Dancers at the End of Time (62 page)

"Guilt, again?"

"Yes, dearest. If I went so suddenly against my training, I suspect that I should break down completely. I should not be the Amelia Underwood you know!"

"Yet, if there were more time…"

"Oh, I know that eventually I should have been able to overcome the guilt … That is the awful irony of it all!"

"It is ironic," he agreed. He rose, helping her to her feet. "Let us see what the picnic can offer us."

The song of the bird (it was some sort of macaw) continued to sound from the tree as they approached the red and white chequered cloth, but another noise began to break through, a sort of shrilling which was familiar to both of them. Then, bursting from the gloom of the city into the sunlight of the illusion, Captain Mubbers, Rokfrug and the other Lat appeared. They were badly out of breath and sweating; they had something of the appearance of bright red, animated turnips. Their three pupils rolled wildly in their eyes as they sighted Jherek and Amelia and came to a confused halt.

"Mibix?" said Rokfrug, recognizing Jherek. "Drexim flug roodi?"

"You are still, I take it, pursued by the police." Amelia was impatient, more than cool towards the intruders, "There is nowhere to hide here."

"Hrunt krufroodi." Captain Mubbers glanced behind him as there came a thundering of boots and the dozen identically clad police officers, evidently as weary as the Lat, burst into the pastoral illusion, paused, blinked, and began to advance towards their quarry, whereupon Captain Mubbers uttered a strangled "Ferkit!" and turned at bay, ready to do battle against their overwhelming numbers.

"Oh, really!" cried Amelia Underwood. "Officer, this will not do!" She addressed the nearest policeman.

The policeman said steadily: "You're all under arrest. You might as well come quietly."

"You intend to arrest us, as well?" Mrs. Underwood bridled.

"Strictly speakin', ma'am, you've been under arrest from the start. All right, lads…" But he hesitated when two loud popping noises sounded, close together, and Lord Jagged of Canaria, the Iron Orchid upon his arm, materialized on the hillock.

Lord Jagged was resplendent in his favourite pale yellow robes, his tall collar framing his patrician features. He seemed in high spirits. The Iron Orchid, at her most stately and beautiful, wore billowing white of an untypical cut and was as happy as her escort.

"At last!" said Lord Jagged, apparently in some relief, "This must be the fiftieth attempt!"

"The forty-ninth, indefatigable Jagged," crooned the Orchid. "I intended to give up on the fiftieth."

Jherek ran towards his friend and his mother. "Oh, Jagged! Cryptic, magnificent, darling Jagged!

We have worried about you so much! And Iron Orchid, you are delicious. Where, where have you been?"

The kiss from Jagged's lips on Jherek's was less than chaste and was equalled by the Iron Orchid's.

Standing back from them, Mrs. Underwood permitted herself a sniff, but came forward reluctantly as the radiant Orchid beckoned.

"My dears, you will be so delighted by our news! But you seem distraught. What has been happening to you?"

"Well," said Mrs. Underwood with some pleasure, "we are currently under arrest, although the charge is not altogether clear."

"You seem to have a penchant, you two, for falling foul of the law," said Jagged, casting a languid eye over the company. "It's all right, constable. I think you know who I am."

The leading constable saluted, but stood his ground. "Yes, sir," he said uncertainly. "Though we do

'ave orders, direct from the 'Ome Secretary…"

"The Home Secretary, constable, takes his advice from me, as no doubt you are aware…"

"I 'ad 'eard something to that effect, sir." He fingered his chin. "What about these Latvians?"

Lord Jagged shrugged. "I don't think they offer a threat to the Crown any longer."

Jherek Carnelian was overjoyed by his friend's performance. "Excellent, dear Jagged! Excellent!"

"And then, sir, there's some question about it being the end o' the world," continued the constable.

"Don't concern yourself with that, my good man. I'll look into it, the first chance I get."

"Very well, sir." As one in a dream, the policeman signed to his colleagues. "We'd better be getting back, then. Shall we tell Inspector Springer you're in charge now, sir?"

"You might as well, constable."

