The Time Machine — EN

XIV
The Further Vision

“I have already told you of the sick­ness and con­fu­sion that comes with time trav­el­ling. And this time I was not seat­ed prop­er­ly in the sad­dle, but side­ways and in an unsta­ble fash­ion. For an indef­i­nite time I clung to the machine as it swayed and vibrat­ed, quite unheed­ing how I went, and when I brought myself to look at the dials again I was amazed to find where I had arrived. One dial records days, and anoth­er thou­sands of days, anoth­er mil­lions of days, and anoth­er thou­sands of mil­lions. Now, instead of revers­ing the levers, I had pulled them over so as to go for­ward with them, and when I came to look at these indi­ca­tors I found that the thou­sands hand was sweep­ing round as fast as the sec­onds hand of a watch – into futu­ri­ty.

“As I drove on, a pecu­liar change crept over the appear­ance of things. The pal­pi­tat­ing grey­ness grew dark­er; then – though I was still trav­el­ling with prodi­gious veloc­i­ty – the blink­ing suc­ces­sion of day and night, which was usu­al­ly indica­tive of a slow­er pace, returned, and grew more and more marked. This puz­zled me very much at first. The alter­na­tions of night and day grew slow­er and slow­er, and so did the pas­sage of the sun across the sky, until they seemed to stretch through cen­turies. At last a steady twi­light brood­ed over the earth, a twi­light only bro­ken now and then when a comet glared across the dark­ling sky. The band of light that had indi­cat­ed the sun had long since dis­ap­peared; for the sun had ceased to set – it sim­ply rose and fell in the west, and grew ever broad­er and more red. All trace of the moon had van­ished. The cir­cling of the stars, grow­ing slow­er and slow­er, had giv­en place to creep­ing points of light. At last, some time before I stopped, the sun, red and very large, halt­ed motion­less upon the hori­zon, a vast dome glow­ing with a dull heat, and now and then suf­fer­ing a momen­tary extinc­tion. At one time it had for a lit­tle while glowed more bril­liant­ly again, but it speed­i­ly revert­ed to its sullen red heat. I per­ceived by this slow­ing down of its ris­ing and set­ting that the work of the tidal drag was done. The earth had come to rest with one face to the sun, even as in our own time the moon faces the earth. Very cau­tious­ly, for I remem­bered my for­mer head­long fall, I began to reverse my motion. Slow­er and slow­er went the cir­cling hands until the thou­sands one seemed motion­less and the dai­ly one was no longer a mere mist upon its scale. Still slow­er, until the dim out­lines of a des­o­late beach grew visible.

“I stopped very gen­tly and sat upon the Time Machine, look­ing round. The sky was no longer blue. North-east­ward it was inky black, and out of the black­ness shone bright­ly and steadi­ly the pale white stars. Over­head it was a deep Indi­an red and star­less, and south-east­ward it grew brighter to a glow­ing scar­let where, cut by the hori­zon, lay the huge hull of the sun, red and motion­less. The rocks about me were of a harsh red­dish colour, and all the trace of life that I could see at first was the intense­ly green veg­e­ta­tion that cov­ered every pro­ject­ing point on their south-east­ern face. It was the same rich green that one sees on for­est moss or on the lichen in caves: plants which like these grow in a per­pet­u­al twi­light.

“The machine was stand­ing on a slop­ing beach. The sea stretched away to the south-west, to rise into a sharp bright hori­zon against the wan sky. There were no break­ers and no waves, for not a breath of wind was stir­ring. Only a slight oily swell rose and fell like a gen­tle breath­ing, and showed that the eter­nal sea was still mov­ing and liv­ing. And along the mar­gin where the water some­times broke was a thick incrus­ta­tion of salt – pink under the lurid sky. There was a sense of oppres­sion in my head, and I noticed that I was breath­ing very fast. The sen­sa­tion remind­ed me of my only expe­ri­ence of moun­taineer­ing, and from that I judged the air to be more rar­efied than it is now.

“Far away up the des­o­late slope I heard a harsh scream, and saw a thing like a huge white but­ter­fly go slant­i­ng and flit­ter­ing up into the sky and, cir­cling, dis­ap­pear over some low hillocks beyond. The sound of its voice was so dis­mal that I shiv­ered and seat­ed myself more firm­ly upon the machine. Look­ing round me again, I saw that, quite near, what I had tak­en to bea red­dish mass of rock was mov­ing slow­ly towards me. Then I saw the thing was real­ly a mon­strous crab-like crea­ture. Can you imag­ine a crab as large as yon­der table, with its many legs mov­ing slow­ly and uncer­tain­ly, its big claws sway­ing, its long anten­nae, like carters” whips, wav­ing and feel­ing, and its stalked eyes gleam­ing at you on either side of its metal­lic front? Its back was cor­ru­gat­ed and orna­ment­ed with ungain­ly boss­es, and a green­ish incrus­ta­tion blotched it here and there. I could see the many palps of its com­pli­cat­ed mouth flick­er­ing and feel­ing as it moved.

