The Space Machine

by Christopher Priest

  “Does she mean I have to address them?” I said. “I should not know what to say. And how would they understand me?”

  “It is expected of you. Your arrival was spectacular, and they want to hear it in your own words. Edwina will interpret for you.”

  “Have you done this?”

  She nodded. “I was told about this ritual when I was teaching Edwina to speak English. When she had mastered enough vocabulary, we rehearsed a little speech and from that day I was accepted as their leader. You will not be fully acknowledged by them until you have done it too.”

  I said: “But how much should I tell them? Have you told them we are from Earth?”

  “I felt they would not understand, and so I have not. Earth is mentioned in their legends—they call it the ‘warm world’—but only as a celestial body. So I have not revealed my origins. Incidentally, Edward, I think it is time you and I recognized that we shall never again see Earth. There is no means of return. Since I have been here I have been reconciled to that. We are both Martians now.”

  I pondered this in silence. It was not a notion I cared for, but I understood what Amelia meant. While we clung to a false hope we should never settle.

  Finally, I said: “Then I will tell them how I flew in the projectile, how I mounted the watch-tower and how I disposed of the monster.”

  “I think, Edward, that as you are fulfilling a mythic prophecy, you should find a stronger verb than ‘dispose’.”

  “Would Edwina understand?”

  “If you accompany your words with the appropriate actions.”

  “But they have already seen me leave the tower covered in blood!”

  “It is the telling of the tale that is important. Just repeat to them what you told me.”

  Edwina was looking as happy as any Martian I had ever seen.

  “We will hear the adventures now?” she said.

  “I suppose so,” I said. We stood up and followed Edwina into the main part of the hall. Several of the hammocks had been moved away, and all the slaves were sitting on the floor. As we appeared they climbed to their feet, and started to jump up and down. It was a rather comical action—and one not wholly reassuring—but Amelia whispered to me that this was their sign of enthusiasm.

  I noticed that there were about half a dozen of the city-Martians present, standing at the back of the hall. They were clearly not yet at one with the slaves, but at least the sense of intimidation we had seen in Desolation City was absent.

  Amelia quietened the crowd by raising her hand and spreading her fingers. When they were silent, she said: “My people. Today we saw the killing of one of the tyrants by this man. He is here now to describe his adventures in his own words.”

  As she spoke, Edwina translated simultaneously by uttering a few syllables, and accompanying them with elaborate hand-signs. As they both finished, the slaves jumped up and down again, emitting a high-pitched whining noise. It was most disconcerting, and appeared to have no end.

  Amelia whispered to me: “Raise your hand.”

  I was regretting having agreed to this, but I raised my hand and to my surprise silence fell at once. I regarded these queer folk—these tall, hot-coloured alien beings amongst whom fate had cast our lot, and with whom our future now lay—and tried to find the words with which to begin. The silence persisted, and with some diffidence I described how I had been put aboard the projectile. Immediately, Edwina accompanied my words with her weird interpretation.

  I began hesitantly, not sure of how much I should say. The audience remained silent. As I warmed to my story, and found opportunities for description, Edwina’s interpretation became more florid, and thus encouraged I indulged myself in a little exaggeration.

  My description of the battle became a clashing of metallic giants, a pandemonium of hideous screams and a veritable storm of blazing heat-beams. At this, I saw that several of the slaves had risen, and were jumping up and down enthusiastically. As I came to the point in the story where I realized that the monster was turning its heat-beam onto the people, the whole audience was on its feet and Edwina was signing most dramatically.

  Perhaps in this telling rather more tentacles were hacked away than there had been in actuality, and perhaps it seemed more difficult to kill the beast than had been my experience, but I felt obliged to remain true to the spirit of the occasion rather than satisfy the demands of scrupulous authenticity.

  I finished my story to a splendid cheer from the audience, and a most remarkable display of leaping. I glanced at Amelia to see her reaction, but before we had a chance to speak we were both mobbed by the crowd. The Martians surrounded us, jostling and thumping us gently, in what I interpreted as further enthusiasms. We were being propelled steadily and firmly towards Amelia’s private quarters, and as we came to where the hammocks had been slung to form the partition, the noise reached its climax. After a little more genial pummelling, we were thrust together through the partition.

  At once, the noise outside subsided.

  I was still buoyed up by the reception I had been given, and swept Amelia into my arms. She was as excited as I, and responded to my kisses with great warmth and affection.

  As our kissing became prolonged I found rising in me those natural desires I had had to suppress for so long, and so, reluctantly, I turned my face away from hers and loosened my hold, expecting her to draw away. Instead, she held me tightly, pressing her face into the hollow of my neck.

  Beyond the partition I could hear the slaves. They seemed to be singing now, a high, tuneless crooning noise, It was very restful and strangely pleasant.

  “What do we do next?” I said after several minutes had passed.

  Amelia did not reply at once.

  Then she held me more tightly, and said: “Do you need to be told, Edward?”

