Mrs. Underwood stopped crying and began to blink.
"It's getting to be like bloomin' Brighton," said Inspector Springer disapprovingly. "It seemed so unspoiled at first. What a racket that boat makes!"
"They have saved the hamper," said she. The two figures were hauling it aboard. The boat was rocked by the squirming movements of the large fish. A few objects fell from the hamper. The two figures seemed abnormally anxious to recover the objects, taking great trouble to pursue and scoop up a tin mug which had gone adrift. This done, the boat headed in their direction.
Jherek had seen nothing quite like the costumes of the newcomers; though they bore some resemblance to certain kinds of garments sometimes worn by space-travellers; they were all of a piece, shining and black, pouched and quilted, belted with broad bands containing what were probably tools.
They had tight-fitting helmets of the same material, with goggles and ear-pieces, and there were black gauntlets on their hands.
"I don't like the look of 'em," muttered the inspector. "Divers, ain't they?" He glanced back at the hills. "They could be up to no good. Why 'aven't they showed themselves before?"
"Perhaps they didn't know we were here," said Jherek reasonably.
"They're showing an uncommon interest in our 'amper. Could be the last we'll see of it."
"They are almost upon us," said Mrs. Underwood quietly. "Let us not judge them, or their motives, until we have spoken. Let us hope they have some English, or at worst French."
The boat's bottom crunched on the shingle; the engine was cut off; the two passengers disembarked, pulling the little vessel clear of the water, removing the hamper and carrying it between them to where Mrs. Underwood, Jherek Carnelian, Inspector Springer, Captain Mubbers and the three surviving Lat awaited them. Jherek noted that they were male and female, but of about the same height.
Little of their faces could be seen above the high collars and below the goggles. When they were a couple of yards away they stopped and lowered the hamper. The female pushed back her goggles, revealing a heart-shaped face, large blue-grey eyes, as steady as Mrs. Underwood's, and a full mouth.
It was unsurprising that Mrs. Underwood took her for French.
" Je vous remercie bien…" she began.
"Aha! " said the woman, without irony, "You are English, then."
"Some of us are," said Inspector Springer heavily. "These little ones are Latvians."
"I am Mrs. Persson. May I introduce Captain Bastable." The man saluted; he raised his own goggles. His face was tanned and handsome; his blue eyes were pale.
"I am Mrs. Underwood. This is Mr. Carnelian, Inspector Springer, Captain Mubbers — I'm afraid I've no idea of the other names. They do not speak English. I believe they are space-travellers from the distant future. Are they not, Mr. Carnelian?"
"The Lat," he said. "We were never entirely clear about their origins. But they did come in a space-ship. To the End of Time."
"You are from the End of Time, sir?" Captain Bastable spoke in the light, clipped tones familiar to Jherek as being from the nineteenth century.
"I am."
"Jherek Carnelian, of course," said Mrs. Persson. "A friend of the Duke of Queens, are you not?
And Lord Jagged?"
"You know them?" He was delighted.
"I know Lord Jagged slightly. Oh, I remember — you are in love with this lady, your — Amelia?"
"My Amelia!"
"I am not 'your Amelia', Mr. Carnelian," she said firmly. And she became suspicious of Mrs.
Persson.
Mrs. Persson was apologetic. "You are from 1896. I was forgetting. You will forgive me, I hope, Mrs. Underwood. I have heard so much about you. Your story is one of the greatest of our legends. I assure you, we are honoured to meet you in the flesh."
Mrs. Underwood frowned, guessing sarcasm, but there was none.
"You have heard —?"
"We are only a few, we gossip. We exchange experiences and tales, as travellers will, on the rare occasions when we meet. And the Centre, of course, is where we all congregate."
The young man laughed. "I don't think they're following you, Una."
"I babble. You will be our guests?"
"You have a machine here?" said Mrs. Underwood, hope dawning.
"We have a base. You have not heard of it? You are not yet members of the Guild, then?"
"Guild?" Mrs. Underwood drew her eyebrows together. "No."
