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The White Stars
BY MICHAEL MOORCOCK
Book 2 of the Legends from the End of Time
W. B. Yeats
Rose of all Roses, Rose of all the World!
You, too, have come where the dim tides are hurled
Upon the wharves of sorrow, and heard ring
The bell that calls us on; the sweet far thing .
Beauty grown sad with its eternity
Made you of us, and of the dim grey sea .
Our long ships loose thought-woven sails and wait ,
For God has bid them share an equal fate;
And when at last, defeated in His wars ,
They have gone down under the same white stars ,
We shall no longer hear the little cry
Of our sad hearts, that may not live nor die .
"The Rose of Battle"
1. A Brief Word from our Auditor
If these fragments of tales from the End of Time appear to have certain themes in common, then it is the auditor and his informants who must be held responsible for the selection they have made from available information. A fashion for philosophical and sociological rediscovery certainly prevailed during this period but there must have been other incidents which did not reflect the fashion as strongly, and we promise the reader that if we should hear of some such story we shall not hesitate to present it. Yet legends — whether they come to us from past or future — have a habit of appealing to certain ages in certain interpretations, and that factor, too, must be considered, we suppose.
This story, said to involve among others the Iron Orchid, Bishop Castle and Lord Shark, is amended, interpreted, embellished by your auditor, but in its essentials is the same as he heard it from his most familiar source, the temporal excursionist, Mrs Una Persson.
This story, said to involve among others the Iron Orchid, Bishop Castle and Lord Shark, is amended, interpreted, embellished by your auditor, but in its essentials is the same as he heard it from his most familiar source, the temporal excursionist, Mrs Una Persson.
2. A Stroll Across the Dark Continent
"We were all puzzled by him," agreed the Duke of Queens as he stepped carefully over an elephant, "but we put it down to an idiosyncratic sense of humour." He removed his feathered hat and wiped his brow. The redder plumes clashed horribly with his cerise skin.
"Some of his jokes," said the Iron Orchid with a glance of distaste at the crocodile clinging by its teeth to her left foot, "were rather difficult to see. However, he seems at one with himself now. Wouldn't you say?" She shook the reptile loose.
"Oh, yes! But then I'm notorious for my lack of insight." They strolled away from Southern Africa into the delicate knee-high forests of the Congo. The Iron Orchid smiled with delight at the brightly coloured little birds which flitted about her legs, sometimes clinging to the hem of her parchment skirt before flashing away again. Of all the expressions of the duke's obsession with the ancient nation called by him "Afrique", this seemed to her to be the sweetest.
They were discussing Lord Jagged of Canaria (who had vanished at about the same time as the Iron Orchid's son, Jherek). Offering no explanation as to how his friends might have found themselves, albeit for a very short while, in 19th-century London, together with himself, Jherek, some cyclopean aliens and an assortment of natives of the period, Jagged had returned, only to hide himself away underground.
"Well," said the duke, dismissing the matter, "it was rewarding, even if it does suggest, as Brannart Morphail somewhat emphatically pointed out, that Time itself is becoming unstable. It must be because of all these other disruptions in the universe we are hearing about."
"It is very confusing," said the Iron Orchid with disapproval. "I do hope the end of the world, when it comes, will be a little better organized." She turned. "Duke?" He had disappeared.
With a smile of apology he clambered back to land. "Lake Tanganyika," he explained. "I knew I'd misplaced it." He used one of his power rings to dissipate the water in his clothing.
"It is the trees," she said. "They are too tall." She was having difficulty in pressing on through the waist-high palms. "I do believe I've squashed one of your villages, Duke."
"Please don't concern yourself, lovely Iron Orchid. I've crowded too much in. You know how I respond to a challenge!" He looked vaguely about him, seeking a way through the jungle. "It is uncomfortably hot."
"Is not your sun rather close?" she suggested.
"That must be it." He made an adjustment to a ruby power ring and the miniature sun rose, then moved to the left, sinking again behind a hillock he had called Kilimanjaro, offering them a pleasant twilight.
"That's much better."
He took her hand and led her towards Kenya, where the trees were sparser. A cloud of tiny flamingoes fluttered around her, like midges, for a moment and then were gone on their way back to their nesting places.
"I do love this part of the evening, don't you?" he said. "I would have it all the time, were I not afraid it would begin to pall."
"One must orchestrate," she murmured, glad that his taste seemed, at long last, to be improving.
"One must moderate."
"Indeed." He helped her across the bridge over the Indian Ocean. He looked back on Afrique, his stance melancholy and romantic. "Farewell Cape City," he proclaimed, "farewell Byzantium, Dodge and Limoges; farewell the verdant plains of Chad and the hot springs of Egypt. Farewell!"
The Duke of Queens and the Iron Orchid climbed into his monoplane, parked nearby. Overhead now a bronze and distant sun brightened a hazy, yellow sky; on the horizon were old, worn mountains which, judging by their peculiar brown colouring, might even have been an original part of the Earth's topography, for hardly anyone visited this area.
As the duke pondered the controls, the Iron Orchid put her head to one side, thinking she had heard something. "Do you detect," she asked, "a sort of clashing sound?"
"I have not yet got the engine started."
"Over there, I mean." She pointed. "Are those people?"
He peered in the direction she indicated. "Some dust rising, certainly. And, yes, perhaps two figures. Who could it be?"
"Shall we see?"
"If you wish, we can —" He had depressed a button and the rest of his remark was drowned by the noise of his engine. The propeller began to spin and whine and then fell from the nose, bouncing over the barren ground and into the Indian Ocean. He pressed the button again and the engine stopped. "We can walk there," he concluded. They descended from the monoplane.
The ground they crossed was parched and cracked like old leather which had not been properly cared for.
"This needs a thorough restoration," said the Iron Orchid somewhat primly. "Who usually occupies this territory?"
"You see him," murmured the Duke of Queens, for now it was possible to recognize one of the figures.
"Aha!" She was not surprised. It had been two or three centuries since she had last seen the man who, with a bright strip of metal clutched in one gauntleted hand, capered back and forth in the dust, while a second individual, also clasping an identical strip, performed similar steps. From time to time they would bring their strips forcefully together, resulting in the clashing sound the Iron Orchid had heard originally.
"Lord Shark the Unknown," said the Duke of Queens. He called out, "Greetings to you, my mysterious Lord Shark!"
The man half-turned. The other figure leapt forward and touched his body with his metal strip. Lord Shark gasped and fell to one knee. Through the fishy mask he always wore, his red eyes glared at them.
They came up to him. He did not rise. Instead he presented his gauntleted palm. "Look!" Crimson liquid glistened.
The Iron Orchid inspected it. "Is it unusual?"
"It is blood, madam!" Lord Shark rose painfully to his feet. "My blood."
"Then you must repair yourself at once."
"It is against my principles."
Lord Shark's companion stood some distance away, wiping Lord Shark's blood from his weapon.
"That, I take it, is a sword," said the Iron Orchid. "I had always imagined them larger, and more ornate."
"I know such swords." Lord Shark the Unknown loosened the long white scarf he wore around his dark grey neck and applied it to the wound in his shoulder. "They are decadent. These," he held up his own, "are finely tempered, perfectly balanced epees. We were duelling," he explained, "my automaton and I."
Looking across at the machine, the Iron Orchid saw that it was a reproduction of Lord Shark himself, complete with fierce shark-mask.
"It could kill you, could it not?" she asked. "Is it programmed to resurrect you, Lord Shark?"
He dismissed her question with a wave of his blood-stained scarf.
"And strange, that you should be killed, as it were, by yourself," she added.
"When we fight, is it not always with ourselves, madam?"
"I really don't know, sir, for I have never fought and I know no-one who does."
"That is why I must make automata. You know my name, madam, but I fear you have the advantage of me."
"It has been so long. I looked quite different when we last met. At Mongrove's Black Ball, you'll recall. I am the Iron Orchid."
"Ah, yes." He bowed.
"And I am the Duke of Queens," said the duke kindly.
"I know you, Duke of Queens. But you had another name then, did you not?"
"Liam Ty Pam Caesar Lloyd George Zatopek Finsbury Ronnie Michelangelo Yurio Iopu 4578 Rew United," supplied the duke. "Would that be it?"
"As I remember, yes." A sigh escaped the gash which was the shark's mouth. "So there have been some few small changes in the outside world, in society. But I suppose you still while away your days with pretty conceits?"
"Oh, yes!" said the Iron Orchid enthusiastically. "They have been at their best this season. Have you seen the duke's 'Afrique'? All in miniature. Over there."
"Is that what it is called? I wondered. I had been growing lichen, but no matter."
"I spoiled a project of yours?" The duke was mortified.
Lord Shark shrugged.
"But, my lonely lord, I must make amends."
The eyes behind the mask became interested for a moment. "You would fight with me. A duel? Is that what you mean?"
"Well…" the Duke of Queens fingered his chin, "if that would placate you, certainly. Though I've had no practise at it."
The light in the eyes dimmed. "True. It would be no fight at all."
"But," said the duke, "lend me one of your machines to teach me, and I will return at an agreed hour. What say you?"
