Above me hung another world. I could see its mountains and valleys,
oceans, lakes, and rivers, its broad, grassy plains and dense forests.
But too great was the distance and too deep the shadow of its under
side for me to distinguish any movement as of animal life.
Instantly a great curiosity was awakened within me. The questions which
the sight of this planet, so tantalizingly close, raised in my mind
were numerous and unanswerable.
Was it inhabited?
If so, by what manner and form of creature?
Were its people as relatively diminutive as their little world, or were
they as disproportionately huge as the lesser attraction of gravity
upon the surface of their globe would permit of their being?
As I watched it, I saw that it was revolving upon an axis that lay
parallel to the surface of Pellucidar, so that during each revolution
its entire surface was once exposed to the world below and once bathed
in the heat of the great sun above. The little world had that which
Pellucidar could not have—a day and night, and—greatest of boons to one
outer-earthly born—time.
Here I saw a chance to give time to Pellucidar, using this mighty
clock, revolving perpetually in the heavens, to record the passage of
the hours for the earth below. Here should be located an observatory,
from which might be flashed by wireless to every corner of the empire
the correct time once each day. That this time would be easily measured
I had no doubt, since so plain were the landmarks upon the under
surface of the satellite that it would be but necessary to erect a
simple instrument and mark the instant of passage of a given landmark
across the instrument.
But then was not the time for dreaming; I must devote my mind to the
purpose of my journey. So I hastened onward beneath the great shadow.
As I advanced I could not but note the changing nature of the
vegetation and the paling of its hues.
The river led me a short distance within the shadow before it emptied
into the Sojar Az. Then I continued in a southerly direction along the
coast toward the village of Thuria, where I hoped to find Goork and
deliver to him my credentials.
I had progressed no great distance from the mouth of the river when I
discerned, lying some distance at sea, a great island. This I assumed
to be the stronghold of Hooja, nor did I doubt that upon it even now
was Dian.
The way was most difficult, since shortly after leaving the river I
encountered lofty cliffs split by numerous long, narrow fiords, each of
which necessitated a considerable detour. As the crow flies it is about
twenty miles from the mouth of the river to Thuria, but before I had
covered half of it I was fagged. There was no familiar fruit or
vegetable growing upon the rocky soil of the cliff-tops, and I would
have fared ill for food had not a hare broken cover almost beneath my
nose.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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