"The Guild of Temporal Adventurers," explained Captain Bastable. "The GTA?"
"I have never heard of it."
"Neither have I," said Jherek. "Why do you have an association?"
Mrs. Persson shrugged. "Mainly so that we can exchange information. Information is of considerable help to those of us whom you could call 'professional time-travellers'." She smiled self-deprecatingly. "It is such a risky business, at best."
"Indeed it is," he agreed. "We should love to accept your invitation. Should we not, Mrs.
Underwood?"
"Thank you, Mrs. Persson." Mrs. Underwood was still not at ease, but she had control of her manners.
"We shall need to make two trips. I suggest, Oswald, that you take the Lat and Inspector Springer back with you and then return for us three."
Captain Bastable nodded. "Better check the hamper first. Just to be on the safe side."
"Of course. Would you like to look, Mrs. Underwood, and tell me if anything is missing?"
"It does not matter. I really think —"
"It is of utmost importance. If anything is lost from it, we shall search meticulously until it is found.
We have instruments for detecting almost everything."
She peered in. She sorted. "Everything here, I think."
"Fine. Time merely tolerates us, you know. We must not offend."
Captain Bastable, the Lat and Inspector Springer, were already in their boat. The motor whined again. The water foamed. They were away.
Mrs. Persson watched it disappear before turning back to Jherek and Mrs. Underwood. "A lovely day. You have been here some while?"
"About a week, I would say," Mrs. Underwood smoothed at her ruined dress.
"So long as one avoids the water, it can be very beautiful. Many come to the Lower Devonian simply for the rest. If it were not for the eurypterids — the water scorpions — it would be perfect. Of all Palaeozoic periods, I find it the nicest. And, of course, it is a particularly friendly age, permitting more anachronism than most. This is your first visit?"
"The first," said Mrs. Underwood. Her expression betrayed what propriety restrained her from stating, that she hoped it would be the last.
"It can be dull." Mrs. Persson acknowledged the implication. "But if one wishes to relax, to re-plot one's course, take bearings — there are few better at this end of Time." She yawned. "Captain Bastable and I shall be glad to be on our way again, as soon as our caretaking duties are over and we are relieved.
Another fortnight should see us back in some twentieth century or other."
"You seem to suggest that there are more than one?" said Jherek. "Do you mean that different methods of recording history apply, or —?"
"There are as many versions of history as there are dedicated time-travellers." Mrs. Persson smiled.
"The difficulty lies in remaining in a consistent cycle. If one cannot do so, then all sorts of shocks are likely — environmental readjustment becomes almost impossible — madness results. How many fashions in insanity, do you think, have been set by mentally disturbed temporal adventures? We shall never know!"
She laughed. "Captain Bastable, for instance, was an inadvertent traveller (it sometimes happens), and was on the borders of madness before we were able to rescue him. First one finds it is the future which does not correspond, and this is frightening enough, if you are not expecting it. But it is worse when you return — to discover that your past has changed. You two, I take it, are fixed to a single band. Count yourselves lucky, if you do not know what to expect
of multiversal time-travelling."
Jherek could barely grasp the import of her words and Mrs. Underwood was lost completely, though she fumbled with the notion: "You mean that time-traveller we met, who referred to Waterloo Circus, was not from my time at all, but one which corresponded…?" She shook her head. "You cannot mean it. My time no longer exists, because…?"
"Your time exists. Nothing ever perishes, Mrs. Underwood. Forgive me for saying so, but you seem singularly ill-prepared for temporal adventuring. How did you come to choose the Lower Devonian, for instance?"
"We did not choose it," Jherek told her. "We set off for the End of Time. Our ship was in rather poor condition. It deposited us here — although we were convinced we went forward."
"Perhaps you did."
"How can that be?"
"If you followed the cycle round, you arrived at the end and continued on to the beginning."
"Time is cyclic, then?"
"It can be." She smiled. "There are spirals, too, as it were. None of us understands it very well, Mr.
