Arthur Zagat - The Golden Age of Science Fiction Volume IX

“You keep a close watch through your telescope for those flying men you promised to show me,” I answered. “If they can live in this air, I think we can manage it somehow. I will not go back while there is a breath left in me.”

But as we drew nearer and nearer to the surface we did not discover the slightest sign of habitation. As far as we could see there was a great desert, barren of all vegetation, and apparently unwatered since creation. Our telescope did not detect the existence even of animals or creeping things.

“The wisdom of the Creator is probably quite as profound, but certainly not as apparent just here as it was somewhat farther back,” I ventured.

“We must search over the whole surface of the globe until we find smoke rising,” said the doctor. “That is the sure sign of intelligent life on Earth. There has hardly been a tribe of the lowest savages there which did not know how to light a fire, and this knowledge would be far more essential on a cold planet like this. Wherever we find smoke we shall find those intellectual creatures, corresponding to men on our planet.”

Presently, far ahead of us, we discerned a small black cloud rapidly crossing our path. As we approached we examined it through the telescope, and soon saw that it was nothing less than an enormous flock of swiftly-flying small grey birds. This was our first acquaintance with what we afterwards found to be the predominating form of animal life on the planet. But the swift-winged cloud bore away from us, as if fleeing from the desert, and was soon lost to view.

It was not long after this that we perceived a broad stripe of brilliant green extending down into the dull expanse of the desert. In the middle of this verdant zone there was a weaving silver ribbon, which could be nothing else than a great river, along whose banks we could discern hundreds of hovering or wading birds, hopping lugubriously, or spreading their broad wings in a low flight.

As we now lowered rapidly to examine the soil more closely, we saw that we were approaching some great geometrical masses of hewn rock, whose regularity of design indicated that they were buildings of some sort. We at once decided to land and investigate these, even if we had to take up our search for intelligent life later.

We remarked that none of these enormous structures were square, or with right-angled corners, such as we were used to. They all seemed to be a combination or multiplication of a single design, which was nothing more than a massive triangular wall, with its right angle on the ground and its acute angle at the top. Sometimes two were built together, with their perpendicular surfaces joining; again, four were joined in the same manner, and one very large one was composed of twelve of these, radiating from a common centre, which, if they had quite joined each other, would have formed a gigantic cone.

I took another look at the tall, slender birds down the river, and remarked to the doctor,—

“These great structures are no birds’ nests! You can’t make me believe winged men would build with stone. These look more like giants’ playthings than anything else.”

“They appear to me like the gnomons of enormous sundials,” remarked the doctor; “and, indeed, their uses must certainly be astronomical. With these one can not only tell the time, but the ascension and meridian of the sun and stars, and therefore the months and seasons.”

We lowered and circled about above the largest one, which had twelve of the triangular walls built in circular form, with their common perpendicular line in the centre and their acute angles at the circumference. On closer observation, the twelve slanting sides, which radiated from the common peak, had a tubular appearance, and we were soon able to look down through almost a hundred great cylindrical chambers, which ran from a common opening at the top, slanting at every different angle down to the surface.

“These are nothing more than great, immovable masonry telescopes, for watching the stars in their courses!” cried the doctor. “Look, there is one perpendicular cylinder for observing just when a star or planet comes directly overhead, and these scores of other cylinders, at different angles, successively afford a view of a given constellation as it rises and then declines.”

“Then they have built a separate masonry telescope, pointing in almost every conceivable direction, instead of having one movable telescope to take any direction,” said I.

The wonderful size and massive construction of these was very striking, rivalling the pyramids of Egypt in their ponderous and enduring character. They were located on a raised plateau, whence the view in all directions was quite unobstructed. We came gently to land in the midst of them. To the rear, whence we had come, I could see the desolate waste of the desert. From the forward window we observed that the peaceful river kept a straight course from the cataract where it plunged over the plateau, through the green valley, between level banks, as far as we could see; and just at the foot of our plateau restfully nestled a city, whose massive and towering structures reached almost to our level. With the aid of the telescope we saw beings moving slowly about. Their form was upright and unwinged, but more than this we could not see. The deliberation and stately dignity of their movements comported perfectly with the majestic city wherein they dwelt.

“At last we have arrived at the boundaries of Martian civilization,” exclaimed the doctor. “We will rest here and test the atmosphere; and if it permits us, we will then venture forth to measure our skill and knowledge against this race of builders. I hazard a guess that we will excel them in many things, for they are apparently only at the perfection of their Stone Age, while we finished that long ago, and have since passed through the Ages of Iron and of Steam, and are now at the dawn of the Era of Magnetism and Gravitation. Our minds are more fertile and elastic, for with this little movable telescope we probably obtain better results than they have done with their years of toiling calculation and patient building.”

“You will be sadly disappointed if they so far excel us that they eat us up at two mouthfuls,” said I. “As they move about yonder, they impress me as being full of power.”

“They are as sluggish as elephants,” he replied. “We are certainly more rapid in thought and action, and it is highly probable that we shall excel them in physical strength, as we have been built for three times as heavy muscular tasks as they.”

“Still, if we cannot make them understand that we come peaceably as friends, they may attempt to kill us as the quickest solution of the question. And they are a whole race against two of us,” said I, just beginning to realize all the difficulties that were yet ahead of us.

“Unless they are a very intelligent and magnanimous race, they will probably attempt to take us prisoners,” he answered. “It is the mark of an enlightened nation to welcome strangers whose powers are unknown. A primitive race fears everything it does not understand, and force is its only argument against a superior intelligence.”

Thereupon I immediately began a thorough overhauling of all the arms and ammunition, while the doctor prepared to test the air. There was a tone of confident exultation in his voice when he spoke again.

“This redness of the air will not trouble us a whit. Look! you can see no tinge of red between here and that huge wall yonder, nor anywhere along the ground as far as you can see. It is so slight a colouring that it is only noticeable in vast reaches of atmosphere, like the blue colour in our own air. See here, where a small cloud obscures the sky there is no ruddy tinge. There is no more colouring-matter in this than there is indigo in our own air. The amount of it is so infinitely small that it will never trouble us. Now, if it only contains oxygen enough, we are sure of life in it.”