for ayr like any asthmatick. Kindermann threw me off, and I flew further than I thought to. But Cano recover’d his courage (and perhaps it was only that the pistol had affright’d him, and it being remov’d from consideration his courage return’d) and joy’nd the struggle. To make brief, tho’ Kindermann clubb’d him with the buttress end of his gun, yet did Cano overwhelm him; and tho’ the Pilot brought up a knife, with which he certainly intended to do great hurt to us both, in the struggle he sheath’d it again in his own side, and fell away yelping like a puppy. Alas that he fell near the Propulse, for in his grief and hurt, and the bitterness of defeat, the demon of Suicide seiz’d him and he grasp’d the device; and plung’d the
Cometes
straight at the ground. This happen’d so quick, indeed, that I could do naught to ameliorate our flight, and fell struck my head painfully against the wall, hard enough to loose a stream of blood. And almost at once, it seemed, we were dashed upon the Selenic ground.

Mere chance dictat’d the site of our collision, and it so happen’d that GOD threw a handful of dust under our tiller, or we would have been broke open and chok’d to death in moments. But though we surviv’d the first impact, yet the Vessel bounc’d and leapt back in the air, and came down again athwart a ridge-peak. The fabrick of the walls gave, at this blow, somewhat, and air hiss’d loudly. We tumbl’d down the far side, and roll’d the compleat circumference of the Vessel thrice, before we came to rest on the plain. But though this brought cessation to our fall, yet it damag’d the hull further, and the whole
Cometes
groan’d pitifully, and shook and jerk’d with the discharge of its air into the Lunar night like a live thing. I, by chance, had fall’n near the spigot, and somehow gather’d myself to turn this enough to let the air flow; and in truth there was now such a breeze blowing, that the air was suck’d hard from the balon and blown out upon the Moon. But I breath’d easier, and brought Cano to the spigot also, for he was turning
blue.
So we refresh’d our lungs, and being daz’d with the blow to my head and somewhat shaken out of comfort by the crash, I did not for a time realize that the whole balon was deflating at a accelerated rate. Only when it ran dry—many days’ supply of breathable, gone in a few minutes—did I realize our danger.

We had but one other full balon, and before I released the spigot on that I order’d Cano to assist me in making such repairs as we could to the breaches in our hull. This was no easy matter. Three or four we found soon, and they patch’d them as best we could; but the worst was the corner, which was stov’d in quite. Kindermann’s body was here, and the draught of air had suck’d his body half outside, such that tho’ we pull’d him back in (and we were gagging and coughing on the thinness of ayr) his face was white with frost, and strands of his beard broke away like icicles, and his eyes so blackened it look’d as though they were fill’d with black ink. So perish’d this traitor, tho’ it was pitiful to see him in such a state for all that.

By stuffing his body back into the breach and cramming around it with what came to hand we in some measure seal’d our breach; and I was compell’d to open the second spigot or we would both have choak’d to death. But our situation, in honesty, was parlous; for we were marooned on the Moon; and it was hard to see how we should shift ourselves, or survive another twenty-four hours.

Our attempt’d flight

We arrang’d the interior of the
Cometes
into as good an Order as we could, and laid out Purser
Moulville
as best we could, with respect for his sacrifice and his bravery in life; and as Captain I said a prayer for his soul. To hold a hand near Kindermann’s boddy was to feel a draught of air, which stood in proof of the insufficiency of the seal at that place where the fabrick of the Vessel was breach’d. This was my severest anxiety; for it would devour our ayr more quickly than we could afford; and swiftly I revolv’d the possibilities before us. In short, words cannot express the wretched condition we were in, or the surprize we were under of being so unfortunately wreck’d at a place more distant than the furthest
South Sea
island.