The Map of the Sky

by Félix J Palma

  Emma’s visit to his house for tea had made it clear to him that she only valued actions, that in order to marry her he had to reproduce the Martian invasion in H. G. Wells’s novel.

  Him, again. The man he hated more than anyone in the world.

  And now, strolling around the abandoned warehouse, he wondered whether he could re-create the Martian invasion. But he was a past master at such challenges, he told himself. Gazing at the time tram with which he had penetrated the future, he was filled with an almost aching happiness. For on August 1, Emma Harlow, the most beautiful woman on the planet, would agree to become his wife. And then she would fall in love with him. Yes, of that he was certain. For he was Gilliam Murray, Master of Time.

  And he could achieve the impossible.

  XVIII

  A FORTNIGHT HAD SUFFICED, HOWEVER, TO transform a happy man into a desperate one. Murray had arrived in London at the beginning of June and had immediately set to work, only to discover that reproducing a Martian invasion was not as easy as he had imagined. On the morning of June fifteenth, Murray was on his way to his offices to attend another rehearsal, even though he was sure it would be no more satisfactory than the previous ones. He had been unable to assemble the same team from two years before when he had transported his contemporaries to the year 2000, and although Martin had sworn blind that the new men were every bit as competent, all Murray had been able to conclude from his employee’s assertion was that he was given to making wild claims.

  Reaching Greek Street, Murray slipped unnoticed into the old theater. Martin, a burly redhead almost as big as Murray, came out to the lobby to greet him.

  “Everything’s ready, Mr. Murray,” he announced.

  “I told you to call me Mr. Gilmore, Martin. Poor Mr. Murray passed away two years ago.”

  “Sorry, Mr. Gilmore, it’s just habit.”

  Murray nodded absentmindedly.

  “Well, no matter,” he said anxiously. “Let’s see what you’ve come up with this time.”

  Martin guided him into the warehouse, where the performance would take place. Banished to a corner of the vast hangar, the only surviving witness to his glorious past, stood the Cronotilus. Murray glanced fondly at it before his gaze alighted on the Martian cylinder, now taking up the center of the warehouse. As before, he stood at a distance of about five to six yards, which according to his estimations was as close to it as the alarmed onlookers would dare approach. As for the cylinder, Murray had to confess that Martin’s team had done a splendid job, for it was exactly as Wells had described it. In the novel, which Murray was using as a guide, the Martian device traveled through the 40 million miles separating it from Earth, broke through the atmosphere, hurtled through the sky until it was over Winchester, and finally crashed onto Horsell Common, creating a giant crater where it came to rest, surrounded by a ring of charred grass and gravel. Needless to say, Murray was not capable of creating all that and would have to be content with dismantling the cylinder and transporting it to Horsell under cover of darkness, then reassembling it on the common and singeing a few surrounding tufts of grass, so that in the morning everyone would believe it had flown through space and landed at that precise spot.

  However, the machine by itself was regrettably not enough. A Martian had to emerge from it, too. Murray sighed and motioned with his hand toward Martin, who yelled at the cylinder:

  “All right, lads, let the show begin!”

