1
1641
Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac, a young member of the King's Guards, sat in his cups after several cups of a not very distinguished wine in a little tavern in a not wholly decadent section of Paris, but certainly not a dignified one. It was close to the theater where Cyrano and two of his fellow Guardsmen, the twins François Jacques and Jacques François, had spent the better part of their evening. François and Jacques tried their best to lighten Cyrano’s mood. For, besides being in his cups, Cyrano, his head buried in his folded arms on the table, was in a morbid melancholy.
“Cyrano,” said Jacques (unless it was François),“you are the most irritating guardsman of my acquaintance.”
“Mine too!” François said (unless it was Jacques).
“You had a great triumph tonight. You bested and mortally wounded a great swordsman in a duel of honor at the theater. And this while still suffering some pain from the neck wound you received in the Siege of Arras. It was Spectaculaire! (Which, of course, means Spectacular!) Magnifique! (Which, of course, means Magnificent!) Affreux! (Which means Awful! But in this case, “full of awe” and not “objectionable,” for obviously François—or Jacques—was not objecting). “It will only enhance your repute, your fame, your legend!”
Cyrano moaned and slowly raised his head, bringing into the tavern’s low candlelight and fireplace illumination his spectaculaire, less than magnifique but certainly affreux nose. He looked at the twins, his fellow men-at-arms, and said in a slurred voice, “I would rather be known for my rapier wit than for my rapier.” Then he dropped his head back onto his folded arms.
“You see,” said one of the twins (we will dispense with trying to figure out which), “that is your problem, my friend. You care more for your books, your poetry, and mooning after your cousin than defending France and your honor with your incredible talent with the sword.”
“Some talent,” Cyrano said, raising his head again, his face mapped with disgust. “Sticking pigs! And what a pig he was! Not just of the body but of the mind. How did he insult me? Was it at all clever? Was there some felicity to his words? An apt way to offend me? No, just your mundane, ‘Mon Dieu, mais tu as un gros nez!’ (Which means, “My God, but you’ve got a large nose!”) But it sounds better in French). Oh, if only I had answered back with some wit, some poetry, possibly with how he could have cleverly insulted me if he had not been a witless dolt. No, I just answered with the inarticulate clang, clang, clang, clang of metal! Oh, why do I always think of the witty things to say, the beautiful bon mot, after the duel?”
The twins looked at each other and shook their heads. They had heard all this before; they understood Cyrano’s anguish no more than they ever had, and it was boring. Time to pick up their friend, plop his white-plumed cavalier's hat onto his head, and escort him home.
But Cyrano did not want to go home. Despite their objections, he bid farewell to his friends and took himself off to his favorite bit of countryside nearby.
There, along a lonely road, stood a single spike-like Italian cypress tree that he felt to be his friend. For it stood as oddly in this landscape as Cyrano did in the Guards. He loved to sit under it at night and look up at the sky, especially on a night like this, a night of a full moon.
The moon, the moon, Cyrano thought as he stared directly into the moon’s man-like face. Earth’s companion in the sky. No, not just a companion, but a brother. What are you like, brother? Who resides there, brother? What are your secr—
A wispy cloud appeared before the moon. Which was odd because it was a cloudless sky. But, no, it was not a cloud. It was a supplanting face! Transparent at first, moonshine flowing through it, it slowly came into solid integrity.
Cyrano soon realized that standing before him was a man, strangely dressed, wearing an odd triangular hat and sporting a broad, cheerful grin, and... and... and…
“Mon Dieu, mais tu as un gros nez!” Cyrano said as he looked up at the man
2
THE MAN IN FRONT OF THE MOON
“Yes,” said the elegantly if strangely dressed man before him. “It is a magnificent nose, is it not? A real Hanover hooter! It flows freely from out of my face and curves down quite beautifully, the whole forming an aspect like the side of a gently rolling mountain. I am quite proud of my nose. Although, I suppose the pride actually belongs to my progenitors. But be that as it may, allow me to present myself, I am Hieronymus Karl Friedrich, Freiherr von Münchhausen. But you may call me Baron Munchausen!”
At any other time, being presented with such an aristocratic fellow, Cyrano would have jumped up and shown due respect with a flourish of a bow. But he was perfectly comfortable sitting against his cypress. And he was not entirely convinced he was not dreaming. It seemed the better course to stay as he was. Still, apparition or not, Cyrano needed to address the stranger. “Am I correct, sir, in assuming you are a citizen of the Holy Roman Empire?”
