The Map of the Sky (71 page)

Clayton gave a solemn nod, as though this were the end of a story written by him.

“We have to go now,” he said suddenly. “We should be as far away as possible when the bomb goes off.”

And without waiting for a reply, he began running down the tunnel. We followed, our stomachs in knots. And as I raced through the London sewers, with so many conflicting emotions inside me I felt as if my soul had been turned inside out, I looked over my shoulder at the two lovers, still clasping each other in the middle of the tunnel, Clayton’s artificial hand in theirs, growing smaller with each step we took. Then, just as the gigantic shapes of the monsters appeared behind them, I saw the lovers join in a serene embrace, as though they had all the time in the world to kiss each other and nothing mattered except the other’s lips. And the touch of their lips made their hearts explode, producing a dazzling white light that spread through the tunnel, drowning it out.

I can think of no nobler way of illustrating Gilliam and Emma’s love for each other than through the image of that blinding, powerful light. Two years have passed since it burned itself onto my retinas forever, and I’m proud to say that, although they died that day in the sewers of London, tenderly embracing each other, their love lives on. I made sure of that by remembering it each day, and now that I myself am about to die, I have tried to immortalize it as best I can in these pages so that it lives on after me. My only regret is not being able to write like Byron or Wilde so that whoever reads this, if anyone does, will feel his hands burn in the same blaze that consumed those lovers’ hearts.

After the blast came a deafening crash, like a thunderclap. We were struck by a blast of hot air that almost knocked us over, and a moment later we watched with horror as around us great cracks appeared in the walls and ceiling of the tunnel. We ran as fast as our tired legs would carry us as the world came crashing down, helping one another as we dodged the rubble thundering down on us from the ceiling, with what, to our ringing ears, sounded like muffled thuds. Moments later, the tunnel filled with dust, and we could scarcely see where we were going, but amid shouts and splutters we managed to reach the tunnel into which our tributary led. With a
rapid exchange of glances, we confirmed no one was injured. Shackleton, face covered in dust, tried to get his bearings, while the tunnel behind us began to implode.

“This way!” the captain yelled, stepping into another smaller passageway that led off from the main tunnel.

We could scarcely hear Shackleton but hurriedly piled in after him, stooping as we ran to avoid scraping our heads on the low ceiling. There was almost no light in the tunnel, and a good third of it was plunged into total darkness, so that we had to grope our way along, up to our knees in water. By that time I was so exhausted I was beyond caring; it no longer mattered to me where we were going or whether the Martians were chasing us or not. As my deafness began to subside, I could hear our tired, almost painful gasps resounding off the tunnel walls. I was overwhelmed by fatigue and dizziness, but most of all I felt crushed inside: I had realized that as a human being I was a fraud, that my soul was polluted by egotism and self-interest and nothing of any beauty could grow there. Everything that came naturally and spontaneously to others required an intellectual effort on my part, and in most instances some form of future compensation or personal pleasure. These were the thoughts that assailed me as I waded through the tunnel, panting for breath, finding each step increasingly difficult. And suddenly, I couldn’t understand why, running began to seem miraculously easy, as if my feet had grown wings.

“The tunnel is sloping down!” I heard Wells cry behind me.

Then the gradient became so steep we found ourselves sliding down the narrow tunnel, dragged along by the water that was filling it. As I was being propelled toward God knew where, I heard the roar of water in the distance, growing louder and louder, and I quickly realized we were in one of the many pipes carrying the waste waters into the interceptor sewer, the vast tunnel beneath the streets that carried London’s sewage to somewhere in the Thames. I imagined the tunnel would end abruptly in a chute a few yards high,
a kind of miniwaterfall flowing into the basin fed by all the other pipes. I had no idea whether the priest from outer space had been aware of these hazards, and, given the circumstances, had considered them the lesser of two evils, but the fact was we were in grave danger, for I didn’t think we would emerge unscathed from the imminent plunge. I positioned myself as best I could in the water and discovered Jane, terrified and pale, descending almost level with me, and a few yards behind us Wells frantically reaching out his arm in a futile attempt to grab hold of her. Without thinking, I grabbed her, clutching her to me, hoping to protect her as much as possible from the fall. All at once, the tunnel came to an end, and I felt myself gliding through the air, clutching the young woman’s trembling body. It was an odd feeling, like floating in space. And it seemed the illusion would go on forever, until I felt my back hit something solid. The impact at that speed seemed to have cracked several of my ribs, winding me for a few seconds, but I managed not to let go of the girl.

