Dancers at the End of Time (47 page)

Mrs. Underwood had listened, but she was disturbed. She lifted the lid of the hamper and opened an air-tight tin, offering Mrs. Persson a brandy-snap.

They munched.

"Delicious," said Mrs. Persson. "After the twentieth, the nineteenth century has always been my favourite."

"From what century are you originally?" Jherek asked, to pass the time.

"The twentieth — mid-twentieth. I have a fair bit to do with that ancestor of yours. And his sister, of course. One of my best friends." She saw that he was puzzled. "You don't know him? Strange. Yet, Jagged — your genes…" She shrugged.

He was, however, eager. Here could be the answer he had sought from Jagged.

"Jagged has refused to be frank with me," he told her, "on that very subject. I would be grateful if you could enlighten me. He has promised to do so, on our return."

But she was biting her lip, as if she had inadvertently betrayed a confidence. "I can't," she said. "He must have reasons — I could not speak without first having his permission…"

"But there is a motive," said Mrs. Underwood sharply. "It seems that he deliberately brought us together. We have had more than a hint — that he could be engineering some of our misfortunes…"

"And saving us from others," Jherek pointed out, to be fair. "He insists disinterest, yet I am certain…"

"I cannot help you speculate," said Mrs. Persson. "Here comes Captain Bastable with the boat."

The small vessel was bouncing rapidly towards them, its engine shrieking, the water foaming white in its wake. Bastable made it turn, just before it struck the beach, and cut off the engine. "Do you mind getting a bit wet? There are no scorpions about."

They waded to the boat and pulled themselves aboard after dumping the hamper into the bottom.

Mrs. Underwood scanned the water. "I had no idea creatures of that size existed … Dinosaurs, perhaps, but not insects — I know they are not really insects, but…"

"They won't survive," said Captain Bastable as he brought the engine to life again. "Eventually the fish will wipe them out. They're growing larger all the time, those fish. A million years will see quite a few changes in this creek." He smiled. "It's up to us to ensure we make none ourselves." He pointed back at the water. "We don't leave a trace of oil behind which isn't detected and cleaned up by one of our other machines."

"And that is how you resist the Morphail Effect," said Jherek.

"We don't use that name for it," interjected Mrs. Persson, "but, yes — Time allows us to remain here as long as there are no permanent anachronisms. And that includes traces which might be detected by future investigators and prove anachronistic. It is why we were so eager to rescue that tin cup. All our equipment is of highly perishable material. It serves us, but would not survive in any form after about a century. Our existence is tentative — we could be hurled out of this age at any moment and find ourselves not only separated, perhaps for ever, but in an environment incapable, even in its essentials, of supporting human life."

"You run great risks, it seems," said Mrs. Underwood. "Why?"

Mrs. Persson laughed. "One gets a taste for it. But, then, you know that yourself."

The creek began to narrow, between lichen-covered banks, and, at the far end, a wooden jetty could be seen. There were two other boats moored beside it. Behind the jetty, in the shadow of thick foliage, was a dark mass, man-made.

A fair-haired youth, wearing an identical suit to those worn by Mrs. Persson and Captain Bastable, took the mooring rope Mrs. Persson flung to him. He nodded cheerfully to Jherek and Mrs. Underwood as they jumped onto the jetty. "Your friends are already inside," he said.

The four of them walked over lichen-strewn rock towards the black, featureless walls ahead; these were tall and curved inward and they had a warm, rubbery smell. Mrs. Persson took off her helmet and shook out her short dark hair; she had a pleasant, boyish look. Her movements were graceful as she touched the wall in two places, making a section slide back to admit them. They stepped inside.

There were several box-shaped buildings in the compound, some quite large. Mrs. Persson led them towards the largest. There was little daylight, but a continuous strip of artificial lighting ran the entire circumference of the wall. The ground was covered in the same slightly yielding black material and Jherek had the impression that the entire camp could be folded in on itself within a few seconds and transported as a single unit. He imagined it as some large time-ship, for it bore certain resemblances to the machine in which he had originally travelled to the nineteenth century.

Captain Bastable stood to one side of the entrance allowing first Mrs. Persson and then Mrs.

