THE MESSAGE FROM MARS

Sun (Christchurch), Volume VII, Issue 1956, 22 May 1920, Page 9

THE MESSAGE FROM MARS

EXPLANATION OF A WORLDWIDE MYSTERY. By HUGH VENNER. [Written for The Sun.] There never was any doubt about the fact that Norris had brains. And ideas! And talk! No one ever talked like him. He was so enthusiastic. Jt did you good to listen to him. Get-rieh-quiek schemes were always his strong points, yet he had accomplished nothing. Norris never had a penny that 1 know of, but he was the happiest man under the sun. Ho had as well that happy way of. making everyone perfectly at ease. If lie had only had the sense to put a decent suit on !jis back ami a few pounds in his pocket, the world would have received him with open arms. But he didn't. He preferred to spend his time on impossible schemes in a tum-ble-down shed that ho was pleased to style his "studio," his laboratory, his observatory, or his workshop according to the branch of science or art he was working at for the time being. It was there one evening that I met Shorter. No, I am not going to describe Shorter to you. Suffice it to say that he is a millionaire, short, round and stout, and the two of them were laughing like—well, like anything when I tumbled in. "Norris," I began, "such conduct is reprehensible in one who is trying to find a vaccine for the sleeping sickness among the Pathfinders of Patagonia." "Pathfinders be damned," said Norris. "Well, what Is it this time?" I asked. "You wait. Look hero Benje, this is Shorter. You have heard of Shorter's Soap? Of course. It lathers tho world. And what should they know of Shorter, who only Shorter know —the poor little shortbred people . . ." "Oh, for goodness' sake " wailed the soap king. "That's a pity: I finished. Now, Shorter, my boy, this is Benjamin. As I was saying when he butted in, you have the money, I have the brains. Benje has neither money nor brains, but he may be handy, too." "What is the game now?" I asked. "I do wish you would be patient. It is Shorter's idea. As I said before, his soap factories encircle the world. The sun never sets on them, so from a practical point of view, the world may concider itself washed. The lean white bear hath used it in the long, long Arctic night. Can't you picture him, Benje? Jlcra is a map. I have marked all the Shorter factories. He has washed the world, and now he sighs for other worlds to wash. Never the lotus closes. . . ." Shorter roared. He trembled from head to foot, and the glass jars on the shelves tinkled in unison. "The point is this," he continued; ''you know those wireless messages they have been receiving from Mars? Yes? Well, Shorter has just provided funds to start a 'Society for Furthering the Study of Interplanetary Wireless,' and has elected me president." "You?" I asked. "Why, you knownothing about it." "So much the better, old son. If you know nothing of a subject, you knownothing of its difficulties, and so you go in and wfii. Wo have had the apparatus installed this afternoon. I have borrowed two books on the subject, and to-morrow morning we commence in earnest. Shorter wishes me to get into touch with a good Martian business man about starting some soap factories up there. Nothing "like getting in early in these days of competition. Indeed, one of my first papers before the society will be on the interesting subject 'Do Martians Wash?' " "You'll do, Norris, you'll do." roared Shorter, patting him'on the back. Just at that moment a faint buzzing was heard in the room. It sounded like the high note a mosquito makes when entrapped in the ear. I "The message," cried Norris, "the message from Mars." He clapped the receiver over my head, and I heard the message from a sister planet, singing over sixty million miles of space! A thousand operators the world over silenced their instruments to listen. I heard it distinctly—at least, as distinctly as anyone could. It was a succession of letters in the Morse' code —the letter S seeming to predominate. When it ceased, tho air was filled with questions from stations all down the line of earthly installations. In the days that followed, the world was agog- with excitement. One day the letter S ceased, and one could distinguish A V E. Nothing more. Here was a problem indeed. Someone deduced from this that the message was in Latin, and that "Ave" simply meant "Hail!" Another genius, a preacher iix ono of the Latter Day churches, joined the S and the "Ave" 1 and found therein another "sign of tho times." Ho was sure that the Martians were merely advising us to save ourselves from the wrath to come, and one of the greatest evangelical movements of tho time was started. Aud Norris flourished, he beamed, he expanded. He gave lectures every night to crowded audiences on the most enthralling subject of the age. Then the crash came. The messages ceased altogether, it certainly looked black for him, especially as lie had spent thousands of Shorter'a money, but the way he turned apparent defeat into victory was simply marvellous. I was there when he explained. The Martians, he said, had probably been sending out messages for centuries, but we had never had instruments to receive them. At the moment, messages were being sent, no doubt, but the planet and the sun were in such positions that the latter was attracting the unknown words. Furthermore, he would stake his reputation as a scientific man that the message would be heard again in exactly l.'i months' time, after which it would not be heard for a hundred and seven years. Of 1 course, it wouldn't. Scientists the world over wondered why they hadn't thought of that before.

lii tlu> interval, the Martian Comic Opera came to keep our interest alive. Norris wrote it —versatile ass—-though no one knew that. It was proilurt'il simultaneously in London, New Voik, Paris and Sydney, and it ran Cor the whole 13 months. 1 was there on the opening night. The curtain rose on a Martian scene. One critic said that, never in their wildest nightmares had .11. G. Wells, .lules Verne or ttdgar Hire Burroughs dreamed of such wonders. Personally, I like the "Interplanetary Trot" best. It was a new step evolved by Nbrris, and it was danced by maidens of our own earth earthy. .She was a lovely girl who earned on the stage first, dressed in a soft white crepe do Chiney nightie. Two black plaits hung over her shoulders, and she held a candle aloft in her right hand. Swaying

gently from side to side, she lilted something like this, though I cannot remember all the words:— "When the message came from Jupiter, You know I could not hear, For the humble bee bad stung me in thd osseous cochlea. I never thought I'd live to henr a message from the stars. So wake and call me early when the mct< sage comes from Mars." From the wings came dozens of 'em—* all so delicate-looking in their nighties —all joining in the chorus. Everybody was in love with them; soon every ball* room was dancing the Martian Trot. Only one thing more was needed, and this was soon accomplished. 1 refer to the Norris Amplifier. The waves of sound, so said our renowned scientist, became entangled on their long journey to earth, and this instrument, he claimed, would make all clear. 80 eager was the world to hear the message when it did come that everyone who could afford a few yards of wire and a battery bought an amplifier. Norris had four factories at work turning them, out, and he sold altogether a hundred thousand of them. It was one beautifully fine morning that Shorter's yacht carried us all away for a visit to his coco-mit plantation in the South Seas. I am writing this record on the verandah of his delightful bungalow, fanned by the tropic sea breeze. Yesterday was the great day of the message predicted by Norris. By a general order, all wireless stations were silent tho world over, that all might hear when it came. At an early hour we had screwed our receivers over our ears to await. All was silent. Then about noon it came—the tiek-tiek-tick-ing of the Morse code. A hundred thousand people restlessly screwed at the regulator on the Norris Amplifier. At first we heard the S 8 S we had heard before, then the old A V B. Would the amplifier do it? The world listened, and the world wondered. Then it came, clearly enough—"Shave with Snorter's Shaving Soap,'' They have just been going over their accounts. Norris, as usual, has been doing all the talking. "Deducting all expenses, the amplifier has net Jed us a million and a-half," I heard hi/.i saying. "Dollars or pounds?" from Shorter. . "Pounds. And the advertisement." "And the advertisement," mused the millionaire, quivering with laughter. "Still I think we'd better stay in the South Pacific for a while."