Dancers at the End of Time (28 page)

She stroked his bald spot. "It is no longer in our natures to leave the planet. We are set in our ways. We are an old, old race, you see. Space bores us. Other planets irritate and frustrate us because good manners demand that we do not re-model them to our own tastes. What is there for us in your infinity?

After all, save for minor differences, one star looks very much like another."

The Lat snatched his hat from her hand and pulled it down over his head. "Thrills," he said.

"Adventures. Peril. New sensations."

"There 
are
 no new sensations, surely?" said Bishop Castle, willing to hear of one if it existed. "Just modifications of the old ones, I'd have thought."

"Well," said Captain Mubbers decisively, stooping to pick up his instrument. "You're coming with us and that's that. I know a trap when I smell one."

The Duke of Queens pursed his lips. "I think it's time we left. Evidently, an impasse…"

"More like a 
fait accompli
, chummy," said the pugnacious alien, pointing his instrument in the Duke's general direction. "Get 'em down and show 'em up!"

By this time the other Lat had picked their horns and strings from the ground.

"I don't follow you?" the Duke told Captain Mubbers. "Get what down? And shove what up?"

"The trousers and the hands in that order," said Captain Mubbers. And he motioned with his instrument.

Bishop Castle laughed. "I believe they are 
menacing
 us, you know!"

My Lady Charlotina gave a squeal of delight. The Iron Orchid put fingers to her lips, her eyes widening.

"Are those weapons as well as musical instruments?" asked Jherek with interest.

"Spot on," said Captain Mubbers. "Watch this." He turned away, directing the oddly shaped device at the nearby trees. "Fire," he said.

A howling, burning wind issued from the thing in his hands. It seared through the trees and turned them to smoking ash. It produced a tunnel of brightness through the gloom of the forest; it revealed a plain beyond, and a mountain beyond that. The wind did not stop until it reached the far-away mountain.

The mountain exploded. They heard a faint bang.

"All right?" said Captain Mubbers, turning back to them enquiringly.

His companions smirked. One of them, in a metal helmet, said: "You wouldn't get far, would you, if you tried to run for it?"

"Who would resurrect us?" said Bishop Castle. "How curious? I haven't seen an actual weapon before."

"You intend, then, to 
kidnap
 us!" said My Lady Charlotina.

"Mibix unview per?" said Captain Mubbers. "Kroofrudi! Dyew oh tyae, hiu hawtquards!"

In despair, the Duke of Queens had switched off his translator.

"It is certainly not very much of an advantage," said the Duke of Queens miserably. They all sat together near the spaceship while the Lat kneeled nearby, absorbed in some kind of gambling game. The Iron Orchid and My Lady Charlotina seemed to be the stakes. Only My Lady Charlotina was getting impatient.

She sighed. "I do wish they'd hurry up. They're lovable, but they're not very decisive."

"You think not?" said Bishop Castle, picking at some moss. "They seemed to have reached the decision to kidnap us pretty quickly."

Jherek was miserable. "If they take us into space I'll 
never
 see Mrs. Amelia Underwood!"

"Try a disseminator ring on their weapons again," suggested the Iron Orchid. "Mine doesn't work, Bishop, but yours might."

The Bishop concentrated, fiddling with his ring, but nothing at all happened. "They are only effective on things we create ourselves. We could get rid of the rest of the trees, I suppose…"

"There seems little point," said Jherek. He sighed.

"Well," said the Duke of Queens, an inveterate viewer of the bright side, "we might see something interesting in space."

"Our ancestors never did," the Iron Orchid reminded him. "Besides, how are we to get back?"

"Build a spaceship." The Duke of Queens was puzzled by her apparent obtuseness. "With a power ring."

"If they work in the depths of the cosmic void. Do you recall any record of the rings themselves being used away from Earth?" Bishop Castle shrugged, not expecting a reply.

"Did they have power rings all those thousands and thousands of years ago? Oh, dear, I feel very sleepy." My Lady Charlotina was unusually bored. She had gone off the whole idea of making love to the Lat, either singly or all together. "Let's create an air car and go, shall we."

Bishop Castle was grinning. "I have a more amusing notion." He waved the deceptor-gun. "It should cheer us all up and make an exciting end to this adventure. Presumably the gun is conventionally loaded, Jherek?"

"Oh, yes." Jherek nodded absently.

"Then it will fire illusions at random. I remember the craze for these toys. Two players each have a gun, not knowing which illusions will come out, but hoping that one illusion will counter another."

