Constant Fire

2. In which Miss Mavis Ming experiences a familiar Discomfort

The peculiar effect of one sun rising just as another set, causing shadows to waver, making objects appear to shift shape and position, went more or less entirely unobserved by the great crowd of people who stood, enjoying a party, in the foothills of a rather poorly finished range of mountains erected some little time ago by Werther de Goethe during one of his periodic phases of attempting to re-create the landscape, faithful to the last detail, of Holman Hunt, an ancient painter Werther had discovered in one of the rotting cities.

Werther, it is fair to say, had not been the first to make such an attempt. Werther, however, held to the creed that an artist should, so far as his powers allowed, put up everything exactly as he saw it in the painting. Werther was a purist. Werther volubly denied the criticisms of those who found such literal work bereft of what they regarded as true artistic inspiration. Werther's theories of Fidelity to Art had enjoyed a short-lived vogue (for a time the Duke of Queens had been an earnest acolyte) but his fellows had soon tired of such narrow disciplines.

Werther, alone, refused to renounce them.

As the party progressed one of the suns eventually vanished while the other rose rapidly, reached zenith, and stopped. The light became golden, autumnal, misty. Of the guests but three had paused to observe the phenomenon: they were Miss Mavis Ming, plump and eager in her new dress; Li Pao, bland in puritanical denim; and Abu Thaleb, their host, svelte and opulent, splendidly overdressed.

"Whose suns?" murmured Abu Thaleb appreciatively. "How pretty. And subtle. Rivals, perhaps…"

"To your own creations?" asked Li Pao.

"No, no — to one another."

"They could be Werther's," suggested Miss Ming, anxious to return to their interrupted topic. "He hasn't arrived yet. Go on, Li Pao. You were saying something about Doctor Volospion."

A fingered ear betrayed Li Pao's embarrassment. "I spoke of no-one specifically, Miss Ming." His round Chinese face became expressionless.

"By association," Abu Thaleb prompted, a somewhat sly smile manifesting itself within his pointed beard, "you spoke of Volospion."

"Ah! You would make a gossip of me. I disdain such impulses. I merely observed that only the weak hate weakness; only the wounded condemn the pain of others." He wiped a stain of juice from his severe blouse and turned his back on the tiny sun.

Miss Ming was arch. "But you meant Doctor Volospion, Li Pao. You were suggesting…"

A tide of guests flowed by, its noise drowning what remained of her remark, and when it had passed, Li Pao (perhaps piqued by an element of truth) chose to show impatience. "I do not share your obsession with your protector, Miss Ming. I generalized. The thought can scarcely be considered a specific one, nor an original one. I regret it. If you prefer, I retract it."

"I wasn't criticising, Li Pao. I was just interested in how you saw him. I mean, he has been very kind to me, and I wouldn't like anybody to think I wasn't aware of all he's done for me. I could still be in his menagerie couldn't I? But he showed his respect for me by letting me go — that is, asking me to be his guest rather than — well, whatever you'd call it."

"He is a model of chivalry." Abu Thaleb stroked an eyebrow and hid his face with his hand. "Well, if you will excuse me, I must see to my monsters. To my guests." He departed, to be swallowed by his party, while Li Pao's imploring look went unnoticed.

Miss Ming smoothed the front of Li Pao's blouse. "So you see," she said, "I was only curious. It certainly wasn't gossip I wanted to hear. But I respect your opinions, Li Pao. We are fellow 'prisoners', after all, in this world. Both of us would probably prefer to be back in the past, where we belong — you in the 27th century, to take your rightful position as chairman or whatever of China, and me in the 21st to, to…" Inspiration left her momentarily. She contented herself with a coy wink. "You mustn't pay any attention to little Mavis. There's no malice in her."

"Aha." Li Pao closed his eyes and drew a deep breath.

Miss Ming's sky-blue nail traced patterns on the more restrained blue of his chest. "It's not in Mavis's nature to think naughty thoughts. Well, not that sort of naughty thought, at any rate!" She giggled.

"Yaha?" It was almost inaudible.

From somewhere overhead came the distant strains of one of Abu Thaleb's beasts. Li Pao raised his head as if to seek the source. He contemplated heaven.

