Christopher Priest - The Space Machine

I did not complete my sentence, for Amelia was nowhere in sight.

“I’m down here, Edward.”

I stared down the sloping floor of the compartment, but there was no sign of her. Then I heard her laughing, and looked up in the direction of the sound. Amelia was there… upside-down on the ceiling!

“What are you doing?” I shouted, aghast. “You’ll fall and hurt yourself!”

“Don’t be silly. It’s perfectly safe. Come down here and you’ll see for yourself.”

To demonstrate, she executed a little jump … and landed, feet first, on the ceiling.

“I cannot go down if you are. above me,” I said pedantically.

“It is you who is above me,” she said. Then, surprising me, she walked across the ceiling, down the curving wall, and was soon by my side. “Come with me, and I’ll show you.”

She took my hand, and I went with her. I trod carefully at first, bracing myself against falling, but the gradient did not increase, and after a few moments I glanced back at my controls and saw to my surprise that they now seemed to be against the wall. We walked on, soon coming to the place where the food had been stored, and where Amelia had been. Now when I looked back at the controls they appeared to be on the ceiling above us.

During the course of our voyage, we grew used to this effect created by the spinning of the ship about its axis, but it was a novel experience. Until this moment we had taken it for granted, so accustomed were we to the lightness of the Martian gravity, and the craft was being rotated so as to simulate this.

(Later in the voyage, I found a way of increasing the rate of spin, with the intention of readying our bodies for the greater weight of Earth.)

For the first few days this phenomenon was a considerable novelty to us. The shape of the compartment itself lent peculiar effects. As one moved further up the sloping floor (or ceiling) towards the nose of the craft, so one approached the central axis of the ship and apparent gravity was less. Amelia and I often passed the time by exercising in this strange ambience: by going to the apex of the compartment and kicking oneself away, one could float across much of the space before drifting gently to the floor.

Still, those first two hours after the firing of the cannon were placid enough, and we ate a little of the Martian food, blissfully unaware of what was in store for us.

When I returned to the controls, the view in the rearward-facing panel showed that the horizon of Mars had appeared. This was the first direct evidence I had that the planet was receding from us … or, to be more accurate, that we were receding from it. The forward panel still showed its uninformative display of stars. I had, naturally enough, expected to see our homeworld looming before us. My guides on Mars had informed me that the firing of the cannon would direct the craft towards Earth, but that I should not be able to see it for some time, so there was no immediate concern.

It did seem strange to me, though, that Earth should not be directly ahead of us.

I decided that as there would be neither night nor day on the craft, we should have to establish a ship time. My watch was still working, and I took it out. As near as I could estimate it, the snow-cannon had been fired at the height of the Martian day, and that we had been in flight for about two hours. Accordingly, I set my watch at two o’clock, and thenceforward my watch became the ship’s chronometer.

With this done, and with Amelia content to investigate what provisions had been made for our sojourn in the craft, I decided to explore the rest of the ship.

So it was that I discovered we were not alone…

I was moving along one of the passages that ran through the double hull when I passed the hatchway that led to the compartment designed to hold the slaves. I afforded it the merest glance, but then stopped in horror! The hatch had been crudely sealed from the outside, welded closed so that the door was unopenable, either from within or without. I pressed my ear to it, and listened.

I could hear nothing: if anyone was inside they were very still. There was the faintest sound of movement, but this could well have come from Amelia’s activities in the forward compartment.

I stood by that hatch for many minutes, full of forebodings and indecision. I had no evidence that anyone was within … but why should that hatch have been sealed, when only the day before I and the others had passed freely through it?

Could it be that this projectile carried a cargo of human food…?

If so, just what was in the main hold…?

Stricken with an awful presentiment, I hastened to the hatch that led to the hold where the monsters’ machines had been stowed. This too had been welded, and I stood before it, my heart thudding. Unlike the other hatch, this was equipped with a sliding metal plate, of the sort that is installed in the doors of prison-cells.

I moved it to one side, a fraction of an inch at a time, terrified of making a noise and so drawing attention to myself.

At last it had been opened sufficiently for me to place my eye against it, and I did this, peering into the dimly lit interior.

My worst fears were instantly confirmed: there, not a dozen feet from the hatch, was the oblate body of one of the monsters. It lay before one of the protective tubes, evidently having been released from it after the launch.

I jumped back at once, fearful of being noticed. In the confined space of the passage I waved my arms in despair, cursing silently, dreading the significance of this discovery.

Eventually, I summoned enough courage to return to my peephole, and looked again at the monster that was there.

It was lying so that it presented one side of its body and most of its nasty face towards me. It had not noticed me, and indeed it had not moved an inch since I had first looked. Then I recalled what my guides had said … that the monsters took a sleeping-draught for the duration of the flight.

This monster’s tentacles were folded, and although its eyes were open the flaccid white lids drooped over the pale eyeballs.

Th sleep it lost none of its beastliness, yet it was now vulnerable.

I did not have the steel of rage in me that I had had before, but I knew that were the door not unopenable I would once again have been able to slay the being.

Reassured that I would not rouse the brute, I slid the plate right open, and looked along as much of the length of the hold I could. There were three other monsters in view, each one similarly unconscious. There was probably the fifth somewhere in the hold, but there was so much equipment lying about that I could not see it.

So we had not after all stolen the projectile. The craft we commanded was leading the monsters’ invasion of Earth!

Was this what the Martians had been trying to tell us before we left? Was this what Edwina had been keeping back from us?

I decided to say nothing of this to Amelia, remembering her loyalties to the Martian people. If she knew the monsters were aboard, she would realize that they had brought their food with them, and it would become her major preoccupation. I did not care for the knowledge myself—it was unpleasant to realize that beyond the metal wall at the rear of our compartment were imprisoned several men and women who, when needed, would sacrifice themselves to the monsters—but it would not divert my attention from the major tasks.

So, although Amelia remarked on my pallor when I returned, I said nothing of what I had seen. I slept uneasily that night, and once when I wakened I fancied I could hear a low crooning coming from the next compartment.

The following day, our second in space, an event occurred that made it difficult to keep my discovery to myself. On the day after that, and in subsequent days, there were further incidents that made it impossible.