Classic Audiobook Collection - The Fixed Flight by Maurice Renard ~ Full Audiobook [scifi]

Episode Date: February 6, 2025

The Fixed Flight by Maurice Renard audiobook. Genre: scifi When Archibald Clarke receives an urgent telegram, he rushes to his sister Ethel's home outside Philadelphia and finds the Corbett household on edge. Ethel's husband, the brilliant but ailing engineer Corbett, is determined to prove a breakthrough that sounds like madness: the Aerofix, a slim, sealed craft designed not to fly forward, but to hold itself motionless in the air while the Earth turns beneath it. If the machine can truly maintain its fixity against winds and the planet's spinning atmosphere, then a passenger could 'travel' enormous distances without traditional propulsion, simply by waiting as oceans and continents slide past below. Drawn by loyalty, curiosity, and dread, Archibald joins Ethel and their taciturn assistant Jim for the first full-scale trial. Inside the cramped, humming vessel, wonder quickly tangles with claustrophobia and rising stakes, as delicate mechanisms, risky improvisations, and the unforgiving physics of the sky test the limits of human control. Maurice Renard blends rigorous speculation with mounting suspense in a story about invention, hubris, and the terrifying beauty of a world in motion. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:20:38) Chapter 02 (00:35:39) Chapter 03 (00:54:36) Chapter 04 (01:12:09) Chapter 05 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Section 1 Of the Fixed Flight by Maurice Renard Part 1 Towards 10 o'clock in the morning, the man we had rescued opened his eyes. I was prepared to see the usual recovery. The feverish fingers passed across the brow. Where am I? Whispered in a feeble voice.

Not at all. For some seconds, the man who owed his life to us remained perfectly still with a lost look. Then his eyes lit up with life and intelligence, and he lent his ear to the noise of the screw and the lapping of the waves against the hull. Sitting up in his narrow berth, he inspected the cabin as coolly as if neither Gaetan nor myself had been there.

We next saw him turn to the porthole to look at the sea, and then examined us one after the other with a stare as void of curiosity as of good manners, regarding as if we had been pieces of furniture which had escaped notice up till now, and then with crossed arms he relapsed into a deep reverie. To judge from his looks This stranger was a well-bred man

With handsome face and well-shaped hands And his clothes, ringing wet as they had been, Seemed those of a gentleman. So his behavior annoyed my companion and surprised me. Although I had been long accustomed to see Ingaten himself nobility under the bearing of a yokel, and breeding misalied with an insolent manner. At all events my astonishment did not last long.

Let us have no rash judgments, I said to myself, may not the queer behavior of this sinister being be due to some brain disturbance comprehensible and excusable, particularly after such an accident, and ought we not by all showing to respect his unspoken thoughts. They should not be commonplace ones, considering the extraordinary circumstances of his arrival, but Gaten, seeing himself at the same time quite well and yet so unamiable, waxed impatient. Well, he said arrogantly, How are you now? Better, eh? You are better, eh? You are better, eh? You are better? He repeated again and again, and obtained no reply.

The man did not seem at all nonplussed at being thus addressed. He looked at Gaten from head to foot, his elegant appearance, his whole aspect, so ill-fitted to his speech. And after a period of thought which prejudiced the ill-mannered aristocrat still more against him, said, making a sign of assent, yes, he did feel better. better. Good, I said to myself. He understands French.

A fellow countryman, perhaps. You are in luck's way, said Gaeton. Without us, you know, old buck. Well, are you deaf? Can't you open your mouth? He said angrily. Are you hurt, I said, pushing my friend aside, rather to put a stop to his speech than to inquire after the health of our taciturn friend.

Tell me, are you in pain? The man shook his head and continued to follow the threat of his head. of his thoughts. My fears grew, and I exchanged an anxious look with Gaten. I don't know if the man intercepted it, but I fancy I saw the glimmer of a smile in his eyes. Do you want anything to drink? I said. Pointing at me, he spoke with a queer foreign accent. Doctor. No, I replied cheerily. No, no. And that's his eyes still questioned me. A writer, I replied. An author, you understand?

He made a gracious gesture of assent, almost a bow, and poked his chin inquisitively towards Gaiton. "'I—I do nothing,' the latter said with a laugh. "'A man of leisure,' adding in imitation of my own words. "'Do nothing, unidler. You understand.' I watched the effect of our graciousness on our visitor's face, and then quickly I made a diversion. "'This gentleman is the owner of the yacht,' I explained. you are the guest of Baron Gaetan de Venus Paradol, who has picked you up, and I am Gerald Sinclair, his traveling companion. But instead of giving us his name and status, as I had intended him to do, the man reflected for a moment and then laboriously articulated,

Can you tell me what has occurred, please? I've completely lost all memory from a certain point. This time his intonation, agreeably incorrect, revealed itself as the English accent. accent. "'Well,' explained Gaiton, "'it was quite simple. The launch was lower. The sailors fished you out.' "'But before that, monsieur, what happened before?' "'Before what? You don't mean before the explosion, I suppose?' said my friend mockingly. The man looked stupefied. "'What explosion, monsieur?'

"'I had a presentiment that Gaten was growing angry, so I intervened once more.' "'Old man,' I said in a low voice, "'let me talk to this individual. "'There is no doubt he is suffering from loss of memory, "'which is common enough after great emotional disturbances, "'and he very likely remembers nothing about his terrific accident. "'Keep quiet and leave him to me. "'Then, addressing the man with no memory, I said,

"'Monsieur, I will tell you all we know of your adventure. "'I hope that it will refresh your memory, "'and so enable you to give your host "'a complete description of the occurrence, to which he owes the honor of your acquaintance. Notwithstanding that I underlined the words your host with look and accent, my listener did not wince.

He nodded his hands round, his propped up legs, put his chin on his knees, and awaited the continuation of my story. I went on. You are on the steam yacht Oshanid, monsieur, owner, Monsieur de Veneous Peridoul,

Captain Juan Duval, her port, Haver, and you are safe. She is a fine boat, 90 meters in length. Her registered tonnage is 2,184. She steams her 15 knots an hour, and her engines indicate 5,000 horsepower. There was only my host and myself, in addition to the crew of 95, until we came across you. It is not much, as the yacht has 24 cabins like yours, but Monsieur de Veneuve's crews, on account of its length, attracted no one but your humble servant. We are returning from Havana, where my friend was pleased to choose his own cigars on the spot, so to speak. And so... And so... I quite expected to have made a great impression with that touch about the cigars, carelessly introduced, but I might have spared my breath. So, monsieur, our return journey was accomplished in peaceful monotony until three days ago when something went wrong with the engines.

We had to stop. Today is the 21st of August. So it was the 18th. We set about repairing the broken coupling rod on the spot, and the captain was desirous of profiting by the delay to strengthen the rudder. We were lying in 10 degrees north latitude and 37 degrees 2315 west longitude, not far from the Azores Islands, 1,290 miles from the Portuguese coast, 1,787 miles from the American coast, just two-thirds of our journey, in fact, and we only started again at daybreak this morning. On the eighteenth, the air was still in the sea-like oil. No breeze, no current, nothing stirred. A sailing ship, with all sails spread, would not have made a cable's length in twelve hours,

and the oceanide, at the caprice of the elements, remained perfectly motionless. There was nothing very lively about it all. Still on the captain, assuring us that the work should be put through immediately, we took the thing without much annoyance, and owing to the extreme heat, for we made no wind to temper it, we decided to sleep during the day in person. pass our nights on the bridge. Breakfast was to be served there at 8 o'clock in the evening and dinner at 4 o'clock in the morning. Now, the day before yesterday, Friday the 19th, we were walking up and down the quarter

deck in the interval between our nocturnal meals, smoking in the moonlight. All the constellations, even the planets, seemed to glitter. There was a continuous shower of shooting stars, and on the inky background of the night, their white traces lingered so long that you might have taken them from mysterious chalk marks, describing parabolas on the blackboard of the heavens. I never tired of following this mysterious lesson in grandiose geometry, and everything around us assisted the majesty of the spectacle. Absolute silence reigned.

The crew was asleep, one heard but the dull sound of our India rubber soles on the deck plinking. We were making perhaps our twentieth turn on the deck when a whistle came up, from the far distance, to starboard of us. Almost at the same moment we saw rather high up in the sky, and on the same side a glimmer of light. It passed over the yacht, the whistling accompanying it. The latter grew louder, swelled, and then died away altogether,

while the light passed above our heads at a comparatively slow rate for a celestial body, and glided from one horizon to the other, like a near and sluggish shooting star. That, by the by, is the conclusion we formed almost immediately, that it was a meteor. The man on the watch agreed with us, although he had never seen anything similar during his 30 years of service. And the captain, who was called on deck by the whistling, inclined to the theory of a bollide when he had heard our explanation.

