The Martian Epic

by Octave Joncquel

  The concise and lucid explanations that Wronsky wanted to give to us before communicating them to the world caused me to admire the sagacity of his genius and blush with shame at my doubts regarding the mysterious radio messages sent forth by the old man.

  The deviation of the first torpedo—headed for Nancy, according to the Jovian astronomers, but which had actually fallen on Paris—had been attributed by the majority of journalists to an error on the part of the said astronomers. Some, however, had voiced the suspicion that the torpedoes were being carefully tracked by the Martian engineers and redirected shortly before their explosion by means of Hertzian waves acting on some telemechanical mechanism.12 The partisans of this hypothesis also remarked that the extraordinary slowness of the engines’ fall did not correspond with the ballistic rapidity of a projectile launched towards Earth from Mars and following its trajectory freely. The torpedoes must, therefore, be equipped with a “brake” activated by the same mechanism. The much more numerous partisans of the other hypothesis replied: “not at all!—it’s a simple parachute that opens by itself as it reaches the upper layers of the atmosphere, so that the retarded machine inevitably deviates from the anticipated point of impact in a direction opposite to the Earth’s rotation, as evidenced by the fact that Nancy and Paris are situated on the same line of latitude in a westerly direction.”

  The inquiries of Wronsky’s that had seemed silliest to me concerned the meteorological conditions in the various regions successively torpedoed at the moment when the machines struck. The unanimity of the responses had even struck me as I transmitted them to my superior—but he knew that they were a striking confirmation of his hypothesis. Every torpedo had fallen in a zone of fine weather. Thus, perfect visibility and the ease of locating lighted cities standing out against the dark face of or planet had enabled the Martian engineers to follow and rectify the course of their projectiles. Had they had been launched once and for all, their points of arrival would have been mathematically determined, with no account taken of the clear or cloudy state of the terrestrial atmosphere.

  The good weather that invariably reigned in areas as varied as those of the numerous points of impact—in frank contradiction of the calculus of probabilities—sufficed to demonstrate that the torpedoes had been accelerated or decelerated (the times of their fall varied), and deviated to a greater or lesser degree (since they maintained approximately the same parallel) in their course, in order to arrive in a zone of good weather, there to be steered to their final target.

  Wronsky told us that he strongly suspected that the “brake” and the “Deviator” comprised a system of turbines, in which the dissociating atoms of radium acted by reaction, in the manner of an artificial firework, and whose trigger was activated by the influence of waves of a specific frequency sent from Mars. The description, so carelessly given to our “brothers in space,” of the telemechanical apparatus used on Earth had doubtless furnished the model for theirs. Waves emitted by the Earth at a given moment ought, therefore, to be able to counterbalance—indeed, to overwhelm—the Martian waves and render the torpedoes harmless. Only an exact frequency, however, could operate such an apparatus, which would otherwise be indiscriminately obedient to all the waves traversing space. It was, therefore, necessary, in order to attempt this means of protection, to know the details of the trigger mechanism placed by the Martians in the main body of their torpedoes. That was the research recommended to us by the words contained in the daily cosmograms from our friends on Jupiter: “Have courage! Examine the torpedoes!”

  The old scientist had almost despaired of ever obtaining this indispensable information. All the basal bodies of torpedoes recovered thus far had been so badly damaged by the rescuers’ explosives that their mechanisms were reduced to inchoate debris. The task of the scientific commissions in every country charged with that examination—without suspecting its capital importance—was also hindered by the bands of looters in quest of radium destined for the Anarchists’ blasters.

  It was not until July 29 that the torpedo which had fallen on Peking yielded its secret to a few valiant heroes. With intrepid folly, even before the red gas had been neutralized and dissipated by the jets of carbon dioxide, three Japanese engineers, sacrificing themselves for the salvation of humanity, had dressed themselves in platinum diving-suits—with which no one had yet dared to experiment, save for radium looters who had not come back—and made their way down to the basal unit, which proved this time to be almost intact. They had re-emerged covered with atrocious burns, despite their protective vestments, their lungs eaten away, dying—but they bought back the frequency-activated mechanisms, whose exact description was immediately transmitted to Saintes-Maries.

