Stephen Baxter - The Time Ships

I straightened up and looked about. The hut was quite demolished now. I saw how the water was beginning to run out of the forest, over the sand and down to the ocean. Even our friendly fresh-water stream was becoming broader and more angry, and itself threatened to burst its shallow banks and overrun us.

I abandoned the Time-Car and stalked over to Nebogipfel. “It’s all up,” I shouted to him. “We have to get away from here.”

“But the time-device—”

“We have to chuck it! Can’t you see? We’re going to get washed into the Sea, at this rate!”

He strove to rise to his feet, with hanks of his hair dangling like bits of sodden cloth. I made to grab him, and he tried to wriggle out of my grasp; if he had been healthy, perhaps, he could have evaded me, but his damaged leg impeded him, and I caught him.

“I can’t save it!” I shouted into his face. “We’ll be lucky to get out of this lot with our blessed lives!”

And with that I threw him over my shoulder, and stalked out of our hut and towards the forest. Instantly I found myself wading through inches of cold, muddy water. I slipped more than once on the squirming sand, but I kept one arm wrapped around the wriggling body of the Morlock.

I reached the fringe of the forest. Under the shelter of the canopy, the pressure of the rain was lessened. It was still pitch black, and I was forced to stumble forward into darkness, tripping on roots and colliding with boles, and the ground under me was sodden and treacherous. Nebogipfel gave up his struggling and lay passive over my shoulder.

At last I reached a tree I thought I remembered: thick and old, and with low side-branches that spread out from the trunk at a little above head-height. I hooked the Morlock over a branch, where he hung like a soaked-through coat. Then — with some effort, for I am long past my climbing days — I hauled myself off the ground and got myself sat on a branch with my back against the trunk.

And there we stayed as the Storm played itself out. I kept one hand resting on the Morlock’s back, to ensure he did not fall or strive to return to the hut; and I was forced to endure a sheet of water which ran down the trunk of the tree and over my back and shoulders.

As the dawn approached, it picked out an eerie beauty in that forest. Peering up into the canopy I could make out how the rain trickled across the engineered forms of the leaves, and was channeled down the trunks to the ground; I am not much of a botanist but now I saw that the forest was like a great machine designed to survive the predations of such a Storm as this, far better than man’s crude constructions.

As the light increased I tore a strip from the remains of my trousers — I was without a shirt — and tied it over Nebogipfel’s face, to protect his naked eyes. He did not stir.

The rains died at midday, and I judged it safe to descend. I lifted Nebogipfel to the ground, and he could walk, but I was forced to lead him by the hand, for he was blind without his goggles.

The day beyond the jungle was bright and fresh; there was a pleasant breeze off the Sea, and light clouds scudded across an almost English sky. It was as if the world was remade, and there was nothing left of yesterday’s oppressiveness.

I approached the remains of the hut with some reluctance. I saw scraps — bits of smashed-up structure, the odd nut-shell cup, and so forth — all half-buried in the damp sand. In the midst of it all was a baby Diatryma, pecking with its great clumsy beak at the rubble. I shouted, “Hoi!” — and ran forward, clapping my hands over my head. The bird-beast ran off, the loose yellow flesh of its legs wobbling.

I poked through the debris. Most of our possessions were lost — washed away. The shelter had been a mean thing, and our few belongings mere shards of improvisation and repair; but it had been our home — and I felt a shocking sense of violation.

“What of the device?” Nebogipfel asked me, turning his blinded face this way and that. “The Time-Car — what of it?”

After some digging about, I found a few struts and tubes and plates, bits of battered gun-metal now even more twisted and damaged than before; but the bulk of the car had been swept into the Sea. Nebogipfel fingered the fragments, his eyes closed. “Well,” he said, “well, this will have to do.”

And he sat down on the sand and cast about blindly for bits of cloth and vine, and he began the patient construction of his time-device once more.

We never managed to retrieve Nebogipfel’s goggles after the Storm, and this proved to be a great handicap to him. But he did not complain. As before, he restricted himself to the shade during the hours of daylight, and if he was forced to emerge into the light of twilight or dawn he would wear his wide-brimmed hat and, over his eyes, a slitted mask of animal skin which I made for him, to afford him some sight.

The Storm was a mental as well as a physical shock to me, for I had begun to feel as if I had protected myself against such calamities as this world might throw at me. I decided that our lives must be put on a more secure footing. After some thought I decided that a hut of some form, solidly founded, and placed on stilts — that is, above the run-off from future monsoons — was the thing to aim for. But I could not rely on fallen branches for my construction material, for these, by their nature, were often irregular of form and sometimes rotten. I needed tree trunks — and for that I would need an ax.

So I spent some time as an amateur geologist, hunting about the countryside for suitable rock formations. At last I found, in a layer of gravelly debris in the area of Hampstead Heath, some dark, rounded flints, together with cherts. I thought this debris must have been washed here by some vanished river.

I carried these treasures back to our encampment with as much care as if they were made of gold — or more; for that weight of gold would not have been of any value to me.

I took to bashing up the flint on open spaces of the beach. It took a good deal of experimentation, and a considerable wasting of flint, before I found ways to crack open the nodules in sympathy with the planes of the stone, to form extensive and sharp edges. My hands felt clumsy and inexpert. I had marveled before at the fine arrow-heads and ax blades which are displayed in glass cases in our museums, but it was only when I tried to construct such devices for myself that I understood what a deep level of skill and engineering intuition our forefathers had possessed in the Age of Polished Stone.

At last I constructed a blade with which I was satisfied. I fixed it to a short length of split wood, binding it in with strips of animal-skin, and I set off a high mood for the forest.

I returned not fifteen minutes later with the fragments of my ax-head in my hand; for it had shattered on the second blow, with barely a cut made in the tree’s bark!

However, with a little more experimentation I got it correct, and soon I was chopping my way through a forest of young, straight trees.

For our permanent encampment, we would stay on our beach, but I ensured we were well above the tidal line, and away from the possibilities of flood from our stream. It took me some time to dig pits for the founds, deep enough to satisfy me; but at last I had erected a square framework of upright posts, securely fixed, and with a platform of thin logs attached at perhaps a yard above the ground. This floor was far from even, and I planned to acquire the skills of better plank-making one day; but when I laid down on it at night the floor felt secure and solid, and I had a measure of security that we were raised above the various perils of the ground. I almost wished another Storm down on our heads, so that I could test out my new design!