The Red Journey Back (7 page)

It was, as I
say, in those early days of our return that I first had the notion to explore
further the possibilities of such communication—of experimenting at least with
some of the complex radio mechanisms which Mac had brought with us in the
rocket. I realized that I would have to wait until he himself had further
recovered from his illness before any true attempt could be made, for he knew
infinitely more of such scientific subjects than I . . . but I
did at least spend much time in research among the books of his small library,
and even studied his own fairly comprehensive notes on the subject.

And it was one
morning when I was sitting in the sunshine beside the rocket, examining those
notes, that our long period of loneliness came to an end.

Poor Mac was
beside me—he had recovered sufficiently to be able to descend the ladder and
take the sun in the little hollow in which the
Albatross
rested. He had been sitting very quietly for a long time, staring as always
straight ahead of him; but suddenly he gave a small strange cry—rose up to his
feet with an expression of pleasure such as I had never hoped to see on his
face again.

I rose
also—followed the direction of his sightless gaze. His arms were outstretched
as if in welcome—he moved forward unsteadily across the sandy floor of the
saucer.

I saw nothing—was
aware of nothing beyond a curious inner excitement in my mind, a sense of
waiting
—of forthcoming pleasure indeed.

For a long
moment nothing happened. I prepared to mount to the rim of the small hollow—to
seek out across the plain for any sign of unusual disturbance there.

But before I
had progressed more than a few steps, a figure appeared on the sky line above
us—a figure slender and familiar for all its strangeness.

It stayed for
a moment motionless. The smooth greenish trunk quivered slightly—the bifurcated
tendrils at its base were still and poised. Then, swiftly, it came down the
sandy slope toward us; and into my head there came the thin, friendly,
telepathic “voice” I knew so well.

“Malu,” I
cried. “Malu—Malu!”

And the Voice
came: “Malu the Tall, Prince of the Beautiful People! Welcome—welcome, O
Strangers! Welcome again from the skies! You have come, as we knew you would
come. Welcome—oh, welcome!”

In the Voice
itself there was no expression—it was one of the features of telepathic communication
that there never was. But accompanying the impersonal “words” was such a wave,
a sense, of utter warmth and affection as to fill our very hearts with joy
after all we had suffered.

So, at last,
we came home to Mars!

WELL!—here
goes! I said that we three “young people” would turn up in Chap Four, and here
we are.

I
reckon myself it’s high time we had something to cheer us up at this point. I
mean, I’m all for Steve MacFarlane—don’t think for a moment I’m not. But these
professional writing chaps do fuss on a bit when they get going; and by the
time J.K.C. has edited Uncle Steve’s own stuff, well, it’s grand, I know, and I
daresay there are chaps who will come along and read it all and say, “Whizzo,
this is Literature this is—big words and commas and all that,” and I won’t say
there hasn’t been any action either, for there was the Yellow Cloud, and Malu
turning up that way, just at the right minute (trust old Malu), but all the
same, we could do with a change, and besides, it’s all a bit sad-making about
poor old Doctor Mac, so there will be no harm in a chapter stuck in here mainly
by Paul and Jacky and me, just to let you know how we were getting on at the
time when Steve’s messages were coming in from Mars, and old J.K.C. was sitting
up there in Scotland as excited as an old hen (I wish I’d seen him—Paul said he
was so fussed and pompous you’d think it was him and Marconi had invented
wireless between them, with Marconi as the little fellow holding J.K.C.’s
jacket while he got on and did the important work).
[1]

So
here we are—Paul and Jacky and me. And I’m starting off with a few comments to
remind you all about us (except you’ll know already that we were the
stowaways—quite by accident—when the
Albatross
first
went to Mars).

Well
then: I’m Uncle Steve’s nephew. (Of course! I can hear you say—but what I mean
is that the others only called MacFarlane Uncle Steve, whereas he actually is
my uncle: my mother is his sister Marian.)

Paul
and Jacqueline are kind of distant cousins of mine. Their family name is Adam.
Paul is the oldest of the three of us, and I’m the youngest. They live in
Dorset and I live in London—some of the time at least: my father’s a Business
Man, and he has to do a lot of traveling about, sometimes all over the world,
and sometimes Mother and I go with him. Got it?

Right.
So now I pass over to Jacky and Paul for a bit, ’cos they were in on the
messages part with old J.K.C. up in Scotland. I wasn’t, worse luck—or rather
worse luck only in one way—jolly good luck in another. You’ll see why in a
minute, when I start in again myself later on in this Chapter. Cheerio for now.

In
taking up my poor pen once more, on the invitation of our genial editor, to
inscribe some thoughts and impressions connected with the period before our
return to the Angry Planet, I do so indeed in all humility.

If
I may quote the Immortal Bard of Avon, this brief essay will be
“a poor thing—but mine own.” I trust it will be
received in that spirit of kind condescension we know to have been exercised by
our readers toward our previous efforts in the field of literary composition.

Almost
a year had elapsed since our return across limitless space; and my brother P— and
myself had once more accustomed ourselves to our normal mode of existence after
the many excitements attending our adventure.

You
may judge of our surprise, therefore, when the postman one morning delivered
into our hands a bulky envelope bearing a Scottish postmark!