  “Then,” the old scientist continued, “we were able to get started…

  “Those among you who are attached to the interplanetary TSF know that the observatory on Ganymede has not ceased to advise us, every morning, of the heading that the daily torpedo is following, followed from space by the penetrating eyes of the televisors. However, as the deviation imparted to that machine at the last moment could displace it by 1000 or 1500 kilometers from the anticipated point of impact, the zone under threat became so large that its evacuation was quite impracticable. Thus, the torpedo that caused the death of our unfortunate colleagues in the Palais de la Garde seemed to be destined for Cairo! The publication of Jovian cosmograms only succeeded in generating disorder worse than the catastrophes themselves—hence the solemn oath of silence that we had to exact from the employees to whom I have just alluded.

  “We are informed, however, of the trajectories that the Martian ‘messengers’ follow through the skies. On several occasions, our large telescopes at Mont Blanc and Gaurisankar have been able to pin-point them before their fall. I have been informed that the Mont Blanc instrument has already got a fix on the torpedo that is intended to strike the Earth in a few hours time. It is at the zenith of San Francisco. Where the final deviation will take it, I don’t know—but I do know that we possess the desired means to determine that deviation ourselves!”

  While delivering this improvised conference-speech to his audience, grouped in the control room, Ladislas Wronsky had never ceased striding back and forth. He stopped, his legs apart, his arms folded across the breast of his frock-coat, and, while surveying us with an expression redolent with joy and pride, he hammered home his conclusion: “At this very moment, my friends, the last connections are in place and the last adjustments are being made. When the projectile is within range of terrestrial radiation, we shall attempt…the salvation of humankind.

  “The distribution of electricity will be briefly interrupted all over the world; the 25 central Equatorial Alternators will run at their maximum, and the total current—200 million kilowatts—will be launched into the oscillators and transmuted into electromagnetic waves, in order to deflect the torpedo and send it to ravage the polar deserts or to be engulfed in the Pacific Ocean!”

  There was no applause; not a single cry was raised, nor a single word spoken. The entire auditorium seemed to be overwhelmed by the enormity of the news: the dread of an atrocious disappointment prevented us from welcoming this hope—so imminent, so rational, so luminously deduced—as real. Our minds, hypnotized by three weeks of disaster, resigned passively to await the Red Death, dared not believe it. It took several minutes for the meaning of the peroration to sink in to out inmost consciousness. Then, in the silence, a strangled cry of ecstatic joy went up from a group of female operators—and, as if we had been waiting for that signal, old Wronsky’s enthusiastic confidence went through us all like an electric shock.

  I didn’t know what was happening around me; I was blind to the external world. My arms had spontaneously embraced Raymonde, who was beside me; with my face buried in her hair, I breathed in its perfume spasmodically. In a dazed trance, among the ringing bells and distant clamors filling my ears, I heard two alternating voices—hers and mine—repeating endlessly: “Saved!…it’s over!
...we’re saved!...the world’s saved!...saved!”

  No one dreamed of leaving the room. We all remained seated in the places where the news had taken us by surprise. Fragments of incoherent and feverishly familiar sentences went back and forth among the ranks of chairs; in the brightness of the arc-lamps, all the faces wore the same fixed and prolonged smile, painful to behold at length, as irritating as any tic. At intervals, strange silent intervals came from nowhere to set aside the chatter with which we veiled our anguish.

  After an hour and a half, the lights suddenly went out. There were two or three cries of alarm, then a mute darkness in which one could hear one’s own heart beating. The equatorial oscillators had begun to function; the invisible aegis of terrestrial science was finally opposed to the Martian red death!

  We waited, motionless, shivering in spite of the warmth. The starry night was visible through the open windows. A distant owl sounded its monotonous two-note cry.

