"She has arrived," Amelia Underwood told him.

"I am very pleased. She wishes to watch — but I move ahead of myself. The next thing I learned, on my return, was that you had again vanished, Jherek. But you had made a discovery which was to alter my whole research. I had heard rumours about a method of recycling Time, but had dismissed them. The Nursery you discovered not only proved that it was possible, but showed how it was possible. It meant that much of what I had been doing was no longer necessary. But you, of course, were still stranded. I risked much to return and rescue you all, exposing myself to the Morphail Effect and, indeed, suffering from it. I became stranded in the nineteenth century, and if it had not been for that time-travelling fellow, what's-his-name, arriving out of the blue, I might never have hit upon the solution to my problem. He was able to give me a great deal of information about alternate time-cycles — he was from one himself, of course — and I regret that, in order to save myself embarrassment (for by then I had exposed myself too far and my disguises, as it were, were wearing rather thin) I had to go along with the Home Secretary's scheme for commandeering his time-craft and sending it after you. I did not imagine the complications I have witnessed…"

"It seems to me, Lord Jagged," murmured Amelia Underwood, "that your problems would not have arisen at all, had you anticipated certain ordinary human factors…"

"I bow to your criticism, Amelia. I deserve it. But I was a man obsessed — and needing to act, I thought, with great urgency. All the various fluctuations created in the mega-flow — largely because of me, I'll admit — were actually contributing to the general confusion. The present condition of this universe would not have manifested itself for a while yet, but for the energy used by the cities in our various schemes. But all that will change now, with luck."

"Change? You say it is too late."

"Did I give you that impression? I am sorry. I wish that you had not had to suffer so much, particularly since it now appears that my whole experiment was pointless."

"Then we cannot settle in the past, as you planned?" said Jherek.

"Pointless!" Amelia gasped with indignation.

"Well, yes and no."

"Did you not deliberately place us in the Palaeozoic as part of your experiment, Lord Jagged?"

"No, Amelia. I was not deceiving you. I thought I sent you here."

"Instead we went back."

"That is what I am coming to. You did not, strictly speaking, go back. You went forward , and thus countered the Morphail Effect at core!"

"How so?"

"Because you completed a circle. If Time is a circle (and it is only one way of looking at it) and we travel it round, we go, of course, from the End to the Beginning quite swiftly, do you see? You overshot the End — you went completely round and back to the Beginning."

"And deceived the Morphail Effect!" said Jherek, clapping his hands together.

"In a word, yes. It means that we can, if we so desire, all escape the End of Time merely by jumping forward to the Beginning. The disadvantages, however, are considerable. We should not, for one thing, have the power of the cities…"

But Jherek's excitement dismissed these quibbles. "And so, like Ovid, you return to lead us from Time's captivity into the promised land — forward, as you might put it, Jagged, into the past!"

"Not so." His father laughed. "There is no need for any of us to leave this planet or this period."

"But final destruction looms, if it is not already upon us."

"Nonsense — what has given you that impression?"

"Come," said Jherek beginning to rise, "I'll show you."

"But I have much more to tell you, my son."

"Later — when you have seen."

"Very well." With a swirl of his robes, Lord Jagged of Canaria helped first Amelia, then his wife, to their feet. "It would probably be a good idea, anyway, to seek out Mrs. Persson and the others. But really, Jherek, this uncharacteristic alarmism is scarcely called for."

From their picnic Captain Mubbers and Rokfrug looked up. "Troll?" said the leader of the Lat through a mouthful of plumcake; but his lieutenant calmed him, "Grushfalls, hrunt fresha." They gave their attention back to the food and scarcely noticed as the four humans stepped carefully out of the little pastoral glade and into the lurid, flickering light of that vast expanse of ruins whose very atmosphere, it now seemed to Jherek, gave off a faint, chilly scent of death.

"I must say," Jagged paused in his rapid, stately stride, "the city suffers a certain lassitude…"

"Oh, Jagged, you understate!" His son was beside him, while the ladies, in conference, came a little way behind.

Streamers of half-metallic, half-organic matter, of a dusty lavender shade, wriggled across their path as if withdrawn by the squat building on their right. In the gloom, it was impossible to tell their nature.

"But it revives," Jagged said. "Look there, is that not a newly created conduit?" The pipe he indicated, running to left and right of them, did seem new, though very ordinary.

"It is no sign, paternal Jagged. The illusions proliferate."

His father was insouciant. "If you'll have it so." There was a glint in his eye. "Youth was ever obstinate."

Jherek Carnelian detected irony in his father, his friend. "Ah, sardonic Jagged, it is so good to have your companionship again! All trepidation vanishes!"

"Your confidence warms me." Jagged's gesture was expansive. "What, after all, is a father for but to give comfort to his children?"

"Children?"

A casual wave. "One forms attachments, here and there, in Time. But you, Jherek, are my only heir."

"A song?"

"A son, my love."

As they advanced through the glowing semi-darkness, Jherek infected by Jagged's apparently causeless optimism, sought for signs which would indicate that the city came back to life. Perhaps there were indeed signs of this revivification: that light which, as he had seen, glowed a robust blue, and light which now burned steady crimson; moreover, the regular pounding from beneath his feet put him in mind of the beat of a strengthening heart. But, no. How could it be?

Fastidious as ever, Lord Jagged folded back one of his sleeves so that it should not trail in the fine rust which lay everywhere upon the ground. "We can rely upon the cities," he said, "even if we cannot ever hope fully to understand them."

"You speculate, Jagged. The evidence is all to the contrary. Their sources of power have dissipated."

"The sources exist. The cities have discovered them."

"Even you, Jagged, cannot be so certain." But Jherek spoke now to be denied.

"You are aware, then, of all the evidence?" Jagged paused, for ahead of them was darkness. "Have we reached the outskirts?"

"It seems so."

They waited for the Iron Orchid and Amelia Underwood, who had fallen some distance behind. To Jherek's surprise the two women appeared to be enjoying one another's company. No longer did they glare or make veiled attacks. They might have been the oldest of friends. He wondered if he would ever come to understand these subtle shifts of attitude in women; yet he was pleased. If all were to perish, it would be as well to be on good terms at the end. He hailed them.

Here the city shed a wider shaft of light into the landscape beyond: a pale, cracked, barren expanse no longer deserving the appellation "earth"; a husk that might crumble to invisible dust at a touch.

The Iron Orchid twisted a white pleat. "Dead."

"And in the last stages of decay." Amelia was sympathetic.

The Orchid put her back to the scene. "I cannot accept," she said levelly, "that this is my world. It was so vital."