Dancers at the End of Time (57 page)

"I thought these Latvians were on your side," said Sergeant Sherwood.

"Indeed, no! What would be the fun of that?"

"You say they're destroying everything. Rape, pillage, murder?"

"Exactly."

"Well, I never…" Inspector Springer scratched his head. "So you're merely the foils of these people, instead o' the other way about?"

"I think there's a misunderstanding, Inspector," said Mrs. Underwood. "You see…"

"Misunderstanding!" Suddenly Harold Underwood lurched towards her. "Jezebel!"

"Harold!"

"Ha!"

There came another boom, louder than the previous ones, and the ceiling vanished to reveal the sky.

"It can only be the Lat," said Bishop Castle, with the air of an expert. "You really must come with me. Jherek and Amelia, unless you want to be destroyed before you have enjoyed any of the fun." He began to lead them towards his air-car at the window. "There'll be nothing left of our world, at this rate!"

"Do they really mean to destroy you all?" asked the time-traveller, as they went by.

"I gather not. They originally came for prisoners. Mistress Christia, of course," this to Jherek, "is now a captive. I think it's their habit to go about the galaxy killing the males and abducting the females."

"You'll let them?" Mrs. Underwood enquired.

"What do you mean?"

"You won't stop this?"

"Oh, eventually, I suppose we'll have to. Mistress Christia wouldn't be happy in space. Particularly if it has become as bleak as Mongrove reports."

"What do you say, Amelia? Shall we go and watch? Join in?" Jherek wanted to know.

"Of course not."

He suppressed his disappointment.

"Perhaps you wish 
me
 to be abducted by those creatures?" she said.

"Indeed, no!"

"Perhaps it would be better to return in my Chronomnibus," suggested the time-traveller, "at least until —"

"Amelia?"

She shook her head. "The circumstances are too shameful for me. Respectable society would be closed to me now."

"Then you will stay, dearest Amelia?"

"Mr. Carnelian, this is no time to continue with your pesterings. I will accept that I am an outcast, but I still have certain standards of behaviour. Besides, I am concerned for Harold. He is not himself.

And for that, we are to blame. Well, perhaps not you, really — but I must accept a large share of guilt. I should have been firmer. I should not have admitted my love —" and she burst into tears.

"You do admit it, then, Amelia!"

"You are heartless, Mr. Carnelian," she sobbed, "and scarcely tactful…"

"Ha!" said Harold Underwood. "It is just as well that I have already begun divorce proceedings…"

"Excellent!" cried Jherek.

Another boom.

"My machine!" exclaimed the time-traveller, and ran outside.

"Take cover, men." Inspector Springer called. They all lay down.

Bishop Castle was already in his air-car, surrounded by a cloud of dust. "Are you coming, Jherek?"

"I think not. I hope you enjoy yourself, Bishop Castle."

"I shall. I shall." The air-car began to rise, Charon's barge, into the upper atmosphere.

Only Mr. and Mrs. Underwood and Jherek Carnelian remained standing, in the ruins of the palace.

"Come," said Jherek to them both, "I think I know where we can find safety." He turned a power-ring.

His old air-car, the locomotive, materialized. It was in gleaming red and black now, but lime-coloured smoke still puffed from its stack. "Forgive the lack of invention," he said to them, "but as we are in haste…"

"You would save Harold, too?" she said, as Jherek helped her husband aboard.

"Why not? You say you are concerned for him." He grinned cheerfully, while overhead a searing, scarlet bolt of pure energy went roaring by, "Besides, I wish to hear the details of this divorce he plans. Is that not the ceremony that must take place before we can be married?"

She made no reply to this, as she joined him on the footplate. "Where are we going, Mr.

Carnelian?"

The locomotive began to puff skyward. "I'm full of old smokies," he sang, "I'm covered in dough.