"No, no, sir. I took no umbrage. I should not have suggested it. Let us part, for I weary very swiftly of human company." Lord Shark sheathed his sword and snapped his fingers at his automaton, which copied the gesture. "Good day to you, Iron Orchid. And to you, Duke of Queens." He bowed again.
Ignoring the Iron Orchid's restraining hand upon his sleeve, the duke stepped forward as Lord Shark turned away. "I insist upon it, sir."
His dark grey, leathery cloak rustling, the masked recluse faced them again. "It would certainly fulfil an ambition. But it would have to be done properly, and only when you had thoroughly learned the art. And there would have to be an understanding as to the rules."
"Anything." The duke made an elaborate bow. "Send me, at your convenience, an instructor."
"Very well." Lord Shark the Unknown signed to his automaton and together they began to walk across the plain, towards the brown mountains. "You will hear from me soon, sir."
"I thank you, sir."
They strolled in the direction of the useless monoplane. The duke seemed very pleased. "What a wonderful new fashion," he remarked, "duelling. And this time, with the exception of Lord Shark, of course, I shall be the first."
The Iron Orchid was amused. "Shall we all, soon, be drawing one another's blood with those thin sticks of steel, extravagant duke?"
He laughed and kissed her cheek. "Why not? I tire of 'Cities', and even 'Continents' pall. How long is it since we have had a primitive sport?"
"Nothing since the ballhead craze," she confirmed.
"I shall learn all I can, and then I can teach others. When Jherek returns, we shall have something fresh for him to enjoy."
"It will, at least, be in keeping with his current obsessions, as I understand them."
Privately the Iron Orchid wondered if the duke would, at last, be responsible for an entirely new fashion. She hoped, for his sake, that he would, but it was hard, at the moment, to see the creative possibilities of the medium. She was afraid that it would not catch on.
"Some of his jokes," said the Iron Orchid with a glance of distaste at the crocodile clinging by its teeth to her left foot, "were rather difficult to see. However, he seems at one with himself now. Wouldn't you say?" She shook the reptile loose.
"Oh, yes! But then I'm notorious for my lack of insight." They strolled away from Southern Africa into the delicate knee-high forests of the Congo. The Iron Orchid smiled with delight at the brightly coloured little birds which flitted about her legs, sometimes clinging to the hem of her parchment skirt before flashing away again. Of all the expressions of the duke's obsession with the ancient nation called by him "Afrique", this seemed to her to be the sweetest.
They were discussing Lord Jagged of Canaria (who had vanished at about the same time as the Iron Orchid's son, Jherek). Offering no explanation as to how his friends might have found themselves, albeit for a very short while, in 19th-century London, together with himself, Jherek, some cyclopean aliens and an assortment of natives of the period, Jagged had returned, only to hide himself away underground.
"Well," said the duke, dismissing the matter, "it was rewarding, even if it does suggest, as Brannart Morphail somewhat emphatically pointed out, that Time itself is becoming unstable. It must be because of all these other disruptions in the universe we are hearing about."
"It is very confusing," said the Iron Orchid with disapproval. "I do hope the end of the world, when it comes, will be a little better organized." She turned. "Duke?" He had disappeared.
With a smile of apology he clambered back to land. "Lake Tanganyika," he explained. "I knew I'd misplaced it." He used one of his power rings to dissipate the water in his clothing.
"It is the trees," she said. "They are too tall." She was having difficulty in pressing on through the waist-high palms. "I do believe I've squashed one of your villages, Duke."
"Please don't concern yourself, lovely Iron Orchid. I've crowded too much in. You know how I respond to a challenge!" He looked vaguely about him, seeking a way through the jungle. "It is uncomfortably hot."
"Is not your sun rather close?" she suggested.
"That must be it." He made an adjustment to a ruby power ring and the miniature sun rose, then moved to the left, sinking again behind a hillock he had called Kilimanjaro, offering them a pleasant twilight.
"That's much better."
He took her hand and led her towards Kenya, where the trees were sparser. A cloud of tiny flamingoes fluttered around her, like midges, for a moment and then were gone on their way back to their nesting places.
"I do love this part of the evening, don't you?" he said. "I would have it all the time, were I not afraid it would begin to pall."
"One must orchestrate," she murmured, glad that his taste seemed, at long last, to be improving.
"One must moderate."
"Indeed." He helped her across the bridge over the Indian Ocean. He looked back on Afrique, his stance melancholy and romantic. "Farewell Cape City," he proclaimed, "farewell Byzantium, Dodge and Limoges; farewell the verdant plains of Chad and the hot springs of Egypt. Farewell!"
The Duke of Queens and the Iron Orchid climbed into his monoplane, parked nearby. Overhead now a bronze and distant sun brightened a hazy, yellow sky; on the horizon were old, worn mountains which, judging by their peculiar brown colouring, might even have been an original part of the Earth's topography, for hardly anyone visited this area.
As the duke pondered the controls, the Iron Orchid put her head to one side, thinking she had heard something. "Do you detect," she asked, "a sort of clashing sound?"
"I have not yet got the engine started."
"Over there, I mean." She pointed. "Are those people?"
He peered in the direction she indicated. "Some dust rising, certainly. And, yes, perhaps two figures. Who could it be?"
"Shall we see?"
"If you wish, we can —" He had depressed a button and the rest of his remark was drowned by the noise of his engine. The propeller began to spin and whine and then fell from the nose, bouncing over the barren ground and into the Indian Ocean. He pressed the button again and the engine stopped. "We can walk there," he concluded. They descended from the monoplane.
The ground they crossed was parched and cracked like old leather which had not been properly cared for.
"This needs a thorough restoration," said the Iron Orchid somewhat primly. "Who usually occupies this territory?"
"You see him," murmured the Duke of Queens, for now it was possible to recognize one of the figures.
"Aha!" She was not surprised. It had been two or three centuries since she had last seen the man who, with a bright strip of metal clutched in one gauntleted hand, capered back and forth in the dust, while a second individual, also clasping an identical strip, performed similar steps. From time to time they would bring their strips forcefully together, resulting in the clashing sound the Iron Orchid had heard originally.
"Lord Shark the Unknown," said the Duke of Queens. He called out, "Greetings to you, my mysterious Lord Shark!"
The man half-turned. The other figure leapt forward and touched his body with his metal strip. Lord Shark gasped and fell to one knee. Through the fishy mask he always wore, his red eyes glared at them.
They came up to him. He did not rise. Instead he presented his gauntleted palm. "Look!" Crimson liquid glistened.
The Iron Orchid inspected it. "Is it unusual?"
"It is blood, madam!" Lord Shark rose painfully to his feet. "My blood."
"Then you must repair yourself at once."
"It is against my principles."
Lord Shark's companion stood some distance away, wiping Lord Shark's blood from his weapon.
"That, I take it, is a sword," said the Iron Orchid. "I had always imagined them larger, and more ornate."
"I know such swords." Lord Shark the Unknown loosened the long white scarf he wore around his dark grey neck and applied it to the wound in his shoulder. "They are decadent. These," he held up his own, "are finely tempered, perfectly balanced epees. We were duelling," he explained, "my automaton and I."
Looking across at the machine, the Iron Orchid saw that it was a reproduction of Lord Shark himself, complete with fierce shark-mask.
"It could kill you, could it not?" she asked. "Is it programmed to resurrect you, Lord Shark?"
He dismissed her question with a wave of his blood-stained scarf.
"And strange, that you should be killed, as it were, by yourself," she added.
"When we fight, is it not always with ourselves, madam?"
"I really don't know, sir, for I have never fought and I know no-one who does."
"That is why I must make automata. You know my name, madam, but I fear you have the advantage of me."
"It has been so long. I looked quite different when we last met. At Mongrove's Black Ball, you'll recall. I am the Iron Orchid."
"Ah, yes." He bowed.
"And I am the Duke of Queens," said the duke kindly.
"I know you, Duke of Queens. But you had another name then, did you not?"
"Liam Ty Pam Caesar Lloyd George Zatopek Finsbury Ronnie Michelangelo Yurio Iopu 4578 Rew United," supplied the duke. "Would that be it?"
"As I remember, yes." A sigh escaped the gash which was the shark's mouth. "So there have been some few small changes in the outside world, in society. But I suppose you still while away your days with pretty conceits?"
"Oh, yes!" said the Iron Orchid enthusiastically. "They have been at their best this season. Have you seen the duke's 'Afrique'? All in miniature. Over there."
"Is that what it is called? I wondered. I had been growing lichen, but no matter."
"I spoiled a project of yours?" The duke was mortified.
Lord Shark shrugged.
"But, my lonely lord, I must make amends."
The eyes behind the mask became interested for a moment. "You would fight with me. A duel? Is that what you mean?"
"Well…" the Duke of Queens fingered his chin, "if that would placate you, certainly. Though I've had no practise at it."
The light in the eyes dimmed. "True. It would be no fight at all."
"But," said the duke, "lend me one of your machines to teach me, and I will return at an agreed hour. What say you?"
