Christopher Priest - The Space Machine

The man with the whip stared at the girl and me for a few seconds longer, then, evidently satisfied that we were capable of continuing unsupervised, returned unexpectedly to the control cabin.

Sensing a minuscule chance of escape, I glanced at the girl; she seemed uninterested and had sat down with her back to the partition. Free for a moment to act and think independently, I looked desperately around the compartment As far as I could see there was no way out except by the hatchway beyond the partition. I looked at the curving ceiling and floor, but these were unbroken except for the fittings of the flexible tubes.

I went quietly to the partition, and peered around it at the two Martians in charge… They had their backs towards me, attending to some matter at the controls of the craft. I looked at the wheel-device which opened and closed the hatch; it would be impossible for me to open it without their hearing me.

Behind me, the cubicle door burst open and the male slave fell out, his bloodless arm falling across the girl. At the sound of this, the two Martians at the controls turned round, and I ducked out of sight. The girl was looking at me, and for a moment I was mortified by the expression of stark fear which contorted her features. Then, without a sound, she stepped into the cubicle, and I was alone with the three bodies of the slaves.

I closed the doors of the cubicle without glancing inside, then went to a part of the compartment where no bodies lay, and was violently sick.

I could no longer stay in that hellish compartment with its sights and odours of death; blindly, I struggled over the heaped bodies and hurled myself around the partition, determined to do to death the two Martian humans who were the instruments of the torturous slaughter.

I had never in all my life been taken with such a blinding and all-consuming rage and nausea. In my hatred I threw myself across the control cabin and landed a huge blow with my arm on the back of the neck of the Martian nearer to me. He crumpled immediately, his forehead smiting a jagged edge of the instrumentation.

His electrical whip fell to the floor beside. him, and I snatched it up.

The other Martian was already seated on the floor, and in the two or three seconds my first attack had taken had time only to turn his face towards me. I swung the whip viciously, catching him across his collar-bone, and at once he jerked and fell sideways. Coldly and deliberately I stood over him, pressing the end of the whip against his temple. He jerked spasmically for a few seconds, then was still. I turned my attention to the other Martian, who was now lying semi-conscious on the floor, blood pouring from the wound in his head. He too I treated with the whip, then at last I threw aside the terrible weapon, and turned away. I was taken with dizziness, and in a moment I passed out. My last memory was of hearing the sound of the slave-girl’s body as it fell into the compartment behind me.

My faint must have turned naturally to sleep, for the next few hours are unremembered.

When at last I awoke my mind was tranquil, and for several minutes I had no memory of the hideous events I had witnessed. As soon as I sat up, though, I was confronted with the bodies of the two city-Martians, and everything returned in vivid detail.

I consulted my watch. I had kept this wound, as I had discovered that the length of a Martian day was almost the same as that on Earth, and although a knowledge of the exact hour was unnecessary on Mars, it was a useful guide to elapsed time. Now I saw that I had been aboard the projectile for more than twelve hours. Every minute I stayed within its confines was reminder of what I had seen and done, so I crossed directly to the hatch and attempted to open it. I had seen it being closed, so I assumed that a simple reversal of the action would be sufficient. This was not so; after moving an inch or two the mechanism jammed. I wasted several minutes trying, before I abandoned the effort.

I looked around the cabin, sensing for the first time that I might well be trapped here. It was a terrifying thought and I began to panic, pacing up and down in the confined space, my mind anguished.

At last sense filtered through, and I set myself to a meticulous and systematic examination of the cabin.

First, I examined the controls, hoping that there might be some way I could set the display-panels working, so that I could see where the craft had landed. With no success here (the impact of landing appeared to have broken the workings), I turned my attention to the flying controls themselves.

Although at first sight there seemed to be an amazing confusion of levers and wheels, I soon noticed that certain instruments were placed inside one of the transparent pressure-tubes. It was in these that the two Martians had passed the flight, and so it was logical that they would have had to be able to control the trajectory from within.

I parted the fabric with my hands (now that the flight was over it was quite limp), and inspected these instruments.

They were solidly built—presumably to withstand the various pressures of the firing and final impact—and simple in design. A kind of podium had been built on the floor of the cabin, and it was on this that they were mounted. Although there were certain needle-dials whose function I could not even guess, the two major controls were metal levers. One of these bore a remarkable resemblance to the lever on Sir William’s Time Machine: it was mounted pivotally and could be moved fore or aft, or to either side I touched it experimentally, and moved it away from me. At once, there was a noise in another part of the hull, and the craft trembled slightly.

The other lever was surmounted by a piece of some bright-green substance. This had only one apparent movement—downwards—and at the same moment I laid my hand on it there was a tremendous explosion outside the hull, and I was thrown from my feet by a sudden, sharp movement of the entire craft.

As I clambered to my feet again I realized that I had discovered the device that triggered the green flashes which had controlled our landing.

Understanding at last that the projectile was still functioning, if momentarily at rest, I decided that it would be safer if I were instead to concentrate on escaping.

I returned to the hatch and renewed my efforts to turn the wheel. Much to my surprise it was freer, and the hatch itself actually shifted a few inches before jamming again. As it did so a quantity of gravel and dry soil poured through the crack. This was rather perplexing, until I realized that in the impact of our landing a large part of the craft, and most certainly the nose, would have been buried in the ground.

I considered this with some care, then closed the hatch thoughtfully. I returned to the controls, then,bracing myself, I depressed the green-tipped lever.

A few seconds late; slightly deafened and certainly unsteady on my feet, I returned to the hatch. It was still jammed, but there was more play than before.

It took four more attempts before the hatch opened far enough to admit a minor avalanche of soil and pebbles, and daylight showed above. I hesitated only long enough to pick up Amelia’s hand-bag, then squeezed my way through the aperture to freedom.

After a long climb through loose soil, using the solid bulk of the hull to support myself, I reached the top of the wall of dirt.

I saw that the projectile had on landing created for itself a vast pit, in which it now rested. On every side of it had been thrown up large mounds of soil, and acrid green smoke—produced presumably as a result of my efforts—drifted about. I had no way of telling how deeply the projectile had been buried on its first impact, although I guessed I had shifted it from its original position during my escape.