The Space Machine

i

So began the voyage which, in optimism, I had expected to take but a day or two, but which in actuality took nearer sixty days, as near as we could tell. They were two long months; for short periods it was an exciting experience, at other times it became terrifying, but for most of the sixty days it was a journey of the most maddening dullness.

I will not, then, delay this narrative with an account of our daily lives, but indicate those events which most exercised us at the time.

Thinking back over the experience, I recall the flight with mixed feelings. It was not an enjoyable journey in any sense of the word, but it was not without its better sides.

One of these was that Amelia and I were alone together in an environment which provided privacy, intimacy and a certain security, even if it was not the most usual of situations. It is not germane to this narrative to describe what occurred between us—even in these modern times, I feel I should not breach the trusts which we then established—but it would be true to say that I came to know her, and she to know me, in ways and to depths I had never before suspected were possible.

Moreover, the length of the journey itself had a purgatory effect on our outlooks. We had indeed become tainted by Mars, and even I, less involved than Amelia, had felt a conflict of loyalties as we blasted away from the revolution-torn city. But, surrounded as we were by a Martian artifact, and kept alive by Martian food and Martian air, as the days passed and Earth grew nearer, the conflicts faded and we became of single purpose once more. The invasion the monsters schemed was all too real; if we could not help avert such an invasion then we could never again call ourselves human.

But already my synopsis of this incredible journey through space is once more taking my narrative ahead of its natural order.

I have mentioned that certain incidents during the voyage were exciting or terrifying, and the first of these occurred shortly after we were released from the pressure-tubes, and found ourselves in command of a space ironclad.

ii

When I had revived Amelia from her faint, and ensured that neither she nor I had suffered any ill-effects during the rigours of the blast, I went first to the controls to see where we were headed. Such was the ferocity of our firing that I was sure we were about to hurtle into Earth at any moment!

I turned the knob that illuminated the main panel—as my guides had shown me—but to my disappointment nothing could be seen except for a few faint points of light. These, I later realized, were stars. After experimenting for several minutes, and achieving no more than marginally increasing the brilliance of the picture, I turned my attention to one of the smaller panels. This displayed the view behind the craft.

Here the picture was more satisfactory, for it showed a view of the world we had just left. So close to Mars were we still that it filled the entire panel: a chiaroscuro of light and shadow, mottled yellows and reds and browns. When my eyes adjusted to the scale of what I was seeing I found I could pick out certain features of the landscape, the most prominent of which was the immense volcano, standing out from the deserts like a malignant carbuncle. Bulging around its summit was a gigantic white cloud; at first I took this to be the volcano’s own discharge, but later I thought that this must be the cloud of water-vapour that had thrust us on our way.

The city we had left was invisible—it lay presumably beneath the spreading white cloud—and there were few features I could definitely identify. The canals were clearly visible, or at least they became visible by virtue of the banks of weed that proliferated alongside them.

I stared at the view for some time, realizing that for all the force of our departure we had neither travelled very far nor were now moving with much velocity. Indeed, the only apparent movement was the image of the land itself, which was rotating slowly in the panel.

While I was watching this, Amelia called out to me:

“Edward, shall we have some food?”

I turned away from the panel, and said: “Yes, I’m hun…”

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.

iii

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?

iv

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.

It happened like this:

I had been experimenting with the panel that displayed the view before the ship, trying to understand the device whose nearest translation had been target. I had found that knobs could cause an illuminated grid-pattern to be projected over the picture. This was certainly in accord with target, for at the centre of the grid was a circle containing two crossed lines. However, beyond this I had not learned anything.

I turned my attention to the rearward panel.

In this, the view of Mars had changed somewhat while we slept. The reddish planet was now sufficiently far away for most of it to be seen as a disk in the panel, though still, because of the spinning of our craft, appearing to revolve. We were on the sunward side of the planet—which was itself reassuring, since Earth lies to the sunward of Mars—and the visible area was roughly the shape that one sees on Earth a day or two before a full moon. The planet was turning on its own axis, of course, and during the morning I had seen the great protruberance of the volcano appear.

Then, just as my watch declared the time to be nearly midday, an enormous white cloud appeared near the summit of the volcano.