“Ha! As your fellow countryman Voltaire will someday say, it is neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.”
“Will someday say?”
“Yes, he has yet to be born,” the man in the triangular hat said offhandedly. “I prefer to say that I am from Bodenwerder in the Electorate of Hanover. But that is just Geography, my friend. More to the point, I am from future! 1790, to be specific.”
“I must,” Cyrano said as he dropped his head and shook it to reorder the confusion within, “I really must stop drinking cheap wine.”
“Oh, stop whining about your wine, and stand up, man, and embrace me, for we are fellow authors!” Baron Munchausen scooped Cyrano up as if he were but a child, a small child, possibly even a rag doll, and brought him into the fellowship of his arms.
“But... but... I am not an author,” Cyrano said once the Baron had released him.
“You will be, my son, you will be.”
“No, no, I am a King’s Guardsman, a swordsman, a man of duty and honor.”
“Poshtiddle!”
“Poshtiddle?”
“You will quit the guards this year and begin studies with Pierre Gassendi.”
“Gassendi? The philosopher?”
“Yes, yes! He will tickle your mind as he opens it, and then you will write poetry, plays, and prose. And you will write about going to the moon!”
“Going to the moon? I was just thinking about the moon.”
“Who doesn’t think about the moon? So obvious, so mundane, even I have written about going to the moon. But now, I could truly go there.”
“What?”
“And I could take you.”
“What?”
“But, I will not!”
“For pity’s sake, why not?”
“Because I have come here to take you to Mars!
3
BARON MUNCHAUSEN EXPLAINS HIMSELF
“In my time and world, I am known as Lügenbaron, The Baron of Lies!”
Cyrano’s eyes flashed with righteous anger as his long, and promontory-like nose twitched in agitation, for he could always sniff out an insult. “What an affront! I would kill any man who disparaged me so.”
“No, no, Cyrano! It is not an insult. On the contrary, it is a perfectly precise appellation. Indeed, a fine honorific! For I have told the most outrageous, ridiculous, absurd, unbelievably tall tales of any man living or dead. And yet people hang on my every word, often with the most beatific grins on their faces, enraptured with my lies; it would not be a lie to say. It has been a most pleasant occupation for me.”
“But, Baron, to what purpose?”
“Why to amuse, Cyrano, purpose enough.”
Cyrano looked down upon the ground and saw there—there being within himself—a truth. “Not for me.”
“Yes, I know. You will put philosophy in your writing, the true nature of things, promoting ideas that will not, I must say, please your Church. But that is the nature of your essence. But I am here to inspire you to do it with some panache, some flare, some outrageous and glorious lies!”
“Here?” Cyrano questioned. “You have still not explained how you happen to be here, in Paris, in 1641, instead of Hanover in 1790.”
“Ah! Yes, a strange and wondrous thing, that. I was walking one day in the mountains with a group of friends. They were hanging on my every word, as I told them of how one day when I was standing on the edge of the White Cliffs of Dover in the island kingdom across the channel, a lightning bolt shot down from the heavens and streaked through my legs—I was standing akimbo at the time—and snatched me up into the sky. I told them how I rode that bolt like I would ride a fine steed, all the way to the antipodes. Specifically, New Zealand, another island country, where I found myself in the company of a tribe of well-spoken koala bears. Just as I was beginning to elucidate on the koalas’ customs and taboos, I was—truthfully, in actuality, very, very, realistically, and with great veracity—struck by lightning. It burnt my clothes and fizzed my hair and singed my nose, and I fell into a deep stupor. My companions transported me back to my hunting lodge—for that is where we were staying—and tended to me with great tenderness for the next forty days. During those forty days, I emitted an intermittent glow and, quite unconsciously, recited many of the works of Lucian of Samosata. Upon waking after forty days, I felt wonderful and saw no reason we should not carry on with our holiday. That night, my friends and I—there were five of them, aristocrats all—played a card game of English Whist. I was telling them of my great adventure in mid-Africa, where I battled an enormous crocodile. I bested him by reaching down his throat and grabbing the inside of his tail, and pulling him inside out. They were, of course, mesmerized by my tale, glued to their seats, as it were. Then all of a sudden, an enormous crocodile burst through the wall and gobbled up three of my five aristocratic friends.”
“Stunning!” said Cyrano, who was sitting on no seat to be glued to but was mesmerized still. “Amazing! And tragic.”
