The Angry Planet

by John Keir Cross

  “Farewell, strangers—good journey! Remember Malu the Warrior—Malu the Tall, Prince of the Beautiful People. . . .”

  We slammed the doors. Mike, his face and clothes burned by some of the rain of lava that had fallen on him, had collapsed in a heap on the floor of the cabin beside the still form of Nuna—but he was smiling happily, unconscious as he was. Jacky was sobbing—Paul stood dazed beside her.

  Mac staggered to the control panel. He raised his hand to touch the lever that would launch us into space again. I looked through one of the lower port-holes for a last glimpse at the terrible scene. I saw, in that moment, that Malu had disentangled himself from the creature of the ladder—he stood swaying on the plateau, his sword swinging. Even as I stared I saw two more of the monsters advancing towards him menacingly. He was indomitable as he faced them. . . .

  The Doctor pressed the lever. There was a rushing, explosive sound, drowning all else. The scene faded from my view—I knew no more than I know now of the fate of Malu. Did he escape?—or was he swamped by the monsters that rushed to overwhelm him?

  For a moment a red mist swirled about the portholes. Then I felt myself losing consciousness. As I sank into oblivion my last thought was that even in these few seconds we were hundreds and hundreds of miles away from the Angry Planet. . . .

  CHAPTER XII. THE RETURN TO EARTH, by Various Hands

  1. Stephen MacFarlane. And so it is finished—“like an old wife’s story,” as the playwright has it. In that high moment, when Malu flung himself on the great yellow-and-red monster, our adventure on Mars came to an end. What follows is anti-climax—and must necessarily be so. In books, in plays, there is the contrived “curtain”—the dramatic peak of action, when all the threads are gathered together in one great explosive point: in life there is no great point—the curtain never falls. We have our moment of drama; we stand poised—but not for ever. Life goes on: we turn a corner, and eat, and sleep, and tie our shoe-laces, and it is all the same as before.

  That is the way it was with us. There was the jerk as the Albatross leapt from the heaving surface of Mars, and there was, immediately, for each one of us in the cabin, the sense of unbearable pressure I have described already in talking of our flight from earth. We lost consciousness—and one of us, alas, never recovered from the sudden shock of that desperate start. Nuna, weakened already under his wounds, and in any case much frailer than we were, and probably with organs of respiration less easily adaptable than ours, lay immovable on the floor of the cabin long after we had recovered and were shakily adjusting ourselves for another long spell of inter-stellar flight. Mike—none the worse for his collapse, and the slight burns he had received from the raining lava—moved shakily over to the limp shape of his friend, whom he had risked so much to save, and called him by name. There was no reply—no thought came into our heads from the still figure. Mike put out a hand to touch the little Martian, and immediately he went floating up into the air and stayed against the steel wall, bouncing gently against it. And we saw, unequivocally, that he was dead—he had died quite simply in the moment of acceleration. Mike’s effort had been in vain. That Nuna had been alive when Mike brought him into the rocket there was no doubt—we had seen him moving before his collapse. But he was no longer alive—he bounced and floated in the cabin with the same air of forlorn helplessness I have seen in a goldfish that has died in its bowl; his tendrils waving limply, his glaucous eyes all dulled. There was nothing we could do. With sorrow in our hearts we laid him gently in a corner of the cabin, strapping him to the floor.

  This done, we stayed quiet for a while, our heads full of unspeakable thoughts. We did not look at one another, but sat or stood with our heads bowed, preoccupied with the visions we were seeing. We were, I believe, a little crazed in the first hour—the impact of the horror of that last scene on Mars had been too great—intolerable in its effect on us and our reactions. It was already a thousand miles and more behind us, but still I seemed to see it, stark and brilliant before my eyes—the spouting lava, the great shining bubbles collapsing and melting, the writhing limbs and agonized bodies of the Martians . . . above all, the terrible spectacle of the leaders of the two great species confronting each other: the squat, flaming figure of The Center, the monstrous, jelly-like bulk of the chief of the Terrible Ones, white and evil, pulsing with sheer malevolence.

