Read Online The Red Journey Back by John Keir Cross - Free Book Online

himself again. His long “conversations” with the Center; and at last the
hint of danger, over.
    Mac had spoken
with the Center on one occasion for a long long time; and when he and I, later,
were settled together for the night in the cabin of the Albatross ,
his expression grew serious. For my part, less skillful in communication with
the Center than he was, I had not fully understood the significance of the
session. I knew only that at last Mac had been trying to find out the nature
of the Yellow Cloud where it came from and what it was.
    “And
there came from him,” said Mac slowly, referring to the Center, “—there came
from him, Steve, such a wave of fear as I have never known these creatures to
express before!”
    “What
was it?” I asked. “What was the Cloud, Mac?”
    “I
don’t know—even yet I don’t know. The Center did not know—not fully. It was as
if—and you must realize that I am only groping here, Steve, for the Martians
plainly cannot communicate anything of which they themselves have had no
experience—it was as if the Cloud were some kind of legend among them. It’s
something deeply feared that lingers on only as a race memory—and even then
only in such highly intelligent creatures as the Center himself. You find the
same thing on Earth, among certain primitive tribes—a lingering something that
their ancestors knew and feared and passed on to them in the form of myths
through the years.”
    “But
what kind of myth, Mac? There must have been something —some
kind of image from the Center?”
    “There
was! A very strange one. I hardly dare to think of it, Steve, for it connects
with a dreadful kind of  . . . vision I had
when I was snatched into the Cloud—something that comes back to me now only
imperfectly, although I have the impression that I understood it better then,
when my mind was gone, than I do now.  . . . There
were two images from the Center—rather three. The first was a picture,
transmitted from his mind to mine, of the Yellow Cloud itself, as we saw
it—sweeping at immense speed across the plains. The second image was
vaguer—less understandable—and the only words that came into my mind to express
it were, ‘The lines—the creeping lines  . . .’ ”
    “The lines ?”
    “The
only words, Steve, except that in my mind they had a double translation. You
remember I told you during the flight about the Italian astronomer,
Schiaparelli—his discoveries in the 1870’s—”
    “The
Canals,” I said. “It was Schiaparelli who discovered the Canals—”
    “Quite
so—but he used the word canali to mean only lines or markings—veritable channels on the Martian surface which he
thought he saw. That was the other word which came into my head during my
session with the Center: canali ,
Steve—the creeping canali .”
    “But
Mac, it doesn’t make sense!”
    “It
might—it might make devilish sense before we’re done! Steve, tell me—you can
see, old friend, and I cannot—as you look out across the plain sometimes—”
    He
broke off—a look of bewilderment came across his face. I recognized the
symptoms too well. The old lethargy was returning, the lingering effect of his
immersion in the deadly Cloud—perhaps in the association between his
conversation with the Center and his terrible experience. Desperately I tried
to bring his thoughts back to the moment.
    “Mac—Mac!
The third image—you said there was a third image from the Center—”
    But
all that came from him was the one word from his old nightmare: Discophora  . . . and a
sudden impression in my own mind once more of something
monstrous—white—jellylike  . . .
    I
looked out through a porthole in the dying evening light. Did I imagine it? Or
was there, far out on the plain, verily on the horizon, a new strange tinge of
darker green—a kind of ridge  . . . ?

    So
little time, so little time! When morning came I saw indeed that there was, on
the far plain, a belt or band