I called Amelia to the controls, and showed her what I had seen.

She stared at it in silence for several minutes, then said softly: “Edward, I think a second projectile has been launched.”

I nodded dumbly, for she had only confirmed my own fears.

All that afternoon we watched the rearward panel, and saw the cloud drifting slowly across the face of the world. Of the projectile itself we could see no sign, but both of us knew we were no longer alone in space.

On the third day, a third projectile was fired, and Amelia said: “We are part of an invasion of Earth.”

“No,” I said, grimly lying to her. “I believe we will have twenty-four hours in which to alert the authorities on Earth.”

But on the fourth day another projectile was hurled into space behind us, and like each of the three before it, the moment of firing was almost exactly at midday.

Amelia said, with unassailable logic: “They are conforming to a regular pattern, and our craft was the first piece in that pattern. Edward, I maintain that we are a part of the invasion.”

It was then that my secret could no longer be maintained. I took her into the passages that ran the length of the ship, and showed her what I had seen through the sliding metal panel. The monsters had not moved, still slumbering peacefully while their flight to Earth continued. Amelia took her turn at the hole in silence.

“When we arrive on Earth,” she said, “we will be obliged to act quickly. We must escape from the projectile at the earliest possible moment.”

“Unless we can destroy them before we land,” I said.

“Is there any way?”

“I have been trying to think. There is no way we can enter the hold.” I showed her how the hatch had been fused. “We could possibly devise some way of cutting off their supply of air.

“Or introducing to it some poison.”

I seized on this solution eagerly, for since I had made my discovery my fears had been growing about what these creatures could do on Earth. It was unimaginable that they could be allowed to do their Devil’s work! I had no idea how the air was circulated through the ship, but as my command of the controls was increasing so was my confidence, and I felt that this should not be impossible to solve.

I had said nothing to Amelia of the slaves in their compartment—for I was by now convinced that there were many aboard—but I had done her an injustice when anticipating her reaction.

That evening, Amelia said: “Where are the Martian slaves, Edward?”

Her question was so forthright that I did not know what to say.

“Are they in the compartment behind ours?” she went on.

“Yes,” I said. “But it has been sealed.”

“So there is no possibility of releasing them?”

“None that I know of,” I said.

We were both silent after this exchange, because the awfulness of the wretches’ prospects was unthinkable. Some time later, when I was on my own, I went to their hatch and tried again to see if it could be opened, but it was hopeless. As far as I can recall, neither Amelia nor I ever referred directly to the slaves again. For this, I at least was grateful.

v

On the fifth day of our voyage a fifth projectile was fired. By this time, Mars was distant on our rearwards panel, but we had little difficulty in seeing the cloud of white vapour.

On the sixth day I discovered a control attached to the screens which could enhance and enlarge the images. When midday came around we were able to see, in relatively dear detail, the firing of the sixth cylinder.

Four more days passed and, on each of them the mighty’ snow-cannon was fired, but on the eleventh day the volcano passed across the visible portion of Mars,. and no white cloud appeared. We watched until the volcano had passed beyond the terminator, but as far as we could tell no projectile was fired that day.

Nor was there on the day following. Indeed, after the tenth projectile no more were fired at all. Remembering those hundreds of gleaming craft lying at the base of the mountain, we could not believe that the monsters would call off their plans with so comparatively few missiles en route for the target. This did seem to be the case, though, for as the days passed we never abandoned our watch of the red planet but not once again did we see any sign of the cannon being fired.

Of course, we occupied much time in speculating as to why this should be so.

I advanced the theory that this was the monsters’ plan: that an advance guard of ten projectiles would invade and occupy an area of Earth, for after all they would have an armoury of at least fifty battle-machines with which to do this. For this reason I felt our watch should be maintained, arguing that more projectiles would soon be following.

Amelia was of a different mind. She saw the surcease in terms of a victory for the Martian humans’ revolution, that the people had broken through the monsters’ defence: and taken control.

In either event we had no way of verifying anything other than what we saw. The migration had effectively finished with ten projectiles, at least for the time being.