“Well, the three ingested ones were lesser aristocrats, whereas the surviving two were higher born.”
“Are you saying their deaths were less tragic because of the position in society that their births gave them?”
“My dear Cyrano, there is a reason why the low-born are called the low-born.”
“But my dear Baron, are we not all low-born? Wasn’t it only Athena who was born high?”
After a short period of perplexity, the Baron got Cyrano’s allusion to the ancient myth. He shook with laughter both Teutonically and tectonically. “Ah, you are clever with the words and ready with the wit, my fellow possessor of the proboscis colossal!”
By reflex, Cyrano shaded his nose from the moonlight as he lamented, “Oh, were that so, Baron, were it so. But forget my wit or lack of it. Are you saying you conjured up a real, living, enormous crocodile by your lie?”
“Yes, my friend, that is exactly what I am saying. I have become such a consummate liar, such a fabulous fabricator, that my lies can now become part and parcel of the fabric of the universe. I have but to tell them to make them real.”
“That is—that is unbelievable!”
“So is the virgin birth, my friend, but...”
“But... but...”
“But how do you think I got here in an instant from Hanover—not to mention 1790? I just told myself the story of me being here—and I was here! I will prove it to you.
On this lonely country road, I will lie up our conveyance to Mars.”
“Would not the moon be closer?”
“Poshtiddle!”
“Poshtiddle?”
“The moon is but a low-born satellite, a servant of Earth, colorless, barren, and uninteresting.”
“A servant? How does it serve?”
“By moving our ocean tides in and out, of course.”
“Not according to Master Galileo.”
“Master Galileo was right about many things but wrong about this. But that, my dear Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac, is not the point. Do you not realize that the Earth and all the planets are the children of mother Sun? That the planets were born one after another from her fiery womb and sent out into space? As Mars is farther from the Sun than we, then it must be older. It must have a civilization of peoples more advanced and mature than we. Think of the wonders we will find there, the knowledge we can gain.”
“But what if it is like an older sibling happy to torture the younger?” Cyrano asked by way of warning. “It was, after all, named after the God of War.”
“A mistake of antiquity, my friend! No, no, look at Mars! Not all white and pale like the weak moon, but red, sanguine, a good fellow, optimistic, I’m sure. But we can talk about all this on the way. For now, let me lie up our conveyance. I think I will use the chariot of Queen Mab that I featured in my tales of African adventures! Give me but a moment.”
The Barron began to mutter, chuckle, and finally exclaimed, “The chariot of Queen Mab be here!”
And there, on that lonely country road appeared the most strange of all conveyances ever imagined by man. It was huge, a prodigious, globular coach that looked like a giant hazelnut, mainly because it was a giant hazelnut. There was a hole in the shell as large as a regular coach door, and the interior, which the Baron invited Cyrano to look in and examine, featured a luminous representation of all the stars of heaven. It goes without saying that Cyrano was amazed! But as I just said it—it’s too late now.
Breathless, Cyrano backed his head out of the coach and stumbled backward to fall against his cypress tree, sliding slowly down the trunk to sit, composure having abandoned him. But it did afford him a full view of this wondrous mode of transportation. Nine bulls were hitched to the chariot of Queen Mab to provide forward motion. The lead bull was enormous, with horns that may have reached into the next district. Behind him were eight average size bulls, but positively not minuscule in bulk and strength. The bulls were shod with the skulls of men, which the Baron explained gave them extraordinary abilities to transgress any landscape. Indeed, any seascape, and—the Baron said it would soon be proven—space itself.
On the back of the nine bulls sat nine postillions, nine riders to direct the nine bulls, for there was no coachman to drive the chariot of Queen Mab. Just one postillion, seated on a lead animal, is normal, but having nine of them is not what was strange here. All nine postillions were crickets! The size of monkeys! Their chirping was loudly incessant, as you would expect of Grylloidea (in a story like this, it is always good to throw in a little Latin) of such inflated size.
“And now, Cyrano, get up and join me in the coach.”
Cyrano rose in apprehension. “But will we be warm? I have heard that the higher up you climb the great Alps, the colder it gets.”
“We will be perfectly warm, I assure you.”
“And will we be able to breathe? I have also heard the higher you go in the Alps, the thinner the air becomes.”
“Yes, yes, we will be warm, and we will breathe because I will lie us up some heat and air. If I have not convinced you yet, Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac, what more can I say?”
