Morlock Night

by KW Jeter

  To whom then had the submarine belonged? In the cunning of its mechanical design it was far advanced of anything produced above ground, yet as I studied it I noticed some curious anomalies. Various panels and corners of the machinery were decorated with engraved lines that formed the complex curved patterns employed by the ancient Celtic artisans of the British Isles' distant past! I had studied ancient artefacts, and considered myself something of an amateur archaeologist, and I easily recognised the intricate knot motifs and stylised designs – yet here they were not applied to brooches and dagger handles, but to a complicated technological device.

  A puzzle, indeed. Surely no ancient Britons had ever had the knowledge or resources to build such a craft as this submarine. Who then had?

  My mind's probing of this knot was interrupted by the sound of the Morlocks' voices. I heard them coming toward the chamber where I was bound, still arguing volubly among themselves. A group of them burst through the engine room's doorway and surrounded me where I sat tied to the brass pole.

  I was a good deal more gently treated by them this time. One of them pulled me to my feet, untied my hands, pushed me away from the pole, then retied the knot behind me again. Their jabbering, excited debate continued as they pushed me through the door.

  This was my first chance for a close observation of the enemies of Mankind. The pale, clammy skin of their faces and hands was even more loathsome up close than at a distance, and the white flaxen hair that ran from their brows down along their necks was an additional sepulchral note. One was reminded unnervingly of those stillborn foetuses kept in jars of spirits at medical colleges, with their dead, translucent flesh.

  My captors were dressed in dark brown military uniforms with various symbols of rank sewn to their sleeves. Any semblance of command or respect for their officers was lost, though, as they shouted and struck each other on the chest and shoulders to reinforce their point with a mutual barbarity. Round lenses of dark blue glass covered their eyes, and if these glasses were jostled from their position on anyone Morlock's face, his great goggling eyes screwed up tight with pain from the submarine's illumination until they were once again covered.

  Through the submarine's central corridor they hurried me forward until we arrived at the pilot chamber where all the overhead brass control rods terminated. Here they were connected to banks of levers and knobbed wheels that served to adjust the various workings of the engine. Other groups of brass rods ran off in other directions. These I assumed were to control the submarine's fins and other steering devices. A system of lenses and mirrors provided the means of observing what lay outside the hull from many different angles – this, I surmised, was how the Morlocks had detected me clinging to the exterior of their craft.

  But the most astonishing thing contained in the pilot room was not part of the vessel's equipment at all. Slumped down at the base of the banks of controls was a crumpled, motionless body. Upon my entrance under guard into the chamber I at first took the figure to be a heap of discarded laundry, then a sleeping, drunk, or otherwise insensible Morlock. As my accompanying troop brought me near to it, I saw the upturned face and realised that it was in fact a dead human being.

  The cause of the man's demise was quickly apparent. He had been shackled by one ankle to a heavy metal chain that was in turn fastened to the front of the controls. Through long, diligent effort the man had evidently managed to sharpen a link of the chain against the rough textured floor, until the link had acquired a cutting edge equal to that of a knife. He had then employed it on his wrists. The floor around the corpse was stained with his dried blood.

  Another mystery – whence had come this human pilot who had preferred death to the continued guidance of the Morlocks' submarine? I had little time to ponder the question, though, as they roughly pushed me forward to the post where the corpse lay. With a maximum amount of jostling and arguing the Morlocks proceeded to unlock the metal circlet around the corpse's ankle, and transfer it to my leg.

  So careless were they in not dragging away the body of their former pilot, and so fractious in their conduct toward each other, stopping every few seconds in the re-shackling process in order to hurl imprecations and minor blows against each other, that when they were done all they had managed to accomplish was to place the shackle back upon the dead man's ankle, believing it to be mine. Their handicapped eyesight prevented them from noticing their error, and naturally I did nothing to reveal the condition to them, even arranging my position next to the body so as to conceal the true state. Whatever the ensuing events were to be, I preferred to face them in as unhindered a fashion as possible.

  The arguing and general disorder among my captors lessened, and a pair of the Morlocks whom I took to be the highest in rank, due to the abundant decorations and insignia upon their uniforms, fumed their vocalising to me. The whole race of them being of an excitable and unrestrained nature, similar to the natives of Southern Europe in contrast to the more restrained British, the two Morlock officers were so given to gestures of the hand and facial motions that I could nearly divine their meaning from pantomime alone. Beyond this, however, I found myself starting to be able to understand fragments of their speech. The language seemed to be a grossly degenerated sort of pidgin German with infusions of exotic Slav and Oriental tongues with which I was for the most part unfamiliar, all spoken with slobbering labial explosives and harsh guttural stops that sounded like the clearing of mucus from their throats. All in all, a barbaric mode of speech that well fit their bestial nature. Most of it was beyond my comprehension, but l was able to pick up enough to catch their meaning.

  The gist of their communication was that the previous pilot had killed himself, as I readily could see, and they were unable to guide their submarine themselves. My suspicions about their having illicitly appropriated the vessel were thus borne out. All of the controls were too small and delicate in their adjustment for their thick fingers to make use of.

