“What other options are there?” Jane asked, aware that giving up wasn’t one of them.
Wells took a deep breath before replying. “I think the only thing left to do is . . . give the book to them.”
“To them? But, Bertie, we decided not to involve them in this, to let them get on with their lives, remember?”
“Of course I remember, my dear. But I fear we have no choice. Look at the two of us. We don’t have much time left. You and I will soon . . . disappear, and if before then we haven’t given the book to an Executioner, or entrusted someone else with that mission, we might as well never have written it. And the entire universe will die without ever knowing it had a tiny chance of being saved.”
“Even so, Bertie, I don’t think we should make them shoulder this terrible burden,” Jane stammered. “They are still young; it will ruin their . . .”
“Their lives?” Wells said gloomily. “What lives? If we do nothing, no twin of ours in this multiverse will live to be old and decrepit like us.”
Jane nodded, and they both smiled sadly. Then Jane laid her head on her husband’s chest and let herself be lulled by his slow but tenacious heartbeat. It was the sound of a worn-out drum, but she didn’t want to go on dancing if it ever stopped. Presently, she heard Wells’s voice.
“Have you never wondered what was behind that feeling of urgency that made us move away from Oxford to be near them when they were born, that mysterious certainty we sensed that we had to be part of their lives?”
“Every day,” she admitted.
“And what conclusion have you come to?”
Jane sighed.
“That it was probably our instinct as Observers telling us that sooner or later they would be the ones to take over our mission,” she said with resignation.
“That is the same conclusion I reached, my dear.”
Neither of them uttered another word, content to remain silent, embracing each other with what they knew to be the last of their strength, feeling more marooned than ever as the sky darkened through the windowpanes.
29
AND SO, ONE WINDSWEPT AFTERNOON in late February 1900, when Wells was feeling strong enough to be able to walk without feeling dizzy, the Wellses went to Arnold House with the aim of entrusting the book to their twins in that world. Jane was carrying it in a small embroidered silk purse, which she clasped to her chest with one hand, while with the other she held on to her cloak to stop the wind from blowing it away. Standing at the tall entrance gate, they rang the bell several times, but no one came to let them in. Squashing his hat against his skull, Wells let out a curse. The journey by coach had almost pulverized their bones, and all for nothing. Where were their twins? They had stated very clearly in their message the time of their arrival. They were about to go back the way they had come when they saw the couple’s carriage approach.
“Professor Lansbury, Mrs. Lansbury, please forgive the delay!” the young Wells exclaimed as he stepped out of the coach and found them at the gate.
The four of them greeted one another effusively, for they had not met since the twins moved to Sandgate for the sea air, which was more invigorating.
“I’m so sorry we are late. Our excursion to Dartmoor took longer than we had expected, because on the way back we had a bit of a shock,” Wells’s twin explained. “Our friend Montgomery Gilmore and his fiancée had a slight accident when their Mercedes, one of those newfangled automobiles, veered off the road . . . Thank goodness, Gilmore managed to regain control of the fiendish vehicle.”
“I’m so glad to hear it,” replied Jane, somewhat shaken.
The Wellses asked their coachman to wait, with the vague promise of a mug of broth, and the two couples walked down the garden path leading up to the house. On the way, Wells noticed his twin glancing sideways at him and recalled how difficult it had been to befriend him back when he was still his teacher. Each time he tried to engage the lad in conversation, he seemed to shrink into himself, as though afflicted by a sudden colic, and, after exchanging a few pleasantries, he would hurry off under some pretext or other. Perhaps the poor boy had been suffering the effects of meeting himself. Fortunately, over time the inevitable kinship between them had developed into a mutual affection, which had eased the young man’s awkwardness with his eccentric teacher. Now his double was watching him surreptitiously, trying to hide the pity his doddering gait instilled in him. It was clear he was shocked at the dramatic changes that the past six years had wreaked on Wells’s body. But what did he expect? He, too, would grow old one day. His face would be lined with the same furrows he was now contemplating so wistfully, and his erect back would develop the same stoop, until finally he would leave the stage like everyone else, amid boos or applause.
