Through Space to Mars by Roy Rockwood (e ink epub reader TXT) 📖

CHAPTER XVI

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.”