The Hollow Lands

  Nurse began to roll down the corridor with an armful of alien instruments. "You may have these back only when you leave the nursery," she said. "And you will not leave the nursery until you have learned some manners!"

  "Kroofrudi," said Captain Mubbers, glowering at the disappearing robot, but he spoke the word softly, nervously, more from bravado than anything else. "Hrunt!"

  Jherek felt almost sorry for the Lat, but he was glad that the children were safe.

  "I heard you!" Nurse called chidingly. "I shan't forget!"

  Captain Mubbers caught her drift. He said no more.

  Jherek grinned. It pleased him more than he would have guessed to see the Lat brought so low. "Well," he said, "we're all in the same kettle of fish now, eh?"

  "Mibix?" queried Captain Mubbers in a small, defeated voice.

  "However, the idea of spending the same week, recycled through eternity, in the company of children, Lat and a senile robot is not entirely appealing," said Jherek, in a critical and miserable mood for him. "I really must think how I'm to effect my escape and achieve a reconciliation with Mrs. Amelia Underwood."

  Captain Mubbers nodded. "Greef cholokok," he said, by way of affirmation.

  Nurse was returning. "I've locked your toys away," she told Captain Mubbers and the others. "And now it's straight to bed without any supper. Have you any idea how late it is?"

  The Lat stared at her blankly.

  "My goodness, I do believe they've sent me a party of mentally subnormals!" exclaimed Nurse. "I thought they were going to be left behind to placate Pecking Pa." She pointed at the row of empty beds down one side of the dormitory. "In there," she said slowly. "Bed."

  The Lat shuffled towards the beds and stood looking stupidly down at them.

  Nurse sighed and picked up the nearest alien, stripping off his clothing and plumping him down, pulling the bedding over his shivering body. The others hastily began to pull off their own clothes and climbed into bed.

  "That's more like it," said Nurse. "You're learning." She turned her hard, blue eyes on Jherek. "Jerry, I think you'd better come to my sitting room. I'd like a word with you now."

  Meekly, Jherek followed Nurse down the corridor and into a room whose walls were covered in flock wallpaper, with landscape paintings and little ornaments. Elsewhere was a great deal of chintz and gingham. It reminded Jherek vaguely of the house he had furnished for Mrs. Amelia Underwood.

  Nurse rolled to one corner of the room. "Would you like a cup of tea, Jerry?"

  "No thank you, Nurse."

  "You are probably wondering why I asked you here, when it's long past your bedtime."

  "It had occurred to me, Nurse, yes."

  "Well," she announced, "my creative-thinking circuits are beginning to come back into play. I think. I've become rather set in my ways, as old robots will, particularly when involved in a temporal recycling operation like this one. You follow me?"

  "I do indeed."

  "You are older than the other children, so I think I can talk to you. Even," Nurse made an embarrassed rumbling sound somewhere inside her steel chest, "even ask your advice. You think I've become a bit of a stick in the mud, don't you?"

  "Oh, not really," Jherek told her kindly. "We all develop habits, over the millennia, which are sometimes hard to lose when we no longer need them."

  "I have been thinking about one or two things which you've said this past week. You've been to the surface, evidently."

  "Um…"

  "Come now, lad, tell the truth. I shan't punish you."

  "Yes, I have, Nurse."

  "And Pecking Pa is dead?"

  "And forgotten." Jherek wriggled uncomfortably in his too-tight pyjamas. "It's been thousands of years since the Age of the Tyrant Producers. Things are much more peaceful these days."

  "And these outsiders — they are from the outside time-phase?"

  "They are, more or less."

  "Which means that paradoxes begin to occur, if we're not careful."

  "I gather so, from what I have been told about the nature of Time."

  "You've been informed correctly. It means that I must think very carefully now. I knew this moment would come eventually. I have to worry about my children. They are all I have. They are the Future."

  "Well, the Past, at least," said Jherek.

  Nurse glared sternly at him. "I'm sorry, Nurse," he said. "That was facetious of me."

  "My duty is to take them into an age where they will be in no danger," Nurse continued. "And it seems that we have reached that age."

