21. A Question of Attitudes
"I must say," Jagged paused in his rapid, stately stride, "the city suffers a certain lassitude…"
"Oh, Jagged, you understate!" His son was beside him, while the ladies, in conference, came a little way behind.
Streamers of half-metallic, half-organic matter, of a dusty lavender shade, wriggled across their path as if withdrawn by the squat building on their right. In the gloom, it was impossible to tell their nature.
"But it revives," Jagged said. "Look there, is that not a newly created conduit?" The pipe he indicated, running to left and right of them, did seem new, though very ordinary.
"It is no sign, paternal Jagged. The illusions proliferate."
His father was insouciant. "If you'll have it so." There was a glint in his eye. "Youth was ever obstinate."
Jherek Carnelian detected irony in his father, his friend. "Ah, sardonic Jagged, it is so good to have your companionship again! All trepidation vanishes!"
"Your confidence warms me." Jagged's gesture was expansive. "What, after all, is a father for but to give comfort to his children?"
"Children?"
A casual wave. "One forms attachments, here and there, in Time. But you, Jherek, are my only heir."
"A song?"
"A son, my love."
As they advanced through the glowing semi-darkness, Jherek infected by Jagged's apparently causeless optimism, sought for signs which would indicate that the city came back to life. Perhaps there were indeed signs of this revivification: that light which, as he had seen, glowed a robust blue, and light which now burned steady crimson; moreover, the regular pounding from beneath his feet put him in mind of the beat of a strengthening heart. But, no. How could it be?
Fastidious as ever, Lord Jagged folded back one of his sleeves so that it should not trail in the fine rust which lay everywhere upon the ground. "We can rely upon the cities," he said, "even if we cannot ever hope fully to understand them."
"You speculate, Jagged. The evidence is all to the contrary. Their sources of power have dissipated."
"The sources exist. The cities have discovered them."
"Even you, Jagged, cannot be so certain." But Jherek spoke now to be denied.
"You are aware, then, of all the evidence?" Jagged paused, for ahead of them was darkness. "Have we reached the outskirts?"
"It seems so."
They waited for the Iron Orchid and Amelia Underwood, who had fallen some distance behind. To Jherek's surprise the two women appeared to be enjoying one another's company. No longer did they glare or make veiled attacks. They might have been the oldest of friends. He wondered if he would ever come to understand these subtle shifts of attitude in women; yet he was pleased. If all were to perish, it would be as well to be on good terms at the end. He hailed them.
Here the city shed a wider shaft of light into the landscape beyond: a pale, cracked, barren expanse no longer deserving the appellation "earth"; a husk that might crumble to invisible dust at a touch.
The Iron Orchid twisted a white pleat. "Dead."
"And in the last stages of decay." Amelia was sympathetic.
The Orchid put her back to the scene. "I cannot accept," she said levelly, "that this is my world. It was so vital."
"It's vitality was stolen, so Mongrove says." Jherek contemplated the darkness which his mother refused.
"That's true of all life, in a sense." Lord Jagged touched, for a second, his wife's hand. "Well, the core remains."
"Is it not already rotten, Lord Jagged?" Perhaps Amelia regretted her remorselessness as she glimpsed the Orchid's face.
"It can be revived, one supposes."
"It is cold … complained the Iron Orchid, moving further away, towards the interior.
"We drift, surely," Jherek said. "There is no sun. Not another star survives. Not a single meteorite. We drift in eternal darkness — and that darkness must, dear parent, shortly engulf us, too!"
"You over-dramatize, my boy."
"Possibly he does not." The Orchid's voice lacked timbre.
They followed her and, almost immediately, came upon the machines used by the time-traveller and by Mrs. Persson and Captain Bastable.
"But where are our friends?" mused Lord Jagged.
"They were here not long since," Jherek told him. "The Morphail Effect?"
"Here!" Lord Jagged's look was frankly sceptical.
"Could they be with Yusharisp and the others?" Jherek smiled vaguely at Amelia and his mother, who had linked arms. He was still puzzled by the change in them. It had something to do, he felt, with the Iron Orchid's marriage to Lord Jagged, this banishment of the old tension. "Shall we seek them out, venturesome Jagged?"
"You know where to look?"
"Over there."
"Then lead on, my innocent!" Lord Jagged, as had often been his way in the old days, appeared to be relishing a private joke. He stood aside for Jherek.
The light from the city glittered, for a moment sharp rather than murky, and a building that had been a ruin now seemed whole to Jherek, but elsewhere there were creakings and murmurings and groanings, all suggestive of the city's decline. Again they emerged at the edge, and here the light was very dim indeed. It was not until he heard a sound that Jherek was able to advance.
"If (skree) you would take back to their (yelp) own time this (skree) group, it would at least (roar) reduce the problem to tidier proportions, Mrs. (yelp) Persson."
They were all assembled, now, about the Pweelian spacecraft — Inspector Springer and his constables, the Duke of Queens, huge, melancholy Mongrove, the time-traveller in his Norfolk jacket and plus-fours, Mrs. Persson and Captain Bastable in their black uniforms, gleaming like sealskin. Only Harold Underwood, Sergeant Sherwood and the Lat were missing. Against the mould-like exterior of the Pweelian spaceship the Pweelians themselves were hard to distinguish. Beyond the group lay the now-familiar blackness of the infinite void.
They heard Mrs. Persson. "We made no preparations for passengers. As it is, we are anxious to return to our base to begin certain important experiments needed to verify our understanding of the multiverse's intersections…"
Lord Jagged, his pale yellow robes in contrast to the general nocturnal colouring of his surroundings, strolled into the group, leaving Jherek and the two women to follow. Jagged's private mirth was unabated. "You are as anxious as ever, my dear Yusharisp." Though it must have been some time since last he had seen the alien, Jagged had no difficulty in identifying him. "And so you persist in taking the narrower view?"
The little creature's many eyes glared distastefully at the newcomer. "I should have (roar) thought, Lord Jagged, that no broader view (yelp) existed!" He became suspicious. "Have you (skree) been here all along?"
"Only recently returned." Lord Jagged performed a brief bow. "I apologize. There were difficulties. A fine judgement is required, so close to the end of all things, if one is to arrive with matter beneath one's feet or find oneself in absolute vacuum!"
"At least (roar) you'll admit…"
"Oh, I don't think we need disagree, Mr. Yusharisp. Let us accept the fact that we shall always be temperamentally at odds. This is the moment for realism, is it not?"
Yusharisp, whilst remaining suspicious, subsided.
CPS Shushurup intervened. "Everything is settled (skree). We intend to requisition (skree) whatever we can salvage from the (roar yelp) city in order to further our survival plans. If you wish to (yelp) help, and share the subsequent benefit (skree) of our work…"