Through Space to Mars - Roy Rockwood (life changing books TXT) 📗
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all the oxygen they needed. Nor did they feel either heat or
cold thanks to the marvelous construction of the projectile.
“Isn’t the year on Mars longer than the year on earth?” asked Jack
as he and Mark stood near the entrance to the pilot house,
interested in watching the various indicators record the speed
they acquired, the distance traveled, and the density the
atmosphere.
“Yes; it is about twice as long,” answered Roumann. “But I shall
tell you more about Planet—”
“If you’ll kindly promulgate yo’se’ves in dis disrection yo’ will
find sufficient condiments an’ disproportionate elements to
induciate a feelin’ ob intense satisfactoriousness,” exclaimed
Washington White, poking his head in from the sleeping room
compartment.
“That means dinner is ready,” cried Jack. “That’s the stuff!
Our first meal on the trip to Mars!”
THROUGH THE ETHER
“What’s that, Washington?” asked Mark, as the colored cook put
something on the lad’s plate. “It looks like chicken.”
“It tastes like chicken,” added Jack, after making a test.
“It am chicken,” declared Washington. “I roasted some ob mah
fowls, an’ put ‘em in de cold storage room. I was purty suah dere
warn’t any chickens on dat red planet where we’re goin’.”
“Probably not,” answered Professor Henderson. “It was a good
idea, Washington. Pass me some, please.”
“Ain’t Mr. Roumann comin’ to dinnah?”
“Not now,” answered the scientist. “He will stay in the pilot
house until I relieve him.”
“It seems mighty queer to be sitting down to a meal, and all the
while we’re shooting along at fifty miles a second,” remarked
Jack.
“Yes; it doesn’t seem as if we were moving at all,” agreed Mark.
Indeed, the dining-room of the Annihilator was a very comfortable
place, though the space was rather contracted, due to the shape
of the projectile and the necessity for carrying a great quantity
of stores. The living-room served as the place for serving the
meals, which were prepared in a sort of galley or kitchen off the
engine-room.
“It’s like eating in a dining-car on a railroad train,” observed
Andy Sudds, “only it is more steady. No curves, and nothing like
that.”
“Do you like it?” inquired Mr. Henderson.
“Well, it’s nice, of course, and there isn’t any better cook than
Washington, but, to tell the honest truth, I’ve eaten with more
satisfaction when I made a fire in the woods and boiled coffee
and fried bacon. I’m sort of hampered for elbow room.”
“Still, it isn’t as crowded as when we all got in the cylinder
and were shot up from the center of the earth on the geyser,”
commented Jack.
“That’s right,” came from Mark.
Professor Henderson, having finished his meal, went to the pilot
house to relieve Mr. Roumann.
The latter paid a visit to the engine-room before sitting down.
“Is everything all right?” asked Jack.
“The motor is working like a charm,” was the reply. “I shall
soon expect you boys to take your turn at guiding the projectile
through space.”
“I want to wait until we get into the ether,” said Jack. “We’ll
go faster then. It’s something wonderful to steer a machine
going a hundred miles a second.”
“I should say so; six thousand miles a minute,” observed Mark.
“The fastest automobile would seem like a snail compared to it.”
“Yes, and we are going faster than some stars,” added Mr.
Roumann.
“But there isn’t anything to see,” objected Andy. “Now, I like
scenery when I travel.”
“Well, it’s something to always be in sight of the sun,” put in
Mark.
“Yes, and when we get to Mars there’ll be plenty to look at,”
suggested Jack. “We can see the rings around it.”
“Mars hasn’t any rings around it,” retorted Mark, who had a good
memory for scientific facts. “That’s Saturn you’re thinking of.”
“Oh, yes, so it is. But hasn’t Mars got a lot of moons, or
something like that? Seems to me I’ve heard about ‘em.”
“Mars has two moons, or satellites,” stated Mr. Roumann, who had
studied much about the red planet, “but they do not amount to
much, compared to our moon. One is about ten thousand miles from
Mars, and is called Deimos, and the other, which is but sixteen
hundred miles from the planet, is called Phobos by astronomers.”
“And how far away is our moon from the earth?” asked Mark.
“It varies from about two hundred and fifty-two thousand miles to
two hundred and twenty-one thousand miles.”
“Then I should think the people on Mars would get more light from
their two moons, so much closer to them, than we do from our
moon, so far off,” remarked Jack.
“No, they don’t, at least as far as we know. The one closest to
them gives about one-sixtieth of our moonlight, and the outer one
about one twelve-hundredth, so you see that’s not much. A
peculiar feature of the inner moon is that it makes a revolution
about Mars in seven hours, or more than three times in a day, and
it rises in the west and sets in the east, while the moon
farthest away from the planet rises just as our moon does, in the
east, but it comes up only once in about five days.”
“Golly!” exclaimed Washington, who had been listening. “Dat suah
am a funny place. Two little moons, one shootin’ around you
three times a day, an’ de odder one circlin’ around once in five
days! Land a’ massy! I’ll git all turned around up dere!”