Underwood to enter. Jherek was next. Here were panels of instruments, screens, winking indicators, all of the primitive, fascinating kind which Jherek associated with the remote past.

"It's perfect," he said. "You've made it blend so well with the environment."

"Thank you." Mrs. Persson's smile was for herself. "The Guild stores all its information here. We can also detect the movements of time-vessels along the megaflow, as it's sometimes termed. We did not, incidentally, detect yours. Instead there was a sort of rupture, quickly healed. You did not come in a ship?"

"Yes. It's somewhere on the beach where we left it, I think."

"We haven't found it."

Captain Bastable unzipped his overalls. Underneath them he wore a simple grey military uniform.

"Perhaps it was on automatic return," he suggested. "Or if it was malfunctioning, it could have continued on, moving at random, and be anywhere by now."

"The machine was working badly," Mrs. Underwood informed him. We should not, for instance, be here at all. I would be more than grateful, Captain Bastable, if you could find some means of returning us — at least myself — to the nineteenth century."

"That wouldn't be difficult," he said, "but whether you'd stay there or not is another matter. Once a time-traveller always a time-traveller, you know. It's our fate, isn't it?"

"I had no idea…"

Mrs. Persson put a hand on Mrs. Underwood's shoulder. "There are some of us who find it easier to remain in certain ages than others — and there are ages, closer to the beginnings or the ends of Time, which rarely reject those who wish to settle. Genes, I gather, have a little to do with it. But that is Jagged's speciality and he has doubtless bored you as much as he has bored us with his speculations."

"Never!" Jherek was eager.

Mrs. Persson pursed her lips. "Perhaps you would care for some coffee," she said.

Jherek turned to Mrs. Underwood. He knew she would be pleased. "Isn't that splendid, dear Mrs.

Underwood. They have a stall here. Now you must really feel at home!"

Captain Mubbers and his men were sitting in a line on a kind of padded bench; they were cross-legged and tried to hide their knees and elbows, exposed since they had destroyed their pyjamas; all were blushing a peculiar plum colour and averted their eyes when the party containing Mrs. Persson and Mrs. Underwood entered the room. Inspector Springer sat by himself in a sort of globular chair which brought his knees close to his face; he tried to sip from a paper cup, tried to rise when the ladies came in, succeeded in spilling the coffee on his serge trousers; his grumble was half-protest, half-apology; he subsided again. Captain Bastable approached a black machine, marked with letters of the alphabet.

"Milk and sugar?" he asked Mrs. Underwood.

"Thank you, Captain Bastable."

"Mr. Carnelian?" Captain Bastable pressed some of the letters. "For you?"

"I'll have the same, please." Jherek looked around the small relaxation room. "It's not like the stalls they have in London, is it, Captain Bastable?"

"Stalls?"

"Mr. Carnelian means coffee stalls," explained Mrs. Underwood. "I think it's his only experience of drinking coffee, you see."

"It is drunk elsewhere?"

"As is tea," she said.

"How crude it is, my understanding of your subtle age." He accepted a paper cup from Captain Bastable, who had already handed Mrs. Underwood her own. He sipped conscientiously, expectantly.

Perhaps they noticed his expression of disappointment. "Would you prefer tea, Mr. Carnelian?"

asked Mrs. Persson. "Or lemonade? Or soup?"

He shook his head, but the smile was weak. "I'll forgo fresh experience for the moment. There are so many new impressions to assimilate. Of course, I know that this must seem familiar and dull to you — but to me it is marvellous. The chase! The scorpions! And now these huts!" He glanced towards the Lat.

"The other three are not, then, back yet?"

"The others…?" Captain Bastable was puzzled.

"He means the ones the scorpions devoured," Mrs. Underwood began. "He believes…"

"That they will be reconstituted!" Mrs. Persson brightened. "Of course. There is no death, as such, at the End of Time." She said apologetically to Jherek: "I am afraid we lack the necessary technology to restore the Lat to life, Mr. Carnelian. Besides, we do not possess the skills. If Miss Brunner or one of her people were on duty during this term — but, no, even then it would not be possible. You must regard your Lat as lost forever, I fear. As it is, you can take consolation that they have probably poisoned a few scorpions. Happily, there being so many scorpions, the balance of nature is not noticeably changed, and thus we retain our roots in the Lower Devonian."

