"Oh, you are too doleful, all of you. It is merely a question of attitude." Lord Jagged stretched his left hand out before him and with his right he began to twist a ruby, staring into the sky the while, still half-conscious of his audience.
Overhead there appeared what might have been a small, twinkling star; but it was already growing. It became a fiery comet, turning the stark landscape jet black and glaring white. It grew again and it was a sun illuminating the featureless world for as far as their wincing eyes could see.
"That will do, I think." Jagged was quietly satisfied. "The conventional orbit." Another touch of the same ring. "And a turning world."
Amelia murmured: "You are the Master Conjuror, dear Lord Jagged. A veritable Mephistopheles. Is that sun the size of the old one?"
"A trifle smaller, but it is all we need."
"Skree," said Yusharisp in alarm, all his eyes slitted to resist the glare. "Skree, skree, skree!"
Jagged chose to take the remark as a compliment. "Just a simple beginning or two," he murmured modestly. He swirled the great yellow cloak about him. He touched another ring and the glare became less blinding, diffused as it was, now, by the shimmering atmosphere existing everywhere beyond the city. The sky became a greenish blue and the white landscape, with its deep, black fissures, became a dull grey, seamed with brown cracks; yet still it stretched to every horizon.
"How unsightly is our Earth without its images." The Iron Orchid was disdainful.
As if apologizing for it, Jagged said: "It is a very old planet, my dear. But you must all regard it as a new canvas. Everything you wish for can be re-created. New scenes can be created, just as it has always been. Rest assured that the cities will not fail us."
"So Judgement Day is resisted, after all." The time-traveller had his head on one side as he looked, with new eyes, at Lord Jagged of Canaria. "I congratulate you, sir. You command enormous power, it seems."
"I borrow the power," said Jagged, to him, his voice soft. "It comes from the cities."
CPS Shushurup cried: "It cannot be real! This man confounds us with an illusion (skree)!"
Lord Jagged affected not to hear him and turned, instead, to Mrs. Persson who watched him, her expression analytical. "The cities conserved their energies because I need them for what, I am confident, will be a successful experiment. Of course, not everyone will consider my plan a perfect one, but it is a beginning. It is what I mentioned to you, Mrs. Persson."
"It is why we are here." Her smile was for Captain Bastable. "To see if it should work. Certainly I am convinced by the preliminaries."
The huge and healthy sun shone down on them all, its light spreading through the city, casting great, mellow shadows. The city continued to throb quietly and steadily; an engine waiting to be used.
"It's extremely impressive, sir," said Bastable. "When do you intend to make the loop?"
"In about a month."
"You cannot," said Mrs. Persson, "sustain this state indefinitely?"
"It would be preferable, of course, but uneconomic."
They shared amusement.
CPS Shushurup waddled up, waving a leg. "Do not let (skree) yourselves be (roar) convinced by this (skree) illusion. For (roar) illusion is all that it is!"
Lord Jagged said mildly: "It depends, does it not, upon your interpretation of the word 'illusion'? It is a warming sun, a breathable atmosphere, the planet turns on its orbit, it circles that sun."
Yusharisp joined the Chief Public Servant. The bright sunlight emphasized the warts and blotches on his little round body. "It is illusion (skree), Lord Jagged, because (roar) it cannot last the (yelp) disintegration (skree) of the universe!"
"I think it will, Mr. Yusharisp." Lord Jagged made to address his son, but the Pweelians refused to content themselves with his answer.
"Energy (skree) is needed to produce (roar) such 'miracles' — you will (skree) agree to that?"
Lord Jagged inclined his head.
"There must (roar) therefore be a source (skree) — perhaps a planet (skree) or two which (yelp) have escaped the (skree) catastrophe. That source (roar) will he used up soon (yelp) enough!"
It seemed that Lord Jagged of Canaria spoke to everyone but his questioner. He retained the same mild, but slightly icy, expression. "I fear that you cannot draw satisfaction even from that idea, my dear Yusharisp. Morals may be drawn, but by a more liberal intelligence."
"Morals (skree)! You know (roar) nothing of such (yelp) things!"
Lord Jagged continued to speak to them all, now more directly than before. "Such is the character of one prone to morbid anxiety that he would rather experience the worst of things than hope for the best. It is a particular and puritanical mentality, and one to which I can respond with scant sympathy. Why have such conclusions been drawn? Because that kind of mentality would prefer to bring on catastrophe rather than live forever in fear of its possibility . Suicide rather than uncertainty."
"You are not (roar) suggesting that (skree) this problem was merely (yelp) in our own (skree) minds, Lord Jagged?" Again the strange, mechanical laughter from CPS Shushurup.
"Was it not the people of Pweeli who took it upon themselves to spread the bad news throughout the galaxy? Did you not preach your despair wherever you could find hearers? The facts were plain enough to all, but your response to them was scarcely positive. Therefore, yes — to some degree the problem was merely in your own minds. You have not investigated all the possibilities. Your case depends, for one thing, upon a firm belief in a finite universe, with finite resources. However, as the time-traveller here will tell you and as Mrs. Persson and Captain Bastable will confirm, the universe is not finite."
"Words (skree) and nothing more…"
The time-traveller spoke earnestly. "I may not agree with Lord Jagged in most things, but he speaks the truth. There are a multiplicity of dimensions to the universe which you, Mrs. Persson, refer to I believe as 'the multiverse'. This is merely one such dimension, although, indeed, all experience the same fate as this one, but not simultaneously."
Lord Jagged acknowledged the time-traveller's support. "Therefore, by drawing its resources from any part of the multiverse at any point in time — which will not be a parallel point — this planet can be sustained forever, if need be."
"The notion (yelp) is quite without foundation," said Yusharisp dismissively.
Lord Jagged drew his high collar about his face and stretched an elegant hand towards the sun. "There is my proof, gentlemen."
"Illusion," said Yusharisp obstinately, "(yelp)."
"Pseudo-science (skree)," agreed Shushurup.
Lord Jagged made an acquiescent gesture and would respond no more, but Mrs. Persson remained sympathetic to the aliens in their great distress. "We have discovered," she said gently, "that the 'real' universe is infinite. Infinite, timeless and still. It is a tranquil pool which will reflect any image we conceive."
"Meta(skree)physical poppy(roar)cock!"
Captain Bastable came to her aid. "It is we who populate the universe with what we call Time and Matter. Our intelligence moulds it; our activities give it detail. If, sometimes, we imprison ourselves, it is perhaps because our humanity is at fault, or our logic…"
"How can we (skree) take seriously such notions?" Yusharisp's many eyes blinked contemptuously. "You people make a playground of the universe and justify your actions with arguments so (roar) preposterous that no (skree) intelligent being (yelp) could believe them for a moment. You deceive (skree) yourselves so that you may (yelp) remain unembarrassed by any morality…"
Lord Jagged seemed more languid than ever and his voice was sleepy. "The infinite universe is just that, Yusharisp. It is all a playground." He paused. "To 'take it seriously' is to demean it."
"You will (roar) not respect the very stuff of (skree) life?"
"To respect it is quite another thing to 'taking it seriously'."
"There is (skree) no difference!" The alien was smug; his comrades seemed to congratulate him.
"Ah," said Lord Jagged, his smile small. "You emphasize the very difference in our viewpoints, by insisting on this difference."
"Bah (skree)!" Yusharisp glowered.
As if apologizing for his one-time friend, Lord Mongrove droned: "I think he is upset because he places such importance on the destruction of the universe. Its end confirmed his moral understanding of things. I felt much as he did, at one stage. But now I grow weary of the ideas."
"Turn(yelp)coat!" said CPS Shushurup. "It was on your invitation (skree) Lord Mongrove that (yelp) we came (skree) here!"
"There was surely nowhere else to go." Mongrove was faintly astonished. "This is, after all, the only bit of matter left in the universe."
With dignity, CPS Shushurup raised an admonishing hand (or foot). "Come, Yusharisp, fellow Pweelians. There is (skree) no more use in (roar) trying to do (yelp) anything (roar) more for these fools!" The entire deputation, the Last of the Pweelians, began to waddle back in single-file into their unwholesome spacecraft.
Mongrove, remorseful, made to follow. "Dear friends — fellow intelligences — do nothing drastic, please…" But the hatch squelched shut in his melancholy face and he uttered a lugubrious sigh. The ship did not take-off. It remained exactly where it had landed, in silent accusation. Moodily Mongrove began to pick at a piece of mould on its surface. "Oh, this is truly a Hell for the serious-minded!"
Inspector Springer removed his bowler hat to wipe his forehead in a characteristic gesture. "It 'as become rather warm, sir, all of a sudden. Nice to see the sun again, though, I suppose." He turned to his sweltering men. "You can loosen your collars, lads, if you wish. 'E's quite right. As 'ot as 'ell. I'm beginning to believe it meself." The constables began to unbutton the tops of their tunics. One or two went so far as to remove their helmets and were not admonished.
A moment later, Inspector Springer removed his jacket.
"And the preliminaries are now complete. There is a sun, an atmosphere, the planet revolves." Una Persson's words were clipped as she spoke to Lord Jagged.
Lord Jagged had been lost in thought. He raised his eyes and smiled. "Ah, yes. As I said. They are over. The rest must be dealt with later, when I activate my equipment."
"You said you are certain of success." The time-traveller was cool, still critical. He was not disposed to support Lord Jagged's view of himself. "The experiment seems somewhat grandiose to me."
Lord Jagged accepted the criticism. "I make no claims, sir. The technology is not of my invention, as I said. But it will do its job, with Nurse's help."
