Mr. Loury’s abandoned house and its volcano got paved over when they redid the spiral road in the late 70’s.
My dad drowned in 1984, on a trip to the South Pacific, diving into an underwater cave and failing to equalize his pressure, but he was an old man by then and hadn’t been in touch with me in a long time. There were no more mothers.
The astronomers at Palomar kept finding supernovae and charting galaxies, but the largest telescope in the world was surpassed in size in the early 90’s. The last time I drove there, up the spiral road and to the tourist center, it was daylight, and the only person I saw was not an astronomer, but a painter pulleying himself around the walls, rolling white paint slowly over the dome.
When I tried to ask him a question, he shrugged and turned back to his job, pulling himself along the dome, hand over hand.
I stood there a while, watching him spackling the fine cracks all over the surface, the ones that stretched up from the gravel and all the way to the top of the dome itself. The observatory was getting old. I bent down, and put my ear to the ground, but there was nothing to hear. When I stood up, the painter was looking at me.
He reached into the pocket of his overalls, and tossed me a small white rock. Later that night, in my hotel room, I soaked it in alcohol. Underneath the paint, the rock was black and porous, but that was all.
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AN ACCOUNT OF A VOYAGE FROM WORLD TO WORLD AGAIN, BY WAY OF THE MOON, 1726, IN THE COMMISSION OF GEORGIUS REX PRIMUS, MONARCH OF NORTHERN EUROPE AND LORD OF SELENIC TERRITORIES, DEFENDER OF THE FAITH. UNDERTAKEN BY CAPTAIN WM CHETWIN ABOARD THE COMETES GEORGIUS.
ADAM ROBERT
My Commission
In all respects aiming at brevity, I here set down the account of the cruize I undertook to the Moon, afterwards returning again to this, our world, in the years of our Lord, 1726 & 27. There is (as is well known) littel enough in the Moon to justify the expence of crewing and leasing a vessel; save only that it is upon the Moon that the Patiens make their habitation, and as such some do go in hopes of obtaining or otherwise laying hands upon any and all devices or vessels of their design. Howsoever rarely this is achiev’d, and with what poor returns upon the market here is well known, for perhaps one in every four items brought back to our world is of any use to us at all, and the main amount of such chattel merely reproduces what is already in the possession of mankind, where such novelties most often prove impossible for the wits of men to decipher.
So was I sworn by the First Lord Commissioner, the Earl of Berkeley Viscount Dursley, during the early days of the late war between Spain and Peru; for at time of war was the urge to uncover such Arms as may be secreted amongst the machinery of the Patiens, tho’ never yet accomplished. It is known now (forall that I was bound with oaths of secrecy at that time) that His Majesty’s Own Ambassadors were treating with Brasilia and Peru, and that the Americas were eager to have a European allie in their struggle against the Spaniards. To that end, and to ease such discussion with proof of our intent in stopping Spain from locating any Weapons such as may or may not have been available in the Sky-lands. I was Commission’d to make my way thither, and funds were furnished upon the Stock of Sir George Oxenden, Bart, and Sir John Jennings, who became Certificated Gentleman with shares of 20/100 apiece in any prize we might win. But this manner of voyage is so different to admiralty work, and plunder so rare to come by, that their shares were in turn underwritten by His Majesty’s Office of Swedish Finance.
My Lords approach’d me, I do not doubt, on account of my experience going thither into the tallest hights, and having previously publish’d Round the World by Way of the Attenuat’d Hights, published at Mr. Crowther’s, 1717, I do commend this account to my present readers. As to the obtaining of the vessel, I shall here say littel; for it is well known that most of the Patien devices with useful function reside in private hands, for all that the Crown urges its Subjects to sell them to the State. There being in divers hands four devices for Communication over Vast distance, none of which I have ever seen; and upwards of two dozen devices for elevating vessels to the greatest hight; yet these latter have yet to be prov’d, for only when the Vessel so uplifted has left the thickness of Earthly ayr below it may it be in any fashion steer’d, such that the creation of craft that may Fly about the Skies of this world has not been accomplish’d. Yet the Chinese claim they have modify’d such a Vessel, as we may very well expect it shoud be possible to do; or else (as in the present wars) Craft must fly up to the Attenuat’d Hights in order to come back down again in another place. There was but one device found useful for applying Heat via a wand of some metallick quality, and it the only Patiens-ware ever seiz’d by the Crown, upon the Royal Warrant, and taken to the Royal Armouries where its mysteries were not exhum’d and (as I heard) it was spoyl’d by those who examin’d it and now rests mere junk.
At any rate, the Guild that attends to building and caulking the Vessels, and the Guild that has possession of the Propulse, and the Guild that attends to Ayr, and the Guild that possesses the Royal Patent for provisioning such cruizes, all stand off from all, such that bringing together a crew is a tiresome business. It might benefit the Commonwealth of all Northward European peoples, under His Gracious Majesty’s rule, were they but encouraged to allign their commerce. On this occasion it requir’d a threeweek’s tedious use of my time to provision and construct the Vessel, which I named the Cometes Georgius; most of which labour was in having my men running from office to office along the Dover roads. At fine, the Vessel was readied: it being if pyramidic shape the better to cleave through the ayr close to our world; builded of alternate layers of wood, well caulked with plastick’d tarr, and sheets of the new India-rubber, to preserve the atmosphear within. A number of balons of ayr must be carried thither, each twice the size of the Vessel itself; and I know that the Americans, when they ascend, begin the cruize by heating the ayr within and so are lifted on the first stage, although the Propulse-device of the Patiens must soon be engag’d. We had no such unnecessary complexness about our Voyaging, and the balon lay alongside us, ty’d with cord to the base and link’d via a spiggot-tube. The ayr being so precious a commodity limits the size of the crew; one man per Guild and myself being four in all; or else the number of balons tow’d behind must needs become troublesome. Dobrée took twenty with him on his supraplanetary, hoping to replenish them at journey’s end, but was compell’d to return on the same supply and thereby perished the majority of his crew. It has been found, since then, that the seeding the interior with green vegetation goes some way toward avoiding the parching of the lungs, tho’ Dobrée knew nothing of that. My crew was roster’d as follows:
Captain, my self
Gabriel Cano, Ayr
Eberhard Christian Kindermann, Pilot
James Moulville, Purser