The Time Ships (7 page)

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, 1 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 feel
ing of humour. This Morlock, despite the standard wormy pallor of his skin, did look comical: imagine an orang-utan, 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 turn, to the food slabs in my hands. ‘
Tik
,’ he said. ‘
Pau
.’

I understood. ‘Good heavens,’ I said, ‘you
are
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
.’

‘
Agua
?’ 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.

At the end of our second session of this, the Morlock stepped back from me.

He said: ‘That should be sufficient. Do you understand me?’

I stared at him, stunned by this sudden facility with my language! His pronunciation was blurred – that liquid Morlock voice is not designed, it seems, for the harsher consonants and stops of English – but the words were quite comprehensible.

When I did not reply, he repeated, ‘Do you understand me?’

‘I – yes. I mean: yes, I understand you! But how did you do this – how can you have learned my language
– from so few words?’ For I judged we had covered a bare five hundred words, most of those concrete nouns and simple verbs.

‘I have access to records of all of the ancient languages of Humanity – as reconstructed – from Nostratic through the Indo-European group and its prototypes. A small number of key words is sufficient for the appropriate variant to be retrieved. You must inform me if anything I say is not intelligible.’

I took a cautious step forward. ‘Ancient? And how do you
know
I am ancient?’

Huge lids swept down over those goggled eyes. ‘Your physique is archaic. And the contents of your stomach, when analysed’ He actually shuddered, evidently at the thought of the remnants of Mrs Watchets’s breakfast. I was astonished: I had a fastidious Morlock! He went on, ‘You are out of time. We do not yet understand how you came to arrive on the earth. But no doubt we will learn.’

‘And in the meantime,’ I said with some strength, ‘you keep me in this – this
Cage of Light
. As if I were a beast, not a man! You give me a floor to sleep on, and a pail for my toilet –’

The Morlock said nothing; he observed me, impassive.

The frustration and embarrassment which had assailed me since my arrival in this place welled up, now that I was able to express them, and I decided that sufficient pleasantries had been exchanged. I said, ‘Now that we can speak to each other, you’re going to tell me where on earth I am. And where you’ve hidden my machine. Do you understand that, fellow, or do I have to
translate
it for you?’ And I reached for him, meaning to grab at the hair clumps on his chest.

When I came within two paces of him, he raised his hand. That was all. I remember a queer green
flash – I never saw the device he must have held, all the time he was near me – and then I fell to the Floor, quite insensible.

I
came to, spread-eagled on the Floor once more, and staring up into that confounded light.

I hoisted myself up onto my elbows, and rubbed my dazzled eyes. My Morlock friend was still there, standing just outside the circle of light. I got to my feet, rueful. These New Morlocks were going to be a handful for me, I realized.

The Morlock stepped into the light, its blue goggles glinting. As if nothing had interrupted our dialogue, he said, ‘My name is –’ his pronunciation reverted to the usual shapeless Morlock pattern – ‘Nebogipfel.’

‘
Nebogipfel
. Very well.’ In turn, I told him my name; within a few minutes he could repeat it with clarity and precision.

This, I realized, was the first Morlock whose name I had learned – the first who stood out from the masses of them I had encountered, and fought; the first to have the attributes of a distinguishable
person
.

‘So, Nebogipfel,’ I said. I sat cross-legged beside my trays, and rubbed at the rash of bruises my latest fall had inflicted on my upper arm. ‘You have been assigned as my keeper, here in this zoo.’

‘
Zoo
.’ He stumbled over that word. ‘No. I was not
assigned
. I volunteered to work with you.’

‘Work with me?’

‘I – we – want to understand how you came to be here.’

‘Do you, by Jove?’ I got to my feet and paced around my Cage of Light. ‘What if I told you that I came here in a machine that can carry a man through time?’ I held up my hands. ‘That
I
built such a machine, with these hands? What then, eh?’

He seemed to think that over. ‘Your era, as dated from your speech and physique, is very remote from ours. You are capable of achievements of high technology – witness your machine, whether or not it carries you through time as you claim. And the clothes you wear, the state of your hands, and the wear patterns of your teeth – all of these are indicative of a high state of civilization.’

‘I’m flattered,’ I said with some heat, ‘but if you believe I’m capable of such things – that I am a man, not an ape – why am I caged up in this way?’

‘Because,’ he said evenly, ‘you have already tried to attack me, with every intent of doing me harm. And on the Earth, you did great damage to –’

I felt fury burning anew. I stepped towards him. ‘Your monkeys were pawing at my machine,’ I shouted. ‘What did you expect? I was defending myself. I –’

He said: ‘
They were children
.’

His words pierced my rage. I tried to cling to the remnants of my self-justifying anger, but they were already receding from me. ‘What did you say?’

‘
Children
. They were children. Since the completion of the Sphere, the Earth is become a …
nursery
, a place for children to roam. They were curious about your machine. That is all. They would not have done you, or it, any conscious harm. Yet you attacked them, with great savagery.’

I stepped back from him. I remembered – now I let myself think about it – that the Morlocks capering
ineffectually around my machine had struck me as smaller than those I’d encountered before. And they had made no attempt to hurt me … save only the poor creature who I had captured, and who had then nipped my hand – before I clubbed its face!

‘The one I struck. Did he – it – survive?’

‘The physical injuries were reparable. But –’

‘Yes?’

‘The inner scars, the scars of the mind – these may never heal.’

I dropped my head.
Could it be true
? Had I been so blinded by my loathing of Morlocks that I had been unable to see those creatures around the machine for what they were: not the rat-like, vicious creatures of Weena’s world – but harmless infants? ‘I don’t suppose you know what I’m talking about – but I feel as if I’m trapped in another one of those “Dissolving Views”…

‘You are expressing shame,’ Nebogipfel said.

Shame
… I never thought I should hear, and accept, such remonstrance from a Morlock! I looked at him, defiant. ‘Yes. Very well! And does that make me more than a beast, in your view, or less of one?’

He said nothing.

Even while I was confronting this personal horror, some calculating part of my mind was running over something Nebogipfel had said.
Since the completion of the Sphere, the Earth is become a nursery
…

‘What
Sphere
?’

‘You have much to learn of us.’

‘Tell me about the Sphere!’

‘It is a Sphere around the sun.’

Those seven simple words – startling! – and yet … Of course! The solar evolution I had watched in the time-accelerated sky, the exclusion of the sunlight from the Earth – ‘I understand,’ I said to Nebogipfel. ‘I watched the sphere’s construction.’

The Morlock’s eyes seemed to widen, in a very human mannerism, as he considered this unexpected news.

And now, for me, other aspects of my situation were becoming clear.

‘You said,’ I essayed to Nebogipfel, ‘“On the Earth, you did great damage –” Something on those lines.’ It was an odd thing to say, I thought now –
if I was still on the Earth
. I lifted my face and let the light beat down on me. ‘Nebogipfel – beneath my feet. What is visible, through this clear Floor?’

‘Stars.’

‘Not representations, not some kind of planetarium –’

‘Stars.’

I nodded. ‘And this light from above –’

‘It is sunlight.’

Somehow, I think I had known it. I stood in the light of a sun, which was overhead for twenty-four hours of every day; I stood on a Floor
above
the stars …

I felt as if the world were shifting about me; I felt light-headed, and there was a remote ringing in my ears. My adventures had already taken me across the deserts of time, but now – thanks to my capture by these astonishing Morlocks –
I had been lifted across space
. I was no longer on the Earth – I had been transported to the Morlocks’ solar Sphere!