Dancers at the End of Time (58 page)

Behind them, the city seemed to stir, shuddering with age and strain, groaning almost complainingly.

"What would happen to you if your cities collapsed?" she asked him.

"That is impossible. They are self-perpetuating."

"There is no evidence of that." Even as she spoke, two of the metallic structures fell into the dust and became dust themselves.

"Yet they are," he told her. "In their own way. They have been like this for millennia, somehow surviving. We see only the surface. The essence of the cities is not so tangible, and that is as robust as ever."

She accepted what he said with a shrug. "How long must we remain here, then?"

"You sought escape from the Lat, did you not? We remain here until the Lat leave the planet."

"You do not know when that will be?"

"It will be soon, I am sure. Either they will become bored with the game or we will. Then the game will end."

"With how many dead?"

"None, I hope."

"You can resurrect everyone?"

"Certainly."

"Even the denizens of your menageries?"

"Not all. It depends how solidly they have made an impression on our own memories, you see. Our rings work from our minds, to achieve the reconstructions."

She did not pursue the topic. "We seem as thoroughly marooned now at the End of Time as we did at the Beginning," she said moodily. "How few are our moments of ordinary living…"

"That will change. These are particularly agitated days. Brannart explained that the chronological fluctuations are unusually persistent. We must all agree to stop travelling through time for a while, then everything will be back to normal."

"I admire your optimism, Mr. Carnelian."

"Thank you, Amelia." He began to walk again. "This is the very city where I was conceived, the Iron Orchid told me. With some difficulty, it seems."

She looked back. Mr. Underwood still sat upon the memory bank, deep in conversation. "Should we leave him?"

"We can return for him later."

"Very well."

They stepped upon thin silver surfaces which creaked as they crossed, but did not crack. They ascended a flight of ebony stairs, towards an ornamental bridge.

"It would seem fitting," said Jherek, "if I were to propose formally to you here, Amelia, as my father proposed to my mother."

"Your father?"

"A mystery my mother chooses to perpetuate."

"So you do not know who —"

"I do not."

She pursed her lips. "In Bromley such a fact would be sufficient to put a complete bar on marriage, you know."

"Truly?"

"Oh, yes."

"But we are not in Bromley," she added.

He smiled. "Indeed, we are not."

"However…"

"I understand."

"Please, continue…"

"I was saying that it would seem fitting that I should ask you, here in this city where I was conceived, for your hand in marriage."

"Should I ever be free to give it, you mean?"

"Exactly."

"Well, Mr. Carnelian, I cannot say that this is sudden. But…"

"Mibix dug frishy hrunt!" said a familiar voice, and across the bridge came marching Captain Mubbers and his men, armed to the teeth and looking not a little put out.

When Captain Mubbers saw them he stopped suddenly, aiming his instrument-weapon at Jherek.

Jherek was almost pleased to see him. "My dear Captain Mubbers…" he began.

"Mr. Carnelian! He is armed!"

Jherek could not quite understand the point of her excitement. "Yes. The music they produce is the most beautiful I have ever heard."

Captain Mubbers plucked a string. There came a grinding noise from the bell-shaped muzzle of his weapon; a slight fizzle of blue sparks appeared for a moment around the rim. Captain Mubbers uttered a deep sigh and threw the thing to the flagstones of the bridge. Similar grindings and fizzlings came from the other instruments held by his men.

Popping a translation pill into his mouth (he had taken to carrying them everywhere just recently) Jherek said:

"What brings you to the city, Captain Mubbers?"

"Mind your own smelly business, sonny jim," said the leader of the space-invaders. "All we armjoint want to do now is find a shirt-elastic way out!"

"I can't understand why you wanted to come in, though…" He glanced apologetically at Mrs.

Underwood, who could not understand anything that was being said. He offered her a pill. She refused.

She folded her arms in an attitude of resignation.

"Spoils," said another of the Lat.

"Shut it, Rokfrug," Captain Mubbers ordered.

But Rokfrug continued:

"The knicker-patch place seemed so rotten-well protected that we thought there was bound to be something worth having here. Just our shirt-elastic luck —"

"I said shut it, arse-brain!"

But Captain Mubbers' men seemed to be losing faith in his authority. They crossed their three eyes in a most offensive manner and made rude gestures with their elbows.

