O'Dwyer considered his position and then replied. "Okay, I'll come with you. There isn't a chance of this plan working anyhow."
"The sergeant's got it figured, O'Dwyer. There's a good chance."
With a sigh, Trooper O'Dwyer climbed to his feet and lumbered after Trooper Gan Hok as he moved with nervous stealth back into the forest.
"But, dearest of dukes, you cannot take such terms seriously!" The Iron Orchid's skin flickered through an entire spectrum of colour as, in agitation, she paced the floor of the "gym".
Embarrassed, he fingered the cloak of the dormant duelling automaton. "I have agreed," he said quietly. "I thought you would find it amusing — you, in particular, my petalled pride."
"I believe," she replied, "that I feel sad."
"You must tell Werther. He will be curious. It is the emotion he most yearns to experience."
"I would miss your company so much if Lord Shark kills you. And kill you he will, I am sure."
"Nonsense. I am the match for his automaton, am I not?"
"Who knows how Lord Shark programmed the beast? He could be deceiving you."
"Why should he? Like you, he tried to dissuade me from the duel."
"It might be a trick."
"Lord Shark is incapable of trickery. It is not in his nature to be devious."
"What do you know of his nature? What do any of us know?"
"True. But I have my instincts."
The Iron Orchid had a low opinion of those.
"If you wait," he said consolingly, "you will observe my skill. The automaton is programmed to respond to certain verbal commands. I intend, now, to allow it to try to wound me." He turned, presented his sword at the ready and said to the automaton, "We fight to wound." Immediately the mechanical duellist prepared itself, balancing on the balls of its feet in readiness for the duke's attack.
"Forgive me," said the Iron Orchid coldly, "if I do not watch. Farewell, Duke of Queens."
He was baffled by her manner. "Goodbye, lovely Iron Orchid." His sword touched the automaton's; the automaton feinted; the duke parried. The Iron Orchid fled from the hall.
Righting herself at the exit, she entered her little air car, the bird of paradise, and instructed it to carry her as rapidly as possible to the house of Lord Shark the Unknown. The car obeyed, flying over many partially built and partially destroyed scenes, several of them the duke's own, of mountains, luscious sunrises, cities, landscapes of all descriptions, until the barren plain came in sight and beyond it the brown mountains, under the shadow of which lay Lord Shark's featureless dwelling.
The bird of paradise descended completely to the ground, its scintillating feathers brushing the dust; out of it climbed the Iron Orchid, walking determinedly to the door and knocking upon it.
A masked figure opened it immediately.
"Lord Shark, I have come to beg —"
"I am not Lord Shark," said the figure in Lord Shark's voice. "I am his servant. My master is in his duelling room. Is your business important?"
"It is."
"Then I shall inform him of your presence." The machine closed the door.
Impatient and astonished, for she had had no real experience of such behaviour, the Iron Orchid waited until, in a while, the door was opened again.
"Lord Shark will receive you," the automaton told her. "Follow me."
She followed, remarking to herself on the unaesthetic symmetry of the interior. She was shown into a room furnished with a chair, a bench and a variety of ugly devices which she took to be crude machines. On one side of her stood Lord Shark the Unknown, a sword still in his gloved hand.
"You are the Iron Orchid?"
"You remember that we met when you challenged my friend the Duke of Queens?"
"I remember. But I did not challenge him. He asked how he might make amends for destroying the lichen I had been growing. He built his continent upon it."
"His Afrique."
"I do not know what he called it. I suggested a duel, because I wished to test my abilities against those of another mortal. I regretted this suggestion when I understood the light in which the duke accepted it."
"Then you would rather not continue with it?"
"It does not please me, madam, to be a clown, to be put to use for the entertainment of those foolish and capricious individuals you call your friends!"
"I do not understand you."
"Doubtless you do not."
"I regret, however, that you are displeased."
"Why should you regret that?" He seemed genuinely puzzled. "I regret only that my privacy has been disturbed. You are the third to visit me."
"You have only to refuse to fight and you are saved from enduring that which disturbs you."
The shark-mask looked away from her. "I must kill your Duke of Queens, as an example to the rest of you — as an example of the futility of all existence, particularly yours. If he should kill me, then I am satisfied, also. There is a question of honour involved."
"Honour? What is that?"
"Your ignorance confirms my point."
"So you intend to pursue this silly adventure to the bitter end?"
"Call it what you like."
"The duke's motives are not yours."
"His motives do not interest me."
"The duke loves life. You hate it."
"Then he can withdraw."
"But you will not?"
"You have presented no arguments to convince me that I should."
"But he seeks only to please his fellows. He agreed to the duel because he hoped it would please you."
"Then he deserves death."
"You are unkind, Lord Shark."
"I am a man of intellect, madam, whose misfortune it is to find himself alone in an irrational universe. I do you all the credit of having the ability to see what I see, but I despise you for your unwillingness to accept the truth."
"You see only one form of truth."
"There is only one form of truth." His grey shoulders shrugged. "I see, too, that your reasons for visiting me were whimsical, after all. I would be grateful if you would leave."
As she turned to go, something mechanical screamed from the desk. She paused. With a murmur of displeasure, Lord Shark the Unknown hurried to his consoles.
"This is intolerable!" He stared into a screen. "A horde has arrived! When you leave, please ask them to go away."
She craned her neck to look at the screen. "Why!" she exclaimed. "It is My Lady Charlotina's missing time travellers. What could their reason be, Lord Shark, for visiting you?"
9. Questions of Power
Brannart Morphail was not in a good temper. The scientist gesticulated at My Lady Charlotina, who had come to see him in his laboratories, which were attached to her own apartments at Below the Lake. "Another time machine? Why should I waste one? I have so few left!"
"Surely you have one which you like less than the others?" she begged.
"Big enough to take twenty-five men? It is impossible!"
"But they are so destructive!"
"What serious harm can they do if their demands are simply ignored?"
"The Iron Orchid and Lord Shark are their prisoners. They have all those weapons of Lord Shark's. They have already destroyed the mountains in a most dramatic way."
"I enjoyed the spectacle."
"So did I, dear Brannart."
"And if they destroy the Iron Orchid and Lord Shark, we can easily resurrect them again."
"They intend to subject them to pain , Brannart, and I gather that pain is enjoyable only up to a point. Please agree."
"The responsibility for those creatures was yours, My Lady Charlotina. You should not have let them wander about willy-nilly. Now look what has happened. They have invaded Lord Shark's home, captured both Lord Shark and the Iron Orchid (what on earth was she doing there?), seized those silly guns, and are now demanding a time machine in which to return to their own age. I have spoken to them already about the Morphail Effect, but they choose not to believe me." He limped away from her. "They shall not have a time machine."
"Besides," said My Lady Charlotina, "Lord Shark is due, very shortly, to fight his duel with the Duke of Queens. We have all been looking forward to it so much. Think of the disappointment. I know you wanted to watch."
His hump twitched. "That's a better reason, I'd agree." He frowned. "There might be a solution."
"Tell me what it is, most sagacious of scientists!"
Sergeant Martinez glared at Lord Shark and the Iron Orchid who, bound firmly, lay propped in a corner of the room. He and his men were armed with the pick of the weapons and they looked much more confident than when they had pushed past the Iron Orchid as she opened the door of Lord Shark's house.
"We don't like to do this," said Sergeant Martinez, "but we're running out of patience. Your friend Lady Charlotina is going to get your ear if someone doesn't deliver that time ship soon."
"Why should she need it?" The Iron Orchid was enjoying herself. Her sense of boredom had lifted completely and she felt that if they continued to be prisoners for a little longer, the duel would have to be forgotten about. She wished, however, that Sergeant Martinez had not taken all her power rings from her fingers.
"Tell your robot to get us some more grub," ordered the sergeant, digging Lord Shark in the ribs with the toe of his boot. Lord Shark complied. He seemed unmoved by what was happening; it rather confirmed his general view of an unreasonable and hostile universe. He felt vindicated.
A screen came to life. Trooper O'Dwyer, looking miserable, tuned the image with a manual control he had been playing with. "It's the old crippled guy," he informed his sergeant.
Sergeant Martinez said importantly, "I'll take over, trooper. Hi," he addressed Brannart Morphail. "Have you agreed to give us a ship?"
"One is on its way to you."
Sergeant Martinez looked pleased with himself. "Okay. We get the ship and you get the hostages back."
The Iron Orchid's heart sank. "Do not give in to them, Brannart!" she cried. "Let them do their worst!"
"I must warn you," said Brannart Morphail, "that it will do you little good. Time refuses paradox. You will not be able to return to your own age — or, at least, not for long. You would do better to forget this whole ridiculous venture…"
Sergeant Martinez switched him off.
"See?" he said to Trooper O'Dwyer. "I told you it would work. Like a dream."
"They must be treating it as a game," said O'Dwyer. "They've got nothing to fear. By using those power rings they could wipe us out in a second."
Sergeant Martinez looked at the rings he had managed to get onto his little finger. "I can't figure out why they don't work for me."
"They are, in essence, biological," said the Iron Orchid. "They work only for the individual who owns them, translating his desires much as a hand does — without conscious thought."
"Well, we'll see about that. What about the robots, will they obey anybody?"
"If so programmed," said Lord Shark.
"Okay" (of the automaton which had re-entered with a tray of food), "tell that one to obey me."
Lord Shark instructed the robot accordingly. "You will obey the soldiers," he said.
"There's some kind of vehicle arrived outside." O'Dwyer looked up from the screen. He addressed Lord Shark. "How come this equipment looks like it's out of a museum?"
"My companion," explained Lord Shark, "he built it."
"Funny-looking thing. More like a space ship than a time ship." Trooper Denereaz stared at the image: a long, tubular construction, tapering at both ends, hovering just above the ground.
"It's going to be good to get back amongst the cold, clean stars," said Sergeant Martinez sentimentally, "where the only things a man's got to trust is himself and a few buddies, and he knows he's fighting for something important. Maybe you people don't understand that. Maybe there's no need for you to understand. But it's because there are men like us, prepared to go out there and get their guts shot out of them in order to keep the universe a safe place to live in, that the rest of you sleep well in your beds at night, dreaming your nice, comfortable dreams…"
"Hadn't we better get going, Sergeant?" asked Trooper O'Dwyer. "If we're going."
"It could be a trap," said Sergeant Martinez grimly, "so we'd better go out in groups of five. First five occupies the ship, checks for occupants, booby traps and so on, then signals to the next five, until we're all out. Trooper O'Dwyer, keep a watch on that screen until you see we're all aboard and nobody's shooting at us, then follow — oh, and bring that robot with you. We can use him."
"Yes, sir."
"And if there's any smell of a set-up, kill the hostages."
"Yes, sir," said Trooper O'Dwyer sceptically.
A bell began to ring.
"What does that mean?" demanded Sergeant Martinez.
"It means that I shall be able to keep my appointment with the Duke of Queens," Lord Shark told him.
10. The Duel
The remains of the Rocky Mountains were still smouldering in the background as, from a safe distance, the crowd watched the ship containing the troopers rise into the air. Behind the crowd, feeling a little upset by the lack of attention, the Duke of Queens stood, sword in hand, awaiting his antagonist. The Duke was early. He had no interest in these other events, which he regarded as an unwelcome interruption, threatening to diffuse the drama of his duel with Lord Shark the Unknown; he thought that Sergeant Martinez and his men had behaved rather badly. Certainly, at any other time, he would have been as diverted by their actions as anyone, but, as it was, they had confused the presentation and robbed it of some of its tension.
At last the duke noticed that heads were beginning to turn in his direction, and he heard someone call:
"The Iron Orchid — Lord Shark — they emerge! They are saved!"
There came a chorus of self-conscious exultation.
The ranks parted; now the Iron Orchid, her slender fingers bare of rings, walked with a self-satisfied air beside Lord Shark the Unknown, stiff, sworded and stern.
They confronted each other over a narrow fissure in the earth. The Duke of Queens bowed. Lord Shark the Unknown, after a second's hesitation, bowed.
The Iron Orchid seemed reconciled. She took a step back. "May the best man win!" she said.
"My lord." The duke presented his sword. "To the death!"
Silently, Lord Shark the Unknown replied to the courtesy.
"En tou rage, mon coeur!" The Duke of Queens adopted the traditional stance, balancing on the balls of his feet, his body poised, one hand upon his hip, ready for the lunge. Lord Shark's body fell into the same position as precisely as that of one of his own automata.
The crowd moved forward, but kept its distance.
Lord Shark lunged. The Duke of Queens parried, at the same time leaning back to avoid the point of the blade. Lord Shark continued his forward movement, crossing the fissure, lunged again, was parried again. This time the Duke of Queens lunged and was parried. For a short while it was possible for the spectators to follow the stylized movements of the duellists, but gradually, as the combatants familiarized themselves with each other's method of fighting, the speed increased, until it was often impossible to see the thin blades, save for a gleaming blur as they met, parted, and met again.
Back and forth across the dry, dancing dust of that plain the two men moved, the duke's handsome, heavy features registering every escape, every minor victory, while the immobile mask of Lord Shark the Unknown gave no indication of how that strange, bleak recluse felt when his shoulder was grazed by the duke's blade, or when he came within a fraction of an inch of skewering his opponent's rapidly beating heart.
At first some of the crowd would applaud a near-miss or gasp as one of the duellists turned his body aside from a lunge which seemed unerring; soon, however, they fell silent, realizing that they must feel some of the tension the ancients had felt when they attended such games.
The duke, refusing in homage to those same ancestors to allow himself any energy boosts, understood that he was tiring much more than he had tired during his tuition, but he understood, also, that Lord Shark the Unknown had patterned his automata entirely after himself, for Lord Shark fought in exactly the same manner as had his mechanical servant, and this made the Duke of Queens more hopeful. Dimly he became aware of the implications of his bargain with Lord Shark: to die and never to be resurrected, to forego the rich enjoyment of life, to become unconscious forever. His attention wavered as these thoughts crept into his mind, he parried a lunge a little too late. He felt the sharp steel slide into his body. He knew pain. He gasped. Lord Shark the Unknown stepped back as the Duke of Queens staggered.
Lord Shark was expectant, and the duke realized that he had forgotten to acknowledge the wound.
"Toujours gai, mon coeur!" He wondered if he were dying, but no, the pain faded and became an unpleasant ache. He was still able to continue. He drew himself upright, conscious of the Iron Orchid's high-pitched voice in the background.
"En tou rage!" he warned, and lunged before he had properly regained his balance, falling sideways against Lord Shark's sword, but able to step back in time, recall his training and position himself properly so that when Lord Shark lunged again, he parried the stroke, returned it, parried again and returned again.
The Duke of Queens wondered at the temperature changes in his body. He had felt uncomfortably warm and now he felt a chill throughout, from head to toe, with only his wound glowing hot, but no longer very painful.
And Lord Shark the Unknown pushed past the duke's defence and the point of his sword gouged flesh from the duke's left arm, just below the shoulder.
"Oh!" cried the duke, and then, "Toujours gai!"
In grim silence, Lord Shark the Unknown gave him a few moments in which to recover.
The Duke of Queens was surprised at his own reaction now, for he quickly resumed his stance, coolly gave his warning, and found that a new emotion directed him. He believed that the emotion must be "fear".
And his lunges became more precise, his parries swifter, firmer, so that Lord Shark the Unknown lost balance time after time and was hard-pressed to regain it. It seemed to some of those who watched that Lord Shark was nonplussed by this new, cold attack. He began to lose ground, backing further and further away under the momentum of the duke's new-found energy.
And then the Duke of Queens, unthinking, merely a duellist, thrust once and struck Lord Shark the Unknown in the heart.
Although he must have been quite dead, Lord Shark stood erect for a little while, gradually lowering his sword and then falling, as stiff in death as he had been in life, onto the hard earth; his blood flooded from him, giving nourishment to the dust.
The Duke of Queens was astonished by what he had accomplished. Even as the Iron Orchid and his other friends came slowly towards him, he found that he was shaking.
The duke dropped his blade. His natural reaction, at this time, would have been to make immediate arrangements for Lord Shark's resurrection, but Lord Shark had been firm, remorseless in his affirmation that if death came to him he must remain dead through the rest of Time. The duke wondered at the thoughts and feelings, all unfamiliar, which filled him.
He could not understand why the Iron Orchid smiled and kissed him and congratulated him, why My Lady Charlotina babbled of the excitement he had provided, why Bishop Castle and his old acquaintance Captain Oliphaunt clapped him on the back and reminded him of his wounds.
"You are a Hero, darling duke!" cried the Everlasting Concubine. "You must let me nurse you back to health!"
"A fine display, glamorous Lord of Queens!" heartily praised the captain. "Not since 'Cannibals' has there been such entertainment!"
"Indeed, the fashion begins already! Look!" Bishop Castle displayed a long and jewelled blade.
The Duke of Queens groaned and fell to his knees. "I have killed Lord Shark," he said. A tear appeared on his cheek.
