The Martian Epic

by Octave Joncquel

  “We have to turn back,” suggested Doctor Goulliard, resolutely.

  “Where to?” said the Abbé, softly, still holding on to the wheel.

  Female voices protested “No, no! To Tahiti, no matter what!”

  “Via Cape Horn, then? We’ll never get there.

  A general discussion started, watched over, as it were, by the monkey, whose minuscule silhouette was outlined against the blue sky.

  Tahiti exercised a veritable fascination on all of them. Not only was it the goal adopted at the very beginning of the exodus, but there was every chance of finding the aviators of Chamonix and their “ladies” there. The rancor generated by their flight had dissipated a long time ago, and the deserters were no longer seen as anything but old acquaintances—the only other civilized people surviving on the face of the planet, an appropriate complement to the colony of Last Men.

  The attraction of Tahiti, and the conviction they all held that the Martian danger ended with the Pacific coast, added to their perfectly natural reluctance to abandon the Nautilus and deliver themselves to the hazards of a desperate adventure—for it would be necessary to cross the isthmus on foot in the hope of discovering a ship capable of undertaking the voyage in the port of Panama.

  “If there isn’t one,” cried Nibot, “then we’ll have to go further, into Colombia, towards the equator…all the way to Patagonia if necessary—but, for God’s sake, we can’t stay here, exposed to the sight of helicopters without the option of diving.”

  On the commander’s orders, they all equipped themselves as best they could for the expedition. The boxes of Nutriment were shared out, as were the blasters and their ammunition. Then, a few last turns of the propeller brought the Nautilus to a ruined stairway, and the seventy fugitives disembarked. Abbé Romeux was the last to leave the vessel, having opened the caps of the ballast-tanks. Slowly, the steel hull sank and disappeared into a whirlpool; when the surface had recovered its level, the enormous wreck became visible again, resting on the bed of the canal under two meters of water.

  The Last Men, more deeply affected than they had been when abandoning the Bunkers, felt a wrench of separation, as if they had just broken the last link attaching them to the civilized world and their previous life.

  They drew away from the canal and went into the forest, but they had no machetes; after an hour in the inextricable tangle of tropical vegetation had gained them a painful half-kilometer, they had to abandon the idea of heading straight for the Pacific coast following a compass bearing. The sad caravan retraced its steps and attempted to take an old roadway, which the lianas had not yet succeeded in blocking.

  The Last Men marched beneath a dome of gigantic trees and arborescent ferns, from which bizarre parasitic plants hung down—orchids whose flowers were monstrous in both color and form. The high ceiling of foliage was impenetrable even to the rays of the mid-day Sun, but the heat was stifling and the humidity sickening. They walked for three days. Fear of the Martians gave way temporarily to a more immediate peril; in addition to the parrots, hummingbirds and monkeys, whose animation of the high branches was accompanied by chattering and deafening screeches, wild animals were abundant. It was necessary on numerous occasions to make use of blasters against jaguars, cougars, tiger-cats and snakes, and, by night, to surround their camp with a circle of fires, which attracted clouds of mosquitoes to the sleepers.

  During the third day of the march, several women declared themselves incapable of going any further, and even the severe Doctor Goulliard judged it necessary to transport them on stretchers made from interwoven branches.

  On the fourth morning, they emerged from the forest, and a unanimous cry of joy greeted the Pacific, displaying its lapis-lazuli sheet on the horizon. Closer at hand, the city of Panama sketched out its regular quadrilateral with the heaps of its ruins, and the sight of the port, surmounted by a confusion of masts, revived their hopes. There must surely be an entire ship among that crowd!

  But all their searches were in vain. A folly of destruction had raged here too; dynamite had been placed inside all the large vessels; broken cylinders and twisted pistons were visible through enormous breaches in their shredded steel hulls. There was no longer anything afloat but humble sailing-boats—mere cockleshells that would capsize in the first squall in the open sea.

  The Last Men were wandering sadly along the quay when the cry went up: “A helicopter!”

  It was coming straight towards them at lightning speed: a volvite had discovered them. No matter—a gaping hangar was right beside them, ten paces away; they threw themselves into it.

