The Red Journey Back

by John Keir Cross

May I say then, for the moment, au revoir; and permit myself the concluding classical reflection: magna est veritas et praevalebit (truth will prevail).

  3. Paul Adam

  I just want to say that you’re not to think dear old Jacky is half so stuffy as she sounds when she sits down to write. I know she’s my sister, but all the same she is really a bit of all right, as I think she showed right through everything that happened to us. It’s just that when she gets a pen in her hand she suddenly seems to go all long-winded, somehow, as if she were writing school essays all the time, and puts in those bits of Latin just to impress people.

  The main thing is that we did go to Scotland. It was where the last adventure started, so it was only right that it should be where this one started. The whole setup was marvelous, of course—I mean, the airstrip and Uncle Steve’s messages. I don’t mind confessing that I took a great liking to Mr. Mackellar and Archie—to say nothing of Katey (Jacky wants me to call her Miss Hogarth, but I’m for none of that—we always called her Katey to her face, by her own request, and so that’s how I’ll refer to her here).

  So there it was—the setup, as I say; and in spite of all that Mother said before she let us go to Scotland at all, we did in the end go off to Mars again. You’ll see how it all happened as you go on: this is just to let you know that we were all poised and waiting. That is, Jacky and I were, at least, for, as she has said, we were actually there, in the wireless shed beside the airstrip, when the fatal final message came through from Uncle Steve. As for Mike, for once he didn’t have his nose in things! Except—

  4. Michael Malone

  —except that Mike did, so there! He had his nose far more deeply in things than anyone else after all, only in a different way, as you’ll see.

  The reason I wasn’t at Larkwell at the time when the others were listening to the messages was that I wasn’t available. It was all very well for old J.K.C. to send for Paul and Jacky—but he couldn’t very well send for me.

  I was in America!

  I told you, didn’t I, that my Dad often took Mother and me on business trips with him? Well—that’s just what had happened this time. There I was—in America!—which is more than had ever happened to Paul and Jacky, for all that they’d been to Mars.

  Oh yes—that’s where I was. And I’ll tell you something else: Do you know which part of America?

  Chicago.

  And where does that tie up, I hear you ask?

  I’ll tell you.

  Somebody lived in Chicago who’d had quite a bit to do with us when we came back from Mars last time.

  Does the name Kalkenbrenner mean anything to you? It probably will if you read our last book—and it probably will, too, if you’re what old J.K.C. would call “a student of the press.”

  It was Dr. Kalkenbrenner of Chicago who was Dr. McGillivray’s friendly rival in the days when he was first building the Albatross. In fact, Dr. Kalkenbrenner had almost succeeded in building a rocket of his own—it was that that gave Doctor Mac the final spurt to invent his own patent fuel, so that he would be first to leave Earth (you know what rival scientists are).

  When we came back from Mars that first time, Dr. K. was a bit snooty—he was one of the ones who first started to say we’d all been making it up and that it hadn’t really happened. But that was only professional jealousy, as they say—he knew perfectly well that we had been to Mars. And when he went back to his own country after visiting Doctor Mac in England, before Steve and Doctor Mac set off for their second trip, what do you think he did?

  What would you have done? He got a spurt on himself—went on more furiously than ever with his own experiments. And—take my word for it—he’d been pretty successful too, oh yes! He was almost ready! His rocket was all ripe for a flight!

  How do I know all this? For the very simple reason, dear friends, that when I was in Chicago I went and called on Dr. K. It was only natural after all, wasn’t it?—after all that had happened.

  And he wasn’t in the least like the ogre we’d all thought him when he was doubting our word after the first trip. Now that he was in sight of triumph himself, he was a perfectly decent chap, and I had a simply swell time with him in his lab, telling him all the little ways the Albatross was different from his own rocket. Oh yes—I saw it! I was shown all over it; and if I couldn’t go into all the technical details, at least I could tell him the little things, like how we’d stored our food in the old toothpaste tubes, and so on. His rocket was much bigger than the old Albatross—a great huge lovely shiny job—just the thing.

  Oh, we got on like a house on fire, old Kalkers and me (I was even allowed to call him that, so that shows you). I reckon one of the reasons was that I grew to be real friendly with his niece Maggie—Maggie Sherwood, and an orphan—Kalkers had brought her up from the time her father and mother had died (Maggie’s mother was Kalkers’ sister, you see). And he was very fond of her.

  And so was I, I don’t mind admitting right now. She was an American, of course, but she was all right—she sure was. Just my own age, you see—and more of a tomboy even than Jacky. I hardly noticed she was a girl at all.

  It was Maggie and Kalkers who showed me all over the Comet, which is what he called his rocket. And when I got the first long air-mail letter from old J.K.C. in Scotland, with enclosures from Paul and Jacky, telling me the whole story of the airstrip messages, why, what would you have done but show the whole thing to Kalkers and Maggie too?—which is just what I did do.

  And this time there wasn’t any doubt at all from Dr. K.—no sir! And it’s just as well, as you’ll see.

