The Time Ships

by Stephen Baxter

  The Morlock came up to me and pointed at something stored in a darkened recess in the engine compartment. It took some squinting, but I could make out that that bulky shape was my own Time Machine! — whole and unbroken, evidently extracted from Richmond Hill and brought into this fort, its rails still stained by grass. The machine was wrapped about by ropes as if confined in a spider-web.

  I felt a powerful urge, at the sight of that potent symbol of safety, to break free of these soldiers — if I could — and make for my machine. Perhaps I could reach my home, even now…

  But I knew it would be a futile attempt, and I stilled myself. Even if I could reach the machine — and I could not, for these troopers would gun me down in a moment — I could not find my home again. After this latest incident, no version of 1891 which I could reach could bear any resemblance to the safe and prosperous Year I had abandoned so foolishly. I was stranded in time!

  Filby joined me. “What do you think of the machinery — eh?” He punched me in the shoulder, and his touch had the withered feebleness of an old man. He said, “The whole thing was designed by Sir Albert Stern, who has been prominent in these things since the early days of the War. I’ve taken quite an interest in these beasts, as they’ve evolved over the years… You know I’ve always had a fascination for things mechanical.

  “Look at that.” He pointed into the recesses of the engine compartment. “Rolls-Royce ’Meteor’ engines — a whole row of ’em! And a Merrit-Brown gear-box — see it, over there? We’ve got Horstmann suspension, with those three bogeys to either side…”

  “Yes,” I cut in, “but — dear old Filby — what is it all for?”

  “For? It’s for the prosecution of the War, of course.” Filby waved his hand about. “This is a Juggernaut: Kitchener-class; one of the latest models. The main purpose of the ’Nauts is to break up the Siege of Europe, you see; they can negotiate all but the widest trench-works with alacrity — although they are expensive, prone to malfunction, and vulnerable to shelling. Raglan is rather an appropriate name, don’t you think? — For Lord Fitzroy Raglan was the old devil who made such a hash of the siege of Sebastopol, in the Crimea. Perhaps poor old Raglan would have—”

  “The Siege of Europe?”

  He looked at me sadly. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Perhaps they shouldn’t have sent me after all — I keep forgetting how little you must know! I’ve turned into the most awful old buffer, I’m afraid. Look here — I’ve got to tell you that we’ve been at War, since 1914.”

  “War? With whom?”

  “Well, with the Germans, of course. Who else? And it really is a terrible mess…”

  These words, this casual glimpse of a future Europe darkened by twenty-four years of War, chilled me to the core!

  [9]

  Into Time

  We came to a chamber perhaps ten feet square; it was little more than a box of metal bolted to the inner hull of the ’Naut. A single electric bulb glowed in the ceiling, and padded leather coated the walls, alleviating the metal bleakness of the fort and suppressing the noise of the engines — although a deeper throb could be felt through the fabric of the vessel. There were six chairs here: simple upright affairs that were bolted to the floor, facing each other, and fitted with leather harnesses. There was also a low cabinet.

  Filby waved us to the chairs and started fussing around the cabinet. “I should strap yourselves in,” he said. “This time-hurdling nonsense is quite vertiginous.”

  Moses and I sat down to face each other. I fastened the restraints loosely around me; Nebogipfel had some trouble with his buckles, and the straps dangled about him until Moses helped him adjust their tightness.

  Now Filby came pottering up to me with something in his hand; it was a cup of tea in a cracked china saucer, with a small biscuit to one side of the cup. I could not help but laugh. “Filby, the turns of fate never cease to amaze me. Here we are, about to journey through time in this menacing mobile fort — and you serve us with tea and biscuits!”

  “Well, this business is quite difficult enough without life’s comforts. You must know that!”

  I sipped the tea; it was lukewarm and rather stewed. Thus fortified, I became, incongruously, rather mischievous — I think on reflection my mental state was a little fragile, and I was unwilling to face my own future, or the dire prospect of this 1938 War. “Filby,” I teased him, “do you not observe anything — ah — odd about my companions?”

