The Mammoth Book of New Jules Verne Adventures (55 page)

“Baltimore was uninhabitable a hundred years ago,” Prunella Benton said, dismissing Barbicane’s argument with a wave of her hand. “No society to speak of, at any rate.”

“My house was uninhabitable until I replaced those awful curtains,” Hermione Larkin added, rolling her eyes.

Barbicane, exasperated, turned to his compatriot, Captain Nicholl. Though it was only a few months since Evangelina had last seen them, both men looked older than she remembered. The face below Barbicane’s trademark stovepipe hat seemed thinner and more haggard, while Captain Nicholl seemed pale and tired.

Even the room seemed different from how she remembered it. The formerly gleaming clusters of muskets, blunderbusses, and carbines that adorned the walls now seemed dingy and uncared-for, the glass display cases of ammunition were covered in a layer of dust, and the exuberant atmosphere she recalled from her previous visits had been replaced by an air of gloom.

It felt as if everything in the place had somehow become smaller. Even the men seemed smaller.

“It’s not the same thing at all,” Captain Nicholl stepped in. “There is no air or water on the moon.”

“And there are no sandwiches in a forest,” Hermione responded. “If you wish to have a picnic in the woods, you bring the sandwiches with you!”

“Sandwiches?” said Barbicane.

“What Mrs Larkin means is: if a place is not inhabitable, you find a way to make it so,” Evangelina explained.

“May I remind you,” said Captain Nicholl, “Mr Barbicane and I have actually orbited the moon, and in our close observations of its surface, we saw no sign of life, and no sign of anything that might sustain life.”

Fiona Wicke spoke up at this point. “If, as you say, there is no air on the moon, it is worth bearing in mind that vegetation produces oxygen.”

“But there is no vegetation on the moon,” Mr Barbicane responded, a trace of irritation creeping into his voice.

“And there was precious little vegetation in my garden until I planted it,” said Hermione.

“Ladies,” said Captain Nicholl. “From what I have seen with my own eyes, I am forced to conclude that the lunar soil is incapable of supporting vegetation. You must believe me when I tell you that nothing can survive there. Nothing.”

Hermione seemed about to speak again, but Fiona silenced her with a discreet shake of the head. “Just one last question,” Fiona said. “Why did you send a projectile to the moon in the first place?”

“To prove it could be done,” said Barbicane.

“They were laughing at us,” Fiona said as the women emerged into the sunlight. “Not aloud, but inwardly; you could see it in their faces. And they had every right to do so. We were not prepared, we had not thought it through.”

A sudden gust of wind sent several sheets of discarded newspaper flapping about the square. Hermione grimaced in disgust as one of the dusty sheets plastered itself across the front of her carefully draped and bustled skirt. “When is someone going to do something about the garbage problem in this city?” she demanded, shaking her skirt free.

Fiona watched the paper blow away down the street, her face creased in thought.

Chapter Four:  Fiona thinks it through

“Is Mrs Wicke at home?” Evangelina asked, handing the maid her card.

Evangelina was left to wait in the front parlour while the maid went to see if her mistress was at home. She was admiring a cloisonné vase when she heard Fiona’s voice coming from behind her: “I’ve never really liked that vase, it was a gift from my first husband’s mother.”

Evangelina’s first reaction on turning around was to ask Fiona if she was all right. Though it was half past two in the afternoon, her hair was down and she was still in her dressing gown.

“Yes, yes, of course. I’m fine.”

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Evangelina persisted, trying not to stare at Fiona’s state of undress.

“Yes, yes! I’m glad you came, actually; I want to show you something.”

She led Evangelina out into the garden. “What is that?” she asked, pointing at a mound of grass cuttings and kitchen scraps.

“It’s a compost heap,” Evangelina said. “Are you quite sure you’re all right?”

“Take a look at it,” Fiona insisted. “What does it consist of?”

“Fiona, I don’t need to examine your compost heap to ascertain its contents. I know what’s in a compost heap, I have one myself.”

“Potato peelings, eggshells, coffee grounds,” Fiona began, counting each item off on her fingers. “Apple cores, hedge trimmings —”

“Fiona, what are you getting at?”