Carnelian. We pool what information we have. We have been able to create some basic methods of protecting ourselves. But few can hope to understand very much about the nature of Time, because that nature does not appear to be constant. The Chronon Theory, for instance, which was very popular in certain cultures, has been largely discredited — yet seems to apply in societies which accept the theory.
Your own Morphail Theory has much to recommend it, although it does not allow for the permutations and complications. It suggests that Time has, as it were, only one dimension — as if Space had only one.
You follow me, Mr. Carnelian?"
"To some extent."
She smiled. "And 'to some extent' is all I follow myself. One thing the Guild always tells new members — 'There are no experts where Time is concerned'. All we seek to do is to survive, to explore, to make occasional discoveries. Yet there is a particular theory which suggests that with every one discovery we make about Time, we create two new mysteries. Time can never be codified, as Space can be, because our very thoughts, our information about it, our actions based on that information, all contribute to extend the boundaries, to produce new anomalies, new aspects of Time's nature. Do I become too abstract? If so, it is because I discuss something which is numinous — unknowable — perhaps truly metaphysical. Time is a dream — or a nightmare — from which there is never any waking.
We who travel in Time are dreamers who occasionally share a common experience. To retain one's identity, to retain some sense of meaning in one's own life, that is all the time-traveller can hope for — it is why the Guild exists. You are lucky that you are not adrift in the multiverse, as Captain Bastable was, for you can become like a drowning man who refuses to float, but flounders — and every wave which you set up in the Sea of Time has a habit of becoming a whole ocean in its own right."
Mrs. Underwood had listened, but she was disturbed. She lifted the lid of the hamper and opened an air-tight tin, offering Mrs. Persson a brandy-snap.
They munched.
"Delicious," said Mrs. Persson. "After the twentieth, the nineteenth century has always been my favourite."
"From what century are you originally?" Jherek asked, to pass the time.
"The twentieth — mid-twentieth. I have a fair bit to do with that ancestor of yours. And his sister, of course. One of my best friends." She saw that he was puzzled. "You don't know him? Strange. Yet, Jagged — your genes…" She shrugged.
He was, however, eager. Here could be the answer he had sought from Jagged.
"Jagged has refused to be frank with me," he told her, "on that very subject. I would be grateful if you could enlighten me. He has promised to do so, on our return."
But she was biting her lip, as if she had inadvertently betrayed a confidence. "I can't," she said. "He must have reasons — I could not speak without first having his permission…"
"But there is a motive," said Mrs. Underwood sharply. "It seems that he deliberately brought us together. We have had more than a hint — that he could be engineering some of our misfortunes…"
"And saving us from others," Jherek pointed out, to be fair. "He insists disinterest, yet I am certain…"
"I cannot help you speculate," said Mrs. Persson. "Here comes Captain Bastable with the boat."
The small vessel was bouncing rapidly towards them, its engine shrieking, the water foaming white in its wake. Bastable made it turn, just before it struck the beach, and cut off the engine. "Do you mind getting a bit wet? There are no scorpions about."
They waded to the boat and pulled themselves aboard after dumping the hamper into the bottom.
Mrs. Underwood scanned the water. "I had no idea creatures of that size existed … Dinosaurs, perhaps, but not insects — I know they are not really insects, but…"
"They won't survive," said Captain Bastable as he brought the engine to life again. "Eventually the fish will wipe them out. They're growing larger all the time, those fish. A million years will see quite a few changes in this creek." He smiled. "It's up to us to ensure we make none ourselves." He pointed back at the water. "We don't leave a trace of oil behind which isn't detected and cleaned up by one of our other machines."
"And that is how you resist the Morphail Effect," said Jherek.
"We don't use that name for it," interjected Mrs. Persson, "but, yes — Time allows us to remain here as long as there are no permanent anachronisms. And that includes traces which might be detected by future investigators and prove anachronistic. It is why we were so eager to rescue that tin cup. All our equipment is of highly perishable material. It serves us, but would not survive in any form after about a century. Our existence is tentative — we could be hurled out of this age at any moment and find ourselves not only separated, perhaps for ever, but in an environment incapable, even in its essentials, of supporting human life."