I've eaten blue plovers and I'm snorting up coke!" Mr. Underwood clutched the rail and stared down at the ruins they left behind. His knees were shaking. "It's a railroad song, from your own time," Jherek explained. "Would you like to be the fireman?"

He offered Mr. Underwood the platinum shovel. Mr. Underwood accepted the shovel without a word and, mechanically, began to stoke coal into the fire-chamber.

"Mr. Carnelian! Where are we going?"

"To certain safety, dearest Amelia. To certain safety, I assure you."

"You are not disturbed, dearest Amelia, by this city?"

"I find the place improbable. I failed to realize, listening only to talk of such settlements, how vast and how, well, how unlike cities they were!"

Mr. Underwood stood some distance away, on the other side of the little plaza. Green globes of fuzzy light, about the size of tennis balls, ran up and down his outstretched arms; he watched them with childlike delight; behind him the air was black, purple, dark green shot with crimson, as chemicals expanded and contracted in a kind of simulation of breathing, giving off their vapours; bronze sparks showered nearby, pinkish energy arced from one tower to another; steel sang. The city murmured to itself, almost asleep, certainly drowsy. Even the narrow rivulets of mercury, criss-crossing the ground at their feet, seemed to be running slowly.

"The cities protect themselves," Jherek explained. "I have seen it before. No weapon can operate within them, no weapon can harm them from without, because they can always command more energy than any weapon brought against them, you see. It was part of their original design."

"This resembles a manufactory more than it does a township," she remarked.

"It is actually," he told her, "more in the nature of a museum. There are several such cities on the planet; they contain what remains of our knowledge."

"These fumes — are they not poisonous?"

"Not to Man. They could not be."

She accepted his assurance, but continued wary, as he led them from the plaza, through an arcade of lurid yellow and mauve metallic fronds, faintly reminiscent of those they had seen in the Palaeozoic; a strange greyish light fell through the fronds and distorted their shadows. Mr. Underwood wandered some distance behind them, softly singing.

"We must consider," she whispered, "how Harold is to be saved."

"Saved for what?"

"From his insanity."

"He seems happier in the city."

"He believes himself in Hell, no doubt. Just as I once believed. Inspector Springer should never have brought him."

"I am not altogether sure that the inspector is quite himself."

"I agree, Mr. Carnelian. All this smacks of political panic at home. There is thought to be considerable interest in Spiritualism and Freemasonry among certain members of the Cabinet, at the present time. There is even some talk that the Prince of Wales…"

She continued in this vein for a while, mystifying him entirely. Her information, he gathered, was gleaned from a broadsheet which Mr. Underwood had once acquired.

The arcade gave way to a chasm running between high, featureless buildings, their walls covered with chemical stains and peculiar semi-biological growths, some of which palpitated; ahead of them was something globular, glowing and dark, which rolled away from them as they advanced and, as they reached the end of the chasm, vanished. Here the vista widened and they could see across a plain littered with half-rotted metal relics to where, in the distance, angry flames spread themselves against an invisible wall.

"There!" he said. "That must be the Lat's weapons at work. The city throws up its defences. See, I told you that we should be safe, dear Amelia."

She glanced over her shoulder to where her husband sat upon a structure that seemed part of stone and part of some kind of hardened resin. "I wish you would try to be more tactful, Mr. Carnelian.

Remember that my husband is within earshot. Consider his feelings, if you will not consider mine!"

"But he has relinquished you to me. He said as much. By your customs that is sufficient, is it not?"

"He divorces me, that is all. I have a right to choose or reject any husband I please."

"Of course. But you choose me. I know."

"I have not told you that."

"You have, Amelia. You forget. You have mentioned more than once that you love me."

"That does not mean — would not mean — that I would necessarily marry you, Mr. Carnelian.

There is still every chance that I may return to Bromley — or at least to my own time."

"Where you will be an outcast. You said so."

"In Bromley. Not everywhere." But she frowned. "I can imagine the scandal. The newspapers will have published something, to be sure. Oh, dear."

