The Space Machine

i

Our struggles had been leading us inevitably downwards, and after a few more minutes I found solid ground beneath my feet. At once, I shouted aloud and helped Amelia to her feet. We pressed forward again, trying to maintain our balance while the vegetation tangled around our legs. We were both soaked through, and the air was freezing cold.

At last we broke free of the vegetation, and found we were on rough, pebbly soil. We walked a few yards beyond the fringe of the vegetation then sank down in exhaustion. Amelia was shaking with cold, and she made no protest when I placed my arm around her and hugged her to me for warmth.

At last, I said: “We must find cover.”

I had been glancing around, hoping to see houses, but all I could see by the light of the stars was an apparent wasteland. The only visible feature was the bank of vegetation, looming perhaps a hundred feet into the air.

Amelia had made no reply, and I could feel her shivering still, so I stood up and started to remove my jacket. “Please put this about your shoulders.”

“But you will freeze to death.”

“You are soaked through, Amelia.”

“We are both wet. We must exercise to keep warm.”

“In a moment,” I said, and sat down beside her once more. I kept my jacket on, but I opened it so that she was partially covered by it when I placed my arm around her shoulders. “First I must regain my breath.”

Amelia pressed herself close to me, then said: “Edward, where have we landed?”

“I cannot say. We are somewhere in futurity.”

“But why is it so cold? Why is it so difficult to breathe?”

I could only surmise.

“We must be very high,” I said. “We are in a mountainous region.”

“But the ground is flat.”

“Then we must be on a plateau,” I said. “The air is thin because of the altitude.”

“I think I have reached the same conclusion,” Amelia said. “Last summer I was mountaineering in Switzerland, and on the higher peaks we found a similar difficulty with breathing.”

“But this is obviously not Switzerland.”

“We will have to wait until morning to discover our whereabouts,” Amelia said, decisively. “There must be people near here.”

“And suppose we are in a foreign country, which does seem probable?”

“I have four languages, Edward, and can identify several others. All we need to know is the location of the nearest town, and there we will likely find a British Consul.”

Through all this I had been remembering that moment of violence I had glimpsed through the windows of the laboratory.

“We have seen that there is a war in 1903,” I said. “Wherever we are now, or whichever year this is, could that war still be in progress?”

“We see no sign of it. Even if a war has started, innocent travellers will be protected. There are Consuls in every major city of the world.”

She seemed remarkably optimistic under the circumstances, and I was reassured. On first realizing that we had lost the Machine I had been plunged into despair. Even so, our prospects were doubtful, to say the very least, and I wondered if Amelia appreciated the full scale of our disaster. We had very little money with us, and no knowledge of the political situation, the breakdown of which had certainly caused the war of 1903. For all we knew we could be in enemy territory, and were likely to be imprisoned as soon as we were discovered.

Our immediate problem—that of surviving the rest of the night exposed to the elements—grew worse with every moment. Fortunately, there was no wind, but that was the only clemency we were being afforded. The very soil beneath us was frozen hard, and our breath was clouding about our faces.

“We must exercise,” I said. “Otherwise we will contract pneumonia.”

Amelia did not dissent, and we climbed to our feet. I started jogging, but I must have been weaker than I knew, for I stumbled almost at once. Amelia too was having difficulties, for in swinging her arms about her head she staggered backwards.

“I am a little light-headed,” I said, gasping unexpectedly.:

“And I.”

“Then we must not exert ourselves.”

I looked around desperately; in this Stygian gloom all that could be seen was the bank of weeds silhouetted against the starlight. It seemed to me that dank and wet as they were, they offered the only hope of shelter, and I put this to Amelia. She had no better proposal, and so with our arms around one another we returned to the vegetation. We found a clump of fronds standing about two feet high, on the very edge of the growth, and I felt experimentally with my hands. The stalks seemed to be dry, and beneath them the ground was not as hard as that on which we had been sitting.

An idea came to me, and I took one of the stalks and broke it off with my hand. At once, I felt cold fluid run over my fingers.