"No, no, sir. I took no umbrage. I should not have suggested it. Let us part, for I weary very swiftly of human company." Lord Shark sheathed his sword and snapped his fingers at his automaton, which copied the gesture. "Good day to you, Iron Orchid. And to you, Duke of Queens." He bowed again.
Ignoring the Iron Orchid's restraining hand upon his sleeve, the duke stepped forward as Lord Shark turned away. "I insist upon it, sir."
His dark grey, leathery cloak rustling, the masked recluse faced them again. "It would certainly fulfil an ambition. But it would have to be done properly, and only when you had thoroughly learned the art. And there would have to be an understanding as to the rules."
"Anything." The duke made an elaborate bow. "Send me, at your convenience, an instructor."
"Very well." Lord Shark the Unknown signed to his automaton and together they began to walk across the plain, towards the brown mountains. "You will hear from me soon, sir."
"I thank you, sir."
They strolled in the direction of the useless monoplane. The duke seemed very pleased. "What a wonderful new fashion," he remarked, "duelling. And this time, with the exception of Lord Shark, of course, I shall be the first."
The Iron Orchid was amused. "Shall we all, soon, be drawing one another's blood with those thin sticks of steel, extravagant duke?"
He laughed and kissed her cheek. "Why not? I tire of 'Cities', and even 'Continents' pall. How long is it since we have had a primitive sport?"
"Nothing since the ballhead craze," she confirmed.
"I shall learn all I can, and then I can teach others. When Jherek returns, we shall have something fresh for him to enjoy."
"It will, at least, be in keeping with his current obsessions, as I understand them."
Privately the Iron Orchid wondered if the duke would, at last, be responsible for an entirely new fashion. She hoped, for his sake, that he would, but it was hard, at the moment, to see the creative possibilities of the medium. She was afraid that it would not catch on.
3. Something of the History of Lord Shark the Unknown
If gloomy Mongrove, now touring what was left of the galaxy with the alien Yusharisp, had affected aloofness, then Lord Shark was, without question, genuinely reclusive. Absorbed in his duel, he had not noticed the approach of the Iron Orchid and the Duke of Queens, for if he had he would have made good his escape well before they could have hailed him. In all his life he had found pleasure in the company of only one human being: a short-lived time traveller who had refused immortality and died many centuries since.
Lord Shark was not merely contemptuous of the society which presently occupied the planet, he was contemptuous of the very planet, the universe, of the whole of existence. Compared with him, Werther de Goethe was an optimist (as, indeed, secretly he was). Werther had once made overtures to Lord Shark, considering him a fellow spirit, but Lord Shark would have none of him, judging him to be as silly and as affected as all the others. Lord Shark was the last true cynic to come into being at the End of Time and found no pleasure in any pursuit save the pursuit of death, and in this he must be thought the unluckiest man in the world, for everything conspired to thwart him. Wounded, he refused to treat the wounds, and they healed. Injured, his injuries were never critical. He considered suicide, as such, to be unworthy of him, feeble, but dangers which would have brought certain death to others only seemed to bring Lord Shark at best some passing inconvenience.
As he returned home, Lord Shark could feel the pain in his shoulder already subsiding and he knew that it would not be long before there would only be a small scar to show where the sword blade had entered. He was regretting his bargain with the Duke of Queens. He was sure that the duke would never attain the skill necessary to beat him, and, if he were not beaten, and killed, he would in his opinion have wasted his time. His pride now refused to let him go back on the bargain, for to do so would be to show him as feckless a fellow as any other and would threaten his confidence in his own superiority, his only consolation. It was the pride of the profoundly unimaginative man, for it was Lord Shark's lot to be without creative talent of any kind in a world where all were artists — good or bad, but artists, still. Even his mask was not of his own invention but had been made for him by his time-travelling friend shortly before that man's death (his name had come from the same source). He had taken both mask and name without humour, on good faith. It is perhaps unkind to speculate as to whether even this stalwart friend had been unable to resist playing one good joke upon poor Lord Shark, for it is a truism that those without humour find themselves the butts of all who possess even a spark of it themselves.
Whoever had created Lord Shark (and he had never been able to discover who his parents might be, perhaps because they were too embarrassed to claim him) might well have set out to create a perfect misanthrope, a person as unsuited to this particular society as was possible. If so, they had achieved their ambition absolutely. He had appeared in public only twice in the thousand or so years of his life, and the last time had been three hundred years ago at Mongrove's celebrated Black Ball. Lord Shark had stayed little more than half-an-hour at this, having rapidly reached the conclusion that it was as pointless as all the other social activities on the planet. He had considered time travel, as an escape, but every age he had studied seemed equally frivolous and he had soon ceased to entertain that scheme. He contented himself with his voluntary exile, his contempt, his conviction in the pointlessness of everything, and he continued to seek ways of dying suggested to him by his studies of history. His automata were created in his own image not from perversity, not from egocentricity, but because no other image presented itself to his mind.
Lord Shark trudged on, his grey-booted feet making the dust of his arid domain dance, giving the landscape a semblance of life, and came in a while to his rectangular domicile at the foot of those time-ground ridges, the ragged remains of the Rockies. Two guards, identical in appearance to each other and to Lord Shark, were positioned on either side of his single small door, and they remained rigid, only their eyes following him as he let himself in and marched up the long, straight, sparsely lit passage which passed through the centre of the internal grid (the house was divided into exactly equal sections, with rooms of exactly equal proportions) to the central chamber of the building, in which he spent the greater part of his days. There he sat himself down upon a chair of grey metal and began to brood.
Regretfully, he must pursue his agreement with the Duke of Queens, but he felt no demand to hurry the business through; the longer it took, the better.
Lord Shark was not merely contemptuous of the society which presently occupied the planet, he was contemptuous of the very planet, the universe, of the whole of existence. Compared with him, Werther de Goethe was an optimist (as, indeed, secretly he was). Werther had once made overtures to Lord Shark, considering him a fellow spirit, but Lord Shark would have none of him, judging him to be as silly and as affected as all the others. Lord Shark was the last true cynic to come into being at the End of Time and found no pleasure in any pursuit save the pursuit of death, and in this he must be thought the unluckiest man in the world, for everything conspired to thwart him. Wounded, he refused to treat the wounds, and they healed. Injured, his injuries were never critical. He considered suicide, as such, to be unworthy of him, feeble, but dangers which would have brought certain death to others only seemed to bring Lord Shark at best some passing inconvenience.
As he returned home, Lord Shark could feel the pain in his shoulder already subsiding and he knew that it would not be long before there would only be a small scar to show where the sword blade had entered. He was regretting his bargain with the Duke of Queens. He was sure that the duke would never attain the skill necessary to beat him, and, if he were not beaten, and killed, he would in his opinion have wasted his time. His pride now refused to let him go back on the bargain, for to do so would be to show him as feckless a fellow as any other and would threaten his confidence in his own superiority, his only consolation. It was the pride of the profoundly unimaginative man, for it was Lord Shark's lot to be without creative talent of any kind in a world where all were artists — good or bad, but artists, still. Even his mask was not of his own invention but had been made for him by his time-travelling friend shortly before that man's death (his name had come from the same source). He had taken both mask and name without humour, on good faith. It is perhaps unkind to speculate as to whether even this stalwart friend had been unable to resist playing one good joke upon poor Lord Shark, for it is a truism that those without humour find themselves the butts of all who possess even a spark of it themselves.
Whoever had created Lord Shark (and he had never been able to discover who his parents might be, perhaps because they were too embarrassed to claim him) might well have set out to create a perfect misanthrope, a person as unsuited to this particular society as was possible. If so, they had achieved their ambition absolutely. He had appeared in public only twice in the thousand or so years of his life, and the last time had been three hundred years ago at Mongrove's celebrated Black Ball. Lord Shark had stayed little more than half-an-hour at this, having rapidly reached the conclusion that it was as pointless as all the other social activities on the planet. He had considered time travel, as an escape, but every age he had studied seemed equally frivolous and he had soon ceased to entertain that scheme. He contented himself with his voluntary exile, his contempt, his conviction in the pointlessness of everything, and he continued to seek ways of dying suggested to him by his studies of history. His automata were created in his own image not from perversity, not from egocentricity, but because no other image presented itself to his mind.
Lord Shark trudged on, his grey-booted feet making the dust of his arid domain dance, giving the landscape a semblance of life, and came in a while to his rectangular domicile at the foot of those time-ground ridges, the ragged remains of the Rockies. Two guards, identical in appearance to each other and to Lord Shark, were positioned on either side of his single small door, and they remained rigid, only their eyes following him as he let himself in and marched up the long, straight, sparsely lit passage which passed through the centre of the internal grid (the house was divided into exactly equal sections, with rooms of exactly equal proportions) to the central chamber of the building, in which he spent the greater part of his days. There he sat himself down upon a chair of grey metal and began to brood.
Regretfully, he must pursue his agreement with the Duke of Queens, but he felt no demand to hurry the business through; the longer it took, the better.
