CHAPTER VIIIThunder rolled and bellowed across the night sky, mounting to a deafening crescendo. Up into the starry heavens rose a great black bulk, climbing starward on a column of fading fire. And hardly had its echoes ebbed than the dull explosions came again, and another rocket-ship took off in the unending Marslift.
Crouching with Martha in the darkness of an old pier, with the murmuring black vagueness of the Upper Harbor in front of them, Wales looked over his shoulder at the fiery finger that pointed out to man’s new home in the sky. He turned back to Martha, as she whispered to him. She was staring out over the dark water.
“I don’t see any lights, Jay. Not one.”
“They wouldn’t show lights,” he said. “They’d not advertise the fact that they’re there.”
“If they’re there,” she sa