He entered on the logbook that on the 20th of August, towards half-past twelve at night, a faintly luminous aerolith had passed through the air just above the oceanide, making a sharp curve from east to west, and thus following the 40th parallel, where we lay at anchor. Then I looked hard at the man. He hugged his knees more closely, shut his eyes and waited for me to continue.

You can imagine, I went on somewhat crestfallen, you can imagine that the meteor supplied us with a topic for conversation. Each one of us held divers views about it. I upheld a certain relation which had struck me between its rate of speed in the duration of the whistle, and Monsieur de Venues gave us his opinion, a perfectly feasible but somewhat unusual one.

According to him, the bolide which we had so far thought to have burst from the sky, quite possibly may have come out of the sea. There was nothing to prove the contrary. This was mere speculation, but the more fantastic our theories were, monsieur, the more attraction they had for us. So we tried to explain away the fright we had by calling it preternatural. To tell you the truth, the sudden appearance of this body bearing straight for the ship had no doubt been disturbing, and we had given a sigh of relief to see the projectile pass so high above us. all the more that at the very moment of our deliverance its infernal whistling made us duck our heads,

which is what your warrior calls saluting the ball. In short, we hoped from the bottom of our hearts never again to have to undergo such experimental astronomy, but that did not prevent the phenomena from reappearing last night somewhat later, towards one o'clock in the morning, with complications in other ways dramatic. Yesterday, Monsieur de Vines, who was growing tired of this idling on an empty ocean under a sky full of dangers, gave orders that the business of repairs was to be carried on day and night. Relieved every two hours, a working party was set at the broken coupling rod in the engine room, and another in the launch at the disabled rudder.

The latter had finished their job and were getting ready to climb back on the yacht at the very moment when the strange bole-eyed sounded its periodical whistle in the distance. across a sky as brilliantly luminous as that of the night before, we all saw the pale-like grow, rise, and glide towards us. Monseer de Veneuve said he thought it passed slower than before, and in my opinion the whistling was deeper in tone and less shrill. Nevertheless, the asteroid was traveling at a fair rate. In a few seconds it would reach the zenith,

and from there, doubtless, would sink peacefully behind the westerly horizon. And so the world was the possessor of a satellite, the more, A moon, small and ephemeral as a nightlight. But all at once there appeared in its place, swift as a streak of lightning, a sun. It ceased moving westwards, and the whistling was lost in a terrific detonation. I felt as if an invisible fist had punched me in the diaphragm. The shaken air seemed to throttle me. I could feel the plates of the Oshinid trembling.

A wind got up, which died down almost immediately in waves, rose on the sea, only to disappear in the same manner. Then we very distinctly heard a shower of things fall into the sea. One of them sank quite near the launch, rose, and started to swim. That was you, Monsieur, clinging to the bolts of a sheet-iron door, a curious kind of sheet-iron. Light as a feather, because it bore you up as you floated. You were picked up unconscious, and not knowing if you had been alone aboard the aerolith,

the captain caused the launch to search over a radius of two months. miles. So she scoured the field of the catastrophe without meeting with anything but some metal fragments. The sea was strewn with them. They shone with a certain dulled glimmers, so to speak, and were very buoyant on the water. But there was no sign of any living being. As you were still unconscious, notwithstanding our care, we undressed you, put you to bed, and watched over you during the search. But I think I can assure you that your unconsciousness became merged in deep sleep towards dawn, just about the time we started once more for Havera, which we hope to reach in a week's time. And now shall we be allowed to know whom we have the honor of entertaining?

The man wagged his head, but made no reply. And the metal plate, he said at length. The floating plate and the fragments. Well, said Gaiton, they remained behind on the spot where you took to the water. Duval, the captain, decided it was Pharaoh aluminum and of such poor quality that it was not worth taking aboard. The stranger smiled openly, on seeing which my friend assailed him in a tone of cheery remonstrous. I say, tell us your little game, won't you? We won't give you away.

It was a balloon, what? It was your dirigible that burst, wasn't it? Burst with a vengeance, my boy. Come, tell me all about it, won't you? Well, please yourself, he added, in an injured tone. I suppose it is your business. If you won't let anything out, you won't. Then the other in his queer clownish jargon embarked on a long sentence.

Monsieur le baron, he said with slow utterance, with extremely little ceremony. Your desire is that I should explain why I'm here, uninvited, and how and why. For now, I remember everything. thing very well, but before the recital, permit me, Monsieur Le Baron, that I... If you please, I'm hungry, that is to say, I have a splendid appetite. Have you got my clothes? Gaten ordered them to bring one of his own yachting suits and a change of linen from his wardrobe. Your own duds are not dry, said he, taking it for granted that his sling would be understood. For the matter of that, they will never be fit to put on again. You're your purse and your watch,

which were in your pockets. What do you think of those blue sir's trousers and the pilot coat with its gold buttons? Don't you like them? Have you no black clothes? Asked the man seizing hold of his purse. No, but why black? Your own clothes were gray.

I should have preferred black, but no matter, it can't be helped. Meanwhile, Gaiton had opened his guest's watch like the badly brought up schoolboy that he was. I couldn't look inside your purse, he confessed. "'No,' replied the man calmly. "'It has a secret fastening.' "'As for your ticker, look at those initials,' exclaimed Vennus,

"'with a burst of laughter. "'The case bears a C and an A. "'What are you called? Artful Charles, eh?' "'My name is Archibald Clark at your service, Moultz, "'and I am an American from Trenton, New Jersey. "'As for my story, I hope to have the privilege of telling it to you directly after lunch. Will you kindly lend me a razor?

We left him to himself. The knowledge of his name afforded me great consolation. A consolation, I feel at this moment, in being able to designate him by the one word, Clark, instead of having to add a fresh bead to the string of choice in descriptive variants, such as the unknown, the sinister person,

the man, and the rhetorical subterfuges. But Gayton was furious. He swore at the intruder's manners. I mean, it, Clark's. and he only changed his opinion at the sight of the Americans, I mean Clark's, entry into the dining room. Truly, in Gaiton's pilot coat, he appeared a presentable looking fellow enough, a sympathetic face, well-educated, easy-mannered,

in short, a very gentlemanly man. Mr. Archibald Clark ate and drank conscientiously without uttering a syllable. He poured himself out a small glass of scotch whiskey with his coffee, lit a clara, a dollar, even at the manufacturing, and holding out his hand to us, said, "'Gentlemen, I thank you.' "'Was it for the lunch or for having rescued him? "'That question is still to be answered.

"'Then drawing two or three puffs in succession, "'value at least two cents a puff, "'he started speaking slowly, feeling for his words, "'and even perhaps for his ideas. "'The reader will perchance forgive me "'for correcting the most outlandish "'and the most muddled French "'that a citizen of the United States has ever elaborated,

"'and I have not thought it necessary "'to mention the innumerable pauses, "'which occurred for various reasons, in Mr. Clark's narrative. Doubtless, said he, you know the Corbettes by name of Philadelphia? No, after all, it is not unnatural. In France, one may well ignore the existence

of a far-distant couple who, as a matter of fact, have made all the principal discoveries of these last years, but who have had the ill-luck to make them at the same time as other savants quicker to divulge their secrets to the world. Edison, the Curies, Berthalot, Marconi, Renard, discovered nothing which my brother-in-law Randolph and my sister Ethel Corbett

had not made their own. Only the former made their discoveries a little earlier. So much so that my unlucky relatives were doomed to carry out their work of genius, while an unexpected rival proclaimed his own discovery which was identical. Too late appears to be their device. That is why you've not heard of them. At home, though, they are a celebrated couple, and not Not long ago, the papers never tired of praising their indomitable pluck. That was on a matter of deep-sea diving. For some months past, in fact, they have been said to be keen, above all, on submersibles, aerostats, motor cars, in fact, on all kinds of little used in giddy forms of locomotion.

And so, and so. Forgive me for telling you all this so clumsily, but your language makes it difficult for me and limits my thoughts. And lastly, promise me you will be dissoned. for there is a secret to be told, which is not mine. Good? Thank you. Well, then the other day, the 18th of August, as I was leaving my office, a telegram was handed to me, signed Ethel Corbett, begging Mr. Archibald Clark, chief accountant at Robling Brothers' cable

manufacturers of Trenton, New Jersey, to repair without delay to Philadelphia. This invitation made me thoughtful. A slight disagreement had arisen between us over a wretched affair of a legacy, and for this reason the Corbets and I had not met for some time. What was the matter? I wavered. But the address on the telegram, detailed almost superfluously as it was, told me how much my sister wanted it to reach me without any drawback or delay. Certainly it was something important, and no mistake. And then one's family is one's family, after all.