  I introduced him to Moses — and poor Filby began a staring session which resulted in him dribbling tea down his chin.

  “And there is the true shock of time travel,” I said to Filby with feeling. “Forget all this stuff about the Origin of the Species, or the Destiny of Humanity — it’s only when you come face to face with yourself as a young man that you realize what shock is all about!”

  Filby questioned us on this issue of our identity for a little longer — good old Filby, skeptical to the last! “I thought I’d seen enough changes and wonders in my life, even without this time business. But now — well!” He sighed, and I suspected that he had actually seen a little too much in his long lifetime, poor fellow; he always had been prone to a certain brain-weariness, even as a young man.

  I leaned forward, as far as my restraints allowed. “Filby, I can scarce believe that men have fallen so far — become so blind. Why, from my perspective, this damnable Future War of yours sounds pretty much like the end of civilization.”

  “For men of our day,” he said solemnly, “perhaps it is. But this younger generation, who’ve grown up to know nothing but War, who have never felt the sun on their faces without fear of the air-torpedoes — well! I think they’re inured to it; it’s as if we’re turning into a subterranean species.”

  I could not resist a glance at the Morlock.

  “Filby, why this mission through time?”

  “It isn’t so much you, as the Machine. They had to ensure the construction of the Time Machine, you see,” Filby began. “Time technology is so vital to the War Effort. Or so some of them feel.

  “They knew pretty much how you went about your research, from the bits of notes you left behind — although you never published anything on the subject; there was only that odd account you left with us of your first trip into the remote future, on your brief return. And so the Raglan has been sent to guard your house against any intrusion by a Time Traveler — like you…”

  Nebogipfel lifted his head. “More confusion about causality,” he said. “Evidently the scientists of 1938 have still not begun to grasp the concept of Multiplicity — that one cannot ensure anything about the past: one cannot change History; one can only generate new versions of—”

  Filby stared at him — this chattering vision in a school uniform, with hair sprouting from every limb!

  “Not now,” I said to Nebogipfel. “Filby, you keep saying they. Who are they?”

  He seemed surprised by the question. “The Government, of course.”

  “Which party?” snapped Moses.

  “Party? Oh, all of that is pretty much a thing of the past.”

  He gave us that chilling news — of the death of Democracy in Britain — with just those casual words!

  He went on, “I think we have all been expecting to find die Zeitmaschine here, rolling around Richmond Park and hoping for a bit of assassination…” He looked mournful. “It’s the Germans, you know. The blessed Germans! They’re making the most frightful mess of everything… Just as they’ve always done!”

  And with that, the single electric bulb dimmed, and I heard the engines roar; I felt the familiar, helpless plummeting which told me that this Raglan had launched me into time once more.

  [BOOK THREE]

  The War With the Germans

  [1]

  A New Vision of Richmond

  My latest trip through time was bumpy and even more disorienting than usual, I judged because of the uneven distribution of those scraps of Plattnerite about the ’Naut. But the journey was b
rief, and the sense of plummeting faded.

  Filby had been sitting there with arms folded and jowls tucked against his chest, the perfect picture of misery. Now he glanced up at what I had taken to be a clock on the wall, and he slapped his hand against his bony knee. “Ha! — here we are; once more, it is the Sixteenth of June, A.D. 1938.” He began to unravel his constraints.

  I got out of my chair and took a closer look at that “clock.” I found that although the hands made up a conventional clock face — the device also featured several little chronometric dials. I snorted and tapped the glass face of the thing with my finger. I said to Moses, “Look at this! It is a chronometric clock, but it shows years and months — over-engineering, Moses; a characteristic of Government projects. I’m surprised it doesn’t feature little dolls with rain-coats and sun-hats, to show the passing of the seasons!”

  After a few minutes we were joined by Captain Hilary Bond, and the young trooper who had collected us from Richmond Hill (whose name, Bond told us, was Harry Oldfield). The little cabin became rather crowded. Captain Bond said, “I’ve received instructions about you. My mission is to escort you to Imperial College, where research into Chronic Displacement Warfare is being conducted.”

