The Red Journey Back (16 page)

The
tractor was equipped with a complete cabin, again of kalspex, which could be
levered into position in a matter of seconds, thus affording a double
protection to the asbestos-suited occupants. And the trailer could also very
rapidly be shrouded in a complete “tent” of treated canvas with kalspex windows—this
also to serve for sleeping quarters, together with another small collapsible
tent carried in the tractor’s spacious boot.

So
then we departed, in solemn array. Behind us
the
immense silvery spire of the
Comet
receded, its outlines wavering delicately in the bright, the almost intolerably
bright, sunshine. The sound of our engine—an alien sound indeed across the
Martian wastes—dispersed, died flatly over the soft yielding sand of the plain
and in the rare ozone-charged atmosphere. And fabulously, even ridiculously, as
our caravan advanced across that arid desert, Katey declaimed, half-seriously,
remembering the verses as she had learned them years before at the start of her
career—when, as a child actress, she had appeared in a revival of the old play
of
Hassan
 . . .
she
declaimed:

We are
the Pilgrims, master; we shall go

Always a
little further; it may be

Beyond
that last blue mountain barred with snow

Across
that angry or that glimmering sea,

White on
a throne or guarded in a cave

There
lives a prophet who can understand

Why men
were born: but surely we are brave,

Who take
the Golden Road to Samarkand.

Then
Michael began to whistle raucously: “Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are
marching,” with Maggie pompomming solemnly at an imaginary tuba, and the
tension in us broke at once, and out across the plain went the sound of our
laughter—as alien on silent Mars, in its different way, as the throb of our
engine.

We
pushed constantly southward, weaving among the groups of the cactus plants. Was
it once more only fancy, or was there, occasionally, a kind of
shrinking
,
as it seemed, from those strange sentient growths?—a shrinking away from us,
not fully expressed in actual movement but somehow in attitude. They “reared,”
as it were, as startled horses might have done, but not physically—in thought
only.

The
mountains—on our right as we advanced—loomed ever closer. Jacky and Paul
scanned their slopes and valleys with powerful binoculars for some sign,
perhaps, of Martian habitation. Once Jacky cried out, pointing excitedly; and
when I leveled my own binoculars it was to see, in a small hollow, a bright
shining from a brilliant reflecting surface of some kind. As my eyes grew
accustomed to the glare, I could make out a group of immense dome shapes—huge
bubbles, inverted bowls, the largest of them seeming veritably as grand in
outline as the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral.

“The
bubble houses,” called Jacky from the trailer.

“There’s
no sign of life near them,” I said, still scanning the hillside.

“There
wouldn’t be, if they’re the ones I think they are,” said our captain briefly. “If
it’s the settlement MacFarlane mentioned in his messages, it was deserted, you’ll
remember, as the Vivores danger increased.”

“And
if it is that settlement,” murmured Katey, “it means that the
Albatross
is near at hand—they dragged her
across the plain, near to the village.”

“Beyond
those very foothills, my dear,” said Kalkenbrenner grimly. “If my bearings are
accurate—if the ridge we saw in landing was
the
Ridge—MacFarlane and McGillivray are
barely two Earth miles ahead of us!”

As
he spoke, he brought the little tractor to a halt. We had been traveling now
for some time—the sun was high in the almost white sky. The nature of the
terrain had changed: the clustering cactus plants had grown sparser on the
first slopes of the foothills—had eventually disappeared altogether, their
place being taken first by small leathery shrubs, then, among the hills proper,
by occasional trees, slender-trunked and with heavy, fleshy leaves.

“You
can eat them, you know,” cried Michael, jumping up for a handful as we halted. “I
lived on nothing else that time I was captured by the Terrible Ones on the last
trip. They’re like melon flesh, but with a kind of salty taste about them too.
Very good—try some.”

We
set to nibbling—tentatively at first, but in truth the leaves did have a
strangely attractive flavor.

“Don’t
anyone move any distance away from the tractor,” said Dr. Kalkenbrenner. “In
fact, we had better stay aboard together, Michael—no more leaves, if you
please. I have stopped so that we can prepare ourselves. As far as my reckoning
goes, we shall be face to face with MacFarlane’s ‘Canals,’ whatever they may
be, the moment we mount that hill immediately ahead there. We had best have
something to eat—some of the biscuits and cheese Miss Hogarth prepared for us;
it may be long enough before we can eat again. And when we go forward
afterward, I want you to wear your helmets, with the air valves open, but be
ready to switch over to oxygen the moment I may give the word.”

The
very brusqueness of his manner sent a chill through us. In the interest of the
journey we had forgotten momentarily how closely danger loomed. I saw that
Jacky had gone white—that even Mike trembled a little as he held out his hand
for the eatables Katey had unpacked and was handing around.

