Read Online The Red Planet by Charles Chilton - Free Book Online

ship-to-ship communication, didn’t it?”
    “That’s not exactly news.”
    “Well, that gas now lies between us and Earth,” went on Lemmy, “and if no radio wave can penetrate it, then Earth cannot receive us nor can we receive them.”
    “Of course we can’t,” said Mitch bitterly. “That cloud cuts us off from home completely. At least until the Earth has moved sufficiently in her orbit to be clear of it.”
    “And how long will that take?” I asked.
    “At a rough guess,” replied Mitch, “I’d say two months.”
    There was a pause. Finally the silence was broken by Jet. “Well, gentlemen,” he said, looking at each of us in turn, “this loss of contact with Base, while serious enough, need not be fatal. They won’t give up trying to contact us for weeks--months, in fact--and we shall be talking to them again long before we reach Mars. Meanwhile we’ll have to keep going. We’ll have a lot more work to do, of course, now we’re on our own, particularly in the navigational field--so we’d better get started. Lemmy, call up the Fleet. Have them take bearings on the sun, the Earth and Mars and report their findings as soon as possible.”
    “Yes, mate,” said Lemmy.
    “Meanwhile, Mitch, you and I had better get to work on the navigational tables. As soon as we’ve worked out our position and velocity we can eat.”
    “Then don’t take too long,” said Lemmy. “I’m famished.”
    When Jet and Mitch had completed their calculations they were able to say that our course was near enough correct and we could expect to arrive above the surface of the Red Planet at the appointed time, always supposing, of course, that no other mishap delayed us. We sat down to our meal that night in better spirits than our situation warranted.
     
     
    The next few days were uneventful.
    By now the sun was only four-fifths of the size it appeared from Earth but, because of the clear viewing conditions out in space, was a far more beautiful object; a great gleaming, blue-white disc which hung in the sky surrounded by a fiery corona. As for the Earth, it now appeared bluish in colour with reddish-green patches which were the land masses. The whole was covered with irregular white cloud formations and at both poles we could see the incredibly bright ice caps. To the naked eye, the Earth-Moon system looked like a huge double star which expanded and shrank as the satellite encircled its parent planet.
    But the most interesting and remarkable object in the whole heavens was Mars. As we observed it through the small navigational telescope, it already appeared much larger than we had ever before seen it. Deep pink in colour, the darker portions of its surface showed up sharply in olive green. Even at this distance we could detect a few cloud masses floating in its atmosphere and the dark, thin lines of the canali were certainly no optical illusion.
    And so we coasted on for another month. We had now covered nearly one hundred and nineteen million miles since taking off from the Moon.
    No contact with Earth had yet been made, nor could we hope to establish it for at least another two weeks. We had resigned ourselves to wait patiently when suddenly, one day, from the loudspeaker above the control panel came the familiar voice of home saying: “Hullo, Space Fleet-- Control calling.”
    Lemmy, who had been lying on his bunk trying to sleep, pushed off from the wall and went floating over towards the radio. He had hardly begun to drift when the voice came through again. “Control calling Flagship Discovery. Trying to contact you. Come in, please.”
    If Lemmy was quick off the mark, Jet was even quicker and he got to the table before the radio operator. Once there he lost no time and shouted into the microphone: “Hullo, Control--Morgan calling. Hearing you loud and clear. Repeat, loud and clear. Over.”
    Mitch, his face lit up with smiles, was the last to reach the radio. “Well,” he said excitedly, “there’s a turn-up