"That's right," said Jherek. "I couldn't find anyone interested enough to play, however."

Captain Mubbers had left his men and was swaggering towards them.

"Hujo, ri fert glex min glex viel," he barked, menacing them at musical instrument point.

They pretended to have no idea at all as to his meaning (which was fairly clear — he wanted the ladies to enter the spaceship).

"Kroofrudi!" said Captain Mubbers. "Glem min glex viel!"

My Lady Charlotina dimpled prettily. "My dear captain, we simply can't understand you. And you can't understand us now, can you?"

"Hrunt," Shifting his grip on his instrument, Captain Mubbers smiled salaciously and placed a bold hand on her elbow. "Hrunt glex, mibix?"

"Dog!" My Lady Charlotina blushed and fluttered her eyelashes at him. "I suppose we should try the gun now, Bishop."

There came a slight "pop" and everything turned to blue and white. Blue and white birds and insects, delicate, languid, flitted through equally delicate willow trees — white against blue or blue against white, depending on their particular background.

Captain Mubbers was a little surprised. Then he shook his head and pushed My Lady Charlotina towards the ship.

"Perhaps we should allow him just a brief ravishment," she said.

"Too late," said Bishop Castle, and he fired again. "Who loaded this gun, Jherek? We must hope for something a little less restrained."

The second illusion now intruded upon the first. Into the delicate blue and white scenery there lumbered a monstrous ten-legged beast which was predominantly reptilian, with huge eyes which shot flames as it turned its fierce head this way and that.

Captain Mubbers yelled and aimed his instrument. He managed to destroy a fair amount of the wood beyond the blue and white landscape and the flame-eyed monster, but they were unaffected.

"I think it's time to slip away," said Bishop Castle, pulling the trigger once more and introducing bright abstract patterns which whizzed erratically through the air, clashing horribly with the blue and white and making the reptilian beast irritable. The Lat were firing repeatedly at the monster, backing away from it as it advanced (by luck) towards them.

"Oh," said the Iron Orchid in disappointment as Jherek took her by the arm and dragged her into the forest, "can't we watch?"

"Can you remember where we left your air car, Jherek?" The Duke of Queens was panting and excited. "Isn't this fun?"

"I think it was that way," Jherek replied. "But perhaps it would be wise to stop and make another?"

"Would that be sporting, do you think?" asked the Iron Orchid.

"I suppose not."

"Come on then!" She raced off through the trees and had soon vanished in the gloom. Jherek followed her, with Bishop Castle close on his heels.

"Mother, I'm not sure it's wise to separate."

Her voice drifted back to him. "Oh, Jherek, you've become joyless, my juice!"

But soon he had lost her altogether and he stopped, exhausted, beside a particularly large old tree.

Bishop Castle had kept up with him and now handed him the deceptor-gun. "Would you mind holding this for a bit, Jherek. It's quite heavy."

Jherek took it and tucked it into his clothes. He heard the sound of something large blundering through the forest. Trunks fell, branches cracked, fires started.

"It's particularly realistic, isn't it?" Bishop Castle seemed almost of the impression that he had made the monster himself. He winced as something howled past his nose and destroyed a line of trees. "The Lat seem to be catching up with us." He dived into the undergrowth, leaving Jherek still undecided as to the direction he should take.

And now, because he might be killed forever, before he could see Mrs. Amelia Underwood again, he was filled by panic. It was a new emotion and part of his mind took an objective curiosity in it. He began to run. He was careless of the branches which struck his face. He ran on and on, through darkness, away from the sounds and the destruction. Danger was a wall which seemed to surround him, in escaping one source he encountered another. Once he bumped against someone in the dark and was about to speak when they said, "Ferkit!" He moved away as quietly as possible and heard a blood-chilling shriek from somewhere else.

He ran, he fell, he crawled, got up and ran again. His chest was painful and his brain was useless.

He thought that he might be sobbing and he knew that the next time he would fall and not have the will to rise.

He tripped. He lost his balance. He was reconciled to Death. He went sprawling down the sides of an old pit, bits of earth and rock falling with him, and was about to congratulate himself that he might after all have found relative safety when the bottom of the pit gave way and he was sliding down something which was smooth and plainly built for this purpose. Down and down he slid on the metal chute, feeling sick with the speed of his descent, unable to reach his power rings, unable to slow himself, until he must have been almost a mile underground. Then, at last, the chute came to an end and he landed, winded and dazed, on what appeared to be a pile of mildewed quilts.

