The Red Journey Back

by John Keir Cross

  “The Vivore wanted us to come? But why—why, why?”

  “Because you are young, dear Jacqueline! You are youth and you are humanity! The Canal surrounded us—and the Brain within it probed our brains. We could keep nothing back; and so it came to understand what we were, we alien creatures from across the skies. And what we were, my dear, was what it, once, long ago, had been! But we had succeeded where the Vivores had failed: we had bodies as well as brains—we had managed to preserve both in our own fight for survival on distant Earth. They wrung from us all the secrets of human history—we felt the very thoughts flow out from us and were helpless to prevent it. And so that Brain—that single gigantic Brain—perceived a way in which not only it itself but all its fellows, scattered across the southern Martian wastes, might be renewed. If they could study humanity—could study at closest quarters every aspect of us—perhaps someday they would find out the whole secret of human life and would be able to reconstruct bodies for themselves equivalent to ours. The study would take a long, long time—and the study would have to embrace all aspects of human development indeed. We were two men of middle age, who would die before the secret had been discovered and a way evolved to manufacture bodies like ours to house those huge decaying Brains. They needed younger flesh to study—they had to bring to Mars some children of our kind, so that they could watch them grow! Through us—through our unwilling agency—they sent for you! They forced us to use the one argument that would bring you: that only you, in some way we could not specify, could actually save us!”

  “Guinea pigs!” cried Paul. “No more than experimental guinea pigs!”

  “We tried to send a warning once—in those very words,” said MacFarlane. “After the message had been sent which they believed might bring you, they kept us confined in the Albatross by sheer force of will power. They had with them a group of the Terrible Ones, picked up somewhere in the course of their journey across the desert, to act as agents, as it were—to do things for them, for as you will understand, without bodies themselves they cannot act in any way. This group of slaves, under their control, tore up with their tendrils the wire connection from our transmitter to the mineral seam aerial. It was the intention, I believe, to keep us alive until there was some sign that you were on your way; if you had not acted on our first message for help, I believe they would have forced us to send more and more, until at last you did come . . . However, one night, with Malu’s help, and exercising all our control to combat the influence from the single Brain immediately before us, we managed to reconnect the wire for a few brief moments. I tried to send the message: ‘The children are to be used as guinea pigs . . .’ and was going on to explain something of the situation. But the Brain found out and made me stop—and the Terrible Ones were sent again to disconnect the aerial. . . . And so you arrived at last, you see; and so we greeted you.”

  “They forced us to greet you,” McGillivray picked up, “in the way you know. All the time we were desperate to tell you the truth, but in such close proximity to the Brain we could not. We watched you come closer and closer to certain captivity—and could do nothing! It was nightmare.”

  “Doctor Mac was better than I ever was, once he had completely recovered from his illness,” said MacFarlane rapidly. “He was able to gain control for long enough to get you to come into the Albatross, in the hope that we might have Malu’s help there. The Brain did not want that and tried to make me prevent it. I fought as much as I could against the influence, but it was too strong for me. In the end it conceded Mac’s point about your getting into the rocket—the thought once planted in your minds would have been difficult to contradict without rousing too much suspicion before the Brain was sure you were within its net. So it made me hinder two of the party at least, so that it could be sure of some young victims if something went wrong with its major plan.”

  “The chocolate!” gasped Jacky. “That was why you asked for the chocolate—!”

  “It was all I could think of to make some of you go back toward the tractor. Discophora made me think of some excuse, and in my weakness that absurd one was the only one! And then, of course, as you know—”

  We did know—we knew it all now; and those questions not answered in so many words were answered automatically as we reflected on the whole vast horror of the situation. We saw how it was that once they had been carried beyond the immediate power of the Brain, our two friends had regained their own proper control and had been able to tell us all they had told—how it was, even, that while he had been under the influence of the Brain, through all the long months, Dr. McGillivray, in the lucid moments the Vivores permitted the captives on occasions, had been able to formulate his gigantic theory concerning the true secret of the Canals of Mars.

