Dancers at the End of Time (16 page)

"Hello, Jherek. Well, she'll be there now. I only hope it's successful. If so, then it will open up new roads of inquiry for me. I am still interested in the fact that she did not come here in a time-machine…"

"What have you done, Brannart?"

"What? Well, I sent her back to her own time, of course. In one of the machines in my collection. If all went well she should be there by now. April 4, 1896, 3 a.m. Bromley, Kent, England. Temporal co-ordinates should offer no real trouble, but there might be a slight variance on the spatial. So unless something happened on the way back — you know, a chronostorm or something — she will…"

"You mean — you sent her back to … Oh!" Jherek sank to his knees in despair.

"Her heart's desire," said My Lady Charlotina. "Now do you appreciate the succulent irony of it, my tragic Jherek? See how I have produced your reversal? Isn't it a charming revenge? Surely you are amused?"

Jherek did his best to rally himself. Shaking, he raised himself to his feet and he looked past the smiling Lady Charlotina at Brannart Morphail, who, as usual, had missed all the nuances.

"Brannart. You must send me there, too. I must follow her. She loves me. She was on the point of declaring that love…"

"I know! I know!" My Lady Charlotina clapped her hands.

"Of declaring that love, when she was snatched from me. I must pursue her — across a million years if need be — and bring her back. You must help me, Brannart."

"Ah!" My Lady Charlotina giggled with delight. "Now I understand you, Jherek. How daring! How clever! Of course — it has to be! Brannart, you must help him."

"But the Morphail Effect…" Brannart Morphail stretched his hands imploringly out to her. "It is highly unlikely that the past will accept Mrs. Underwood back. It might propel her into her own near future — in fact that's the most likely thing — but it will send Jherek anywhere, back here, further forward, to oblivion possibly. Visitors from the future cannot exist in the past. The traffic, is, effectively, one-way. That is the Morphail Effect."

"You will do as I ask, Brannart," said Jherek. "You will send me back to 1896."

"You may have only a few seconds in that time — I cannot guarantee how long — before it — it spits you out." Brannart Morphail spoke slowly, as if to an idiot. "To make the attempt is dangerous enough. You could be destroyed in any one of a dozen different ways, Jherek. Take my advice…"

"You will do as he asks, Brannart," said My Lady Charlotina, tossing aside the rose of a peculiar bluish-green. "Can you not appreciate a properly realised drama when it is presented to you? What else can Jherek do? It is inevitable."

Again Brannart objected, growling to himself. But My Lady Charlotina drifted over to him and whispered something in his ear and the growling ceased and he nodded. "I will do what you want, Jherek, though it is, in all senses, a waste of time."

The time machine was a sphere full of milky fluid in which the traveller floated enclosed in a rubber suit, breathing through a mask attacked to a hose leading into the wall of the machine.

Jherek Carnelian looked at it in some distaste. It was rather small, rather battered. There were what looked like scorch marks on its metallic sides.

"Where did it come from, Brannart?" He stretched his rubber-swathed limbs.

"Oh, it could be from almost anywhere. In deciphering the internal dating system I came to the conclusion that it's from a period about two thousand years before the period you want to visit. That's why I chose it for you. It seemed that it might slightly improve your chances." Brannart Morphail pottered about his laboratory, which was crammed with instruments and machinery, most of them in various stages of disrepair, from many different ages. Most of the least sophisticated looking instruments were the inventions of Brannart Morphail himself.

"Is it safe?" Gingerly Jherek touched the pitted metal of the sphere. Some cracks appeared to have been welded over. It had done a lot of service, that time machine.

"Safe? What time machine is safe? It's as safe as any other." Brannart waved a dismissive hand. "It is you, Jherek, who want to travel in it. I have tried to dissuade you from pursuing this folly further."

"Brannart, you have no imagination. No sense of drama, Brannart," chided My Lady Charlotina, her eyes twinkling as she lounged on her couch in a corner of the laboratory.

Taking a deep breath, Jherek clambered into the machine and adjusted his breathing apparatus before lowering himself into the fluid.