Is it not? End of Part 1. Section 2 of the Fixed Flight by Maurice Renard. This Librevox recording is in the public domain, read by Ben Tucker. Part 2 An hour later, the Pennsylvania Railroad, having put me down at West Philadelphia Station, I was driving in a handsome to Belmont. That is where the Corbettes live in beautiful Fairmont Park,

on the banks of the Shulkill River, extremely handy for all kinds of boating and even sub-opquois now. The cab passed through the western suburbs, crossed a bridge, and reached the open country. During the journey, Knight had fallen, but so Starfield was it, that I could recognize afar off my brother-in-law's house. A modest little house, forsooth, and looking yet smaller, more modest, nestling against the huge workshop, close to the enormous shed, and facing the trial ground for automobiles and aeroplanes. I recognized it, Messieurs, and my heart sank. In the whole imposing block of buildings, only one window of the living room was illuminated.

Now, the Corbett's night work is common talk in Pennsylvania. Nightly, the festival of labor illuminates the glass roof of the workshop and long windows of the shed. You can imagine, then, what an alarming effect such silence and obscurity had the other night. Jim, the Negro, opened the door to me in the dark, and led me to Corbett's bedroom, the only one lit up. I saw that my brother-in-law was in bed, and that he looked feverish and yellow. At that moment, my sister came in. During the last four years, I had only seen her face in the magazines. She had scarcely changed at all.

Her dress had the same boyish cut, and her short hair was scarcely touched with gray in spite of her years. "'How do you do, Archie?' said Randolph. I had no doubt you would come as quickly as you could. We are in need of you. So I should imagine, Randolph, what can I do? Help! Don't. Don't tire yourself, interrupted my sister.

I will tell him everything quickly for the time presses. Archie, we have built. No, there is no need for anxiety. Rudolph is in no danger. It is merely an attack of influenza, but he is absolutely obliged to keep his room and his bed. I must beg you not to interrupt me again. We have built, in deepest mystery, Randolph, Jim, and myself a highly interesting machine, Archie,

and for fear that someone should once again force Stal us, we have always vowed to give our machine a trial as soon as it should be finished. As ill luck will have it, influenza has interfered with our plans. Today, at this identical moment, the thing is ready, and Randolph on the road to recovery. Nevertheless, it is impossible to postpone the experiment, and three weeks are, people are necessary for the maneuver. Who is to take Randolph's place? I am. Who is to take mine? Jim. And who will take Jim's place?

Why? You, I thought. Your post exacts no strength or presence of mind. It will merely need a little self-control on the trial trip and much discretion afterwards. I know your good qualities, Archie. You can help us better than anyone else. Will you do it? All right. forget what is over and done with, Ethel. I have come to make myself useful.

We shall run some danger, so be warned. Pooh. Moreover, how should I put this? This sport in short that we are going to try is quite out of the way. Extraordinary, most odd, almost monstrous. That is all the same to me. I have come to make myself useful. Show me my bedroom.

I'll go to bed at once so as to be quite fit tomorrow morning. "'Tomorrow!' exclaimed Corbett. "'It isn't tomorrow. It's now at once. There. It is striking eleven o'clock. Go, my dear boy. Go and don't waste time.' "'What, the experiment now in the middle of the night?' "'Yes, it has to take place out of doors. And if it were daylight, would our secret remain a secret, I ask you, from all those inquisitive and jealous engineers who are continually spying upon us?' "'Out of doors? Good. After all, what is it, really?'

But Ethel was full of impatience. "'Come along, then, as it is all settled,' she cried. "'Everything is ready. The working of the apparatus will enable you to understand its aim better than any description. What? Change your clothes. No need for a disguise. We are not going on the stage. Come along.' "'Orovo, Archie,' said Randolph. "'Till tomorrow evening.' "'What? Till tomorrow evening?' I exclaimed as I followed my sister. "'You're taking me on a journey, it seems. Till tomorrow evening? But Randolph said we were not to be seen in broad daylight.

So we are to stop somewhere before dawn. Where shall we spend the day? In fact, where are we going to?' "'To Philadelphia.' I beg your pardon to Philadelphia, but we are there already.' "'Quite so, my worthy but stupid brother, we shall make a circuit in return.' I kept silence, knowing that she would not tell me any more, and I was fully occupied and feeling my way in the dark. Ethel did not want to arouse the curiosity of the inquisitive or the watchfulness of spies, which a moving light probably would have done. She led the way along an interminable passage, then, through the workshop. There, one could see clearly. Through the glass roof, the stars, and the rays of the rising moon shone on a chaos of strange forms.

To reach the further end of the room, we had to walk in zigzag fashion among the most fantastic disorder, step across barriers of iron ties, which seemed to rise up against us, avoid weird creatures of steel crouching on their four wheels, and also creep past unexplained mills with sails-twisted screw fashion. Ethel threaded her way amidst this queer conglomerate. without knocking up against anything. As for me, I but escaped the wiles of a rubber tire coiling around my feet, to succumb to the noose of a rope, twisted and artful folds. Then, after a successful battle against this hempen python,

a sort of spider caught me in its net, and I was entangled in a web of stretched cords. I ended by casting myself on the yielding bosom of what proved to be the cover of a half-deflated balloon. Catching hold of what seemed to be an iron shark, I managed to free myself, but only now to knock up against some sort of a wooden bird. But probably the presiding sprite of invention had put my valor sufficiently to the test. For all at once, I found myself face to face with Jim in the shed. This shed was as big as the nave of a cathedral, and served as a garage for the balloons.

They were standing all round it. The moon shone on their more or less inflated bodies. Spherical, oval, spindle-shaped, all these balloons standing against, the wall seemed to be drawn back with deference from a kind of shining partition which stretched itself along the middle of the hall. Ethel pointed it out to me and said, There is our engine. Then she started a low-voice conversation with Jim. Oh, ho, said I.

So that is the engine. An automobile, astonishing, or perhaps a boat? As far as I could judge in the half-light, where electric arcs uselessly dangled their foolish globes, the thing was a gigantic knife blade, not with a cutting edge but extremely pointed. I can find no better comparison. It measured about 40 meters in length and eight meters high, but was only one meter deep or thick from stern to midships. For to that it tapered away as if to cut air, or the water,

but taper away it did to such a point that it positively stabbed one in the eye. At the stern I made out a triangular rudder. Oh, it's a boat, I said to myself, and yet, no, it's an automobile. In fact, this enigma of a vessel rested on small stout wheels, which were furnished with rubber tires, and mounted on extraordinarily powerful springs. Between them, under the concern, I could half make out certain dark blocks. As I have said, the whole thing glittered, and yet if one can employ such contradictory terms, it was a dull sort of glitter, pushing away with their foot some stools which were lying,

on the ground, Ethel opened a door on the side of this Titanic blade. Immediately a dazzling electric light bulb lit up the interior of the thing and revealed the existence of a cabin arranged in the lower part of its width. It was of exceedingly small compass, to be exact four meters in length, two in height, one and width. This cabin held three seats, one behind the other. They were comfortable, tub-shaped automobile seats. In front of the two first glittered a whole system of levers, handles, and pedals. behind the third were the ends of two handlebars, which I guess to be the steering gear.

"'There is your seat,' said Ethel. "'You will be at the helm, eye in front of you, Jimmy, in front of me. Oh, don't let us have any false modesty, please. We shan't ask for you for your pilot's certificate, my dear boy. The use of the rudder is an exception. Perhaps you will not have occasion to touch it.' "'Good. But what on earth are all these contraptions for?'

Ethel did not hear me. Jim had called her to the prow, and she left me in ecstasy at the cabin. What a cabin, messrs, what a conning tower. What switches, what graduated rings, sectors, piston rods, cords, serpentining pipes, keys, wires, buttons, indicators, and other mysterious instruments. There was nothing resembling civilized furniture, save the three seats and perhaps the clock in its pitch-pine case, fastened on the wall of the forward bulkhead. On the whole, it bore the face of an honest, accurate timekeeper. But why this terrestrial globe half sunk in the clock case, incapable of revolving on a vertical axis as if to demonstrate to some young blockhead

the alternations of day and night? Why this curved needle fixed in the pitch pine case, and curved to the convexity of the globe, its point marking Philadelphia? Incapable of solving the query, I continued my inspection. A basket filled with victuals and bottles interested in me greatly. What about the ends? Could one not spend a day in a secluded inn near road or river?

I had it. A fear of meeting some indiscreet person. Really, these precautions were somewhat excessive. But where were the windows? No windows. How are we going to see our way? I murmured. How are we going to know the road if it is an automobile?

