Ancient custom dictated that the President of the Martian Academy be a teacher of philosophy, the queen of spiritual sciences. The high esteem in which the Academy was held was reflected in that its President ranked, together with the Senior Justice of the Supreme Court, immediately behind the Elon, despite the general lack of social distinctions throughout the planet. Even the cabinet officers occupied the next lower rung of the social ladder.
Ansanto, the "Sage of Laroni," was president of the Martian Academy of Science when Holt's epic-making proposal was submitted for deliberation. As presiding officer, it was he who introduced the subject in the presence of Holt and the scientific leaders and officers of the expedition. He appealed to the Academy to draw inspiration from the Earthlings' splendid interplanetary pioneering. He adjured them to pursue without hesitancy or vacillation the path of cosmic cooperation thus courageously opened.
"Life below ground, to which our aging planet has condemned us," said he, "has made us forget that another and a greater world lies without the hermetic capsule wherein we perforce must live.
"Until our Earthling friends and brethren came to us through the airless reaches of the solar system, we were in danger of entirely forgetting that there is a heaven wherein God guides the courses of the stars of His creation. We awoke to the joyous discovery that we are not alone in the infinite ocean of the stars. We rejoice that our kindred from across space think, feel, hope and believe as we do.
For eons we have sought the answer to the final question, the great, hitherto insoluble question of the purpose of the cosmic creation — why did God make the magnificent machinery of the universe? To this day, our natural scientists have stood perplexed but gripped in the fascination of its endless complexities and bemused by the infinity of its riddles. Our Earthling companions have brought us the answer: it is Life! Joyful, pulsating Life, everlastingly sustained by the two divine urges, Love and Hunger!
We may well still wish to know what is the purpose of this life, and to that question, too, they have brought us an answer full and complete: it is the quest of perfection! In this quest, life has evolved from the amoeba to the thinking, sentiment being, following the dictates of the conscience with which God in His own good time endowed it, so that it might seek Him and strive for His perfection in the full knowledge that never can it fully be attained.
The inspiration of your cosmos-shaking journey, my Earthling brothers, cannot have been that of a purely technical experiment, despite the magnificence of its conception.
You have come to us on a mission whose ultimate object was planned by God Himself, for it is you who have brought together the germ plasms of rational creation in our solar system that they may thrive and grow into a higher and more noble organism, which shall envelope the depths of space. In no other manner than by the joining of individual cells did the higher forms of life evolve at the beginnings of time!
Let no man here, whether Earthling or Martian," cried Ansanto prophetically, "misapprehend the significance of this mission! Let us follow in the path it so clearly defines for us, and may the generations which shall come after us never deviate! Then, and then only, may we be assured that we have seen God's plans and aims, and that we follow His Holy Will towards His cosmic ends."
Chapter 30 — The Sage of Laroni
The Sage of Laroni's speech in no way failed of its effect upon the highly intelligent and basically religious members of the Martian Academy of Science. Three prominent and able men from among their number were appointed to make the voyage which Holt scheduled to begin by a launching of the two landing boats, some two weeks before the expiration of the 449 day long "waiting time." He had no intention of allowing any lastminute difficulty to prevent him and his men from being snugly ensconced in their space ships when the crucial hour of departure from the Martian orbit should arrive. To miss that figurative split second by reason of some minor malfunction would mean the loss of the expedition by exhaustion of food and oxygen in the orbit. Nor could refuge be taken on the friendly Red Planet, for the landing boats no longer had the wings necessary for the descent.
With the entire expedition gathered in the seven passenger vessels for a solid two weeks prior to the final departure from the orbit, Wiegand would have ample time for a thorough inspection of the equipment, so that the months of the return trip would be begun with every possible assurance of mechanical perfection. Tom Knight's reports from the orbit showed that there had been no serious damage nor malfunctions in the waiting vessels, for he had been able to carry out all running repairs with the supplies at hand.
Holt, however, proposed to run no chances. The damage to Nordenskjold's landing boat caused by the stuck nose wheel had proved once again the importance of keeping everything in apple pie order. Failing this, the whole expedition might be endangered, with incalculable loss not only to Earth, but perhaps to a universe into which man had just taken his first, faltering steps.
Most of John Wiegand's time on the Red Planet had been devoted to the repair of Goddard's landing boat. With the generous assistance of the Martian authorities, he had dismounted the necessary parts from Oberth's boat in the snowy south polar region and transported them to the landing strip near Suguli. Here the damaged craft was staked down alongside her sister ship from Ziolkowsky. Wiegand even found a small machine shop near Suguli where he fabricated some of the material needed.
As soon as the repairs were completed, Wiegand and Hempstead's detachment busied themselves with task of removing the great wings from the landing boats. The next step was to set the huge, torpedo-like hulls erect upon the steel launching tables which had formed part of their cargo. Their sections were bolted together and mounted on the wheels destined for them. Then began the actual process of erection, a by no means simple matter on which Wiegand had spent much time before departure from Earth.
The tail of the still horizontal boat was first jacked up sufficiently so that the table on its wheels could be pushed under it. Then the wheels of the table were removed and it was lowered to the ground and the stern of the boat was let down upon it. During the procedure, two protrusions on the empennage rested on two bearings of the table, forming a sort of hinge around which the boat's hull would rotate when brought from the horizontal to the vertical. The table was then firmly staked to the ground.
The next step was to erect upon the top of the still horizontal hull a vertical strut over which passed a steel cable fastened to the nose of the vessel and extending out over the stern where it was attached to one of the caterpillars, standing stern to stern with the still recumbent landing boat. When the caterpillar wound in the cable on its winch, the huge hull began to rise, turning about the hinge joint of the launching table. Another cable from the nose led to a second caterpillar stationed forward of the boat. The second cable was slacked as the first one was wound in, thus avoiding a sudden, jarring adoption of the vertical position after the point of neutral equilibrium had passed as the boat approached the vertical.
The principle employed in this delicate operation was simple and by no means new.
It somewhat resembled the method applied to the erection of telegraph poles. The landing boat hulls, however, were easily damaged, so that a high degree of skill and experience in handling heavy and bulky equipment was essential.