The Time Ships

by Stephen Baxter

  “I touched my lever, and slipped through time away from this monster.

  “I emerged onto the same dismal beach, but now I saw a swarm of the centipede-things, which clambered heavily over each other, their cases scraping. They had a multitude of feet on which they crawled, looping their bodies as they advanced. And in the middle of this swarm I saw a mound — low and bloody — and I thought of the sad kangaroo-beast I had observed before.

  “I could not bear this scene of butchery! I pressed at my levers, and passed on through a million years.

  “Still that awful beach persisted. But now, when I turned from the sea, I saw, far up the barren slope behind me, a thing like an immense white butterfly which shimmered, fluttering, across the sky. Its torso might have been the size of a small woman’s, and the wings, pale and translucent, were huge. Its voice was dismal — eerily human — and a great desolation settled over my soul.

  “Then I noticed a motion across the landscape close to me: a thing like an outcropping of Mars-red rock which shifted across the sand towards me. It was a sort of crab: a thing the size of a sofa, its several legs picking their way over the beach, and with eyes — a grayish red, but human in shape — on stalks, waving towards me. Its mouth, as complex as some bit of machinery, twitched and licked as the thing moved, and its metallic hull was stained with the green of the patient lichen.

  “As the butterfly, ugly and fragile, fluttered above me, the crab-thing reached up towards it with its big claws. It missed — but I fancy I saw scraps of some pale flesh embedded in that claw’s wide grasp.

  “As I have since reflected on that sight,” I told Nebogipfel, “that sour apprehension has confirmed itself in my mind. For it seems to me that this arrangement of squat predator and fragile prey might be a consequence of the relationship of Eloi and Morlock I had observed earlier.”

  “But their forms were so different: the centipedes, and then the crabs—”

  “Over such deserts of time,” I insisted, “evolutionary pressure is such that the forms of species are quite plastic — so Darwin teaches us — and zoological retrogression is a dynamic force. Remember that you and I, — and Eloi and Morlock — are all, if you look at it on a wide enough scale, nothing but cousins within the same antique mud-fish family!”

  Perhaps, I speculated, the Eloi had taken to the air in that species’ desperate attempt to flee the Morlocks; and those predators had emerged from their caves, abandoning at last all simulation of mechanical invention, and now crawled across those cold beaches, waiting for a butterfly-Eloi to tire and fall from the sky. Thus that antique conflict, with its roots in social decay, had been reduced, at last, to its mindless essentials.

  “I traveled on,” I told Nebogipfel, “in strides a millennium long, on into futurity. Still, that crowd of crustaceans crawled among the lichen sheets and the rocks. The sun grew wider and duller.

  “My last stop was thirty million years into the future, where the sun had become a dome which dominated a wide arc of sky. Snow fell — a hard, pitiless sleet. I shivered, and was forced to tuck my hands into my armpits. I could see snow on the hilltops, pale in the star-light, and huge bergs drifted across the eternal sea.

  “The crabs were gone, but the vivid green of the lichen mats persisted. On a shoal in the sea, I fancied I saw some black object, which I thought flopped with the appearance of life.

  “An eclipse — caused by the passage of some inner planet across the sun’s face — now caused a shadow to fall over the earth. Nebogipfel, you may have felt at ease in that country — but a great horror fell upon me, and I got off the machine to recover. Then, when the first arc of crimson sun returned to the sky, I saw that the thing on the shoal was indeed moving. It was a ball of flesh-like a disembodied head, a yard or more across, with two bunches of tentacles which dangled like fingers across the shoal. Its mouth was a beak, and it was without a nose. Its eyes — two of them, large and dark — seemed human…”

  And even as I described the thing to the patient Nebogipfel, I recognized the similarity between this vision of futurity, and my odd companion during my most recent trip through time — the floating, green-lit thing I had called the Watcher. I fell silent. Could it be, I mused, that my Watcher was no more than a visitation to me, from the end of time itself?

  “And so,” I said at last, “I clambered aboard my machine once more — I had a great dread of lying there, helpless, in that awful cold — and I returned to my own century.”

