The Space Machine

i

I had ascertained that the last train to London left Richmond at ten-thirty, and I knew that to catch it I should have to leave by ten. At eight-thirty, though, I was in no mood to think of returning to my lodgings. Furthermore, the prospect of returning to work the next day was one I greeted with the utmost despondency. This was because with the completion of dinner, which had been accompanied by a dry and intoxicating wine, and with the move from the dining-room to the semi-dark intimacy of the drawing-room, and with a glass of port inside me and another half finished, and the subtle fragrance of Amelia’s perfume distracting my senses, I was subject to the most perturbing fantasies.

Amelia was no less intoxicated than I, and I fancied that she could not have mistaken the change in my manner. Until this moment I had felt awkward in her company. This was partly because I had had only the barest experience with young women, but more especially because of all young women Amelia seemed to me the most extraordinary. I had grown used to her forthright manner, and the emancipated airs she assumed, but what I had not until this moment realized was that I had, most inappropriately, fallen blindly and rashly in love with her.

In wine there is truth, and although I was able to contain my excesses, and fell short of protesting my undying amour, our conversation had touched on most remarkably personal matters.

Soon after nine-thirty, I knew I could delay no more. I had only half an hour before I had to leave, and as I had no idea of when or how I should see her again, I felt that then was the. moment to state, in no uncertain terms, that to me she was already more than just a pleasant companion.

I poured myself a liberal helping of port, and then, still uncertain of how I was to phrase my words, I reached into my waistcoat pocket and consulted my watch.

“My dear Amelia,” I started to say. “I see that it is twenty-five minutes. to ten, and at ten I must leave. Before that I have something I must tell you.”

“But why must you leave?” she said, instantly destroying the thread of my thoughts.

“I have a train to catch.”

“Oh, please don’t go yet!”

“But I must return to London.”

“Hillyer can take you. If you miss your train, he will take you all the way to London.”

“Hillyer is already in London,” I said.

She laughed, a little drunkenly. “I had forgotten. Then you must walk.”

“And so I must leave at ten.”

“No … I will have Mrs Watchets prepare a room for you.”

“Amelia, I cannot stay, much as I would wish to. I must work in the morning.”

She leaned towards me, and I saw light dancing in her eyes. “Then I shall take you to the station myself.”

“There is another carriage?” I said.

“In a manner of speaking.” She stood up, and knocked over her empty glass. “Come with me, Edward, and I shall convey you to the station in Sir William’s Time Machine!”

She took my hand in hers, and half-dragged me towards the door. We started to laugh; it is difficult to write of this in retrospect, for intoxication, however mild, is not a state in which one acts one’s finest. For me it was the gaiety of the moment that contributed to the compliance.

I shouted to her as we ran along: “But to travel in Time will not take me to the station!”

“Yes it will!”

We reached the laboratory and went inside, closing the door behind us. The electrical lamps were still burning, and in the comparatively harsh glare our escapade took on a different aspect.

“Amelia,” I said, trying to restrain her. “What are you doing?”

“I am doing what I said. We will travel to the station.”

I stood before her, and took her hands in mine.

“We have both had a little too much to drink,” I said “Please don’t jest with me. You cannot seriously propose to operate Sir William’s Machine.”

Her hands tightened on mine. “I am not as intoxicated as you believe. My manner is gay, but I am in perfect earnest.”

“Then let us return to the drawing-room at once.”

She turned away from me, and walked towards the Time Machine. She gripped one of the brass rails in her hands, and immediately the Machine trembled as before.

She said: “You heard what Sir William said. Time and Space are inseparable. There is no need for you to leave in the next few minutes. Although the Machine is designed to travel into futurity, it will also move across spatial distances. In short, although it will journey across thousands of years, it can also be used for a trip as prosaic as taking a friend to the station.”

“You are still jesting,” I said. “Nor am I convinced that the Machine will even travel in Time.”

“But it has been proved.”

“Not to my satisfaction it hasn’t,” I said.

She turned to face me, and her expression was as serious as before. “Then allow me to demonstrate it to you!”

“No, Amelia! It would be foolhardy to drive the Machine!”

“Why, Edward? I know what to do … I have watched Sir William’s tests often enough.”

“But we do not know the craft is safe!”

“There would be no danger.”

I simply shook my head with the agony of the moment. Amelia turned back to the Machine and reached over to one of the dials. She did something to this, then pulled back the lever with the bicycle handle-bar attached.

