The Mammoth Book of Time Travel SF

by Mike Ashley

  No Morlocks? Maybe – hard to believe – but maybe other dangers? “You, Periu – you – why not you sleep too?” And she pointed to the bed.

  Mrs Watchett nearly had a fit. “Oh, Sir!”

  “She means no harm, Mrs Watchett,” said the Traveller hastily. “She’s just a child – terrified of the dark. Transylvania was a dangerous country. There were – wolves . . .”

  “Maybe, Sir. But she’ll have to learn. Go now, Sir – I’ll soothe her.”

  She managed that, at last; and got the girl into a warm nightdress. Then she showed her how to lock and unlock the door. Winnie seemed delighted, and kept turning the key, one way and the other.

  “Now,” said the housekeeper, “goodnight, Miss Winnie. And you lock now – yes?”

  “Sa – yes – lock-a. Goo’ nigh’, Meri-a.” And as Mrs Watchett went out, she heard the key turn. Suspicious, she lingered a while; but the key did not turn back again. “Poor little thing,” she murmured. “Master’s right – an innocent baby.”

  What followed after that, I heard much later, from Wiyeni’s own lips. Neither the Traveller nor Mrs Watchett breathed a word to anyone.

  First, Wiyeni waited till Mrs Watchett’s steps could no longer be heard. Then she unlocked the door, and in her nightdress slipped into the Traveller’s room. He was on the point of undressing. She smiled. “Periu, dear, cannot I sleep with you here, dear friend?” But he went red in the face; he seized her arm, marched her back to her room, and made her lock herself in. Wiyeni turned from the door with a little sob.

  It was dark in that bedroom: the house had electric light only in the laboratory, and they had not given her a lamp for fear of accidents. But by drawing back the curtains from her southfacing window, she let in some light from the eleven-day-old gibbous moon. The moon was high in the sky, and that surprised her: in the Eloi world it had been summer, and she knew that summer moons rode low. Still, the good light comforted her: she looked out over the strange and wonderful garden, and saw no prowling Morlocks. So she went to her lonely bed. But under the great pile of bedclothes, she felt too hot. And the nightdress, borrowed from Ellen, was coarse and scratchy. She stripped it off, and then, naked under the sheet, fell comfortably asleep.

  Thursday began with a shock for Mrs Watchett.

  She came about 7.30 a.m. with a tray of tea and toast to Winnie’s door, and knocked. She heard a light scamper of feet, the door was unlocked, and in the half-light of the room she saw a little white form topped by golden hair. At first she took the whiteness for Winnie’s nightdress. Then the rising sun emerged from a cloud, and Mrs Watchett realized that Winnie was naked.

  She rushed in, almost upsetting her tray, and slammed the door shut behind her with her heel. “Oh, you naughty thing!” she cried.

  It was a long time before Winnie could be made to understand her crime.

  That same Thursday, just after breakfast, Ellis arrived. This was his second meeting with Wiyeni, and he found her fascinating. The psychology of a girl from the far future . . . Nearly as interesting, too, was the Traveller’s attitude to her.

  As the morning was fine, they went for a walk in the garden. Almost all the plants and trees were new to Wiyeni – she kept darting about among the yellow fallen leaves, picking up strange items. And then suddenly, as he strolled from behind a tree-trunk, she met Mrs Watchett’s white cat, Tiger. Both cat and girl seemed equally startled (so Ellis told us later). She had never known a tame animal before.

  “Tikuro!” she breathed – then said to the Traveller in Eloic, “Periu – this is a creature we have known, carved over the great door of one of our Houses. That House is named for the carving, House of Tikuro. I did not know they were real. Ah, Beriten is a land where old tales are true! But is it dangerous? Will it bite us?”

  “Pu, pu,” laughed the Traveller. “No, Weena. He is a little friend. See! – Tiger, Tiger, Tiger . . . come here, puss!”

  He now made them acquainted. Soon Wiyeni was kneeling, stroking Tiger and laughing, as Tiger purred.

  “Isn’t she just a marvellous sweet child?” said the Traveller.

  Ellis gave him a considering look. “Marvellous, yes . . .”

