CHAPTER SEVEN
_A PLANET OF GOLD_
The squadron had been rapidly withdrawn to a very considerable distancefrom the asteroid. The range of the mysterious artillery employed by theMartians was unknown to us. We did not even know the limit of theeffective range of our own disintegrators. If it should prove that theMartians were able to deal their strokes at a distance greater than anywe could reach, then they would of course have an insuperable advantage.
On the other hand, if it should turn out that our range was greater thantheirs, the advantage would be on our side. Or--which was perhaps mostprobable--there might be practically no difference in the effectiverange of the engines.
Anyhow, we were going to find out how the case stood, and that withoutdelay.
Everything being in readiness, the disintegrators all in working order,and the men who were able to handle them, most of whom were experiencedmarksmen, chosen from among the officers of the regular army of theUnited States, and accustomed to the straight shooting and the sure hitsof the West, standing at their posts, the squadron again advanced.
In order to distract the attention of the Martians, the electrical shipshad been distributed over a wide space. Some dropped straight downtoward the asteroid; others approached it by flank attack, from thisside and that. The flagship moved straight in toward the point where thefirst disaster occurred. Its intrepid commander felt that his postshould be that of the greatest danger, and where the severest blowswould be given and received.
The approach of the ships was made with great caution. Watching theMartians with our telescopes we could clearly see that they weredisconcerted by the scattered order of our attack. Even if all of theirengines of war had been in proper condition for use it would have beenimpossible for them to meet the simultaneous assault of so many enemiesdropping down upon them from the sky.
But they were made of fighting mettle, as we knew from old experience.It was no question of surrender. They did not know how to surrender, andwe did not know how to demand their surrender. Besides, the destructionof the two electrical ships with the forty men, many of whom bore nameswidely known upon the earth, had excited a kind of fury among themembers of the squadron which called for vengeance.
Suddenly a repetition of the quick movement by the Martians, which hadbeen the forerunner of the former coup, was observed; again a blindingflash burst from their war engines and instantaneously a shiver ranthrough the frame of the flagship; the air within quivered with strangepulsations and seemed suddenly to have assumed the temperature of ablast furnace.
We all gasped for breath. Our throats and lungs seemed scorched in theact of breathing. Some fell unconscious upon the floor. The marksmen,carrying the disintegrators ready for use, staggered, and one of themdropped his instrument.
But we had not been destroyed like our comrades before us. In a momentthe wave of heat passed; those who had fallen recovered from theirmomentary stupor and staggered to their feet.
The electrical steersman stood hesitating at his post.
"Move on," said Mr. Edison sternly, his features set with determinationand his eyes afire.
"We are still beyond their effective range. Let us get closer in orderto make sure work when we strike."
The ship moved on. One could hear the heartbeats of its inmates. Theother members of the squadron, thinking for the moment that disaster hadovertaken the flagship, had paused and seemed to be meditating flight.
"Signal them to move on," said Mr. Edison.
The signal was given, and the circle of electrical ships closed in uponthe asteroid.
In the meantime Mr. Edison had been donning his air-tight suit. Beforewe could clearly comprehend his intention he had passed through thedouble trapped door which gave access to the exterior of the car withoutpermitting the loss of air, and was standing upon what served as thedeck of the ship.
In his hand he carried a disintegrator. With a quick motion he sightedit.
As quickly as possible I sprang to his side. I was just in time to notethe familiar blue gleam about the instrument, which indicated that itsterrific energies were at work. The whirring sound was absent, becausehere, in open space, where there was no atmosphere, there could be nosound.
My eyes were fixed upon the Martian's engine, which had just dealt us astaggering, but not fatal, blow, and particularly I noticed a polishedknob projecting from it which seemed to have been the focus from whichits destructive bolt emanated.
A moment later the knob disappeared. The irresistible vibrations dartedfrom the electrical disintegrator and had fallen upon it andinstantaneously shattered it into atoms.
"That fixes them," said Mr. Edison, turning to me with a smile.
And indeed it did fix them. We had most effectually spiked their gun. Itwould deal no more death blows.