"You will re-cycle Time!" exclaimed Captain Bastable. "I do hope we can return in order to witness that stage of the experiment."
"It will be safe enough, during the first week," said Jagged.
"Is that how you intend to preserve the planet, Jagged?" Jherek asked in excitement. "To use the equipment I found in the Nursery?"
"It is similar equipment, though more complex. It should preserve our world for eternity. I shall make a loop of a seven-day period. Once made, it will be inviolable. The cities will become self-perpetuating; there will be no threats either from Time or from Space, for the world will be closed off, re-living the same seven days over and over again."
"We shall re-live the same short period for eternity?" The Duke of Queens shook his head. "I must say, Jagged, that your scheme has no more attraction than Yusharisp's."
Lord Jagged was grave. "If you are conscious of what is happening, then you will not repeat your actions during that period. But the time will remain the same, even though it seems to change."
"We shall not be trapped — condemned to a mere week of activity which we shall not be able to alter?"
"I think not." Lord Jagged looked out across the miles and miles of wasteland. "Ordinary life, as we know it at the End of Time, can continue as it has always done. The Nursery itself was deliberately limited — a kind of temporal deep-freeze to preserve the children."
"How quickly one would become bored, if one had the merest hint that that was happening." The Iron Orchid did her best to hide any anxiety she might display.
"Again, it is a question of attitudes, my dear. Is the prisoner a prisoner because he lives in a cage or because he knows that he lives in a cage?"
"Oh, I shall not attempt to discuss such things!"
He spoke fondly. "And there, my dear, lies your salvation." He embraced her. "And now there is one more thing I must do here. The equipment must be supplied with energy."
While they watched, he walked a little way into the city and stood looking about him. His pose was at once studied and casual. Then he seemed to come to a decision and placed the palm of his right hand across all the rings on his left.
The city gave out one high, almost triumphant, yell. There came a pounding roar as every building shook itself. Blue and crimson light blended in a brilliant aura overhead, blotting the sun. Then a deep sound, comforting and powerful, issued from the very core of the planet. There was a rustling from the city, familiar murmurings, the squeak of some half-mechanical creature.
Then the aura began to grow dim and Jagged became tense, as if he feared that the city could not, after all, supply the energy for his experiment.
There came a whining noise. The aura grew strong again and formed a dome-shaped cap hovering a hundred feet or more over the whole of the city. Then Lord Jagged of Canaria seemed to relax, and when he turned back to them there was a suggestion of self-congratulation in his features.
Amelia Underwood was the first to speak as he returned. "Ah, Mephistopheles. Are you capable, now, of creation?"
He was flattered by the reference this time. He shared a private glance. "What's this, Mrs. Underwood? Manicheanism?"
"Oh, dear! Perhaps!" A hand went to her mouth, but she parodied herself.
He added: "I cannot create a world, Amelia, but I can revive an existing one, bring the dead to life. And perhaps I once hoped to populate another world. Oh, you are right to think me prideful. It could be my undoing."
On Jagged's right, from behind a gleaming ruin of gold and steel, came Harold Underwood and Sergeant Sherwood. They sweated, both, but seemed unaware of the heat. Mr. Underwood indicated the sunny sky, the blue aura. "See Sergeant Sherwood, how they tempt us now." He pushed his pince-nez more firmly onto his nose as he approached Lord Jagged who towered over him, his extra height given emphasis by his face-framing collar. "Did I hear right, sir?" said Mr. Underwood. "Did my wife — perhaps my ex-wife, I am not sure — refer to you by a certain name?"
Lord Jagged, smiling, bowed.
"Ha!" said Harold Underwood, satisfied. "I must congratulate you, I suppose, on the quality of your illusions, the variety of your temptations, the subtlety of your torments. This present illusion, for instance, could well deceive some. What seemed to be Hell now resembles Heaven. Thus, you tempted Christ, on the mountain."
Even Lord Jagged was nonplussed. "The reference was a joking one, Mr. Underwood…"
"Satan's jokes are always clever. Happily, I have the example of my Saviour. Therefore, I bid you good-day, Son of the Morning. You may have claimed my soul, but you shall never own it. I trust you are thwarted as often as possible in your machinations."
"Um…" said Lord Jagged.
Harold Underwood and Sergeant Sherwood began to head towards the interior, but not before Harold had addressed his wife: "You are doubtless already Satan's slave, Amelia. Yet I know we can still be saved, if we are genuinely repentant and believe in the Salvation of Christ. Be wary of all this, Amelia. It is merely a semblance of life."
"Very convincing, on the surface, though, isn't it, sir?" said Sergeant Sherwood.
"He is the Master Deceiver, Sergeant."
"I suppose 'e is, sir."
"But —" Harold flung an arm around his disciple — "I was right in one thing, eh? I said we should meet Him eventually."
Amelia sucked at her lower lip. "He is quite mad, Jherek. What should we do for him? Can he be sent back to Bromley?"
"He seems very much at ease here, Amelia. Perhaps so long as he receives regular meals which the city, after all, can be programmed to provide, he could stay here with Sergeant Sherwood."
"I should not like to abandon him."
"We can come and visit him from time to time."
She remained dubious. "It has not quite impinged upon me," she said, "that it is not the end of the world!"
"Have you ever seen him more relaxed?"
"Never. Very well, let him stay here, for the moment at least, in his — his Eternal Damnation." She uttered a peculiar laugh.
Inspector Springer approached Lord Jagged with due deference. "So things are more or less back to normal then, are they sir?"
"More or less, Inspector."
Inspector Springer sucked at a tooth. "Then I suppose we'd better get on with the job then, sir. Roundin' up the suspects and that…"
"Most of them are in the clear now, Inspector."
"The Latvians, Lord Jagged?"
"I suppose you could arrest them, yes."
"Very good, sir." Inspector Springer saluted and returned his attention to his twelve constables. "All right, lads. Back on duty again. What's Sherwood up to? Better give 'im a blast on your whistle, Reilly, see if 'e answers." He mopped his forehead. "This is a very peculiar place. If I was a dreamin' man, I'd be 'alf inclined to think I was in the middle of a bloomin' nightmare. Har, har!" The answering laughter of some of his men as they plodded behind him was almost hollow.
Una Persson glanced at one of several instruments attached to her arm. "I congratulate you, Lord Jagged. The first stages are a great success. We hope to be able to return to witness the completion."
"I would be honoured, Mrs. Persson."
"Forgive me, now, if I get back to my machine. Captain Bastable…"
Bastable hovered, evidently reluctant to go.
"Captain Bastable, we really must —"
He became attentive. "Of course, Mrs. Persson. The Shifter and so forth." He waved a cheerful hand to them all. "It's been an enormous pleasure. And thank you so much, Lord Jagged, for the privilege…"
"Not at all."
"I suppose, unless we do return just before the loop is finally made, we shall not be able to meet —"
"Come along, Oswald!" Mrs. Persson was marching through the mellow sunshine to where they had left their machine.
"Oh, I don't know." Lord Jagged waved in reply. "A pleasant journey to you."
"Thanks most awfully, again."
"Captain Bastable!"
"— because of the drawbacks you mentioned," shouted Bastable breathlessly, and ran to join his co-chrononaut.
When they had gone, Amelia Underwood looked almost suspiciously at the man Jherek one day hoped to make her father-in-law. "The world is definitely saved, is it, Lord Jagged?"
"Oh, definitely. The cities have ample energy. The time-loop, when it is made, will re-cycle that energy. Jherek has told you of his adventures in the Nursery. You understand the principle."
"Sufficiently, I hope. But Captain Bastable spoke of drawbacks."
"I see." Lord Jagged pulled his cloak about him. Now Mongrove and the Duke of Queens, the time-traveller and the Iron Orchid, Jherek and Amelia were all that remained of his audience. He spoke more naturally. "Not for all, Amelia, those drawbacks. After a short period of readjustment, say a month, in which Nurse and I will test our equipment until we are satisfied with its functioning, the world will be in a perpetually closed circuit, with both past and future abolished. A single planet turning about a single sun will be all that remains of this universe. It will mean, therefore, that both time-travel and space-travel will be impossible. The drawback will be (for many of us) that there is no longer any intercourse between our world of the End of Time and other worlds."
"That is all?"
"It will mean much to some."
"To me!" groaned the Duke of Queens. "I do wish you had told me, Jagged. I'd hoped to re-stock my menagerie." He looked speculatively at the Pweelian spaceship. He fingered a power-ring.
"A few time-travellers may yet arrive, before the loop is made," comforted Jagged. "Besides, doleful Duke, your creative instincts will be fulfilled for a while, I am sure, by helping in the resurrection of all our old friends. There are dozens. Argonheart Po…"
"Bishop Castle. My Lady Charlotina. Mistress Christia. Sweet Orb Mace. O'Kala Incarnadine. Doctor Volospion." The Duke brightened.
"The long-established time-travellers, like Li Pao, may also still he here — or will re-appear, thanks to the Morphail Effect."
"I thought you had proved that a fallacy, Lord Jagged." Mongrove spoke with interest.
"I have proved it a Law — but not the only Law — of Time."
"We shall resurrect Brannart and tell him!" said the Iron Orchid.
Amelia was frowning. "So the planet will be completely isolated, for eternity, in time and space."
"Exactly," said Jagged.
"Life will continue as it has always done," said the Duke of Queens. "Who shall you resurrect first, Mongrove?"
