Beyond the Amethyst Mountains

It had started with a meeting in the Tontine Coffee House on Front Street listening to Astor talk about opening trade, dividends and other dull financial subjects. That coffeehouse was now over a quarter million miles away.  Yet I could still look up in the sky and see it.  Well, I could see New York, at least, just barely making it out under the clouds.  And all those people in that city could also look up and see us.  They had no idea what was going on anyway.  Only a select few like John Jacob Astor even knew we were here.

“Quit lollygagging, Fulton!” came Captain McHenry’s gruff voice.  “There is work to do!”

“Sir,” I said.  Like McHenry knew what to do other than drink.  “I have checked and double-checked the boiler.  Everything is as it should be.  I think we shall be able to do no more until Bedford and West return.”

McHenry grumbled and took another swig from his bottle.  I could only imagine what he would do when he ran out.  “Sir, I will check on Norton,” I said, before excusing myself.  McHenry gave a gruff nod as I walked away.

Jason Norton was sitting on the shore, just letting the white sand trickle through his fingers.  “Fulton,” he said at seeing me.  “Have the others returned?”

“Not yet,” I replied.  “McHenry sent me to help you.”  We both chuckled over that, as I sat down next to him.

“I cannot believe it,” he said looking at the sand in his fingers.  “We are the first men on the Moon.  Another world.  I mean, I remember reading about it in the Sun, back in August last, but to actually come here.”

I remembered the hysteria when the New York Sun had printed the articles about Professor Herschel’s discoveries.  I, like the rest of the world, had been fascinated.  But it would be less than a month before I received the summons from Mr. Astor himself to meet at the Tontine Coffeehouse in New York City.  And then only a few months later that we were on the Severn, touching down here, which the captain called (rather ironically in light of future events) McHenry’s Landing and claimed it for the United States of America.  

“You remember the Tontine Meeting?” I said, trying to start a conversation.

“Of course,” Norton said.

“You can see New York from here,” I said, pointing to the earth above us.

“So you can,” Norton said.  He was more interested in the scenery of our current world, and I could not blame him.  

“Ho there!”  Norton and I turned to see First Mate Bedford approaching.

“What have you found?” I asked.

“A relatively easy path,” he said.  “From there we can make contact with the Vespertillo-homo.”

Norton and I dusted ourselves off and followed Bedford where McHenry and West were waiting.  McHenry was holding a brown bess musket in his hands.

“Will that really be necessary?” Norton asked.

McHenry made a show of examining the gun.  “I remember back in 1812,” he grumbled.  “Mr. Astor had us exploring west for furs and we had more than a few close encounters with the Shoshone.”

“Of course, sir,” West said, picking up his own weapon.  McHenry’s speech would have been more exciting if we did not already know McHenry was on the Oceanic expedition and probably would not know an Indian if he ever met one.

“Take your weapons and move out,” McHenry barked as we fell into step behind Bedford.

It was not long after leaving the shores of the Mare Nubium when we came across the amethyst mountains sighted by Professor Herschel.  I could imagine his wonder from the description in the Sun, but I must say, standing at the base of of these mountains so perfectly pyramidical and extending far into the sky is an experience I still remember.

For the next day or so we proceeded south along these gemstone mountains only to pass from one valley into the next.  About midway though the second day we arrived in the widest valley we had yet seen, the Pitatus crater.

I have always believed that the Vespertillo-homo were aware of us long before we saw them.  As we started into the valley, we could hear the noise of their wings above us.  It was an odd sound, reminding one of herons or eagles soaring overhead.

When we emerged from the trees and saw the great panoply of the valley, there were several of the flying creatures awaiting us.  They stood on the ground and I must say were a fair sight more attractive than for which the account in the Sun gave them credit.  They stood only about four and a half feet tall and had a long black membrane that stretched from their shoulders to their ankles.  But as they stood there the membrane was folded and it was difficult to see its true expanse.

“Kasushu,” said the first one.  We had no idea what he was saying, but could only assume he was greeting us.  Their language sounded vaguely like Chinese, or so McHenry said.

Bedford took the lead and stepped out in front of us.  “On behalf of our patron, Mr. John Jacob Astor, I greet you,” he said with a bow.  This set the small creatures chattering amongst themselves.  Finally their leader looked back to us.

“Ngantso kaygiyin Nyimala,” he said, with a gesture we assumed meant for us to follow.  At that the creatures spread their wings, and I must say it was a truly impressive sight to watch them take wing with just one flap.  One simple move and they were gliding through the air as if they had always lived there.

