The Map of the Sky

by Félix J Palma

  “Forgive me, Miss Harlow,” said Murray ashamedly, “but I couldn’t live in the same world as a man who hit you.”

  Emma gazed at him in silence. Murray looked back at her with a hangdog expression that almost caused her to laugh; he seemed like a child waiting to see whether he would be punished or pardoned for his latest act of mischief. Emma bit her bottom lip, and as she glanced once more at the body sprawled on the floor, she was aware of the metallic, salty taste of her own blood. That thug had slapped her, she remembered, her gorge rising. And although she had managed to fight him off and gain the upper hand, who knew what might have happened if Murray had not appeared. She gazed back at the millionaire, who was standing in the middle of the room, waiting for a word, a look, a smile, anything that would give him an inkling of what was going through her mind. Yet she herself did not know what to think. And this confused her. Normally she was able to assess any situation, for she had very clear opinions of what was right and what was wrong, and when classifying actions and people her standards brooked no modification. But now that had changed. The world seemed stripped of all sense, and she had no idea what to think about revenge killings, or about love at first sight, much less about that giant of a man, for whom only days before she had felt a contempt she was now unable to reproduce. However, to her astonishment she found that this confusion, which had turned her beliefs and principles on their head, was far from disagreeable; indeed, she found it liberating. Murray had lowered his head, pretending to examine the pistol carefully, but the sidelong glances he kept giving her to gauge her response were so obvious that Emma could feel the rage and anguish that had choked her moments before begin to dissolve, and a smile played over her lips.

  “I must confess you have a very original way of wooing a lady, Mr. Murray. But I did warn you that I don’t become enamored easily,” she said, watching with amusement as the millionaire swallowed hard, waiting for her verdict. “You’ll have to make more of an effort.”

  Murray grinned, waves of joy coursing through him like sweet liquor.

  “I’m honored that you allow me to keep trying, Miss Harlow,” he replied gratefully.

  “I think it’s time you called me Emma, without worrying you might provoke one of my annoying temper tantrums, don’t you think?”

  The millionaire nodded and heaved a sigh of relief, then immediately protested: “Oh, but Miss Harlow, I mean Emma, your temper tantrums don’t bother me in the slightest. I assure you—”

  “Are the others all right?” Emma interrupted, alarmed by the sounds of a struggle coming from downstairs.

  “The others?” Murray replied absentmindedly, as though he hadn’t a clue what she was talking about, then suddenly he exclaimed: “Damnation, Wells!”

  Remembering the precarious situation in which he had left the author, Murray led Emma downstairs, where the girl was startled to find Wells grappling with one of their aggressors on the sitting-room floor. But she could see immediately that, owing to their matched strength and their apparently flagging energy, the fight looked more like a scrap between two boys: the man called Mike was rather clumsily attempting to throttle Wells, who was defending himself as best he could, hitting his opponent haphazardly in the face, twisting his ears, and pulling his hair. What horrified her was the sight of the redhead sprawled on the floor next to them, a cleaver buried in his chest. And beside him, she recognized with alarm Inspector Clayton. She wondered first how he had got there, and then whether he was dead. Judging from his position (which was oddly contorted, his nose squashed against the floor as if he were sniffing the wood), she thought the latter was the most likely answer. He must have received the bullet she had heard fired from upstairs, which had distracted the lame man long enough for her to knee him in the groin.

  “I was forced to shoot Roy, George,” Murray confessed, giving Wells a knowing smile. “He was about to stab Miss Harlow with his knife.”

  Hearing Murray’s voice, Wells and Mike stopped grappling with each other, and, as though they had been caught doing something shameful, they scrambled to their feet, only to find the millionaire and the girl standing next to them. Wells noticed the torn collar of Emma’s dress.

  “Miss Harlow . . . That man . . . ? I mean . . . are you all right?” he asked, blushing slightly.

  “Perfectly all right, Mr. Wells,” the girl declared blithely. “In fact, it was unkind of you all not to warn that wretched man about the feisty nature of New York women.”

  “Good, I . . . you can’t imagine how glad I am,” said Wells in relief, then turning suddenly to the millionaire, he added, “You’re a complete blackguard, Gilliam! This fellow might have strangled me.” He spat, gesturing toward the man with the apelike face.