"Werther de Goethe, I suppose. He is no real fellow spirit, but he will do for the moment." The giant cast a glance back at the Pweelian spaceship as he began to move his great bulk forward. "Though it will be a travesty, of course."
"What do you mean, melancholy Mongrove?" The Duke of Queens turned a power-ring to rid himself of his uniform and replace it with brilliant multicoloured feathers from head to foot, a coxcomb in place of his hair.
"A travesty of life. This will be a stagnant planet, forever cycling a stagnant sun. A stagnant society, without progress or past. Can you not see it, Duke of Queens? Shall we have been spared death only to become the living dead, dancing forever to the same stale measures?"
The Duke of Queens was amused. "I congratulate you, Lord Mongrove. You have found an image with which to distress yourself. I admire your alacrity!"
Lord Mongrove licked his large lips and wrinkled his great nose. "Ah, mock me, as you always mock me — as you all mock me. And why not? I am a fool! I should have stayed out there, in space, while suns flickered and faded and whole planets exploded and became dust. Why remain here, after all, a maggot amongst maggots?"
"Oh, Mongrove, your gloom is of the finest!" Lord Jagged congratulated him. "Come — you must all be my guests at Castle Canaria!"
"Your castle survives, Jagged?" Jherek asked, putting his arm round his Amelia's waist.
"As a memory, swiftly restored to reality — as shall be the entire society at the End of Time. That is what I meant, Amelia, when I told you that memories would suffice."
She smiled a little bleakly. She had been listening intently to Mongrove's forebodings. It took some little while before she could rid herself of her thoughts and laugh with the others as they said farewell to the time-traveller, who intended, now that he had certain information from Mrs. Persson, to make repairs to his craft and return to his own world if he could.
The Duke of Queens stood on the grey, cracked plain and admired his handiwork. It was a great squared-off monster of a vehicle and it bobbed gently in the light wind which stirred the dust at their feet.
"The bulk of it is the gas-container — the large rear-section," he explained to Jherek. "The front is called, I believe, the cab."
"And the whole?"
"From the twentieth century. An articulated truck."
The Iron Orchid sighed as she tripped towards it, gathering up the folds of her wedding dress. "It looks most uncomfortable."
"Not as bad as you'd think," the Duke reassured her. "There is breathing equipment inside the gas-bag."
22. Inventions and Resurrections
Overhead there appeared what might have been a small, twinkling star; but it was already growing. It became a fiery comet, turning the stark landscape jet black and glaring white. It grew again and it was a sun illuminating the featureless world for as far as their wincing eyes could see.
"That will do, I think." Jagged was quietly satisfied. "The conventional orbit." Another touch of the same ring. "And a turning world."
Amelia murmured: "You are the Master Conjuror, dear Lord Jagged. A veritable Mephistopheles. Is that sun the size of the old one?"
"A trifle smaller, but it is all we need."
"Skree," said Yusharisp in alarm, all his eyes slitted to resist the glare. "Skree, skree, skree!"
Jagged chose to take the remark as a compliment. "Just a simple beginning or two," he murmured modestly. He swirled the great yellow cloak about him. He touched another ring and the glare became less blinding, diffused as it was, now, by the shimmering atmosphere existing everywhere beyond the city. The sky became a greenish blue and the white landscape, with its deep, black fissures, became a dull grey, seamed with brown cracks; yet still it stretched to every horizon.
"How unsightly is our Earth without its images." The Iron Orchid was disdainful.
As if apologizing for it, Jagged said: "It is a very old planet, my dear. But you must all regard it as a new canvas. Everything you wish for can be re-created. New scenes can be created, just as it has always been. Rest assured that the cities will not fail us."
"So Judgement Day is resisted, after all." The time-traveller had his head on one side as he looked, with new eyes, at Lord Jagged of Canaria. "I congratulate you, sir. You command enormous power, it seems."
"I borrow the power," said Jagged, to him, his voice soft. "It comes from the cities."
CPS Shushurup cried: "It cannot be real! This man confounds us with an illusion (skree)!"
Lord Jagged affected not to hear him and turned, instead, to Mrs. Persson who watched him, her expression analytical. "The cities conserved their energies because I need them for what, I am confident, will be a successful experiment. Of course, not everyone will consider my plan a perfect one, but it is a beginning. It is what I mentioned to you, Mrs. Persson."
"It is why we are here." Her smile was for Captain Bastable. "To see if it should work. Certainly I am convinced by the preliminaries."
The huge and healthy sun shone down on them all, its light spreading through the city, casting great, mellow shadows. The city continued to throb quietly and steadily; an engine waiting to be used.
"It's extremely impressive, sir," said Bastable. "When do you intend to make the loop?"
"In about a month."
"You cannot," said Mrs. Persson, "sustain this state indefinitely?"
"It would be preferable, of course, but uneconomic."
They shared amusement.
CPS Shushurup waddled up, waving a leg. "Do not let (skree) yourselves be (roar) convinced by this (skree) illusion. For (roar) illusion is all that it is!"
Lord Jagged said mildly: "It depends, does it not, upon your interpretation of the word 'illusion'? It is a warming sun, a breathable atmosphere, the planet turns on its orbit, it circles that sun."
Yusharisp joined the Chief Public Servant. The bright sunlight emphasized the warts and blotches on his little round body. "It is illusion (skree), Lord Jagged, because (roar) it cannot last the (yelp) disintegration (skree) of the universe!"
"I think it will, Mr. Yusharisp." Lord Jagged made to address his son, but the Pweelians refused to content themselves with his answer.
"Energy (skree) is needed to produce (roar) such 'miracles' — you will (skree) agree to that?"
Lord Jagged inclined his head.
"There must (roar) therefore be a source (skree) — perhaps a planet (skree) or two which (yelp) have escaped the (skree) catastrophe. That source (roar) will he used up soon (yelp) enough!"
It seemed that Lord Jagged of Canaria spoke to everyone but his questioner. He retained the same mild, but slightly icy, expression. "I fear that you cannot draw satisfaction even from that idea, my dear Yusharisp. Morals may be drawn, but by a more liberal intelligence."
"Morals (skree)! You know (roar) nothing of such (yelp) things!"
Lord Jagged continued to speak to them all, now more directly than before. "Such is the character of one prone to morbid anxiety that he would rather experience the worst of things than hope for the best. It is a particular and puritanical mentality, and one to which I can respond with scant sympathy. Why have such conclusions been drawn? Because that kind of mentality would prefer to bring on catastrophe rather than live forever in fear of its possibility . Suicide rather than uncertainty."
"You are not (roar) suggesting that (skree) this problem was merely (yelp) in our own (skree) minds, Lord Jagged?" Again the strange, mechanical laughter from CPS Shushurup.
"Was it not the people of Pweeli who took it upon themselves to spread the bad news throughout the galaxy? Did you not preach your despair wherever you could find hearers? The facts were plain enough to all, but your response to them was scarcely positive. Therefore, yes — to some degree the problem was merely in your own minds. You have not investigated all the possibilities. Your case depends, for one thing, upon a firm belief in a finite universe, with finite resources. However, as the time-traveller here will tell you and as Mrs. Persson and Captain Bastable will confirm, the universe is not finite."
"Words (skree) and nothing more…"
The time-traveller spoke earnestly. "I may not agree with Lord Jagged in most things, but he speaks the truth. There are a multiplicity of dimensions to the universe which you, Mrs. Persson, refer to I believe as 'the multiverse'. This is merely one such dimension, although, indeed, all experience the same fate as this one, but not simultaneously."
Lord Jagged acknowledged the time-traveller's support. "Therefore, by drawing its resources from any part of the multiverse at any point in time — which will not be a parallel point — this planet can be sustained forever, if need be."
"The notion (yelp) is quite without foundation," said Yusharisp dismissively.
Lord Jagged drew his high collar about his face and stretched an elegant hand towards the sun. "There is my proof, gentlemen."
"Illusion," said Yusharisp obstinately, "(yelp)."
"Pseudo-science (skree)," agreed Shushurup.
Lord Jagged made an acquiescent gesture and would respond no more, but Mrs. Persson remained sympathetic to the aliens in their great distress. "We have discovered," she said gently, "that the 'real' universe is infinite. Infinite, timeless and still. It is a tranquil pool which will reflect any image we conceive."
"Meta(skree)physical poppy(roar)cock!"
Captain Bastable came to her aid. "It is we who populate the universe with what we call Time and Matter. Our intelligence moulds it; our activities give it detail. If, sometimes, we imprison ourselves, it is perhaps because our humanity is at fault, or our logic…"
"How can we (skree) take seriously such notions?" Yusharisp's many eyes blinked contemptuously. "You people make a playground of the universe and justify your actions with arguments so (roar) preposterous that no (skree) intelligent being (yelp) could believe them for a moment. You deceive (skree) yourselves so that you may (yelp) remain unembarrassed by any morality…"
Lord Jagged seemed more languid than ever and his voice was sleepy. "The infinite universe is just that, Yusharisp. It is all a playground." He paused. "To 'take it seriously' is to demean it."
"You will (roar) not respect the very stuff of (skree) life?"
"To respect it is quite another thing to 'taking it seriously'."
"There is (skree) no difference!" The alien was smug; his comrades seemed to congratulate him.
"Ah," said Lord Jagged, his smile small. "You emphasize the very difference in our viewpoints, by insisting on this difference."
"Bah (skree)!" Yusharisp glowered.
As if apologizing for his one-time friend, Lord Mongrove droned: "I think he is upset because he places such importance on the destruction of the universe. Its end confirmed his moral understanding of things. I felt much as he did, at one stage. But now I grow weary of the ideas."