"You seemed to be enjoying life at the End of Time."

"Perhaps I would continue to do so, Mr. Carnelian, were I not haunted, very definitely, by the Past." Another glance over her shoulder. "How is one ever to relax?"

"This is a fluke. It is the first time anything like it has ever occurred here."

"Besides, I would remind you that, according to Bishop Castle (not to mention the evidence of our own eyes) your world is being destroyed about your ears."

"For the moment, only. It can soon be replaced."

"Lord Mongrove and Yusharisp would have us believe otherwise."

"It is hard to take them seriously."

"For you, perhaps. Not for me, Mr. Carnelian. What they say makes considerable sense."

" 
Opportunities for redemption must therefore be few in such an ambience as you describe
,"

said quite another voice, a low, mellow, slightly sleepy voice.

"There are none," said Mr. Underwood, "at least that I know of."

" 
That is interesting. I seem to recall something of the theory, but most of the information I
 
would require was stored elsewhere, in a sister city, whose co-ordinates I cannot quite recollect. I
 
am of a mind to believe, however, that you are either a manifestation of this city's delusions
 
(which proliferate notoriously, these days) or else that you are deluded yourself, a victim of too
 
much morbid fascination with ancient mythologies. I could be mistaken — there was a time when
 
I was infallible, I think. I am not sure that your description of this city tallies with the facts which
 
remain at my command. You could argue, I know, that I myself am deluded as to the truth, yet my
 
evidence would seem to tally with my instincts, whereas you, yourself, make intellectual rather
 
than instinctive assumptions; that at least is what I gather from the illogicalities so far expressed
 
in your analysis. You have contradicted yourself at least three times since you sat down on my
 
shell
."

It was the compound of rock and resin that spoke. "One form of memory bank," murmured Jherek.

"There are so many kinds, not always immediately recognizable."

" 
I think
," continued the bank, " 
that you are still confused and have not yet ordered your
 
thoughts sufficiently to communicate properly with me. I assure you that I will function much
 
more satisfactorily if you phrase your remarks better
."

Mr. Underwood did not seem offended by this criticism. "I think you are right," he said. "I am confused. Well, I am mad, to be blunt."

" 
Madness may only be the expression of ordinary emotional confusion. Fear of madness can
 
cause, I believe, a retreat into the very madness one fears. This is only superficially a paradox.

Madness may be said to be a tendency to simplify, into easily grasped metaphors, the nature of the
 
world. In your own case, you have plainly been confounded by unexpected complexities, therefore
 
you are inclined to retreat into simplification — this talk of Damnation and Hell, for instance — to
 
create a world whose values are unambivalent, unequivocal. It is a pity that so few of my own
 
ancestors survive for they, by their very nature, would have responded better to your views. On
 
the other hand it may be that you are not content with this madness, that you would rather face
 
the complexities, feel at ease with them. If so, I am sure that I can help, in a small way
."

"You are very kind," said Mr. Underwood.

" 
Nonsense. I am glad to be of service. I have had nothing to do for the best part of a million
 
years. I was in danger of growing 'rusty'. Luckily, having no mechanical parts, I can remain
 
dormant for a long time without any especially deleterious effects. Though, as part of a very
 
complex system, there is much information I can no longer call upon
."

"Then you are of the opinion that this is not the afterlife, that I am not here as punishment for my sins, that I shall not be here for eternity, that I am not, as it were, dead."

" 
You are certainly not dead, for you can still converse, feel, think and experience physical
 
needs and discomforts…
"

The bank had a penchant for abstract conversation which seemed to suit Mr. Underwood, though Jherek and Amelia became quickly bored listening to it. "It reminds me of an old schoolmaster I once had," she whispered, and she grinned. "It is just what Harold needs really, at present."

The vivid splashes of light no longer spread across the horizon and the scene darkened. No sun could be observed in the lurid sky, across which clouds of queerly coloured gases perpetually drifted.