The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars / Being the Posthumous Papers of Bradford Torrey Dodd

ranite pier at the Registeries, after an affectionate parting from my guide and friend, who ret

cheers, and beckonings of sightseers; and back of us rose on its hills the City of Light, that, as we passed still further away, a

e plain country, excavated by the wonderful Toto powder. This trunk canal is doubled; upon one member, the boats pass outward to Scandor, and on the other the boats ret

hosphori lamps began their soft illumination of the decks, and while murmurs of songs from merrymakers on the land came to us in snatches bewitchingly, though incongruously mingled with the delicious odors of t

, with its surprises and the strange incidents of the two or three days I have already

Mars is first class. It suits me. Never enjoyed living so much, never found it so much a matter of course, and as to livelihood, when I think of those freezing nights on the earth in Rutherford's cheesebox shooting at the moon with wet plates, I can tell you this sort of thing isn't a long call from all I ever hoped t

even the hidden fires of love, burn in my veins as on the earth.' Chapman looked at me with that bright smile he wore on earth, and his gestures of expostulation were amusing. 'Wait, Dodd, don't talk so fast. You remember I had a slow way on the earth. I have no reason to think it will prove any less pleasant to stay slow on Mars. One thing at a time. My own sense of position is not so secure that I can tell exactly all you want to know, and there are a good many things that the heavyweights up here don't pretend yet to explain. Now, where are we? Well, the City of Light is about 40 degrees south of the Martian equator, not so far from what on earth would be the position of Christ Church, where you "shuffled off the mortal coil." Don

lly; I walked away, and w

barges, flat and storied boats carrying excursions or freight, and trains of smaller craft crowded with fruit brought in from distant farms for the great population of the City of Light. The scene assumed a fairy-like unrea

eam, from which each moment I dreade

rm of this strange new life, the little, sordid variances and trials, vexations and minor sufferings that had marred his own life on earth. We turned to these things, not because they were grateful or pleasing to reme

n, you remember Martha? How beautiful and good she was! I have kept one long, sad, and still deathless hope in my repining heart. I shall see her again! It must be! I have felt so certain of this that no argument, no appeal to reason, can drive

skepticism, no mere frivolous doubt can expel them. Wait, my friend; it may yet be meant for you to meet her. And now I do recall some accounts told me of occasional visitants to Mars entering its life at different points; many indeed have been received near Scandor, and on one or two occasions the prehistoric peoples, the little strong men of the mo

tacle they presented, moving almost sensibly at their differing rates of revolution through a sky sown with stellar lights. The combined lights of these singular bodies surpassed the light of our terrestrial moon,

, varied with thick patches of trees, with here and there shining lights from villages and isolated homes, carried the eye onward to a ri

sing a greater illuminating power, mingled suddenly with the blue and spectral beams of Deimos and the land thus visited by the complimentary flood of light from these twin luminaries seemed suddenly dipped in silver. A beautiful white light, most unreal, as you mortals migh

gh the zenith, changed the inclination of its incident beams. The effect was indescribable. I walked the deck in an agitation of wo

but I can't quite understand what sort of a body it is. It hurts in a way, and is pleased in a way, but i

ted or burnished white metal, 'we were taught on the earth that, with gravitation reduced one-half, the same weight on Mars wo

ntly firm and resisting, is somehow diaphanous. I've seen the light through the palm of my hand. And then again I haven't. Somehow mind works in the body here and changes it, and changes it different at different times. Why, Dodd, the other day at the Patenta, a student jumped u

on earth, and it even seems to me I can anticipate things. The nerve currents are so rapid, the mind seems so persuasive, that coming events are registered by a prophetic feeling I can s

bodies, that we undergo extremes of temperature with almost no noticeable sense of the great heat or cold. This region we are traversing is about the latitude of Christ Church, as I told you, and it is the period of harvests, and the heat is moderate, but in the height of summer the

at or cold; a loose, open texture or cellular mass does not. In our curious embodiment from spirit the substance of our bodies is an etherealized matter, loosely, I might say, flocculently, disposed, and while it c

m badly put together, and these resemble our former terrestrial bodies. They grow old, they succumb to disease, they feel changes of weather and they have less vitality. Yes,' and he drew nearer, 'it is thes

and yet how pleasant! I looked at him with a deep affection. He not

play, but I must keep up the high key and act like the rest. Indeed for the most of the time I feel as they do, I suppose, but sometimes that sort of ribaldry and feelings of the ludicrous that made us joke, and prank, and cut up in genial companionships come over me, and I am suffocating with a glee out of place to this exalted soci