  Pilotless, they had had the good fortune to capture me. Now they intended to impress me into the empty position, apparently under the belief that I was of the same nature of person as the deceased pilot and not suspecting my true origin from the surface of the Earth. I was unable to tell from their discourse whether their raising of the submarine and capsizing of the little boat had been a fortunate – for them – accident, or a deliberate action clumsily executed. Of the submarine's true history, or that of its late pilot, I was able to learn nothing.

  I quickly decided not to attempt to communicate to my captors that I knew not a whit of how to operate the strange vessel. Given the Morlocks' cruel natures, if I had succeeded in telling them this they would most likely have jettisoned me out into the cold underground ocean to drown. No, my one tactical point against their superior numbers and position was that I held no illusions about them while they were severely mistaken about me.

  To gain time in which to formulate a strategy, I pantomimed with much holding of my hands over my ears and other gestures that I could not proceed with the piloting of the submarine unless my captors backed away and gave me a little peace and breathing room. So eager were they to be rescued from their hapless floating in the middle of the underground sea that they quickly acquiesced. With a flurry of shouting at each other like a kennel of dogs in an uproar, and mutually exchanged blows, they backed away from me and the banks of controls.

  I turned my attention to the rows of wheels, knobs and levers laid out before me, trying to restrain my mind's apprehension about the situation I was in. Adrift in an underground ocean, surrounded by a horde of the cruellest enemies of mankind, with the dead body near of one who had killed himself rather than serve them, and now attempting to pilot a bizarre submarine, the like of which I had never seen – and to what destination? If by some chance I succeeded in steering the vessel to whatever harbour the Morlocks desired, what would they do with me then? Kill me outright, or leave me to the same self-administered fate as the poor soul lying at my feet? More likely I would only m
anage to expose my ignorance about the submarine and its controls – how long would it be before the sharply watching Morlocks perceived it? Whatever glimmer of hope had led me this far into such a situation now seemed, the more I reflected upon it, utterly extinguished. It was with a dark and leaden heart that I pulled my thoughts from my predicament and studied the submarine's controls.

  The curious features I had noticed in the engine room were borne out on the controls as well. The repeated intricate designs of ancient Britain decorated the corners and spaces of the panels, and the spokes of the several wheels were formed into intertwined snake shapes. As I looked closer at the gauges and dials I saw that their calibrations were marked off in runic letters and figures. A certain sadness crept into me at the thought that I would most likely be dead before I ever came to the bottom of this mystery surrounding the vessel's origin – a marvel of advanced technology apparently crafted by ancient Britons.

  I could hear the Morlocks growing somewhat restless behind me, so I resolved to make some small experiments with the controls, hoping that I could learn a rough mastery over the vessel from whatever results ensued.

  One of the large wheels seemed a good place to begin. I gave the most central of them a quarter turn, and one of the brass rods overhead moved correspondingly. Nothing else happened. Perhaps, I reasoned, the adjustment had been too slight to effect any change upon the submarine. I gave the wheel a full turn and was nearly toppled from my feet as the submarine tilted abruptly to one side. Only by retaining my grasp upon the wheel did I remain upright.

  The general hubbub from the Morlocks became more threatening as they disentangled themselves from each other. I hastily turned the wheel back to its original position and the submarine slowly righted itself. At this rate, my value to the Morlocks as a pilot wouldn't last much longer. What I could understand of their comments on my performance was taking on a decidedly hostile tone.

  My further attempts with the controls – turning wheels, pulling levers and the like in a frenzy of activity – met with little or confusing results. Either nothing happened when I manipulated one of the controls, or the submarine pitched and swayed in the water to no purpose. Either the Morlocks' neglect of the vessel's mechanisms had rendered most of them useless, or the mysterious corpse at my feet had somehow before his death managed to sabotage the workings.

  During all this time I was aware of the MorIocks' patience with me running out. At any moment they might suspect the false colours under which I was running, and fall upon me. Not daring a glance behind me at the grimly muttering chorus, I reached up and pulled the first of an untried series of levers.

  Just as with all the others, I thought disgustedly when no apparent result could be perceived. I was about to try something else when I noticed a finger of water inching across the floor toward my feet. The water was emerging from a doorway that opened onto a corridor running toward the front of the submarine. Through the Morlocks' continuous garbled chattering, I could hear the distantly gurgling noise of water splashing against metal.

  An odd situation. Apparently the lever opened or shut some aperture that admitted the surrounding water directly into the submarine's interior. Perhaps the tanks that controlled the submarine's rising or descending by taking in or spewing out water had become disordered to allow this. I was about to return the lever to its original position and shut off the water's inflow when, in a flash, my mind leapt to the strategic possibilities contained in the situation. With a decisive motion I pulled the lever down all the way, then did likewise with the similar levers arranged next to it.

  This time the results were satisfyingly immediate. Splashing and gurgling sounds echoed from every angle of the submarine. The acrid scent of the sewage-tainted ocean clogged the air as a low wave of dark water pulsed through the open doorways into the pilot room.

