For the last hour we had flown over the southern suburbs of the city. The extent of the desolation was almost beyond words. Where the Martians had not attacked with their heat-beams they had smothered with their black smoke, and where neither had been brought to bear the red weed had sprung willingly from the river to choke and tangle.
We had seen nobody at all; the only movement had been that of a hungry dog, hopping with one leg broken through the streets of Lambeth.
Much debris floated in the river, and we saw many small boats overturned. In the Pool of London we had seen a score of corpses, caught by some freak of the tide, bobbing whitely by the entrance to Surrey Docks.
Then we had set our course by the landmarks we knew, and come to Westminster Bridge. We had seen the Tower of London, with its stout walls unscathed by the Martians, but its green swards had become a jungle of Martian weed. Tower Bridge too, its roadway left open, had long strands of weed cobwebbing its graceful lines. Then we had seen the high dome of St Paul’s, and noticed how it stood undamaged above the lower buildings of the City; our mood changed as we passed beyond it and saw that on its western side a gaping hole had been made.
So at last we landed on Westminster Bridge, well depressed by what we had seen. Mr Wells turned off the attenuation, and at once we breathed the air of London, and heard its sounds.
We smelt…
We smelt the residue of smoke; the bitter, metallic tang of the weed; the sweetness of putrefaction; the cool salty airs of the river; the heady odour of the macadamed roadway, simmering in the summer’s sunshine.
We heard…
A great silence overwhelmed London. There was the flow of the river below the bridge, and an occasional creak from the weed which still grew prolifically by the parapet. But there was no clatter of hooves, no grind of wheels, no cries or calls of people, nor sound of footfall.
Directly before us stood the Palace of Westminster, topped by the tower of Big Ben, unharmed. The clock had stopped at seventeen minutes past two.
We pushed back our goggles, and stepped down from the Space Machine. I went with Amelia to stand by the side of the bridge, staring up the river. Mr Wells walked off alone, looking in a brooding fashion at the mountainous piles of weed that had submerged the Victoria Embankment. He had been silent and thoughtful as we toured the deathful city, and now as he stood by himself, staring down at the sluggishly flowing river, I saw that his shoulders were slumped and his expression was pensive.
Amelia too was staring at our friend, but then she slipped her hand into mine and for a moment rested her cheek against my shoulder.
“Edward, this is terrible! I had no idea that things were so bad.”
I stared gloomily at the view, trying to find something about it that would indicate some optimistic development, but the emptiness and stillness were total. I had never before seen the skies above London so free of soot, but that was hardly recompense for this utter destruction of the greatest city in the world.
“Soon everywhere will be like this,” Amelia said. “We were wrong to think we could tackle the Martians, even though we have killed a few. What I find hardest to accept is that all this is our doing, Edward. We brought this menace to the world.”
“No,” I said instantly. “We are not to blame.”
I felt her stiffen. “We can’t absolve ourselves of this.”
I said: “The Martians would have invaded Earth whether we took a part or not. We saw their preparations. If there is consolation to be found, then it is that only ten projectiles made it to Earth. Your revolution prevented the monsters from carrying out their plans to the full. What we see is bad enough, but think how much worse it might have been.”
“I suppose so.”
She fell silent for a few seconds, but then went on: “Edward, we must return to Mars. While there is any chance that the monsters rule that world, Earthmen can never relax their guard. We have the Space Machine to take us, for if one can be built so hastily in the urgent circumstances in which we worked, another more powerful Machine can be built, one that would carry a thousand armed men. I promised the people of Mars that I would return, and now we must.”
I listened to her words carefully, and realized that the passions that had driven her on Mars had been replaced by wisdom and understanding.
“We will go back to Mars one day,” I said. “There is no alternative.”
We had both forgotten Mr Wells’s presence while we spoke, but now he turned from his position and walked slowly back towards us. I saw that in the few minutes he had been by himself a fundamental change had come over his bearing. The weight of defeat had been removed from his shoulders, and his eyes were gleaming once more.
“You two look most uncommonly miserable!” he cried. “There is no cause for that. Our work is over. The Martians have not left…they are still in London, and the battle is won!”
iii
Amelia and I stared uncomprehendingly at Mr Wells after he had made this unexpected statement. He moved towards the Space Machine, and placing one foot on the iron frame he turned to face us, clasping his jacket lapels in his fists. He cleared his throat.
“This has been a war of worlds,” said Mr Wells, speaking calmly and in a clear ringing voice. “Where we have been mistaken is to treat it as a war of intelligences. We have seen the invaders’ monstrous appearance, but persuaded by their qualities of cunning, valour and intelligence have thought of them as men. So we have fought them as if they were men, and we have not done well. Our Army was overrun, and our houses were burnt and crushed. However, the Martians’ domain on Earth is a small one. I dare say when the recovery is made we shall discover that no more than a few hundred square miles of territory have been conquered. Even so, small as has been the battleground, this has been a war between worlds, and when the Martians came to Earth so rudely they did not realize what they were taking on.”
