“That prisoner in there,” Billy observed. “What are we going to do with him if we make a landing? From what I see we are about ready to drop.”
They shot suddenly across a range of high mountains and came to a long level stretch of shimmering white.
“If a landing is made we will have to tie him up and——”
Epworth had not completed his sentence when the Aerolite dropped downward and landed as light as a feather. When he turned to look out again he discovered that they were located on the peak of a high mountain that sheered off almost straight down for ten thousand feet to a long level stretch of land composed of brownish colored soil. This stretch of land sloped gradually eastward. Remembering that east was west and west was east on the moon, Epworth tried to establish the point of landing from his knowledge of the surface of the moon as outlined by Flammarion. The moon, he knew, was now full, and the entire surface was flashed with sunlight—that is the portion that faced the earth.
But, to his astonishment, they were not landing in the light of the sun.
When the ship came to a stop and he was able to get a better view of their surroundings he discovered that they were surrounded by a dim reflected light that came from the east. On the west the darkness was steadily deepening. While he was still watching the darkness in wonder, the colonists began to pour out of the ship onto the moon.
They looked strange—not at all like men—and Epworth gasped slightly as he recognized the fact that they were encased in air helmets, and wore heavy iron shoes to maintain a balance on the light gravity of the small globe.
The moment they landed the men began to unload sheets of metal silvered into giant reflectors.
“W-w-what are they going to do?” Joan gasped in astonishment. “Why all those sheets of silvered metal?”
“That Toplinsky is a deep man,” Michael responded in awe. “He has never been on the moon before, but he has a great scheme to make it inhabitable by men. That silvered metal, when completed, and erected, will be his first moon mirror. If you notice it is to be erected on a particular point of this mountain—just beyond the part visible from the earth. For fourteen days the sun will be reflected directly toward the earth, and then the rays will move further westward, finally presenting only a dark sphere to the earth. This results, Toplinsky says, in the establishment of a line on the moon which is always lighted by the appearance of the sun in the distance. This line travels into the sunlight and retains the light of the sun while the face of the moon fronting the earth is dark. Thus, at a point only several miles removed, when the sun disappears from the Sea of Vapours, we will say, it touches the mountain system on the west and remains there until the moon’s movements shift it back again. Toplinsky’s scheme is simple. He intends to locate mirrors on that line, catch the light of the sun as it disappears from the part facing the earth, and reflect its heat down into the valley. With the heat naturally will come the reflected light. In this manner he will build solar heaters to overcome the cold and darkness of the long night. Naturally he will locate his colony close to the mountain where it will be near the solar heaters.”