  It passed—in time it passed. We returned to normal. We were once more, in outer space, weightless—but this time there was no joy, no sense of adventure. It gave us no pleasure to be able to bounce round the cabin, to undergo the curious experience of eating from the “toothpaste tubes.” In short, the long return journey had a weariness in it—some sort of sense of defeat and frustration. There was so much we had wanted to do—so much we had not done. All about us was infinite space—a great velvet expanse, immeasurable, full of terror and mystery. The sun shone golden against the deep, deep azure, the stars were silver buttons, unwinking, in a vast and ever-subtly-changing kaleidoscope. But somehow this—yes, this unutterable glory—was old, old news to us. We longed only for the journey to end—although all the time we were haunted by the thought that perhaps it never would end; perhaps, in all the trembling of the plateau on which the Albatross had rested, the launching ramp had changed position sufficiently to throw us out of course—perhaps we would travel forever, never resting till the end of things—going nowhere. . . .

  But in time this terror passed too. We saw, behind us, the great shining disc of Mars, which, at the outset, had loomed hugely over our whole range of vision—we saw it dwindle till it seemed no more than a red, glowing tennis-ball—till eventually it was a mere speck, a star among the rest. And we saw the other star—the one we knew for earth—grow proportionately larger, shining in silver like the moon, a burnished sphere against the dark velvet of space. It grew till we saw its shining poles—till we vaguely perceived the outlines of the continents. And we knew that we were safe.

  Almost four weeks elapsed between our departure from Mars and the moment when Mac told us that we were well within the gravity-belt of earth, and that he would soon be switching on the nose tuyères to retard our flight, and pushing out the Albatross’s wings so that our landing would be smooth. Quite where we were going to land he could not say. In the limited time at his disposal for maneuvering he would be able to make roughly for Britain, but he was not altogether sure if there would be enough fuel to get us there (if you remember, we did not switch off the engines when we ought to have done on the journey out, because of all the turmoil and excitement of discovering the children, and we had therefore used up some of our precious fuel; and although this had been counteracted, to an extent, by the fact that we had not needed a great deal of fuel in starting from Mars, because of the smaller gravity-pull, the two things had not quite cancelled each other out—we were just a little on the debit side).

  We entered the swirling white mist I described when writing of our outward flight. The Doctor and Jacky adjusted their masks—Paul, Mike and myself strapped ourselves to the beds and waited, as stoically as we could, for our brief bout of unconsciousness. The Doctor reached up to touch the control levers. Beneath us, dim through the swirling mists, I saw indistinct patches of green and blue, and, for a moment before my senses left me, a corner of earth—a map, as it were—that seemed like the northern coast of Africa, with Gibraltar jutting out as a stubby finger from Spain towards it.

  And then all went blank once more. When I regained consciousness it was to the realization of a great sliding bump and tremor. Then all was still—for a moment, painfully still. We had arrived—we were back home—on earth. We were among our friends again. . . .

  * * * * * *

  As the world knows, we landed in the Albatross in Northern France, at a small village not far from Cherbourg, called Azay. The story of our sudden appearance out of the blue, and our landing in a field in which three old peasants were working, is altogether too well known to require any repetition here. The old people
were simple-minded, honest souls who accepted the Albatross quite willingly as some new type of airplane, but were utterly astonished to see five people—two adults and three children—descend from it and go rushing round their familiar field like lunatics. Jacky was laughing a little hysterically, I remember, and crying too, at the same time, and as for me, well, I confess it unashamedly—I got down on my hands and knees and actually kissed the good brown earth, digging my nails into it deeply and letting the loose damp soil, so different from the remorselessly dry soil of Mars, go running through my fingers! All this is old news now—there have been endless accounts of it all in the papers, with photographs of the Albatross resting in the field with ourselves beside it, with the old peasants—the Picaults—beside it, with the Mayor of Azay himself beside it; photographs of the Picaults giving us wine and milk after our arrival (specially posed the following day, actually, but counterfeiting quite successfully, as far as the Press and its readers were concerned, the real occasion); photographs of the Albatross being dragged by huge tractors from the little farm, being swung by great derricks at Cherbourg docks on to the ship that brought it, and us, to England.

