Dancers at the End of Time (75 page)

Yet still I am wary of him. I suppose I shall always be wary, through eternity. I fear his boredom."

"Not your own?"

"I have not his power."

He let the matter rest.

That afternoon, with Jherek in morning dress and Amelia in grey and blue stripes, they set off for the wedding of the Duke of Queens.

Bishop Castle (it was evidently his workmanship) had built a cathedral specially for the ceremony, in classical subtlety, with great stained glass windows, Gothic spires and masonry, massive and yet giving the impression of lightness, and decorated on the outside primarily in orange, purple and yellow.

Surrounding the area was the band of the Duke of Queens, its automata at rest for the moment. There were tall flag-masts, flying every conceivable standard still existing in the archives; there were tents and booths dispensing drinks and sweetmeats, games of chance and of skill, exhibitions of antique entertainments, through which moved the guests, laughing and talking, full of merriment.

"It's a lovely scene," said Jherek, as he and Amelia descended from their footplate. "A beautiful background for a wedding."

"Yet still merely a scene," she said. "I can never rid myself of the knowledge that I am playing a part in a drama."

"Were ceremonies different, then, in your day?"

She was silent for a moment. Then: "You must think me a cheerless creature."

"I have seen you happy, Amelia. I think."

"It is a trick of the mind I was never taught. Indeed, I was taught to suspect an open smile, to repress my own. I try, Jherek, to be carefree."

"It is your duty," he told her as they joined the throng and were greeted, at once, by their friends.

"Why, Mistress Christia, the last time I saw your companions they were trapped in a particularly unpleasant dilemma, battling with Brannart."

Mistress Christia, the Everlasting Concubine, laughed a tinkling laugh, as was her wont. She was surrounded by Captain Mubbers and his men, all dressed in the same brilliant powder-blue she wore, save for strange balloon-like objects of dull red, on elbows and knees. "Lord Jagged rescued them, I gather, and I insisted that they be my special guests. We are to be married, too, today!"

"You — to them all!" said Amelia in astonishment. She blushed.

"They are teaching me their customs." She displayed the elbow balloons. "These are proper to a married Lat female. The reason for their behaviour, where women were concerned, was the conviction that if we did not wear knee- and elbow-balloons we were — um?" She looked enquiringly at her nearest spouse, who crossed his three pupils and stroked his whiskers in embarrassment. Jherek thought it was Rokfrug. "Dear?"

"Joint-sport," said Rokfrug almost inaudibly.

"They are so contrite!" said Mistress Christia. She moved intimately to murmur to Amelia. "In public, at least, dear."

"Congratulations, Captain Mubbers," said Jherek. "I hope you and your men will be very happy with your wife."

"Fill it, arse-lips," Captain Mubbers said, sotto voce, even as they shook hands. "Sarcy fartin'

knicker-elastic hole-smeller."

"I intended no irony."

"Then wipe it and button it, bumface, Nn?"

"You have given up any intention of going into space again?" Amelia said.

Captain Mubbers shrugged his sloping shoulders. "Nothing there for us, is there?" He offered her a knowing look which took her aback.

"Well —" she drew a breath — "I am sure, once you have settled down to married life…" She was defeated in her efforts.

Captain Mubbers grunted, eyeing her elbow, visible through the silk of her dress.

"Flimpoke!" Mistress Christia had noticed. "Well!"

"Sorry, my bone." He stared at the ground.

"Flimpoke?" said Jherek.

"Flimpoke Mubbers," Mistress Christia told him, with every evidence of pride. "I am to be Mrs.

Mubbers, and Mrs. Rokfrug, and Mrs. Glopgoo…"

"And we are to be Mr. and Mr. Mongrove-de Goethe!" It was Werther, midnight blue from head to toe. Midnight blue eyes stared from a midnight-blue face. It was rather difficult to recognize him, save for his voice. Beside him lounged in an attitude of dejected satisfaction the great bulk of Lord Mongrove, moody monarch of the weeping cliffs.

"What? You marry? Oh, it is perfect."

"We think so," said Werther.

"You considered no one else?"

"We have so little in common with anyone else," droned Mongrove. "Besides, who would have me?

Who would spend the rest of his life with this shapeless body, this colourless personality, this talentless brain…?"