“As I stared at this sin­is­ter appari­tion crawl­ing towards me, I felt a tick­ling on my cheek as though a fly had light­ed there. I tried to brush it away with my hand, but in a moment it returned, and almost imme­di­ate­ly came anoth­er by my ear. I struck at this, and caught some­thing thread­like. It was drawn swift­ly out of my hand. With a fright­ful qualm, I turned, and I saw that I had grasped the anten­naof anoth­er mon­ster crab that stood just behind me. Its evil eyes were wrig­gling on their stalks, its mouth was all alive with appetite, and its vast ungain­ly claws, smeared with an algal slime, were descend­ing upon me. In a moment my hand was on the lever, and I had placed a month between myself and these mon­sters. But I was still on the same beach, and I saw them dis­tinct­ly now as soon as I stopped. Dozens of them seemed to be crawl­ing here and there, in the som­bre light, among the foli­at­ed sheets of intense green.

“I can­not con­vey the sense of abom­inable des­o­la­tion that hung over the world. The red east­ern sky, the north­ward black­ness, the salt Dead Sea, the stony beach crawl­ing with these foul, slow-stir­ring mon­sters, the uni­form poi­so­nous-look­ing green of the lichenous plants, the thin air that hurts one’s lungs: all con­tributed to an appalling effect. I moved on a hun­dred years, and there was the same red sun – a lit­tle larg­er, a lit­tle duller – the same dying sea, the same chill air, and the same crowd of earthy crus­tacea creep­ing in and out among the green weed and the red rocks. And in the west­ward sky, I saw a curved pale line like a vast new moon.

“So I trav­elled, stop­ping ever and again, in great strides of a thou­sand years or more, drawn on by the mys­tery of the earth’s fate, watch­ing with a strange fas­ci­na­tion the sun grow larg­er and duller in the west­ward sky, and the life of the old earth ebb away. At last, more than thir­ty mil­lion years hence, the huge red-hot dome of the sun had come to obscure near­ly a tenth part of the dark­ling heav­ens. Then I stopped once more, for the crawl­ing mul­ti­tude of crabs had dis­ap­peared, and the red beach, save for its livid green liv­er­worts and lichens, seemed life­less. And now it was flecked with white. A bit­ter cold assailed me. Rare white flakes ever and again came eddy­ing down. To the north-east­ward, the glare of snow lay under the starlight of the sable sky and I could see an undu­lat­ing crest of hillocks pink­ish white. There were fringes of ice along the sea mar­gin, with drift­ing mass­es fur­ther out; but the main expanse of that salt ocean, all bloody under the eter­nal sun­set, was still unfrozen.

“I looked about me to see if any traces of ani­mal life remained. A cer­tain inde­fin­able appre­hen­sion still kept me in the sad­dle of the machine. But I saw noth­ing mov­ing, in earth or sky or sea. The green slime on the rocks alone tes­ti­fied that life was not extinct. A shal­low sand­bank had appeared in the sea and the water had reced­ed from the beach. I fan­cied I saw some black object flop­ping about upon this bank, but it became motion­less as I looked at it, and I judged that my eye had been deceived, and that the black object was mere­ly a rock. The stars in the sky were intense­ly bright and seemed to me to twin­kle very little.

“Sud­den­ly I noticed that the cir­cu­lar west­ward out­line of the sun had changed; that a con­cav­i­ty, a bay, had appeared in the curve. I saw this grow larg­er. For a minute per­haps I stared aghast at this black­ness that was creep­ing over the day, and then I real­ized that an eclipse was begin­ning. Either the moon or the plan­et Mer­cury was pass­ing across the sun’s disk. Nat­u­ral­ly, at first I took it to be the moon, but there is much to incline me to believe that what I real­ly saw was the tran­sit of an inner plan­et pass­ing very near to the earth.

“The dark­ness grew apace; a cold wind began to blow in fresh­en­ing gusts from the east, and the show­er­ing white flakes in the air increased in num­ber. From the edge of the sea came a rip­ple and whis­per. Beyond these life­less sounds the world was silent. Silent? It would be hard to con­vey the still­ness of it. All the sounds of man, the bleat­ing of sheep, the cries of birds, the hum of insects, the stir that makes the back­ground of our lives – all that was over. As the dark­ness thick­ened, the eddy­ing flakes grew more abun­dant, danc­ing before my eyes; and the cold of the air more intense. At last, one by one, swift­ly, one after the oth­er, the white peaks of the dis­tant hills van­ished into black­ness. The breeze rose to a moan­ing wind. I saw the black cen­tral shad­ow of the eclipse sweep­ing towards me. In anoth­er moment the pale stars alone were vis­i­ble. All else was ray­less obscu­ri­ty. The sky was absolute­ly black.

“A hor­ror of this great dark­ness came on me. The cold, that smote to my mar­row, and the pain I felt in breath­ing, over­came me. I shiv­ered, and a dead­ly nau­sea seized me. Then like a red-hot bow in the sky appeared the edge of the sun. I got off the machine to recov­er myself. I felt gid­dy and inca­pable of fac­ing the return jour­ney. As I stood sick and con­fused I saw again the mov­ing thing upon the shoal – there was no mis­take now that it was a mov­ing thing – against the red water of the sea. It was a round thing, the size of a foot­ball per­haps, or, it may be, big­ger, and ten­ta­cles trailed down from it; it seemed black against the wel­ter­ing blood-red water, and it was hop­ping fit­ful­ly about. Then I felt I was faint­ing. But a ter­ri­ble dread of lying help­less in that remote and awful twi­light sus­tained me while I clam­bered upon the sad­dle.