The Red Journey Back (5 page)

One by one the
familiar outlines grew clearer: we saw the two brilliant polar caps, the great
red patches of the continents, the splashes of darker green we had taken before
to be seas or sea beds. On this occasion, it seemed, we were approaching at a
slightly different angle to the planet’s axis—our view of the dark green areas
was subtly different: they seemed less concentrated—ran occasionally in long
straight narrow lines—broke off—began again—continued . . .
until, at one moment, as we neared the atmosphere belt, they formed a perfect
intertwining network, strangely symmetrical in its design.

Mac, as he
watched, his hand poised over the controls which would force the nose
tuyères
into life and so brake our fall ready for a landing, breathed quietly, “The
Canals, Steve—great glory, the famous Martian Canals themselves! We saw nothing
of them on the last trip—I had meant to try to find out the reason for the old
legend—if there was anything at all in it. . . . This time we
will find out!”

“But surely
the old Canal theory has been exploded long ago.” I smiled, thinking he was
joking.

“Ah, not
quite! In its original form, yes. It was Schiaparelli the Italian who first
proclaimed the Canals in the 1870’s. He called them ‘canals,’ meaning only
channels—lines, in his own tongue. But the idea caught the popular fancy—the
suggestion that if there were Canals there was active intelligent life. Lowell,
the American, developed the whole notion—he drew fantastic maps of the Canals
and showed them to be sometimes single, sometimes double—he even claimed that
the positioning of them changed from time to time. Other observers who saw the
marks declared that they were only marks—they were optical illusions, because
of the imperfect conditions under which Mars is ever observed from earth. Then
the theory was advanced that at least they
might
be
waterways—but narrow waterways; and what we saw as straight shadowy lines were
not the ‘Canals’ themselves, but the belts of vegetation on each side of the
Canals. . . . No one has ever known the truth; but, by heaven,
we will before we’re much older!”

As he spoke,
he threw over the lever; and within a few moments, as we rushed toward the
surface, there was a brief return of the old black-out sensation—but, as I have
said, this time less potent because of the smaller gravity pull of the Angry
Planet itself. My last conscious thought as I sank into the throbbing pain of
the moment was that the surface toward which we raced at such appalling speed
was less
red
after all than I remembered it—was a deep misty yellowish
color, almost sinister . . . then I swam deep into the blackness
of utter insensibility. I remembered one thing more through the moment’s sharp
pain: the quiet gentleness of our previous landing—the twilight of the early
Martian dawn—the soft cool breeze which had assailed us as we opened the rocket
entrance port—the peaceful glory at last of the bright clear sunlight as we
stepped for the first time in all human experience on the alien
soil. . . .

We were
confident: too confident!

We landed on
Mars indeed—as successfully as on the previous occasion. The two stocky landing
wings shot out from the back of the rocket at a point near the nose, and with
their help we coasted gently through the sparse atmosphere to a final
standstill.

Again, as on
the first occasion, there was a deep twilight in the little cabin as we
struggled to our feet, adjusting ourselves to the sensation of having weight
once more—less weight than on Earth, but still weight.

“The dawn,”
breathed Mac triumphantly. “The dawn, Steve! Exactly as it was last time. Home
again—home!”

He stumbled
blithely toward the double air-lock door in the cabin’s side. I stood
unsteadily for a moment, aware once more—and uneasily, for some reason—of the
strange
yellow
tinge which intershot the dusk surrounding. I recalled a
conversation with an astronomer friend back on Earth, who had asked me half-jokingly
(for he was one of the doubters who plagued us after the first trip) if, during
our sojourn on the Angry Planet, we had encountered any of the strange
phenomena known to Earth observers as the “Yellow Clouds”—great blankets of
some kind of yellowish mist sweeping rapidly across the Martian surface,
plainly visible even on photographs taken in infra-red light.

An instinctive
fear made me raise my hand to restrain my adventuresome companion. But with the
memory of our previous successful landing still bright in him, he was already
at the double doors and tugging them open.

The first door
swung back with a metallic crash—Mac, in his enthusiasm, had forgotten his
increased Martian strength. An instant later the second door also swung
open—outward; and even allowing for Mac’s strength it was as if it had been
ripped away from the rocket’s side by a giant swift hand the instant the lock
was released. . . .