  “I thought the young lady was more in need of assistance than you, George,” Murray said, grinning contritely.

  “Even so, you must confess I was managing quite well before you arrived, Mr. Murray,” Emma declared, smoothing out the creases in her dress.

  “Oh, no. Definitely not, Miss Harlow. Whilst I praise your pluck, ahem, I have to confess that when I entered the room, well . . . let us say the situation was such that I was . . . obliged to shoot that rogue in order to defend your honor.”

  “Oh, yes, of course,” the girl hurriedly agreed, glancing furtively at the astonished Wells. “Your intervention was absolutely necessary, Mr. Murray. If you hadn’t appeared when you did, I couldn’t have held that brute at bay a moment longer.”

  “My dear Miss Harlow, that is something we shall never know. And I don’t mean to imply that you couldn’t have managed without me. If I decided to intervene it was simply because I didn’t think it was appropriate to wait and see . . . ,” Murray replied politely. He glanced out of the corner of his eye at Wells, who was by now contemplating them suspiciously. Then, still wearing the vapid smile of an opium eater, Murray turned to the man called Mike. “But let us not quarrel in front of our guest, Miss Harlow. Whatever will he think of us?”

  “I—I . . . ,” the man with the apelike face stammered.

  The millionaire smiled at him amiably.

  “Well, Mike, I am the one with the pistol now. Interesting the way a weapon confers power, isn’t it? But you know all about that, don’t you?” he added in a friendly tone, weighing the pistol in his hand. “I believe this is a Webley double-action revolver, no less. I daresay that while you were holding it you felt capable of playing with our lives, didn’t you, Mike? You even wanted us to dance for you.”

  “Is this necessary, Gilliam?” Wells intervened.

  “Don’t you think Mike should at least learn something from all this, George?” the millionaire asked.

  Wells gave a sigh.

  “Go ahead, carry on playing the tough,” he said.

  The millionaire smiled at him good-naturedly, then looked back at the man with the apelike face.

  “Well, Mike,” he said, “how shall we amuse ourselves?”

  “I don’t know, I—I . . . ,” the other man stammered. “I swear I didn’t want to go after you, it was Roy who forced Joss and me to—”

  Murray interrupted suddenly, as though he’d had a flash of inspiration. “Can you milk a cow?”

  “Yes . . . ,” Mike replied, bewildered.

  “Wonderful, isn’t it, Miss Harlow?” the millionaire declared, apparently unable to contain his joy at having the girl beside him, unharmed. “Let’s go to the barn and find out!”

  “What the . . . ?” Wells murmured.

  But no one paid him any mind, for Murray, the girl, and the man called Mike were already headed for the barn. Wells shook his head in disbelief. Unsure what to do next, he glanced about the room, contemplating the two bodies on the floor, then gazed toward the top of the stairs leading to the bedroom where the other dead man lay. He tried to absorb everything that had just happened: only moments before, they were about to be killed or roughed up at least by those thugs, hideously mutilated perhaps, although this would have been nothing in compar
ison to the girl’s fate, and now, here they were, alive and well thanks to the actions of poor Inspector Clayton. Wells congratulated himself on his own crucial intervention and wondered whether they should take the inspector to London or give him a Christian burial there. He sighed deeply: clearly he would have to decide this alone, since Murray was too busy milking cows. Just then, Clayton raised his head, startling the author.

  “You’re alive!” Wells exclaimed, once he had recovered from the shock.

  “Considering what this hand cost me, the least it can do is to save my life,” the inspector explained, showing Wells the deplorable state of his prosthesis after it had taken a direct hit. The inspector stood up, slowly rubbing his neck, then added, as though to himself, “I must have been knocked unconscious when I hit the floor.”

  “I’m glad one of us is capable of stopping a bullet,” Wells remarked.

  “Anything is possible in this life, Mr. Wells, as you will soon discover.”

  Although the inspector’s pompous reply nettled Wells, he was relieved that Clayton was alive. Not just because the inspector had risked his life for them, or because he no longer needed to decide whether to bury him or take him to London, but also because it meant he was spared the tedious task of having to urge the others to resume their journey.