"Weren't you already sufficiently successful elsewhere?" Jherek asked Rokfrug. "I thought you were doing extremely well with the destruction, the rape and so on…"

"Pissing right we were, until…"

"Cork your hole, bum-face!" shouted his leader.

"Oh, elbow-off!" retorted Rokfrug, but seemed aware that he had gone too far. His voice became a self-pitying mumble as Captain Mubbers gazed disapprovingly back at him. Even his fellows plainly thought Rokfrug's language had put him beyond the pale.

"We're under a bit of a strain," said one of them, by way of apology.

"Who wouldn't be?" Captain Mubbers kicked petulantly at his abandoned weapon. "All the farting trouble we went to to get knicker-patching back to our ship in the first place…"

"…and everything we laid waste to crapping re-appearing," complained Rokfrug, evidently glad to find a point of agreement with his captain.

"…and all our puking prisoners suddenly disappearing…" added another.

"What's the point of it?" Captain Mubbers asked Jherek plaintively. "When we sighted this planet we thought looting it'd be as easy as wiping your bum."

"Ever since," said Rokfrug, "we've been buggered about. These people haven't got the shirt-elastic they were born with. No common sense. How can you terrorize people who keep laughing at you?

Besides, the scenery keeps changing…"

"It's a Planet of Illusions," said Captain Mubbers portentously. His pupils darted about in his single eye. "I mean, this is probably another of their traps." He focussed on Jherek. "Is it? You seem a decent sort of bugger, basically. Is it?"

"I don't think anyone's been deliberately misleading you," Jherek told him. "In fact, there seems to have been an effort to accommodate you. What exactly happened? Who stopped you?"

"Well, it was half-and-half. Partly we just ran out of farting steam," Rokfrug said. "Then these soppy little round buggers arrived. They —"

Mrs. Underwood was tapping Jherek urgently on the arm.

He turned, at last, to look at her. Plodding up the steps behind them, grim-faced and triumphant, was Inspector Springer, Sergeant Sherwood and the party of constables.

"Gee noo fig tendej vega!" said Inspector Springer.

"Flow hard!" exclaimed Mrs. Underwood.

It was time for Jherek to swallow a fresh pill.

"Led us straight to 'em, didn't you?" Inspector Springer waved his men forward. "Shackle 'em, lads!"

The constables, moving like automata, pressed forward to arrest the unresisting Lat.

"I knew you'd arrange a meeting sooner or later," Inspector Springer told Jherek. "That's why I let you get away."

"But how were you able to follow us, Inspector?" Mrs. Underwood asked.

"Commandeered a vehicle," Sergeant Sherwood told her importantly.

"Whose?"

"Oh — 'is…" A thumb was jerked backward.

Both Jherek and Amelia turned and looked below. There stood the Duke of Queens, wearing a bright pastel blue uniform not dissimilar in cut to Sergeant Sherwood's. As they saw him he gave a cheerful wave of his bright yellow truncheon and blew his silver whistle.

"Good heavens!" she exclaimed.

"We've made 'im an honorary constable, 'aven't we, Inspector?" said Sergeant Sherwood.

"There's no 'arm in 'umorin' 'em, sometimes." Inspector Springer smiled to himself. "If it's to your advantage."

"Kroofrudi hrunt!" said Captain Mubbers as he was led away.

The city shuddered and groaned. A sudden darkness came and went. Jherek noticed that everyone's skins seemed ghastly pale, almost blue, and the light gave their eyes a peculiar flat sheen, so that they were like the eyes of statues.

"Cripes," said Sergeant Sherwood. "What was that?"

"The city —" Mrs. Underwood whispered. "It is so still. So silent." She moved closer to Jherek.

She gripped his arm. He was pleased to comfort her. "Does this often happen?"

"To my knowledge, no…"

Everyone had stopped moving, even the Duke of Queens, below. The Lat grunted nervously to one another. The mouths of the majority of the constables hung open.

Another great shudder. Somewhere in the distance a piece of metal rattled and then fell with a crash, but that was the only sound.

Jherek pressed her towards the stair. "We had better get to the ground, I think. If that is the ground."

"An earthquake?"

"The world is too old for earthquakes, Amelia."

