The Map of the Sky (Trilogía Victoriana #2)(175)
Once he realized he was not going to be dragged anywhere else, Wells managed to swim up to the surface. He gasped several times and looked around, bewildered, unable to comprehend where he was or what had happened. Gradually, as he began to see and think more clearly, he guessed he had been spat out into the Thames through a sewage pipe, but try as he might he could see no sign of the others. Where the devil were they? He waited in case they floated up to the surface but soon found it too cold in the water. He felt suddenly dizzy and began vomiting copiously into the Thames. This was enough to make him abandon his role as guest of the river, and so, exhausted and shivering, he swam clumsily toward the nearest quay, hauling himself out of the water as best he could. Once on dry land, he tried to collect his thoughts. He had managed to escape the Martians, but this was no cause for celebration, because it was clear his victory was only temporary: at any moment they could emerge from somewhere and capture him once and for all and open up his brain, as the Envoy had promised.
Sitting on the quayside like a vagabond, breathless from fatigue and anxiety, Wells glanced about and was amazed to see no trace of the havoc wreaked by the Martians. Where was all the damage the tripods had caused? he wondered, studying closely what he could see of London. But the absence of any destruction was not the only oddity; there was something else. This was undoubtedly London, yes, but not his London. The majority of buildings were only one or two storeys high, and he could not see Tower Bridge. Not because it had been destroyed, but rather because it had not yet been built. Filled with disbelief, Wells saw that only a handful of bridges (Waterloo, Westminster, and one or two others) joined the two sides of the river. With astonishment he noticed that the new London Bridge was under construction some thirty yards away from the old one. Wells leapt to his feet and stared in bewilderment at the narrow, decaying structure of the original bridge, still in use while it was waiting to be pulled down. As if that was not enough, the Thames, which was navigated by paddleboats, now flowed past dark, gravelly beaches, with their small boat builders, private fishing grounds, and jetties belonging to a few luxurious mansions. The author heaved a deep sigh. Everything looked unfinished.
For a long time, he stood contemplating this incomplete London in a state of numb disbelief, until he realized this was no mirage resulting from mental exhaustion. His final conversation with Clayton started coming back to him, still tangled in his confused memories of the previous hours: the desperate flight through the sewers, the death of Gilliam and Emma, the awful fall through the tunnel. What had Clayton shouted to him before they both plummeted into the basin? Acting on an intuition as sudden as it was fleeting, Wells went over to a wastepaper bin, and from among the refuse he dug out a discarded newspaper to verify the date: it was from September 23, 1829. His discovery left him perplexed. He was in the London of 1829! he told himself. He shook his head, half horrified, half exhilarated. It would be eight years before King William IV died and the archbishop of Canterbury presented himself at Kensington Palace to inform the king’s niece Victoria, who had just turned eighteen, that she had succeeded to the throne of the most powerful country on Earth. God, he himself would not be born for another thirty-seven years! How could that be?
God, he had traveled in time!
Like the inventor in his novel, only without any cumbersome machine. Apparently, he had done so using his mind, exactly as Clayton had told him he could in his basement only a few hours before. Well, to be precise it would be sixty-nine years before the inspector made this startling disclosure to him, while the Martians were destroying London above their heads. A London that looked nothing like this one, a London of the future. Then, like timid shooting stars, the last words he and Clayton had exchanged as Wells dangled in midair, held aloft only by the inspector’s good hand, began to dart across his befuddled brain, slowly illuminating it. At that moment, terrified by the possibility of plunging forty feet and being sucked down into the furious whirlpool below, Wells had been unable to pay the inspector too much attention. But now Clayton’s words came back to him with surprising clarity, as though the inspector were once more beside him, shouting above the roar of the water, even though it would be several decades before Clayton was born into that incomprehensible world, disposed to lose a hand in his eagerness to understand it.
“Wells!” Clayton had cried, as the author thrashed his legs anxiously in the air. “Listen to me! You’re the solution! Do you hear? You’re the solution!”
“What?” Wells had replied, puzzled.
“Remember what the Envoy said?” The inspector had resumed yelling, while the author became aware, panic-stricken, that his hands were slipping out of Clayton’s.
Wells tried to cling on more tightly, but the moisture made it impossible. He was slipping, inexorably. Then he heard Charles’s voice but dared not turn toward him, given the precariousness of his grip. In any event, Charles had sounded too far away: he would not arrive in time to seize hold of him.
“Clayton, do something! I’m slipping!” he cried, petrified.
But the inspector persisted with his absurd discourse.
“If you listen to me, damn it, you’ll save all our lives!” he cried. “The Envoy admitted he was afraid of you. And I’m certain it’s because of what I told you in my basement!”
“Don’t let go, Clayton!”
“Don’t you see, Wells?” the inspector went on. “The solution is in your head! The Envoy is afraid of you, Wells, because he senses you’re the only one who can stop the invasion . . . by preventing it! That’s what you have to do, Wells! Prevent it from happening!”