The Cavorite Plans.
"They've gone down. They've broken through the lens pit and here they are, deep below the surface of the moon."
Everyone in the NASA conference room sat silently, their eyes fixed on the screen as they watched the small group of astronauts with a fourth, who had taken a film camera, and had moved far off to give the astronauts and the palace of the leader of the Selenite city in the background some scale.
Everyone had seen this clip many times before, it was making the headlines across the globe and had done so for weeks now, even now the story of the 1899 expedition to the moon was becoming more common knowledge.
"They're lighting flares to see their way."
One of the astronauts threw a flare, which illuminated the front of the palace, which had a massive jewel in its centre.
"More evidence of civilisation," the newsreader said, excitement in his voice as if he were presiding over a soccer game and he was ratcheting up the feeling as he spoke quickly. "It appears to be a lunar city. But who built it and why?"
As if fate were trying to punish humanity for their sins in the wake of the loss of the Selenites, the ceiling and walls began to collapse.
"It's starting to crumble, collapsing before our eyes. The astronauts will have to come to the surface. They're being hauled up on nylon ropes," the image changed, showing two of the astronauts, one wearing a dark spacesuit, the other bright, being hauled up the lens pit shaft where all sunlight was absorbed, which powered the Selenite city.
The view turned back, showing the palace being buried in the violent cave-in.
"It's like an abandoned mine, caving in on top of them…. They're through into the open!" The newsreader cheered as the clip changed, showing the astronauts now on the surface of the moon, and scrambling out of the lens pit, the crystalline substance of the pit breaking apart and collapsing down into the shaft. "And it's crumbling right beneath them. Corrosion and decay, everywhere the same story. There seems every evidence of some kind of contamination. Did they take off for another planet, or were they wiped out by some all-conquering virus? As deadly as a plague, or as infectious as an ordinary common cold in the head. And what happened?"
"Turn it off," Dr Brand ordered and the screen shut off and the lights turned back to normal. After everyone blinked to let their eyes recover from the sudden brightness, Brand looked around the room. "We may never know if any of the Selenites escaped and survived what happened on the moon."
"It's likely they didn't survive," Dr Challis pointed out. "From what Mr Bedford told us, Professor Cavor was suffering from a common cold. Under those conditions, micro-organisms would run wild and multiply quickly."
"And don't forget, Miss Calendar told Mr Bedford the Selenites were trying to duplicate the Cavorite coated on the sphere, and they failed because the moon lacked helium," Miss Hoy added. "If any did escape the moon, they either found helium somewhere else on the moon, or they died before they could use it."
"Even if they didn't get off the moon, the fact remains a lot has changed for Earth and the human race; we've got space travel and we've had it since 1899. Aliens actually exist, and if a species could live on the moon, a body without a surface atmosphere, that means other moons and asteroids in our solar system might have colonies of some kind of alien life. We must be ready for them and we need to establish some type of protocol when we meet. Bedford treated the Selenites badly, he admitted it," Dr Baker broke in.
"I agree. But we can work on that later on. I'm more interested and intrigued by everyone on this table," Dr Travers said.
In the centre of the table was a pile of books, all leather-bound. Many of them were stained with age, the leather work fraying or ragged or torn. There was also a wooden box. But on the far side of the room, anchored to the ground, was an old-fashioned wooden chair. The chair was floating in the air.
Back in 1899, a broke businessman, named Arnold Bedford and his fiance, Katherine Calendar, discovered an eccentric scientist, Professor Joseph Cavor, a physicist specialising in gravitational research. He had come to a theory it was possible to create a metallic paste which would cut off the force of gravity. He'd been inspired by things like simple blinds to cut off heat and light.
And he'd succeeded.
Cavor had invented an incredible substance he named 'Cavorite,' a paste which could cut off the force of gravity. A compound of elements with a helium base, the Cavorite was powerful enough to send objects out into space. Bedford, once he'd accidentally sat on the chair due to his scepticism about Cavor's claims and floated to the ceiling, came up with different ideas. But Cavor had plans of his own. He revealed he had built a sphere which would have Cavorite coated on shutter blinds and he planned to use it to mount a scientific expedition to the moon. Bedford and a reluctant Miss Calendar went with the scientist. When the sphere returned, crashing into the seas off of the coast of Zanzibar, only Bedford and Miss Calendar had returned with a story of a civilisation on the moon. Cavor was left behind, and without any proof, nobody believed their story.
Until now.
A month before, the UN had sent a spaceship to the moon. The crew found evidence of the 1899 expedition, a flag with a piece of paper declaring the moon the property of Queen Victoria. There was enough information on the paper, as it was a summons to Katherine Calendar and directed a team to Dymchurch, England. The investigation team found Miss Calendar had died some 10 years before, but Mr Arnold Bedford was still alive. And he had related to them the story of Cavor, the Sphere, and the lunar civilisation.