The shoals, if it is a submarine. The mountains, if improbable as it seems, it proves to be an aeroplane. And to start with, what on earth is this machine? Where is the driving power lodged? In its head or in its tail above the cabin? The tiny room occupies a fourth of the height and one-tenth of the length of the concern. It is, if I may so put it,

the very body of the thing, like the stomach in a whale. What is there in the rest of this factitious cetacean whose Jonas we are about to become? At that moment, my sister's voice rang out, intrepid and quivering with joy. Jim, open the doors of the shed. It is time to let our pet loose. And the negro burst into a roar of laughter.

I confess I have no great affection for blacks in their gutter-old talk. They always speak as if suffering from a sore throat, but Jim, with his husky laugh, no, you can't imagine how he disgusted me. However, the darkies slid back adormous folding doors, and from top to bottom of the building a star-filled opening widened out. The track lay before us quite, white and encircled by silvery hills.

A little lake reflected the shimmering sky, and in face of it all our formidable sword seemed to stand on guard. What terrible and hidden force was going to move this powerful weapon, and start this wheeled erection going, as weighty to all appearance as a stranded ship? We must make haste, Ethel said. I want to start punctually at midnight. Well, what is it, Archibald? "'You—are you not going to start the engine?' "'Oh!' exclaimed Ethel as if I had proposed something perfectly ridiculous. "'That would be a nice job, wouldn't it, Jim?' "'Yes, ma'am,' gurgled the negro with an irritating laugh.

"'Yes, Jim remembers the accident to the model. "'Come, Archie, give us a helping hand,' continued my sister. "'And she leaned with all her weight against the back of the enormous men, as of trying to move it. Jim, and I myself, notwithstanding my amazement, stepped forward to help her, when we saw the metal colossus, moved by the merest touch of a woman's shoulder, advanced gently towards its unknown destination. Oh, she is well poised today, said Ethel simply. I thought it would take two of us to get her underway. No, no, leave it to me. It is mere child's play. As she turned her back to the

she'll kill river, an action which effectually did away with any nautical hypothesis. She pushed the vessel toward the center of the track in a westerly direction. I escorted her. Jim at the height of bliss lightly executed a fandango in our wake. You must forgive me, my dear boy, but I will explain the mechanism of the thing in route. For the moment, I am too anxious. What a world of emotion sounded in her words. Through how many months of laborious anxiety had my companions waited this thrilling moment.

At present, its size diminished by the grandeur of its background. The engine seemed less terrifying. Seen from the front, one saw nothing more than a huge sword blade looking at from the point. Walking a little way off to look at the whole effect, I discovered one or two slight excrescences on the top, invisible in the shed, and there were several more on the right and left sides. Ethel tested the blocks between the wheels. Come along, all is as it should be. No breath of wind, absolutely ideal weather.

Let us get on board. We entered the great blade. Jim shut the hermetically closing door, and those soft natural sounds that I had taken for absolute silence, died in our ears. End of Part 2. Section 3 of the Fixed Flight by Maurice Renard. The Sliberwax Recordings in the public domain, read by Ben Tucker.

Part 3 At first I thought that the darkness filled the cabin, and again I began to fall into a non-comprehension of this expedition undertaken by blind prisoners, when my eyes were drawn to a pale spot of light above Ethel's seat. It was a kind of large lampshade, luminous in the interior. I will try and describe it. A large hemispherical funnel hung mouth downwards, its pipe disappearing straight up into the ceiling. This pipe could be lengthened at will like a telescope. Ethel pulled down the funnel, which fitted over her head and gave to her face a livid pallor.

Then she made me sit down in her seat. To my amazement, I seemed as if by magic to be transported outside. In reality, the surrounding scene was depicted on the interior of the funnel. The sky with the moon's crescent, the Milky Way, the azure depths, the glittering stars and the white track of its silvery hills. I looked behind me and I saw the outline of Philadelphia surmounted by Penn's statue and crowned with that halo which floats over all large towns at night. There in the funnel was the Corbett's modest little home where Randolph lay thinking of us on his bed of sickness. Oh, messieurs, it was simply marvelous. This miniature world positively fascinated me.

I can give you some idea of it if I liken it to the reversed image seen by photographers when they examined the ground glass. to see how the landscape will come on the plate. But in this case, the landscape was visible without inversion in the form of a panorama. But with this difference, that the onlookers seem to be perched eight meters above the earth, that is to say, as you will have guessed, at the point where the chimney of this beautifully made periscope issued from the roof of our prison, that is how the steering was managed.

I could have remained for a long while with my head under the mark marvelous lampshade if my sister had not regained her seat. Why, what do you find so fascinating in this playing with lenses? She grumbled. Every submarine in our Navy has one nearly as good. Are we pointing in the right direction, Jim? From the funnel issue to blue phosphorescent light, one after the other, the instruments could be distinctly discerned in the gloom.

Jim was bending over a compass, he laughed no longer. Yes, ma'am, he said. weighs exactly on the line from east to west. Good, Archie, to your helm. Keep it perfectly straight until further orders. As if you were coxing a rowing boat. Are you there, Archie? Yes.

Are you there, Jim? Yes, ma'am. Good. Stand by. Let her go. The Negro pressed two pedals at once. I heard two simultaneous clicks from under the apparatus, in front and behind. and something fell heavily with a dull thud on the grass below. And it seemed to me as if a sickening force telescoped me into myself, pressing my head into my breast, my breast into my legs,

and my legs into the boards beneath them. In short, I experienced that nauseating feeling of being telescoped, produced by the violent starting of the lift, but it lasted only as long as it takes me to describe it. Once more, there was nothing to betray this slightest. displacement of our vehicle. Hello? I exclaimed. What's that? Something shone under my feet. I bent down, and all at once, oh heavens. I shut my eyes.

My hands clutched the steering gear under the paralyzing domination of vertigo. The floor of the cabin was made of glass, so transparent that it seemed as nothing, and through the gaping hole I saw Philadelphia sinking, sinking with the speed of a falling body. We were mounting. Ethel had taken the... no notice my exclamation. She was watching a dial and calling aloud the figures it registered. 300, 400, 600, 1,000. Jim, check that on the stachoscope. 1,050, 1,100. That's right, isn't it?

Yes, ma'am. Throw out 30 kilograms of ballast. The man touched another pedal. Another click was heard, and I saw one of the shadows, which interposed between the abyss and ourselves, diminish and, size and grow flabby. This time it was not a weight that fell on account of the risk of killing some tardy promenader, but there was an arrangement controlling the emptying of bags of sand, or leather bottles filled with water. What object had the corbets in shutting themselves off so systematically from all direct communication with the exterior? I would have given much to know,

but it was not the moment to interview my sister. Like one hypnotized, she bent over the dial of the barometer enumerating. 1,450, 1,457, 1,500 meters. At last, ah, 1545, that's too much. She seized a pendant chain and hung on to it. Now, this resulted in a gurgling of gas escaping from a valve in what I will call the attic up above us, and the needle of the barometer worked itself back to the figure,

1,500. We have arrived. proclaimed Ethel. Then, looking at the clock above the negro's head. Five minutes, too. Good. We will start punctually at midnight. We will start. What did she mean? With a dull interrogative eye, I gazed on the back of her neck and her boyishly cut hair. I was so puzzled that her curly locks seemed to shape themselves into a vague mocking face. Upon my word, I said at length, unable to contain myself any longer. "'Upon my word, what shall start, you say?'

"'Have we not started already?' "'No.' "'What do you want, then? What do you want to do, Ethel?' "'Go round the world, Mr. Inquisitive.' "'What? What? "'Oh, you were making fun of me. "'Round the world in one single day,' "'is she trimmed, Jim.'

"'The horror of an ascension with a madwoman "'diskised as an aeronaut dimmed my gaze, "'and it was through a mist of fear that I saw the infernal Zulu busied with a spirit balance. He had found the engine's nose was dipping imperceptibly. A little ballast, thrown out in front,

allowed it to regain the absolute horizontal, but this made it rise about 20 meters. Ethel declared that, after all, it was of no importance. The compass consulted, confirmed her opinion, and she smiled and murmured, excellent, heading full west. And as twelve struck in the clock's deep tones,

my sister gave the order, Start the engine, Jim, make contact. Jim pressed a big button. Immediately behind the partition at our backs, with a low and yet powerful purring, the invisible engine woke to life. It hummed louder and louder, and as it became stronger,

a wind seemed to blow round us, freshen, and grow into a storm wind, then into a veritable tempest. A gale shrieked by the whole length of the aeroplane. It became a simoon, and then a cataclysmal typhoon. and then something far worse, unknown to men until now. Streams a wind keen as endless javlins rushed through the chinks of the doors,

notwithstanding their close fit. An army of vipers could not have hissed louder. They made a little tornado rage in the cabin itself. Nevertheless, the noise increased regularly on the surface of the machine, and above all, against the sharp-cut prow, where one would have said that silk was being torn. Under the push of the motor, our sealed shelter shook more and more, and on touching the vibrating wall I discovered that it was less cold than might have been expected.

