So we had enjoyed an age of hope and unity that, I knew, had raised the spirits of that utopian, Walter Jenkins, even while he grumbled endlessly about the details. An all too brief age, it seemed; already disunity and tension was on the rise, thanks to the wretched astronomical clockwork of the solar system that was bringing Mars swimming towards the earth. After two doses of invasions from Mars everybody knew this; none of us needed scare stories in the Daily Mail to remind us of it. Even if we kept back from war, in protests, riots, even minor insurrections, violence was returning to a barely healed world – and it had already taken, at the hand of some deranged protester, the life of that apostle of peace, Horen Mikaelian herself.
And here I was, about to plunge back into the maelstrom.
3
BY MONORAIL TO ENGLAND
Despite a rivalry between France and England that dates back a thousand years, the straight-line distance between their capitals has only ever been two hundred miles. And in the late autumn of 1936 it would take only two hours for me to travel from one city to another.
But, though I was not yet fifty, I felt like a relic in this new age. The new monorail was a miracle of now globally shared Martian technology, an application of their mastery of electromagnetic fields. When I was a little girl, I reminded myself as if I was some crone in a rocking chair, we didn’t yet have motor-cars – and now this. I tried not to think of the fact that my carriage, propelled by the invisible energies of electricity, was balanced on its rail on a row of single wheels beneath it, its mechanical intelligence keeping it upright like a circus unicyclist. So forgive me if I clung to the cushions of my seat as the train rocketed along, smart and silent.
I did comfort myself with the fine views. Paris itself, as I am certain most Parisians would have wanted, had been changed little by the tumultuous events of the early decades of the twentieth century – in fact the city had suffered more at the hands of the Germans than the Martians. The grand old city was a fine sight to see in the low September sunshine, as my train rode the rail on its elegant stilts, green and blue, high above the rooftops. But from the train I could not see the most significant location of all in the modern city, the embassy of the Federation of Federations itself, all glass and Martian aluminium in the Place de Fontenoy. This modest building had lobbied for acceptance into the venerable Parisian skyline, but would always be dwarfed by the Eiffel Tower, expensively restored for the 1924 Olympics.
I saw that the weather was changing, with heavy thunderclouds streaming in from the east, soon to blot out the autumn sunshine. I cursed my luck, though that was scarcely fair to the fates. Across the northern hemisphere, the climate had been worsening for a decade, with an excess of extreme events, notably storms of rain or snow or hail, and bloodyminded winds that had done nothing to help humanity’s tentative efforts to recover from the Martians’ assault. The elderly, into which category I now tentatively included myself, dreamed of what in retrospect seemed like idyllic late-Victorian times: days before the Martians, the summer days of childhood. But then, perhaps everyone feels that way about the past.
Beyond Paris my train soared across the countryside of north-west France, passing without stopping through Amiens and Boulogne – and then, in utter silence, apparently on invisible magnetic wings, we sailed over the Straits of Dover, with the sun bright above us once more and the Channel waters glittering below, and the monorail towers slim and elegant, a chain of mighty new Eiffels. During the Channel crossing coffee was served by calm bilingual stewards. That, I thought, was just showing off.
At Dover our service swept through a Crystal Palace of a new station, and then it was on, striding on more stilts over the pretty towns of Kent, with the North Downs a great wave of greenery. And very soon we came to London.
Such was our speed as we raced towards Waterloo that I only glimpsed the damage that had been done to the city by the Martians in their years of occupation, and the rebuilding since, but in places I saw what looked like Martian handling-machines and excavating-machines busily scraping and digging, with the eerie puffs of green smoke that always characterised Martian technology. Meanwhile, in the more expensive districts, in Chelsea and Kensington and along the Embankment, grand new buildings were rising up, skyscraper blocks and terraces that gleamed with Martian-manufacture aluminium. They seemed grand to me, anyhow; I had not been back to America for a time, and had not seen a restored Manhattan that Harry Kane told me ‘would make you eat your hat’. But even so London was transformed. After all, after the invasion of ’20 London had been systematically pummelled by the Martians, and had got it worse than any other city on earth, with every landmark you can think of targeted. It had been like the Great Fire, I suppose, a chance for a rebuilding. And so some modern Wren had erected a new St Paul’s on the site of the old, not a dome but a shining needle of Martian aluminium, topped by a crucifix.
And I knew that many of the new structures were as extensive underground as above, with cellars, bunkers and dormitories. The governments too were digging huge bunkers under their ministries – around the world it was so, too. Some commentators said that, fearing a Martian return, we were becoming as subterranean as the Martians themselves.
We came into Waterloo, and I was delighted to see the figure who waited for me on the platform. It was Joe Hopson, nearly forty years old now and his hair a rather startling grey, but as dapper as ever in a crisp, clean uniform. We had gone through a few ‘debriefings’ together after the Martian withdrawal, and we had kept in touch since – with Christmas cards, at least. He made to embrace me, but I recoiled, I hope subtly enough. My blood has long since been scrubbed clean, but still I find I recoil from physical contact. Instead, I mockingly gave him my best attempt at a military salute.
‘At ease, soldier,’ he said with a grin. After a brief struggle, with his old-fashioned manners warring with my sense of independence, he took the small rucksack that was as usual my only luggage. ‘Come. We have a car waiting.’
‘So you’re a captain now,’ I said. ‘If I’m reading your stripes correctly, that is.’
‘Afraid so. Didn’t get terribly far, did I? My cadet instructor at school, old One-Ear Crookswell, would be mortified. And also I’m retired – well, semi. I’m a sort of reservist now – most of us veterans are. Even on a salary, if a small one. The Second War was so brief in the end that those of us who had the luck to do the actual fighting were pretty few, and those who survived are even fewer. So it’s worth keeping us old warhorses in the stable and feeding us the odd handful of oats, so we can give the shiny new generation the benefit of our experience. Keeping our forces match fit in case the Martians decide to have another go, you see. I run into Ted Lane sometimes at such bashes, and he says he still hasn’t forgiven you.’
I pulled a face. ‘Well, he’s a right to be aggrieved.’ He was talking of the time I had slipped out of Abbotsdale with Verity Bliss to find the Buckinghamshire franc-tireurs, without so much as a word to Ted who had followed me across the North Sea in the role of protector. ‘I suppose keeping match fit, as you say, makes sense – if you think the Martians are likely to come back.’