In the reproduction of what had been either a space- or air-ship, part of the collection long since abandoned by the Duke of Queens, Sergeant Martinez and his men peered through portholes at the distant ground. The ship had ceased to rise but now was borne by the currents of the wind. No response came from the engines; propellers did not turn, rockets did not fire — even the little sails rigged along the upper hull would not unfurl when Sergeant Martinez sent a reluctant Denereaz out to climb the ladder which clung to the surface of what was either a gas bag or a fuel tank.
"We have been suckered," announced Sergeant Martinez, after some thought. "This is not a time machine."
"Not so far," agreed Trooper Gan Hok, helping himself to exotic food paste from a cabinet. The ship was well stocked with provisions, with alcohol and dope.
"We could be up here forever," said Sergeant Martinez.
"Well, for a good while," agreed Trooper Smith. "After all, Sarge, what goes up must, eventually, come down — if we're still in this planet's gravity field, that is. Which we are."
Only Trooper Kevin O'Dwyer appeared to have accepted the situation with equanimity. He lay on a divan of golden plush while the stolen automaton brought him the finest food from the cabinets.
"And what I'd like to know, O'Dwyer, is why that damn robot'll only respond to your commands," said Sergeant Martinez darkly.
"Maybe it respects me, Sarge?"
Without much conviction, Sergeant Martinez said: "You ought to be disciplined for insubordination, O'Dwyer. You seem to be enjoying all this."
"We ought to make the best of it, that's all," said O'Dwyer. "Do you think there's any way of getting in touch with the surface? We could ask them to send up some girls."
"Be careful, O'Dwyer." Sergeant Martinez lay back on his own couch and closed his eyes, taking a strong pull on his cigar. "That sounds like fraternization to me. Don't forget that those people have to be regarded as alien belligerents."
"Sorry, Sarge. Robot, bring me another drink of that green stuff, will you?"
The automaton seemed to hesitate.
"Hurry it up," said O'Dwyer.
Returning with the drink, the automaton handed it to O'Dwyer and then hissed through its mask. "What purpose is there any longer to this deception, O'Dwyer?"
O'Dwyer rose and took the robot by the arm, leading it from the main passenger lounge into the control chamber, now unoccupied. "You must realize, Lord Shark, that if they realize I made a mistake and brought you up here instead of the robot, they'll use you as a bargaining counter."
"Should I care?"
"That's for you to decide."
"Your logic in substituting one of my automata for me and sending it out with the Iron Orchid to fight the Duke of Queens is still a mystery to me."
"Well, it's pretty simple to explain, Sharko. The duke was used to fighting robots — so I gave him a sporting chance. Also, when it's discovered it's a robot, and he's dead, they'll be able to bring him back to life — 'cause the rules will have been broken. Get it? If the robot's been put out of action, so what? Yeah?"
"Why should you have bothered to interfere?"
"I like the guy. I didn't want to see him killed. Besides, it was a favour to the Iron Orchid, too — and she looks like a lady who likes to return a favour. We worked it out between us."
"I heard you. Releasing me from my bonds when it was too late for me to return, then suggesting to your comrades that I was an automaton. Well, I shall tell them that you have deceived them."
"Go ahead. I'll deny it."
Lord Shark the Unknown walked to the porthole, studying the peculiar purple clouds which someone had created in this part of the sky.
"All my life I have been unable to see the point of human activity," he said. "I have found every experience further proof of the foolishness of my fellows, of the absolute uselessness of existence. I thought that no expression of that stupidity could bewilder me again. Now I must admit that my assumptions, my opinions, my most profound beliefs seem to dissipate and leave me as confused as I was when I first came into this tired and decadent universe. You are an alien here yourself. Why should you help the Duke of Queens?"
"I told you. I like him. He doesn't know when to come in out of the rain. I fixed things so nobody lost. Is that bad?"
"You did all that, including risking the disapproval of your fellows, out of an emotion of — what — affection? — for that buffoon?"
"Call it enlightened self-interest. The fact is that the whole thing's defused. I didn't think we'd get off this planet, or out of this age, and I'm glad we haven't. I like it here. But Sergeant Martinez had to make the attempt, and I had to go along with him, to keep him happy. Don't worry, we'll soon be on-planet again."
He gave Lord Shark the Unknown a friendly slap on the back. "All honour satisfied, eh?"
And Lord Shark laughed.
