The Space Machine

i

I moved across to sit next to Amelia, and she took my hand.

“We should have realized,” she said, whispering. “Both of us knew we could no longer be on Earth, but neither of us would admit it.”

“We could not have known. It is beyond all experience.”

“So is the notion of travel through Time, and yet we readily accepted that.”

The train lurched slightly, and we felt it begin to slow. I looked past Amelia’s profile, across the arid desert towards that brilliant light in the sky.

“How can we be sure that that is Earth?” I said. “After all, neither of us has ever—”

“Don’t you know, Edward? Can’t you feel it inside you? Doesn’t everything else about this place seem foreign and hostile? Is there not something that speaks to us instinctively when we look at that light? It is a sight of home, and we both feel it.”

“But what are we to do?” The train braked again as I spoke, and looking through the windows on the opposite side of the carriage I saw that we were stopping inside a large, darkened train-shed. On our side of the train a wall came between us and our view of the sky and its ominous reminders.

Amelia said: “We will have no option in the matter. It is not so much what we do, as what is to be done with us.”

“Are you saying that we are in danger?”

“Possibly … as soon as it is realized that we are not of this world. After all, what would be likely to happen to a man who came to Earth from another world?”

“I have no idea,” I said.

“Therefore we can have no idea what is in store for us. We shall have to hope for the best, and trust that in spite of their primitive society we will be well treated. I should not care to spend the rest of my days like an animal.”

“Nor I. But is that likely, or even feasible?”

“We have seen how the slaves are treated. If we were taken for two of those wretches, then we could well be put to work.”

“But we have already been taken for two of the overseers,” I reminded her. “Some accident of clothing, or something about our appearance, has compounded in our favour.”

“We still need to be careful. There is no telling what we shall find here.”

In spite of the resolution in our words, we were in no condition to take charge of our fate, for in addition to the multitude of questions that surrounded our prospects, we were both dishevelled, tired and hungry from our ordeal in the desert. I knew that Amelia could feel no better than I, and I was exhausted. Both of us were slurring our words, and in spite of our attempts to articulate our feelings, the realization of where we had been deposited by the Time Machine had been the final blow to our morale.

Outside, I could hear the slaves being herded from the train, and the distinctive crackle of the electrical whips was an unpleasant reminder of our precarious position.

“The train will be moving off soon,” I said, pushing Amelia gently into an upright position. “We have come to a city, and we must look for shelter there.”

“I don’t want to go.”

“We will have to.”

I went to the far side of the carriage, and opened the nearest door. I took a quick glance along the length of the train; evidently the slaves were being taken from the opposite side of the train for here there was no movement, bar one man sauntering slowly away from me. I went back to Amelia, who was still sitting passively.

“In a few minutes the train will be going back to where we came from,” I said. “Do you wish to spend another night in the desert?”

“Of course not. I’m just a little nervous at the thought of entering the city.”

I said “We must eat some food, Amelia, and find somewhere safe and warm to sleep. The very fact that this is a city is to our advantage: it must be large enough for us to go unnoticed. We have already survived a great ordeal, and I do not think we need fear anything further. Tomorrow we will try to establish what rights we have.”

Amelia shook her head lethargically, but to my relief she then rose wearily to her feet and followed me from the carriage. I gave her my hand to help her to the ground, and she took it. Her grasp was without pressure.

ii

The sound of the whips echoed from the other side of the train as we hurried towards where a glow of light emanated from behind a protruding corner. There was no sign of the man I had seen earlier.

As we came round the corner we saw ahead of us a tall doorway, set well back into the brick wall and painted white. Over the top was a sign, illuminated in some manner from behind, and bearing a legend in a style of printing that was totally incomprehensible to me. It was this sign that drew our attention, rather than the door itself, for this was our first sight of Martian written language.

After we had stared at this for a few seconds—the lettering was black on a white background, but here the superficial similarity with Earth scripts came to an end—I led Amelia forward, anxious to find warmth and food. It was bitterly cold in the train-shed, for it was open to the night air.

