"Give me a little while so that I may prepare the lady for your visit. You will dine with me?"
"I will undergo any ritual you wish, but when I leave, it shall be with Mavis Ming, my love."
"You gave your word..."
"I gave my word and I shall keep it."
Doctor Volospion quit his battlements.
Chapter Twelve
In which Doctor Volospfon gives a tour of his Museum and his Menagerie of Forgotten Faiths
Mavis Ming was desolate.
"Oh, you have betrayed me!"
"Betrayed?" Doctor Volospion laid a hand upon her trembling shoulder. "Nothing of the sort. This is all part of my plan. I beg you to become an actress, Miss Ming. Show, as best you can, some little sympathy for your suitor. It will benefit you in the end."
"You"re laying a trap for him, aren"t you?"
"I can only say, now, that you will soon be free of him."
"You"re certain."
"Certain."
"I"m not sure I could keep it up."
"Trust me. I have proved myself your loyal protector up to now, have I not?"
"Of course. I didn"t mean to imply..." She was hasty to give him rea.s.surance.
"Then dress yourself and join us, as soon as you can, for dinner."
"You"ll be eating? You never-,"
"It is the ceremony which is important."
She nodded. "All right."
He crossed to the door. She said: "He"s not really very intelligent, is he?"
"I think not."
"And you"re very clever indeed."
"You are kind."
"What I mean is, I"m sure you can trick him, Doctor Volospion, if that"s what you mean to do."
"I appreciate your encouragement, Miss Ming." He went out.
Mavis looked to her wardrobe. She dragged from it an evening dress of green and purple silk. She pa.s.sed to her mirror and looked with displeasure upon her red-rimmed eyes, her bedraggled hair. "Chin up, Mavis," she said, "it"ll all be over soon. And it means you can go visiting again. What a relief that"ll be! And if I play my part fight, they"ll have me to thank, as well as Doctor Volospion. I"ll get a bit of respect." She settled to her toilet.
It was to her credit that she made the most of herself, in her own eyes. She curled her hair so that it hung in blonde waves upon her shoulders. She applied plenty of mascara, to make her eyes look larger. She was relatively subtle with her rouge and she touched her best perfumed deodorant to all those parts of her body which, in her opinion, might require it (her cosmetics were largely 20th century, created for her by Doctor Volospion at her request, for she considered the cosmetics of her own time to be crude and synthetic by comparison). She arranged an everlasting orchid upon her dress; she donned diamond earrings, a matching necklace, bracelets. "Good enough to dine with the Emperor of Africa," she said to herself, when she was ready.
She left her apartments and began her journey through pa.s.sages which, in her opinion, Doctor Volospion kept unnecessarily dark, although, as she knew, it was done for the artistic effect he favored.
At last she reached the great, gloomy hall where Doctor Volospion normally entertained his guests. Hard-faced metal servants already waited on. the long table at one end of which sat dignified Doctor Volospion and the pipsqueak Bloom, all got up in the silliest outfit Mavis Ming had ever seen. Strips of ancient neon, blue-white, illuminated this particular part of the castle, though they had been designed to malfunction and so flickered on and off, creating sudden shadows and brilliances which always disturbed Miss Ming. The walls were of undressed stone and bore no decoration save the tall portrait of Doctor Volospion over the ma.s.sive fireplace in which a small electric fire had been positioned, and the fire was also an antique, designed to simulate burning coal.
Becoming aware of her entrance, both men rose from their seats.
"My madonna!" breathed Bloom.
"Good evening, Miss Ming." Doctor Volospion bowed.
Emmanuel Bloom seemed to be making an effort to contain himself. He sat down again.
"Good evening, gentlemen." She responded to this effort with one of her own. "How nice to see you again, Mr. Bloom."
"Oh!" He lifted a chop to his grease-painted mouth.
Simple food was placed by servants before her. She sat at Doctor Volospion"s left. She had no ap pet.i.te but she made some show of eating, noting that Doctor Volospion did the same. She hoped that Bloom would not subject them to any more of his megalomaniacal monologues. It was still difficult to understand why a man of Doctor Volospion"s intelligence indulged Bloom at all, and yet they seemed to converse readily enough.
