The Map of the Sky (63 page)

“If you have a better idea, Mr. Murray, go ahead and share it with us,” the captain retorted, his eyes flashing, “but I would point out that rats are usually the first to escape any catastrophe.”

A moment later, we were all talking at once, caught up in a heated discussion. Until suddenly Inspector Clayton raised his voice above everyone else’s.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please!” he cried. “I think we should trust Captain Shackleton and flee through the sewers this instant. Not only because of the captain’s impeccable credentials, but because the pair of tripods coming toward us is not planning a romantic picnic on Primrose Hill.”

We all looked with horror at the two tripods crossing Regent’s Park toward us like a couple taking a leisurely stroll.

XXXIV

W
HILE
C
HARLES RELAXED AFTER THE DAY
’
S
hard toil, admiring from his cell the strange and unsettling sunset that had gradually supplanted the traditional earthly ones in the past few months, he reflected with deep sorrow that if anything around him indicated that Man had lost his home, it was without doubt the fact that the sun no longer set in the way it had in his childhood. With disgust he observed the dusky greens and purples congealing around the sun, giving it the appearance of a malignant growth. A sun stripped of its customary gold and orange haze, and that now, seen through the coppery veil of polluted air obscuring the sky, resembled one of those grimy, worn coins beggars would tap against the bar top to ask for a glass of ale.

Just then, Charles glimpsed three Martian airships taking off from the port outside the camp: three shiny flying saucers that rose a few yards into the air with a melodious purr before soaring at impossible speed through the turbulent ocean of greens and purples and vanishing into unfathomable space. Their airships so patently demonstrated the gulf between human science and that of their jailers: the Martians had far outstripped the Earthlings when it came to conquering their own skies, which they had scarcely penetrated with their puny air balloons. But from the indifference with which Charles watched them disappear, no one would have guessed that, in the first few months, their arrivals and departures had provided a spectacle for the prisoners as exciting as it was terrifying.

In addition, the airships usually brought Martian engineers, who unlike their fellow Martians were unable to replicate the appearance of humans and so moved about the camp in their normal state. The first time Charles saw them, he thought they were beautiful, a cross between men and herons. Although no one there explained anything to them, it wasn’t hard to work out that the engineers’ task was to design the tower and fill the camp, and doubtless the entire planet, with their technology. They would elegantly flutter about almost without stopping. Yet even more fascinating was watching them walk on extraordinarily slender, stiltlike legs, with multiple joints that allowed them to adopt the most extraordinary and varied postures, each more graceful than the last. Charles had tried to capture the beauty of their movements in his diary, comparing them to glass dragonflies or other equally beautiful and fragile objects, but had eventually given up: their extraordinary grace was impossible to put into words. The engineers remained in the camp for a while, fluttering hither and thither, until one day it seemed they had relayed all the instructions necessary to build the purification machine. After that, they would turn up every three to four months to supervise the works. Each time they left, for a few days Charles would be invaded by an absurd end-of-summer longing, the origins of which he never fully understood, though he suspected it had something to do with the comfort it gave him to contemplate those extraordinary creatures in a world where beauty had become a rarity.

And yet, although he tried not to dwell on the thought, Charles knew the scientists were not as he saw them. After their first visit, he had discussed their appearance with his fellow prisoners, only to find out to his astonishment that no two prisoners’ descriptions of them coincided. Everyone had their own idea of what the creatures looked like, and each assumed the others must be joking when they described them. This had led to an argument that had ended in a stupid brawl, from which Charles had prudently retreated. Back in his cell, he had reflected long and hard and had come to a conclusion. He would have liked to discuss it with someone intelligent like Wells to find out whether his idea was
half-baked or not, but unfortunately there weren’t too many keen minds around him. The conclusion Charles had reached was that the Martians must be so different from anything Man knew that somehow mankind was unable to see them. Most of his fellow prisoners saw them as monstrous creatures, no doubt influenced by the hatred they felt toward the Martians. But Charles had always worshipped science, progress, and the marvels Jules Verne had described in his novels. Yes, Charles belonged to that brotherhood of visionaries who before the advent of the Martians had dreamed of ships that could sail the Atlantic in five days, of flying machines that could soar through the skies at great speed, of telephones without wires, of time travel. Perhaps this was why he saw the Martian engineers as beautiful long-legged angels, able to create miracles. And although he knew now that those miracles consisted in transforming his planet into a nightmarish world, he continued to see them as beautiful.

