The Map of Time (49 page)

Perhaps, but he could find no reason to do so. All he wanted to do was to sit in a corner and weep, and to carry on weeping until not a drop of water was left in his body, because he was only able to see the future success of his novel as a failure, in the same way he considered The Time Machine and The Island of Dr. Moreau had also failed. Rattled off at the same speed as, alas, he felt obliged to write all his works, The Invisible Man was yet another novel that conformed to the guidelines set down for him by Lewis Hind: a science fiction novel intended as a cautionary tale about the dangers of misusing scientific knowledge. This was something Jules Verne had never ventured to do, always portraying science as a sort of transparent alchemy at man’s disposal. Wells, on the other hand, could not share the Frenchman’s unquestioning optimism, and had therefore produced another dark tale about the abuses of technology, in which a scientist, after managing to make himself invisible, ends up losing his mind. But it was clear no one would perceive the real message in his work, for, as Marcus had hinted, and as he had seen for himself by reading some of the horrific news items hanging from the master rope, man had ended up harnessing science for the most destructive purpose imaginable.

Marcus handed the cutting to Wells, to read and pass on to the others. The author felt too dejected to wade through the handful of tributes that appeared to make up the bulk of the article Instead, he confined himself to glancing at the accompanying photograph, in which the fellow Frost, a small, neat-looking man, was leaning absurdly over his typewriter, the prolific source from which his supposed novels had emanated. Then he passed the cutting to James, who cast a scornful eye over it before handing it to Stoker, who read it from beginning to end. The Irishman was the first to break the deathly silence that had descended on the room.

“How could this fellow have had the same ideas for his novels as we did?” he asked, completely baffled.

James gave him the contemptuous look he would give a performing monkey.

“Don’t be so naïve, Mr. Stoker,” he chided him. “What our host is trying to tell us is that Mr. Frost didn’t write these novels.

Somehow he stole them from us before we published them.” “Precisely, Mr. James,” the time traveler affirmed.

“But how will he stop us from suing him?” the Irishman persisted.

“I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that, Mr. Stoker,” replied Marcus.

Wells, who had managed to thrust aside his despair and take an interest in the conversation again, was suddenly struck by a ghastly thought.

“If I’m not mistaken, what Mr. Rhys is trying to tell us,” he explained, with the aim of dispelling the fog the others were in, “is that the best way to silence a person is by killing him.” “By killing him?” declared Stoker, horrified. “Are you saying this fellow Frost is going to steal our works and then … kill us?” “I’m afraid so, Mr. Stoker,” Marcus confirmed, accompanying his words with a solemn nod. “When, after arriving in your time, I came across the news item about a mysterious fellow named Melvyn Frost who had published these novels, I hastened to learn what had become of you, their real authors. And I’m sorry to have to tell you this, gentlemen, but all three of you are going to die next month. You, Mr. Wells, will break your neck in a cycling accident. You, Mr. Stoker, will fall down the stairs of your theater.

And you, Mr. James, will suffer a heart attack in your own home, although, needless to say, your death, like those of your colleagues, will also be murder. I don’t know whether Frost plans to carry out the deeds himself or to hire someone else, although judging from Frost’s frail physique, I would incline towards the latter. In fact, Frost is a typical instance of a time traveler who, afraid to return to his own time, chooses a particular time in the past in which to settle down and build a new life. All perfectly understandable and legitimate. The problem arises because the majority of these time exiles consider earning a living in the traditional sense, by the sweat of their brow—utterly absurd when their knowledge of the future could make them rich. Most give themselves away when they modify the past in order to implement their moneymaking schemes, like this fellow Frost. Otherwise, it would be impossible for us to trace them. But I didn’t bring you here to torment you with tales of your imminent demise, gentlemen, rather to try to prevent it from happening.” “Can you do that?” Stoker asked, suddenly hopeful.

