Dancers at the End of Time (44 page)

Soon he was laughing, a child in love and, for the moment, not the mature individual, the man whose command could conquer.

Disaster (if it was disaster) delayed, they pranced, beside the Palaeozoic seaside, an improvised polka.

But it was only delayed. Both were expectant, fulfilment, consummation, hovered. And Jherek sang a wordless song; within moments she would be his bride, his pride, his celebration.

The song was soon to die on his lips. They rounded a clump of flimsy vegetation, a pavement of yellow rock, and came to a sudden and astounded stop. Both glared, both felt vitality flow from them to be replaced by taut rage. Mrs. Underwood, sighing, withdrew into the stiff velvet of her dress.

"We 
are
 fated," she murmured. "We 
are
!"

They continued to glare at the unwitting back of the one who had frustrated their idyll. He remained unaware of their wrath, their presence.

The shirtsleeves and trousers rolled up to elbow and knee respectively, the bowler hat fixed firmly on the heavy head, the briar pipe between the lips, the newcomer was paddling contentedly in the amniotic ocean.

As they watched, he took a large white handkerchief from the pocket of his dark, serge trousers (waistcoat and jacket, shoes and socks, lay neat and incongruous on the beach behind), shook it out, tied a small knot at each corner, removed his hat and spread the handkerchief over his cropped and balding scalp. This accomplished, he began to hum — "Pom te pom, pom pom pom, te pom pom" — wading a little further through the shallow water, pausing to raise a red and goose-pimpled foot and to brush at two or three wheat-coloured trilobites which had begun to climb his leg.

"Funny little beggars," he was heard to mutter, but did not seem to mind their curiosity.

Mrs. Underwood was pale. "How is it possible?" A vicious whisper. "He has pursued us through Time!" With one hand, she unclenched the other. "My respect for Scotland Yard, I suppose, increases…"

Forgetting his private disappointment in favour of his social responsibilities (he had developed proprietorial feelings toward the Palaeozoic) Jherek called:

"Good afternoon, Inspector Springer."

Mrs. Underwood reached a hand for his arm, as if to forestall him, but too late. Inspector Springer, the almost seraphic expression fading to be replaced by his more familiar stern and professional mask, turned unwillingly.

Bowler forgotten in his left hand, he removed his pipe from his lips. He peered. He blinked. He heaved a sigh, fully the equal of their own most recent sighs. Happiness fled away.

"Good 'eavens!"

"Heavens, if you prefer." Jherek welcomed correction, for he still studied the mores of the nineteenth century.

"I 
thought
 it was 'eaven." Inspector Springer's slap at an exploring trilobite was less tolerant than before. "But now I'm beginning to doubt it. More like 'ell…" He remembered the presence of Mrs.

Underwood. He stared mournfully at a wet trouser leg. "The other place, I mean."

There was a tinge of pleased malice in her tone: "You think yourself dead, Inspector Springer?"

"The deduction fitted the facts, madam."

Not without dignity, he placed the bowler on top of the knotted handkerchief. He peered into the pipe and, satisfied that it had gone out, slipped it into a pocket. Her irony was wasted; he became a trifle more confidential.

"An 'eart-attack, I presumed, brought about by the stress of recent events. I was jest questioning them foreigners — the little anarchists with only one eye — or three, if you look at it another way — when it seemed to me they vanished clear away." He cleared his throat, lowered his voice a fraction.

"Well, I turned to call me sergeant, felt a bit dizzy meself, and the next thing I knows, 'ere I am in 'eaven."

He seemed, then, to recall his previous relationship with the pair. He straightened, resentful. "Or so I deduced until you turned up a minute ago." He waded forward until he stood on glinting sand. He began to roll down his trousers. He spoke crisply. "Well then," he demanded, "what is the explanation? Briefly, mind. Nothing fancy."

"It is simple enough." Jherek was glad to explain. "We have been hurled through Time, that is all. To a pre-Dawn Age. That is, to a period before Man existed at all. Millions of years. The Upper or —?" He turned to Mrs. Underwood for help.

"Probably the Lower Devonian," she said. She was off-hand. "The stranger confirmed it."

"A warp in Time," Jherek continued. "In which you were caught, as we were. Admitting no large paradoxes, Time ejected us from your period. Doubtless, the Lat were so ejected. It was unfortunate that you were in the proximity…"

Inspector Springer covered his ears, heading for his boots as if towards a haven. "Oh, Gawd! Not again. It is 'ell! It 
is
!"

