The Space Machine

by Christopher Priest

  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.”

  “T
his 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.

  Chapter Seven

  THE AWAKENING OF AWARENESS

  i

  We lay still, side by side, for a long time. Although Amelia had selected those plants she judged to be the driest of sap, we discovered that they were seeping beneath us. In addition, the slightest movement allowed the air to drift in from outside. I dozed for a while, but I cannot speak for Amelia.

  Then, awakened by the insidious cold which was attacking my feet and legs, I felt Amelia stiffen beside me.

  She said: “Edward, are we to die out here?”

  “I think not,” I said at once, for during the day the possibility had often occurred to me, and I had been trying to think of some reassurance to offer her. “We cannot have much further to travel.”

  “But we are going to starve!”

  “We still have the chocolate,” I said, “and as you yourself have observed, the sap of these weeds is nutritious.”

  This at least was true; my body hungered for solid food, but since taking the sap I had felt somewhat stronger.

  “I fear we will die of exposure. I cannot live in this cold much longer.”

  I knew she was trembling, and as she spoke I heard her teeth chattering. Our bivouac was not all we had hoped.

  “Please allow me,” I said, and without waiting for her dissent I moved towards her and slid my arm beneath her head and shoulders. The rebuff of the night before was still a painful memory, so I was pleased when she came willingly, resting her head on my shoulder and placing an arm across my chest. I raised my knees a few inches so that she could slide her legs beneath mine. In doing this we dislodged some of our covering foliage, and it took several more seconds to redistribute them.

  We lay still again, trying to recapture that comparative warmth we had had until we moved. Several more minutes passed in silence, and our closer contact began to bear fruit in that I felt a little warmer.