Six Weeks in the Moon

By Joseph A. Lovece

Three loonies, Dick, Ned and Professor Benton, are completely unprepared for their trip to the Moon. They arrive just as a powerful earthquake destroys the capitol, are attacked by an alligator-octopus creature, hunt wild game on the Lunar plains, and almost get eaten by a sea monster. And that's just the first day! Will the Moon king powerful Prince Moda prove to be their greatest friend or bitterest enemy? The volume contains a new story based on the original, also included as a reprint for the first time since 1896.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joseph A. Lovece
• Release date: Jul 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311129505

Joseph A. Lovece

Joseph Lovece is a retired journalist and publisher, and a collector of dime novels, pulp magazines and comic books. He lives in Ormond Beach, Fla.

Book preview

Introduction

Six Weeks in the Moon; or, a Trip Beyond the Zenith is not even close to being the first contemporary space travel story or even the first American one. Jules Verne’s De la terre à la lune (From the Earth to the Moon) appeared more than three decades earlier. And 100 years before that Marie-Anne de Roumier-Robert published Voyage de Milord Céton dans les Sept Planètes (Lord Seton’s Journeys to Seven Planets). There were even series of stories on the subject and by 1893 Wladislaw Somerville Lach-Szyrma’s Alerial star trekking stories alone numbered 11.

The online Encyclopedia of Science Fiction called Six Weeks in the Moon significant but doesn’t explain why. Perhaps it’s because it was the only space travel story to appear in 1896. Perhaps it’s because it appears to be the first space travel plot applied to the dime novel boy hero genre, even more specifically the young inventor, sometimes identified as a sub-genre called Edisonade (although ironically Edison’s Conquest of Mars did not appear until 1898). Perhaps it was because of the tale’s heavy reliance on phony technobabble so terse it shames science fiction TV show writers. The tale’s conceit is that the Moon has atmosphere, which Dick exploits and invents a magnetic poleograph, a device that excites and controls the magnetic fields of the moon and the earth, permitting objects to be drawn through the vacuum from one point to the other.

Everett Bleiler in Science Fiction: The Early Years (Kent State Univ. Pr., 1991) credits the story to Luis Senarens (1863-1939), the young man usually behind the sobriquet Noname and the co-called American Jules Verne, even though unlike him Verne actually wrote well. Indeed Happy Days identifies Noname as the author Jack Wright and His New Electric Horse and Frank Reade, Jr., in Japan with his War Cruiser of the Clouds both of which are credited to Senarens.

Although 33 years old at the time of publication, it still appears written by the 19-year-old-boy who took over the Frank Reade series in 1882 and is in his turgid and repetitive style. Another hint is that the story’s MacGuffin is recycled the next year in his dime novel Across the Milky Way; Or, Frank Reade, Jr’s Great Astronomical Trip with his Air-Ship The Shooting Star. In it Frank invented an attractto-motor, a device exploiting magnetic affinities among heavenly bodies and establishing magnetic fixes on selected worlds, creating attractions among them.

The muddy science reflects the story’s muddy text. Generally Senarens had little room for real science or character development. Instead it was all situations and solutions, unsuspensful action and adventure. The dialog is utilitarian and the characters rarely said anything interesting for its own sake, and only spoke to drive the plot.

The only character even slightly interesting is Prince Moda the king. He’s smart and thoughtful, but the story never sees anything from his point of view. The three protagonists are interchangeable and horrible. Ned’s hubris nearly kills them all, and every escape ultimately is from dumb luck. The three bumbling explorers should have been dead within 10 minutes of landing on the moon, let alone be guests of honor of the best of the best.

The story also suffers from a lack of any theme, the vagaries of luck seemingly the only important factor to its cast.

In addition, every drama is short-lived, and the characters never learn from their mistakes. Ned in fact repeats a mortal sin for no apparent reason. It doesn’t matter, because there is no motivation for anything anyway, and all situations are rationalized on the spot.

Also, the original has editing and printing problems. There are glaring inconsistencies (i.e. sometimes the locals are called Modites, other times Modies, sometimes capitalized, sometimes not). There is the usual archaic spelling of some words and typos, such as missing quotation marks. One sentence is cut off mid word. For this volume the original novel was transcribed letter for letter, maintaining the original typos and errors. Whether any new typos were introduced, you will need a copy of the original in order to determine it.

The text reprinted here was transcribed from eight issues of Happy Days, Feb. 1, 1896, Vol. III No. 68 to March 21, 1896, Vol. III No. 75.

