The Map of the Sky Read online

“Consequently, as I was saying,” Wells resumed after Serviss stopped making a din, “even if there is life on Mars or on some other planet in our vast solar system . . .” He made a grandiose gesture toward the sky and seemed annoyed to encounter the tavern ceiling with its plain wooden beams. He gazed at it in dismay for a few moments. “Damnation . . . what was I saying?”

  “Something about Mars . . . I think,” Serviss added, looking up at the ceiling with equal misgivings.

  “Oh, yes, Mars,” Wells remembered at last. “I mean, assuming there was life there, it would probably be impossible to compare it with life here, and therefore envisaging spaceships engineered by Martians is absurd.”

  “All right. But what if I told you,” Serviss said, trying to keep a straight face, “that you’re mistaken?”

  “Mistaken? You could not say I am mistaken, my dear Garrett.”

  “Unless I was able to back it up, my dear George.”

  Wells nodded, and Serviss leaned back in his seat, smiling enigmatically.

  “Did you know that as a youth I was obsessed with the idea of life on other planets?” he confessed.

  “You don’t say?” Wells retorted, a foolish grin on his face.

  “Yes, I hunted through newspapers, treatises, and old essays looking for”—he pondered the best word to use—“signs. Did you know, for example, that in 1518 something described as ‘a kind of star’ appeared in the sky above the conquistador Juan de Grijalva’s ship, before moving away leaving a trail of fire and throwing a beam of light down to Earth?”

  Wells feigned surprise: “Heavens, I had no idea!”

  Serviss smiled disdainfully in response to Wells’s mockery.

  “I could cite dozens of similar examples from my compilation of past sightings of flying machines from other worlds, George,” he assured him, the smile still on his lips. “But that isn’t why I’m convinced beings from the sky have already visited Earth.”

  “Why then?”

  Serviss leaned across the table, lowering his voice to a whisper: “Because I’ve seen a Martian.”

  “Ho, ho, ho . . . Where, at the theater perhaps? Or walking along the street? Perhaps it is the queen’s new pet dog?”

  “I mean it, George,” Serviss said, straightening up and beaming at him. “I’ve seen one.”

  “You’re drunk!”

  “I’m not drunk, George! Not enough not to know what I’m talking about at any rate. And I tell you I saw a darned Martian. Right in front of my very eyes. Why, I even touched it with my own hands,” he insisted, holding them aloft.

  Wells looked at him gravely for a few moments before bursting into loud peals of laughter, causing half the other customers to jump.

  “You are a terribly amusing fellow, Garrett,” he declared after he had recovered. “Why, I think I might even forgive you for writing a novel in order to profit from—”

  “It was about ten years ago, I forget the exact date,” Serviss said, ignoring Wells’s banter. “I was spending a few days in London at the time, carrying out some research at the Natural History Museum for a series of articles I was writing.”

  Realizing that Serviss wasn’t joking, Wells sat up straight in his chair and listened attentively, while he felt the pub floor rock gently beneath him, as though they were drinking beer on a boat sailing down a river. Had this fellow really seen a Martian?

  “As you know, the museum was built to house an increasingly large number of fossils and skeletons that wouldn’t fit in the British Museum,” Serviss went on dreamily. “The whole place looked new, and the exhibits were wonderfully informative, as though they really wanted to show visitors what the world was about in an orderly but entertaining fashion. I would stroll happily through the rooms and corridors, aware of the fact that numerous explorers had risked life and limb so that a handful of West End ladies could feel a thrill of excitement as they watched a procession of marabunta ants. A whole host of marvels beckoned from the display cases, stirring in me a longing for adventure, a desire to discover distant lands, which, fortunately, my affection for the comforts of civilization ended up stifling. Was it worth missing the whole theater season just to see a gibbon swinging from branch to branch? Why travel so far when others were willing to endure hammering rain, freezing temperatures, and bizarre diseases to bring back almost every exotic object under the sun? And so I contented myself with observing the varied contents of the display cases like any other philistine. Although what really interested me wasn’t exhibited in any of them.”