"Turn(yelp)coat!" said CPS Shushurup. "It was on your invitation (skree) Lord Mongrove that (yelp) we came (skree) here!"
"There was surely nowhere else to go." Mongrove was faintly astonished. "This is, after all, the only bit of matter left in the universe."
With dignity, CPS Shushurup raised an admonishing hand (or foot). "Come, Yusharisp, fellow Pweelians. There is (skree) no more use in (roar) trying to do (yelp) anything (roar) more for these fools!" The entire deputation, the Last of the Pweelians, began to waddle back in single-file into their unwholesome spacecraft.
Mongrove, remorseful, made to follow. "Dear friends — fellow intelligences — do nothing drastic, please…" But the hatch squelched shut in his melancholy face and he uttered a lugubrious sigh. The ship did not take-off. It remained exactly where it had landed, in silent accusation. Moodily Mongrove began to pick at a piece of mould on its surface. "Oh, this is truly a Hell for the serious-minded!"
Inspector Springer removed his bowler hat to wipe his forehead in a characteristic gesture. "It 'as become rather warm, sir, all of a sudden. Nice to see the sun again, though, I suppose." He turned to his sweltering men. "You can loosen your collars, lads, if you wish. 'E's quite right. As 'ot as 'ell. I'm beginning to believe it meself." The constables began to unbutton the tops of their tunics. One or two went so far as to remove their helmets and were not admonished.
A moment later, Inspector Springer removed his jacket.
"And the preliminaries are now complete. There is a sun, an atmosphere, the planet revolves." Una Persson's words were clipped as she spoke to Lord Jagged.
Lord Jagged had been lost in thought. He raised his eyes and smiled. "Ah, yes. As I said. They are over. The rest must be dealt with later, when I activate my equipment."
"You said you are certain of success." The time-traveller was cool, still critical. He was not disposed to support Lord Jagged's view of himself. "The experiment seems somewhat grandiose to me."
Lord Jagged accepted the criticism. "I make no claims, sir. The technology is not of my invention, as I said. But it will do its job, with Nurse's help."
"You will re-cycle Time!" exclaimed Captain Bastable. "I do hope we can return in order to witness that stage of the experiment."
"It will be safe enough, during the first week," said Jagged.
"Is that how you intend to preserve the planet, Jagged?" Jherek asked in excitement. "To use the equipment I found in the Nursery?"
"It is similar equipment, though more complex. It should preserve our world for eternity. I shall make a loop of a seven-day period. Once made, it will be inviolable. The cities will become self-perpetuating; there will be no threats either from Time or from Space, for the world will be closed off, re-living the same seven days over and over again."
"We shall re-live the same short period for eternity?" The Duke of Queens shook his head. "I must say, Jagged, that your scheme has no more attraction than Yusharisp's."
Lord Jagged was grave. "If you are conscious of what is happening, then you will not repeat your actions during that period. But the time will remain the same, even though it seems to change."
"We shall not be trapped — condemned to a mere week of activity which we shall not be able to alter?"
"I think not." Lord Jagged looked out across the miles and miles of wasteland. "Ordinary life, as we know it at the End of Time, can continue as it has always done. The Nursery itself was deliberately limited — a kind of temporal deep-freeze to preserve the children."
"How quickly one would become bored, if one had the merest hint that that was happening." The Iron Orchid did her best to hide any anxiety she might display.
"Again, it is a question of attitudes, my dear. Is the prisoner a prisoner because he lives in a cage or because he knows that he lives in a cage?"
"Oh, I shall not attempt to discuss such things!"
He spoke fondly. "And there, my dear, lies your salvation." He embraced her. "And now there is one more thing I must do here. The equipment must be supplied with energy."
While they watched, he walked a little way into the city and stood looking about him. His pose was at once studied and casual. Then he seemed to come to a decision and placed the palm of his right hand across all the rings on his left.
The city gave out one high, almost triumphant, yell. There came a pounding roar as every building shook itself. Blue and crimson light blended in a brilliant aura overhead, blotting the sun. Then a deep sound, comforting and powerful, issued from the very core of the planet. There was a rustling from the city, familiar murmurings, the squeak of some half-mechanical creature.
Then the aura began to grow dim and Jagged became tense, as if he feared that the city could not, after all, supply the energy for his experiment.
There came a whining noise. The aura grew strong again and formed a dome-shaped cap hovering a hundred feet or more over the whole of the city. Then Lord Jagged of Canaria seemed to relax, and when he turned back to them there was a suggestion of self-congratulation in his features.
Amelia Underwood was the first to speak as he returned. "Ah, Mephistopheles. Are you capable, now, of creation?"
He was flattered by the reference this time. He shared a private glance. "What's this, Mrs. Underwood? Manicheanism?"
"Oh, dear! Perhaps!" A hand went to her mouth, but she parodied herself.
He added: "I cannot create a world, Amelia, but I can revive an existing one, bring the dead to life. And perhaps I once hoped to populate another world. Oh, you are right to think me prideful. It could be my undoing."
On Jagged's right, from behind a gleaming ruin of gold and steel, came Harold Underwood and Sergeant Sherwood. They sweated, both, but seemed unaware of the heat. Mr. Underwood indicated the sunny sky, the blue aura. "See Sergeant Sherwood, how they tempt us now." He pushed his pince-nez more firmly onto his nose as he approached Lord Jagged who towered over him, his extra height given emphasis by his face-framing collar. "Did I hear right, sir?" said Mr. Underwood. "Did my wife — perhaps my ex-wife, I am not sure — refer to you by a certain name?"
Lord Jagged, smiling, bowed.
"Ha!" said Harold Underwood, satisfied. "I must congratulate you, I suppose, on the quality of your illusions, the variety of your temptations, the subtlety of your torments. This present illusion, for instance, could well deceive some. What seemed to be Hell now resembles Heaven. Thus, you tempted Christ, on the mountain."
Even Lord Jagged was nonplussed. "The reference was a joking one, Mr. Underwood…"
"Satan's jokes are always clever. Happily, I have the example of my Saviour. Therefore, I bid you good-day, Son of the Morning. You may have claimed my soul, but you shall never own it. I trust you are thwarted as often as possible in your machinations."
"Um…" said Lord Jagged.
Harold Underwood and Sergeant Sherwood began to head towards the interior, but not before Harold had addressed his wife: "You are doubtless already Satan's slave, Amelia. Yet I know we can still be saved, if we are genuinely repentant and believe in the Salvation of Christ. Be wary of all this, Amelia. It is merely a semblance of life."
"Very convincing, on the surface, though, isn't it, sir?" said Sergeant Sherwood.
"He is the Master Deceiver, Sergeant."
"I suppose 'e is, sir."
"But —" Harold flung an arm around his disciple — "I was right in one thing, eh? I said we should meet Him eventually."
Amelia sucked at her lower lip. "He is quite mad, Jherek. What should we do for him? Can he be sent back to Bromley?"
"He seems very much at ease here, Amelia. Perhaps so long as he receives regular meals which the city, after all, can be programmed to provide, he could stay here with Sergeant Sherwood."
"I should not like to abandon him."
"We can come and visit him from time to time."
She remained dubious. "It has not quite impinged upon me," she said, "that it is not the end of the world!"
"Have you ever seen him more relaxed?"
"Never. Very well, let him stay here, for the moment at least, in his — his Eternal Damnation." She uttered a peculiar laugh.
Inspector Springer approached Lord Jagged with due deference. "So things are more or less back to normal then, are they sir?"
"More or less, Inspector."
Inspector Springer sucked at a tooth. "Then I suppose we'd better get on with the job then, sir. Roundin' up the suspects and that…"
"Most of them are in the clear now, Inspector."
"The Latvians, Lord Jagged?"
"I suppose you could arrest them, yes."
"Very good, sir." Inspector Springer saluted and returned his attention to his twelve constables. "All right, lads. Back on duty again. What's Sherwood up to? Better give 'im a blast on your whistle, Reilly, see if 'e answers." He mopped his forehead. "This is a very peculiar place. If I was a dreamin' man, I'd be 'alf inclined to think I was in the middle of a bloomin' nightmare. Har, har!" The answering laughter of some of his men as they plodded behind him was almost hollow.
Una Persson glanced at one of several instruments attached to her arm. "I congratulate you, Lord Jagged. The first stages are a great success. We hope to be able to return to witness the completion."
"I would be honoured, Mrs. Persson."
"Forgive me, now, if I get back to my machine. Captain Bastable…"
Bastable hovered, evidently reluctant to go.
"Captain Bastable, we really must —"
He became attentive. "Of course, Mrs. Persson. The Shifter and so forth." He waved a cheerful hand to them all. "It's been an enormous pleasure. And thank you so much, Lord Jagged, for the privilege…"
"Not at all."
"I suppose, unless we do return just before the loop is finally made, we shall not be able to meet —"
"Come along, Oswald!" Mrs. Persson was marching through the mellow sunshine to where they had left their machine.
"Oh, I don't know." Lord Jagged waved in reply. "A pleasant journey to you."
"Thanks most awfully, again."
"Captain Bastable!"
"— because of the drawbacks you mentioned," shouted Bastable breathlessly, and ran to join his co-chrononaut.
When they had gone, Amelia Underwood looked almost suspiciously at the man Jherek one day hoped to make her father-in-law. "The world is definitely saved, is it, Lord Jagged?"
"Oh, definitely. The cities have ample energy. The time-loop, when it is made, will re-cycle that energy. Jherek has told you of his adventures in the Nursery. You understand the principle."