  On I whispered, and the huge eyes of Nebogipfel were fixed on me, and I saw in him remnant flickers of that curiosity and wonder which characterizes humankind.

  Those few days in space seem to have little relation to the rest of my life; sometimes the period I spent floating in that compartment is like a momentary pause, shorter than a heartbeat in the greater sweep of my life, and at other times I feel as if I spent an eternity in the capsule, drifting between worlds. It was as if I became disentangled from my life, and able to look upon it from without, as if it were an incomplete novel. Here I was as a young man, fiddling with my experiments and contraptions and heaps of Plattnerite, spurning the opportunity to socialize, and to learn of life, and love, and politics, and art — spurning even sleep! — in my quest for an unattainable perfection of understanding. I even supposed I saw myself after the completion of this inter-planetary voyage, with my scheme to deceive the Morlocks and escape to my own era. I still had every intention of carrying that plan through — you must understand — but it was as if I watched the actions of some other, littler figure than I was.

  At last I had the idea that I was becoming something outside not only the world of my birth — but all worlds, and Space and Time as well. What was I to become in my own future but, once again, a mote of consciousness buffeted by the Winds of Time?

  It was only as the earth grew perceptibly nearer — a darker shadow against space, with the light of the stars reflected in the ocean’s belly — that I felt drawn back to the ordinary concerns of Humanity; that once again the details of my schemes — and my hopes and fears for my future — worked their life-long clockwork in my brain.

  I have never forgotten that brief inter-planetary interlude, and sometimes — when I am between waking and sleeping — I imagine I am again adrift between Sphere and the earth, with only a patient Morlock for company.

  Nebogipfel contemplated my vision of the far future. “You said you traveled thirty million years.”

  “That or more,” I replied. “Perhaps I can recall the chronology more precisely, if—”

  He waved that away. “Something is wrong. Your description of the sun’s evolution is plausible, but its destruction — our science tells us — should take place over thousands of millions of years, not a mere handful of millions.”

  I felt defensive. “I have recounted what I saw, honestly and accurately.”

  “I do not doubt you have,” Nebogipfel said. “But the only conclusion is that in that other History — as in my own — the evolution of the sun did not proceed without intervention.”

  “You mean—”

  “I mean that some clumsy attempt must have been made to adjust the sun’s intensity, or longevity — or perhaps even, as we have, to mine the star for habitable materials.”

  Nebogipfel’s hypothesis was that perhaps my Eloi and Morlocks were not the full story of Humanity, in that sorry, lost History. Perhaps — Nebogipfel speculated — some race of engineers had left the earth and tried to modify the sun, just as had Nebogipfel’s own ancestors.

  “But the attempt failed,” I said, aghast.

  “Yes. The engineers never returned to the earth — which was abandoned to the slow tragedy of Eloi and Morlock. And the sun was rendered unbalanced, its lifetime curtailed.”

  I was horrified, and I could bear to speak of this no more. I clung to a pole, and my thoughts turned inward.

  I thought again of that desolate beach, of those hideous, devolved forms with their echoes of Humanity and their utter a
bsence of mind. The vision had been foul enough when I had considered it a final victory of the inexorable pressures of evolution and retrogression over the human dream of Mind — but now I saw that it might have been Humanity itself, in its overweening ambition, which had unbalanced those opposing forces, and accelerated its own destruction!

  Our capture by the earth was elaborate. It was necessary for us to shed some millions of miles per hour of speed, in order to match the earth’s progress around the sun.

  We skimmed several times, on diminishing loops, around the belly of the planet; Nebogipfel told me that the capsule was being coupled with the planet’s gravitational and magnetic fields — a coupling enhanced by certain materials in the hull, and by the manipulation of satellites: artificial moons, which orbited the earth and adjusted its natural effects. In essence, I understood, our velocity was exchanged with that of the earth — which, forever after, would travel around the sun a little further out, and a little more rapid.

