The Red Journey Back (19 page)

“What
can we do?” I asked as we worked. “In heaven’s name, sir, what can we do?”

“Nothing
here,” said Kalkenbrenner. “We must get outside—we must get beyond the whole
influence of these things, whatever they are. You young people—listen to me:
you heard what I said just now to Mr. Borrowdale: something in this evil place
is trying desperately to make you do what
it
wants you to
do.
It made these men behave in the strange way they did behave—so that we could be
brought within its sphere of control. The process is plainly gradual, or they
would be controlling us already. It—will certainly intensify its effects
now—but we may have time to escape. I want you to resist, with every fiber of
your beings, whatever thoughts come into your heads which seem opposed to this
thought:
We must get out of here, and quickly!
Keep that firmly implanted in the forefront of your mind. No matter what
happens, follow that course of action. It may be that even we—even Borrowdale
or myself—will be forced to issue orders to you which seem to contradict that
line of action. If we do, pay no attention—it means that we have been duped, as
MacFarlane and McGillivray were. Jacqueline, stay beside Malu—help him; for
clearly he is less likely to be influenced—that was why MacFarlane and
McGillivray were compelled to lock him up.
 . . .
Now, is
all understood?”

We
nodded. Yet I was consumed too, even in the moment, by another vision, its
implications wringing my heart: the vision of Katey and Maggie as I had seen
them before the swirling Cloud hid them from view—with the squat, evil shapes
of the Terrible Ones bearing down upon them. Paul plainly had the same thought,
for he said quietly, “But the others, sir—the others outside
 . . . 
?”

Kalkenbrenner’s
face twisted for a moment. For all his hardness, all his seeming scientific
detachment, there still was the deep, deep core of the man, holding Maggie
Sherwood in truest affection.

“We
will do what we can,” he said brusquely. “With heaven’s help, we shall find a
way to rescue them, if they have not been overwhelmed utterly. But even in that
we can do nothing unless we can get away from here—we must gather our
resources, save McGillivray and MacFarlane. Borrowdale, do you remember the
messages when MacFarlane was describing his own first venture into the Yellow
Cloud in search of McGillivray? He said something about protective
clothing—asbestos material not unlike our own, perhaps
. . . .”

Paul
and Michael, both familiar with the layout of the spaceship’s interior, set to
searching in the various storage lockers and cupboards, and in a few moments
had dragged forth two crude asbestos helmets and a pair of shapeless tunics of
a similar treated material, together with some rubber hip boots and massive
leather gauntlets.

Working
rapidly, we swathed the two helpless men in the clumsy garments, so that no
parts of their bodies were exposed. All the time I was, for my own part, still
aware of a constant attempt going on to make me stop the work I was doing. A “voice,”
as it were, kept pounding incessantly in my brain: “Do nothing, nothing. What
can you achieve? Do nothing,
nothing
.
 . . .
”
I fought with all my will
power to defeat it—concentrated all my efforts toward carrying out
Kalkenbrenner’s instructions.

In
the intolerable heat from the swamp outside, the sweat was starting on my brow,
pouring down my neck within the great asbestos collar. I longed, longed to tear
away the helmet encumbering me—yet knew that it would be fatal; but suffered
too, as the very thought came into my head, an almost irresistible temptation
to undo the fastening and throw the great globe aside—a desire, I understood,
with yet another part of my mind, also inspired by the malevolent force outside.
 . . .

Our
salvation lay in the increased lightness of all objects upon Mars. Between us,
Kalkenbrenner and I were able to carry both McGillivray and MacFarlane. Mike
and Jacqueline still supported Malu—and I saw, with a sudden apprehension, that
he alone was now exposed and naked, wore no kind of protective covering from
the swirling Cloud. It was as if Jacky had read my thoughts. “He doesn’t need
it,” she said rapidly. “He has told me—and you remember Uncle Steve said so too
in the messages. The spores have no effect on him.”

At
Dr. Kalkenbrenner’s instructions we switched on the oxygen breathing apparatus
inside our helmets. Then our leader nodded to Paul, who swung open the great
entrance door. Instantly we were surrounded by the swirling yellow mist—saw
clearly, as it wreathed about us, that indeed it was composed of trillions upon
trillions of diminutive seed shapes. And my whole being was filled with a sense
of unutterable
hatred
—as
if (and I recalled MacFarlane’s own memorable phrase) as if these tiny
creatures, the spores, were
wishing us
ill
 . . .

We
struggled forward—somehow we struggled forward. We could not see—had to feel
helplessly for the steps beneath and, when we reached the ground, grope vaguely
in the direction in which we believed the tractor lay. Our terror was that a
group of the Terrible Ones would somehow know of our efforts and move to
frustrate us. But the journey was short—a few paces only. In a momentary
parting of the Cloud we saw the dim outline of the tractor; and an instant
later had heaved our burdens aboard and, ourselves, were clambering into
position.

The
young people and Malu were in the trailer, Paul and Jacky struggling to pull
the asbestos tent covering into position. Kalkenbrenner and I were in the
tractor, with the two rescued explorers; and, as the Doctor pressed the engine
starter, I set to adjusting the kalspex cabin over our heads.

The
engine spluttered for a moment, then roared into life. Kalkenbrenner swung the
wheel, so that we might move around in our tracks, retreat in the direction
from which we had entered the enclosure. The tossing, writhing fronds of the
gigantic Ridge plants were all about us, glimpsed dimly through the mist. We
jerked uncomfortably, slithering in the marshy soil; then plunged forward
toward safety.