Instantly, the Time Machine vanished!

ii

“Look at the clock on the wall, Edward.”

“What have you done with the Machine?” I said.

“Never mind that… what is the time by the clock?”

I stared up. “Eighteen minutes to ten.

“Very well. At exactly sixteen minutes to ten the Machine will re-appear.”

“From where?” I said.

“From the past … or, more precisely, from now. It is presently travelling through Time, to a point two minutes in the future of its departure.”

“But why has it vanished? Where is it at this moment?”

“Within the attenuated Temporal Dimension.” Amelia stepped forward to where the Machine had been, and walked through the vacancy waving her arms. She glanced up at the clock.

“Stand well back, Edward. The Machine will re-appear exactly where it was.”

“Then you must come away too,” I said.

I pulled her by the arm, and held her close beside me a few yards from where the Machine had been. We both watched the clock. The second hand moved slowly round … and at exactly four seconds after sixteen minutes to ten, the Time Machine reappeared.

“There!” said Amelia, triumphantly. “Just as I said.” I stared dumbly at the Machine. The great fly-wheel was turning slowly as before.

Amelia took my hand again. “Edward … we must now mount the Machine.”

“What?” I said, appalled at the idea.

“It is absolutely imperative. You see, while Sir William has been testing the Machine he has incorporated a safety-device into it which automatically returns the Machine to its moment of departure. That is activated exactly three minutes after its arrival here, and if we are not aboard it will be lost forever in the past.”

I frowned a little at this, but said: “You could switch that off, though?”

“Yes … but I’m not going to. I wish to prove that the Machine is no folly.”

“I say you are drunk.”

“And I say you are too. Come on!”

Before I could stop her, Amelia had skipped over to the Machine, squeezed under the brass rail and mounted the saddle. To do this she was obliged to raise her skirt a few inches above her ankles, and I confess that I found this sight considerably more alluring than any expedition through Time could have been.

She said: “The Machine will return in under a minute, Edward. Are you to be left behind?”

I hesitated no more. I went to her side, and clambered on to the saddle behind her. At her instruction I put my arms around her waist, and pressed my chest against her back.

She said: “Look at the clock, Edward.”

I stared up at it. The time was now thirteen minutes to ten. The second hand reached the minute, moved on, then reached he time of four seconds past.

It stopped moving.

Then, it began to move in reverse… slowly at first, then faster.

“We are travelling backwards in Time,” Amelia said, a little breathlessly. “Do you see the clock, Edward?”

“Yes,” I said, my whole attention on it. “Yes, I do!”

The second hand moved backwards through four minutes, then began to slow down. As it approached four seconds past eighteen minutes to ten it slowed right down, then halted altogether. Presently it began to sweep forward in a normal way.

“We are back at the moment in which I pressed the lever,” said Amelia. “Do you now believe that the Time Machine is no fraud?”

I still sat with my arms around her waist, and our bodies were pressed together in the most intimate way imaginable. Her hair lay gently against my face, and I could think of nothing but the nearness of her.

“Show me again,” I said, dreaming of an eternity of such closeness. “Take me into futurity!”

iii

“Can you see what I am doing?” Amelia said. “These dials can be preset to the very second. I can choose how many hours, days or even years we can travel.”

I roused myself from my passionate imaginings, and peered over her shoulder. I saw her indicating a row of small dials, which were marked with days of the week, months of the year … and then several others which counted tens, hundreds and then thousands of years.

“Please don’t set our destination too far,” I said, looking at the last dial. “I still have to think of my train.”

“But we will return to our moment of departure, even if we should travel a hundred years!”

“Maybe so. Let us not be rash.”

“If you are nervous, Edward, we need travel only as far as’ tomorrow.”

“No … let us make a long trip. You have shown me the Time Machine is safe. Let us go to the next century!”

“As you wish. We can go to the one beyond, if you prefer.”

“It is the Twentieth Century I am interested in … let us first go forward ten years.”

“Only ten? That hardly seems adventurous.”

“We must be systematic,” I said, for although l am not fainthearted, I am not an adventurous person. “Let us go first to 1903, and then to 1913, and so on at ten-yearly intervals through the century. Perhaps we will see a few changes.”

“All right. Are you ready now?”

“That I am,” I said, settling my arms about her waist again. Amelia made further adjustments to the dials. I saw her select the year 1903, but the day and month dials were too low for me to see.

She said: “I have selected 22nd June. That is the first day of summer, so we shall probably find the weather clement.”

She placed her hands on the lever, and then straightened. I braced myself for our departure.