  I had not heard of this college, but I did not inquire further.

  Oldfield was carrying a box of gas-masks and metallic epaulets. “Here,” he said to us, “you’d better put these on.”

  Moses held up a gas-mask with distaste. “You cannot expect me to insert my head into such a contraption.”

  “Oh, you must,” Filby said anxiously, and I saw he was already buttoning his own mask about his jowly face. “We’ve a little way to go in the open out there, you know. And it’s not safe. Not safe!”

  “Come on,” I said to Moses, as I grimly took a set of mask and epaulets for myself. “we’re not at home anymore, I’m afraid, old man.”

  The epaulets were heavy, but clipped easily to my jacket; but the mask Oldfield gave me, though roomy and well-fitting, was most uncomfortable. I found the twin eye-goggles fogging up almost immediately, the rubber and leather ridges of its construction soon pooling with sweat. “I shall never get used to this.”

  “I hope we’re not here long enough to have to,” Moses hissed with feeling, his voice muffled by his own mask.

  I turned to Nebogipfel. The poor Morlock — already trussed up in his schoolboy’s uniform — was now topped by a ridiculous mask several sizes too big for him: when he moved his head, the insectile filter on the front of the thing actually wobbled.

  I patted his head. “At least you’ll blend with the crowds now, Nebogipfel!”

  He forbore to reply.

  We emerged from the metallic womb of the Raglan into a bright summer’s day. It was around two in the afternoon, and the sunlight splashed from the drab hull of the ’Naut. My mask immediately filled with perspiration and fog, and I longed to take the heavy, tight thing off my head.

  The sky overhead was immense, a deep blue and free of cloud although here and there I could see thin white lines and swirls, tracings of vapor or ice crystals etched across the sky. I saw a glint at one end of such a trail — perhaps it was sunlight shimmering from some metal Flying Machine.

  The Juggernaut was perched on a version of the Petersham Road which was much changed from 1873, or even 1891. I recognized most of the houses from my day: even my own still stood behind an area-rail that was corroded and covered in verdigris. But the gardens and verges seemed uniformly to have been dug over, and given up to a crop of a vegetable I did not know. And I saw that many of the houses had suffered great damage. Some had been reduced to little more than fascia, with their roofs and interior partitioning blasted in: here and there, buildings had been blackened and hollowed out by fire; and others were reduced quite to rubble. Even my own house was broken up, and the laboratory was quite demolished. And the damage was not recent: resurgent life, green and vital, had reclaimed the interior of many of the houses; moss and young plants carpeted the remnants of living-rooms and hall-ways, and ivy hung like bizarre curtains over the gaping windows.

  I was able to see that the trees still fell away down the same sylvan slope to the Thames, but even the trees showed signs of damage: I saw the stumps of snapped-off branches, scorched boles, and the like. It was as if a great wind, or fire, had passed by here. The Pier was undamaged, but of Richmond Bridge only the haunches remained now, blackened and truncated, with the span quite demolished. Much of the river-side meadows towards Petersham had been given over to the same peculiar crop which had inhabited the gardens, I saw, and there was a brown scum floating down the river itself.

  There was nobody about. No traffic moved; the weeds pushed through the broken-up road surfaces. I heard no people — no laughing or shouting, no children playing — no animals, no horses, no birds singing.

  Of the gaiety which had once characterized a June afternoon from this prospect — the flashing of oars, the laughter of pleasure-seekers floating up off the river — none of that remained.

  All of that was gone now, in this grim Year; and perhaps forever. This was a deserted Richmond, a dead place. I was reminded of the splendid ruins in the garden — like world of A.D. 802,701. I had thought all of that remote from me; I had never imagined to see my own familiar England in such a state!

  “Great God,” Moses said. “What a catastrophe — what destruction! Is England abandoned?”

  “Oh, no,” Trooper Oldfield put in brightly. “But places like this just aren’t safe any more. There’s the gas, and the aerial torpedoes — most people have gone in, to the Domes, do you see?”