  We landed the Albatross in Northern France

  All this has been told and retold a hundred times, and would be stale in the re-representation here. We have, all five of us, broadcast our accounts of the arrival, our impressions on landing on earth again after so many weeks in space. We have addressed meetings up and down the country, we have been banqueted and fêted—particularly the children; we have been filmed and televised—we have even made gramophone records for a well-known company, complete with sound effects supposed to represent (not very successfully, I fear) the swishing, explosive sound made by the motors of the Albatross. At the beginning of this book—this holiday task of ours—I said we would write only of the things not properly covered so far in the various accounts of our adventures that have appeared: that, in short, we would set down our honest impressions of the journey as it affected us individually. That task is done—our holiday after the great (and embarrassing) welcome we were given is at an end. We have not, in any sense, in the preceding pages, attempted to explain anything: we have simply, each in his own manner and style, set down our thoughts, our accounts of our reactions and experiences. Inevitably this book is sketchy. How can it be otherwise, being so short? Inevitably, too, it is merely the prologue, the harbinger of others. As I have already said, the Doctor is engaged in the compilation of a volume of some bulk that will set out, for the more scientific reader, an account of his innumerable valuable findings, both in space and on Mars—that will, among other things, provide an amplification of the theory on the nature of the Martians he has sketched for us in these pages. I may add that I myself am beginning work immediately on a much fuller version of the entire adventure than these present jottings present you with, and I have a feeling that Jacqueline, who is, by general consent, the most literary-minded of the children (although, by a paradox, she has contributed least to this volume), will be embarking on a long personal essay on the whole episode. She, during the memorable days of waiting on Mars, had much intercourse with the two little females we were introduced to by Malu—Lalla and Dilli. I know that she has much of interest to communicate on the subject of the domestic life of the Beautiful People. She also was able to collect, and note down, one or two of the haunting folk tales of these strange creatures—it is possible that she may be in a position soon to publish these separately in book form, either as a collection or individually.

  Until these more comprehensive volumes are ready (and, because of the vastness of the subject, it may be some time before they are), this present book must stand as an earnest of our intentions—a scenario, as it were—a synopsis of the full, detailed story. As such, it comes now to its natural end, imperfect though it may be in many aspects (for instance, I have not dwelt at length on the return journey, partly because it was in the main uneventful, and hardly different in general shape from the somewhat fully described outward flight, and partly because, for us, the adventure may be said to have ended when Malu freed us from the incubus of the thing on the ladder at the height of the volcanic eruption). It will remain only, in the final pages of this last chapter, to set out one or two documents concerning our arrival—letters, diary entries, and so on—that will, perhaps, strike a more intimate and personal note than the flaming headlines that announced to a startled world only a few weeks ago:

  MAN’S FIRST FLIGHT TO MARS

  SCOTS PROFESSOR AND WELL-KNOWN

  WRITER ACCOMPLISH SPACE-SHIP

  JOURNEY IN TWO MONTHS

  THREE CHILD STOWAWAYS ON BOARD

  These notes and jottings now follow. With them we say good-bye to you, our patient readers, and to this book, which, it must be admitted, has given us much joy in the compilation: for, in the evenings, here in my quiet little Pitlochry house—the house I feared I would never see again when first the Doctor and I set out—we have regaled each other by reading aloud the various chapters as they were written, living over again, as we did so, our adventures on that infinitely strange and different world millions and millions of miles away.

  2. Miscellanea.

  A cablegram from Jacqueline Adam to her mother, Mrs. Margaret Adam, at Upton Minster Nursing Home, Dorset:

  CHERBOURG

  ALL WELL STOP PAUL AND I HAVE BEEN TO MARS STOP ALL OUR LOVE JACKY STOP.

  A cablegram from Mrs. Margaret Adam to Miss Jacqueline Adam, Cherbourg:

  UPTON MINSTER

  DELIGHTED TO HEAR FROM YOU MY DARLINGS STOP DADDY AND I THRILLED BY NEWS JUST SEEN IN PAPERS STOP ALL OUR LOVE STOP HURRY HOME MUMMY STOP.

