The Angry Planet (28 page)

One word more. I want you
personally at least to understand exactly why we are going. First, there is the
reason I have mentioned—we are tired and ashamed of being misunderstood. But
this does not mean we are not necessarily coming back. If we are spared on this
trip, as we were on the last one, we might indeed return—we might even be
forced again to return. But this time at least we shall try to remain longer,
so that we can do more research—we really hope to try to remain for several
years. And when—and if—we do come back, we shall this time bring proof, so that
the world may be convinced at last—that, if you like, is our second reason for
wanting to make the long, long journey.

But behind and above these,
there is a third reason—a more romantic one, perhaps, but to me, even more than
to Mac, a potent one. Ever since we came back to earth I have found myself
haunted by thoughts of the Beautiful People. Somehow, although we were with
them for so short a time, they wormed their way most deeply into my affections.
They were so simple, so charming, so infinitely wise in their very
detachment
from things, if you can understand what I mean. And I found myself often, in
the night perhaps, growing full of a longing to see them again, so that I might
explore them more fully—or, even more simply, so that I might experience again
that ineffable sense of benevolence that came merely from being with them. The
city we saw, the friends we made—these were destroyed. But there are other
cities, and other friends. Malu perhaps escaped that terrible day of the attack
and the eruption. Who knows? At any rate, it is in my bones that I must find
out.

We may not ever see the
Beautiful People—we may be captured and devoured by the Terrible Ones. But we
are, on this trip, more equipped to deal with these monsters, at least—it is
something that Mac has been working on.

It is all, at any rate, worth
taking a chance on. Perhaps someday I shall be able to let you know what
develops—what even stranger creatures we may find on that other world across
the skies
.
 . . .
Perhaps, dear John—perhaps.

Finally, let me say a few words
about the manuscript I have asked you to edit and publish. It is, I fear, not
quite complete. When the children returned home from their holiday, there were
one or two passages I personally had still to do some work on. We knew the
shape of the book—that had been very carefully planned from the beginning. I
wrote nearly all my own contributions, but just occasionally I left a gap—a
passage I wanted to spend some time
on,
and intended therefore to go
back to when I saw the overall design of the volume before me—you, as a writer,
will know the way it is. Most of these passages you will be able to tidy over
and make coherent—there is only one where there is a serious gap, and that is
at the beginning of Chapter V. However, I have no doubt you will contrive
something. The end too is rather abrupt and incomplete. I apologize for these
flaws—I would have remedied them, but in all the turmoil of this past month,
ever since we decided to leave, there has simply not been time.

I may say that I want you to
publish the book because, since it has been written, it seems a pity not to do
something with it. It might, too, mean a little something financially for the
children—I leave you to make arrangements about that. Finally, it just may help
to convince people of the truth of our experiences.

Well, John, there it is. I may
see you again—I can say no more than that. A flight through space is a
dangerous, a terribly dangerous thing. Last time we were lucky—this time we may
not be so lucky. And since there in a chance that this is the end of Mac and
me, I say a good-bye to you in this letter. I cannot deny that there are many
things I regret to be leaving—I regret, almost foremost among them, the end of
our friendship. We have been very close to each other—I have always felt, deep
in my heart, that you have understood me better than anyone else; and perhaps I
can say, without presuming too much, that I have, in my own way, understood
you. Sometimes I must have been a torment to you, with those “dark and secret
ways” of mine, as you have called them. But withal, there have been the good
times, and it is always the good times that matter. I lost my real hold on you
when you met
A—I
always knew that, but somehow
I was reluctant to give you up altogether, even though it was only the shell I
clung to. Now, at last, I remove myself.

I leave and maybe lose the
world—and somehow I count it well lost. I can be assumed dead—and this brings
me naturally, by way, as it were, of an epitaph to myself, to that great
passage from our favorite playwright that we used so often to quote to each
other:

What do the dead do, uncle?
do they eat,

Hear music, go a-hunting,
and be merry,

As we that live?

No, coz; they sleep.

Lord, Lord, that I were
dead!

I have not slept these six
nights. . . .

Good-bye, dear John. Remember
me.

S
TEPHEN.

The morning after reading this
letter I rushed straight to Pitlochry by the first train. There might, I
argued, have been a delay—perhaps MacFarlane and the Doctor had not left, as
they had intended.

But MacFarlane’s cottage was
empty. I found my way to the Doctor’s laboratory, and it was empty. The big
wooden door of the enclosure at the back of the house (that enclosure I seemed
to know so well from Paul’s description of it in the book)—that door was open;
and through it I saw that the enclosure was empty too. In the center of it was
a long sloping platform of wood, and that was all.

All I learned in Pitlochry,
from the inhabitants, was that at a quarter to eleven or thereabouts the
morning before, they had heard a loud explosive rushing sound—“exactly like the
noise last summer, when Dr. McGillivray and Mr. MacFarlane and them three
children went missing.”

From Mrs. Duthie, MacFarlane’s
housekeeper, whom I traced in the town, I got the addresses of the three
children. I went to England and called on them—Mike in London, Paul and Jacky
in Dorset. They had had, all three of them, letters of farewell from MacFarlane
and the Doctor, in which they explained that they were going back to Mars. Mike
was disappointed that they had not asked him to go too, or that he had not had
a chance to stow away again. As for the others, Paul did not seem to mind, and
Jacky was positively relieved that they had not been invited!

The children hardly cared about
the lack of belief in the truth of all their experiences. As Mike said: “If
they don’t believe us, so much the worse for them—that’s all I say.
Some
folk are on our side, and they’re the ones that count.” And he added, darkly: “We
know what we know, that’s what!
 . . .
”

As you have seen, I have
followed MacFarlane’s instructions in the editing and publishing of the book. I
was able to fill in the few gaps, knowing his style and working from his
copious notes. The serious gap at the beginning of Chapter V I have dealt with
as indicated in the separate remarks I have written for it.

The book has taken six months
in the printing and binding. In all that time I have looked for a possible
return of my friend. There has been no sign. The little red orb of that Angry
Planet of his has winked at me inscrutably as I have stared, in the night, into
space, wondering and wondering. And that has been all.

Will he and the Doctor came
back?—will they ever come back?

I permit myself, in conclusion,
a personal gesture. Because of MacFarlane’s farewell to me, in the letter, I
say farewell to him across the wide, wide spaces that separate us—just in case
he should never return. Farewell, Stephen!—wherever you are, rest in peace. I
shall remember, never fear.

And that is the end of the
story of Stephen MacFarlane, and the end of this book,
T
HE
A
NGRY
P
LANET
. Who knows, it may someday
have a sequel. For the moment it stands alone—MacFarlane and the Doctor must
have taken with them the two long volumes they were working on, as explained in
the text, for I have found no trace of them at Pitlochry. Until some other work
is forthcoming, then, this remains as the only account of the first great
flight of the
Albatross
.