The Time Ships

So my fecund imagination ran on, as ever quite out of my control.

I soon began to feel fatigued. Nebogipfel took me to a clear space — though there were Morlocks in the distance, all about me — and he tapped his foot on the Floor. A sort of shelter was extruded; it was perhaps four feet high, and little more than a roof set on four fat pillars: something like a substantial table, perhaps. Within the shelter there arose a bundle of blankets and a food-stand. I climbed into the hut gratefully — it was the first enclosure I had enjoyed since my arrival on the Sphere — and I acknowledged Nebogipfel’s consideration at providing it. I made a meal of water and some of the greenish cheese stuff, and I took off my goggles — I was immersed in the endless darkness of that Morlock world — and was able to sleep, with my head settled on a rolled-up blanket.

This odd little shelter was my home for the next few days, as I continued my tour of the Morlocks’ city-chamber with Nebogipfel. Each time I arose, Nebogipfel had the Floor absorb the shelter once again, and he evoked it afresh in whatever place we stopped — so we had no luggage to carry! I have noted that the Morlocks did not sleep, and I think my antics in my hut were the source of considerable fascination to the natives of the Sphere — just as those of an orangutan catch the eye of the civilized man, I suppose — and they would have crowded around me as I tried to sleep, pressing their little round faces in on me, and rest would have been impossible, had not Nebogipfel stayed by me, and deterred such sight-seeing.

[13]

How the Morlocks Lived

In all the days Nebogipfel led me through that Morlock world, we never encountered a wall, door or other significant barrier. As near as I could make it out, we were restricted — the whole time — to a single chamber: but it was a chamber of a stupendous size. And it was, in its general details, homogenous, for everywhere I found this same carpet of Morlocks pursuing their obscure tasks. The simplest practicalities of such arrangements were startling enough; I considered, for example, the prosaic problems of maintaining a consistent and stable atmosphere, at an even temperature, pressure and humidity, over such scales of length. And yet, Nebogipfel gave me to understand, this was but one chamber in a sort of mosaic of them, that tiled the Sphere from Pole to Pole.

I soon came to understand that there were no cities on this Sphere, in the modern sense. The Morlock population was spread over these immense chambers, and there were no fixed sites for any given activity. If the Morlocks wished to assemble a work area — or clear it for some other purpose — the relevant apparatuses could be extruded directly from the Floor, or else absorbed back. Thus, rather than cities, there were to be found nodes of population of higher density — nodes which shifted and migrated, according to purpose.

After one sleep I had clambered out of the shelter and was sitting cross-legged on the Floor, sipping water. Nebogipfel remained standing, seemingly without fatigue. Then I saw approaching us a brace of Morlocks, the sight of which made me swallow a mouthful of water too hastily; I sputtered, and droplets of water sprayed across my jacket and trousers.

I supposed the pair were indeed Morlocks — but they were like no Morlocks I had seen before: whereas Nebogipfel was a little under five feet tall, these were like cartoon caricatures, extended to a height of perhaps twelve feet! One of the long creatures noticed me, and he came loping over, metal splints on his legs clattering as he walked; he stepped over the intervening partitions like some huge gazelle.

He bent down and peered at me. His red-gray eyes were the size of di

He exchanged a few liquid syllables with Nebogipfel, then rejoined his companion and — with many a backward glance at me — went on his way.

I turned to Nebogipfel, stu

Nebogipfel said, “They are” — a liquid word I could not repeat — “from the higher latitudes.” He glanced after our two visitors. “You can see that they are unsuited to this equatorial region. Splints are required to help them walk, and—”

“I don’t see it at all,” I broke in. “What’s so different about the higher latitudes?”

“Gravity,” he said.

Dimly, I began to understand.

The Morlocks’ Sphere was, as I have recorded, a titanic construction which filled up the orbit once occupied by Venus. And — Nebogipfel told me now — the whole thing rotated, about an axis. Once, Venus’s year had been two hundred and twenty-five days. Now — said Nebogipfel — the great Sphere turned in just seven days and thirteen hours!

“And so the rotation — ,” Nebogipfel began.

“ — induces centrifugal effects, simulating the earth’s gravity at the equator. Yes,” I said. “I see it.”

The spin of the Sphere kept us all plastered to this Floor. But away from the equator, the turning circle of a point on the Sphere about the rotation axis was less, and so the effective gravity was reduced: gravity dwindled to zero, in fact, at the Sphere’s rotation poles. And in those extraordinary, broad continents of lower gravity, such remarkable animals as those two loping Morlocks lived, and had adapted to their conditions.

I thumped my forehead with the back of my hand.

“Sometimes I think I am the greatest fool who ever lived!” I exclaimed to the bemused Nebogipfel. For I had never thought to inquire about the source of my “weight,” here on the Sphere. What sort of scientist was it who failed to question — even to observe properly — the “gravity” which, in the absence of anything so convenient as a planet, glued him to the surface of this Sphere? I wondered how many other marvels I was passing by, simply from the fact that it did not occur to me to ask about them — and yet to Nebogipfel such features were merely a part of the world, of no more novelty than a sunset, or a butterfly’s wing.

I teased out of Nebogipfel details of how the Morlocks lived. It was difficult, for I scarcely knew how to begin even to phrase my questions. That may seem odd to state — but how was I to ask, for instance, about the machinery which underpi

I asked Nebogipfel how the Morlocks governed themselves.

He explained to me — in a somewhat patronizing ma