The Martian Epic

by Octave Joncquel

  In the Place de la Trinité, I believe, at the corner of the Rue Saint-Lazare, a squadron of firemen gathered around their pump were directing powerful jets at the forefront of a torrent of red gas that as slowly spilling out of the Rue de Londres. By means of some inexplicable phenomenon, however, an enormous flame—whose hiss we could hear through the walls of the cockpit—sprang forth on contact with the water and leapt up tumultuously to the level of the uppermost floors of the neighboring buildings, in which fires immediately broke out.

  We were still going forwards, through—heading straight for the Rue Dupleix, as Leduc shouted to me—and the roaring curtain of flame, above which we would have to pass, hypnotized us. The waves of burning naphtha which, it was said, spread everywhere at Baku, on the Caspian Sea, surely could not have presented a more frightful grandeur than was offered by the Seine transformed in its course downstream into a flaming Phlegethon, nourished by four or five subsidiary streams of red gas. One of them, in the Place de la Concorde, emptying out furiously from a sort of monstrous hearth, was emerging obliquely from a vast crater in which an entire terrace of houses had been engulfed, at the entrance to the Rue Royale.

  I leapt immediately to the conclusion that that this was the main body of the Martian machine, the residue of the Torpedo that had, by some means, projected a scattering of secondary fires over the whole of Paris as it fell.

  A white Air Police helicopter—none of those we had passed thus far had paid any attention to us—attempted to prevent us from flying over the burning Seine, but we had already crossed the rim of the tumultuous furnace, whose heat and smoke reached us at an altitude of 400 meters.

  The Left Bank offered the same spectacle as the Right: the rutilant fire-generating gas was covering the whole of Paris! But Sylvain had eyes for only one thing amid the disaster: the building that sheltered his wife, No. 7, Rue Dupleix. A frightful anxiety caused his hands to clench on his control-levers, to the point at which our helicopter made an abrupt pitching movement, when he saw that the palace of the Terrestrial Directorate—which had occupied the greater part of the Champ de Mars, immediately behind the Eiffel Tower, for twenty years—was on fire. Three-quarters of the palace was ablaze, and people who had taken refuge on the cornices of the part that was still intact raised their arms towards us, appealing for help—for the fatal tide of red gas had filled all the adjacent streets. Official rescuers were arriving in their white helicopters though, and my friend’s anxious eyes had already recognized his conjugal home beyond the Place Dupleix.

  “Can you see Gabrielle?” he asked me, in a strangled voice—for he could not release the controls in order to look through the binoculars.

  I recognized her, dressed in a white nightgown, among the 15 or 20 people waving on the roof-terrace.

  “God be praised!” cried Leduc. “But we have to snatch her out of there!”

  “Snatch” was no exaggeration; while our helicopter, having arrived above the building, descended prudently to set down, the refugees jostled one another, gesticulating madly, in the hope of being taken aboard and saved from imminent danger—a danger still mysterious to us, for the flood of poisonous gas could not reach them at that height, and there was no trace of fire in their immediate surroundings.

  Our propulsive engines stopped; the supportive rotors maintained us three meters above the terrace, hovering. With one hand, Leduc drew a long white rod from an inside pocket and, after a moment’s hesitation, handed it to me.

  “It’s a matter of necessity, worse luck!” he murmured. “Take the blaster, Léon. You point it like this and you simply press this black button marked F… Not the red one, whatever you do! Don’t hesitate to clear the ground. We have two available places, but only Gaby must go up with us; it’s impossible to choose another passenger—there are too many! Open the cockpit, lower the ladder, and fire on anyone who isn’t Gaby.”

  As soon as I had carried out his preliminary orders, he shouted at the top of his voice: “Gaby!”

  Ten strong hands reached out from a frenetic crowd of men, however, pushing the women aside, to grab the bottom rungs of the rope-ladder. Despite my injunctions, a Herculean specimen clad in blue pajamas with pink roses had already begun to climb up. His apoplectic clean-shaven face was almost touching my blaster, of which I dared not make use, when Sylvain shouted: “Only Gaby! Everyone else back! Shoot them down!” My trigger-finger clenched; a brief jet sprang forth from the weapon, and the Hercules, his head blown away, let go and fell back, as stiff as a tailor’s dummy. All the hands let go of the ladder, and our assailants recoiled in fright before the threat of my blaster.