  Wells gazed at Serviss in respectful silence, not wishing to interrupt him until he had heard the end of the story. He had experienced something similar himself on his first visit to the museum.

  “On the second or third day, I began to notice that, from time to time, the head curator of the museum would discreetly lead groups of visitors down to the basement. And I have to tell you that among those groups I recognized a few eminent scientists and even the odd minister. As well as the head curator, two Scotland Yard inspectors always accompanied the visitors. As you can imagine, these strange and regular processions to the basement aroused my curiosity, so that one afternoon, I stopped what I was doing and took the risk of following them downstairs. The procession walked through a maze of corridors until it reached a locked door. When the group came to a halt, the older of the inspectors, a stout fellow with a conspicuous patch over one eye, gave a command to the other one, a mere stripling. The younger man assiduously removed a key from a chain around his neck, unlocked the door, and ushered the group inside, closing the door behind him. I questioned several museum employees and found out that no one was completely sure what was inside the room, which they dubbed the Chamber of Marvels. When I asked the head curator what it contained, his response took me aback. “Things people would never have thought existed,” he said with a self-satisfied grin, and then he suggested I carry on marveling at the plants and insects in the display cases, for there were some frontiers beyond which not everybody was ready to cross. As you will understand, his response angered me, as did the fact that he never extended me the courtesy of inviting me to join one of the groups that were so regularly given access to the unknown. Apparently I wasn’t as important as all those great men of science who deserved a guided tour. And so I swallowed my pride and got used to the idea of returning to the States having only discovered what a group of insensitive bureaucrats wanted me to know about the world. However, unlike the museum’s head curator, Fate must have considered it important for me to find out what was inside that chamber. Otherwise I can’t understand how I got in there so easily.”

  “How did you get in?” Wells asked, astonished.

  “On my last day in London, I happened to find myself in the elevator with the younger of the two Scotland Yard inspectors. I tried to persuade him to talk about the chamber he was guarding, but to no avail. The youth would give nothing away. He even refused my invitation to have a beer at a nearby pub, with the excuse that he only drank sarsaparilla. Well, who drinks sarsaparilla these days? Anyway, as we stepped out of the elevator, he said good-bye politely and began walking down the corridor toward the exit, oblivious to the deeply resentful look I was giving him. Then, to my astonishment, I saw him pause, his legs swaying beneath him as though he were suddenly unsure of where he was going, before collapsing like a marionette with its strings cut. I was in shock, as you can imagine. I thought he had dropped dead before my eyes, from a massive heart attack or something. I ran over and unbuttoned his shirt collar with the idea of testing his pulse, only to find to my great relief that he was still alive. He had simply fainted like a lady whose corset is too tight. Blood was streaming down his face, but I soon realized it came from a cut on his eyebrow, which must have happened when he fell.”

  “Perhaps he had a sudden drop in blood pressure. Or was suffering from heat stroke,” Wells suggested.

  “Possibly, possibly,” Serviss replied distractedly. “And then—”

  “Or low blood sugar. Alt
hough I am inclined to think—”

  “What the hell does it matter what it was, George! He fainted and that’s that!” Serviss said, irritated, keen to go on with his story.

  “I’m sorry, Garrett,” said Wells, somewhat cowed. “Do carry on.”

  “Good, where was I?” muttered Serviss. “Oh, yes, I was concerned. But that concern soon gave way to something more like greed when I noticed a strange gold key decorated with a pair of pretty little angel’s wings hanging from the inspector’s neck. I immediately realized that the charming key was the one he had used to open the Chamber of Marvels.”

  “And you stole it from him!” Wells said, shocked.

  “Well . . .” Serviss shrugged, unbuttoning his shirt collar to reveal a delicate chain from which hung the key he had just described.

  “I couldn’t resist it, George,” he explained, with theatrical remorse. “It wasn’t as if I was stealing a pair of shoes from a dead man. After all, the inspector had only fainted.”

