THE ANGRY PLANET
Living creatures—individuals—Martians!
THE ANGRY PLANET
AN AUTHENTIC FIRST-HAND ACCOUNT
OF A JOURNEY TO MARS IN THE SPACE-SHIP
Albatross,
COMPILED FROM NOTES AND RECORDS BY
VARIOUS MEMBERS OF THE EXPEDITION,
AND NOW ASSEMBLED AND EDITED FOR
PUBLICATION BY
JOHN KEIR CROSS
FROM MANUSCRIPTS MADE AVAILABLE BY
Stephen MacFarlane
THE ILLUSTRATIONS ARE BY
Robin Jacques
COWARD-MCCANN INC
NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT, 1945, BY
PETER LUNN (PUBLISHERS) LIMITED, LONDON
COPYRIGHT, 1946, BY COWARD-MCCANN, INC.
Tenth Impression
Typography by Robert Josephy
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
a collaborative eBook
Typography converted to Palatino Linotype
TO AUDREY
THE STORY
THE ANGRY PLANET
Full Page Illustrations
CHAPTER I. AN INTRODUCTION by Stephen MacFarlane
CHAPTER II. A HOLIDAY IN SCOTLAND, by Paul Adam
CHAPTER III. ON ROCKETS AND SPACE-SHIPS by Andrew McGillivray
CHAPTER IV. A JOURNEY THROUGH SPACE, by Various Hands
CHAPTER V. A MARTIAN LANDSCAPE by Jacqueline Adam
CHAPTER VI. THE MEN OF MARS by Stephen Macfarlane
CHAPTER VII. FIRST SIGNS OF AN ENEMY, by Paul Adam
CHAPTER VIII. THE FIGHT FOR THE “ALBATROSS,” by Stephen Macfarlane
CHAPTER IX. ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS
Part 1. A THEORY OF MARTIAN LIFE by Stephen MacFarlane
Part 2. A THEORY OF MARTIAN LIFE by Andrew McGillivray, F.R.S., Ph.D.
CHAPTER X. CAPTURED! by Michael Malone
CHAPTER XI. ATTACK, by Stephen Macfarlane
CHAPTER XII. THE RETURN TO EARTH, by Various Hands
AN EPILOGUE, by John Keir Cross
THE END
Full Page Illustrations
IMPORTANT
Editor’s Note on the Illustrations
Originally we had meant to illustrate this book with real photographs—Dr. McGillivray took several good cameras to Mars with him. He, Mr. MacFarlane, and the children, all used a lot of film in snapping the Martians, their houses, cities, landscapes, and so on. But there must have been something in the chemical composition of the rarefied air on Mars that was deleterious to the emulsion on the negatives, for when the photographs were developed on earth after the journey, we found that they were either completely blank or so misty that any reproduction of them was out of the question. However, Mr. Robin Jacques, the artist who has done all the drawings in this book, worked most carefully from descriptions supplied by the Albatross travelers. And they all agree that his pictures are true representations of what they saw during their fantastic adventures in the strange, romantic and terrible places they visited so many millions of miles away.
J.K.C.
Living creatures—individuals—Martians!
McIntosh, the gamekeeper
A floating game near the ceiling
What we saw was awe-inspiring and strange
Mike was swung up into the air, kicking and shouting furiously
I was free—absolutely alone under the blue sky
A huge white shape—a monstrous swaying toadstool
Enormous tremors shook the earth
We landed the Albatross in Northern France
CHAPTER I. AN INTRODUCTION by Stephen MacFarlane
MOST of the civilized world knows by this time the main outline of the story of the remarkable flight to the planet Mars made by Dr. McGillivray, of Aberdeen, Scotland, in his space-ship Albatross. This book, however, is the first publication to put forth any sort of description of the extraordinary adventures that befell Dr. McGillivray’s party on what has been called “the Angry Planet.” Naturally, Dr. McGillivray has published various articles in the scientific journals (he is now engaged on the compilation of a full-length book that will describe in detail his innumerable valuable findings). But he—being a scientist (and I know he will not mind my saying this)—is inclined in his works to pay little attention to what may be called the human side of things. So we have put together this book. It ignores—or at any rate only covers sketchily—the scientific aspect of the adventure, and concerns itself almost entirely with what happened before and during the flight, and on Mars itself.
Students of the Press will remember the world-wide sensation caused by the news, after Dr. McGillivray’s return to earth, that there had been three stowaways on the Albatross during its visit to Mars—two boys and a girl. The Doctor’s daring achievement in bridging some 35 million miles of space was spectacular enough, heaven knows: but to think that three young people—schoolchildren—had gone through the unique experience with him, and he had not even known of their presence in the Albatross till the space-ship was well away from the earth—that was news indeed! The children were fêted, filmed, interviewed, asked to speak on the radio, and presented to every Lord Mayor in the country (or so it seemed to them). By this time the shouting and the tumult have died a little, which is a good thing, for the children were heartily sick of all the fuss and were glad to get back to normal. Not that things in their own minds ever got out of perspective—they were, all three of them, too sensible to get swollen heads over the affair. But after their fantastic adventures on Mars they needed a rest in which to collect their thoughts. They have now had that rest—and, in one sense, this book proves that they have collected their thoughts; for, as you will see, they—the children—have helped to write it.
