The End of All Songs

18. In Which Truths are Revealed and Certain Relationships are Defined

A burst of red, flickering light threw the figure of the time-traveller (for it was he) into silhouette. The city gibbered for a moment, as if, in its senility, it had just become aware of danger. Voices began to sound from a variety of places as memory banks were activated, one by another. The near querulous babble became quite disturbing before it subsided. Amelia's kiss at length betrayed awareness of her surroundings, of an observer. Their lips withdrew, they smiled and shared a glance, and then they moved their heads to acknowledge the time-traveller, who waited, nonchalantly studying some detail of a lichen-covered structure, until they had finished.

"Forgive us," said Jherek, "but with the uncertainty of our future…"

"Of course, of course." The time-traveller had not heard Jherek's words. He waved an airy hand. "I must admit I did not know if — phew — you'll never believe the devil of a job I had to get those passengers back before coming on here. It couldn't be more than a couple of hours, eh? A pretty fine balance. Has everyone else turned up?"

Jherek could tell by Amelia's expression that she disapproved of the time-traveller's insouciance. "The world ends, did you know, sir? In a matter of minutes, we gather."

"Um." He nodded an acknowledgement but did not judge the statement interesting.

"The Duke of Queens is here." Jherek wondered at a sudden fresh breeze bearing the scent of hyacinths. He sought the source, but the breeze subsided. "And Yusharisp, from space, and Inspector Springer, and Lord Mongrove, and Captain Mubbers and the rest."

Almost blankly, the time-traveller frowned. "No, no — Society people I mean."

"Society?" enquired Mrs. Underwood, for the moment back in Bromley. Then she realized his meaning. "The Guild! They are due here? They hope to save something of the world?"

"We arranged a meeting. This seemed the most convenient spot. On an ordinary course one can, after all, go no further!" The time-traveller walked the few yards to where his large and somewhat battered machine rested, its crystalline parts smouldering with dark, shifting colours, its brass reflecting the red light from the city. "Heaven knows what damage this jockeying about has done to my machine. It was never properly tested, you see. My main reason for being here is to get information from some Guild member, both as regards the obtaining of spare parts and so that I may, with luck, get back into my own universe." He tapped the ebony framework. "There's a crack there that will last no more than another couple of long journeys."

"You do not come to witness the End of the World, then?" Jherek wished that his power-rings were working and that he could make himself a warmer coat. He felt a chill enter his bones.

"Oh, no, Mr. Carnelian! I've seen that more than once!" The time-traveller was amused. "This is merely a convenient 'time-mark', if you take my meaning."

"But you could rescue Inspector Springer and his men, and my husband — take them back, surely?" Mrs. Underwood said. "You did, after all, bring them here."

"Well, I suppose that morally I have contributed to their predicament. However, the Home Secretary requisitioned my machine. I was unwilling to use it. Indeed, Mrs. Underwood, I was intimidated. I never thought to hear such threats from the lips of British Civil Servants! And it was Lord Jagged who gave me away. I was working in secret. Of course, recognizing him, I confided something of my research to him."

"You recognized Lord Jagged?"

"As a fellow time-traveller, yes."

"So he is still in the nineteenth century!"

"He was. He vanished shortly after I was contacted by the Home Secretary. I think initially he had hoped to requisition my machine for his own use, and took advantage of his acquaintance with various members of the government. His own machine had failed him, you see."

"Yet he was no longer in 1896 when you left?" Jherek became eager for news of his friend's safety. "Do you know where he went?"

"He had some theory he wanted to test. Time-travel without machinery. I thought it dangerous and told him as much. I don't know what he was plotting. I must say I didn't care for the fellow. An unhealthy sort of chap. Too full of himself. And he did me no good, involving me in his complicated schemes, as he did."

Jherek would not listen to this criticism. "You do not know him well. He has been a great help to me on more than one occasion."

"Oh, I'm sure he has his virtues, but they are of the proud sort, the egocentric sort. He plays at God, and that's what I can't abide. You meet the odd time-traveller like that. Generally speaking, they come to a sticky end."

