"And damn you, Harold!"
She gasped at her own language. Then she grinned. "Oh, dear…"
If Harold had noticed he doubtless accepted her oath as further evidence of their situation. He smiled vaguely at her. "Well, perhaps later…" His pince-nez glittered so that his eye-sockets appeared to contain flame. Chatting, he and the police sergeant strolled on.
Jherek caught up with her. "I have offended you, my dear. I thought…"
"Perhaps I, too, am mad," she told him. "Since nobody else is taking the end of the world seriously, then it is evident that I should not, either." But she was not convinced.
"Yusharisp and the Pweelians take it seriously, dearest Amelia. And Lord Mongrove. But it seems to me that you have no real leaning in their direction."
"I do what I think is right."
"Yet it conflicts with your temperament, you would admit?"
"Oh, this is unfair!" She paced on. Now they could see the Pweelian spacecraft where they had left it. Inspector Springer and the Duke of Queens held their hands in the air.
Standing on three legs, Yusharisp, or one of his comrades, held an object in his fourth foot (or hand) with which he menaced Inspector Springer and the Duke of Queens.
"My goodness!" Amelia hesitated. "They are using force! Who would have suspected it?"
Lord Mongrove seemed put out by the turn of events. He stood to one side, muttering to himself. "I am not sure. I am not sure."
"We have decided (skree) to act for your own (roar) good," Yusharisp told the two men. "The others will be rounded up in time. Now, if you will kindly, for the moment, board the spaceship…"
"Put that gun away!" The ringing command issued from the lips of Amelia Underwood. Even she seemed surprised by it. "Does the end of the world mean the end of the Rule of Law? What point is there in perpetuating intelligent life if violence is to be the method by which we survive? Are we not above the beasts?"
"I think (skree) madam that you (yelp) fail to understand the urgency (skree) of the situation (roar)." Yusharisp was embarrassed. The weapon wavered. Seeing this the Duke of Queens immediately lowered his hands.
"We (skrrreee) did not intend to continue to threaten anyone (roar) after (yelp) the immediate danger was (skree) avoided," said another Pweelian, probably CPS Shushurup. "It is not in (skree) our nature to approve of (skree) violence or (roar) threats."
"You have been threatening everyone since you arrived!" she told them. "Bullying us not, until now, with weapons, but with moral arguments which begin to seem increasingly specious to me and which have never convinced the denizens of this world (it is not mine, I might add, and I do not approve of their behaviour any more than do you), Now you give us evidence of the weakness of your arguments — you bring forth your guns and your bald threats of violence!"
"It is not (skree) anything like so (roar) simple, madam. It is a question of (yelp) survive or die…"
"It seems to me," she said calmly, "that it is you who simplify, Mr. Yusharisp."
Jherek looked admiringly on. As usual, the arguments were inclined to confuse him, but he thought Amelia's assumption of authority was magnificent.
"I would suggest," she continued, "that you leave these people to their own solutions to their problems, and that you do, for yourselves, whatever you think best."
"Lord Mongrove (yelp) invited our (skree) help," said CPS Shushurup in an aggrieved whine. "Do not listen (skree) to her (yelp), Yusharisp. We must continue (roar) with our work!"
The limb holding the gun became steadier. Slowly, the Duke of Queens raised his hands, but he winked at Jherek Carnelian.
Lord Mongrove's gloomy boom interrupted the dispute. "I have, I must admit, Yusharisp, been having second thoughts…"
" Second thoughts! " Yusharisp was beside himself. "At this (skree) stage!"
The little alien gestured with his weapon. "Look (skree) out there at that — that (roar) nothingness. Can you not feel (yelp) the city breaking apart? Lord Mongrove, of all (skree) people, I would have thought that you (roar) could not change your mind. Why (skree) — why?"
The giant shuffled his feet in the rust and the dust. He scratched his huge head. He fingered the collar of his robe of funereal purple. "As a matter of fact, Yusharisp, I, too, am becoming just a jot bored with this — um — drama."
"Drama! Skrrreeeee! It is not a game (yelp) Lord Mongrove. You, yourself, said as (skree) much!"
"Well, no…"
"There, you see, Sergeant Sherwood. It cannot be argued any longer, I think, that there are no devils in Hell. Look at those chaps there. Devils, if ever I saw some!" It was Harold Underwood, emerging from behind the Pweelian's spaceship. "So much for the sceptics, eh? So much for the Darwinians, hm? So much, Sergeant Sherwood, for your much vaunted Science! Ha!" He approached Yusharisp with some curiosity. He inspected him through his pince-nez. "What a distortion of the human body — revealing, of course, the distortion of the spirit within." He straightened up, linking arms, again, with his disciple. "With luck, Sergeant Sherwood, we shall soon get a look at the Arch Fiend Himself!" Nodding to those of the company he recognized, Harold Underwood wandered off again.
Mrs. Underwood watched her husband disappear. "I must say, I have never known him so agreeable. What a shame he could not have been brought here before."
"I wash my (skree) feet of you all!" said Yusharisp. He appeared to be sulking as he went to lean against the noxious side of his spaceship. "Most of them have run away, already."
"Shall we lower our hands?" asked the Duke of Queens.
"Do what you (skree) like…"
"I wonder if my men 'ave caught them Latvians yet," said Inspector Springer. "Not, I suppose, that it matters a lot now. On the other 'and, I 'ate to leave things unfinished. Know what I mean, Duke?" He looked at his watch.
"Oh, I do, very much, Inspector Springer. I had plans for a party that would have made all other parties seem drab, and I was about to embark on my new project — a life-size reproduction of the ancient planet, Mars, complete with reproductions of all its major cities, and a selection of different cultures from its history. But with things as they are…" He contemplated the blackness of infinity beyond the city, he contemplated the ruin within. "There aren't the materials any longer, I suppose."
"Or the means," Mongrove reminded him. "Are you sure, Duke, that you don't want to take part in this Salvation scheme?"
The Duke sat down upon a half-melted metal cube. "It doesn't have much to recommend it, dear Mongrove. And one cannot help feeling, well, interfered with…"
The cube on which he sat began to grumble. Apologetically he stood up.
"It is Fate which interferes with your useless idyll!" said Yusharisp, in some exasperation. "Not (skree) the people of Pweeli. We acted (roar) from the noblest of motives."
Once more losing interest in the conversation, Jherek made to lead Amelia away. She resisted his tugging hand for only a moment before going with him.
"The time-travellers and the space-travellers do not, as yet, seem to be aware of one another's presence," she said. "Should we tell them? After all, only a few yards separate them!"
"Let us leave them all, Amelia. Initially we sought privacy."
Her expression softened. She moved closer to him. "Of course, dear Jherek."
He swelled with pleasure.
"It will be so sad," she said a little later, in a melancholy tone, "to die, when we have at last both admitted our feelings."
"To die, Amelia?"
Something like a dead tree, but made of soft stone, started to flicker. A screen appeared in its trunk. The image of a man began to speak, but there was no sound. They watched it for a little while before continuing.