Solaris Rising 1.5 (20 page)

“Now, watch closely, as I regulate the voltage flowing through the wires, starting from nil. I have to use a delicate touch, and my hand is unsteady at this hour, which is one reason I had hoped to postpone the demonstration.”

Manipulating the rheostat with a slight tremble, the Duke radiated an expectancy which communicated itself to Frank.

The artist kept his gaze fixed on the bottle, but a corner of his vision allowed him to note that Restituta was similarly entranced.

Was that a hairsbreadth of space showing between the bottle and the tabletop? Yes, it was! The bottle was floating!

As the Duke adjusted the rheostat, the bottle wrapped in cavourite rose higher and higher until it halted at eye-level, floating as innocently as a dandelion clock. Frank passed his hands through the sphere of air all around the bottle, looking for invisible threads, and found naught.

“But—but this is incredible!”

“Yes, it is, isn’t it? You see, the metal is inert until an electrical current of the proper type is passed through it. Then, pure levitation.” Pursing his lips, the Duke blew upon the weightless object and it drifted away in reaction. “And that is how one can maneuver in space. With breath, of a special sort.” The Duke cut the current, and the bottle fell with a solid
thunk
to the table.

The steed of Frank’s excitement, racing at a fever pitch, experienced a sudden reining in. “But why the Moon, of all places? This invention has so many earthly uses. Flying carriages, for one! You could become rich, or change society. Why go haring off to another world? What’s waiting for you there? What’s so special about the Moon?”

“Ah, Frank, that’s where my daughter comes in. Ever since birth, perhaps because of the special blessed circumstances of her conception, she has had visions. Vision of otherworldly scenes and personages. Even communications from them, which I have come to trust without reserve. And her visions have told her that on the Moon dwell beings who can help us. Specifically, they can restore her brother’s legs. And that is the thing my darling girl most desires.”

Frank stood flabbergasted. “But—but such creatures would have to be angels!”

Restituta understood something of Frank’s declaration. She grabbed both his hands and transfixed him with her large, dark eyes, like some lamia out of Keats. “
Si, si, signore! Vedo gli angeli!
”

Preparations and Flight

F
RANK SAW LITTLE
of John and William these days: he was much too busy getting ready to fly to the Moon.

Once dawn had broken after the incredible demonstration of the levitating ink pot, he had hastened across the city, woken his pals, and informed them of his intention to move out of the pensione. His chums regarded him as a man possessed, but did not seek to dissuade him. Rather, they sleepily and bemusedly wished him luck in his quixotic pursuits. Frank accepted their endorsement, gathered up his small belongings, and returned to the Ca’ d’Oro. Shown by the lone servant to the room that would be his, he laid his head down on a pillow for just a moment and woke up twelve hours later.

Finding his way down the main dining room, he discovered the Fossombrone family already seated at table.

“Ah, Frank,” the Duke said, “you have left the realm of dreams at last. Join us now, for we have much to plan and discuss. Sit with Ludovico between yourself and Restituta, and my son will translate anything you wish to say to my daughter, and also of course whatever she replies.”

So began the daily, hourly makeshift translation routine by which Frank would begin to know better the fascinating Restituta, supplemented by his gradual acquisition of a smattering of Italian, and her growing mastery of English. Ludovico proved to be so mild and obliging a linguist, one whose fondness for his sister made light all chores regarding her happiness, that at times Frank almost forgot the young man was even present. It seemed as if Frank’s expressions of meaning went straight to Restituta’s consciousness, and vice versa.

When Frank did suddenly take cognizance at intervals of Ludovico’s presence, he had to smile, for the situation reminded him of the famous quandary Cyrano de Bergerac had gotten himself involved in. And was not Cyrano also author of
The Other World: The States and Empires of the Moon
?

