"You knew all along, didn"t you? What I wanted? "
"Urn. "
"You"re so proud, Argonheart. So masculine. A lot of girls don"t like fat men, but I do. " She giggled. " It"s what they used to say about me. All the more to get hold of. Please, Argonheart, please! "
"My confections, " he murmured lamely.
"You can spare a few minutes, surely? " She dug her nails into his chest. "Argonheartl"
"They could-"
"You must relax sometime. You have to relax. It gives you a new perspective. "
"Well, yes, that"s true. "
"Argonheart! " She moved against him.
"I certainly cannot improve anything now. Perhaps you are right. Yes..."
"Yes! You"ll feel so much better. And I will, too. "
"Possibly..."
"Definitely! "
She pulled him toward a pile of discarded dark brown straw. "Here"s a good place. " She sank into it, tugging at his gloved hand.
"What? " he murmured. "In the vermicelli? "
It was already beginning to stick to her sweating arms, but it was plain that such considerations were no longer important. "Why not? Why not? Oh, my darling. Oh, Argonheart! "
He drew off his gloves. He reached down and removed a strand or two of the vermicelli from her elbow and placed it neatly on her neck. He stood back.
She writhed in the chocolate.
"Argonheart! " She mewed.
With a shrug, he fell beside her in the chocolate.
It was at the point where she had helped him to drag the tight scarlet smock up to his navel while wriggling her own blue lace knickers to just below her knees that they heard a shriek that filled the sky and saw the crimson s.p.a.ceship falling through the dark-blue heavens in an aura of multi-colored flame.
Argonhearfs belly quivered against her as he paused.
"Golly! " said Mavis Ming.
Argonheart licked her shoulder, but his attention was no longer with her. He glanced back. The s.p.a.ceship was still falling. The noise was immense.
"Don"t stop, " she said. "There"s still time. It won"t take long. "
But Argonheart was already rolling over in the vermicelli, pulling his smock back into position. He stood up. Shreds of half-melted confectionery dropped from his legs.
A dreadful wail escaped Miss Ming. It was drowned by the roar of the ship.
With her fist she pounded at the vermicelli. It flew in all directions. She appeared to be swearing. And then, when the ship"s noise had dropped momentarily to a muted howl, and as Mavis Ming drew up her underwear, her voice, disappointed, despairing, could be heard again.
"What a moment to pick. Poor old Mavis. Isn"t it just your luck! "
Chapter Five.
In which certain citizens at the End of Time indulge themselves in Speculation as to the Nature of the Visitor from s.p.a.ce
It was a s.p.a.ceship from some mythical antiquity, all fins and flutes and glittering bubbles, tapering at the nose, bulbous at the base, where its rockets roared. It slowed as they watched, falling with a peculiar swaying motion, as if its engines malfunctioned, the vents first on one side and then on the other sputtering, gouting, sputtering again until, just before the ship reached the ground, the rockets flared in unison, bouncing the machine like a ball on a water jet, gradually subsiding until it had settled to earth.
Miss Ming, observing it from her nest of chocolate worms, tightened her lips.
Even after the ship had landed flame still roiled around its hull, sensuous: flame caressed the scarlet metal.
The surrounding terrain sent up heavy black smoke, crackling as if to protest; the smoke curled close to the ground, moving toward the ship: eels attracted to wreckage.
Miss Ming was in no temper to admire the machine; she glared at it.
"It has a certain authority, the ship, " murmured Argonheart Po.
"A fine sense of timing, I must say! A little love-making would have improved my spirits no end and taken away the nasty taste of Doctor Volospion"s tantrum. It isn"t as if I get the chance every day and I haven"t had a man for ages. I don"t even know if one can still give me what I need! Even you, Argonheart..."
She pouted, brushing at the nasty sticky stuff clinging to her petticoats. "I"m too furious to speak! "
Argonheart Po helped her from the pile and, perhaps moved by unconscious chivalry, pecked her upon the cheek. The smell of burning filled the air.
"Ugh," she said. "What a stink, too! "
"It is the least attractive of odors, " Argonheart said.
"It"s horrible. Surely it can"t just be coming from that ship? "
The heat from the vessel was heavy on their skins. Argonheart Po, had his body been so fashioned, would have been sweating quite as much as Miss Ming. His sensitive nose twitched.
"There is something familiar about it, " he agreed, "which I would not normally identify with hot metal. " He perused the landscape. His cry of horror echoed over it.
"Ah! Look what it has donel Look! Oh, it is too bad! "
Miss Ming looked and saw nothing. "What? "
Argonheart was in anguish. His hands clenched, his eyes blazed.
"It has melted half my dinosaurs. That is what is making the smoke! "
Argonheart Po began to roll rapidly in the direction of the ship, Mavis Ming forgotten.
"Hey! " she cried. "What if there"s danger? "
He had not heard her.
With a whimper, she followed him.
"Murderer! " cried the distressed chef. "Philistine! " He shook his fist at the ship. He danced about it, forced back by its heat. He attempted to kick it and failed.
