"They might need help."
He cast one final glance about the smoking detritus and said, with not a little violence, "Well, I hope that they find it."
"Shouldn"t we...?"
"I return to find Abu Thaleb and tell him of the disaster."
"Oh, very well, I suppose I shall have to come with you. But really, Argonheart, you"re looking at this is a rather selfish way, aren"t you. This could be a great event. Remember those other aliens who turned up recently? They were trying to help us, too, weren"t they? It would be lovely to have some nice news for a change..."
She reached for his arm, so that he might escort her through the glutinous pools.
At that moment there came a grinding noise from the vessel. Both looked back.
A circular section in the hull was turning. "The airlock," she gasped. "It"s opening." The door of the airlock swung back, apparently on old-fashioned hinges, to reveal a dark hole from which, for a few seconds, flames poured.
"They can"t be human," she said. "Not if they live in fire."
No further flames issued from within the ship but from the darkness of the interior there came tiny flashes of light from time to time.
"Like fireflies," whispered Mavis Ming. "Or eyes," said Argonheart, his attention held for the moment.
"The feral eyes of wild invaders." Miss Ming seemed to be quoting from one of her girlhood texts.
An engine murmured and the ship shivered. Then, from somewhere inside the airlock, a wide band of metal began to emerge.
"A ramp," said Mavis Ming. "They"re letting down a ramp." The ramp slid slowly to the ground, making a bridge between airlock and Earth, but still no occupant emerged.
Mavis cupped her hands around her mouth. "Greetings!" she cried. "The peaceful people of Earth welcome you!"
There was still no acknowledgment from the ship. Grainy dust drifted past. There was silence.
"They might be afraid of us," suggested Mavis.
"Most probably they are ashamed," said Argon-heart Po. "Too abashed to display themselves."
"Oh, Argonheart! They probably didn"t even see your dinosaurs!"
"Is that an excuse?"
"Well..."
Now a m.u.f.fled, querulous voice sounded from within the airlock, but the language it used was unintelligible.
"We have no translators." Argonheart Po consulted his power rings. "I have no means of making him speak any sort of tongue I"ll understand. Neither have I the means to understand him. We must go. Lord Jagged of Canaria usually has a translation ring. Or the Duke of Queens. Or Doctor Volospion. Anyone who keeps a menagerie will..."
"Sssh," she said. "The odd thing is, Argonheart, that while I can"t actually understand the words, the language does seem familiar. It"s like well it"s like English the language I used to speak before I came here."
"You cannot speak it now?"
"Obviously. I"m speaking this one, whatever it is, aren"t I?"
The voice came again. It was high-pitched. It tended to trill, like birdsong, and yet it was distinctly human.
"It"s not unpleasant," she said, "but it"s not what I would have called manly." She was kind: "Stfll, the pitch might be affected by a change in the atmosphere, mightn"t it?"
"Possibly." Argonheart peered. "Hm. One of them seems to be coming out."
At last a s.p.a.ce traveler emerged at the top of the ramp.
"Oh, dear," murmured Miss Ming, "what a disappointment! I hope they"re not all like him."
Although undoubtedly humanoid, the stranger had a distinctly birdlike air to him. There was a wild crest of bright auburn hair, which rose all around his head and created a kind of ruff about his neck; there was a sharp pointed nose; there were vivid blue eyes which bulged and blinked in the light; there was a head which craned forward on an elongated neck and which would sometimes jerk back a little, like a chicken"s as it searched for grain amid the farmyard"s dust; there was a tiny body which also moved in rapid, poorly coordinated jerks and twitches; there were two arms, held stiffly at the sides of the body like clipped wings. And then there was the plaintive, questioning cry, like a puzzled gull"s: "Eh? Eh? Eh?"
The eyes darted this way and that and then fixed suddenly upon Mavis Ming and Argonheart Po. They received the creature"s whole attention.
"Eh?"
He blinked imperiously at them. He trilled a few words.
Argonheart Po waited until the newcomer had finished before announcing gravely: "You have ruined the Commissar of Bengal"s dinner, sir."
"Eh?"
"You have reduced a carefully planned feast to a rabble of side dishes!"
"Fallerunnerstanja," said the visitor from s.p.a.ce. He reached back into the airlock and produced a black frock coat dating from a period at least 150 years before Mavis Ming"s own. He drew the coat over his shirt and b.u.t.toned it all the way down. "Eh?"
"It"s not very clean," said Mavis, "that coat. Is it?"
Argonheart had not noticed the stranger"s clothes. He was regretting his outburst and trying to recover his composure, his normal amiability.
"Welcome," he said, "to the End of Time."
"Eh?"
The s.p.a.ce traveler frowned and consulted a bulky instrument in his right hand. He tapped it, shook it and held it up to his ear.
"Well," said Mavis with a sniff, "he isn"t much, is he? I wonder if they"re all like him."
"He could be the only one," suggested Argonheart Po.
"Like that?"
"The only one at all."
"I hope not!"
As if in response to her criticism, the creature waved both his arms in a sort of windmilling motion. It seemed for a moment as if he were trying to fly. Then, with stiff movements, reminiscent of a poorly controlled marionette, it retreated back into its ship.
"Did we frighten him, do you think?" asked Argonheart Po in some concern.
"Quite likely. What a weedy little creep!"
"Mm?"
"What a rotten specimen. He doesn"t go with the ship at all. I was expecting someone tanned, brawny, handsome...".
"Why so? You know these ships? You have met those who normally use them?"
"Only in my dreams," she said.
Argonheart made no further effort to follow her. "He is humanoid, at least. It makes a change, don"t you think, Miss Ming, from all those others?"
