At last, after a longer pause than Jherek would have thought absolutely necessary, the voice of the Duke of Queens came to them through the darkness.

"Dear friends, you have doubtless already guessed that this party has a theme. That theme, needless to say, is 'Disaster.' "

A cool, soft voice said to Jherek: "It's interesting to compare this expression of the theme with that of the Earl of Carbolic who gave it to us two years ago."

Jherek smiled as he recognised Lord Jagged's voice. "Wait for the lights to go up," he said.

And then the lights did come on. They focused upon an odd, asymmetrical sort of mound which had been set on a dais of transparent steel. The mound seemed covered with a greenish-yellow mould. The mould pulsed. It made small squeaking sounds. It was less than charming.

"Well," whispered Lord Jagged, still in darkness, for only the mound itself was lit, "it certainly appears to fit the theme: what disaster could have caused that, I wonder!"

Mistress Christia squeezed Jherek's hand tighter and giggled. "One of the Duke's experiments gone wrong, I'd have thought. Or perhaps the Duke himself?"

"Ah," said Lord Jagged. "How intelligent you are, Mistress Christia. As well as desirable, of course."

The Duke of Queens, still unseen, continued with his introduction: "This, my friends, is a spaceship. It landed near here a day or two ago."

Jherek was disappointed and he could tell from their silence that the rest of the guests were just as disappointed. It was not unusual for spaceships to come to the planet, although none had called here in the last few years, as he remembered.

"It has come the furthest of any spaceship ever to visit our old Earth," said the voice of the Duke of Queens. "It's travelled simply millions of light years to get here! Sensational in itself!"

This was still not good enough, thought Jherek, to make such a fuss about.

"Travelling at much the fastest speed of any spaceship to visit us before! Stupendous speed!" continued the Duke.

Jherek shrugged.

"Astounding," came Lord Jagged's dry voice from beside him. "A scientific lecture. The Duke of Queens is taking a leaf out of Li Pao's book. I suppose it makes a change. But somewhat out of character for our Duke, I'd have thought."

"Perhaps even he has tired of sensationalism for its own sake," said Jherek. "But a rather dramatic reaction, surely?"

"Ah, these problems of taste. They'll remain a subject of debate until every one of us decides to end his existence, I fear." Lord Jagged sighed.

"But you are thinking that this is not of sufficient moment to make a great fuss about," said the Duke of Queens, as if in answer to Jherek and Lord Jagged. "And, of course, you are right. The occupant of this particular spacecraft by coincidence happened to bring a certain amplification to the theme of my party tonight. I felt he would amuse you all. So here he is. His name, as far as I can pronounce it at all, is Yusharisp. He will address you through his own translation system (which is not quite of the quality to which we are used) and I'm sure you will find him as delightful as did I when I first spoke with him a little while ago. My dear friends, I give you the space-traveller Yusharisp."

The light dimmed and then refocused on a creature standing on the other side of the transparent steel dais. The creature was about four feet tall, stood upon four bandy legs, had a round body, no head and no arms. Near the top of the body was a row of circular eyes, dotted at regular intervals about the entire circumference. There was a small triangular opening below these, which Jherek took to be the mouth. The creature was predominantly dark, muddy brown, with little flecks of green here and there.

The eyes were bright, china blue. All in all, the space-traveller had a rather sour look to him.

"Greetings, people of this planet," began Yusharisp. "I come from the civilisation of Pweeli" — here the translator he was using screeched for a few seconds and Yusharisp had to cough to readjust it — "many galaxies distant. It is my self-appointed mission to travel the universe bringing with me my message. I believe it to be my duty to tell all intelligent life-forms what I know. I srrti oowo…" again a pause and a cough while Yusharisp adjusted his translator, which seemed to be a mechanical rather than an organic device of some kind, probably implanted in his equivalent of a throat by crude surgery. Jherek was interested in the device for its own sake, for he had heard of such things existing in the 19th century, or possibly a little later. "I apologise," Yusharisp continued, "for the inefficiency of my equipment. It has been put to much use over the past two or three thousand years as I have travelled the universe bearing my tidings. After I leave here, I will continue my work until, at last, I perish. It will be several thousand years more before everyone I can possibly warn has been warned." There was a sudden roaring and Jherek thought at first that it must be the lions, for he could not imagine a sound like it issuing from the tiny mouth cavity. But it was plain, from the alien's embarrassed gestures and coughs, that the translator was again malfunctioning. Jherek began to feel impatient.