Perhaps I should, at this point, introduce myself. My name is Stephen MacFarlane, and I am (as perhaps some of you may know) a writer. I am also the uncle of one of the adventurous children—the youngest one, Mike Malone. The other two were (and, of course, still are) his cousins, Paul and Jacqueline Adam. Being Mike’s cousins they are, in a sense, also related to me, although so distantly that we have never bothered to work it all out properly. They call me Uncle Steve, of course, but I like to think that this is mainly because uncle is a term of affection!
When Dr. McGillivray—my very good friend—began experimenting some years ago with rockets and spaceships, I was his only confidant. He is, as is well known, a reticent man, wrapped up in his scientific studies. His Doctor’s degree comes from his having graduated in Philosophy at the University of St. Andrews. He is still quite a young man—in his early forties. But, as I have said, he was shy to a degree of disclosing any of his thoughts to outsiders—I was his only real friend. The history of our friendship is an interesting one, which, alas, I have no time to tell here. It will be sufficient to say that I valued his confidence deeply. When he told me that he was experimenting with rockets, that he believed strongly that he would someday design one capable of carrying passengers on stratosphere flights—that he even visualized rocket flights to the moon and the planets as a possibility, I was enormously excited. It was a subject I was intensely interested in myself. I had always believed in the possibility of life on other planets—life different from life as we knew it, perhaps, but still life. So I encouraged the Doctor with my enthusiasm, and even made over most of my savings to him so that he could go on with his experiments.
That was our chief trouble—money. The cost of the experiments was prodigious. It was a matter, you see—putting it briefly—of finding a fuel. The designing of an interplanetary rocket ship was, comparatively speaking, easy enough—though, as you can imagine, there were countless factors to be considered: weight, resistance to pressure and friction, how to pr
oduce oxygen for breathing, and so on. But all these things were easy of solution compared with the immense problem of finding a fuel—a fuel powerful enough to carry us right through the stratosphere and to give us enough impetus to take us to the gravity belt of the particular planet we proposed visiting: yet a fuel light enough and compact enough to allow of us storing sufficient of it in the rocket to be able to make a return flight to earth.
To cut a long story short, unexpected financial help came in the form of a legacy left to Dr. McGillivray by an uncle of his in America. We were overjoyed. The Doctor immediately gave up his job—he had been engaged in research work at Aberdeen University—and took a big house near Pitlochry, in Perthshire, as a workshop and experiment center. I, as it happened, had a smallish house near Pitlochry myself, where I used to retire when I had any writing to do. So I was able to see a great deal of the Doctor—indeed, I spent most of my time with him, tinkering in the laboratory, trying to understand the vast and endless formulas he worked at in his study, talking and dreaming far into the night.
Eventually, a little more than a year ago, the Doctor announced to me that he had solved the fuel problem. I shall never forget his face as he confronted me over one of the immense retorts that crowded out the laboratory. It was evening, I remember—an evening in late autumn. The mists were over the high hills all round the house, but above the hills the sky was clear and bright. The Doctor’s eyes were shining—it was almost as if there were tears in them—tears of sheer triumph. He stood there in his laboratory overalls, trembling a little from excitement, but very erect and dignified.
“I’ve done it, Steve,” he said, in a low voice. “By heaven, man, I’ve done it! There’s nothing to stop us now—we can go anywhere, anywhere!”
I thrilled to the depths. I listened to his breathless explanation, understanding only in part what he was telling me about the fuel. When he had finished I said:
“Mac—what are you going to do with it? How are you going to give it to the world—and when are you going to give it to the world?”
“Not yet, Steve,” he said, after a pause, “not for a little while yet. We’ve got to be sure. Oh, I know the world! It’s no use presenting it with theories, however perfect. It’s got to be confronted with the fait accompli—it’s got to see a thing done!”
“Mac—you mean—?”
“I mean, Steve, that you and I—only us two—are going on a journey! As soon as we can get things ready, well set off into space—to prove that this thing of mine works. I shall leave behind, when we go, a sealed envelope containing all our plans and formula, both for the ship and the fuel, with instructions that it is to be opened and the papers examined if we are not back by a certain date—that will show the world what we have attempted, at any rate. . . . Are you willing to come, Steve? I can’t promise you anything, you know—this may be no more than a particularly spectacular way of committing suicide! . . .”
I looked at him for a long time in silence. My heart was beating strongly and I felt prickles—tremors—running over my spine. I moistened my lips.
“Mac—where are we going? The moon?”
He shook his head and raised his arm to point through the huge window of the laboratory to where, low down on the horizon, one star twinkled unsteadily, its color an unmistakable red, even to the naked eye.
“Mars!” I gasped.
“Yes, Mars! It is the one planet above all others that has excited and intrigued me since ever I first thought of this whole wild idea. It’s the nearest of the planets, and it’s the one, as you know, most likely to have life on it.”
“You know what they call it,” I said, “—the Angry Planet. . . . Mac, has it struck you that even if we do get there safely—if we reach it—we . . . we mightn’t come back! We’ve no idea of what we may find. The creatures on it—if there are any—might be monsters—might tear us to pieces! . . .”
