Christopher Priest - The Space Machine

There came a crashing noise a few yards to my right, and I ducked, imagining in my horror that some major trunk was moving into life … but then I saw that it had been Amelia’s bag, slipping from its perch.

Thankfully, I abandoned my futile attempt to climb, and thrust myself through the waving lower stems. The noise of this riotous growth was now considerable, and when another seed-pod exploded by my ear I was temporarily deafened by it. My only thought now was to retrieve Amelia’s bag and get away from this nightmare vegetation. Not caring where I placed my feet, nor how many stems I broke and how much I drenched myself, I pushed wildly through the stalks, seized the bag and headed at once for the edge of the growth.

Amelia was sitting on the ground, and I threw the bag down beside her. Unreasonably, I felt angry with her, although I knew it was simply a reaction to my terror.

As she thanked me for collecting the bag, I turned away from her and stared at the wall of scarlet vegetation. It was visibly much more disordered than before, with branches and stems swinging out from every place. In the soil at the very edge of the growth I saw new, pink seedlings appearing. The plants were advancing on us, slowly but relentlessly. I watched the process for a few minutes more, seeing how sap from the adult plants dripped down on the soil, crudely irrigating the new shoots.

When I turned back to Amelia she was wiping her face and hands with a piece of flannel she had taken from her bag. Beside her on the ground was her flask. She held this out to me.

“Would you like some brandy, Edward?”

“Thank you.”

The liquor flowed over my tongue, immediately warming me. I took only one small mouthful, sensing that we should have to make last what we had.

With the rising of the sun, we both felt the benefit of its heat We were evidently in an equatorial region, for the sun was rising steeply, and its rays were warm.

“Edward, come here.”

I squatted on the ground in front of Amelia. She looked remarkably fresh, but then I realized that in addition to having had a cursory wash with her dampened face-flannel, she had brushed her hair. Her clothes, though, were in a dreadful state: the sleeve of her jacket had been torn, and there was a long rent in her skirt where the plant had swung her round. There were dirty pink streaks and stains all over her clothes. Glancing down at myself, I saw that my new suit had become equally spoiled.

“Would you like to clean yourself?” she said, offering me the flannel.

I took it from her, and wiped my face and hands.

“How do you come to have this with you?” I said, marvelling at the unexpected pleasure of washing myself.

“I have travelled a lot,” she said. “One grows accustomed to anticipating any contingency.”

She showed me that she had a traveller’s tidy, containing as well as the face-flannel, a square of soap, a toothbrush, a mirror, a pair of folding nail-scissors and a comb.

I ran my hand over my chin, thinking I should soon need a shave, but that was one contingency she seemed not to have anticipated.

I borrowed her comb to straighten my hair, and then allowed her to tidy my moustache.

“There,” she said, giving it a final twirl. “Now we are fit to re-enter civilization. But first, we must have some breakfast to sustain us.”

She dipped into her bag and produced a large bar of Menier’s chocolate.

“May I ask what else you have concealed in there?” I said.

“Nothing that will be of use to us. Now, we will have to ration this, for it is the only food I have. We shall have two squares each now, and a little more as we need it.”

We munched the chocolate hungrily, then followed it with another mouthful of brandy.

Amelia closed her bag, and we stood up.

“We will walk in that direction,” she said, pointing parallel to the wall of vegetation.

“Why that way?” I said, curious at her apparent resolution.

“Because the sun rose over there,” she pointed across the desert, “and so the weed-bank must run from north to south. We have seen how cold it can be at night, therefore we can do no better than move southwards.”

It was unassailable logic. We had walked several yards before an argument occurred to me.

“You assume we are still in the northern hemisphere,” I said.

“Of course. For your information, Edward, I have already deduced where we have landed. It is so high and cold that this can only be Tibet”

“Then we are walking towards the Himalayas,” I said.

“We will deal with that problem when we encounter it”

We found that walking across this terrain was not easy. Although our surroundings became quite pleasant as the sun rose higher, and there was a distinct spring in our step, lent, we assumed, by the clean cold air and the altitude, we discovered that we tired readily and were forced to make frequent halts.

For about three hours we maintained a steady pace, by walking and resting at regular periods, and we took it in turns to carry the bag. I felt invigorated by the exercise, but Amelia did not find it easy; her breathing became laboured and she complained frequently of dizziness.

What we both found dispiriting was that the landscape had not changed from the moment we set out. With minor variations in size, the wall of vegetation ran in an unbroken line across the desert.

As the sun moved higher its radiant heat increased, and our clothes were soon completely dry. Unprotected as we were (Amelia’s bonnet had no brim, and I had lost my straw hat in the weeds) we soon began to suffer the first effects of sunburn, and we both complained of an unpleasant tingling on the skin of our faces.

A further effect of the hotter sunshine was yet another change in the activity of the weeds. The unsettling life-like movement lasted for about an hour after sunrise, but now such movements were rare; instead, we could see that the seedlings were growing at a prodigious pace, and sap trickled down constantly from the higher shoots.

One matter had been troubling me ever since our accident, and as we walked along I felt I should bring it up.

I said: “Amelia, I do accept full responsibility for our predicament”

“What do you mean?”

“I should not have interfered with the Time Machine. It was a reckless thing to do.”

“You are no more to blame than I. Please don’t speak of it any more.”

“But we may now be in danger of our lives.”

“We shall have to face that together,” she said. “Life will be intolerable if you continue blaming yourself. It was I… who first tampered with the Machine. Our main concern … now should be to return to…”

I looked sharply at Amelia, and saw that her face had gone pale and her. eyes were half closed. A moment later she staggered slightly, looked at me helplessly, then stumbled and fell full-length on the sandy soil, I rushed to her.

“Amelia!” I cried in alarm, but she did not move. I took her hand and felt for her pulse: it was faint, and irregular.

I had been carrying the bag, and I fumbled with the catch and threw it open. I searched frantically through the bag, knowing that what I sought would be somewhere there. After a moment I found it: a tiny bottle of smelling-salts. I unscrewed the top, and waved it under her nose.

The response was immediate. Amelia coughed violently, and tried to move away. I placed my arms around her shoulders and helped her into a sitting position. She continued to cough, and her eyes were streaming with tears. Remembering something I had once seen I bent her over, gently pushing her head down towards her knees.

After five minutes she straightened and looked at me. Her face was still pale, and her eyes were watery.