  Wells shook his head in disapproval. Considering the liberal amounts of alcohol he had imbibed, this proved a perilous gesture, as his head began to spin even more, giving him the impression he was sitting on a merry-go-round horse.

  Serviss went on. “That’s how I got into the room where, for many reasons, they hide away all the things they don’t want the world to know about. And, take my word for it, George, if you saw what they’ve got hidden in there, you’d never write another fantasy novel.”

  Wells looked at him skeptically, straightening in his chair.

  “But that’s the least of it,” Serviss went on. “What really mattered stood in the corner of the room on a pedestal. An enormous flying machine. Very strange looking. And whether or not it could actually fly was a mere suspicion in the minds of the scientists who had been privileged to examine it, as far as I could gather from reading the notebooks and papers listing all the details of the discovery, which I found lying on a nearby table. Unlike the Albatross in Verne’s Robur the Conqueror, this machine had neither wings nor propellers. And no balloon either. In fact it looked more like a plate.”

  “A plate?” Wells asked in astonishment.

  “Yes, a soup plate. Or to be more precise a saucer. Like the ones you Britishers use under your teacups,” Serviss added.

  “In short, a flying saucer,” Wells said, eager for him to go on.

  “Precisely. According to what I read in the notebooks, an expedition of some years past to the South Pole found the machine buried in the Antarctic ice. It appeared to have crashed into a mountain range inland, which is what led them to believe the thing could fly. Except they were unable to open it, because there was no hatch or anything resembling a door.”

  “I see. But what made them think it came from another planet?” Wells asked. “Couldn’t it have been built in Germany? The Germans are always experimenting with—”

  “No, George.” Serviss butted in forcefully. “One look was enough to see the thing had been built using technology far superior to anything the Germans, or for that matter any country on Earth, could possibly possess. For example, there’s nothing to suggest it is steam driven. But in any case, it wasn’t only its appearance that made them think it came from space.”

  “Really? What then?”

  Serviss paused for dramatic effect, using the opportunity to take a swig of beer.

  “They found the machine not far from a vessel, the Annawan, that had set sail from New York Harbor on October 15, 1829, on an exploratory voyage from which she never returned. The ship had caught fire, and the crew had perished. The frozen bodies of the sailors lay scattered about, half buried in the ice. Most were charred, but those that weren’t still wore a look of terror on their faces, as if they had been fleeing the fire . . . or who knows what other horrors. They also found the bodies of several dogs, their limbs mysteriously torn off. The members of the expedition described the scene as gruesome. But the real discovery came a few days later, when they found the probable pilot of the machine buried in the ice nearby. And I can assure you he wasn’t German, George: I knew that as soon as I opened the casket where he’s kept.”

  Serviss paused once more and gave Wells a warm, almost affectionate smile, as if to apologize for scaring him. Wells looked at him with as much trepidation as his drunkenness would allow.

  “And what did he look like . . . ?” he asked in a faint voice.

  “Needless to say, nothing like the Martians you describe in your novel, George. In fact, he reminded me of a darker, more sophisticated version of Spring-Heeled Jack. Have you heard of Spring-Heeled Jack, that peculiar jumping creature that terrorized London about sixty years ago?”

  Wells nodded, unable to fathom what possible similarity there might be between the two.

  “Yes, they said he had springs on his feet, which allowed him to take great leaps.”

  “And that he would spring out of nowhere in front of young girls, and caress their bodies lasciviously before disappearing again. Many depicted him as diabolical, with pointed ears and clawed hands.”

  “I suppose that was a result of the hysteria at the time,” Wells reflected. “The man was probably a circus acrobat who decided to use his skills to sate his appetites.”

  “Probably, George, probably. But the thing in the museum reminded me of the monstrous version the illustrators of the more salacious newspapers and magazines produced. I saw copies of those old newspapers when I was a child, and Jack’s appearance made my blood run cold. But, yes, perhaps that similarity is only visible to me, and it comes from my deepest fears.”