They hurried down the steps and their action lent motion to the others, who followed.

"Harold must be found," said Mrs. Underwood. "Is there danger, Mr. Carnelian?"

"I do not know."

"You said the city was safe."

"From the Lat." He could scarcely bear to look at her deathly-pale skin. He blinked, as if blinking would dispel the scene, but the scene remained.

They reached the Duke of Queens. The Duke stroked his beard, which had gone a seedy sort of purple colour. "I stopped by at your palace, Jherek, but you had gone on. Inspector Springer told me that he, too, was looking for you, so we followed in your wake. It took a while to find you. You know what these cities are like." He fingered his whistle. "Wouldn't you say this one was behaving a bit oddly, at present, though?"

"Collapsing?"

"Possibly — or undergoing some sort of radical change. The cities are said to be capable of restoring themselves. Could that be it?"

"There is no evidence…"

The Duke nodded. "Yet it can't be breaking down. The cities are immortal."

"Breaking down superficially, perhaps."

"One hopes that is all it is. You do look sickly, Jherek, my darling."

"We all do, I think. The light."

"Indeed." The Duke replaced his whistle in his pocket. "Those aliens of mine escaped, you know.

While the Lat were on the rampage. They got to their own ship, with Yusharisp and Mongrove."

"They've left?"

"Oh, no! They're spoiling everything. The Lat must be annoyed. They look a bit annoyed, don't they? Yusharisp and company have taken over!" The Duke laughed, but the sound was so unpleasant, even to his own ears, that he stopped. "Ha, ha…"

The city seemed to lurch, as if the entire structure slipped downhill. They recovered their balance.

"We'd better proceed to the nearest exit," said one of the constables in a hollow voice. "Walking, not running. As long as nobody panics, we'll be able to evacuate the premises in no time at all."

"We've got what we came for," agreed Sergeant Sherwood. His uniform had turned a luminous grey. He kept brushing at it, as if he thought the colour was dust clinging to the material.

"Where did we leave the whatsit?" Inspector Springer removed his bowler hat and wiped the inner band with a handkerchief. He looked enquiringly at the Duke of Queens. "Attention there, Special Constable!" His grin was unspontaneous and horrible. "The airship thing?" There had never been jocularity so false.

For a moment the Duke of Queens was so puzzled by the inspector's manner that he merely stared.

"The airship, ho, ho, ho, what brought us 'ere!" Inspector Springer replaced his hat and swallowed rapidly two or three times.

The Duke was vague. "Over there, I think." He rotated slowly, gesturing with his truncheon (which had turned brown), seeking his bearings. "Or was it that way?"

"Cor blimey!" said Inspector Springer in disgust.

"Mibix?" Captain Mubbers spoke absently, as one whose mind is on other things. He returned to chewing on the metal of his hand-cuffs.

The ground made a moaning sound and shivered.

"Harold." Mrs. Underwood plucked at Jherek's sleeve. He noticed that the white linen of his suit had become a patchy green. "We must find him, Mr. Carnelian."

As Jherek and Amelia began to run back to where they had left her husband Inspector Springer also broke into a trot, closely followed by his men, carrying the muttering but unresisting Lat between them, and lastly by the Duke of Queens who was beginning to cheer up at the prospect of action. Action, sensation, was his lifeblood; he wilted without it.

As Jherek and Amelia ran, they heard the piercing eery tones of the Duke's whistle and his lusty voice crying: "Halloo! View halloo!"

Tiny whispering noises issued from the ground, with each step that they made. Something hot and organic seemed at one point to be pulsing beneath their feet. They reached the plain of rotting metal.

Harold Underwood could be distinguished through the murky semi-darkness, still deep in conversation with his friend, the rock. He looked up. "Ha!" His tone was kindlier. "So you are all here, now. It says something, does it not, for our earthly hypocrisies?" Evidently the rock had made no real impression on his convictions.

The plain gasped, gave way and became a mile-wide pit.

"I think I'd better make a new air-car," said the Duke of Queens, coming to a sudden halt.

Harold Underwood crossed to the lip of the pit and stared down. He scratched his hay-coloured hair, disturbing the parting. "So there's another level, at least," he mused. "I suppose one should be relieved." He made to investigate further but did not demur when his wife gently drew him back.