Dawn of All, Robert Hugh Benson [ebook reader with highlighter txt] 📗

thing you see--even the chairs and tables--they're all made of the metal aerolite (as it's generally called). It's almost as thin as paper, and it's far stronger than any steel. Now it's the framework of the ship that takes the place of the old balloon. It's infinitely safer, too, for it's divided by automatically closing stops into tens of thousands of compartments, so a leak here and there makes practically no difference. Well, when the ship's at rest, as it is now, there's simply air in all these tubes; but when it's going to start, there is forced into these tubes, from the magazine below, the most volatile gas that has been discovered----"

"What's it called?"

"I forget the real name. It's generally called aeroline. Well, this is forced in, until the specific gravity of the whole affair, passengers and all, is as nearly as possible the same as the specific gravity of the air."

"I see. Good Lord, how simple!"

"And the rest is done with planes and screws, driven by electricity. The tail of the boat is a recent development. (You'll see it when we're once started.) It's exactly like the tail of a bird, and contracts and expands in every direction. Then besides that there are two wings, one on each side, and these can be used, if necessary, in case the screws go wrong, as propellers. But usually they are simply for balancing and gliding. You see, barring collisions, there's hardly the possibility of an accident. If one set of things fails, there's always something else to take its place. At the very worst, we can but be blown about a bit."

"But it's exactly like a bird, then."

"Of course, Monsignor," said the priest, with twinkling eyes, "it isn't likely that we could improve upon Almighty God's design. We're very simple, you know. . . . Look, he's signalling. We're going to start. Come to the prow. We shall see better from there."

The upper deck ended in a railing, below which protruded, from the level of the lower deck, the prow proper of the boat. Upon this prow, in a small compartment of which the roof, as well as the walls, was of hardened glass, stood the steersman amid his wheels. But the wheels were unlike anything that the bewildered man who looked down had ever dreamed of. First, they were not more than six inches in diameter; and next, they were arranged, like notes on a keyboard, with their edges towards him, with the whole set curved round him in a semicircle.

"Those to right and left," explained the priest, "control the planes on either side; those in front, on the left, control the engines and the gas supply; and on the right, the tail of the boat. Watch him, and you'll see. We're just starting."

As he spoke three bells sounded from below, followed, after a pause, by a fourth. The steersman straightened himself as the first rang out and glanced round him; and upon the fourth, bent himself suddenly over the key board, like a musician addressing himself to a piano.

For the first instant Monsignor was conscious of a slight swaying motion, which resolved itself presently into a faint sensation of constriction on his temples, but no more. Then this passed, and as he glanced away again from the steersman, who was erect once more, his look happened to fall over the edge of the boat. He grasped his friend convulsively.

"Look," he said, "what's happened?"

"Yes, we're off," said the priest sedately.

Beneath them, on either side, there now stretched itself an almost illimitable and amazingly beautiful bird's-eye view of a lighted city, separated from them by what seemed an immeasurable gulf. From the enormous height up to which they had soared the city looked like a complicated flat map, of which the patches were dark and the dividing lines rivers of soft fire. This stretched practically to the horizon on all sides; the light toned down at the edges into a misty luminosity, but as the bewildered watcher stared in front of him, he saw how directly in their course there slid toward them two great patches of dark, divided by a luminous stream in the middle.

"What is it? What is it?" he stammered.

The priest seemed not to notice his agitation; he just passed his hand quietly into the trembling man's elbow.

"Yes," he said, "there are houses all the way to Brighton now, of course, and we go straight down the track. We shall take in passengers at Brighton, I think."

There was a step behind them.

"Good evening, Monsignor," said a voice. "It's a lovely night."

The prelate turned round, covered with confusion, and saw a man in uniform saluting him deferentially.

"Ah! captain," slipped in the priest. "So we're crossing with you, are we?"

"That's it, father. The Michael line's running this week."

"It's a wonderful thing to me----" began Monsignor, but a sharp pressure on his arm checked him--"how you keep the whole organization going," he ended lamely.

The captain smiled.

"It's pretty straightforward," he said. "The Michael line runs the first week of every month; the Gabriel the second, and so on."

"Then----"

"Yes," put in Father Jervis. "Whose idea was it to dedicate the lines to the archangels? I forget."

"Ah! that's ancient history to me, father. . . . Excuse me, Monsignor; I think I hear my bell." he wheeled, saluting again, and was off.

"Do you mean---?" began Monsignor.

