The Space Machine

by Christopher Priest

  “I can grasp most of it. The fact that you didn’t follow it, Edward, is no reflection on your own intellect. Sir William is himself so familiar with it that when explaining it to others he omits much of it. Also, you are a stranger to him, and he is rarely at ease unless surrounded by those he knows. He has a group of acquaintances from the Linnaean—his club in London—and they are the only people to whom I have ever heard him speak naturally and fluently.”

  “Then perhaps I should not have asked him.”

  “No, it is his obsession; had you not expressed an interest, he would have volunteered his theory. Everyone about him has to bear it. Even Mrs Watchets has heard him out twice.”

  “Does she understand it?”

  “I think not,” said Amelia, smiling.

  “Then I shall not expect clarification from her. You will have to explain.”

  “There isn’t much I can say. Sir William has built a Time Machine. It has been tested, and I have been present during some of the tests, and the results have been conclusive. He has not said so as yet, but I suspect that he is planning an expedition into futurity.”

  I smiled a little, and covered my mouth with my hand.

  Amelia said: “Sir William is in perfect earnest.”

  “Yes…but I cannot see a man of his physique entering a device so small.”

  “What you have seen is only a working model. He has a full-sized version.” Unexpectedly, she laughed. “You don’t think I meant the model he showed you?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  When Amelia laughed she looked most beautiful, and I did not mind having misunderstood.

  “But large or small, I cannot believe such a Machine is possible!” I said.

  “Then you may see it for yourself. It is only a dozen yards from where you are sitting.”

  I jumped to my feet. “Where is it?”

  “In Sir William’s laboratory.” Amelia seemed to have been infected with my enthusiasm, for she too had left her seat with great alacrity. “I’ll show you.”

  iii

  We left the smoking-room by the door which Sir William had used, and walked along a passage to what was clearly a newly constructed door. This led directly into the laboratory, which was, I now realized, the glass-covered annexe which had been built between the two wings of the house.

  I do not know what I had been expecting the laboratory to be like, but my first impression was that it bore a considerable resemblance to the milling-shop of an engineering works I had once visited.

  Along the ceiling, to one side, was a steam-lathe which, by the means of several adjustable leather straps, provided motive power to the many pieces of engineering equipment I saw ranged along a huge bench beneath it. Several of these were metal-turning lathes, and there was also a sheet-metal stamp, a presser, some acetylene welding equipment, two massive vices and any number of assorted tools scattered about. The floor was liberally spread with the shavings and fragments of metals removed in the processes, and in many parts of the laboratory were what appeared to be long-abandoned pieces of cut or turned metal.

  “Sir William does much of the engineering himself,” said Amelia, “but occasionally he is obliged to contract out for certain items. I was in Skipton on one of these errands when I met you.”

  “Where is the Time Machine?” I said.

  “You are standing beside it.”

  I realized with a start that what I had taken at first to be another collection of discarded metals did, in fact, have a coherent scheme to it. I saw now that it bore a certain resemblance to the model he had shown me, but whereas that had had the perfection of miniaturism, this by its very size appeared to be more crude.

  In fact, however, as soon as I bent to examine it I saw that every single constituent part had been turned and polished until it shone as new.

  The Time Machine was some seven or eight feet in length, and four or five feet in width. At its highest point it stood about six feet from the floor, but as its construction had been strictly functional, perhaps a description in terms of overall dimension is misleading. For much of its length the Time Machine was standing only three feet high, and in the form of a skeletal metal frame.

  All its working parts were visible…and here my description becomes vague of necessity. What I saw was a repetition in-extremis of the mysterious substances I had earlier that day seen in Sir William’s bicycles and flying machine: in other words, much of what was apparently visible was rendered invisible by the eye-deceiving crystalline substance. This encased thousands of fine wires and rods, and much as I peered at the mechanism from many different angles, I was unable to learn very much.

  What was more comprehensible was the arrangement of controls.

  Towards one end of the frame was a leather-covered seat, rounded like a horse-saddle. Around this was a multiplicity of levers, rods and dials.