After they entered the house, Jane’s twin went to the kitchen to prepare tea while her husband ushered them into the sitting room. He invited them to take a seat at the table while he lit the fire. Soon, Jane brought in the tea. As she began pouring it briskly, the old lady was filled with melancholy: How long had it been since she went about her chores with that familiar vigor? However, a deafening crash interrupted her musings. They all gave a start.
“How strange, I thought you told me you had fixed that attic window, Bertie,” Jane said, gazing up at the ceiling apprehensively.
“Why, yes, dear. I did it only last week. But clearly I have more of a flair for writing novels than fixing windows,” he jested, but as no one laughed, he quickly went on: “So . . . Professor, what is the urgent matter that brought you here on this inclement afternoon?”
Wells exchanged a meaningful look with Jane before clearing his throat. The moment had come when they must destroy their twins’ peaceful existence.
“Well, it is something we had hoped to keep from you, because we are aware that it will change your lives forever. And for the worse, I am afraid,” he added gravely. “But, alas, we have no choice.”
“You certainly know how to capture the attention of your audience, Professor,” the young Wells remarked wryly. “You would have made an excellent novelist.”
The old man responded to the compliment with a grim look and then sipped his cup of tea to buy a little time. Since he and Jane had resolved to go and see them, he hadn’t stopped thinking about where best to begin their story and had concluded that they must first tell them who they were. If they didn’t believe that, there would be no point in going on, and so he sat up as straight as possible and showed them his best side.
“Look at my face, George, and you, too, Jane. Take a good look. Try to see beneath all these wrinkles and this beard. Look at my eyes, especially, the expression in my eyes. And don’t rule out any possibility.”
Bewildered by his request, the couple leaned forward and peered into the old man’s face, screwing up their eyes exaggeratedly, like a jeweler examining a stone. After a few seconds, Wells’s twin lost his patience.
“What are you driving at, Professor?” he asked with a sardonic smile.
Disappointed at his double’s lack of observational skills, Wells shook his head and turned his attention to the young woman.
“What do you see, Jane? How do you imagine I looked when I was thirty-three?” he asked, alluding to his twin’s current age.
The young woman put on a serious face and tried to do what the old man had asked: she brushed away his wrinkles, shaved off his beard, covered his balding temples with hair, and replaced his weary expression with that of a young man brimming with belief in life. The result made her frown. Seeing her face, the old man smiled softly.
“Yes, Jane,” he told her, “don’t reject what your mind is trying to tell you. What you are thinking is exactly right.”
“But what I am thinking is absurd!” she exclaimed, almost amused.
“No, my dear girl,” the professor contradicted her. “It is exactly right.”
“What is absurd? What the devil are you thinking, Jane?” Wells’s twin demanded, puzzled.
“Henry Lansbury
is an assumed name,” Wells said suddenly, looking at the young man solemnly. “My real name is Herbert George Wells. I am you, only a good few years older, as you can see. Then he pointed to his wife. “And this is Amy Catherine Robbins. My wife and yours. Because we are you.”
The young twins stared at each other in bewilderment, then examined the old couple again while they held hands as though posing for a portrait. A few seconds later, the younger woman mumbled, “Good heavens . . . But that’s impossible!”
“Not if you believe what I am about to tell you,” said Wells. And in a calm voice, aware of how bizarre his tale would sound to their twins, he began to narrate the story, a story with which, dear reader, you are more than familiar. He described in broad brushstrokes the world they had come from; he told them about the inevitable destruction of that universe, of how he and Jane had traveled to their adopted world in 1858 through a magic hole, about the years they had spent in Oxford with Dodgson, the disappearance of their dog, Newton, and the subsequent spread of the virus he was carrying. He told them about their gift for observing, the extermination of the cronotemics, and their reasons for writing The Map of Chaos, the book that contained the key to saving that and all other possible worlds. Their twins listened intently, with a mixture of wonder and dread. When Wells had finished, a heavy silence descended on the little sitting room.