The doings of the flagship had been closely watched throughout thesquadron. The effect of its blow had been evident to all, and a momentlater we saw, on some of the nearer ships, men dressed in their airsuits, appearing upon the deck, swinging their arms and sending forthsoundless cheers into empty space.
The stroke that we had dealt was taken by several of the electricalships as a signal for a common assault, and we saw two of the Martiansfall beside the ruins of their engine, their heads having been blownfrom their bodies.
"Signal them to stop firing," commanded Mr. Edison. "We have got themdown, and we are not going to murder them without necessity."
"Besides," he added, "I want to capture some of them alive."
The signal was given as he had ordered. The flagship then alone droppedslowly toward the place on the asteroid where the prostrate Martianswere.
As we got near them a terrible scene unfolded itself to our eyes. Therehad evidentially been not more than a half dozen of the monsters in thebeginning. Two of these were stretched headless upon the ground. Threeothers had suffered horrible injuries where the invisible vibratorybeams from the disintegrators had grazed them, and they could not longsurvive. One only remained apparently uninjured.
_As we got near them a terrible scene unfolded itself.Two of the Martians were stretched headless upon the ground. Threeothers had suffered horrible injuries, and only one remained apparentlyunhurt._]
It is impossible for me to describe the appearance of this creature interms that would be readily understood. Was he like a man? Yes and no.He possessed many human characteristics, but they were exaggerated andmonstrous in scale and in detail. His head was of enormous size, and hishuge projecting eyes gleamed with a strange fire of intelligence. Hisface was like a caricature, but not one to make the beholder laugh.Drawing himself up, he towered to a height of at least fifteen feet.
But let the reader not suppose from this inadequate description that theMartians stirred in the beholder precisely the sensation that would becaused by the sight of a gorilla, or other repulsive inhabitant of ourterrestrial jungles, suddenly confronting him in its native wilds.
With all his horrible characteristics, and all his suggestions of beastand monster, nevertheless the Martian produced the impression of being aperson and not a mere animal.
I have already referred to the enormous size of his head, and to thefact that his countenance bore considerable resemblance to that of aman. There was something in his face that sent a shiver through the soulof the beholder. One could feel in looking upon it that here wasintellect, intelligence developed to the highest degree, but in thedirection of evil instead of good.
The sensations of one who had stood face to face with Satan, when he wasdriven from the battlements of heaven by the swords of his fellowarchangels, and had beheld him transformed from Lucifer, the Son of theMorning, into the Prince of Night and Hell, might not have been unlikethose which we now experienced as we gazed upon this dreadful personage,who seemed to combine the intellectual powers of a man, raised to theirhighest pitch, with some of the physical features of a beast, and allthe moral depravity of a fiend.
The appearance of the Martian was indee
d so threatening and repellentthat we paused at the height of fifty feet above the ground, hesitatingto approach nearer. A grin of rage and hate overspread his face. If hehad been a man I should say he shook his fist at us. What he did was toexpress in even more telling pantomime his hatred and defiance, and hisdetermination to grind us to shreds if he could once get us within hisclutches.
Mr. Edison and I still stood upon the deck of the ship, where severalothers had gathered around us. The atmosphere of the little asteroid wasso rare that it practically amounted to nothing, and we could notpossibly have survived if we had not continued to wear our air tightsuits. How the Martians contrived to live here was a mystery to us. Itwas another of their secrets which we were yet to learn.
Mr. Edison retained his disintegrator in his hand.
"Kill him," said someone. "He is too horrible to live."
"If we do not kill him we shall never be able to land upon theasteroid," said another.
"No," said Mr. Edison. "I shall not kill him. We have got another usefor him. Tom," he continued, turning to one of his assistants, whom hehad brought from his laboratory, "bring me the anaesthetic."
This was something entirely new to nearly all the members of theexpedition. Mr. Edison, however, had confided to me before we left theearth the fact that he had invented a little instrument by means ofwhich a bubble, strongly charged with a powerful anaesthetic agent,could be driven to a considerable distance into the face of an enemy,where exploding without other damage, it would instantly put him tosleep.