  “So what you are saying,” Wells said, attempting to sum up, “is that there is a Martian in the Natural History Museum?”

  “Yes. Only it’s dead, of course,” Serviss replied, as though somehow that made it less appealing. “Actually, it’s little more than a dried-up kind of humanoid. The only thing that might offer some interesting revelations is the inside of the machine. Maybe it contains a clue as to the Martian’s origins, or some maps of space, or something. Who knows? And we mustn’t forget what a step forward it would be for human science if we were able to figure out how it worked. But unfortunately they can’t open it. I don’t know whether they’re still trying, or whether they’ve given up and both machine and Martian are gathering dust in the museum. Whatever happens, the fact is, my dear George, that thing didn’t come from Earth.”

  “A Martian!” Wells said, finally giving free rein to his bewilderment when he realized Serviss had come to the end of his story. “Good God in Heaven!”

  “That’s right, George, a Martian, a hideous, horrible Martian,” Serviss confirmed. “And this key can take us to him. Although I only saw him that one time; I haven’t used the key since. I just keep it round my neck like a lucky charm, to remind me that there are more impossible things in the world than we story writers could ever imagine.”

  He unfastened the chain and handed it to Wells ceremoniously, like someone surrendering a sacred object. Wells examined it carefully with the same solemnity.

  “I’m convinced the true history of our time isn’t what we read in newspapers or books,” he rambled, while Wells went on examining the key. “True history is almost invisible. It flows like an underground spring. It takes place in the shadows, and in silence, George. And only a chosen few know what that history is.”

  He deftly snatched the key from Wells and placed it in his jacket pocket. Then he said with a mischievous grin: “Do you want to see the Martian?”

  “Right now?”

  “Why not? I doubt you’ll have another chance, George.”

  Wells looked at him uneasily. He needed time to digest what Serviss had told him. Or to be more precise, he needed a couple of hours for everything to stop spinning, for his head to clear so that he could judge the American’s story rationally. Perhaps he might then refute it, for it was true that in his present alcoholic haze it felt extremely pleasant to believe that the impossible could form part of reality. Indeed, i
n his current state of calm euphoria, Wells rejoiced at the thought that the world he was compelled to live in had a hidden dimension, and that the frontiers erected by Man’s reason to define its boundaries might suddenly collapse, mingling the two worlds to form a new reality, a reality where magic floated in the air and fantasy novels were simply true accounts of their authors’ experiences. Is that what Serviss was saying? Was that nondescript little man guiding him, like the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, to his warren, where Wells would enter a world in which anything was possible? A world ruled over by a far more imaginative God than the current one? Yet that reality did not exist, it could not exist, much as it seemed to him now the most natural thing in the world.

  “Are you afraid?” Serviss inquired, surprised. “Ah, I see, perhaps this is all too much for you, George. Perhaps you prefer your monsters to stay safely within the confines of your imagination, where the most they can do is send a shiver down the spines of your readers. Perhaps you haven’t the courage to face them in reality, off the page.”

  “Of course I have, Garrett,” Wells retorted, irritated at Serviss’s presumption. “It is just that—”

  “Don’t worry, George. I understand, I really do.” Serviss tried to console him. “Seeing a Martian is a terrifying experience. It’s one thing to write about them, and quite another to—”

  “Of course I can face them in reality, confound it!” Wells cried, leaping unsteadily to his feet. “We shall go to the museum this instant, Garrett, and you can show me your Martian!”

  Serviss looked up at him with amusement, then rose to his feet with the same gusto.

  “All right, George, it’s up to you!” he roared, barely able to stand up straight. “Waiter, the bill! And be quick about it, my friend and I have an appointment with a creature from the stars!”

  Wells tried to dissuade him from another outburst, but Serviss had already turned toward the other tables.

  “Does anyone here wish to accompany us? Does anyone else wish to see a Martian?” he declared to the astonished customers, spreading his arms. “If so, come with me, and I’ll show you a bona fide inhabitant of the planet Mars!”