"You think Lord Jagged is dead, then?" Mrs. Underwood asked him.

"More than likely."

Jherek was grateful for the hand she slipped into his. "I believe this sensation must be very close to the 'fear' you were talking about, Amelia. Or is it 'grief', I wonder?"

She became remorseful. "Ah, it is my fault. I teach you of nothing but pain. I have robbed you of your simple joyfulness!"

He was surprised. "If joy flees, Amelia, it is in the face of experience. I love you. And it seems there is a price to pay for that ecstasy I feel."

"Price! You never mentioned such things before. You accepted the good and had no understanding of the evil." She spoke in an undertone, conscious of the time-traveller's proximity.

Jherek raised her hand to his lips, kissing the clenched fingers. "Amelia, I mourn for Jagged, and perhaps my mother, too. There is no question…"

"I became emotional," she said. "It is hard to know whether such a state of mind is suitable to the occasion…" And she laughed, though her eyes blinked at tears. She cleared her throat. "Yes, this is mere hysteria. However, not knowing if death is a heartbeat hence or if we are to be saved…"

He drew her to him. He kissed her eyes. Very quickly, then, she recovered herself, contemplating the city with a worried, unhappy gaze.

The city had every appearance of decline, and Jherek himself no longer believed the assurances he had given her, that the changes in it were merely superficial. Where once it had been possible to see for distances of almost a mile, down vistas of statuary and buildings, now there was only sufficient light (and that luridly unpleasant) to see a hundred yards or so. He began to entertain thoughts of begging the time-traveller to rescue them, to take them back to 1896, to risk the dangers of the Morphail Effect (which, anyway, did not seem to operate so savagely upon them as it did upon others).

"All that sunshine," she said. "It was false, as I told you. There was no real sun ever in your sky — only that which the cities made for you. They kept a shell burning and this barren cinder of a planet turning about it. Your whole world, Jherek, it was a lie!"

"You are too critical, Amelia. Man has an instinct to sustain his own environment. The cities were created in response to that instinct. They served it well."

Her mood changed. She started away from him. "It is so cruel that they should fail us now."

"Amelia…" he moved to follow.

It was then that the sphere appeared, without warning, a short distance from the time-traveller's "Chronomnibus". It was black, and distorted images of the surrounding city could be seen in its gleaming hull.

Jherek joined her and together they watched as a hatch whirled and two black-clad figures emerged, pushing back their breathing-apparatus and goggles to become recognizable as Mrs. Una Persson and Captain Oswald Bastable.

Captain Bastable smiled as he saw them. "So you did arrive safely. Excellent."

The time-traveller approached, shaking hands with the young captain. "Glad you were able to keep the rendezvous, old man. How do you do, Mrs. Persson? How pleasant to see you again."

Captain Bastable was in high spirits. "This should be worth witnessing, eh?"

"You have not been present at the end before?"

"No, indeed!"

"I was hoping that you could give me some advice."

"Of course, if we can help. But the man you really need is Lord Jagged. It was he who —"

"He is not here." The time-traveller placed both hands in the pockets of his Norfolk. "There is some doubt that he survives."

Una Persson shook out her short hair. She glanced idly around as a building seemed to dance a few feet towards her and then collapsed in on itself, rather like a concertina. "I've never much cared for these places. Is this Tanelorn?"

"Shanalorm, I think." Jherek held back, though he was desperate for news of his friend.

"Even the names are confusing. Will it take long?"

Believing that he interpreted her question, Jherek told her: "Mongrove estimates a matter of moments. He says the very planet crumbles."

Mrs. Persson sighed and rubbed at a weary eye. "We have Shifter co-ordinates which require working out, Captain Bastable. The conditions are so good. Such a pity to waste —"

"The information we stand to gain…" Evidently Captain Bastable had wanted to keep this appointment more than had she. He shrugged apologetically. "It isn't every day we have the chance to see something as interesting…"

She gestured with a gauntleted hand. "True. Pay no attention to me. I'm not quite recovered."

"I am trying to get back to my own universe," began the time-traveller. "It was suggested to me that you could help, that you have experience of such problems."