“The plants issue sap if they are broken,” I said, holding out the stalk for Amelia to take. “If we can climb under the leaves without snapping the branches, we should remain dry.”

I sat down on the soil and began to move forward, feet first. Crawling gently in this fashion I was soon beneath the vegetation, and in a dark, silent cocoon of plants. A moment later, Amelia followed, and when she was beside me we lay still.

To say that lying there under the fronds was pleasant would be utterly misleading, but it was certainly preferable to being exposed on the plain. Indeed, as the minutes passed and we made no movement I felt a little more comfortable, and realized that the confinement of our bodies was warming us a little.

I reached out to Amelia, who was lying not six inches from me, and placed my hand on her side. The fabric of her jacket was still damp, but I sensed that she too was rather warmer.

“Let us hold each other,” I said. “We must not get any colder.”

I placed my arm around her back, and pulled her towards me. She came willingly enough, and soon we were lying together, face to face in the dark. I moved my head and our noses touched; I pressed forward and kissed her full on the lips.

At once she pulled her face away from mine.

“Please don’t take advantage of me, Edward.”

“How can you accuse me of that? We must stay warm.”

“Then let us do just that. I do not want you to kiss me.”

“But I thought—”

“Circumstance has thrown us together. Let us not forget that we barely know each other.”

I could hardly believe my ears. Amelia’s friendly manner during the day had seemed an unmistakable confirmation of my own feelings, and in spite of our dreadful situation her very presence was enough to inflame my passions. I had expected her to allow me to kiss her, and after this rebuff I lay in silence, hurt and embarrassed.

A few minutes later Amelia moved again, and kissed me briefly on my forehead.

“I’m very fond of you, Edward,” she said. “Is that not enough?”

“I thought… well, I’d been feeling that you—”

“Have I said or done anything to indicate that I felt for you more than friendship?”

“Well … no.”

“Then please, lie still.”

She placed one of her arms around me, and pressed me to her a little more tightly. We lay like that for a long time, barely moving except to ease cramped muscles, and during the rest of that long night we managed to doze for only a few short periods.

Sunrise came more suddenly than either of us had expected. One moment we had been lying in that dark, silent growth, the next there was a brilliance of light, filtering through the fronds. We moved simultaneously in response, both sensing that the day ahead was to be momentous.

We rose painfully, and walked haltingly away from the vegetation, towards the sun. It was still touching the horizon, dazzlingly white. The sky above us was a deep blue. There were no clouds.

We walked for ten yards, then turned to look back at the bank of vegetation.

Amelia, who had been holding my arm, now clutched me suddenly. I too stared in amazement, for the vegetation stretched as far as we could see to left and right of us. It stood in a line that was generally straight, but parts of it advanced and others receded. In places the weeds heaped together, forming mounds two hundred feet or more in height. This much we could have expected from our experience of it during the night, but nothing could have warned us of the profoundest surprise of all: that there was not a stem, not a leaf, not a bulbous, spreading tuber lying grotesquely across the sandy soil that was not a vivid blood-red.

ii

We stared for a long time at that wall of scarlet plant-life, lacking the vocabulary to express our reactions to it.

The higher part of the weed-bank had the appearance of being smooth and rounded, especially towards its visible cres~ Here it looked like a gentle, undulating hill, although by looking in more detail at its surface we could see that what appeared to be an unbroken face was in fact made up of thousands or millions of branches.

Lower down, in the part of the growth where we had lain, its appearance was quite different. Here the newer plants were growing, presumably from seeds thrown out from the main bulk of vegetation. Both Amelia and I remarked on a horrible feeling that the wall was inexorably advancing, throwing out new shoots and piling up its mass behind.

Then, even as we looked aghast at this incredible weed-bank, we saw that the impact of the sun’s rays was having an effect, for from all along the wall there came a deep-throated groaning, and a thrashing, breaking sound. One branch moved, then another … then all along that living cliff-face branches and stems moved in a semblance of unthinking animation.

Amelia clutched my arm again, and pointed directly in front of us.

