Edison's Conquest of Mars Read online

  CHAPTER FOUR

  _TO CONQUER ANOTHER WORLD_

  It is not necessary for me to describe the manner in which Mr. Edisonperformed his tremendous task. He was as good as his word, and withinsix months from the first stroke of the hammer, a hundred electricalships, each provided with a full battery of disintegrators, werefloating in the air above the harbor and the partially rebuilt city ofNew York.

  It was a wonderful scene. The polished sides of the huge floating carssparkled in the sunlight, and, as they slowly rose and fell, and swungthis way and that, upon the tides of the air, as if held by invisiblecables, the brilliant pennons streaming from their peaks waved up anddown like the wings of an assemblage of gigantic humming birds.

  Not knowing whether the atmosphere of Mars would prove suitable to bebreathed by inhabitants of the earth, Mr. Edison had made provision, bymeans of an abundance of glass-protected openings, to permit the inmatesof the electrical ships to survey their surroundings without quittingthe interior. It was possible by properly selecting the rate ofundulation, to pass the vibratory impulse from the disintegratorsthrough the glass windows of a car without damage to the glass itself.The windows were so arranged that the disintegrators could sweep aroundthe car on all sides, and could also be directed above or below, asnecessity might dictate.

  To overcome the destructive forces employed by the Martians nosatisfactory plan had yet been devised, because there was no means toexperiment with them. The production of those forces was still thesecret of our enemies. But Mr. Edison had no doubt that if we could notresist their efforts we might at least be able to avoid them by therapidity of our motions. As he pointed out, the war machines which theMartians had employed in their invasion of the earth, were really veryawkward and unmanageable affairs. Mr. Edison's electrical ships, on theother hand, were marvels of speed and of manageability. They could dartabout, turn, reverse their course, rise, fall, with the quickness andease of a fish in the water. Mr. Edison calculated that even ifmysterious bolts should fall upon our ships we could diminish theirpower to cause injury by our rapid evolutions.

  We might be deceived in our expectations, and might have overestimatedour powers, but at any rate we must take our chances and try.

  A multitude, exceeding even that which had assembled during the greatcongress in Washington, now thronged New York and its neighborhood towitness the mustering and the departure of the ships bound for Mars.Nothing further had been heard of the mysterious phenomenon reportedfrom the observatories six months before, and which at the time wasbelieved to indicate the departure of another expedition from Mars forthe invasion of the earth. If the Martians had set out to attack us theyhad evidently gone astray; or, perhaps, it was some other world thatthey were aiming at this time.

  The expedition had, of course, profoundly stirred the interest of thescientific world, and representatives of every branch of science, fromall the civilized nations, urged their claims to places in the ships.Mr. Edison was compelled, from lack of room, to refuse transportation tomore than one in a thousand of those who now, on the plea that theymight be able to bring back something of advantage to science, wished toembark for Mars.

  On the model of the celebrated corps of literary and scientific menwhich Napoleon carried with him in his invasion of Egypt, Mr. Edisonselected a company of the foremost astronomers, archaeologists,anthropologists, botanists, bacteriologists, chemists, physicists,mathematicians, mechanics, meteorologists and experts in mining,metallurgy and every other branch of practical science, as well asartists and photographers. It was but reasonable to believe that inanother world, and a world so much older than the earth as Mars was,these men would be able to gather materials in comparison with which thediscoveries made among the ruins of ancient empires in Egypt andBabylonia would be insignificant indeed.

  It was a wonderful undertaking and a strange spectacle. There was afeeling of uncertainty which awed the vast multitude whose eyes wereupturned to the ships. The expedition was not large, considering thegigantic character of the undertaking. Each of the electrical shipscarried about twenty men, together with an abundant supply of compressedprovisions, compressed air, scientific apparatus and so on. In all,there were about 2,000 men, who were going to conquer, if they could,another world!