  So I did have my nose in after all. Well and truly in. If I hadn’t, things mightn’t have been so easy to arrange when, about a couple of weeks after the first air-mail letter, I got a second “communication” (as Jacky would call it) from the folk in Scotland.

  This one was a cablegram—a very long cablegram. And when I read it I showed that to old Kalkers too. And when he read it he said, “Phew!” (If that’s how you spell the kind of excited whistle he gave). “Phew!” he said. “You know what this means, Michael, don’t you?” (I hated being called Michael—always have—much prefer Mike; but it was what Dr. K. always called me.)

  “Phew!” says he, “you know what this means, Michael?”

  And I nodded. I sure did. And I winked at Maggie—and then nudged her and nodded over to the great shiny Comet, all stuck up on its launching field, ready for a take-off. And Maggie Sherwood winked back . . . !

  5. The Editor

  All in due course. For the moment, and until it is made clear why “Maggie Sherwood winked back,” we must return to MacFarlane himself and the continuation of the narrative built by Miss Hogarth from those lonely messages from across the skies.

  To Chapter Five, then—entitled: The Canals.

  CHAPTER V. THE CANALS: Macfarlane’s Narrative Concluded

  Editors Note: From now on, in our original reception of them, the Martian Messages were more disjointed than in the earlier stages of MacFarlane’s continuous chronicle. Although they have been edited and remolded since by their original sender, I leave them here with some flavor, at least, of their fragmentary nature, so that readers will understand something of our own mystification as we listened to them at Larkwell.

  . . . IT WAS, I firmly believe, the reappearance of Malu which brought back to health my old friend Dr. McGillivray. As you know, he never fully recovered—there were long lapses into lethargy and forgetfulness; and certainly his blindness never left him; but at least he retrieved some of his old verve—has been, among other things, sufficiently his old self to help me in the construction of this method of radio communication to you on Earth.

  Nothing I can say can describe our joy at Malu’s appearance. It was a strange reunion—his silent thoughts of welcome contrasting with our own noisy exclamations, as our feelings were expressed in our own less delicate way.

  As we “talked” together beside the gleaming Albatross on the plain, we learne
d what had happened in the course of the last great battle before our previous departure—the battle which formed the climax to our book The Angry Planet, my dear John. Indeed, we more than “learned”; for side by side with the words translating themselves inside our heads as Malu’s thoughts flowed into us, there came a full communicated vision of all that had befallen that day.

  It seemed that the blast of the Albatross’ take-off had momentarily stunned the attacking Terrible Ones. Malu himself was thrown clear of the group surrounding him; and with his greater rapidity of movement was able, on recovery, to escape around the rim of the great seething saucer of lava in which lay the dying city of his tribe.

  By now, the force of the volcano had almost spent itself. The Terrible Ones were in confusion and rout, their great clumsy egg shapes slithering back toward the hills. By the time Malu had organized his scattered troops into a striking force, the last remnants of the invaders had dispersed; and so the battle ended, barely an hour after we ourselves had left the fearful scene of it.

  The terrible ones were in confusion and rout.

  “And oh, my friends,” said Malu, “the desolation in our poor dwelling place when all was done! Only a few of our homes of glass remained unruined, the floor of our valley lay littered with the dead from the battle itself and from the lava poured down upon us from the angry mountain. Sadly, we who were left set to gathering together as many of our friends as we could find. Among them, let there be praise!—lying helplessly under the dead form of the Chief of the Terrible Ones—was our Leader, the great intelligence controlling us, known to you as the Center. He was sorely wounded, but alive, and able to direct us in our work of rescue.

  “We left our shattered city—it was beyond all mending. We pushed southward, toward other centers of our race among the hills. In one of them we found refuge for a space, but then moved on again, until at last, in another small hill valley, we came upon some uninhabited glass bubbles, and there took to dwelling. . . .”

  Thus they built again their peaceful and benevolent way of life; until one day there came—no more than faintly at first, as the telepathic impulses weakened over the distances involved—an impression that a strange shining object had fallen from the skies and rested far to the south. Eventually, Malu himself came to an understanding that his legendary friends from the remote world of “Earth” had returned; and so set off, guided by the plants on the plains . . . and found us at last, and succored us. . . .

  I hasten—I must hasten; there may be little time to complete my story. Already I am desperately aware of . . . of—an attempt to control, to control . . .

  (This single brief disjointed message here broke off; and for two anxious nights there was no further communication from MacFarlane—despite the arrangement he had made to broadcast at regular periods. Toward dawn on the third night the Morse began again—somewhat hastily in its transmission now, as if the sender were in some fear; yet he made no references to the source of such disturbance for some further nights. And then—however, to proceed in order:)

  —The Canal. The Canal has crept closer and grown all around us. And the Vivore, the Vivore . . .

  (This message too broken off—with a disjointed repetition over and over again of the single word, “Vivore.” On this night reception was extremely faint and difficult—we were not even sure of the word . . . and this, as will be seen, was a contributing factor toward christening the terrible new Martian creatures encountered by the explorers “Vivores.”)

  —the Center. His agitated explanation . . . and so a first glimmering of the nature of the Cloud. But this came later—I can resume now the account of our progress from the time of Malu’s discovery of us on the plain: there is less attempt tonight at control. . . .