“See Edward!” she said. “My bag is there! We must have my bag!”

I saw that about thirty feet up the wall of vegetation there was what appeared to be a broken hole in the smooth-seeming surface. As Amelia started forward towards it,I realized that that must be the place where the Time Machine had so precipitately deposited us.

A few feet away, absurd in its context, lay Amelia’s hand bag, caught on a stem.

I hurried forward and caught up with Amelia, just as she was preparing to push through the nearest plants, her skirt raised almost to her knees.

“You can’t go in there,” I said. “The plants are coming to life!”

As I spoke to her a long, creeper like plant snaked silently towards us, and a seed-pod exploded with a report like a pistol. A cloud of dust-like seeds drifted away from the plant.

“Edward, it is imperative that I have my bag!”

“You can’t got up there to get it!”

“I must.”

“You will have to manage without your powders and creams.” She glared angrily at me for a moment. “There is more in it than face-powder. Money… and my brandy-flask. Many things.”

She plunged desperately into the vegetation, but as she did so a branch creaked into apparent life, and raised itself up. It caught the hem of her skirt, tore the fabric and spun her round.

She fell, screaming.

I hurried to her, and helped her away from the plants. “Stay here… I’ll go.”

Without further hesitation I plunged into that forest of groaning, moving stems, and scrambled towards where I had last seen her bag. It was not too difficult at first; I quickly learned which stems would, and which would not, bear my weight. As the height of the plants grew to a point where they were above my head I started to climb, slipping several times as the branch I gripped broke in my hand and released a flood of sap. All around me the plants were moving; growing and waving like the arms of a cheering crowd. Glancing up, I saw Amelia’s hand-bag on one such stem, dangling some twenty feet above my head. I had managed to climb only three or four feet towards it. There was nothing here that would bear my weight.

There came a crashing noise a few yards to my right, and I ducked, imagining in my horror that some major trunk was moving into life … but then I saw that it had been Amelia’s bag, slipping from its perch.

Thankfully, I abandoned my futile attempt to climb, and thrust myself through the waving lower stems. The noise of this riotous growth was now considerable, and when another seed-pod exploded by my ear I was temporarily deafened by it. My only thought now was to retrieve Amelia’s bag and get away from this nightmare vegetation. Not caring where I placed my feet, nor how many stems I broke and how much I drenched myself, I pushed wildly through the stalks, seized the bag and headed at once for the edge of the growth.

Amelia was sitting on the ground, and I threw the bag down beside her. Unreasonably, I felt angry with her, although I knew it was simply a reaction to my terror.

As she thanked me for collecting the bag, I turned away from her and stared at the wall of scarlet vegetation. It was visibly much more disordered than before, with branches and stems swinging out from every place. In the soil at the very edge of the growth I saw new, pink seedlings appearing. The plants were advancing on us, slowly but relentlessly. I watched the process for a few minutes more, seeing how sap from the adult plants dripped down on the soil, crudely irrigating the new shoots.

When I turned back to Amelia she was wiping her face and hands with a piece of flannel she had taken from her bag. Beside her on the ground was her flask. She held this out to me.

“Would you like some brandy, Edward?”

“Thank you.”

The liquor flowed over my tongue, immediately warming me. I took only one small mouthful, sensing that we should have to make last what we had.

With the rising of the sun, we both felt the benefit of its heat We were evidently in an equatorial region, for the sun was rising steeply, and its rays were warm.

“Edward, come here.”

I squatted on the ground in front of Amelia. She looked remarkably fresh, but then I realized that in addition to having had a cursory wash with her dampened face-flannel, she had brushed her hair. Her clothes, though, were in a dreadful state: the sleeve of her jacket had been torn, and there was a long rent in her skirt where the plant had swung her round. There were dirty pink streaks and stains all over her clothes. Glancing down at myself, I saw that my new suit had become equally spoiled.

“Would you like to clean yourself?” she said, offering me the flannel.

I took it from her, and wiped my face and hands.

“How do you come to have this with you?” I said, marvelling at the unexpected pleasure of washing myself.

