Arthur Zagat - The Golden Age of Science Fiction Volume IX

The doctor feared steering directly against her as we approached, lest we should land with a crash. We had already reached her and were travelling along her inner side. Although we were very near her, she seemed to have very little attraction for us. Then he turned very much closer, but as soon as the influence of the rudder was released, we seemed to leave her instead of falling upon her as we expected. We were still travelling faster than she was, and had we steered directly against her, we would have crashed and bumped against her protuberances. Still there seemed to be no other way to make a landing. In order to estimate the amount of such a shock, the doctor calculated, from the best information he had of her size and a guess at her density, that she would attract the projectile and its entire load with a force of only two pounds. That was not enough to cause any very great shock, and he decided to take chances at once, before we had entirely passed her. He turned the rudder hard over toward the satellite, and we came against her with scarcely any crash, but with a bumping and grating that continued until the rudder was eased back. Then, to our great surprise, we did not remain on the surface, but rose from it and sailed inward towards Mars.

“Something wrong here!” exclaimed the doctor. “She has no attraction for us.”

“Well, how do you explain this?” I asked. “You say the whole projectile weighs only two pounds toward Phobos, when, just a short time ago, I weighed nearly eight pounds myself on the scales.”

“True enough!” he cried; “the gravity of Mars must be dominant.” He began figuring rapidly, and then exclaimed: “We weigh one hundred and thirty pounds toward Mars, and only two pounds toward the satellite. Small wonder that we could not make a landing, with Mars pulling us away sixty-five times harder than Phobos attracted us! But this is very strange! I remember no mention of this in any of the astronomical writings, and it is as easily calculable on Earth as it is here. Moreover, this must cause everything that is loose upon Phobos to fall upon Mars. The great planet is tugging at everything the satellite has with a force sixty-five times stronger than her own!”

“Now, I am afraid those figures won’t do, Doctor,” I put in. “For, if what you say is true, what prevents the whole satellite from tumbling into Mars at once?”

“She would do so were it not for centrifugal force. The speed with which she whirls around the planet must just balance the force with which he attracts her, and thus she is kept in her orbit. But stones and loose things on this side of her centre are attracted more strongly by Mars than they are repelled by the whirling, so they must all have fallen to the planet. That is why the surface was perfectly barren. If Phobos always keeps the same side turned toward Mars, there may be rocks and soil on the outer side, and we could land there with a positive current; but we could not see the great planet, as I had hoped.”

“I have had quite enough of this moon-chasing,” I said; “let us be off for the large game at once!” and the doctor agreeing, we turned directly toward Mars.

Our telescope was now pointed exactly at Mars, and we were observing every feature as we approached him. Compared with the illuminated crescent of the Earth, which we had studied when we were observing the Andes, our present view was infinitely vaster and more comprehensive. We were approaching the illuminated side of a planet, whereas we had then been rapidly receding from the dark side of one partly lighted at its edge. In our new vista there were remarkably few clouds. There were a few pale mists here and there over the seas, but no such heavy, black masses as had frequently obscured the Earth.

On Mars there were fewer large bodies of water, and a very much greater proportion of land. In fact, about the Equator, whither we were steering, there seemed to be a broad, uninterrupted zone of land, with occasional bays or inlets cutting into it, but never crossing it. An open sea of considerable proportions surrounded the great ice-cap at each pole, and it was apparently thus possible to travel entirely around the globe, either by sea or by land, as one might choose.

“Behold again the infinite wisdom of the Creator!” cried the doctor. “Although Mars is a much smaller planet than our own, it is fitted for almost as large a population. The land is nearly all grouped about the Equator, where it is warm enough to live comfortably. On the contrary, on Earth there is no important civilization under the Equator, and most of the land is favourably located in the north temperate zone. On Earth the intervention of great oceans between the continents kept the population restricted to Asia and Egypt for centuries, and to the Old World for a still longer time. But here, this band of continuous land has made it easy and natural to explore the whole globe, and its inhabitants have had ample time and opportunity to distribute themselves.”

But by far the most wonderful thing that we had been observing for a long time, and which became more remarkable as we approached, was that the entire planet, seas and continents alike, gave off a reddish light. This tinge of red had been visible ever since we had left the Earth. Much further back we had observed that it seemed to extend a little beyond the outline of Mars, and we now saw that even the white light from the snow-caps had a faint tinge of red.

“For centuries the ruddy light of this planet has been remarked,” said the doctor. “His very name was given him because of his gory, warlike appearance. Scientists have attempted to explain it by supposing that his vegetation is uniformly red, instead of green like ours. Still others, objecting that his vegetation could not possibly be rank or plentiful, or continue the same colour through all seasons, have supposed that his soil or primæval rock is of a deep red colour. But neither of these suppositions explain why his seas should give off a reddish light mixed with their green, or why the pure white of polar snows should be tinged with crimson.”

We must have been still two hundred miles above the surface when the barometer began to rise feebly, indicating that we were already entering the Martian atmosphere; and, as we proceeded, the reddish glow spread all around us, and was even dimly visible behind as well as in front. We were still travelling too rapidly to plunge into the denser atmosphere or attempt a landing. Besides, we wished to explore the planet, and find life and civilization before choosing a landing place. And as we drew nearer, in a constantly narrowing circle, that red haze was all about us everywhere.

“There can be but one explanation of it,” said the doctor at last. “This red is a colour in the Martian atmosphere. It seems very strange and almost impossible to us; but we must prepare ourselves for extremely unusual and even apparently impossible things.”

But this seemed to disturb the doctor greatly, as also did the fact that we could no longer breathe with comfort the rare air which we had not found objectionable far back in space. Our returning weight made physical effort again necessary, and we were able to exert ourselves but little without panting and gasping. The rarest air we had used had shown a pressure of fourteen, and we were now compelled to increase this to eighteen in order to be comfortable.

“This Martian air is sure to give us trouble,” the doctor said to me after considerable reflection. “In the first place, its red colour makes me fear it is not composed of the same gases that our air is. If it should turn out to be a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen, like ours, there is the possibility that this red matter which gives it colour will be poisonous to us. And even if it is not harmful, I do not think the air will have a pressure above ten or eleven, and we seem to need eighteen or twenty for comfort. I shall be very sorry if we have to return at once; but our supply of air is limited, you know.”