In any case, that second meal in the Ca’ d’Oro marked the beginning of a growing friendly intimacy between Frank and the
jolie laide
. And what he discovered over that and subsequent days—many hours of which were spent sketching Restituta—was a creature composed of paradoxical qualities. Shy in most matters, yet bold in detailing and affirming her angelic visions. Free from personal agendas, except for her bulldog tenacity in wishing to secure Ludovico his legs. Innocent of the ways of the world, yet able to see through any sham or pretense of human behavior. Intensely religious, and yet with a passion for mortal life and its sensual pleasures. Not coquettish, like so many other young women Frank knew, and yet harboring a smoldering allure. All these yoked antinomies of her character and nature made Frank regard her as a marvel, and soon, without intending to, he found himself in love with Restituta Fossombrone.

He broached his feelings just once to her, and received this reply:

“All my energies and attentions are devoted now to Ludovico’s healing, Signore Duveneck. But after we succeed, I would not look cruelly away from your kindly face.”

Frank had to content himself with that nebulous gesture of future attention. And although in other courtships he had been perhaps impatient and overbold, he found himself charmed to a new placidity.

But really, there was hardly time to play Romeo, for Frank was kept busy much of each day with the preparations for the trip to the Moon.

First, he had been ordered by the Duke to begin sketching angels. This he did by channeling Restituta’s verbal descriptions of the creations she had seen (or just imagined?) into lines on the page. This portion of his job (for which he was getting room and board and the promise of a sizable payment in dollars when they returned from the Moon) was very pleasant naturally, for with Ludovico’s help he was able to chat amiably while he sketched. After a week or so, Frank had compiled a large portfolio depicting strange beings—gaunt, attenuated, winged like bats, with faces like holy horses, creatures adapted from Doré’s oeuvre—which he presented to the Duke.

“Wonderful! These are brilliant patterns of the vague ghosts I had flitting in my mind from my daughter’s accounts. Vivid renderings will be immensely helpful, for we must be able to recognize Restituta’s patrons when we arrive on the Moon, to distinguish them from any other races we might encounter.”

But aside from employing Frank’s artistic skills, Duke Fossombrone also put him to work with a task involving some skilled artisanal labor.

“You will have noticed,” said the Duke, “that many hired men are busy about the palazzo, performing certain tasks of construction.”

“Indeed,” said Frank, who had, to his puzzlement, witnessed a sizable gang of laborers outside the palazzo each day, from dawn to dusk. They appeared to be entrenching around the foundation of the building, as if fashioning a moat, while simultaneously encasing the building in a sturdy frame of timbers anchored to the structural elements of the Ca’ d’Oro.

“Perhaps you would care to see an interior modification they have embarked on just this very hour.”

“Lead on, Duke.”

In one of the big upper-storey loggia that looked out on the Grand Canal, men were curtaining the ornate portals with thick panes of glass, whose seams they sealed with generous stroppings of India rubber. They were also applying the viscous latex substance to all the other joints in the room’s ancient construction. Moreover, at either entrance to the loggia, small anterooms were being constructed.

“Looks like you’re anticipating a Vermont mud season with those makeshift wardrobes there, Duke.”

“Ah, not at all, Frank. We are merely guarding against the intrusion of nothing. Now, come along with me to see some machinery, please.”

Perplexed but game, Frank followed the old savant.

A mass of newly delivered wooden crates awaited downstairs. The Duke itemized their contents.

“Here we have a phalanx of Planté lead-acid batteries to store the electrical current generated by these Gramme Dynamos. The Dynamos are hand-cranked, which is another task you can assist at, Frank, as can Ludovico, who possesses very strong arms, as you might have noticed, from shifting his crippled frame about. These two components insure that we will have plenty of voltaic resources to impel the cavourite, and also to power some lighting fixtures. One of my peers, Sir Joseph Swan, has graciously consented to loan me some of his prototype ‘incandescents,’ as he dubs them. And then there is a third use for the electrical current. It will fractionate water into its moieties of oxygen and hydrogen. The oxygen will be released into our sealed loggia as necessary, to replenish what we breathe, while the hydrogen will be compressed and stored in tanks situated around the perimeter of the palazzo. And from these tanks will protrude directional jets.

“All of this invaluable equipment will be situated in the loggia, except for the peripheral holding tanks, of course, which will be controlled from the loggia via very reliable electro-mechanical linkages. Additionally, we will lay in plenty of foodstuffs and beverages, extra garments and bedclothes, a few pistols and some tools. Do these preparations begin to hint at anything to you, Frank? And have you any suggestions to make?”

