Christopher Priest - The Space Machine

“Shall we go on?” Amelia said, whispering.

“I feel uneasy,” I said. “I had expected there would be many people about. It’s too quiet.”

Then, belying my words, there was a resounding clatter of metal, and I saw a brilliant flash of green.

“Are the monsters out already?” said Amelia.

“I shall have to look. Stay here, and don’t make a sound.”

“You aren’t leaving me?” There was an edge to her voice, making her words sound tense and brittle.

“I’m just going to the end,” I said. “We must see what is happening.”

“Be careful, Edward. Don’t be noticed.”

I passed her the hand-bag, then crawled on up. I was in a turmoil of sensations, some of them internal ones, like fright and trepidation, but others were external. I knew that I was breathing the air of Earth, smelling the soil of England.

At last I came to the lip, and lay low against the metal floor. I pulled myself forward until just my eyes peered out into the evening light. There, in the vast pit thrown up by our violent landing, I saw a sight that filled me with dread and terror.

Immediately beneath the circular end of the projectile was the discarded hatch. This was a huge disk of metal, some eighty feet in diameter. It had once been the very bulkhead which had withstood the blast of our launch, but now, unscrewed from within, and dropped to the sandy floor, it lay, its use finished.

Beyond it, the Martian monsters had already started their work of assembling their devilish machinery.

All five of the brutes were out of the craft, and they worked in a frenzy of activity. Two of them were painstakingly attaching a leg to one of the battle-machines, which squatted a short distance from where I lay. I saw that it was not yet ready for use, for its other two legs were telescoped so that the platform was no more than a few feet from the ground. Two other monsters worked beside the platform, but each of these was inside a small legged vehicle, with mechanical arms supporting the bulk of the tripod while shorter extensions hammered at the metal plates. With every blow there was a bright flash of green light, and an eerie smoke, yellow and green combined, drifted away on the breeze.

The fifth monster was taking no part in this activity.

It squatted on the flat surface of the discarded hatch, just a few feet from me. Here a heat-cannon had been mounted in a metal structure so that its barrel pointed directly upwards. Above the support was a long, telescopic mounting, at the top of which was a parabolic mirror some two feet in diameter. This was presently being rotated by the monster, which pressed one of its bland, saucer-like eyes to a sighting instrument. Even as I watched, the monster jerked spasmically in hatred, and a pale, deathly beam—clearly visible in Earth’s denser air—swept out over the rim of the pit.

In the distance I heard a confusion of shouts, and heard the crackle of burning timber and vegetation.

I ducked down for a few seconds, unable to participate in even this passive way; I felt that by inaction I became a party to slaughter.

That this was not the first time the beam had been used was amply evidenced, for when I looked again across the pit I noticed that along one edge were the charred bodies of several people. I did not know why the people had been by the pit when the monsters struck, but it seemed certain that now the monsters were keeping further intruders away while the machines were assembled.

The parabolic mirror continued to rotate above the rim of the pit, but while I watched the heat-beam was not used again.

I turned my attention to the monsters themselves. I saw, with horror, that the increased gravity of Earth had wrought gross distortions to their appearance. I have already noted how soft were the bodies of these execrable beings; with the increased pressure on them, the bladder-like bodies became distended and flattened. The one nearest to me seemed to have grown by about fifty percent, which is to say it was now six or seven feet long. Its tentacles were no longer, but they too were being flattened by the pressure and seemed more than ever snake-like. The face too had altered. Although the eyes—always the most prominent feature—remained unmarked, the beak-like mouth had developed a noticeable V-shape, and the creatures’ breathing was more laboured. A viscous saliva dribbled continually from their mouths.

I had never been able to see these monsters with feelings less than loathing, and seeing them in this new aspect I could hardly control myself. I allowed myself to slip back from my vantage-point, and lay trembling for several minutes.

When I had recovered my composure, I crawled back to where Amelia was waiting, and in a hoarse whisper managed to relate what I had seen.

“I must see for myself,” Amelia said, preparing to make her own way to the end of the passage.

“No,” I said, holding her arm. “It’s too dangerous. If you were seen—”

“Then the same will happen to me that would have happened to you.” Amelia freed herself from me, and climbed slowly up the steep passageway. I watched in agonized silence as she reached the end, and peered out into the pit.

She was there for several minutes, but at last she returned safely. Her face was pale.

She said: “Edward, once they have assembled that machine there will be no stopping them.”

“They have four more waiting to be assembled,” I said.

“We must somehow alert the authorities.”

“But we cannot move from here! You have seen the slaughter in the pit. Once we show ourselves we will be as good as dead.”

“We have to do something.”

I thought for a few minutes. Obviously, the police and Army could not be unaware that the arrival of this projectile presented a terrible threat. What we needed to do now was not alert the authorities, but to apprise them of the extent of the threat. They could have no notion that another nine projectiles were flying towards Earth at this very moment.

I was trying to stay calm. I could not see that the Army would be helpless against these monsters. Any mortal being that could die by the knife could be disposed of as easily with bullets or shells. The heat-beam was a terrifying and deadly weapon, but it did not make the Martians invulnerable. Further weighing against the invaders was the fact of our Earthly gravity. The battle-machines were all-powerful in the light gravity and thin air of Mars; would they be so agile or dangerous here on Earth?

A little later I crawled again to the end of the passage, hoping that under the cover of darkness Amelia and I would be able to slip away.

Night had indeed fallen, and any moonlight there might have been was obscured by the thick clouds of smoke that drifted from the burning heath, but the Martians worked on through the night, with great floodlamps surrounding the machines. The first battle-machine was evidently completed, for it stood, on its telescoped legs, at the far end of the pit. Meanwhile, the components of a second were being taken from the hold.

I stayed at the vantage-point for a long time, and after a while Amelia joined me. The Martian monsters did not so much as look our way even once, and so we were able to watch their preparations undisturbed.

The monsters paused in their work only once. That was when, in the darkest part of the night, and exactly twenty-four hours after our own arrival, a second projectile roared overhead in a blaze of brilliant green. It landed with a shattering explosion no more than two miles away.

At this, Amelia took my hand, and I held her head against my chest while she sobbed quietly.

For the rest of that night and for most of the next day we were forced to stay in hiding inside the projectile. Sometimes we dozed, sometimes we crawled to the end of the passage to see if escape was possible, but for most of the time we crouched silently and fearfully in an uncomfortable corner of the passage.