Amazing Stories — page 46: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

r 44 AMAZING STORIES “The reason is that when the weak impulses arrive from Mars, after having traveled from 50 to 60 — million miles, they cannot be sufficiently strong to _ pass through the Earth’s thick atmosphere which is __ always charged with electricity and static. It is far better that the weak impulses should operate the ~ relaying. plant first and send out from it very strong _ impulses which have to travel only some 238,000 _ miles to Earth. 3 “We tested the plant thoroughly, and after we had satisfied ourselves that it would work for at least 300 days, I opened the telegraphone circuit and began to register this message to you. It will be the last one which you will receive for 30 days or more. As it must take us from five to ten days to build a transmitting plant on Mars, you need not expect to hear from us for from 35 to 40 days. You might, therefore, commence to ‘listen in’ be- ginning with the 35th day from to-night. No mes- _ Sage can ever be repeated, for the ‘wiping’ electro- OR forty-one days I had been “listening in” nightly at my wireless set, since that eventful 08 evening when Baron Miinchhausen had left a he Moon for the planet Mars. He had said that it would take from 35 to 40 days before the “J/nter- Stellar” could negotiate the trip from the Moon to Mars, but never theless I became more and more im- patient as the days wore on. _ At last, on the evening of the forty-second day, at 11 o’clock on the second, the peculiar, unmistak- able high whining spark suddenly broke upon my ears. After the long nervous strain, the loud whis- tling spark almost took me off my feet and I could - hardly hear the first words for excitement. In a few seconds the whistling sound died down, and Miinch- _ hausen’s dear, sepulchral voice sounded once more in my faithful receivers. And how loud it was! It was positively uncanny to think that I was listening — to his “canned” voice, which, perhaps 10 or 12 hours - before, had been hurled through the ether from Mars 55 millions miles to the Moon, there to be regis- _ tered phonographically on a telegraphone wire. And now the Baron’s voice through the radio telephone sending plant on the Moon, 238,000 miles away from me, was talking! The thought made me shiver. “Fello, Alier,” it came in a sympathetic voice, “how is old Mother Earth and yourself? Too bad there i is no return ‘circuit,’ for I would love to hear your dear voice. It’s over 44 days since I last heard it But it can’t be helped. - You.must be satisfied to listen to me, without being able to talk back; but =I try to be as explicit as possible, so that you will feel the need of asking questions. ell, my boy, the trip from the Moon to Mars entirely uneventful. As soon as we had our ngs, we made straight for the Red Planet, the sterious. Flitternix and I took watches alter- ely and, as we had learned from our former ex- perience how to handle the ‘Interstellar,’ the trip became more or less monotonous, We had a little uble at the start with the switching of the Mar- im netting, for it proved rather a puzzle to e how to handle the ‘Interstellar,’ the trip ons of the Sun, the Earth and the Moon, and - — e time have the Be ists: goa es magnets of the telegraphone wipe out the magnetic impulses from the steel wire as quickly as they pass the transmitting magnets. Neither can you trans- mit a message to me, for no provisions were made to relay your messages to us while on Mars. “T will now bid you adieu, my boy. Think of us during the next 30 days! Good-bye—good-bye .-. .!” There was a silence for some seconds, and as I was still listening awestruck, [ was suddenly startled by another voice: “Hallo, there Alier, this is Professor Flitternix. How's Yankton? Beastly old town. Was once forced to sleep on a billiard table in the Palace Hotel, as all the rooms were full. The robbers charged me $2.50 for the ‘room,’ plus the regulation rate of 50 cents an hour for the use of ‘the billiard. table! Mean town, that Yankton! Well, good-bye...” There was a snapping noise and the rhythmic, low, sizzling sound stopped abruptly. All was quiet once more. 6. Miinchhausen Lands on Mars. us. This bothered us considerably for several days and we made little headway during that period. Finally, when the Moon, Earth and Sun, in the order named, were in a straight line, with Mars almost overhead, our speed rapidly increased and on the evening of the fourth day, the ‘/nterstellar’ was en- tirely gravity-insulated from the Moon, Earth and Sun. We were then ‘falling’ towards Mars at the rate of 20,000 miles an hour. Within 10 days our speed had increased to over 50,000 miles an hour, and the Earth, which from the Moon appeared 14 times as large as the Moon appears to you, had shrunk and shrunk till it looked like a small bright red disc. Mars, in the meanwhile, became rapidly larger and redder and soon it appeared like an ochre disc. At the end of the thirty-fifth day, when our speed had increased to 78,000 miles an hour, due to the proximity of the planet, the Earth had become a bright star in the firmament, somewhat brighter than the other stars, but a pitiful sight compared to what it had appeared when we saw it from the Moon. Remember, the Moon is only 238,000 miles distant from the Earth, while we were now over 50,000,000 miles away. Quite a little difference! “The next day, the thirty-sixth since our start, we were 200,000 miles distant from Mars, and the planet at this distance was indeed the most gorgeous sight either Flitternix or I had ever witnessed. Mars looked now almost as big to us as the Earth looked when viewed from the Moon. If the Earth was then a wonderful spectacle, the planet Mars, when seen from such a small distance, is simply over- whelming in its splendor. We saw a full red disc, dazzlingly illuminated by the distant Sun’s rays. Like the Earth, Mars has a pink fringe running around the edge—its atmosphere. The continents stand forth in an ochre red, intermingled with dark green patches. Faint lines run over the entire face of the planet, like cobwebs—the famous Martian canals, At the top, a brilliant white cap is observed —the north polar ice fields. “But the most wonderful sight to us was Mars’ two little moons. Flitternix calls them toy moons. We had the best view of a moons the next day, _ when we were some 1 OTL IOGHE Sone i So ee