When I had recovered from the shock, I realized I had crashed into the guardrail surrounding the huge basin where the pipes discharged the wastewaters. A few yards above me I saw the tunnel that had spat us out, dumping its foul cargo into the pool, and at least a dozen more doing the same. Emerging from the bottom of this pool, where London’s excrement converged, was an underwater pipe leading out of the sewers, creating a gigantic whirlpool in the middle of the basin. However, it was impossible for anyone to be able to hold their breath for the fifteen or twenty minutes I calculated it would take to swim through it. If this was the good priest’s plan, he had clearly overestimated our lung capacity. Next to me, Jane coughed. She was only half conscious, perhaps due to the fear that had overwhelmed her as we flew through the air, yet unscathed thanks to its having been my body that smashed into the guardrail. I noticed that Shackleton had fallen into the middle of the basin, but despite the huge whirlpool threatening to suck him down, he seemed unhurt
and was swimming strongly toward the edge, where I could see an iron ladder embedded in the wall. I looked away from what I was certain would be Shackleton’s successful escape from the deadly vortex and searched for the others. A few yards from me, I saw Clayton, his legs wrapped around the guardrail, his one good hand clutching Wells, whose legs were thrashing in midair. I realized immediately that if Wells fell into the water, he would be too weak to swim away from the whirlpool and would be irretrievably dragged down.

“Hang on, Clayton!” I cried, clambering to my feet to help the inspector hoist Wells up.

I dragged myself over to them as fast as my bruised body would allow, trying to ignore the stabbing pain coming from my ribs, even as I saw Clayton shout something at Wells, trying to make himself heard above the din of the water. A few yards beyond where Wells and Clayton were suspended above the pool, I saw the captain, who had managed to scale the ladder and was approaching them with his muscular arms. Even so, I was closer to them than he was.

“Try to hang on a bit longer!” I cried, gritting my teeth to stop myself fainting from the pain.

But they were too busy shouting at each other, and neither of them seemed to hear me. When at last I reached them, I could hear what at that very moment Clayton was shouting to Wells, his neck straining, the thick tendons stretched to the snapping point: “Do it! Trust me, you can do it! Only you can save us!”

Not understanding what the inspector was referring to, I also cried out. “Give me your hand, Wells!” I stretched out my arm, gripping the guardrail with my other hand.

The inspector looked at me and smiled, exhausted from his terrible exertion. Then his eyes rolled back and he passed out. Unable to grab the two men in time, I watched as they plummeted into the basin forty feet below. The captain, arriving from the other direction, dived after them and managed to grab Clayton before he disappeared underwater. But I realized he couldn’t rescue Wells as well
and so, without considering that I might lose consciousness as I hit the water, I leapt over the guardrail, plunging into that dirty, foul-smelling pond. The impact increased the pain in my ribs, but not so much that I lost consciousness. The water was terribly murky, and when I had managed to collect myself, I dived down, swimming desperately back and forth, struggling against the terrible power of the whirlpool threatening to suck me down to the bottom. Try as I might, I could not see Wells. When my lungs felt as if they were going to burst, I came up to the surface. And then I felt the tail coil around my neck and lift me into the air.

That was the end of our desperate flight. When one of the monsters fished me out of the water with its tail and hurled me onto the side of the basin, together with the rest of my companions, I realized we had been taken prisoner. The Envoy was standing before us, once more in the guise of Wells, leading us to deduce that Clayton’s exploding hand must have annihilated only the few of his fellow Martians who were heading the chase. Two years on, I can still remember vividly the look of defeat on our faces as we glanced at one another beside the basin, breathless and weak, and our anxiety about our future, an anxiety that today seems almost laughable compared to the dismal fate that awaited us. But my clearest memory was of Jane frantically calling to Wells, crying out his name over and over until her voice cracked. But her cries paled in comparison to the Envoy’s bellow of rage when his fellow Martians emerged from the depths of the basin to announce that the author was nowhere to be seen: his most precious cockroach had escaped, taking his secret with him. And, unfortunately for the Envoy, this changed the universe into an unfathomable place, where anything was possible. To this day, I have no idea what became of Wells. I assume he must have passed out when he hit the water and then drowned, his body flushed out into the Thames. And, although it might not seem so, he could not have wished for a better end.