  A cablegram from Mrs. Marian Malone to Michael Malone:

  LONDON

  AUNT MARGARET HAS JUST PHONED ME NEWS YOU NAUGHTY BOY COME HOME SOON STOP HAD TO RETURN FROM ARGENTINE WHEN YOU WENT MISSING STOP DADDY WILL BE FURIOUS STOP LOVE TO UNCLE STEVE STOP LOVE MOTHER STOP.

  A cablegram from Dr. Marius B. Kalkenbrenner to Dr. Andrew McGillivray:

  CHICAGO

  CONGRATULATIONS ON REMARKABLE ACHIEVEMENT STOP COMING OVER TO CONSULT STOP.

  A letter to her mother written by Jacqueline Adam from her aunt’s home in London:

  My darling Mummy,—It’s very probable that we shall be seeing you almost as soon as this letter reaches you, if not before it altogether. But that doesn’t matter in the least little bit—this letter is not meant to be full of news, for there is far too much of that to be written down—it will all have to wait till we meet. It is just that I am so terribly excited at the thought of seeing you again that I must just say something to you straight away.

  As you can see from the address we are at last at Aunt Marian’s house in London. We had to come straight here from Cherbourg because there is so much to do—they want us to broadcast, for one thing, and then there are all the newspaper people to be seen. But Paul and I have said that we are not having any more of it. The broadcast is tomorrow night (be sure to listen), and immediately it is over we are going to come down to see you—Daddy is going to bring us, I heard him discussing it all with Uncle Steve when he arrived from Dorset this morning. People are arranging all sorts of things for us—one of the newspapers is fixing a lecture tour all over the country, and although Paul and I said we were no good at lecturing (imagine us trying!), they said we ought to go all the same, that people would want to see us at least, even though Uncle Steve and Doctor Mac did all the actual talking. So we may have to leave again soon to go on this tour (the newspaper is making all arrangements for us to get off school for it, so that’s not a bad thing), but anyway we are going to have at least a few days with you—we insist on that absolutely.

  Oh Mummy, I can’t tell you how lovely it is to be back again! It has been a wonderful adventure in many ways, but it was very terrible too, and I’m very glad it’s over. Sometimes, you know, I can hardly believe that it happened at all—and yet at other times it all comes back in a sort of wave and I know I shall ne
ver, never forget it, not as long as I live. Some of the people of Mars were lovely—I wish you could have seen them, or that we could have brought them back with us. You would have been very fond of Lalla and Dilli, my own two special friends. Oh, but it isn’t any use talking like this—it is all over, and it did all happen. And we’re back again, among all our own people. It’s so wonderful to see everything just exactly as it was before we set off—somehow, when we were looking at the earth from Mars, and it was only a star, it wasn’t possible to think that places like London existed at all—even that Britain existed. But here it all is, not one little bit different—and oh, how good it is to be able to sleep on a real bed again, and to be our own weight, and to eat proper food, not leaves and tinned stuff and the vitamin pastes out of Doctor Mac’s toothpaste tubes!

  Aunt Marian has been very kind. She pretended to be a bit angry with Mike at first—she said he must have been the ringleader, and that if he had behaved himself it probably wouldn’t have happened to us at all. But that was all just hot air. She was really terribly glad and relieved that nothing serious had happened to us, after all the worry of thinking we had been lost up in the hills at Pitlochry. Doctor Mac took all the blame—he said it was all his fault, that he should have looked over the Albatross thoroughly before setting off and that he probably would have found us then. Aunt Marian thinks he is “sweet,” so really she has completely forgiven Mike and the rest of us, it’s only that she likes to make a bit of a fuss. Besides, I believe that secretly, in her heart, she was glad to get back from South America—she didn’t really fit in there. And then of course there’s all the excitement of the newspaper men and the B.B.C. people coming all round the house to interview us—she’s having the time of her life, if truth be told—you know the way she is.