  We saw it all; and we saw also why we had been, for a space, permitted to rest in peace on the plain. For the moment the Brain did not need us—because it had, already in its power, three humans of a different nature from McGillivray and MacFarlane: two children and a woman.

  Impelled by the monstrous thought, Dr. Kalkenbrenner rose determinedly to his feet. He knew the truth at last: now, somehow, he had to contrive a plan of action—some way to combat the hideous paralyzing intelligence lurking within the tumbling forest a mile away.

  His face was set as he turned toward me. He opened his lips to speak. But no words ever reached me. In that one instant two things happened—and so the climax burst upon us.

  Something, something unutterably compelling, made us turn our heads toward the distant Ridge—all of us. There, in the clear Martian air, even at the distance of a mile and more, we saw three diminutive asbestos-clad shapes emerge precipitously from the dark green forest wall—rush forward toward us. Katey was a little ahead of the other two—we recognized her taller figure. At a brief distance behind them, moving also at speed, were some half dozen of the Terrible Ones, their tendrils flailing the sandy soil.

  All this we saw in one fleeting moment—saw too that although they must have known it would accomplish little, our companions fired frantically over their shoulders even as they ran—sent shot after shot from their revolvers into the yielding fleshy egg shapes of their pursuers.

  Then all was lost in a violent swirling of the Yellow Cloud, out bursting from the Ridge to envelop the fleeing figures, swirling beyond them toward ourselves as we stayed motionless regarding the whole wild scene.

  And simultaneously, even while we switched on the oxygen breathing apparatus at Kalkenbrenner’s brusque command—simultaneously our ears were filled with a high menacing frequency hum, throbbing through and through us. For one brief second I hovered yet again upon an edge of nightmare bewilderment: then recognized a further danger threatening—for the frequency hum was the alarm signal transmitted to us from the barrier around the distant Comet. It too, remote and undefended, was being attacked—but by what?

  CHAPTER XIII. FLASHBACK, by A. Keith Borrowdale, with an inserted contribution by Margaret K. Sherwood

  WE PLUNGED FORWARD. The Yellow Cloud was all about us, veritably a typhoon. We could see little at first, but Dr. Kalkenbrenner had swung the tractor around in the direction at least which we knew Katey and the others to be taking—and suddenly there was unexpected help for us from Malu. He, with his highly developed telepathic powers—guided perhaps by the plants on the plain surrounding, perhaps by unconscious impulses from Michael, his old companion—he indicated the path we should take through the opaque yellow wall before us.

  “The flame guns,” cried Kalkenbrenner’s voice within my helmet. “They can do no harm to Maggie and the others—but they can clear a path for us and deal with those other creatures.”

  I operated the controls at once, and out from the long nozzles mounted on the tractor’s front part shot two widening fans of flame. The typhoon swirled and dispersed in great swathes before them—my senses were full of a conveyed impression (how can I otherwise describe it?) of primitive agony: a myriad small tortured voices from the spores themselv
es seemed to scream within my head.

  On and on. The distance was short enough—barely a mile—but despite Malu’s general guidance we still had to grope, to hold back on our speed lest we should lose our friends in the yellow tempest. I looked around. In the cloud-free bubble in which we traveled, created by the flame throwers, I could see the lost explorers in the trailer with Jacky and Paul. MacFarlane peered desperately into the mist ahead, as did the two young people. But McGillivray, strangely, seemed to be writing—stooped over a leaf of paper on his knee, his expression remote and concentrated—and with, it seemed to me, an extraordinary (how shall I put it?) sadness in it. I saw him, at one moment, break off his writing to lean close to Malu, as if consulting him; then he set to writing again, guiding the pencil sightlessly across the page, oblivious, it seemed, to the whole wild moment.

