The Angry Planet (18 page)

“It is the omen of the
mountain—the mountain tells us that it knows we are in danger, and will help
us.”

I looked at Mac in
bewilderment.

“It’s all right, Steve,” he
said with a smile. “It’s a volcano, I think—a mild earthquake caused by a
volcanic disturbance among the hills. This whole district is volcanic in the
extreme—you can tell that by the shape of that big mountain overhanging the
city—and there are great layers of lava all over the ground up by the store
cave. Interesting, though, that they should think of it as an omen—it’s the
first sign we’ve encountered of superstitious belief among the Beautiful
People.
 . . .
I must remember to talk to The Center about it at our
next meeting
.
 . . .
”

Yes, we waited—fretfully and
impatiently. The only one among us who did not seem to feel the boredom of
inactivity creeping over him was the Doctor. After he had seen the
Albatross
settled, he moved about among the Beautiful People, making enquiries, examining
them, photographing them.
He
had innumerable conferences
with The Center, he filled notebook after notebook with views and comments. In
the interest of exploring a new field of scientific discovery, he grew more and
more excited, and in the end he announced to me that he had formed a theory as
to what the Martians were—“the only theory that fits all the facts, Steve—an
astonishing theory, but a terrifyingly logical one—by heavens, but it will give
them something to think about back on earth!—and it’s so simple!—it’s a wonder
I didn’t get it straight away—it would have explained so much!
 . . .
”

Because it “explains so much” I
am, as I have already said, setting out the Doctor’s theory here, in the second
part of this interval chapter before the final dramatic scenes of our too-brief
visit to Mars. It is, as you will appreciate, extremely difficult for a man of
science to set forth a complicated thesis in a very few pages, but in the
interests of the lay reader I have, as before, asked the Doctor to keep his
remarks as simple and concise as possible. This means that inevitably he will
not be able to expand much, or set out many proofs in support of his opinions;
but, as he himself said earlier, in reference to his paper on space flight,
recourse can always be made to his numerous articles in the scientific journals
by anyone wanting more detail.

Here, then, are the Doctor’s
notes. Anyone interested only in the actual story of our adventures on Mars can
skip from here to the last few paragraphs of the chapter; if you do do this,
however, I recommend that you come back later and read this paper of the Doctor’s.
My strong advice is that you will not skip at all: it seems to me absolutely
essential for a reader to know what the Martians are at this stage of the
story.

1.
General Introduction.
I wish it clearly understood at the outset that this paper is to be regarded as
no more than a digest of the extensive writings on this subject I have already
contributed to various journals since our return from Mars. Limitations of
space demand that I be brief, almost to the point of baldness. I shall be
unable to set forth in any detail the processes of observation and deduction
that led me to form the theory I now propose to outline—I shall do no more than
make a series of statements, which you are at liberty, in the absence of proof,
to accept or reject as you see fit. Rest assured, however, that I do not make
these statements in any mere spirit of caprice or whimsy: I am, after all, a
scientific man, with a considerable reputation to lose.

The only thing I regret is that
circumstances beyond our control rendered it imperative for us to leave Mars
rather earlier than I personally had intended, as you will find as you proceed
with the reading of this book. This means that my findings are not as fully
documented as I might have wished. However, I propose, as soon as it may be
arranged, to remedy this by returning to the haunts and homes of the Beautiful
People (if, indeed, any such exist after the terrible disaster that befell
those innocent and charming friends of ours!) so that I can indulge in more
research.

With this brief preamble, I now
set forth my views. I shall begin by discussing the planet itself—for, after
all, as sociologists well know, environment is an immensely important factor in
determining the shape of the evolution of any sort of life.

2.
The Planet.
I came to
the conclusion, after certain geological researches, and many conversations
with the Martian scientists (who are, incidentally, very well-informed on the
universe in general and their own home world in particular), that Mars is a
dying planet. The atmosphere is rare, and seems to be slowly—very slowly—dispersing
altogether. Even more important than this, however, is the question of
moisture. I did not have any chance to embark on personal exploration, but
according to what I was told by the Martian scientists, and what we saw
ourselves as we approached the planet and so could view it as a map, so to say,
the main water courses run towards and round the poles. These seas, vast as
they are at the moment, are drying up. The process, of course, will take many
thousands of years, but nevertheless it is going on. The land masses, in
consequence of this, are arid—vast deserts of dry sand and no more. The only
vegetation is in or near the mountain ranges, and for the most part this
consists of the vast cactus-like plants already described in these pages. The
roots of the plants are prodigiously long, and are tuberous: by capillary
action they bring moisture from deep down in the soil, and this moisture is
stored in the great leathery leaves. Now and again, among the hills, there are
slow-oozing wells—like the one we ourselves so fortunately discovered near the
city—but these are freakish and vestigial. The plants provide the only real
irrigation system on the surface of Mars.

There are two seasons on Mars,
a summer and a winter, quite clearly defined, each lasting some eight or nine
months of our time. We were fortunate enough to land in the middle of summer in
the district inhabited by the Beautiful People. Summer is a mild, pleasant
season, very dry. Winter is much bitterer than our British winter. This fact
has, as you will see, a profound sociological significance in the life of the
Martians.

The mountain ranges—there are
not many of them—are honeycombed with caves and tunnels, running far and
tortuously into the soil. Most of the mountains are volcanic—actively so.