With
ill-concealed curiosity we set to an examination of its contents; and you can
judge of our further surprise when they were revealed as a letter from our
friend Mr. John Keir Cross in which he apprised us of the remarkable train of circumstances
which had led to the establishing of communication with our erstwhile
companion, Mr. S— MacF—:
viz
, the circumstances already known to the
reader concerning the wireless messages received via Mr. Mackellar’s airstrip.
(What a piece of work is a man! How infinite in faculties, etc.—W.
Shakespeare.)

We
acquainted our parents at once with the turn events had taken; and passed on to
them the request embodied in the author’s epistle, namely, that if they were
agreeable, and since in any event the school holidays were imminent, my brother
and myself should travel to Scotland to participate at first hand in the latest
stage of the adventure. He argued that in view of our previous association with
Mr. MacF— we might indeed be interested in hearing from him; and added that, as
a purely practical consideration, we would, by being “on the spot,” so to say,
be in a position to verify the authenticity of the messages received.

I
need hardly say that with their usual understanding, our parents instantly
expressed their agreement; our mother adding only the injunction that “we were
to take care not to be carried away once more to Mars ourselves in the event.”
(Little did she know the subsequent course the adventure would take! so that
indeed we were, for a second time, involved in a voyage through space. But I
anticipate.)

Thus
it was, then, that one sunny day in the year 19—, my brother and I traveled to
Scotland and there made the acquaintance of Mr. Mackellar, his assistant Mr.
Archibald Borrowdale, and the distinguished performer of stage and screen, Miss
Catherine Hogarth.

No
words of mine can hope to convey the deep emotion which assailed us when first
we heard the faint whispering messages in Morse. It was “The voice, the very
voice!” (RLS)

It
was with feelings equally profound that we read the narrative so carefully
built by Miss Hogarth from the disjointed fragments of Mr. MacF—’s
communications. The messages went on, of course, from the point that you
yourselves have reached; and so gradually the narrative was built further—as
you will see in due course. And they finally broke off, while we—even we—were
listening to them one night, with the high dramatic announcement which took us
once more across the starry wastes ourselves, on a mission of rescue.

What
happened thereafter will be related in its proper place. For the moment, I feel
I have performed the initial function outlined to me by our editor:
viz
,
to reintroduce ourselves into the chronicle and so prepare the way for all that
lies ahead. With this thought I momentarily suspend composition, and will ask
my brother P—to add any brief comments of his own before the resumption of the
Martian narrative as transcribed from the “Mackellar Messages.”

May
I say then, for the moment,
au
revoir
;
and permit
myself the concluding classical reflection:
magna
est veritas et praevalebit
(truth
will prevail).

I
just want to say that you’re not to think dear old Jacky is half so stuffy as
she sounds when she sits down to write. I know she’s my sister, but all the
same she is really a bit of all right, as I think she showed right through
everything that happened to us. It’s just that when she gets a pen in her hand
she suddenly seems to go all long-winded, somehow, as if she were writing
school essays all the time, and puts in those bits of Latin just to impress
people.

The
main thing is that we did go to Scotland. It was where the last adventure
started, so it was only right that it should be where this one started. The
whole setup was marvelous, of course—I mean, the airstrip and Uncle Steve’s
messages. I don’t mind confessing that I took a great liking to Mr. Mackellar
and Archie—to say nothing of Katey (Jacky wants me to call her Miss Hogarth,
but I’m for none of that—we always called her Katey to her face, by her own
request, and so that’s how I’ll refer to her here).

So
there it was—the setup, as I say; and in spite of all that Mother said before
she let us go to Scotland at all, we did in the end go off to Mars again. You’ll
see how it all happened as you go on: this is just to let you know that we were
all poised and waiting. That is, Jacky and I were, at least, for, as she has
said, we were actually there, in the wireless shed beside the airstrip, when
the fatal final message came through from Uncle Steve. As for Mike, for once he
didn’t
have his nose in things! Except—

—except
that Mike did, so there! He had his nose far more deeply in things than anyone
else after all, only in a different way, as you’ll see.

The
reason I wasn’t at Larkwell at the time when the others were listening to the
messages was that I wasn’t available. It was all very well for old J.K.C. to
send for Paul and Jacky—but he couldn’t very well send for me.

I
was in America!

I
told you, didn’t I, that my Dad often took Mother and me on business trips with
him? Well—that’s just what had happened this time. There I was—in
America!—which is more than had ever happened to Paul and Jacky, for all that
they’d been to Mars.

Oh
yes—that’s where I was. And I’ll tell you something else: Do you know which
part
of America?

Chicago.

And
where does that tie up, I hear you ask?

I’ll
tell you.

Somebody
lived in Chicago who’d had quite a bit to do with us when we came back from
Mars last time.

Does
the name Kalkenbrenner mean anything to you? It probably will if you read our
last book—and it probably will, too, if you’re what old J.K.C. would call “a
student of the press.”

It
was Dr. Kalkenbrenner of Chicago who was Dr. McGillivray’s friendly rival in
the days when he was first building the
Albatross
. In fact, Dr. Kalkenbrenner had
almost succeeded in building a rocket of his own—it was that that gave Doctor
Mac the final spurt to invent his own patent fuel, so that he would be first to
leave Earth (you know what rival scientists are).

When
we came back from Mars that first time, Dr. K. was a bit snooty—he was one of
the ones who first started to say we’d all been making it up and that it hadn’t
really happened. But that was only professional jealousy, as they say—he knew
perfectly well that we had been to Mars. And when he went back to his own
country after visiting Doctor Mac in England, before Steve and Doctor Mac set
off for their second trip, what do you think he did?