We landed on
Mars—but not quietly and serenely as we had landed last time!

For one
moment—one nightmare moment—I saw my dear friend Andrew McGillivray outlined
against a thick swirling screen of brilliant yellow. He screamed—I heard him
scream. I rushed forward in a panic. As I approached the door I felt my lungs
bursting, my eyes smarting, my whole skin in a violent irritation from the few
wisps of the raging Yellow Cloud which penetrated the double doors.

I stretched
out my hands desperately to assist my poor friend, in the midst of the typhoon
while I was at its bitter edges only. But it was as if he too had been snatched
by giant hands—he seemed veritably to fly, to soar into the bright yellow
horror swirling all about our ship.

It
was as if he too had been snatched by giant hands.

“Mac—Mac!” I
cried, my eyes streaming.

But the
monstrous pall was silent. I realized that all was lost—we were both lost—if I
made any attempt as yet to follow and save my friend. Somehow, almost maddened
as I was by the violent pain of the cloud’s irritation, I fought to close the
inner door—did close it at last and fell back gasping, weeping, helpless into
the cabin.

I recovered
from the first pain—staggered to my feet and crossed to one of the portholes.
From within, the cloud was darker—and I realized bitterly that the dusk had
been caused by a thin deposit of it on the glass of the portholes as we had
raced through the Martian atmosphere. Outside was no night, as on the previous
occasion, but bright day; yet a bright day filled with the monstrous silent
menace of that hideous Cloud!

I peered into
its depths. Somewhere in the thick of it was the friend who had traveled so far
and dared so much with me—lost now, at the height of his triumph, in the yellow
nightmare.

I
FOUND HIM. There is little point in delaying the announcement of the fact, in
building an atmosphere of suspense for the sake of creating a cheap dramatic
effect. You know full well, from the messages we have already exchanged, that
he is by my side now—and therefore I found him.

But
I did not find him without difficulty. And there was a bittersweetness in the
success of my long search.

Andrew
McGillivray, by a desperate stroke of irony, has seen none of the marvels of
the new world he traveled so far to explore. From that day to this he has been
blind.

And
worse—much worse. The great clear mind which had brought us so far, achieved so
much, has
been
shadowed over a little from the agonies of that moment when he was snatched
into the Cloud.

As I sit here
now, in the small enclosure near the approaching Canal from which we do not
dare to remove ourselves, it is to see him at some slight distance away from
me, quietly staring with his unseeing eyes toward the great dark swamps which
contain (to me, who have seen) so much nightmare. He sways a little—forms his
lips occasionally in silent words and phrases.

There are
moments—many, many moments—when his mind is as clear as it ever was, when he is
normal and healthy; almost the old Doctor Mac I knew in the Pitlochry days. But
there are other moments when he seems to sink into a deep indifference—to
forget where he is and even who he is.

And it goes
deeper—much deeper. There is even a fear in me that I too . . .
but no—not yet—and a thought not to be faced. But if once I do yield to the
strange, awesome creature now confronting us, whom yet I have to describe—

But not yet;
there is much else to be recounted. . . .

On that first
hopeless morning of our landing I stayed for a long time by the porthole
staring out into the swirling yellow fog. I saw now, clearly, that it was no
ordinary mist as we might know it upon Earth, but a great seething mass of
diminutive scurrying particles, seed shapes—million upon million of them,
hurtling forward in one direction. And I had the impression too, recollecting
the period when the door had been open, that they were not wind-borne; there
had been no sound of hurricane—no shrill scream—as one again might have heard
it on Earth; the spores (I use the word now, since we established later that
they were indeed a kind of spore) traveled nightmarishly
of
their own volition!
—and silently, devilishly silently, as all
else on Mars. . . .

And also—can I
confess it?—it was as if there came to me, even through the thick perspex of
the window, an emanation of unutterable wickedness. In the strange Martian
telepathic medium of communication it was as if the very spores were
wishing us ill
.
There were no articulate words from them in my mind—no definable thoughts as
such; no more than a deep uneasiness—a malevolent hypnotic sense from those
trillions of rushing particles of living dust.