  I hung close to the wall of the capsule, watching the darkened landscape of earth unfold. I could see, here and there, the glow of the Morlocks’ larger heating-wells. I noted several huge, slender towers which appeared to protrude above the atmosphere itself. Nebogipfel told me that the towers were used for capsules traveling from the earth to Sphere.

  I saw specks of light crawling along the lengths of those towers: they were inter-planetary capsules, bearing Morlocks to be borne off to their Sphere. It was by means of just such a tower, I realized, that I — insensible — had been launched into space, and carried to the Sphere. The towers worked as lifts beyond the atmosphere, and a similar series of coupling maneuvers to ours — performed in reverse, if you understand me — would hurl each capsule off into space.

  The speed acquired by the capsules on launch would not match that imparted by the Sphere’s rotation, and the outward journey thereby took longer than the return. But on arrival at the Sphere, magnetic fields would hook the capsules with ease, accelerating them to a seamless rendezvous.

  At last we dipped into the atmosphere of the earth. The hull blazed with frictional heat, and the capsule shuddered — it was the first sensation of motion I had endured for days — but Nebogipfel had warned me, and I was ready braced against the supporting poles.

  With this meteoric blaze of fire we shed the last of our interplanetary speed. With some unease I watched the darkened landscape which spread below us as we fell — I thought I could see the broad, meandering ribbon of the Thames — and I began to wonder if, after all this distance, I would, after all, be dashed against the unforgiving rocks of the earth!

  But then -

  My impressions of the final phase of our shuddering descent are blurred and partial. Suffice it for me to record a memory of a craft, something like an immense bird, which swept down out of the sky and swallowed us in a moment into a kind of stomach-hold. In darkness, I felt a deep jolt as that craft pushed at the air, discarding its velocity; and then our descent continued with extreme gentleness.

  When next I could see the stars, there was no sign of the bird-craft. Our capsule was settled on the dried, lifeless soil of Richmond Hill, not a hundred yards from the White Sphinx.

  [21]

  On Richmond Hill

  Nebogipfel had the capsule dilate open, and I stepped from it, cramming my goggles onto my face. The night-soaked landscape leapt to clarity and detail, and for the first time I was able to make out some detail of this world of A.D. 657,208.

  The sky was brilliant with stars and the scar of obscurity made by the Sphere was looming and distinct. There was a rusty smell coming off the ubiquitous sand, and a certain dampness, as of lichen and moss; and everywhere the air was thick with the sweet stink of Morlock.

  I was relieved to be out of that lozenge, and to feel firm earth beneath my boots. I strode up the hill to the bronze-plated pedestal of the Sphinx, and stood there, halfway up Richmond Hill, on the site that had once, I knew, been my home. A little further up the Hill there was a new structure, a small, square hut. I could see no Morlocks. It was a sharp contrast to my impressions of my earlier time here, when — as I stumbled in the dark — they had seemed to be everywhere.

  Of my Time Machine there was no sign — only grooves dug deep into the sand, and the queer, narrow footprints characteristic of the Morlock. Had the machine been dragged into the base of the Sphinx again? Thus was History repeating itself! — or so I thought. I felt my fists bunching, so rapidly had my elevated inter-planetary mood evaporated; and panic bubbled within me. I calmed myself. Was I a fool, that I could have expected the Time Machine to be waiting for me outside the capsule as it opened? I could not resort to violence — not now! — not when my plan for escape was so ripe. Nebogipfel joined me.

  “We appear to be alone here,” I said.

  “The children have been moved from this area.”

  I felt a renewed access of shame. “Am I so dangerous?… Tell me where my machine is.”

  He had removed his goggles, but I could not read those gray-red eyes. “It is safe. It has been moved to a more convenient place. If you wish you may inspect it.”

  I felt as if a steel cable attached me to my Time Machine, and was drawing me in! I longed to rush to the machine, and leap aboard its saddle — be done with this world of darkness and Morlocks, and make for the past!… But I must needs be patient. Struggling to keep my voice even, I replied, “That isn’t necessary.”