4. In Which Unwilling Travellers Arrive at the End of Time
Walking slowly across the ceiling of his new palace, the Duke of Queens looked up to see that Bishop Castle had already arrived and was peering with some pleasure through a window. "Shall we join him?" asked the duke of the Iron Orchid and, at her nod of assent, turned a jewel on one of his rings. Elegantly they performed half a somersault so that they, too, were upside down and, from their new perspective, descending towards the floor. Bishop Castle hailed them. "Such a simple idea, duke, but beautiful." He waved a white-gloved hand at the view. The sky now lay like a sea, spread out below, while inverted trees and gardens and lawns were overhead.
"It is refreshing," confirmed the duke, pleased. "But I can take no credit. The idea was the Iron Orchid's."
"Nonsense, most dashing of dukes. Actually," she murmured to Bishop Castle, "I borrowed it from Sweet Orb Mace. How is she, by the by?"
"Recovered completely, though the resurrection was a little late. I believe the snow helped preserve her, for all its heat."
"We have just seen Lord Shark the Unknown," she announced. "And he challenged the Duke of Queens to, my lord bishop, a duel! "
"It was not exactly a challenge, luscious blossom. Merely an agreement to fight at some future date."
"To fight?" Bishop Castle's large eyebrows rose, almost touching the rim of his tall crown. "Would that involve 'violence'?"
"A degree of it, I believe," said the duke demurely. "Yes, blood will be spilled, if today's experience is typical. These little sticks…" He turned with a questioning frown to the Iron Orchid.
"Swords," she said.
"Yes, swords — with points, you know, to pierce the flesh. You will have seen them in the old pictures and possibly wondered at their function. We have used them for decoration, of course, in the past — many believing them to be some sort of ancient totem, some symbol of rank — but it emerges that they were meant to kill."
Bishop Castle was apologetic. "The conceptions involved are a little difficult to grasp, as with so many of these ancient pastimes, though of course I have witnessed, in visitors to our age, the phenomena. Does it not involve 'anger', however?"
"Not necessarily, from what little I know."
The conversation turned to other subjects; they discussed their recent adventures and speculated upon the whereabouts of the Iron Orchid's son, Jherek Carnelian, of Mrs Underwood, whom he loved, of Lord Jagged of Canaria, and the uncouth alien musicians who had called themselves the Lat.
"Brannart Morphail, querulous as ever, refuses to discuss any part he might have played in the affair," Bishop Castle told his friends. "He merely hints at the dangers of 'meddling with the fabric of Time', but I cannot believe he is entirely objective, for he has always affected a somewhat proprietorial attitude towards Time."
"Nonetheless, it is puzzling," said the Iron Orchid. "And I regret the disappearance of so many entertaining people. Those space travellers, the Lat, were they, do you think, 'violent'?"
"That would explain the difficulties we had in communicating with them, certainly. But we can talk further when we see My Lady Charlotina." Bishop Castle was evidently tiring of the discussion. "Shall we go?"
As they drifted, still upside down, from the house, Bishop Castle complimented the Iron Orchid on her costume. It was dark blue and derived from the clothing of some of those she had encountered at the Cafe Royal, in the 19th century. The helmet suited her particularly, but Bishop Castle was not sure he liked the moustache.
Righting themselves, they all climbed into Bishop Castle's air carriage, a reproduction of a space vehicle of the 300th Icecream Empire, all red-gold curlicues and silver body work, and set off for Lake Billy the Kid, where My Lady Charlotina's reception (to celebrate, as she put it, their safe return) had already started.
They had gone no more than a few hundred miles when they encountered Werther de Goethe, magnificently pale in black, voluminous satin robes, riding upon his monstrous tombstone, a slab of purple marble, and evidently recovered from his recent affair with Mistress Christia, the Everlasting Concubine, in such good spirits that he deigned to acknowledge their presence as they put their heads through the portholes and waved to him. The slab swung gracefully over the tops of some tall pine trees and came to rest, hovering near them.
"Do you go to My Lady Charlotina's, moody Werther?" asked the Iron Orchid.
"Doubtless to be insulted again by her, but, yes, I go," he confirmed. "I suppose you have seen the newcomers already?"
"Newcomers?" The light breeze curled the duke's feathers around his face. "From space?"
"Who knows? They are humanoid. My Lady Charlotina has endomed them, near Lake Billy the Kid. Her whole party has gone to watch. I will see you there, then?"
"You shall, sorrowing son of Nature," promised the Iron Orchid.
Werther was pleased with the appellation. He swept on. The spaceship turned to follow him.
Soon they saw the stretch of blue water which was My Lady Charlotina's home, the presence of her vast subaqueous palace marked only by a slight disturbance of the surface of the water in the middle of the lake where the energy-tube made its exit. They rose higher into the air, over the surrounding mountains, and at length saw the shimmering, green-tinted air indicating a force-dome. Descending, they saw that the dome, all but invisible, was surrounded by a large throng of people. They landed in the vicinity of a number of other air carriages of assorted designs and disembarked.
My Lady Charlotina, naked, with her skin coloured in alternate bands of black and white, saw them. She already had her arm through Werther's. "Come and see what I have netted for my menagerie," she called. "Time travellers. I have never seen so many at once." She laughed. "Brannart, of course, takes a very gloomy view, but I'm delighted! There isn't another set like it!"
Brannart Morphail, still in the traditional hump-back and club-foot of the scientist, limped towards them. He shook a bony finger at the Iron Orchid. "This is all your son's fault. And where is Lord Jagged to explain himself?"
"We have not seen him since our return," she said. "You fret so, Brannart. Think how entertaining life has become of late!"
"Not for long, delicate metal, fragile flower. Not for long." Grumbling to himself, he hobbled past them. "I must get my instruments."
They made their way through the gathering until they reached the wall of the force-dome. The Iron Orchid put her hand to her lips in astonishment. "Are they intelligent?"
"Oh, yes. Primitive, naturally, but otherwise…" My Lady Charlotina smiled. "They growl and rave so! We have not yet had a proper talk with them."
Orange fire splashed against the inner wall and spread across it, obscuring the scene within.
"They keep doing that," explained My Lady Charlotina. "I am not sure if they mean to burn us or the wall. A translator is in operation, though they are still a trifle incoherent. Their voices can be very loud."
As the fire dissipated, the Iron Orchid stared curiously at the twenty or thirty men inside the dome. Their faces were bruised, bleeding and smudged with oil; they wore identical costumes of mottled green and brown; there were metal helmets on their heads, and what she supposed to be some sort of breathing apparatus (unused) on their backs. In their hands were artefacts consisting basically of a metal tube to which was fixed a handle, probably of plastic. It was from these tubes that the flames occasionally gouted.
"They look tired," she said sympathetically. "Their journey must have been difficult. Where are they from?"
"They were not clear. We put the dome up because they seemed ill at ease in the open; they kept burning things. Four of my guests had to be taken away for resurrection. I think they must calm down eventually, don't you, Duke of Queens?"
"They invariably do," he agreed. "They'll exhaust themselves, I suppose."
"So many!" murmured Bishop Castle. He fingered the lobe of his ear.
"That is what makes them such a catch," said the Duke of Queens. "Well, Werther, you are an expert — what period would you say they were from?"
"Very early. The twentieth century?"
"A little later?" suggested Bishop Castle.
"The twenty-fifth, then."
Bishop Castle nodded. "That seems right. Are any of your guests, My Lady Charlotina, from that age?"
"Not really. You know how few we get from those Dawn Age periods. Doctor Volospion might have one, but…"
Mistress Christia approached, her eyes wide, her lips wet. "What brutes! " she gasped. "Oh, I envy you, My Lady Charlotina. When did you find them?"
"Not long ago. But I've no idea how much time they've been here."
More fire spread itself over the wall, but it seemed fainter. One of the time travellers flung down his tube, growling and glaring. Some of the audience applauded.
"If only Jherek were here," said the Iron Orchid. "He understands these people so well! Where is their machine?"
"That's the odd thing, Brannart has been unable to find a trace of one. He insists that one exists. He thinks that it might have returned to its period of origin — that sometimes happens, I gather. But he says that no machine registered on his detectors, and it has caused him to become even more bad-tempered than usual." My Lady Charlotina withdrew her arm from Werther's. "Ah, Gaf the Horse in Tears, have you seen my new time travellers yet?"
Gaf lifted his skirts. "Have you seen my new wheels , My Lady Charlotina?"
They wandered away together.
Bishop Castle was trying to address one of the nearest of the time travellers. "How do you do?" he began politely. "Welcome to the End of Time!"
The time travellers said something to him which defeated the normally subtle translator.
"Where are you from?" asked the Iron Orchid of one.
Another of the time travellers shouted to the man addressed. "Remember, trooper. Name, rank and serial number. It's all you have to tell 'em."
"Sarge, they must know we're from Earth."
"Okay," assented the other, "you can tell 'em that, too."
"Kevin O'Dwyer," said the man, "Trooper First Class, 0008859376." He added, "From Earth."
"What year?" asked the Duke of Queens.
Trooper First Class Kevin O'Dwyer looked pleadingly at his sergeant. "You're the ranking officer, sir. I shouldn't have to do this."