When Tom had placed the instrument in his hands Mr. Edison ordered theelectrical ship to forge slightly ahead and drop a little lower towardthe Martian, who, with watchful eyes and threatening gestures, noted ourapproach in the attitude of a wild beast on the spring. Suddenly Mr.Edison discharged from the instrument in his hand a little gaseousglobe, which glittered like a ball of tangled rainbows in the sunshine,and darted with astonishing velocity straight into the upturned face ofthe Martian. It burst as it touched and the monster fell back senselessupon the ground.
"You have killed him!" exclaimed all.
"No," said Mr. Edison. "He is not dead, only asleep. Now we shall dropdown and bind him tight before he can awake."
When we came to bind our prisoner with strong ropes we were more thanever impressed with his gigantic stature and strength. Evidentially insingle combat with equal weapons he would have been a match for twentyof us.
_"When we came to bind our prisoner with strong ropeswe were more than ever impressed with his gigantic stature and strength.He might have been a match for twenty of us."_]
All that I had read of giants had failed to produce upon my mind theimpression of enormous size and tremendous physical energy which thesleeping body of this immense Martian produced. He had fallen on hisback, and was in a most profound slumber. All his features were relaxed,and yet even in that condition there was a devilishness about him thatmade the beholders instinctively shudder.
So powerful was the effect of the anaesthetic which Mr. Edison haddischarged into his face that he remained perfectly unconscious while weturned him half over in order the more securely to bind his muscularlimbs.
In the meantime the other electrical ships approached, and several ofthem made a landing upon the asteroid. Everybody was eager to see thiswonderful little world, which, as I have already remarked, was only fivemiles in diameter.
Several of us from the flagship started out hastily to explore theminiature planet. And now our attention was recalled to an intenselyinteresting phenomenon which had engaged our thoughts not only when wewere upon the moon, but during our flight through space. This was thealmost entire absence of weight.
On the moon, where the force of gravitation is one-sixths as great asupon the earth, we had found ourselves astonishingly light. Five-sixthsof our own weight, and of the weight of the air-tight suits in which wewere encased, had magically dropped from us. It was thereforecomparatively easy for us, encumbered, as we were, to make our way abouton the moon.
But when we were far from both the earth and the moon, the loss ofweight was more astonishing still--not astonishing because we had notknown that it would be so, but nevertheless a surprising phenomenon incontrast with our lifelong experience on the earth.
In open space we were practically without weight. Only the mass of theelectrical car in which we were enclosed attracted us, and inside thatwe could place ourselves in any position without falling. We could floatin the air. There was no up and no down, no top and no bottom for us.Stepping outside the car, it would have been easy for us to spring awayfrom it and leave it forever.
One of the most startling experiences that I have ever had was one daywhen we were navigating space about half way between the earth and Mars.I had stepped outside the car with Lord Kelvin, both of us, of course,wearing our air-tight suits. We were perfectly well aware what would bethe consequence of detaching ourselves from the car as we moved along.We should still retain the forward motion of the car, and of courseaccompany it in its flight. There would be no falling one way or theother. The car would have a tendency to draw us back again by itsattraction, but this tendency would be very slight, and practicallyinappreciable at a distance.
"I am going to step off," I suddenly said to Lord Kelvin. "Of course Ishall keep right along with the car, and step aboard again when I amready."
"Quite right on general principles, young man," replied the greatsavant, "but beware in what manner you step off. Remember, if you giveyour body an impulse sufficient to carry it away from the car to anyconsiderable distance, you will be unable to get back again, unless wecan catch you with a boathook or a fishline. Out there in empty spaceyou will have nothing to kick against, and you will be unable to propelyourself in the direction of the car, and its attraction is so feeblethat we should probably arrive at Mars before it had drawn you backagain."
All this was, of course, perfectly self-evident, yet I believe that butfor the warning words of Lord Kelvin I should have been rash enough tostep out into empty space, with sufficient force to have separatedmyself hopelessly from the electrical ship.
As it was, I took good care to retain a hold upon a projecting portionof the car. Occasionally cautiously releasing my grip, I experienced fora few minutes the delicious, indescribable pleasure of being a littleplanet swinging through space, with nothing to hold me up and nothing tointerfere with my motion.