  I felt myself blushing.

  “I meant, is there any more ceremonial we must observe?” I said.

  “Only what is expected of us in legend. On the night the pale dwarf descends from the tower…” She whispered the rest in my ear.

  She could not see my face, so I clenched my eyes tightly closed, almost breathless with excitement!

  “Amelia, we cannot. We are not married.”

  It was my last concession to the conventions that had ruled my life.

  “We are Martians now,” Amelia said. “We do not observe marriage.”

  And so, as the Martian slaves sang in their high, melancholy voices beyond the hanging partition, we abandoned all that remained within us of our Englishness and Earthliness, and became, through that night, committed to our new rôles and lives as leaders of the oppressed Martian peoples.

  Chapter Fifteen

  A REVOLUTION IS PLANNED

  i

  From the moment of our waking the following morning, Amelia and I were treated with deference and humility. Even so, the legends that were now directing our lives seemed quite emphatic that we were to work with the others on the weed-bank, and so much of our day was spent in cold mud up to our knees. Edwina worked with us, and although there was something about her bland stare that made me uneasy, she was undoubtedly useful to us.

  Neither Amelia nor I did much actual weed-cutting. As soon as we were established at the bank we received many different visitors: some of them slaves, others overseers, all of them evidently anxious to meet those who would lead the revolt. Hearing what was said—translated earnestly, if not always entirely comprehensibly, by Edwina—I realized that Amelia’s talk of revolution had not been made lightly. Several of the overseers had come from the city itself, and we learnt that there elaborate plans were being made to overthrow the monsters.

  It was an enthralling day, realizing that we might at last have provided the stimulus to these people to take revenge on their abhorrent masters. Indeed, Amelia reminded our visitors many times of my heroic deed the day before. The phrase was repeated often: the monsters are mortal.

  However, mortal or not, the monsters were still in evidence, an
d presented a constant threat. Often during the day the weed-bank was patrolled by one of the immense tripodal battle-machines, and at those times all revolutionary activities were suspended while we attended to the cutting.

  During one period when we were left alone, I asked Amelia why the weed-cutting continued if the revolution was so far advanced. She explained that the vast majority of the slaves were employed in this work, and that if it was stopped before the revolution was under way the monsters would instantly realize something was afoot. In any event, the main benefactors were the humans themselves, as the weed was the staple diet.

  And the blood-letting? I asked her. Could that not then be stopped?

  She replied that refusal to give any more blood was the only sure way the humans had of conquering the monsters, and there had been frequent attempts to disobey the most dreaded injunction on this world. On those occasions, the monsters’ reprisals had been summary and widespread. In the most recent incident, which had occurred some sixty days before, over one thousand slaves had been massacred. The terror of the monsters was constant, and even while the insurgency was planned, the daily sacrifices had to be made.

  In the city, though, the established order was in imminent danger of being overthrown. Slaves and city-people were uniting at last, and throughout the city there were organized cells of volunteers; men and women who, when the command was given, would attack specified targets. It was the battle-machines which presented the greatest threat: unless several heat-cannons could be commandeered by the humans, there could be no defence against them.

  I said: “Should we not be in the city? If you are controlling the revolution, surely it should be done from there?”

  “Of course. I was intending to visit the city again tomorrow. You will see for yourself just how advanced we are.”

  Then more visitors arrived: this time, a delegation of overseers who worked in one of the industrial areas. They told us, through Edwina, that small acts of sabotage were already taking place, and output had been temporarily halved.

  So the day passed, and by the time we returned to the building I was exhausted and exhilarated. I had had no conception of the good use to which Amelia had put her time with the slaves. There was an air of vibrancy and purpose…and great urgency. Several times I heard her exhorting the Martians to bring forward their preparations, so that the revolution itself might begin a little earlier.

  After we had washed and eaten, Amelia and I returned to what were now our shared quarters. Once in there, and alone with her, I asked her why there was such need for urgency. After all, I argued, surely the revolution would be more assured of success if it was prepared more carefully?

  “It is a question of timing, Edward,” she said. “We must attack when the monsters are unprepared and weak. This is such a time.”

  “But they are at the height of their power!” I said in surprise. “You cannot be blind to that.”

  “My dear,” said Amelia, “if we do not strike against the monsters within the next few days, then the cause of humanity on this world will be lost forever.”

  “I cannot see why. The monsters have held their sway until now why should they be any less prepared for an uprising?”

  This was the answer that Amelia gave me, gleaned from the legends of the Martians amongst whom she had been living for so long:

  ii

  Mars is a world much older than Earth, and the ancient Martians had achieved a stable scientific civilization many thousands of years ago. Like Earth, Mars had had its empires and wars, and like Earthmen the Martians were ambitious and forward-looking. Unfortunately, Mars is unlike Earth in one crucial way, which is to say that it is physically much smaller. As a consequence, the two substances essential to intelligent human life—air and water—were gradually leaking away into space, in such a way that the ancient Martians knew that their existence could not be expected to survive for more than another thousand of their years.