“Sir,” I said, “if you are speaking of allies, we have seen none. No armies have come to our assistance, unless they too were instantly overcome.”
Mr Wells gestured impatiently. “I am not speaking of armies, Turnbull, although they will come in good time, as will the grain-ships and the goods-trains. No, our true allies are all about us, invisible, just as we in our Machine were invisible!”
I glanced upwards reflexively, almost expecting a second Space Machine to appear from the sky.
“Look at the weeds, Turnbull!” Mr Wells pointed to the stems that grew a few feet from where we stood. “See how the leaves are blighted? See how the stems are splitting even as they grow? While mankind has been concerned with the terrible intelligence of the monsters, these plants have been waging their own battles. Our soil will not feed them with the minerals they require, and our bees will not pollinate their flowers. These weeds are dying, Turnbull. In the same way, the Martian monsters will die even if they have not done so already. The Martian effort is at an end, because intelligence is no match for nature. As the humans on Mars tampered with nature to make the monsters, and thereby provoked Nemesis, so the monsters sought to tamper with life on Earth, and they too have destroyed themselves.”
“Then where are the monsters now?” said Amelia.
“We shall find them soon enough,” Mr Wells said, “but that will come in time. Our problem is no longer how to confront this menace, but how to enjoy the spoils of victory. We have the products of the Martian intelligence all about us, and these will be eagerly taken by our scientists. I suspect that the peaceful days of the past will never entirely return, for these battle-machines and walking vehicles are likely to bring fundamental changes to the way of life of everyone in the world. We stand in the early years of a new century, and it is one which will see many changes. At the heart of those changes will be a new battle: one between Science and Conscience. This is the battle the Martians lost, and it is one we must now fight!”
iv
Mr Wells lapsed into silence, his breathing heavy, and Amelia and I stood nervously before him.
br />
At length he moved from his position, and lowered his fists. He cleared his throat again.
“I think this is no time for speech-making,” he said, apparently disconcerted at the way his eloquence had silenced us. “To see this through, we must find the Martians. Later, I will contact my publisher and see if he would be interested in an edition of my thoughts on this topic.”
I looked around at the silent city. “You cannot believe, sir, that after this the life of London will return to normal?”
“Not to normal, Turnbull. This war is not an ending, but a beginning! The people who fled will return; our institutions will re-establish themselves. Even the fabric of the city is, for the most part, intact, and can be quickly rebuilt. The work of rebuilding will not end with structural repairs, for the Martian intrusion has itself served to heighten our own intelligence. As I have said, that presents its own dangers, but we will deal with those as the need arises.”
Amelia had been staring across the rooftops throughout our exchange, and now she pointed towards the north-west.
“Look, Edward, Mr Wells! I think there are some birds there!”
We looked in the direction she was indicating, and saw a flight of large birds, black against the brilliant sky, whirling and diving. They seemed to be a long way away.
“Let us investigate this,” said Mr Wells, adjusting the goggles over his eyes once more.
We went back to the Space Machine, and just as we were about to step aboard we heard an intrusive sound. It was one so familiar to us that we all reacted in the same moment: it was the braying call of a Martian, its siren voice echoing from the faces of the buildings that fronted the river. But this was no war-cry, nor call of the hunt. Instead it was coloured by pain and fear, an alien lament across a broken city.
The call was two notes, one following the other, endlessly repeated: “Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla…”
v
We saw the first battle-machine in Regent’s Park, standing alone. I reached immediately for a hand-grenade, but Mr Wells restrained me.
“No need for that, Turnbull,” he said.
He brought the Space Machine in close to the platform, and we saw the cluster of crows that surrounded it. The birds had found a way into the platform, and now they pecked and snatched at the flesh of the Martian within.
Its eyes gazed blankly at us through one of the ports at the front. The gaze was as baleful as ever, but where once it had been cold and malicious, now it was the fixed glare of death.
There was a second battle-machine at the foot of Primrose Hill, and here the birds had finished their work. Splashings of dried blood and discarded flesh lay on the grass a hundred feet beneath the platform.
So we came to the great pit that the Martians had built at the top of Primrose Hill. This, the largest of all, had become the centre of their operations against London. The earthworks covered the entire crest of the Hill, and ran down the far side. At the heart of them lay the projectile that had first landed here, but the fact that the pit had been subsequently enlarged and fortified was everywhere evident.
Here was the Martians’ arsenal. Here had been brought their battle-machines, and the spider-like handling-machines. And here, scattered all about, were the bodies of the dead Martians. Some were sprawled in the mouth of the projectile, some simply lay on the ground. Others, in a last valiant effort to confront the invisible foe, were inside the many battle-machines that stood all about.