"Sufficiently, I hope. But Captain Bastable spoke of drawbacks."
"I see." Lord Jagged pulled his cloak about him. Now Mongrove and the Duke of Queens, the time-traveller and the Iron Orchid, Jherek and Amelia were all that remained of his audience. He spoke more naturally. "Not for all, Amelia, those drawbacks. After a short period of readjustment, say a month, in which Nurse and I will test our equipment until we are satisfied with its functioning, the world will be in a perpetually closed circuit, with both past and future abolished. A single planet turning about a single sun will be all that remains of this universe. It will mean, therefore, that both time-travel and space-travel will be impossible. The drawback will be (for many of us) that there is no longer any intercourse between our world of the End of Time and other worlds."
"That is all?"
"It will mean much to some."
"To me!" groaned the Duke of Queens. "I do wish you had told me, Jagged. I'd hoped to re-stock my menagerie." He looked speculatively at the Pweelian spaceship. He fingered a power-ring.
"A few time-travellers may yet arrive, before the loop is made," comforted Jagged. "Besides, doleful Duke, your creative instincts will be fulfilled for a while, I am sure, by helping in the resurrection of all our old friends. There are dozens. Argonheart Po…"
"Bishop Castle. My Lady Charlotina. Mistress Christia. Sweet Orb Mace. O'Kala Incarnadine. Doctor Volospion." The Duke brightened.
"The long-established time-travellers, like Li Pao, may also still he here — or will re-appear, thanks to the Morphail Effect."
"I thought you had proved that a fallacy, Lord Jagged." Mongrove spoke with interest.
"I have proved it a Law — but not the only Law — of Time."
"We shall resurrect Brannart and tell him!" said the Iron Orchid.
Amelia was frowning. "So the planet will be completely isolated, for eternity, in time and space."
"Exactly," said Jagged.
"Life will continue as it has always done," said the Duke of Queens. "Who shall you resurrect first, Mongrove?"
"Werther de Goethe, I suppose. He is no real fellow spirit, but he will do for the moment." The giant cast a glance back at the Pweelian spaceship as he began to move his great bulk forward. "Though it will be a travesty, of course."
"What do you mean, melancholy Mongrove?" The Duke of Queens turned a power-ring to rid himself of his uniform and replace it with brilliant multicoloured feathers from head to foot, a coxcomb in place of his hair.
"A travesty of life. This will be a stagnant planet, forever cycling a stagnant sun. A stagnant society, without progress or past. Can you not see it, Duke of Queens? Shall we have been spared death only to become the living dead, dancing forever to the same stale measures?"
The Duke of Queens was amused. "I congratulate you, Lord Mongrove. You have found an image with which to distress yourself. I admire your alacrity!"
Lord Mongrove licked his large lips and wrinkled his great nose. "Ah, mock me, as you always mock me — as you all mock me. And why not? I am a fool! I should have stayed out there, in space, while suns flickered and faded and whole planets exploded and became dust. Why remain here, after all, a maggot amongst maggots?"
"Oh, Mongrove, your gloom is of the finest!" Lord Jagged congratulated him. "Come — you must all be my guests at Castle Canaria!"
"Your castle survives, Jagged?" Jherek asked, putting his arm round his Amelia's waist.
"As a memory, swiftly restored to reality — as shall be the entire society at the End of Time. That is what I meant, Amelia, when I told you that memories would suffice."
She smiled a little bleakly. She had been listening intently to Mongrove's forebodings. It took some little while before she could rid herself of her thoughts and laugh with the others as they said farewell to the time-traveller, who intended, now that he had certain information from Mrs. Persson, to make repairs to his craft and return to his own world if he could.
The Duke of Queens stood on the grey, cracked plain and admired his handiwork. It was a great squared-off monster of a vehicle and it bobbed gently in the light wind which stirred the dust at their feet.
"The bulk of it is the gas-container — the large rear-section," he explained to Jherek. "The front is called, I believe, the cab."
"And the whole?"
"From the twentieth century. An articulated truck."
The Iron Orchid sighed as she tripped towards it, gathering up the folds of her wedding dress. "It looks most uncomfortable."
"Not as bad as you'd think," the Duke reassured her. "There is breathing equipment inside the gas-bag."
22. Inventions and Resurrections
Soon all would be as it had always been, before the winds of limbo had come to blow their world away. Flesh, blood and bone, grass and trees and stone would flourish beneath the fresh-born sun, and beauty of every sort, simple or bizarre, would bloom upon the face of that arid, ancient planet. It would be as if the universe had never died; and for that the world must thank its half-senile cities and the arrogant persistence of that obsessive temporal investigator from the twenty-first century, from the Dawn Age, who named himself for a small pet singing bird fashionable two hundred years before his birth, who displayed himself like an actor, yet disguised himself and his motives with all the consummate cunning of a Medici courtier; this fantastico in yellow, this languid meddler in destinies, Lord Jagged of Canaria.
They had already witnessed the rebuilding of Castle Canaria, at first a glowing mist, opaque and coruscating, modelled upon a wickerwork cage, some seventy-five feet high; and then its bars had become pale gold and within could be seen the floating compartments, each a room, where Jagged chose to live in certain moods (though he had had other moods, other castles). They had watched while Lord Jagged had spread the sky with tints of pink-tinged amber and cornflower blue, so that the orb of the sun burned a dull, rich red and cast shadows through the bars of that great cage so that it seemed the surrounding dust was criss-crossed by lattice: but then the dust itself was banished and turf replaced it, sparkling as it might after a shower, and there were hedges, too, and trees, and a pool of clear water, all standing in contrast to the surrounding landscape, thousands and thousands of miles of featureless desert. And they had been fired by this experience to begin their own creations at once and Mongrove went off to build his black mountains, his cold, cloud-cloaked halls, his gloomy heights; and the Duke of Queens went in another direction to erect first mosaic pyramids, then flower-hung ziggurats, then golden moondomes and etoliated Towers of Mercury, then an ocean, as large as the Mediterranean, on which floated monstrous, baroque fish, each fish an apartment. Meanwhile the Iron Orchid, content for the moment to share her husband's quarters, caused forests of slightly metallic blossoms to spring up from fields of silver snow, where cold birds, bright as steel, but electric green and engine red, clashed beaks and wings and sang human songs in the voices of machines, where robot foxes lurked and automata in scarlet, mounted on mechanical horses, hunted them — acre upon acre of ingenious animated gadgetry.
Jherek Carnelian and Amelia Underwood were more modest in their creations; first they chose an area and surrounded it with great breaks of poplars, cypresses and willows, so that the wasteland beyond could not be seen. Her fanciful palace was forgotten; she wished for a low Tudor house, with thatch and beams, whitewashed. A few of the windows she allowed for stained-glass, but the majority were as large as possible and leaded. Flower-beds surrounded the house and in these she put roses, holly-hocks and a variety of old, half-wild English flowers. There was a paved area, a pathway, a vegetable garden, shaded arbours of yew and climbing roses, a pond with a fountain in the centre, and goldfish, and everywhere high hedges, as if she would shield her house from the rest of the world. He admired it, but had little to do with its creation. Within were oak tables and chairs, bookcases (though the books themselves defeated her powers of creation, just as her attempts to recreate paintings failed badly — Jherek consoled her: no one could make such things, at the End of Time); there were comfortable armchairs, carpets, polished boards, vases of flowers, tapestries, figurines, candlesticks, lamps; there was a large kitchen, with tapped water, and every modern utensil, including knife-polishers, a gas-copper and a gas-stove, though she knew she would have little use for them. The kitchen looked out onto the vegetable garden where her runner-beans and cabbages already flourished. On the top floor of the house she created two sets of apartments for them, with a bedroom, dressing room, study and sitting room each. And when she had finished she looked to her Jherek for his approval and, ever enthusiastic, he gave it.
Elsewhere the creation continued: a superabundance of inventiveness. A summoning of certain particles by the Iron Orchid, and Bishop Castle, complete with crook and mitre, was born again, joining her to recreate first My Lady Charlotina of Below-the-Lake, a little bemused and her memory not what it was, and then Mistress Christia, the Everlasting Concubine, Doctor Volospion, O'Kala Incarnadine, Argonheart Po, Sweet Orb Mace, all restored to life and ready to add their own themes to the reconstructed world, to resurrect their particular friends. And Mongrove, in his rainy, thunder-haunted crags, let gloomy, romantic Werther de Goethe look on the world again and mourn, while Lord Shark the Unknown, resentful, unbelieving, contemptuous, stayed in Mongrove's domain for only a few moments before flinging himself from a cliff, to be restored by a solicitous Mongrove, who had assumed that he was not yet quite himself, and fussed over until, in a pet, he summoned his plain grey air-car and sailed away, to build again his square living quarters with their square rooms, each one of exactly the same proportions, and to populate them with his automata, each one exactly in his image (not to satisfy his ego but because Lord Shark was a being devoid of any sort of imagination). Lord Shark, once his residence and his servants were re-established, created nothing further, allowed the grey, cracked ground to be his only view, while in all other quarters of the planet whole ranges of mountains were flung up, great rivers rolled across lush plains, seas heaved, woods proliferated; hills and valleys, meadows and forests were filled with life of every description.
