The Angry Planet

by John Keir Cross

  As for us, we remained dazed for a moment or two, looking at each other solemnly. And then the brief unconsciousness came, as I have described it, and when we recovered from that, it was all over. . . .

  (A Note by the Editor of MacFarlane’s Papers. At this point the book sent to me by Stephen MacFarlane comes to an end. There were, in his writing, several disjointed notes that he intended shaping into a closing sequence—I have already referred, earlier in this volume, to the incompleteness of the manuscripts with which I was provided. These notes, unlike his earlier ones, are almost unintelligible—it is quite impossible to reconstruct from them exactly how he proposed to shape his last paragraphs. I have, therefore, not thought it worthwhile to reprint them here. I leave the end of Chapter XII as above.

  One task remains to me, as editor. That is, to explain how the preceding Mss. came into my possession at all—how it came about that I saw this book through the press instead of MacFarlane himself.

  This explanation I set forth now in the form of an Epilogue, which you will find on the next page. I apologize for intruding myself on you—as editor, I should, by rights, remain very inconspicuous in the background. But, as I think you will agree, the intrusion is entirely pardonable. The Epilogue is an integral part of the book, if only in the sense that it is an integral part of the story of MacFarlane.—J.K.C.)

  AN EPILOGUE, by John Keir Cross

  Being the End of the Story of Stephen MacFarlane

  ONE day, at my flat in Glasgow, I received a bulky parcel through the post. It contained a pile of manuscripts and two letters. One of the letters was loose on top of the manuscripts, the other was in an envelope marked: Not to be opened till you have read through the contents of the parcel.

  I glanced first at the loose letter. It was quite short—one page. I recognized the close, cramped hand-writing of my cousin, Stephen MacFarlane. This is what I read:

  My dear John,—It is a long time since I have seen you, but you seem, somehow, because of your own literary inclinations, and because of all our deep private association, to be the natural man to turn to in the impasse in which I find myself.

  You will have read, no doubt, of the extraordinary stir created some months back by the flight to Mars I undertook with my old friend Andrew McGillivray, and the three children, Paul and Jacqueline Adam and Mike Malone. The various papers and magazines have issued articles from time to time (though not much lately, confound them!) describing what we saw on Mars and in space, but so far no really coherent account of the adventure has appeared in print. Attached to this letter you will find the manuscript of a book that should remedy this. It is the story of the whole experience from the beginning to the end, as told from the different points of view of each one of us that underwent it. I want you to read through these papers carefully. When you have done so, and not before, open the other letter I have written to you, which I also enclose in this package.

  I hope you enjoy the reading. As a literary man, you will at least be amused by some of the charming gaucheries in the children’s style. Yours ever,—Stephen.

  I set the parcel aside, and that evening, when I had finished my day’s work, and eaten a meal, sat down to give the book the careful reading my cousin had demanded for it. It was, of course, the book you have just read.

  I shall not weary you with a description of my reactions to the extraordinary tale. It will be sufficient to say that as I read, flashes of recognition came into my mind as I encountered some episode or description that had been written up in the Press. I am not a careful reader of the papers, but I did undoubtedly remember the great stir the news of the flight of the Albatross had caused—more so than usual because of the part my friend and cousin had played in the adventure. I also remembered that after the flurry of the first few weeks, a note of skepticism had begun to creep into the accounts—leader-writers began to say that it was all very well having a magnificent excuse for not having brought back any proof of the visit, but was it not just possible that it was only an excuse? No one had actually seen the Albatross land except three very simple-minded old French peasants. It was not beyond the bounds of possibility that the Albatross (which was, they had to admit, since it had been examined by trustworthy scientists, a working rocket) had made nothing so spectacular as a flight through space, but had, perhaps, made only a short earth flight from some quiet spot, landing at Azay. Why such a mammoth deception should be practiced they had no idea—the incurable urge in some human beings to hoax their fellow men, perhaps (after all, three of the inmates of the rocket had been schoolchildren, who are notoriously given to japes of all sorts—and another passenger had been a professional writer, skilled in the weaving of authentic-sounding romances) . . . at any rate, without casting any real aspersions on the integrity of the people concerned, they took leave to wonder, etc., etc.

  As I say, memories of all this came into my head as I read through the book. When I finished it, in the early hours of the morning, there was no doubt in my own mind that the skeptical complaints in the papers had been quite unjustified—no one could, for no seeming reason, have invented such a fantastic tale. Why should they?—what gain could possibly accrue to them from doing so? I attributed the remarks of the leader-writers to the insatiable desire of journalists to create a sensation at all costs. The technique seemed quite clear to me: first of all, create a sensation by spreading a story of a flight to Mars, then, when that begins to pall as news, stimulate fresh interest (to say nothing of the circulation of the paper!) by alleging that the whole thing has been a pack of lies—thus creating a sensation all over again.

  I was soon to see that Stephen MacFarlane and Dr. McGillivray were much more prone to be affected by the adverse remarks in the Press than I had been. When I reflect on my cousin’s character, I must confess that this does not surprise me. Let me give you a brief description of him—it is conceivable that it will interest you, since you have just finished reading some of his works, and may, indeed, from time to time, have come across one or two others of his publications.