By this time we were many days into our voyage, and Mars itself was a small, glowing body many millions of miles behind us. Our focus of interest was moving from this, for now, in the forwards panel, we could see our homeworld looming towards us: a tiny crescent of light, so indescribably lovely and still.

vi

Asthe weeks passed I became more at home with the controls, feeling that I understood the function of most. I had even come to understand the device the Martians had called the target, and had realized that it was possibly the most important of all the controls.

I had learned to use this when viewing Earth through the forwards panel. It had been Amelia who had first pointed out our world: a clearly defined brilliance near the edge of the panel. Of course, we were both much affected by the sight, and the knowledge that every day carried us thousands of miles nearer to it was a source of steadily growing excitement. But as one day followed another, the image of our world slipped nearer and nearer to the edge of the display, until we realized that it could not be long before it vanished from our sight altogether. I adjusted the controls of the panel equipment to no avail.

Then, in desperation, Amelia suggested that I should turn on the illuminated grid that was projected across the panel. As I did this I saw that a second, more ghostly grid lay behind it. Unlike the main one, this had its central circle fixed on the image of our world. It was most uncanny … as if the device had a mind of its own.

At the same moment as the second grid appeared, several lights flashed on beneath the image. We could not understand their meaning, naturally enough, but the fact that my action had produced a response was significant in itself.

Amelia said: “I think it means we must steer the craft.”

“But it was aimed accurately from Mars.”

“Even so … it seems to me that we are no longer flying towards Earth.”

We argued a little longer, but at last I could no longer avoid the fact that the time had come for me to demonstrate my prowess as a driver. With Amelia’s encouragement I settled myself before the main driving lever, gripped it in both my hands, and moved it experimentally to one side.

Several things, happened at once.

The first was that a great noise and vibration echoed through the projectile. Another was that both Amelia and I were thrown to one side. And in addition everything in our compartment that was not secured flew willy-nilly about our heads.

When we had recovered ourselves we discovered that my action had had an undesired effect. That is to say, Earth had disappeared from the panel altogether! Determined to right this at once, I moved the lever in the opposite direction, having first ensured that we were both braced. This time, the ship moved sharply the other way, and although there was much noise and rattling of our possessions, I succeeded in returning Earth to our sight.

It took several more adjustments to the controls before I managed to place the image of Earth in the small central circle of the main grid. As I did this, the display of lights went out, and I felt that our craft was now set firmly on an Earthbound course.

In fact, I discovered that the projectile was wont to drift constantly from its path, and every day I had to make more corrections.

By this process of trial and error, I understood at last how the system of grids was intended to be used. The main, brighter grid indicated the actual destination of the craft, while the less brilliant, moving grid showed the intended destination. As this was always locked on the image of Earth, we were never in doubt as to the monsters’ plans.

Such moments of diversion, however, were the exception rather than the rule. Our days in the craft were dull and repetitive, and we soon adopted routines. We slept for as many hours as possible, and dawdled over our meals. We would take exercise by walking about the circumference of the hull, and when it came to attending to the controls would divert more energy and time than was actually necessary. Sometimes we became fractious, and then we would separate and stay at different parts of the compartment.

During one of these periods I returned to the problem of how to deal with the unwelcome occupants of the main hold.

Interfering with the monsters’ air-supply seemed to be the logical way of killing them, and in lieu of any substance which I knew to be poisonous to them, suffocation was the obvious expedient. With this in mind I spent the best part of one day exploring the various machines which were built into the hull.

I discovered much about the operation of the craft—for example, I found the location of the quasi-photographic instruments which delivered the pictures to our viewing panels, and I learnt that the craft’s directional changes were effected by means of steam expelled from a central heat-source, and ducted through the outer hull by means of an intricate system of pipes—but came no nearer to finding a solution. As far as I could tell, the air inside the craft was circulated from one unit, and that it served all parts of the ship simultaneously. In other words, to suffocate the monsters we, should have to suffocate too.

vii

The nearer we came to Earth the more we were obliged to make corrections to our course. Twice or three times a day I would consult the forwards panel, and adjust the controls to bring the two grids once more into alignment. Earth was now large and clear in the picture, and Amelia and I would stand before it, watching our homeworld in silence. It glowed a brilliant blue and white, unspeakably beautiful. Sometimes we could see the moon beside it, showing, like Earth, as a slender and delicate crescent.

