The Angry Planet (8 page)

But it won’t be long—the Doctor
says it won’t be long. And we shall all be back again. And you will be better
by that time, and we shall be able to sit round the fire and have toast and
roast chestnuts (Mrs. Duthie in Scotland was showing me how to make soda scones
on a “girdle,” and Scotch pancakes, so I shall make some of those for us in the
winter, and we shall have them hot with butter).

I shall never forget all
this—never, never, never. But secretly I shall never want to come again, no
matter how wonderful it may be on Mars. The boys are wonderful—Mike is enjoying
himself no end, and so is Paul, but I think that sometimes in his bones Paul is
a little bit worried about us, because he is the oldest, lest anything should
happen to us, and then he would feel responsible.

Well, this is silly. But it has
done me good to write it all down. Perhaps we shall never come back—oh mummy, I
couldn’t bear it! Well, I won’t think of it, that’s all.

Mike and Paul are having a
floating game up near the ceiling, so I shall go and join them and that will
cheer me up. I am sure the Doctor likes us now—he was angry at first, but that
is all past. He is a darling, very gentle and kind.

A floating game near the ceiling

Good-bye for now, darling
mummy. I think of you all the time, and so does Paul, I know, in his heart. Get
well soon. All, all my love. Your affectionate daughter, Jacqueline
.
 . . .

A Note by Paul Adam made on
the 16th Day.
A week ago we saw Mars as a very big star. It has got larger and
larger. Now it is almost the size of the moon on a clear night on earth. We are
almost there!

We are terribly excited. We can
hardly believe it. Doctor Mac says there is no danger now of missing the
gravity belt—we shall land on Mars—we shall be the first human beings from
earth to land on Mars!

We wonder and wonder what we
shall find. Will the air be breathable? Will there be food? Will there be
water? Will there be people?

We crowd to the port-holes and
stare all the time. To think we have actually done it! We have actually done
it!
 . . .

So I end the quotations from
our notebooks. The journey was fantastic, beautiful. The conditions on it were
such that no human beings had ever experienced before. Yet so adaptable is man,
that after the first few days we accepted those conditions as normal. There was
no mystery any more—we grew accustomed to weightlessness—we grew accustomed to
taking our turns of sleep strapped to the beds—to eating—to everything. So
that, towards the end, we were even—yes, I must say it, in all honesty—a little
bored and tired, and anxious for the long, long journey to end.

Our minds were full of
speculation. As we neared our goal—the red planet—the Angry Planet, as I had
referred to it so many days before in Scotland—we talked among ourselves
endlessly, imagining, dreaming. At first, as we approached, the planet appeared
to the naked eye as a small red disc. As it got larger, we gradually perceived
vague dark outlines. There were, as on earth, two polar caps—unmistakably—and
therefore, to our joy, moisture on this new world of ours—and an atmosphere.

Nearer and nearer. We could
see, revolving in the sky round the planet, its two satellites—its twin moons.
The shapes on the surface resolved themselves. There were large reddish patches
now, tinted and luminous, as the earth had been. And then, vaguely at first, a
creeping green. The globe grew larger—grew immense. And, unmistakably, the
outlines of countries—of countries!—came into view. The green patches spread and
changed in color to a steely blue—they were, we saw, huge seas. And the red
patches—which changed to orange and then to a strange mottled brown—were vast
land masses. They were enormous—bigger than even America and Asia had seemed on
earth at a similar distance.

There are no words to describe
the Doctor’s excitement when he was able to announce to us that we were
entering the planet’s gravity belt and falling rapidly towards it. There was no
question at first of any cessation of the sense of weightlessness, for we still
traveled faster than the gravity pull on Mars. But he warned us that as we
entered the atmosphere, and he set in motion the rocket motors in the front and
sides of the
Albatross
to impede our fall, we would experience a return
of the terrible pressure we had felt on leaving earth—but not, he believed, so
powerfully, since Mars was so much smaller than our own home planet, and the
gravity pull weaker.

In my mind, as I look back now,
the impressions of the last few hours of our journey are muddled and confused.
We were all, I think, a little hysterical—I remember we laughed and chatted
inordinately—we talked the wildest nonsense, we hugged each other and danced
stupidly and clumsily in our magnetic boots. The shining surface of Mars grew
enormous—it filled the whole space beneath us. We were still many thousands of
miles from it—there was no hope of distinguishing any detail in the vast land
masses below. All we could see, before we entered the outer stratosphere, and
so were enveloped in the milky mist we had seen on first leaving earth, was
that the seas were after all comparatively small, and that they extended, as it
seemed, symmetrically, in broad well-cut channels towards the two poles. The
whole center part beneath us was land—there was no danger that we should fall
in water.

I saw the Doctor adjust his
breathing mask. He stood now, in a sort of icy calm, at the control panel. I
and the children lay down on the mattresses, strapping ourselves down. (We had
given the other breathing mask to Jacky, so that things would be as comfortable
for her as possible.) There was, among us, an awed, incredulous silence.

