The waning of a worldBackus, W. Elwyn (Waldo Elwyn)
Science
The waning of a world
Backus, W. Elwyn (Waldo Elwyn)
Martians -- Fiction; Science fiction; Space flight to Mars -- Fiction; Space ships -- Fiction
The latter task was not so easy as it sounds. For there are no
convenient, open streams on Mars. They must either chance landing at
some power station or farm, or fly to one of the poles and there obtain
water from one of the giant reservoirs. The elements at the nearest pole
being very treacherous at this season, it was decided to chance a visit
to some farmhouse.
A hurried trip was accordingly made to a small farm, a sufficient
distance from the scene of the rebellion to be reasonably safe. Here the
astonished farmer, who had not yet heard of the rebellion and who did
not even recognize the emperor and the princess, eagerly helped these
distinguished visitors to fill the water tanks of the mysterious
_Sphere_. This the farmer had heard of, and both he and his wife gazed
upon it with mingled wonder and dismay. Afterward they followed it with
their eyes until it had passed beyond their vision. This farmer, and his
wife and Dyarkon, had the distinction of being the persons on Mars who
last saw their emperor; though the two first named did not know this
till Dyarkon presently told them.
After the filling of the water tanks, Robert steered the _Sphere_
straight toward the distant pale star which he and Professor Palmer knew
was the Earth. Despite their anticipation and resignation, Zola and her
father gazed back upon their erstwhile world in silent awe, and not
without some sadness, long after it had ceased to be more than a mere
ocher and rose disk.
Through the eternal night sped the infinitesimal world with its
population of four. And through the long hours of Robert’s watches, Zola
was at his side always. Their love was as an immortal thing, born of
space and eternity. Hand in hand they fled across the universe to their
future world of promise.
Profiting by their previous experience with gravitation, or rather, an
absence of gravitation and stabilization, Robert and the professor
properly manipulated the disk and gyrostats on this trip, avoiding the
danger which had so nearly proved their undoing before. Robert prevented
also the recurrence of another unpleasant experience, by cutting short
pieces of stout cord, one for each of them, and particularly cautioned
Zola and her father to tie them about their bodies at night and secure
the other end to a rung or some other stationary object at a safe
distance from the whirling gyrostats.
It was not long after that they had a taste of air-floating, and the
cords proved their worth. This sensation, the continued sunshine out of
a black sky and other phenomena, were all new to Zola and her father.
The time passed rapidly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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