and genial domesticities; the life even, it might be called, of the daily paper, the novel, the new book, the life of politics and human history, and conventionality, the life of ups and downs, of sickness and health, of individual enterprise, of routine and mechanical fatigue, the life of exertion,

this arena of scientific wonders, and in the joy and beauty of universal happiness and thrift and peace and well doing and intuition, I could find a human companionship in the woman whose face and nature have summed up for me the whole of life, if I c

h into this human presentiment and renewal in youth, and again instinct with revivified passion and desire; and breathing the atmosphere of a planet that for years I had watched through the tube of a telescope, as a floating flake of celestial fire. A deli

ified country, covered with morainal heaps-great hills of drift matter, heaps of worn pebbles and rolling plains of estuarine sediment. Much of this land seemed untouched with cultivation, and sublime forests of the loftiest trees cov

eep red pods, while avenues of palms, not unlike the royal palm of the Earth, led in long vistas to clustering groups of houses, and we, too, caug

lines, the glistening pappus of the wild Nitoti, a peculiar, low composite, that gr

ains, its horns making an hour glass form above its head, as they bent to

as it would be on the earth, the changing ve

nd approached by encircling terraces of steps dotted the country at long intervals. These, Chapman explained, were the churches of the people. Here they gathered from long distances

d about it. It was one national expression of the love of goodness and of beaut

ry and its customs we fell

gh I live here, I must succumb to a certain alienation, a lack of mediation between their life and my former existence, and because of this subtle estrangement, I shall contract disease, or meet with accident, or waste in age, while you shall stay young,

enity and joy, this precision of power over inanimate things; this flooded being and the dawning sense that through the stepping stone of Mars, I approach yet high

re so wonderful, so thrilling in interest, in the details of character and adventure, in the incessant panoramic display it gave of light and shade. And on it rested the shadow of a strange, pathetic doubt, the mystery of creation. Its romance, its fiction, its fable, and the animating picture it furnished, with its sceptics and its believers, its hater

ble instant a pang, too, that the blossoming, full,

orlds for her lost face. The sum and substance of a world's growth, of the unintermittent and heraldic progress of the soul

stubborn dike that rose in sheer walls like the Palisades on the Hudson, 1,000 and 1,200 feet above our heads, and it seemed that the darkening tide was carrying us into the bowels of the sphere. As the precipitous walls rose on either si

was a bolide from space, one of those fiery visitors of stone and iron that collide occasionally

prostrate on the cushions of the deck as the murmurous reverberations from the walls of the roc

laboratory at Yonkers near the Albany Road. Suddenly I was shaken, and opening my eyes I beheld the firmament of heaven falling in coruscating cascades about us. Starting up, I found myself clutching Chapma

gleaming spectrally, while a kind of half audible crackling accompanied the fall. Shooting in irregular shoals or volle

most unchanged in position, while the tiny comets crowded the sky with their uni

at weathered columns of rock stood alone in the debris of their own dismemberment, the bare gray or rusty and jagged expanses s

mal, untenanted borders in the black depths of unruffled water, spoke of meteorological conditions long prolonged and intense. It was a weird, strange place, silent and dead. But amongst these vast ejections, these truncated fossil craters were embedded masses of the rare

slowly came into view a huge rictus, a gaping rent in the side of the black and gray and red walls to our right, an

y were brought to the surface by hoisting cranes, and just as our little porcelain cockle-shell glided to the dock,

opper colored northerners who work in the quarries and mines. It was nightfall. Their day's work was over, and they crowded around u

covered with an almost flat roof of the blue metal. In this house we were received by the Superintendent of Quarries, a supernatural, who still retained a mechanical aptitu

e pictures were some wonderful large scenes of an ice country, and the lustrous high wall of a gigantic glacier. I pointed these out to Chapman. He told me that to the north of the mountains lay the great northern sea, in winter a sea of ice, and that from con

d visit the great quarry in the morning before we started again for Scandor. And he showed us, as the darkness descended about us, a marvellous phenomenon. Standing on the roof of his house, we looked up the mountain side to the immense opening forced in its flank, and it had be

wine-soaked cakes of Pintu, we made our way to the wh

nd as in the broad mirror of my bedchamber I viewed my reflection, I leaped with wonder to see the youth I had been, formed anew in lineaments, faire

nse of rigid waves of stone, pimpled with sharp excrescences, and as deeply pitted with cavernous grottoes, where no life seemed able to survive, save a stunted herbage, sparsely

for the mind. Every function, every part is swayed into vitality by the mind. There is the apparent motion of the limbs, but really the whole frame sweeps on as by an intangible process of translation, and the body is transferred to the point the mind desires it to reach almost without fatigue. This gives strength exactly proportioned to Wil

intendent had pointed out, and I felt sorrowful that he should be in disagreement with this life. It boded ill. I had be

s I gazed I saw between them, and ahead of them a great black object, about which a number of the little workmen were running ex