Finally, after clearing his throat noisily, Wells’s twin declared, “Goodness me: cronotemics, Executioners, parallel worlds . . . It sounds just like one of my fantasy novels!”
“I wish it were,” sighed Wells. “But I assure you, George, everything I have told you is very real.”
Wells’s twin looked at his wife, then bit his lip before adding, “Don’t take offense, Professor, but you are asking us to believe a lot of implausible things based on the sole evidence of a . . . vague resemblance between us.”
Wells gave a sigh of disappointment, even though he had known convincing them wouldn’t be easy, especially his own twin, who, as was to be expected, was as stubborn as he. He was about to reply when a voice rank with Evil roared behind him, “Would a genuine cronotemic be proof enough?”
The two couples turned as one toward the entrance to the sitting room, from where the voice had emanated. And what they saw caused them to leap from their seats. Standing in the doorway, watching them with a baleful grimace, was a semitransparent man. He was dressed in a dark suit and had an athletic build, but the disturbing thing about him was that they could see through the veil of his flesh to what was behind him: the doorframe, the gloomy corridor, the pictures on the walls . . . The stranger let them admire him for a moment, a mocking expression on his face, before walking over to them with the supple, self-assured movements of a predator approaching its prey. Wells and Jane recognized him immediately and instinctively clung to each other. As the apparition drew closer, they all noticed with alarm that he was carrying a strange-looking pistol. Apart from the wooden grip, it was made entirely of metal, and although the barrel seemed very narrow in relation to the rest, it was undoubtedly a deadly weapon.
“Who the devil are you, and what are you doing in my house?” inquired the young Wells, trying to conceal the tremor in his voice.
The creature clicked his tongue, demonstrating his disappointment.
“My dear George, under any other circumstances, tired of hearing the same old greeting, I would have said to you, ‘Don’t you recognize me? My name is Marcus Rhys, and I have come to kill you—again,’ ” he replied with a tone of reproach. The young Wells’s face turned pale. “However, now I know why you never remember me. Now I know everything.” He grinned ferociously at his terrified audience. Then, addressing the old man, he added, “And so, correct me if I am wrong, Professor, I am not Homo temporalis after all but rather a poor wretch infected with a virus you created in a parallel universe. Therefore, it would be more appropriate for me to say, ‘My name is Marcus Rhys, and I have come to kill you, as I have many of your twins in parallel worlds.’ Isn’t that right, Professor?”
Observer Wells remained silent. Clearly, Marcus Rhys had been listening to their whole conversation from behind the door (he remembered the noise of the attic window and concluded he must have been there awhile), and now he knew everything there was to know about his own nature and the secrets of the universe. But that information didn’t seem to have altered in the slightest his diabolical intentions. The creature had positioned himself strategically at the head of the table, cornering them against the wall, and as he pointed his strange-looking pistol at them, he cast a wild eye over the panic-stricken group until he came to a halt at the unfortunate Jane, who happened to be standing closest to him.
“I am so glad I brought along this semiautomatic Walther, which I kept as a souvenir of my last trip,” he declared suddenly, brandishing the weapon proudly and causing them all to jump. “It is a standard-issue Wehrmacht pistol used in the Second World War, a rather crude weapon compared to my heat-ray gun, which I lost while fighting a Tyrannosaurus rex. And although there is nothing I enjoy more than killing you with my bare hands, George, it seems this afternoon I have my work cut out for me. Because, you see, I am afraid I am going to have to kill all of you . . . ,” he said with feigned regret. “After I have destroyed that book you wrote, Professor, which might take away my powers.”
“You don’t have any powers, Mr. Rhys. What you have is a terrible disease,” replied the old man, trying to make his voice sound as calm and convincing as possible. “And if we don’t find a cure, it is you who will end up being destroyed, the same as all the other cronotemics. Sooner or later, your molecules will disappear into the void without a trace. Unless, that is, the universe explodes first.”
