Project Gutenberg #62
A Princess of Mars
Edgar Rice Burroughs
1912Burroughs's first Barsoom planetary romance, prepared foreword and chapter by chapter from Project Gutenberg plaintext.
Project Gutenberg #62 Public domain in the United States Cover source Local typographic cover created for MojiMori from public-domain source metadata
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AI Summary
Chapter 23 — CHAPTER XXIII Lost In The Sky Central question What happens when flight becomes another form of danger? Main argument The sky is not freedom by itself; it is another space where Carter can be...
to my
consternation that a fragment of the projectile had utterly destroyed
my only guide, as well as my speedometer. It was true I could follow
the stars in the general direction of Helium, but without knowing the
exact location of the city or the speed at which I was traveling my
chances for finding it were slim.
Helium lies a thousand miles southwest of Zodanga, and with my compass
intact I should have made the trip, barring accidents, in between four
and five hours. As it turned out, however, morning found me speeding
over a vast expanse of dead sea bottom after nearly six hours of
continuous flight at high speed. Presently a great city showed below
me, but it was not Helium, as that alone of all Barsoomian metropolises
consists in two immense circular walled cities about seventy-five miles
apart and would have been easily distinguishable from the altitude at
which I was flying.
Believing that I had come too far to the north and west, I turned back
in a southeasterly direction, passing during the forenoon several other
large cities, but none resembling the description which Kantos Kan had
given me of Helium. In addition to the twin-city formation of Helium,
another distinguishing feature is the two immense towers, one of vivid
scarlet rising nearly a mile into the air from the center of one of the
cities, while the other, of bright yellow and of the same height, marks
her sister.