"You are a
martyr
, Jherek Carnelian!" sighed My Lady Charlotina. "You may
perish
in the service of temporal exploration. You will be remembered as a Hero, should you die — crucified, tempestuous time-traveller, Casanova of Chrononauts, upon the Cross of Time!" Her couch sped forward and she reached out to press in his right hand a translation pill and, into his left, a crushed rose of a peculiar bluish-green.

"I intend to save her, My Lady Charlotina, to bring her back." His voice came out as a somewhat muffled squeak.

"Of course you do! And you are a splendid saviour Jherek!"

"Thank you." He still maintained a cool attitude towards her. She seemed to have forgotten that it was because of her that he was forced into this dangerous action.

Her couch fell back. She waved a green handkerchief. "Speed through the hours, my Horos!

Through the days and the months! The centuries and the millennia, most dedicated of lovers — as Hitler sped to Eva. As Oscar sped to Bosie! On! On! Oh, I am
moved
. I am entranced. I am
faint
with rapture!"

Jherek scowled at her, but he took her gifts with him as he slipped deeper into the sphere and felt the airlock close over his head. He floated, uncomfortably weightless, and readied himself for his plunge into the timestream.

Through the fluid he could see the instruments, cryptographic, unconventional, seeming to swim, as he swam, in the fluid. They made no sound, there was no movement on their faces.

Then one of the dials flickered. A series of green and red figures came and went. Jherek's stomach grew tight.

He felt his body shift. Then it was all still again. It seemed that the machine had rolled over.

He could hear his breath hissing in the tube. The machine was so uncomfortable, the rubber suit so restricting, that he was almost on the point of suggesting they try a different machine.

Then the same dial flickered again. Green and red. Then two more dials came to life. Blue and yellow. A white light flashed rapidly. The speed of the flashing grew faster and faster.

He heard a gurgling noise. A thump. The liquid in which he floated became darker and darker.

He felt pain (he had never really felt physical pain before).

He screamed, but his voice was muffled.

He was on his way.

He fainted.

He woke up. He was being jolted horribly. The sphere seemed to have cracked. The fluid was rushing out of the crack and as a result his body was being bumped from side to side as the sphere rolled along. He opened his eyes. He closed them. He wailed.

Air hissed as the tube was wrenched from his face. The plastic lining of the machine began to sink until Jherek lay with his back against the metal of the wall, realising that the sphere had stopped rolling.

He groaned. He was bruised everywhere. Still, he consoled himself, he
was
suffering now. No one could doubt that.

He looked at the jagged crack in the sphere. He would have to find another time machine, wherever he was, for this one had failed to take the strain of the trip. If he was in 1896 and could find Mrs. Amelia Underwood (assuming that she, herself, had arrived back safely) he would have to approach an inventor and borrow a machine. Still, that was the slightest difficulty he would encounter, he was sure.

He tried to move his body and yelped as what had been a relatively dull pain turned, for a moment, into throbbing agony. The pain slowly died. He shivered as he felt the cold air blowing through the time machine's ruptured wall. It seemed to be dark beyond the crack.

He got up, wincing, and stripped off the suit. Underneath was his crumpled Victorian coat and trousers, in a delicate scarlet and purple. He checked that his power rings were still on his fingers and was satisfied. There was the ruby, there the emerald and there the diamond. The air, while cold, also smelled very strange, very thick. He coughed.

He edged his way to the crack and stepped through into the darkness. It was extremely misty. The machine seemed to have landed on some hard, man-made surface, on the edge of a stretch of water. A flight of stone steps led up through the mist and it was probable that the machine had bumped down these before it shattered. High above he could see a dim light, a yellow light, flickering.

He shivered.

This was not what he had expected. If he were in Dawn Age London, then the whole city was deserted! He had imagined it to be packed with people — with millions of people, for this was also the age of the Multitude Cultures.

He decided to make for the light. He stumbled towards the steps. He touched his face and felt the dampness clinging to it. Then he realised what it was he was experiencing and he gave an involuntary sigh of delight.