"You run great risks, it seems," said Mrs. Underwood. "Why?"
Mrs. Persson laughed. "One gets a taste for it. But, then, you know that yourself."
The creek began to narrow, between lichen-covered banks, and, at the far end, a wooden jetty could be seen. There were two other boats moored beside it. Behind the jetty, in the shadow of thick foliage, was a dark mass, man-made.
A fair-haired youth, wearing an identical suit to those worn by Mrs. Persson and Captain Bastable, took the mooring rope Mrs. Persson flung to him. He nodded cheerfully to Jherek and Mrs. Underwood as they jumped onto the jetty. "Your friends are already inside," he said.
The four of them walked over lichen-strewn rock towards the black, featureless walls ahead; these were tall and curved inward and they had a warm, rubbery smell. Mrs. Persson took off her helmet and shook out her short dark hair; she had a pleasant, boyish look. Her movements were graceful as she touched the wall in two places, making a section slide back to admit them. They stepped inside.
There were several box-shaped buildings in the compound, some quite large. Mrs. Persson led them towards the largest. There was little daylight, but a continuous strip of artificial lighting ran the entire circumference of the wall. The ground was covered in the same slightly yielding black material and Jherek had the impression that the entire camp could be folded in on itself within a few seconds and transported as a single unit. He imagined it as some large time-ship, for it bore certain resemblances to the machine in which he had originally travelled to the nineteenth century.
Captain Bastable stood to one side of the entrance allowing first Mrs. Persson and then Mrs.
Underwood to enter. Jherek was next. Here were panels of instruments, screens, winking indicators, all of the primitive, fascinating kind which Jherek associated with the remote past.
"It's perfect," he said. "You've made it blend so well with the environment."
"Thank you." Mrs. Persson's smile was for herself. "The Guild stores all its information here. We can also detect the movements of time-vessels along the megaflow, as it's sometimes ter
med. We did not, incidentally, detect yours. Instead there was a sort of rupture, quickly healed. You did not come in a ship?"
"Yes. It's somewhere on the beach where we left it, I think."
"We haven't found it."
Captain Bastable unzipped his overalls. Underneath them he wore a simple grey military uniform.
"Perhaps it was on automatic return," he suggested. "Or if it was malfunctioning, it could have continued on, moving at random, and be anywhere by now."
"The machine was working badly," Mrs. Underwood informed him. We should not, for instance, be here at all. I would be more than grateful, Captain Bastable, if you could find some means of returning us — at least myself — to the nineteenth century."
"That wouldn't be difficult," he said, "but whether you'd stay there or not is another matter. Once a time-traveller always a time-traveller, you know. It's our fate, isn't it?"
"I had no idea…"
Mrs. Persson put a hand on Mrs. Underwood's shoulder. "There are some of us who find it easier to remain in certain ages than others — and there are ages, closer to the beginnings or the ends of Time, which rarely reject those who wish to settle. Genes, I gather, have a little to do with it. But that is Jagged's speciality and he has doubtless bored you as much as he has bored us with his speculations."
"Never!" Jherek was eager.
Mrs. Persson pursed her lips. "Perhaps you would care for some coffee," she said.
Jherek turned to Mrs. Underwood. He knew she would be pleased. "Isn't that splendid, dear Mrs.
Underwood. They have a stall here. Now you must really feel at home!"
CHAPTER SIX
Discussions and Decisions
Captain Mubbers and his men were sitting in a line on a kind of padded bench; they were cross-legged and tried to hide their knees and elbows, exposed since they had destroyed their pyjamas; all were blushing a peculiar plum colour and averted their eyes when the party containing Mrs. Persson and Mrs. Underwood entered the room. Inspector Springer sat by himself in a sort of globular chair which brought his knees close to his face; he tried to sip from a paper cup, tried to rise when the ladies came in, succeeded in spilling the coffee on his serge trousers; his grumble was half-protest, half-apology; he subsided again. Captain Bastable approached a black machine, marked with letters of the alphabet.
Dancers at the End of Time Page 37