What more, indeed, Cyrano thought. He was not a young man of faith, except the faith he put in his swordsmanship, so how could he put his faith in this apparition from the future? Or this conjuring demon from the present? But because the Baron was imbued with confidence, and his offer of the most unique of adventures was strangely compelling, Cyrano got up and, with no hesitation, joined Baron Munchausen in the giant hazelnut, closing the coach door behind him.
“How long will it take us to get to Mars?”
“Who knows? No one has ever gone there before.”
“Do we have provisions?”
“When I think, ‘breakfast,’ we will have breakfast. When I think, ‘lunch,’ we will have lunch. When I think, ‘supper,’ ‘dinner,’ ‘dessert,’ and ‘wine,’ we will also have those. And the best part is—there will be no washing-up afterward! Now, let us go on to Mars!”
Each monkey-size cricket on the back of each bull chirped louder and louder until the sound was almost deafening. The chariot of Queen Mab shook violently, tossing Cyrano and the Baron side to side until the shaking became an intense vibration. Then forward ballistic movement threw the men against their seat backs. The hazelnut coach sped faster and faster along the lonely country road. Finally, the massive bull in the lead leaped in a great bound up into the sky. They ascended at such an incredible rate, the Baron and Cyrano flattened like Homo crêpes.
4
THE TRIP TO MARS
They knew they had escaped the Earth’s massive pull of gravity when they unflattened and recovered their fully dimensional selves.
“That was an odd experience,” Cyrano said as his face took on a chartreuse hue, and rumblings in his stomach made an unpleasant prognostication. But the Baron simply lied about Cyrano’s condition, picturing him as a fellow in fine fettle, and the future was bright again.
“Well, Cyrano, how should we pass the time? Shall we play cards?”
“I am not that fond of games, Baron.”
“How about I regale you with some of my fabulous adventures.”
“Meaning no offense, Baron Munchausen, but I think the fabulous adventure we are currently on commands our attention more, don’t you?”
“How so?”
“Well, for example, I’ve just noticed that this coach has no windows. There is nothing to look out of, to see where we are, where we are going, or, for that matter, where we have been.”
“What do you need to see, my dear Cyrano? We are in space somewhere between Mars, which is where we are going, and our mother Earth, which is where we came from.”
“But wouldn’t you love to see our mother Earth from out here? To see that it is a globe spinning in space.”
“You don’t believe it is? You need evidence?”
“Well, of course, I believe it. But just think what it would mean for all those less educated among our fellows if they could see it and be disabused of atavistic notions.”
“Such as?”
“Such as that the Earth is flat.”
“For most people, my friend, for all intents and purposes, the Earth is flat. Why try to unbalance them with details?”
“But, Baron, don’t you think it would be fabulous for people to see the Earth in space? I’m pretty sure they would not be able to see our arbitrary and often disputed borders. If all people in the past had been able to see that we are all one people on one planet, I’m sure then I would not have suffered this neck wound while being a loyal French subject fighting just as loyal Spanish subjects at the Siege of Arras.”
The Baron smiled a gentle yet somewhat patronizing smile as he said, “Ah, my dear friend, just because you cannot see the trees for the forest does not mean the bears are not shitting in the woods.”
“What?”
“I would much rather muse on what we are going to find on Mars. The possibilities are endless.”
“Oui! Oui!”
“You need to urinate, Cyrano? Don’t worry; I can just lie your bladder empty.”
“No, I meant, in your language, Ja! Ja!”
“Just a little joke, my friend. In the future, badezimmer, or if you will, salle de bains humor will be quite the thing.”
“I didn’t know they had humor in Hanover.”
“Ah, Touche, as you like to say!”
“But, to muse on Mars, yes, I think that is a fine idea. I am intrigued by this idea of yours that the inhabitants may have a civilization more advanced and mature than ours.”
“It is the only rational assumption, do you not think? Have we not advanced, become more cultured, since the days of darkness following the Fall of Rome?” The Baron asked.
“Certainly, Baron. Outside of slaughtering each other over religious differences.”
“Ah, well, you see, you prove my point. In my time, we no longer make war over religious differences—we make war over trade! An obvious improvement! But now, I propose we consider what Mars and its inhabitants are like in three categories: The inhabitants themselves. Their architecture. And inventions, machines, and such. You go first!”
“Ahhhh,” Cyrano said and stretched to bide time while he thought slowly in virgin territory. “I wonder, um, whether they walk upright, like us.”