"Let them do the talking," snapped the sergeant. "We'll do the fighting."
"Fighting?" The Duke of Queens grinned with pleasure. "Ah, you'll be able to help me. Are you soldiers, then?"
Again the translation was muddy.
"Soldiers?" asked Bishop Castle, in case they had not heard properly.
The sergeant sighed. "What do you think, buddy?"
"This is splendid!" said the Duke of Queens.
"It is refreshing," confirmed the duke, pleased. "But I can take no credit. The idea was the Iron Orchid's."
"Nonsense, most dashing of dukes. Actually," she murmured to Bishop Castle, "I borrowed it from Sweet Orb Mace. How is she, by the by?"
"Recovered completely, though the resurrection was a little late. I believe the snow helped preserve her, for all its heat."
"We have just seen Lord Shark the Unknown," she announced. "And he challenged the Duke of Queens to, my lord bishop, a duel! "
"It was not exactly a challenge, luscious blossom. Merely an agreement to fight at some future date."
"To fight?" Bishop Castle's large eyebrows rose, almost touching the rim of his tall crown. "Would that involve 'violence'?"
"A degree of it, I believe," said the duke demurely. "Yes, blood will be spilled, if today's experience is typical. These little sticks…" He turned with a questioning frown to the Iron Orchid.
"Swords," she said.
"Yes, swords — with points, you know, to pierce the flesh. You will have seen them in the old pictures and possibly wondered at their function. We have used them for decoration, of course, in the past — many believing them to be some sort of ancient totem, some symbol of rank — but it emerges that they were meant to kill."
Bishop Castle was apologetic. "The conceptions involved are a little difficult to grasp, as with so many of these ancient pastimes, though of course I have witnessed, in visitors to our age, the phenomena. Does it not involve 'anger', however?"
"Not necessarily, from what little I know."
The conversation turned to other subjects; they discussed their recent adventures and speculated upon the whereabouts of the Iron Orchid's son, Jherek Carnelian, of Mrs Underwood, whom he loved, of Lord Jagged of Canaria, and the uncouth alien musicians who had called themselves the Lat.
"Brannart Morphail, querulous as ever, refuses to discuss any part he might have played in the affair," Bishop Castle told his friends. "He merely hints at the dangers of 'meddling with the fabric of Time', but I cannot believe he is entirely objective, for he has always affected a somewhat proprietorial attitude towards Time."
"Nonetheless, it is puzzling," said the Iron Orchid. "And I regret the disappearance of so many entertaining people. Those space travellers, the Lat, were they, do you think, 'violent'?"
"That would explain the difficulties we had in communicating with them, certainly. But we can talk further when we see My Lady Charlotina." Bishop Castle was evidently tiring of the discussion. "Shall we go?"
As they drifted, still upside down, from the house, Bishop Castle complimented the Iron Orchid on her costume. It was dark blue and derived from the clothing of some of those she had encountered at the Cafe Royal, in the 19th century. The helmet suited her particularly, but Bishop Castle was not sure he liked the moustache.
Righting themselves, they all climbed into Bishop Castle's air carriage, a reproduction of a space vehicle of the 300th Icecream Empire, all red-gold curlicues and silver body work, and set off for Lake Billy the Kid, where My Lady Charlotina's reception (to celebrate, as she put it, their safe return) had already started.
They had gone no more than a few hundred miles when they encountered Werther de Goethe, magnificently pale in black, voluminous satin robes, riding upon his monstrous tombstone, a slab of purple marble, and evidently recovered from his recent affair with Mistress Christia, the Everlasting Concubine, in such good spirits that he deigned to acknowledge their presence as they put their heads through the portholes and waved to him. The slab swung gracefully over the tops of some tall pine trees and came to rest, hovering near them.
"Do you go to My Lady Charlotina's, moody Werther?" asked the Iron Orchid.
"Doubtless to be insulted again by her, but, yes, I go," he confirmed. "I suppose you have seen the newcomers already?"
"Newcomers?" The light breeze curled the duke's feathers around his face. "From space?"
"Who knows? They are humanoid. My Lady Charlotina has endomed them, near Lake Billy the Kid. Her whole party has gone to watch. I will see you there, then?"
"You shall, sorrowing son of Nature," promised the Iron Orchid.
Werther was pleased with the appellation. He swept on. The spaceship turned to follow him.
Soon they saw the stretch of blue water which was My Lady Charlotina's home, the presence of her vast subaqueous palace marked only by a slight disturbance of the surface of the water in the middle of the lake where the energy-tube made its exit. They rose higher into the air, over the surrounding mountains, and at length saw the shimmering, green-tinted air indicating a force-dome. Descending, they saw that the dome, all but invisible, was surrounded by a large throng of people. They landed in the vicinity of a number of other air carriages of assorted designs and disembarked.
My Lady Charlotina, naked, with her skin coloured in alternate bands of black and white, saw them. She already had her arm through Werther's. "Come and see what I have netted for my menagerie," she called. "Time travellers. I have never seen so many at once." She laughed. "Brannart, of course, takes a very gloomy view, but I'm delighted! There isn't another set like it!"
Brannart Morphail, still in the traditional hump-back and club-foot of the scientist, limped towards them. He shook a bony finger at the Iron Orchid. "This is all your son's fault. And where is Lord Jagged to explain himself?"
"We have not seen him since our return," she said. "You fret so, Brannart. Think how entertaining life has become of late!"
"Not for long, delicate metal, fragile flower. Not for long." Grumbling to himself, he hobbled past them. "I must get my instruments."
They made their way through the gathering until they reached the wall of the force-dome. The Iron Orchid put her hand to her lips in astonishment. "Are they intelligent?"
"Oh, yes. Primitive, naturally, but otherwise…" My Lady Charlotina smiled. "They growl and rave so! We have not yet had a proper talk with them."
Orange fire splashed against the inner wall and spread across it, obscuring the scene within.
"They keep doing that," explained My Lady Charlotina. "I am not sure if they mean to burn us or the wall. A translator is in operation, though they are still a trifle incoherent. Their voices can be very loud."
As the fire dissipated, the Iron Orchid stared curiously at the twenty or thirty men inside the dome. Their faces were bruised, bleeding and smudged with oil; they wore identical costumes of mottled green and brown; there were metal helmets on their heads, and what she supposed to be some sort of breathing apparatus (unused) on their backs. In their hands were artefacts consisting basically of a metal tube to which was fixed a handle, probably of plastic. It was from these tubes that the flames occasionally gouted.
"They look tired," she said sympathetically. "Their journey must have been difficult. Where are they from?"
"They were not clear. We put the dome up because they seemed ill at ease in the open; they kept burning things. Four of my guests had to be taken away for resurrection. I think they must calm down eventually, don't you, Duke of Queens?"
"They invariably do," he agreed. "They'll exhaust themselves, I suppose."
"So many!" murmured Bishop Castle. He fingered the lobe of his ear.
"That is what makes them such a catch," said the Duke of Queens. "Well, Werther, you are an expert — what period would you say they were from?"
"Very early. The twentieth century?"
"A little later?" suggested Bishop Castle.
"The twenty-fifth, then."
Bishop Castle nodded. "That seems right. Are any of your guests, My Lady Charlotina, from that age?"
"Not really. You know how few we get from those Dawn Age periods. Doctor Volospion might have one, but…"
Mistress Christia approached, her eyes wide, her lips wet. "What brutes! " she gasped. "Oh, I envy you, My Lady Charlotina. When did you find them?"
"Not long ago. But I've no idea how much time they've been here."
More fire spread itself over the wall, but it seemed fainter. One of the time travellers flung down his tube, growling and glaring. Some of the audience applauded.
"If only Jherek were here," said the Iron Orchid. "He understands these people so well! Where is their machine?"
"That's the odd thing, Brannart has been unable to find a trace of one. He insists that one exists. He thinks that it might have returned to its period of origin — that sometimes happens, I gather. But he says that no machine registered on his detectors, and it has caused him to become even more bad-tempered than usual." My Lady Charlotina withdrew her arm from Werther's. "Ah, Gaf the Horse in Tears, have you seen my new time travellers yet?"
Gaf lifted his skirts. "Have you seen my new wheels , My Lady Charlotina?"
They wandered away together.
Bishop Castle was trying to address one of the nearest of the time travellers. "How do you do?" he began politely. "Welcome to the End of Time!"
The time travellers said something to him which defeated the normally subtle translator.
"Where are you from?" asked the Iron Orchid of one.
Another of the time travellers shouted to the man addressed. "Remember, trooper. Name, rank and serial number. It's all you have to tell 'em."
"Sarge, they must know we're from Earth."
"Okay," assented the other, "you can tell 'em that, too."
"Kevin O'Dwyer," said the man, "Trooper First Class, 0008859376." He added, "From Earth."
"What year?" asked the Duke of Queens.
Trooper First Class Kevin O'Dwyer looked pleadingly at his sergeant. "You're the ranking officer, sir. I shouldn't have to do this."
"Let them do the talking," snapped the sergeant. "We'll do the fighting."