  With a muffled sound, the top of the cylinder slowly began to unscrew. In Wells’s novel, the capsule took almost a whole day to unscrew itself, so that when the top fell to the ground, dusk was beginning to fall. By that time, an anxious crowd of onlookers and journalists had gathered around the cylinder. Murray realized that he must tell the men inside to take equally long to open the top, so that news of the Martians’ arrival had time to reach the rest of the country, and most importantly to be reported in the newspapers. He might need to bore a few discreet air holes in the casing if he did not want to lose any men during the performance. And he also had to find a way of heating up the cylinder’s surface, less to make it seem as though it had flown through space than to deter inquisitive souls from coming too close to it. Murray’s ruminations were interrupted when he noticed that nearly a foot and a half of the shiny metal screw was now sticking out. A moment later, the top fell to the floor with an almighty clatter. Murray held his breath, as had the numerous witnesses in Wells’s novel, curious to see what was inside. They had all expected to see a man come out, perhaps with some slight physical differences, but a man all the same. A man from Mars. However, the thing stirring in the darkness did not appear human. Wells’s alarmed crowd glimpsed something grey and sinuous, and two luminous disks that could only be eyes, before a pair of tentacles shot out from inside, uncoiling in the air and clasping the sides of the cylinder, unleashing a deluge of horrified screams. Then, slowly and painfully, owing to the greater gravitational pull of the Earth, a greyish rounded bulk emerged from the artifact. According to Wells’s description, the creature’s body glistened and its face exuded a thick, nasty slime. A few seconds later, the Martian appeared to fling itself deliberately into the crater, where it would produce the flying machine in the shape of a stingray, which it would use to attack Earth’s cities. But prior to that, a kind of mast with a parabolic mirror on the end of it would appear from its improvised lair. This would vibrate ominously for a few seconds, and then a heat ray would burst forth from its polished surface sweeping the area and savagely burning to a crisp anything in its path, whether trees, bushes, or people. Murray obviously had no intention of killing the civilians gathered around his cylinder, among whom would figure Emma Harlow. But he needed to scare them, and for that he was depending entirely on the emergence of the Martian. It had to be convincing enough to create the headlines that would win Emma’s heart, or at least that would permit him to marry her.

  Murray breathed in sharply and waited for the replica of the Martian his men had made to emerge from the cylinder. He braced himself, ready to face all the horror the universe had to offer, and was instantly overwhelmed by the most terrible dread. Not for the reasons he had expected, for, whichever way Murray looked at it, what emerged from the cylinder would not have scared even a child. It was a kind of rag doll, to which the men had sewn on a few painted cardboard tentacles, with two electric lamps for eyes poking out above the hole that was its mouth, from which oozed what looked like mushy peas mixed with another revolting, lumpier substance. For a few moments, the would-be Martian swayed ridiculously from side to side, pretending to respond to the Earth’s gravity, and finally a pair of hands hurled it from the cylinder. It landed on the ground with a dull thud. The performance over, Martin burst into applause. He looked expectantly at his boss.

  “Well, what did you think?”

  “Get out and leave me alone,” Murray ordered.

  “What?” replied Martin.

  “Get out!”

  Alarmed, Martin rapped on the cylinder. A tiny hidden hatch opened on its side, and the two men operating the puppet crawled out.

  “Did you like it this time, Martin?” one of the men asked eagerly.

  “The boss needs to be on his own to reflect, Paul,” Martin said, gesturing to them to leave the hangar.

  When Murray was at last alone, he gave a forlorn sigh that echoed through the warehouse. Things were going from bad to worse. On their first attempt, one of the men had chosen to dress up as the Martian, but the disguise made of painted cardboard and wool gave the impression of a sheep sheared by a blind man rather than a creature from another planet. Displeased with the result, Murray had engaged two employees from Madame Tussauds to make a wax effigy of a Martian, but the outcome, while more convincing than his men’s disguise, had the jolly air of a snowman and was of course unable to move, which to Murray’s mind inevitably made it less terrifying. And the thing he had just seen emerge from the cylinder was even more dismal. He approached the Martian rag doll, which lay on its si
de on the floor next to the machine. That dummy was all that stood between him and his marriage to Emma. Unable to help himself, he aimed a kick at it, sending it flying. Propelled by Murray’s rage, the doll went tumbling across the floor, losing one of the Robertson bulbs that were its eyes in the process. Murray shook his head. He needed to think, to find a proper solution, and quickly, for his time was running out.