Indeed, the temperature rose perceptibly. The thermometer was running up without intermission, and before long I could have believed myself in an extraordinary stove heated from without. I went to prove that our vessel was moving with incredible velocity. Ethel's madness ceased to be a matter of heart-rending certitude to me. Moreover, my plucky sister showed no surprise, having certainly foreseen all the incidents of this vertiginous proceeding. At her command, Jim cocked the doors and stopped the drafts, with tow driven in with a chisel.

While this was doing, Ethel was examining a long, graduated scale, whereon a pointer moved forward continuously, and she enumerated more figures. 500, 600, 1,000, 1,200, 1,250. I must explain that the figure 1,250 was proclaimed with an air of triumph. And at that very instant, the pointer stopped on the scale in the column of mercury in the thermometer's tube, while the noise of the motor and the whistling of our passage remained constant. 1,250, repeated my sister, "'So we have attained to it.'

And after a glance at the clock followed by a brief mental calculation, my sister signed towards the terrestrial globe. "'Jim,' she said, "'at twelve o'clock, three minutes, and forty-five seconds, "'you must put the point of the needle at Thorndale, Thorndale. "'You know, we shall pass by there at that time.' Jim awaited the moment and turned the globe in his hand so that the curved needle, which met its curvature,

had its point above Thorndale. The moment arrived, he pressed a button, and the sphere, worked doubtless by the mechanism of the clock, began to turn slowly on itself from left to right. As for me, I had hardly got over a breath, snatching surprise. Ethel, I exclaimed, it can't be possible already. We can't be at Thorndale. No, indeed, she answered busy with various small maneuvers. Thorndale is behind us.

At present we have passed in the railway between Valley and Suska. Look at the needle on the globe, and look at that also. Ethel show me the graduated scale, whose indicator was permanently fixed at the figure, 1250. That, continued my sister, is a speedometer, a kind of patent log. It indicates a rate of more than 20 and 3 fourth kilometers a minute,

which is as nearly as possible 1,250 per hour. By Joe, we are moving at, no, my dear boy, we are not moving. Upon my word. We are not moving. It is the air which slips by us. Our bark is motionless in a flying atmosphere. And that is why, Archie, I have christened her the aerophix. Oh.

Yes, wait a little. Now I am at your service, only this tap to turn off. There, I am ready for you, and now we'll let some light into your mind and into this cabin. And my sister turned up the electric light, whose intensity put out the moon and stars. on the ground of the periscope. Is it the air that moves? I resumed, in a favor of curiosity.

Look here, my dear boy, Philistine as you are. Have you never thought how ridiculous men are in the way they travel? Ridiculous to move themselves as they do with great expenditure of steam, petrol, or electricity on a moving globe when it is enough to remain stationary above it for every point on the parallel to defile under your eyes one after another? with the possibility of landing there. The deuce?

That nevertheless is the idea we have put into action, Randolph and I. Our aerophix is the proof of it. The air flies by us and the earth beneath us. From their point of view, we are motionless. The laws of gravitation to which our balloon remains subjected. Hold it always at the same distance from the center of the earth, but it possesses a motor which frees it from the drag of the globe revolving on itself. It is in that sense that it does not move, for our ancient planet continues to carry it on its journey around the sun,

and the sun carries it on its own journey across space in its sidereal revolutions. Only the Earth turning from west to east on its axial revolution. We have all the appearance of making a tour of the world from east to west in 24 hours, or, to be more exact, in 23 hours, 56 minutes, four seconds, just like the sun. But I hazarded after scrolling some calculations on a scrap of paper. I remember that the earth is 40,000 kilometers round. This being the case as it takes 24 hours to pivot on its axis. It ought to pass by under the machine at the rate of 1,66-odd kilometers an hour.

Not so bad for a clerk in a cable factory. The man of figures begins to show in you, but my dear stupid brother, it is at the equator that you'll find a girth of 40,000 kilometers, and at the equator alone, if we had ascended at Keto, for example, the speedometer would register 1,66666. But as Philadelphia, whence the Aerofix ascended, is on the 40th parallel north, which measures but 30,000 kilometers, as it is nearer the pole, so the globe only revolves at 1,250 kilometers per hour. And what would you have said if the ascension had taken place from one of the poles, which remains stationary as docks every point to the axis? We should then have the same place under our feet all the time,

and the scene would be a circle of icebergs revolving around the center of the pole, like the disc of a gramophone. Above all, observe the higher the balloon rises on the bosom of the mass of air drawn into the terrestrial race, elevation which enlarges a little the circle we seem to describe. The greater is the speed of the fluid which surrounds it, because the latter is getting farther away from the center of the rotation. This peculiarity would augment the effort which has, has to be made to remain stationary against a stronger current, if this vapor which one finds

an ascending did not become more rarefied as the speak grows greater. The more furiously the wind buffets us, the less body it has, so the ram pierces it with the same ease, the two phenomena counterbalancing each other. But while remains stationary at 1,500 meters? Because the highest peak on the 40th parallel does not quite reach this altitude, and we don't want a collision with the Rocky Mountains, do we? So, we follow this 40th parallel strictly. Strictly, maybe one day our machine would be able to direct its fixity by the gravitational

attraction of the stars, or perhaps by the assistance of the Earth's progression in its orbit. It would then be a question of attaining immobility by proper relation with the sun, so as to accomplish an oblique trajectory round the Earth, at least to appear to journey in this wise. But we are far from that at present. Today we must follow our chosen parallel, like a rail. The rudder is merely an accessory designed to put the aviator in the right direction at the start, and to combat any dangerous winds during the descent. Nolan's Volans, we are globe-trotters, my dear boy.

Look at the compass, its needle will not fall off one point in 24 hours except for the declination. The north is always on her right. So, I stammered, dazed, and overcome. so we shall be in Philadelphia again tomorrow having covered all the 40th parallel. Is that the circuit you spoke of? That is so. Now look at the clockwork globe. It is at once an indication of our successive positions and an epitome of the whole thing. The point of the immovable needle represents the aerophix.

Every 24 hours, the same places pass under it. Tomorrow Philadelphia will make its appearance. But we shall be a little late because of the time lost in taking up our station. and in recatching the drag of the earth. These two maneuvers demand a very gradual progression, and if, when in station, I suddenly stopped a motor, which, by the way, is impossible, the aerial stream would immediately seize upon our stern,

and our forward bulkheads would be smashed in upon us with the force of a shell. I felt beads of sweat, purling my brow, and the palms of my hands were wet. And found the heat, I grumbled, and this infernal whistling. You are speaking at the top of your voice, and yet I can scarcely hear you. Yes, it is all caused by the friction of the air.

Don't you find it stifling? She uncovered some small apertures pierced in the doors given on the outer air by means of pipes bent aft in the direction of the wind. These ventilators were exceedingly well thought out, and a delicious freshness soon made itself felt. My sister continued, What trouble we had to find a remedy against the excessive heat. Ralph invented a heat-proof coating

which the whole is painted, a non-conducting layer. I was just about to give expression to some judicious reflections on the subject of air and on the contradictory qualities that manifests of chilling bodies moving at great rate and heating those moving at a prodigious rate when my sister put out the light again. Once the dizziness induced by the darkness was dissipated, I saw Ethel capped with the periscope,

livid under its milk-white light. There's serene highnesses, the Rocky Mountains, She proclaimed, Look at them, Archie. The magic funnel was blue with the reflection in the sky. Clouds wandered across it, the more distant seemed to mount in leisurely fashion.

The nearer passed like flakes a lot. Others, which we passed right through, hid the view from me for the wink of an eye. Emerging from the horizon, I mean to say, from the edge of the lampshade, a dark patch mounted rapidly towards the stars. It was queerly indented. White lights played on its

jagged edges and I saw it was the redoubtable chain of mountains which was coming on full steam ahead. Under the full moon, the swathed glaciers trailed their opalescent forms like comets' tails, and a flying whiteness lit up our transparent floor. Their curves swell beneath us, their great peaks sprang at us. It was a flock of mountains and a panic. They all sank away. The summits, dipping, re-entered the zone of the invisible and the sky, free of clouds once more. filled the periscope with its magnificence.

End of Part 3. Section 4. Of the fixed flight by Maurice Renard. This Librevox recording is in the public domain, read by Ben Tucker. Part 4. And on the instant, the glass flooring seemed to sparkle with innumerable facets, and to become a bediamond pain with the living fire,

of a gym in its dancing lights. The negro was seized with a foolish gaiety. His hoarseness increased with his joy, and became a raucous hilarity. He choked, heaving his shoulders, and it gurgled some remarks in honor of the Pacific. Ethel confirmed him. Yes, here's the ocean right enough.