There was no handle on the door, and for a moment I wondered if there would be some alien mechanism that would defy us. I pushed experimentally, and discovered that one side of the door moved slightly.

I must have been weak from our sojourn in the wilds, for beyond this I was incapable of shifting it. Amelia helped me, and in a moment we found that we could push the door open far enough for us to pass through, but as soon as we released it the heavy device swung back and closed with a slam. We had come into a short corridor, no longer than five or six yards, at the end of which was another door. The corridor was completely featureless, with the exception of one electrical incandescent lamp fixed to the ceiling. We went to the second door and pushed it open, feeling a similar weight. This door also closed quickly behind us.

Amelia said: “My ears feel as though they are blocked.”

“Mine too,” I said. “I think the pressure of air is greater here.”

We were in a second corridor, identical to the first. Amelia remembered something she had been taught when she was in Switzerland, and showed me how to relieve the pressure in my ears by holding my nose and blowing gently.

As we passed through the third door there was another increase in the density of the air.

“I feel I can breathe at last,” I said, wondering how we had survived for so long in the thin air outside.

“We must not over-exert ourselves,” Amelia said. “I feel a little dizzy already.”

Even though we were anxious to continue on our way we waited in the corridor for a few minutes longer. Like Amelia, I was feeling light-headed in the richer air, and this sensation was sharpened by a barely detectable hint of ozone. My fingertips were tingling as my blood was renewed with this fresh supply of oxygen, and this coupled with the fact of the lighter Martian gravity—which, while we had been in the desert, we had attributed to some effect of high altitude—lent a spurious feeling of great energy. Spurious it surely was, for I knew we must both be near the end of the tether; Amelia’s shoulders were stooped, and her eyes were still half-closed.

I placed my arm around Amelia’s shoulders.

“Come along,” I said. “We do not have much further to go.”

“I am still a little frightened.”

“There is nothing that can threaten us,” I said, but in truth I shared her fears. Neither of us was in any position to understand the full implications of our predicament. Deep inside, I was feeling the first tremblings of an instinctive dread of the alien, the strange, the exotic.

We stepped slowly forward, pushed our way through the next door, and at last found ourselves looking out across a part of the Martian city.

iii

Outside the door through which we had come a street ran from left to right, and directly opposite us were two buildings. These, at first sight, loomed large and black, so used were we to the barrenness of the desert, but on a second examination we saw that they were scarcely bigger than the grander private houses of our own cities. Each one stood alone, and was intricately ornamented with moulded plaster on the outside walls; the doors were large, and there were few windows. If this lends to such buildings an aura of grace or elegance, then it should be added that both of the two buildings we then saw were in a state of advanced decay. One, indeed, had one wall partially collapsed, and a door hung open on a hinge. In the interiors we could see much rubble and litter, and it was clear that neither had been occupied for many years. The walls still standing were cracked and crumbling, and there was no visible sign that a roof still stood.

I glanced up and saw that the city was open to the sky, for I could make out the stars overhead. Curiously, though, the air was as dense here as it had been inside the corridors, and the temperature was much warmer than we had experienced in the desert.

The street we were in was lighted: at intervals along each side were several more of the towers we had seen, and now we realized a part, at least, of their function, for on the polished roof of each tower was a powerful light which swept to and fro as the platform rotated slowly. These constantly sweeping beams had a strangely sinister aspect, and they were far removed from the warm, placid gaslights to which we were both accustomed, but the very fact that the Martians illuminated their streets at night was a reassuringly human detail.

“Which way shall we go?” Amelia said.

“We must find the centre of the city,” I said. “Clearly this is a quarter that has fallen into disuse. I suggest we strike directly away from this rail-terminus until we meet some of the people.”

“The people? You mean … Martians?”

“Of course,” I said, taking her hand in mine with a show of confidence. “We have already accosted several without knowing who they were. They seem very like us, so we have nothing to fear from them.”

Without waiting for a reply I pulled her forward, and we walked briskly along the street towards the right. When we came to the corner we turned with it, and found we were in a similar, though rather longer, street Along each side of this were more buildings, styled as ornately as the first we had seen, but with sufficient subtle variations in architecture to avoid obvious repetition of shape. Here too the buildings were in decay, and we had no means of knowing for what purposes they had once been used. The ruination apart, this was not a thoroughfare which would have disgraced one of the spa-towns of England.