  He left the warehouse and climbed the stairs to his office, where he poured himself a glass of brandy. Sitting back in his armchair, savoring the liquor calmly, he tried to compose himself. He did not wish to fall prey to one of his usual, futile fits of rage, which, since falling in love, he viewed as a thing of the past. He would do better to reflect serenely upon the matter. All was not lost. He still had time. Murray picked up a piece of card containing a sketch of Wells’s Martian he had done to give his men something to go on. If only the author had thought up something simpler . . . But no, that kind of overdeveloped octopus was impossible to replicate. He had come to London believing Emma’s request would be easy to fulfill, a mere formality he had to see to before enfolding her in his arms forever. But creating a Martian was proving complicated. It might have been easier to fly to Mars and hunt one down. He had to concede that his imagination, which he had always depended upon, had let him down this time. He, who had taken the whole of England to the year 2000, was incapable of reenacting a stupid Martian invasion. He was guilty of hubris. He had truly believed he was the Great Murray who could conjure the impossible. And reality had just demonstrated that he was only Monty G., a sad puppet master. His rage got the better of him, and he tore up the drawing and threw it into the wastepaper basket.

  “Why?” he bellowed, rising from his chair and turning his distraught face to the ceiling, as though demanding an answer. “Why are you making things so difficult for me now of all times, damn it! I don’t intend to gain money or fame from this! All I want is to win a woman’s heart!”

  As had been his custom since time immemorial, the Creator was unforthcoming. In response to His antediluvian silence Murray gave a pitiful howl, like a wolf with its leg caught in a trap, and, unable to find a more sophisticated way of venting his frustration, he swept off the objects on his desk, sending a cascade of papers and books crashing to the floor. Scarcely soothed by this feeble release, he took a deep breath and clucked in dismay: he had only managed to come up with a pathetic dummy, and it was clear that in the six remaining weeks he could produce nothing better. He desperately needed help. But from whom? Who on earth could help him? With a gesture of despair, he looked out of the window and discovered the same sunny day he had been walking in scarcely an hour before. He imagined if he stared at it long enough he would infect it with his gloom, the sky would fill with leaden clouds, and a storm would erupt.

  Then he saw him. And for a few moments he could scarcely believe his eyes. Was it him, was it really him? Yes, without a doubt! Murray said to himself, after carefully scrutinizing the fellow. Before his astonished eyes, standing on the pavement opposite, staring up at the building with discernible bitterness, was H. G. Wells. Although doubtless Wells could not see him due to the sun reflecting on the windowpanes, Murray swiftly hid behind the curtain and observed him with interest. What the devil was Wells doing there? He was looking at the building, yes, but why? Obviously he could not have guessed that Murray was inside. He no doubt imagined him in some other part of the world, happily spending his fortune under an assumed name, which indeed had been the case. But clearly the author still saw the old theater as the embodiment of Gilliam Murray’s hateful fantasy, for the expression on his birdlike face suggested that of a man visiting his worst enemy’s grave and lamenting not having killed him himself. But why had he come there at that precise moment? Why had he organized his day, his life so as to be standing at the exact spot where Murray had directed his gaze? Such synchronism could not be simple coincidence. Could it be a sign from the Creator, who was so fond of communicating with His creatures through such subtle gestures? For a few moments, Wells appeared deep in thought; then, after consulting his watch, he gave the theater a parting glance and walked down Charing Cross Road and into the Strand. He seemed in a hurry, as though he were keeping someone waiting somewhere.

  Murray sat down once more at his desk, took out a sheet of paper, and paused for a moment. Did he have the nerve to do it? No. Yes. Of course he did; he had no choice. He was a man who knew how to read the signs. But above all he was a man at the end of his tether. And such men are capable of anything. Hunched over the blank page, Murray began writing the most humiliating letter of his life:

  Dear George,

  I imagine it will come as no surprise to you to receive a letter from a dead man, for we are both aware that you are the only man in all England who knows I am still alive. What will doubtless surprise you is the reason for my writing, and that is none other than to request your help. Yes, that is right, I am sending you this letter because I need your help.