  The main control appeared to be a large lever situated directly in front of the saddle. Attached to the top of this—incongruous in the context—was the handle-bar of a bicycle. This, I supposed, enabled the driver to grip the lever with both hands. To each side of this lever were dozens of subsidiary rods, all of which were attached at different swivelling joints, so that as the lever was moved, others would be simultaneously brought into play.

  In my preoccupation I had temporarily forgotten Amelia’s presence, but now she spoke, startling me a little.

  “It looks substantial, does it not?” she said.

  “How long has it taken Sir William to build this?” I said.

  “Nearly two years. But touch it, Edward…see how substantial it is.”

  “I wouldn’t dare,” I said. “I would not know what I was doing.”

  “Hold one of these bars. It is perfectly safe.”

  She took my hand, and led it towards one of the brass rods which formed part of the frame. I laid my fingers gingerly on this rail…then immediately snatched them away, for as my fingers closed on the rod the entire Machine had visibly and audibly shuddered, like a living being.

  “What is it?” I cried.

  “The Time Machine is attenuated, existing as it were in the Fourth Dimension. It is real, but it does not exist in the real world as we know it. It is, you must understand, travelling through Time even as we stand here.”

  “But you cannot be serious…because if it were travelling it would not be here now!”

  “On the contrary, Edward.” She indicated a huge metal flywheel directly in front of the saddle, which corresponded approximately with the silver cog-wheel I had seen on Sir William’s model. “It is turning. Can you see that?”

  “Yes, yes I can,” I said, leaning as near it as I dared. The great wheel was rotating almost imperceptibly.

  “If it were not turning, the Machine would be stationary in Time. To us, as Sir William explained, the Machine would then vanish into the past, for we ourselves are moving forward in Time.”

  “So the Machine must always be in operation.”

  While we had been there the evening had deepened, and gloom was spreading in the eerie laboratory.

  Amelia stepped to one side and went to yet another infernal contraption. Attached to this was a cord wound around an external wheel, and she pulled the cord sharply. At once the device emitted a coughing, spitting sound, and as it picked up speed, light poured forth from eight incandescent globes hanging from the frame ceiling.

  Amelia glanced up at a clock on the wall, which showed the time of twenty-five minutes past six.

  “It will be time for dinner in half an hour,” she said. “Do you think a stroll around the garden would be enjoyable before then?”

  I tore my attention away from the wondrous machines Sir William had made.

  The Time Machine might slowly move into futurity, but Amelia was, to my way of thinking, stationary in Time. She was not attenuated, and not at all a creature of past or future.

  I said, for I was understanding that my time here in Richmond must soon be at an end: “Will you tak
e my arm?”

  She slipped her hand around my elbow, and together we walked past the Time Machine, and the noisy reciprocating engine, through a door in the far corner of the laboratory, and out into the cool evening light of the garden. Only once did I glance back, seeing the pure-white radiance of the electrical lamps shining through the glass walls of the annexe.

  Chapter Five

  INTO FUTURITY!

  i

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “I have a train to catch.”

  “Oh, please don’t go yet!”

  “But I must return to London.”

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

  “Hillyer is already in London,” I said.

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

  “And so I must leave at ten.”

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

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

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

  “There is another carriage?” I said.

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

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

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

  “Yes it will!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “But it has been proved.”

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

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

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

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

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

  “There would be no danger.”

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

  Instantly, the Time Machine vanished!

  ii

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

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

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

  I stared up. “Eighteen minutes to ten.”

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

  “From where?” I said.

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

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

  “Within the attenuated Temporal Dimension.”

  Amelia stepped forward to where the Machine had been, and walked through the vacancy waving her arms. She glanced up at the clock.

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

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

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

  “There!” said Amelia, triumphantly. “Just as I said.”

  I stared dumbly at the Machine. The great fly-wheel was turning slowly as before.

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

  “What?” I said, appalled at the idea.

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

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

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

  “I say you are drunk.”

  “And I say you are too. Come on!”

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

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

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

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

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

  It stopped moving.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  iii

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

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