  "I am sure they will be very welcome in my society," Jherek told her. "I and one other are the only ones who have been children. My people love children. I am proof of that."

  "They are gentle?"

  "Oh, yes, I think so. I'm not quite sure of the meaning — you use words which are archaic to me — but I think 'gentle' is a fair description."

  "No violence?"

  "There you've lost me altogether. What is 'violence'?"

  "I'm satisfied for the moment," said Nurse. "I must be grateful to you, Jerry Jester. For all that you are always acting the fool, you're made of decent stuff underneath. You've reawakened me to my chief responsibilities." Nurse seemed to simper (as much as a robot could simper). "You are my Prince Charming, really. And I was the Sleeping Beauty. It would seem that the danger to the children is over and they can be allowed to grow normally. What sort of conditions exist in the outside world? Will they find good homes?"

  "Any kind they wish," said Jherek.

  "And the climate. Is it good?"

  "Whatever one cares to make it."

  "Educational facilities?"

  "Well," he said, "I suppose you could say that we believe in self-education. But the facilities are excellent. The libraries of the rotted cities are still more or less intact."

  "Those other children. They seemed to know you. Are they from your time?" It was plain that Nurse was becoming increasingly intelligent with every passing second.

  "They are aliens from another part of the galaxy," Jherek said. "They were chasing me and some of my friends." He explained what had happened.

  "Well, they must be expelled, of course," said Nurse, having listened gravely to his account. "Preferably into another period of time where they can do no more harm. And here normal time must replace recycled time. That is merely a question of stopping a process…" Nurse sank into a thoughtful silence.

  Jherek had begun to hope. "Nurse," he said. "Forgive me for interrupting, but am I to understand that you have the power to pass people back and forth in Time?"

  "Back is very difficult — they are not inclined to stick, in my experience. Forth is much easier. Recycling is," a mechanical chuckle sounded in her throat, "child's play, as it were."

  "So you could send me back, say, to the 19th century?"

  "I could. But the chances of your staying there for long are poor…"

  "I'm aware of the theory. We call it the Morphail Effect in this age. But you could send me back."

  "I could, almost certainly. I was programmed specifically for Time Manipulation. I probably know more about it than any other being."

  "You would not have to use a time machine?"

  "There's a chamber in this complex, but it would not be a machine which moved physically through time. We've abandoned such devices. As a matter of fact, time travel itself, being so uncertain, was pretty much abandoned, too. It was only in order to protect the children that we built this place."

  "Would you send me back, Nurse?"

  Nurse seemed hesitant. "It's very dangerous, you know. I know that I owe you a favour. I feel stupid for having forgotten my duty. But sending you so far back…"

  "I have been before, Nurse. I'm aware of the dangers."

  "That's as may be, young Jerry Jester. You were always a wild one — though I could never be as firm with you as I should have been. How I used to laugh, privately, here in my little sitting room, at your antics, at the things you said…"
/>
  "Nurse! I think you're slipping again," Jherek warned her.

  "Eh? Put another lump of coal on the fire, would you my boy?"

  Jherek looked around, but could see no fire.

  "Nurse?"

  "Aha!" said Nurse. "Send you to the 19th century. A long time ago. A long, long time ago. Before I was born. Before you were born, that's for certain. In those days there were oceans of light and cities in the skies and wild flying beasts of bronze. There were herds of crimson cattle that roared and were taller than castles. There were shrill…"

  "To 1896 to be precise, Nurse. Would you do it for me? It would mean a great deal."

  "Magics," she continued, "phantasms, unstable nature, impossible events, insane paradoxes, dreams come true, dreams gone awry; nightmares assuming reality. It was a rich time and a dark time…"

  "1896, Nurse."

  "Ah, sometimes, in my more Romantic moments, I wish that I had been some merchant governess; some great lady of Hong Kong, trading capital of the world, where poets, scholars and soldiers of fortune all congregated. The ships of a hundred nations at anchor in the harbours. Ships from the West, with cargoes of bearskins and exotic soaps; ships from the South, with crews of dark-visaged androids, bearing bicycles and sacks of grit; ships from the East…"

  "Plainly we share an interest in the same century," said Jherek desperately. 'Do not deny me my opportunity to go back there, dear Nurse."

