Philip Francis Nowlan

The Prince of Mars Returns Philip Francis Nowlan

I, Captain Daniel J. Hanley, chief meteorologist of the General Rocket Corporation, had no intention of going to Mars when I stepped into the new space car and pressed gently but with finality on the gravity-screen lever. I was conscious only of a great urge to get as far away as possible from a certain young woman who had-but why go into details about that? It is enough that I didn't fully realize what I was doing. And as a result, here I was, the first man ever to pass beyond the stratosphere of Earth, actually hovering a scant mile above a Martian landscape, trembling with suppressed excitement and giving not a thought to the girl who had driven me to my mad, premature plunge into space. I faced infinity with reckless abandon, and found that I liked it. What did it matter if the end came in a day, week, or month? Why, there were no days, weeks, or months in interplanetary space! Only eternal, blazing noon on one side of my tiny craft and everlasting midnight on the other, while countless galaxies gleamed upon me in new glory from all sides.