Argonheart Po made perhaps his most magnificent contribution to his world, a detailed copy of one of the ancient cities, each ruined tower and whispering dome subtly delicious to taste and smell, each chemical lake a soup of transporting exquisiteness, each jewel a bon-bon of mouth-watering delicacy, each streamer a noodle of previously undreamed of savouriness. The Duke of Queens built a fleet of flying trucks, causing them to perform complex aerobatics in the skies above his home, while below he prepared for a party on the theme of Death and Destruction, searching the memory-banks of the cities for fifty of the most famous ruins in history: Pompeii existed again on the slopes of Krakatoa, Alexandria, built all of books, burned afresh, while every few minutes a new mushroom cloud blossomed over Hiroshima, showering mushrooms almost fit to match Argonheart's culinary marvels. The grave-pits of Brighton, reduced to miniatures because of the huge amount of space needed to contain them, were heaped with tiny bodies, some of which still moved, mewling and touchingly pathetic; but perhaps his most effective creation was his liquidized Minneapolis, frozen, viscous, still recognizable, with its inhabitants turning to semi-transparent jelly even as they tried to flee the Swiss holocaust.
It was, as Bishop Castle proposed, a Renaissance. Lord Jagged of Canaria was a hero; his exploits were celebrated. Only Brannart Morphail saw Jagged's interference as unwelcome; indeed Brannart remained sceptical of the whole theory behind the method of salvation. He looked with a jaundiced eye upon the carolling sculptures surrounding the green feather palace of My Lady Charlotina (she had renounced the underworld since the flood which had swept her from her halls), upon the pink pagodas of Mistress Christia and the ebony fortress of Werther de Goethe, warning all that the destruction had merely been averted for a little while, but none of them chose to listen to him. Doctor Volospion, a scarecrow in flaring, tattered black, his body black, his eyes red flames, made a Martian sarcophagus some thousand feet high, with a reproduction on its lid of the famous Revels of Cha'ar in which four thousand boys and girls died of exhaustion and seven thousand men and women flogged one another to death. Doctor Volospion found his home "pretty" and filled it inside with lunatic manikins given to biting him or laying little vicious traps for him whenever they could, and this he found "amusing". Bishop Castle's own laser-beam cathedral, whose twin steeples disappeared in the sky, was unpretentious in comparison, though the music which the beams produced was ethereal and moving: even Werther de Goethe, impressed by but disapproving of Doctor Volospion's dwelling, congratulated Bishop Castle on his sonorous melodies, and Sweet Orb Mace actually copied the idea for (she was feminine again) her blue quartz Old New Old Old New New Old New Old New New New Old New New Versailles, which had flourished in her favourite period (the Integral Seventh Worship) on Sork, a planet of some Centauri or Beta, vanished long-since, the whole structure based on certain favourite primitive musical forms from the fiftieth century. O'Kala Incarnadine simply became a goat and trotted about in what remained of the wastelands bleating to anyone who would give him an ear that he preferred the planet unspoiled; the idea seemed to give him considerable pleasure, but he set no fashion. Indeed the only positive response he received at all was from Li Pao (who had not enjoyed, it emerged, his brief return to 2648) who judged his role a subtle metaphor, and from Gaf the Horse in Tears who derived much mindless glee from bleating back at him, hovering overhead in his aerial sampan and occasionally pelting him with the fruit he won from one of the thirty or so machines dotted about on the boat's fifth tier.
The time-traveller had become frustrated, for it had materialized that he still needed someone who could help him with the repairs he must make to his machine before he would risk a cross-dimension time-leap. He had found Lord Jagged too concerned with his own experiments to be helpful and Brannart Morphail now refused to speak to anyone, having been snubbed so badly in the first few days of the resurrection. For a short time he fell in with another time-traveller, returned, like Li Pao, by the Morphail Effect, calling himself Rat Oosapric, but it turned out that the man was an escaped criminal from the thirty-sixth century Stilt Cities and knew nothing at all about the principles of time-travel; he merely tried to steal the time-traveller's machine and was restrained from so doing by the fortunate arrival of My Lady Charlotina who froze him with a power-ring and sent him drifting into the upper atmosphere for a while. My Lady Charlotina, deprived of Brannart Morphail, was trying to convince the time-traveller that she should he his patron, that he should become her new Scientist. The time-traveller considered the idea but found her terms too restricting. It was My Lady Charlotina who returned from the old city, leaving the time-traveller to his brooding, with the news that Harold Underwood, Inspector Springer, Sergeant Sherwood, the twelve constables, and the Lat all seemed healthy and relatively cheerful, but that the Pweelian spacecraft had vanished. This caused the Duke of Queens to reveal his secret a little earlier than he had planned. He had re-started his menagerie and the Pweelians were his prize, though they did not know it. He had allowed them to build their own environment — the closed one they had planned to escape the End of Time — and they now believed that they were the only living creatures in the entire universe. Anyone who wished to do so could visit the Duke's menagerie and watch them moving about in their great sphere, completely unaware that they were observed, involved in their curious activities. Even Amelia Underwood went to see them and agreed with the Duke of Queens that they seemed completely at ease and if anything rather happier than they had originally been.
This visit to the Duke was the first time Jherek and Amelia had emerged into society since they had built their new house. Amelia was astonished by the rapid changes: there were only a few small areas no longer altered, and there was a certain freshness to everything which made even the most bizarre inventions almost charming. The air itself, she said, had the sweet sharpness of a spring morn. On the way home they saw Lord Jagged of Canaria in his great flying swan, a yellowish white, with another tall figure beside him. Jherek brought his locomotive alongside and hailed him, at once recognizing the other occupant of the swan.
"My dear Nurse! What a pleasure to meet you again! How are your children?"
Nurse was considerably more coherent than she had been when Jherek had last seen her. She shook her old steel head and sighed. "Gone, I fear. Back to an earlier point in Time — where I still operate the time-loop, where they still play as, doubtless, they will always play."
"You sent them back?"
"I did. I judged this world too dangerous for my little ones, young Jerry. Well, I must say, you're looking well. Quite a grown man now, eh? And this must be Amelia, whom you are to marry. Ah, I am filled with pride. You have proved yourself a fine boy, Jerry." It seemed that she still had the vague idea that Jherek had been one of her original charges. "I expect 'daddy' is proud of you, too!" She turned her head a full ninety degrees to look fondly at Lord Jagged, who pursed his lips in what might have been an embarrassed smile.
"Oh, very proud," he said. "Good morning Amelia. Jherek."
"Good morning, Sir Machiavelli." Amelia relished his discomfort. "How go your schemes?"
Lord Jagged relaxed, laughing. "Very well, I think. Nurse and I have a couple of modifications to make to a circuit. And you two? Do you flourish?"
"We are comfortable," she told him.
"Still — engaged?"
"Not yet married, Lord Jagged, if that is what you ask."
"Mr. Underwood still in the city?"
"So we hear from My Lady Charlotina."
"Aha."
Amelia looked at Lord Jagged suspiciously, but his answering expression was bland.
"We must be on our way." The swan began to drift clear of the locomotive. "Time waits for no man, you know. Not yet, at any rate. Farewell!"
They waved to him and the swan sailed on. "Oh, he is so devious," she said, but without rancour. "How can a father and son be so different?"
"You think that?" The locomotive began to puff towards home. "And yet I have modelled myself on him for as long as I can remember. He was ever my hero."
She was thoughtful. "One seeks for signs of corruption in the son if one witnesses them in the father, yet is it not fairer to see the son as the father, unwounded by the world?"
He blinked but did not ask her to elaborate as, with pensive eye, she contemplated the variegated landscape sweeping by below.
"But I suppose I envy him," she said.
"Envy Jagged? His intelligence?"
"His work. He is the only one upon the whole planet who performs a useful task."
"We made it beautiful again. Is that not 'useful', Amelia?"
"It does not satisfy me, at any rate."
"You have scarcely begun, however, to express your creativity. Tomorrow, perhaps, we shall invent something together, to delight our friends."
She made an effort to brighten. "I suppose that you are right. It is a question, as your father said, of attitude."
"Exactly." He hugged her. They kissed, but it seemed to him that her kiss was not as wholehearted as, of late, it had become.
From the next morning it was as if a strange fever took possession of Amelia Underwood. Her appearance in their breakfast room was spectacular. She was clad in crimson silk, trimmed with gold and silver, rather oriental in influence. There were curling slippers upon her feet; there were ostrich and peacock feathers decorating her hair and it was evident that she had painted or otherwise altered her face, for the eyelids were startling blue, the eyebrows plucked and their length exaggerated, the lips fuller and of astonishing redness, the cheeks glowing with what could only be rouge. Her smile was unusually wide, her kiss unexpectedly warm, her embrace almost sensual; scent drifted behind her as she took her place at the other end of the table.
"Good morning, Jherek, my darling!"
He swallowed a small piece of toast. It seemed to stick in his throat. His voice was not loud. "Good morning, Amelia. You slept well?"
"Oh, I did! I woke up a new woman. The new woman, if you would have it. Ha, ha!"
He tried to clear the piece of toast from his throat. "You seem very new. The change in appearance is radical."
"I would scarcely call it that, dear Jherek. Merely an aspect of my personality I have not shown you before. I determined to be less stuffy, to take a more positive view of the world and my place in it. Today, my love, we create !"
"Create?"
"It is what you suggested we do."
"Ah, yes. Of course. What shall we create, Amelia?"
"There is so much."
"To be sure. As a matter of fact, I had become fairly settled — that is, I had not intended…"
"Jherek, you were famous for your invention. You set fashion after fashion. Your reputation demands that you express yourself again. We shall build a scene to excel all those we have so far witnessed. And we shall have a party. We have accepted far too much hospitality and offered none until now!"