, and it had apparently rolled from the spot of its first impact, since a hammered side, abraded and worn on the hard rock, lay uppermost. It bore the significant pits, thumb-marks and depressions of the te

frowned as if in concentrated thought, and-was it credible-the iron object moved. I looked aghast at Chapman, who turned away with what I dismally interpreted wa

e of the anomalies of this existence in Mars. Electrical science and its application is understood, great stores of mechanical experience and wisdom can be drawn on, and yet in most of the mechanical work, hand work, the toilsome method of the Pharaohs of Egypt prevails. There are

orics serves all their purposes. The canals are their great engineering feats, and the wonderful telescopes, their triumphs in applied science, their k

n, the heavy walls left like buttresses to hold up the overlying mou

aken out, for the Phosphori rock occurs variously in masses, laye

welt. It seemed peaceful and attractive. Beyond this again we just discerned the shimmering surface of the Great Glacier, the superb train of ice, that comes southward in the winter, and encroaches even upon some of the exposed margins of the land of the prehistorics. Its retreat is rapid

Zinipi north of us resembled the fertile hill and valley country of the Genesee River in western New York, the great region s

this high partition

ator. Chapman clung nervously to me, and complained of a light nausea and dread. I felt only a tonic exhilaration, and as we slowly sank through the shaft of air, crossed by sunlight for some di

alls of this phosphorescent cave. The light glowed so effulgently that it seemed a soft radi

ese holes are wedged, and the rocks forced off into useful blocks. All is done by hand, and the picture of activity, with workers constantly engaged at their various duties made a singular scene. We walked far into the ever

rth we would call candle powers, but is known on Mars as Ki-kans, or a unit of light derived from a platinum wire one millimetre thick, carrying 100 volts current. We

ow absorbed by the rock, and then this light-saturated rock had been overwhelmed and buried out o

ood-bye, which the Martians execute by a kiss and an embrace, we came out again into the deep well, and gazed upw

before it finally reached its brim. In parts it was quite unprotected, but the extraordinary nerves of the men made the achievement of passing out or in the quarry by this means a very simple test of endurance. Even as the Super

ooking on ahead, was startled to find it broken with short gaps, which must be crossed by jumping. I had felt the vague premonitions about Chapman increasing, and

had disappeared from his face, the jesting gayety had fled, and he seemed

ened. It will pass over.' He pushed me from him. For an instant we stood and gazed around us. Far up we saw the outer sunlight beat

all right. Why, a Martian has no physical weakness or dread. Come, Dodd, you have not yet acquired the

past me, with a forced agility, and sprang on upward. I followed

ps, ran forward and jumped. His calculation and strength were yet secure and adequate. He safely passed the first break in the pathway, and, as I crossed i

pman had landed on the further side of the break, but the cruel, treacherous rock crumbled beneath his impact, and I saw his staggering form turning backward. Another instant and his descending body was below me, plunging to the floor of the abyss. I turned, and then, my son, I felt the marvel of the mind's creative power over matter. I wished myself at the bottom of the quarry where Chapman had fallen, and although the m

at the Patenta. And its direct path, the point of impingement, will be at Scandor. The fires ascending from Scandor are signals that they, too, have divined the disaster. I think so at least! Hurry on! You may see the strangest phe

spot where the crowding men stood around us ejaculating their amazement. Alca tore open the garment about Chap

tendent. The flame of life in Chapman would be stimulated or excited, and then flicker and die down. These alterations lasted but a short time. Soon Cha

mpany it. He sent me on to Scandor. I had now learned enough of the Martian language to speak, imperfectly. That mental facility, which is the amazing and most wonde

the Martians on the porcelain boat, now made by this tragic fat

beds, dikes and conic craters suddenly was passed, and th

opulation of the supernaturals and the prehistorics are frequent. The canals cross the great region in many directions. The trunk line I followed was carried up and down by systems of locks of astounding magnitude and perfection. G