Frank stared silently at the Duke for a few moments, before breaking into a huge grin. “Well, damn my soul! If you don’t put old Columbus in the shade, Duke, I don’t know who does! My hat’s off to you! I won’t even dare to say what I think you have up your sleeve, but if you can pull it off, the world will hail you as a hero.”

The Duke grinned modestly, and bowed his head. “A father will dare much for his progeny. And if some new knowledge of the cosmos accrues along with the patriarchal deeds, so much the better.”

“I would suggest one thing, though. Heat.”

The Duke cogitated. “Hmm, the transmissive properties of the aether, and its density, are unknown quantities. I had thought solar flux might be enough for comfort... But certainly we could add some extra insurance. Very well, I’ll write to Sir Swan immediately and see what he can provide! Now, as to your task, which requires a delicacy I cannot demand of the common laborers—”

Down to the lowest level of the palazzo the men went. There Frank saw many bundles of cuprous plates, along with kegs of hide glue.

“Here is all the cavourite in the world, hammered out to its thinnest dimensions consistent with lifting strength. I need you to affix it all evenly to the stone interior walls and columns, beams and ceiling.”

“Not the floor too?”

“No, the floor is extraneous. But elsewhere, the plates must be tightly secured. Can you do this?”

“Why, sure, it’s just like sloshing rabbit-skin glue onto a canvas. Let me at it!”

True to his boast, Frank found the process of tiling the basement of the Ca’ d’Oro with cavourite to be a trivial, albeit hot and messy one. Shirtless, with heated pots of glue bubbling, he laid down one metal square after another, conforming the pliable sheets to arches and columns alike. As the days progressed, with other work continuing in parallel, the basement of the palazzo came to resemble Peter the Great’s famed ‘Amber Room,’ a shining sun-colored box.

Restituta came demurely to visit at regular intervals, bringing refreshments and conversation in her improving English. She seemed neither repelled nor distracted by Frank’s bare manly chest, rather regarding it as a mere natural phenomenon.

When all the cavourite was in place, a single wire was run from the basement plates (their contiguous conductive surface needed only one point of electrical contact) to the batteries and rheostat controls in the loggia.

And then came the day they had all been working toward: departure for the Moon.

The voyagers had waited deliberately until darkness descended, bringing with it the anticipated full silvery pockmarked orb high in the heavens, for which they could aim.

The loggia, illuminated by Shaw’s incandescents as if a carnival scene, was replete with supplies and equipment and furniture, but still relatively spacious. Even the big tuns of water did not loom too oppressively. Through the glass wall, the gay night-life of Venice continued in its immemorial fashion, with passing watercraft arrowing lazily through the canals.

Restituta attended to the electrolysis device that was fractionating the water into useful gases. Seated, Ludovic cranked the handle of a generator to top off the batteries. Duke Fossombrone stood at the master controls. The household’s lone servant had been sent away on a contrived errand. A subliminal but real vibration of excitement and expectancy infused the chamber.

“Testing the propulsive jets for the final time now.” Muted hissing penetrated the loggia from various points around the palazzo. “All operational. I will now begin to enliven the cavourite.”

The Duke slid the rheostat control, and the Ca’ d’Oro began to shift and creak, as if in a windstorm. He advanced the control further, and new and louder popping and ripping noises mounted. Still further, and a cataclysmic tumult battered their ears, as the ancient and now weightless palazzo, reinforced by its cage of timbers but suddenly lacking a bottom to the otherwise intact Amber Room, tore completely loose from terra firma and rose gently into the sky, like a drifting feather in reverse.

The Duke halted their ascent at the height of about forty feet. Despite his expectations, Frank was astonished, his heart beating like a racehorse’s at the end of the newly inaugurated Kentucky Derby. He looked down at the light-pricked city and, despite the darkness he could see the spot vacated by the Ca’ d’Oro filling with water. Astonished gondoliers were falling into the Canal, and bellowing pedestrians pointing upward.

“Goodbye, City of Bridges!” proclaimed the Duke. “We go to build the
ponte di stelle
!”