"Fighting?" The Duke of Queens grinned with pleasure. "Ah, you'll be able to help me. Are you soldiers, then?"
Again the translation was muddy.
"Soldiers?" asked Bishop Castle, in case they had not heard properly.
The sergeant sighed. "What do you think, buddy?"
"This is splendid!" said the Duke of Queens.
5. In Which the Duke of Queens Seeks Instruction
As soon as it was evident that the soldiers had used up all their fire, My Lady Charlotina released the one called "sergeant", whose full name, on further enquiry, turned out to be Sergeant Henry Martinez, 0008832942. After listening in silence to their questions for a while he said:
"Look, I don't know what planet this is, or if you think you're fooling me with your disguise, but you're wasting your time. We're hip to every trick in the Alpha Centauran book."
"Who are the Alpha Centaurans?" asked My Lady Charlotina, turning to Werther de Goethe.
"They existed even before the Dawn Age," he explained. "They were intelligent horses of some kind."
"Very funny," said Sergeant Martinez flatly. "You know damn well who you are."
"He thinks we're horses? Perhaps some optical disturbance, coupled with…" Bishop Castle creased his brow.
"Stow it, will you?" asked the sergeant firmly. "We're prisoners of war. Now I know you guys don't pay too much attention to things like the Geneva Convention in Alpha Centauri, for all you —"
"It's a star system!" said Werther. "I remember. I think it was used for something a long while ago. It doesn't exist any more, but there was a war between Earth and this other system in the 24th century — you are 24th century, I take it, sir? — which went on for many years. These are typical warriors of the period. The Alpha Centaurans were, I thought, birdlike creatures…"
"The Vultures," supplied Sergeant Martinez. "That's what we call you."
"I assure you, we're as human as you are, sergeant," said My Lady Charlotina. "You are an ancestor of ours. Don't you recognize the planet? And we have some of your near-contemporaries with us. Li Pao? Where's Li Pao? He's from the 27th." But the puritanical Chinaman had not yet arrived.
"If I'm not mistaken," said Martinez patiently, "you're trying to convince me that the blast which got us out there beyond Mercury sent us into the future. Well, it's a good try — we'd heard your interrogation methods were pretty subtle and pretty damn elaborate — but it's too fancy to work. Save your time. Put us in the camp, knock us off, or do whatever you normally do with prisoners. We're Troopers and we're too tough and too tired to play this kind of fool game. Besides, I can tell you for nothing, we don't know nothing — we get sent on missions. We do what we're told. We either succeed, or we die or, sometimes, we get captured. We got captured. That's what we know. There's nothing else we can tell you."
Fascinated, the Iron Orchid and her friends listened attentively and were regretful when he stopped. He sighed. "Bad Sugar!" he exclaimed. "You're like kids, ain't you? Can you understand what I'm saying?"
"Not entirely," Bishop Castle told him, "but it's very interesting for us. To study you, you know."
Muttering, Sergeant Martinez sat down on the ground.
"Aren't you going to say any more?" Mistress Christia was extremely disappointed. "Would you like to make love to me, Sergeant Martinez?"
He offered her an expression of cynical contempt. "We're up to that one, too," he said.
She brightened, holding out her hand. "Wonderful! You don't mind, do you, My Lady Charlotina?"
"Of course not."
When Sergeant Martinez did not accept her hand, Mistress Christia sat down beside him and stroked his cropped head.
Firmly, he replaced the helmet he had been holding in his hands. Then he folded his arms across his broad chest and stared into the middle-distance. His colour seemed to have changed. Mistress Christia stroked his arm. He jerked it away.
"I must have misunderstood you," she said.
"I can take it or leave it alone," he told her. "You got it? Okay, I'll take it. When I want it. But if you expect to get any information from me that way, that's where you're wrong."
"Perhaps you'd rather do it in private?"
A mirthless grin appeared on his battered features. "Well, I sure ain't gonna do it out here, in front of all your friends, am I?"
"Oh, I see," she said, confused. "You must forgive me if I seem tactless, but it's so long since I entertained a time traveller. We'll leave it for a bit, then."
The Iron Orchid saw that some of the men inside the force-dome had stretched out on the ground and had shut their eyes. "They probably need to rest," she suggested, "and to eat something. Shouldn't we feed them, My Lady Charlotina?"
"I'll transfer them to my menagerie," agreed her hostess. "They'll probably be more at ease there. Meanwhile, we can continue with the party."
Some time went by; the world continued in pretty much its normal fashion, with parties, experiments, games and inventions. Eventually, so the Iron Orchid heard when she emerged from a particularly dull and enjoyable affair with Bishop Castle, the soldiers from the 24th century had become convinced that they had travelled into the future, but were not much reconciled. Some, it seemed, were claiming that they would rather have been captured by their enemies. No news came from Lord Shark, and the two or three messages the Duke of Queens had sent him had not been answered. Jherek Carnelian did not come back, and Lord Jagged of Canaria refused all visitors. Brannart Morphail bewailed the inconsistencies which he claimed had appeared in the fabric of Time. Korghon of Soth created a sentient kind of mould which he trained to do tricks; Mistress Christia, having listened to an old tape, became obsessed with learning the language of the flowers and spent hour after hour listening to them, speaking to them in simple words; O'Kala Incarnadine became a sea-lion and thereafter could not be found. The craze for "Cities" and "Continents" died and nothing replaced it. Visiting the Duke of Queens, the Iron Orchid mentioned this, and he revealed his growing impatience with Lord Shark. "He promised he would send me an instructor. I have had to fall back on Trooper O'Dwyer, who knows a little about knives, but nothing at all about swords. This is the perfect moment for a new fashion. Lord Shark has let me down."
Trooper O'Dwyer, ensconced in luxury at the duke's palace, had agreed to assist the duke, his sergeant having succumbed at last to the irresistible charms of Mistress Christia, but the duke confided to the Iron Orchid that he was not at all sure if bayonet drill were the same as fencing.
"However," he told her, "I am getting the first principles. You decide, to start, that you are superior to someone else — that is that you have more of these primitive attributes than the other person or persons — love, hate, greed, generosity and so on…"
"Are not some of these opposites?" Her conversations with her son had told her that much.
"They are…"
"And you claim you have all of them?"
" More of them than someone else."
"I see. Go on."
"Patriotism is difficult. With that you identify yourself with a whole country. The trick is to see that country as yourself so that any attack on the country is an attack on you."
"A bit like Werther's Nature?"
"Exactly. Patriotism, in Trooper O'Dwyer's case, can extend to the entire planet."
"Something of a feat!"
"He accomplishes it easily. So do his companions. Well, armed with all these emotions and conceptions you begin a conflict — either by convincing yourself that you have been insulted by someone (who often has something you desire to own) or by goading him to believe that he has been insulted by you (there are subtle variations, but I do not thoroughly understand them as yet). You then try to kill that person — or that nation — or that planet — or as many members as possible. That is what Trooper O'Dwyer and the rest are currently attempting with Alpha Centauri."
"They will succeed, according to Werther. But I understand that the rules do not allow resurrection."
"They are unable to accomplish the trick, most delectable of blossoms, most marvellous of metals."
"So the deaths are permanent?"
"Quite."
"How odd."
"They had much higher populations in those days."
"I suppose that must explain it."
"Yet, it appears, every time one of their members was killed, they grieved — a most unpleasant sensation, I gather. To rid themselves of this sense of grief, they killed more of the opposing forces, creating grief in them so that they would wish to kill more — and so on, and so on."
"It all seems rather — well — unaesthetic."
"I agree. But we must not dismiss their arts out of hand. One does not always come immediately to terms with the principles involved."
"Is it even Art?"
"They describe it as such. They use the very word."
One eyebrow expressed her astonishment. She turned as Trooper O'Dwyer shuffled into the room. He was eating a piece of brightly coloured fruit and he had an oddly shaped girl on his arm (created, whispered the duke, to the trooper's exact specifications). He nodded at them. "Duke," he said. "Lady." His stomach had grown so that it hung over his belt. He wore the same clothes he had arrived in, but his wounds had healed and he no longer had the respiratory gear on his back.
"Shall we go to the — um — 'gym', Trooper O'Dwyer?" asked the duke in what was, in the Iron Orchid's opinion, a rather unnecessarily agreeable tone.
"Sure."
"You must come and see this," he told her.
The "gym" was a large, bare room, designed by Trooper O'Dwyer, hung with various ropes, furnished with pieces of equipment whose function was, to her, unfathomable. For a while she watched as, enthusiastically, the Duke of Queens leapt wildly about, swinging from ropes, attacking large, stuffed objects with sharp sticks, yelling at the top of his voice, while, seated in a comfortable chair with the girl beside him, Trooper O'Dwyer called out guttural words in an alien tongue. The Iron Orchid did her best to be amused, to encourage the duke, but she found it difficult. She was glad when she saw someone enter the hall by the far door. She went to greet the newcomer. "Dear Lord Shark," she said, "the duke has been so looking forward to your visit."
The figure in the shark-mask stopped dead, pausing for a moment or two before replying.