  “Gaby!” Sylvain called out. “Quickly, Gaby!”

  Hurling herself into the free space, the young woman bounded towards me. She clutched the rope-ladder, but was unable to get her feet on it. With a supreme effort, I lifted her up by her wrists, drew her into the cockpit, then released the ladder on to the howling mob of doomed malcontents. I had not yet closed the door when I was thrown on the transparent floor, on all fours, by our abrupt vertical ascent.

  After ten seconds, however, frightful cries of despair became audible. With inexpressible horror, I saw the group of refugees, already tiny, staggering like drunkards; the whole terrace tipped, at an increasing angle, pitching them over the balustrade into empty space. With a thunderous sound of crumbling masonry, the entire house collapsed like a house of cards into the tide of red gas, which closed over its wreckage.

  At the sight of the hideous death from which we had just saved her, Madame Leduc fainted in her seat. While trying to bring her round I warned my friend that the controls of the machine demanded his full attention as pilot.

  “Anyway,” he replied, “we can’t stay in the air indefinitely watching Paris burn. We have to land somewhere.”

  But where? It could not have been more than 20 minutes since our arrival over the capital—an hour in total since the fall of the Martian Torpedo—but in that short time, the catastrophe had assumed immeasurable proportions. The infernal vapors were gaining ground around their seething wellsprings and were infiltrating all the arterial roads, great and small, whose network was traced in red on the enormous plan of the city displayed below us, traversed by the curves of its flaming river, peppered with bloody stains, and smeared with the smoke of rapidly-multiplying fires.

  While we moved horizontally, uncertain as to which direction to take and fascinated by the grandiose horror of the spectacle, we saw two or three more terraces of houses crumble and collapse, eaten away at the base by the corrosive inundation, like cubes of sugar melting in hot tea. The noise of these collapses and the cries of their victims, punctuated the formidable tumult rising from the disaster: rumbling and booming sounds; explosions; the howling sirens of police helicopters. The helicopters were whirling like a flock of terrified seagulls, filling the air that was pierced here and there by a roof loaded with refugees, occasionally peeling off to head for one or other of the culminating points spared by the red flood: Montmartre, the Buttes-Chaumont, the Observatoire…

  Despite the 500 meters of altitude that Leduc was now maintaining, a ruddy mist was beginning to surround us, and puffs of acrid smoke infiltrated the cockpit through the door that I had been unable to close properly. Gabrielle, revived by that improvised revulsive, coughed, opened her eyes and took cognizance of the situation. She was a cool-headed woman and she was able, this time, to calm her nerves.

  The spectacle of Paris, murdered by the Martian gas, drew a long strangled sob from her at first; then, throwing her arms around her husband’s neck, she leaned her cheek gently on his helmet and said to him: “What are you doing, Sylvain? We can’t stay here—we have to go to Mont-Valérien. We’ll get news there…besides which, it’s my post.” And while Leduc, following this judicious advice, directed our aircraft towards the hill bristling with the gigantic antennas of the official TSF controlling the entire world’s communications, the young woman hid her face in her hands, and added: “Oh, are
they going to allow all Paris to burn and perish? Why haven’t these gas-fires been put out?”

  The answer to that question was all too obvious, and Gabrielle provided it herself while we flew at top speed over the outlying districts, not yet as badly afflicted as the city center, whose streets were swarming with panicked crowds fleeing for the suburbs. The Jovian astronomers’ error in indicating Nancy as the place where the Martian Torpedo would fall had caused all means of defense to be concentrated around that city. Who knew, given the destruction of the seat of the Terrestrial Directorate, from where the initiatives of the world government would now emanate? Who knew whether a single Director had survived to send orders to Nancy to bring the means of defense back to Paris, with all possible haste?

  IV. The Terrestrial Director at Mont-Valérien

  We realized, as we touched down at Mont-Valérien, that our fears were only too justified. Apart from a few idle mechanics and a couple of distant night-watchmen chatting on the main steps with the concierge of the TSF buildings, the airstrip was deserted.

