Miss Ming became aware of the atmosphere. Such an atmosphere often followed her funniest observations. "I'm being too subtle and obscure. I'm sorry. No — Argonheart can be very clever. Very clever indeed. He's very nice. He's always made me feel very much at home. Oh, dear! Do I always manage to spoil things? It can't be me, can it?"
Doctor Volospion, for reasons of his own, had cast a fresh line. "My dear Miss Ming, you are being too kind again!"
He raised a long hand, the fingers curled forwards to form a claw. "Do not let this clever commissar confuse you into compromising your opinions. Be true to your own convictions. If you find Argonheart's work unsatisfactory, not up to the demands of your palate, then say so."
Abu Thaleb this time ignored the bait. "Volospion you mock us both too much," he protested. "Leave Miss Ming, at least, alone!"
"Oh, he's not mocking me," Miss Ming observed.
"I?" Doctor Volospion moved his brows in apparent astonishment. "Mock?"
"Yes. Mock." Abu Thaleb studied the spaceship.
"You do me too much credit, my friend."
"Hum," said Abu Thaleb.
Mavis Ming laughed amiably. "You never know when he's being serious or when he's joking, do you, commissar?"
Abu Thaleb was brief. "Well, Miss Ming, if you are not discomforted, then —"
He was interrupted by Doctor Volospion, who pointed to the ship.
"Ha! Our guest emerges!"
6. In which Mr Emmanuel Bloom lays claim to his Kingdom
Once more he stood before them, his head bent forwards, his bright blue eyes glittering, his stiff arms at his sides, his red hair flaring to frame his face. He remained for some while at the top of the ramp. He watched them, not with caution but with dispassionate curiosity.
He had changed his clothes.
Now he had on a suit of crumpled black velvet, a shirt whose stiff, high collar rose as if to support his chin, whose cuffs covered his clenched hands to the knuckles. His feet were small and there were tiny, shining pumps on them. He leaned so far over the ramp that he threatened to topple straight down it.
"What an altogether ridiculous figure," hissed Miss Ming to Doctor Volospion. "Don't you think?"
She would have said more but, for the moment, she evidently felt the compelling authority of those bulging blue eyes.
"Not from space at all," complained the Commissar of Bengal. "He's a time traveller. His clothes…"
"Oh, no," Miss Ming was adamant. "We saw him arrive. The ship came from space."
"From the sky, perhaps, but not from space." Abu Thaleb pushed pearls away from his mouth. "Now —"
But the newcomer had struck a strange pose, arms stiffly extended before him, little mouth smiling, head held up. He spoke in fluting, musical tones that were this time completely comprehensible to them all.
"I welcome you, people of Earth, to my presence. I cannot say how moved I am to be among you again and I appreciate your own feelings on this wonderful day. For the Hero of your greatest legends returns to you. Ah, but how you must have yearned for me. How you must have prayed for me to come back to you! To bring you Life. To bring you Reassurance. To bring you that Tranquillity that can only be achieved by Pain! Well, dear people of Earth, I am back. At long last I am back!"
"Back…?" grunted Abu Thaleb.
"Oh, the journey has demented him," suggested Mavis Ming.
Abu Thaleb cleared his throat. "I believe you have the advantage, sir…"
"We missed the name," explained Doctor Volospion, his voice a fraction animated.
A sweet smile appeared upon the creature's ruby lips. "But you must recognize me!"
"Not a stirring of memory, for my part," said Doctor Volospion.
"A picture, perhaps, in the old cities. But no…" said Abu Thaleb.
"You do look like someone. Some old writer or other," said Miss Ming. "I never did literature."
He frowned. He turned his palms inwards. He looked down at his own strange body. His voice trilled on. "Yes. Yes. I suppose it is possible that you do not recognize this particular manifestation."
"Perhaps you could offer a clue." Doctor Volospion sat up in his cushions for the first time.
He was ignored. The newcomer was patting at his chest. "I have changed my physical appearance so many times that I have forgotten how I looked at first. The body has probably diminished quite a lot. The hands are certainly of a different shape. Once, as I recall, I was fat. As fat as your friend — ah, he's gone! — the one who was here when I first emerged and whose language I couldn't understand — the translator is working fine now, eh? Good, good. Oh, yes! Quite as fat as him. Fatter. And tall, I think, too. Much taller than any of you. But I leant towards economy. I had the opportunity to change. To be more comfortable in the confines of my ship. I caused my physique to be altered. Irreversibly. This form was modelled after a hero of my own whose name and achievements I forget." He drew a deep breath. "Still, the form is immaterial. I am here, as I say, to bring you Fulfilment."
"I am sure that we are all grateful," said Doctor Volospion.
"But your name, sir?" Abu Thaleb reminded him.
"Name? Names! Names! Names! I have so many!" He flung back his head and gave forth a warbling laugh. "Names!"
"Just one would help…" said Abu Thaleb without irony.
"Names?" His blue eyes fixed them. He gestured. "Names? How would you have me called? For I am the Phoenix! I am the Sun's Eagle! I am the Sun's Revenge!" He strutted to the very edge of the ramp but still did not descend. He leaned against the airlock opening. "You shall know me. You shall! For I am the claws, come to take back the heart you stole from the centre of that great furnace that is my Lord and my Slave. Eh? Do you recall me now, as I remind you of your crimes?"
"Quite mad," said Miss Ming in a low, tense voice. "I think we'd better…" But her companions were fascinated.
"Here I am!" He spread his legs and arms, to fill the airlock: X. "Magus, clown and prophet, I — Master of the World! Witness!"
Mavis Ming gasped as flames shot from his fingertips. Flames danced in his hair. Flames flickered from his nostrils. "Clownly, kingly, priestly eater and disgorger of fire! Ha!"
He laughed and gestured and balls of flame surrounded him.
"I have no ambiguities, no ambitions — I am all things! Man and woman, god and beast, child and ancient — all are compatible and all co-exist in me."
A huge sheet of fire seemed to engulf the whole ship and then vanish, leaving the newcomer standing there at the airlock, his high voice piping, his blue eyes full of pride.
"I am Mankind! I am the Multiverse! I am Life and Death and Limbo, too. I am Peace, Strife and Equilibrium. I am Damnation and Salvation. I am all that exists. And I am you!"
He threw back his little head and began to laugh while the three people stared at him in silent astonishment. For the first time he walked a little way down the ramp, balancing on the balls of his feet, extending his arms at his sides. And he began to sing:
"For I am GOD — and SATAN, too!
"PHOENIX, FAUST and FOOL!
"My MADNESS is DIVINE, and COOL my SENSE!
"I am your DOOM, your PROVIDENCE!"
"We are still, I fear, at a loss…" murmured Doctor Volospion, but he could not be heard by the singing creature whose attention was suddenly, as if for the first time, on Mavis Ming.
Miss Ming retreated a step or two. "Oo! What do you think you're looking at, chum!"
He stopped his singing. His features became eager. He bent to regard her.