This method had been used by two ships only in the ferry activity, but near Mars it was proposed to slave the whole flotilla of nine to Polaris. Ten captains lay strapped in their control rooms, ready to make corrections by hand if the automatics should fail or an alteration in the ships' relative positions should prove necessary. Thus there could be no danger of the vessels being drawn together in a mass collision, or by any malfunction in the flagship's mechanism.
Polaris was now the last in line, astern of all the others. Next ahead was Sherman in his completely repaired Aldebaran. Haynes' Ziolkowsky spread her wide wings in the next position and at the head of the column flew Laroche in Vega.
Two minutes before the maneuver, Holt ordered the navigators out of their astrodomes and to their acceleration couches, for Royer had informed him that the vertex of the hyperbola would be missed by but 12 kilometers, and this could easily be allowed for by a slight change in the length of the thrust application. Computation was now to be laid on the shelf. The proper guidance tapes were inserted so that the automatic mechanisms could take over. The next minutes would show whether the various ingenious devices had survived the rigors of the long, idle voyage and whether John Wiegand's precision was to bear its fruit. A malfunction of the most insignificant part of the machinery might bring disaster upon the ship where it took place. Each vessel was faced with a passage between the Scylla of an all-shattering crash on Mars and the Charbdis of losing herself in space forevermore on the second branch of the hyperbola.
"X minus one minute…," came Holt's voice through the bull horns.
The once weary hours spent in the synthetic trainers returned to the crews. Captains and navigators checked the spatial attitudes of their commands. Engineers went over the checklists of control gyro planes, automatic steering gear, and the readiness of rocket motors. Each and every gauge and indicator seemed to smile encouragingly at them.
They lay back on their couches. The fateful second hands of the clocks jerked towards the deciding moment.
"6 — 5 — 4 — ," came Holt's quiet voice.
Knight firmly pushed Polaris igniter button. On Holt's panel a red bulb glowed, to be followed by the nine others showing that ignition had been all but simultaneous on the other vessels.
" — 2 — 1 — "
The thrust roared out and a column of green bulbs lit up across Holt's panel. The whole convoy was now pushing against their self-created gases to reduce the precipitous speed!
But weak indeed was the deceleration! The indicators showed a bare 0.2g — only a miserable one-fifth of Earth's gravitational force. The oldest space men in the crews could not but realize how different was a true voyage through space from an Earth launching, where they were almost crushed by acceleration at the end of the booster thrusts.
"Convoy from Polaris. Reports from Laroche, please."
"Polaris from Vega. Formation's good, except for 20 percent lateral between numbers 3 and 4. First three ships are a little too far inside."
"Roger, thank you. Burck, did you hear?"
"Roger."
"Haul out 60 meters. Over"
"Roger, willco. Over"
A little later, Burck called, "Now on station. Out."
Holt instructed Oberth and Vega to follow suit, then Laroche reported the stationkeeping above reproach.
The thrust maneuver was to last 10 minutes and 58 seconds, and the accelerometer rose slowly to the figure of 0.45g. Holt's eyes flickered between the clock and the integrating velocimeter where was registered the speed reduction produced by the thrust working against their direction of travel. When it read 2.01 km/sec there was silence, and the hand of the accelerometer snapped to zero. The roar of the rocket motor, transmitted by the structure of Polaris, had suddenly ceased, as the ten green bulbs on Holt's panel went out — Polaris'' integration gear had simultaneously cut off the thrust in the whole convoy by radio.
Holt called for reports in a dry, tense voice. When Laroche's French accent pronounced the final, "All's well," a shout of joy came from all the bull horns.
Cutting off reception from the other ships, Holt relaxed above his couch with closed eyes. A mumbled prayer rose from his lips. "Thanks to Thee, O Lord, we've done it. Be Thou with us henceforward. Amen."
Chapter 20 — The Red Planet Bares His Secrets
Hardly had the maneuver of retardation been completed than Bergmann called from Vega to ask Holt if he might have Goddard send him a busy bee so that he might get his telescope working. His request was turned down until two hours later, when Royer reported that they were making good their satellitic orbit with excellent accuracy. They were whirling around Mars in an almost perfectly circular path at an average of 1,009 kilometers from his surface. Holt then put the formation back into line and told Bergmann to go ahead with his observation work, for he himself was only too curious about the fantastic scene below them.
The naked eye could easily distinguish the canals with their green, symmetrical intersections, and no sooner had Bergmann reported from Goddard that he was in full swing with his observing than Holt's busy bee was on its way to the free-floating observation chamber of the telescope.
Bergmann opened the hatch and emerged in his space suit to greet him. "What's the latest news from Mars?" asked Holt through his microphone. His curiosity was almost getting the better of him.
Bergmann shook his head. "So far, it's mighty scarce," he answered. "No towns, no streets, no movement anywhere. The whole planet seems dead as a doornail. But somehow there's an impression of symmetry entirely uncharacteristic of death. Quite frankly, I'm just as dumb as ever."
Inside the observation chamber, they removed their helmets.
"Let me have a look," said Holt.
"Wait until I set the 'scope at a point just West of Syrtis Minor in the region we call Libya."
Bergmann arranged himself in front of the eyepiece and twirled the leveling controls, continuing meanwhile, "this zone lies South of and close to the equator, between the famous Syrtis Major and Syrtis Minor. It is surrounded on the south, east, and west by vegetation and is bounded on the north by the broad Canal of Nepenthes, which there leads through Moeris Lake, a small, circular spot of vegetation.
"Libya stretches about 300 km north and south and 500 km east and west. I'm using low power at present, so that you can see the whole area. Take a look."
Holt drew himself to the eye-piece. In the center of the bright orange-red desert which Bergmann had called Libya, there was a circular, green speck into which not less than seven canals of varying breadth terminated radially. Some of the canals connected with the large vegetal areas of Syrtis Minor and Major. Two of them proceeded with admirable parallelism from the great, green circle of Moeris Lake, cut rectilinearally by the broad Napenthes Canal.
Holt gazed reflectively for a long time into the telescope. Then he withdrew and looked inquiringly at Bergmann. "It's incomprehensible," he said.
"Try 2,000 diameters magnification. Then it will seem as though we are only 500 meters above it, although the field of vision will be smaller."
When Holt looked again, the circular edge of the green island cut half way through the field of view. Holt was forced continuously to adjust the telescope setting to prevent their motion in the satellitic orbit and the rotation of the planet from losing the location on which he was focused.
The drag of the air, heightened by brake flaps at their tails, would decelerate them and bring them to Earth with diminishing velocity.
The sounding bomb was equipped with a parachute opening automatically at an altitude of some 125 kilometers, while the atom bombs had continued at high speed until their proximity fuses detonated them not far above the ground. The 'chute was intended to delay it, particularly in the little-known lower layers of the Martian atmosphere, which were of such vital importance to the landing.