  Let me begin by not wasting time dissembling. We both know that our hatred of each other is unmitigated. Consequently, you will understand the humiliation I feel at having to write you this letter. However, I am willing to endure that humiliation if it means obtaining your help, which gives you some clue as to how desperate I am. Imagine me kneeling and begging at your feet, if it pleases you. It is of no consequence to me. I do not value my dignity enough not to sacrifice it. I realize the absurdity of asking for help from one’s enemy, and yet is it not also a sign of respect, a way of admitting one’s inferiority? And I fully recognize my own: as you know, I have always prided myself on my imagination. But now I need help from someone with a greater imagination than my own. And I know of none comparable to yours, George. It is as simple as that. If you help me, I will happily stop hating you, even though I don’t suppose that is much of an incentive. Bear in mind I will also owe you a favor, and, as you know, I am a millionaire now. That might be more of an incentive. If you help me, George, you may name your price. Any price. You have my word, George.

  And why do I need your help? you must be wondering. Well, at the risk of rekindling your hatred of me, the matter relates to another of your novels, this time The War of the Worlds. As your brilliant mind has no doubt already deduced, I have to re-create a Martian invasion. However, this time I assure you I am not attempting to prove anything to you, nor do I intend to profit from it. You must believe me. I no longer need either of those things. This time I am driven by something I need more than anything in the world, and without which I shall die: love, George, the love of the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. If you have been in love you will understand what I am referring to. I daresay you will find it hard, perhaps impossible, to believe that a man like me can fall in love, yet if you met her it would seem strange to you if I had not. Ah, George, I was unable to resist her charms, and I assure you her immense fortune is not one of them, for as I told you, I have enough money to last several lifetimes. No, George, I am referring to her charming smile, her golden skin, the savage sweetness of her eyes, even the adorable way she twirls her parasol when she is nervous . . . No man could be immune to her beauty, even you.

  But in order to have her, I must arrange for a cylinder to land on Horsell Common on August 1, and for a Martian to emerge from it, just like in your novel, George. And I don’t know how! I have tried everything, but as I told you, my imagination has its limits. I need yours, George. Help me, please. If I pull it off, that woman will be my wife. And if that happens, I promise I shall no longer be your enemy, for Gilliam Murray will be finally laid to rest. Please, I beg you, I implore you, assist this lovesick soul.

  Yours,

  G.M.

  Murray sank back in his chair and gazed at the humiliating letter, at the flowing lines of fresh ink covering the white page. Would his words achieve anything? He reflected that it might be wiser to threaten Wells, to warn him that Jane could be the victim of a cycling accident, for instance, but he instantly rejected the idea. He
would have stooped that low once, but now that he was in love he dared not consider it. The thought was abhorrent to him. He could not bear the idea of Emma being hurt and so could therefore easily understand what Wells would feel if he received such a threat. Besides, he had no need to resort to his old thuggish ways, for he was convinced Wells would help him, for the simple reason that he believed himself superior to Murray and was eager to prove it. That kind of ploy always worked with people of integrity, which, rightly or wrongly, is what Wells undoubtedly considered himself. And he, Murray, had only sacrificed his dignity, which was no great loss. From now on, with Emma by his side, he would remodel himself, he would be reborn as a better person, a new man, uncorrupted, redeemed by love. He blew on the ink, placed the sheet of paper in an envelope, and sealed it.

  The following day he posted the letter. And he waited.

  And waited.

  And waited.

  Until at last he realized that Wells would never reply. Apparently, the author had no intention of helping him. Wells’s hatred was stronger than he had imagined; it clouded his mind, poisoned his thoughts. For a few days, Murray toyed with the idea of sending Wells a second, more servile letter, or even of calling on him, hurling himself at the author’s feet and clutching his skinny knees until Wells had no choice but to help him if he wanted to carry on with his life. But Murray soon dismissed those ideas as futile; a shrewd businessman such as he knew when someone was impervious to civilized methods of persuasion. Clearly, Wells would never help him. And so, if he wanted to produce a convincing Martian, he would have to do it without Wells’s help. And sooner rather than later; otherwise, on August 1 Emma would be smiling triumphantly as she contemplated the grass gently swaying in the summer breeze on Horsell Common, whose delicious earthly peace was undisturbed by any alien presence.