CHAPTER I

IN SPACE

Space—infinite space! On, on, swept the Argenta through the heavens at frightful speed. The engines were useless; the levers refused to work, and the occupants of the airship sat within the shuttered vessel, helpless.

For days they had eaten nothing—they were unable to move; terror had them fast within its grasp.

“Sir John,” said Masters at last, “I’m going to make a cup of tea. Here we are, and here we must remain until our food gives out. Mrs. Desmond,—won’t you come and help me?” Mavis rose from an armchair, and tenderly laid the sleeping babe on the cushions of a settee.

“My baby,” she murmured, “to think I bore you for this.”

“Come, Mrs. Desmond,” and Masters led the way to the tiny kitchen.

All sense of direction had gone, and the occupants of the giant airship, had simply to accept the extraordinary conditions that had been thrust upon them, and remain helpless in the Argenta, carried they knew not whither, adrift in the heavens. They had ceased to reckon time, minutes had no meaning; hours and days passed as one long whole. They were just atoms, existing in space, which is infinite—where time is infinite—where life itself is infinite!

Mavis entered with a tray laden with tea and biscuits—the exertion had done her good, and already there was a slight colour in her cheeks.

The airship was ploughing along at a terrific rate, but its motion was steady, and they could walk about in comfort. When first the explosion that had accompanied the end of the world sent them spinning into the infinite unknown, the Argenta had behaved in a most erratic way. Broadside she skimmed like an arrow, throwing them from side to side, then she reared up on her tail, and climbed the heavens almost perpendicularly; then she would roll over and over, porpoise-like, until the frail mortals lost all sense of everything except that a great calamity had come into their lives.

“Where are we?” asked Mavis suddenly.

“I intend to try and find out,” said Masters grimly. “Whatever happens we can’t be in a worse position than we are at this moment. I intend to move the shutters from the bows and then we may get some idea of where we are.”

“But is it safe?” objected Desmond, looking first at his wife and then at his child. “So far we are safe. This mad journey must come to an end some time or other. Why jeopardize all our lives for the sake of a little curiosity?”

“Must it come to an end?” said Sir John thoughtfully.

“Of course,” answered Desmond. “We can’t go on forever.”

“Why not?” continued his Uncle. “Space is infinite. Now time is eternity. We, when in the world—”

“How strange that sounds,” interrupted Alan.

“As I was saying, when we were in the world, we often used the expression, ‘For ever and ever.’ If we thought what it really meant, it dazed our brains; we wanted to probe further, and find out what it was that came after that ‘ever and ever.’ We puzzled our intellects by pondering on the infinity of time. I realize now, what Eternity is! Since we have been here, I have ceased to count the minutes; I have ceased to think of days, or night, or weeks. Time is! That is enough for me.”

“Then you really think we may go on forever?” asked Desmond in horror.

“I don’t know. I certainly think it is as likely as not.”

“Oh God,” Desmond muttered between his clenched teeth.

“Come, dear,” said Mavis bravely. “We ought to be thankful that the promptitude of Uncle John and Masters saved us from an awful death below.”

“Are you sure it was ‘down below’?” asked Alan quizzically.

“Why, of course,” Mavis began. Then she stopped. “Oh I don’t know. That is all so strange and puzzling.”

“Now, Masters,” said Sir John. “What were you going to do?”

“I was going to release the shutters from the bow. I can close the patent traps, and leave the ether protection all round the ship,” he explained to the others. “But it is possible to leave a small portion of the glass in the bows, exposed, through which we shall be able to see the course we are taking.”

“I think it’s worth making the experiment,” said Sir John, and they all followed him into the comfortable front cabin.

“Now if you see the slightest sign of danger, ’phone me,” said Masters, who was going into the lever room.

“How can you tell if danger is near?” asked Mavis with interest.

“This way,” said Masters. He pointed to a portion of the glass wall, now covered with the outer sheet of aluminium.

“That portion of the glass is of extra thickness and strength. If the outside air pressure is too great, or the gravitation or any unknown element too powerful for it, that glass will bulge, either inwards, or outwards. Only slightly at first, but it will get bigger and bigger until it bursts asunder. Now, if you see the slightest suspicion of that happening, ’phone through to me, and I will close the shutters again. At any rate, we shall have done no harm, and at least we shall have tried to do something to ease our position.”

In breathless silence they waited, watchful in the dark. Suddenly a tiny ray of light lit up the stygian gloom. Bigger and bigger it grew, until the whole of Masters’ wonderfully planned “lookout” was exposed to view. Breathlessly they watched. There was not the slightest sign of strain upon the glass. It was certainly capable of protecting them for the present at any rate.

“All serene,” cried Alan through the ’phone.

“Everything safe?” from Masters at the other end.

“Quite safe.”

“Oh-h-h-h.” It was Mavis. “How wonderful!” They were looking into endless space at last! They had no sense of location—no ordinary sense of North or South—East or West. They were in the heart of the Solar system, with no horizon to act as a guiding line! The vastness of space overwhelmed them; there was no landmark to direct them. There was no comforting horizon, with mighty arms outstretched, embracing the world. There was nothing to give them a feeling of security. Here space just “went on” for ever and ever, beyond human comprehension.

Wherever they looked, there was just—no end.

