Publisher's Synopsis
It is early in the twenty-first century and the first three ship-loads of explorers have reached Mars. In the main, the planet is all that they had anticipated: thin atmosphere, reduced gravity; polar caps of ice and snow; temperate belts in both hemispheres; and a vast expanse of desert covering most of the surface. Yet, crossing the sands are unexplained canals with dome-shaped buildings at their intersections; obviously the work of intelligent beings. Walter Malone goes off alone to try to discover a way into one of these domes and disappears without trace. What connection is there between the missing explorer and the ancient civilisation of the Waiting World? What prehistoric secrets have lain hidden for countless centuries on the strange planet? What manner of creatures were the Martians? And have any of them survived?