  "How could I?" Her voice had become almost inaudible, virtually soft as nostalgia seized her. At that moment, Jherek felt a deep sympathy for the old machine; it was rare that one was privileged to witness the dream of a robot. "How could I refuse my Jerry Jester anything. He has made me live again."

  "Oh, Nurse!" Jherek was moved to tears. He ran forward and hugged the rigid body. "And with your help I, too, shall come to life again!"

  10

  On the Bromley Road

  Again

  "Producing the time jump is relatively easy," said Nurse, studying a bank of instruments in her laboratory as Jherek came rushing in (he had returned, briefly, to his ranch to get some translator pills and study his records in order to make himself a suit of clothes which would not set him apart from the denizens of 1896). "Oh, that's yours, by the way. I found it under your pillow when I was making your bed." The old robot pointed at the deceptor-gun resting on one of her benches. With a murmur of thanks, Jherek picked it up and slipped it into the pocket of his black overcoat. "The problem is," Nurse went on, "in getting the spacial co-ordinates correctly fixed. A city called London (I'd never heard of it until you mentioned it) in an island called England. I've had to consult some pretty ancient memory banks, I can tell you, but I think it's sorted out now."

  "I can go?"

  "You were always an impatient one, Jerry." Nurse laughed affectionately. She still seemed to have it implanted in her that she had brought Jherek up since he had been a young boy. "But — yes — I think you can set off soon. I do hope you're aware of the dangers, however."

  "I am, Nurse."

  "What on earth are you wearing, my boy? It looks like something I once saw in Tyrant Pecking Pa's remake of the classic David Copperfield Meets the Wolf Man. I considered it rather fanciful, then. But Pecking Pa always ran to emotional authenticity rather than period exactitude, I was told. At least, that's what he used to say. I met him once, you know. Some years ago, when his father was still alive. His father was so different; a gentleman. You wouldn't have known they were related. His father made all those wonderful, charming movies. They were a joy to live through. The whole society took part, of course. You'd be far too young to remember the pleasure of having even a small part in Young Adolf Hitler or The Four Loves of Captain Marvel. When Pecking Pa VIII came to power all the romance vanished. Realism became the rage. And someone suffers, every time, during a Realism period (I mean, who supplies the blood? Not the Tyrant himself!)"

  Privately, Jherek Carnelian was very grateful to Pecking Pa VIII for his excesses in the name of Realism. Without them, Nurse would not be here now.

  "The stories were pretty much the same, of course," said Nurse, fiddling with some controls and making a screen turn to liquid gold, "only more blood. There, that should do it. I hope there was just the one location for London on this island of yours. It's very small, Jerry." She turned her great metal head to look at him. "What I would call a bit of a low-budget country."

  Jherek wasn't, as usual, following her too clearly. But he nodded and smiled.

  "Still, small productions quite often produced interesting pictures," said Nurse, with a touch of condescension. "Hop into the box, Jerry, there's a good lad. I'll be sorry to see you go, but I suppose I'll have to get used to it, now. I wonder how many will remember their old Nurse in a few years time. Still, it's a fact of life I have to face. Starlets must become stars some day."

  Jherek stepped gingerly into the cylindrical chamber in the middle of the laboratory.

  "Goodbye, Jerry," said Nurse's voice from outside, before the buzzing became too loud, "try to remember everything I taught you. Be polite. Listen for your cues. Keep away from casting couches. Camera! Action!"

  And the cylinder seemed to begin to spin (though it might have been Jherek spinning). He clapped his hands to his ears to keep out the noise. He groaned. He fainted.

  He moved through a country that was all soft, shifting colours and whose people were bodiless, kindly with sweet voices. He fell back and he was falling through the fabric of the ages, down and down to the very beginnings of mankind's long history.

  He felt pain, as he had felt it before, but he did not mind it. He knew depressions such as he had never experienced, but they did not concern him. Even the joy which came to him was a joy he did not care about. He knew that he was borne upon the winds of Time and he knew, beyond any question, that at the end of this journey he would be reunited with his lost love, the beautiful Mrs. Amelia Underwood. And when he reached 1896 he would not allow himself to be sidetracked from his great Quest for Bromley, as he had been sidetracked before by Snoozer Vines.

  He heard his own voice calling, ecstatic and melodic. "Mrs. Underwood! Mrs. Underwood! I am coming! Coming! Coming!"

  And at last the sensation of falling had stopped and he opened his eyes, expecting to find himself still in the cylinder, but he was not. He was lying upon soft grass under a large, warm sun. There were trees and not far off the glint of water. He saw people walking about, all dressed in costumes appropriate to the late 19th century — men and women, children, dogs. In the distance he saw a carriage go by, drawn by horses. One of the inhabitants started to stroll slowly, purposefully towards him and he recognized the man's suit. He had seen many such during his previous stay in 1896. Quickly he slipped his hand in his pocket, took out a translator pill and popped it into his mouth. He began to stand up.

  "Excuse me, sir," said the man heavily, "but I was wondering as to whether you could read."

  "As a matter of fact," began Jherek, but was cut off.

  "Because I was looking at that there notice, not four yards off, which plainly states, if I'm not mistaken, that you are requested not to set foot on this particular stretch of lawn, sir. Therefore, if you would kindly return to the public walk, I for one would be relieved to inform you that you had returned to the path of righteousness and were no longer breaking one of the byelaws of the Royal Borough of Kensington. Moreover, I must point out, sir, that if I was ever to catch you committing the same felony in this here park, I would be forced to take your name and address and see that a notice to appear in court on a particular date was served on you." And the man laughed. "Sorry, sir," he said in a more natural tone, "but you shouldn't really be on the grass."

  "Aha!" said Jherek. "I follow. Thank you, um — officer — that's it, isn't it? It was inadvertent…"

  "I'm sure it was, sir. You being a Frenchman, by your accent, wouldn't understand our ways. It's more free and easy over there, of course."

  Jherek stepped rapidly to t
he path and began to walk in the direction of a pair of large marble gate-posts he could see in the distance. The policeman fell in beside him, chatting casually about France and other foreign places he had read about. Eventually, he saluted and walked off down another path, leaving Jherek wishing that he had enquired the way to Bromley.

  At least, thought Jherek, it was a relief not to be attracting quite so much attention as he had during his last trip to the Dawn Age. People still glanced at him from time to time and he felt rather self-conscious, as one might, but he was able to walk along the street and enjoy the sights without interruption. Carriages, hansoms, dairymen's drays, tradesmen's vans, all went by, filling the air with the creak of axles, the clopping of horses' hooves, the rattling of the wheels. The sun was bright and warm and the smells of the street had a very different quality to the one they had had during Jherek's previous stay. He realized that it must be summer now. He paused to smell some roses which were spilling over the wall of the park. They were beautiful. There was a texture to the scent which he had never been able to reproduce. He inspected the leaves of a cypress and here, too, found that his own work lacked a certain subtlety of detail which was difficult to define. He found himself delighting, even more than before, in the beauties of 1896. He stopped to stare as a two-storeyed omnibus went by, pulled by huge, muscular horses. On the open top deck be-ribboned straw hats nodded, sunshades twirled and blazers blazed; while below, through dusty windows and a confusion of advertisements, sat the dourer travellers, their eyes upon their newspapers and penny magazines. Once or twice a motor car would wheeze past, its exhaust mingling with the dust from the street, its driver swathed in a long coat and white cap, in spite of the heat, and Jherek would watch it in smiling wonderment.

  He removed his top hat, wondering why his face seemed damp, and then he realized to his delight that he was sweating. He had witnessed this phenomenon before, in the inhabitants of this period, but had never dreamed of experiencing it personally. Glancing at the faces of the people who passed by — all in different stages of youth or decay, all male or female (without choice, he remembered, with a thrill of excitement) — he saw that many of them were sweating, too. It added to his sense of identification with them. He smiled at them, as if to say "Look, I am like you," but, of course, they did not understand. Some, indeed, frowned at him, while two ladies walking together giggled and blushed.