  But though few in numbers, they represented the flower of the earth, theculmination of the genius of the planet. The greatest leaders inscience, both theoretical and practical, were there. It was theevolution of the earth against the evolution of Mars. It was a planet inthe hey-day of its strength matched against an aged and decrepit worldwhich, nevertheless, in consequence of its long ages of existence, hadacquired an experience which made it a most dangerous foe. On both sidesthere was desperation. The earth was desperate because it foresawdestruction unless it could first destroy its enemy. Mars was desperatebecause nature was gradually depriving it of the means of supportinglife, and its teeming population was compelled to swarm like the inmatesof an overcrowded hive of bees, and find new homes elsewhere. In thisrespect the situation on Mars, as we were well aware, resembled what hadalready been known upon the earth, where the older nations overflowingwith population had sought new lands in which to settle, and for thatpurpose had driven out the native inhabitants, whenever those nativeshad proven unable to resist the invasion.

  No man could foresee the issue of what we were about to undertake, butthe tremendous powers which the disintegrators had exhibited and themarvelous efficiency of the electrical ships bred almost universalconfidence that we should be successful.

  The car in which Mr. Edison travelled was, of course, the flagship ofthe squadron, and I had the good fortune to be included among itsinmates. Here, besides several leading men of science from our owncountry, were Lord Kelvin, Lord Rayleigh, Professor Roentgen, Dr.Moissan--the man who first made artificial diamonds--and several otherswhose fame had encircled the world. Each of these men cherished hopes ofwonderful discoveries, along his line of investigation, to be made inMars.

  An elaborate system of signals had, of course, to be devised for thecontrol of the squadron. These signals consisted of brilliant electriclights displayed at night and so controlled that by their means longsentences and directions could be easily and quickly transmitted.

  The day signals consisted partly of brightly colored pennons and flags,which were to serve only when, shadowed by clouds or other obstructions,the full sunlight could not fall upon the ship. This could naturallyonly occur near the surface of the earth or of another planet.

  Once out of the shadow of the earth we should have no more clouds and nomore night until we arrived at Mars. In open space the sun would becontinually shining. It would be perpetual day for us, except as, byartificial means, we furnished ourselves with darkness for the purposeof promoting sleep. In this region of perpetual day, then, the signalswere also to be transmitted by flashes of light from mirrors reflectingthe rays of the sun.

  Yet this perpetual day would be also, in one sense, a perpetual night.There would be no more blue sky for us, because without an atmospherethe sunlight could not be diffused. Objects would be illuminated only onthe side toward the sun. Anything that screened off the direct rays ofsunlight would produce absolute darkness behind it. There would be nograduation of shadow. The sky would be as black as ink on all sides.

  While it was the intention to remain as much as possible within thecars, yet since it was probable that necessity would arise foroccasionally quitting the interior of the electrical ships, Mr. Edisonhad provided for this emergency by inventing an air-tight dressconstructed somewhat after the manner of a diver's suit, but of muchlighter material. Each ship was provided with several of these suits, bywearing which one could venture outside the ship even when it was beyondthe atmosphere of the earth.

  Provision had been made to meet the terrific cold which we knew would beencountered the moment we had passed beyond the atmosphere--that awfulabsolute zero which men had measured by anticipation, but never yetexperienced--by a simple system of prod
ucing within the air-tight suitsa temperature sufficiently elevated to counteract the effects of thefrigidity without. By means of long, flexible tubes, air could becontinually supplied to the wearers of the suits, and by an ingeniouscontrivance a store of compressed air sufficient to last for severalhours was provided for each suit, so that in case of necessity thewearer could throw off the tubes connecting him with the air tanks inthe car. Another object which had been kept in view in the preparationof these suits was the possible exploration of an airless planet, suchas the moon.

  The necessity of some contrivance by means of which we should be enabledto converse with one another while outside the cars in open space, orwhen in an airless world, like the moon, where there would be no mediumby which the waves of sound could be conveyed as they are in theatmosphere of the earth, had been foreseen by our great inventor, and hehad not found it difficult to contrive suitable devices for meeting theemergency.

  Inside the headpiece of each of the electrical suits was the mouthpieceof a telephone. This was connected to a wire which, when not in use,could be conveniently coiled upon the arm of the wearer. Near the ears,similarly connected with wires, were telephonic receivers.

