Sleepers Of Mars

‘For the full three weeks, the huge machines made their two or three journeys a day, but the hundreds of thousands they carried were like a few spoonfuls from a full bucket.

‘And now, standing in my dark room, I knew that the end had come. Men and women had started to fight insanely, in a frenzy of fear. Soon they would become hungry. They would prowl like famished beasts, ready to eat even each other. It would not be long now, before the multitudes were besieging the only means of escape from a maddened world—the transporters.

‘In my mind a plan was growing; a slender chance. First I must get out of this crazy city and find Mary….

‘Together we lay in a clump of low bushes. Not far from our hiding-place, a line of haggard men and women was struggling towards a transporter.

‘ “The evacuation of a world,” I heard Mary murmur.

‘Some dragged barrows of possessions; some could barely drag themselves. There was no need, now, for suggestion to impel the crowds. They were striving their utmost towards those feared or despised machines, which had become glittering symbols of rescue. Many staggered from fatigue, to fall in their tracks.

‘ “If the dwarfs use suggestion to help on the fallen ones, count,” I said. “They won’t need much power, and if you keep your mind full it can’t touch you. Fill it up with figures. Multiply and multiply, so that there’s room for nothing else. It’s our only safeguard.”

‘Luckily, there was no test of our concentration. Friends pulled the stragglers up and urged them along the last lap of the journey. At last, the transporter was filled; the entrances clicked together. Those who were shut out retired, to throw themselves on the ground. They would have to wait for the next load.

‘ “Get ready,” I whispered to Mary, as I drew a rocket-pistol from my pocket.

‘The two small time-travellers appeared. One dwarf ran to the transporter; the other sat on the ground in his saddle. I reckoned that the big machine would be away about twenty minutes, since it would take that long for the weary crowd to file out. As the first dwarf vanished with the transporter, I drew my aim on the second.

‘It is a horrible thing to kill a man who is off his guard, but it was necessary. Merely wounded, he might bring his friends about us in a few seconds.

‘ “Now !” I cried. And together we sprang for the travellers, as the dead dwarf rolled from his seat. “Get on,” I ordered, setting the dials. I put Mary’s hand on the level. “Pull!” I said. But, instead, she leaned out and pressed her lips to mine.

‘ “I love you,” she said. She said it as though she knew the end had come. Then her hand flew back to the lever. I shouted to stop her, but it was too late—she had gone.’

Jon paused in his tale. We did not interrupt; the grief in his face held us silent.

‘Where is she now, I wonder?’ he said slowly.

‘When she drew back her hands, it brushed one of the dials. I had been so careful, had worked out the position of each to a hair, so that there might be no delay in our coming here; so that we might travel together far away from our world of chaos, far away, too, from the threat of a dying world. One hasty move she made, which may have carried her farther than the Earth’s death or beyond its birth. She is a castaway somewhere in the jumble of Time and Space….’

‘But you?’ asked Lestrange. ‘How-?’

‘Oh, I jumped on the other machine. The crowd had seen us. A hundred or more of them were pelting across the field. It was as though I had the one lifebelt on a sinking ship. They jumped at me. The traveller rocked as they hit it. It was falling as I pulled the lever—it fell in your laboratory.

‘But what’s the good of it all? I’m alone. Better to have gone on to the end with the people of my time. Why did I come here when I knew she couldn’t be here? If I’d kept the machine, I might have searched—I’d have searched all Time to find her.’

A bell on the wall shrilled suddenly.

‘Quick, Wright !’ said Lestrange, jumping from his chair. ‘The laboratory alarm. Somebody’s spying—take this.’

He handed me a pistol, and held one himself. Silently we raced to the laboratory wing, and flung back the door. A familiar silver framework glittered at us. Beside it stood a figure, clad like our visitor.

‘Mary, by heaven! ’ said Jon’s voice behind us.

‘Jon! Jon! ’ the figure cried, and ran towards us.

A few moments later, Jon Lestrange walked over to the traveller and examined its controls curiously. He looked up with a smile.

‘Obviously, Mary,’ he said, ‘some patron saint guides your hand. You might have altered the setting by six hundred years, or six thousand, but you did only alter it by six hours.’

He turned towards Professor Lestrange.

‘If you please, great-great-great-grandfather,’ he said, ‘I should like another piece of string.’