Then I noticed how rapid and effortless is motion in Mars.
Volition is so easy and penetrating, the body becomes a mere plaything
for the mind. Every function, every part is swayed into vitality by the
mind. There is the apparent motion of the limbs, but really the whole
frame sweeps on as by an intangible process of translation, and the body
is transferred to the point the mind desires it to reach almost without
fatigue. This gives strength exactly proportioned to Will, and the shorn
powers of disease and Time proceed from the creative faculty of thought.
The disabling of the body in Mars by weakness or disease, or accident or
age, sprang front a mental discord, an emotional dissonance. Here was
the explanation of those disorders that still cling to the Martian life.
In this lay also the secret of crime.
"I looked upward to Chapman, who was then peering with hand raised to
his eyes at some object before him which the Superintendent had pointed
out, and I felt sorrowful that he should be in disagreement with this
life. It boded ill. I had begun to love Chapman, and the first sense of
suffering I had felt seemed now awakened at the thought of harm coming
to him.
"But there was no time for meditation. Chapman and Alca were looking
backward and shouting. They beckoned with their arms, and as I gazed I
saw between them, and ahead of them a great black object, about which a
number of the little workmen were running excitedly like a swarm of
ants.
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