"Fog…"

It was fog.

Rather more cheerfully he felt his way up the steps and eventually struck his shoulder against a metal column. On the top of the column glowed a gas-lamp very similar to those Mrs. Amelia Underwood had asked him to make for her. He patted the lamp. He was in the right period at least. Brannart Morphail had been unduly pessimistic.

But was it the right place. Was this Bromley? He looked back through the fog at the wide stretch of murky water. Mrs. Underwood had spoken much of Bromley, but she had never mentioned a large river.

Still, it could be London, which was near Bromley, and, if so, that river was the Thames. Something hooted from the depths of the fog. He heard a thin, distant shout. Then there was silence again.

He found himself in a narrow alley-way with an uneven, cobbled surface. There were sheets of paper pasted on the dark, brick walls on both sides of the alley. Jherek saw that the paper was covered in graphics and writing but, of course, he could not read anything. Even the translation pills, which worked their subtle engineering upon the brain cells, could not teach him to decipher a written language.

He realised that he was still holding the pill My Lady Charlotina had given him. He would wait until he met someone before swallowing it. In his other hand was the crushed rose; all, for the present, that he had left of Mrs. Amelia Underwood.

The alley opened onto a street and here the fog was a little lighter. He could see a few yards in both directions and there were several more lamps whose yellow light tried to penetrate the fog.

But still the place seemed deserted as he followed the street, looking with fascination at house after crumbling house as he passed. A few of the houses did have lights shining from behind the blinds at their windows. Once or twice he heard a muffled voice. For some reason, then, the population was staying inside. Doubtless he would find an answer to this mystery in time.

The next street he reached was wider still and here were taller houses (though in the same decrepit state) with their lower windows displaying a variety of objets d'art — here sewing machines, mangles, frying pans — there beds and chairs, tools and clothing. He paused every minute to glance in at these windows. The owners were right to display their treasures so proudly. And what a profusion! Admittedly some of the objects were a little smaller, a little darker, than he had imagined and many, of course, he could not recognise at all. However, when he and Mrs. Underwood returned, he would be able to make her considerably more artefacts to please her and remind her of home.

Now he could see a more intense light ahead. And he saw human figures there, heard voices. He struck off across the street and at that moment his ears were filled by a peculiar clacking noise, a rattling noise. He heard a shout. He looked to his left and saw a black beast emerging from the fog. Its eyes rolled, its nostrils flared.

"A horse!" he cried. "It is a horse!"

He had often made his own, of course, but it was not the same as seeing the original.

Again the shout.

He shouted back, cheering and waving his arms.

The horse was drawing something behind it — a tall black carriage on top of which was perched a man with a whip. It was the man who was shouting.

The horse stood up on its hind legs as Jherek waved. It seemed to him that the horse was waving back to him. Strange to be greeted by a beast upon one's first arrival in a century.

Then Jherek felt something strike him on the head and he fell down and to one side as the horse and carriage clattered past and disappeared into the fog.

Jherek tried to get up, but he felt faint again. He groaned. There were people running towards him now, from the direction of the bright light. Soon, as he raised himself to his hands and knees, he saw about a dozen men and women all like himself, dressed in period, standing in a circle around him. Their faces were heavy and serious. None of them spoke at first.

"What —?" He realised that they would not understand him. "I apologise. If you wait one moment…"

Then they were all babbling at once. He raised the translation pill to his lips and swallowed it.

"Foreigner o' some kind. A Russian, most likely, round'ere. Off one o' their boats…" he heard a man say.

"Have you any idea what happened to me just then?" Jherek asked him.

The man looked astonished and pushed his battered bowler hat onto the back of his head. "I coulda swore you wos a foreigner!"

"You wos knocked darn by an 'ansom, that's wot 'appened to you, me old gonoph," said another man in a tone of great satisfaction. This man wore a large cloth cap shading his eyes. He put his hands into the pockets of his trousers and continued sagely: " 'Cause you waved at the 'orse an' made it rear up, didn't you?"