It is this ray which has enabled them to so perfect aviation that
battle ships far outweighing anything known upon Earth sail as
gracefully and lightly through the thin air of Barsoom as a toy balloon
in the heavy atmosphere of Earth.
During the early years of the discovery of this ray many strange
accidents occurred before the Martians learned to measure and control
the wonderful power they had found. In one instance, some nine hundred
years before, the first great battle ship to be built with eighth ray
reservoirs was stored with too great a quantity of the rays and she had
sailed up from Helium with five hundred officers and men, never to
return.
Her power of repulsion for the planet was so great that it had carried
her far into space, where she can be seen today, by the aid of powerful
telescopes, hurtling through the heavens ten thousand miles from Mars;
a tiny satellite that will thus encircle Barsoom to the end of time.
The fourth day after my arrival at Zodanga I made my first flight, and
as a result of it I won a promotion which included quarters in the
palace of Than Kosis.
As I rose above the city I circled several times, as I had seen Kantos
Kan do, and then throwing my engine into top speed I raced at terrific
velocity toward the south, following one of the great waterways which
enter Zodanga from that direction.
I had traversed perhaps two hundred miles in a little less than an hour
when I descried far below me a party of three green warriors racing
madly toward a small figure on foot which seemed to be trying to reach
the confines of one of the walled fields.
Dropping my machine rapidly toward them, and circling to the rear of
the warriors, I soon saw that the object of their pursuit was a red
Martian wearing the metal of the scout squadron to which I was
attached. A short distance away lay his tiny flier, surrounded by the
tools with which he had evidently been occupied in repairing some
damage when surprised by the green warriors.
They were now almost upon him; their flying mounts charging down on the
relatively puny figure at terrific speed, while the warriors leaned low
to the right, with their great metal-shod spears. Each seemed striving
to be the first to impale the poor Zodangan and in another moment his
fate would have been sealed had it not been for my timely arrival.
Driving my fleet air craft at high speed directly behind the warriors I
soon overtook them and without diminishing my speed I rammed the prow
of my little flier between the shoulders of the nearest. The impact
sufficient to have torn through inches of solid steel, hurled the
fellow's headless body into the air over the head of his thoat, where
it fell sprawling upon the moss. The mounts of the other two warriors
turned squealing in terror, and bolted in opposite directions.