  With a gushing trail of fire, the unfamiliar flying machine—a cylindrical body tapered at the front, whose lack of rotor blades made it resemble a sort of stout javelin—set down horizontally on the quay. Immediately, like a jack-in-the-box, twenty Martians armed with blasters leapt out, with singularly high-pitched cries, and formed up like a firing-squad, in such a manner as to encircle the hangar. Only two pilots remained vaguely visible through the hyaline walls of the cockpit.

  The besieged fugitives had no lingering doubts about the identity of their enemies. Those brick-red one-piece suits, each with a number displayed on the collar, those Valyrie helmets, those abrupt gestures and guttural voices—though shrill and feminine—had all been shown to them before, by Moreau’s helicopters, at Mont Blanc. Martians! The Martians, of whose strength and perfidy they had formed a better impression since then.

  At the first glimpse of those wild eyes, shining within the anonymous aviation masks, a wave of discouragement and despair ran through the ranks of the Last Men. They had an intuition of the power represented by these few individuals—the incalculable Martian power dominating the Earth. They were cruelly aware of their isolation. After them, no more fellows—no one at all. An Earth without Terrans. They had their backs, so to speak, to the void—the abyss into which all humankind had fallen before them, the nothingness that would breathe them in, into which they would disappear, along with the last hope of civilization, forever.

  They were in the situation of criminals sensing, behind the gendarmes pursuing them, the millions of social beings interested in maintaining observance of the Law—but much worse, for criminals can, in theory, find accomplices or escape abroad. They were alone, all retreat cut off.

  The very excess of the danger revived the defensive instincts of a cornered animal which charges head-first at its hunters, with the frantic courage of despair. Surrender? Never! They would fight to the death! Their assailants, armed, like them with blasters, were inferior in number, and the intoxication of catching up with their prey had made them forget the most elementary rules of strategy.

  “A sortie!” Nibot proposed.

  The Abbé squeezed his arm encouragingly. His eyes were sparkling. “Cut them off from the aircraft!” he said, tucking in his soutane in order to be better able to run. And he threw himself outside, followed by all his companions, not excepting the women. Disconcerted by this unexpected attack, the Martians hesitated momentarily before retreating toward the volvite, whose pilots called them back with hasty blasts of the siren—but it was already too late. The Abbé and his platoon hurled themselves into the Martians’ path, and twenty-five blasters fired on them—while the women screamed, intoxicated by contagious heroism, and ten resolute men, led by Nibot, launched themselves forward in an assault on the cockpit.

  The battle only lasted a few minutes. Caught between two fires, the Martians defended themselves fiercely, and seemed for a moment to be on the point of breaking through—but the volvite was taken, the two pilots bound and gagged, and Nibot, launching himself in support, rejoined the battle. The terrible blasters, with their ffrrr…ffrrr…ffrrr…, scarcely louder than a jet of soda-water, accomplished their sinister work from both sides. Thirty horribly charred and mutilated corpses littered the ground when the last of the assailants was no longer capable of doing any further harm.

  The balance-sheet: Eight female prisoners—their sex h
ad been established, dazedly—including the two pilots; 11 Martians and 22 Terrans dead, plus three slightly wounded….

  The distant howl of a siren cut short the reflections of the Last Men, almost transforming the effervescence of the dearly-won victory into a disastrous panic. A wide-bellied transport helicopter, which had just witnessed the denouement of the affair, was arriving from the North-West! A second appeared on the horizon, drawn by its appeals! In five minutes, they would have an entire squadron on their backs! The distraught women wanted to run; the men reloaded their blasters somberly.

  “Embark!” shouted the Abbé. “Everyone aboard! There’s room—the prisoners too!” But all those captured on the battlefield had just been massacred by their guards; only the two captives in the volvite were left. By the time everyone had rushed aboard, piling at hazard into the hyaline cockpit, the first helicopter was no more than two or three kilometers away and had commenced firing. Nibot had untied and removed the gag from the Martian Pilot, who as still at the volvite’s controls; he put the barrel of his blaster to her temple…

  “Don’t shoot, Nibot!” cried the pseudo-Martian, tearing her mask off with one hand, while the other seized the controls and engaged them. “I’m Raymonde Rudeaux! We’re taking off! Hold tight!”