“Garbage! It’s all garbage! And what is the biggest problem in Baltimore today? The garbage problem.”

“So?”

“So we send our garbage to the moon!”

“But that’s what I came here to tell you about. Immediately after we left the gun club the other day, Mr Barbicane contacted my husband to tell him about our proposal — which they both found rather amusing — with the end result that Mr Maston has since been reinstated as club secretary and returned to the pursuit of mathematics, while I have this morning hired two men to repair the damage to my garden. So everything has turned out as planned and we can forget about the moon.”

“No, no, you don’t understand,” Fiona insisted. “This isn’t about your husband’s rift with Barbicane. This is about making the moon a place where human beings can survive, and it can work! What was Barbicane and Nicholl’s main objection to the possibility of making the moon habitable? The lack of an atmosphere. But what I am proposing will create that atmosphere.”

“How?”

“Of what does our own atmosphere consist?” Fiona asked her.

Evangelina shrugged. “Oxygen, I suppose.”

“I think you’ll find some seventy-eight per cent of the air we breathe is nitrogen. And what gas does a compost heap produce in abundance?”

“Nitrogen?”

“Exactly! So . . . we send our garbage to the moon where it decays into compost, producing nitrogen to enrich the soil, thus enabling the growth of vegetation. The vegetation produces oxygen. Then we throw in some worms, insects, and small animals to produce carbon dioxide, and voila! We have an atmosphere.”

Evangelina’s mouth dropped open. “Where do you get such ideas?”

“Come upstairs and I will show you.”

Evangelina followed her back into the house and up the stairs to a large study lined with overflowing bookcases.

Fiona walked over to a desk piled high with open books and several stacks of handwritten notes. “My second husband, though he made his living in textile sales, had a great interest in science, especially chemistry. I’ve still got all his books, and have been conducting further research of my own at the public library.”

Evangelina picked up one of the handwritten sheets and began reading its contents out loud: “Corncobs, cotton, paper, sawdust, wood chips, straw, hops, restaurant scraps, market scraps, hair, feathers, hooves, horns, peanut shells, seashells, seaweed . . . What is this?”

“Just a partial list of things that can be composted, all of which are thrown out every day. When I was at the library yesterday, I found a survey predicting that over the next twenty-five years, the average American city will produce an average of eight hundred and sixty pounds of garbage per capita. With the current population of Baltimore standing at approximately five hundred thousand souls, that makes a total of . . .” She paused to riffle through her notes. “Ah, here we are: 430 million pounds of garbage. Keep in mind this figure is for Baltimore alone, and assumes no further growth in population, which strikes me as unlikely. Now, consider the population of New York, currently standing at over three and a quarter millions —”

Evangelina didn’t need to hear any more figures to grasp what Fiona was telling her. “In just twenty-five years, we could turn the moon into a gigantic compost heap!”

“And that is just the beginning,” Fiona said, concluding her address to an extraordinary meeting of the New Park Ladies’

Gardening Society, called at less than forty-eight hours notice. “Upon his return to Earth, the third passenger in Barbicane and Nicholl’s projectile, the Frenchman Michel Ardan . . .”

More than two decades after the Frenchman’s only visit to America, the mere mention of the name “Ardan” was still enough to prompt a wave of wistful sighs. “

 . . . remarked that the greatest disappointment of his life was to learn there were no Selenites, but I tell you now that the Frenchman was wrong. Ladies, we are the Selenites!”

The entire membership of the society — all seventeen of them — rose to their feet to give Fiona a standing ovation.

“Whatever became of Monsieur Ardan?” Hermione whispered to Evangelina.

“He returned to France some years ago,” Evangelina whispered back, “and the last I heard, was growing cabbages.”

“Cabbages? How perfect! We could invite him to judge our best vegetable competition!”

Evangelina took a slow, deep breath. “Hermione, he lives in France.”

Chapter Five:  A garden on the moon

“Over the same period, Boston, with a population of approximately five hundred and sixty thousand, will produce well over four hundred and eighty-one million pounds of garbage,” Fiona informed the trio of gentlemen seated on the opposite side of the table.

“Four hundred eighty-one million and six hundred thousand, to be precise,” said J. T. Maston.