  No sooner had the noisome flood washed across the feet of the Morlocks than the high-ranking pair, medals and insignia jangling, came rushing up behind me. Both jabbered ferociously at me while one gripped my shoulder in his clammy white hand, spun me around and gestured angrily at the rising water, now past our ankles as it rose.

  With an expression of bewilderment and frantic movements, I made a great show of expressing an inability to stem the flood. I beat futilely upon the ranks of controls, wrung my hands piteously and tore at my hair, all while the dark water crept steadily upwards. At last the Morlocks comprehended the message I was pantomiming. Most of my adjustments to the controls had been hidden from them by my body, so they had no idea of what particular lever or wheel was responsible for the incoming water.

  If my captors had been garrulous before, they were positively babbling now. As the water rose over our shins the whole troop of them engaged in a vocal uproar like the baying of panic-stricken animals. At some point in the general bedlam the consensus was apparently reached among them to abandon the submarine rather than to go down with it. With hurried rushing back and forth, colliding with each other, shouting dreadful gibberish imprecations at each knocking of heads as they splashed backwards into the rising water they sought to implement their plan of escape.

  From some locker in the rear of the submarine a pair of small collapsible boats and a number of leather vests with large, balloon-like air bladders sewn into them were produced. The Morlocks scrambled for the latter, two or more often tugging at one vest until one managed to wrest it from his fellows, though at last all the brutes had managed to don them.

  The collapsible boats were opened and set up, and rushed by all hands toward the ladder that led to an overhead hatchway. All the Morlocks scrabbled to be nearest the boats, as there was quite obviously not enough spaces in them for all, and those left over would have to take their chances on bobbing in the underground ocean supported solely by their air-filled vests. After much futile hoisting, straining, and dropping back into the water, it was discovered that the boats were too large when opened up to go through the hatchway. With the boats folded back into their original shape they tried again. This time they succeeded in pushing them up through the exit, and clambered after as packed together as a swarm of bees. I shouted after the last ones and rattled the chain connected to the banks of the submarine's controls. Through piteous gestures and sounds I implored them to release me. The last pair of Morlocks laughed scornfully at me and climbed after their fellows, leaving me to a death by drowning. Most likely they felt I deserved it due to my poor piloting of the submarine.

  As soon as they had all vanished from the chamber, I stepped away from the controls and the corpse that the Morlocks had mistakenly re-shackled to the apparatus. For a second I let my expression dissolve into a frankly gloating smile of self-approval.

  Thus far my hastily conceived plan had worked better than I could have hoped. Above my head, through the open hatchway, I could hear the Morlocks launching their two little boats into the underground ocean, the clamour of their struggle to gain places in the boats, and the splashing about of those who had already chosen or been forced to land in the water itself. I had been left sole master of the submarine. Though partially flooded, it remained buoyant enough to remain floating. Surely I could find means of remedying enough of its malfunctions in order for it to convey me to some safe landing. What I would do from that point on I left for the future and its chances to decide. I turned back to the controls in order to halt the inflowing water. Sharp, percussive noises that I couldn't quite identify sounded from outside the vessel, but I had no time to puzzle over them.

  The levers were beyond my power to move. I tugged in growing desperation at them, losing my footing in the now waist-high water and hampered by the hobbled corpse washing against me in a grisly manner, but the controls remained stuck in their new positions. Either the controls or the mechanisms they operated had been frozen in place by the water pouring into the submarine.

  My mind racing like a rat caught in a rain barrel, I saw that I too would have to follow the Morlocks and abandon the vessel. Perhaps I could yet swi
m to safety. I slogged through the chill, fetid water that was flooding the chamber and was halfway up the ladder that led to the open hatchway when I realised that the cloth-wrapped Excalibur was still somewhere in the engine room where I had originally been bound. If the precious weapon sank with the submarine to the well-nigh bottomless depths of this dark ocean, then all would be lost. There would be no point in my even escaping with my life, except to share in my fellow Mankind's eventual doom.

  I lowered myself back into the water and halfswam through it toward the opening of the corridor that ran back to the engine room. The current pressing against my chest made my progress maddeningly slow. I was only a matter of several yards down the passageway when the submarine's interior went pitch dark, and the vessel itself began to tilt. The back section, made heavier by the weight of the engine, was pulling the submarine into a vertical position as it sank. How would I manage to find Excalibur in an unlit and submerged space filled with strange machinery? By now the brass control rods were close enough overhead for me to use in pulling myself down the corridor. Every panicking nerve in my body pulled me the other way, back toward air and light. I felt the passage tighten about me as I descended into its stifling depths.

  The way seemed endless and I began to doubt my memory of the passage's length. The water at last reached the top of the downward sloping space, and I was forced to take a deep breath and pull myself under with one hand on the brass rods. With my other hand I found the top of the engine room's doorway a yard or so farther along the submerged corridor. I let go of the reds and swam down into the lightless chamber.