"Locust! " he raved. "Ravager! Insensitive despoiled"
His energy dissipated, he fell to his knees in the glutinous mess. He wept, "Oh, my monsters! My jellies! "
Mavis Ming hovered a short distance away. She wore the pout of someone who considered herself abandoned in her hour of need.
"Argonheart! " she called.
"Burned! All burned! "
"Argonheart, we don"t know what sort of creatures are in that s.p.a.ceship. They could mean us harm! "
"Ruin,ruin,ruin..."
"Argonheart. I think we should go and warn someone, don"t you? " She discovered that her lovely shoes were stuck. As she lifted her feet, long strands of toffee-like stuff came with them. She waded back to a patch of dust still free of melted dinosaur.
Her attention focused upon the ship as curiosity conquered caution. "I"ve seen alien s.p.a.cecraft before, " she said. "Lots of them. But this doesn"t look alien at all. It"s got a distinctly human look to it, in fact. "
Argonheart Po raised his mighty body to its feet and, with shoulders bowed, mourned his dead creations.
"Argonheart, don"t you think it"s got a rather romantic appearance, really? "
Argonheart Po turned his back on the source of his anger and folded his arms across his chest. He wore a martyred air, yet his dignity increased.
Mavis Ming continued to inspect the s.p.a.ceship. A strange smile had replaced the expression of anxiety she had worn earlier. "Come to think of it it"s just the sort of ship I used to read about when I was a little girl. All the s.p.a.ce heroes had ships like that. " She became fey. "Perhaps at long last my prayers have been answered, Argonheart. "
The Master Chef grunted. He was lost in profundity.
Miss Ming uttered her trilling laugh. "Has my handsome s.p.a.ce knight arrived to carry me off, do you think? To the wonderful planet of Paradise V? "
From Argonheart there issued a deep, violent rumbling, as of an angry volcano. "Villain! Villain! "
She put a hand to her mouth. "You could be right. It could easily carry a villain. Some pirate captain and his cut-throat crew. " She became reminiscent. "My two favorite authors, you know, when I was young well, I"d still read them now, if I could were J.R.R. Tolkein and A.A. Milne. Well, this is more like the movie versions, of course, but still... Oooh! Could they be rapists and slavers, Argonheart? "
She took his silence for disapproval. "Not that I really want anything nasty to happen to us. Not really. But it"s thrilling, isn"t it, wondering? "
"I-," said Argonheart Po. "I-" Miss Ming, as she antic.i.p.ated the occupants of the ship, seemed torn between poles represented in her fantasies by the evil, fascinating Sauron and the soft, jolly Winnie the Pooh.
"Will they be fierce, do you think, Argonheart? Or cuddly? " She bit her lower lip. "Better still, they might be fierce and cuddly! "
"Aaaaaah, " breathed Argonheart. She looked at him in surprise. She appeared to make an effort to retrieve herself from sentiment which, she had doubtless learned, was not always socially acceptable in this world. She achieved the retrieval by a return to her previous alternative, her vein of heavy cynicism. "I was only joking, " she said.
"s.a.d.i.s.t, " hissed Argonheart. "This might have been deliberately engineered. "
"Well," she said, having determined her new att.i.tude, "at least it might be someone to relieve the awful boredom of this b.l.o.o.d.y planet! "
Still bowed, her baffled and grieving escort turned from the blackened fragments of his culinary dreams to stare wistfully after his surviving stegosauri and tyrannosauri which, startled by the ship, were in rapid and uncertain flight in all directions.
His self-control returned. He became a fatalist. His little shrug went virtually unnoticed by her.
"It is fate," declared the Master Chef. "At least I am no longer in a dilemma. The decision has been taken from me."
He began to wade, as best the sticky glue would allow him, toward her.
"Couldn"t you round them up?" she asked. "The ones who survived?"
"And make only a partial contribution? No. I shall find Abu Thaleb and tell him he must create something for himself. A few turns of a power ring, of course, and he will have a feast of sorts, though it will lack the inspiration of anything I could have prepared for him." A certain guilt, it seemed, inspired him to resent the object of his guilt and therefore made him feel somewhat aggressive toward Abu Thaleb.
He reached Miss Ming"s side. "Shall we return to the party together?"
"But what of the ship?"
"It has done its terrible work."
"But the people who came in it?"
"I forgive them," said Argonheart with grandiose magnaminity.
"I mean-don"t you want to see what they look like?"
"I bear them no ill-will. They were not aware of the horror they brought. It is ever thus."
"They might be interesting."
"Interesting?" Argonheart Po was incredulous.
"They might have some news, or something."
Argonheart Po looked again upon the s.p.a.ceship. "They are scarcely likely to be anything but crude, ill-mannered rogues, Miss Ming. Surely they must have seen, by means of their instruments, my herds?"
"It could be a crash landing."
"Perhaps." Argonheart Po was a fair-minded chef. He did his best to see her point. "Perhaps."