  When half an hour had elapsed—a seeming century!—the lights suddenly came back on. A bell rang; a telegraphic receiver began clicking. Wronsky, his long white beard resting on Gaby Leduc’s shoulder, deciphered the message in a low voice. We held our breath.

  He drew himself up to his full height again. He had recovered the impassive voice of a geometer at a blackboard.

  “My friends,” he said, “I have the honor of telling you that the experiment has succeeded. The direction of the Martian torpedoes is henceforth in our hands. The one that our waves captured has just fallen in the Pacific, between Hawaii and the Californian coast. The Earth is saved. Humankind can get back to work!”

  Part Two: The Sign of the Beast

  I. The Earth Delivered

  The little that we saw of it, in our minuscule village of Saintes-Maries, sufficed to give us an idea of the wave of enthusiasm and veritably frenzied joy that overran the Earth that day. Europe and Africa were still plunged in night but most of the towns were woken up by the sound of bells and loudspeakers proclaiming the Deliverance; the illuminated streets filled up; people embraced, acclaiming the triumph of human ingenuity over Martian perfidy. The name of Ladislas Wronsky was on all lips; that of Gideon Botram became popular again, his nickname a badge of glory; in the heat of the first enthusiasm even the paradoxical cry of “Gideon the Antichrist forever!” was heard. And dances were organized, to the accompaniment of every imaginable musical instrument: an epidemic of dancing that carried couples away, aggregating them by twos and threes and agglomerating them in masses of rhythmic joy, monstrous sarabands uniting entire towns beneath dazzling illuminations…and beneath the vigilant eyes of the Martian televisors.

  It was daylight in Asia and Oceania, evening in America, but the demonstrations were similar. As soon as the peril was past, Humankind imagined that the evils it had generated had would vanish, as if by a wave of a magic wand, disappearing and giving place without transition, to the former state of things.

  That illusion was perhaps stronger at Saintes-Maries than anywhere else, if that were possible. The people of the locality, including the numerous refugees, had only tolerated the presence among them of “the Antichrist and his associates” reluctantly. Their obsequious falsity had only smiled as we passed by because of the provisions generously distributed by the governmental helicopters. That morning, at least for several hours, their sentiments were purified of any admixture. Ladislas Wronsky and Gideon Botram were carried in triumph to the old fortress-church, while we, his collaborators of every rank, shared the honor of being harangued by the old parish priest beneath the ancient vaults and hailed as the ministers of divine Providence. The solemn Te Deum was followed by a ritual farandole, and we were paraded through the village once more, amid ovations to which the eight or ten local Black Guardsmen prudently joined their voices.

  There was no serious disorder, but the license of a population, so to speak, in delirium quickly forced us to retreat to our room. The TSF service being assured by a handful of employees, our Master had granted a day’s holiday to the rest of the staff—but Raymonde, as Wronsky’s secretary, and I, as the head of the Information Service, were obliged to attend an extraordinary Council of State, which discussed what measures might be taken, in view of the new situation. The dissident states, Gideon Botram thought, would undoubtedly offer to reconstitute the United States of the World.

  The session was fixed for 10 a.m. It was 7 a.m. when the vague distress I had been experiencing for hours, and which had imposed itself upon me since my return to the Hôtel de la Plage, finally laid me low. There was a sharp pain in my side, like a red-hot iron, my throat was sore, my lungs felt as if they were clamped in a vice, and my head as if it were filled with lead: the first symptoms of “Martian bronchitis,” as described to me by Gaby Leduc, who had suffered a slight bout a few days earlier. Staying on my feet became intolerable.

  I felt obliged to make that confession to Raymonde, but I did not have to; the moment I opened my mouth, she told me to go to bed with anxious solicitude. I was very pale, she suggested softly. She could have said “livid;” the dirty mauve tint of my hands, resting on the covers, filled me with profound disgust.