Mr Wells landed the Space Machine a short distance away from the pit, and turned off the attenuation. He had landed upwind of the pit, so we were spared the worst effects of the terrible stench that emanated from the creatures.
With the attenuation off we could once more hear the cry of the dying Martian. It came from one of the battle-machines standing beside the pit. The cry was faltering now, and very weak. We saw that the crows were in attendance, and even as we stepped out of the Space Machine the last call of pain was stilled.
“Mr Wells,” I said. “It is just as you were saying. The Martians seemed to have been afflicted with some disease, from drinking the red blood of Englishmen!”
I realized that Mr Wells was paying no attention either to me or Amelia, and that he was staring out across London, seeing the immense stillness of the city with tear-filled eyes. We stood beside him, overwhelmed by the sight of the abandoned city, and still nervous of the alien towers that stood around us.
Mr Wells mopped his eyes with his kerchief, then wandered away from us towards the Martian whose call we had heard.
Amelia and I stood by our Space Machine, and watched him as he carefully skirted the rim of the pit, then stood beneath the battle-machine, staring up at the glittering engine above. I saw him fumble in a pocket, and produce the leather-bound note book he had been using in the laboratory. He, wrote something inside this, then returned it to his pocket.
He was by the battle-machine for several minutes, but at last he returned to us. He seemed to have recovered from his moment of emotion, and walked briskly and directly towards us.
“There is something I have never said to you before,” he said, addressing us both. “I believe you saved my life, the day you found me by the river with the curate. I have never thanked you enough.”
I said: “You built the Space Machine, Mr Wells. Nothing that we have accomplished would have been possible without that.”
He dismissed this remark with a wave of his hand.
“Miss Fitzgibbon,” he said. “Will you excuse me if I leave on my own?”
“You are not going, Mr Wells?”
“I have much to do. We will meet again, never fear. I shall call on you at Richmond at the earliest opportunity.”
“But sir,” I said. “Where are you going?”
“I think I must find my way to Leatherhead, Mr Turnbull. I was on a journey to find my wife when you met me, and now I must complete that journey. Whether she is dead or alive is something that is only my concern.”
“But we could take you to Leatherhead in the Space Machine,” said Amelia.
“There will be no need for that. I can find my way.”
He extended his hand to me, and I took it uncertainly. Mr Wells’s grip was firm, but I did not understand why he should leave us so unexpectedly. When he released my hand he turned to Amelia, and she embraced him warmly.
He nodded to me, then turned away and walked down the side of the Hill.
Somewhere behind us there came a sudden sound: it was a high-pitched shrieking, not at all unlike the Martians’ sirens. I jumped in alarm, and looked all about me…but there was no movement from any of the Martian devices. Amelia, standing beside me, had also reacted to the sound, but her attention was taken up with Mr Wells’s actions.
The gentleman in question had gone no more than a few yards, and, disregarding the shriek, was looking through the notebook. I saw him take two or three of the pages, then rip them out. He screwed them up in his hand, and tossed them amongst the debris of the Martians’ presence. He glanced back at us, and saw we were both watching him.
After a moment he climbed back to where we stood.
“There’s just one other thing, Turnbull,” he said. “I have treated the account of your adventures on Mars with great seriousness, improbable as your story sometimes seemed.”
“But Mr Wells—”
He raised his hand to silence me. “It would not be right to dismiss your account as total fabrication, but you would be hard put to substantiate what you told me.”
I was astounded to hear my friend say such things! His implication was no less than that Amelia and I were not telling the truth! I stepped forward angrily…but then I felt a gentle touch on my arm.
I looked at Amelia, and saw that she was smiling.
“Edward, there is no need for this,” she said.
I saw that Mr Wells was smiling too, and that there was something of a gleam in his eye.
“We all have our tales to tell, Mr Turnbull,” he said. “Good d
ay to you.”
With that, he turned away and strode determinedly down the Hill, replacing the notebook in his breast-pocket.
“Mr Wells is behaving very strangely,” I said. “He has come with us to this cataclysm, when suddenly he abandons us just when we most need him. Now he is casting doubt on—”
I was interrupted by a repetition of the shrieking sound we had heard a minute or so earlier. It was much closer now, and both Amelia and I realized simultaneously what it was.
We turned and stared down the Hill, towards the north-eastern side, where the railway-line runs towards Euston. A moment later we saw the train moving slowly over the rusting lines, throwing up huge white clouds of steam. The driver blew the whistle for the third time, and the shriek reverberated around the whole city below. As if in answer there came a second sound. A bell began to toll in a church by St John’s Wood. Startled, the crows left their macabre pickings and flapped noisily into the sky.
Amelia and I leapt up and down at the crest of Primrose Hill, waving our kerchiefs to the passengers. As the train moved slowly out of sight, I took Amelia into my arms. I kissed her passionately, and, with a joyous sense of reawakening hope, we sat down on the bedstead to wait for the first people to arrive.
THE END
Christopher Priest, The Space Machine
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