Out of Time

by Bruce Macfarlane

  Then they noticed me.

  Faint sounds like mosquitos buzzing in your ear at night entered my mind. One of the creatures came near me. It was only about three feet tall and very thin. I could see that the whiteness was in fact an almost transparent gossamer suit which encased its body. It was disconcertingly familiar like a character from Lewis Carroll. The head was like that of a cat but its ears were more like a rabbit’s which twitched and rotated like antennas. Its eyes were wide set and bulged and blinked like a frog’s and in between there seemed to be a small opaque disc recessed into the forehead like the remains of a third eye. What I thought was a third leg was actually a thick tail like a kangaroo’s on which it rested its body. I involuntarily moved back but found myself pressed against the wall. I could feel its hands touching me. They were very human with four fingers and an opposing thumb but without nails. They moved gently over my torso. It was searching me! I looked at its face. The small disc or eye seemed to grow larger. God, it was searching my mind as well as my body. I could hear the mosquito like sound moving in my mind. I suddenly realised what it wanted. It was after the diary!

  I looked for an escape. The door was barely six feet away. I made sure I had Elizabeth held tightly but just as tried to leave I saw or felt the alien's finger press against my head and an orange globe began to materialise in front of me. It grew larger and larger. Then I realised I was falling towards it. Faint lines and markings appeared which somehow looked familiar. It was Mars! Great ice tinged fissures punctuated the desert landscape and here and there rows of vents rose like termite hills from the ground, spewing dark clouds of gas linked by networks of roads or tubes.

  The planet rushed up towards me then I felt a shift in direction and we were skimming across the surface. Suddenly the land opened up and we descended into one of the great fissures. Clouds rose from the dry ice capped ridges warmed by the weak sunlight. Deimos or Phobos hung in the sky and at the end of the valley near the horizon, a tiny white-yellow sun. Then down we fell again at an incredible speed. I thought we were going to crash. But at the last moment the ground became transparent and we dived into a 3D world of caverns and chambers full of great ships and machinery. Thousands of the creatures were busy working. I realised I was watching the construction of an invasion force.

  As I floated through a vast network of tubes and tunnels, that familiarity of the landscape I had felt when I approached the planet jogged my memory and I remembered those early drawings of the canals of Mars first seen by astronomers in the 1870s and which by the early twentieth century had mysteriously vanished. I had made copies as a child which I had kept on the wall in my bedroom while I absorbed the Martian stories of Heinlein and Burroughs. When I was older I was disappointed to find that later astronomers had put these canals down to an optical illusion or aberration in the lenses of Victorian telescopes. Now I realised, with not a little satisfaction, that what the nineteenth century astronomers had seen was real. Perhaps a great Martian storm had buried them underground or perhaps the Martians had detected our observations and covered them. Only the vents from their factories were still visible which scientists in my time before the invasion had thought were pockets of frozen carbon dioxide turning to gas in the warmth of the weak sun and bursting through the surface.

  I had been travelling in this Martian mindscape for miles. I could not understand why they were showing me their preparations until I realised that in searching my mind they had inadvertently let me into theirs. This realisation was immediately felt by the Martian and I found myself flying back out into space like a film in reverse. The buzzing sound in my head stopped and the vision vanished.

  I was back in the Keep.

  I looked down. There were now three of the creatures in front of me. Their hands were outstretched. They were still in my brain and I could feel myself wanting to give them the diary.

  Suddenly I realised why they wanted it. It was a spy. They had used it to gather information on our world for their invasion and they wanted it back.

  But I knew if we gave it to them they would know the outcome of the invasion and the bacteria that would destroy them.

  My hand was reaching for the diary in my pocket but as I grasped it I heard a familiar voice calling faintly from the back of mind.

  "James! James! Can you hear me? Don't give them the diary!"

  Against my will my hand was slowly drawing the diary out of my pocket. For some reason a vaguely familiar aroma of musk and oranges percolated through my mind. I felt myself weakening, drifting away from the Martians. Then, a soft gentle moist tongue pressed against my ear. My hand relaxed its grip. Elizabeth came into view.

  "James! Oh you are there. I saw everything - we must flee."

  I didn't need to be told twice.

  We ran out into the courtyard. Creatures were still floating up into the sky frantically trying to grab something. Others were clinging to walls and trees. They made no attempt to stop us.

  “We must destroy it, James."

  "We’ll be stuck here."

  "My time is not a bad place to live, James."

  "Elizabeth, I've read about your medicine, surgical tools and as for anaesthetics, well, I'm too much of a coward. We must get out of here. These creatures unless they have some magic weaponry are too fragile to stop us."

  It was almost pitch black but there was still light enough to make out the people whom we had seen earlier by the gate. They were standing motionless in shock. I realised what they were seeing: one lady in green and hundreds of pixies dancing about; the legend being created right in front of them.

  As we approached the gate, they ran off, shrieking.

