“Yes, but we do not want you to take the time and trouble to make a journey half around your world just because I said I would like to see the earth.”
“Oh, our time is yours, and we will not make trouble of it; we will call it a pleasure trip. We may as well take the children, Zenith; they will enjoy it. How soon can you all be ready?”
“In five minutes,” answered Zenith.
“Then we had better get off at once,” said Thorwald.
And without further words this remarkable family scattered to different parts of the house and in five minutes were ready to begin a journey of five or six thousand miles, and the only reason they did not start at once was that the doctor and I were not quite so expeditious. We were soon on our way, however, having locked no doors behind us and leaving everything just as if we were to return in an hour.
We took an electric carriage to the station, and from there went by the tubular road to the metropolis. This was a great city whence there was direct communication to all the principal centers of population on the planet. As we had not been in any haste in making the changes necessary to reach this stage of our journey, it was now late in the day, and I began to wonder how we were to continue the trip without being out in the night. When I mentioned my thought to Thorwald, he removed the difficulty in a moment by saying:
“We simply travel west and leave the night behind us. You know the surface of Mars, even at the equator, goes east at the rate of only five hundred miles an hour, and as our modern cars take us much faster than that, it is easy for us to keep ahead of the night by going in the right direction. So in making long trips we try to travel west.”
“But suppose you want to go east?”
“Then we go west to get east, and we arrange the speed so as to get to our destination in the day-time.”
We left our car and found another just ready to start for the distant city in which our observatory was situated. It was a small car comparatively, and we had it all to ourselves. There were all sorts of conveniences in it, and we composed ourselves for a good rest. After a ride of several hours we reached our destination. It was now about noon, so that we had actually made nearly half a day, besides the time spent in sleep while riding. I know some of my friends on the earth, who say the day is too short for them, would appreciate such an improvement as that if they could have it.