  There was no conceivable method that the Martians had at their command to combat the insidious dying of their planet.

  Unable to solve the problem directly, the ancient Martians essayed an indirect solution. Their plan was to breed a new race—using human cells selected from the brains of the ancient scientists themselves—which would have no other function than to contain a vast intellect. In time, and Amelia said that it must have taken many hundreds of years, the first monster-creatures were evolved.

  The first successful monsters were completely dependent on mankind, for they were incapable of movement, could survive only by being given transfusions of blood from domestic animals, and were subject to the slightest infection. They had, however been given the means to reproduce themselves, and as the generations of monster-creatures proceeded, so the beings developed more resistance and an ability to move, albeit with great difficulty. Once the beings were relatively independent, they were set the task of confronting the problem which threatened all existence on Mars.

  What those ancient scientists could not have foreseen was that as well as being of immense intellect, the monster-creatures were wholly ruthless, and once set to this task would allow no impediment to their science. The very interests of mankind, for which they were ultimately working were of necessity subordinated to the pursuit of a solution! In this way, mankind on Mars eventually became enslaved to the creatures.

  As the centuries passed the demands for blood increased, until the inferior blood of animals was not enough; so began the terrible blood-letting that we had witnessed.

  In the initial stages of their work the monster-creatures, for all their ruthlessness, had not been entirely evil, and had indeed brought much good to the world. They had conceived and supervised the digging of the canals that irrigated the dry equatorial regions, and, to prevent as much water as possible from evaporating into space, they had developed plants of high water-content which could be grown as a staple crop alongside the canals.

  In addition, they had devised a highly efficient heat-source which was used to provide power for the cities (and which, latterly, had been adapted to become the heat-cannon), as well as the domes of electrical force which contained the atmosphere around the cities.

  As time passed, however, some of the monster-creatures had despaired of finding a solution to the central problem. Others of their kind disagreed that the task was insurmountable, and maintained that however much the rôle of humans may have changed, their primary task was to continue.

  After centuries of squabbling, the monster-creatures had started fighting amongst themselves, and the skirmishes continued until today. The wars were worsening, for now the humans themselves were an issue: as their numbers were being steadily depleted, so the monsters were becoming concerned about shortages of their own food.

  The situation had resolved into two groups: the monsters who controlled this city—which was the largest on Mars—and who had convinced themselves that no solution to the eventual death of Mars was possible, and those of the other three cities—of which Desolation City was one—who were prepared to continue the quest. From the humans’ viewpoint, neither side had anything to commend it, for the slavery would continue whatever the outcome.

  But at the present moment the monster-creatures of this city were vulnerable. They were preparing a migration to another planet, and in their preoccupation with this the rule of slavery was the weakest the Martian humans could remember. The migration was due to start within a few days, and as many of the monster-creatures would remain on Mars, the revolution must take place during the migration itself if it was to have any chance of success.

  iii

  As Amelia finished her account I found that my hands had started to tremble, and even in the customary coldness of the building I found that my face and hands were damp with perspiration. For many moments I could not say anything, as I tried to find a way of expressing the turbulence of my emotions.

  In the end my words were plain.

  I said: “Amelia, do you have any notion which
planet it is these beings are intending to colonize?”

  She gestured impatiently.

  “What does it matter?” she said. “While they are occupied with this, they are vulnerable to attack. If we miss this chance, we may never have another.”

  I suddenly saw an aspect of Amelia I had not seen before. She, in her own way, had become a little ruthless. Then I thought again, and realized she seemed ruthless only because our own acceptance of our fate had destroyed her sense of perspective.

  It was with love, then, that I said: “Amelia…are you now wholly Martian? Or do you fear what might happen if these monsters were to invade Earth?”

  The perspective returned to her with the same shock as I myself had experienced. Her face became ashen and her eyes suddenly filled with tears. She gasped, and her fingers went to her lips. Abruptly, she pushed past me, went through the partition and ran across the main hall. As she reached the further wall, she covered her face with her hands and her shoulders shook as she wept.

  iv

  We passed a restless night, and in the morning set off, as planned, for the city.

  Three Martians travelled with us: one was Edwina, for we still required an interpreter, and the other two were city-Martians, each brandishing an electrical whip. We had said nothing of our conversation to any of the Martians, and our plan was still ostensibly to visit several of the insurgents’ cells in the city.

  In fact, I was much preoccupied with my own thoughts, and I knew Amelia was suffering a torment of conflicting loyalties. Our silence as the train moved steadily towards the city must have intrigued the Martians, because normally we both had much to say. Occasionally, Edwina would point out landmarks to us, but I at least could not summon much interest.

  Before we had left the slave-camp, I had managed a few more words with Amelia in private.

  “We must get back to Earth,” I said. “If these monsters land there is no telling what damage they might cause.”