The sun finally disappeared, exhaling a burst of greenish rays into the sky and bathing in a ghoulish light the distant ruins of London, visible behind the dank forests that had slowly spread around the camp in a stealthy embrace of tangled branches. This planet belonged less and less to Man and more and more to the invaders. Before the invasion, when no one suspected the world as they knew it could change so suddenly, Charles would rail against it at the slightest opportunity, with wit or anger, depending on the weather. In his opinion, the empire was little less than a ship about to keel over due to the idiots at its helm, who were only versed in the arts of extravagance, inefficiency, and embezzlement. The useless and corrupt British government was responsible for more than 8 million subjects living and dying in the most shameful poverty. Charles, of course, did not share their miserable fate, and on the whole it could not be said of him that he worried unduly about those who did, but it was clear that human civilization, as such, had failed.

Charles gave a sigh and retrieved his diary from beneath the pallet, wondering once again what drove him to set down on paper those memories no one would ever read, why he didn’t just lie down and die. But he simply could not accept another defeat. And so this man, who had
already begun to forget what sunsets on his planet looked like, sat at his table, opened his notebook, and resumed writing.

D
IARY OF
C
HARLES
W
INSLOW

15 February, 1900

Before the Martian invasion, London was the most powerful city in the world, but not necessarily the most salubrious. It pains me to admit this, as it did my father before me, but before the city’s entrails were sliced open and installed with an artificial intestine in the form of a modern sewer system, Londoners stored their excrement in cesspits, which were cleaned out with a regularity that depended on the depth of the householder’s pockets. In these pits, it was not uncommon to come across tiny skeletons, because the stinking holes were ideal places for women to rid themselves of the fruits of their illicit unions. Each morning at dawn, a trail of brimming carts would leave London with their foul-smelling cargo. When at last it was decided, as yet another sign of progress, that all cesspits should be sealed off and all drains be connected to a rudimentary sewer system that emptied out into the Thames, the result was an epidemic of cholera that killed almost fifteen thousand Londoners. This was followed by another, five years later, which carried off almost an equal number of lives. My father used to tell me that in the hot, dry summer of 1858 the smell was so appalling that the curtains in the Houses of Parliament had to be daubed with lime in a desperate attempt to ward off the foul odor wafting in from the river, which had become an open sewer for the excrement of nearly 2 million people. As a direct result, and notwithstanding the exorbitant cost, Parliament passed an act allowing the civil engineer Joseph Bazalgette to remodel London’s entrails with his revolutionary new sewer system. I can still recall my father describing Bazalgette’s great work to me as though he had built it himself: nearly a hundred miles of interceptor sewers made of brick and Portland cement that would carry human
waste mixed with ordinary drainage water fifteen miles downstream from London Bridge. This explained why now, beneath our feet, following the course of the Thames, were six interceptor sewers fed by another four hundred and fifty miles of mains sewers: the intricate maze that in the year 2000 would have the privilege of sheltering the last surviving members of our race. No doubt my father would have been pleased to know that what he considered one of the greatest technological achievements would still be of use in the distant future.