"True, but…"
She laughed at him, pushing aside her kedgeree, ignoring her porridge. She sipped at her coffee, staring out through the window at her hedges and her gardens. "Can you suggest anything, Jherek?"
"Oh — a small 'London' — we could make it together. As authentic as anything."
" 'London'? You would not repeat an earlier success, surely?"
"It was an initial suggestion, nothing more."
"You are admiring my new dress, I see."
"Bright and beautiful." He recalled the hymn they had once sung together. He opened his lips and took a deep breath, to sing it, but she forestalled him.
"It is based on a picture I saw in an illustrated magazine," she told him. "An opera, I think — or perhaps the music hall. I wish I knew some music hall songs. Would the cities be able to help?"
"I doubt if they can remember any."
"They are concerned these days, I suppose, with duller things. With Jagged's work."
"Well, not entirely…"
She rose from the table, humming to herself. "Hurry, Jherek dear. The morning will be over before we have begun!"
Reluctantly, as confused by this role as he had been confused when first they had met, he got up, almost desperately trying to recapture a mood which had always been normal to him, until, it seemed, today.
She linked her arm in his, her step rather springier than usual, perhaps because of the elaborate boots she wore, and they left the house and entered the garden. "I think now I should have kept my palace," she said. "You do not find the cottage dull?"
"Dull? Oh, no!"
He was surprised that she gave every hint of disapproving of his remark. She cast speculative eyes upon the sky, turned a power-ring, and made a garish royal blue tint where a moment ago there had been a relatively subdued sunrise. She added broad streaks of bright red and yellow. "So!"
Beyond the willows and the cypresses was what remained of the wasteland. "Here," she said, "is what Jagged told us was to be our canvas. It can contain anything — any folly the human mind can invent. Let us make it a splendid folly, Jherek. A vast folly."
"What?" He began to cheer, though forebodings remained. "Shall we seek to outdo the Duke of Queens?"
"By all means!"
He was dressed in modest dove-grey today; a frock-coat and trousers, a waistcoat and shirt. He produced a tall hat and placed it, jaunty, on his head. Hand went to ring. Columns of water seemed to spring from the ground, as thick as redwoods, and as tall, forming an arch that in turn became a roof through which the sun glittered.
"Oh, you are too cautious, Jherek!" Her own rings were used. Great cliffs surrounded them and over every cliff gushed cataracts of blood, forming a sea on which bobbed obsidian islands filled with lush, dark vegetation; and now the sun burned almost black above and peculiar sounds came to them across the ocean of blood, from the islands.
They had already witnessed the rebuilding of Castle Canaria, at first a glowing mist, opaque and coruscating, modelled upon a wickerwork cage, some seventy-five feet high; and then its bars had become pale gold and within could be seen the floating compartments, each a room, where Jagged chose to live in certain moods (though he had had other moods, other castles). They had watched while Lord Jagged had spread the sky with tints of pink-tinged amber and cornflower blue, so that the orb of the sun burned a dull, rich red and cast shadows through the bars of that great cage so that it seemed the surrounding dust was criss-crossed by lattice: but then the dust itself was banished and turf replaced it, sparkling as it might after a shower, and there were hedges, too, and trees, and a pool of clear water, all standing in contrast to the surrounding landscape, thousands and thousands of miles of featureless desert. And they had been fired by this experience to begin their own creations at once and Mongrove went off to build his black mountains, his cold, cloud-cloaked halls, his gloomy heights; and the Duke of Queens went in another direction to erect first mosaic pyramids, then flower-hung ziggurats, then golden moondomes and etoliated Towers of Mercury, then an ocean, as large as the Mediterranean, on which floated monstrous, baroque fish, each fish an apartment. Meanwhile the Iron Orchid, content for the moment to share her husband's quarters, caused forests of slightly metallic blossoms to spring up from fields of silver snow, where cold birds, bright as steel, but electric green and engine red, clashed beaks and wings and sang human songs in the voices of machines, where robot foxes lurked and automata in scarlet, mounted on mechanical horses, hunted them — acre upon acre of ingenious animated gadgetry.
Jherek Carnelian and Amelia Underwood were more modest in their creations; first they chose an area and surrounded it with great breaks of poplars, cypresses and willows, so that the wasteland beyond could not be seen. Her fanciful palace was forgotten; she wished for a low Tudor house, with thatch and beams, whitewashed. A few of the windows she allowed for stained-glass, but the majority were as large as possible and leaded. Flower-beds surrounded the house and in these she put roses, holly-hocks and a variety of old, half-wild English flowers. There was a paved area, a pathway, a vegetable garden, shaded arbours of yew and climbing roses, a pond with a fountain in the centre, and goldfish, and everywhere high hedges, as if she would shield her house from the rest of the world. He admired it, but had little to do with its creation. Within were oak tables and chairs, bookcases (though the books themselves defeated her powers of creation, just as her attempts to recreate paintings failed badly — Jherek consoled her: no one could make such things, at the End of Time); there were comfortable armchairs, carpets, polished boards, vases of flowers, tapestries, figurines, candlesticks, lamps; there was a large kitchen, with tapped water, and every modern utensil, including knife-polishers, a gas-copper and a gas-stove, though she knew she would have little use for them. The kitchen looked out onto the vegetable garden where her runner-beans and cabbages already flourished. On the top floor of the house she created two sets of apartments for them, with a bedroom, dressing room, study and sitting room each. And when she had finished she looked to her Jherek for his approval and, ever enthusiastic, he gave it.
Elsewhere the creation continued: a superabundance of inventiveness. A summoning of certain particles by the Iron Orchid, and Bishop Castle, complete with crook and mitre, was born again, joining her to recreate first My Lady Charlotina of Below-the-Lake, a little bemused and her memory not what it was, and then Mistress Christia, the Everlasting Concubine, Doctor Volospion, O'Kala Incarnadine, Argonheart Po, Sweet Orb Mace, all restored to life and ready to add their own themes to the reconstructed world, to resurrect their particular friends. And Mongrove, in his rainy, thunder-haunted crags, let gloomy, romantic Werther de Goethe look on the world again and mourn, while Lord Shark the Unknown, resentful, unbelieving, contemptuous, stayed in Mongrove's domain for only a few moments before flinging himself from a cliff, to be restored by a solicitous Mongrove, who had assumed that he was not yet quite himself, and fussed over until, in a pet, he summoned his plain grey air-car and sailed away, to build again his square living quarters with their square rooms, each one of exactly the same proportions, and to populate them with his automata, each one exactly in his image (not to satisfy his ego but because Lord Shark was a being devoid of any sort of imagination). Lord Shark, once his residence and his servants were re-established, created nothing further, allowed the grey, cracked ground to be his only view, while in all other quarters of the planet whole ranges of mountains were flung up, great rivers rolled across lush plains, seas heaved, woods proliferated; hills and valleys, meadows and forests were filled with life of every description.
Argonheart Po made perhaps his most magnificent contribution to his world, a detailed copy of one of the ancient cities, each ruined tower and whispering dome subtly delicious to taste and smell, each chemical lake a soup of transporting exquisiteness, each jewel a bon-bon of mouth-watering delicacy, each streamer a noodle of previously undreamed of savouriness. The Duke of Queens built a fleet of flying trucks, causing them to perform complex aerobatics in the skies above his home, while below he prepared for a party on the theme of Death and Destruction, searching the memory-banks of the cities for fifty of the most famous ruins in history: Pompeii existed again on the slopes of Krakatoa, Alexandria, built all of books, burned afresh, while every few minutes a new mushroom cloud blossomed over Hiroshima, showering mushrooms almost fit to match Argonheart's culinary marvels. The grave-pits of Brighton, reduced to miniatures because of the huge amount of space needed to contain them, were heaped with tiny bodies, some of which still moved, mewling and touchingly pathetic; but perhaps his most effective creation was his liquidized Minneapolis, frozen, viscous, still recognizable, with its inhabitants turning to semi-transparent jelly even as they tried to flee the Swiss holocaust.
It was, as Bishop Castle proposed, a Renaissance. Lord Jagged of Canaria was a hero; his exploits were celebrated. Only Brannart Morphail saw Jagged's interference as unwelcome; indeed Brannart remained sceptical of the whole theory behind the method of salvation. He looked with a jaundiced eye upon the carolling sculptures surrounding the green feather palace of My Lady Charlotina (she had renounced the underworld since the flood which had swept her from her halls), upon the pink pagodas of Mistress Christia and the ebony fortress of Werther de Goethe, warning all that the destruction had merely been averted for a little while, but none of them chose to listen to him. Doctor Volospion, a scarecrow in flaring, tattered black, his body black, his eyes red flames, made a Martian sarcophagus some thousand feet high, with a reproduction on its lid of the famous Revels of Cha'ar in which four thousand boys and girls died of exhaustion and seven thousand men and women flogged one another to death. Doctor Volospion found his home "pretty" and filled it inside with lunatic manikins given to biting him or laying little vicious traps for him whenever they could, and this he found "amusing". Bishop Castle's own laser-beam cathedral, whose twin steeples disappeared in the sky, was unpretentious in comparison, though the music which the beams produced was ethereal and moving: even Werther de Goethe, impressed by but disapproving of Doctor Volospion's dwelling, congratulated Bishop Castle on his sonorous melodies, and Sweet Orb Mace actually copied the idea for (she was feminine again) her blue quartz Old New Old Old New New Old New Old New New New Old New New Versailles, which had flourished in her favourite period (the Integral Seventh Worship) on Sork, a planet of some Centauri or Beta, vanished long-since, the whole structure based on certain favourite primitive musical forms from the fiftieth century. O'Kala Incarnadine simply became a goat and trotted about in what remained of the wastelands bleating to anyone who would give him an ear that he preferred the planet unspoiled; the idea seemed to give him considerable pleasure, but he set no fashion. Indeed the only positive response he received at all was from Li Pao (who had not enjoyed, it emerged, his brief return to 2648) who judged his role a subtle metaphor, and from Gaf the Horse in Tears who derived much mindless glee from bleating back at him, hovering overhead in his aerial sampan and occasionally pelting him with the fruit he won from one of the thirty or so machines dotted about on the boat's fifth tier.