“I have travelled a lot,” she said. “One grows accustomed to anticipating any contingency.”

She showed me that she had a traveller’s tidy, containing as well as the face-flannel, a square of soap, a toothbrush, a mirror, a pair of folding nail-scissors and a comb.

I ran my hand over my chin, thinking I should soon need a shave, but that was one contingency she seemed not to have anticipated.

I borrowed her comb to straighten my hair, and then allowed her to tidy my moustache.

“There,” she said, giving it a final twirl. “Now we are fit to re-enter civilization. But first, we must have some breakfast to sustain us.”

She dipped into her bag and produced a large bar of Menier’s chocolate.

“May I ask what else you have concealed in there?” I said.

“Nothing that will be of use to us. Now, we will have to ration this, for it is the only food I have. We shall have two squares each now, and a little more as we need it.”

We munched the chocolate hungrily, then followed it with another mouthful of brandy.

Amelia closed her bag, and we stood up.

“We will walk in that direction,” she said, pointing parallel to the wall of vegetation.

“Why that way?” I said, curious at her apparent resolution.

“Because the sun rose over there,” she pointed across the desert, “and so the weed-bank must run from north to south. We have seen how cold it can be at night, therefore we can do no better than move southwards.”

It was unassailable logic. We had walked several yards before an argument occurred to me.

“You assume we are still in the northern hemisphere,” I said.

“Of course. For your information, Edward, I have already deduced where we have landed. It is so high and cold that this can only be Tibet”

“Then we are walking towards the Himalayas,” I said.

“We will deal with that problem when we encounter it”

iii

We found that walking across this terrain was not easy. Although our surroundings became quite pleasant as the sun rose higher, and there was a distinct spring in our step, lent, we assumed, by the clean cold air and the altitude, we discovered that we tired readily and were forced to make frequent halts.

For about three hours we maintained a steady pace, by walking and resting at regular periods, and we took it in turns to carry the bag. I felt invigorated by the exercise, but Amelia did not find it easy; her breathing became laboured and she complained frequently of dizziness.

What we both found dispiriting was that the landscape had not changed from the moment we set out. With minor variations in size, the wall of vegetation ran in an unbroken line across the desert.

As the sun moved higher its radiant heat increased, and our clothes were soon completely dry. Unprotected as we were (Amelia’s bonnet had no brim, and I had lost my straw hat in the weeds) we soon began to suffer the first effects of sunburn, and we both complained of an unpleasant tingling on the skin of our faces.

A further effect of the hotter sunshine was yet another change in the activity of the weeds. The unsettling life-like movement lasted for about an hour after sunrise, but now such movements were rare; instead, we could see that the seedlings were growing at a prodigious pace, and sap trickled down constantly from the higher shoots.

One matter had been troubling me ever since our accident, and as we walked along I felt I should bring it up.

I said: “Amelia, I do accept full responsibility for our predicament”

“What do you mean?”

“I should not have interfered with the Time Machine. It was a reckless thing to do.”

“You are no more to blame than I. Please don’t speak of it any more.”

“But we may now be in danger of our lives.”

“We shall have to face that together,” she said. “Life will be intolerable if you continue blaming yourself. It was I… who first tampered with the Machine. Our main concern … now should be to return to…”

I looked sharply at Amelia, and saw that her face had gone pale and her. eyes were half closed. A moment later she staggered slightly, looked at me helplessly, then stumbled and fell full-length on the sandy soil, I rushed to her.

“Amelia!” I cried in alarm, but she did not move. I took her hand and felt for her pulse: it was faint, and irregular.

I had been carrying the bag, and I fumbled with the catch and threw it open. I searched frantically through the bag, knowing that what I sought would be somewhere there. After a moment I found it: a tiny bottle of smelling-salts. I unscrewed the top, and waved it under her nose.

The response was immediate. Amelia coughed violently, and tried to move away. I placed my arms around her shoulders and helped her into a sitting position. She continued to cough, and her eyes were streaming with tears. Remembering something I had once seen I bent her over, gently pushing her head down towards her knees.

