I found myself on my back, peering up at the tree which had riven through our Time-Car as we fell out of diluted presentation. I heard Nebogipfel’s shallow breathing close by, but I could not see him.
Our tree, now frozen in time, soared up to join its fellows in a canopy, thick and uniform, far above me, and shoots and seedlings sprouted from the ground around its base, and through the wrecked components of the car. The heat was intense, the air moist and difficult for my straining lungs, and the world around me was filled with the coughs, trills and sighs of a jungle, all overlaid on a deep, richer rumble which made me suspect the presence of a large body of water nearby: either a river – some primeval version of the Thames – or a sea.
It was more like the Tropics than England!
Now, as I lay there and watched, an animal came clambering down the trunk towards us. It was something like a squirrel, about ten inches long, but its coat was wide and loose, and hung about its body like a cloak. It carried a fruit in its little jaws. Ten feet from the ground this creature spotted us; it cocked its sharp head, opened its mouth – dropping its fruit – and hissed. I saw that its incisor teeth divided at their tips, into five-pronged combs. Then it leapt headlong from its tree trunk. It spread its arms and legs wide and its cloak of skin opened out with a snap, turning the animal into a sort of fur-covered kite. It soared away into the shadows, and was lost to my view.
‘Quite a welcome,’ I gasped. ‘It was like a flying lemur. But did you see its teeth?’
Nebogipfel – still out of my sight – replied, ‘It was a planetatherium. And the tree is a dipterocarps – not much changed from the species which will survive in the forests of your own day.’
I pushed my hands into the mulch under me – it was quite rotten and slippery – and endeavoured to turn so that I could see him. ‘Nebogipfel, are you injured?’
The Morlock lay on his side, his head twisted so that he was staring at the sky. ‘I am not hurt,’ he whispered. ‘I suggest we begin a search for –’
But I was not listening; for I had seen – just behind him – a beaked head, the size of a horse’s, pushing through the foliage, and dipping down towards the Morlock’s frail body!
For an instant I was paralysed by shock. That hooked beak opened with a sort of liquid pop, and discshaped eyes fixed on me with every evidence of intelligence.
Then, with a heavy swoop, the great head ducked down and clamped its beak over the Morlock’s leg. Nebogipfel screamed, and his small fingers scrabbled at the ground, and bits of leaf clung to his coat of hair.
I scrambled backwards, kicking at the leaves to get away, and finished up against a tree trunk.
Now, with a crackle of smashed branches, the beast’s body came lumbering through the greenery and into my view. It was perhaps seven feet tall, and coated with black, scaly feathers; its legs were stout, with strong, clawed feet, and covered with a sagging yellow flesh. Residual wings, disproportionately small on that immense torso, beat at the air. This bird-monster hauled its head back, and the poor Morlock was dragged across the mulchy ground.
‘Nebogipfel!’
‘It is a Diatryma,’ he gasped. ‘A Diatryma Gigantica, I – oh!’
‘Never mind its phylogeny,’ I cried, ‘get away from it!’
‘I am afraid – I have no way to – oh!’ Again his speech disintegrated into that wordless yowl of anguish. Now the creature twisted its head from side to side. I realized that it was endeavouring to club the Morlock’s skull against a tree trunk – no doubt as a preliminary to making a feast of his pale flesh!
I needed a weapon, and could think only of Moses’s wrench. I got to my feet and scrambled into the wreckage of our Time-Car. A profusion of struts, panels and wires lay about, and the steel and polished wood of 1938 looked singularly out of place in this antique forest. I could not see the wrench! I plunged my arms, up to the elbows, into the decaying ground cover. It took long, agonizing seconds of searching; and all the while the Diatryma dragged its prize further towards the forest.
And then I had it! – my right arm emerged from the compost clasping the handle of the wrench.
With a roar, I raised the wrench to shoulder height and plunged through the mulch. Diatryma’s bead-like eyes watched me approach – it slowed its headshaking – but it did not loosen its grip on Nebogipfel’s leg. It had never seen men before, of course; I doubted that it understood that I could be a threat to it. I kept up my charge, and tried to ignore the awful, scaly skin around the claws of the feet, the immensity of the beak, and the whiff of decaying meat that hung about the thing.
In the manner of a cricket stroke, I swung my makeshift club – thump – into Diatryma’s head. The blow was softened by feathers and flesh, but I felt a satisfying collision with bone.
The bird opened its beak, dropping the Morlock, and squawked; it was a noise like sheet-metal tearing. That huge beak was poised above me now, and every instinct told me to run – but I knew that if I did we should both be done for. I raised my wrench back over my head, and launched it towards the crown of the Diatryma’s skull. This time the creature ducked, and I caught it only a glancing blow; so, after completing my swing, I lifted up my wrench and smote against the underside of the beak.
There was a splintering noise, and Diatryma’s head snapped back. It reeled, then it gazed at me with eyes alight with calculation. It emitted a squawk so deep-pitched it was more like a growl.
Then – quite suddenly – it shivered up its black feathers, turned, and hobbled away into the forest.
I tucked the wrench into my belt and knelt beside the Morlock. He was unconscious. His leg was a crushed, bloody mess, the hair on his back soaked by the bird-monster’s looping spittle.
‘Well, my companion in time,’ I whispered, ‘perhaps there are occasions when it is useful to have an antique savage on hand, after all!’
I found his goggles in the mulch, wiped them clear of leaves on my sleeve, and placed them over his face.
I peered into the forest’s gloom, wondering what I should do next. I may have travelled in time, and across space to the Morlocks’ great Sphere – but in my own century, I had never journeyed to any of the Tropical countries. I had only dim recollections of travellers’ tales and other popular sources to guide me now in my quest for survival.
But at least, I consoled myself, the challenges that lay ahead would be comparatively simple! I would not be forced to face my own younger self – nor, since the Time-Car was wrecked, would I have to deal with the moral and philosophical ambiguities of Multiple Histories. Rather, I must simply seek food, and shelter against the rain, and to protect us against the beasts and birds of this deep time.
I decided that finding fresh water must be my first mission; even leaving aside the needs of the Morlock, my own thirst was raging, for I had had no sustenance since before the shelling of London.
I placed the Morlock in the midst of the Time-Car’s wreckage, close to the tree trunk. I thought it as safe a place as anywhere from the predations of the monsters of this Age. I doffed my jacket and placed it under his back, to protect him from the moisture of the mulch – and anything that crawled and chewed that might live therein! Then, after some hesitation, I took the wrench from my belt and laid it over the Morlock, so that his fingers were wrapped around the weapon’s heavy shaft.
Reluctant to leave myself weaponless, I cast about in the car’s wreckage until I found a short, stout piece of iron ribbing, and I bent this sideways until it broke free from the frame. I hefted this in my hand. It did not have the satisfying solidity of my wrench, but it would be better than nothing.
I decided to make for that sound of water; it seemed to lie in a direction away from the sun. I rested my club on my shoulder and struck out through the forest.