Miss Ming, too, looked up. "Nothing," she said. "It must have come from over there." She pointed and, to her chagrin, her finger indicated the approaching figure of Ron Ron Ron who was, like herself and Li Pao, an expatriate (although in his case from the 140th century). "Oh, look out, Li Pao. It's that bore Ron coming over…"

She was surprised when Li Pao expressed enthusiastic delight. "My old friend!"

She was sure that Li Pao found Ron Ron Ron just as awful as everyone else did but, for his sake, she smiled as sweetly as she could. "How nice to see you!"

Ron Ron Ron had an expression of hauteur on his perfectly oval face. This was his usual expression. He, too, seemed just a little surprised by Li Pao's effusion. "Um?"

The two men contemplated one another. Mavis plainly felt that it was up to her to break the ice. "Li Pao was just saying — not about Doctor Volospion or anybody in particular — that the weak hate weakness and won't — what was it, Li Pao?"

"It was not important, Miss Ming. I must…" He offered Ron Ron Ron a thin smile.

Ron Ron Ron cleared his throat. "No, please…"

"It was very profound," said Miss Ming. "I thought."

Ron Ron Ron adjusted his peculiar jerkin so that the edges were exactly in line. He fussed at a button. "Then you must repeat it for me, Li Pao." The shoulders of his jerkin were straight-edged and the whole garment was made to the exact proportions of a square. His trousers were identical oblongs; his shoes, too, were exactly square. The fingers of his hands were all of the same length.

"Only the weak hate weakness…" murmured Miss Ming encouragingly, "and…"

Li Pao's voice was almost a shriek: "…only the wounded condemn the pain of others. You see, Ron Ron Ron, I was not —"

"An interesting observation." Ron Ron Ron put his hands together under his chin. "Yes, yes, yes. I see."

"No!" Li Pao took a desperate step forwards, as if to leave.

"By the same argument, Li Pao," began Ron Ron Ron, and Li Pao became passive, "you would imply that a strong person who exercised that strength is, in fact, revealing a weakness in his character, eh?"

"No. I…"

"Oh, but we must have a look at this." Ron Ron Ron became almost animated. "It suggests, you see, that indirectly you condemn my efforts as leader of the Symmetrical Fundamentalist Movement in attempting to seize power during the Anarchist Beekeeper period."

"I assure you, that I was not…" Li Pao's voice had diminished to a whisper.

"Certainly we were strong enough," continued Ron Ron Ron. "If the planet had not, in the meantime, been utilized as a strike-base by some superior alien military force (whose name we never did learn), who killed virtually all opposition and enslaved the remaining third of the human race during the duration of its occupation — not much more than twenty years, admittedly — before they vanished again, either because our part of the galaxy was no longer of strategic importance to them or because their enemies had defeated them, who knows what we could have achieved."

"Wonders," gasped Li Pao. "Wonders, I am sure."

"You are kind. As it was, Earth was left in a state of semi-barbarism which had no need, I suppose, for the refinements either of Autonomous Hiveism or Symmetrical Fundamentalism, but given the chance I could have —"

"I am sure. I am sure." Li Pao's voice had taken on the quality of a labouring steam-engine.

"Still," Ron Ron Ron went on, "I digress. You see, because of my efforts to parley with the aliens, my efforts were misinterpreted —"

"Certainly. Certainly."

"— and I was forced to use the experimental time-craft to flee here. However, my point is this…"

"Quite, quite, quite…"

Miss Ming shook her head. "Oh, you men and your politics. I…"

But she had not been forceful enough. Ron Ron Ron's (or Ron's Ron's Ron's, as he would have preferred us to write) voice droned on, punctuated by Li Pao's little gasps and sighs. She could not understand Li Pao's allowing himself to be trapped in this awful situation. She had done her best, when he seemed to want to talk to Ron Ron Ron, to begin a conversation that would interest them both, knowing that the only thing the two men had in common was a past taste for political activity and a present tendency, in their impotence, to criticize the shortcomings of their fellows here at the End of Time. But now Li Pao showed no inclination at all to take Ron Ron Ron up on any of his points, which were certainly of no interest to anyone but the Symmetrical Fundamentalist himself. She knew what it was like with some people; if a string was pulled in them, they couldn't stop themselves going on and on. A lot of those she had known, back home in 21st century Iowa, had been like that.

Again, thought Mavis, it was up to her to change the subject. For Li Pao's sake as well as her own.