Then, much to my surprise, Amelia suddenly stood up and moved away from the saddle.

“Please wait for a moment’ Edward,” she said. “Where are you going?” I said, in some alarm. “The Machine will take me with it.”

“Not until the lever is moved. It is just. … Well, if we are going such a long distance, I should like to take my hand-bag.”

“Whatever for?” I said, hardly believing my ears. Amelia looked a little embarrassed. “I don’t know, Edward It is just that I never go anywhere without my hand-bag.”

“Then bring your bonnet too,” I said, laughing at this most unlikely revelation of feminine foibles.

She hastened from the laboratory. I stared blankly at the dials for a moment then, on an impulse, I too dismounted and went into the hallway to collect my boater. If an expedition it was to be, I too would travel in style!

On a further impulse I walked into the drawing-room, poured some more port into the two glasses, and carried them back to the laboratory.

Amelia had returned before me, and was already mounted on the saddle. She had placed her hand-bag on the floor of the Machine, directly in front of the saddle, and on her head she wore her bonnet.

I passed one of the port-glasses to her, “Let us toast the success of our adventure.”

“And futurity,” she replied.

We each drank about half what was there, then I placed the glasses on a bench to one side. I climbed on to the saddle behind Amelia.

“We are now ready,” I said, making sure my boater was firmly seated on my head.

Amelia gripped the lever in both hands, and pulled it towards her.

iv

The whole Time Machine lurched, as if it had somehow fallen headlong into an abyss, and I shouted aloud with alarm, bracing myself against the coming impact.

“Hold on!” Amelia said, somewhat unnecessarily, for I would not have released her for anything.

“What is happening?” I cried.

“We are quite safe … it is an effect of the attenuation.”

I opened my eyes, and glanced timorously about the laboratory, and saw to my astonishment that the Machine was still firmly situated on the floor. The clock on the wall was already spinning insanely forwards, and even as I watched the sun came up behind the house and was soon passing quickly overhead. Almost before I had registered its passing, darkness fell again like a black blanket thrown over the roof.

I sucked in my breath involuntarily, and discovered that in so doing I had inadvertently inhaled several of Amelia’s long hairs. Even in the immense distractions of the journey I found a moment to rejoice at this furtive intimacy.

Amelia shouted to me: “Are you frightened?”

This was no time for prevarication. “Yes!” I shouted back.

“Hold tight … there is no danger.”

Our raised voices were necessary only as an expression of our excitement; in the attenuated dimension all was silent.

The sun came up, and set again almost as quickly. The next period of darkness was shorter, and the following daylight shorter still. The Time Machine was accelerating into futurity!

In what seemed to us only a few more seconds the procession of day and night was so fast as to be virtually undetectable, and our surroundings were visible only in a grey, twilight glow.

About us, details of the laboratory became hazy, and the image of the sun became a path of light seemingly fixed in a deep-blue sky.

When I spoke to Amelia I had lost the strands of her hair from my mouth. About me was a spectacular sight, and yet for all its wonder it did not compare with the feel of this girl in my arms. Prompted no doubt by the new infusion of port into my blood I became emboldened, and I moved my face nearer and took several strands of her hair between my lips, I raised my head slightly, allowing the hair to slide sensuously across my tongue. Amelia made no response I could detect, and so I allowed the strands to fall and took a few more. Still she did not stop me. The third time I tipped my head to one side, so as not to dislodge my hat, and pressed my lips gently but very firmly on the smooth white skin of her neck.

I was allowed to linger there for no more than a second, but then she sat forward as if in sudden excitement, and said: “The Machine is slowing, Edward!”

Beyond the glass roof the sun was now moving visibly slower, and the periods of dark, between the sun’s passages, were distinct, if only as the briefest flickers of darkness.

Amelia started reading off the dials before her: “We are in December, Edward! January … January 1903. February…

One by one the months were called, and the pauses between her words were growing longer.

Then: “This is June, Edward.; . we are nearly there!”

I glanced up at the clock for confirmation of this; but I saw that the device had unaccountably stopped.

“Have we arrived?” I said.

“Not quite.”

“But the clock on the wall is not moving.”

Amelia looked briefly at it. “No one has wound it, that is all.”

“Then you will have to tell me when we arrive.”

“The wheel is slowing … we are almost at rest … now!”

And with that word the silence of attenuation was broken. Somewhere just outside the house there was a massive explosion, and some of the panes of glass cracked. Splinters fell down upon us.