“I’ve thought of all that,” he said quietly. “I’ve thought of almost everything. I go because I wish to prove that my rocket will work, and because I am curious, as a scientist, to know what sort of life there may be on other planets besides the earth. I want you to come, Steve, because you’re a writer—because you will be able to put down, in a way that I never could, something of what we may see. And I want you to come, too, because you are my friend, and have helped and encouraged me all along in my experiments. What do you say? Do we go to Mars?”
I looked at him steadily, then held out my hand.
“We go to Mars;” I said.
We both turned and looked through the window again at the small, winking red eye of the Angry Planet, so many millions of miles away. . . .
Well, there it was. That is what we decided that autumn evening at Pitlochry. And thereafter began a period of intense activity. Endless arrangements had to be made, the rocket had to be built and equipped, every possible contingency had to be foreseen and accounted for.
Above all, we wanted the whole affair kept secret—publicity would be uncomfortable, and a hindrance. The Doctor had a few skilled laboratory assistants, and they helped us with the construction of the rocket itself—the Albatross, as the Doctor decided to call it; because, as he explained, it was a name full of the suggestion of voyages into strange and uncharted seas—it was associated with the Ancient Mariner, and we, heaven knows, were the most Modern of Mariners! The assistants worked to the Doctor’s specifications, and had no idea that they were building anything as fantastic as a real space-ship—to them, it was just another rocket—such a rocket as they had made a hundred times for the Doctor, only bigger. They knew he was experimenting with rockets, and, if truth be told, regarded him, I believe, as not much more than an amiable crank. As long as their wages were paid—and they were, most royally—that was all they cared about.
We had reckoned that the work would take about a year to complete, but we toiled so hard, and were so inspired by our enthusiasm, that everything was ready, except for a few last touches, at the end of nine months—that is, at the beginning of this last summer. That was the position when, unexpectedly, at my cottage at Pitlochry, I got a letter from my married sister in London.
I will not take up space by quoting the letter in full—my sister was a garrulous woman—indeed, as the mother of Mike Malone, how could she have been otherwise? The main drift of it all was that her husband—some sort of big business man—was off suddenly on a special mission to South America—very important—and wanted her to go with him. Now, as it happened, her sister-in-law, who lived in Dorset somewhere, had fallen ill, and had asked my sister (her name was Marian, by the way) to look after her two children for a time at her house in London. So there were the children—all three of them—with nowhere to go. “And it struck me, darling Steve” (wrote Marian), “that it would be a grand and glorious idea to send them up to you in Pitlochry for a month or two. There you are, all alone in that house of yours, doing nothing else but writing (or whatever it is you do—I never have really known). It will be the very breath of life to you to have young people about the place. They’re an absolutely delightful trio—Paul and Jacqueline (Margaret’s children) are fourteen and twelve respectively, and my Mike—whom you haven’t seen for two years, because you never deign to visit us, you old hermit—is eleven. They will be no trouble at all—Jacqueline, in fact, will be able to help your housekeeper with the chores—that is, if you’ve got a housekeeper at all: I wouldn’t put it past you to do all your own catering, like the crank you are, and live on kippers and bread and cheese and endless bottles of beer. Do be a gem, Steve, and say you will have the children. I had planned to take them all down to Bournemouth or somewhere, but that is out of the question now that Arthur insists on my going out to South America with him—he says it’s very important that I should, from the social point of view and all that sort of thing—you know how it is, dining with the wife of the firm’s Chilean representative, etc., etc. (or is Chile not in South America?—I never know). The poor things—the children, not t
he Chilean representative and his wife—will be very very disappointed if they don’t get a holiday, so do, do, do, Steve, say you will have them—I know they’d adore running about in the heather up there—it will make them very hardy and they’d simply love meeting the quaint people and hearing bagpipes and climbing mountains, etc. . . .” Thus Marian rambled on, for page after page. She finished with something quite fantastically typical: “I have booked sleepers for the children next Friday, so they should be with you on Saturday, i.e., a week to-day. I do hope it will be all right. I shall send you some cards from the Argentine (if that’s in South America as well as Chile). Your affectionate sister. Love and kisses. Marian. P.S.—Remember to see that Mike changes his socks if he gets wet in any of the bogs and things up there. P.P.S.—Never address him as Michael—he thinks it’s girlish (I called him after Michael in Peter Pan, but he hates Peter Pan). He just likes plain Mike.”
I simply did not know what to do about this letter. In one sense—because of the rocket, and the secrecy with which we had surrounded it—I did not want children running about the place. Yet there was no doubt I liked children, and I could not but agree with Marian that it would be a great pity for these three if they did not get a holiday after they had been promised one. After all, although the Albatross was finished and ready for the flight, the Doctor and I had not proposed setting off for some months. This meant that I was in a generally impatient mood, with nothing very concrete to do: I argued with myself that it would occupy my mind during the last weeks to have young companions about me. With care, the secret of the rocket could be kept from them, and they would be safely back in England and out of the way before the Doctor and I made the flight in the Albatross.
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