We walked for about ten minutes without seeing any other pedestrians, although as we passed one street-junction we briefly saw, at some distance down the intersecting road, a powered conveyance moving swiftly across our view. It had appeared too quickly for us to see it in any detail, and we were left with an impression of considerable speed and incontinent noise.

Then as we approached a cluster of buildings from which several lights issued, Amelia suddenly pointed along a smaller street to our right.

“See, Edward,” she said softly. “There are people by that building.”

Along that street too were lighted buildings, and from one of them, as she had indicated, several people had just walked. I turned that way instantly, but Amelia held back.

“Let’s not go that way,” she said. “We don’t know—”

“Are you prepared to starve?” I cried, although my bravura was a façade. “We must see how these people live, so that we may eat and sleep.”

“Do you not think we should be more circumspect? It would be foolhardy to walk into a situation we could not escape from.”

“We are in such a situation now,” I said, then deliberately made my voice more persuasive. “We are in desperate trouble, Amelia dear. Maybe you are right to think it would be foolish to walk straight up to these people, but I know no other way.”

Amelia said nothing for a moment, but she stood close by my side, her hand limp in mine. I wondered if she were about to faint once more, for she seemed to be swaying slightly, but after a while she looked up at me. As she did so, the sweeping beam from one of the towers fell full across her face, and I saw how tired and ill she looked.

She said: “Of course you are right, Edward. I did not think we should survive in the desert. We must of course mingle with these Martian people, for we cannot return to that.”

I squeezed her hand to comfort her, and then we walked slowly towards the building where we had seen the people. As we approached, more appeared through the main doorway and headed up the street away from us. One man even glanced in our direction as two of the light-beams swept across us, so that he must have seen us clearly, but he showed no visible reaction and walked on with the others.

Amelia and I came to a halt in front of the doorway, and for a few seconds I stared down the street at the Martians. They all walked with a curious, easy loping motion; doubtless this was a product of the low gravity conditions, and doubtless a gait that Amelia and I would perfect as soon as we grew more accustomed to the conditions here.

“Do we go inside?” Amelia said.

“I can think of no other course,” I said, and led the way up the three low steps in front of the door. Another group of Martian people was coming out in the opposite direction, and they passed without appearing to notice us. Their faces were indistinct in the half-light, but close to we saw just how tall they were. They were all at least six inches taller than I.

Light from within was spilling down the passage beyond the door, and as we passed through we came into a huge, brightly lit room, one so large that it seemed it must occupy the whole of the building.

We stopped just inside the door, standing warily, waiting for our eyes to adjust to the brilliance.

All was at first confusing, for what furniture was there was in haphazard order, and consisted, for the most part, of what seemed to be tubular scaffolding. From this were suspended by ropes what I can best describe as hammocks: large sheets of thick fabric or rubber, hanging some two feet from the ground. On these, and standing around them, were several dozen of the Martian people.

With the exception of the peasant-slaves—whom we surmised to be of the lowest social order—these were the first Martians we had seen closely. These were the city-dwellers, the same as those men we had seen wielding the electrical whips. These were the people who ordered this society, elected its leaders, made its laws. These were from now to be our peers, and in spite of our tiredness and mental preoccupations Amelia and I regarded them with considerable interest.

iv

I have already noted that the average Martian is a tall being; what is also most noticeable, and of emphatic importance, is that the Martians are undeniably human, or human-like.

To speak of the average Martian is as misleading as to speak of the average human on Earth, for even in those first few seconds as we regarded the occupants of the building, Amelia and I noticed that there were many superficial differences. We saw some who were taller than most, some shorter; there were thinner Martians and fatter ones; there were some with great manes of hair, others were bald or balding; the predominant skin-tone was a reddish tint, but this was more evident in some than in others.

