The Red Journey Back (17 page)

Two
friends—who smiled and beckoned us on.

And
all about them, vast and silent, lay the great forest of the Ridge. The plants
which constituted it were different from any we had seen on Mars before. They
were not trees, nor yet were they kin to the cactus plants of the plains. They
sprouted from squat, white bulbous bases in huge sheaths, great broad and sword-shaped
leaves, like iris leaves or lilies upon Earth, yet towering high above our
heads—as high as poplars in some instances. Enclosed in the outer fleshy
sheaths, which were all of the deep, dark olive-green color we had noted from
the start, were half-glimpsed stems—long
rods
, as it seemed—of a yellowish tinge,
the first real hint of the much-feared color in all the peaceful scene; and
these were curled over at the top in smaller and smaller convolutions, like
ferns in spring. (I am, alas, no botanist, and so I forbear any attempt to
describe these various parts of the Ridge plants, as we called them, by their
proper terms.)

The
forest of the Ridge plants stretched, as I have said, as far as we were able to
see across the plain. The verge formed an immense straight line—a barrier,
almost; and so thick were the growths in this great “tail,” as I might call it,
that indeed it seemed at first glimpse like a ridge. We saw at once how, in his
descriptions of it across space, MacFarlane had come to use the word. At the
end that was near us, the plants, as I have already said, spread out to form an
immense enclosure around the rearing spaceship. Here they were more sparsely
spaced—at least in the part of the enclosure immediately facing us; indeed,
directly ahead of us, they opened out altogether so as to form a clear line of
approach for us to the
Albatross.

One
other thing I noticed in those first few moments of our encounter with the
Ridge plants: Whereas the cacti on the plains were surrounded entirely by the
loose and extremely dry Martian soil, these growths seemed to have found—I had
a strange and half-instinctive notion that they had veritably
created
—much
moisture. The deep red soil about their white bases was oozy and soft. I had
even the impression, as I glanced more deeply into the forest’s thick heart, of
a positive vapor rising—a tenuous steam. The great damp leaves of the more
distant plants—spongy and yielding—seemed to quiver a little, as if in a heat
haze.
 . . .

But
there was little time for anything other than a cursory glance at the massive
Ridge plants as we crawled forward. I remember only reflecting, as I glanced
along the great line of the forest, that here indeed was the answer to the age-old
problem of the Martian Canals. Suppose there were many more of these great
ridges, stretching straightly over the reddish plains of the Angry
Planet?—ridges rather wider even than this one, perhaps, so as to be visible to
terrestrial observers?—but then on the instant I remembered something else: the
strange and awesome adjective which had been applied to the Canals in
MacFarlane’s messages: the
Creeping
Canals. I remembered how the
Albatross
had plainly been lying, after the time of its removal to the foothills, in a
clear and exposed position. Somehow this tremendous burgeoning of green growth
had
approached
so as to surround it. I recalled some lines from a nightmare poem I once had
learned on distant Earth:

And
look! behind without a sound

The
woods have come up and are standing round in deadly crescent
 . . .

and
I recalled, as well, in the same brief moment of time, a strange fact that had
always occasioned ironical comment, even mirth, among terrestrial astronomers:
that Lowell, the brilliant American scientist of the early 1900’s, had always
claimed that the so-called Canals
did
move. Under the perfect observing
conditions of the high Arizona desert, he had seen them move, had seen the
remote spidery lines of them form and reform, break slowly away from each
other, run parallel, intercross—literally (in his own word) “geminate
. . . .
”

I
had a vision of the whole vast forest before me somehow
crawling
,
somehow
edging forward
, somehow veritably
marching
over the
expanse of the plain. . . .

The
woods have come up and are standing round!

And
in the vision (which had about it, as we subsequently found, a strange
counterpart in reality) there was fear again—an intensification of the subtle
fear which, in spite of all the peace, the silence, the smiling faces of our
friends as they waved us on, per
meated everything we saw before us as
we rolled steadily toward the
Albatross
.
 . . .

“Hurry, hurry,”
called MacFarlane again. “Why do you hesitate? Come forward, forward!”

We now had
halted once more. Dr. Kalkenbrenner, his face still a study of bewilderment
through the kalspex of his helmet, had braked the tractor hard a few paces from
the outer rim of the great Ridge plants. He stood up in his seat and I saw his
hand on the switch which would bring into operation the exterior speaker on his
suit.

