"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.