“Not only can I, but it is my duty, for your deaths represent a significant change to the century I have been assigned to protect,” replied Marcus. “My sole aim is to help you, gentlemen, I hope I’ve convinced you of that. And that includes you too, Mr. Wells.” Wells gave a start. How did Marcus know he had come to the meeting filled with misgivings? He found the answer when he followed the direction the traveler and his two henchmen were looking. All three of them were staring at his left shoe, where the knife he had strapped to his back was peeping out. It seemed the knot he had tied had been a little precarious. Shamefaced, Wells picked up the knife and slipped it into his pocket, while James shook his head disapprovingly.

“All of you,” the traveler went on, attaching no further importance to the matter, “will live for many more years in your original universe and will continue delighting your faithful readers, of whom I consider myself one, with many more novels. Forgive me, though, if I refrain from telling you any details about your future, so that once we have resolved this small matter, you will continue to act naturally. In fact, I ought to have intervened without revealing myself to you, but this fellow Frost is devilishly clever and will eliminate you so stealthily that the information I need in order to prevent your deaths, such as the exact time you were pushed down the stairs, Mr. Stoker, will not appear in the newspapers. I only know the days on which you will suffer your respective accidents, and in your case, Mr. James, I won’t even know that, because no one will notice you are dead until a neighbor discovers you body.” James nodded ruefully, perhaps aware for the first time of the utter loneliness enveloping his life, an entrenched loneliness that would make of his death a silent act, unseen by the world.

“Let us say that bringing you here was a desperate measure, gentlemen, for I could think of no other way to prevent your deaths than by asking for your cooperation, which I feel sure will be forthcoming.” “Naturally,” said Stoker, hastily, apparently physically ill at the thought he could be dead in a few days. “What do we have to do?” “Oh, it’s quite simple,” said Marcus. “Providing this fellow Frost cannot find your manuscripts, he won’t be able to kill you.

I therefore suggest you bring them to me at the first opportunity.

Tomorrow, if at all possible. This simple act will create another bifurcation in the timeline, because Frost will not have killed you. Once I am in possession of the novels, I shall travel forward to the year 1899, and take another look at reality in order to decide what to do next.” “I think it’s an excellent plan,” said Stoker. “I shall bring you my manuscript tomorrow.” James agreed to do the same, and although Wells had the impression they were mere pawns in a game of chess between Marcus and this fellow Frost, he had no choice but to consent.

He felt too disoriented by events to try to think of a better way than the one Marcus was proposing. And so, like the others, he agreed to bring him his manuscript the next morning, although if Marcus finally apprehended Frost and unraveled the muddle of the future, it did not guarantee him being able to ride his bicycle in complete safety without first resolving the matter pending with Gilliam Murray. And to do this he had no choice but to help Inspector Garrett catch Marcus, the very man who was trying to save his life.

But if there was a more difficult undertaking than captur-ing a time traveler, it was undoubtedly catching a cab in London in the early hours of the morning. James, Stoker, and Wells spent almost an hour trawling the area around Berkeley Square without success. Only when they decided to walk towards Piccadilly, shivering with cold and cursing their luck, did they catch sight of a berlin. They gave a start as it emerged from the thick fog that had settled over London, rolling along the street towards them almost solely thanks to the horse’s own efforts, because the driver was half-asleep on his perch. It would have passed straight by them, like a visitation from the beyond, had the driver not finally noticed the redheaded giant blocking the street and waving his arms wildly. After the cab came to a hasty halt, the three men spent what seemed like an eternity trying to explain their itinerary to the driver: first, he would take Stoker to his house, then drop James off at his hotel, and finally leave London for Woking, which was where Wells lived. When the driver signaled that he had understood the route by blinking a couple of times and grunt-ing, the three men clambered into the carriage, flopping onto the seat amid loud sighs, like castaways having finally reached shore after spending days in a lifeboat.

Wells longed for some peace and quiet so that he could reflect on the events of the past few hours, but when Stoker and James launched into a discussion about their respective novels, he realized he would have to wait a little while longer. He did not mind them leaving him out; in fact, he was relieved. Apparently, they had nothing to say to a writer of escapist literature who in addition came to meetings with a kitchen knife strapped to his back.