"Of course," said Father Jervis, "everything runs on those lines now. You see we're matter-of-fact, and it's really rather obvious, when you think of it, to dedicate the volor lines to the angels. We've been becoming more and more obvious for the last fifty years. . . . By the way, Monsignor, you must take care not to give yourself away. You'd better not ask many questions except of me."

Monsignor changed the subject.

"When shall we get to Paris?" he asked.

"We shall be a little late, I think, unless they make up time. We're due at three. I hope there won't be any delay at Brighton. Sometimes on windy nights----"

"I suppose the descending and the starting again takes some time."

The priest laughed.

"We don't descend at places en route," he said. "The tender comes up to us. It'll probably be in its place by now. We aren't ten minutes away."

The other compressed his lips and was silent.

Presently, far away to the southward beneath the soft starlit sky, the luminous road down which they travelled seemed to expand once more almost abruptly into another vast spread of lights. But as they approached this did not extend any farther, but lay cut off sharp by a long, curving line of almost complete darkness.

"Brighton . . . the sea . . . And there's the tender waiting."

At first the prelate could not make it out against the radiance below, but an instant later, as they rushed on, it loomed up, sudden and enormous, itself blazing with lights against the dark sea. It looked to him something like a floating stage, outlined with fire; and there were glimmering, perpendicular lines beneath it which he could not understand, running down to lose themselves in the misty glow three hundred feet beneath.

"How's it done?" he asked.

"It's a platform, charged of course with aeroline. It runs on lines straight up from the stage beneath, and keeps itself steady with screws. You'll see it go down after we've left again. Come to the stern, we shall see better from there."

By the time that they had reached the other end of the ship, the pace had rapidly diminished almost to motionlessness; and as soon as Monsignor could attend again, he perceived that there was sliding at a footpace past their starboard side the edge of the huge platform that he had seen just now half a mile away. For a moment or two it swayed up and down; there was a slight vibration; and then he heard voices and the trampling of footsteps.

"The bridges are fixed," remarked the priest. "They're on the lower deck, of course. Pretty prompt, aren't they?"

The prelate stood, staring with all his eyes; now at the motionless platform that hung alongside, now at the gulf below with the fairy lights strewed like stars and nebulae at its bottom. It seemed impossible to realize that this station in the air was not the normal level, and the earth not a strange foreign body that attended on it. There came up on deck presently a dozen figures or so, carrying wraps, and talking. It was amazing to him that they could behave with such composure. Two were even quarrelling in subdued voices. . . .

It was hardly five minutes before the three bells rang again; and before the fourth sounded, suddenly he saw drop beneath, like a stone into a pit, the huge immovable platform that just now he had conceived of as solid as the earth from which it had risen. Down and down it went, swaying ever so slightly from side to side, diminishing as it went; but before the motion had ceased the fourth bell rang, and he clutched the rail to steady himself as the ship he was on soared again with a strange intoxicating motion. The next instant, as he glanced over the edge, he saw that they were far out over the blackness of the sea.

"I think we might go below for a bit," said the priest in his ear.

There was no kind of difficulty in descending the stairs; there was practically no oscillation of any kind in this still and windless summer night, and the two came down easily and looked round the lower deck.

This was far more crowded with figures: there were padded seats fully occupied running round all the sides, beneath the enormous continuous windows. In the centre, sternwards, ran a narrow refreshment bar, where a score of men were standing to refresh themselves. Forward of the farther stairs (down the well of which they had seen the engineer's head), by which they were standing, the deck was closed in, as with cabins.

"Like to see the oratory?" asked Father Jervis.

"The what?"

"Oratory. The long-journey boats, that have chaplains, carry the Blessed Sacrament, of course; but there is only a little oratory on these continental lines."

Monsignor followed him, unable to speak, up the central passage running forwards; through a pair of heavy curtains; and there, to his amazed eyes, appeared a small altar, a hanging lamp, and an image of St. Michael.

"But it's astounding!" whispered the prelate, watching a man and a woman at their prayers.

"It's common sense, isn't it?" smiled the priest. "Why, the custom began a hundred years ago."

"No!"

"Indeed it did! I learnt it from one of the little guide-books they give one on these boats. A company called the Great Western had mosaic pictures of the patron saint of each boat in the saloon. And their locomotives, too, were called after saints' names. It's only plain common sense, if you come to think of it."

"Are lines like this--and railways, and so on--owned by the State now? I suppose so."

The other shook his head.

"That was tried under Socialism," he said. "It was one of their smaller failures. You see, when competition ceases, effort ceases. Human nature is human nature, after all. The Socialists forgot that. No; we encourage private enterprise as much as possible, under State restrictions."

They paused