This ship has enough electrical power, when all its engines are going, to illuminate a city as large as New York and make it look like daylight.
They do not know its speed for they have never had it fully open. The highest speed they had ever reached was one million, nine hundred thousand miles per hour, and they said it could do better than that.
Such speed was unbelievable to us. Bob commented that he wondered how they or the ship could stand that speed.
They just laughed in a good natured way and closed the hatch. They were started upward. In less than no time, it seemed, we reached an altitude, according to their instruments, of five hundred miles. Then they opened her up for speed and we were travelling one and a half million miles per hour, according to their instruments, and it didn't even feel like we were moving. It was only when they started slowing up to come back for landing that we noticed a feeling of a little pressure, like something was pressing against us, but very lightly, just enough to feel it. It didn't seem to be the speed. It seemed that it was the reaction of coming into heavier pressure the nearer we got to the Moon. Yet the pilot said he felt nothing. So it must have been our imaginations, knowing that we were coming down.
After landing, the pilot told us that if we had a ship that gets to the Moon, we needn't worry about getting any farther, for they would take us in their ships to their own planet Mars, or to any other planet which we would be privileged to visit.
"How will you know when we will be here and wanting to go on from here," inquired Bob. "We have no way of contacting you and just now we have no idea when our next trip to the Moon will be." We didn't quite understand what he had meant when he said they could take us in their ships anywhere we 'would be privileged to visit', for we thought we could go anywhere we desired to go, if we had transportation to get us there. However, we didn't ask at this time because we figured that information would be given more fully on our next trip to the Moon, at which time we would be planning to visit others of our neighbors in space.
"You can bring your ship here and then go to the observatory," he suggested. "They will let us know."
"Will you men be our pilots?" George questioned. "You see we feel that we know you now while anyone else would be strangers."
"That makes no difference," came from our friend, "all the other crews are the same as we. You would not be strangers to them for they already know of you on Mars. Remember, they have your picture there."
Then they explained that for such a purpose they might have a special ship to carry us, which would be a passenger ship instead of a freighter as theirs is; especially if it was a scientific expedition, since they have special ships for that type of trip which are equipped with regular laboratories for testing anything and everything, regardless of where it is found.