The Hollow Lands

14. A Scarcity of Time Machines

A fresh dawn brightened Bromley. Taking his leave of the Rose and Crown , having risen early to complete his business and be as swiftly as possible on his way, Mr. Wells entered the High Street with the air of a man who had, during the night, wrestled with a devil and thoroughly conquered it. This return to Bromley had been reluctant for two reasons; the first reason being his own identification of the place with everything unimaginative, repressive and stultifying about England; the second was that his business was embarrassing in that he came as something of a petitioner, to save his father from an appearance in the County Court by clearing up a small financial matter which had, for many months, apparently escaped his father's attention. It was because of this that he had not been able to condescend to Bromley quite as much as he would have liked — after all, these were his roots. His father, as far as Bromley was concerned, had been a Failure, but the son was now on his way to being a Great Success, with five books already published and several more due to appear soon. He would have preferred his return to have been greeted with more publicity — perhaps a brief interview in the Bromley Record — and to have arrived in greater style, but the nature of his business made that impossible. Indeed, he hoped that nobody would recognize him and that was his main reason for leaving the hostelry so early. And the reason for his air of self-congratulation — he felt he was On Top of Bromley. It held no further fears for him. Questions of minor debts, or petty scandals, could not longer plunge him into the depths of anxiety he had once known. He had escaped from Bromley and now, by returning, he had escaped from the ghosts he had taken with him.

Mr. Wells gave his stick a twirl. He gave his small moustache a flick (it had never grown quite as thick as he had hoped it would) and he pursed his lips in a silent whistle. A great sense of well-being filled him and he looked with a haughty eye upon Bromley; at the milkman's float with its ancient horse dragging it slowly along, at the newspaper delivery boy as he cycled from door to door, doubtless blessing the dull inhabitants of this dull town with news of dull civic doings, at the blinds still closed over all the familiar shop windows, including the window of Atlas House where his mother and father, intermittently, had brought him up and where his mother had done her best to instil in him the basic principles of Remaining Respectable.

He grinned. These days, he didn't give a fig for their Respectability. He was his own man, making his own way, according to his own rules. And what different rules they were! His encounter on the previous evening, with that strange, foreign young man, had cheered him up quite a bit, now realized. Thinking over their conversation, it had occurred to him that The Time Machine had been taken for literal truth by the stranger. That, surely, was a Sign of Success, if nothing was!

Birds sang, milk-cans clinked, the sky above the roof-tops of Bromley was clear and blue, there was a fresh sort of smell in the air, a sense of peace. Mr. Wells filled his lungs.

He expelled his breath slowly, alert and curious, now, to a new sound, a rather less peaceful sound, in the distance. He paused, expectantly, and then was astonished to see, rounding the bend in the High Street, a large plough-horse, lathered in sweat, foaming a little at the mouth, eyes rolling, galloping at full tilt in his direction. He stopped altogether as he saw that the horse had two riders, neither, it seemed, very securely mounted. In the front was a beautiful young woman in a maroon velvet dress covered in bits of straw, mud and leaves, her dark red curls in disarray. And behind her, with one hand about her waist, the other upon the reins, in his shirtsleeves (his coat seemed to have slipped down between them and was flapping like an extra leg against the horse's side) was the young stranger, Mr. Carnelian, whooping and laughing, for all the world like a stockbroker's clerk enjoying the fun of the roundabout ride at a Bank Holiday Fair. Its way partly blocked by the milkman's float, the horse balked for a moment, and Mr. Carnelian spotted Mr. Wells. He waved cheerfully, lurching backwards and barely managing to recover his balance.

"Mr. Wells! We were hoping to see you."

Mr. Wells's reply fell a little flat, even to his own ears: "Well, here I am!"

"I was wondering if you knew who could make me a time machine?"

Mr. Wells did his best to humour the foreigner and with a chuckle pointed with his stick to the bicycle supported in the hands of the gaping delivery boy. "I'm afraid the nearest thing you'll find to a Time Machine hereabouts is that piece of ironmongery over there!"

Mr. Carnelian took note of the bicycle and seemed ready to dismount, but then the horse was off again, with the young woman crying "Woe! Woe!" or possibly "Woah! Woah!" and her co-rider calling back over his shoulder; "I am much obliged, Mr. Wells! Thank you!"

Now five mud-drenched police constables on equally muddy cycles came racing round the corner and the leading officer was pointing at the disappearing pair, shouting:

"Collar 'im! It's the Mayfair Killer!"

Mr. Wells watched in silence as the squadron went past, then he crossed the road to where the delivery boy was still standing, his jaw threatening to detach itself altogether from the rest of his face. Feeling in his waistcoat pocket, Mr. Wells produced a coin. "Would you care to sell me one of your papers?" he asked.

He had begun to wonder if Bromley had not ceased to be quite as dull as he remembered it.

Jherek Carnelian, with a bemused expression on his face, watched the oar drift away through the weed-strewn waters of the river. Mrs. Underwood lay in fitful slumber at the other end of the boat (which they had requisitioned after the horse, on attempting to jump a fence a good ten miles from Bromley, had deposited them near the river).

