The Time Ships. Stephen Baxter
sentences; but again the Morlock stood patiently until I gave up.
This went on for several hours. At length, without ceremony, the Morlock took his leave – he walked off into the dark – I did not follow (Not yet! I told myself again). I ate and slept, and when I awoke he returned, and we resumed our lessons.
As he walked around my light cage, pointing at things and naming them, the Morlock’s movements were fluid and graceful enough, and his body seemed expressive; but I came to realize how much one relies, in day to day business, on the interpretation of the movements of one’s fellows. I could not read this Morlock in that way at all. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking or feeling – was he afraid of me? was he bored? – and I felt greatly disadvantaged as a result.
At the end of our second session of this, the Morlock stepped back from me.
He said: ‘That should be sufficient. Do you understand me?’
I stared at him, stunned by this sudden facility with my language! His pronunciation was blurred – that liquid Morlock voice is not designed, it seems, for the harsher consonants and stops of English – but the words were quite comprehensible.
When I did not reply, he repeated, ‘Do you understand me?’
‘I – yes. I mean: yes, I understand you! But how did you do this – how can you have learned my language – from so few words?’ For I judged we had covered a bare five hundred words, most of those concrete nouns and simple verbs.
‘I have access to records of all of the ancient languages of Humanity – as reconstructed – from Nostratic through the Indo-European group and its prototypes. A small number of key words is sufficient for the appropriate variant to be retrieved. You must inform me if anything I say is not intelligible.’
I took a cautious step forward. ‘Ancient? And how do you know I am ancient?’
Huge lids swept down over those goggled eyes. ‘Your physique is archaic. And the contents of your stomach, when analysed.’ He actually shuddered, evidently at the thought of the remnants of Mrs Watchets’s breakfast. I was astonished: I had a fastidious Morlock! He went on, ‘You are out of time. We do not yet understand how you came to arrive on the earth. But no doubt we will learn.’
‘And in the meantime,’ I said with some strength, ‘you keep me in this – this Cage of Light. As if I were a beast, not a man! You give me a floor to sleep on, and a pail for my toilet –’
The Morlock said nothing; he observed me, impassive.
The frustration and embarrassment which had assailed me since my arrival in this place welled up, now that I was able to express them, and I decided that sufficient pleasantries had been exchanged. I said, ‘Now that we can speak to each other, you’re going to tell me where on earth I am. And where you’ve hidden my machine. Do you understand that, fellow, or do I have to translate it for you?’ And I reached for him, meaning to grab at the hair clumps on his chest.
When I came within two paces of him, he raised his hand. That was all. I remember a queer green flash – I never saw the device he must have held, all the time he was near me – and then I fell to the Floor, quite insensible.
I came to, spread-eagled on the Floor once more, and staring up into that confounded light.
I hoisted myself up onto my elbows, and rubbed my dazzled eyes. My Morlock friend was still there, standing just outside the circle of light. I got to my feet, rueful. These New Morlocks were going to be a handful for me, I realized.
The Morlock stepped into the light, its blue goggles glinting. As if nothing had interrupted our dialogue, he said, ‘My name is –’ his pronunciation reverted to the usual shapeless Morlock pattern – ‘Nebogipfel.’
‘Nebogipfel. Very well.’ In turn, I told him my name; within a few minutes he could repeat it with clarity and precision.
This, I realized, was the first Morlock whose name I had learned – the first who stood out from the masses of them I had encountered, and fought; the first to have the attributes of a distinguishable person.
‘So, Nebogipfel,’ I said. I sat cross-legged beside my trays, and rubbed at the rash of bruises my latest fall had inflicted on my upper arm. ‘You have been assigned as my keeper, here in this zoo.’
‘Zoo.’ He stumbled over that word. ‘No. I was not assigned. I volunteered to work with you.’
‘Work with me?’
‘I – we – want to understand how you came to be here.’
‘Do you, by Jove?’ I got to my feet and paced around my Cage of Light. ‘What if I told you that I came here in a machine that can carry a man through time?’ I held up my hands. ‘That I built such a machine, with these hands? What then, eh?’
He seemed to think that over. ‘Your era, as dated from your speech and physique, is very remote from ours. You are capable of achievements of high technology – witness your machine, whether or not it carries you through time as you claim. And the clothes you wear, the state of your hands, and the wear patterns of your teeth – all of these are indicative of a high state of civilization.’
‘I’m flattered,’ I said with some heat, ‘but if you believe I’m capable of such things – that I am a man, not an ape – why am I caged up in this way?’
‘Because,’ he said evenly, ‘you have already tried to attack me, with every intent of doing me harm. And on the Earth, you did great damage to –’
I felt fury burning anew. I stepped towards him. ‘Your monkeys were pawing at my machine,’ I shouted. ‘What did you expect? I was defending myself. I –’
He said: ‘They were children.’
His words pierced my rage. I tried to cling to the remnants of my self-justifying anger, but they were already receding from me. ‘What did you say?’
‘Children. They were children. Since the completion of the Sphere, the Earth is become a … nursery, a place for children to roam. They were curious about your machine. That is all. They would not have done you, or it, any conscious harm. Yet you attacked them, with great savagery.’
I stepped back from him. I remembered – now I let myself think about it – that the Morlocks capering ineffectually around my machine had struck me as smaller than those I’d encountered before. And they had made no attempt to hurt me … save only the poor creature who I had captured, and who had then nipped my hand – before I clubbed its face!
‘The one I struck. Did he – it – survive?’
‘The physical injuries were reparable. But –’
‘Yes?’
‘The inner scars, the scars of the mind – these may never heal.’
I dropped my head. Could it be true? Had I been so blinded by my loathing of Morlocks that I had been unable to see those creatures around the machine for what they were: not the rat-like, vicious creatures of Weena’s world – but harmless infants? ‘I don’t suppose you know what I’m talking about – but I feel as if I’m trapped in another one of those “Dissolving Views” …’
‘You are expressing shame,’ Nebogipfel said.
Shame … I never thought I should hear, and accept, such remonstrance from a Morlock! I looked at him, defiant. ‘Yes. Very well! And does that make me more than a beast, in your view, or less of one?’
He