"I am beginning to share your view, Inspector." Mrs. Underwood was more than cool. She turned on her heel and started to walk in the direction of the frond forest at the top of the beach. Normally her conscience would sharply rule out such obvious tricks, but she had been thwarted; she had become desperate — she gave Jherek the impression that he was to blame for Inspector Springer's arrival, as if, perhaps, by speaking of sin he had called forth Satan into Eden.

Frozen, Jherek was trapped by the manoeuvre as neatly as any Victorian beloved. "Amelia," was all he could pipe.

She did not, of course, reply.

Inspector Springer had reached his boots. He sat down beside them; he pulled free, from one of them, a grey woollen sock. He addressed the sock as he tried to pull it over his damp foot. "What I can't work out," he mused, "is whether I'm technically still on duty or not."

Mrs. Underwood had come to the frond forest. Determinedly she disappeared into the rustling depths. Jherek made up his mind to stumble in wretched pursuit. The host in him hesitated for only a second:

"Perhaps we'll see you again, Inspector?"

"Not if I —"

But the high-pitched scream interrupted both. A glance was exchanged. Inspector Springer forgot differences, obeyed instincts, leapt to his feet, hobbling after Jherek as he flung himself forward, racing for the source of the scream.

But already Mrs. Underwood was flying from the forest, outrage and horror remoulding her beauty, stopping with a gasp when she saw salvation; mutely, she pointed back into the agitated foliage.

The fronds parted. A single eye glared out at them, its three pupils fixed steadily, perhaps lecherously, upon the panting form of Mrs. Underwood.

"Mibix," said a guttural, insinuating voice.

"Ferkit," replied another.

Swaggering, in torn and mephitic striped pyjamas, a three foot high humanoid, with a bulbous nose, pear-shaped head, huge protuberant ears, facial whiskers, a silver dinner-fork in one hand and a silver dinner knife in the other, emerged from the ferns.

Jherek, too, had once worn the pyjamas of the Nursery; had suffered the regime of that robot survivor from the Late Multitude Cultures. He recognized Captain Mubbers, leader of the Lat brigand-musicians. He had seen him twice since the Nursery — at the Café Royal, and later, in custody together, at Scotland Yard.

Captain Mubbers grunted at Jherek with something like grudging neutrality, but when his three pupils focussed on Inspector Springer he uttered an unpleasant laugh.

Inspector Springer would accept no nonsense, even when five more Lat joined their leader and shared his amusement. "In the name of Her Majesty the Queen," he began. But he hesitated; he was off-guard.

"Ood ja shag ok gongong pish?" Captain Mubbers was contemptuous. "Klixshat efang!"

Inspector Springer was used to this sort of thing; he remained apparently impassive, saying ponderously:

"That's insulting behaviour to a police officer. You're doing yourself no good at all, my lad. The sooner you understand that English law…" Abruptly, he was baffled. This still would be England, wouldn't it?" Mrs. Underwood was enlisted.

"I'm not altogether sure, Inspector." She spoke without sympathy, almost with relish. "I haven't recognized anything."

"It's a bit too warm for Bognor, certainly. I could be outside my jurisdiction." Inspector Springer sensed escape. The notebook he had begun to extract from his back pocket was now returned. Beneath his disturbed moustache there appeared a strained grin. It was weak. He had lost the day to the Lat. He continued, lame. "You think yourself lucky, my lad. If you ever set foot in the Metropolitan area again —"

"Hrunt!" Derisively, Captain Mubbers waved his remaining man forward. He came cautiously from the bushes, pupils a-dart for Springer's forces. And Jherek relaxed a fraction, knowing the Lat would be wary of decisive action until they were convinced the three were without allies.

Inspector Springer seemed ill at ease with his new and self-appointed diplomatic status. "By the looks of it," he told the Lat, "we're all in the same boat. It's no time to be raking up old scores, lads. You can see the sense of that, surely?"

Questioningly, Captain Mubbers looked up at Jherek and Mrs. Underwood. "Kaprim ul shim mibix clom?" he asked, with a nod of his head in the policeman's direction.

Jherek shrugged. "I'm inclined to agree with the inspector, Captain Mubbers."

