‘Say, think of that, imagine the whole solar system slipping back in time to the beginning of the universe … And nobody even noticing … What a song you could make out of that idea!’
‘Dimittis, stick to the point,’ de l’Isle-Evens said severely. ‘Besides, there is evidence to suggest that the system would – were such an unlikely event to occur – the system would not long survive bombardments of proto-radiations.’
Brushing this idle speculation aside, Gisbone said, ‘In any event, we can’t stay here. We have the proof that this unprecedented event is happening; that a Smix-Smith ship got zocked back in time before our eyes. We must take the proof to earth and present it to the D.N. Congress – the forthcoming meeting at Friendship might be a useful opportunity. If anything can be done, it must be done before – Well, we don’t dare guess what sort of madness might seize people if this temporal deterioration continues.’
‘Agreed, we must try to get in touch with the right people,’ Glamis said. ‘But I can guess what has caused this time prolapse – as I suspect you can. World War III, of course. For five years, all the big powers shot holes in space and thought nothing of it. Their immense nuclear disturbances ruptured the fabric of space-time – not just space but interrelated time as well. This is the ultimate in pollution – mankind’s pollution of the whole continuum!’
It did not need a psychiatrist to understand why there was an odd ring of triumph in her voice. We feel good when our worst fears have been confirmed. Temporarily, at least.
The ruin of the space-time universe was enough to make every last right-thinking conservationist cheer, as they went, slipping, falling, plummeting back into their own histories, shrieking ‘I told you so-o-o-o-o …’
The crew of the Doomwitch stood around, each perhaps wishing that it had been his or her turn in semi-deep when this happened. They would have to go back to earth in the flesh to bear convincingly tidings of such weight, gloom, and eccentricity. Yet all of them on the station, stiffs included, were renegades – worse, neutrals – hunted by one feuding party or another of the thousand ragged-nerved splinter groups left bobbing in the wake of the Big War. The fun wasn’t going to be fun.
‘Well,’ said Guy Gisbone, hitching his trousers.
The alarm buzzed, raising vibrations along the sutures of their skulls.
Glamis was the first back to the screens.
‘Oh, the holy ruptured everlasting scab-devouring sainthoods!’ she exclaimed.
Every screen was showing Kandinski, continuous performance.
The terminals were mouthing babble.
Loudspeakers squeaked and gibbered.
Metallic mouths spat read-outs of unmitigated jabber-wocky.
‘This just has to mean –’ she said.
‘It can’t mean –’ Gisbone said.
‘Don’t say we’ve slipped back in time, too!’ Dimittis groaned.
De l’Isle-Evens was not usually a man of action. But the shuttered visual-observation ports were behind his terminal, above the serried comp-buffer-units and drum-memories. He was there in a couple of strides, and had his hand on the flip button.
He paused.
They watched him.
He flipped the button and the shutters folded back as quick as a child’s eyelids.
Jupiter had gone!
They were peering out into empty space.
The disoriented instrumentation chattered like rutting marmosets.
Mike Surinat said, ‘The apostles of apostasy are slaves of obedience to an iron whim.’
‘Obedience is for talent; only genius disobeys involuntarily.’
‘I disobey, thou disregardest, he revolts me.’
‘You’re out! You changed the person! It was “disobeys”, not “disobey”, right, Mike?’
‘Right, you’re out, Monty! Your turn, Dinah.’
‘Oh – “Genius is an infinite capacity for taking and giving pain in the neck.”’
‘The Infinite has reality only for immature minds.’
‘She who minds the baby rules the man.’ That was Choggles Chaplain, Mike’s ten-year-old niece. She spoke while looking at the swollen form of Dinah Sorbutt, so noticeably viviparous.
‘She who weeps least, weeps best.’
‘We are proverbial! “Least said, least mended!”’
‘“A waterproof cup is a wonder only if mended.” Not very bright, I’m afraid!’
‘Hm. I wonder whoever the troublemaker was who invented the idea of equality?’ Dinah.
There were now only three of them left in the game, so it was Mike’s turn again.
‘“Impossible! Wonderful! So what?” are the three cries uttered at the birth of anything ever invented.’
Dinah Sorbutt squealed with delight. ‘You’re out, Mike! You broke the rules! You took two words from my sentence, not one!’
‘Not at all. One of your words is always sufficient, Dinah. I took “Invented” merely.’
‘And “ever”! What about lousy old “ever”? You took “ever” too, so you’re out, and that just leaves Choggles and me.’
‘But, my darling bitch, you didn’t say “ever”. You said, did you not, “whoever”? And “whoever” is not “ever”, any more than “milestone” is “tone”. You are out for challenging incorrectly!’
‘Oh, your cruddy, non-sparking, complex, complicated word-games! How I loathe them! The world disintegrates and we play word-games!’
‘Had the whole world been innocently occupied playing my cruddy complex, complicated – whatever that is – word-games these last few years, it would not now be in its admitted state of disintegration.’
The vexed Miss Sorbutt, though heavily into the last days of her pregnancy, jumped to her feet and dived into the pool. The spray she sent up scattered itself in random but equable distribution over Mike Surinat and his niece.
‘Want to go on with the game, Choggles?’ he asked her.
‘No, thanks, Uncle. You’re always so shirty if I beat you. Isn’t he, Durrant?’ I was sitting with them and had been out of the running for some rounds.
‘If you beat me, it is because you cheat by introducing school slang into your jejeune sentences,’ Surinat told her. ‘I am “shirty” – to quote the latest example of what I mean – with your cheating, not your winning.’
‘So you say!’ She too jumped up. He was after her but she got away. She followed Dinah into the great octagonal pool.
Night like a great sea lay over their slice of the world. The pool itself, milky with underwater light, floated in the dark. Swimming in it was rather like being in a titanic womb. Perhaps Dinah Sorbutt found comfort in some such reflection. She drifted lazily and mountainously as Choggles butterflied up to her.
‘Can I feel the baby kicking again? Nobody’s looking, except perhaps my brother, and he won’t mind.’
‘Choggles, darling, please leave me