"Poor Captain Mubbers," said Jherek. "He tries so hard and is forever failing in his schemes.

Perhaps we could arrange some charade or other — in which he is monumentally successful. It would do his morale so much good. Is there something he could steal, Captain Bastable? Or someone he could rape?"

"Not here, I'm afraid." But Captain Bastable blushed as he controlled his voice, causing Mrs.

Persson to smile and say, "We are not very well equipped for the amusement of space-travellers, I regret, Mr. Carnelian. But we shall try to get them back to their original age — your age — as near to their ship as possible. They'll soon be pillaging and raping again with gusto!"

Captain Bastable cleared his throat. Mrs. Underwood studied a cushion.

Mrs. Persson said: "I forgot myself. Captain Bastable, by the way, Mrs. Underwood, is almost a contemporary of yours. He is from 1901. It is 1901, isn't it, Oswald?"

He nodded, fingering his cuff. "Thereabouts."

"What puzzles me, more than anything," continued Mrs. Persson, "is how so many people arrived here at the same time. The heaviest traffic in my experience. And two parties without machines of any kind. What a shame we can't speak to the Lat."

"We could, if we wished," said Jherek.

"You know their language?"

"Simpler. I have a translation pill, still. I offered them before, but no one seemed interested. At the Café Royal. Do you remember, Inspector?"

Inspector Springer was as sullen as Captain Mubbers. He seemed to have lost interest in the conversation. Occasionally a peculiar, self-pitying grunt would escape his throat.

"I know the pills," said Mrs. Persson. "Are they independent of your cities?"

"Oh, quite. I've used them everywhere. They undertake a specific kind of engineering, I gather, on those parts of the brain dealing with language. The pill itself contains all sorts of ingredients — but entirely biological, I'm sure. See how well I speak 
your
 language!"

Mrs. Persson turned her eyes upon the Lat. "Could they give us any more information than Inspector Springer?"

"Probably not," said Jherek. "They were all ejected at about the same time."

"I think we'll keep the pill, therefore, for emergencies."

"Forgive me," said Mrs. Underwood, "if I seem insistent, but I should like to know our chances of returning to our own periods of history."

"Very poor, in your own case, Mrs. Underwood," said Captain Bastable. "I speak from experience.

You have a choice — inhabit some period of your future, or 'return' to a present which could be radically changed, virtually unrecognizable. Our instruments have been picking up all kinds of disruptions, fluctuations, random eddies on the megaflow which suggest that heavier than usual distortions and re-creations are occurring. The multiversal planes are moving into some sort of conjunction —"

"It's the Conjunction of the Million Spheres," said Mrs. Persson. "You've heard of it?"

Jherek and Mrs. Underwood shook their heads.

"There's a theory that the conjunction comes when too much random activity occurs in the multiverse. It suggests that the multiverse is, in fact, finite — that it can only sustain so many continua — and when the maximum number of continua is attained, a complete re-organization takes place. The multiverse puts its house in order, as it were." Mrs. Persson began to leave the room. "Would you care to see some of our operations?"

Inspector Springer continued to sulk and the Lat were still far too embarrassed to move, so Amelia Underwood and Jherek Carnelian followed their hosts down a short connecting tunnel and into a room filled with particularly large screens on which brilliantly coloured display models shifted through three dimensions. The most remarkable was an eight-arrowed wheel, constantly altering its size and shape. A short, swarthy, bearded man sat at the console below this screen; occasionally he would extend a moody finger and make an adjustment.

"Good evening, Sergeant Glogauer." Captain Bastable bent over the bearded man's shoulder and stared at the instruments. "Any changes?"

"Chronoflows three, four and six are showing considerable abnormal activity," said the sergeant. "It corresponds with Faustaff's information, but it contradicts his automatic reconstitution theory. Look at number five prong!" he pointed to the screen. "And that's only measuring crude. We can't plot the paradox factors on this machine — not that there would be any point in trying at the rate they're multiplying. That kind of proliferation is going on everywhere. It's a wonder 
we're
 not affected by it.