This was a sight which should have brought joy to our hearts, but whenever I stood at Amelia’s side and stared at this vision of celestial loveliness, I felt a tremendous sadness inside me. And whenever I operated the controls to bring us more accurately towards our destination, I felt stirrings of guilt and shame.

At first I could not understand this, and said nothing to Amelia. But as the days passed, and our world sped ever nearer, I identified my misgivings, and at last was able to speak of them to Amelia. Then it was that I found she too had been experiencing the same.

I said: “In a day or two we shall be landing on Earth. I am minded to aim the craft towards the deepest ocean, and be done with it.”

“If you did, I would not try to stop you,” she said.

“We cannot inflict these creatures on our world,” I went on. “We cannot shoulder that responsibility. If just one man or woman should die by these creatures’ machinations, then neither you nor I could ever face ourselves again.”

Amelia said: “But if we could escape the craft quickly enough to alert the authorities…”

“That is a chance we cannot take. We do not know our way out of this ship, and if the monsters are out before us then we would be too late. My dearest, we have to face up to the fact that you and I must be prepared to sacrifice ourselves.”

While we had been talking, I had turned on the control that produced the two grids across the panel. The secondary grid, showing our intended destination, lay over northern Europe. We could not see the precise place, for this part of the globe was obscured by white cloud. In England the day would be grey; perhaps it was raining.

“Is there nothing we can do?” Amelia said.

I stared gloomily at the screen. “Our actions are proscribed. As we have replaced the men who would have crewed this ship, we can only do what they would have done. That is to say, to bring the craft manually to the place already selected, by the monsters. If we follow the plan, we bring the craft down in the centre of the grid. Our only choice is whether or not we do that. I can allow the craft to pass by Earth entirely, or I can head the craft to a place where its occupants can do no damage.”

“You spoke of landing us in an ocean. Were you serious?”

“It is one course open to us,” I said. “Although you and I would surely die, we would effectively prevent the monsters from escaping.”

“I don’t want to die,” Amelia said, holding me tightly.

“Nor I. But do we have the right to inflict these monsters on our people?”

It was an agonizing subject, and neither of us knew the answers to the questions we raised. We stared at the image of our world for a few more minutes, then went to take a meal. Later, we were drawn again to the panels, over-awed by the responsibilities that had been thrust upon us.

On Earth, the clouds had moved away to the east, and we saw the shape of the British Isles lying in the blue seas. The central circle of the grid lay directly over England.

Amelia said, her voice strained: “Edward, we have the greatest army on Earth. Can we not trust them to deal with this menace?”

“They would be taken unawares. The responsibility is ours, Amelia, and we must not avoid it. I am prepared to die to save my world. Can I ask the same of you?”

It was a moment charged with emotion, and I found myself trembling.

Then Amelia glanced at the rearward panel, which, though dark, was an insistent reminder of the nine projectiles that followed us.

“Would false heroics save the world from those too?” she said.

viii

So it was that I continued to correct our course, and brought the main grid to bear on the green islands we loved so dearly.

We were about to go to sleep that night when a noise I had hoped never to hear again emanated from a metal grille in the bulkhead: it was the braying, screeching call of the monsters. One has often heard the idiom that one’s blood runs cold; in that moment I understood the truth of the cliché.

I left the hammock directly, and hurried through the pass ages to the sealed door of the monsters’ hold.

As soon as I slid back the metal plate I saw that the accursed beings were conscious. There were two directly in front of me, crawling awkwardly on their tentacles. I was satisfied to see that in the increased gravity (I had long since changed the spin of the ship in an attempt to approximate the gravity of Earth) their movements were more ponderous and ungainly. That was a hopeful sign, when all else seemed bleak, for with any luck they would find their extra weight on Earth a considerable disadvantage.

Amelia had followed me, and when I moved back from the door she too peered through the tiny window. I saw her shudder, and then she drew back.

“Is there nothing we can do to destroy them?” she said.

I looked at her, my expression perhaps revealing the unhappiness I felt.