“Yes, you’ll have to be careful, Wash,” cautioned Jack. “If you
go out for a moonlight walk you may have to come home in the
dark.”
“Den I ain’t goin’; an’ when I do I’ll take a lantern.”
Mr. Roumann told the boys much more of interest about Mars, and
then, taking them to the engine-room, he showed them something
about adjusting the motors and other machinery, though he did not
disclose the secret of the power.
“Now we’ll go to the pilot house, and I’ll show you some things
there,” he concluded.
They found Professor Henderson at the wheel.
“Is everything all right?” asked the German.
“I think so,” answered the scientist. “This airship doesn’t
behave exactly as the ones I constructed before, but it seems to
be moving along at good speed.”
“Yes, we have increased our rate of progress,” stated Mr.
Roumann. “We are now going nearly fifty-five miles a second. At
that rate we shall be beyond the atmosphere sooner than I
expected.”
The remainder of that day they kept on shooting forward toward
Mars, nothing occurring to mark the passage of time, save the
monotonous ticking of various clocks. There was nothing to be
seen, save the glare of sunlight outside.
“Aren’t we ever going to meet with world, or a wandering star, or
something?” asked Jack rather discontentedly.
“There’s no telling when we may pass near one,” said Mr. Roumann.
“S’posin’ we hit one?” asked Washington, his eyes becoming large
with fear.
“There’s not much danger. My instruments will warn me when we
approach any of the heavenly bodies, and we can steer clear of
them. The only things we have to fear will be comets, and their
orbits are so irregular that there is no telling when we may get
in the path of one.”
“What will happen when we do?” asked Mark.
Mr. Roumann shrugged his shoulders.
“We’ll do our best to get out of the way,” he said.
“And if we can’t?”
“Well—I guess that will be the end of us.”
This was a new danger, and one the boys had not thought of
before. But the German scientist did not seem to attach much
importance to the matter.
They traveled on for two days, nothing of moment occurring. The
Annihilator, true to its name, fairly ate up space, though they
were still far from Mars.
It was on the morning of the third day. The two boys and
Professor Henderson were in the pilot house, and Mr. Roumann was
in the engine-room, adjusting the Etherium motor, for he expected
to shortly put it in operation. Suddenly Jack, who was looking
at one of the instruments on the front wall, uttered a cry.
“What’s the matter?” asked Mark.
“We’re approaching something!” was the answer. “Some sort of
heavenly body. Look at that indicator!”
The hand or pointer on a peculiar dial was moving violently to
and fro.
“Call Mr. Roumann,” suggested the professor. “I don’t know just
what to do.”
Mr. Roumann hurried into the pilot house, gave a quick glance at
the indicator, and exclaimed:
“We are nearing a planetoid, or, as some call them, an asteroid!”
“Is there any danger?” asked Mark.
“No. Fortunately the instrument gave us timely warning. I shall
simply steer to avoid it. It is a small, unnamed planet flying
around in space. There are many of them.”
“Can we go close enough to it to see it?” asked Jack, who was a
curious lad.
“I think so. I’ll try it, anyhow.”
Mr. Roumann made some adjustments to the levers and wheels
controlling the motor, and, by turning on a little more power on
one side of the projectile, caused it to swerve to one side. A
few minutes later he called out:
“Look from the window!”
The boys gazed out. They saw that they were rushing past a dark
mass, that looked as if it was composed of heaped up, black
rocks, piled in fantastic masses, with great chasms here, and
towering peaks there. It seemed to be several miles in diameter,
and looked like a great ball.
“A small, dead world,” remarked Mr. Henderson. “I suppose our
planet will be like that some time.”
“I hope not by the time we get back to it,” commented Jack. “I
wonder if we will ever get back to earth again?”
It was the first time he had expressed any doubt on this score.
“There’s the last of the dead planet!” Mark cried.
They looked to see the black mass vanish into space.
“Yes, and we have reached the end of the atmosphere!” suddenly
cried Mr. Roumann as he glanced at a dial. “Now we will begin to
travel through ether.”
He adjusted some levers, turned two wheels, threw over electric
switches, and there came a perceptible jar to the projectile.
“What was that?” asked Jack.
“I have disconnected the atmospheric motor,” explained the German,
“and the Etherium one is now working. We are shooting along
through ether at the rate of one hundred miles a second.”
A BREAKDOWN
After the first trembling, due to the increase of speed, the
sensation of traveling at one hundred miles a second was no
different from that when they had been speeding through the
atmosphere at fifty miles a second.
“We’ll soon be on Mars now,” observed Jack.
“Oh, we’ll have to keep going for several days yet,” declared Mr.
Roumann. “But I believe we shall eventually reach there. The
Etherium motor is working better than I dared to hope. It is
perfect!”
As they were constantly in the glare of the sun, there was no
night for those aboard the Annihilator, and they had to select an
arbitrary time for going to bed. When any one wanted to retire,
he went to the bunk-room, which was kept dark, and there
slumbered.
For two days the Etherium motor kept
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