“Give me the desert,” replied Taggert, indulging in the luxury of a shiver.
“From the looks of things,” said Robert, “we shall have all the desert we want. That ocher shade seems entirely too popular. It makes me thirsty to look at it.”
The gyrostats had been started again for safety as they drew near the planet, and the Sphere’s comet-like velocity retarded by cautiously focusing the disk in the opposite direction temporarily.
A deflection of the disk swung the Sphere away from the pole and nearer the Martian equator. With the possibility of landing within a few hours, a keen watch was kept for the most promising region in which to land.
“If our belief that Mars is inhabited be correct,” said Robert, “it may be well to avoid the population centers. The Martians may fear that we are seeking to do them harm with some machine of destruction, and destroy us.”
“That’s a good suggestion,” exclaimed Taggert. “It would be just like one of those dudes to take a crack at us with some kind of a howitzer for luck.”
“Let us first fly over the surface at a safe height and examine it carefully, then select a landing site,” suggested Professor Palmer. “If it seems to be inhabited we had best land outside some smaller village where we will have an opportunity to interview a few of the natives without so much danger of being overpowered if they prove antagonistic.”
Sluggishly, the vast map slid westward before their gaze, in panoramic review as the planet rotated in its axis. Thus its entire surface from pole to pole was gradually presented to their view as they continued to descend at a considerably reduced speed.
The fifteenth “day” found them within about 25,000 miles of the planet’s surface. At this elevation Professor Palmer commenced a sharp lookout for the two moons which were known to revolve about Mars at great speed. These moons had been glimpsed on rare occasions by a few of the earth’s astronomers through powerful telescopes, but only when conditions for observation had been ideal. Professor Palmer had seen them more than once, although they were each approximately but ten miles in diameter, as he explained to Robert and Taggert.
“Ten miles?” repeated Taggert, doubtfully. “Why—dammit, these blamed Martian moons aren’t much more than balls of mud! Say, I’d rather have our moon than half a dozen like those. Ours is more than 2,000 miles in diameter, isn’t it?”