The Map of the Sky by Félix J. Palma Read Free Book Online Page A

eyes of that somnolent, light-headed Wells closed, inside a casket in the basement of the Natural History Museum, those of another Wells opened.

II
    F ROM THE LOOK OF ASTONISHMENT ON YOUR faces, I can tell you are wondering what really happened to the Annawan and her crew at the South Pole. Is the Martian in the Chamber of Marvels really alive? Is our world threatened by a strange and sinister danger? It will give me the greatest pleasure to provide you with the answers as we go along, but in order to so in a proper, orderly fashion, I ought to go back in time to the very beginning of this tale. Since I have to begin somewhere, I think it would be best to travel back in time and place to the year of our Lord 1830 and the frozen wasteland of the Antarctic. As you will recall if you were paying attention to the clippings Wells browsed through in the museum’s basement, that was where the ill-fated Annawan became icebound, and her valiant crew had the misfortune to be the first to welcome the Martian when it landed on Earth, a role for which undoubtedly none of them was prepared.
    Let us repair to the South Pole, then, where we shall see that as the flying machine shaped like a saucer was hurtling through space toward our planet, Jeremiah Reynolds, the leader of the disastrous polar expedition, was examining the ice that had trapped his vessel and wondering how they would get out of there, unaware that this would soon be the very least of his worries. It occurred to the explorer that in all likelihood no other human being had ever set eyes on this place before. He wished he were in love so that he could baptize it in the name of a woman, as was the custom; the sea ice he was standing on, for example, or the distant mountain range to the south, or the bay sweeping away to his right,blurred by snow, or even one of the many icebergs. It was important for the world to see that his heart belonged to someone. But unfortunately, Reynolds had never experienced anything remotely resembling love, and the only name he could have used would be that of Josephine, the wealthy young woman from Baltimore whom he had been courting for several different reasons. And, frankly, he could not imagine saying to her as they took tea under her mother’s watchful gaze, “Incidentally, my dear, I have named a continent in the polar circle after you. I hope you are pleased.” No, Josephine would be incapable of appreciating such a gift. Josephine only valued what she could wear on her fingers or around her wrist or neck—provided they were not shackles, of course. What use would she have for a gift she could never see or touch? It was too subtle an offering for someone like her, impervious to subtleties. Stuck there in the middle of the ice, in temperatures under forty degrees below zero, Reynolds made a decision he could never have made anywhere else: he firmly resolved to stop courting Josephine. It was unlikely he would ever return to New York, but if by some miracle he did, he solemnly promised he would only marry a woman sensitive enough to be inspired by having a frozen wasteland in the South Pole named after her. Although, in case fortune failed to smile upon him, his uncompromising pragmatism insisted on adding, it would not be a bad thing if the woman in question had enough money to be able to excuse him for that remote island being all he could offer her.
    Reynolds shook his head to rid himself of those romantic visitations, which seemed out of place there, as if they belonged to a strange, distant world he could scarcely believe existed. He gazed at the infinite expanse of ice imprisoning them, that landscape far from civilization, which even the Creator Himself had forgotten to adorn with living creatures. The ship and her crew had set sail from New York in the fall of 1829 hoping to reach the South Pole three months later, in the middle of the Antarctic summer; but a series of unfortunate mishaps, which had dogged them almost as soon as