We descended into London’s sewers through one of the drain covers closest to Primrose Hill. We clambered down the rusty ladder attached to the wall and reached the ground without anyone slipping, which, given the almost total darkness, seemed nothing short of miraculous. Shackleton assumed the role of guide. After getting his bearings, he led us through a narrow, winding tunnel, where we were obliged almost to grope our way along. We came out into what, owing to its size, I deduced was one of the three main sewers to the north of the Thames. What first struck us was the shocking stench. Fortunately, this stretch of the tunnel was illuminated by tiny lamps hanging at intervals along the slimy brick walls. Their faint glow gave us some idea of the place where we would be walking for the next few hours, passing beneath the city to Queen’s Gate. The sewer was an endless gallery with a vaulted roof, from which opened out other, narrower tunnels. I assumed the majority of these side tunnels carried the raw sewage into the main tunnels, while many others led to depositories or pumping stations. A canal ran through the middle of the sewer we were in. We tried not to look at it, for the congealed evil-smelling slime flowing through it, besides carrying every kind of filth, brought other surprises. I saw a dead cat drift past us with its glassy, unseeing eyes, being swept along on the water down one of those mysterious pipes. Luckily on either side of the canal there were two brick paths wide enough for us to walk along in single file, if we didn’t mind sharing them
with the rats, which would occasionally dart out to greet us, running alongside our feet before vanishing into the gloom. Nauseous from the insufferable stench, we set off in pairs, trying not to slip over on the layer of moss carpeting stretches of the walkway. The air was dank and cold, and the silence absolute, broken only by the sporadic rumble of the sewer’s watery insides. I have to say I found these sounds almost relaxing. At any rate, they were preferable to the deafening blasts and relentless ringing of bells we had endured aboveground.

During our journey, as I brought up the rear with Inspector Clayton, I finally had a chance to reflect for a few moments on our plan. Despite what Wells had said, I was certain we should not leave London, convinced that Fate and not coincidence had brought our motley group together for a purpose. Glancing at the chain we formed, I pondered what part each link might play. Shackleton was at the front, untroubled by the foul smell, leading us through the maze of tunnels, a watchful expression on his face. I had no need to consider his role, for clearly it would be the most crucial of all. Behind him came Wells and his wife, who seemed relieved to be together again, yet despondent about the devastating speed of the invasion. I assumed that when it came time to defeat the Martians, it was natural for the only author who had described a Martian attack to be present. I had to admit that, despite our recent disagreement, I was relieved that Wells was part of our group, for even if his physical prowess didn’t apparently amount to much, I considered him one of the most intelligent men I had ever met. Following them, holding an embroidered handkerchief to her face, was the American girl. Her role in our group was a complete mystery to me, unless it was to manage the otherwise unmanageable Gilliam Murray. Murray had been nicknamed the Master of Time for having miraculously succeeded in taking us all to the year 2000, but clearly he held the key not only to the fourth dimension, but to the afterlife as well, from whence he had apparently returned. I wondered what if any Murray’s
contribution to our group would be, apart from watching over Miss Harlow and attempting to belittle Shackleton. Behind him came the faithful coachman Harold, who was perhaps wondering why I had made him leave the basement in Queen’s Gate only to return there a few hours later, endangering our lives on both occasions. I imagined that of all of us, he was the most dispensable. Perhaps he had no part to play, except for having driven Shackleton and me to Primrose Hill. And finally, striding imperiously beside me, a pompous look on his face, was Inspector Clayton, whose inclusion in the group anyone would readily understand. But there was one other person: me. What role was I to play if our group was called upon to put a stop to the invasion? Perhaps, I reflected with a shudder, I had merely served to bring Shackleton and the others together. Yes, perhaps without my knowing it, I had already carried out my task, and, like Harold, I was dispensable.

I had been immersed in these thoughts for some time when, all of a sudden, Wells’s wife tripped over her flowing skirts and fell to the ground with a thud, almost dragging Wells with her. Murray and Emma rushed to her aid, while I made a mental note to tell all the women, once we reached Queen’s Gate, to follow the American girl’s example and change into something more suitable for escaping through the sewers. Fortunately, Jane got away with only twisting her left ankle. We had been walking for quite a while, and although Shackleton, who was clearly eager to be reunited with Claire, had insisted we press on, we decided to have a break so that Wells’s wife could rest her ankle. We took this opportunity to fill one another in on the horrors we had endured on our way to Primrose Hill. I told them about the naval battle I had seen on the Thames, and Wells gave an abridged version of his group’s perilous journey from Horsell Common with the tripods on their tail. Wells said he suspected the Martians had been living among us for a long time, possibly centuries, passing themselves off as human beings. I jested about having possibly rubbed elbows with them, for I could well imagine some of
my more eccentric acquaintances hailing from other planets, but no one laughed.