Young Visitor to Mars

Beyond the Earth

The rocket ship Shooting Star powered through the black deeps of space like a silver bullet. Inside a room of their parents’ suite aboard the vessel, Ted Kenton and his sister Jill sat before a large window looking out at the wonders of space in the year A.D. 2003.

“It doesn’t seem as if we’re moving at all, does it, Sis?” Ted asked.

Jill shook her auburn head. “No, but it scares me to know how fast we’re going!” she replied.

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Ted straightened his sturdy young shoulders and shook strands of brown hair out of his eyes. It was natural that girls should be scared of things connected with space travel, he thought. “Thousands of miles an hour isn’t much,” he said lightly.

“But what if we should hit something!” Jill complained. “It would be an awful crash!”

“The only things we have to worry about hitting are meteors,” Ted told her. “The Shooting Star has radar instruments that tell us when they’re headed straight at us.”

“Father says that sometimes meteors come so fast that space ships can’t get out of the way of them,” Jill returned, with solemn eyes.

In brotherly fashion Ted pressed the shoulder of his eleven-and-a-half-year-old sister, younger than he by a year. “Don’t start worrying about everything that can happen to us, Jill. We’ve got a lot ahead of us on Mars,” he advised.

“I—I’m not so sure I want to go to Mars,” Jill blurted. “It’s so cold and bare and lonely there, Ted. Why did Father have to sign up with the Martian Archeology Society?”

Ted looked at her with some surprise. “Dad talked this over with us. You said you wanted to go.”

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“It didn’t seem so scary then, although I didn’t really want to go, but out here in the dark where there’s never a sunrise and everything is so still and quiet, I—I feel afraid!”

“Does Dad or Mom know you feel this way?” Ted asked.

She shook her head. “Father’s counted so much on us going to Mars. He was so lonely there before without us. If he knew I didn’t want to go, he’d feel he had to get a job on Earth. But you know his first love is excavation on Mars.”

“You’ll be all right, Sis, when we get settled in our new home. They’ve got it all ready for us. Think of the fun it’ll be!” Ted said encouragingly.

Jill seemed to feel better and smiled. Both turned their attention to the wondrous misty veil of the Milky Way outside. It reminded Ted of a great caravan of countless tiny sheep trooping through the endless black of space night. Each one of those millions of light points he knew to be individual giant suns. How frighteningly huge and marvelous was God’s universe!

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