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Curiosity made Amelia Underwood turn back.
"It was in the fifty-eighth century, I think," the Iron Orchid said. Their customs are very moving. Simple, yet profound. The sacrifice of the slaves had, happily, become optional by the middle of what I believe they called the 'Wet Prince' period. We had little else to do, you see, since we were waiting for the right moment to try to transfer…"
"Sans machine," said Jagged, with a certain quiet pride. "We have learned to travel, perforce, without gadgetry. It was always theoretically possible."
"By a coincidence difficult to credit," she continued, "Lord Jagged found me a prisoner of some extra-terrestrial creatures temporarily in control of the planet —"
"The Flerpian Conquests of 4004-6," explained Jagged in an aside.
"— and was able to rescue me before I could experience an interesting method of torture they had devised, where the shoulders are exposed to —" She broke off. "But I digress. From there we continued to move forward as best we could, by a series of stages. I could not, of course, have done it on my own. And some of the natives were obstructive. But your father handled them so well. He is very good with natives, don't you think?"
Jherek said in a small voice. "My father?"
"Lord Jagged, of course! You must have guessed!" She laughed fulsomely. "You must have guessed, my egg!"
"I thought there was a rumour concerning Sweet Orb Mace…"
"Your father wished to make a secret of it, for reasons of his own. It was so long ago. He had some scientific obsession, then, concerning his own genes and how best to perpetuate them. He thought this method the most satisfactory."
"As it proved." Lord Jagged put a slim-fingered hand upon his son's head and affectionately ruffled his hair. "As it proved."
Again, Jherek embraced Lord Jagged. "Oh, I am so pleased, Jagged, that it is you! This news is a gift that makes all the waiting worthwhile." He reached to take his shy Amelia's hand. "This is, indeed, the happiest of days!"
Mrs. Underwood was reserved, though she did not deny him her hand. She stood in that smiling company and she tried to speak. She failed, and now the Iron Orchid hugged her. "Tell me, dearest Amelia, that you are to be our new daughter!"
"As I explained to Jherek, it might have been possible."
"In the past?"
"You seem to forget, Iron Orchid, that there is nothing but the past. There is no future left to us."
"No future?"
"She is quite right." Lord Jagged took his hands from his son's shoulders.
"Oh!" A knuckle rose to Amelia's mouth. "I had hoped you brought a reprieve. It was foolish…"
Arranging his yellow robes about him, Lord Jagged of Canaria seated himself upon the hillock, indicating that they should join him. "The information I have is probably not altogether palatable," he began, "but since I promised an explanation when last we parted, I feel obliged to fulfil that promise. I trust I will not bore you." And he began to speak.
20. In Which Lord Jagged of Canaria Exhibits a Frankness not Previously Displayed
"I suppose, my dears, that I had best begin by admitting that I was not originally from the End of Time," said Lord Jagged. "My origins are not too far from your own, Amelia (if I may call you Amelia) — in the twenty-first century, to be exact. After a number of adventures, I arrived here, some thousand or so years ago and, not wishing to spend my life in a menagerie, set myself up as a self-created personality. Thus, though trapped by the Morphail Effect, I was able to continue my research and experiments into the Nature of Time, discovering, in fact, that I could, by exercising certain disciplines, remain for long periods in one era. It even became apparent that I could, if I wished, settle in certain unpopulated periods. During the course of these experiments, I met other time-travellers, including Mrs. Persson (perhaps the most experienced chrononaut we have), and was able to exchange information, concluding, at last, that I was something of a sport, for no other time-traveller was as little influenced as was I by the Morphail Effect. At last I concluded that I was, under certain conditions, impervious to the Effect so long as I took particular precautions (which included settling very thoroughly in one period and producing no anachronisms whatsoever). Further research showed that my ability had only so much to do with self-discipline and a great deal to do with my particular genes."
"Aha!" said Jherek. "Others spoke of genes to us."
"Quite so. Well, in the course of my various expeditions through the mille
"It seemed such an amusing idea," said the Iron Orchid. "And no one had done anything like it for mille
"Thus, after some difficulties, you were born, my boy. But I still needed to find a wife for you, one who could remain, say, in the Palaeozoic (where a station, as I think you now know, already exists) without suddenly being whisked out of it again. I searched from the begi
"If you had consulted me, sir…"
"I could tell you nothing. I have explained that I had to work in secrecy, that my method of countering the Morphail Effect was so delicate that I could not, then, afford a single tiny anachronism. To consult you, would have been to reveal something of my own identity. An impossibility then — a dangerous thought! I had to kidnap you and bring you here. Then I had to introduce you to Jherek, then I had to hope that you would be attracted to one another. Everything in fact seemed to go reasonably well. But I reckoned without the complications — My Lady Charlotina, you'll recall, interfered, piqued by the ma
"And when I went to seek your help, you were not there, Jagged! You were about your temporal adventurings, then!"
"Exactly, Jherek. By bad chance I was not able to forestall your going to Bra
"…and you could not acknowledge me, because of the Morphail Effect!"
"Yes. But I did arrange for the Effect to work at the very moment of your apparent execution. This led me to make other discoveries about the Nature of Time, but I could not afford, even then, to tell you of my plans. Mrs. Underwood had to remain where she was (itself regarded as an impossibility by Bra