"You deal, sir, in Ideals," Doctor Volospion was saying, "I in Realities: though I remain fascinated by the trappings by means of which men seek to give credence to their dreamings."
"The trappings are all you can ever know," said the Fireclown, "for you can never experience the excstacy of Faith. You are too empty."
"You continue to be hard on me, sir, while I try-"
"I speak the truth."
"Ah, well. I suppose you do read me aright, Mr. Bloom."
"Of course I do. I gave my word only that I should not take Miss Ming from here by force. I did not agree to join in your courtesies, your hypocrisies. What are your manners when seen in the light of the great unchangeable realities of the multiverse?"
"Your belief in the performance of anything, Mr. Bloom, is incredible to me. Everything is transitory. Can the experience of a billion years have taught you nothing?"
"On the contrary, Doctor Volospion." He did not amplify. He chewed at his chop.
"Has experience left you untouched? Were you ever the same?"
"I suppose my character has changed little. I have known the punishments of Prometheus, but I have been that G.o.d"s persecutor, too for Bloom has bloomed everywhere, in every guise..."
"More peas?" interrupted Miss Ming.
Emmanuel Bloom shook his head.
"But creed has followed creed, movement followed movement, down all the centuries," continued Doctor Volospion, "and not one important change in any of them, though millions have lost their lives over some slight interpretation. Are men not fools to destroy themselves thus? Questing after impossibilities, golden dreams, romantic fancies, perfectability..."
"Oh, certainly. Clowns, all of them. Like me."
Doctor Volospion did not know what to make of this.
"You agree?"
"The clown weeps, laughs, knows joy and sorrow. It is not enough to look at his costume and laugh and say here is mankind revealed. Irony is nothing by itself. Irony is a modifier, not a protection. We live our lives because we have only our lives to live."
"Urn," said Doctor Volospion. "I think I should show you my collection. I possess mementoes of a million creeds." He pointed with his thumb at the floor. "Down there."
"I doubt that they will be unfamiliar to me," said Bloom. "What do you hope to prove to me?"
"That you are not original, I suppose."
"And by this means you think you will encourage me to leave your planet without a single pledge fulfilled?"
Doctor Volospion made a gesture. "You read me so well, Mr. Bloom."
"I"ll inspect this stuff, if you wish. I am curious. I am respectful, too, of all prophets and all objects of devotion, but as to my originality..."
"Well," said Doctor Volospion, "we shall see. If you will allow me to conduct you upon a brief tour of my collection, I shall hope to convince you."
"Miss Ming will accompany us?"
"Oh, I"d love to," said Miss Ming courageously. She hated Doctor Volospion"s treasures.
"I think my collection is the greatest in the universe," continued Doctor Volospion. "No better has existed, certainly, in Earth"s history. Many missionaries have come this way. Most have made attempts to um save us. As you have. They have not been, in the main, as spectacular, I will admit, nor have they claimed as much as you claim. However..." He took a pea upon his fork. There was something in the gesture to make Mavis Ming suspect that he planned something more than a mere tour of his treasures. "... you would agree that your arguments are scarcely subtle. They allow for no nuance."
Now nothing would stop the Fireclown. He rose from the table, his birdlike movements even more exaggerated than usual. He strutted the length of the table. He strutted back again. "A pox on nuance! Seize the substance, beak and claws, and leave the chitterlings for the carrion! Let crows and storks squabble over the sc.r.a.ps, these subtleties the eagle takes the main carca.s.s, as much or as little as he needs!" He fixed his gaze upon Miss Ming. "Forget your quibbling scruples, madonna! Come with me now. Together we"ll leave the planet to its fate. Their souls gutter like dying candles. The whole world reeks of inertia. If they will not have my Ideals, then I shall bestow all my gifts on you!"
Mavis Ming said in strangled tones: "You are very kind, Mr. Bloom, but..."
"Perhaps that particular matter can be discussed later," proposed Doctor Volospion tightening his cap about his head and face. "Now, sir, if you will come?"
"Miss Ming, too?"
"Miss Ming."