“Why wouldn’t they?”
“We are the only animals to walk upright on Earth, an obvious minority. Perhaps they walk on all fours?”
“Are we not the finest of all animals on Earth?”
“Certainly.”
“Then walking upright is obviously the superior mode of ambulation. Why would the mature Martians be in retrograde? But, at the same time, why would they be stuck ambulating like their younger brothers, we? I suggest that they float.”
“Float?”
“Gentilly from place to place as they contemplate the great questions. Or speedily if time is of the essence. I think they do this in a seated position, their legs crossed and their arms resting on small clouds they manufacture for this purpose.”
“So you see the Martians as having at least the same appendages we have? Legs and arms?”
“Certainly. What could be more practical and utilitarian than our four major appendages? Five for males, of course, but we need not go into that.”
“I disagree, Baron. I will be quite interested to see how the Martians procreate. And whether love is involved?”
Hieronymus Karl Friedrich, Freiherr von Münchhausen, looked quite aghast. “Do not be über-French, my friend. I believe Martians have left all messy interpersonal relations behind. Possibly they do not have sex differences at all. Think of the time that would save! I believe Martians are divided biologically only into classes.”
“Like we are?”
“No, no, not like we are. Classes of kind, not of position. I believe there will be the Thinkers, the Doers, the Adventurers. And the Know-nothings, the Do-nothings, and the Unadventurous.”
“Oh. Like we are?” Cyrano asked rhetorically as his smile indicated that he was silently saying, Touche!
“Humph!” heaved out of the Baron. “Architecture! What do you think Martian buildings will be like?”
“Wondrous structures, I suppose.”
“Exactly!” The Baron said, excited that he and Cyrano might be sharing a vision here. “Made out of luminous organic materials and in colors never seen by the eye of man.”
“But, red—
“Ah, yes, you are right! Colors in variations of red, then, never seen by the eye of man!”
“And tall?”
“Of course, tall, very tall buildings. Intelligent beings always reach higher and higher. And as they can float, there is no limit to how high they can go.”
“And the buildings connected by, oh, let us call them skybridges when the Martians would prefer to saunter instead of float.”
“Marvelous! Yes! Now you are wondering well!” The Baron said, not understanding the slight satire of Cyrano’s suggestion.
“And what of Martian inventions and machines, Baron?”
“Sailing ships that provide their own wind. Machines that create artificial heat in the winter and sweet, soft cool breezes in the summer. Clothes that repel all dirt and stains, thus never need to be washed. A small, tiny, minuscule machine that surreptitiously picks your nose for you. That will be handy for both you and I, eh, Cyrano? Beds that recreate the conditions inside your mother’s womb allowing one to get a decent night’s sleep. A machine that swats insects with a sound irritating to them but pleasant to people. Clothes that protect you against the elements, but weigh next to nothing, look fabulous, and never bunch up in dark secret places.”
“Wonders!” Cyrano exclaimed, genuinely impressed and awestruck over the heights of the Baron’s imagination. “Absolute wonders! What people! What architecture! What inventions! What wonders await us on Mars! But, Baron, what about Mars itself? The landscape.”
“The landscape, yes, yes, we must consider the landscape. Surely whereas our Earth is dominated by blue, green, and brown, Mars must be dominated by reds, pinks, and rust. The Martian trees, for example. I see red, translucent trunks with translucent pink leaves.”
“Why translucent, Baron?”
“It is obvious, my dear Cyrano. Mars is farther from the Sun than Earth. Sunshine then is weaker. After Martian trees have gathered what benefits they need from the Sun, their translucence allows the residue sunshine to pass to the ground to benefit other creatures. Also, as our leaves turn yellow and red with colder weather, I believe Martian leaves will first turn a light green then darken to an intense deep blue, like lapis lazuli.”
“That should be stunning to see.”
“Absolutely!”
“Do you think there will be great oceans on Mars?” Cyrano asked, thinking perhaps, about childhood days at the seashore.
“Without a doubt.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Where else can they sail their great auto-wind ships?”
“Ah. And great rivers like the Seine?”
“Yes! Flowing down from all the magnificent mountains, every one of them pink snow-capped. Remember, being farther from the Sun, Mars in the winter gets much colder.”
“And what about deserts, Baron? Will there be vast stretches of near-lifeless deserts on Mars?”
