Christopher Priest - The Space Machine

“I think it is time we left,” I said to Amelia.

She stared at the developing situation for a few moments longer before replying. Then she said: “Very well. This is grossly distasteful.”

We went towards the door, not pausing to look back. Another bench and a table were overturned, accompanied by a crash of breaking glasses and shouts from the Martian people. The maudlin atmosphere had been entirely banished.

Then, as we reached the door, a sound came echoing through the hall, chilling us and forcing us to look back. It was a harsh and discordant screeching sound, apparently emanating from one distant corner of the hall, but with sufficient volume to drown every other sound.

Its effect on the Martians was dramatic: all movement ceased, and the people present looked wildly from one to the other. In the silence that followed this brutal and sudden intrusion, we heard the sound of renewed sobbing.

I said: “Come on, Amelia.”

So we hurried from the building, sobered by the incident, not understanding but more than a little frightened.

There were now even fewer people about than before, but the tower lights swept across the streets as if to pick out those who wandered in the night when all others were engaged inside.

I led Amelia away from that area of the city where the Martians gathered, and back towards the part we had first walked through, where fewer lights showed. Appearances, though, were deceptive, for the fact that a building showed no light and emitted no noise did not mean it was deserted. We walked for about half a mile, and then tried the door of a darkened building. Inside, lights were shining and we saw that another feast had taken place. We saw … but it is not correct that I should here record what we saw. Amelia had no more wish than I to witness such depravity, and we hastened away, still not able to reconcile this world with the one we had left.

When we next tried a building I went forward alone … but the place was empty and dirty, and whatever had been its contents had been thoroughly destroyed by fire. The next building we explored was another dormitory-hall, well occupied by Martians. Without causing disturbance, we went away.

So it went, as we moved from one building to the next, seeking an unoccupied dormitory-hall; so long did we search that we began to think that there was none we could find. But then at last we were in luck, and came to a hall where hammocks hung unoccupied, and we went inside and slept.

During the weeks that followed, Amelia and I explored the Martian city as thoroughly as possible. We were hindered by the fact that we had perforce to go everywhere on foot, but we saw as much as we could and were soon able to make reasonable estimates as to its size, how many people it contained, where the major buildings were situated, and so forth. At the same time we tried to make what we could of the people of Mars, and how they lived; to be honest, however, we did not find much satisfaction on this score.

After two nights in the first dormitory we found, we moved to a second building, much nearer to the centre of the city and more conveniently sited by a dining-hall. This too was unoccupied, but its previous users had left many possessions behind them, and we were able to live in some comfort. The hammocks would have been unbearably hard on Earth—for the fabric of which they were made was coarse and unyielding—but in the light Martian gravity they were perfectly adequate. For bedding we used large, pillow-like sacks filled with a soft compound, which were similar to the quilts used in some European countries.

We also found clothing that had been abandoned by the previous occupants, and we wore the drab garments over our own clothes. Naturally enough they were rather large for us, but the loose fit over our clothes made our bodies appear larger, and so we were able to pass more readily as Martians.

Amelia tied her hair back in a tight bun—approximating the style favoured by the Martian women—and I allowed my new beard to grow; every few days Amelia trimmed it with her nail-scissors to give it the wispy appearance of the Martians’.

At the time all this seemed to us a matter of priority; we were very aware that we looked different from the Martians. To this extent, our two days sojourn in the desert had been to our unwitting advantage: our sunburned faces, uncomfortable as they were, were a credible approximation of the Martians’ skin-hue. As the days passed, and our complexions began to fade, we returned one day to the desert beyond the city, and a few hours in that bitter radiant heat restored the colour temporarily.

But this is taking my narrative ahead of itself, for to convey how we, survived in that city I must first describe the place itself.

Within a few days, of our arrival, Amelia had dubbed our new home Desolation City, for reasons which should already be clear.

Desolation City was situated at the junction of two canals. One of these, the one by whose banks we had first landed, ran directly from north to south. The second approached from the north-west, and after the junction—where there was a complicated arrangements of locks—continued to the south-east. The city had been built in the obtuse angle formed by the two canals, and along its southern and western edges were several docking accesses to the waterways.

As near as we could estimate it the city covered about twelve square miles, but a comparison on this basis with Earth cities is misleading, for Desolation City was almost exactly circular. Moreover, the Martians had lighted on the ingenious notion of entirely separating the industrial life of the city from the residential, for the buildings were designed for the everyday needs of the people, while the manufacturing work was carried out in the industrial areas beyond the city’s periphery.

There were two such industrial concentrations: the large one we had seen from the train, which lay to the north, and a smaller one built beside the canal to the south-east.

In terms of resident population, Desolation City was very small indeed, and it was this aspect which had most prompted Amelia to give it its unprepossessing name.

That the city had been built to accommodate many thousands of people was quite obvious, for buildings there were many and open spaces there were few; that only a fraction of the city was presently occupied was equally apparent, and large areas were laid to waste. In these parts many of the buildings were derelict, and the streets were littered with masonry and rusting girders.

We discovered that only the occupied parts of the city were lighted at night, for as we explored the city by day we frequently found areas of decay where none of the towers was present. We never ventured into these regions at night, for quite apart from being dark and threatening in their loneliness, such areas were patrolled by fast-moving vehicles which drove through the streets with a banshee howling and an ever-probing beam of light.

This sinister policing of the city was the first indication that the Martian people had inflicted on themselves a régime of Draconian suppression.

We often speculated as to the causes of the under-population. At first we surmised that the shortage of manpower was only apparent, created by the quite prodigious amount of effort poured into the industrial processes. By day we could see the industrial areas beyond the city’s perimeter, belching dense smoke from hundreds of chimneys, and by night we saw the same areas brightly lit as the work continued; thus it was that we assumed most of the city’s people were at work, labouring around the clock through work-shifts. However, as we grew more used to living in the city, we saw that not many of the ruling-class Martians ever left its confines, and that therefore most of the industrial workers would be of the slave class.