Beyond the transparent walls I saw that it was daytime and the sun was shining … but there was smoke drifting past, and we heard the crackle of burning timber.

v

There came a second explosion, but this was further away. I felt Amelia stiffen in my arms, and she turned awkwardly in the saddle to face me.

“What have we come to?” she said.

“I cannot say.”

Some distance away somebody screamed horribly, and as if this were a signal the scream was echoed by two other voices. A third blast occurred, louder than either of the previous two. More panes cracked, and splinters tinkled down to the floor. One piece fell on to the Time Machine itself, not six inches from my foot.

Gradually, as our ears adapted to the confusion of sounds around us, one noise in particular stood out above all others: a deep-throated braying, rising like a factory siren, then howling around the upper note. It drowned temporarily the crackle of the fires and the cries of the men. The siren note fell away, but then it was repeated.

“Edward!” Amelia’s face was snow-white, and her voice had become a high-pitched whisper. “What is happening?”

“I cannot imagine. We must leave. Take the controls!”

“I don’t know how. We must wait for the automatic return.”

“How long have we been here?”

Before she could answer there was another shattering explosion.

“Hold still,” I said. “We cannot be here much longer. We have blundered into a war.”

“But the world is at peace!”

“In our time, yes.”

I wondered how long we had been waiting here in this hell of 1903, and cursed again that the clock was not working. It could not be long before the automatic return took us back through the safety of attenuation to our own blissfully peaceful time.

Amelia had turned her face so that it was now buried in my shoulder, her body twisted awkwardly on the saddle. I kept my arms around her, doing what I could to calm her in that fearful bedlam.

I looked around the laboratory, seeing how strangely it had changed from the first time I had seen it: debris was everywhere, and filth and dust overlaid everything bar the Time Machine itself.

Unexpectedly, I saw a movement beyond the walls of the laboratory, and looking that way I saw that there was someone running desperately across the lawn towards the house. As the figure came nearer I saw that it was that of a woman. She came right up to the wall, pressing her face against the glass. Behind her I saw another figure, running too.

I said: “Amelia … look!”

“What is it?”

“There!”

She turned to look at the two figures, but just as she did two things happened simultaneously. One was a shattering explosion accompanied by a gust of flame erupting across the lawn and consuming the woman … and the other was a vertiginous lurch from the Time Machine. The silence of attenuation fell about us, the laboratory appeared whole once more, and over head began the reverse procession of day and night.

Still turned uncomfortably towards me, Amelia burst into tears of relief, and I held her in my arms in silence.

When she had calmed, she said: “What were you seeing just before we returned?”

“Nothing,” I said. “My eyes deceived me.”

There was no way I could describe to her the woman I had seen. She had been like a wild animal: hair matted and in disarray, blood disfiguring her face, clothes torn so as to reveal the nakedness beneath. Nor did I know how to say what was for me the greatest horror of all.

I had recognized the woman and knew her to be Amelia, suffering her dying moments in the hellish war of 1903!

I could not say this, could not even believe what I myself had seen. But it was so: futurity was real, and that was Amelia’s real destiny. In June 1903, on the 22nd day, she would be consumed by fire in the garden of Sir William’s house.

The girl was cradled in my arms, and I felt her trembling still. I could not allow that destiny to be fulfilled!

So it was, without understanding the precipitate nature of my actions, that I moved to avert destiny. The Time Machine would now carry us further into futurity, beyond that terrible day!

vi

I was in a mad trance. I stood up abruptly and Amelia, who had been leaning against me, stared up in astonishment. Over my head, the days and nights were flickering.

There was a startling and heady rush of sensations coursing through me, caused I suppose, by the vertigo of the attenuation, but also because some instinct was preparing me for the act that followed. I stepped forward, placing my foot on the floor of the Machine in front of the saddle, and supporting myself on the brass rail, I managed to crouch down in front of Amelia.

“Edward, what are you doing?” Her voice was trembling, and she sobbed as soon as her sentence was said. I paid her no attention, peering instead at the dials which were now but a few inches from my face.

In that uncanny light of the procession of day:, I saw that the Machine was speeding backwards through Time. We were now in 1902, and I saw the needle pass from August to July as I first glanced at it. The lever, centrally mounted in front of the dials, was standing almost vertically, its attached nickel rods extending forwards into the heart of the crystalline engine.

I raised myself a little, and sat on the front of the saddle, causing Amelia to move back to accommodate me.

