Thomas Edison had a splitting headache and his back protested with shooting pains when he tried to move. But he could move and that amazed him; death had seemed certain in those last moments before a monstrously fierce storm smashed his ęther flyer into the red Martian sands.
The flyer lay canted on its left side. Most of the plants had spilled from their pots and dirt and root balls lay everywhere, but underneath that layer of disorder, there was surprisingly little damage. The door stood open so the Martian atmosphere must be breathable. He pulled himself up and out the door to find Jack Armstrong, his companion on this venture, surveying the full extent of their disaster.
Spread over the sand like a beached jellyfish, the gas bag lay flat and deflated. Armstrong reached down and lifted one edge of a twenty foot rip in the fabric. He looked at Edison but said nothing. They had no need of words. They could probably repair the torn gas bag but there was no way for them to replace the lost hydrogen. Without the balloon, they couldn't lift the ęther flyer above the atmosphere. They were marooned on Mars!
It all started with a lecture by Professor B. Etienne Moreau of the Sorbonne, given in March of 1868, in Boston. A man of boundless energy, he strode back and forth across the stage, waving his arms as he proclaimed in barely accented English, "So you see Gentlemen, as your own Benjamin Franklin observed, `light is in the ęther the same as sound is in the air.' The Luminiferous Ęther is an infinitely hard, infinitely elastic underlayment to the physical universe. It is by the virtue of the Ęther that light, gravity, and magnetism can travel through the universe, all three being forms of energy that express themselves as waves in the medium.
Professor Moreau's words came to Edison as a revelation. Edison dominated the question session and so impressed the Professor with his insights that Moreau invited him to continue the discussion after the lecture and they talked about the ęther long into the night, sitting in the lobby of Professor Moreau's hotel.
Edison started building a model of an ęther flyer as soon as he got back to his laboratory in Maryland. But when he tried the finished model, nothing happened. The model sat motionless. He pored over his plans, looking for some flaw in his reasoning, some overlooked error or misdrawn schematic. He found nothing. It should work! He struggled for days, adjusting and balancing the components to no avail. Finally, in frustration, he sent copies of his basic plans to Professor Moreau.
Moreau replied that he thought air might be the culprit. Matter creates a disturbance in the ęther, he wrote, and the interaction of the air with the ęther might be too much for the prototype engine to overcome. Edison immediately tested the model in an evacuated chamber and it worked! He calculated that if it were lifted to an altitude of 24,000 feet or more, the atmosphere would be thin enough for the engine to work.
In October of 1868, Edison stormed into the lab, waving a piece of paper at his assistant, George Truman. "George, look at this. It's an outrage! The patent office demands that I demonstrate the ęther flyer before they'll grant a patent." Edison unrolled a large blueprint of a new ęther flyer model, "here's what we'll do."
The morning of November 27 in the Maryland countryside was clear and cold. In a field near Edison's laboratory, a strange device bobbed in the chill breeze. Beneath a large hydrogen balloon hung a small gondola made of thin steel plates sealed with rubber gaskets. From one side projected a unfamiliar construction of tubes and radiating fins that was Edison's Ęther Propeller.
George Truman gave directions to the balloon handlers while Edison made final adjustments to the clockwork piloting mechanism. To one side, the witnesses from the patent office shivered in their overcoats and near them, Charles Blessing, an astronomer from the Naval Observatory at Annapolis, set up his telescope. At ten o'clock, finally satisfied with his preparations, Edison addressed the committee.
"Gentleman, thank you for braving the cold this morning, but I promise you it will be worth the sacrifice. In moments you will see a demonstration of the Edison Ęther Flyer, a device that will sail at speeds heretofore undreamed of through the lumeniferous ęther, and reach any point on the globe in a matter of hours. To clearly show you it's capabilities I intend to send this model to the Moon!" Edison heard murmurs of excitement and skepticism.
Gracefully, undramatically, the released balloon rose silently into the sky. "There's a trail," Blessing shouted after a short time. He glanced at the telescope's vernier gauge. "It's 30 miles high. I see a faint glowing trail rising out of the atmosphere!"
The trail grew fainter till Blessing lost sight of it. Edison anxiously spelled Blessing on the telescope through the frigid night, warming his hands and insides with cup after cup of scalding but coffee.