The time-traveller had become frustrated, for it had materialized that he still needed someone who could help him with the repairs he must make to his machine before he would risk a cross-dimension time-leap. He had found Lord Jagged too concerned with his own experiments to be helpful and Brannart Morphail now refused to speak to anyone, having been snubbed so badly in the first few days of the resurrection. For a short time he fell in with another time-traveller, returned, like Li Pao, by the Morphail Effect, calling himself Rat Oosapric, but it turned out that the man was an escaped criminal from the thirty-sixth century Stilt Cities and knew nothing at all about the principles of time-travel; he merely tried to steal the time-traveller's machine and was restrained from so doing by the fortunate arrival of My Lady Charlotina who froze him with a power-ring and sent him drifting into the upper atmosphere for a while. My Lady Charlotina, deprived of Brannart Morphail, was trying to convince the time-traveller that she should he his patron, that he should become her new Scientist. The time-traveller considered the idea but found her terms too restricting. It was My Lady Charlotina who returned from the old city, leaving the time-traveller to his brooding, with the news that Harold Underwood, Inspector Springer, Sergeant Sherwood, the twelve constables, and the Lat all seemed healthy and relatively cheerful, but that the Pweelian spacecraft had vanished. This caused the Duke of Queens to reveal his secret a little earlier than he had planned. He had re-started his menagerie and the Pweelians were his prize, though they did not know it. He had allowed them to build their own environment — the closed one they had planned to escape the End of Time — and they now believed that they were the only living creatures in the entire universe. Anyone who wished to do so could visit the Duke's menagerie and watch them moving about in their great sphere, completely unaware that they were observed, involved in their curious activities. Even Amelia Underwood went to see them and agreed with the Duke of Queens that they seemed completely at ease and if anything rather happier than they had originally been.
This visit to the Duke was the first time Jherek and Amelia had emerged into society since they had built their new house. Amelia was astonished by the rapid changes: there were only a few small areas no longer altered, and there was a certain freshness to everything which made even the most bizarre inventions almost charming. The air itself, she said, had the sweet sharpness of a spring morn. On the way home they saw Lord Jagged of Canaria in his great flying swan, a yellowish white, with another tall figure beside him. Jherek brought his locomotive alongside and hailed him, at once recognizing the other occupant of the swan.
"My dear Nurse! What a pleasure to meet you again! How are your children?"
Nurse was considerably more coherent than she had been when Jherek had last seen her. She shook her old steel head and sighed. "Gone, I fear. Back to an earlier point in Time — where I still operate the time-loop, where they still play as, doubtless, they will always play."
"You sent them back?"
"I did. I judged this world too dangerous for my little ones, young Jerry. Well, I must say, you're looking well. Quite a grown man now, eh? And this must be Amelia, whom you are to marry. Ah, I am filled with pride. You have proved yourself a fine boy, Jerry." It seemed that she still had the vague idea that Jherek had been one of her original charges. "I expect 'daddy' is proud of you, too!" She turned her head a full ninety degrees to look fondly at Lord Jagged, who pursed his lips in what might have been an embarrassed smile.
"Oh, very proud," he said. "Good morning Amelia. Jherek."
"Good morning, Sir Machiavelli." Amelia relished his discomfort. "How go your schemes?"
Lord Jagged relaxed, laughing. "Very well, I think. Nurse and I have a couple of modifications to make to a circuit. And you two? Do you flourish?"
"We are comfortable," she told him.
"Still — engaged?"
"Not yet married, Lord Jagged, if that is what you ask."
"Mr. Underwood still in the city?"
"So we hear from My Lady Charlotina."
"Aha."
Amelia looked at Lord Jagged suspiciously, but his answering expression was bland.
"We must be on our way." The swan began to drift clear of the locomotive. "Time waits for no man, you know. Not yet, at any rate. Farewell!"
They waved to him and the swan sailed on. "Oh, he is so devious," she said, but without rancour. "How can a father and son be so different?"
"You think that?" The locomotive began to puff towards home. "And yet I have modelled myself on him for as long as I can remember. He was ever my hero."
She was thoughtful. "One seeks for signs of corruption in the son if one witnesses them in the father, yet is it not fairer to see the son as the father, unwounded by the world?"
He blinked but did not ask her to elaborate as, with pensive eye, she contemplated the variegated landscape sweeping by below.
"But I suppose I envy him," she said.
"Envy Jagged? His intelligence?"
"His work. He is the only one upon the whole planet who performs a useful task."
"We made it beautiful again. Is that not 'useful', Amelia?"
"It does not satisfy me, at any rate."
"You have scarcely begun, however, to express your creativity. Tomorrow, perhaps, we shall invent something together, to delight our friends."
She made an effort to brighten. "I suppose that you are right. It is a question, as your father said, of attitude."
"Exactly." He hugged her. They kissed, but it seemed to him that her kiss was not as wholehearted as, of late, it had become.
From the next morning it was as if a strange fever took possession of Amelia Underwood. Her appearance in their breakfast room was spectacular. She was clad in crimson silk, trimmed with gold and silver, rather oriental in influence. There were curling slippers upon her feet; there were ostrich and peacock feathers decorating her hair and it was evident that she had painted or otherwise altered her face, for the eyelids were startling blue, the eyebrows plucked and their length exaggerated, the lips fuller and of astonishing redness, the cheeks glowing with what could only be rouge. Her smile was unusually wide, her kiss unexpectedly warm, her embrace almost sensual; scent drifted behind her as she took her place at the other end of the table.
"Good morning, Jherek, my darling!"
He swallowed a small piece of toast. It seemed to stick in his throat. His voice was not loud. "Good morning, Amelia. You slept well?"
"Oh, I did! I woke up a new woman. The new woman, if you would have it. Ha, ha!"
He tried to clear the piece of toast from his throat. "You seem very new. The change in appearance is radical."
"I would scarcely call it that, dear Jherek. Merely an aspect of my personality I have not shown you before. I determined to be less stuffy, to take a more positive view of the world and my place in it. Today, my love, we create !"
"Create?"
"It is what you suggested we do."
"Ah, yes. Of course. What shall we create, Amelia?"
"There is so much."
"To be sure. As a matter of fact, I had become fairly settled — that is, I had not intended…"
"Jherek, you were famous for your invention. You set fashion after fashion. Your reputation demands that you express yourself again. We shall build a scene to excel all those we have so far witnessed. And we shall have a party. We have accepted far too much hospitality and offered none until now!"
"True, but…"
She laughed at him, pushing aside her kedgeree, ignoring her porridge. She sipped at her coffee, staring out through the window at her hedges and her gardens. "Can you suggest anything, Jherek?"
"Oh — a small 'London' — we could make it together. As authentic as anything."
" 'London'? You would not repeat an earlier success, surely?"
"It was an initial suggestion, nothing more."
"You are admiring my new dress, I see."
"Bright and beautiful." He recalled the hymn they had once sung together. He opened his lips and took a deep breath, to sing it, but she forestalled him.
"It is based on a picture I saw in an illustrated magazine," she told him. "An opera, I think — or perhaps the music hall. I wish I knew some music hall songs. Would the cities be able to help?"
"I doubt if they can remember any."
"They are concerned these days, I suppose, with duller things. With Jagged's work."
"Well, not entirely…"
She rose from the table, humming to herself. "Hurry, Jherek dear. The morning will be over before we have begun!"
Reluctantly, as confused by this role as he had been confused when first they had met, he got up, almost desperately trying to recapture a mood which had always been normal to him, until, it seemed, today.
She linked her arm in his, her step rather springier than usual, perhaps because of the elaborate boots she wore, and they left the house and entered the garden. "I think now I should have kept my palace," she said. "You do not find the cottage dull?"
"Dull? Oh, no!"
He was surprised that she gave every hint of disapproving of his remark. She cast speculative eyes upon the sky, turned a power-ring, and made a garish royal blue tint where a moment ago there had been a relatively subdued sunrise. She added broad streaks of bright red and yellow. "So!"
Beyond the willows and the cypresses was what remained of the wasteland. "Here," she said, "is what Jagged told us was to be our canvas. It can contain anything — any folly the human mind can invent. Let us make it a splendid folly, Jherek. A vast folly."
"What?" He began to cheer, though forebodings remained. "Shall we seek to outdo the Duke of Queens?"
"By all means!"
He was dressed in modest dove-grey today; a frock-coat and trousers, a waistcoat and shirt. He produced a tall hat and placed it, jaunty, on his head. Hand went to ring. Columns of water seemed to spring from the ground, as thick as redwoods, and as tall, forming an arch that in turn became a roof through which the sun glittered.
"Oh, you are too cautious, Jherek!" Her own rings were used. Great cliffs surrounded them and over every cliff gushed cataracts of blood, forming a sea on which bobbed obsidian islands filled with lush, dark vegetation; and now the sun burned almost black above and peculiar sounds came to them across the ocean of blood, from the islands.