He told them how Miss Calendar and Cavor were taken by the Selenites and how interested the Selenites were in Cavorite, but were unable to recreate it themselves despite being technologically advanced.
He told them how Cavor met the Selenite leader, believing the Selenites planned to kill them all without thinking for a moment they might have been the ones fearful of human attack after Cavor told them of human war and violence.
He told them of their dramatic escape, and how nobody had taken their story seriously until now.
Bedford had given the UN team access to Cavor's diaries and notebooks. He and Miss Calendar had quickly found a way back to England, and they'd returned in time to safeguard Cavor's work. Bedford had originally planned on spreading the word of the Selenites, but Miss Calendar and he had just not been believed, so they'd given up despite their physical evidence of the substance's existence.
"It's time we spoke about what we're going to do, about Cavorite and the future of space flight and space exploration," Dr Brand said.
"We have access to Cavorite," Hoy pointed to the chair and the urn, "those are physical samples. We've already taken the formula from them. Reproducing it will be done as soon as the formulas are known."
"But it's been a month. Why take so long?"
"The investigation team have been going over Cavor's notes," Challis sighed. "Cavor, while a brilliant man, was also absentminded, although in the case of Cavorite, he likely knew something could happen to him, and he had worries about how it could be used, so he left the important bits out."
"Doesn't seem fair, especially if he wanted his discoveries known," Hoy commented.
"Maybe he was in two minds about it? But does it matter, we have the Cavorite now," Travers said.
"We'll need to think about safety. In one of Cavor's diaries, he described a week where he was terrified of the dangers of it. He set up two experiments. He prepared a tub filled with soil and a few plants, and he filled a tank with water. He dropped some Cavorite into the water tank outside his house, and the water leapt into the air, right into the atmosphere."
"That doesn't sound too bad," Hoy said.
"No, but the next experiment worried him. He put the tub into a container and measured the air pressure inside. He recorded the results in his diary. The air pressure in the vessel was just torn away, like someone peeling a banana. Cavor then began taking no chances with Cavorite, afraid that he left it to one of the men entrusted with it. He came up with a theory, that if someone accidentally dropped Cavorite - he didn't say how much - it could tear the whole atmosphere off of Earth," Dr Mann said grimly.
Hoy flinched at the image of someone dropping a barrel-load of Cavorite all over the ground and the entire atmosphere is torn away with a flash of chaotic images. "That's not good."
"No, it's not," Brand made some notes in the notepad in front of him. "We're going to have to come up with dozens of safety precautions just in case, and everything will need to be monitored. But right now, we need to talk at length about the future of space travel. It's clear Cavorite is the future, but how shall we go about making it a reality?"
"The biggest problem we have with Cavorite, and Bedford's story, is the landing on the moon and the crashing in the seas off the coast of Zanzibar. I didn't like the sound of the sphere being uncontrollable," Hoy admitted.
"Mm, I agree."
"So do I," Travers nodded. "The moon rocket was the culmination of years of research. It cost us millions of dollars of work. Cavor's sphere was a blindingly simple spacecraft. And it crashed. We don't want the same thing happening again. But he didn't bother installing thrusters or anything else that could steer the sphere. He depended on those blinds."
"Do we really have to use roller blinds?" Challis looked around the room. "I always liked the shape of rockets. I don't see why we can't continue using the shape, but we need to see if there are other ways of using Cavorite. Can we direct the energy downwards?" Challis turned to the chair. "That chair has a light layer of Cavorite painted underneath. Is there a way we can create a rocket that directs the energy downwards?"
Brand rubbed his beard. He'd been thinking hard for the last few minutes, coming up with different plans and ideas. Now he was about to say his piece. "I think we need to spend the next decade experimenting with Cavorite. It offers us a relatively inexpensive way of spaceflight. In those 10 years, we should send out small, unmanned probes with Cavorite. We should also look at building sections of space stations, and then send them up into orbit to see if there's a way of controlling the Cavorite so we can get out into space without shooting all the way further out of the gravity well."
"I like that idea," Mann commented. "With unmanned probes, we can answer several questions we have about Cavorite. Can it be used in a different way? Can we direct it? Does it work with any other form of propulsion? After a few years, it shouldn't take long to answer those questions."
Everyone in the conference room spoke at length for the next two hours. By the time they reached the end, they'd reached an agreement. One or two people believed they should continue to experiment with conventional rockets. It was a proven technology. It had gotten them out into space. While a few people we more than happy to throw rockets out, again consensus was reached to continue experimenting with rocketry.
Author's Note - I was inspired by the 1963 The First Men in the Moon movie to write this new series of shorts, showing what the future held for humanity after discovering Cavorite.