"It is a good match," said Jherek hastily. Mongrove was inclined, once started, to gather momentum and spend an hour or more listing his own drawbacks.

"We decided, at Doctor Volospion's fairground, when we fell off the carousel together, that we might as well share our disasters…"

"An excellent scheme." A scent of dampness wafted from Mongrove's robes as he moved; Jherek found it unpleasant. "I trust you will discover contentment…"

"Reconciliation, at least," said Amelia.

The two moved on.

"So," said Jherek, offering his arm. "We are to witness three weddings."

"They are too ludicrous to be taken seriously," she said, as if she gave her blessing to the proceedings.

"Yet they offer satisfaction to those taking part, I think."

"It is so hard for me to believe that."

They found Brannart Morphail, at last, in unusual finery, a mustard-coloured cloak hanging in pleats from his hump, tassels swinging from the most unlikely places on his person, his medical boot glittering with spangles. He seemed in an almost jolly mood as he limped beside My Lady Charlotina of Above-the-Ground (her new domicile).

"Aha!" cried Brannart, sighting the two. "My nemesis, young Jherek Carnelian!" The jocularity, if forced, was at least well-meant. "And the 
cause
 of all our problems, the beautiful Amelia Underwood."

"Carnelian, now," she said.

"Congratulations! You take the same step, then?"

"As the Duke of Queens," agreed Jherek amicably, "and Mistress Christia. And Werther and Lord Mongrove…"

"No, no, no! As My Lady Charlotina and myself!"

"Ah!"

My Lady Charlotina fluttered lashes fully two inches long and produced a winsome smile. In apple-green tupperware crinoline and brown slate bonnet she had some difficulty moving even at the relatively slow pace of her husband-to-be.

"You proposed rapidly enough, you dog!" said Jherek to the scientist.

"She proposed," Brannart grunted, momentarily returned to his usual mood. "I owe my rescue to her."

"Not to Jagged?"

"It was she who went to get Jagged's help."

"You were attempting a jump backwards through time, eh?" Jherek said.

"I did my best. Given half a chance, I might have improved this disastrous situation. But I tried to move within too limited a period and, as always happens, I got caught in a kind of short-circuit. Proving, irrefutably, of course, the truth of Morphail's Law."

"Of course," they both consented.

"I suppose the Law still applies, at present," Amelia suggested.

"At present, and always."

"Always?"

"Well —" Brannart rubbed his warted nose — "in essence. If Jagged recycles a seven-day period, then the Law will probably apply to the time contained within that span, d'you see."

"Aha." Amelia was disappointed, though Jherek did not know why. "There is no other means of leaving this world, once the circuit is completed?"

"None at all. Isolated chronologically as well as spacially. By rights this planet has no business existing at all."

"So we gather," said Jherek.

"It defies all logic."

"You have ever made a practice of that, have you not?" said Amelia.

"Have we, dear?" said My Lady Charlotina of Above-the-Ground.

"What I was taught to call logic, at any rate." Amelia swiftly compromised.

"This will mean the death of Science," said Brannart cheerfully. "Oh, yes. The death of Science, right enough. No more enquiry, no more investigation, no more analysis, no more interpretation of phenomena.

Nothing for me to do."

"There are functions of the cities which might be restored," said Amelia helpfully.

"Functions?"

"Old sciences which could be re-discovered. There are all kinds of possibilities, I should have thought."

"Hm," said Brannart. Gnarled fingers crossed a pitted chin. "True."

"Memory banks which need their wits sharpening," Jherek told him. "It would take a brilliant scientist to restore them…"

"True," repeated Brannart. "Well, perhaps I can do something in that direction, certainly."

My Lady Charlotina patted his pleated hump. "I shall be so proud of you, Brannart. And what a contribution you could make to social life, if some of those machines could be got to reveal their secrets."

"Jagged will be so jealous!" Amelia added.

"Jealous?" Brannart brightened still further. "I suppose he will."

"Hideously," said Jherek.

"Well, you of all people would know, Jherek." The scientist seemed to do a little jig on his spangled boot. "You think so?"

"Without question!"

"Hm."

A small irascible voice said from just behind Jherek: "Ah! There you are posterior-visage. I've been looking for you!"