Joseph Lovece

July 2014

Chapter I

The Moon, giver of werewolves and tides, remained a mystery. Its origin no one suspected. Its power was unmeasured. Some claimed it was hollow. Others believed it to be inhabited. Its 237,517-mile distance from the Earth made it relatively close. The Sun in contrast was 95,000,000 miles away and travel to it in a lifetime was impossible. But at conceivable speeds one might reach Luna in less than a fortnight.

At least 6,000 years ago man began studying the planets and stars, their movements and positions. They imagined numbers so vast they reached out to the deepest visible bits of space. The earliest civilizations calculated the Moon’s orbit to within seconds of modern math. But the old ones fell and were lost and since then the satellite was mostly ignored. Telescopes powerful enough to minutely scrutinize the lunar surface had not been invented by 1896.

But a new Golden Age of Lunar examination began after archeologists found that Earth’s first civilizations crafted celestial tablets describing, using an intricate and utilitarian base six mathematical system, the precise movements of heavenly bodies. It also finally emerged that the satellite had a topography like Earth’s; but more importantly it had an atmosphere similar to its watery parent. Astronomers were unsure how it regulated its climate system with so little apparent topical water. Earth had oceans to displace and balance oxygen and carbon, but the Moon’s climate regulatory system remained a mystery. Some scientists suspected underground oceans and others theorized an intelligent hand scrubbed the atmosphere clean of excess carbon.

Since humans probably could survive on the moon, the obstacle to its exploration remained transportation. Thus concluded two Rodman School of Chemistry and Sciences students.

The children first met at a very young age, both going to school on the special carriage. Both had some autism. Dick stuttered a bit. Ned had no sense and was impulsive. The lads never developed decent nonverbal communications skills and suffered from obsessive behavior. Sometimes they took everything they heard literally, and were confused by sarcasm. But between the two of them their social skills had begun development.

Professor Elias Benton, their school master, blamed himself for their condition. He accidentally exposed their pregnant mothers to some noxious chemicals and was sure it damaged them. Since then he helped raise the boys and they considered him an uncle.

They were actually his last two students since the school insisted he retire. He believed the so-called Great Moon Hoax of 1835 was actually not a humbug at all but merely recanted fact. His colleagues moved he be barred.

He recognized the pair’s potential. Dick Rodman was a genius with design and construction; Ned was more of a poet, the perfect foil for Dick’s ideas. Aside from their afflictions the lads were among the world’s luckiest and were born not only to smart but wealthy families. Dick through his father Col. Preston Rodman was directly related to the Rodmantown’s founder and eponym, and they owned the Rodman Machine Works. Ned’s father Nathan too was a millionaire, one of the rare few.

When Professor Benton suggested the scientific task, the one he pursued for 25 years, he didn’t expect them to actually embrace it. But his lunacy was infectious. He also didn’t expect how singly-mindedly Dick sought the challenge. It created in him guilty jealousy, half-hoping the young man could not succeed where he failed.

For half his life Benton jumped over the moon. He wanted desperately to visit it, or at least communicate with it. His colleagues naturally mocked him. But he was undeterred. Revenge is a dish best served right, he thought, and agreed with himself that the proverb needed work. He was almost always correct, giving him a calm confidence even in the face of ignorance.

For the last few years the boys assisted him more seriously. They mostly took his notes while he taught them how to use the telescope and how to map the Moon. The pair afforded astronomy the same attention as any of their studies, and it roused no passion in either of them.

In one night everything changed. The three of them as usual were in his home’s top floor laboratory and observatory. The telescope was strong enough that over time they all knew the satellite’s surface as well as any Earth map. Every day the trio discussed possible Earth-Moon communication architectures. From the ether an idea occurred to Ned: electrics. He felt sure the solution lay in that science. They agreed to test his hypothesis.

Dick proposed flying a series of navigable balloons between the Earth and the Moon, but their master riddled it with bullets. What happens when we reach space? the professor asked.

Isn’t it all space? the boy answered with a question. As usual he looked like he puckered his lips. And that was the night he began rubbing his chin.

Of course not.

Air isn’t space?

This isn’t a semantical argument, said Benton. Fine. Let us define terms. Quite simply, atmosphere is comprised on air, oxygen, nitrogen and traces, all elements found on the periodic table. Air or atmosphere encircles the planet. Beyond its outer edge, the zenith, is space, which is the opposite. It is anti-element. It is, quite literally, nothing. The black. We cannot live there, what would we breathe? And when nothing meets something a vacuum is created. Nothing pulls something away as strong as it’s non-existence. It is fundamental to our understanding of physical law. And what would be the corollary?

Dick had no clue. Some opposing force is keeping our atmosphere from flying off into space. Gravity! said Ned. Conservation of energy.