“I see,” said Rhys rather wistfully. He thought about it for a few moments and then replied, “But, do you know something, Professor? I don’t believe it will destroy me. On the contrary . . . That may happen to those other poor wretches, but, you see, I think the virus has made me immortal . . . It has made me into a kind of god, a being beyond the existence of any universe. Actually, I couldn’t care less if I am a superior being or a common invalid. I want to continue to be whatever I am. My powers are astonishing! And now that I understand them fully, and, thanks to you, I have discovered that we live in a multiverse where anything is possible, imagine all the things I could do! I could seduce Madame Bovary, drink Doctor Jekyll’s potion, sink Noah’s ark with a missile! I am sure I could travel to distant, fantastical worlds . . . Or even jump into neighboring multiverses, before this one explodes . . . And very soon I will become the most powerful being in all Creation! I will be Invisible Death! The God of Chaos! And I will not allow some stupid book to stand in my way!” he finished with a brutal, savage roar.
For a few seconds, the Villain stood panting, a faraway look in his eyes, lost, perhaps, in the labyrinth of his own folly. Suddenly he looked straight at the old man.
“Give me the book, Professor,” he ordered with surprising calm, “so that I can throw it on the fire as though it had never existed.”
Wells shook his head and squeezed Jane’s hand hard. He had no intention of giving Rhys the book. It contained the key to saving the world, and besides . . . it was a whole year’s work.
“Really?” said Rhys, with theatrical disappointment. “I am sure I can make you change your mind.”
With an incredibly swift movement, he seized Jane’s twin by the hair, slammed her head against the table, and pressed the muzzle of his pistol to her temple. Wells’s young twin made as if to intervene, but the creature’s scowling face stopped him in his tracks, and he simply contemplated the scene as helplessly as the old couple.
“Don’t be foolish, George: we both know you are no hero. Why not help me persuade your old teacher instead. Tell him to hand over the damned book or I’ll kill her.”
The young Wells obeyed instantly. Turning to the old man, he implored, “Give it to him, Professor, for the love of God!”
Wells looked at
him with infinite sorrow. That would not save the girl, or them. He knew this better than anyone; true to his name, the Villain would kill them all and destroy the book, or destroy the book and kill them all—it mattered little in what order.
“Right now, that book is the most valuable thing that exists in the entire universe. Do you really think I would be foolish enough to carry it around with me?” Wells improvised.
“Then take me to where the damn thing is before I lose my temper. Perhaps we could all do with some fresh air,” muttered the Villain, hissing like a snake preparing to strike its prey.
Wells glanced at Jane’s twin, her face still brutally crushed against the table by the creature’s translucent hand, and he tried to gain some time.
“Mr. Rhys, listen to me! You and I can come to an agreement. If you allow me to save the universe, I promise I will find the way to make the virus not go beyond your body. After all, I created it. That way, you would be the only one in the entire multiverse with the power to—”
The Villain pointed his weapon at the young Wells, who suddenly found himself staring down the barrel of a pistol; he pulled the trigger without even looking at him. Wells’s twin fell to the floor, his head blown off. Rhys smiled and released the girl, who, half-dazed by what had just happened, knelt down and took her beloved’s lifeless body in her arms. Fortunately, from where they were standing, the old couple couldn’t see this tragic scene. All they glimpsed was the back of the girl’s head, which began to shake with her sobs. That was where the Villain aimed his pistol.
“Do you take me for a fool, Professor?” he said wearily, as though bored of the whole affair. “I’ll shoot her this time unless you tell me where the book is.”
Wells squeezed Jane’s hand firmly as he muttered to himself, “Forgive me, forgive me . . .”
The Villain shook his head, visibly displeased by Wells’s stubbornness, and pulled the trigger. A blue flash spewed from the barrel. They did not see where the bullet struck, but the girl’s sobs stopped abruptly. Rhys glanced casually at the fruits of his wickedness and then grinned at the old couple.
The Map of Chaos Page 49
