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The Time Machine
Chapter 2. The Machine
The thing the Time Traveller held in his hand was a glittering metal frame, hardly larger than a small clock, and very delicately made.
There was ivory in it, and some clear crystalline substance.
And now I must be clear, for what follows unless his explanation is to be accepted is an absolutely unaccountable thing.
He took one of the small eight-sided tables scattered about the room, and set it before the fire, two legs on the hearthrug.
On this table he put the mechanism.
Then he pulled up a chair, and sat down.
The only other object on the table was a small shaded lamp, whose bright light fell on the model.
There were also perhaps a dozen candles about, two in brass candlesticks on the mantel and several in wall holders, so the room was brilliantly lit.
I sat in a low arm-chair nearest the fire.
And I moved this forward so I was almost between the Time Traveller and the fireplace.
Filby sat behind him, looking over his shoulder.
The Medical Man and the Provincial Mayor watched him in profile from the right, the Psychologist from the left.
The Very Young Man stood behind the Psychologist, we were all on the alert.
It seems incredible to me that any kind of trick, however cleverly planned and however skilfully done, could have been played on us under these conditions.
The Time Traveller looked at us, and then at the mechanism.
"Well?" said the Psychologist.
"This little thing,"
"Said the Time Traveller, resting his elbows on the table and pressing his hands together above the apparatus."
"It's only a model," he said, "it's my plan for a machine to travel through time."
"You'll notice it looks tilted and faintly twinkling, as though partly unreal," he said, pointing to the part.
"Also, here's one little white lever, and here's another."
The Medical Man stood up out of his chair and looked into the thing.
"It's beautifully made," he said.
"It took two years to make," replied the Time Traveller.
"Then, when we had copied the Medical Man's action, he said, "Now understand that this lever, pressed over, sends the machine gliding into the future.
"This other reverses the motion." This saddle shows the seat of a time traveller.
Soon I'm going to press the lever, and off the machine will go.
It'll vanish, pass into future Time, and disappear.
Have a good look at the thing.
Look at the table too, and make sure there's no trickery.
"I don't want to waste this model, and then be called a quack."
There was perhaps a minute's pause, the Psychologist seemed about to speak to me, but changed his mind.
Then the Time Traveller put his finger toward the lever.
"No," he said suddenly.
"Lend me your hand." And turning to the Psychologist, he took that man's hand in his own and told him to put out his forefinger.
So it was the Psychologist himself who sent the model Time Machine on its endless voyage.
We all saw the lever turn, I'm absolutely certain there was no trickery.
There was a breath of wind, and the lamp flame jumped.
One of the candles on the mantel was blown out.
The little machine swung round, grew indistinct, for a second it showed as a ghostlike eddy of shining brass and ivory, then vanished.
Save for the lamp the table was bare.
Everyone was silent for a minute, then Filby said he was damned.
The Psychologist came out of his stunned state, and suddenly looked under the table.
At that the Time Traveller laughed cheerfully.
"Well?" he said, with a memory of the Psychologist.
Then, getting up, he went to the tobacco jar on the mantel, and with his back to us began to fill his pipe.
We stared at each other in silence, exchanging puzzled and disbelieving looks around the room.
"Look here," said the Medical Man, "are you serious about this? Do you really believe that that machine has travelled into time?"
"Certainly," said the Time Traveller, bending to light a spill at the fire.
Then he turned, lighting his pipe, to look at the Psychologist's face.
The Psychologist, to show he wasn't unbalanced, helped himself to a cigar and tried to light it uncut.
"What's more, I have a big machine nearly finished in there,"
He said pointing to the laboratory, "and when that's put together I mean to make a journey on my own account.".
"You mean to say that that machine has travelled into the future?" said Filby.
"Into the future or the past I don't, for certain, know which."
After a while the Psychologist had an idea.
"It must have gone into the past if it has gone anywhere," he said.
"Why?" said the Time Traveller.
Because I assume it hasn't moved in space, if it travelled into the future it would still be here, since it must have passed through this time.
"But," said I.
"If it travelled into the past, it would have been visible when we first came into this room."
"It would have been visible last Thursday when we were here, and the Thursday before that, and so on!"
"Serious objections," said the Provincial Mayor, with an air of fairness, turning toward the Time Traveller.
"Not at all," said the Time Traveller, and, to the Psychologist, "You think. You can explain that. It's presentation below the threshold you know diluted presentation."
"Of course," said the Psychologist, and he reassured us.
"That's a simple point of psychology."
"I should have thought of it."
"It's plain enough, and helps the paradox nicely."
"We can't see it, nor can we notice this machine, any more than we can the spoke of a wheel when it's spinning, or a bullet flying through the air."
"If it's travelling through time fifty or a hundred times faster than we're, it'll get through a minute while we get through a second."
"Its impression will therefore be only one fiftieth or one hundredth of what it would make if it weren't travelling in time."
"That's plain enough." He passed his hand through the space where the machine had been.
"You see?" he said, laughing.
We sat and stared at the empty table for a minute or so.
Then the Time Traveller asked us what we thought of it all.
"It sounds plausible enough tonight," said the Medical Man, "but wait until tomorrow. Wait for the common sense of the morning."
"Would you like to see the Time Machine itself?" asked the Time Traveller.
And with that, taking the lamp in his hand, he led the way down the long draughty corridor to his laboratory.
I remember clearly the flickering light, his strange broad head in silhouette, and the dance of the shadows as we all followed him, puzzled but unbelieving.
There in the laboratory we saw a larger version of the small mechanism which we had seen vanish before our eyes.
Parts were of nickel, parts of ivory, parts had clearly been filed or sawed out of rock crystal.
The thing was generally complete, but the twisted crystalline bars lay unfinished on the bench beside some sheets of drawings.
And I took one up for a better look at it, Quartz it seemed to be.
"Look here," said the Medical Man, "are you perfectly serious? Or is this a trick like that ghost you showed us last Christmas?"
"On that machine," said the Time Traveller, holding the lamp up, "I intend to explore time. Is that clear? I was never more serious in my life."
None of us quite knew how to take it.
I caught Filby's eye over the shoulder of the Medical Man, and he winked at me solemnly.