“Don’t just stand there!” McHenry said.  “Let’s get on!”  Slowly we started trudging after the Vespertillo-homo.

“Friendly enough lot, aren’t they?” Norton asked as we trudged on.
“It will make things much easier,” Bedford said.  “To negotiate trade.”

The walk through the valley was easy enough which allowed us to take in the ruby mountains, and massive temples.  While fascinating to read about in the Sun, it was entirely something else to see them up close.

It was a brisk walk and I dare say more than any of us were used to after being cooped up in the Severn for nine days.  I will say the lunar air does wonders for the constitution.  We arrived in good spirits at the massive temple.  Our native guides alighted in front of us, and pointed which we assumed was the sign for us to go inside.

“Gyalmo nanglagidu,” said our guide.  We all fell into step behind him and stepped into the cavernous temple.  It was sparsely decorated, compared to any similar building on earth.  In fact, the only thing that passed as decoration was the strange alien script that I can just imagine Champillion would have given his left arm to look at.

“Mimang dintser su ray?” came an echoing voice.  Ahead stood what I must describe as the most intriguing creature I had ever seen.  She was a Vespertillo-homo like all the other creatures, but she stepped off of her throne and carried herself with a regal grace.  Her flesh was golden, and had she not moved, I could believe her cast from gold, framed by locks of bronze.  As she walked her wings fell behind her like a cape.  The vespertillo-homo wore little in the way of clothing, and I felt the need to avert my eyes as she approached, as despite her alien appearance, she held more than a passing resemblance to a young girl.  With the exception of Captain McHenry, the rest of the Severn crew did the same.

“Do you understand us?” McHenry asked.  “We are the crew of the Severn.  I come to you on behalf of John Jacob Astor and the United States of America.”

The alien girl looked at us puzzlingly for a few moments, as if taking our measure.  Finally she spoke again.  “Versteht ihr mich jetzt?”

It took me several moments before I realized she had addressed us in German.

“Ich kann dich verschteh,” I said.  I can understand you.

“What are you saying, Fulton?” McHenry grumbled.

“She spoke to us in German sir,” I replied.

“You speak German?”

“I was raised in Pennsylvania, sir,” I replied, before turning back to the alien girl and continuing in German.  “How did you come to learn this language?”

“My mother, who sat upon the kübkyag before me, learned it from a traveler who passed through our land once before,” she replied.

“What traveler was this?” I asked.

“He passed through our lands a long time ago, but his name was Mu-cha-song.”

“What is she saying?” West demanded.

“She said she learned German from a traveler named Muchason,” I translated.  “I turned back to her.  “My name is Fulton.  What is your name?”

“Ful-tong,” she said sounding out the name.  “I am called Nyima.”

“Her name is Nyima,” I said to my compatriots.

“Ask her where the King is!” McHenry growled.

I turned back to Nyima.  “Where is the King?”

“King?”

“The one who rules you, speaks for you.”

“I sit upon the kübkyag,” she said indignantly.  “I speak for my people.”

“It looks like she is the one,” I said.  McHenry rolled his eyes.

“Well then,” Bedford said.  “Tell her our mission.”

“Nyima, since you sit upon the kübkyag, we have come to speak to you.  We are seeking trade and would like to exchange goods with you.”

She sat there in silence for several moments.  I began to wonder if she understood me.  I opened my mouth to speak again when she held up her dainty hand.

“The Chihu have no need for trade.  All that we require can be found in this valley.  Should we have to, we will fly beyond the valley to anything we may need that cannot be found here.”

“She says she is not interested in trade,” I said to the others.

“Stupid girl,” McHenry grumbled.  “We did not come all these miles to bust.”

“Perhaps if you explain how far we have traveled,” Bedford offered.

“We have come all the way from Earth,” I said.  The look on her face told me she did not know the name.  “The great blue orb in the sky.”

“Ngernpo!” she gasped.  “How did you make such a journey?  Your people have no wings, and even the Chihu cannot fly above a certain height, as many of us have tried.”

“We came in a spacecraft,” I said.  “A thing capable of traversing the great distance.”

“I should like to see this spacecraft,” Nyima said.

“She wants to see the Severn,” I said to the others.

“That may be just the thing to convince them to trade,” Bedford said.  “When they see the wonders we have.”

“She is not interested,” I said.

“Perhaps,” Bedford suggested, “We should retire for the night, and resuming talking in the morning.”