  ---~---

  E

  I had never run so fast in my life. The creatures were everywhere but as James said they did not bother us though his demonstration of their weakness by kicking one that had clung to my skirts high into the air was rather unsporting. I would have felt sorry for it if I had not witnessed their invasion.

  By now it was so dark that we could not see the path to Helmsley. I said to James "We need a lantern otherwise we will break our necks or worse. Let us ask those people there."

  We walked up to them. They were by the gatehouse still transfixed but when they saw us the ladies in the party screamed and they all ran off. We were left alone in the dark. Except of course for the Martians who thankfully were no longer in view but I could not help darting my eyes this way and that for their presence. I turned to James to make sure he was close by; as I did so a bright incandescent light shone from his hand. He saw my expression.

  "Don't worry, Elizabeth. This time I have brought a torch." I could see he was quite proud of this and I encouraged it with a heartfelt hug and kiss for I could see by its light that the adventure, or should I say, our journey into hell, had taken much out of him.

  A welcoming beam of light now shone ahead of us down the path to Helmsley and we ran back along the road as fast as we could to the Black Swan like two small children caught in the dark.

  We needed help. This was getting too complicated. Every turn became a new adventure and dragged us deeper into a maze from which it seemed we could not escape.

  And when we arrived much relieved in the village square, there was help, or so I hoped, waiting for us by the front door of the Inn.

  ---~---

  Chapter Seventeen

  J.

  "So", said Wells, as we sat down to eat a delicious steak and kidney pie at his expense. "You have seen the Martians.”

  We told him our story starting with the electronic diary he had given us.

  He sat back and folded his hands. More beer arrived. My poor brain was in need of topping up. Then he leaned forward and said, "This is what I've gleaned.”

  “The first thing you have to realise is that we have been manipulated by the Martians for over a hundred years to prepare us for their invasion."

  We looked stunned. I said, "Do you mean we've been ruled by Martians? I've often wondered where we
got some of our politicians from."

  “No, Mr Urquhart. Sadly they come from our own species. Somehow the Martians came into contact with Mr. Batalia whom they had identified as quite a genius in relativistic physics and neural nets and either gave him the diary or perhaps they just left it in a place where he would find it. It wasn't an ordinary diary, as you know. It showed him how to access the Dark Net which they had created.”

  “The Martians created the Dark Net?”

  “Yes. As far as I can understand, it is not part of this world and the conduits to it pass through time as well as space. That's why no one has been able to penetrate it.”

  “And what about ComsMesh?”

  “The Dark Net is connected to ComsMesh which is on Mars. I don't think Marco and his Staff at the Weber Institute knew that."

  "I don't think anyone else did either", I said.

  “Quite right, Mr Urquhart. They presumed they had invented it and everything they controlled was kept on the storage devices at Midhurst. But they were connected by a Dark Net conduit to Mars.”

  “So the Martians had access to all the human social media.”

  “Only those humans who used social media.”

  “But they would be the easiest to influence.”

  “Yes. Their plan was to get the human race in a semi-unconscious state, docile and compliant, to ease the invasion. They had seen how easily we were manipulated by simple advertising. They were very close to succeeding when you two turned up. Mr. Batalia could see the consequences of your actions and tried to put everything back but as you know he failed.”

  “So he must have been working for the Martians?”

  “I don’t think so. I think he genuinely thought he was trying to save the world from destroying itself through what he thought was his own social engineering programme. The Martians however were on a different schedule and expected the world to be asleep. But unfortunately for them we were still half awake."

  "So when they arrived we were able to defend ourselves. And Porton Down came up with the goods once they knew how they ticked."

  "But James, we shut down the computers at St. Anne's Hill. Surely that would have cut them off.”

  “Exactly, Mrs Urquhart, and do have some more pie. It was that event which caused them to start the invasion. They didn't know what we were doing so they had to attack."

  "But here. I mean in the 1890s they don't know that yet." I said.

  Elizabeth reached for my hand "But James they do! They have been in our minds. They not only now know we are aware of their preparations for invasion they also possibly know what happened to their invasion."

  "Jeez. You're right Elizabeth. If they tell Mars then they might invade now when our weaponry is just sticks and stones. There aren’t any planes, missiles, radio or even radar! We're f....."

  There was a sudden rumble of thunder. I looked out of the window. It was a clear dark sky.

  "That will be the ship leaving Earth for Mars", said Wells.

  "Oh my God, James. What can we do?"

  I realised now that poor Captain Intrepid had come to the end of his tether. Even his box of stupid ideas was empty.

  Then there was another roll of thunder. This time much louder which rattled the windows. We ran to the door and were treated to a fantastic display of fireworks.

  “Their ship has blown up!”

  "They must have panicked and lost control."

  "Or maybe those who did know how to control it floated away leaving just the Adminstaff to fly the ship."

  “Actually", said Wells, "it was much simpler. That ship has been there since before the castle was built. The Normans built their Keep around it and used it as part of the structure. Must have been quite a surprise when they tried to take off."

  "That would explain in my time why half the Keep is missing", I said. Then Captain Intrepid woke up.