“You must not interfere with the controls,” she said, and I felt her leaning to one side to see what I was doing.

I grasped the bicycle handle in both hands, and pulled it towards me. As far as I could see, this had no effect on our journey. July slipped back to June.

Amelia’s concern became more urgent.

“Edward, you must not tamper!” she said loudly.

“We must go on into futurity!” I cried, and swung the handle-bar from side to side, as one does when cornering on a bicycle.

“’No!

The Machine must be allowed to return automatically!” For all my efforts at the controls, the reverse procession continued smoothly. Amelia was now holding my arms, trying to pull my hands away from the lever. I noticed that above each of the dials was a small metal knob, and I took one of these in my hands. I saw, by turning it,that it was possible to change the setting of the destination. Evidently, this was the way to interrupt our progress, for as soon as Amelia realized what I was doing, her efforts to restrain me became violent. She was reaching, trying to take my hand, and when this failed she took a handful of my hair and snatched it painfully back.

At this, I released the controls, but my feet kicked instinctively forwards. The heel of my right boot made contact with one of the nickel rods attached to the main lever, and in that instant there was the most appalling lurch to one side, and everything went black around us.

vii

The laboratory had vanished, the procession of day and night had ceased. We were in absolute darkness and absolute silence.

Amelia’s desperate hold on me eased, and we sat numbly in awe of the event that had overtaken us. Only the headlong vertigo—which had now taken on the characteristic of a sickening swoop from one side to another—told us that our journey through Time continued.

Amelia moved closer to me, wrapping her arms around my body, and pressed her face against my neck.

The swooping was growing worse, and I turned the handle bar to one side, hoping to correct it. All I achieved was to introduce a new motion: a most unsettling pitching movement, complicating the ever-worsening sideways swing.

“I can’t stop it!” I cried. “I don’t know what to do!”

“What has happened to us?”

“You made me kick the lever,” I said. “I felt something break.”

We both gasped aloud then, for the Machine seemed to turn right over. Light suddenly burst in upon us, emanating from one brilliant source. I closed my eyes, for the brilliance was dazzling, and tried again to work the lever to ease our sickening motion. The erratic movements of the Machine were causing the point of light to waltz crazily about us, casting black shadows confusingly over the dials.

The lever had a new feel to it. The breaking of the rod had made it looser, and as soon as I tried to let go it would sag to one side, thus precipitating more of the violent sideways manoeuvres.

“If only I can find that broken rod,” I said, and reached downwards with my free hand to see if I could find the pieces. As I did so, there was another swooping to one side, and I was all but unseated. Fortunately, Amelia had not relaxed her hold on me and with her help I struggled back upright.

“Do keep still, Edward,” she said, softly and reassuringly. “’So long as we are inside the Machine, we are safe. No harm can come to us while we are attenuated.”

“But we might collide with something!”

“We cannot… we will pass through it.”

“But what has happened?”

She said: “Those nickel rods are there to proscribe movement through Space. By dislodging one of them, you have released the Spatial Dimension, and we are now moving rapidly away from Richmond.”

I was aghast at this thought, and the dizzying effect of our passage only emphasized the terrible dangers we were facing.

“Then where will we fetch up?” I said. “Who knows where the Machine will deposit us?”

Again, Amelia spoke in a reassuring voice: “We are in no danger, Edward. I, grant you the Machine is careering wildly, but only its controls have been affected. The field of attenuation is still around us, and so the engine itself is still working. Now we are moving through Space, we are likely to traverse many hundreds of miles… but even if we should find ourselves a thousand miles from home, the automatic return will bear us safely back to the laboratory.”

“A thousand miles …?” I said, horrified at the velocity at which we must be travelling.

She tightened her hold on me momentarily. “I think it will not be as far as that. It seems to me we are spinning wildly in a circle.”

There was some substance in this, for even as we had been talking the point of light had been circling insanely around us. I was, naturally, comforted by what she said, but the sickening lurches continued, and the sooner this adventure was brought to its end the happier I would be. With this in mind, I decided. to search again for the dislodged nickel rod.

I told Amelia what I was intending to do, and she reached forward to take the main lever in her hand. Thus freed from the necessity to hold on to the lever, I bent forward and groped on the floor of the Machine, dreading that the rod had been thrown to one side by our violent motion. I fumbled around in the erratic light, and felt Amelia’s hand-bag where she had placed it,on the floor in front of the saddle. Thankfully, I found the rod a moment later: it had rolled and wedged itself between the front of the saddle and Amelia’s bag.