  One sole helicopter had just set down there, immediately ahead of our own, so awkwardly that it had tipped over half-way and broken its forward propulsive unit. A bare-headed individual stepped down from the cockpit, violently berating his pilot—a civilian, certainly, not a qualified aviator—and came towards our group. He was a little old man in spectacles, gaunt and bald but sprightly, dressed in a frock-coat and black trousers, ripped and stained as if by acid. His feet were bare inside his slippers, and his right hand was wrapped in a blood-stained handkerchief. Despite this sordid appearance, his genially-wrinkled forehead and his features, hardened by an expression of inflexible determination, revealed him to be a leader of men.

  Gabrielle recognized him immediately. “Gideon Botram, the deputy Terrestrial Director!” she whispered to us, while adjusting her night-attire as best she could.

  Although I was unfamiliar with officialdom, I imitated Gaby and Sylvain, rectifying my stance under the Director’s eagle eye. He spoke in a rapid and trenchant voice.

  “Why is there no one but you here? Has the entire staff of Mont-Valérien been massacred, along with my colleagues? Yes, I believe I’m the sole surviving Director. They’ve struck at the head, these Martian bandits! But what are you doing, Mademoiselle? TSF, aren’t you? You should be at your post. Has anyone warned the Commander of the anti-Martian forces at Nancy yet? You don’t know? Quickly, then, to the controls! You, the pilot-officer”—he pointed his left index-finger at Sylvain’s winged insignia—“I’m requisitioning you and your machine for my personal use.”

  Trotting along in his slippers, the lively old man drew us in his wake towards the central service building, where a few heads were visible at the windows. He looked me up and down questioningly. “And you,” he continued, “Who are you, eh?” I told him. “A publicist? We’ve got work for you. You’ll replace my secretary, who’s back in the ruins with so many others. Do you know, by any chance, how to treat a burn?” He extended his wounded hand to me. “No? Pity. These Martian gases are much stronger than the red-tinted vapors of nitric acid, for they devour everything. On contact with water, moreover—or flesh, which contains water—they decompose, bursting into flames. Flames, Monsieur! Hell must burn like that!”

  At these words, I understood what a horrible death it was to which thousands of my contemporaries had been condemned, but I did not have the leisure to mourn their fate, for we had arrived in the vast control-room, where three employees got up and came to meet their Master. One of them informed him, timidly, that he had taken it upon himself to inform the Commander of the anti-Martian forces, who had demanded official confirmation and precise orders before setting out for Paris.

  These orders were dictated, in the most severe terms, by Gideon Botram, whose eyes were glittering with rage behind his gold-rimmed spectacles. It had, therefore, been sufficient for the heads of government be disposed of in the hour of peril—and for the sole survivor among them, the deputy Director, to remain blockaded in his room for more than 50 minutes before help arrived—to paralyze the defenses completely!

  There, we put our finger on the hazards of excessive centralization, which is solely adapted to normal circumstances. Today, the salvation of Paris, or that part of it which could still be saved, and tomorrow, the success of the war to resist the brutal Martian aggression—perhaps along with the destiny of humankind—rested on this frail old man, who set us an example of marvelous activity and distributed his orders with a perfectly cool head.

  In addition to the forces from Nancy, the airbuses from the suburban depots were sent in haste to the factories of Seine-et-Oise to collect provisions of industrial explosives, for want of engines of war, which had been suppressed for thirty years by universal disarmament—that supreme victory of civilization, which humankind would, alas, regret! They returned under the control of the finest pilots, who dropped the explosives on the fire-vomiting wellsprings in the region of Paris.

  I was charged with reorganizing by TSF the communication services that had been suppressed at a stroke by the disappearance of the central telegraphic offices and printing presses of the capital—and drawing up a report on the catastrophe.

  Meanwhile, Gabrielle Leduc, having put on her working uniform over her night-dress, resumed her duties and deciphered the most recent news from Jupiter received by the great observatories of Mont Blanc and Gaurisankar. She released a sudden exclamation; then, in a voice tremulous with emotion, pausing at intervals to consult a little dictionary, she began to read to us, translating the string of Jovian signals on the blue strip of the receiver as it came in.