. The country we had entered was a fertile farm country, where great plantations of the Rint, and vineyards of the Oma grapes were established, and where great flocks of the Imilta dove, almost the only meat eaten by the Martians,

mmit of which my curiosity was to be satisfied by a

ich we were borne upward. I could at first see as we ascended the towers of the observatory station. Above me, looking at us with interest, on the walls of the lock, was a company of Martians. The night was cloudy, and the lights of the hastening satellites were bu

rcuit the, great vale of Scandor. But only an instant's glance could be spared for this detail. The divine City glowing below me seemed to magnetize attention, and control, through its wonderfulness each wavering attitude of interest. My son, the eye of man never beheld so astonis

c current, converting each one into a lambent pillar. Imagine between these paths of greenish opalescence the squares of buildings of domed, arched and castellated roofs, pierced and starred, and spread in lines and patterns of white electric lamps. The noble proportions of the la

each emitting the Geissler-like illumination that marked the lines of streets. So full and opulent was the flood of light, that the summit I had

rm me, from the City rose the swelling chords of choruses; billows of sound,

filled with ascending choruses of angels, if the dark zenith had opened and revealed

ed by new arrivals. The porcelain barge I had come in from the City of Light, was moored now to the side of the lock. I had disem

rvatories. I hear there is seen by the observers some approaching danger in the heavens. These citizens of Scandor are crowding from the City to hear the latest rep

n another world. It seemed as if a sudden motion, a cry, a whisper even, would

long intervals rockets rose from the opposite rim of the great circular ridge around the City, scarring the deep, inky vault about us with lines of fi

absorption from me. I was a Martian. The light of recognition came back again to my eyes-my tongue wa

'I am ready to accompany my guide

the City in the boat to-morrow. This man will bring you to the canal. I advise has

blue, with short trunks of yellow, and on his feet were sandals. He saluted me, and together we descended the broad boulevard between the widel

nes and groups of peoples clustering to the hilltop-and over the far-reaching slopes I could see the awaiting throngs. My guide pointed to the constellation of Per

we pressed, but I glanced from side to side, noting the great glass houses and buildings, here colonnades of translucent opalescent beauty, made up of h

fronts of white opaque buildings, through occasional tunnels into which we plunged as into a sea of radiance, and on, out, past a few squares of black umbrageous trees that seemed like dead coals laid on the heat quivering hearth of a furnace, past minarets of

e and cause, sprang light. It was electric in origin, conveyed in some peculiar manner from

midst of a great square of many acres in extent, where the light, purposely subdued, allowed its dazzling beauty subdued isolation. How wonderful! I stopped. For one instant, before hurrying on, I gazed upon a miracle of constructive and decorative art. One hundred columns of red glass rose upward, and between them was a wall, in tiers of green

s about it, and my guide quickly brought me to the Hall of the Council, a low, inconspicuou

surrounded on all sides with benches, and holding in its central area a long table, at which, beneath tall lamps, sat, perhaps, a dozen men and one wo

the customary salutation of 'Hebori bimo.' I was invited to descend to the central table. I

of the City of Light. I had a companion to whom all this was entrusted.' He was killed in the quarries of Tini

intellectual faces before me, there dwelt, with the transient influence of a passing thought, a

on, is apparently doomed. It lies in the path, certainly defined and determined by observers, of a small cometary mass, which will plunge upon it a rain of rock and iron. Even now this approaching body grows more and more visible in the sky. The astronomers are working at the problem, hoping some deflection, some interpo

ismay and grief seemed to convulse them. A few covered their faces with their hands, others stood up and gazed at the be

if it must be that this great capital of Mars must succumb to this mysterious invasion, if this place, so long a marvel of beauty, shall be succee

e of voices broke upon our ears-the sound of running feet and sharp c

ling pallor crossing his face, and then, the doors of the apartment swung open,

hich on Earth spreads fever-like through multitudes, had arisen amongst the Martia

den premonition of destruction, bewildered by the torrent of new sensations, and even yet only half confident that my existence in the new world

in progress. Holding my exposed position for an instant, I wrenched myself clear of the pulsating throngs, and succeeded in gaining the low summit above me. Here I was free to look around me. My guide was gone, the Council House was lost to view; I was alone. Below passed the surging crowd,

from its edges. The faces of the multitude were justified. The mass above us was a train of celestial missiles, hurling toward Mars. Its contact seemed more and more imminent. I felt a nameless terror. The thought of isolation in this new world, the unknown awfulness of this planetary disturbance, the sudden extinction of the hopes that were feedin

termination to escape from the city, find my way back to the Hill of Observation, a

nded to the pavement. The way past the splendid Amphitheatre was easily found, and then I hastened, guided by a dumb instinct of direction, toward the still ascending r

the astronomers to use the transmitters of the wireless telegra

s rays have extinguished the scintillant peril in the skies. But the order has gone forth to leave the City, to camp up

monary weakness, of which I had had painful premonitions, I fainted

d sentence of my father's message can be readily understood as implying that the foreign body, or Swarm, w

le to meet its savage or insidious attacks. This weakness was aggravated by the excitement produced by the singular experience I had passed through. My nerves had undergone a strain quite unusual, and the interior sense of