“Except,” Norton said.  “Night won’t be here for several days at least.”

“What?” McHenry asked.

“One day on the Moon lasts about twenty-nine days on earth,” Norton said.

“I don’t want to have to trek all the way back here,” McHenry grumbled.

I turned back to Nyima and continued in German.  Nyima, perhaps if we could rest a while?”

“Rest?”

“On Ngernpo the day and night are much shorter.”

“Yes, we have observed this,” she replied.

“So we require sleep and--”

“You will be given places to sleep here,” she said.  She was then chattering in her own language again, and several servants came walking up to us.  “Follow them and they will show you to sleeping rooms.  When you have awakened, you will take me to see this spacecraft of yours.”

“Of course,” I said, before turning back to the others.  “She’s putting us up for the night.  But she wants to see the space ship when we wake up, er, tomorrow.”

McHenry grumbled, like he always did, but the rest of us quietly followed our hosts deeper into the temple, (which was actually a type of palace) to our own chambers.

As it turns out, our quarters were simply square rooms devoid of furniture with a large window.  With no bed I simply laid down on the floor and tried to get some sleep.  I did not sleep well due to the lack of a bed and the large window that looked out across the bright  and sunny lunar landscape.

After a few hours of this, I had had enough and decided to look around a bit.  The Chihu did not believe much in decoration.  There were no paintings or draperies on any of the walls, only bare rock.  

After several hours of wandering through the place, which must have been even more vast than I had thought, I found the only personal touch.  Incised on the wall were strange alien characters, what I could only assume were the letters of the Chihu written language.  I stared at them seemingly forever, hoping they would resolve themselves into something that made sense, but there was no such luck.

“Ful-tong!” came Nyima’s voice.  “Why are you not sleeping?”

“I was not tired,” I lied.  “And I was too curious to sleep.  Tell me, Nyima, what does this inscription mean?”  Nyima stared at the inscription for only a few seconds before she spoke.

“It is a proclamation from my fifth-gone father.  It says he built this part of the temple, he carved it from solid rock.”

“Fascinating,” I said.  I looked forward to learning more when we returned with the next expedition.

“Ful-tong, if you are awake, are you ready to show me your spacecraft?”

“What?  Yes, of course,” I said, tearing myself away from the inscription.


Within a half hour, all of the Severn crew were back in the throne room.  As we stood there, Nyima shouted to the others of her kind.  Quickly, her compatriots took wing and flew out of the temple itself.

“I am ready to see your spacecraft now,” she said.

“It is quite some distance from here,” I said, but Nyima was not to be deterred.  She walked out of the temple and we could only follow behind her.

When we stepped outside, we found quite a surprise waiting for us.  It looked like a dozen or so Chihu were waiting for us with a vast expanse of some kind of fabric, like sail-cloth.  They gestured for us to stand on it.  Upon stepping onto it, we discovered that it was stiff, as if reinforced by means we could not divine.  When we stood together atop it, the Chihu took to the air, carrying us with them.

I must say this was a much more pleasant way to travel.  We could see Lunar landmarks passing underneath us almost too fast to account.

“Imagine the missionaries here,” West laughed.  “Closest to flying with the angels they’ll ever come.”


They set us down gently upon the familiar white sands a short distance from the Severn.  Nyima immediately stepped forward to examine it.

“Such a wondrous machine!” she said.  “How did you build it?”

“My uncle, who I was named after, was a great inventor,” I said.  “I guess it runs in the family.”

Several of the other Chihu started chattering amongst themselves.  Nyima said something to them.  “Many of my people express their doubts such a thing could have come all the way from Ngernpo.”

“What do you think?” I asked.

“I have never seen the like of this and I have traveled much over the surface of Dawa.  I have no reason to believe you have deceived me.  How does such a thing work?”

“A great scientist on our world, LaSage, has discovered that gravity is the result of particles, called gravitons which bombard everything.  We have discovered how to make a substance, that when magnetically charged, can repel the gravitons and allow our ship to fly.  After that, a simple steam engine pushes our ship through the aether, to arrive here on Dawa.”

“Fascinating,” Nyima said.  “And your people often make machines of this type?”

“This is the first,” I said.  “And now that my people have seen that it will work, we can send many more.  You could even visit our world.  Come to Ngernpo.”

Nyima laughed to herself.  “Where there are people like you walking about?  You are so strange looking, gangly and wingless and you cover yourselves with such strange skins.  No.  I will remain here upon Dawa.”

