Christopher Priest - The Space Machine

Amelia and I came to a halt in front of the doorway, and for a few seconds I stared down the street at the Martians. They all walked with a curious, easy loping motion; doubtless this was a product of the low gravity conditions, and doubtless a gait that Amelia and I would perfect as soon as we grew more accustomed to the conditions here.

“Do we go inside?” Amelia said.

“I can think of no other course,” I said, and led the way up the three low steps in front of the door. Another group of Martian people was coming out in the opposite direction, and they passed without appearing to notice us. Their faces were indistinct in the half-light, but close to we saw just how tall they were. They were all at least six inches taller than I.

Light from within was spilling down the passage beyond the door, and as we passed through we came into a huge, brightly lit room, one so large that it seemed it must occupy the whole of the building.

We stopped just inside the door, standing warily, waiting for our eyes to adjust to the brilliance.

All was at first confusing, for what furniture was there was in haphazard order, and consisted, for the most part, of what seemed to be tubular scaffolding. From this were suspended by ropes what I can best describe as hammocks: large sheets of thick fabric or rubber, hanging some two feet from the ground. On these, and standing around them, were several dozen of the Martian people.

With the exception of the peasant-slaves—whom we surmised to be of the lowest social order—these were the first Martians we had seen closely. These were the city-dwellers, the same as those men we had seen wielding the electrical whips. These were the people who ordered this society, elected its leaders, made its laws. These were from now to be our peers, and in spite of our tiredness and mental preoccupations Amelia and I regarded them with considerable interest.

I have already noted that the average Martian is a tall being; what is also most noticeable, and of emphatic importance, is that the Martians are undeniably human, or human-like.

To speak of the average Martian is as misleading as to speak of the average human on Earth, for even in those first few seconds as we regarded the occupants of the building, Amelia and I noticed that there were many superficial differences. We saw some who were taller than most, some shorter; there were thinner Martians and fatter ones; there were some with great manes of hair, others were bald or balding; the predominant skin-tone was a reddish tint, but this was more evident in some than in others.

With this in mind, then, let me say that the, average adult Martian male could be roughly described thus:

He would be of the order of some six feet six inches tall, with black or brown head-hair. (We saw no red-heads, and no blonds.) He would weigh, if he were to step on scales an Earth, some two hundred pounds. His chest would be broad, arid apparently well-muscled. He would have facial hair, with thin eyebrows and wispy beard; some of the males we saw were clean-shaven, but this was uncommon. His eyes would be large, uncannily pale in coloration, and set wide apart in his face. His nose would be flat and broad, and his mouth would be generously fleshed.

At first sight the Martian face is a disturbing one for it seems brutal and devoid of emotion; as we later mingled with these people, however, both Amelia and I were able to detect facial nuances, even though we were never sure how to interpret them.

(My description here is of a city-Martian. The slave people were of the same racial stock, but due to the privations they suffered, most of the slaves we saw were comparatively thin and puny.)

The Martian female—for women there were in that room, and children too—is, like her Earthly counterpart, slightly the physical inferior of the male. Even so, almost every Martian female we saw was taller than Amelia, who is, as has already been said, taller than the average Earth woman. There is no woman on Mars who could ever be considered to be a beauty by Earth standards, nor, I suspect, would that concept have any meaning on Mars. At no time did we ever sense that Martian females were appreciated for their physical charms, and indeed we often had reason to believe that, as with some animals on Earth, the rôles on Mars were reversed in this respect.

The children we saw were, almost without exception, charming to us in the way any youngster has charm. Their faces were round and eager, not yet rendered unpleasant by the broadness and flatness so evident in the adults. Their behaviour, like that of Earth children, was on the whole riotous and mischievous, but they never appeared to anger the adults, whose attitude was indulgent and solicitous to them. It often seemed to us that the children were the sole source of happiness on this world, for the only time we saw the adults laughing was in the company of children.

This brings me to an aspect of Martian life which did not at first strike us, but which in later times became increasingly obvious. That is to say that I cannot imagine a race of beings more universally lugubrious, downcast or plainly miserable than the Martians.

The aura of despondency was present in the room as Amelia and I first entered it, and it was probably this which was our eventual saving. The typical Martian I have described would be obsessed with his internal miseries to the virtual exclusion of all other factors. To no other reason can I attribute the fact that Amelia and I were able to move so freely about the city without attracting attention. Even in those first few moments, as we stood in anticipation of the first cry of alarm or excitement at our appearance, few Martians so much as glanced in our direction. I cannot imagine the arrival of a Martian in an Earth city eliciting the same indifference.

Perhaps allied to this overall depression was the fact that the room was almost silent. One or two of the Martians spoke quietly, but most stood or sat about glumly. A few children ran while their parents watched, but this was the only movement The voices we heard were weird: soprano and mellifluous. Obviously we could not understand the words or even the tenor of the conversations—although the words were accompanied by intricate hand-signals—but the sight of these large and ugly people speaking in what seemed to us to be falsetto was most disconcerting.

Amelia and I waited by the door, unsure of everything: I looked at Amelia, and suddenly the sight of her face—tired, dirty, but so lovely—was a welcome reminder of all that was familiar to me. She looked back at me, the strain of the last two days still revealing itself in her expression, but she smiled and entwined her fingers through mine once more.

“They’re just ordinary people, Edward.”

“Are you still frightened?” I said.

“I’m not sure … they seem harmless.”

“If they can live in this city, then so can we. What we must do is see how they conduct their everyday lives, and follow their example. They seem not to recognize us as strangers.”

Just then a group of the Martians moved away from the hammocks and walked in their strange, loping gait towards us. At once I led Amelia back through the door, and returned to the street with its ever-sweeping lights. We crossed to the further side, then turned back to watch what the Martians were doing.

In a moment the group appeared, and without looking once in our direction they set off down the way we had seen the others go earlier. We waited for half a minute, then followed them at a distance.

As soon as we returned to the street we realized that it had been warmer inside, and this was cause for further reassurance. I had been fearing that the native Martians lived habitually in coldness, but the inside of the building had been heated to an acceptable level. I was not sure that I wished to sleep in a communal dormitory—and wished such conditions even less for Amelia—but even if we did not care for it, we knew at least that we could tonight sleep warmly and comfortably.