The Time Ships

by Stephen Baxter

  Those gray-red eyes widened, and closed.

  I seemed to watch all this from a small, detached part of my brain. I had quite forgotten all my intentions to return proof of the working of time travel, or even to find Weena: I suspected at that moment that this was why I had returned into time — for this moment of revenge: for Weena, and for the murder of the earth, and my own earlier indignity. I dropped the Morlock — unconscious or dead, it was no more than a bundle of hair and bones — and grabbed for its companions, swinging my poker.

  Then I heard a voice — distinctively Morlock, but quite unlike the others in tone and depth — it issued a single, imperative syllable. I turned, my arms soaked in blood up to the elbows of my jacket, and made ready for more fighting.

  Before me, now, stood a Morlock who did not run from me. Though he was naked like the rest, his coat of hair seemed to have been brushed and prepared, so that he had something of the effect of a groomed dog, made to stand upright like a man. I took a massive step forward, my club held firm in both hands.

  Calmly, the Morlock raised his right hand — something glinted there — and there was a green flash, and I felt the world tip backwards from under me, pitching me down beside my glowing machine; and I knew no more!

  [7]

  The Cage of Light

  I came to my senses slowly, as if emerging from a deep and untroubled sleep. I was lying on my back, with my eyes closed. I felt so comfortable that for a moment I imagined I must be in my own bed, in my house in Richmond, and that the pink glow showing through my eyelids must be the morning sun seeping around my curtains…

  But then I became aware that the surface beneath me — though yielding and quite warm — did not have the softness of a mattress. I could feel no sheets beneath me, nor blankets above me.

  Then, in a flash, it returned to me: all of it — my second flight through time, the darkening of the sun, and my encounter with the Morlocks.

  Fear flooded me, stiffening my muscles and tightening my stomach. I had been taken by the Morlocks! I snapped my eyes open -

  And I was instantly dazzled by a brilliant illumination. It came from a remote disc of intense white light, directly above me. I cried out and flung an arm across my blinded eyes; I rolled over, pressing my face against the floor.

  I pushed myself up to a crawling position. The floor was warm and giving, like leather. At first my vision was full of dancing images of that blazing disc, but at last I was able to make out my own shadow under me. And then, still on all fours, I noticed the queerest thing yet: that the surface beneath me was clear, as if made of some flexible glass, and — where my shadow shielded out the light — I could see stars, quite clearly visible through the floor beneath me. I had been deposited on some transparent platform, then, with this starry diorama below: it was as if I had been brought to some inverted planetarium.

  I felt queasy to the stomach, but I was able to stand up. I had to shield my eyes with my hand against the unremitting glare from above; I wished I had not lost the hat I had brought from 1891! I still wore my light suit, although it now bore stains of sand and blood, particularly around the sleeves — though some efforts had been made to clean me up, I noticed with surprise, and my hands and arms were clear of Morlock blood, mucus and ichor. My poker was gone, and I could see no sign of my knapsack. I had been left my watch, which hung on a chain from my waistcoat, but my pockets were empty of matches or candles. My pipe and tobacco were gone, too, and I felt an incongruous stab of regret for that — in the middle of all that mystery and peril!

  A thought struck me, and my hands flew to my vest pocket — and they found the Time Machine’s twin levers still there. I breathed relief.

  I looked around. I was standing on a flat, even Floor of the leather-like, clear substance I have described. I was close to the center of a splash of light perhaps thirty yards wide, cast on that enigmatic Floor by the source above me. The air was quite dusty, so that it was easy to pick out the rays of light as they flooded down over me. You must imagine me standing there in the light, as if at the bottom of some dusty mine shaft, blinking up at the noonday sun. And indeed it looked like sunlight — but I could not understand how the sun could have been uncovered, nor come to be stationary above me. My only hypothesis was that I had been moved, while unconscious, to some point on the Equator.