He was not in the slightest bit interested in what they had to say either, and so he tried to stay out of the conversation by gazing through the window at the turbulent swirls of mist, but he soon realized Stoker’s voice, when not cowed by fear, was too loud to ignore even if he wanted to.

“What I’m trying to achieve with my novel, Mr. James,” the Irishman explained, waving his arms in the air, “is a deeper, richer portrayal of that elegant embodiment of Evil, the vampire, whom I have attempted to divest of the burden of the romantic aesthetic that turned him into little more than a grotesque sex fiend incapable of inspiring anything more than a sensual frisson in his victims. The protagonist of my novel is an evil vampire, whom I have endowed with the original attributes found in the myth of folklore, although I confess to having added a few of my own, such as him not having a reflection in mirrors.” “But if you embody it, Mr. Stoker, Evil loses most of its mystery, and its potency!” exclaimed James in an offended tone that took his fellow writer by surprise. “Evil should always manifest itself in the subtlest way. It must be born of doubt, inhabit the shadowy realm between certainty and uncertainty.” “I’m afraid I don’t really understand what you mean, Mr. James,” murmured the Irishman once the other man appeared to have calmed down.

James let out a long sigh before agreeing to expand a little more on the sensitive subject, but Wells could tell from the bewildered look on Stoker’s face that the Irishman was growing more and more confused as the other man spoke. It is no surprise, then, that when they stopped in front of Stoker’s house, the red-haired giant had the air of someone punch-drunk as he stepped out of the cab. The situation only grew worse after Stoker’s desertion (for this is precisely how Wells experienced it) as the two men found themselves brutally exposed to silence. A silence that the urbane James naturally felt obliged to break by engaging Wells in a shallow discussion about the different kinds of material that could be used to upholster carriage seats.

When Wells was finally alone in the coach, he raised his arms to heaven in thanks, then eagerly became lost in his deliberations as the cab gradually left the city behind. He had many things to think about, he told himself. Yes, matters of great import, ranging from the future he had glimpsed in the clippings, which he was unsure whether to forget or to commit to memory, to the exciting idea that someone had thought of charting time as though it were a physical space. Only this was a region that could never be properly charted, because there was no way of knowing where the white cord ended. Or was there? What if the time travelers had journeyed far enough into the future to discover the edge of time, the end of the thread, just as the traveler in his novel had tried to do? But did such a thing exist? Was there an end to time, or did it carry on forever? If it did end, then it had to happen at the exact moment when man became extinct and no other species was left on the planet, for what was time if there was no one to measure it, if there was nothing to experience its passing? Time could only be seen in the falling leaves, a wound that healed, a woodworm’s tunneling, rust that spread, and hearts that grew weary. Without anyone to discern it, time was nothing, nothing at all.

Although, thanks to the existence of parallel worlds, there would always be someone or something to make time believable.

And there was no doubt that parallel worlds existed. Wells knew this for sure now: they sprouted from the universe like branches from a tree at the minutest change to the past, just as he had explained to Andrew Harrington in order to save his life less than three weeks earlier. And discovering this gave him more satisfaction than any future success of his novel, because it spoke of his powerful intuition, the effective, even precocious workings of his brain. Perhaps his brain lacked the mechanism that enabled Marcus to travel in time, but his powers of reasoning set him apart from the masses.

He recalled the map the traveler had shown them, the figure made of colored strings representing the parallel universes Marcus had untangled. It suddenly struck him that the map was incomplete, because it only included worlds created by the travelers” direct interventions. But what of our own actions? The parallel universes not only grew from their wicked manipulations of the hallowed past, but from each and every one of our choices. He imagined Marcus’s map with this new addition, the white cord weighed down by a sudden flowering of yellow strings representing the worlds created by Man’s free will.

Wells emerged from these reflections as the cab pulled up in front of his house. He climbed out, and, after tipping the driver generously for having made him leave London in the small hours of the morning, he lifted the latch, and entered the garden wondering whether it was worth going to bed or not, and what effect it might have on the fabric of time if he decided to do one thing or the other.