  “New projectile launched by Mars towards Earth today…. Supreme Jovian Council met on Ganymede…. After a demand addressed in vain to the people of Mars to cease their unjustified hostilities… in the name of sidereal Fraternity… and immanent Justice… which are the supreme rules of planetary humankinds…. and of which Jupiter has constituted herself the defender on behalf of the Solar System… decides unanimously…. to come to the aid of our sister planet Earth by any means possible… and decrees… in view of the unspeakably obstinacy of Mars… that the aforesaid felon planet is set outside the law of love and sidereal fraternity… and that all the scientific resources of Jupiter will be set to work with the least possible delay to inflict the most exemplary chastisement upon the Martians…. To the people of Earth, courage and fraternity!”

  At this unexpected news, a cheer sprang forth from our throats and those of the telegraph-operators—whose numbers had swelled to about a dozen—which the redoubtable presence of their Master could not inhibit. An alliance between Earth and the Planet of Wisdom! A general mobilization of Jupiter against the vile Martians! Gideon Botram himself forsook his Olympian serenity, and had to take off his spectacles to wipe away a tear of sublime joy and gratitude.

  I hastened to finish my report on this vague but grandiose hope. It lessened to some degree the demoralizing effect of the destruction of Paris, when a skillful operator placed at my disposal transmitted it from the giant antennae of Mont-Valérien to the reception-desks of all the newspapers in France, Europe and the entire world—which is to say, to the three billion inhabitants of the Earth!

  By means of the large bay windows of the hall, our eyes were continually redirected to the distressing spectacle of Paris on fire, but the details of the catastrophe gradually ceased to be visible beneath the ruddy fog flowing in heavy red and black waves, amid which the flying rescue-aircraft—police helicopters and stout airbuses in blue, green or yellow suburban livery—could barely be made out. Some of the latter, each loaded with 50 or 60 refugees, were even setting down on the Mont’s airstrip to discharge their cargoes, but contingents of the Senegalese gendarmerie, summoned by the Director at the very beginning, had already arrived from their suburban headquarters and had formed a defensive cordon around his person, ours and the buildings of the TSF, the provisional seat of government. Within the shelter of that cordon,
the brain of the Director of the Earth—so to speak—gradually recovered from its confusion.

  This precaution, which we were inclined to see at first as a mere formality, soon proved to be necessary. An hour afterwards, it was no longer merely the occasional airbus that was attempting to reach our inaccessible summit from the mounting waves of red gas. Wheeled vehicles of every sort—cars, motorcycles and bicycles, and even the horse-drawn carriage of a self-indulgent millionaire—had followed in a tumultuous and clamorous crowd, amid clouds of dust, along the roads passing the foot of the hill, fleeing towards the distant suburbs.

  Once this initial exodus was reduced to a trickle, it was the turn of fugitive pedestrians, already exhausted by walking 10 or 15 kilometers from the center of Paris, who broke off to mount waves of assault upon the Mont, which they attempted to climb in search of shelter for the night. The torrential multitude of these refugees, disgorged by every road, flowed towards our redemptive summit, breaking down fences, uprooting hedges, scattering through the gardens and enclosures, climbing up in their myriads, like an ant-hill thrown into panic by the heel of a strolling pedestrian.

  Despite our black guard, we experienced an irrational terror at seeing this mad crowd of invaders moving towards us, with its lugubrious clamor. Men, women, children and old people, they paid no heed to anything—neither the warnings broadcast by megaphone, nor the demands of the gendarmerie—while they attempted to force a way through the military cordon. Inflexible followers of orders, the Senegalese made use of blasters, and the near-silent nature of these terrible weapons augmented the massacre. A few sonorous rifle-shots fired into the air would have made the horde draw back; instead of that, it was not until they saw several ranks of their fallen comrades—the occasional limb or head, three-quarters of their bodies having been blasted away by deflagratory annihilation—that the survivors decided to beat the retreat, with despairing howls of malediction, and to throw themselves back into the horrid confusion of the road, transformed into a human torrent.