Arthur Zagat - The Golden Age of Science Fiction Volume IX

“Starting on the 15th September we should have to travel at least 54,000,000 miles before we could catch up Mars, and as that will take twenty-eight days, we could not arrive there before the 13th of October. (See the chart.)

“Thus, we must sacrifice our chance of being upon Mars on the date of opposition, and also the opportunity of catching the first glimpse of our earth a few days later. If we continue our journey now and reach Mars on the 24th of September the earth will then be only 37,000,000 miles away; but by the 13th October it will be over 40,000,000 miles distant. There is the further objection that to get back again in reasonable time we must leave Mars by the 1st of December, and the loss of three weeks’ time will deprive us of many opportunities of learning what there is to be found on the planet.

“Now, John, like a good fellow, just think over the matter quietly and reasonably; you will then realise that it is quite impossible to interrupt our journey and return to England as you suggest.”

“I have thought it all out again and again,” he replied, “and can only repeat, Professor, that it is quite impossible for me to go on minus my tobacco!”

“Was there ever such an obstinate and unreasonable man!” I thought to myself. “What can I do to put an end to this absurd difficulty?”

[Illustration: DIAGRAM showing the relative positions of the Earth and Mars at the various Oppositions of Mars, from 1892 to 1924.

Past Oppositions are shewn by the firm lines with the dates outside the Orbit of Mars. Coming Oppositions are indicated by the dotted lines with the dates inside the Orbit.

The distance between any two consecutive Oppositions represents the distance in excess of one complete revolution in its orbit passed over by the planet since the last preceding Opposition. These distances are greater on the left hand side because of the planet then being nearer the Sun and consequently travelling more rapidly.

Drawn by M. Wicks.

Plate VI]

Resuming the conversation, and keeping as calm as I could in the circumstances, I placed the matter before him in all its aspects, and after we had been talking together for a long time, he seemed to be able to take a more reasonable view of the position. In order that something might be done to keep his mind from dwelling upon his proposal to return to England, I suggested that we should go to the store-room and thoroughly overhaul it.

He agreed to this, accompanying me to the store-room and pointing out the different places he had searched. The tins were in several sizes, but all were made square in order that not an inch of the available space might be wasted. We looked into a large number of tins which had not previously been examined, but without finding what we wanted.

At last a thought occurred to me, and I said: “You tell me, John, that you are quite certain you put up the tobacco and labelled the tin yourself, yet the tin so labelled was found to contain tapioca! Do you remember where the tapioca was stowed away?”

He pondered awhile, with his chin resting upon his fingers, then suddenly replied, “Yes, I think I know where it is,” and, taking me over to another cupboard at the far end of the room, we made a further search and at last found the tapioca tin, opened it, and lo, there was the missing tobacco!

“Well, I’m blest!” said John, very slowly drawing out the words; then all his ill-humour suddenly vanished, and he burst into a most hearty laugh, in which I joined. Our laughter, indeed, was so mutually contagious, and so often renewed, that we had to sit down to finish it and recover ourselves.

Then John remarked, “Now, Professor, I think I can explain it all. You see I prepared and labelled those confounded tins before loading them up; so I suppose that when stowing away the parcels of tobacco I just glanced at the label on the tin and saw the letter T followed by the right number of other letters, and, taking it for granted that it was the tobacco tin, placed the tobacco in it. The only other tin left to pack was the one I supposed to be labelled ‘Tapioca,’ and no doubt, without troubling to look at the label at all, I put the tapioca into it; but, of course, it must really have been the tin labelled ‘Tobacco.’”

Thus the matter was satisfactorily cleared up. John, having found his beloved weed and recovered from the effects of our patent Martian air, was now quite himself again, seeming very contrite, and apologising repeatedly for his rude conduct.

“That’s enough, John,” I said, as I laid my hand on his arm; “it is quite clear that what you did was mainly the result of the peculiar air you had been breathing, so I cannot blame you much. If I had not taken so many intervals in the purer air, I might perhaps have been equally affected; as it was, my temper was none of the sweetest.”

M’Allister had also quite recovered by this time, and bore no ill-will towards John; indeed, I doubt whether he had any very clear recollection of what had occurred.

So that ended the matter; and this little explosion having cleared the air, we all settled down to our old amicable relationship. We, however, took the precaution of reducing the amount of nitrous-oxide gas in our mixture of air, with a view to preventing any similar untoward results in future.

Things now went on quietly and, in fact, rather monotonously for several days; and then we met with another rather startling experience.

We were all sitting together in our living-room on the 9th of September, whiling away the time in a game of whist, and, as it was the final rubber and we were running very close together, we were quite absorbed in the play; although, of course, it was a dummy game.

Suddenly we heard a most tremendous crash, apparently from the right-hand side of the air-chamber, the vessel giving a violent lurch sideways, then shivering and trembling from end to end. The crash was immediately followed by a sharp rattling on the top and side of the Areonal, just as though a fusillade of good-sized bullets had been fired at us.

“My word! whatever’s that?—one of the cylinders must have exploded,” cried M’Allister, jumping up in alarm and running into the air-chamber. We followed him, and looked all round the room at the different machines and apparatus, but could find nothing wrong.

John, chancing to look up, however, at once noticed a large bulge on the inner shell of the vessel, high up on the right-hand side; and then, turning to me, pointed it out, saying, “I think, Professor, it is pretty clear now what has happened.”

“Yes, that huge bulge explains itself,” I replied; “undoubtedly a fair-sized meteoric stone has collided with our vessel. It is very fortunate that the stone was not much larger, or there would have been an end to the Areonal and to us as well. These meteorites travel at such tremendous speed that, on entering the earth’s atmosphere, they become incandescent owing to the friction of the air, and, unless very large, are entirely consumed and dissipated into dust before they can reach the earth. Those that do fall are always partially fused on the outside by the tremendous heat generated by the friction of our atmosphere. These meteorites are what people call ‘shooting stars,’ and many are under the impression that they really are stars, until the difference is explained to them.”

John said, “We ought to congratulate ourselves upon such a lucky escape from annihilation; for had our vessel been constructed of any metal less hard and tough than our ‘martalium,’ and without a double and packed shell, it must have been wrecked and entirely destroyed by the shock of the tremendous concussion it had sustained. Even the very metal of the casing might have been completely melted by the intense heat generated by the impact of the meteorite.”