Mr. Edison, happening to come upon the deck of the ship at this time,and seeing what we were about at once said:
"I must provide against this danger. If I do not, there is a chance thatwe shall arrive at Mars with the ships half empty and the crews floatinghelplessly around us."
Mr. Edison's way of guarding against the danger was by contriving alittle apparatus, modeled after that which was the governing force ofthe electrical ships themselves, and which, being enclosed in theair-tight suits, enabled their wearers to manipulate the electricalcharge upon them in such a way that they could make excursions from thecars into open space like steam launches from a ship, going andreturning at their will.
These little machines being rapidly manufactured, for Mr. Edison had aminiature laboratory aboard, were distributed about the squadron, andhenceforth we had the pleasure of paying and receiving visits among thevarious members of the fleet.
But to return from this digression to our experience of the asteroid.The latter being a body of some mass was, of course, able to impart tous a measurable degree of weight. Being five miles in diameter, on theassumption that its mean density was the same as that of the earth, theweight of bodies on its surface should have borne the same ratio totheir weight upon the earth that the radius of the asteroid bore to theradius of the earth; in other words, as 1 to 1,600.
Having made this mental calculation, I knew that my weight, being 150pounds on the earth, should on this asteroid be an ounce and a half.
Curious to see whether fact would bear out theory, I had myself weighedwith a spring balance. Mr. Edison, Lord
Kelvin and the otherdistinguished scientists stood by watching the operation with greatinterest.
To our complete surprise, my weight instead of coming out an ounce and ahalf, as it should have done, on the supposition that the mean densityof the asteroid resembled that of the earth--a very liberal suppositionon the side of the asteroid, by the way--actually came out five ouncesand a quarter!
"What in the world makes me so heavy?" I asked.
"Yes, indeed, what an elephant you have become," said Mr. Edison.
Lord Kelvin screwed his eyeglass in his eye, and carefully inspected thebalance.
"It's quite right," he said. "You do indeed weigh five ounces and aquarter. Too much; altogether too much," he added. "You shouldn't do it,you know."
"Perhaps the fault is in the asteroid," suggested Professor Sylvanus P.Thompson.
"Quite so," exclaimed Lord Kelvin, a look of sudden comprehensionoverspreading his features. "No doubt it is the internal constitution ofthe asteroid which is the cause of the anomaly. We must look into that.Let me see? This gentleman's weight is three and one-half times as greatas it ought to be. What element is there whose density exceeds the meandensity of the earth in about that proportion?"
"Gold," exclaimed one of the party.
For a moment we were startled beyond expression. The truth had flashedupon us.
This must be a golden planet this little asteroid. If it were notcomposed internally of gold it could never have made me weight threetimes more than I ought to weight.
"But where is the gold?" cried one.
"Covered up, of course," said Lord Kelvin. "Buried in Stardust. Thisasteroid could not have continued to travel for millions of yearsthrough legions of space strewn with meteoric particles without becomingcovered with the inevitable dust and grime of such a journey. We mustdig now, and then doubtless we shall find the metal."
This hint was instantly acted upon. Something that would serve as aspade was seized by one of the men, and in a few minutes a hole had beendug in the comparatively light soil of the asteroid.
I shall never forget the sight, nor the exclamations of wonder thatbroke forth from all of us standing around, when the yellow gleam of theprecious metal appeared under the "star dust." Collected in huge massesit reflected the light of the sun from its hiding place.
Evidently the planet was not a solid ball of gold, formed like a bulletrun in a mold, but was composed of nuggets of various sizes, which hadcome together here under the influence of their mutual gravitation, andformed a little metallic planet.
Judging by the test of weight which we had already tried, and which hadled to the discovery of the gold, the composition of the asteroid mustbe the same to its very center.
In an assemblage of famous scientific men such as this the discovery ofcourse, immediately led to questions as to the origin of this incrediblephenomenon.
How did these masses of gold come together? How did it chance that, withthe exception of the thin crust of the asteroid nearly all its substancewas composed of the precious metal?
One asserted that it was quite impossible that there should be so muchgold at so great a distance from the sun.
"It is the general law," he said, "that the planets increase in densitytowards the sun. There is every reason to think that the inner planetspossess the greater amount of dense elements, while the outer ones arecomparatively light."