"It's a matter of intersections," she told him. "That was why I wanted to concentrate on the Shifter. Conditions are excellent."

"You can still help?"

"Hopefully." She did not seem ready to discuss the matter. Politely, yet reluctantly, the time-traveller checked his eagerness and became silent.

"You are all taking this situation very casually." Amelia Underwood cast a critical eye over the little group. "Even selfishly. There is a possibility that at least some of those here could be evacuated, taken back through time. Have you no sense of the import — of the tragedy taking place. All the aspirations of our race vanishing as if they had never existed!"

Una Persson seemed to express a certain weary kindness when she replied. "That is, Mrs. Underwood, a somewhat melodramatic interpretation…"

"Mrs. Persson, the situation seems to be rather more than 'melodramatic'. This is extinction!"

"For some, possibly."

"Not for you time-travellers, perhaps. Will you make no effort to help others?"

Mrs. Persson did her best to stifle a yawn. "I think our perspectives must be very different, Mrs. Underwood. I assure you that I am not without a social conscience, but when you have experienced so much, on such a scale, as we have experienced, issues take on a different colouring. Besides, I do not think— Good heavens! What is that?"

They all followed her gaze towards a low line of ruins; recently crumbled. In the semi-darkness there bobbed, apparently along the top of the ruins, a procession of about a dozen objects, roughly dome-shaped. They were immediately familiar to Jherek and Amelia as the helmets of Inspector Springer's constables. They heard the faint sound of a whistle.

Within a few seconds, as a break appeared in the ruins, it was apparent to all that they witnessed a chase. The Lat were attempting to escape their captors. Their little pear-shaped bodies scuttled rapidly over the fallen masonry, but Springer's men were not far behind. They could hear the cries of the Lat and the police quite clearly now.

"Hrunt mibix ferkit!"

"Stop! Stop in the name of the law! Collar 'im, Weech!"

The Lat stumbled and fell, but managed to keep ahead of their pursuers, for all that most of them, save Captain Mubbers and perhaps Rokfrug, still wore handcuffs.

The whistles shrilled again. There was a great waving of truncheons. The Lat disappeared from view, but emerged again not far from Mrs. Persson's time-sphere, saw the group of humans and hesitated before dodging off in the opposite direction.

The policemen, who would remain solidly conscious of their duty until the Crack of Doom sounded at last, and the very ground fell away from beneath their pounding boots, continued implacably after their prey.

Soon both Lat and police were out of sight and earshot again, and the conversation could resume.

Mrs. Persson lost something of her weary manner and seemed amused by the incident. "I had no idea there were others here! Were not those the aliens we sent on? I would have thought that they would have left the planet by now."

"They wanted to loot and rape everything first," Jherek explained. "But then the Pweelians stopped them. The Pweelians seem to take pleasure in stopping almost everyone from doing almost everything! This is their hour of triumph, I suppose. They have waited for it for a long time, of course, so it seems niggardly to criticize…"

"You mean there is still another race of space-travellers in the city?" Captain Bastable asked.

"Yes. The Pweelians, as I said. They have some sort of plan for survival. But I did not find it agreeable. The Duke of Queens…"

"He is here!" Mrs. Persson brightened. Captain Bastable frowned a little circumspectly to himself.

"You know the Duke?"

"Oh, we are old friends."

"And Lord Mongrove?"

"I have heard of him," said Mrs. Persson, "but I have never had the pleasure of meeting him. However, if there is an opportunity…"

"I should be delighted to introduce you. Always assuming that this little oasis, as Mongrove called it, doesn't disintegrate before I have the chance."

"Mr. Carnelian!" Amelia tugged at his sleeve. "I would remind you that this is no time for social chat. We must attempt to prevail upon these people to rescue as many of those here as is possible!"

"I was forgetting. It is so nice to know that Mrs. Persson is a friend of the Duke of Queens. Do you not think, dearest Amelia, that we should try to find him. He would be glad to resume the acquaintance, I am sure!"

Mrs. Amelia Underwood shrugged her beautiful shoulders and sighed a really rather shallow sigh. She was beginning to lose interest, it seemed, in the whole business.