The Red Journey Back (22 page)

“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?

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 themselves
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.