The Red Journey Back Read Online Free PDF Page B

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.

CHAPTER III. MacFARLANE’S
NARRATIVE CONTINUED

     
    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.
    The Cloud
swept on—for hours and many hours. But at last I had an impression that it was
thinning a little—the very lessening of the pressure of the evil thoughts was
an indication that the storm was passing.
    Rapidly I set
to exploring our clothing store for some kind of protective garments. I found
waterproofs and thick hip-boots—an asbestos helmet, even, and a complete suit
of a similar fireproof material packed by Mac in case we should ever encounter
another volcanic eruption on the Angry Planet.
    I swathed myself—wore
also my oxygen mask with the gas itself switched off from the cylinder—found
fireproof gloves and bound my head around with cloths.
    And by this
time, indeed, the yellowness outside had almost gone. I was able to
distinguish, beyond the slight saucer in which the