"No," was the answer, "we are the only ones who have it, for we are
not as developed as the people on the other planets. Those living on
Venus, Jupiter, and all the other planets in our system are still
better developed than we are. They use their consciousness instead of a
machine to accomplish the same things, and even better."
After all this we are becoming anxious to return to our ship, for while
we grasped a lot of what we have seen, there were some things that were
puzzling us and which we wanted to think out. Since all this was being
given us with the aid of an interpreter, we could not very well expect
to get them clearer than they already had been given us. Finally we
suggested that we had better return to the airfield and get started
back to where we had come from.
On the way to the airport, our host asked us to stop into the
observatory once more.
To oblige him, we did.
There he flashed on the screen of the big telescope for us and here
we saw the Martonian ship which was by this time approaching Mars at
a terrific speed that registered in the observatory a speed of one
million, nine hundred thousand miles per hour.
The pilot knew when this happened and he spoke to us, saying, "haven't
you yet started back? You must like our school system."
Of course this was in a sort of joking manner, but there was more truth
in his words than you realize. We have been in this city two full days,
where with the friendship and cooperation of all, we have learned more
here than we ever thought we would. By ourselves we could not have
learned as much in years as has been given us in these two days.
Finally we started for our ship. On arriving at the airport, we find
that the maintenance men of the field have our ship ready for us. We
looked it over, checking on everything and saw that it was all in
first class shape. Then we took off.
We circled the city twice and started back towards our landing place on
the plateau. Once in the air, we contacted the Earth through our radar
system and told them that we would have quite a message to send after
landing back at our original place. In the meantime we would keep in
contact with them steadily, giving them a bird's-eye view of what we
are seeing.
The answer from the Earth came with great delight and we were told that
all radio stations would be broadcasting our message direct from us as
we were giving it.
Always desiring to fly over new territory, George asked the colored
chieftain if he knew of any other section of the Moon over which we
could return instead of the way we had come.
He said there were a large village he had heard about, located about
five hundred miles south of the line we went over and we could fly back
that way if we wanted to.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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