In the blush of dawn, their exhausted minds were shocked into alertness by a shout from Blessing. "There, in Mare Tranquilitatus, see it, a bright flash!" And they did see the explosion of 250 pounds of magnesium powder and potassium nitrate carried by the flyer. The patent for the Edison Ęther Flyer was awarded on 3 December, 1868.
Edison immediately announced the formation of a company to manufacture passenger carrying flyers. No one took the 21 year old inventor seriously. He ignored the bitingly satirical cartoons in Punch, but the ridicule from the scientific community hurt him. Doggedly persistent, he eventually found financial backers for an incredible venture . . . a voyage to Mars!
On 6 January 1870, a gigantic hydrogen balloon loomed over the launch field. Jack Armstrong, a Scottish explorer and soldier-of-fortune with academic degrees in chemistry and geology, supervised the final loading of the green plants that would refresh the flyer's air on the long trip. Edison's backers had selected Armstrong to accompany him on the trip, but he really had no objection to the Scot. He seemed a steady, competent character in all respects, an ideal companion for a trip into the unknown.
Edison completed his inspection of the electrical storage batteries that would power the ęther propeller. "Well, Jack, are you ready?" he asked Armstrong.
"Aye, Tom, ready when you are."
Edison signalled George Truman to release the tęther and instantly felt pressure on his feet as the balloon lifted and the ground fell away. At 24,000 feet, he energized the Ęther Propeller. The invisible electric propeller created waves in the ęther that pulled the flyer through space.
Two days out from Earth, Edison calculated their speed at three million miles per day, leaving sixty more days to reach Mars. Space travel proved to be tedious and boring, with little to do but tend the plants and check their progress, so it was with considerable anticipation that they slowed their speed and sank into the atmosphere of Mars on 9 March, 1870. When the air became too dense for the ęther propeller to work, Edison shut it off and Armstrong manned the balloon controls. The sky turned from black to dark blue and the land below flattened so as to be recognizable as a landscape, though certainly like no landscape they'd ever seen on Earth. Vast deserts and rugged mountains, all in shades of red and orange brown, made up most of the terrain but the most fascinating aspect was the network of dark intersecting lines. They were absolutely straight and ran for hundreds of miles.
Edison completely absorbed by the vista below, started when Armstrong grabbed his shoulder. "Tom, look over there," he said pointing to the west. Boiling over the horizon came a monstrous high wall of dark red clouds, racing toward them with the speed of a fast locomotive. The flyer was too high to land and too low to rise above the rapidly advancing storm. All they could do was make sure everything was secure and hang on as the overwhelming force of the storm tossed them like a thistle in a mill race.
The sun sat low on the horizon when the Martians found them. Edison stared, astonished, at a ship sailing through the sky. He saw no gas bag and couldn't imagine what held it aloft. About 200 feet long, it had two towering masts with spreading wide wings of white sails like an Arabian dhow. Sailors swarmed up the rigging and in moments the huge sails were neatly furled. The ship settled to the ground near the wrecked ęther flyer.
Armored figures, obviously soldiers by their disciplined advance and arms, surrounded them. Essentially human in appearance, there were some striking differences. Very tall, averaging about seven feet, and relatively slender, they had large pointed and ribbed ears that vaguely resembled bats' wings. Their skin was a golden yellow and their hands had three fingers and a thumb.
When they seemed convinced that the Earthmen were harmless, another native, dressed less martially, approached them and spoke in a pleasant, musical language. Knowing there was no chance of being understood, it still seemed appropriate to introduce themselves, so Edison said in measured tones, "I am Thomas Edison and this is Jack Armstrong. We are from Earth."
After a few more unintelligible exchanges, the native in charge motioned for them to follow him to the sky ship and the ring of razor sharp lances left them no option. Edison found the trip aboard the flying sailing ship absolutely fascinating and studied its equipment and rigging intently. Armstrong, fluent in a dozen Earth languages, carried on a quiet intercourse with the Martian official, rapidly acquiring a simple vocabulary and a primitive grasp of the grammar which he found similar to Hindu.
A city the size of Baltimore came into view. Brilliant in red stone, seven broad waterways, shining silver in the weak sunlight, divided the closely packed buildings and towers into pie wedge sections. The waterways met in the center of the city in a complicated arrangement of aqueducts and huge gated locks.