With this in mind, then, let me say that the, average adult Martian male could be roughly described thus:

He would be of the order of some six feet six inches tall, with black or brown head-hair. (We saw no red-heads, and no blonds.) He would weigh, if he were to step on scales an Earth, some two hundred pounds. His chest would be broad, arid apparently well-muscled. He would have facial hair, with thin eyebrows and wispy beard; some of the males we saw were clean-shaven, but this was uncommon. His eyes would be large, uncannily pale in coloration, and set wide apart in his face. His nose would be flat and broad, and his mouth would be generously fleshed.

At first sight the Martian face is a disturbing one for it seems brutal and devoid of emotion; as we later mingled with these people, however, both Amelia and I were able to detect facial nuances, even though we were never sure how to interpret them.

(My description here is of a city-Martian. The slave people were of the same racial stock, but due to the privations they suffered, most of the slaves we saw were comparatively thin and puny.)

The Martian female—for women there were in that room, and children too—is, like her Earthly counterpart, slightly the physical inferior of the male. Even so, almost every Martian female we saw was taller than Amelia, who is, as has already been said, taller than the average Earth woman. There is no woman on Mars who could ever be considered to be a beauty by Earth standards, nor, I suspect, would that concept have any meaning on Mars. At no time did we ever sense that Martian females were appreciated for their physical charms, and indeed we often had reason to believe that, as with some animals on Earth, the rôles on Mars were reversed in this respect.

The children we saw were, almost without exception, charming to us in the way any youngster has charm. Their faces were round and eager, not yet rendered unpleasant by the broadness and flatness so evident in the adults. Their behaviour, like that of Earth children, was on the whole riotous and mischievous, but they never appeared to anger the adults, whose attitude was indulgent and solicitous to them. It often seemed to us that the children were the sole source of happiness on this world, for the only time we saw the adults laughing was in the company of children.

This brings me to an aspect of Martian life which did not at first strike us, but which in later times became increasingly obvious. That is to say that I cannot imagine a race of beings more universally lugubrious, downcast or plainly miserable than the Martians.

The aura of despondency was present in the room as Amelia and I first entered it, and it was probably this which was our eventual saving. The typical Martian I have described would be obsessed with his internal miseries to the virtual exclusion of all other factors. To no other reason can I attribute the fact that Amelia and I were able to move so freely about the city without attracting attention. Even in those first few moments, as we stood in anticipation of the first cry of alarm or excitement at our appearance, few Martians so much as glanced in our direction. I cannot imagine the arrival of a Martian in an Earth city eliciting the same indifference.

Perhaps allied to this overall depression was the fact that the room was almost silent. One or two of the Martians spoke quietly, but most stood or sat about glumly. A few children ran while their parents watched, but this was the only movement The voices we heard were weird: soprano and mellifluous. Obviously we could not understand the words or even the tenor of the conversations—although the words were accompanied by intricate hand-signals—but the sight of these large and ugly people speaking in what seemed to us to be falsetto was most disconcerting.

Amelia and I waited by the door, unsure of everything: I looked at Amelia, and suddenly the sight of her face—tired, dirty, but so lovely—was a welcome reminder of all that was familiar to me. She looked back at me, the strain of the last two days still revealing itself in her expression, but she smiled and entwined her fingers through mine once more.

“They’re just ordinary people, Edward.”

“Are you still frightened?” I said.

“I’m not sure … they seem harmless.”

“If they can live in this city, then so can we. What we must do is see how they conduct their everyday lives, and follow their example. They seem not to recognize us as strangers.”

Just then a group of the Martians moved away from the hammocks and walked in their strange, loping gait towards us. At once I led Amelia back through the door, and returned to the street with its ever-sweeping lights. We crossed to the further side, then turned back to watch what the Martians were doing.

In a moment the group appeared, and without looking once in our direction they set off down the way we had seen the others go earlier. We waited for half a minute, then followed them at a distance.

v

As soon as we returned to the street we realized that it had been warmer inside, and this was cause for further reassurance. I had been fearing that the native Martians lived habitually in coldness, but the inside of the building had been heated to an acceptable level. I was not sure that I wished to sleep in a communal dormitory—and wished such conditions even less for Amelia—but even if we did not care for it, we knew at least that we could tonight sleep warmly and comfortably.