  Fighting a mounting panic, I paced around my circle of light. I was quite alone, and the Floor was bare — save for trays, two of them, bearing containers and cartons, which rested on the Floor perhaps ten feet from where I had been laid. I peered out into the encircling gloom, but could make out nothing, even with my eyes quite shielded. I could see no containing walls to this chamber. I clapped my hands, causing dust motes to dance in the lit-up air. The sound was deadened, and no echo was returned. Either the walls were impossibly remote, or they were lagged with some absorbent substance; either way, I had no clue as to their distance.

  There was no sign of the Time Machine.

  I felt a deep, peculiar fear, there on that plain of soft glass; I felt naked and exposed, with nowhere to shelter my back, no corner to make into a fastness.

  I approached the trays. I peered at the cartons, and lifted their lids: there was one large, empty pail, and a bowl of what looked like clear water, and in the last dish there were fist-sized bricks of what I guessed to be food — but it was food processed into smooth yellow, green or red slabs, so that its origins were quite unrecognizable. I poked at the food with a reluctant fingertip: they were cold and smooth, rather like cheese. I had not eaten since Mrs. Watchets’s breakfast, many hours of my tangled life ago, and I was aware of a mounting pressure in my bladder: a pressure which, I guessed, the empty pail was intended to help relieve. I could see no reason why the Morlocks, having preserved me this long, should choose to poison me, but nevertheless I was reluctant to accept their hospitality — and even more so to lose my dignity by using the pail!

  So I stalked around the tray, and around that circle of light, sniffing like some animal suspicious of a trap. I even picked up the cartons and trays, to see if I could make some weapon of them — perhaps I could hammer out some kind of blade — but the trays were manufactured of a silvery metal, a little like aluminum, so thin and soft it crumpled in my hands. I could no more stab a Morlock with this than with a sheet of paper.

  It struck me that these Morlocks had behaved with remarkable gentleness. It would have been the work of a moment to have finished me off while I lay unconscious, but they had stayed their brutish hands — even, with surprising skill, it seemed, made efforts to clean me up.

  I was immediately suspicious, of course. For what purpose had they preserved my life? Did they intend to keep me alive, in order to dig out of me — by whatever foul means — the secret of the Time Machine?

  I turned away from the food deliberately, and I stepped out of the ring of light, and into the darkness beyond. My heart was hammering; there was nothing tangible to stop me leaving that illuminated shaft, but my apprehension, and my craving for light, held me in there almost as effectively.

  At last I chose a direction at random, and walked into the darkness, my arms held loose at my side, my fists curled and ready. I counted out the paces — eight, nine, ten… Beneath my feet, more clearly visible now that I was away from the light, I could see the stars, an inverted hemisphere of them; I felt again as if I were standing on the roof of some planetarium. I turned and looked back; there was the dusty light pillar, reaching up to infinity, with the scattering of dishes and food at its base on the bare Floor.

  It was all quite incomprehensible to me!

  As the unchanging Floor wore away beneath me, I soon gave up counting my steps. The only light was the glow of that central needle-shaft of light and the faint gleam of the stars beneath me, by which I could just make out the profile of my own legs; the only sounds were the scratch of my own breathing, and the soft impacts of my boots on the glassy surface.

  After perhaps a hundred yards, I tu
rned through a corner and began to pace out a path around my light-needle. Still I found nothing but darkness, and the stars beneath my feet. I wondered if in all this blackness I should encounter those strange, floating Watchers who had accompanied me on my second voyage through time.

  Despair began to sink deep into my soul as I blundered on, and I soon began to wish that I could be transported from this place to Weena’s garden-world, or even that night landscape where I had been captured — anywhere with rocks, and plants, and animals, and a recognizable sky, for me to work with! What kind of place was this? Was I in some chamber, buried deep in the hollowed-out earth? What terrible tortures were the Morlocks devising for me? Was I doomed to spend the rest of my life in this alien barrenness?