But the scene was beautiful beyond comparison. Away to their right, in the dark recesses of the firmament, was a wonderful brightness.

“It’s the Milky Way,” said Mavis clapping her hands in ecstasy.

“I don’t think so,” said Alan. “But all the same, I think that gives us an idea in what direction we are flying. That brightness must be the Greater Magellanic Clouds in the Southern Constellation.”

“What, are they only clouds, then?”

“No, just stars. Stars of all magnitudes, richly strewn in the heavens. Even the faintest of the nebulæ are more abundant than in any other part of the firmament.”

“It’s wonderful,” said Sir John. “The illuminating brightness is almost overpowering.”

They were unable to take their eyes from the cloud-like condensation of stars—one of the glories of space.

“We don’t seem to be getting any nearer to it, although we are going at such a pace,” said Mavis.

“My dear,” answered her uncle. “We are too many miles away to see any appreciable lessening of distance between us.”

“What is that bright star there,” asked Mavis pointing. “Just a little to this side of the Magellanic Clouds?”

“I don’t know. It certainly is wonderfully bright,” answered Sir John.

Alan was searching the heavens. “Isn’t that the Constellation of Draco—the Dragon—?” he asked suddenly. “I think it must be. If so, that star, as you call it, which lies between the Greater Magellanic Cloud and Draco must be Jupiter.”

“Jupiter?”

“Yes. One of Jupiter’s poles lies in the heart of Draco, and the other is close by the Greater Magellanic Clouds.”

Mavis puckered her brows. “Jupiter,” she almost whispered, “the Prince of all the Planets?”

“Yes.”

“We don’t seem to know much about him, do we?” she went on.

“No,” said her husband. “The astronomers seem much more interested in Saturn and Mars.”

“I’ve often thought,” said Alan, “that such a magnificent orb could not have been created just to have shown our old earth light. Its beauty, its grandeur, its magnitude, suggests to us the noblest forms of life.”

“You think it is inhabited?” asked Desmond.

“Why not? Surely its beauty and magnitude alone are a convincing proof of the insignificance of our earth. If Terra was inhabited, populated with many fine races of human beings, possessed of glorious scenery, and full of nature’s wonders, surely if such a puny world as ours was peopled, why should a far finer planet be debarred from possessing and nurturing higher forms of animal life?”

“It sounds very interesting,” said Mavis laughing, “but I wonder whether it’s true.”

“If people are on Mars, or Saturn, or Jupiter, they would hardly be like us,” announced Desmond, grandiloquently. “They would either be like the Mechanical Martians that Wells wrote of, or just animal life of some gelatinous matter as favoured by Wolfius.”

“Oh you egotistical, egregious Englishman,” laughed Sir John.

“Can you beat him?” said Alan. “No one but a Britisher _could_ have made that remark!”

There was a laugh at Desmond’s expense, and then Alan went on, “Personally, I feel convinced that ours was not the only inhabited planet. Even our feeble knowledge of the solar system, individually and in bulk, has proved the wonder of Jupiter, the symmetry and perfection of the system that circles round him, the glory of his own being, and he should rank as the world of worlds. I should be inclined to believe that Jupiter is not only capable of producing the highest forms of life, but that his humanity surpasses in intelligence the most cultured, most brilliant, most learned of our earth’s philosophers.”

“No, no, I won’t have that,” said Desmond. “Look at the brilliant men of letters Britain alone has given to the world. Think of her eminent scholars, dauntless pioneers—why no other country or world could compete with Britain.”

“As I remarked before, the egregious Englishman!” said Sir John. “I admire your courage, my boy, in sticking to your guns. I admire your loyalty to the country that gave you birth. But we are not in the world now, my boy. Our beautiful little planet has vanished, has disappeared into the void from which it came; yet here, before our eyes, we see Jupiter still existing, still a brilliant orb in the sky. Surely now, Desmond, you are convinced of the minuteness of the planet upon which you were bred and born?” Sir John put his hand on Desmond’s shoulder. “While you were upon it, it was everything. Now it is nothing—gone—while other planets still exist and shed their brightness over space.”

“I think,” said Mavis thoughtfully, “that if our own little world possessed such a high form of life, and we measure a planet by its bulk, then surely the Jovians must be the most highly favoured race in the Solar Kingdom?”

A tiny cry came from the cabin behind. “Baby,” she cried. “Oh, I’d forgotten him,” and she fled to her nursling who had missed his mother’s care.

“Such are the wonders of the heavens,” said Sir John, thoughtfully. “It’s so grand, so massive, so unbelievable, that it makes even a mother forget, in its contemplation, her first-born, her little son.”

“Why he is not named yet,” said Desmond. “I had forgotten all about that.”

“Well, we have no parson here,” said Alan. “Now our world has gone, can we call ourselves Christians? How do we rank with the Almighty? Have we become atoms tossed about on an endless sea, or Christians to whom eventual release will come?”

“We are still in God’s Hands,” said Sir John reverently. “In the absence of an ordained priest, a layman may administer the Sacrament of Baptism. I am getting very old. I have one foot very near the grave. Shall I do it?”

“Please,” said Desmond.

And whirling through the Solar system, belonging neither to earth nor heaven, was performed surely the strangest rite ever known from time immemorial. And it was in this strange place, in this strange manner that Desmond and Mavis’ son—John Alan—was named.