  A similar thing happened when they came up to the hedge. Beyond, in a field, two horse were grazing.

  “Osoi!” cried Wiyeni. “More carving-animals! I come from the House of the Oso. But, they are very great! Do they eat people?”

  “No, Weena-child, only grass. And we ride on their backs, and they pull us in machines.” He translated for Ellis. “Imagine, she thought they might eat us!”

  “A reasonable guess, in the circumstances,” said Ellis. “They might be omnivores – like us Great Eloi.”

  “She’s a perfect child,” said the Traveller.

  “Well, she’s not a perfect fool.”

  Immediately after that, Browne arrived, with a middle-aged nurse. And now he got his wish. In her bedroom upstairs, he and the nurse examined Wiyeni. She had lost all fear of “Baranu,” and stripped naked without hesitation. Browne’s examination was not intrusive; but he noted her small breasts, her little fringe of golden pubic hair, her wide hips; and he felt her bones. He decided that she was probably about eighteen years old – and should have very little trouble when she came to bear children.

  Those days, those next few weeks, we were continually in and out of the Traveller’s house, at many times of the day. The education of Wiyeni-Winnie was an urgent priority. Until she could pass for a nineteenth-century girl, if only a foreign one, she must remain a virtual prisoner in that house and garden, yet already she was eager to explore “Beriten”. I, as a literary man, was given the primary and very agreeable task of teaching her English. Welles undertook to explore her mental skills, especially in the direction of arithmetic.

  On that first Thursday forenoon, I met Welles in Putney, and we took a cab for Richmond. “Come on,” I said, “now you must tell me everything. So far I’ve had only snippets. The Far Future! What was that like?”

  His blue eyes twinkled, and he looked almost boyish. “Well, it was fun, you know. And some things will still be our future. Little bits of weather may change, but the climate is surely beyond human control, and the stars . . . It is a warm world, beyond all Ice Ages. The sea level is higher, the Thames wider. And the stars! All different! There are two Pole stars, bright blue ones which circle the actual pole like the hands of a clock . . . But he’s told you some of that already. As for the Eloi – some of the things were really the same on his first trip, only he was too prudish to mention them. For instance, nakedness. The Eloi all bathe naked, and think nothing of it. Wini was naked, you know, when he leapt into the river and rescued her.”

  “Golly!”

  “Yes, indeed. He was a bit embarrassed, bringing her to shore, and me there – especially as she was in no hurry to get dressed again. The Eloi are not in the least prudish. The young kids, up to about four years old, go stark naked all the time – I think it makes them very hardy against cold; and at night, when they huddle together in those Houses, most of them huddle naked. We three slept in a little side room of the Grey House, where we had the Machine chained to a pillar; and I’m sure Wini would have taken her tunic off if he had let her.”

  “What!”

  “Yes. She never left us, you know, from the moment she met us, and she was very grateful for being rescued. Mind you, her cramp was only a momentary thing, and she was recovering as he got to her. And other Eloi were swimming up . . . He managed to win the credit, but only just. And she was impressed not just by the rescue, but by what he was – a benevolent giant, with wonderful powers and devices, so useful against the Morlocks. I think she expected to reward him in the obvious way, and was quite willing to do it. But he kept treating her as a child, so she – just cuddled him. I showed more willing, and that time we were alone near Bromley, coming down from the crest of the hill – she suddenly hugged me, and kissed me on the lips. She was grateful to me too, you see, and the view of
the Uncountry and its Morlock machines had just frightened her. I didn’t let things go any further, then, out of loyalty to him. But God, Hillyer, she is sweet! By the bye, I’m pretty sure she has had lovers before. The Eloi don’t seem to have marriage. Life in Lanan is so easy, apart from the Morlocks, that a woman can easily bring up her children without the help of a man. And they do it: I saw always these units of mother-and-child, with never a possessive man about. But in the house-tribes, there is plenty of help to be had when needed, and the men are gentle with children. Eloi women are not very fertile, I think, so they make sure they have plenty of lovers. I – I think this will be the greatest problem with Wini – she won’t have any sense of what we call respectability.”

  I whistled. “A Greek goddess indeed – with the morals of one . . . But she seems so nice.”