Just now, beyond the gloomy forests that surround the Martian
camp, the sun is sinking behind the ruined city of London, and in my cell I am hurrying to finish writing this diary, hours before my own life ends, for I am certain I shall not survive another day. My body is going to give out at any moment, or perhaps it will be my heart, this morass of despair and bitterness I carry around in my chest. Fortunately, I have succeeded in reaching the end of my story. I only hope that whilst I did not manage to be the hero of this tale, whoever reads these pages will at least have found me an adequate narrator. My life ends here, a life I wish I could have lived differently. But there is no time to make amends. All I can do now is record in these pages my belated yet heartfelt remorse.

From my cell I can see night gathering over the Martian pyramid, this structure that symbolizes better than any flag the conquest of a planet, a planet that once belonged to us, the human race. On it we forged our History, we gave the best and the worst of ourselves. Yet all this will be forgotten when the last man on Earth perishes, ending an entire species. With him, all our hopes will die.

And that is something that, although I still don’t understand it, I have come to accept.

Charles Leonard Winslow, model prisoner,
the Martian Camp, Lewisham

XXXVII

A
LTHOUGH DAWN FOUND HIM STILL ALIVE,
Charles had nevertheless hidden the diary in his trousers before descending into the depths of the pyramid, convinced this would be his last day. Having spent the whole night wracked with fever and convulsions, he was forced to confront the day’s work, putting up with the inquisitive stares of the Martians, who were no doubt expecting him to collapse at any moment. But to his surprise, he managed to stay upright, transporting the barrels, willing his body not to give way, not to dissolve like a cloud unraveled by the breeze, reminding himself now and then to conserve enough energy to bury the diary.

When he reemerged aboveground, more dead than alive, he stumbled over to the feeding machines, where a line of prisoners was already waiting to be given their second ration of the day, before retiring finally to their cells. Charles walked past, averting his gaze, then came to a halt a few yards from where he believed the invisible ray that interacted with their neck shackles began to operate. He burrowed a hole in the ground with trembling hands, and, making sure no one was looking, buried the diary there. He wished he could have sent it by carrier pigeon, in a bold act of resistance, to a country in the old Europe where there might still be free human beings, but he had to be content with burying it within the confines of the camp. He spread a few stones on top and gazed at the tiny mound for a few moments. He didn’t know for whom he was leaving the diary there. Conceivably no one would ever find it, and time would disintegrate the pages before they were read. Or perhaps a
Martian would stumble on it in a few days’ time and destroy it immediately. On reflection, he would prefer this than the creature reading it aloud to his companions, making fun of Charles’s lamentable prose, his banal meditations on the nature of love, or the futile attempts he and his companions made to escape the inevitable. But it made little difference whether the diary was found or not, he told himself, for now he felt ashamed of his reasons for writing it. He hadn’t done it to celebrate Gilliam and Emma’s love, or to document what he had discovered about the Martians, as he claimed in the diary. No, he had been compelled to write it, he acknowledged in a sudden fit of sincerity, by the same selfishness that had always motivated his actions: to show himself to the world in a good light, to record for posterity that despite having wasted his life, at least in his final days on Earth he had managed to act like any other dignified human being.

Well, if that had been his aim, he had fulfilled it and was now free to die. That was what his body yearned for: the absolute, peaceful, eternal rest that death offered. Charles smiled at the evening sky, exposing his wizened, toothless gums. Yes, that is what he would do. He would go back to this cell, lie down on his pallet, and wait for death, which before long would come knocking at his door. And the next morning at dawn, the neck shackle would interrupt his eternal sleep and take him for a posthumous journey through the camp, for his destiny would not be complete until he was turned into food for those who were still alive. And that would be the end of Charles Winslow.