Felix Palma - The Map of Time

Charles and Andrew lowered themselves into two plush Jacobean-style armchairs facing the majestic desk at which Murray sat, framed by an enormous window behind him. As the light streamed in through the leaded panes, suffusing the office with rustic cheer, it even occurred to Andrew that the entrepreneur had a sun all of his own, while everyone else was submerged in the dull morning light.

‘I hope you’ll forgive the unfortunate smell in the entrance,’ Murray said, with a grimace. ‘This is the second time someone has smeared excrement on the front of the building. Perhaps an organised group is attempting to disrupt the smooth running of our enterprise in this unpleasant way’ He shrugged his shoulders despairingly, as though to emphasise how upset he was about the matter. ‘As you can see, not everyone thinks time travel is a good thing for society. And yet society has been clamouring for it ever since Mr Wells’s wonderful novel came out. I can think of no other explanation for these acts of vandalism, as the perpetrators have not claimed responsibility or left any clues. They simply foul the front of our building.’

He stared into space for a moment, lost in thought. Then he appeared to rouse himself, sat upright and looked straight at his visitors. ‘But, tell me, gentlemen, what can I do for you?’

‘I would like you to organise a private journey back to the autumn of 1888, Mr Murray’ replied Andrew, who had been waiting impatiently for the giant to allow them to get a word in edgeways.

‘To the Autumn of Terror?’ asked Murray, taken aback.

‘Yes, to the night of November the seventh, to be precise.’

Murray studied him silently. Finally, without trying to conceal his annoyance, he opened one of the desk drawers and took out a bundle of papers tied with a ribbon. He set them on the desk wearily, as if he were showing them some tiresome burden he was compelled to suffer. ‘Do you know what this is, Mr Harrington?’ He sighed. ‘These are the letters we receive every day from private individuals. Some want to be taken to the hanging gardens of Babylon, others to meet Cleopatra, Galileo or Plato, still more to see with their own eyes the battle of Waterloo, the building of the Pyramids or Christ’s crucifixion. Everybody wants to go back to their favourite moment in history, as though it were as simple as giving an address to a coachman. They think the past is at our disposal. I am sure you have your reasons for wanting to travel to 1888, like those who wrote these requests, but I’m afraid I can’t help you.’

‘I only need to go back eight years, Mr Murray’ replied Andrew. ‘And I’ll pay anything you ask.’

‘This isn’t about distances in time or about money’ Murray scoffed. ‘If it were, Mr Harrington, I’m sure we could come to some arrangement. Let us say the problem is a technical one. We can’t travel anywhere we want in the past or the future.’

‘You mean you can only take us to the year 2000?’ exclaimed Charles, visibly disappointed.

‘I’m afraid so, Mr Winslow We hope to be able to extend our offer in the future. However, for the moment, as you can see from our advertisement, our only destination is May the twentieth, 2000, the exact day of the final battle between the evil Solomon’s automatons and the human army led by the brave Captain Shackleton. Wasn’t the trip exciting enough for you, Mr Winslow?’ he asked, with a flicker of irony, giving Charles to understand he did not forget easily the faces of those who had been on his expeditions.

‘Oh, yes, sir,’ Charles replied, after a brief pause. ‘Most exciting. Only I assumed—’

‘You assumed we could travel in either direction along the time continuum,’ Murray interposed. ‘But I’m afraid we can’t. The past is beyond our competence.’ His face bore a look of genuine regret, as though he were weighing up the damage his words had done to his visitors. ‘The problem, gentlemen,’ he sighed, leaning back in his chair, ‘is that, unlike Wells’s character, we don’t travel through the time continuum. We travel outside it, across the surface of time, as it were.’

He fell silent, staring at them without blinking, with the serenity of a cat.

‘I don’t understand,’ Charles declared.

Gilliam Murray nodded, as though he had expected that reply. ‘Let me make a simple comparison: you can move from room to room inside a building, but you can also walk across its roof, can you not?’

Charles and Andrew nodded, somewhat put out by Murray’s seeming wish to treat them like a couple of foolish children.

‘Contrary to all appearances,’ their host went on, ‘it was not Wells’s novel that made me look into the possibilities of time travel. If you have read the book, you will understand that the author is simply throwing down the gauntlet to the scientific world by suggesting a direction for their research. Unlike Verne, he cleverly avoided any practical explanations of the workings of his invention, choosing instead to describe his machine to us using his formidable imagination – a perfectly valid approach, given the book is a work of fiction. However, until science proves such a contraption is possible, his machine will be nothing but a toy. Will that ever happen?

‘I’d like to think so: the achievements of science so far this century give me great cause for optimism. You will agree, gentlemen, we live in remarkable times. Times when man questions God daily. How many marvels has science produced over the past few years? Some, such as the calculating machine, the typewriter or the electric lift, have been invented simply to make our lives easier, but others cause us to feel powerful because they render the impossible possible. Thanks to the steam locomotive, we are now able to travel long distances without taking a single step, and soon we will be able to relay our voices to the other side of the country without having to move, like the Americans, who are already doing so with the so-called telephone.

‘There will always be people who oppose progress, who consider it a sacrilege for mankind to transcend his own limitations. Personally I believe science ennobles man, reaffirms his control over nature, in the same way that education or morality helps us overcome our primitive instincts. Take this marine chronometer, for example,’ he said, picking up a wooden box lying on the desk. ‘Today these are mass-produced and every ship in the world has one, but that wasn’t always the case. Although they may appear now always to have formed part of our lives, the Admiralty was obliged to offer a prize of twenty thousand pounds to the person who could invent a way of determining longitude at sea, because no clockmaker was capable of designing a chronometer that could withstand the rolling of a vessel without going wrong. The competition was won by a man called John Harrison, who devoted forty years of his life to solving this thorny scientific problem. He was nearly eighty when he finally received the prize money.

‘Fascinating, don’t you think? At the heart of each invention lie one man’s efforts, an entire life dedicated to solving a problem, to inventing an instrument that will outlast him, will go on forming part of the world after he is dead. So long as there are men who aren’t content to eat the fruit off the trees or to summon rain by beating a drum, but who are determined instead to use their brains in order to transcend the role of parasite in God’s creation, science will never give up trying.

‘That’s why I am sure that very soon, as well as being able to fly like birds in winged carriages, anyone will be able to get hold of a machine similar to the one Wells dreamed up, and travel anywhere they choose in time. Men of the future will lead double lives, working during the week in a bank, and on Sundays making love to the beautiful Nefertiti or helping Hannibal conquer Rome. Can you imagine how an invention like that would change society? ‘