It turned out that there was not far to walk. The Martians ahead of us crossed a street-junction, joined another, much larger, group walking from a different direction, then turned into the next building they came to. This was larger than many of the buildings we had so far seen, and from what we could see of it in the fitful illumination of the tower lights it appeared to be plainer in architectural style. There was light showing from the windows, and as we came nearer we could hear much noise from within.

Amelia made an exaggerated sniffing noise.

“I smell food,” she said. “And I hear clattering of dishes.”

I said: “And I detect wishful thinking.”

However, our mood was now much lighter, and feeble though such an exchange might be it was an indication that Amelia was sharing my feeling of renewed hope.

We did not hesitate as we approached the building, so emboldened had we been by our visit to the other building, and walked confidently through the main door into a vast, brightly lit hall.

It was clear at once that this was not another dormitory, for almost the entire floor-space was given over to long tables set in parallel rows. Each of these was crowded with Martian people apparently in the middle of a banquet. The tables were liberally spread with dishes of food, the air was laden with a steamy, greasy smell, and the walls echoed to the sound of the Martians’ voices. At the far end was what we assumed was the kitchen, for here about a dozen of the slave-Martians were toiling with metal plates and huge dishfuls of food, which were set out along a raised platform by the entrance to the kitchen.

The group of Martians we had been following had walked to this platform, and were helping themselves to food.

I said: “Our problem is solved, Amelia. Here is ample food for the taking.”

“Assuming we may eat it in safety.”

“Do you mean it could be poisonous?”

“How are we to know? We are not Martian, and our digestive systems might be quite different.”

“I don’t intend to starve while I decide,” I said. “And anyway we are being watched.”

This was the case, for although we had been able to stand unnoticed in the dormitory building, our evident hesitation was attracting attention. I took Amelia by the elbow and propelled her towards the platform.

My hunger had been such, earlier in the day, that I had thought I could have eaten anything. In the hours between, however, the gnawing hunger had passed to be replaced by a sensation of nausea, and the compulsion to eat was now much less than I would have anticipated. Furthermore, as we approached the platform it was clear that although there was food in abundance, there was little that looked at all appetizing, and I was stricken with a most unexpected fastidiousness. Most of the food was liquid or semi-liquid, and was laid out in tureens or bowls. The scarlet weed was obviously the staple, diet of these people, in spite of the several fields of green-crop we had seen, for many of the stew-like dishes contained large quantities of the red stems and leaves. There were, though, one or two plates of what could be meat (although it was very under-cooked), and to one side there was something which, but for the fact we had seen no cattle, we could have taken for cheese. In addition, there were several glass jugs containing vividly coloured liquids, which were poured over the food as sauces by the Martians.

“Take small quantities of as many different kinds as possible,” Amelia said softly. “Then if any of it is dangerous, the effect will be minimized.”

The plates were large, and made of a dull metallic substance, and we each took a generous amount of food. Once or twice I sniffed what I was taking, but this was unedifying, to say the least.

Carrying our plates, we went towards one of the tables at the side, away from the main group of Martians.

There was a small number of the people at one end of the table we selected, but we passed them by and sat at the other end. The seats were long low benches, one on each side. Amelia and I sat next to each other, not at all at ease in this strange place, even though the Martians continued to pay no attention to us now we had moved away from the door.

We each took a little of the food: it was not pleasant, but it was still quite hot and was certainly better than an empty stomach.

After a moment, Amelia said in a low voice: “Edward, we cannot live like this for ever. We have simply been lucky so far.”

“Don’t let us discuss it. We are both exhausted. We’ll find somewhere to sleep tonight, and in the morning we will make plans.”

“Plans to do what? Spend a lifetime in hiding?”

We ate our way stoically through the food, being reminded continually of that bitter taste we had first experienced in the desert. The meat was no better; it had a texture similar to some cuts of beef, but was sweet and bland in flavour. Even the ‘cheese’, which we left until the end, was acidic.

On the whole our attention was distracted away from the food by the events about us.