I will admit I was disappointed to hear that, but I suppose it was to be expected.  Not everyone would be willing to simply leave their world on a machine they had never seen before.

“What are you two going on about?” McHenry growled.  I had almost forgotten the others were there.  “Are we trading or not?”

I turned back to Nyima.  “Do you wish to trade with us, seeing the things we have?”

“No,” she said.  “All our wants are met here.  We have no need of anything you may bring from Ngernpo.”

“Well?” McHenry asked.  I turned back to him.

“No,” I said.  “She has no wish to trade.”

“Wonderful,” McHenry said.  “We didn’t come here to bust.  At the hand of these people allow a girl to rule over them?  What does a girl know?  We’ll bring her and she can see the wonders we have to offer.”  Before I could stop him, he reached out and grabbed Nyima by the arm.

Nyima cried out in her language, which set off all of her people.  Like a tide they surged upon us, until West started firing.  The report echoed off the amethyst mountains in the distance, but it was only a temporary respite.  The Chihu concentrated their effort on him and while West tried to reload his weapon, the Chihu carried him aloft.  I had no idea how how they took him, but when they reached a significant distance, they simply let him go and poor West plummeted back to the surface.

As we looked on in horror, Nyima managed to pull away from McHenry and the Chihu turned their attention to our unfortunate captain.  He was to share West’s fate.

“Wait!” I shouted, looking to Norton and Bedford who were leveling their guns at the horde of Chihu.  “We must stop this now!”  I turned to Nyima.  “Please.  Two of our men are dead.  We did not come here to war with you!”

“Several of my people lay dead as well.  But we do not desire war either,” Nyima said.  “Fultong, go.  Get into your ship and return to Ngernpo and never come back here.”

I nodded.  There was nothing else I could say.  I took one last glance at those beautiful ruby mountains and the white sandy beach of the Mare Nubium before Norton, Bedford and I stepped into the ship and closed the hatch behind us.

We activated the gravity shielding and our craft quickly ascended from the Lunar surface.  It was not long before the moon was the same gray disk we had always seen.  I felt a pang of regret that I would never see those beautiful mountains or that azure blue sea again.  “I suppose it’s for the best,” I mumbled.

“What?” Bedford asked.

“Everything,” I said.  “Astor would come in and mine the amethyst mountains down to deserts.”

“A shame to waste them,” Bedford replied.  “The Chihu are doing nothing with them.”

I disagreed with him, but knew better than to say so.


And so we returned to Earth.  The flight home was sullen, as we only spoke to each other when it was absolutely necessary for the running of our ship.   Bedford assumed command, and as Norton and I attended the engines.

After a few days of this, I was grateful when we touched down onto the beaches of Connecticut.  After the seas on the Moon, our terrestrial beaches seemed so mundane.

But there was much fanfare when we arrived back.  Telegrams were sent and John Jacob Astor arrived on the next train.  His expression quickly fell when he saw only Bedford, myself and Norton waiting alongside our craft.

“Where is McHenry?” he asked.  “And the other one?”

“West and Captain McHenry were killed, sir,” Bedford said.

“Killed?” Astor asked.  “So those creatures there were hostile?”

“Yes,” Bedford said.

“McHenry provoked them,” I said, drawing Astor’s gaze.

“You are no doubt aware of the mineral wealth there?” Astor asked.  “I have no intention of letting a few creatures keep away from it.  Do you know how much money I spent on this venture?”

None of us said anything.  “More than the three of you will ever see in your lives, put together!  I was the one who sent the first ship to China and I sent the first ship to the moon.  I can send an army to the moon if I wish, take those gems by force!”

“Sir, I do not think that would be wise--”

“I don’t care what you think!” Astor shouted.  Then he took a breath to steady himself.  “Good day, gentlemen.  I would not bother returning to New York.  I will see that you never work there again.  Nor will I send you on my next Lunar Expedition.

***

There never was another Lunar Expedition.  In light of the Panic the following year, John Jacob Astor had other concerns and the Lunar Expedition was forgotten.  That did not stop Astor from slandering us whenever he got the chance.  Our heroes’ welcome never came.

I don’t know what became of Bedford, he disappeared from public life.  Some say he returned to the Navy and retired a Captain.  Others say he died a drunk.

Norton engaged on a successful speaking tour, but lost much of his money to bad investments.

I wrote a book of my experiences, but due to Astor’s influence, it remains unpublished.  But every night I still look up at that silver moon and wonder what could have been.