Dancers at the End of Time (25 page)

"What else is it but decadence," said Li Pao, My Lady Charlotina's resident bore (and, like most time travellers, dreadfully literal-minded), "when you spend your days in imitation of the past? And it is not as if you imitated the virtues of the past." He brushed pettishly at his faded denim suit. He took off his denim cap and wiped his brow.

"Virtues?" murmured the Iron Orchid enquiringly. She had heard the word before.

"The best of the past. Its customs, its morals, its traditions, its standards…"

"Flags?" said Gaf the Horse in Tears, looking up from an inspection of his new penis.

"Li Pao's words are always so hard to translate," said My Lady Charlotina, their hostess. They had repaired to her vast palace under the lake and she was serving them with rum and hard tack. Every ship had been sunk. "You don't really mean flags, do you, dear?"

"Only in a manner of speaking," said Li Pao, anxious not to lose his audience. "If by flags we refer to loyalties, to causes, to a sense of purpose."

Even Jherek Carnelian, an expert in Dawn Age philosophies, could scarcely keep up with him.

When the Iron Orchid turned to him in appeal to explain, he could only shrug and smile.

"My point," said Li Pao, raising his voice a fraction, "is that you could use all this to some advantage. The alien, Yusharisp…"

The Duke of Queens coughed in embarrassment.

"…had news of inescapable cataclysm. Or, at least, he thought it inescapable. There is a chance that you could save the universe with your scientific resources."

"We don't really understand them any more, you see," gently explained Mistress Christia, kneeling beside Gaf the Horse in Tears. "It's a marvellous colour," she said to Gaf.

"There are many here — prisoners of your whims, like myself — who, if given the opportunity, might learn the principles involved," Li Pao went on, "Jherek Carnelian, you are bent on rediscovering all the old virtues, surely you see my point?"

"Not really," said Jherek. "Why would you wish to save the universe? Is it not better to let it go its natural course?"

"There were mystics in my day," said Li Pao, "who considered it unwise to, as they put it, "tamper with nature." But if they had been listened to, you would not have the power you possess today."

"We would still have been happy, doubtless," O'Kala Incarnadine chewed patiently at his hard tack, his voice somewhat bleating in tone, owing to his having remodelled his body into that of a sheep. "One does not need power, surely, to be happy?"

"That was not exactly what I was trying to say." Li Pao's lovely yellow skin had turned very slightly pink. "You are immortal — yet you will still perish when the planet itself is destroyed. In perhaps two hundred years you will be dead. Do you want to die?"

My Lady Charlotina yawned. "Most of us have died at some stage. Quite recently, Werther de Goethe hurled himself to his death on some rocks. Didn't you, Werther?"

Dark-visaged Werther sipped moodily at his rum. He gave a sigh of assent.

"But I speak of permanent death — without resurrection." Li Pao sounded almost desperate. "You must understand. None of you are unintelligent…"

"I am unintelligent," said Mistress Christia, her pride wounded.

"So you say." Li Pao dismissed her plea. "Do you want to be dead for ever, Mistress Christia?"

"I have never considered the question that much. I suppose not. But it would make no difference, would it?"

"To what?"

"To me. If I were dead."

Li Pao frowned.

"We would all be better off dead, useless eaters of the lotus that we are." Werther de Goethe's jarring monotone came from the far side of the room. He glared down at his reflection in the floor.

"You speak of only postures, Werther," the ex-member of the governing committee of the 27th century People's Republic admonished. "Of poetic roles. I speak of reality."

"Is there nothing real about poetic roles?" Lord Jagged of Canaria strolled across the room, admiring the flowers which grew from the ceiling. "Was not your role ever poetic, Li Pao, when you were in your own time?"

"Poetic? Never. Idealistic, of course, but we were dealing with harsh facts."

"There are many forms of poetry, I understand."

"You are merely seeking to confuse my argument, Lord Jagged. I know you of old."

"I thought I aimed at clarification. By metaphor, perhaps," he admitted, "and that does not always seem to clarify. Though it works very well for some."

"I believe you deliberately oppose my arguments because you half-agree with them yourself." Li Pao plainly felt he had scored a good point.

"I half-agree with 
all
 arguments, my dear!" Lord Jagged's smile seemed a touch weary. "Everything is real. Or can be made real."

"With the resources at your command, certainly." Li Pao agreed.

"It is not exactly my meaning. You made your dream real, did you not? Of the Republic?"

"It was founded on reality."