  When two persons wearing the air-tight dresses wished to converse withone another it was only necessary for them to connect themselves by thewires, and conversation could then be easily carried on.

  Careful calculations of the precise distance of Mars from the earth atthe time when the expedition was to start had been made by a largenumber of experts in mathematical astronomy. But it was not Mr. Edison'sintention to go direct to Mars. With the exception of the firstelectrical ship, which he had completed, none had yet been tried in along voyage. It was desirable that the qualities of each of the shipsshould first be carefully tested, and for this reason the leader of theexpedition determined that the moon should be the first port of space atwhich the squadron would call.

  It chanced that the moon was so situated at this time as to be nearly ina line between the earth and Mars, which latter was in opposition to thesun, and consequently as favorably situated as possible for the purposesof the voyage. What would be, then, for 99 out of the 100 ships of thesquadron, a trial trip would at the same time be a step of a quarter ofa million of miles gained in the direction of our journey, and so notime would be wasted.

  The departure from the earth was arranged to occur precisely atmidnight. The moon near the full was hanging high over head, and amarvelous spectacle was presented to the eyes of those below as thegreat squadron of floating ships, with their insignia lights ablaze,cast loose and began slowly to move away on their adventurous andunprecedented expedition into the great unknown. A tremendous cheer,billowing up from the throats of millions of excited men and women,seemed to rend the curtain of the night, and made the airships tremblewith the atmospheric vibrations that were set in motion.

  Instantly magnificent fireworks were displayed in honor of ourdeparture. Rockets by hundreds of thousands shot heaven-ward, and thenburst in constellations of firey drops. The sudden illumination thusproduced, overspreading hundreds of square miles of the surface of theearth with a light almost like that of day, must certainly have beenvisible to the inhabitants of Mars, if they were watching us at thetime. They might, or might not, correctly interpret its significance;but, at any rate, we did not care. We were off, and were confident thatwe could meet our enemy on his own ground before he could attack usagain.

  And now, as we slowly rose higher, a marvelous scene was disclosed. Atfirst the earth beneath us, buried as it was in night, resembled thehollow of a vast cup of ebony blackness, in the center of which, likethe molten lava run together at the bottom of a volcanic crater, shonethe light of the illuminations around New York. But when we got beyondthe atmosphere, and the earth still continued to recede below us, itsaspect changed. The cup-shaped appearance was gone, and it began toround out beneath our eyes in the form of a vast globe--an enormous ballmysteriously suspended under us, glimmering over most of its surface,with the faint illumination of the moon, and showing toward its easternedge the oncoming light of the rising sun.

  When we were still further away, having slightly varied our course sothat the sun was once more entirely hidden behind the center of theearth, we saw its atmosphere completely illuminated, all around it, withprismatic lights, like a gigantic rainbow in the form of a ring.

  Another shift in our course rapidly carried us out of the shadow of theearth and into that all pervading sunshine. Then the great planetbeneath us hung unspeakable in its beauty. The outlines of several ofthe continents were clearly discernible on its surface, streaked andspotted with delicate shades of varying color, and the sunlight flashedand glowed in long lanes across the convex surface of the oceans.Parallel with the Equator and along the regions of the ever blowingtrade winds, were vast belts of clouds, gorgeous with crimson and purpleas the sunlight fell upon them. Immense expanses of snow and ice laylike a glittering garment upon both land and sea around the North Pole.

  As we gazed upon this magnificent spectacle, our hearts bounded withinus. This was our earth--this was the planet we were going to defend--ourhome in the trackless wilderness of space. And it seemed to us indeed ahome for which we might gladly expend our last breath. A newdetermination to conquer or die sprang up in our hearts, and I saw LordKelvin, after gazing at the beauteous scene which the earth presentedthrough his eyeglass, turn about and peer in the direction in which weknew that Mars lay, with a sudden frown that caused the glass to loseits grip and fall dangling from its string upon his breast. Even Mr.Edison seemed moved.

  "I am glad I thought of the disintegrator," he said. "I shouldn't liketo see that world down there laid waste again."

  "And it won't be," said Professor Sylvanus P. Thompson, gripping thehandle of an electric machine, "not if we can help it."