Life on other planets -- Fiction; Mars (Planet) -- Fiction; Science fiction
For a period of five minutes the Gridley Wave carried a simple code
signal consisting of two letters, "J.G.," out into the ether, following
which there was a pause of ten minutes. Hour after hour, day after
day, week after week, these silent, invisible messengers sped out to
the uttermost reaches of infinite space, and after Jason Gridley left
Tarzana to embark upon his expedition to Pellucidar, I found myself
drawn to his laboratory by the lure of the tantalizing possibilities of
his dream, as well as by the promise I had made him that I would look
in occasionally to see that the device was functioning properly and to
examine the recording instruments for any indication that the signals
had been received and answered.
My considerable association with Gridley had given me a fair working
knowledge of his devices and sufficient knowledge of the Morse Code to
enable me to receive with moderate accuracy and speed.
Months passed; dust accumulated thickly upon everything except the
working parts of Gridley's device, and the white ribbon of ticker tape
that was to receive an answering signal retained its virgin purity;
then I went away for a short trip into Arizona.
I was absent for about ten days and upon my return one of the first
things with which I concerned myself was an inspection of Gridley's
laboratory and the instruments he had left in my care. As I entered the
familiar room and switched on the lights it was with the expectation
of meeting with the same blank unresponsiveness to which I was by now
quite accustomed.
As a matter of fact, hope of success had never been raised to
any considerable degree in my breast, nor had Gridley been over
sanguine--his was merely an experiment. He considered it well worth
while to make it, and I considered it equally worth while to lend him
what small assistance I might.
It was, therefore, with feelings of astonishment that assumed the
magnitude of a distinct shock that I saw upon the ticker tape the
familiar tracings which stand for the dots and dashes of code.
Of course I realized that some other researcher might have duplicated
Jason's discovery of the Gridley Wave and that the message might have
originated upon earth, or, again, it might be a message from Jason
himself in Pellucidar, but when I had deciphered it, all doubts were
quickly put to rest. It was from Ulysses Paxton, one time captain, --th
U.S. Infantry, who, miraculously transported from a battlefield in
France to the bosom of the great Red Planet, had become the right hand
man of Ras Thavas, the master mind of Mars, and later the husband of
Valla Dia, daughter of Kor San, Jeddak of Duhor.
In brief, the message explained that for months mysterious signals had
been received at Helium, and while they were unable to interpret them,
they felt that they came from Jasoom, the name by which the planet
Earth is known upon Mars.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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