  He is (perhaps I should say “was,” though I am loath to) a man of middle years, yet with something perpetually young about him. This is all the more surprising when you reflect that he is, basically, of a melancholy nature: secretive—as it were, haunted. He is good company, but you invariably feel that he is only superficially so—all the time, behind his merriest remark, there lurks this other sensitive self: a self preoccupied with turning over deep problems and seeking a solution to them. He believes in things profoundly and sincerely, and is hurt when people doubt his beliefs, though he invariably greets their criticisms of him with some disarmingly witty remark. In short, he is a mixture—what was called, in old German mythology, a doppelganger. As such, an enigma.

  This man had proclaimed, in all sincerity, that he had left the earth and gone to another world. And the world in which he lived had doubted the genuineness of the claim. I do not think there is a great reason to be surprised that he took the course of action he has taken.

  I reproduce now the second letter he wrote to me—the one I opened, according to his instructions, after I had read the pile of manuscripts. This is what it said:

  My dear John,—You will by this time have read the manuscripts by myself and my companions setting out our account of our journey to Mars. I was keen for you to do this before hearing what I have to say now, because I believe that anyone who reads the book will reject the accusations against Dr. McGillivray and myself made recently in the papers—and, as you will see, I consider it imperative that you should have faith in my integrity before reading any further.

  What I want you to do is to take these papers you have read, edit them, and have them published—act, in short, as my literary executor! You will ask why I pass this task to you, when obviously I myself am the man to do it. The reason is very simple. I shall not be here to do it. By the time you read these words, I shall be in outer space—I shall be, my dear John, on my way back to Mars!—and for the v
ery good reason, among others, that I prefer an Angry Planet to a Mean, Envious, Uncharitable Planet.

  Let me tell you briefly what has happened. I shall be objective—I cannot hope to explain my feelings. In any case, one never can explain things—one can only make statements. So I shall, here, content myself with describing the circumstances that have contributed to the formation of my present feelings in my heart.

  When we first returned from Mars the world greeted us with acclaim and jubilation—we were heroes, conquerors, and very, very glorious. We were invited to talk at innumerable meetings, we were interviewed, we wrote articles. But gradually a note of doubt crept in. We were accused—we, who had gone through so much!—of deliberate deception. We had no proof that we had been to Mars—and therefore, according to the specious arguments of those who are, by a stroke of irony, professional liars themselves, we could not possibly have been to Mars at all!

  I have described, in the course of my writings, the character of Dr. McGillivray—a reticent man, interested above all else in his work. You know something of my own personality. You can imagine our feelings, therefore, when we were confronted by this sudden change-round of public opinion—feelings of infinite weariness of spirit and contempt, rather than the more obvious resentment. As for the children, well, as far as this aspect of things is concerned, they hardly matter a great deal. To them, the whole thing was an adventure—it did not have the almost mystic solemnity of occasion it had for us. They are quite happy—they know it happened: they are chagrined, of course, that people do not believe them, but they are young, and look at things objectively. We were concerned with the establishment of scientific truths—not only in having an adventure. Ours is the profounder fate—the fate of Galileo, for example, confronting the Inquisition.

  At first, we did not mind the opposition a great deal—it was, in a way, natural to expect it from the popular Press, from a world such as ours with its hideously twisted sense of values. The mob always condemns that which it cannot understand—it is motivated almost entirely by envy: it hates those people who do things that it, in its heart, would like to do, but everlastingly cannot. No, all that was understandable. What galled us was when the scientific world itself began to doubt us.

  The trouble began with Kalkenbrenner of Chicago. I have mentioned him in the course of the book—in the introductory chapter, to be precise. He was a rival of Dr. McGillivray’s—a man himself profoundly interested in rocket flight. After our return from Mars he came over to see us, to have a look at the Albatross. It was obvious from the beginning that he was jealous that Mac had succeeded in solving the problem of inter-stellar flight before he had. He sneered at everything we said. In his heart he believed us, but his pride was so great that he pretended he did not. Where were our proofs? he kept on saying—we had no photographs, no samples, nothing—nothing but an array of plausible excuses.

  The snowball grew. Kalkenbrenner, after all, is a man of great reputation and influence. Other scientists associated themselves with him in his decrying of our achievement—men small in spirit but large in numbers, and therefore a force to be reckoned with. Mac was asked to resign from several societies and professional clubs—one by one the scientific journals stopped commissioning articles from him.

  All this, you must understand, has come to a head since the book you have just read was written—that is why there is no reference to it all in its pages. The sequence of events was this: 1. We returned from Mars. 2. We lectured and were fêted. 3. We went to Pitlochry for a rest, and wrote the book. At the end of the holiday, the children went back home, leaving me to put the various manuscripts in order. 4. The rot set in.

  And 5—Mac and I decided that we had had enough, and were going to leave the whole ungrateful crew—were going to leave them in the most irrevocable way of all: not by becoming hermits, or anything like that, but by disappearing from the earth altogether!