  How hideous I must seem to her, I thought. Poor darling! What a memory she’ll retain of me, if I die!

  The inevitable crisis of coughing and suffocation ensued, and made me forget these vain anxieties. Knowing the futility of trying to find a doctor in that time of popular rejoicing, Raymonde watched, powerless and despairing, as the agonizing pain made my writhe on the pillows. There was, in any case, no serum in Saintes-Maries, and all other treatments were ineffective. Life or death depended on the patient’s strength of resistance. In the absence of serum, one could only let nature take its course.

  I soon entered into a kind of stupor, characteristic of the malady, the sight of which inspired great pity in observers. From my point of view, on the other hand, it was a period of extraordinary detachment, I might almost say of radiant serenity. At the outset, my consciousness still recoiled from external sensations, before taking refuge in the illimitability of the brain to await the outcome of the battle enjoined by my entire being against the illness. My fever-veiled gaze fixed itself with secret despair on the anguished face of my beloved. I resisted; I did not wish to die! To die in the very hour when the Earth as delivered! To die when our relationship had only just begun to live! When the garden of the liberated planet was on the point of opening around us, in which we could expect to experience all the inexpressible joys of love and of civilization restored to its apogee…!

  Little by little, the seething of that revolt eased. My soul ceased to indulge itself in the feverish evocation of that beautiful future. The beloved hand placed on my burning forehead penetrated me with benevolent effluvia of infinite gentleness and resignation.

  I understood then that death is nothing, that there is no death! What importance was there in living a little longer, or not quite so long, on this planet, given the relativity of he time that reigned here? Were not our souls, emanations of the universal Soul incarnated in our perishable bodies, linked by mysterious bonds of affinity which had always predestined us for one another? Would we not find one another again on other planets, ever more radiant and noble, until the cycle of our successive existences finally consummated our supreme union in the bosom of the unique and perfect Being that was, is, and always will be, Eternity?

  I understood clearly, then, and was astonished by Raymonde’s mute desperation. Had I been able to speak, I would have shared my conviction with her, and told her that even the pain of such crises of asphyxiating coughing was minimal, almost foreign to my paralyzed consciousness. It was like a morsel of petty suffering distributed among a multiplicity of petty “subconsciousnesses,” each of which was vibrating independently under the gaze of my true soul, which had become serene.

  I was suspended between life and death for two days, alternately tended by Raymonde and Gaby Leduc, who found it very simple to render us that service of close friendship. Th
en my convalescence began, which proved almost as rapid as the onset of the illness—as is the general rule with cases of “Martian bronchitis” whose outcome is fortunate—and I was able to take an interest in worldly affairs again. For a few days, however, I retained a vague nostalgia for my “nirvanic” state.

  The inopportune illness prevented me from taking part in the Directorial tour that was decided by the Council of State on the second. Gideon and Ladislas, accompanied by the ministers, took off from Saintes-Maries the same day—escorted by Sylvain Leduc, at the head of a squadron of gendarmes—to visit Europe and North Africa and investigate the chances of a restoration of Directorial power. I did not regret having to miss the spectacle offered by great cities in those circumstances, though, since I would have had to see it without Raymonde. Women had been rigorously excluded from the touring party, because the Soviets still ruled the majority of communes and the presence of females might have occasioned disastrous conflicts.

  There was trouble enough without them. The delirious joy that stirred their towns along with all the rest did not prevent certain Anarchist committees from remaining on the defensive, fearful that the news might only be a ruse from which the bourgeois parties might profit by recovering power. In many instances, the Directorial mission was welcomed by megaphone announcements—“It is forbidden to disembark on Soviet territory! Sheer off!”—supported by battalions of Black Guards, hostile and resolute. Russia, in particular, obstinately refused to allow “Gideon the Antichrist” to fly over her territory. It was the same with southern Italy, Sicily, the North of England and Spain. At Lille, four aircraft of the Soviet defense gave chase to the mission’s squadron and forced one of its planes to land.