"… they never did separate properly, you see," said Ron Ron Ron.

"Separate?" Miss Ming seized the chance given her by the pause in his monologue. She spoke brightly. "Properly? Why, that's like my Swiss cheese Plant. The one I used to have in my office? It grew so big! But the leaves wouldn't separate properly. Is that what happened to yours, Ron Ron Ron?"

"We were discussing strength," said Ron Ron Ron in some bewilderment.

"Strength! You should have met my ex. I've mentioned him before? Donny Stevens, the heel. Now say what you like about him, but he was strong! Betty — you know, that's the friend I told you about? — more than a friend really…" She winked. "… Betty used to say that Donny Stevens was prouder of his pectorals than he was of his prick! Eh?" She shook with laughter.

The two men looked at her in silence.

Li Pao sucked his lower lip.

"And that was saying a lot, where Donny was concerned," Mavis added.

"Ushshsh…" said Li Pao.

"Really?" Ron Ron Ron spoke in a peculiar tone.

The silence returned at once. Dutifully, Mavis tried to fill it. She put a hand on Ron Ron Ron's tubular sleeve.

"I shouldn't tell you this, what with my convictions and all — I was polarized in '65, became an all-woman woman, if you get me, after my divorce — but I miss that bastard of a bull sometimes."

"Well…" Ron Ron Ron hesitated.

"What this world needs," said Mavis as she got into her stride, "if you ask me, is a few more real men. You know? Real men. The girls around here have got more balls than the guys. One real man and, boy, you'd find my tastes changing just like that…" She tried, unsuccessfully, to snap her fingers.

"Ssssss…" said Li Pao.

"Anyway," Mavis was anxious to reassure him that she had not lost track of the original topic, "It's the same with Swiss cheese plants. They're strong. Any conditions will suit them and they'll strangle anything that gets in their way. They use — they used to use, I should say — the big ones to fell other trees in Paraguay. I think it's Paraguay. But when it comes to getting the leaves to separate, well, all you can say is that they're bastards to train. Like strong men, I guess. In the end you have to take 'em or leave 'em as they come."

Mavis laughed again, waiting for their responding laughter, which did not materialize. She was valiant:

"I stayed with my house-plants, but I left that stud to play in his own stable. And how he'd been playing! Betty said if I tried to count the number of mares he'd serviced while I thought he was stuck late at the lab I'd need a computer!"

Li Pao and Ron Ron Ron now stood side by side, staring at her.

"Two computers!" She had definitely injected a bit of wit into the conversation and given Li Pao a chance to get on to a subject he preferred but evidently neither of them had much of a sense of humour. Li Pao now glanced at his feet. Ron Ron Ron had a silly fixed grin on his face and was just grunting at her, even though she had stopped speaking. She decided to soldier on:

"Did I tell you about the busy Lizzie that turned out to be poison ivy? We were out in the country one day, this was before my divorce — it must have been just after we got married — either '60 or '61 — no, it must have been '61 definitely because it was spring — probably May…"

"Look!"

Li Pao's voice was so loud that it startled Mavis.

"What?"

"There's Doctor Volospion." He waved towards where the crowd was thickest. "He was signalling to you, Miss Ming. Over there!"

The news heartened her. This would be her excuse to get away. But she could not, of course, show Li Pao how pleased she was. So she smiled indulgently. "Oh, let him wait. Just because he's my host here doesn't mean I have to be at his beck and call the whole time!"

"Please," said Ron Ron Ron, removing a small, pink, even-fingered hand from a perfectly square pocket. "You must not let us, Miss Ming, monopolize your time."

"Oh, well…" She was relieved. "I'll see you later, perhaps. Byee." Her wink was cute; she waggled her fingers at them. But as she turned to seek out Doctor Volospion it seemed that he had disappeared. She turned back and to her surprise saw Li Pao sprinting away from Ron Ron Ron towards the foot of one of Abu Thaleb's monsters, perhaps because he had seen someone to whom he wished to speak. She avoided Ron Ron Ron's eye and set off in the general direction indicated by Li Pao, making her way between guests and wandering elephants who were here in more or less equal numbers.

"At least I did my best," she said. "They're very difficult men to talk to."

She yawned. She was already beginning to be just a trifle bored with the party.