Finally we arrived at the airport just in time to see the big ship take
off for Mars. The crew shook hands with us again and made us understand
that they would be looking for us at some future day. Then off they
went.
Before we could get from the spot where their ship had taken off, to
our ship, which was about one thousand yards distant, they were out of
sight. While we were standing around our ship, getting ready to take
off, one of the men from the observatory came to us and asked us to go
with him to the observatory.
This we did.
About twenty minutes elapsed between the time the big ship had left
the field and our arrival at the observatory. As we entered this vast
structure, the scientist in charge of operating the big telescope
focused this instrument on the dark moon and on the screen we saw the
ship that we had just seen leave here, already landing there. The part
it was landing on, as we could see, must have been very cold and it
seemed that something was falling which looked to us as if it was snow.
Dr. Johnston asked if it was snow.
The answer was given in the affirmative.
Then Bob wanted to know, "why do they land there? Are there any
inhabitants there or is it just a landing place for some reason,"
because during our flight in the Martonian ship we had been told that
the ship could make it straight through to Mars without stopping.
In response to Bob's query, the scientist did something to the
telescope that seemed to draw the Moon right in, for behold we saw
people gather around the ship after it landed and start unloading
parcels, as well as loading others. They were small people averaging
about four feet in height and well built in proportion to their
height. They were wearing heavy clothing, something like our Eskimos
wear. These people seemed to be white. The scientist explained to us
that these were sturdy people and very brilliant, with a life span of
five hundred years. He said that these people raise hardly no food
because of the intense cold of their Moon homeland; but that it is all
delivered to them by Martonian ships from Mars and from this Moon.
However, they do have plenty of wild life there, should they ever run
short of other food.
Dr. Johnston wanted to know how people living in such a cold place
manage to keep warm: what system of heating is used.
To answer this question another section of this dark moon is
brought into view upon the screen and here is shown a heating unit
for community service. This was located quite a distance from any
settlement, yet as it was explained to us, heat was piped to each
dwelling from this central unit.
We immediately thought of the atomic power, or as known on the Earth,
the atomic pile, about which Dr. Johnston was well informed. So he
inquired further in reference to it; if the power used for heating
there is similar to what we have on Earth, but which so far we have
never used in this manner.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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