  It was, perhaps, a full ten minutes before we came upon our friends. We began to fear indeed that we had passed them—that in their flight they had swung around from the track we pursued, that Malu’s instinct had led us astray. But suddenly, in one vast parting fold of the mist before us, we saw them—saw Mike and Maggie firing furiously into the great bodies of the Terrible Ones as the monsters closed around them. One—the largest, immense and hideous, the great blank “face” all spattered with useless bullet holes—encircled Katey in his side tendrils, lifted her high into the air and turned to plunge back toward the Ridge.

  The tractor swung dangerously—rocked in its tracks across the loose soil; but Kalkenbrenner had achieved his purpose—the monster was within my range. I wrenched at the controls of the third and deadliest flame thrower—directed its searing blast in a bright ribbon toward the immense squat trunk of Katey’s captor; and saw her fall unharmed to the ground as he writhed, releasing her—as his loose fungoid “flesh” gaped horribly and withered in the heat.

  The monster was within my range.

  Mike and Maggie, answering our cries through the communication apparatus, had turned toward us and now sped rapidly to where we had halted. Mike lingered, to ascertain that Katey was unharmed—helped her to rise, stumbling a little, then thrust on, his arm in hers. Behind, as I swung the flame thrower to blast and rout the other attackers, Paul and Jacky had opened the tent covering of the trailer. A moment later and all three of our companions were aboard.

  And in that moment—that desperate hurried moment—something else had happened, something which, for all its gallant tragedy, was the saving of us indeed. What it was will be recounted in due and proper order; for the present, and to complete all aspects of the story as it progresses, I break the editorial rule and insert here a brief contribution by the one member of the expedition who has not so far set pen to paper. She claims to be no writer—and it has been, I confess, a task of the utmost difficulty to persuade her to take part at all in this compilation. But some account must be given of the adventures of the three members of our party who were, if only for a mercifully brief space of time, face to face with one of the Vivores themselves. The account begins from the moment when Katey turned back from the Albatross to fetch MacFarlane’s fatal chocolate. Our contributor’s language is her own, her method perhaps unique. The very title she has chosen for her short paper is characteristic, both of herself and her boon companion Michael. It is:

  OLD JELLYBAGS

  An Inserted Contribution to

  the Narrative of A. Keith

  Borrowdale

  by

  Margaret K. Sherwood

  Kind folks and gentle people:

  Shot One: mid-distance: self and K. Hogarth ambulating across from Albiwalbibalbitross for chocowocobocolate. (Used to know a fellow in film business, so this is all film-script stuff: also, of course, anky ooyi eekspi ubbledi-utchdi?) Wham!

  Shot Two: close-up self and K. Hogarth in the soup. Yessir. Thick soup. Pea soup. Yellow pea soup. Ellowyi-oudcli.

  Dialogue: self and K. Hogarth:

  “Guess this ain’t so hot, Maggie.”

  “Guess it ain’t, Katey.”

  “What do we do now, Maggie?”

  “Guess we’d better try to get over to the Albiwalbi with the otherswi, Ateyki.”

  “Okey-dokey, Aggiemi. Ouch!”

  This final exclamation (literary stuff now—leaf out of Jacky’s book) was occasioned by the sudden looming appearance through the encircling fog of some creatures hitherto beyond our ken, but which we recognized instantly from previous descriptions as some of the celebrated Terrible Ones. (How’m I doing?)

  Shot Three or Whatever-It-Is: self and K. Hogarth snatched up in arm tendrils of same and before we knew where we were, there we were, padding off into the orestfi.

  Sound Track: plenty of excitement music: idle-iddle-pom, iddle-iddle-pom, pom-pom-pom-pom-iddle-iddle-pom-pom.

  Captured!

  In this extremity what will befall our two heroines, swept off into the deadly Martian Forest by the hideous monsters known as the Terrible Ones? There they are, pinned to the trunks of two of the Martian Ridge plants, awaiting with fortitude whatever fate may now befall. Will they escape? See next week’s exciting instalment. A Sherwood Production.

  Installment Two:

  Enter Two-gun Malone, the Boy Wonder of the Martian Wastes. Yippee.

  Desperate Dan Malone leaps wildly across the forest floor. Hopalong Malone does his best, firing from all fifteen barrels. Destry Junior to the rescue! Will he make it?