  For a period I was quite unhinged, by my isolation and my awful sense of being stranded. I did not know where I was, nor where the Time Machine was, and I did not expect to see my home again. I was a strange beast, stranded in an alien world. I called out to the dark, alternately issuing threats and entreaties for mercy or release; and I slammed my fists against the bland, unyielding Floor, without result. I sobbed, and ran, and cursed myself for my unmatched folly — having once escaped the clutches of the Morlocks — to have immediately returned myself to the same trap!

  In the end I must have bawled like a frustrated child, and I used up my strength, and I sank in the darkness to the ground, quite exhausted.

  I think I dozed a while. When I came to myself, nothing in my condition had changed. I got myself to my feet. My anger and frenzy had burned themselves out and, though I felt as desolate as ever in my life, I made room for my body’s simple human needs: hunger and thirst being primary among them.

  I returned, tired out, to my light shaft. That pressure in my bladder had continued to build. With a feeling of resignation, I picked up the pail that had been provided for me, carried it off into the dark a little way — for modesty’s sake, as I knew Morlocks must be watching — and when I had done I left it there, out of sight.

  I surveyed the Morlock food. It was a bleak prospect: it looked no more appetizing than earlier, but I was just as hungry. I picked up the bowl of water — it was the size of a soup bowl — and raised it to my lips. It was not a pleasant drink — tepid and tasteless, as if all the minerals had been distilled out of it — but it was clear and it refreshed my mouth. I held the liquid on my tongue for a few seconds, hesitating at this final hurdle; then, deliberately, I swallowed.

  After a few minutes I had suffered no ill effects I could measure, and I took a little more of the water. I also dabbed a corner of my handkerchief on the bowl, and wiped the water across my brow and hands.

  I turned to the food itself. I picked up one greenish slab of it. I snapped off a corner: it broke easily, was green all the way through, and crumbled a little like a Cheddar. My teeth slid into the stuff. As to its flavor: if you have ever eaten a green vegetable, say broccoli or sprouts, boiled to within an inch of disintegration, then you have something of its savor; members of the less well-appointed London clubs will recognize the symptoms! But I bit into my slab until it was half gone. Then I picked up the other slabs to try them; although their colors varied, their texture and flavor differed not a whit.

  It did not take many mouthfuls of that stuff to sate me, and I dropped the fragments on their tray and pushed it away.

  I sat on the Floor and peered into the dark. I felt an intense gratitude that the Morlocks had at least provided me with this illumination, for I imagined that had I been deposited on this empty, featureless surface in a darkness broken only by the star images beneath me, I might have gone quite mad. And yet I knew, at the same time, that the Morlocks had provided this ring of light for their own purposes, as an effective means to keep me in this place. I was all but helpless, a prisoner of a mere light ray!

  A great weariness descended on me. I felt reluctant to lose consciousness once more — to leave myself defenseless — but I could see little prospect of staying awake forever. I stepped out of the ring of light and a little way away into the darkness, so that I felt, at least, some security from its cover of night. I took off my jacket and folded it up into a pillow for my head. The air was quite warm, and the soft Floor also seemed heated, so I should not go cold.

  So, with my portly body stretched out over the stars, I slept.

  [8]

  A Visitor

  I awoke after an interval I could not measure. I lifted my head and glanced around. I was alone in the dark, and all seemed unchanged. I patted my vest pocket; the Time Machine levers were still safely there.

  As I tried to move, stiffness sent pain shooting along my legs and back. I sat up, awkward, and got to my feet feeling every year of my age; I was inordinately grateful that I had not had to leap into action to fend off a tribe of marauding Morlocks! I performed a few rusty physical jerks to loosen up my muscles; then I picked up my jacket, smoothing out its creases, and donned it.

  I stepped forward into the light ring.

  The trays, with food cartons and toilet pail, had been changed, I found. So they were watching me! — well, it was no more than I had suspected. I took the lids off the cartons, only to find the same depressing slabs of anonymous fodder. I made a breakfast of water and some of the greenish stuff. My fear was gone, to be replaced by a numbing sense of tedium: it is remarkable how rapidly the human mind can accommodate the most remarkable of changed circumstances. Was this to be my fate from now on? — boredom, a hard bed, lukewarm water, and a diet of slabs of boiled cabbage? It was like being back at school, I reflected with gloom.