Indeed. So what force do you propose to use to overcome the force of gravity? And remember, the closer to space you reach the more powerful the gravity will be felt. How will you reach what we will call ‘escape velocity’? If you apply Newton, it is well-known as the minimum velocity needed to escape from a planet’s surface. For a spherical mass M of radius R it is simply: the square root of (2GM/R) where G is the gravitational constant. The escape velocity thus increases as the object’s mass increases and also increases if the mass remains the same but the radius gets smaller. How would a balloon do that?

Right, it can’t because of the pressure differential between the light gasses inside the balloon and heavier gasses outside. The higher we go, the lighter the atmosphere, eventually matching the interior air, retarding its ascension. We would slow down, not speed up.

"Well-reasoned. Very good. Until we can overcome this hurdle, all our hypotheses remain untested and moot. For example, sound mathematics tell us the probability that there exists atmosphere between the Earth and the Moon approaches absolute 0.

However, it is true that the calculations to some are unconvincing. There are those folks who claim that there are dimensions and variables ignored, and promote the idea that space could contain some type of atmosphere. I don’t advertise that hypothesis. But until one can reach beyond the Earth and see space in person, however, the question remains.

Actually, they are right and I can prove it, said Ned. They claim space is not empty, that it contains elements. They are correct. Everything we see exists in space, so space is not empty! Ned said, proudly.

You are wrong, said Benton. That is a circular argument and sophistry. Space surrounds us, we are not in it. Space by definition is empty. So the question remains: what lies beyond the zenith?

I sort of understand, said Ned. If I jump into the ocean I’m surrounded by water.

Put it this way, said the professor. Do you understand the difference between a mixture and a compound?

"A mixture is a physical blend of two or more substances that are not chemically combined, and a compound is a substance that contains two or more elements that are in a fixed chemical proportion.

Metaphorically, think of air as a compound, and space as a mixture, said Benton. You may mix chocolate into milk, but it is still milk, it has not changed into a new liquid. Adding elements into space like planets, for example, does not create atmosphere.

I understand, said Ned. I was wrong.

The boys looked skyward and the Moon mocked them. Ned loved challenges and Benton’s enthusiasm was starting to become contagious. "C’e la luna mezz’o mare, Mamma mia me maritari," he sang from an old Italian folk song. There’s the moon, shining on the water, and I will marry it, he thought.

Forget it, said Dick. I know that look. The professor is right, and a b-balloon is the only way to g-get there.

That’s what I’m saying, noted Benton. If there were atmosphere all the way to the Moon, sure we could just ascend. If only we could tap into the Moon’s gravitation pull. But we’re too far away and the Earth pull is too strong.

So we’re stuck here, said the boy, and they both sighed despondently.

Say you figured out a way to propel us into the Moon’s embrace. We still have to cross space, and we can’t live there, remember? said Ned.

The technology exists; we use it for submersible boats. You carry oxygen tanks aboard an air-tight cabin. You only need a tight fuselage and an air circulation system, said Benton.

Say that’s true and you’re living in space. What means of propulsion would you use? Propellers are out; there’s nothing there for them to propel through. Would the object then just remain in motion forever until acted on by an outside force, following Newton’s law?

Are you trying to tell me the bar is high? What do you think I’ve been doing for 25 years? That’s the big problem: being hurled all the way to the Moon’s gravitational pull.

But once you’re in motion, you’ll crash into it.

You can deploy parachutes.

And more important, said Ned, how do you get back?

The same way we got there. We go in the out the door. Whatever force allowed movement between the space bodies remains part of physics, and will be available for our return.

##

It was late when the boys got back to Dick’s house so Ned stayed over. Neither slept well, being sub-consciously preoccupied with the scientific mystery.

The next morning after Ned went home Dick ate a light breakfast then went down to his father’s machine shop complex. Besides his theoretical science studies he was an engineer and mechanic. His father encouraged these skills and allowed him to set up a large isolated workshop within the building. Dick closed and locked the door behind him. When he finally emerged that night he pondered what he had wrought.

##

Among the most ardent detractors of Benton’s Moon theories were Col. Rodman and Nathan Davis. Several days later they met by chance on the street.

Hullo, Preston. Haven’t seen you in a while, puffed Davis How’s Phyllis? Say, I wanted to ask you, what ails those kids? Half the time I can’t get Ned to respond, and the other half he snaps at me. Did you hear this? They want to go to the Moon. He rolled his eyes.

Yes, well, when we were that age we wanted to fight Indians in the Rockies.

Indeed. I just hope they don’t waste too much time on folly.

##

The entire Rodman complex was at Dick’s disposal. To his credit, he never behaved as spoiled among the machinists, and so was popular in the shops. He didn’t mind getting or talking dirty, he had good ideas, and wasn’t a jerk about it. He didn’t