Robert Sawyer: On the Surface

Simple experiments with the time machines had proven that changes made in the past would eventually catch up with the future. The time machines, because of their temporal alacrity, allowed one to arrive in the future ahead of the wave of change barreling through the fourth dimension at a less speedy rate. But eventually effect caught up with cause, and the world was remade to conform to its modified past. And so though the beach might now appear as Grach and the others wished it to, there was still a chance that reality would be further modified.

And that could not be allowed; the meek could not be permitted to inherit the Earth. For although Morlocks enjoyed violence, Grach and the others couldn’t imagine the Eloi ever fighting amongst themselves or with anyone else. No, with all aggression long ago bred out of them, their new technological culture might endure for millions of years—meaning they could still be alive, and hideously advanced, by this time, the time of the beach, the time of the crabs. If the Morlocks didn’t take care of that loose end, that dangling thread in the tapestry of time, before permanently moving to the perpetual ruddy twilight of the future, then the Morlocks might find that future becoming a world dominated by Eloi with millions of years of new technology in their hands.

No, now that the crabs were dealt with, it was time to return to the past, time to launch the second offensive of this war.

Grach and the other Morlocks returned to the distant past, to the year that, according to the display they’d all seen on the original Time Traveler’s machine, had been reckoned by him to be some 800,000 years after his point of origin.

Their fleet of time machines re-appeared from whence it had been launched, one after the other flicking into existence inside the giant hollow bronze pedestal of the great marble sphinx, still arrayed in their orderly rows and columns, for although the journey through the fourth dimension had been prodigious, there had been no movement at all in the other three. Of course, there were only 117, instead of 120, machines reappearing. The others were sitting undamaged in the far future, but their riders had been casualties in the battle with the crabs.

There was barely enough room for all the time machines and their passengers within the sphinx’s base, but although little air slipped in through the cracks around the upper edges of the vertical door panels, it still seemed richer than the thin atmosphere of the far future.

Naturally, they didn’t have to wait until dark. Rather, they had timed their arrival to occur at night. No sooner had the last of the Morlocks returned back here than the great bronze panels on either side slid down, opening the interior of the giant pedestal to the elements. The Morlocks spilled out into the night. Grach allowed himself a brief look back over his rounded shoulder; in the starlight he could see the white face of the great sphinx smiling on their venture.

Brandishing clubs, they clambered through the circular portals into the large houses in which the Eloi slept. The Eloi were used to the nighttime raids, to a handful of them being plucked each time to be food for the Morlocks. Those selected did not resist; those not selected did nothing to help the others.

But tonight, the Morlocks didn’t want to carry off just a few. Tonight they wished to eradicate the Eloi. The weaklings’ skulls yielded juicily to pummeling rods. To that, some Eloi did react, did try to defend themselves or get away—the brighter of these creatures clearly understood that all previous patterns were to be discarded this night.

But even the strongest of the Eloi was no match for the slightest Morlock. Those that had to be chased down were chased down; those that had to be hit with hands were hit with hands; those that had to be strangled had their larynxes crushed.

It didn’t take long to dispatch the thousand or so Eloi, and Grach himself happened to be the one to come across that female who had associated herself with the original Time Traveler.

She, at least, had the backbone to look defiant as Grach’s rod descended upon her.

The return to the far future had gone well. Many Morlocks had clutched infants or children of their kind as they’d rode forward on the copies of the giant’s machine. Others had carried supplies and goods salvaged from the deep prison that bright light had trapped them in.

As time wore on, Grach got used to the thinner air and to the red glow of the now-ancient sun. Mankind, the Morlocks had always known, had started on the surface, and only well into its tenure on Earth had one faction moved underground. Now the Morlocks had reclaimed their birthright, their proper station in the world.

Grach looked out over the beach. Morlocks had feasted on crabs legs and the meat from the invertebrates’ rounded bodies. But after that bounty had been exhausted, the broken carapaces were gathered together, making a monument to that glorious battle, and a reminder to any of the crab-beings who might consider reclaiming this beach what fate would await them if they tried.

Of course, Grach knew the world was eventually doomed. He had not made the journey himself, but others had told him of trips to the very end of time, when the sea would freeze and the sun, although bigger even than it was now, would give off almost no light and even less heat.

But that future was far, far beyond even this advanced time. For the remainder of the habitable span of the world, generation after generation of Morlocks would live here. Yes, there might have been an interregnum during which the crabs had been dominant, but that was over now. Morlocks ruled again, and, until the sun’s red light finally faded for good, they would continue to do so.

Still, new changes were propagating forward. The large white butterfly-like creatures were now gone. Perhaps, mused Grach, just as the giant’s kind had once metamorphosed into Morlocks and Eloi, so the Eloi themselves, flighty creatures at the best of times, had here in the far, far future, literally taken wing. But with no more Eloi in the past, of course no descendants of them could exist. A pity: the flying things had been delicious.

Grach looked out again at the blood-red beach, and he thought about the original Time Traveler, that giant from ages past. Had he found whatever it was he’d been seeking when he came forward from his time? Perhaps not in that year he’d numbered about 800,000. The injustice, after all, of the best of mankind being damned to a subterranean existence surely must have disappointed him. But, Grach thought, if the Time Traveler knew what his machine had ultimately made possible—this wondrous moment, with the very essence of humanity on the surface—surely he would be pleased.