  “But it’s all so broken-down, Filby,” I protested. “What’s become of the spirit of our people? Where’s the will to set to and repair all this? It could be done, you know—”

  Filby rested a gloved hand on my arm. “One day — when this wretched business is done — then we’ll revive it all. Eh? And it shall be just as it was. But for now…” His voice broke off, and I wished I could see his expression. “Come on,” he said. “We’d better get out of the open.”

  We left the Raglan behind and hurried along the road towards the town center: Moses, Nebogipfel and I, with Filby and the two soldiers. Our companions from 1938 walked in a kind of crouch, with endless, nervous glances at the sky. I noted again how Bond walked with a pronounced limp favoring her left leg.

  I glanced back with longing at the Juggernaut, for within, I knew, was my Time Machine — my only possible way home, out of this unfolding nightmare of Multiple Histories — but I knew there was no prospect of reaching the machine now; all I could do was to wait on events.

  We walked along Hill Street, and then turned into George Street. There was none of the bustle and elegance which had characterized this shopping street in my Year. The department stores, like Gosling’s and Wright’s, were boarded up, and even the planks which sealed up their windows had faded with years of sunlight. I saw how one corner of Gosling’s window had been pried open, evidently by looters; the hole that had been made looked as if it had been gnawed by a rat the size of a human. We passed a squat shelter with a beetling cover, and a pillar beside it with checkered markings and a glass face, now cracked. This too looked abandoned, and the bright yellow-and-black paintwork of the pillar was chipped and peeling.

  “It is a shelter against air-raids,” Filby told me in answer to my query. “One of the early designs. Quite inadequate — if ever a direct impact had come… Well! And the pillar marks a first-aid point, equipped with respirators and masks. Hardly used, before the great retreat into the Domes began.”

  “Air-raids… This is not a happy world, Filby, to have coined such terms.”

  He sighed. “They have aerial torpedoes, you see. The Germans, I mean. Flying machines, which can go to a spot two hundred miles away, drop a Bomb and return! — all mechanical, without the intervention of a man. It’s a world of marvels, for War is a terrific motivation for the inventive mind, you know. You’ll love it here!”


  “The Germans…” Moses said. “We’ve had nothing but trouble with the Germans since the emergence of Bismarck. Is that old scoundrel still alive?”

  “No, but he has able successors,” Filby said grimly.

  I had no comment to make. From my perspective, so detached now from Moses’s, even such a brute as Bismarck scarcely seemed to warrant the loss of a single human life.

  Filby was telling me, in breathless fragments, of more of the marvelous Warfaring gargantua of this benighted age: of raider submarines, designed to prosecute the gas battles, with practically unlimited cruising range, and containing half a dozen missiles each, all packed with a formidable supply of gas bombs; of a torrent of ironmongery which I imagined tearing its way across the battered plains of Europe; of more “Juggernauts” which could go underwater, or float, or burrow; and all of it was opposed by an equally formidable array of mines and guns of all sorts.

  I avoided Nebogipfel’s eyes; I could not face his judgment! For this was no patch on a Sphere in the sky, populated by abhuman descendants remote from me: this was my world, my race, gone mad with War! For my part, I retained something of that greater perspective I had acquired in the Interior of that great construct. I could scarcely bear to see my own nation given over to such folly, and it pained me to hear Moses’s contributions, bound up as they were by the petty preconceptions of his day. I could hardly blame him! — but it distressed me to think that my own imagination had ever been so limited, so malleable.

  [2]

  A Train Journey

  We reached a crude rail station. But this was not the station I had used in 1891 to ride from Richmond into Waterloo, through Barnes; this new construction was away from the center of the town, being located just off the Kew Road. And it was an odd sort of station: there was nothing in the way of ticket collection points or destination boards, and the platform was a bare strip of concrete. A new line was crudely laid out. A train waited for us: the locomotive was a drab, dark affair which puffed steam mournfully about its soot-smeared boiler, and there was a single carriage. There were no lights on the locomotive, nor any insignia of the governing Railway Company.