  We traveled with him to the new community established in a range of mountains far to the north of our landing place. Because of the lesser gravitational pull I was able to carry sufficient food to last the Doctor and myself for many months and, as will be known, this store could be augmented from the edible leaves of the foothill trees.

  So once more we entered into the life of the Beautiful People; re-encountered the tall, Malu-like shape of the Center himself—were welcomed solemnly as he sat (crouched, rather) on his great central humus pile in the largest of the bubble houses.

  I had brought a small tent with me from the Albatross—the identical tent in which we all had lived on our last visit. And so we dwelled through the long months of Mac’s gradual recovery, contentedly enough in our communication with our old friends—bathed once more in that strange sense of quiet benevolence we all had experienced and commented on before as being a quality of life among the Beautiful People. In the long balmy summer season we restored our faith; once more, as time passed and Mac came back to normal, the unaccustomed fragrance of his pipe went drifting in the rare Martian atmosphere and, lying back by his side, I watched the two little moons go circling above our heads . . . and described to him as well as I might the alien but familiar scene surrounding us as the quiet slender shapes of the Martians went gently about their business.

  Yet I hardly needed to interpret to him in this way after a time. Except for the occasional lapses into lethargy, it was as if, in his blindness, he had developed the art of telepathic contact with Malu and the Center to an extent which I, imperfectly equipped because I had all my usual senses, could never achieve. The immense mass of knowledge gained in this way by McGillivray will become available in due course to humanity, when once we return to the Earth—if indeed, from our present impasse, that will ever be possible! I pray to heaven that it will; for now that we confront the Vivore—now that it surrounds us, makes veritably to swamp us . . . the children, perhaps the children—

  (Message broken. This irrelevant reference to the children—MacFarlane always thought of Paul, Jacky and Mike as “children”—kept recurring from now to the end. What it meant we did not know—the reference invariably followed a spell of fragmentary reception, broken messages. And sometimes there were periods in MacFarlane s account which made no sense at all—were frankly a kind of gibberish. Thus on one occasion, after some further nights of silence, a message came which, literally transcribed, ran as follows:)

  “—No—not . . . pera—requuullian . . . jeje jeje . . . but the children—if children children—cont att at cont . . . will try but try but trrry buuttt—chil—chiiilll . . . save save save . . .”

  (One more night of comparatively uninterrupted reception followed—a long session lasting almost four hours, all at high speed. It will be noted how abrupt MacFarlane’s narrative style had become; as if, as the Vivore approached—whatever the Vivore might be—a sense of growing panic swamped all other considerations, forcing him to be straightforward, even brusque in his manner of delivery.

  The narrative continues, therefore:)

  And so once more, as on the last visit, the Albatross was dragged across the plain by the willing Martians, to rest as closely as possible to the Center’s headquarters without being in any danger from possible further volcanic eruptions. She was little worse after her months of isolation in the long mild summer, but with winter now nearer, and bitter as we knew, she had to be brought to shelter in a small range of foothills. She was needed moreover for living accommodation for Mac and me, who could not stand the overheated dampness of the bubble houses.

  Mac was now almost himself again. His long “conversations” with the Center; and at last the hint of danger, over.

  Mac had spoken with the Center on one occasion for a long long time; and when he and I, later, were settled together for the night in the cabin of the Albatross, his expression grew serious. For my part, less skillful in communication with the Center than he was, I had not fully understood the significance of the session. I knew only that at last Mac had been trying to find out the nature of the Yellow Cloud where it came from and what it was.

  “And there came from him,” said Mac slowly, referring to the Center, “—there came from him, Steve,
such a wave of fear as I have never known these creatures to express before!”

  “What was it?” I asked. “What was the Cloud, Mac?”

  “I don’t know—even yet I don’t know. The Center did not know—not fully. It was as if—and you must realize that I am only groping here, Steve, for the Martians plainly cannot communicate anything of which they themselves have had no experience—it was as if the Cloud were some kind of legend among them. It’s something deeply feared that lingers on only as a race memory—and even then only in such highly intelligent creatures as the Center himself. You find the same thing on Earth, among certain primitive tribes—a lingering something that their ancestors knew and feared and passed on to them in the form of myths through the years.”

  “But what kind of myth, Mac? There must have been something—some kind of image from the Center?”

  “There was! A very strange one. I hardly dare to think of it, Steve, for it connects with a dreadful kind of . . . vision I had when I was snatched into the Cloud—something that comes back to me now only imperfectly, although I have the impression that I understood it better then, when my mind was gone, than I do now. . . . There were two images from the Center—rather three. The first was a picture, transmitted from his mind to mine, of the Yellow Cloud itself, as we saw it—sweeping at immense speed across the plains. The second image was vaguer—less understandable—and the only words that came into my mind to express it were, ‘The lines—the creeping lines . . .’ ”

  “The lines?”

  “The only words, Steve, except that in my mind they had a double translation. You remember I told you during the flight about the Italian astronomer, Schiaparelli—his discoveries in the 1870’s—”