  Nebogipfel led me up the Hill, to the little building I had noticed earlier. It followed the Morlocks’ usual seamless, simple design; it was like a doll’s house, with a simple hinged door and a sloping roof. Inside, there was a pallet for a bed, with a blanket on it, and a chair, and a little tray of food and water — all refreshingly solid-looking. My knapsack was on the bed.

  I turned to Nebogipfel. “You have been considerate,” I said, sincere.

  “We respect your rights.” He walked away from my shelter. When I took my goggles off, he melted into shadow.

  I closed the door with some relief. It was a pleasure to return to my own human company for a while. I felt shame that I was planning, so systematically, to deceive Nebogipfel and his people! But my scheme had brought me across hundreds of millions of miles already — to within a few hundred yards of the Time Machine — and I could not bear the thought of failure now.

  I knew that if I had to harm Nebogipfel to escape, I would!

  By touch I opened the knapsack, and I found and lit a candle. A comforting yellow light and a curl of smoke turned that inhuman little box into a home. The Morlocks had kept back my poker — as I might have anticipated but much of the other equipment had been left for me. Even my clasp-knife was there. With this, and using a Morlock tray as a crude mirror, I hacked off my irritating growth of beard, and shaved as close as I could. I was able to discard my underwear and don fresh — I would never have anticipated that the feeling of truly clean socks would invoke such feelings of sensual pleasure in me! — and I thought fondly of Mrs. Watchets, who had packed these invaluable items for me.

  Finally — and most pleasurably — I took a pipe from the knapsack, packed it with tobacco, and lit it from the candle flame.

  It was in this condition, with my few possessions around me, and the rich scent of my finest tobacco still lingering, that I lay down on the little bed, pulled the blanket over me and slept.

  I awoke in the dark.

  It was an odd thing to wake without daylight — like being disturbed in the small hours — and I never felt refreshed by a sleep, the whole time I was in the Morlocks’ Dark Night; it was as if my body could not calculate what time of day it was.

  I had told Nebogipfel that I should like to inspect the Time Machine, and I felt a great nervousness as I went through a brief breakfast and toilet. My plan did not amount to much in the way of strategy: it was merely to take the machine, at the first opportunity! I was gambling that the Morlocks, after millennia of sophisticated machines which could change their very shapes, wou
ld not know what to make of a device as crude, in its construction, as my Time Machine. I thought they would not expect that so simple an act as the reattachment of two levers could restore the machine’s functionality — or so I prayed!

  I emerged from the shelter. After all my adventures, the levers to the Time Machine were safe in my jacket’s inside pocket.

  Nebogipfel walked towards me, his thin feet leaving their sloth-like footprints in the sand, and his two hands empty. I wondered how long he had been near, waiting for my emergence.

  We walked along the flank of the Hill together, heading south in the direction of Richmond Park. We set off without preamble, for the Morlocks were not given to unnecessary conversation.

  I have said that my house had stood on the Petersham Road, on the stretch below Hill Rise. As such it had been halfway up the shoulder of Richmond Hill, a few hundred yards from the river, with a good westerly prospector it would have had, if not for the intervening trees — and I had been able to see something of the meadows at Petersham beyond the river. Well, in the Year A.D. 657,208, all of the intervening clutter had been swept away; and I was able to see down the flank of a deepened valley to where the Thames lay in its new bed, glittering in the star-light. I could see, here and there, the coal-hot mouths of the Morlocks’ heat-wells, puncturing the darkened land. Much of the hill-side was bare sand, or given over to moss; but I could see patches of what looked like the soft glass which had carpeted the Sphere, glittering in the enhanced starlight.

  The river itself had carved out a new channel a mile or so from its nineteenth-century position; it appeared to have cut off the bow from Hampton to Kew, so that Twickenham and Teddington were now on its east side, and it seemed to me that the valley was a good bit deeper than in my day — or perhaps Richmond Hill had been lifted up by some other geological process. I remembered a similar migration of the Thames in my first voyage into time. Thus, it seemed to me, the discrepancies of human History are mere froth; under it all, the slow processes of geology and erosion would continue their patient work regardless.