“I think not,” I said.

When we returned to our compartment we discovered that one or more of the monsters was still trying to communicate with us. The braying echoed through the metal room.

“What do you think it is saying?” Amelia said.

“How can we tell?”

“But suppose we are to obey its instructions?”

“We have nothing to fear from them,” I said. “They can reach us no more than we can reach them.”

Even so, the hideous screeching was unpleasant to hear, and when it eventually stopped some fifteen minutes later we were both relieved. We returned to the hammock, and a few minutes later we were asleep.

We were awakened some time later—a glance at my watch revealed that we had slept for about four and a half hours—by a renewed outburst of the monsters’ screeching.

We lay still, hoping that it would eventually stop again, but after five minutes neither of us could bear it. I left the hammock and went to the controls.

Earth loomed large in the forwards panel. I checked the positioning of the grid system, and noticed at once that something was amiss. While we had slept our course had wandered yet again: although the fainter grid was still firmly over the British Isles, the main grid had wandered far over to the east, revealing that we were now destined to land somewhere in the Baltic Sea.

I called Amelia over, and showed her this…

“Can you correct it?” she said.

“I think so.”

Meanwhile, the braying of the monsters continued.

We braced ourselves as usual, and I swung the lever to correct the course. I achieved a minor correction, but for all my efforts I saw we were going to miss our target by hundreds of miles. Even as we watched I noticed that the brighter grid was drifting slowly towards the east.

Then Amelia pointed out that a green light was glowing, one that had never before shone. It was beside the one control I had not so far touched: the lever which I knew released the blast of green fire from the nose.

Instinctively, I understood that our journey was approaching its end, and unthinkingly I applied pressure to the lever.

The projectile’s response to this action was so violent and sudden that we were both catapulted forward from the controls. Amelia landed awkwardly, and I sprawled helplessly across her. Meanwhile our few possessions, and the pieces of food we had left about the compartment, were sent flying in all directions.

I was relatively unhurt by the accident, but Amelia had caught her head against a protruding piece of metal, and blood flowed freely down her face. She was barely conscious, and in obvious agony, and I bent anxiously over her.

She was holding her head in her hands, but she reached towards me and pushed me weakly away.

“I … I’m all right, Edward,” she said. “Please… I feel a little sick. Leave me. It is not serious…

“Dearest, let me see what has happened!” I cried.

Both her eyes were closed, and she had gone awfully pale, but she repeated that she was not badly hurt.

“You must attend to driving this craft,” she said.

I hesitated for a few more seconds, but she pushed me away again, and so I returned to the controls. I was certain that I had not lost consciousness for even a moment, but it now seemed that our destination was much nearer. However, the centre of the main grid had moved so that it lay somewhere in the North Sea, indicating that the green fire had altered our course drastically. The eastwards drift, however, continued.

I went back to Amelia, and helped her to her feet. She had recovered her poise slightly, but blood continued to flow.

“My bag,” she said. “There is a towel inside it.”

I looked around but could see her bag nowhere. It had evidently been thrown by the first concussion, and now lay somewhere in the compartment. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the green light still glowing, and a certainty that the grid was moving relentlessly on towards the east made me feel I should be at the controls.

“I’ll find it,” Amelia said. She held the sleeve of her black uniform over the wound, trying to staunch the blood. Her movements were clumsy, and she was not articulating clearly.

I stared at her in worried desperation for a moment, then realized what we must do.

“No,” I said firmly. “I’ll find it for you. You must get into the pressure-tube, otherwise you will be killed. We will be landing at any moment!”

I took her by the arm and propelled her gently to the flexible tube, which had hung unused for much of the flight I took off the tunic of my uniform, and gave it to her as a temporary bandage. She held it to her face, and as she went into the tube the fabric closed about her. I entered my own, and laid my hand on the extended controls inside. As I did so, I felt the fabric tightening about my body. I glanced at Amelia to ensure that she was firmly held, then applied pressure to the green lever.

Watching the panel through the folds of fabric I saw the image become entirely obscured by a blaze of green, I allowed the fire to blast for several seconds, then released the lever.