After five minutes she straightened and looked at me. Her face was still pale, and her eyes were watery.

“We have walked too long without food,” she said. “I came over dizzy, and—”

“It must be the altitude,” I said. “We will find some way down from this plateau as soon as possible.”

I delved into her bag, and found the chocolate. We had still eaten only a fraction of what we had, so I broke off two more squares and gave them to her.

“No, Edward.”

“Eat it,” I said. “You are weaker than I am.”

“We have just had some. We must make it last.”

She took the broken-off squares and the rest of the chocolate, and put them firmly back inside the bag.

“What I should really like,” she said, “is a glass of water. I’m very thirsty indeed…”

“Do you suppose the sap of the plants is drinkable?”

“If we do not find any water, we will have to try it in the end.”

I said: “When we were first thrown into the weeds I swallowed some of the sap. It was not unlike water, but rather bitter.”

After a few more minutes Amelia stood up, a little unsteadily I thought, and declared that she was fit to continue. I made her take another sip of brandy before moving on.

But then, although we walked much more slowly, Amelia stumbled again. This time she did not lose consciousness, but said she felt as if she was about to be sick. We rested for a full thirty minutes, while the sun moved to its zenith.

“Please, Amelia, eat some more chocolate. I’m sure that all you are suffering from is lack of sustenance.”

“I’m no more hungry than you,” she said. “It is not that”

“Then what is it?”

“I cannot tell you.”

“You do know what is the matter?”

She nodded.

“Then please tell me, and I can do something to help.”

“You could do nothing, Edward. I shall be all right.”

I knelt on the sand before her, and placed my hands on her shoulders. “Amelia, we do not know how much further we have to walk. We cannot go on if you are ill.”

“I am not ill”

“It looks very much like it to me.”

“I am uncomfortable, but not ill.”

“Then please do something about it,” I said, my concern changing abruptly to irritation.

She was silent for a moment, but then, with my assistance, climbed to her feet “Wait here, Edward. I shall not be long.”

She took her bag, and walked slowly towards the weed-bank. She stepped carefully through the lower plants, and headed towards a growth of higher stalks. When she reached these she turned round and looked in my direction, then crouched down and moved behind them.

I turned my back, assuming she would prefer her privacy.

Several minutes passed, and she did not emerge. I waited for a quarter of an hour, then began to get worried. There had been an absolute silence since she had disappeared … but even in my growing sense of alarm I felt I should wait and respect her privacy.

I had just consulted my watch, and discovered that more than twenty minutes had passed, when I heard her voice.

“Edward…?”

Without further delay I ran in her direction, racing through the scarlet vegetation towards where I had last seen her. I was tormented by the vision of some momentous disaster that had befallen her, but nothing could have prepared me for what I saw.

I came to a sudden halt, and immediately averted my gaze:

Amelia had removed her skirt and blouse, and was standing in her underwear!

She held her skirt protectively over her body, and was looking at me with an expression of cowed embarrassment.

“Edward, I cannot get them off… Please help me…”

“What are you doing?” I cried in astonishment.

“It is my stays that are too tight… I can hardly breathe. But I cannot unlace them.” She sobbed more loudly, then went on: “I did not want you to know, but I have not been alone since yesterday. They are so tight… please help me…”

I cannot deny that I found her pathetic expression amusing, but I covered my smile and moved round behind her.

I said: “What do I do?”

“There are two laces… they should be tied at the bottom with a bow, but I’ve accidentally knotted them.”

I looked more closely, and saw what she had done. I worked at the knot with my fingernails, and loosened it without difficulty.

“There,” I said, turning away. “It is free.”

“Please undo it, Edward. I can’t reach it myself.”

The agonies I had been suppressing came abruptly to the surface. “Amelia, you cannot ask me to undress you!”

“I just want these laces undone,” she said. “That is all.”

Reluctantly I went back to her and started the laborious process of slipping the laces through the eyelets. When the task was half-completed, and part of the restraining garment was loose, I saw just how tight it had been on her body. The laces slipped out of the last two eyelets, and the corset came free. Amelia pulled it away from her, and tossed it casually to the ground. She turned towards me.