For
my own part, I switched my gaze to the sky above the line of the small hillock
facing us. I sought for the faintest tinge of possible yellow—the least shadow.
But I sought in vain. From the journey’s start we all had scanned the southern
sky for an appearance, however sparsely, of the Cloud. But from first to last
there had been not even a far hint of it.

So
we ate in silence. I will confess to little appetite.
A
slight sense of empty sickness afflicted me. I was, in truth, afraid.

I
watched Dr. Kalkenbrenner as, with white set face, he made a few final
adjustments to the small cannon and machine gun mounted on the front
superstructure of the tractor. I myself checked over the powerful flame thrower
ready to my hand—saw that Paul, Katey and Michael were looking to their own
hand weapons, rifles and revolvers. Maggie furtively polished a small automatic
she had somehow smuggled with her from the rocket—for it had been agreed that
the two girls should be unarmed, and no arrangements had been made by the
Doctor to equip them.

Then,
at a word from our leader, we set our helmets in position and switched on the communication
apparatus within them. Through the exterior microphones we heard the powerful
revving of our engine as, once more, we went forward, climbing the gentle slope
which separated us from
 . . .
what?

The
tension mounted as we proceeded. My hand, I realized, was trembling on the
control of the flame thrower, and in fear of accident I withdrew it. Close in
my ears was a low strange whispering moan; I saw Katey’s lips moving through
the transparency of the kalspex and understood that her excited, apprehensive
breathing was being transmitted through the little microphone so close to her
lips.

Higher
and still higher we climbed. Ahead, the sky
was still
clear. And a moment later we were over the top and descending; and saw, and
saw, and saw—

A
plain, a vast extending plain, entirely similar in its red expanse to that
which we had left behind.

But
cutting across it in a straight wide line, to the remotest horizon, was a great
ridge of dark, dark green—a confusion of tumultuous growth, lush, prodigal. A
mile, perhaps, in width—perhaps, at its farther reaches, even wider. And
swelling, at the end now near us, to an immense circumference, enclosing in its
vernal depths—

“The
Albatross
—the
Albatross
!
”

It
was Jacqueline’s voice, thin in my ears through the reedy diaphragm of our
communication apparatus, yet charged with profoundest feeling.

The
great ship lay on a slight incline, gleaming in the sunlight, a silvery
contrast to the monstrous fronds surrounding it. I recognized her from the
photographs I had seen—I saw her very name across the swelling brow of her.

Over
all—over all the silent scene—there hung an air of unutterable strangeness. All
was still, all peaceful—no sign, no hint of danger. And yet something,
something—

Kalkenbrenner,
bewildered, drew to a long slithering downhill halt, small reddish clouds
rising from our tracks. And I heard Jacqueline’s voice once more: “Uncle
Steve—oh, Uncle Steve! And
Doctor Mac
 . . . 
!”

Standing
close to the looming spaceship, unbelievable after all we had known, all we had
expected, were two human figures. One—the older—held his head inclined a little
away from us, as if uncertain of our true direction. But the other gazed at
us—and waved in all cheerfulness, beckoning us forward.

I
had seen neither before; but again I knew them both from photographs and
descriptions. They were the men we had come so far to find—alive, alive and
well, unharmed—awaiting us!

And
MacFarlane still waved us forward—was shouting, as we could see, yet stood at
too great a distance for us to hear his words. And all about were peace and
utter stillness—no menace, no danger after all.
 . . .

Slowly
we crawled forward again, in lowest gear. Nearer and nearer to the great forest
of silent green growth. And at last MacFarlane s voice came, rare and distorted
through the exterior microphones: “Come closer, closer! Why do you hesitate?
There is nothing to fear—nothing, nothing!”

There
was nothing to fear indeed—nothing in all that extending scene—and the two men
stood beckoning us on, the men we had thought to find besieged and in uttermost
peril.

There
was nothing to fear as we crept forward, always forward.

And
yet, and yet—
and yet
 . . .

Something
lingered: over all that peaceful scene, in the very silent air itself:
something lingered!

I
SHALL NEVER FORGET—never, never—the unutterable strangeness of that first
Martian scene with MacFarlane and McGillivray.
 . . .
How
best to describe it, even? The almost nightmare bewilderment as we still
advanced, slowly, slowly, toward them—toward the gleaming
Albatross
and their two quiet figures beside it.

The
whole moment was fabulously different from anything we had expected. We had
prepared for danger, we had equipped ourselves to face an incalculable horror:
and we saw only two quiet men—two friends of our own kind in that alien
place—who smiled and beckoned us on.