  “What is the situation?” Clayton asked Wells, as if reading his mind, surprised there was only one dead body in the sitting room.

  “Er, you might say we handled things rather well, Inspector,” the author told him. “The lame man is upstairs . . . dead, I believe.”

  “Good. What about the fellow who shot me?” he inquired.

  “Well . . .” The author paused, unsure how to respond to that question. “He’s in the barn milking a cow.”

  Clayton looked at him, perplexed.

  “I’m quite serious, Inspector, I assure you,” the author replied, irritated. “Murray has taken him prisoner and . . . well, you had better come with me.”

  The pair left the house and made their way over to the barn, gazing up at the magnificent spring sky unfurling above them, an unlikely backdrop for a Martian invasion.

  “I thought that for those on the side of the law killing was a last resort,” Wells remarked, recalling the redhead’s demise.

  “And so it is,” Clayton replied with a somber expression that made it clear he had been forced to use the cleaver.

  “I see,” murmured the author, who was beginning to feel at a definite disadvantage for not having killed anyone during the fight.

  They arrived at the barn to discover that the milking had been successfully completed. Apparently the man with the apelike face had not been boasting simply to save his skin, and now, his task completed, he stood expectantly, hardly daring to interrupt the millionaire and the girl, who were gorging themselves on the fruits of his labor, to inquire about his fate.

  “You’re alive!” Murray and Emma declared as one to the inspector.

  “Yes, indeed,” Clayton affirmed unnecessarily, and, after studying the duo with a contented smile, he added, “I’m glad you two are safe, particularly you, Miss Harlow.”

  “Miss Harlow is in the best of health,” Murray said coldly, offering him a bowl of milk. “Here, drink some of this. You must be thirsty.”

  “Thank you,” the inspector said, raising the bowl to his lips. Passing it on to Wells, he said, to no one in particular, “I suppose I must have fainted at the station.”

  “Just so,” Murray confirmed with a smirk. “But as you see, despite being in your custody, we didn’t abandon you there.”

  “And thanks to that we are all still alive,” Emma intervened, flashing the millionaire a disapproving look.

  Murray shrugged, declining to add another comment. Clayton then went over to where a snarl of ropes lay amid a pile of tools by the door. He plucked one out and, after dismissing the possibility of accomplishing his task alone, held it out to the author.

  “Would you mind, Mr. Wells?”

  The author took it from him grudgingly and began tying up the prisoner, who meekly offered no resistance.

  “Can someone tell me where we are?” Clayton said.

  “At an abandoned farmhouse on the Addlestone road,” the prisoner himself politely informed the inspector.

  “Good,” said Clayton, and then, holding his hand out to the millionaire, he ventured: “Would you be so kind as to return my gun, Mr. Murray?”

  “I don’t see why I should,” the millionaire began to protest.

  “Gilliam . . .” Emma cautioned him with the dreamy indulgence of a mother.

  “Of course, Inspector,” the millionaire replied, handing the revolver over with a vexed expression.

  Once he had it in his hands, Clayton examined the chamber.

  “Hmm . . . only one bullet left. I hope we won’t need to shoot anyone else on our way to London, because, if you are all sufficiently rested, I suggest we continue our journey at once.”

  XXVI

  THE ROAD TO ADDLESTONE GAVE OFF A CERTAIN disquieting calm. There was no sign of any destruction, from which the group deduced that the tripods had not yet organized themselves for their advance on London. It probably would not take them long, but in the meantime it was easy to forget about them, for not only had the sporadic cannon fire ceased, but the air was filled with the smell of fresh hay. And so the passengers might easily have been mistaken for a party of friends enjoying an outing in the country. Except for the fact that instead of a picnic hamper, they had brought along a man bound with rope.