The policemen wandered out of the illusion and disappeared in the darkness of the city, leaving the Lat somewhat nonplussed. Captain Mubbers looked enquiringly up at Lord Jagged but received a dismissive glance.

Rokfrug had found the food and was cramming his mouth with pie. "Groodnix!" he said. "Trimpit dernik, queely!"

The rest of the Lat seated themselves around the cloth and were soon feasting with gusto.

"So, most miraculous of mothers, you knew all along where to find Lord Jagged!" Jherek hugged her again. "You played the same game, eh?"

"Not at all!" She was offended. "We met quite by accident. I had, it is true, grown so bored with our world that I sought one which would prove more agreeable and some, I'll admit, were interesting, but the Morphail Effect gave me difficulties. I kept being thrown out of one era and into another almost before I knew it. Brannart had warned me, but your experiences had caused me to disbelieve him." She inspected her son from head to foot and her look towards Amelia Underwood was not as critical as it had once been. "You are both pale. You need to replenish your bloom."

"Now we bloom, opulent Orchid! We feared so much for your well-being. Oh, and since you have been gone the world has grown dark…"

"Death, we are told, has come to the universe," put in Amelia, returning the Iron Orchid's glance.

Lord Jagged of Canaria smiled a wide, soft smile. "Well, so we are returned at an opportune moment."

"It depends what you mean by opportune, Lord Jagged." Amelia Underwood pointed out into the darkness. "Even the city dies now."

"Of all our friends," Jherek continued sorrowfully, "only Lord Mongrove and the Duke of Queens survive. The rest are memories only!"

"Memories are sufficient, I think," said Jagged. "They will do."

"You are callous, sir!" Mrs. Underwood adjusted a button at her throat.

"Call me so."

"We expected you to be waiting for us, Jagged," said Jherek Carnelian, "when we returned to the End of Time. Did you not promise to be here — to explain?"

"I arrived, but had to leave again almost at once. Through no fault of my own, I was delayed. My machine failed me. I had to make some experiments. It was in the course of these experiments that I happened to meet your mother and she prevailed upon me to satisfy a whim."

"A whim?" Mrs. Underwood turned away in disgust.

"We are married," said the Iron Orchid almost demurely. "At last."

"Married. I envy you! How did this come about?"

"It was a simple ceremony, Jherek, my juice." She stroked the white material of her gown. It seemed that she blushed.

Curiosity made Amelia Underwood turn back.

"It was in the fifty-eighth century, I think," the Iron Orchid said. Their customs are very moving.

Simple, yet profound. The sacrifice of the slaves had, happily, become optional by the middle of what I believe they called the 'Wet Prince' period. We had little else to do, you see, since we were waiting for the right moment to try to transfer…"

"Sans machine," said Jagged, with a certain quiet pride. "We have learned to travel, perforce, without gadgetry. It was always theoretically possible."

"By a coincidence difficult to credit," she continued, "Lord Jagged found me a prisoner of some extra-terrestrial creatures temporarily in control of the planet —"

"The Flerpian Conquests of 4004-6," explained Jagged in an aside.

"— and was able to rescue me before I could experience an interesting method of torture they had devised, where the shoulders are exposed to —" She broke off. "But I digress. From there we continued to move forward as best we could, by a series of stages. I could not, of course, have done it on my own.

And some of the natives were obstructive. But your father handled them so well. He is very good with natives, don't you think?"

Jherek said in a small voice. "My father?"

"Lord Jagged, of course! You must have guessed!" She laughed fulsomely. "You must have guessed, my egg!"

"I thought there was a rumour concerning Sweet Orb Mace…"

"Your father wished to make a secret of it, for reasons of his own. It was so long ago. He had some scientific obsession, then, concerning his own genes and how best to perpetuate them. He thought this method the most satisfactory."

"As it proved." Lord Jagged put a slim-fingered hand upon his son's head and affectionately ruffled his hair. "As it proved."

Again, Jherek embraced Lord Jagged. "Oh, I am so pleased, Jagged, that it is you! This news is a gift that makes all the waiting worthwhile." He reached to take his shy Amelia's hand. "This is, indeed, the happiest of days!"