"I am not Lord Shark. I am his fencing automaton, programmed to teach the Duke of Queens the secrets of the duel."
"I am very pleased you have come," she said in genuine relief.
"Look, I don't know what planet this is, or if you think you're fooling me with your disguise, but you're wasting your time. We're hip to every trick in the Alpha Centauran book."
"Who are the Alpha Centaurans?" asked My Lady Charlotina, turning to Werther de Goethe.
"They existed even before the Dawn Age," he explained. "They were intelligent horses of some kind."
"Very funny," said Sergeant Martinez flatly. "You know damn well who you are."
"He thinks we're horses? Perhaps some optical disturbance, coupled with…" Bishop Castle creased his brow.
"Stow it, will you?" asked the sergeant firmly. "We're prisoners of war. Now I know you guys don't pay too much attention to things like the Geneva Convention in Alpha Centauri, for all you —"
"It's a star system!" said Werther. "I remember. I think it was used for something a long while ago. It doesn't exist any more, but there was a war between Earth and this other system in the 24th century — you are 24th century, I take it, sir? — which went on for many years. These are typical warriors of the period. The Alpha Centaurans were, I thought, birdlike creatures…"
"The Vultures," supplied Sergeant Martinez. "That's what we call you."
"I assure you, we're as human as you are, sergeant," said My Lady Charlotina. "You are an ancestor of ours. Don't you recognize the planet? And we have some of your near-contemporaries with us. Li Pao? Where's Li Pao? He's from the 27th." But the puritanical Chinaman had not yet arrived.
"If I'm not mistaken," said Martinez patiently, "you're trying to convince me that the blast which got us out there beyond Mercury sent us into the future. Well, it's a good try — we'd heard your interrogation methods were pretty subtle and pretty damn elaborate — but it's too fancy to work. Save your time. Put us in the camp, knock us off, or do whatever you normally do with prisoners. We're Troopers and we're too tough and too tired to play this kind of fool game. Besides, I can tell you for nothing, we don't know nothing — we get sent on missions. We do what we're told. We either succeed, or we die or, sometimes, we get captured. We got captured. That's what we know. There's nothing else we can tell you."
Fascinated, the Iron Orchid and her friends listened attentively and were regretful when he stopped. He sighed. "Bad Sugar!" he exclaimed. "You're like kids, ain't you? Can you understand what I'm saying?"
"Not entirely," Bishop Castle told him, "but it's very interesting for us. To study you, you know."
Muttering, Sergeant Martinez sat down on the ground.
"Aren't you going to say any more?" Mistress Christia was extremely disappointed. "Would you like to make love to me, Sergeant Martinez?"
He offered her an expression of cynical contempt. "We're up to that one, too," he said.
She brightened, holding out her hand. "Wonderful! You don't mind, do you, My Lady Charlotina?"
"Of course not."
When Sergeant Martinez did not accept her hand, Mistress Christia sat down beside him and stroked his cropped head.
Firmly, he replaced the helmet he had been holding in his hands. Then he folded his arms across his broad chest and stared into the middle-distance. His colour seemed to have changed. Mistress Christia stroked his arm. He jerked it away.
"I must have misunderstood you," she said.
"I can take it or leave it alone," he told her. "You got it? Okay, I'll take it. When I want it. But if you expect to get any information from me that way, that's where you're wrong."
"Perhaps you'd rather do it in private?"
A mirthless grin appeared on his battered features. "Well, I sure ain't gonna do it out here, in front of all your friends, am I?"
"Oh, I see," she said, confused. "You must forgive me if I seem tactless, but it's so long since I entertained a time traveller. We'll leave it for a bit, then."
The Iron Orchid saw that some of the men inside the force-dome had stretched out on the ground and had shut their eyes. "They probably need to rest," she suggested, "and to eat something. Shouldn't we feed them, My Lady Charlotina?"
"I'll transfer them to my menagerie," agreed her hostess. "They'll probably be more at ease there. Meanwhile, we can continue with the party."
Some time went by; the world continued in pretty much its normal fashion, with parties, experiments, games and inventions. Eventually, so the Iron Orchid heard when she emerged from a particularly dull and enjoyable affair with Bishop Castle, the soldiers from the 24th century had become convinced that they had travelled into the future, but were not much reconciled. Some, it seemed, were claiming that they would rather have been captured by their enemies. No news came from Lord Shark, and the two or three messages the Duke of Queens had sent him had not been answered. Jherek Carnelian did not come back, and Lord Jagged of Canaria refused all visitors. Brannart Morphail bewailed the inconsistencies which he claimed had appeared in the fabric of Time. Korghon of Soth created a sentient kind of mould which he trained to do tricks; Mistress Christia, having listened to an old tape, became obsessed with learning the language of the flowers and spent hour after hour listening to them, speaking to them in simple words; O'Kala Incarnadine became a sea-lion and thereafter could not be found. The craze for "Cities" and "Continents" died and nothing replaced it. Visiting the Duke of Queens, the Iron Orchid mentioned this, and he revealed his growing impatience with Lord Shark. "He promised he would send me an instructor. I have had to fall back on Trooper O'Dwyer, who knows a little about knives, but nothing at all about swords. This is the perfect moment for a new fashion. Lord Shark has let me down."
Trooper O'Dwyer, ensconced in luxury at the duke's palace, had agreed to assist the duke, his sergeant having succumbed at last to the irresistible charms of Mistress Christia, but the duke confided to the Iron Orchid that he was not at all sure if bayonet drill were the same as fencing.
"However," he told her, "I am getting the first principles. You decide, to start, that you are superior to someone else — that is that you have more of these primitive attributes than the other person or persons — love, hate, greed, generosity and so on…"
"Are not some of these opposites?" Her conversations with her son had told her that much.
"They are…"
"And you claim you have all of them?"
" More of them than someone else."
"I see. Go on."
"Patriotism is difficult. With that you identify yourself with a whole country. The trick is to see that country as yourself so that any attack on the country is an attack on you."
"A bit like Werther's Nature?"
"Exactly. Patriotism, in Trooper O'Dwyer's case, can extend to the entire planet."
"Something of a feat!"
"He accomplishes it easily. So do his companions. Well, armed with all these emotions and conceptions you begin a conflict — either by convincing yourself that you have been insulted by someone (who often has something you desire to own) or by goading him to believe that he has been insulted by you (there are subtle variations, but I do not thoroughly understand them as yet). You then try to kill that person — or that nation — or that planet — or as many members as possible. That is what Trooper O'Dwyer and the rest are currently attempting with Alpha Centauri."
"They will succeed, according to Werther. But I understand that the rules do not allow resurrection."
"They are unable to accomplish the trick, most delectable of blossoms, most marvellous of metals."
"So the deaths are permanent?"
"Quite."
"How odd."
"They had much higher populations in those days."
"I suppose that must explain it."
"Yet, it appears, every time one of their members was killed, they grieved — a most unpleasant sensation, I gather. To rid themselves of this sense of grief, they killed more of the opposing forces, creating grief in them so that they would wish to kill more — and so on, and so on."
"It all seems rather — well — unaesthetic."
"I agree. But we must not dismiss their arts out of hand. One does not always come immediately to terms with the principles involved."
"Is it even Art?"
"They describe it as such. They use the very word."
One eyebrow expressed her astonishment. She turned as Trooper O'Dwyer shuffled into the room. He was eating a piece of brightly coloured fruit and he had an oddly shaped girl on his arm (created, whispered the duke, to the trooper's exact specifications). He nodded at them. "Duke," he said. "Lady." His stomach had grown so that it hung over his belt. He wore the same clothes he had arrived in, but his wounds had healed and he no longer had the respiratory gear on his back.
"Shall we go to the — um — 'gym', Trooper O'Dwyer?" asked the duke in what was, in the Iron Orchid's opinion, a rather unnecessarily agreeable tone.
"Sure."
"You must come and see this," he told her.
The "gym" was a large, bare room, designed by Trooper O'Dwyer, hung with various ropes, furnished with pieces of equipment whose function was, to her, unfathomable. For a while she watched as, enthusiastically, the Duke of Queens leapt wildly about, swinging from ropes, attacking large, stuffed objects with sharp sticks, yelling at the top of his voice, while, seated in a comfortable chair with the girl beside him, Trooper O'Dwyer called out guttural words in an alien tongue. The Iron Orchid did her best to be amused, to encourage the duke, but she found it difficult. She was glad when she saw someone enter the hall by the far door. She went to greet the newcomer. "Dear Lord Shark," she said, "the duke has been so looking forward to your visit."
The figure in the shark-mask stopped dead, pausing for a moment or two before replying.
"I am not Lord Shark. I am his fencing automaton, programmed to teach the Duke of Queens the secrets of the duel."
"I am very pleased you have come," she said in genuine relief.
6. Old-Fashioned Amusements
Sergeant Martinez and his twenty-five troopers relaxed in the comparative luxury of a perfect reproduction of a partially ruined Martian bunker, created for them by My Lady Charlotina. It was better than they had expected, so they had not complained, particularly since few of them had spent much of their time in the menagerie.
