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"I received a nice letter the other day from the Dalai Lama. He had read 'The Nine Billion Names of God'. It is about a computer at a Tibetan monastery."
- Arthur C. Clarke
 |
| Mars-Tube | ||
| A remarkable subway system beneath the surface of Mars. |
It seems that the Martians were building under the surface.
| OF THE many wonders of the red
planet, the one that the exploration party had come to appreciate most was the colossal system of subways which connected each of the underground cities of Mars.
With absolute precision the web of tunnels and gliding cars still functioned, and would continue to do so until the central controls were found by some Earthman and the vast propulsive mechanisms turned off. The Mars-tube was electrostatic in principle. The perfectly round tunnels — through which the subway sped were studded with hoops of charged metal. The analysis of the metal hoops and the generators for the propulsive force had been beyond Earthly science, at least as rep-resented by the understaffed exploring party. Through these hoops sped the singlecar trains of the Mars-tube, every four minutes through every hour of the long Martian day. The electrostatic emanations from the hoops held the cars nicely balanced against the pull of gravity; save only when they stopped for the stations, the cars never touched anything more substantial than a puff of air. The average speed of the subway, stops not included, was upwards of five hundred miles an hour. There were no windows in the cars, for there would have been nothing to see through them but the endless tunnel wall slipping smoothly and silently by. So easy was the completely automatic operation that the men from Earth could scarcely tell when the car was in motion, except by the signal panel that dominated one end of the car with its blinking lights and numerals.
 ('Mars-Tube' by S.D. Gottesman) Stanton led Annamarie to a station with ease and assurance. There was only one meaning to the tear-drop-shaped guide signs of a unique orange color that were all over Mars. Follow the point of a sign like that anywhere on Mars and you’d find yourself at a Mars-Tube station—or what passed for one. Since there was only one door to a car, and that opened automatically whenever the car stopped at a station, there were no platforms. Just a smaller or larger anteroom with a door also opening automatically, meeting the door of the tube-car. A train eventually slid in, and Stanton ushered Annamarie through the sliding doors. They swung themselves gently onto one of the excessively broad seats and immediately opened their notebooks. Each seat had been built for a single Martian, but accomodated two Terrestrials with room to spare. |
| Technovelgy from Mars-Tube,
by S.D. Gottesman. Published by Astonishing Stories in 1941 Additional resources -
|
The explorers find their way inside a giant cavern:
“Josey! Get out of the Tube! There’s a train coming!”
The dimly visible figure of the Roéntgenologist straightened and turned toward the others querulously. Then as the significance of that rapidly mounting hiss-s-s-s became clear to him, he leaped out of the tube, with a vast alacrity. A split second later the hiss had deepened to a high drone, and the bulk of a car shot past them, traveling eerily without visible support, clinging to and being pushed by the intangible fields of force that emanated from the metal hoops of the Tube.
Compare to the air tunnel from Through the Air Tunnel (1929) by Harl Vincent, the submarine tube from An Express of the Future (1895) by Michel Verne, the
sub-Atlantic tunnel from Ralph 124c 41 + (1911) by Hugo Gernsback, the
pneumatic tube station from Exiles of the Moon (1931) by Nat Schachner (w. AL Zagat), the
pneumatic-tube zone from Mechanocracy (1932) by Miles J. Breuer, the
vacuum cylinder from Wandl, The Invader (1939) by Ray Cummings, the tubeway from Death in the Tubeway (1939) by Stanton Coblentz, the
vortal tube from Whipping Star (1969) by Frank Herbert, the
public vehicle tube from The Houses of Iszm (1954) by Jack Vance, the
vacutubes from Double Star (1956) by Robert Heinlein and the
bounce tube from Double Star (1956) by Robert Heinlein.
The underground pneumatic tube train concept was originally proposed for freight delivery by George Medhurst, a London businessman in the early nineteenth century. His second proposal in 1812 was for a system that delivered people.
“Is that what the Mars-Tube looks like from inside?” he hissed piercingly.
As their eyes became acclimated to the gloom—they dared use no lights—the others made out the lines of a series of hoops stretching out into blackness on either side ahead of them. No lights anywhere along the chain of rings; no sound coming from it...
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'...the spreading beam of the deranging ray struck them, and Then one toppled and fell. Then another.'
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'The men are dead, but their acquired wisdom lives on and I am the beneficiary.'
'Young people found the driverless car admirable for petting.'
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