  “You! Great God, Madame—save us!”

  The volvite took off, amid a giant flood of artificial fire—staring at one another like cardboard figures, the fugitives were rooted to the spot by the stupefying revelation—and accelerated at full throttle, quickly leaving behind the helicopters, which soon disappeared over the horizon.

  VIII. In the Works

  Raymonde’s departure to hunt the Last Men inevitably left me with cruel apprehensions. When I found myself on the platform of the airport, alone in the middle of the Terromartians of my entourage and the shaggies busy organizing further departures, I was tempted to recall the Amazon expedition by TSF. It was too late, though; we were both caught in the gears that were presently breaking my heart; it was necessary to go on to the end. Then I told myself—hardly able to believe it—that Raymonde’s ingenuity and presence of mind might yet save our friends. I dared not ask myself, though, what would happen if the Amazons actually began to give chase; my best hope was that they had already left America and were sailing towards Tahiti.

  Leduc extracted me brutally from my sad reflections.

  “Well, R’rdô, shall we climb aboard. It’s the turbines today!”

  His voice had never seemed so harsh and vulgar, his tone so aggressive, the light in his eyes so disquieting—but I suddenly remembered that the Tunnel was causing him grave concern, and that a visit to the site was written into the day’s program. Pulling myself together, I forced myself back into my false role as the Martian Great Leader…and my secret human duties.

  It was on that very morning that I was to see a completed Cylinder for the first time, including the motive layer of solar and the giant hood that would shelter the whole structure from the Sun’s rays until the last moment. If there were some interior steering equipment, it must be in place; I would see it, this time, and its sight would inspire me with the plans I had to make for the salvation of Venus.

  We flew over the Martian City as usual, passing the roaring jet of the Central Fire, then the steelyard with the crucibles, and the Cylinders appeared, lined up as far as the eye could see in ranks of 20, looking more and more like caltrops as their reflective ditches were hollowed out around the partly-completed engines.

  At the far end, the operations of molding, casting and hollowing out are proceeding methodically, but on the city side, the entire first row of Cylinders, hooded by their white tarpaulins, is gleaming in the sunlight, like tents lined up on the desert sands…

  Each one is 60 meters high and fifteen in diameter, its interior divided into 25 stages for various purposes: storage-holds for mechanical equipment and chemical products necessary for the disembarkation; barrels of water, food-stocks—for the Martians cannot resign themselves to the Nutriment; barracks for shaggies, “cabins” for the general staff…

  Most of the Cylinders will carry both Terromartians and shaggies—“It’s safer that way” Leduc whispers to me. Why? I dare not ask him—50 or 60 of the former and 300 of the latter. A few cylinders are exclusively reserved for maki-mokokos, 4000 or 5000 in each. “They pack well,” Leduc sniggers…

  There are a full two million vehicles, in total, enough to contain the entire population of Mars Central, which has increased considerably since the exploitation of America had begun—and it is necessary to anticipate even more recruits!

  This time, I have inspected everything, down to the smallest details—Leduc has remarked on my curiosity, sarcastically, as always—but there is no trace of steering equipment. Should I question him? But since R’rdô is presumed to know all that…

  It will be necessary to examine the Great Leader’s papers more attentively.

  On the other hand, the control-room is here, where the apparatus will be mounted commanding the simultaneous withdrawal of all the hoods at the same time, for the departure, and the trigger that will set off the mine in the tunnel. Nothing is in place yet...but I wonder who will have the responsibility for working them. If it were me…!

  That visit uses up the morning. The habitual turbulence of Mars Central. Nerves aggravated and tormented by noise, the odors, the odious proximity of machines, shaggies…and that of my fateful companion, the Technical Director…fortunately, other senior staff are also with us…hardly any time to think of Raymonde…she must already have reached he Antilles…

  A meal in the staff dining-room—for I do not like to be alone…

  These Martians eat with a vulgar sound of chewing, which provokes the same nervous irritation in me as listening to a dog gnawing a bone…and the food is desperately gastralgic, in spite of the champagne with which it is washed down: rump steak of sperm whale, this time, and a frightful dessert of weevils preserved in acetic acid!

