Ever since we first saw this highway of light on the screen and were told it was the light coming from a distant star, and the drawing power by which this ship is travelling through space at such a terrific speed, we have wondered what would happen when we had to turn around to go back to the Moon. Now we are about to find out. Remember, the ship is travelling forward at a speed of one and half million miles per hour. The pilots are about to turn it around, which means they will break the light beam which is straight ahead of us, that has been furnishing the energy for propelling the ship forward. We have made the turn now with the ship retaining its terrific speed, yet we felt no break in the movement of the ship, except that it seemed to lower just a little bit.
We watched the screen while the turn is being made and the fine line of light which was shown in it before, has vanished. We have made a complete turn now, and are heading back to the Moon. Now the light appears on the screen again, but this time we are being pulled by the Moon light, towards the Moon, instead of the star light we were riding on before.
We asked, "what made the ship operate during the turn? Was it the speed that made it continue on without being pulled by the light beam, or what was it?"
The explanation given us was, that light energy was still being used to propel the ship. During flight on a beam of light, excess energy is stored up within the ship by means of mechanical devices. This is an emergency supply and is sufficient to propel the ship for fifty million miles without coming onto any beam anywhere, if such a condition should ever arise. It is from this supply of light energy that their ships are able to be turned around in space, as well as take off into the air from a landing field, before they hook onto the light lane.
Now we have landed back on the Moon. This has really been a marvelous experience, one that we can never forget any more than any of the others.
Oh, Oh! We see a ship coming in, a monster, a lot bigger than the one we were in just now. She is circling for landing. They are giving her the signal light from the tower. Oh, we cannot mistake this one. We know what it is without asking for it has the picture of its planet right on it as an insignia. Yes, bet you have guessed by this time. It is Saturn. Man! she takes up plenty of room, nearly the whole field. At least it appears that way. Her design is quite different than any we have seen before. She has a chisel type nose and a fan shape tail. She has fins on her, something like fish, very close to the body. She has landed very gracefully, and she also makes no noise. She is almost alongside the Venetian ship and from what we can judge, is about five hundred feet longer.
There! The doors open and here come out the pilots. There are about forty men coming out of it, seems to be the whole crew. On their caps is the same insignia of their planet as is on their ship, while on their uniforms they have a sort of balances with wings, or what to us represented a scale in balance.
They are looking us over. Our ship is not very far from here. They are looking that way, too. Our ship looks like a baby in comparison to these others and looks like an antique. We are almost becoming ashamed of it.
These men are seven feet tall, or better. MMhmm, there is one who looks like a nine footer. If we are to judge them from the weight on Earth, they would weigh about two hundred fifty pounds each.
They are all going to this tower for some sort of a report, I believe.