The image in the panel cleared, and I saw that the grid had moved back to the west once again. It now lay directly across England, and we were dead on course.

However, the eastwards drift continued, and as I watched the two grids moved out of alignment. The shape of the British Isles was almost obscured by the night terminator, and I knew that in England some people would be seeing a sunset, little realizing what was to descend into their midst during the night.

While we were both still safe inside the pressure-tubes I decided to fire the engine again, and so over-compensate for the continual drifting. This time I allowed the green flame to burn for fifteen seconds, and when I looked again at the panel I saw that I had succeeded in shifting the centre of the bright grid to a point in the Atlantic several hundred miles to the west of Land’s End.

Time for this kind of visual confirmation was short: in a few minutes Britain would have disappeared beyond the night terminator.

I released myself from the tube, and went to see Amelia.

“How do you feel?” I said.

She made to step forward from the constraint of the tube, but I held her back.

“I’ll find your bag. Are you any better?”

She nodded, and I saw that the bleeding had virtually ceased. She looked a dreadful sight, for her hair had matted over the wound and there were smears of blood all over her face and chest.

I hastened about the compartment in search of the bag. I found it at last—it had lodged directly above the controls—and took it to her. Amelia reached through the tube and fumbled inside the bag. until she found several pieces of white linen, folded neatly together.

While she pressed one of the pieces of the absorbent material to her wound, and dabbed off most of the blood, I wondered why she had never mentioned the existence of these towels before.

“I shall be all right now, Edward,” she said indistinctly from within. “It is just a cut. You must concentrate on landing this hateful machine.”

I stared at her for a few seconds, seeing that she was crying. I realized that our journey was ending none too soon and that she, no less than I, could think of no happier moment than that in which we left this compartment.

I returned to my pressure-tube, and laid my hand on the lever.

ix

As the British Isles were now invisible in the night portion of the world, I had no other guide than the two grids. So long as I kept them in alignment then. I knew that I was on course. This was not as simple as it may sound, for the degree of drift was increasing with every minute. The process was complicated by the fact that whenever I turned on the engine, the panel was deluged in green light, effectively blinding me. Only when I turned off the engine could I see what my last measure had achieved.

I established a routine of trial and error: first I would examine the panel to see how much drift had occurred, then fire the braking engine for a period. When I turned off the engine, I would look again at the panel and make a further estimate of the drift. Sometimes I would have estimated accurately, but usually I had either over- or under-compensated.

Each time I fired the engine it was for a longer period, and so I fell into a system whereby I counted slowly under my breath. Soon each blast—which I discovered could be made more or less intense by the degree of pressure on the lever—was lasting for a count of one hundred and more. The mental torment was tremendous, for the concentration it demanded was total; additionally, each time the engine was fired the physical pressures on us were almost intolerable. Around us, the temperature inside the compartment was rising. The air ducted down through the tubes remained cool, but I could feel the fabric itself becoming hot.

In the few brief moments between the firings of the engine, when the constraint of the tubes relaxed a little, Amelia and I managed to exchange a few words. She told me that the blood had stopped flowing, but that she had a vile headache and felt faint and sick.

Then at last the drifting of the two grids became so rapid that I dared not slacken my attention at all. The instant I turned off the engines the grids bounced apart, and I pressed the lever down and held it in place.

Now given its full throat, the braking engine set up a noise of such immensity that I felt the projectile itself must certainly break into pieces. The entire craft shuddered and rattled, and where my feet touched the metal floor I could feel an intolerable heat. Around us, the pressure-tubes gripped so tightly we could hardly breathe. I could not move even the tiniest muscle, and had no notion of how Amelia was faring. I could feel the tremendous power of the engine as if it were a solid object against which we were ramming, for even in spite of the restraining tubes, I felt myself being pushed forward against the braking. So, in this bedlam of noise and heat and pressure, the projectile blazed across the night sky of England like a green comet.

The end of our voyage, when it came, was abrupt and violent. There was an almighty explosion outside the craft, accompanied by a stunning impact and concussion. Then, in the sudden silence that immediately followed, we fell forward from the relaxing pressure-tubes, into the blistering heat of the compartment.

We had arrived on Earth, but we were indeed in a sorry state.