"The point is," Sergeant Martinez was saying, as he took a long toke on the large black Herodian cigar, "that we're all going soft and we're forgetting our duty."
"The war's over, sarge," Trooper Gan Hok reminded him. He grinned. "By a couple million years or so. Alpha Centauri's beaten."
"That's what they're telling us," said the sergeant darkly. "And maybe they're right. But what if this was all a mirage we're in? An illusion created by the Vultures to make us think the war's over, so we make no attempt to escape."
"You don't really believe that, do you, sarge?" enquired squat Trooper Pleckhanov. "Nobody could make an illusion this good. Could they?"
"Probably not, trooper, but it's our duty to assume they could and get back to our own time."
"That girl of yours dropped you, sarge?" enquired Trooper Denereaz, with the perspicacity for which he was loathed throughout the squad. Some of the others began to laugh, but stopped themselves as they noted the expression on the sergeant's face.
"Have you got a plan, sarge?" asked Trooper George diplomatically. "Wouldn't we need a time machine?"
"They exist. You've all talked with that Morphail guy."
"Right. But would he give us one?"
"He refused," Sergeant Martinez told them. "What does that suggest to you, Trooper Denereaz?"
"That they want us to remain here?" suggested Denereaz dutifully.
"Right."
"Then how are we going to get hold of one, sarge?" asked Trooper Gan Hok.
"We got to use our brains," he said sluggishly, staring hard at his cigar. "We got one chance of a successful bust-out. We're gonna need some hardware, hostages maybe." He yawned and slowly began to describe his scheme in broad outline while his men listened with different degrees of attention. Some of them were not at all happy with the sergeant's reminder of their duty.
Trooper O'Dwyer had not been present at the conference, but remained at the palace of the Duke of Queens, where he had become very comfortable. Occasionally he would stroll into the gym to see how the duke's fencing lessons were progressing. He was fascinated by the robot instructing the duke; it was programmed to respond to certain key commands, but within those terms could respond with rapid and subtle reflexes, while at the same time giving a commentary on the duke's proficiency, which currently afforded Trooper O'Dwyer some easy amusement.
The words Lord Shark used in his programming were in the ancient language of Fransai, authentic and romantic (though the romance had certainly escaped Lord Shark). To begin a duel the Duke of Queens would cry:
"En tou rage!"
— and if struck (the robot was currently set not to wound) he would retort gracefully:
"Toujours gai, mon coeur!"
Trooper O'Dwyer thought that he had noted an improvement in the duke's skill over the past week or so (not that weeks, as such, existed in this world, and he was having a hard time keeping track of days, let alone anything else) thanks, thought the trooper, to the original basic training. A good part of the duke's time was spent with the robot, and he had lost interest in all other activities, all relationships, including that with Trooper O'Dwyer, who was content to remain at the palace, for he was given everything his heart desired.
A month or two passed (by Trooper O'Dwyer's reckoning) and the Duke of Queens grew increasingly skilful. Now he cried "En tou rage!" more often than "Toujours gai!" and he confided, pantingly, one morning to the trooper that he felt he was almost ready to meet Lord Shark.
"You reckon you're as good as this other guy?" asked O'Dwyer.
"The automaton has taught me all it can. Soon I shall pay a visit to Lord Shark and display what I have learned."
"I wouldn't mind getting a gander at Lord Shark myself," said Trooper O'Dwyer, casually enough.
"Accompany me, by all means."
"Okay, duke." Trooper O'Dwyer winked and nudged the duke in the ribs. "It'll break the monotony. Get me?"
The Duke of Queens, removing his fencing mask (fashioned in gold filigree to resemble a fanciful fox), blinked but made no answer. O'Dwyer could be interestingly cryptic sometimes, he thought. He noticed that the automaton was still poised in the ready position and he commanded it to come to attention. It did, its sword pointing upwards and almost touching its fishy snout.
The duke drew O'Dwyer's attention to his new muscles. "I had nothing to do with their appearance," he said in delight. "They came — quite naturally. It was most surprising!"
The trooper nodded and bit into a fruit, reflecting that the duke now seemed to be in better shape than he was.
The Iron Orchid and My Lady Charlotina lay back upon the cushions of their slowly moving air carriage, which had been designed in the likeness of the long-extinct gryphon, and wondered where they might be. They had been making languid love. Eventually, My Lady Charlotina put her golden head over the edge of the gryphon's back and saw, not far off, the Duke of Queens' inverted palace. She suggested to her friend that they might visit the duke; the Iron Orchid agreed. They adjusted their gravity rings and flew towards the top-most (or the lowest) door, leaving the gryphon behind.
"The point is," Sergeant Martinez was saying, as he took a long toke on the large black Herodian cigar, "that we're all going soft and we're forgetting our duty."
"The war's over, sarge," Trooper Gan Hok reminded him. He grinned. "By a couple million years or so. Alpha Centauri's beaten."
"That's what they're telling us," said the sergeant darkly. "And maybe they're right. But what if this was all a mirage we're in? An illusion created by the Vultures to make us think the war's over, so we make no attempt to escape."
"You don't really believe that, do you, sarge?" enquired squat Trooper Pleckhanov. "Nobody could make an illusion this good. Could they?"
"Probably not, trooper, but it's our duty to assume they could and get back to our own time."
"That girl of yours dropped you, sarge?" enquired Trooper Denereaz, with the perspicacity for which he was loathed throughout the squad. Some of the others began to laugh, but stopped themselves as they noted the expression on the sergeant's face.
"Have you got a plan, sarge?" asked Trooper George diplomatically. "Wouldn't we need a time machine?"
"They exist. You've all talked with that Morphail guy."
"Right. But would he give us one?"
"He refused," Sergeant Martinez told them. "What does that suggest to you, Trooper Denereaz?"
"That they want us to remain here?" suggested Denereaz dutifully.
"Right."
"Then how are we going to get hold of one, sarge?" asked Trooper Gan Hok.
"We got to use our brains," he said sluggishly, staring hard at his cigar. "We got one chance of a successful bust-out. We're gonna need some hardware, hostages maybe." He yawned and slowly began to describe his scheme in broad outline while his men listened with different degrees of attention. Some of them were not at all happy with the sergeant's reminder of their duty.
Trooper O'Dwyer had not been present at the conference, but remained at the palace of the Duke of Queens, where he had become very comfortable. Occasionally he would stroll into the gym to see how the duke's fencing lessons were progressing. He was fascinated by the robot instructing the duke; it was programmed to respond to certain key commands, but within those terms could respond with rapid and subtle reflexes, while at the same time giving a commentary on the duke's proficiency, which currently afforded Trooper O'Dwyer some easy amusement.
The words Lord Shark used in his programming were in the ancient language of Fransai, authentic and romantic (though the romance had certainly escaped Lord Shark). To begin a duel the Duke of Queens would cry:
"En tou rage!"
— and if struck (the robot was currently set not to wound) he would retort gracefully:
"Toujours gai, mon coeur!"
Trooper O'Dwyer thought that he had noted an improvement in the duke's skill over the past week or so (not that weeks, as such, existed in this world, and he was having a hard time keeping track of days, let alone anything else) thanks, thought the trooper, to the original basic training. A good part of the duke's time was spent with the robot, and he had lost interest in all other activities, all relationships, including that with Trooper O'Dwyer, who was content to remain at the palace, for he was given everything his heart desired.
A month or two passed (by Trooper O'Dwyer's reckoning) and the Duke of Queens grew increasingly skilful. Now he cried "En tou rage!" more often than "Toujours gai!" and he confided, pantingly, one morning to the trooper that he felt he was almost ready to meet Lord Shark.
"You reckon you're as good as this other guy?" asked O'Dwyer.
"The automaton has taught me all it can. Soon I shall pay a visit to Lord Shark and display what I have learned."
"I wouldn't mind getting a gander at Lord Shark myself," said Trooper O'Dwyer, casually enough.
"Accompany me, by all means."
"Okay, duke." Trooper O'Dwyer winked and nudged the duke in the ribs. "It'll break the monotony. Get me?"
The Duke of Queens, removing his fencing mask (fashioned in gold filigree to resemble a fanciful fox), blinked but made no answer. O'Dwyer could be interestingly cryptic sometimes, he thought. He noticed that the automaton was still poised in the ready position and he commanded it to come to attention. It did, its sword pointing upwards and almost touching its fishy snout.
The duke drew O'Dwyer's attention to his new muscles. "I had nothing to do with their appearance," he said in delight. "They came — quite naturally. It was most surprising!"
The trooper nodded and bit into a fruit, reflecting that the duke now seemed to be in better shape than he was.
The Iron Orchid and My Lady Charlotina lay back upon the cushions of their slowly moving air carriage, which had been designed in the likeness of the long-extinct gryphon, and wondered where they might be. They had been making languid love. Eventually, My Lady Charlotina put her golden head over the edge of the gryphon's back and saw, not far off, the Duke of Queens' inverted palace. She suggested to her friend that they might visit the duke; the Iron Orchid agreed. They adjusted their gravity rings and flew towards the top-most (or the lowest) door, leaving the gryphon behind.