The trio left the hall, with Miss Ming reluctantly trailing behind. She desperately hoped that Doctor Volospion was not playing one of his games at her expense. He had been so nice to her lately, she thought, that he was evidently mellowing her, yet she hated in herself that slight lingering suspicion of him, that voice which had told her, on more than one occasion, that if someone liked her then that someone could have no taste at all and was therefore not worth knowing.
They descended and they descended, for it was Doctor Volospion"s pleasure to bury his collection in the bowels of his castle. Murky corridor followed murky corridor, lit by flambeaux, candles, rush torches, oil lamps, anything that would give the minimum of heat and cast the maximum number of shadows.
"You have," said Mr. Bloom after some while of this tramping, "an unexceptional imagination, Doctor Volospion."
"I do not concern myself with the l.u.s.t for variation enjoyed by most of my fellows at the End of Time," remarked the lean man. "I follow but a few simple obsessions. And in that, I think, we share something, Mr. Bloom."
"Well-," began the Fireclown.
But then Doctor Volospion had stopped at an iron-bound door. "Here we are!" He flung the door wide. The light from within seemed intense.
The Fireclown strutted, stiff-limbed as ever, into the high vaulted hall. He blinked in the light. He sniffed the warm, heavy air. For almost as far as the eye could see there were rows and rows of cabinets, pedestals, display domes; Doctor Volospion"s museum.
"What"s this?" enquired Mr. Bloom.
"My collection of devotional objects, culled from all ages. From all the planets of the universe." Doctor Volospion was proud.
It was difficult to see if Mr. Bloom was impressed, for his clown"s paint hid most expression.
Doctor Volospion paused beside a little table. "Only the best have been preserved. I have discarded or destroyed the rest. Here is a history of folly!" He looked down at the table. On it lay a dusty sc.r.a.p of skin to which clung a few faded feathers. Doctor Volospion plucked it up. "Do you recognize that, Mr. Bloom, with all your experience of Time and s.p.a.ce?"
The long neck carne forward to inspect the thing. "The remains of a fowl?" suggested Mr. Bloom. "A chicken, perhaps?"
Miss Ming wrinkled her nose and backed away from them. "I never liked this part of the castle. It"s creepy. I don"t know how-," She pulled herself together.
"Eh?" said Mr. Bloom.
Doctor Volospion permitted himself a dark smile. "It is all that remains of Yawk, Savior of Shakah, founder of a religion which spread through fourteen star-systems and eighty planets and lasted some seven thousand years until it became the subject of a jehad."
"Hm," said Mr. Bloom noncommittally.
"I had this," confided Doctor Volospion, "from the last living being to retain his faith in Yawk. He regarded himself as the only guardian of the relic, carried it across countless light years, preaching the gospel of Yawk (and a fine, poetic tale it is), until he reached Earth."
"And then?" Bloom reverently replaced the piece of skin.
"He is now a guest of mine. You will meet him later."
A smile appeared momentarily on Miss Ming"s lips. She believed that she had guessed what her host had in mind.
"Aha," murmured the Fireclown. "And what would this be?" He moved on through the hall, pausing beside a cabinet containing an oddly wrought artifact made of something resembling green marble.
"A weapon," said Volospion. "The very gun which slew Marchbanks, the Martyr of Mars, during the revival, in the 25th century (A.D., of course), of the famous Kangaroo Cult which had swept the solar system about a hundred years previously, before it was superseded by some atheistic political doctrine. You know how one is p.r.o.ne to follow the other. Nothing, Mr. Bloom, changes very much, either in the fundamentals or the rhetoric of religions and political creeds. I hope I am not depressing you?"
Bloom snorted. "How could you? None of these others has experienced what I have experienced. None has had the knowledge I have gained and, admittedly, half forgotten. Do not confuse me with these, I warn you, Doctor Volospion, if you wish to continue to converse with me. I could destroy all this in a moment, if I wished, and it would make no difference..."
"You threaten?"
"What?" The little man removed his clown"s cap and ran his fingers through the tangles of his auburn hair. "Eh? Threaten? Don"t be foolish. I gave my word. I was merely lending emphasis to my statement."
"Besides," said Doctor Volospion smoothly, "you could do little now, I suspect, for there are several force fields lying between you and your ship now they protect my museum and I suspect that your ship is the main source of your power, for all you claim it derives entirely from your mind."