“Cyrano, my friend, try to take our musing seriously. But, of course, there will be no deserts on Mars. The Martians are far advanced, they would allow not even one hectare of their home to be anything but verdant. Or possibly I should say, rouge-ant?”
“Yes, I suppose that follows,” Cyrano acknowledged.
“But something is bothering me, my dear Baron.”
“Pray, tell?”
“You have been waxing quite enthusiastically about the details of Mars, but with your power to lie things into existence, are you not possibly bringing them about?”
“No, no, my dear sir! Not at all. You see, to lie effectively, you must first know the truth. Since we do not yet know the truth but only speculate, there is no danger for me, with my superior imagination and perceptive abilities, to alter reality.”
Cyrano simply nodded at the Baron’s declaration, and the Great Munchausen began to consider all the various non-intelligent Martian creatures that might populate the red and pink landscape.
The Baron talked and talked for a duration that may have been long or may have been short or somewhere in between. There was no way to tell as the chariot of Queen Mab contained no timepieces, and they certainly could not tell by the daily track of Sun and moon. The only punctuation in the flow of time and talk was when the Baron became hungry and would lie up some German delicacies for himself and French ones for Cyrano. The limits to the Baron’s abilities became clear to Cyrano when he discovered to his dismay that the Baron’s imagination of French cuisine never quite got the sauces right. But Cyrano, being a gentleman, would never have said a word about it to the Baron, assuming he could have gotten a word in edgewise
to have done so.
5
CYRANO DE BERGERAC AND
BARON MUNCHAUSEN ON MARS
We are here!” Baron Munchausen exclaimed with excitement and a non-Teutonic giddiness.
“How do you know?” Cyrano rightly asked.
“We have landed. We have stopped. There is no movement.”
“I have felt no movement since leaving Earth.”
“I am not used to being doubted, Cyrano!” The Baron said with very Teutonic umbrage.
“My apologies, my dear Baron, I do not mean to offend.”
“Already forgotten, my friend. Please open the coach door and let us introduce ourselves to Mars!”
“Ah, Baron, one moment before I do that.”
“Yes, yes?” The Baron anxiously wanted to get on with it.
“Since it may be colder on Mars than we are used to. And since we have no idea if the Martians breathe the same air we breathe. Would it not be prudent for you to lie up a surrounding bubble of our native atmosphere?”
The Baron was impressed. “A fine idea, Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac. And to think you have not even begun your philosophical studies yet. So, I extend this bubble out, oh, say, one-quarter of a kilometer. Now let us see Mars!”
Cyrano opened the coach door, and the two gentlemen exited the chariot of Queen Mab and looked around.
In complete synchronization, each man’s mouth slowly opened until their jaws allowed no more mobility. And, as if connected in a dance, each man’s eyes widened beyond believing. When it came to voice, only the Baron managed to speak.
“Well—this is a disappointment.”
Stretching out before them was a reddish expanse of a desert under a light pink sky. Cyrano and the Baron saw no life anywhere. No life at all, animal, vegetable, or even mineral. There were no structures, no buildings, not even anthills. Nothing intelligent floated in the air, nor did anything dumb. All they saw was the rusty earth of Mars laid out before them with various tracks along the ground as if giants had scratched them. And with barren mountains off in the distance. And rocks, rocks, and rocks scattered in no discernible logical manner all along the ground.
“Is it possible that this is but one geographic feature of Mars?” Cyrano asked. “That Mars does indeed have deserts, and we just happened to have landed in one? And that the civilized portion of the planet with fabulous architecture and wonderful floating people are elsewhere?”
“Yes, yes, my friend. Back into the chariot of Queen Mab!”
The Baron then lied them to a multitude of longitudes and latitudes. But, upon opening the coach door at each location, they could see only slight variations of the original landscape in which they had landed.
The Baron was inconsolable.
“Time to go home, I think,” Cyrano said to Hieronymus Karl Friedrich, Freiherr von Münchhausen.
“Yes, I agree. But it is hard to lie when you have faced the truth.”
“What, surely not for you! You said—
“Knowing the truth is not the same as facing the truth.
“But you are Lügenbaron! You were Lügenbaron before we came to Mars, and you will be Lügenbaron for a long time after.”
The Baron looked upon the young cavalier before him. A handsome young man, despite his nose. The Baron smiled and waved his right hand in a circular motion. The nine postillion monkey-sized crickets goaded the nine bulls forward faster and faster until the lead bull made his incredible leap. Then, they were off, streaking away from the disappointing red planet.