  O.K. folks. Answer very simple.

  Destry Junior doesn’t make it.

  Destry Junior is one blamed three-star Fool.

  Gesture much appreciated by self and K. Hogarth. Damsels in distress—welcome sight of gallant rescuer. But gallant rescuer ought to have known better.

  Gallant rescuer is also captured.

  Cut.

  Scene Twenty-five: one hour later: self, K. Hogarth and Dead-eyed Dick Malone still prisoner.

  Where are their friends—last seen on their way from spaceship with supine figures of Oldtimer Martian Settlers, Doc McGillivray and Hank MacFarlane? Nobody knows.

  On all sides (literary stuff) there is an impenetrable wall of the deadly seed spores. Yet it is a curious aspect of the phenomenon that the intrepid captives are themselves in a space which has been kept clear, a bubble, as it were, in the surrounding ellowyi-oud-cli.

  Close-up: Old Jellybags himself.

  Kind friends and gentle people: what do I say now? How do I go on from here?

  There he was, plumb in the center of a great slob of marsh, and there was steam rising up all around him. He was white. He was big. And he wasn’t no shape at all. He was all messy and throbbing all the time, and he was all over little smooth wet wrinkles, all over the kind of white jelly he was. No eyes, no nothing. Only just all over kind of raw-looking. . . .

  I just don’t like to think of Old Jellybags, kind friends. I just don’t . . . !

  And the thing was that he had us—he had us there; and there wasn’t anything we could do. It was just as if you couldn’t even think. The thoughts were just drained right out of you, the way it maybe is if you are ever hypnotized, although I haven’t ever been hypnotized, so I don’t know, but I should think it was like that.

  He was kind of finding out about us. It’s the only way to say it. It was his thoughts that were all around us, and he was probing and peering into us with those thoughts of his, and he was trying to find out what made us tick.

  Our chums the Terrible Ones were all standing back a bit by this time. They were just standing all around like slaves or something. After all, they didn’t need to hold us anymore. We couldn’t move.

  Well, what was the answer? How did we get away? ’Cos we did get away—you know that, else self wouldn’t be writing all this.

  Lordy knows how long he had us there, feeling kind of sick, all three of us. Lordy knows.

  But we did get away!

  How?

  Kind friends, you won’t believe it. But it worked. It worked for no more’n a split second or two, but it w
as all we needed. And the clue is what poor old Doc McGillivray said when he was telling the others about Old Jellybags: the Vivore couldn’t quite “fool all of the people all of the time.” No, sir. The process was kind of gradual. Once he had you, of course, he had you—the way he’d had Mac and Steve—but it took a little time till it was all complete—that was why those two had managed to go on sending messages right till the end, and it was also why—

  However.

  You see, I began to notice something. I began to notice that Old J.B. was so intent to get to know things in a hurry, sort of, that over and above the gradual-control stuff, he kind of took us in turn. He kind of concentrated a bit more on Katey for a moment, and then he concentrated a bit more on Mike for a moment, and then he concentrated a bit more on me for a moment. If we’d stayed much longer he’d’ve managed all three at once, but right at the beginning that was the way it was. ’Course, when he wasn’t concentrating on me, I still couldn’t move much, but I could, I just could think some of my own thoughts.

  And it had all just dawned on me, and I was kind of relaxing for a minute in one of those spells, when suddenly I heard a whisper. Yessir! Right in my ear. I’d forgotten all about the whatsit inside our helmets that could make us hear one another. And it was Mike’s voice.

  He says, “Maggie,” he says.

  And it was a minute or two before I really got it that it was Mike speaking, but I did. ’Cos you see he was talking in Double-talk himself—that’s where the Double-talk comes in. It was really “Aggiemi” he said. And I tried to answer back in the same way. But I couldn’t, for all of a sudden Old Jellybags was concentrating right on me again, and there was no hope. But when he switched away from me onto Katey I managed it, ’cos there was Mike’s voice again, and he says: