Dancers at the End of Time

by Michael Moorcock

  For a moment Jherek's attention was diverted by the sight of three little egg-shaped robots on caterpillar tracks trundling across a nearby area of rubble deep in a conversation held in a polysyllabic, utterly incomprehensible language; he looked back to the road. She was gone.

  He was alone in the city, but the solitude was no longer palatable. He wanted to pursue her, to demand her own analysis of her mood, but perhaps she was as incapable of expressing herself as was he.

  Did Bromley supply a means of interpreting emotion as readily as it supplied standards of social conduct?

  He began to suspect that neither Amelia's society nor his, for all their differences, concerned themselves with anything but the surface of things. Now that he was in the city it might be that he could find some still functioning memory bank capable of recalling the wisdom of one of those eras, like the Fifth Confucian or the Zen Commonwealth, which had placed rather exaggerated emphasis on self-knowledge and its expression. Even the strange, neurotic refinements of that other period with which he had a slight familiarity, the Saint-Claude Dictatorship (under which every citizen had been enjoined to supply three distinctly different explanations as to their psychological motives for taking even the most minor decisions), might afford him a clue to Amelia's behaviour and his own reactions. It occurred to him that she might be acting so strangely because, in some simple way, he was failing to console her. He began to walk through the ruins, in the opposite direction to the one she had taken, trying to recall something of Dawn Age society. Could it be that he was supposed to kill Mr. Underwood? It would be easy enough to do. And would she permit her husband's resurrection? Should he, Jherek, change his appearance, to resemble Harold Underwood as much as possible? Had she rejected his suggestion that he change his name to hers because it was not enough? He paused to lean against a carved jade post whose tip was lost in chemical mist high above his head. He seemed to remember reading of some ritual formalizing the giving of oneself into another's power. Did she pine because he did not perform it? Or did the reverse apply? Did kneeling have something to do with it, and if so who knelt to whom?

  "Om," said the jade post.

  "Eh?" said Jherek, startled.

  "Om," intoned the post. "Om."

  "Did you detect my thoughts, post?"

  "I am merely an aid to meditation, brother. I do not interpret."

  "It is interpretation I need. If you could direct me…"

  "Everything is as everything else," the post told him. Everything is nothing and nothing is everything.

  The mind of man is the universe and the universe is the mind of man. We are all characters in God's dreams. We are all God."

  "Easily said, post."

  "Because a thing is easy does not mean that it is difficult. Because a thing is difficult does not mean that it is easy."

  "Is that not a tautology?"

  "The universe is one vast tautology, brother, yet no one thing is the same as another."

  "You are not very helpful. I sought information."

  "There is no such thing as information. There is only knowledge."

  "Doubtless," said Jherek doubtfully. He bade good day to the post and retreated. The post, like so many of the city's artefacts, seemed to lack a sense of humour, though probably, if taxed, it would — as others here did — claim a "cosmic sense of humour" (this involved making obvious ironies about things commonly observed by the simplest intelligence).

  In the respect of ordinary, light conversation, machines, including the most sophisticated, were notoriously bad company; more literal-minded even than someone like Li Pao. This thought led him, as he walked on, to ponder the difference between men and machines. There had once been very great differences, but these days there were few, in superficial terms. What were the things which distinguished a self-perpetuating machine, capable of almost any sort of invention, from a self-created human being, equally capable? There were differences — perhaps emotional. Could it not be true that the less emotion the entity possessed the poorer its sense of humour — or the more emotion it repressed the weaker its capacity for original irony?

  These ideas were scarcely leading him in the direction he wished to go, but he was beginning to give up hope of finding any solution to his dilemma in the city, and at least he now felt he understood the jade post better.

  A chromium tree giggled at him as he entered a paved plaza. He had been here several times as a boy. He had a great deal of affection for the giggling tree.

  "Good afternoon," he said.

  The tree giggled as it had giggled without fail for at least a million years, whenever addressed or approached. Its function seemed merely to amuse. Jherek smiled, in spite of the heaviness of his thoughts.

  "A lovely day."

  The tree giggled, its chromium branches gently clashing.

  "Too shy to speak, as usual?"

  "Tee hee hee."

  The tree's charm was very hard to explain, but it was unquestionable.

  "I believe myself, old friend, to be 'unhappy' — or worse!"

  "Hee hee hee." The tree seemed helpless with mirth. Jherek began to laugh, too. Laughing, he left the plaza, feeling considerably more relaxed.

  He had wandered close to the tangle of metal where, from above, Amelia had thought she had seen Brannart Morphail. Curiosity led him on, for there were, indeed, lights moving behind the mass of tangled girders, struts, hawsers, cables and wires, though they were probably not of human origin. He approached closer, but cautiously. He peered, thinking he saw figures. And then, as a light flared, he recognized the unmistakable shape of Brannart Morphail's quaint body, an outline only, for the light halfblinded him. He recognized the scientist's voice, but it was not speaking its usual tongue. As he listened, it dawned on Jherek that Brannart Morphail was, however, using a language familiar to him.

  "Gerfish lortooda, mibix?" said the scientist to someone beyond the pool of light. "Derbi kroofrot!"

  Another voice answered and it was equally unmistakable as belonging to Captain Mubbers. "Hrunt, arragak fluzi, grodsink Morphail."

  Jherek regretted that he no longer habitually carried his translation pills with him, for he was curious to know why Brannart should be conspiring with the Lat, for conspiring he must be — there was a considerable air of secrecy to the whole business. He resolved to mention his discovery to Lord Jagged as soon as possible. He considered attempting to see more of what was going on but decided not to risk revealing his presence; instead he turned and made for the cover of a nearby dome, its roof cracked and gaping like the shell of an egg.

  Within the dome he was delighted to find brilliantly coloured pictures, all as fresh as the day they were made, and telling some kind of story, though the voices accompanying them were distorted. He watched the ancient programme through until it began again. It described a method of manufacturing machines of the same sort as the one on which Jherek watched the pictures, and there were fragments, presumably demonstrating other programmes, of scenes showing a variety of events — in one a young woman in a kind of luminous net made love underwater to a great fish of some description, in another two men set fire to themselves and ran through what was probably the airlock of a spaceship, making the spaceship explode, and in another a large number of people wearing rococo metal and plastic struggled in free fall for the possession of a small tube which, when one of them managed to take hold of it, was hurled towards one of several circular objects on the wall of the building in which they floated. If the tube struck a particular point on the circular object there would be great exultation from about half the people and much despondency displayed by the other half, but Jherek was particularly interested in the fragment which seemed to be demonstrating how a man and a woman might copulate, also in free fall. He found the ingenuity involved extremely touching and left the dome in a rather more positive and hopeful spirit than when he had entered it.

  It was in this mood that he determined to seek out Amelia and try to explain his discomfort w
ith her own behaviour and his. He sought for the way he had come, but was already lost, though he knew the city well; but he had an idea of the general direction and he began to cross a crunching expanse of sweet-smelling green and red crystals, almost immediately catching sight of a landmark ahead of him — a curving, half-melted piece of statuary suspended, without visible support, above a mechanical figure which stretched imploring arms to it, then scooped little golden discs in its hands and flung them into the air, repeating these motions over and over again, as they had been repeated ever since Jherek could remember. He passed the figure and entered an alley poorly illuminated with garish amber and cerise; from apertures on both sides of the alley little metal snouts emerged, little machine-eyes peered inquisitively at him, little silver whiskers twitched. He had never known the function of these platinum rodents, though he guessed that they were information-gatherers of some kind for the machines housed in the great smooth radiation-splashed walls of the alley. Two or three illusions, only half tangible, appeared and vanished ahead of him — a thin man, eight feet tall, blind and warlike; a dog in a great bottle on wheels, a yellow-haired porcine alien in buff-coloured clothing — as he hurried on.

  He came out of the alley and pushed knee-deep through soft black dust until the ground rose and he stood on a hillock looking down on pools of some glassy substance, each perfectly circular, like the discarded lenses of some gigantic piece of optical equipment. He skirted these, for he knew from past experience that they were capable of movement and could swallow him, subjecting him to hallucinatory experiences which, though entertaining, were time-consuming, and a short while later he saw ahead the pastoral illusion where they had met Jagged on his return. He crossed the illusion, noticing that a fresh picnic had been laid and that there was no trace of the Lat having been here (normally they left a great deal of litter behind them), and would have continued on his way towards the mile-wide pit had he not heard the sound, to his left, of voices raised in song.

  Who so beset him round

  With dismal stories,

  Do but themselves confound —

  His strength the more is.

  He crossed an expanse of yielding, sighing stuff, almost losing his balance so that on several occasions he was forced to take to the air as best he could (there was still some difficulty, it seemed, with the city's ability to transmit power directly to the rings). Eventually, on the other side of a cluster of fallen arcades, he found them, standing in a circle around Mr. Underwood, who waved his arms with considerable zest as he conducted them — Inspector Springer, Sergeant Sherwood and the twelve constables, their faces shining and full of joy as they joined together for the hymn. It was not for some moments that Jherek discovered Mrs. Underwood, a picture of despairing bewilderment, her oriental dress all dusty, her feathers askew, seated with her head in her hand, watching the proceedings from an antique swivel chair, the remnant of some crumbled control room.

  She lifted her head as he approached, on tip-toe, so as not to disturb the singing policemen.

  "They are all converted now," she told him wearily. "It seems they received a vision shortly before we arrived."

  The hymn was over, but the service (it was nothing less) continued.

  "And so God came to us in a fiery globe and He spoke to us and He told us that we must go forth and tell the world of our vision, for we are all His prophets now. For he has given us the means of grace and the hope of glory!" cried Harold Underwood, his very pince-nez aflame with fervour.

  "Amen," responded Inspector Springer and his men.

  "For we were afraid and in the very bowels of Hell, yet still He heard us. And we called unto the Lord — Our help is in the name of the Lord who hath made heaven and earth. Blessed be the name of the Lord; henceforth, world without end. Lord, hear our prayers; and let our cry come unto thee."

  "And He heard us!" exulted Sergeant Sherwood, the first of all these converts. "He heard us, Mr.

  Underwood!"

  "Hungry and thirsty: their soul fainted in them," continued Harold Underwood, his voice a holy drone:

  "So they cried unto the Lord in their trouble: and he delivered them forth from their distress.

  He led them forth by the right way: that they might go to the city where they dwelt.

  O that men would therefore praise the Lord for His goodness; and declare the wonders that he doeth for the children of men!

  For He satisfieth the empty soul: and filleth the hungry soul with goodness.

  Such as sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death: being fast bound in misery and iron; Because they rebelled against the words of the Lord: and lightly regarded the counsel of the most Highest."

  "Amen," piously murmured the policemen.

  "Ahem," said Jherek.

  But Harold Underwood passed an excited hand through his disarranged hay-coloured hair and began to sing again.

  " Yea, though I walk in death's dark vale,

  yet will I fear none ill…"

  "I must say," said Jherek enthusiastically to Mrs. Underwood, "it makes a great deal of sense. It is attractive to me. I have not been feeling entirely myself of late, and have noticed that you —"

  "Jherek Carnelian, have you no conception of what has happened here?"

  "It is a religious service." He was pleased with the precision of his knowledge. "A conspiracy of agreement."

  "You do not find it strange that all these police officers should suddenly become pious — indeed, fanatical! — Christians?"

  "You mean that something has happened to them while we have been away?"

  "I told you. They have seen a vision. They believe that God has given them a mission, to return to 1896 — though how they intend to get there Heaven alone knows — to warn everyone of what will happen to them if they continue in the paths of sinfulness. They believe that they have seen and heard God Himself. "They have gone completely mad."

  "But perhaps they have had this vision, Amelia."

  "Do you believe in God now?"

  "I have never disbelieved, though I, myself, have never had the pleasure of meeting Him. Of course, with the destruction of the universe, perhaps He was also destroyed…"

  "Be serious, Jherek. These poor people, my husband amongst them (doubtless a willing victim, I'll not deny) have been duped!"

  "Duped?"

  "Almost certainly by your Lord Jagged."

  "Why should Jagged — you mean that Jagged is God?"

  "No. I mean that he plays at God. I suspected as much. Harold has described the vision — they all describe it. A fiery globe announcing itself as 'The Lord thy God' and calling them His prophets, saying that He would release them from this place of desolation so that they could return to the place from which they had come to warn others — and so on and so on."

  "But what possible reason would Jagged have for deceiving them in that way?"

  "Merely a cruel joke."

  "Cruel? I have never seen them happier. I am tempted to join in. I cannot understand you, Amelia.

  Once you tried to convince me as they are convinced. Now I am prepared to be convinced, you dissuade me!"

  "You are deliberately obtuse."

  "Never that, Amelia."

  "I must help Harold. He must be warned of the deception."

  They had begun another hymn, louder than the first.

  There is a dreadful Hell,

  And everlasting pains;

  There sinners must with devils dwell

  In darkness, fire, and chains.

  He tried to speak through it, but she covered her ears, shaking her head and refusing to listen as he implored her to return with him.

  "We must discuss what has been happening to us…" It was useless.

  O save us, Lord, from that foul path,

  Down which the sinners tread;

  Consigned to flames like so much chaff;

  There is no greater dread.

  Jherek regretted that this was not one of the hymns Amelia Underwood had taug
ht him when they had first lived together at his ranch. He should have liked to have joined in, since it was not possible to communicate with her. He hoped they would sing his favourite — All Things Bright and Beautiful — but somehow guessed they would not. He found the present one not to his taste, either in tune (it was scarcely more than a drone) or in words which, he thought, were somewhat in contrast to the expressions on the faces of the singers. As soon as the hymn was over, Jherek lifted up his head and began to sing in his high, boyish voice:

  " O Paradise! O Paradise!

  Who doth not crave for rest?

  Who would not seek the happy land

  Where they that loved are blest;

  Where loyal hearts and true

  Stand ever in the light,

  All rapture through and through,

  In God's most holy sight.

  O Paradise! O Paradise!

  The world is growing old;

  Who would not be at rest and free

  Where love is never cold…"

  "Excellent sentiments, Mr. Carnelian." Harold Underwood's tone denied his words. He seemed upset. "However, we were in the middle of giving thanks for our salvation…"

  "Bad manners? I am deeply sorry. It is just that I was so moved…"

  "Ha!" said Mr. Underwood. "Though we have witnessed a miracle today, I cannot believe that it is possible to convert one of Satan's own hierarchy. You shall not deceive us now!"

  "But you are deceived, Harold!" cried his wife. "I am sure of it!"

  "Listen not to temptation, brothers," Harold Underwood told the policemen. "Even now they seek to divert us from the true way."

  "I think you'd better be getting along, sir," said Inspector Springer to Jherek. "This is a private meeting and I shouldn't be surprised if you're not infringing the Law of Trespass. Certainly you could be said to be Causing a Disturbance in a Public Place."

  "Did you really see a vision of God, Inspector Springer?" Jherek asked him.

  "We did, sir."

  "Amen," said Sergeant Sherwood and the twelve constables.