  That, dear John, is why you are being appointed my literary executor while I am still alive—an event unparalleled, I imagine, in the history of letters.

  We made our plans a month ago—secretly: even more secretly than the last time. On this trip there will be no stowaways. It was good having the children with us, but it must be faced—Mars is no place for them.

  The day before yesterday we decided the time of our departure. Yesterday and to-day have been spent in clearing up our affairs. I write this letter to you in the afternoon. When I have finished it, I shall pack up the parcel and go into Pitlochry to post it. It should reach you tomorrow, in the midday delivery. By that time we shall have gone—our time of departure is 10.43 to-morrow morning!

  The Albatross, shining and new-looking, after being re-equipped by Mac, is waiting for us in the enclosure (it was brought here by road from London shortly after our return from the first flight). It is our mechanism of escape—our road to salvation! Ave atque vale, Cousin!—hail and farewell!

  One word more. I want you personally at least to understand exactly why we are going. First, there is the reason I have mentioned—we are tired and ashamed of being misunderstood. But this does not mean we are not necessarily coming back. If we are spared on this trip, as we were on the last one, we might indeed return—we might even be forced again to return. But this time at least we shall try to remain longer, so that we can do more research—we really hope to try to remain for several years. And when—and if—we do come back, we shall this time bring proof, so that the world may be convinced at last—that, if you like, is our second reason for wanting to make the long, long journey.

  But behind and above these, there is a third reason—a more romantic one, perhaps, but to me, even more than to Mac, a potent one. Ever since we came back to earth I have found myself haunted by thoughts of the Beautiful People. Somehow, although we were with them for so short a time, they wormed their way most deeply into my affections. They were so simple, so charming, so infinitely wise in their very detachment from things, if you can understand what I mean. And I found myself often, in the night perhaps, growing full of a longing to see them again, so that I might explore them more fully—or, even more simply, so that I might experience again that ineffable sense of benevolence that came merely from being with them. The city we saw, the friends we made—these were destroyed. But there are other cities, and other friends. Malu perhaps escaped that terrible day of the attack and the eruption. Who knows? At any rate, it is in my bones that I must find out.

  We may not ever see the Beautiful People—we may be captured and devoured by the Terrible Ones. But we are, on this trip, more equipped to deal with these monsters, at least—it is something that Mac has been working on.

  It is all, at any rate, worth taking a chance on. Perhaps someday I shall be able to let you know what develops—what even stranger creatures we may find on that other world across the skies. . . . Perhaps, dear John—perhaps.

  Finally, let me say a few words about the manuscript I have asked you to edit and publish. It is, I fear, not quite complete. When the children returned home from their holiday, there were one or two passages I personally had still to do some work on. We knew the shape of the book—that had been very carefully planned from the beginning. I wrote nearly all my own contributions, but just occasionally I left a gap—a passage I wanted to spend some time on, and intended therefore to go back to when I saw the overall design of the volume before me—you, as a writer, will know the way it is. Most of these passages you will be able to tidy over and make coherent—there is only one where there is a serious gap, and that is at the beginning of Chapter V. However, I have no doubt you will contrive something. The end too is rather abrupt and incomplete. I apologize for these flaws—I would have remedied them, but in all the turmoil of this past month, ever since we decided to leave, there has simply not been time.

  I may say that I want you to publish the book because, since it has been written, it seems a pity not to do something with it. It might, too, mean a little something financially for the children—I l
eave you to make arrangements about that. Finally, it just may help to convince people of the truth of our experiences.

  Well, John, there it is. I may see you again—I can say no more than that. A flight through space is a dangerous, a terribly dangerous thing. Last time we were lucky—this time we may not be so lucky. And since there in a chance that this is the end of Mac and me, I say a good-bye to you in this letter. I cannot deny that there are many things I regret to be leaving—I regret, almost foremost among them, the end of our friendship. We have been very close to each other—I have always felt, deep in my heart, that you have understood me better than anyone else; and perhaps I can say, without presuming too much, that I have, in my own way, understood you. Sometimes I must have been a torment to you, with those “dark and secret ways” of mine, as you have called them. But withal, there have been the good times, and it is always the good times that matter. I lost my real hold on you when you met A—I always knew that, but somehow I was reluctant to give you up altogether, even though it was only the shell I clung to. Now, at last, I remove myself.

  I leave and maybe lose the world—and somehow I count it well lost. I can be assumed dead—and this brings me naturally, by way, as it were, of an epitaph to myself, to that great passage from our favorite playwright that we used so often to quote to each other:

  What do the dead do, uncle? do they eat,

  Hear music, go a-hunting, and be merry,

  As we that live?

  No, coz; they sleep.

  Lord, Lord, that I were dead!

  I have not slept these six nights. . . .

  Good-bye, dear John. Remember me.

  STEPHEN.

  The morning after reading this letter I rushed straight to Pitlochry by the first train. There might, I argued, have been a delay—perhaps MacFarlane and the Doctor had not left, as they had intended.