Twenty-two minutes past three. It is punctual to its trist. A cry escaped me. If we fail, Fear nothing, cowardly brother mine. the aerophix is solidly built. Hmm, said I, put out by her assurance, and wishing to make a better effect.

Truly, it's a very fine, heavier than air, a very fine one. It is a balloon, Archie, a real balloon filled with gas. No monoplane could sustain itself or retain its grip in this atmospheric avalanche. Its hold would be too slippery. It is a balloon. But as you can well understand, in dealing with an aerophix, That portion where the motor is found must be absolutely of a piece with the envelope. Otherwise, the former, following the rotation of the earth, would spread itself on the courting and break it, if it was not itself crumpled at the very outset.

So our vessel is built of one single sheath, the metal of which is an alloy of aluminum, and of another substance which weighs the same as cork, but unfortunately somewhat lacks resistance. This hull is divided into two floors by a horizontal partition. The upper floor, up above us, is filled with a gas whose composition is known only to us, and which possesses a lift force six times that of hydrogen. The ground floor is divided into three compartments, the cabin in the middle, where I now have the pleasure of instructing you, forward, an exceedingly narrow receptacle, where the corbett accumulators are stored,

a light but almost inexhaustible store of electric energy, and lastly aft, the engine room. Ah, that motor, it is our pride and glory. you think perhaps of millions of horsepower, not at all. The aerophix has nothing in common with a steamer, which struggling against a strong current should have just sufficient force to prevent its drifting and to keep it in position. If those were our conditions, you could say that the corbettes have invented nothing.

Their balloon would simply be the most rapid of aerostats, capable of doing its 1,250 kilometers an hour, capable, therefore, of appearing motionless, having regard to the center of the earth and to the condition of following a certain parallel. oh in theory the thing is understandable enough and the idea might occur to the first comer given a simple multiplication of current rates of speed and the power needed for them but put into practice it comes to forcing a blue bottle to fly with the energy of a steam engine and after all it would be a poor result and elegant and the mere effect of brute force our motor does not propel the aerophix but it delivers it from the drag of the earth it is a generator of the power of the power of the earth it is a generator of the power of the power of the force our motor does not propel the aerophics but it delivers it is a generator of the power of the power of the power of the inertia? Do you understand? And it produces the same effect as a flying gas-worked affair

launched from east to west. It employs very little strength in so doing. But what is it? I asked. On what principle? Ah, just that I cannot tell you. Do not bear me any ill will, Randolph would be so displeased. You know my discretion. Look here, Archie, I will put you on the road to it. Don't ask me anything further. Do you remember those tops called gyroscopes with which we played as children? They spin in all positions on a taut string without falling. On this support, they form the most amazing angles and seemed to defy the laws of equilibrium and gravitation. Think of how they were recently employed in England. Lewis Brennan, the engineer, fitted a series to his two-wheeled tramway

in such wise that the machine, as ill-balanced as a stopped bicycle, could rest on a single rail, or on a cable thrown across an abyss, rest fixed and not to be overturned. In short, everybody that is fitted with a gyroscope remains stable in unstable equilibrium, as if it were going at a great speed. So the gyroscope takes the place of acquired speed. It is this power which a special arrangement of machinery has allowed us to increase. Behind you, six gyroscopes, six perfected tops revolve and avoid. "'Good heavens! Supposing they stopped without notice!

"'It would have to be very unlikely accident. "'Brennan has shown that after one has cut off the motive power, "'a gyroscope will continue to revolve for 24 hours, "'eight of which can be turned to account, "'a respite more than sufficient to resume without shock "'the rush of the atmosphere and choose a good landing place. "'An accident could only come about by the destruction of... "'of certain special machinery,

"'and unless it were done on purpose... Ethel, Ethel, I am simply astounded. You can imagine, I suppose, went on my sister, how I managed to move the vessel so easily. Waits hung underneath it, equalizing the lifting force, which was thus neutralized, so that our balloon only weighed the few pounds necessary to keep it down on the ground. These compensatory weights were detached automatically from the cabin. It was the simplest kind of let go all. Oh, yes, the smallest detail is thought out.

We first made experiments with a model on a reduced scale, no bigger than a canoe, but by some inadvertence we started the motor in the workshop. Whereupon our little arrow fix left us without taking leave, smashing the wall. It buried itself in a hillside at Belmont. It is there still. But, said I quickly, is here no chance of this heat flashing the gas? Don't be alarmed. Even the enormous and explosive bag of a balloon cannot explode except by contact with a flame or spark. It is a chimera.

Very good. Say no more. I understand the system thoroughly. Though at first I took your auto-immobile for an indubitable motor. I bet that was on account of the wheels. The wheels and springs. Those are simple buffers which are of use in coming to Earth. We come down to land without shock under the impetus and run a few meters before stopping. Every aeroplane is provided with them. Good, good, I said feebly. That's all right.

My stupefaction in living this paradoxical dream in my own person dulled my understanding, and I could not take my eyes from the revolving globe, whose slow and regular revolution showed our passage along the 40th parallel. Ethel saw the state I was in. I guess the reason of your discouragement, she said, it is the peculiar property of unexpected discoveries to appear contrary to the laws of nature, and to seem in their origin and fractions of the universal order things. On every invention, the world cries, a miracle for eight days, and with a kind of

terror and certain victims of science have a false appearance of being criminals justly punished for having contravened the existing code. Archibald Clark thinks he is witness to a sinister outrage. But I had no wish to take her up. The psychology of crowds in the presence of scientific phenomena left me cold. Terrible, I muttered. Terrible all this water without end. What depth have we beneath our feet? What is the depth of the sea here? Anything from 1,000 to 2,000 meters? We are somewhere between the 140th and 160th meridians.

Yes, true. It will soon be 5 o'clock. Five o'clock at Philadelphia, but not at any place we visit. Here it is always midnight. Midnight goes on with us. Today the Aerophix fulfills her midnight journey, motionless in the terrestrial space, and as we count time.

Fear clutched at my throat. True, the sun never rises, I observed. Naturally, the sun is always on the other side of the earth. After a fashion it plays hide-and-seek with the machine. Midday begins to rewarm the flying antipodes, since we are in the center point of that darkness which sweeps or seems to do so around the globe. Archibald, we shall lose a day of light,

and shall have lived, on the other hand, a night too long. Later on, when our discovery will be made use of, when everyone will possess his own aerophix, daytime journeys will no doubt be made, probably at least by foes to darkness who will be able to live facing eternal sunsets or bathed in the glories of unending dawn. Look at the sky on the ground of the periscope. The copola of one is reflected on the cap of the other. Nothing moves but the moon. Even the constellations advance no longer.

You might think the clock of the heavens has stopped. "'I know one that goes admirably, nevertheless,' said I. "'It is in my stomach and repeatedly strikes the dinner hour. "'I've had no dinner, my dear girl. "'We dined. "'You will have noticed, gentlemen, by the manifestations of my hunger, "'that your humble servant's courage has risen a little. "'It rose a good deal more after our meal,

"'brisked up with excellent tinned provisions, "'and a glass of brandy. "'I found myself no more uncomfortable in this narrow sheath then in the corridor of a Pullman car, only a general lassitude bore witness to the nervous strain I had just undergone. But folded in the warm half-light, the piece, following a good dinner, weighed down my eyelids. They closed to the monotonous cradle song of the whistling air

and the humming gyroscopes. As if through a fog I heard the clock strike and ethel murmur that we had done a quarter of our journey, and then sleep entirely overcame me. Hi, hi, none of that, my dear boy. You were asleep, I believe? Come, come, I made need of you any minute. You must keep a lookout. You must be vigilant.

Hmm. Think of the charms of Japan, which we are now traveling over. To the devil with your Japan, I retorted. It is as black as if it had snowed soot. Jim seemed intensely amused. And as to you, shut up, I said, drawing myself up. You have no right to be so amused at the word soot, old chimney sweep. Hush, hush, Archie, keep your sense.

seat. The negro was bent double, his shoulders shook with a secret joy, and across his heavy face I caught sight of a thick-lipped smile, but Ethel's imperious tone had quieted me. I asked her dryly still a little vexed. Where are we? Some mile south of Pekin, that is the desert of Alaska. Still fifteen hundred meters above the earth? No, of course not. Fifteen hundred meters above the level of the sea. The mean altitude of the desert brings us as near as 500 meters to the land. Then silence fell again. Truly I may call it silence, the perpetual noise made by the air and the motor. I no longer heard it any more than we hear the thousand and one rustlings with which our greatest solitude is filled. For a long while I struggled against sleep. To overcome it I tried

to interest myself in various things, my companions' attitudes, the changing faces and Ethel's curling hair, and all these supine countries where strange men slept on extraordinary beds under twisted roofs. But imagination in no eyes takes the place of knowledge, and I knew nothing of all these out-of-the-way lands, and I could not even distinguish a tree. I was reduced to inventing the world after the fashion of children who stride across a wooden hobby horse, and remained lost in deep thought imagining the road they have traveled. Nonetheless, I suffered two alarms. The first was caused by a shock, a very slight one at the ram of the aerostat. Something soft had got in its way.