The light was dim and it was artificial. After a while he sat up, feeling tenderly over his body for broken bones, but there were none. A peculiar sense of well-being filled him and he lay back upon the quilts with a yawn, hoping that his friends had managed to get back to the landau. He would rest and then consider the best method of joining them. A power ring would doubtless bore a tunnel upwards for him, then he could drift to the surface by means of counter-gravity. He felt extremely sleepy. He could hardly believe in the events which had just taken place. He was about to close his eyes when he heard a small, lisping voice saying:

"Welcome, sir, to Wonderland!"

He looked round. A small girl stood there. She had large blue eyes and blonde curly hair. Her expression was demure.

"You're very well made," said Jherek admiringly. "What are you, exactly?"

The small girl's expression was now one of disgust. "I'm a little girl, of course. Aren't I?"

Jherek stood up and dusted at his white draperies, saying kindly: "Little girls have been extinct for thousands of years. You're probably a robot or a toy. What are you doing down here?"

"Playing," said the robot or toy; then it stepped forward and kicked his ankle, "And I know what I am. And I know what you are. Nurse said we had to be careful of grown-ups — they're dangerous."

"So are little girls," said Jherek feelingly, rubbing an already battered leg. "Where is your Nurse, my child?"

He had to admit he was surprised at how lifelike the creature was, but it could not be a child or he would have heard about it. Save for himself and Werther de Goethe, children had not been born on Earth for millennia. People were created, as the Duke of Queens had created Sweet Orb Mace, or recreated themselves, as King Rook had become Bishop Castle. Having children, after all, was rather a responsibility. Creating mature adults was difficult enough!

"Come on," said the being, taking his hand. She led him down a tunnel of pink marble which, to Jherek's eye, had something in common with the style and materials of the ancient cities, though the tunnel seemed relatively new. The tunnel opened into a large room crammed with beautiful reproductions of antiques, some of which Jherek recognized as miniature whizz-mobiles, rocking horses, furry partridges, seasores, coloured quasimodos and erector sets. "This is one of our play-rooms," she told him. "The school room is through there. Nurse should be out soon with the others. 
I'm
 playing truant," she added proudly.

Jherek admired his surroundings. Someone had gone to considerable trouble to reproduce an old nursery. He wondered if this, like the wood above, could be attributed to Lord Jagged. It certainly showed his finesse.

Suddenly a door opened and into the room poured a score of boys and girls, all of about the same apparent age, the boys in shirts and shorts, the girls in frilly dresses and aprons. They were shouting and laughing, but they stopped when they saw Jherek Carnelian. Their eyes widened, their mouths hung open.

"It's an adult," said the self-styled child. "I caught it in one of the corridors. It fell through the roof."

"Do you think it's a Producer?" asked one of the boys, stepping up to Jherek and looking him over.

"They're fatter than that," another girl said. "Here comes Nurse, anyway. She'll know."

Behind them loomed a tall figure, grim of visage, clothed in grey steel, humanoid and stern. A robot, much larger than Jherek, built to resemble a middle-aged woman in the costume of the Late Multitude Cultures. Her voice, when she spoke, was a trifle rusty and her limbs were inclined to creak when they moved. Cold blue eyes glared from the steel face.

"What's this, Mary Wilde, playing truant again?" Nurse tut-tutted. "And who's this other little boy?

Not one of mine by the look of him."

"We think it's an adult, Nurse," said Mary Wilde.

"Nonsense, Mary. Your imagination is running away with you again. There are no such things as adults any more."

"That's what 
he
 said about children." Mary Wilde put her hand to her mouth to suppress a giggle.

"Pull yourself together, Mary," said Nurse. "I can only conclude that this young man has also been playing truant. You will both be punished by having only bread and milk for supper."

"I assure you that I 
am
 an adult, madam," Jherek insisted. "Although I have been a child in my time.

My name is Jherek Carnelian."

"Well, you're reasonably polite at any rate," said Nurse. Her lips clashed as she drew them together.

"You had better meet the other little boys and girls. I really can't think why they've sent me an extra child.

I'm already two over my quota." The robot seemed a shade on the senile side, unable to accept new information. Jherek had the impression that she had been performing her tasks for a considerable length of time and had, as robots will in such conditions, become set in her ways. He decided, for the moment, to humour her.