The sky galleon landed in a broad park near a truly magnificent palace. The two Earthmen were escorted into a long, high ceilinged throne room hung with colorful banners and other less recognizable talismans. On an intricately carved throne sat an elderly Martian, short and plump by local standards, he was almost human in his proportions.
At a word from their escort, Armstrong bowed and Edison quickly followed his example. Their escort spoke for some minutes, then the potentate said a few words. The next thing they knew, the door of a dungeon cell slammed closed behind them. It only took two weeks for Armstrong to learn a working knowledge of Gaaryani, the local language, but it seemed like an eternity to Edison. He managed to pick up a few words but he had no real talent. Fortunately, Laanata Vaaradaan, the official who had arrested them at the wreck, was just as adept as Armstrong and soon spoke passable English.
"Lord Vaaradaan," Edison said in the third week of their captivity, "is there no chance of our being released?"
"I'm sorry, but I think not at this time. No one will take it upon themselves to release you without the Prince's approval, and he will not give any attention to the matter until the current crisis is resolved."
The Prince was Amraamtaba IX, hereditary Canal Prince of the city state Edison called Syrtis Major, after its Earth astronomical name. "What is the crisis?"
"The locks on the Grand Canal to Crocea have stopped working. No one knows how to repair them."
"How can that be?" Edison asked incredulously. It was difficult for him to imagine a machine that couldn't be fixed. "Doesn't the builder of the locks know how to repair them?"
"Oh no," Vaaradaan said, "the locks are over 20,000 years old. All knowledge of their construction was lost long ago."
"Twenty thousand years?" For a man from a country less than a hundred years old, a machine that ancient and a civilization that could take it for granted was as hard to imagine as an unfixable machine was to an inventive genius like Edison. "Maybe you should tell me as much as you do know."
"There was the Brifanoon, the Age of Water," the Martian noble began, "35,000 years ago. When the planet was young it had large seas but they dried up millions of years ago. Then during the Brifanoon, for reasons no one ever explained, the ice-caps melted enough to fill the ancient seabeds. The Brifanoon lasted for 10,000 years and in that time my people became civilized. They built great cities in which they lived lives of ease and wealth. The arts and science reached heights we cannot even imagine now. They used their science to create machines that dug canals to carry water from the seas into the deserts so they could be made to bloom.
"Then the naBrifanoon, the Age of Drying, came. Slowly, the seas receded, shrank and finally disappeared. They built more canals to carry the water from the dwindling seas to their croplands, and finally, they launched a worldwide coordinated project to build canals to carry water from the polar ice-caps to the seabeds. The great project was completed but it ruined their way of life even as it let them survive.
"They used up their wealth and life was much harder along the canals than it had been. The canals took so much work that gradually the desert canals were abandoned and even some of the seabed canals fell into disrepair. The city-states became isolated, withdrawing into themselves, squabbling over water rights and more trivial concerns.
"Then 5,000 years ago a great leader rose among us. The king of Gaaryan, Seldon II, raised an army and navy and set out to unite Mars and raise it to the level it had attained during the Brifanoon. As he came to each city-state, he demanded its allegiance and obedience. If they did not submit, he leveled the city. Obviously, he only had to do that a few times and his empire grew rapidly. In his empire, he cleaned and repaired the canals, rebuilding the ancient locks and pumps when possible or building anew when necessary. Seldon conquered a third of Mars before he died suddenly right here in this city and was succeeded by his son.
"The Seldon dynasty lasted nearly 3000 years but their influence waned until they became little more than tax collectors. Finally, some 2,000 years ago the Canal Princes rebelled and in a century of warfare destroyed much of what had been Seldon's empire, reducing us again to isolated city-states connected by neglected canals.
"So you see, Earthman, much of our equipment dates to 20,000 or more years ago. No rational person could consider repairing such machines. If Seldon's engineers could not fix it, how can we?"
Edison decided it was useless for him to try to comprehend such an attitude. He was as sure as death and taxes that if a machine could be built, he could figure out how it worked. "Lord Vaaradaan, is it possible for me to see the malfunctioning lock. I am an inventor and good with machines, I built the machine that brought me here from Earth after all. Maybe my Earthborn knowledge will let me do something your engineers cannot."