"Well, I suppose it is an experience," said Lord Jagged. "Though I'm not sure that it was entirely tactful of the Duke of Queens to make it impossible for us to leave should we so desire. After all, not everyone enjoys being bored."

"Oh, you are not kind, Lord Jagged," said the equally invisible Mistress Christia. "I feel a certain sympathy for the little creature."

"Dry sgog," said the alien. "I am sorry. Dry sgog." He cleared his throat again. "I had best be as brief as possible."

The guests were beginning to talk quite loudly among themselves now.

"In short," said the alien, trying to make himself heard above a rising babble, "my people have reached the inescapable conclusion that we are living at what you might call the End of Time. The universe is about to undergo a reformation of such massive proportions that not an atom of it will remain the same. All life will, effectively, die. All suns and planets will be destroyed as the universe ends one cycle and begins another. We are doomed, fellow intelligences. We are doomed."

Jherek yawned. He wished the alien would get to the point. He began to stroke Mistress Christia's breasts.

The babble died. It was obvious that everyone was now waiting for the alien to finish.

"I see you are shocked, skree, skree, skree," said the alien. "Perhaps I could have (roar) put the news more tactfully, but I, skree, skree, have so little time. There is nothing we can do, of course, to avert our fate. We can only prepare ourselves, philosophically, skree, skree, for (roar) death."

Mistress Christia giggled. She and Jherek sank to the ground and Jherek tried to remember how the lower garment of his set was removed. Mistress Christia's had already drifted open to receive him.

"Buttons," said Jherek, who had not forgotten even this small detail.

"Isn't that amazing!" said the voice of the Duke of Queens. The voice was strained; it was disappointed; it was eager to infect them with the interest which he himself felt but which, it appeared, had failed to communicate itself to his guests. "The end of the universe! Delightful!"

"I suppose so," said Lord Jagged, feeling for Jherek's heaving back and patting it good-bye. "But it is not a very new idea, is it?"

"We are all going to die! " The Duke of Queens laughed rather mechanically. "Oh, it's delicious!"

"Good-bye, Jherek. Farewell, beautiful Mistress Christia." Lord Jagged went away. It was plain that he was disappointed in the Duke of Queens; offended, even.

"Good-bye, Lord Jagged," said Mistress Christia and Jherek together. Really, there hadn't been such a dull party in a thousand years. They separated and sat side by side on the lawn. By the sound of it, many others were drifting away, stumbling against people in the dark and apologising. It was, indeed, a disaster.

Jherek, now trying to be generous to the Duke of Queens, wondered if the thing had been deliberately engineered. Well, it was a relatively fresh experience — a party which failed.

The cities of Africa burst into flame once again and Jherek could see the dais and the Duke of Queens standing talking to the alien on the dais.

Lady Charlotina went past, not noticing Jherek and Mistress Christia, who were still sitting on the ground.

"Duke," called Lady Charlotina, "is your friend part of your menagerie?"

The Duke of Queens turned, his fine, bearded face full of dejection. It was obvious that he had not planned the failure at all.

"He must be tired, poor thing," said Mistress Christia.

"It was almost bound to happen. Sensation piled on sensation but rooted in nothing, no proper artistic conception," said Jherek maliciously. "It is what I've always said."

"Oh, Jherek. Don't be unkind."

"Well…" Jherek did feel ashamed of himself. He had been on the point of revelling in the Duke's appalling mistake. "Very well, Mistress Christia. You and I shall go and comfort him. Congratulate him, if you like, though I fear he won't believe in my sincerity." They got up.

The Duke of Queens was taken aback by Lady Charlotina's question. He said vaguely:

"Menagerie? Why, no…"

"Then might I have him?"

"Yes, yes, of course."

"Thank you." Lady Charlotina gestured to the alien. "Will you come with me, please."

The alien turned several of his eyes upon her. "But I must leave. My message. You are kind to, skree, skree, invite, skree, me. Howev (roar) er, I shall have to, skree, decline." He began to move towards his ship.

Regretfully Lady Charlotina gestured with one hand and froze the alien while with the other hand she disseminated his spaceship.