But
in that one instant there was a high wild cry from the trailer behind. I swung
around. Paul and Jacky had succeeded in hoisting the tent covering halfway into
position. But Michael, the incorrigible, the undefeatable, was on his feet,
staring into the forest we were rapidly leaving.

I
glanced in the direction in which he gestured. The Yellow Cloud had parted in a
vast swathe. Clearly visible in the green depths of the Ridge plants were the
two figures of Katey and Maggie Sherwood. Surrounding them were some half dozen
of the Terrible Ones—beyond, glimpsed imperfectly for one fleeting moment, the
great white shapeless mass of one of the Vivores—of Discophora. Maggie and
Katey were held in the tendrils of two of the largest of the Terrible Ones—held
spread-eagled against the trunks of two gigantic Ridge plants. They struggled—were
plainly alive.

I
instinctively started to leap to my feet. But the kalspex cabin was in
position. Michael, behind, repeated his great war cry; and leaped out and away
from the trailer, in a huge curving arc, before the tent fell finally into
position. His superior Martian strength carried him twenty feet at the least;
and when he had recovered his balance he went forward in a series of gigantic
jumps toward the captives. He flourished a revolver—but we knew, from the
experiences of the previous expedition, that guns were of little use against
the yielding plant-flesh of the Terrible Ones.

So
we glimpsed him for one brief moment, a diminutive, impossible Galahad. Then
the cloud swirled over all the alien scene again as the tractor gathered speed.
Thirty seconds more and we were in the free open air, heading across the plain
in a glimmer of startling sunshine, the Ridge, a tumultuous seething of dark
green and yellow, far behind us.

LOOKING
BACK on our adventure, now that all is done, the scene I recollect as most
unreal, somehow, in the whole long dreamlike sequence of our story’s tragic
climax, is that in the trailer a mile or more from the great menacing bulk of
the Ridge.

We
had come to rest there, at a distance judged by Dr. Kalkenbrenner to be
relatively safe, if only for a moment or two. We knew, from what we had heard
of the Cloud—from what we had seen of it within the forest itself—that it could
sweep across the intervening desert in a matter of seconds to encompass us. We
had half expected, indeed, that it
would
pursue us—would swirl about us as we traveled, impotent though it was to harm
us through the treated materials of our coverings. But the air was clear and
bright as we went forward; and when we did halt and peered back toward the
forest, it was to see no more than a lingering yellow nimbus in the atmosphere above
it. The long stretch of the Ridge was silent again, the massive fronds swaying
slightly as if in a gentle breeze, although on that whole vast plain there was
no breeze.

So
we halted, and set to reviving the two unconscious men we had carried so
strangely with us. We were able to breathe freely now, through the air valves
in our helmets—yet, on Dr. Kalkenbrenner’s strict command, were prepared at a
second’s notice to reconnect the oxygen apparatus and retire to shelter if we
should see any sign of attack.

At
one moment, as we toiled, it was as if danger did loom. There was a cry from
Paul and we saw his pointing arm outflung along the line of the Ridge’s long
straight “tail.” Far, far to the south and west (as we calculated it in later
recollection), an immense convulsion seemed to shake the straight forest wall;
and out across the sky, at a terrifying velocity even at so remote a distance,
there went a great yellow arrowhead, as it were, of the poisonous mist. It
seemed for an instant to writhe toward us, and we prepared our defenses; but
then it turned and swept obliquely across our path, a seething and awesome
spectacle, the vast Cloud itself in full flight, as McGillivray and MacFarlane
must have seen it at the moment of their landing—as, imperfectly, it has been
glimpsed and recorded in motion across the far-off Martian surface by
terrestrial astronomers: as we have veritably seen it ourselves since our
return, through Earth’s most powerful telescopes.
[5]

We
worked on, transferring our helpless comrades to the trailer and fitting them
with suits and helmets like our own. And there enclosed, when weakly they spoke
to us as their own true selves at last after all their nightmare experiences,
we heard the truth—as much of the truth as could be deduced from what
MacFarlane had seen and McGillivray and Malu had instinctively comprehended.

A
mile away, in the green depths of the Ridge, were Katey, Maggie and the
indomitable Michael. Our deepest desire was to help them—somehow to help them,
if it was not too late for any help. But it was only wise, as our leader
quietly assured us, to know something at least of our enemy’s nature before we
made any further efforts toward rescue.

So
we lingered then, in the last long lull before the climax: we lingered there on
the plain, in silence, confronting the two men who had suffered so much since
they had set out across limitless space in search of adventure on the Angry
Planet—and, most bitterly, had found it. They spoke hesitantly, almost
incoherently at the outset, until they were able, after so long, to marshal
their troubled thoughts. I cannot attempt to reproduce their conversation in
its original form, and so I transcribe here only a continuous version of it. If
it seems that we lingered unduly with our companions in such danger to hear the
history of the Vivores, reflect that that is partly due to the way in which I
must set down the facts on paper. In its actual progress the scene in the
trailer took little time enough. But reflect also on the wisdom of Dr.
Kalkenbrenner’s utterance—that it was indeed well for us to learn something of
our enemy’s nature; otherwise, as I must assure you, our own tragic attempt at
escape might never have been possible.

And
even the facts, as I array them here, are imperfect and fragmentary: we still
know little enough, in all conscience, of the true nature of the Creeping
Canals—Discophora remains a half-glimpsed nightmare to all of us; and will
continue so until, with the help of Providence, we once more set out on a
voyage of scientific discovery.
 . . .