  “She is, too. Her feelings go deeper than those of most Eloi. She may be casual about sex – but I’m sure she can also love. Affection . . . she has a strong affection for our learned friend. Let me give you one example. You know, he tried to repeat everything possible – so on our last morning there, he descended into that Morlock well, to take his flash pictures. He expected me to stay with Wini and console her. I was rather looking forward to that . . . But she didn’t stay. She started climbing down that well after him.”

  “Good God! I thought they were terrified—”

  “She was terrified. She cried out, ‘They will cut him!’ I’m sure she meant dissect him. The Eloi lived always with the possibility of being kidnapped one night, taken down a Morlock hole, and used in experiments. Yet she was going to risk the same fate, to save her friend. I rushed after her, stopped her, wrestled with her. It’s no joke, wrestling on the rungs of an iron ladder over a bottomless pit. Luckily, in the end I convinced her that he was in no real danger. This time he had a miner’s lamp . . . When he came out, we decided to evacuate at once. Just as well – the Morlocks were thoroughly alarmed, and that was when they came at us out of the Sphinx.” He mused. “Wini is not in the least stupid. The Eloi as a whole, on this time track, were brighter – decadent, yes, but not idiots. But of them all, Wini struck me as exceptional. The others were placid, never thinking that their lives could ever be different. But Wini had the instincts of a fighter: she was very curious, and restless. She had left her birthhouse, and now she knew many house-tribes – she’d been travelling between them – and during our days there, it was really she who was our leader. She realised that the Morlocks ought not to see us two. She made us avoid certain hillsides – ‘The Molokoi will see’. I think she meant they had hides in there, with spyholes. Without her, I don’t think we’d have lasted that many days. As it was, we stayed one day fewer than we’d planned. She slept on his arm for only four nights, not five.”

  “And you?”

  “I watched while they slept. Then, when it was his watch, I slept close beside her. Not touching her, though I ached to, since he could see . . . I don’t know how deeply she feels for me. She is very fond of me – as she is of him. I don’t know if it goes beyond that. I expect she would sleep with me, given the opportunity. But I – I want more than that . . . But I do know one thing.”

  “What?”

  “I’m very glad we did not bring back Weena – his original Weena. Wini, Wiyeni – she’s an enormous improvement.”

  “She’s also an enormous problem,” I said.

  “Yes, but a delightful one. She seems to have a gift for language – she began imitating English sounds even in that world. So, as soon as she has enough vocabulary, I think we should tell her the whole truth. And then see what she does.”

  “About Time Travel? Will she understand it? It was bad enough for us.”

  He laughed. “Try her, and see. She is ignorant, but not stupid. And she’ll soon notice an oddity. It was midsummer in that Eloi world – now it’s autumn. You can’t keep the season a secret, not in England. And they must have had winters in the Eloi world, even if mild ones – short days and long nights. How long do you think it’ll take her to notice?”

  It took her, in fact, about one more day. And by Saturday morning, she was quite sure. She had seen the fallen leaves, and from her south-facing window she had watched three sunrises and three sunsets. And now, on Saturday, at a joint lesson in the breakfast room facing the garden, she tackled Welles and myself. She looked very fetching now, in her nineteenth-century garb – all but the shoes: in the house, she preferred to go barefoot. She spoke to us in a mixture of English and Eloic (for the latter, Welles translated).

  “Abio, Ilio,” she said, frowning with concentration, “how can it be, that it was hot time when we left my place Lanan – and now, in your great Eloi place, it is coming to the cold time? I thought it was just a few heartbeats, that wonder journey – but it must be many moons!”

  “It is many moons – months,” said Welles. “But not quite in the way you think, Wini . . .”

  She could already count very well, both in Eloic and in English, and now she mastered, from twelve months, the word year – and a flood of illumination followed.

  Yes, she could count years. “I, Wiyeni – it is twenty and one years since I come out of my mother.”

  Twenty-one! And Browne had thought her no more than eighteen . . .

  “Yes, and my sister Isi is of thirty years, and my mother Mena is of fifty-and-three. My mother is tamana – great-house-mother – of the Oso House, far south near the Wall of the Uncountry. My mother, so, will die after seven years, and Isi will become Isa, and house-mother.”

