An Alien Heat

Fired by his friend's enthusiasm Jherek stood up and yelled with laughter.

"I shall be a lover! "

"A lover!"

"Nothing shall thwart me!"

"Nothing!"

"I shall win my love and live with her in ardent happiness until the very universe grows old and cold."

"Or whatever our space-travelling friend said would happen. Now that factor should give it an edge." Lord Jagged fingered his linen-coloured nose. "Oh, you'll be doomed, desired, deceived, debunked and delivered!" (Lord Jagged seemed to be fond, tonight, of his d's.) "Demonic, demonstrative, determined, destructive." He was dangerously close to overdoing it. "You'll be destiny's fool, my dear! Your story shall ring down the ages (whatever's left, at any rate). Jherek Carnelian — the most laudable, the most laborious, the most literal, the very last of lovers!" And with a yell he flung his arms around his friend while Jherek Carnelian seized the whistle string and tugged wildly making the locomotive shriek and moan and thrust itself throbbing into the warm, black night.

"Love!" shouted Jherek.

"Love," whispered Lord Jagged, kissing him once more.

"Oh, Jagged!" Jherek gave himself up to his lascivious lord's embrace.

"She must have a name," said Jagged, rolling over in the eight-poster bed and taking a sip of beer from the bronze barrel he held between the forefinger and thumb of his left hand. "We must find it out." He got up and crossed the corrugated iron floor to brush aside the sheets from the window and peer through. "Is that a sunset or a sunrise? It looks like a sunset."

"I'm sorry." Jherek opened his eyes and turned one of his rings a fraction of a degree to the right.

"Much better," said Lord Jagged of Canaria, admiring the golden dawn. "And what are the birds?" He pointed through the window at the black silhouettes circling high above in the sky.

"Parrots," said Jherek. "They're supposed to eat the branded buffalo."

"Supposed to?"

"They won't. And they should be perfect reproductions. I made a mistake somewhere. I really ought to put them back in my gene-bank and start again."

"What if we paid Mongrove a visit this morning?" Lord Jagged suggested, returning to his original subject.

"He wouldn't receive me."

"He would receive me , however. And you will be my companion. I will feign an interest in his menagerie and that way you shall be able to meet again the object of your desire."

"I'm not sure it's such a good idea now, darling Jagged," said Jherek. "I was carried away last night."

"Indeed, my love, you were. And why not? How often does it happen? No, Jherek Carnelian, you shall not falter. It will delight so many."

Jherek laughed. "Lord Jagged, I think there is some other motive involved here — a motive of your own. Would you not rather take my place?"

"I? I have no interest at all in the period."

"Aren't you interested in falling in love?"

"I am interested in your falling in love. You should. It will complete you, Jherek. You were born , do you see? The rest of us came into the world as adults (apart from poor Werther, but that was a somewhat different story) or created ourselves or were created by our friends. But you, Jherek, were born — a baby. And so you must also fall in love. Oh, yes. There is no question of it. In any other one of us it would be silly."

"I think you have already pointed out that it would be ludicrous in me, too," said Jherek mildly.

"Love was always ludicrous , Jherek. That's another thing again."

"Very well," smiled Jherek. "To please you, my lean lord, I will do my best."

"To please us all. Including yourself, Jherek. Especially yourself, Jherek."

"I must admit that I might consider…"

Lord Jagged began, suddenly, to sing.

The notes trilled and warbled from his throat. A most delightful rush of song and such a complicated melody that Jherek could hardly follow it.

Jherek glanced thoughtfully and with some irony at his friend.

It had seemed for a moment that Lord Jagged had deliberately cut Jherek short.

But why?

He had only been about to point out that the Lord of Canaria had all the qualities of affection, wit and imagination that might be desired in a lover and that Jherek would willingly fall in love with him rather than some time-traveller whom he did not know at all.

And, Jherek suspected, Lord Jagged had known that he was about to say this. Would the declaration have been in doubtful taste, perhaps? The point about falling in love with the grey time-traveller was that she would find nothing strange in it. In her age everyone had fallen in love (or, at very least, had been able to deceive themselves that they had, which was much the same thing). Yes, Lord Jagged had acted with great generosity and stopped him from embarrassing himself. It would have been vulgar to have declared his love for Lord Jagged but it was witty to fall in love with the grey time-traveller.

Not that there was anything wrong with intentional vulgarity. Or even unintentional vulgarity, thought Jherek, in the case, for instance, of the Duke of Queens.

He recalled the party with horror. "The poor Duke of Queens!"

"His party was absolutely perfect. Not a thing went right." Lord Jagged left the window and wandered over the bumpy floor. "May I use this for a suit?" He gestured towards a stuffed mammoth which filled one corner of the room.

"Of course," said Jherek. "I was never quite sure if it was in period, anyway. How clever of you to pick that." He watched with interest as Lord Jagged broke the mammoth down into its component atoms and then, from the hovering cloud of particles, concocted for himself a loose, lilac-coloured robe with the kind of high, stiff collar he often favoured, and huge puffed sleeves from which peeped the tips of his fingers, and silver slippers with long, pointed toes, and a circlet to contain his long platinum hair; a circlet in the form of a rippling, living 54th century Uranian lizard.

"How haughty you look!" said Jherek. "A prince of fifty planets!"

Lord Jagged bowed in acknowledgment of the compliment. "We are the sum of all previous ages, are we not? And as a result there is nothing that marks this age of ours, save that one thing. We are the sum."

"I had never thought of it." Jherek swung his long legs from the bed and stood up.

"Nor I, until this moment. But it is true. I can think of nothing else typical. Our technologies, our tricks, our conceits — they all imitate the past. We benefit from everything our ancestors worked to achieve. But we invent nothing of our own — we merely ring a few changes on what already exists."

"There is nothing left to invent, my lilac lord. The long history of mankind, if it has a purpose at all, has found complete fulfilment in us. We can indulge any fancy. We can choose to be whatever we wish and do whatever we wish. What else is there? We are happy. Even Mongrove is happy in his misery — it is his choice. No one would try to alter it. I am rather at a loss, therefore, to follow where your argument is leading." Jherek sipped from his own beer barrel.

"There was no argument, my jaunty Jherek. It was an observation I made. That was all."

"And accurate." Jherek was at a loss to add anything more.

"Accurate."

Lord Jagged stood back to admire Jherek, still unclothed for the day.

"And what will you wear?"

"I have been considering that very question," Jherek put a finger to his chin. "It must be in keeping with all this — especially since I am to pay court to a lady of the 19th century. But it ca

"No," agreed Lord Jagged.

And then Jherek had it. He was delighted at his own brilliance. "I know! I shall wear exactly the same costume as she wore last night! It will be a compliment she ca