My sister dissipated with a word to fear which had made me jump. She had seen in the periscope two large wings, which were no sooner viewed than they were eclipsed. The second alarm was due to the negro. Looking half-wild, he suddenly got up in his seat asking, "'Ware we always in the right direction? It would be too terrible if we had deviated "'because of the Kashmir Mountains, 3,800 meters in height.

"'He himself was too unnerved to have taken note, a glass of brandy put fresh life into him, becoming once more lucid and self-possessed he took up his place again before the clock. At length my sister announced gaily like the steward of a dining car, the first luncheon is served. It is midday. Midday, I repeated, assuring myself of the darkness, midday at midnight. The Chinese firmament starred the shade of the periscope with its cosmographic dome, like those maps of the heavens curved in their imitation, and, called Uranaramas. The night's blackness seemed tinged with green. Cloud similar to our cumuli hid and revealed the same stars, the solitary exception being the moon, which rising had enlarged

its melon slice and traveled to the southeast. Lunch seemed like supper, and dinner resembled it. We did not do the latter much justice. The nocturnal afternoon had slipped by, the Caspian Sea, Turkey, Greece. Calabria, Spain, and Portugal had succeeded one another, invisible and lacking all interest for us. An unreasoning irritation made me

beat my foot on the transparent floor through which we could discern nothing. I became restless. I moved about in the confined space, and I was childishly overjoyed when towards a quarter to twelve I received the command to be at my post. My sister added that they were going to stop the engine

and put a break on the gyroscopes so as to gradually regain little by little the drag of the earth, and ultimately be enabled to land at Philadelphia. The electric light shone with a hard glitter. Jim pressed a big button and pulled over several levers, which caught in a serrated rack. In the afterhold, one could hear the steel shoes grinding against the spinning tops. The humming grew deeper, the air whistled less and less strongly, and the speedometer's indicator began to run backwards. I clutched the handles of the steering gear feverishly. My sister had ordered me not to make use of them without a given,

signal. At times beneath my feet some great Atlantic steamer, glitteringly illuminated, stripped a glistening stretch of sea with its white and red lights. The situation lasted for what seemed to me an excessively long period. Leaning over my sister's shoulder to catch sight of her face, I found it expressing great annoyance. We are not slowing down enough, she said and answered to my question. I am afraid of passing by Philadelphia. The clock pointed to half past twelve, and the air whistled still violently. I wiped my brow with a nervous gesture. Do you not think we might land in one of the suburbs? Even if it were more than a hundred kilometers out of the town, the negro shook his head.

No, Jim, we had better not, had we. It is no good to dwell upon it. I set to work too late. Well, what's the trouble? I exclaimed. Once stopped, you back your engine. Archie, you are an ass. The balloon, as you yourself very sensibly observed, is not an automobile, but an auto-immobile. To go back on our flight, the Earth would have to begin revolving in the opposite direction. And the end of the world would follow your little fantasy because of the shock. No, no, we are well supplied with gas, ballast, electricity, and victuals. The only sensible thing to do is make a second tour of the planet and to slow down earlier.

Start the engine again, Jim, and take off the brakes. While she was forming this exasperating decision, which was immediately put into action, A misty patch, seemingly, spangled with fireflies, unrolled itself at the bottom of the abyss. Philadelphia was passing. Poor Randolph, sighed Ethel, how anxious he will be. And without taking breath, she launched out on a small, dry, wordy discourse, after the manner of people, who expect to be blamed by their opponent, and will not let him speak.

Accordingly, she took it on herself to inform me the best method of making Belmont after the next day's descent. As she wished things, the apparatus must not come to ground at more than 20 kilometers from the town. From there, a horse could haul it to the hangar, which would be re-entered before daybreak. In spite of her verbosity, the word loosen the flow of my lamentations. Daybreak, alas! You may well say so, my good Ethel.

I am just longing for it. It seems to me that the sun has gone out forever. Well, there, I came to make myself useful. I am resigned, but promise me that we shall be at Philadelphia. tomorrow without fail. I swear it, tomorrow at one o'clock or a little after. In one way or another, by our maneuvers, we have lost 60 minutes. Jim put back the globe with a clock, 1250 kilometers. But now Ethel busied herself with procuring necessary repose for herself and her assistance. She and Jim were to take watch and watch them out. As for me, the strayed outsider of this expedition,

I unexpectedly got leave to do what I liked. I think our captain rather feared the jumpiness. that I had shown before in my abuse of Jim. End of Part 4. Section 5. Up the Fixed Flight by Maurice Renard. This Libervox Recordings in the Public Domain, read by Ben Tucker. Part 5 Worn out with fatigue, I stretched myself on the glass floor, the pedestal of my seat between my legs.

Under the cloak of rest, I became a victim for long hours to the horridest nightmare. But no dream could equal and extravagance the fabulous reality, and my awakening seemed the beginning of a nightmare more horrible than all the others. When I recognize that I must live again for good, this delirious dream, all the disagreeables of the situation fell on me at a blow. The periscope shed its peep of light in the cabin. Ethel, her face blanched by its livid glimmer, slept, even as a corpse sleeps. Jimmy, stern and seemingly sculptured in bronze, mounted garlanded,

at his post and implacable night reigned over us. I knew fear and made a despairing movement, whereupon my hand struck something cold and smooth. It was the brandy bottle. In three seconds, time for a bumper, I could conquer my panic. What was I thinking of? Since the memory of man, fear has never seized on my valorous soul. Nevertheless, the sinister visitant returned to the charge,

and to exercise it, I had recourse to frequent drafts of currants. And courage of this sort tastes good. Valiantly I swallowed it without reflecting on the consequences of valor assimilated in this wise incorporated in liquid form, in this confined cell where I shared my sad lot with an impudent negro and a well-bred lady. Ah, gentlemen, you must forgive this illusion. It bears witness to the veracity of my story, and shows in a strong light how very different are the tales of Jules Verne

and other stay-at-home writers from an authentic, voyage. And so my intemperance was big with consequences and very considerable ones, which I will confide to you alone. It was seven o'clock when passing over the Balearic Isles, Ethel gave orders preparatory to stopping. Now then, Archie, wake up. You have slept enough. Take your tiller ropes. Aye, aye, Madam Corbett, said I, with a gracious smile, entirely at your service, Madam Corbett. Quickly turning up the lamp, my sister looked me up and down. During the whole day that she had had me behind her, she had never looked to see whether I slept or wait. My joyous countenance now merely showed a keen and highly legitimate satisfaction at landing at last at Belmont.

The brakes made a grating sound. The wind began to go down. My companions busily occupied did not cease from manipulating one after the other, the infinity of regulating instruments. I was ashamed of doing nothing, but a just pride filled my heart at the thought of the services I would render with my rudder. They should see what a pilot I could be. Yes, there should be no two opinions about that. I was jolly well going to astonish Mrs. Ethel, the masculine, and that rap scalyon of a chimney sweep. One, two, port your helm.

One, two, starboard your helm. And just to see, I pulled alternately on either hand. Needless to say, the rudder did not move. Held stiffly in the atmospheric stream, whose speed lent it the resistance of a solid. It was almost prevented from turning on its pivots. My efforts made me breathe hard. My tiller ropes seemed screwed to something perfectly immovable, and it enraged me.

You shall, you brute, I said inwardly to the recalcitrant rudder. Move you shall if I die for it. Thereupon I pulled for all I was worth, and so violently that one of the rods detached itself from the cursed thing. Unable to check my effort, I pulled away a great length of it from the bulkhead. Hello, I said to myself, suddenly sobered. I hope they won't notice anything. It was extremely unlikely. The thoughts of the other two were on their maneuvers.

The accident might perhaps be made good, so I fumbled about with my rod trying to refix it. But the rod which ran through the whole body of the motor had got out of the orifice whence it issued from the stern of the balloon, and it was the act of an idiot to try to put it back without entering the engine room, to try from a distance to readjust it to the rudder.