Mrs. Underwood was reserved, though she did not deny him her hand. She stood in that smiling company and she tried to speak. She failed, and now the Iron Orchid hugged her. "Tell me, dearest Amelia, that you are to be our new daughter!"

"As I explained to Jherek, it might have been possible."

"In the past?"

"You seem to forget, Iron Orchid, that there is nothing 
but
 the past. There is no future left to us."

"No future?"

"She is quite right." Lord Jagged took his hands from his son's shoulders.

"Oh!" A knuckle rose to Amelia's mouth. "I had hoped you brought a reprieve. It was foolish…"

Arranging his yellow robes about him, Lord Jagged of Canaria seated himself upon the hillock, indicating that they should join him. "The information I have is probably not altogether palatable," he began, "but since I promised an explanation when last we parted, I feel obliged to fulfil that promise. I trust I will not bore you." And he began to speak.

"I suppose, my dears, that I had best begin by admitting that I was not originally from the End of Time," said Lord Jagged. "My origins are not too far from your own, Amelia (if I may call you Amelia) — in the twenty-first century, to be exact. After a number of adventures, I arrived here, some thousand or so years ago and, not wishing to spend my life in a menagerie, set myself up as a self-created personality. Thus, though trapped by the Morphail Effect, I was able to continue my research and experiments into the Nature of Time, discovering, in fact, that I could, by exercising certain disciplines, remain for long periods in one era. It even became apparent that I could, if I wished, settle in certain unpopulated periods. During the course of these experiments, I met other time-travellers, including Mrs.

Persson (perhaps the most experienced chrononaut we have), and was able to exchange information, concluding, at last, that I was something of a sport, for no other time-traveller was as little influenced as was I by the Morphail Effect. At last I concluded that I was, under certain conditions, impervious to the Effect so long as I took particular precautions (which included settling very thoroughly in one period and producing no anachronisms whatsoever). Further research showed that my ability had only so much to do with self-discipline and a great deal to do with my particular genes."

"Aha!" said Jherek. "Others spoke of genes to us."

"Quite so. Well, in the course of my various expeditions through the millennia I became aware, long before that alien brought the news to us, that the End of Time was close. Having learned so much, it seemed to me then that I might be able to save something of our culture and, indeed, ensure the survival of our race, by making a kind of loop. It must be obvious to you what I hoped to do — to take certain people from the End of Time and put them at the Beginning, with all their knowledge (or as much as could he taken) and their civilization intact. Science would build us new cities, I thought, and we should have billions more years ahead of us. However, one factor emerged very early and that concerned the Morphail Effect. It would not permit my plan, no matter how far back in Time I went. Only those with genes like mine might colonize the past. Therefore I modified my scheme. I would find a new Adam and Eve, who could breed together and produce a race unfettered by Time (or at least the irritating Morphail Effect). To do this I had to find a man and a woman who shared the same characteristics as myself. At length I gave up my search, discovered, through experiments, that your mother, Jherek, the Iron Orchid, was the only creature I had ever found who had genes even beginning to resemble mine. That was when I put to her, without her knowledge of my intentions, that we should conceive a child together."

"It seemed such an amusing idea," said the Iron Orchid. "And no one had done anything like it for millennia!"

"Thus, after some difficulties, you were born, my boy. But I still needed to find a wife for you, one who could remain, say, in the Palaeozoic (where a station, as I think you now know, already exists) without suddenly being whisked out of it again. I searched from the beginning of history, trying subject after subject, until at last, Amelia Underwood, I found my Eve — you!"

"If you had consulted me, sir…"

"I could tell you nothing. I have explained that I had to work in secrecy, that my method of countering the Morphail Effect was so delicate that I could not, then, afford a single tiny anachronism. To consult you, would have been to reveal something of my own identity. An impossibility then — a dangerous thought! I had to kidnap you and bring you here. Then I had to introduce you to Jherek, then I had to hope that you would be attracted to one another. Everything in fact seemed to go reasonably well.

But I reckoned without the complications — My Lady Charlotina, you'll recall, interfered, piqued by the manner in which she had been deceived by us."

"And when I went to seek your help, you were not there, Jagged! You were about your temporal adventurings, then!"