Johnny immediately asked what frequency they were using.
"Three billion kilocycles and five million watts," he was told.
In surprise he said, "they have nothing on Earth with which they can receive that power." Then he wanted to know why they used such high frequency.
"We have to in order to keep on the lane in between two cosmic rays," the operator explained. "Even that is not always high enough. Sometimes we have to step it up much more to get our messages through to other planets. Most of the planets communicate with each other through consciousness which is faster than anything else, but we Martonians have indulged largely in our abilities to be able to make things that would work for us. However we do also use the consciousness, or what you Earthmen know as mental telepathy."
All this time the pilots of this ship were talking back and forth to Mars just as though they were right there. They had no earphones, mouthpieces or any visible instrument through which they were speaking. They must have been using something installed in their panel board. We could hear them talking but we didn't hear any replies coming to them. We don't know how they were getting it but there was so much here that we didn't understand, we couldn't ask questions about everything.
By now we have gone forty million miles distant from the Moon and another of the scientists tells us we are about to enter the neutral zone which separates the two bodies, planet Mars and the Moon, from each other.
Dr. Johnston asked him, "how wide is this neutral zone?"
"It is five million miles wide."
Bob wanted to know if the pilots will have to speed the ship up to jump the gap, as we call it.
"No," he replied. "You had to do that because you used different fuel in your ship than we use in any of ours. Since we are now using light energy as a motivating power, our ship will go through it just as if it wasn't there. The only difference between going through a neutral zone and space between it and a planet, is that certain instruments in the ship don't work while crossing the gap, while all the rest of them do. The only ones that don't work are the pressure instruments or gravitational ones, also the ship glides somewhat easier through the neutral zone for there is no resistance. There is this kind of a gap between all bodies. The width of the neutral zone as well as its distance from any body depends upon the size of the bodies between which it extends. Smaller bodies do not reach out as far with their gravitational power as larger ones, so the gap isn't always half way."