ths were in steady and intelligent communication with them.

"They asked us first concerning earth, its climates and seas and
continents, and concerning ourselves, our races and mechanisms and
weapons. Much information we flashed out to them, the language of our
communication being English, the elements, of which they had learned,
with a mixture of numbers and symbolical dot-dash signals.

"We were as eager to learn about them. They were somewhat reticent, we
found, concerning their planet and themselves. They admitted that
their world was a dying one and that their great canals were to make
life possible on it, and also admitted that they were different in
bodily form from ourselves.

"They told us finally that communication like this was too
ineffective to give us a clear picture of their world, or vice versa.
If we could visit Mars, and then they visit earth, both worlds would
benefit by the knowledge of the other. It seemed impossible to me,
though I was eager enough for it. But the Martians said that while
spaceships and the like were impossible, there was a way by which
living beings could flash from earth to Mars and back by radio waves,
even as our signals flashed!"

* * * * *

Randall broke in in amazement. "By radio!" he exclaimed, and Milton
nodded.

"Yes, so they said, nor did the idea of sending matter by radio seem
too insane, after all. We send sound, music by radio waves across half
the world from our broadcasting stations. We send light, pictures,
across the world from our television stations. We do that by changing
the wave length of the light-vibrations to make them radio vibrations,
flashing them out thus over the world, to receivers which alter their
wave-lengths again and change them back into light-vibrations.

"Why then could not matter be sent in the same way? Matter, it has
been long believed, is but another vibration of the ether, like light
and radiant heat and radio vibrations and the like, having a lower
wave-length than any of the others. Suppose we take matter and by
applying electrical force to it change its wave-length, step it up to
the wave-length of radio vibrations? Then those vibrations can be
flashed forth from the sending station to a special receiver that will
step them down again from radio vibrations to matter vibrations. Thus
matter, living or non-living, could be flashed tremendous distances in
a second!

* * *