"I don't know," Vaaradaan sounded very skeptical, "still I will ask. What harm can it do?"
The next morning, Edison found himself being escorted around the Grand Canal lock works by a Master of the Canal Keepers Guild. With Vaaradaan translating, he said "If you would be so kind as to explain, Master Botaama, why is that apprentice lubricating that particular shaft?"
"Lubricating? He is not lubricating. He is applying sacramental oil to the holy mechanism."
Edison had suspected as much. The Canal Keepers Guild was more a holy order than a real trade guild. They worked according to rituals so ancient and rigid they were practically a religion.
"Please, may I see the broken lock mechanism?" The mechanism was enormous, huge gears and drive levers driven by a massive piston two yards in diameter. The feed pipe was cold to the touch. Edison traced the feed pipe down until it disappeared into the ground beneath the building. Another pipe entered the ground beside it. That pipe led into the canal.
"Master Botaama, if you will turn this valve for a short time, then close it again, I believe the lock will start working again." And it did.
Back in the cell, Vaaradaan asked "Earthman, how did you know that would work?"
"It was obviously a steam piston so the steam had to come from somewhere. There was no boiler and the pipe led into the ground. I figure the builders drilled deep into the earth, or maybe I should say mars, where the temperatures are very high. They injected water which was turned into steam. The steam had just run out, so we added more water. Since it wasn't injected under pressure, as I imagine the builders did, it will probably have to be added frequently."
"I see. I will report this to Prince Amraammtaba. I'm sure he will be impressed." He was. It took months, but with the Prince's resources at his disposal, Edison repaired the balloon and generated the hydrogen to refill it. Vaaradaan returned with them, both as the representative of his sovereign and to satisfy his own curiosity about these strange humans. They landed outside of Cincinnati, Ohio on the seventh of August, 1870.
Neither Earth nor Mars would ever be the same again.
In 1872, the British established the first foothold of Earth's colonial powers on Mars with the Permanent British Quarter in Parhoon, about 500 miles northwest of Syrtis Major.
The French established an enclave at Idaeus Fons in 1874. The Belgians followed in 1876. By 1889, the Belgians completed their conquest of the Great Coprates Rift Valley. Belgian colonial rule in the Coprates was even more brutal and bloody than in the Congo. Their reprisal raids and punitive expeditions against the refugees from the Coprates in neighboring kingdoms fanned the fires of antihuman prejudice throughout Mars.
The assassination of Prince Anwaak of Parhoon in 1878 led Queen Victoria to assume the regency of Parhoon in the name of the infant Prince. Dynastic claims led to a war with the city- state of Gorovaan that ended with its annexation. In 1880, The Second War of the Parhoon Succession found British regulars in the field alongside their Parhoonian allies, fighting Syrtis Major and its client states. At the fighting's conclusion, Syrtis Major, Haatt, and Avenel were incorporated into the Crown Colony of Syrtis Major. By 1882, Moeris Lacus and Meepsor were treaty dependencies and an overland campaign added Shastapsh in 1887. By 1889 Britain had acquired the largest colonial empire on Mars. However, unlike the Belgians, they stayed on fairly good terms with their Martian subjects, particularly the Parhoonese and Meepsooris. The states to the south, though, fear them, especially the Oenotrian Empire.
Other colonial powers on Earth carved out territories on Mars, including the Germans at Western Dioscura, Russia at Hecates Lacus, and Japan at Euximius Lacus. Only the British and Belgian colonies are of significant size however. There is a great deal of intrigue among the European imperialists, particularly concerning access to rare and valuable Martian products like liftwood.
The United States did not actually claim a colony, but U.S. merchants spread across the planet, trading their wares for the treasures of Mars. Most operate from Thymiamata, so a small American military force has been stationed there.
(Author's Note: This story is set in the universe of Space:1889, which is Frank Chadwick's trademark for his roleplaying game of Victorian-era spacefaring, and is used with his permission.)
Space:1889 is Frank Chadwick's registered trademark for his game of Victorian Era space-faring. He has granted permission for the use of the background of Space:1889 for the stories presented here. All text, illustrations, photographs and design are © 2000-2007 Dan Thompson, except where otherwise noted.
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