The Doctor pressed a switch.
There was a long quivering tremor throughout the
Albatross.
The motors
in the nose were working—we were slowing down. In a moment or two the Doctor
would touch the lever that would cause to shoot out the two stocky wings on the
back of the
Albatross
near the nose. So the ship, mechanically adjusted
for this part of the flight, would flatten out automatically in a long steep
dive, so as to land right side up. The Doctor’s calculations were such that if
there were a brief spell of unconsciousness for the travelers in the last
stages of the journey, the tremendous deceleration would slow the
Albatross
sufficiently for the body to adjust itself before the last few miles had been
traversed. Thus the operator would have recovered, and be able to work the
control panel for a comfortable landing.

There came now, suddenly, in
our ears, a high-pitched persistent rushing sound. And gradually our sense of
weight returned. I felt myself swimming in the head
—
there was a repeat of the
sensation that someone had bound my chest with iron chains. I looked at Mike,
beside me, and at Paul and Jacky on the other mattress. The two boys were white
and sick-looking, fighting for breath. I looked at the Doctor. He still stood
at the control panel, but he was gripping the hand-rail tightly and swaying a
little. He, because of his mask (he wore it as a slight measure to keep himself
conscious for the landing) was experiencing the awful weight sensation rather
less than we were. The last thing I saw before my senses left me altogether,
under the terrible pressure and the maddening rushing sound that filled my
ears, was the unsteady, wavering movement of his hand as he raised it to touch
one of the controls
.
 . . .

I came to myself gradually,
swimming up through blackness. I felt slightly sick. I lay for a moment
perfectly still, collecting my powers. Then, as a sort of icy shock, I realized
that the darkness was not only in my head
—
the whole cabin was dark—not pitch dark, but
full of a grey, heavy twilight.

“Mac,” I cried, “what is it?
What’s wrong—for heaven’s sake, what’s wrong?”

And his voice came back,
cheerful and reassuring:

“Steve—Steve—don’t worry. Don’t
you realize, man—it’s only night—we’re landing in the night-time!”

“I’ll put on the emergency
light,” I called to him. “The switch is just above my head here.”

“No, don’t do that,” his voice
came. “I can see quite well—I didn’t go completely unconscious—only hazy, and
my eyes are used to it—it isn’t fully dark, it’s only twilight. If you put on
the light you’ll dazzle me. Are the children all right?”

There came two faint reassuring
voices from the other mattress—Jacky, like the Doctor, had taken off her mask
before the rest of us had fully regained consciousness. Mike, beside me,
grunted and said: “Yes—sure we are.”

“Splendid. We’re almost there.
You can unstrap yourselves and stand up—you’ll be able to do it without boots.
We’re coasting quite slowly—the atmosphere must be fairly dense.”

We stood up. Our eyes were
accustomed to the gloom by this time, and we stared at each other’s vague
shapes. I raised my arm. It seemed curiously heavy for a moment, after the
long, long spell of weightlessness we had gone through. I had unstrapped my
boots before lying down, and now I made a few tentative steps across the cabin.
To my joy I found I was walking normally—clumsily, but normally. I saw the
children moving, too—we were ourselves again.

And now the Doctor said:

“Are you ready? I’m going to
land her. As far as I can see it’s flat beneath—I’ve been coasting round in a
circle to make sure, and there aren’t any obstacles—trees or anything. There’ll
probably be a slight bump, so look out.”

He was as happy as a king. This
was his moment—all that he had worked and waited for.

We stood perfectly still,
clinging to the handrails. For a moment there was silence, then suddenly a
chuckle from Mac. And simultaneously a heavy jar and a shudder along the whole
ship. We pitched forward involuntarily—I heard a little yelp of pain from Mike
as his head bumped the wall.

And then all was still. We had
arrived!

“Ladies and gentlemen,” cried
Mac, “or rather,
lady
and gentlemen—our grand tour of the universe is at
an end! Allow me to present to you the new British holiday resort—the planet
Mars! Tickets, please!”

He roared with laughter. Then,
like a schoolboy, he waltzed lightly over to the door of the cabin. He opened
it. Before he opened the outer door he looked round at us—we could just see him
in the dim light.

“I’ll test the atmosphere
first,” he said, “to see if it’s breathable.”

He put on his oxygen mask
again. Then he closed the inner door. We all stood silent in a little group in
the center of the cabin. We heard the outer door open. There was a moment’s
suspense, then the inner door opened again and Mac once more confronted
us—without his mask!

“Perfect!” he cried, “the
veriest ozone!”

With whoops of joy, all our
excitement released at last in one glorious burst, we rushed to the cabin door.
A breeze—a wonderful, soft, cool breeze of real air, thin and sharp, like a
perfect poem of a wine—an actual breeze blew in our faces!

We crowded the doorway, staring
out. All round us was the twilight. Through it, and immediately in front of us,
was the dim outline of what seemed to be a small hill. And above it, streaking
the sky, was a brightening tinge of luminous pink.

The Doctor whistled suddenly
through his teeth. And when he spoke his voice was different—was quiet and
awesome.

“Oh my heavens,” he said. “Steve—children—do
you realize what it is? It’s the dawn! It’s the Martian dawn! We have arrived
at dawn—could anything be more magnificently significant! We’re on Mars—and it’s
the dawn!”

We stared at each other. And I
felt my heart swelling inside me, and a lump in my throat from sheer pride and
thankfulness after all we had gone through.