  Wells glared sullenly at the fellow whose finger marks were on his neck, sitting opposite him and the inspector. Clayton’s pistol was resting on his lap like some sinister cat, but it offered Wells little reassurance; they all knew the gun contained a single bullet, which for the moment had no name on it. It bothered Wells that the inspector had, as the hours went by, stopped pointing it at the prisoner, even though the man called Mike appeared to have no intention of trying to escape. Why would he, seeing as the carriage was headed for the only place where he might be safe? Better to travel by coach than on foot, he must have thought. And now the oaf was gazing out the window at the scenery, a mournful expression on his face. Perhaps he was ruing what he had been obliged to do during the past few hours, spurred on by the hapless lame man, or perhaps he was simply afraid of impending death. He had told the others that after their failed attempt to seize the millionaire’s carriage, they had succeeded in making off with another, moments before the tripod demolished Woking Station. None of them had glimpsed the machine, but from a nearby rise they had seen the flaming pile of rubble to which within a few minutes it had reduced the station where they had fetched and carried so many suitcases and trunks. This story had been his sole contribution to the conversation, after which he had lapsed into the anguished state of a Romantic martyr that so irked Wells. What was the meaning of such an attitude? Why was this oaf behaving as though his death were a great loss to humanity when he had only been born to make up the numbers, because someone had to perish during invasions to provide excitement? Deep down, it bothered Wells that they were both forced to flee death, that the invaders made no distinction between their enemies and did not notice they were firing indiscriminately at those who had been born to endure life and those who had been born to create it. He closed his eyes, tired of looking at that apelike face with its ridiculously wounded expression.

  Wells became aware, above the clatter of the coach, of Murray and the girl chattering excitedly up on the driver’s seat. He could not hear their exact words, but they sounded so happy he had to admit that, amazingly enough in this anomalous situation, the millionaire was managing to make the girl see him as an attractive man, far more so, no doubt, than had he wooed her in the usual fashion. Wells no longer doubted the millionaire’s feelings: how could he, when he had seen how ready Murray was to protect her. Under the pretext of being too tired to give it any thought, the author avoided asking himself whether he would have don
e as much for Jane, or whether his love was a mere show, a tender yet feeble emotion, which she had nevertheless considered significant enough for her to marry him, accepting, perhaps from their first conversation, that the romantic love of novels would never inflame such a pragmatic soul.

  Wells was immersed in these thoughts when they arrived in Weybridge, only to find that twenty or so cavalrymen were evacuating the town. On foot or on horseback, the soldiers were busy urging the locals to pack up their most prized possessions and leave the area at once. They had to make their way through a confusion of carriages, carts, cabriolets, and other improvised means of transport, in the midst of which men in plus fours or boaters and their well-groomed wives voiced their displeasure at this absurd evacuation. Whilst everyone appeared willing to collaborate with the army, even bundling their belongings onto an omnibus commandeered for the occasion, Wells noticed that most of them seemed oblivious to the seriousness of their situation.

  It took them a long time to get across the town. When they got beyond Sunbury, they ran into a lengthy procession of vehicles and pedestrians, which, like a biblical exodus, was slowly wending its way toward London. With haunted faces, its members carried trunks and suitcases, pushed carts or even prams piled high with their belongings. Only the children appeared to be enjoying the novel situation, laughing gaily atop the piles of rolled-up mattresses and small bits of furniture, like the unwitting lookouts for disaster. In spite of everything, no one doubted that the powerful British army would trounce the so-called invaders in a matter of days, putting an end to this unexpected war that was causing everyone so much trouble. They’re only tin pots on stilts! they heard one elderly gentleman cry out as he wheeled his cart brimming with useless sticks of furniture, unaware of the Hell that was being unleashed on Earth. And as the carriage with the emblazoned “G” weaved its way through the crowd, Wells took in each detail of what was happening around them. He cursed himself for not having a notebook handy. In his novel the Martians had constructed airships that they flew directly to London in order to attack, so it had not been necessary for him to describe terrible mass exoduses of this sort. Now that he had realized their dramatic potential, however, he told himself that if he ever had the chance to rewrite his novel, he would replace the ferocious flying machines shaped like stingrays (which he had only invented to make the vessel Robur flew in Verne’s novel seem like a toy) with tripods such as these, which with their spiderlike advance across the countryside fueled the spread of rumors among the inhabitants of those areas. This created a far more intimate kind of horror, because instead of merely flying far above people’s heads they were trampling over their gardens.