Arthur Zagat - The Golden Age of Science Fiction Volume IX

“Too late!” I cried; “I have lost her! We are alone in limitless space, without even the company of the planets!”

But while the doctor was carefully lowering the telescope, my eyes were still searching, and presently I perceived a thin crescent of faintly brighter light, growing gradually wider. It was like a new moon dimly seen in a clear part of the sky when the afternoon sun is cloud-hidden. The doctor stopped to look where I pointed it out to him, and then changed the wheel a little.

“That is a thin slice of the illuminated part of the Earth,” he said. “We can no longer see the dark side which has been visible to us while in the shadow. Fortunately our new course a little ahead of Mars will give us a constant view of this thin crescent.”

We now stood the instrument on end over the port-hole window, which brought the small end near the aperture between the compartments. When the doctor had secured a focus, he called me to look. The crescent was greatly magnified, but the outline of the sphere on the other side could not be seen, nor could anything be distinguished in the centre. Both the outer and inner edges of the crescent were ragged and irregular in places, and there were faint darker spots on its surface. I called the doctor’s attention to the fact that the ragged appearance was always in the form of extending teeth on the outer side of the crescent, and in the form of notches eaten into its inner edge. He studied all these appearances carefully and finally said,—

“This crescent is that part of Earth which is just coming into morning. It is gradually shifting from east to west with the Earth’s rotation of course. What we see now, however, is land almost from pole to pole. There is a small sea just above the middle, which might be the Mediterranean. Moreover, it must be mountainous land to cause the ragged edges and the shadows inside.”

Then he turned away to get his globe, and I took the place at the instrument. He was slowly turning the globe and examining it thoughtfully as he said to himself,—

“The only continuous land from pole to pole with one interrupting sea must be over the two Americas or over Europe and Africa. The American mountain ranges run from north to south, while through Europe and Africa they are scarce, and almost uniformly run from east to west. Besides, the sand of Sahara would be sure to show as a large, bright, regular spot. A section from longitude 70 to 80 west would include the Green Mountains and the Alleghanies of North America and the Andes of South America, and in that case the darker spot in the centre would be the Caribbean Sea.”

“Look here!” I cried. “Toward the lower end the inner outline is growing darker but more regular, and faint streaks or shadows reach through the brighter light toward the dark greenish regular surface which looks like water.”

He observed closely and said,—

“Those shadows must be cast to westward by the enormous peaks of the Andes, and the dark greenish surface they reach toward must be the Pacific Ocean.”

Then he consulted his globe while I looked. “The first two to come into view,” he said, “would be the two great peaks in Bolivia, over twenty-one thousand feet high.”

“There are two of them together,” I said, “and now others are rapidly coming into view. There are five more scattered unequally, and then, lower down, three near together.”

“Then there is not the slightest doubt that we see the Lower Andes,” he said. “These last you mention are scattered just as you say along the border between Chili and Argentina, and the group of three are near Valparaiso, the peak of Aconcagua being the tallest. But watch now for the group in Ecuador, about midway between the top and bottom of the crescent. There are four very large peaks and numerous smaller ones.”

“The middle all looks bright yet, like land, with no shadows or greenish spots. But a queer thing is happening lower down, where the shadows have ceased lengthening and are now fading. There are several fine points of light just beyond the outer edge of the crescent. They are mere bright specks, but gradually they join with the surface, making a rough toothed edge.”

“Ah, that phenomenon has been observed upon the Moon,” said he. “That is the sun shining on the snow-capped peaks first, and then, when the diminutive outline of the mountain comes into view, it looks like a tooth.”

“The same is happening all down the coast,” I reported. “Now I see it on the lower group of three.”

“Give me the instrument,” demanded the doctor. “That can be nothing but the west coast of South America, and if that be the case, the whole thing will be repeated for the tall group in Ecuador, dominated by Chimborazo.”

As I surrendered the telescope to him, the whole lower part of the crescent was dark, but with regular edges. Only in the middle, which should have been about the Equator, and in the upper part, was there the bright lustre of land reflection. He watched for fully half an hour before observing anything remarkable. At last he exclaimed,—

“Now they are beginning! Five streaks near together and just at the Equator. They are almost equidistant from each other, and the next to the lowest one is the longest. Now the top one begins to fade! Yes, and a point of light has appeared detached from the outer edge, and now another and another! They are growing inward toward the surface. Now they are all connected like five saw teeth; the bottom one is the shortest, and that next very high one is old Chimborazo.”

“Then it is morning at Quito and also at Pittsburg!” I said, tracing up the 80th meridian.

“Yes, and we have been one complete day and about five hours more travelling the nine hundred thousand miles that lie between this and Earth,” replied he.

“That makes us one full meal behind time,” I said; “but we have discovered a way to make the Andes call us for breakfast. When the Pacific Ocean has passed from view, Japan and Australia shall strike noon for us, and we will have supper and call it night when the Indian Ocean is gone and darkest Africa has come into view!”

We counted seven successive returns of the peaks of the Andes, and being by that time certainly six million miles from the Earth, we could distinguish them no longer. Then followed what I remember as a very long and unspeakably monotonous period, without any adequate method of marking the time. Our days became a full week long, for the only way we could guess at the time was by the quarterings of the Moon. We could still see her about the size of a marble in the telescope, and as her crescent began to wane, and finally her light entirely disappeared, we knew she was then just between us and the Earth, and shining upon that planet as a Full Moon. This was due to occur fifteen days after our departure. Then we watched her grow from a thin crescent to a bright quarter, and we knew another week had elapsed.

“We shall soon be able to determine one date with absolute certainty,” I said to the doctor, when we must have been some twenty days out. “I have been reading up your almanack, and I find there is a total eclipse of the Sun by the Moon on June 29th.”

“You might as well try to eclipse him with a straw-hat, as far as we are concerned,” he replied. “The Moon will necessarily be on the further side of the Earth when that occurs, and the eclipse will barely reach the Earth. It will fall short of us by a matter of some thirty million miles!”

It was soon after this that we gave up observing the Earth as a planet, put on our darkened lens, and proceeded to hold her as a spot in the Sun a little to the left of his centre. The Moon remained a tiny spot of light outside for a few days; but finally she entered the Sun also, and was seen as a faint spot travelling toward the Earth-spot.