Evangelina sat quietly at Fiona’s side. The only reason for her presence today was her role in arranging this second meeting. Until the occasion two weeks previously, when she had burst in uninvited with three other women, Evangelina had been the only non-member — and the only female — ever allowed into the Gun Club premises. This special status had only been granted to her on account of her generous financial contribution to the scheme to shift the Earth’s axis. Getting Mr Barbicane to agree to a second audience with Fiona had not been easy, but once Evangelina became determined upon something, she usually got her way.

Now there was little for her to do except allow the others to talk while she reflected on her surroundings, and she couldn’t help being pleased by what she saw.

The firearms on display had been restored to their shining former glory, the glass cases sparkled, and the air of gloom had lifted. And it was all due to the return of J. T. Maston, once again at his usual place, his good hand scribbling furiously as he recorded every word spoken at the table into his notebook.

“While New York, with a population of approximately three and a quarter million is predicted to produce —”

“Two billion, seven hundred and ninety five million pounds of garbage,” said J. T Maston, entering the numbers in his book with a flourish.

“Correct,” said Fiona. “And not only will this raw material cost us nothing, city governments will pay us to take it. The only initial expenses involved would be those of setting up a company and hiring local men to work as our collectors. Once we acquire the garbage, we simply pack it into missiles designed to break open upon impact, and send it crashing into the moon.”

J. T. Maston began sketching a design for the garbage missile. “The opening mechanism, here, will require a small explosives charge . . .”

“Or perhaps just a spring?” Fiona suggested tactfully. “That would work, too,” Maston agreed, modifying his drawing.

“And you plan to follow this garbage with seeds,” said Barbicane. “What kind of seeds?”

“Whatever is readily to hand, I should imagine,” Captain Nicholl interjected before Fiona could answer. “Surely any plant will do as long it produces oxygen.”

“Acorns,” said J. T. Maston. “If people are going to live on the moon, they will require wood for building houses.”

“Yes, trees must be a priority,” Barbicane agreed, “because they take the longest to grow.”

J. T. Maston drew a large circle to represent the moon. “We could fit an oak forest in here,” he said, marking out a section of the northern hemisphere.

“Apple orchards over there,” said Barbicane, indicating a section over to one side. “Pear trees over there, orange groves down here.”

“We’ll need grasslands for cattle,” Captain Nicholl enthusiastically joined in, while Fiona insisted there also be room for the purely aesthetic, “The Selenite garden must be a place of beauty, a new Eden if you like.”

“Roses, gardenias, et cetera, over there,” said J. T. Maston. “Corn and wheatfields here.” He looked up from his fevered sketching. “But how do we water all this vegetation?”

“India rubber,” said Evangelina, speaking up for the first time.

“What?” said Nicholl.

“Children’s toy balloons made from the sap of the India rubber tree,” Fiona explained. “Every shipment to the moon will include a number of these balloons filled with water . . .

thanks to a suggestion from one of our members who caught her grandson throwing a water-filled balloon at the neighbours’ cat.”

“A garden on the moon,” Mr Barbicane said wistfully. “If only it were possible.”

Fiona’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. Even Captain Nicholl seemed a little startled.

“But it is possible,” Fiona protested, sifting through her notes. “There’s much more I haven’t gone into yet. Bees, for example. I didn’t mention the bees because they don’t come in until a later stage. And there’ll be worms. Lots of worms . . .”

“My dear Mrs Wicke, I am sure that your idea is more than possible in theory, it’s just impossible in practice.” “But . . .”

“The one thing you have not considered is: how on earth do you expect to send all these missiles to the moon?”

“But you’ve done it before,” Fiona sputtered. “The Columbiad cannon . . .”

“The cannon to which you refer fired one projectile containing three men, two dogs, and a handful of chickens towards the moon on one occasion more than twenty years ago. Firing that one — comparatively lightweight — missile, one time only, required four hundred thousand pounds of fulminating cotton. What you are proposing would seem to involve the firing of an immense number of much heavier projectiles on a daily basis over a period of many years, possibly a century or more. I doubt there is that much explosive in the world, and even if there were, the cost would be prohibitive.”