6
THE RETURN TO EARTH
After experiencing the flattening of escaping Mars’ gravity—a diminished experience compared to breaking away from Earth’s gravity, but uncomfortable nevertheless—Cyrano and the Baron settled themselves for the journey home.
Cyrano sat upright and quietly focused his interior attention on all he had seen on Mars. Trying his best to memorize all the views of all the landscapes they had experienced. They were all quite similar, but with enough differences to give each one a hint of uniqueness. It was mentally cataloging this uniqueness that occupied Cyrano. And, oddly, these slight variations in barrenness thrilled Cyrano.
The Baron, though, seemed to have given up his Baron-ness. He slumped into his seat and took on a woeful continence to rival the great Quixote as he rested his head onto the palm of one hand.
Cyrano was concerned. Where was the confident, prideful, gloriously inflated Baron he had come to know in this deflated man before him? “My dear Baron, please, do not become découragé. We have gone somewhere and seen something no other humans on Earth in your time or mine have ever gone to or seen. We are the greatest of explorers, the exclusive holders of truth! We must now return to Earth and report what we have seen to the world. We will travel the globe, speaking before every society of natural philosophers in each nation that has one. They will be amazed! They will be thrilled! They will bestow so many honors on us we will have to build a warehouse to hold them!”
Despite Cyrano’s enthusiasm, the Baron was unmoved. He looked up at Cyrano from his slumped position and hand-hammocked head. Then, while sighing, he slowly raised his head as upright as he could tolerate it. “Au contraire, as you French like to say along the Seine, we will be bestowed with curses and condemnations and cries of ‘Off with their heads!’”
“Baron Munchausen! You do not mean that!”
“I do, my dear Cyrano, I certainly do. Someday, Man will want to know, indeed, need to know the facts about Mars that we have discovered. I predict that. But how will they ever get to that position without first having the wonder of speculation? The inspiration for imagining? The lies that lead to truth? Do we not tell children lies first to prepare them for realities? No, no, my dear Cyrano, we must continue to lie to the children of Earth. To fill them with that questing spirit, that forward motion to get there themselves, to see for themselves. If we tell them that Mars is nothing but a big, empty, and quite dirty rock, they will just say, ‘Oh, okay, what’s for supper?’ No, better, we should fill their heads with the amazement they desire until they can handle the facts they require. So, as for me, I will continue to conjure, to spin tales, to lie. I suggest you do the same.”
It is not accurate to say that Cyrano was shocked by what the Baron said. He wanted to be and tried to be, but just could not be. The wisdom of the Baron’s statement seemed much too clear to him.
“And Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac...”
“Yes, Baron.”
“Study your philosophy and write. And do compose your Voyage to the Moon. It will be good. Oh, just a small step, of course, but certainly foreshadowing giant leaps. But, if I may make one small suggestion, hopefully without altering the future.”
“I would be honored, Baron Munchausen.”
“You will come up with several clever ways to fly to the moon. Using bottled captured dew that rises in the early morning sun, for example. And magnets! And such other ways. They are not as imaginative as this great chariot of Queen Mab, of course, but clever. However, one of them, an idea of attaching rockets to a machine to go off in stages and then drop back to Earth one after the other—that’s a much too absurd idea even for me! I would not embarrass yourself with that one.”
When they returned to Earth, the Baron lied them back in time to a moment just after they had left. They exited the chariot of Queen Mab to stand on the lonely country road by Cyrano’s cypress tree. As the hazelnut coach faded from existence,
Cyrano, feeling exhausted, staggered to his tree and sat with his back against it. He was ashamed of himself, he wanted to bid a gracious farewell with a deep flourished bow to Baron Munchausen, but he just couldn’t stand. As his eyes drooped, demanding to shut, Cyrano managed to keep them open long enough to see the Baron’s magnificent head slowly fade, allowing the moon to reappear and dominate.
Cyrano’s eyes finally fully closed as he muttered, “Rockets?”
Cyrano was still under his cypress tree when the sun was just rising, still in a deep sleep and snoring. It was a subtle, musical snore, almost flute-like in sound given his long, luxurious nose. It rose up into the air and joined the many lilting, lovely songs of early birds out looking for worms.
End
***
This story is included in my anthology Extraordinary Voyages Also included in this anthology is the novella version of my play Made on the Moon, which premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1996.
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