  "By the way, Wells, how do you know all this? And more importantly, how did we find you at Rievaulx?"

  "I was wondering when you were going to ask that." He took a sip of his beer at the same time as I did. Elizabeth sat motionless. Then he continued. "I have found, Mr. Urquhart, that I am a man of exceptional moods. I do not know how far my experience is common. At times I suffer from the strangest sense of detachment from myself and the world about me; I seem to watch it all from the outside, from somewhere inconceivably remote, out of time, out of space, out of the stress and tragedy of it all. This feeling was very strong upon me that night when we met at Rievaulx.”

  I had a strong feeling as well because I remembered these were almost the exact words used by the unnamed hero in Wells’ book, the War of the Worlds. It was one of my favourite passages. He continued.

  "I thought I was asleep, dreaming. I found myself rising from my bed, out of my room. This had happened to me many times before. But this time the walls vanished and I was floating in a ruined cathedral which I later found out was Rievaulx Abbey. The floor was covered in what I at first thought were gravestones. But as I drew nearer I realised they were tombs or capsules. There was a transparency about them for within each I could just discern a small creature. I could not resist touching one of the tombs and to my horror the grey cover melted and the creature within stirred and opened its eyes. I was transfixed as it raised a limb and pressed a finger immediately to my head. Then, like you, I saw Mars. But at first a different Mars. A young planet, green and violet. A great ice ocean covered the northern hemisphere. From it lines or tubes radiated to the south connecting the myriads of craters where within each one I could see great artificial structures. Then it changed. Slowly the ice sea receded. Deserts formed. Great dust storms traversed the planet. The tubes disappeared into the ground and the structures in the craters became smaller until they also disappeared below the surface."

  "The Martians must have seen that coming for hundreds or thousands of years", I said, "and made plans to go underground. I've got to hand it to them. Scientists are screaming at our politicians that we are destroying our world but no one will do anything. It's like when a fire alarm goes off. No one moves until they see the fire. But by then it is too late."

  Elizabeth interjected. “Have you brought me to a world which is going to die, James?"

  "Not as quickly as if you Victorians had continued to pollute the world."

  “So, James, if we hadn't developed our science and industry, you would not have developed the means to control it."

  I remembered just in time that women should be allowed the last word in an argument. If a man has the last word it’s the start of a new argument. I continued.

  "Anyway, back on Mars. If the atmosphere was thinning any residual water would boil off. Perhaps the receding of the ice sheets you saw was because the Martians were taking it beneath to store. Certainly a lot of our scientists are becoming convinced that there is a vast amount of salt water below the surface of Mars. Perhaps the Martians like their water salty."

  “Quite so, Mr Urquhart. But what concerned me was a vision of the Earth from Mars. I could see the great blue oceans. Perhaps you are right and they are salt water creatures for much of the vision was of our watery surfaces. While I watched I wondered whether they had visited the Earth already and as if I commanded it I was on Earth. A great tripod loomed above me. There were others in the distance. Then I felt it probing my mind. It discovered I knew about the time machine and meeting Mr Batalia and how he built it. Then just as I felt it was about to probe deeper, thank God, you appeared. Using all my will I rose from the tomb and tried to warn you but, how can I say this delicately, you were too engrossed in each other. So I left you a message."

  We sat back silent. Elizabeth was the first to speak.

  ---~---

  E.

  I had listened to Wells with fascination but something of importance concerned me which needed explanation if my philosophy of life was not to collapse. I turned to James for support.

  "As you know, James, I have been brought up with religion. Not the
dogmatic kind but that of the Church of England which has allowed a certain laissez faire or freedom in one's beliefs. It does not demand much except regular attendance at its functions and feasts. It is part of our society and, if I may suggest, quite secular in many ways, though I would not express that view in certain circles. But its philosophy has always allowed the freedom of will and encouraged individual responsibility. It does not insist that life is preordained."

  “Where you going with this, Elizabeth?"

  I had to try harder.

  "Bear with me, James, for it is important. After listening to Mr Wells and looking back at all our exploits since we first met at Hamgreen, it is difficult not to believe that whatever decision we made was the only decision we were allowed to take. But if this is true then it questions our whole existence and what or why we are here."

  "So you think that everything we have done was preordained?"

  "I do not know, James. But it is difficult not to reach that conclusion."

  "Well, my interpretation is a little more optimistic. I think, as you say, that if you take into account all the decisions we could have made compared to the ones we took, it does seem highly improbable we arrived where we are without some help. But I think this is where the Blind Watch Maker comes into play."

  "The what?" For James was leaving me behind again.

  "A watch or clock, in order to exist, can only be assembled in a certain way. A blind man given the parts of a watch will try thousands of different ways to construct it but only one method which requires the right parts in the right order will make the clock work."

  "So, James, in order to be where or when we are, although there were hundreds of different decisions we only took the ones that brought us here. Any other decisions and we wouldn't be here. We have been very lucky blind watchmakers."