Jherek had not had a great deal of success with the oars, anyway, and he was scarcely sorry to see the last one go. He leaned back, with one arm upon the tiller, and yawned. The day was extremely warm now and the sun was high in the sky. There came the lazy sounds of bees in the tall grass of the nearest bank and, on the other side of the river, white-clad ladies played croquet on a green and perfect lawn; the music of their tinkling laughter, the clack of mallets against balls, came faintly to Jherek's ears. This world was so rich , he thought, plucking a couple of small leaves off his battered jacket and inspecting them carefully. The texture, the detail, were all fascinating, and he wondered at the possibility of reproducing them when he and Mrs. Underwood returned home.

Mrs. Underwood stirred, rubbing at her eyes. "Ah," she said, "I feel a little better for that." She became aware of her surroundings. "Oh, dear. We are adrift!"

"I lost the oars," Jherek explained. "See — there's one. But the current seems adequate. We are moving."

She did not comment on this, but her lips curved in a smile which might have been described as philosophical rather than humorous.

"These time machines are much more common than you thought," Jherek told her. "I've seen several from the boat. People were riding them along the path beside the river. And those policemen had them, too. Probably thought they would follow us through Time."

"Those are bicycles," said Mrs. Underwood.

"It's hard to tell them apart, I suppose. They all look very similar to me, but to your eye…"

"Bicycles," she repeated, but without vehemence.

"Well," he said, "it all goes to show that your fears were groundless. We'll be back soon, you see."

"Not by this method, I trust. In which direction are we heading?" She looked around her. "Roughly westwards, I would say. We might easily be in Surrey. Ah, well, the police will find us eventually. I am reconciled."

"In a world where Time seems so important," Jherek mused, "you'd think they would have more machines for manipulating it."

"Time manipulates us in this world, Mr. Carnelian."

"As, of course, it will, according to Morphail. You see the reason I came so urgently to find you, Mrs. Underwood, was that sooner or later we shall be plunged into the future, but the difference will be that we shall not be able to control our flight — we could land anywhere — we could be separated again."

"I do not quite follow you, Mr. Carnelian." She dangled her hand in the water in a gesture which, for her, was almost abandoned.

"Once you have travelled into the future, you cannot remain for long in the past, lest a paradox result. Thus time itself ejects those whose presence in certain ages would lead to confusion, an alteration of history or something like that. How we have managed to remain so long in this period is a mystery. Presumably we have not yet begun to produce dangerous paradoxes. But I think that the moment we do, then we shall be on our way."

"Are you suggesting that we shall have no choice?"

"I am. Thus we must make all speed to get back to my time, where you'll be happy. Admittedly, if we go into a future where time machines are less scarce, we should be able to make the journey in, as it were, several hops, but some of the periods between 1896 and the End of Time were exceptionally uncongenial and we could easily land in one of those."

"You are trying to convince me, then, that I have no alternative?"

"It is the truth."

"I have never known you to lie, Mr. Carnelian." She smiled that same smile again. "I have often prayed that you would! Yet if I had remained in my own time and said nothing of what had happened to me, refused to act according to what I knew of the future, I might have remained here forever."

"I suppose so. It might explain the instinct of some time travellers to speak as little of the future as possible and never to make use of their information. I have heard of these and it could be that they are 'allowed' by Time to stay where they wish. By and large, however, few can resist talking of their adventures, making use of their information. Of course, we wouldn't really know about the ones who said nothing, would we? That could explain the flaw in the Morphail Theorem."

"So — I shall say nothing and remain in 1896," she said. "By now Harold might have recovered his senses and if I tell the police that I was kidnapped by you I might not be charged as your accomplice. Moreover, if you disappear, then they'll never be able to prove you were the Mayfair Killer, somehow escaped from death. But we shall still need help." She frowned.

There came a scraping sound from beneath them.

"Aha!" she said. "We are in luck. The boat has run aground."

They disembarked onto a narrow, sandy path. From the path ran a steep bank on which grew a variety of yellow, blue and scarlet flowers. At the top of the bank was a white fence.

While Mrs. Underwood tidied her hair, using the river as a mirror, Jherek began to pick the flowers until he had quite a large bunch. His pursuit of a particularly fine specimen forced him to climb to the top of the bank so that he could then see what lay beyond the fence.

The bank went down to fields which were of a glowing green and oddly flat; and on the other side of the fields were a group of red-brick buildings, decorated with a number of rococo motifs in iron and stone. A tributary of the river ran alongside the buildings and in some of the more distant fields there were machines at work. The machines consisted of a heavy central cylinder from which extended about ten very long rods. As Jherek watched, the cylinders turned and the rods swung with them, distributing liquid evenly over the bright green fields. They were plainly agricultural robot workers; Jherek dimly remembered hearing about them in some malfunctioning record found in one of the rotted cities. He recalled that they had existed during the time of the Multitude Cultures, but he now knew enough about his particular period to be aware that they were still a rarity. This must then be something of an experimental project, he guessed. As such the buildings he could see could quite easily comprise a scientific establishment and, if so, there would be people there who would know how to go about procuring a time machine.