But another referred to the old theory that there was once in this partof the solar system a planet which had been burst in pieces by somemysterious explosion, the fragments forming what we know as theasteroids. In his opinion, this planet might have contained, a largequantity of gold, and in the course of ages the gold, having, inconsequence of its superior atomic weight, not being so widely scatteredby the explosion as some of the other elements of the planet, hadcollected itself together in this body.
But I observed that Lord Kelvin and the other more distinguished men ofscience said nothing during this discussion. The truly learned man isthe truly wise man. They were not going to set up the theories withoutsufficient facts to substain them. The one fact that the gold was herewas all they had at present. Until they could learn more they were notprepared to theorize as to how the gold got there.
And in truth, it must be confessed, the greater number of us reallycared less for the explanation of the wonderful fact than we did for thefact itself.
Gold is a thing which may make its appearance anywhere and at any timewithout offering any excuses or explanations.
"Phew! Won't we be rich?" exclaimed a voice.
"How are we going to dig it and get it back to earth?" asked another.
"Carry it in your pockets," said one.
"No need of staking claims here," remarked another. "There is enough foreverybody."
Mr. Edison suddenly turned the current of talk.
"What do you suppose those Martians were doing here?"
"Why, they were wrecked here."
"Not a bit of it," said Mr. Edison. "According to your own showing theycould not have been wrecked here. This planet hasn't gravitation enoughto wreck them by a fall, and besides I have been looking at theirmachines and I know there has been a fight."
"A fight?" exclaimed several, pricking up their ears.
"Yes," said Mr. Edison. "Those machines bear the marks of the lightningof the Martians. They have been disabled, but they are made of somemetal or some alloy of metals unknown to me, and consequently they havewithstood the destructive force applied to them, as our electric shipswere unable to withstand it. It is perfectly plain to me that they havebeen disabled in a battle. The Martians must have been fighting amongthemselves."
"About the gold!" exclaimed one.
"Of course. What else was there to fight about?"
At this instant one of our men came running from a considerabledistance, waving his arms excitedly, but unable to give voice to hisstory, in the inappreciable atmosphere of the asteroid, until he hadcome up and made telephonic connection with us.
"There are a lot of dead Martians over there," he said. "They've beencleaning one another out."
"That's it," said Mr. Edison. "I knew it when I saw the condition ofthose machines."
"Then this is not a wrecked expedition, directed against the earth?"
"Not at all."
"This must be the great gold mine of Mars," said the president of anAustralian mining company, opening both his eyes and his mouth as hespoke.
"Yes, evidently that's it. Here's where they come to get their wealth."
"And this," I said, "must be their harvest time. You notice that thisasteroid, being several million miles nearer to the sun than Mars is,must have an appreciably shorter period of revolution. When it is inconjunction with Mars, or nearly so, as it is at present, the distancebetween the two is not very great, whereas when it is in the oppositepart of its orbit they are separated by an enormous gap in space and thesun is between them.
"Manifestly in the latter case it would be perilous if not entirelyimpossible for the Martians to visit the golden asteroid, but when it isnear Mars, as it is at present, and as it must be periodically forseveral years at a time, then is their opportunity.
"With their projectile cars sent forth with the aid of the mysteriousexplosives which they possess, it is easy for them under suchcircumstances, to make visits to the asteroid.
"Having obtained all the gold they need or all that they can carry, acomparatively slight impulse given to their car, the direction of whichis carefully calculated, will carry them back again to Mars."
"If that's so," exclaimed a voice, "we had better look out forourselves! We have got into a very hornet's nest! If this is the placewhere the Martians come to dig gold, and if this is the height of theirseason, as you say, they are not likely to leave us here longundisturbed."
"These fellows must have been pirates that they had the fight with,"said another.
"But what's become of the regulars, then?"
"Gone back to Mars for help, probab
ly, and they'll be here again prettyquick, I am afraid!"
Considerable alarm was caused by this view of the case, and orders weresent to several of the electrical ships to cruise out to a safe distancein the direction of Mars and keep a sharp outlook for the approach ofenemies.