It should have
been, heaven knows, an historic moment—a moment equivalent (in Katey’s previous
irreverent quotation) to H. M. Stanley’s celebrated, “Dr. Livingstone, I
presume.” But somehow, in the unnatural bewilderment of the occasion, all fell
strangely flat; there was even an irresolute tremor in our leader’s voice as he
called out:

“This is
Kalkenbrenner—Kalkenbrenner. I take it that all is safe? I mean, your messages . . . ?”

MacFarlane
waved again. He smiled more blandly even than before. He was weirdly—how shall
I put it?
—boyish
,
somehow, irresponsible-seeming; as if the whole event were some kind of immense
caper, as we say in Scotland. And I remember thinking how strange it was that
neither he nor McGillivray made
any movement toward us, as might have been
expected: they stood beside the
Albatross
like
people on a railroad platform, waiting for us to “come in,” as it were.

“All
safe, all safe. Of course it’s safe,” cried MacFarlane. “Come along. Everything’s
fine—all fine.”

The
very words seemed unnatural, unduly trivial for such a meeting after all that
had gone before. But there was no mistaking the sense of them, the complete
cheerful conviction of the explorer’s tone.

Our
leader switched off the exterior speaker for a moment.

“There’s
something uncanny,” I heard his whisper in my ear, “something devilishly
uncanny, Borrowdale! But there’s nothing we can do—we must trust him. We go
forward—but be ready, each one of you, to switch on the oxygen breathing at the
first sign of trouble, if there is one.”

Throughout,
the young people in the trailer had said nothing. I saw the bewilderment on
their faces too—particularly on Jacky’s. It was she who now called out, through
her own exterior speaker:

“Doctor
Mac—Doctor Mac! It’s us—it’s Paul and Jacky and Mike.
Is
everything all right? Really and
truly
all right?”

The
frail figure of Dr. McGillivray had, all this time, remained inclined a little
away from us. Now, at Jacky’s urgent cry, he turned his pale strained face
completely in our direction. I saw his lips moving soundlessly for a moment;
but then his expression changed to one as cheerful and innocent as MacFarlanes,
and his voice came:

“Certainly—certainly,
child! Come forward—all is well.”

And
in the final authority from the distinguished scientist, we did indeed roll
forward again—past the outer rim of the Ridge plants and so within the
enclosure. In a last lingering of the ineffable sense of nightmare, it was as
if we were plunging deep into one of the old mysterious enchanted forests of
the ancient fairy-tales: such forests as had grown up overnight to encircle the
castle of the Sleeping Beauty.
 . . .

We
drew nearer, always nearer, the two smiling figures waiting patiently. Again it
seemed strange to me that they made no move forward to greet us. They stood
quite still until, in the damp and marshy soil now, the tractor slithered to a
final halt a few paces away from them.

And
once more the words seemed inadequate as Dr. Kalkenbrenner, with one
precautionary look around and a warning nod of the head to me, leaped out of
the driving seat and strode forward to wring McGillivray’s hand.

“Dr.
McGillivray. A proud moment, sir—a proud moment indeed! I hardly know what to say,
sir—how to express my deep feelings
 . . .”

The
explorer smiled—smiled and smiled.

“Welcome,
Dr. Kalkenbrenner. A strange occasion truly. It makes me happy, very happy.”

He
spoke with a curious mechanical simplicity. I recalled MacFarlane’s accounts of
his occasional lapses, and wondered if at this very instant he was in the grip
of such an aberration. But MacFarlane himself seemed as innocent, as he also
spoke—spoke to our companions, who had, by now, clambered down from the
trailer.

“Well,
you came,” he smiled. “I’m glad. It’s different from before, isn’t it? Much
different.”

He
shook hands solemnly with the young people, one by one. In all that had gone
before, I would have expected Jacky at least to run forward—to throw her arms
around these old companions of hers; I would have expected an ebullient display
of some kind from Michael, a quieter warmth of greeting from Paul. But they
held back—each of them held back a little; it was as if an instinctive reserve,
even fear, had grown up in them. They still distrusted something—something
intangible in the whole alien scene; something expressed, almost, in the very
incessant smiling of the two lost men we had come to find.
They smiled too much
 
. . . 
!

We
were introduced—we who had not known the explorers before: we were lamely and
inadequately
introduced
,
with handshakes and muttered ineffectualities, as if at some trivial social
event upon Earth! And it was at the height of this last unexpected folly that
the impetuous Katey burst out: “In Glory’s name, it’s impossible! There’s
something wrong—there’s
something
,
and it’s no use denying it! What have we come all this way for? What did you
mean by those messages, Mr. MacFarlane? This isn’t what we expected! What’s the
meaning of it all?”