I have already described the Martians’ habitual expression as being one of great lugubriousness, and in spite of the amount of conversation there was no levity. On our table, a Martian woman leaned forward and rested her wide forehead on her arms, and we could see tears trickling from her eyes. A little later, on the far side of the hall, a Martian man jumped abruptly back from his seat and strode around the room, waving his long arms and declaiming in his queer, high-pitched voice. He came to a wall and leant against it, banging his fists and shouting. This at last attracted the attention of his fellows, and several hurried to him and stood about, apparently trying to soothe him, but he was disconsolate.

Within a few seconds of this incident there was set up, as if the misery were contagious, such a general caterwauling that Amelia was impelled to say to me: “Do you suppose it is possible that here the responses are different? I mean, when they appear to be crying, are they actually laughing?”

“I’m not sure,” I said, cautiously watching the weeping Martian. He continued his outburst a little longer, then turned away from his friends and hurried from the hall with his hands covering his face. The others waited until he had vanished through the door, then returned to their own seats, looking morose.

We noticed that most of the Martians were taking large quantities of drink from glass jugs set on every table. As this was transparent we had assumed that it, was water, but when I tasted some it was instantly clear that this was not so. Although itwas refreshing to drink it was strongly alcoholic, to such an extent that within a few seconds of swallowing it I felt pleasantly dizzy.

I poured some for Amelia, but she only sipped at hers.

“It is very strong,” she said. “We must not lose our wits.”

I had already poured myself a second draught, but she restrained me from drinking it. I suppose she was wise to do this, because as we watched the Martians it was plain that most of them were fast becoming inebriated. They were being noisier and more careless in their manners than before. We even heard laughter, although it sounded shrill and hysterical. Large quantities of the alcoholic beverage were being drunk, and kitchen-slaves brought out several more jugs of it. A bench fell back wards to the floor, tipping its sitters into a sprawling heap, and two of the young male kitchen-slaves were captured by a group of female Martians who then hemmed them into a corner; what followed we could not see in the confusion. More slaves came out of the kitchen, and most of these were young females. To our astonishment, not only were they completely unclothed but they mingled freely with their masters, embracing and enticing them.

“I think it is time we left,” I said to Amelia.

She stared at the developing situation for a few moments longer before replying. Then she said: “Very well. This is grossly distasteful.”

We went towards the door, not pausing to look back. Another bench and a table were overturned, accompanied by a crash of breaking glasses and shouts from the Martian people. The maudlin atmosphere had been entirely banished.

Then, as we reached the door, a sound came echoing through the hall, chilling us and forcing us to look back. It was a harsh and discordant screeching sound, apparently emanating from one distant corner of the hall, but with sufficient volume to drown every other sound.

Its effect on the Martians was dramatic: all movement ceased, and the people present looked wildly from one to the other. In the silence that followed this brutal and sudden intrusion, we heard the sound of renewed sobbing.

I said: “Come on, Amelia.”

So we hurried from the building, sobered by the incident, not understanding but more than a little frightened.

There were now even fewer people about than before, but the tower lights swept across the streets as if to pick out those who wandered in the night when all others were engaged inside.

I led Amelia away from that area of the city where the Martians gathered, and back towards the part we had first walked through, where fewer lights showed. Appearances, though, were deceptive, for the fact that a building showed no light and emitted no noise did not mean it was deserted. We walked for about half a mile, and then tried the door of a darkened building. Inside, lights were shining and we saw that another feast had taken place. We saw … but it is not correct that I should here record what we saw. Amelia had no more wish than I to witness such depravity, and we hastened away, still not able to reconcile this world with the one we had left.

When we next tried a building I went forward alone … but the place was empty and dirty, and whatever had been its contents had been thoroughly destroyed by fire. The next building we explored was another dormitory-hall, well occupied by Martians. Without causing disturbance, we went away.

So it went, as we moved from one building to the next, seeking an unoccupied dormitory-hall; so long did we search that we began to think that there was none we could find. But then at last we were in luck, and came to a hall where hammocks hung unoccupied, and we went inside and slept.