  “Pau.”

  The single syllable, softly spoken, sounded as loud to me in all that silence as a gun shot.

  I cried out, scrambled to my feet, and held out my food slabs — it was absurd, but I lacked any other weapon. The sound had come from behind me, and I whirled around, my boots squealing on the Floor.

  A Morlock stood there, just beyond the edge of my light circle, half-illuminated. He stood upright he did not share the crouching, ape-like gait of those creatures I had encountered before — and he wore goggles that made a shield of blue glass which coated his huge eyes, turning them black to my view.

  “Tik. Pau,” this apparition pronounced, his voice a queer gurgle.

  I stumbled backwards, stepping on a tray with a clatter. I held up my fists. “Don’t come near me!”

  The Morlock took a single pace forward, coming closer to the light shaft; despite his goggles, he flinched a little from the brightness. This was one of that new breed of advanced-looking Morlock, one of which had stunned me, I realized; he seemed naked, but the pale hair which coated his back and head was cut and shaped — deliberately — into a rather severe style, square about the breast bone and shoulders, giving it something of the effect of a uniform. He had a small, chinless face, something like an ugly child’s.

  A ghost of memory of that sweet sensation of Morlock skull cracking under my club returned to me. I considered rushing this fellow, knocking him to the ground. But what would it avail me? There were uncounted others, no doubt, out there in the dark. I had no weapons, not even my poker, and I recalled how this chap’s cousin had raised that queer gun against me, knocking me down without effort.

  I decided to bide my time.

  And besides — this might seem strange! — I found my anger was dissipating, into an unaccountable feeling of humor. This Morlock, despite the standard wormy pallor of his skin, did look comical: imagine an orangutan, his hair clipped short and dyed pale yellow-white, and then encouraged to stand upright and wear a pair of gaudy spectacles, and you’ll have something of the effect of him.

  “Tik. Pau,” he repeated.

  I took a step towards him. “What are you saying to me, you brute?”

  He flinched — I imagined he was reacting to my tone rather than my words — and then he pointed, in time, to the food slabs in my hands. “Tik,” he said. “Pau.”

  I understood. “Good heavens,” I said, “you a
re trying to talk to me, aren’t you?” I held up my food slabs in turn. “Tik. Pau. One. Two. Do you speak English? One. Two…”

  The Morlock cocked his head to one side — the way a dog will sometimes — and then he said, not much less clearly than I had, “One. Two.”

  “That’s it! And there’s more where that came from — one, two, three, four…”

  The Morlock strode into my light circle, though I noticed he kept out of my arm’s reach. He pointed to my water bowl. “Agua.”

  “Aqua?” That had sounded like Latin — though the Classics were never my strong point. “Water,” I replied.

  Again the Morlock listened in silence, his head on a tilt.

  So we continued. The Morlock pointed to common things — bits of clothing, or parts of the body like a head or a limb — and would come up with some candidate word. Some of his tries were frankly unrecognizable to me, and some of them sounded like German, or perhaps old English. And I would come back with my modern usage. Once or twice I tried to engage him in a longer conversation — for I could not see how this simple register of nouns was going to get us very far — but he stood there until I fell silent, and then continued with his patient matching game. I tried him with some of what I remembered of Weena’s language, that simplified, melodic tongue of two-word sentences; but again the Morlock stood patiently until I gave up.

  This went on for several hours. At length, without ceremony, the Morlock took his leave — he walked off into the dark — I did not follow (not yet! I told myself again). I ate and slept, and when I awoke he returned, and we resumed our lessons.

  As he walked around my light cage, pointing at things and naming them, the Morlock’s movements were fluid and graceful enough, and his body seemed expressive; but I came to realize how much one relies, in day to day business, on the interpretation of the movements of one’s fellows. I could not read this Morlock in that way at all. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking or feeling — was he afraid of me? was he bored? — and I felt greatly disadvantaged as a result.