Never the lais, that is what I tried to do with puckered brow. All at once, anger overcame me. I banged the rod in with all my force, backwards and upwards. Something it met with gave way as easily as a bit of cardboard. It went through. I felt the end of the rod, caught in the hole it had made, and I pulled it out with a brusque movement. Whereon a distinct whistling made itself heard,

rising shriller than that of the surrounding air current. Ethel was listening, desperate and perceiving that the rod was still stuck in something soft and hampering. I tried to tear away the clinging hindrance. My sister and Jim turned round on hearing the story, suspicious whistling and saw me on my feet tugging at the cordage with both hands. They sprang forward. Too late.

The hidden entanglement had come away in the outer darkness and far down beneath us. There was a sort of frying sound which crackled, crackled. Good heavens, Jim, cried my sister. The gas is escaping. I seem to hear sparks striking. Quick, quick, run. Jim fled towards the gyroscopes and I, losing my head, opened a door onto the void. But I had no time to throw myself through it, a furnace flash.

A deafening thunder, a paroxysmal impression of light, and a most terrific uproar. I clung to the metal door and lost consciousness. The end of the story, gentlemen, you know more about than I do. Mr. Archibald Clark had ceased speaking. Open-mouthed, we watched him finish his last clero, and his last glass of liquor. Thanks to him, the box of cigars had diminished, and the circle of whiskey in the bottle had sunk to a very thin disc like a fluid counter. We had frequently interrupted Mr. Clark with admiring,

o's and ahs. On several occasions I'd been required to help him with expressions which failed him, and the worthy victim had profited by these numerous delays to abuse the supply of whiskey and tobacco with a queer ostentation. Gaten looked at him, wide-eyed, staring at the sole survivor of such an incredible freak. Mr. Clark rose from his chair and leant against one of the port-holes. Their little round openings lined the panels of the dining saloon like so many seascapes set in medallions, but they would have been considered wretched. canvases, circles which cut out the mass of sea in the empty sky, to enclose them in flat geometrical shapes, which the horizon split into two sections, one green and one blue.

The American declared that it was not all pretty. Well, my man, well, murmured Gaten, who was meditating on Clark's exploits. And so much sure, I said after a moment to Mr. Clark, and so your sister and the Negro are dead? Almost certainly, he replied. And Mr. Clark threw the stub of his cigar into the sea, as if Ethel Corbett's end in the destiny of Jim and the fate of a cigar stump weighed all the same upon his phlegmatic soul.

Niggers, poo. You know what they are. A dirty race. As to my sister, well, the poor girl sometimes had these whims. That story of the legacy? You can't imagine. What is the good of wasting words upon the subject? bah.

At this speech we were lost once more in silent contemplation of this individual. Monsieur, said I at length, can you explain this to me? When the arrow-fix passed through the air above the oceanide, I noticed something strange about the whistling. The first day it began to make itself heard. I am careful not to say after the appearance of the vessel, for its light could not be perceived afar off,

very much later than, when still visible, the vessel issued from the horizon. and the aerophix had, on the other hand, sunk far into the west, while we could still hear its whistling. The second time there was approximate coincidence of duration between the sound of your vessel and the rainbow-like curve it would have made had it not been for the accident. After a moment's reflection, Clark explained, It is very simple, Mr. Sinclair.

The first day, having attained a point above the ocean-eed, we scarcely slowed down at all, and our speed was superior to that of the sound, which travels at 46 meters, 66 per second. You grasp my meaning? The second day, our slowing down, was more marked, and would have about equalized the two rates. Do you want further details?

Unnecessary? After all, it is merely a problem for the lower form, given a train, etc. But, by Jove! exclaimed Gaiton, with their powers of understanding, which seem very unusual, it is hardly possible that you cannot give us some tips about the aerofix. the lightweight accumulators, for instance. I've told you all I know, replied Clark, and if I have confided in you, under the seal of secrecy,

it is because you fished me out of the water, and your anxiety to know my story had to be satisfied. I can only tell you again that the working parts of the motor, its interesting parts were hidden from me, and in no circumstances did I catch sight of them, nor was I enabled to form an idea of them. Perhaps from certain remarks let fall in the camp. cabin, a learned professor, or an engineer might have deduced the contents of the closed engine

room, and the particulars of the gyroscopes. For my part, I was incapable of doing so, and I only grasped my poor sister's explanation, purposely succinct as it was, by reason of its simplicity and because I possess, in common with everyone in this age of sport, some elements of mechanics. If I have retained some of the figures fairly easily do not put it down to my knowledge, which is kneel, but attracted to my business of accountant, whose practice with its stay-at-home but quiet interests I look forward to enjoying once more. Having delivered himself of these words of wisdom, Mr. Clark thenceforward held his peace, and notwithstanding our pressing him, he would never return to the amazing flight of the Aerophix, pretending that it reminded him of such unhappy circumstances.

Until we reached Havra, where Mr. Clark took leave of us, it must be acknowledged that he kept an inveterate silence, not only regarding the fixed flight, but on every other subject. We had great difficulty in dragging any details out of him about Trenton, the cable manufacturer, and his beloved Roebling brothers, and then again he would only speak to me. It was plain he did not like Gaiton, and as long as circumstances force him to frequent his host society, he was civilly grateful towards him, but remarkably laconic. As soon as the Oshinid came alongside the landing stage, Mr. Clark, having refused to the wherewithal Gaten had offered to lend him to return home, left us with a low bow,

and crossed the gangway at a run. The result of his departure was naturally to relegate Mr. Clark to one's list of souvenirs and ideas. An absent person is no more than a thought, and as such his whole being, simplified, classified, reduced to essentials, appears to us with its peculiar characteristics as violently marked as in a character on a stage. Those who are dead and those who travel, one seems to look at from afar off. Of their finer shades and of their appearances, one can perceive but one dominant color, and that a mere silhouette, often enough, caricatured. Mr. Clark bore the aspect in our memories of some extraordinary puppet. The fellow's eccentricity jumped to the eye, as they say.

Now that he was no longer with us a palpable witness of the marvelous adventure, his tale seemed like a dream to us, and he himself an hallucination. I proposed somewhat late in the day to institute an inquiry on board. We set to work. It was carried out rather unmethodically and merely ended in exasperating our curiosity. The sole information we gained concerned the tips he had distributed. Before leaving, Mr. Clark had tipped the crew and the servants, magnificently. But this cashier scattered the contents of his purse like a Nabob already seemed to form an indefinite kind of charge against him. But that was not all. These gratuities had been paid by him, an American, coming straight from Pennsylvania, in French banknotes and louis.

The Paris train bore me away, my imagination full of this affair, while Gaten sped in his motor-car towards his castle of Venus-A-Lois. Without wasting more ink that the incident deserves, I must make a note of the stupid argument that preceded our goodbyes, which, serving to convert a momentary disagreement into an irrevocable rupture, has authorized me to set down a picture of the Baron de Venus Peridol, as he really is. If he finds it not to his taste, let him say so. I am at his service.

But let us get back to our subject. Some weeks after my return, I was the owner of quite a little dossier concerning Mr. Clark, and the events preceding his fall into the Atlantic. First, there were newspaper cuttings and bulletins from various observatories noting such showers of shooting sparks as occurred on the 19th, and 21st of August, and the passing of a bolide across Europe during the night of the 19th to the 20th. Then there were, ready-translated for my use, divers, attestations of Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, correspondence dwelling on the 40th parallel, who certified, having spent the nights of 20th and the 21st of August,

up and about without observing any abnormal light or hearing any unusual whistling. That they had seen nothing was not unnatural. Mrs. Corbett cut off the electric light when they were above continents, but that they heard nothing. What do you make of that? Now, regarding the question of these depositions, it was necessary to have guarantees of the perfect good faith of their signatories. Here is the source of my information. One of my nephews takes in a little popular review printed in various languages. It is the organ of one of the most respectable international clubs.

Its subscribers, polyglots, take pleasure in exchanging all kinds of things from picture postcards to certain poems, which will never make any of them famous. I am indebted to my nephew for the reports from Italy, Spain, and Portugal. as also for all the remaining information. There were also translations of letters, but letters sent from Philadelphia and from Trenton. They form a formidable pile of evidence against Mr. Clark. Certainly there was a Fairmount Park at Philadelphia, and in Fairmount Park, west of the Shulkill River,

a place, Belmont, with an open plain surrounded by hills exceedingly suitable for launching an aeroplane, as our civil informant observed, but the Corbets did not exist. At Trenton, among the men, manufacturers of pottery and the less honest fabricators of Egyptian scarabs, the cable manufacturer of Roebling Brothers was known, but no cashier in the establishment answered to the high-sounding name of Archibald,

or to the crisp and clear-cut one of Clark. Our man had again become the sinister being, the unknown, the castaway. End of Part 5. End of the Fixed Flight by Maurice Renard.