  “Your mother will die?” I cried. We had shown her a dead bird in the garden. No, there was no mistake. She mimed dying quite well. And confirmed it by translation: in Eloic, poi.

  “She means it,” said Welles. “How do you know, Wini, that your mother will die in seven years’ time?”

  “Because she is fifty-and-three. People die when they are sixty years old.” Suddenly she looked anxious. “O, Abio, Ilio! How old are you? Not fifty, not nearly sixty?”

  I burst out laughing. “Do we look it? I am twenty-six; Abio is twenty-five.”

  She looked at Welles with joy. “Then you will live, Abio, my dear, near as long as me: thirty-five more years.”

  A little more questioning revealed the astounding truth: all Eloi, if they survived other hazards, died peaceful deaths at age sixty. Before that time, once they were full grown, they did not age visibly at all.

  “That’s why they all looked young,” muttered Welles. “Not mass slaughter by Morlocks.”

  “It sounds like the Golden Age indeed,” I said. “Like in Hesiod. ‘Death came to them as sleep’.”

  But Welles was now greatly moved. He gripped her arm, her shoulder. “Wini – darling! You – at sixty . . .”

  “Oh yes,” she said brightly. “But there is nothing to fear in that, Abio, my jewel, my friend. After some years, few or many, we come out again from some other woman. So they say in the Houses.”

  “It is pleasant if you can believe that,” he said.

  “But now, Abio, Ilio, tell me how that wonderful Machine moves through months . . .”

  Then we told her – that the Machine had borne her, not forward a few months, but backward a great many years, to a time before there were any Morlocks in Britain. After a short while, she grasped what we were saying – but could not at first believe it.

  “I did not believe it at first either, Winnie,” I said. “But Periu is very clever – he made the Machine, and he has shown us that it does truly carry people forward and backward in time.”

  A great light seemed to dawn in her face. “Then – then you are truly the Taweloi, those who are told of in the stories of our Houses – you who built the Houses! You are the men of our fore-mothers! O Abio, Ilio!”

  And she slipped from her chair, knelt before us, and began kissing our feet. Welles hurriedly raised her. She laughed.

  “Now I will find Mother Meri-a, and kiss her feet too. For she is a woman, and may be one of my foremo
thers, my mother’s mother’s foremother!”

  “Wait,” I said. “Do you know, Winnie, how the Morlocks started?”

  “No, Ilio . . .”

  We told her. Her expression became one of horror. “People made Taweloi into Morlocks!”

  “Taweloi like James, like Ellen,” I said.

  “But Demu and Eleni are lovely people! Oh, that was bad, bad!”

  “Is,” said Welles. “It is happening now, Wini. What should we do about it?”

  “Stop it – stop it from happening! Do not let anyone be pushed down out of the Sun!” said Wiyeni indignantly.

  “That’s exactly what we mean to do,” said Welles. “Will you help us, Wini?”

  “Yes, yes, yes! All I can how!”

  “I think you can a lot,” said Welles.

  6

  The secret of Winnie was confined, outside the household, to the four of us – Browne, Ellis, Welles and myself. I sent a note to the Editor saying that the Traveller’s second great journey had failed – he had not found Weena. Which, in a way, was true . . .

  It was agreed among us and the Traveller that we could not go public for a long time. Not even his strange photographs could be displayed as yet. Debate continued as to whether we could ever go public with the whole truth of Time Travel. The Traveller himself was in two minds about that. He liked having the monopoly of the secret and the power – not even Welles understood how the essential trick was done – but on the other hand he knew that if he published, he would become more famous than Newton or Galileo.

  “Or the inventor of dynamite,” said Welles at one of our conferences. “That’s the true analogy. In this world of wars and rumours of wars – can the world be trusted with such a power? Can Germany – or France – or Russia? There’d be a million revisions of history, for a start. Not that we’d know about it – but still . . . If anything can happen, or has happened, nothing remains interesting, there are no serious issues. And I don’t like the idea of armies suddenly appearing in our real future. Sir, you must not release your invention till the world has become a far more civilized place. Meanwhile, for a long time, some of us will be trying to make it so.”