“I’ve found it,” I said, sitting up and holding it so that she could see it. “It is not broken.”

“Then how was it dislodged?”

I looked more closely at it, and saw that at each end were helical screw shapings, and that at the tip of these were markings of bright metal which revealed how the rod had been torn from its sockets. I showed this to Amelia.

“I remember Sir William saying that some of the nickel controls had been machined incorrectly,” she said. “Can you replace it?”

“I shall try.”

It took several more minutes of my fumbling in the eerie light to locate both of the metal bushes from which the rod had been torn, and then it took much longer to manipulate the lever so as to bring it into a suitable position so that I could fit the rod into the bushes.

“It’s still too short!” I said in some desperation. “’No matter how I try, the rod is too short.”

“But it must have come from there!”

I found a way of loosening the bush on the lever itself, and this helped to some measure. Now the connection could be made at each end, and with great patience I managed to screw the rod into each of the two sockets (fortunately, Sir William had engineered the screws so that one turn tightened both connections). It was held, but only tenuously so, for barely half a turn had been possible.

I sat up wearily in the saddle, and Amelia’s arms went around my waist. The Time Machine was still lurching, but far less so than before, and the movement of the brilliant point of light was almost imperceptible. We sat in its harsh glare, hardly believing that I had succeeded in correcting the terrible motion.

Directly in front of me the fly-wheel continued to turn quickly, but there had been no return to the orderly procession of day and night.

“I think we are safe again,” I said, but I did not feel sure.

“We must soon be coming to a halt. As soon as the Machine is at rest, we must neither of us move. It will take three minutes for the automatic return to start.”

“And will we be taken back to the laboratory?” I said.

Amelia hesitated before replying, and then said: “Yes.” I felt she was no more sure than I.

Quite unexpectedly, the Time Machine gave another lurch, and we both gasped. I saw that the fly-wheel was still … and then I realized that air was whistling past us, chilling us instantly. I knew that we were no longer attenuated, that we were falling… and in great desperation I reached forward to seize the lever—

“Edward”

Amelia screamed in my ear. It was the last thing I heard, for at that instant there was’ a terrible concussion, and the Machine came to a sudden halt. Both Amelia and I were catapulted from it into the night.

viii

I was lying in absolute darkness, seeming to be entirely covered by something leathery and wet. As I tried to stand, all I could accomplish was a futile thrashing with my arms and legs, and I slid further into the morass of slippery stuff. A sheet of something fell across my face, and I thrust it aside, gasping for breath. Suddenly I was coughing, trying to suck air into my lungs, and like a drowning man I struck instinctively upwards, feeling I should otherwise suffocate. There was nothing on which I could get a hold, as everything that surrounded me was soft, slippery and moist. It was as if I had been pitched head first into an immense bank of seaweed.

I felt myself falling, and this time allowed myself to go, despairing. I would surely drown in this dank foliage, for with each turn of my head my face was covered with the repulsive stuff. I could taste it now: a flat, iron-tainted wateriness.

Somewhere near to hand I heard a gasp.

I shouted: “Amelia!”

My voice emerged as a wheezing croak, and at once I was coughing again.

“Edward?” Her voice was high-pitched and frightened, and then I heard her coughing too. She could not have been more than a few yards away from me, but I could not see her, hardly knew in which direction she lay.

“Are you unhurt?” I called, then coughed weakly again.

“The Time Machine, Edward. We must climb aboard… it will be returning…”

“Where is it?”

“I am by it. I cannot reach it, but I can feel it with my foot”

I realized she was over to my left, and I struck out that way, floundering through the noisome weeds, reaching out, hoping to strike something solid.

“Where are you?” I shouted, trying to make more of my voice than the wretched wheeze which was all I had so far managed.

“I am here, Edward. Come towards my voice.” She was nearer now, but her words were strangely choked, as if she too were drowning. “I’ve slipped … I can’t find the Time Machine … it’s somewhere here…”

I struck desperately through the weed, and almost at once I found her. My arm fell across her chest, and as it did so she grabbed me.

“Edward … we must find the Machine!”

“You say it is here?”

“Somewhere… by my legs…”

I crawled over her, thrashing my arms to and fro, desperately seeking the Machine. Behind me, Amelia had somehow righted herself, and she moved to my side. Face down, slithering and sliding, coughing and wheezing, trembling with the cold that was even now seeping into our bones, we conducted our desperate search well beyond the three minutes neither of us would admit was all the time we had ever had to find it.