"Not much of one though." She shifted a gluey foot. "Ah, well. Shall we return, as you suggested?"
"You don"t think we should remain?"
"There"s no point, is there? Let someone else deal with him. Someone who wants a curiosity for his menagerie."
Argonheart Po offered his arm again. They began to wade toward the dusty sh.o.r.e.
As they reached the higher ground they heard a familiar voice from overhead. They looked up.
Abu Thaleb"s howdah hovered there.
"Aha!" said the Commissar of Bengal. His face, with its beard carefully curled and divided into two parts, set with pearls and rubies, after the original, peered over the edge of the air car. "I thought so." He addressed another occupant, invisible to their eyes. "You see, Volospion, I was right."
"Oh, dear." Mavis tried to rearrange her disordered dress. "Doctor Volospion, too..."
Volospion"s tired tones issued from the howdah. "Yes, indeed. You were quite right, Abu Thaleb. I apologize. It is a s.p.a.ceship. Well, if you feel you would like to descend, I shall not object."
The howdah came down to earth beside Argonheart Po and Miss Ming. Within, it was lined with dark green and blue plush.
Doctor Volospion lay among cushions, still in black and gold, his tight hood covering his skull and framing his pale face. He made no attempt to move. He scarcely acknowledged Miss Ming"s presence as he addressed Argonheart Po: "Forgive this intrusion, great Prince of Pies. The Commissar of Bengal is bent on satisfying his curiosity."
Argonheart Po made to speak but Abu Thaleb had already begun again: "What a peculiar odor it has-sweet, yet bitter..."
"My creations..." said Argonheart.
"Like death," p.r.o.nounced Doctor Volospion.
"The smell is all that is left," insisted Argonheart now, "of the dinner I was preparing for your party, Abu Thaleb. The ship"s landing destroyed almost all of it."
Climbing from his howdah the slender commissar clapped the chef upon his broad back. "Dear Argonheart, how sad. But another time, I hope, you will be able to re-create all that you have lost today."
"It is true that there were imperfections," Argonheart told him, "and I would relish the opportunity to begin afresh."
"Soon, soon, soon. What a lovely little ship it is." Abu Thaleb"s plumes bounced upon his turban. "I had yearnings, you see, to embellish my menagerie, but I fear the ship is too small to accommodate the kind of prize I seek."
Mavis Ming said: "You"d be even more disappointed than me, Abu Thaleb. You should see the little squirt we saw just before you turned up. He-,"
Doctor Volospion, so it seemed, had not heard her begin to speak. He called from his cushions: "Your menagerie is already a marvel, Belle of Bengal. The most refined collection in the world. Splendid, specialized, so much more sophisticated than the scrambled skelter of species sc.r.a.ped together by certain so-called connoisseurs whose zoos surpa.s.s yours only in size but never in superiority of sensitive selection!"
Mavis Ming displayed confusion. Although Doctor Volospion appeared to address Abu Thaleb he seemed to be speaking for her benefit. She looked from one to the other, wondering if she should form a smile.
Doctor Volospion winked at her.
Mavis grinned. She had been forgiven for her outburst. The joke was at Abu Thaleb"s expense.
She began to giggle.
"Go on, Doctor Volospion. I"m sure Abu Thaleb enjoys your flattery," she said.
"In taste, salutory Commissar, you are a.s.sured of supremacy, until our planet pa.s.ses at last into that limbo of silence and nonexistence which must soon, we are told, be its fate."
Abu Thaleb"s back was to Miss Ming and she seemed glad of this. She held her breath. She went deep red. She made a muted, spluttering noise.
But now the Commissar of Bengal was looking back at Doctor Volospion. "Oh, really, my friend!" He was good natured. "You are capable of subtler mockery than this!"
"But I am a true showman, Abu Thaleb. I relate properly to my audience."
"Can that be true?" Abu Thaleb turned to Mavis. "You have seen the visitors, then, Miss Ming?"
"Briefly," she said. "Actually, there only seems to be one."
Abu Thaleb stroked his beard, his pearls and rubies. "He is not in any way, I suppose, um elephantoid? "
She was prepared to allow herself a giggle now. She looked toward the lounging Volospion.
"Not a trace of a trunk, I"m afraid." She looked for approval from her protector. "Not even a touch of a tusk. He couldn"t be less like a jumbo, although his nose is long enough, I suppose. He"s more like one of those little birds, Abu Thaleb, who pick stuff out of elephant"s teeth."
"Excellent!" applauded Doctor Volospion. "Ha, ha, ha!"
Abu Thaleb turned and regarded her with mysterious gravity. "Teeth?"
She giggled again. "Don"t they have teeth, then, any more?"
Argonheart Po seemed much embarra.s.sed. His glance at Doctor Volospion was almost disapproving. "I must away to my thoughts," he said. "I shall leave this sad scene. There is nothing I can save. Not now. So I"ll wish you all farewell."
"Are we to be denied even a taste of your palatable treasure, Argonheart?" Doctor Volospion used much the same voice as the one he had used to speak to Abu Thaleb. "Hm?"
Argonheart Po cleared his throat. He shook his head. He glanced at the ground. "I think so."
"Oh, but Argonheart, you still have a few dinosaurs left. Can"t I see one now? On the horizon." Miss Ming clutched at his hand but failed to engage.
"No more, no more," said the Master Chef.
Doctor Volospion spoke again. "Ah, mighty Lord of the Larder, how haughty you can sometimes be! Just a morsel of mastodon, perhaps, to whet our appet.i.tes?"