Arthur Zagat - The Golden Age of Science Fiction Volume IX

“I can’t get the rope under her; she is lying flat on the car.”

“Wait a moment and I will lift her for you,” he replied. The railroad ties rose a little out of the sand, and there was a slight creaking of the woodwork of the car as the weight came off. Presently the forward end of the projectile rose slowly an inch, two inches!

“That’s enough!” I cried, thrusting the rope under, and she settled back gently. Having made my knot, I went out to the other end of the rope, about thirty feet distant. Forgetting the doctor’s injunction about not hanging on, I wrapped the rope around my body, worked my feet firmly into the sand, and finally cried out, “All ready!”

There was a faint creaking of the car again, and soon the doctor said, “Pull away!” I threw all my force into the effort and gave a tremendous heave, and tumbled over backwards. Had I not done so, the projectile must have hit me as it glided rapidly from the car, sinking very slowly to the sand about fifty feet away. I scrambled to my feet, went in front again, and easily dragged it along on the sand to an open place just beyond the trees. There the doctor allowed it to settle. It sank into the loose sand about eight inches, remaining steady in this position.

“She works beautifully!” I cried. “How I would like to see her turned loose for a real flight!”

“That will come to-morrow night,” said the doctor, crawling out of the port-hole. “But if you will help me remove these boxes from the experimental model, you shall see it lost in the sky.” We uncovered and dragged out a small steel thing, about the same shape as the projectile, but less than a foot thick and four feet long. It had a lid opening into its batteries from the top. The doctor entered his compartment to secure some chemicals.

“If you have no further use for this model,” I suggested, “why not create a very strong current and let it sail off into indefinite space?”

“Very well; I don’t wish to leave it behind me for some one to discover, and I can’t take it along. We will send it off for a long trip, and if it falls back it will be into the lake.”

“Wait a moment, then! Let’s put a good-bye message in it;” and so saying I took an old envelope from my pocket and wrote on the back of it with a pencil in a bold hand: “Farewell to Earth for ever!” Laughing, I put this inside and closed the lid.

Then the doctor turned down a thumb-screw upon a little wire which connected the poles, and stepped back quickly. Presently the forward end began to rise slowly, until it stood upright, but there it hesitated. The doctor stepped forward and gave the thumb-screw a hard turn down, and the model lifted immediately, rising at first gradually, but soon shooting off with the whizz of a rocket over the lake. We watched it as long as we could distinguish its dark outline.

“It will go a long way,” said the doctor. “I have never seen it make so good a start. It will lose itself in the lake far from here.”

We fastened up the front window and the port-hole, and started back to Whiting, where the doctor was to remain all night, so as to begin work early in the morning. Presently, as we walked along, the doctor said,—

“Well, Isidor, now you have seen a practical demonstration of the elementary working of the projectile. You also have some idea of all there is to be discovered up yonder in the red planet. You are the most interested in making and profiting by those discoveries. I want you to consent to go along.”

“Haven’t you secured a companion, then?” I inquired.

“Yes, I have a friend, a countryman of mine here, who will go wherever I say. He appreciates neither the risks nor the opportunities of the trip, still he will take my word for everything. Yet if I ask him to go I take the responsibility of his life as well as my own. He is not a suitable man, however, and I have really relied on you to come,” he insisted.

“My dear doctor, I have every faith in you and in the projectile, and I prophesy a most successful trip. I should like nothing better than the adventure; but you must not count on me; I could not leave my business. There’s a fever in my blood that thirsts for it!”

“Your business, indeed! You will never really amount to much till you have left it. It’s half a throw of dice and the other half a struggle of cut-throats!”

“That is what people say who know nothing at all about it,” I retorted. “It occupies a large and important place in the world’s commerce. Besides, I could not well leave Ruth and my uncle.”

“Isn’t it time you did something to make her proud of you, and to be worthy the education which he gave you? You have a chance now to be great. Isn’t that worth ten chances to be rich? What would you have thought of Galileo if he hadn’t had time to use the telescope after inventing it, but had devoted his time and talent to the maccaroni market? You are one man in ten million; you have an opportunity Columbus would have been proud of! Will you neglect it for mere gold-grubbing? Leave that to the rest of your race and to this money-mad Chicago. You come along with me. Let’s make this work-a-day world of ours take time to stop and shake hands with her heavenly neighbours!”

“You tempt me to do it, Doctor! Can you wait two or three days for me?”

“I can, but Mars won’t,” he answered laconically. “Besides, you must not tell any one that you are going.”

“If there are any two things I love, it’s a secret and a hurry! I will be here to-morrow night,” I exclaimed.

The next day I quietly bought in my wheat, and told Flynn I was thinking of taking a little vacation. I said I was worn out fighting the contrary market, and told him to run the office as if it were his own until I returned. At home I said nothing about the vacation, for I didn’t care to have my stories agree very perfectly. I simply packed a few necessities for the trip in a dress-suit case. My uncle was used to seeing me carry my evening clothes to the Club in this manner, and I casually told him I should remain the night this time.

I could not leave without kissing cousin Ruth good-bye, but this excited no suspicion, as it was a thing I did on every pretext. Then I slipped out and took back streets till I was several blocks away from the house. Taking a closed carriage here, I was driven to the same station and took the same train for Whiting as on the previous evening. I found the doctor awaiting me with a lantern. As we walked down the tracks in the twilight I said to him,—

“I never made so quick a preparation, nor attempted so long a trip. I have left my friends a lot of guessing! Now, how soon shall we be off?”

“Within an hour,” he answered. “Mars will not be directly overhead until midnight, but there is a little side trip I wish to make first, to test the projectile before we get too far above the Earth’s surface.”

The sky was densely cloudy, there was no Moon, and it was already growing very dark. As we began to have difficulty in finding the way, the doctor lighted his lantern. Peering up into the darkness, I said to him,—

“There is not a star visible. How are you to find your way in the heavens a night like this?”

“That is all perfectly easy. We shall soon rise far above those clouds, and then the stars will come out. Besides, I shall show you perfect daylight again before midnight.”

“I don’t see just how, but I will take your word for it, Doctor. I daresay you have thought it all out, and the whole trip will contain no surprises for you.”

“I have tried to think it all out and prepare for everything. But I am certain I have forgotten something. I have a feeling amounting to a dreadful presentiment that I have overlooked something important. I wish you would see if you can think of anything I have omitted.”