"This is Freddie Fearless," said Nurse, laying a gentle metal hand upon the brown curly locks of the nearest boy. "And this is Danny Daring. Mick Manly and Victor Venture, here. Gary Gritt, Peter Pluck and Ben Bold, there. Kit Courage — Dick Dreadnought — Gavin Gallant. Say hello to your new friend, boys."

"Hello," they chorused obediently.

"What did you say your name was, lad?" asked Nurse.

"Jherek Carnelian, Nurse."

"A strange, unlikely name."

"Your children's names all seem to have a certain similarity, if I may say so…"

"Nonsense. Anyway, we'll call you Jerry — Jerry Jester, Always Playing the Fool, eh?"

Jherek shrugged.

"And these are the girls — Mary Wilde, you've already; met. Betty Bold, Ben's sister. Molly Madcap. Nora Noise."

"I'm the school sneak," announced Nora Noise with undisguised pleasure.

"Yes, dear, and you're very good at it. This is Gloria Grande. Flora Friendly. Katie Kinde — Harriet Haughtie — Jenny Jolly."

"I am honoured to meet you all," said Jherek, with something of Lord Jagged's grace. "But perhaps you could tell me what you are doing underground?"

"We're hiding!" whispered Molly Madcap. "Our parents sent us here to escape the movie."

"The movie?"

"Pecking Pa the Eighth's 
The Great Massacre of the First-Born
 — that's the working title, anyway," Ben Bold told him.

"It's a remake about the birth of Christ," said Flora Friendly. "Pecking Pa is going to play Herod himself."

This name alone meant something to Jherek. He knew that he had met a time traveller once who had fled from this same Pecking Pa, the Last of the Tyrant Producers, when he had been in the process of making another drama about the eruption of Krakatoa.

"But that was thousands of years ago," Jherek said. "You couldn't have been here all that time. Or could you?"

"We work to a weekly shift here," said Nurse. She turned her eyes towards a chronometer on the wall. "If we don't hurry, I shall be late with the recycling. That's the trouble with the parents — they've no thought for me — they send down another child without ever thinking about my schedules — and then they wonder why the routines are upset."

"Do you mean you're recycling 
time
?" asked Jherek in amazement. "The same week over and over again."

"Until the danger's over," said Nurse. "Didn't your parents tell you? We'll have to get you out of those silly clothes. Really, some mothers have peculiar ideas of how to dress children. You're quite a big boy, aren't you. It will mean making a shirt and shorts for a start."

"I don't want to wear a shirt and shorts, Nurse! I'm not sure they'll suit me."

"Oh, my goodness! You 
have
 been spoiled, Jerry!"

"I think the danger 
is
 over, Nurse," said Jherek desperately, backing away. "The Age of the Tyrant Producers has long since past. We're now very close to the End of Time itself."

"Well, dear, that won't affect us here, will it? We operate a neat closed system. It doesn't matter what happens in the rest of the universe, we just go round and round through the same period. I do it all myself, you know, with no help from anyone else."

"I think you've become a little fixed in your habits, Nurse. Have you considered limbering up your circuits?"

"Now, Jerry, I'll assume you're not being deliberately rude, because you're new here, but I'm afraid that if I hear any more talk like that from you I'll have to take strong measures. I'm kind, Jerry, but I'm firm."

The great robot rumbled forward on her tracks, reaching out her huge metal arms towards him.

"Next, we'll undress you."

Jherek bowed. "I think I'll go now, Nurse. But as soon as I can I'll return. After all, these children can begin to grow up, the danger being over. They'll want to see the outside world."

"Language, boy!" bellowed Nurse fiercely. "Language!"

"I didn't mean to…" Jherek turned and bolted.

"Soldiers of the Guard!" roared Nurse.

Jherek found his way blocked by huge mechanical toy soldiers. They had expressionless faces and were not anything like as sophisticated as Nurse, but their metal bodies effectively blocked his escape.

Jherek yelped as he felt Nurse's strong hands fall on him. He was yanked into the air and flung over a cold steel knee. A metal hand rose and fell six times on his bottom and then he was upright again and Nurse was patting his head.

"I don't like to punish boys, Jerry," said Nurse. "But it is for their own good that they do not leave the nursery. When you are older you will understand that."

"But I 
am
 older," said Jherek.

"That's impossible." Nurse began to strip his clothes from him and moments later he stood before her wearing the same kind of shirt and shorts and knee-socks as Kit Courage, Freddie Fearless and the others. "There," she said in satisfaction, "now you're not so much of an odd boy out. I know how children hate to be different."

Jherek, twice the height of his new chums, knew then that he was in the power of a moron.