" Disgusting! "

Jherek heard the voice behind him and turned, delightedly, to identify it. The person had spoken in the language of the 19th century. A woman stood there. She wore a tight-fitting grey jacket and a voluminous grey skirt which covered all but the toes of her black boots. Beneath the jacket could just be seen a white blouse with a small amount of lacework on the bodice. She had a straw, wide-brimmed hat upon her heavily coiled chestnut hair and an expression of outrage on her pretty, heart-shaped face. A time-traveller, without doubt. Jherek grinned with pleasure.

"Oh!" he exclaimed. "An ancient!"

She ignored him, calling out to Lady Charlotina (who, of course, did not understand 19th century speech at all): " Let the poor creature go! Though he is neither human nor Christian, he is still one of God's creatures and has a right to his liberty! "

Jherek was speechless with delight as he watched the time-traveller stride forward, the heavy skirts swinging. Mistress Christia raised her eyebrows. "What is she saying, Jherek?"

"She must be new," he said. "She has yet to take a translation pill. She seems to want the little alien for herself. I don't understand every word, of course." He shook his head in admiration as the time-traveller laid a small hand upon Lady Charlotina's shoulder. Lady Charlotina turned in surprise.

Jherek and Mistress Christia approached the pair. The Duke of Queens peered down from the dais looking first at them and then at the frozen space creature without any understanding at all.

" What you have done you can undo, degenerate soul," said the time-traveller to the bewildered Lady Charlotina.

"She's speaking 19th century — one of many dialects," explained Jherek, proud of his knowledge.

Lady Charlotina inspected the grey-clad woman. "Does she want to make love to me? I suppose I will, if…"

Jherek shook his head. "No. I think she wants your alien. Or, perhaps, she doesn't want you to have it. I'll speak to her. Just a moment." He turned and smiled at the ancient.

" Good evening, Fraülein. I parle the yazhak. Nây m-sdi pâ," said Jherek.

She did not appear to be reassured. But now she stared at him in equal astonishment.

" The Fraülein this," said Jherek indicating Lady Charlotina, who listened with mild interest, " is pense que t'a make love to elle." He was about to continue and point out that he knew that this was not the case when the time-traveller transferred her attention to him altogether and delivered a heavy smack on his cheek. This baffled him. He had no knowledge of the custom or, indeed, how to respond to it.

"I think," he said to Lady Charlotina regretfully, "that we ought to give her a pill before we go any further."

" Disgusting! " said the time-traveller again. " I shall seek someone in authority. This must be stopped. I'm beginning to believe I've had the misfortune to find myself in a colony of lunatics! "

They all watched her stalk away.

"Isn't she fine," said Jherek. "I wonder if anyone's claimed her. It almost makes me want to start my own menagerie."

The Duke of Queens lowered himself from the dais and settled beside them. He was dressed in a force-form chastity belt, feather cloak and had a conical hat of shrunken human heads. "I must apologise," he began.

"The whole thing was superb," said Jherek, all malice forgotten in his delight at meeting the time-traveller. "How did you think of it?"

"Well," said the Duke of Queens fingering his beard. "Ah…"

"A wonderful joke, juiciest of Dukes," said Mistress Christia. "We shall be talking about it for days!"

"Oh?" The Duke of Queens brightened.

"And you have shown your enormous kindness once again," said Lady Charlotina, pressing her sky blue lips and nose to his cheek, "in giving me the morbid space-traveller for my menagerie. I haven't got a round one."

"Of course, of course," said the Duke of Queens, his normal ebullience returning, though Jherek thought that the Duke rather regretted making the gift.

The Lady Charlotina made an adjustment to one of her rings and the stiff body of the little alien floated from the dais and hovered over her head, bobbing slightly, in the manner of a captive balloon.

Jherek said: "The time-traveller. Is she yours, My Lord Duke?"

"The grey one who slapped you? No. I've never seen her before. Perhaps a maverick?"

"Perhaps so." Jherek took off his opera hat and made a sweeping bow to the company. "If you will forgive me, then, I'll see if I can find her. She will add a touch to my present collection which will bring it close to perfection. Farewell."

"Good-bye, Jherek," said the Duke, almost gratefully. Sympathetically Lady Charlotina and Mistress Christia took each of his arms and led him away while Jherek bowed once more and then struck off in pursuit of his quarry.