“I can’t thank you enough, Edward. I think I should have died if I’d kept it on a moment longer.”

Had it not been she who had turned towards me, I should have felt my presence most improper, for she had allowed the skirt to fall away and I could see that her chemise was manufactured of the lightest material, and that her bosom was most prominent I stepped towards her, feeling that I might make the affectionate gesture of a hug, but she moved backwards at once, and brought up the skirt to conceal herself again.

“You may leave me now,” she said. “I can manage to dress on my own.”

iv

When, a few minutes later, Amelia emerged from the weeds, she was fully dressed and carrying the corset between the handles of her bag.

I said: “Are you not going to discard that? It is manifestly uncomfortable to wear.”

“Only for long periods,” she said, looking very abashed. “I shall leave it off for the rest of the day, and wear it again tomorrow.”

“I shall look forward to helping you,” I said, sincerely. “There is no need for that By tomorrow we will be back in civilization, and I will hire a servant”

Since she was still flushed, and I was not a little excited, I felt it appropriate to say: “If my opinion is at all valuable to you I can assure you that your figure is just as trim without it”

“That is not to the point Shall we continue on our way?”

She stepped away from me, and I followed.

All this had been a temporary distraction from our plight, for soon the sun had moved far enough towards the west for the weed-bank to start throwing a shadow. Whenever we walked through this we felt immediately much colder.

After another half an hour’s walking I was just about to propose a rest, when Amelia suddenly halted and looked towards a shallow depression in the ground. She walked briskly towards it.

I followed her, and she said: “We shall have to bivouac again. I think we should prepare now.”

“I agree in principle. But I feel we should walk as far as possible.”

“No, this place is ideal. We shall stay the night here.”

“In the open?”

“There is no need for that. We have time to prepare a campsite before nightfall.” She was regarding the depression with a calculating manner. “When I was in Switzerland I was shown how to build emergency shelters. We will need to make this hole rather deeper, and build up the sides. If you would do that, I will cut some of the fronds.”

We argued for a few minutes—I felt we should take advantage of the daylight and press on—but Amelia had made up her mind. In the end, she removed her jacket and walked over to the weed-bank, while I crouched down and, with my hands, started to scoop out the sandy soil.

It took approximately two hours to construct a camp-site to our mutual satisfaction. By this time I had removed most of the larger pebbles from the depression, and Amelia had broken off a huge pile of the leafiest, fern-like branches. These we had laid in the depression, making a bonfire-like mound of leaves, into the base of which we proposed to insinuate ourselves.

The sun was now almost out of sight beyond the weed-bank, and we were both feeling cold.

“I think we have done all we can,” Amelia said.

“Then shall we shelter inside?” I had now seen the wisdom of Amelia’s wish for early preparation. Had we walked further we could never have made such elaborate precautions against the cold.

“Are you thirsty?”

“I’m all right,” I said, but I was lying. My throat had been parched all day.

“But you have taken no liquid.”

“I can survive the night.”

Amelia indicated one of the long, creeper-like stalks that she had also brought to our bivouac. She broke off a piece and held it out to me. “Drink the sap, Edward. It is perfectly safe.”

“It could be poisonous.”

“No, I tried it earlier while I was removing my stays. It is quite invigorating, and I have suffered no ill-effects.”

I placed the end of the stalk to my lips and sucked tentatively. At once my mouth was filled with cold liquid, and I swallowed it quickly. After the first mouthful, the flavour did not seem so unpleasant.

I said: “It reminds me of an iron-tonic I had as a child.”

Amelia smiled. “So you too were given Parrish’s Food. I wondered if you would notice the similarity.”

“I was usually given a spoonful of honey, to take away the taste.”

“This time you will have to manage without.”

I said, boldly: “Maybe not.”

Amelia looked sharply at me, and I saw the faint return of her earlier blush. I threw aside the creeper, then assisted Amelia as she climbed before me into our shelter for the night.