Christopher Priest - The Space Machine

“The authority of experience,” said Amelia. “We have been to Mars, Mr Wells, although I cannot expect you to believe us.”

Much to my surprise, our new friend did not seem at all perturbed by this announcement.

“I have long suspected that the other planets of our Solar System can support life,” he said. “It does not seem improbable to me that one day we shall visit those worlds. When we have conquered the drag of gravity we shall travel to the moon as easily as we can now travel to Birmingham.” He stared intently at us both. “Yet you say you have already been to Mars?”

I nodded. “We were experimenting with Sir William’s Time Machine, and we set the controls incorrectly.”

“But as I understood it, Sir William intended to travel in Time only.”

In a few words, Amelia explained how I had loosened the nickel rod which until then prevented movement through the Spatial Dimension. From this, the rest of our story followed naturally, and for the next hour we recounted most of our adventures. At last we came to the description of how we had returned to Earth.

Mr Wells was silent for a long time. He had helped himself to some brandy which we had found in the smoking-room, and for many minutes he cradled this in his hands.

Then at last he said: “If you are not inventing every word of this, all I can say is that it is a most extraordinary tale.”

“We are not proud of what we have done,” I said.

Mr Wells waved his hand dismissively. “You should not blame yourselves inordinately. Others would have done as you have, and although there has been much loss of life and damage to property, you could not have anticipated the power of these creatures.”

He asked us several questions about our story, and we answered them as accurately as we could.

At length, he said: “It seems to me that your experience is itself the most useful weapon we have against these creatures. In any war, one’s tactics are best planned by anticipating the enemy. Why we have not been able to contain this menace is because their motives have been so uncertain. We three are now custodians of intelligence. If we cannot assist the authorities, we must take some action of our own.”

“I had been thinking along those lines myself,” I said. “Our first intention was to contact Sir William, for it had occurred to me that the Time Machine itself would be a powerful weapon against these beings.”

“In what way could it be used?”

“No creature, however powerful or ruthless, can defend itself against an invisible foe.”

Mr Wells nodded his understanding, but said: “Unfortunately, we find neither Sir William nor his Machine.”

“I know, sir,” I said glumly.

It was getting late, and soon we discontinued our conversation, for we were all exhausted. The silence beyond the house was still absolute, but we felt we could not sleep easy in uncertainty. With this in mind, we crept out of the house before preparing for bed, and walked softly across the lawn to the edge of the ridge.

We looked down across the Thames Valley and saw the burning desolation below. In every direction, and as far as we could see, the night land was sparked with the glow of burning buildings. The sky above us was clear, and the stars shone brightly.

Amelia took my hand and said: “It is like Mars, Edward. They are turning our world into theirs.”

“We cannot let them go on with this,” I said. “We must find a way to fight them.”

Just then, Mr Wells pointed towards the west, and we all saw a brilliant green point of light. It grew brighter as we watched it, and within a few seconds we had all recognized it as a fourth projectile. It became blindingly bright, and for a terrible moment we were convinced it was coming directly towards us, but then at last it abruptly lost height. It fell with a dazzling explosion of green light some three miles to the south-west of us, and seconds later we heard the blast of its landing.

Slowly, the green glare faded, until all was dark once more.

Mr Wells said: “There are six more of those projectiles to come.”

“There is no hope for us,” said Amelia.

“We must never lose hope.”

I said: “We are impotent against these monsters.”

“We must build a second Time Machine,” said Mr Wells.

“But that would be impossible,” Amelia said. “Only Sir William knows how to construct the device.”

“He explained the principle to me in detail,” said Mr Wells.

“To you, and to many others, but only in the most vague terms. Even I, who sometimes worked with him in the laboratory, have only a general understanding of its mechanism.”

“Then we can succeed!” said Mr Wells. “You have helped to build the Machine, and I have helped design it.”

We both looked at him curiously then. The flames from below lent an eerie cast to his features.

“You helped design the Time Machine?” I said, incredulously.

“In a sense, for he often showed me his blueprints and I made several suggestions which he incorporated. If the drawings are still available, it would not take me long to familiarize myself with them. I expect the drawings are still in his safe in the laboratory.”

Amelia said: “That is where he always kept them.”

“Then we could not get at them!” I cried. “Sir William is no longer here!”

“We will blast the safe open, if we need to,” Mr Wells said, apparently determined to carry through his brave claim.

“There is no need for that,” said Amelia. “I have some spare keys in my suite.”

Suddenly, Mr Wells extended his hand to me, and I took it uncertainly, not sure what our compact was to be. He placed his other hand on my shoulder and gripped it warmly.

“Turnbull,” he said, gravely. “You and I, and Miss Fitzgibbon too, will combine to defeat this enemy. We will become the unsuspected and invisible foe. We will fight this threat to all that is decent by descending on it and destroying it in a way it could never have anticipated. Tomorrow we shall set to and build a new Time Machine, and with it we will go out and stop this unstoppable menace!”

And then, with the excitement of having formed a positive plan, we complimented ourselves, and laughed aloud, and shouted defiance across the blighted valley. The night was silent, and the air was tainted with smoke and death, but revenge is the most satisfactory of human impulses, and as we returned to the house we were most uncommonly expectant of an immediate victory.

Mr Wells and I each took one of the guest-rooms that night, while Amelia slept in her private suite (it was the first time for weeks that I had slept alone, and I tossed restlessly for hours), and in the morning we came down to breakfast still exercised by the zeal of vengeance.

Breakfast itself was a considerable luxury for Amelia and myself, for we were able to cook bacon and eggs on a ring in the kitchen (we judged it ill-advised to light the range).

Afterwards, we went directly to the laboratory and opened Sir William’s safe. There, rolled untidily together, were the drawings he had made of his Time Machine.

We found a clear space on one of the benches and spread them out. At once my spirits fell, because Sir William—for all his inventive genius—had not been the most methodical of men. There was hardly one sheet that made immediate sense, for there was a multitude of corrections, erasures and marginal sketches, and on most sheets original designs had been over drawn with subsequent versions.

Mr Wells maintained his optimistic tone of the night before, but I sensed that some of his previous confidence was lacking.

Amelia said: “Of course, before we start work we must be sure that the necessary materials are to hand.”