3.
The Inhabitants.
I
come now to the point of setting forth the startling theory that has been
referred to several times in this volume, by myself, by Mr. MacFarlane, and by
Mr. Adam. I wish you, the reader, to bear in mind all that you have been told
about the appearance and general characteristics of the Martians—particularly
the Beautiful People. You will recall their
tendrils
—the thick, root-like
ones that function as feet, the fibrous hand-tentacles, the short, sensitive,
feeding-tubes. Recall the heated, steamy atmosphere of the domes—the “houses.”
Recall the one thing that baffled us at the beginning of our acquaintanceship
with the Beautiful People—the fact that they seemed to have some form of
telepathic communication with the cacti on the plain.

The answer to all these things
is simple—bafflingly simple:
the Martians are plants themselves.

Just as, on our planet, the
animal form of life has evolved as the highest, so on Mars it was the plants
that developed to the eventual exclusion of any other type of life. The
Beautiful People are plants—flowering plants: even the Terrible Ones are
plants—of a different genus, but still plants.

On the surface there would seem
to be many objections to the theory. And, as I have said, I have not the space
to adduce a series of proofs for my contention. It will suffice for me to say
that I make this statement in all good faith, satisfied in my own mind that it
is a true interpretation of the facts. Here are some general observations.

First, there is the question of
the individuality and mobility of the Martians. Plants, as we know them, are
static—they have their roots in the soil, and, for feeding purposes, the roots
must remain there. Yet each Martian can move at will from place to place—and at
considerable speed, as we have seen. The answer is that the Martians did begin
as static plants many thousands, even millions of years ago—probably as a
species allied to the cacti of the plain. In the long, long course of evolution
they gradually, as they acquired perceptiveness, developed the power of
moving—probably this was made necessary as the planet slowly dried up and they
had to seek the moister districts. The movement at first was of an elementary
kind—the development of certain root-tendrils as creepers, I fancy. I need
hardly add that this creeping propensity is evident in a great many of our
earth plants—without mentioning any of the numerous exotic varieties, I may
cite the homely strawberry, the even more homely vegetable marrow (which has
even been known to climb over garden walls!) and, among flowers, the iris and
the convolvulus. In course of time the plants were able to move on their
creepers without having to drop roots into the soil—they became detached. And
from here it is an easy step to the Martians as we knew them—with vestigial
creeper tendrils actually functioning as feet. The “hands” are also vestigial
creeper tendrils. Of the small mouth tendrils—which still function as roots—I
shall have occasion to speak separately in a few moments.

In this general connection of
the evolution of the Martians, I may say that I had an occasion to see the
whole process at work when Malu took me to see the young—the “children,” so to
say—of the Beautiful People. These were housed in caves in the hills near the
city—huge deep caverns with a warm, humid atmosphere. The floors of the caves
were, so to say, gigantic forcing beds—layers of decaying leaves from the
trees, the “bodies” of dead cacti and so on (the atmospheric heat came partly
from the decaying processes of this matter and partly from volcanic fires
beneath the mountains). The seed of a new Martian is sown in one of these beds.
It grows as a plant—the very new ones I saw were mere little greenish shoots,
like almost any sprouting plant on earth. Gradually the roots through which
these “children” are gaining moisture and nourishment from the soil, throw out
creepers—the little Martians begin to move, literally to move, of their own
volition, as they develop, to other beds nearer the entrance to the caves.
Finally, one day, they become complete individuals—entirely separate: smaller
editions of Malu, as it were. Then they come out of the caves and descend to
the city to take up life as individual Beautiful People. This whole process of
growth, of microcosmic evolution, takes some four to five years of our time, as
far as I could reckon it.

It will not be inappropriate
here to say a few words about the generative principle of the Martians.
This
is the same as among plants on earth
—the same process of the transference
of pollen from flower to flower takes place (without the intervention of
insects, of course). The mossy tuft on the top of the trunk of a Martian is
literally his “flower.” We have seen that there are male and female Martians—in
the female, the flower is larger and more beautiful. It will be possible now to
visualize the whole process, to the point where the seed is inserted in the hot
beds I have mentioned. Thus the great and marvelous universal principle of life
is observed in operation in all its beauty and grandeur, on Mars as on earth—as,
most probably, in each and every corner of the cosmos.

I shall deal briefly now with
some other aspects of the Martians: their power of vision, for example. I
assume that the “eyes” are certain cellular areas near the flower that began by
developing a general sensitivity to light (our earth plants are sensitive to
light in very broad terms—vide the sunflower). In the course of evolution these
areas developed into recognizable eyes. As far as hearing is concerned, we
found that the Martians sensed noise only if it were loud enough to provide a
really concussive vibration of the atmosphere—they “felt” pistol or rifle
shots, for example, or volcanic explosions—and they felt them with their whole
bodies. But that was the only sense in which they could be said to hear—sound,
to them, had not the significance it has for us.

Their feeding principle is
simplicity itself. When their own roots began to function as creepers and then
feet, they had to develop parasitic tendencies. Their own small feeding
suckers, or roots, had to be attached to static plants so that they could draw
nourishment from the soil
through them
. The principle can be observed on
earth in the case of the mistletoe, for example, feeding on the oak. The
feeding of the Martians, as we saw it in the cultivated cactus fields in the
city, is, so to say, a temporary grafting process.