It was Rokfrug. He continued heavily: "If the ladies will excuse us, I'd like a middle-of-the-leg word with you, sediment-nostril."

"I have already apologized, Lieutenant Rokfrug," Brannart Morphail told him. "I see no reason to go on with this —"

"You offered me rapine, loot, arson, toe-pillage, and all I get is to be a member of a smelly male harem…"

"It was not my fault. You did not have to agree to the marriage!" Brannart began to back away.

"If it's the only way to get a bit of jointing hoo-hoo, what else am I supposed to do? Come here!"

Brannart broke into a hobbling run, pursued by Lieutenant Rokfrug who was quickly tripped by the passing Lord Jagged, who picked him up, dusted him down, pointed him in the wrong direction and continued towards them.

Brannart, followed by his bride-to-be, disappeared behind a cluster of booths, while Rokfrug vanished into a candy-striped tent. Lord Jagged seemed content.

"So the peace is kept." He smiled at Jherek and Amelia. "And a certain balance is maintained."

"Perhaps I should have dubbed you 'Solomon'," said Amelia acidly.

"You 
must
 call me 'Father', my dear." A bow to a passing O'Kala Incarnadine, recognizable only from the face at the top of the giraffe neck. For reasons best known to himself, Lord Jagged had discarded his usual robes and collars and wore, like Jherek, a simple grey morning suit, with a grey silk hat upon his noble head, a silver-topped cane in one gloved hand. The only touch of yellow was the primrose in his button-hole. "And here is my own spouse. Iron Orchid, as delicious as only you can be!"

The Orchid acknowledged the compliment. She wore her name-flower today — orchids of every possible hue and variety clustered over her body, hugging themselves close to her as if she were the only substantial thing remaining in the universe. The scents were so strong, in combination, that they threatened to overwhelm everyone within a radius of twenty feet. Orchids formed a hood around her head, from which she peered. "Husband mine! And dear children! All together, again. And for such a beautiful occasion! How many weedings take place today?" Her question was for Jherek.

"Weddings, mama. Three — no four — to my knowledge."

"About twenty in all," said Jagged. "You know how quickly these things catch on."

"Who else?" said Jherek.

"Doctor Volospion weds the Platinum Poppy."

"Such a pleasant, empty creature," sniffed the Iron Orchid, "at least, before she changed her name."

"And Captain Marble is to be spliced to Soola Sen Sun. And Lady Voiceless, I gather, gives herself in marriage to Li Pao."

The Iron Orchid seemed displeased by this announcement, but she said nothing.

"And how long, I wonder, will these 'marriages' last," said Amelia.

"Oh, I should think as long as the various parties wish them to last," murmured Lord Jagged. "The fashion could remain with us for a thousand years, or even two. One never knows. It all depends upon the ingenuity, surely, of the participants. Something else might come along to fire society's imagination…"

"Of course," she said. She had become subdued. Noticing this, Jherek pressed her arm, but she was not comforted.

"I should have thought, Amelia, that you would have been pleased by this development." Lord Jagged's lips curved a fraction. "A tendency towards social stability, is it not?"

"I cannot rise to your jesting today, Lord Jagged."

"You still grieve for your perished potatoes, then?"

"For what is signified by their destruction."

"Later, we must put our heads together. There could be a solution to the problem…"

"There can be no solution, sir, to the abiding dilemma of one who would not be a drone in a world of drones."

"You are too hard on yourself, and on us. See it, instead, as a reward to the human race for all its millions of years of struggle."

"I have not been part of that struggle."

"Surely, in one sense…"

"In one sense, sir, we have all been involved. In another, we have not. It is, as you would agree, I know, not what is, but how one looks at what is."

"You will change."

"I fear that I shall."

"You fear cynicism in yourself?"

"Perhaps it is that."

"Some would consider your attitude cowardly."

" 
I
 consider it cowardly, Lord Jagged, you may be sure. Let us terminate this conversation. It excludes too many; it discomforts all. My problems are my own responsibility."

"You claim more than you should, Amelia. Have I had no part in creating those problems?"

"I suppose that you would be offended if I disagreed with you on that point."

His voice was very quiet and only for her ears. "I have a conscience, too, Amelia. All that I have done might be seen as the result of possessing an exaggerated sense of duty."