"My scanty acquaintance with your period does not allow me to dispute that statement with any fire, I fear. Whose dream, I wonder, laid those foundations?"

"Well, 
dreams
, yes…"

"Poetic inspiration?"

"Well…"

Lord Jagged drew his great robe about him. "Forgive me, Li Pao, for I realize that I 
have
 confused your argument. Please continue. I shall interrupt no further."

But Li Pao had lost impetus. He fell into a sulking silence.

"There is a rumour, magnificent Lord Jagged, that you yourself have travelled in time. Do you speak from direct experience of Li Pao's period?" Mistress Christia raised her head from its contact with Gaf's groin.

"As a great believer in the inherent possibilities of the rumour as art," said Lord Jagged gently, "it is not for me to confirm or deny any gossip you might have heard, sweet Mistress Christia."

"Oh, absolutely!" She gave her full attention back to Gaf's anatomy.

Not without difficulty, Jherek held back from taxing Lord Jagged further on that particular subject, but Jagged continued:

"There are some who would argue that Time does not really exist at all, that it is merely our primitive minds which impose a certain order upon events. I have heard it said that everything is happening, as it were, concurrently. Some of the greatest inventors of time machines have used that theory to advantage."

Jherek, desperately feigning lack of interest, poured himself a fresh tot. When he spoke, however, his tone was not entirely normal.

"Would it be possible, I wonder, to make a new time machine? If Shanalorm's or some other city's memories were reliable…"

"They are not!" The querulous voice of Brannart Morphail broke in. He had added an inch or two to his hump since Jherek had last encountered him. His club foot was decidedly overdone. He came limping across the floor, his smock covered in residual spots of the various substances in his laboratories.

"I have visited every one of the rotted cities. They give us their power, but their wisdom has faded. I was listening to your discourse, Lord Jagged. It is a familiar theory, favoured by the non-scientist. I assure you, none the less, that one gets nowhere with Time unless one treats it as linear."

"Brannart," said Jherek hesitantly, "I was hoping to see you here."

"Are you bent on pestering me further, Jherek? I have not forgotten that you lost me one of my best time machines."

"No sign of it, then?"

"None. My instruments are too crude to detect it if, as I suspect, it has gone back to some pre-Dawn period."

"What of the cyclic theory?" Lord Jagged said. "Would you give any credence to that?"

"So far as it corresponds to certain physical laws, yes."

"And how would that relate to the information we were given by the Duke's little alien?"

"I had hoped to ask Yusharisp some questions — and so I might have done if Jherek had not interfered."

"I am sorry," said Jherek, "but…"

"You are living proof of the non-mutability of Time," said Brannart Morphail. "If you could go back and set to rights the events brought about by your silly meddling, then you would be able to prove your remorse. As it is, you can't, so I would ask you to stop expressing it!"

Pointedly, Brannart Morphail turned to Lord Jagged, a crooked, insincere grin upon his ancient features. "Now, dear Lord Jagged, you were saying something about the cyclic nature of Time?"

"I think you are a little hard on Jherek," said Lord Jagged. "After all, My Lady Charlotina knew, to some extent, the outcome of her joke."

"We'll speak no more of that. You wondered if Yusharisp's reference to the death of the cosmos — of the universe ending one cycle and beginning another — bore directly upon the cyclic theory?"

"It was a passing thought, nothing more," said Lord Jagged, looking back over his shoulder and winking at Jherek. "You should be kinder, Brannart, to the boy. He could bring you information of considerable usefulness in your experiments, surely? I believe you feel angry with him because his experiences are inclined to contradict your theories."

"Nonsense! It is his interpretation of his experiences with which I disagree. They are naïve."

"They are true," said Jherek in a small voice. "Mrs. Underwood said that she would join me, you know. I am sure that she will."

"Impossible — or, at very least, unlikely. Time does not permit paradoxes. The Morphail Theory specifically shows that once a time traveller has visited the future he cannot return to the past for any length of time; similarly any stay in the past is limited, for the reason that if he did stay there he could alter the course of the future and therefore produce chaos. The Morphail Effect is my term to describe an actual phenomenon — the fact that no one has ever been able to move backwards in Time and 
remain
 in the past. Merely because your stay in the Dawn Age was unusually long you cannot insist that there is a flaw in my description. The chances of your 19th-century lady being returned to this point in time are, similarly, very slight — millions to one. You could search for her, of course, through the millennia, and, if you were successful, bring her back here. She has no time machine of her own and therefore cannot control her flight into her future."