  An hour of siesta, exhausted by laborious digestion, in my air-conditioned apartment—then the new irruption of Leduc and the general staff…

  A rapid glance at the cracterite factory installed the previous day: they wish to explain it to me…

  Cracterite—the name acquires ten Rs in Leduc’s pronunciation, and sinister overtones—is the explosive destined to charge the Mine...or, rather, its detonator: a shell, which will fall under its own weight, at the right moment, to the bottom of the 4,000-kilometer deep Central Tunnel. Shock and explosion cracking the thin solid layer reserved above the endothermic magma, which rises up in congruous quantity to encounter the Atlantic flood pouring in via the Canal. Meeting and intimate admixture of the two bodies transforms the Tunnel into a cartridge…

  “And the Earth cracks…thanks to our cracterite,” adds Leduc. But he does not have his usual air of triumph. He is too preoccupied with the Tunnel.

  And we hurry through the factory visit: crushers, grinders and mixers of minerals that he does not deign to name for me…the final product is a green powder, which shaggies armed with wooden scoops transfer to an endless conveyor-belt before consigning it to railway wagons…

  Forty minutes in a volvite over the desert…

  The pithead of the Tunnel advertises its presence from afar with a monstrous emission of black smoke, which spreads out at an altitude of two kilometers into a prodigious parasol of volcanic eruption and resolves slowly, on contact with the air, into an impalpable dust, covering the surrounding region with a thick black snow…

  What does this new aspect of the works signify? Has it hit some snag? Have they broken prematurely into some unknown reserve of subterranean fire?

  I quiver with hope at the idea that the drilling of the well might be delayed, or halted…

  Leduc, by contrast, becomes more cheerful. He rubs his hands.

  “It’s coming along, it’s coming along!” he repeats. “Eight hours lost, that’s all. We’re still on schedule.”

  Betwee
n the airport and the pithead the spectacle becomes formidable. One might imagine that a steam engine, worthy of the Titans relegated by myth to the depths of Etna, is buried in the midst of the dunes, and that this is its chimney—250 meters in diameter!—discharging that column of black smoke with a roar of infernal thunder.

  The Titans who surround me—as audacious and powerful as those of old, in spite of their carnal envelopes, bimane or quadrumane—are delighted by the methodical cataclysm. The view is not yet sufficient. They want to study what they have unleashed at closer range. Following a sort of trench that shields us from the artificial squall and the airstream of the tornado, we reach the observation-post, in which a solitary Martian—a Chinaman with spectacles and a blue robe—is in charge of a collection of levers, gauges, pyrometers, manometers and so on, placidly directing the energies brought by enormous sheaves of cables from Aswan, Khartoum and radioactive generators.

  The narrow crystal cage vibrates in the noisy gusts of wind that envelop it, as furious and continuous as a mistral storm. I expect to see it tear free from its concrete bed and fly away towards the tornado, which springs forth less than 100 meters away, rigid and almost solid by virtue of its speed, like a shaft of black marble.

  The general staff snigger with pleasure; Leduc’s nostrils dilate and he literally licks his lips as he listens to the engineer’s report. Then he re-lights his eternal pipe and explains the situation to me.

  “We can tell you now, R’rdô, and Your Holiness will loudspeaker it to the population this evening; it’s been necessary to modify the drilling process. The drilling-machine you inaugurated—the Skimmer, which cleared its debris through a liquid channel—only got us down to 2652 meters. Beyond that, the rocks were too hard; the drill-bit broke and stuck fast. I’ve found a better way. Molecular disintegration at the point of attack—oh, very limited: that suffices to pulverize the minerals seized by the flood of radioactive particles and expelled in their whirlwind. Mean initial speed 350 meters a second. Spectacular ‘draw’ from the chimney, as you can see. We lost eight hours organizing the installation of new batteries in the Solar Accumulators, but we’ll get them back by advancing at triple speed—and we’re certain of getting all the way to the end, this time. Depth attained”—he pointed at a gauge—“2925 kilometers. In a week’s time, we’ll suspend the session for a few hours in order to go down and cast a glance over the interior of this old Earth. Then we’ll finish throwing its entrails to the Sun!”