"Ferkit!" exclaimed one of the other Lat. "Potkup mef rim chokkum! Shag ugga?" He started forward, brandishing a fish-fork marked with the prominent "N" of the Café Royal.

"Thurk!" commanded Captain Mubbers. He leered unctuously at Mrs. Underwood; he offered her an unwholesome bow. He took a step closer, murmuring: "Dwap ker niknur, fazzy?"

"Really!" Mrs. Underwood lost all her carefully restored composure. "Mr. Carnelian! Inspector Springer! How can such suggestions…? Oh!"

"Kroofrudi." Captain Mubbers was unrepentant. Significantly, he patted his elbow. "Kwot-kwot?"

He glanced back at the frond forest. "Nizzle uk?"

Inspector Springer's sense of decency was offended. He listed forward, one boot still in his hand.

"Law or no law…"

"Fwik hrunt!" spat Captain Mubbers. The others laughed, repeating the witticism to one another; but the policeman's objection had lowered the tension.

Mrs. Underwood said firmly: "They are probably hungry. We have some biscuits back at our camp.

If we were to lead them there…"

"At once," said Jherek, and he began to walk. She linked her arm in his, an action which served to confuse both Jherek and Captain Mubbers.

Inspector Springer kept step with them. "I must say, I could do with a nice Rich Tea!"

"I think I've eaten most of those." Jherek was regretful. "But there's a whole box of Fig Rolls."

"Ho, ho!" Inspector Springer performed a cryptic wink. "We'll let 
them
 'ave the Fig Rolls, eh?"

Puzzled, but temporarily passive, the Lat trailed behind.

Relishing the delicate touch of her arm against his rib, Jherek wondered if a police inspector and seven aliens could constitute the "society" Mrs. Underwood claimed as the influence upon the "morality"

and "conscience" thwarting the full expression of his love for her. He felt, in his heart, that she would so define the group. Resignation, once more, slid into the space so recently left by anticipation.

They reached the rock and the hamper; their home. Kettle in hand, he set off for the spring they had discovered. Mrs. Underwood prepared the primus.

Alone for a moment, Jherek reflected that their provisions would soon expire, with eight fresh mouths to fill. He foresaw, indeed, a dispute in which the Lat would attempt to gain possession of the food. It would mean some relief, at least. He smiled. It might even mean a War.

A little later, when the primus stove had been pumped and lit and the kettle settled on its flame, he studied the Lat. It seemed to him that their attitude towards Mrs. Underwood had altered a fraction since they had first seen her in the frond forest. They sat in a semi-circle on the sand, a short distance away from the rock in whose shadow the three humans crouched. Their manner, while still what she would probably have called "insulting", was tinged with caution; perhaps awe; perhaps they were daunted by the easy way in which she had taken command of events. Could it be that she reminded them of that invulnerable old robot, Nurse? They had learned to fear Nurse. Certainly their position — cross-legged, hands on knees — recalled Nurse's demands upon her charges.

The kettle began to steam. Inspector Springer, with a courtly gesture to Mrs. Underwood, reached for the handle. Accepting the metal tea-pot from his hostess, he poured on the water. The Lat, like witnesses at a religious ritual (for Inspector Springer certainly conveyed this mood — he the priest, Mrs.

Underwood the priestess) were grave and wary. Jherek, himself, shared some of their feelings as the ceremony advanced with formal grace.

There were three tin cups and a tin basin. These were laid out on the top of the hamper (which contained many such comforts). A can of milk was set beside them, and a box of sugar, with a spoon.

"A minute or two to let it brew," intoned Inspector Springer. In an aside, he told Jherek: "It's what I've been missing most of all."

Jherek could not guess if he meant the tea itself or the ritual involved.

From a box at her side, Mrs. Underwood made a selection of biscuits, arranging them in a pattern upon a tin plate.

And at length the tea was poured. The milk was added. The sugar was added.

Inspector Springer was the first to sip.

"Ah!" The sense of occasion remained. "That's better, eh?"

Mrs. Underwood handed the large bowl to Captain Mubbers. He sniffed it, blew at it, then sucked up half the contents in a single inhalation.

"Gurp?" he enquired.

"Tea," she told him. "I hope it's to your taste. We have nothing stronger."

"Tee-ee!" Captain Mubbers, quick to mine innuendo from the least promising vein, glanced sidelong (with two of his pupils) at his companions. They sniggered. "Kroofrudi." He held out the cup for more.