He was excited as he ran back down the bank, but he did not forget his priorities. He paused to arrange the flowers and, when she stood up from her toilet, turning towards him, he presented the bunch.

"A little late, I fear," he said. "But here they are! Your flowers, Mrs. Underwood."

She hesitated for a moment and then reached out to take them. "Thank you, Mr. Carnelian." Her lips trembled.

He looked searchingly at her face. "Your eyes —" he said — "they seem wet. Did you splash some water into your face?"

She cleared her throat and put fingers first to one eye and then the other. "I suppose I did," she agreed.

"I believe that we are a little closer to our goal," he told her, pointing back up the bank. "It will not be long now before we are back in my own age and you can take up my 'moral education' where you were forced to leave it, when you were snatched from my arms."

She shook her head and her smile, now, seemed a little warmer. "I sometimes wonder if you are deliberately naive, Mr. Carnelian. I have told you — my duty is to return to Harold and try to ease his mind. Think of him! He is not — not a flexible man. He must be in agony at this moment."

"Well, if you wish to return, we will both go. I will explain to him in more detail…"

"That would not help. Somehow we must ensure your safety, then I will go to him on my own."

"And after that, you will come to me?"

"No, Mr. Carnelian."

"Even though you love me?"

"Yes, Mr. Carnelian. And, I say again. I have not confirmed what I said at a time when I was not altogether in my right senses. Besides, Mr. Carnelian, what if I did love you? I have seen your world — your people play at real life — your emotions are the emotions of actors — sincere for the moment that they are displayed on stage before the public. Knowing this, how would I feel if I did love you? I would be aware that your love for me is nothing but a sentimental imposture, pursued, admittedly, with a certain persistence, but an imposture none the less."

"Oh, no, no, no!" His large eyes clouded. "How could you think that?"

They stood in silence upon the bank of the tranquil river. Her eyes were downcast as she looked at the flowers; her delicate hands stroked the petals; she breathed rapidly. He took a step towards her and then stopped. He thought for a moment, before he spoke.

"Mrs. Underwood?"

"Yes, Mr. Carnelian?"

"What is an imposture?"

She looked up in surprise and then she laughed. "Oh, dear, Mr. Carnelian! Oh dear! What are we to do?"

He took her hand and she did not resist him. He began to lead her up the bank. "We'll go to the people who live in the laboratories I've just spotted. They'll help us."

"Laboratories. How do you know?"

"Robot workers. You don't have many in 1896, do you?"

"We have none at all, as far as I've heard!"

"Then I am right. It is of an experimental nature. We shall find scientists there. And scientists will not only understand what I have to say — they'll be more than glad to be of assistance!"

"I am not at all sure, Mr. Carnelian — Oh!" She had reached the fence, she was looking at the scene below them. First she blushed and then she laughed. "Oh, Mr. Carnelian, I'm afraid your hopes are unjustified. I wondered what the smell might be…"

"Smell? Is it unusual?"

"A little. Oh, my goodness…"

"It is not an experimental farm, Mrs. Underwood?" For the first time his spirits threatened to desert him.

"No, Mr. Carnelian. It is what we call a sewage farm." She leaned on the fence and as she laughed tears ran down her cheeks.

"What is 'sewage?' " he asked.

"It is not something a lady could tell you, I fear!"

He sat down on the ground at her feet. He put his head in his hands and he became aware of a hint of despair in the back of his mind.

"Then how are we to find a time machine?" he said. "Even an old one, even that broken one I left behind on my last visit — it would be something . Ah, Mrs. Underwood, I think I have not planned this adventure as well as I might have done."

"Perhaps that is why I am beginning to enjoy it," she said. "Cheer up, Mr. Carnelian. My father always used to tell me that there was nothing like a good, solid, seemingly unsolvable problem to get one's teeth into and take one's mind off the usual silly anxieties which plague us. And this problem is huge — it certainly makes any others I might have had seem very trivial indeed! I must admit I had sunk into self-pity and that will never do. But I am over that now."

"I suspect that I am only just beginning to discover what it is," said Jherek feelingly. "Does it involve a belief in an anthropomorphical and malevolent being called Fate?"

"I'm afraid it does, Mr. Carnelian."

He pulled himself slowly to his feet. She helped him on with his coat. He brightened at the next thought which occurred to him. "Perhaps, however, it is furthering my 'moral education'? Would that be the case, Mrs. Underwood?"

They began to climb down the bank and back to the sandy path.

This time she took him by the hand. "It's more in the nature of a side-effect, though I know I shouldn't sound so cynical. Mr. Underwood has often said to me that there is nothing so unwelcome in the sight of the Lord than a cynical woman. And there are a great many of them about, I'm afraid, in these worldly and upsetting modern times of ours. Come along, let's see where this path takes us."

"I hope," he murmured, "that it is not back to Bromley."