Meanwhile our prisoner awoke. He turned his eyes upon those standingabout him, without any appearance of fear, but rather with a look ofcontempt, like that which Gulliver must have felt for the Lilliputianswho had bound him under similar circumstances.
There were both hatred and defiance in his glance. He attempted to freehimself, and the ropes strained with the tremendous pressure that he putupon them, but he could not break loose.
Satisfied that the Martian was safely bound, we left him where he lay,and, while awaiting news from the ships which had been sent toreconnoitre, continued the exploration of the little planet.
At a point nearly opposite to that where we had landed we came upon themine which the Martians had been working. They had removed the thincoating of soil, laying bare the rich stores of gold beneath, and largequantities of the latter had been removed. Some of it was so solidlypacked that the strokes of the instruments by means of which they haddetached it were visible like the streaks left by a knife cuttingcheese.
The more we saw of this golden planet the greater became ourastonishment. What the Martians had removed was a mere nothing incomparison with the entire bulk of the asteroid. Had the celestial minebeen easier to reach, perhaps they would have removed more, or,possibly, their political economists perfectly understood the necessityof properly controlling the amount of precious metal in circulation.Very likely, we thought, the mining operations were under governmentcontrol in Mars and it might be that the majority of the people thereknew nothing of this store of wealth floating in the firmament. Thatwould account for the battle with the supposed pirates, who, no doubthad organized a secret expedition to the asteroid and had been caughtred-handed at the mine.
There were many detached masses of gold scattered about, and some of themen, on picking them up, exclaimed with astonishment at their lack ofweight, forgetting for the moment that the same law which caused theirown bodies to weigh so little must necessarily affect everything else ina like degree.
A mass of gold that on the earth no man would have been able to liftcould here be tossed about like a hollow rubber ball.
While we were examining the mine, one of the men left to guard theMartian came running to inform us that the latter evidently wished tomake some communication. Mr. Edison and the others hurried to the sideof the prisoner. He still lay on his back, from which position he wasnot able to move, notwithstanding all his efforts. But by the motion ofhis eyes, aided by the pantomime with his fingers, he made us understandthat there was something in a metallic box fastened at his side which hewished to reach.
With some difficulty we succeeded in opening the box and in it thereappeared a number of bright red pellets, as large as an ordinary egg.
When the Martians saw these in our hands he gave us to understand by themotion of his lips that he wished to swallow one of them. A pellet wasaccordingly placed in his mouth, and he instantly and with greateagerness swallowed it.
While trying to communicate his wishes to us, the prisoner had seemed tobe in no little distress. He exhibited spasmodic movements which ledsome of the bystanders to think that he was on the point of dying, butwithin a few seconds after he had swallowed the pellet he appeared to becompletely restored. All evidence of distress vanished, and a look ofcontent came over his ugly face.
"It must be a powerful medicine," said one of the bystanders. "I wonderwhat it is?"
"I will explain to you my notion," said Professor Moissan, the greatFrench chemist. "I think it was a pill of the air, which he has taken."
"What do you mean by that?"
"My meaning is," said Professor Moissan, "that the Martian must have,for that he may live, the nitrogen and the oxygen. These can he notobtain here, where there is not the atmosphere. Therefore must he getthem in some other manner. This has he managed to do by combining inthese pills the oxygen and the nitrogen in the proportions which makeatmospheric air. Doubtless upon Mars there are the very great chemists.They have discovered how this may be done. When the Martian hasswallowed his little pill, the oxygen and the nitrogen are rendered tohis blood as if he had breathed them, and so he can live with that airwhich has been distributed to him with the aid of his stomach in placeof his lungs."
If Monsieur Moissan's explanation was not correct, at any rate it seemedthe only one which would fit the facts before us. Certainly the Martiancould not breathe where there was practically no air, yet just ascertainly after he had swallowed his pill he seemed as comfortable asany of us.
Suddenly, while we were gathered around the prisoner, and interested inthis fresh evidence of the wonderful ingenuity of the Martians, and oftheir control over the processes of nature, one of the electrical shipsthat had been sent off in the direction of Mars was seen rapidlyreturning and displaying signals.
It reported that the Martians were coming!
Edison's Conquest of Mars Page 8
