The Coming of the Teraphiles Page 10

have caught them!

  He was going to get his planet and do what he liked with

  it in spite of not having stolen the hat. The only things he

  had on his conscience were that (a) he had agreed to pinch

  a hat but hadn't, and (b) he was going to get his lifetime's

  dream without having done anything dodgy to gain it. He

  looked around the room despondently and caught what he

  thought was the knowing eye of the Doctor. Who would

  have no chance to show off his tremendous skills as he might

  have done had they made planet-fall on Flynn and not been

  doomed never to reach Miggea and the play-offs.

  So as time sauntered on and Uncle Rupoldo and his men

  marched behind, all the more motivated to solve the crime

  now that their team was in danger of never so much as

  getting a sniff at the Arrer, Bingo manfully played host to

  the Tournamentors, the Re-Enactors and the holidaymakers

  while checking his watch about once every minute in the

  hope that some news would come through concerning the

  whereabouts of the stolen hat. He tried to talk to Hari, but

  Hari was moping and would have nothing to do with him.

  And when the beautiful Flapper tried to talk about Hari

  to Bingo or to Hari about Bingo, both men, for the wrong

  reasons, refused to speak. It looked pretty definite that, by

  the time night fell, neither true love nor true sport were ever

  going to run smooth again.

  Bingo went to bed praying that the hat would be discovered

  and the passengers of the Gargantua be allowed to leave.

  Gloomily he anticipated another unsleeping night.

  The Doctor went to bed wondering who on earth was

  telling the truth and who was lying when clearly nobody

  he had spoken to had any reason to pinch Mrs Banning-

  Cannon's horrible hat. He brooded on the possibility that

  this was to do with the tournament and that the Judoon, who

  comprised the majority of the Tourists, might have planned

  the whole thing in order to stop them catching the ship and

  so arriving in Miggea too late to play. But such tactics, he had

  to admit, weren't characteristic of the Judoon, who tended to

  have fixed, literal attitudes where the law was concerned. He

  racked his brain for further possibilities and spent a fretful

  night in the process, there being rather more rack than brain

  involved.

  Everyone was up at dawn, which was no inconvenience

  to the android staff. A gloomy and generally pretty weary

  team met in the breakfast room. All of them had popped dust

  from their eyes, staring at the chronos reading off the minutes

  before it would be too late to solve the crime and get aboard

  the Gargantua in time. Another gorgeous sun rose over the

  brilliant flowers, the picturesque trees, the green lawn and

  the glittering blue of the Lockesley Hall ornamental lake, but

  it beat down not on a bunch of cheery faces remarking on the

  splendour of the weather and its perfection for a tournament

  match but on a crowd of miserable features staring into the

  sky watching the tenders take up their more fortunate fellows

  to board the Gargantua.

  Only Mr Banning-Cannon was not grieving. If asked he

  would have told you that he was as cheerful as the robin

  which, in the words of the popular ditty, sings in the tree.

  Sadly, however, he could not afford to show his pleasure but

  must appear as grimly inflexible on most topics, especially

  the heisting of expensive hats, as his lady wife.

  Around lunchtime, Sir Rupoldo de Crespigny dropped

  out of the sky, followed by a squadron of his men, to issue

  the happy news that Mrs Banning-Cannon's hat had been

  found, abandoned, though still in its hatbox, in the bushes on

  the far side of the lake.

  'It appears,' announced Rupoldo, who felt that Mrs B-C

  should have been more flexible in the matter of pursuing

  charges and thus let the local heroes get a chance, at least, of

  playing for the coveted Arrer, 'that the hat in question has

  been found. I would be obliged, therefore, madam, if you

  would accompany myself and my officers to identify it.'

  The hatbox was opened, the hat identified. Something,

  said Mrs Banning-Cannon, could be missing from the hat.

  She didn't think so. It looked bedraggled, as if part of the

  internal structure had been displaced. As if it had been sat

  on... (It still resembled a squatting spider.) Eventually she

  was forced to admit that the hat, though a bit battered, was

  hers and that charges should not be pressed in the matter of

  its theft. Everyone was relieved until they remembered that

  the intergalactic liner had already departed and with it their

  chances of playing an historic game -

  - until the Doctor strolled onto the well-kept lawn

  thumbing through a copy of Colvin's ABC, the Intergalactic

  Spaceship Guide for the year of 51007 and whistling happily to

  himself.

  'What's made you Mr Happy-Face all of a sudden?'

  asked Amy, who was taking the situation almost as badly as

  everyone else, if not more so, since she had some hint of the

  larger stakes involved.

  The Doctor looked up with a smile which he shared

  generously with his surroundings and the population of

  Lockesley Hall's beautifully manicured lawn.

  'Oh, I just thought you'd like to know,' he said, continuing

  to beam, 'that if we catch the local between Peers™ and

  Poppy 100, which leaves the local spaceport at 23.33 this

  evening, and on Poppy pick up the 7.20 water-barge bound

  for Desiree in the Outer Lavum Hestes and head for Dafryd,

  the mining world, getting the 11.28 to Placamine then jump

  from Placamine in Poseidon, arriving seven days later on

  Seaworld™ 5000, we should be able to get to Kali 7 20.40

  by the following evening, to reach Ganesh the following

  night and, with a spot of luck, get there about six-and-a-half

  hours before the Gargantua is due to leave on her final leg

  into Sagittarius, bound to go into orbit some days later above

  Murphy in the Miggea system before she turns round, after

  being restocked and getting her spaceworthiness certificate

  redone, and begins her journey home.' He beamed with self-

  congratulation, before adding: 'Of course, it won't be very

  comfortable and some of those connections are a bit tight,

  but we should be able to get to Flynn the morning after we

  check in at Murphy.'

  The Doctor would remark to Amy later that he had been

  cheered before, had been cheered quite a lot of times actually,

  but never quite as joyously as when he had told his team that

  they would, after all, have a crack at the Big Tournament.

  Chapter 8

  Abroad in the Aether at Last

  AMY HAD RATHER ENJOYED her stay on Peers™. It wasn't every day you

  had a chance to see what a mish-mash people were going to

  make of your own history and how pointless it was to worry

  about literary immortality. These Re-Enactors and sports

  people made you realise how distorted your own i
deas of

  the past could be. She supposed there was a slight difference

  here since pretty much the whole of her own era could be

  compressed to a slender sliver given how much time had

  passed between the world she had been bom into and this

  period, some fifty thousand years into the future. And when

  you thought of it like that you were impressed by how long

  the human race had managed to endure in spite of all the

  wars and foolish political ideas it had seen come and go.

  'I think I understand why you like us as much as you do,'

  she told the Doctor. 'I guess I'd take a liking to anyone who

  was able to survive that long.'

  'Oh, you're definitely worth fighting for,' he said, fiddling

  with something under the main encephalog-accumulators. A

  hologram of a 'bucky ball' about the size of a large water-

  melon appeared before him.

  'And that's what you've done - fought for us, I mean. Over

  hundreds of thousands of years. Can I help? What's that?'

  'What?' He looked up at her in some surprise. 'Oh, you

  mean this! I'm hiding the TARDIS.'

  'Who from?'

  'Oh... nasty people, nice people, me, you. I'll send it

  somewhere logical, in case we need it in a hurry. Just

  remember these words: Mood Indigo. That'll be our clue, OK?

  If Frank/Freddie Force and his Antimatter Men are knocking

  about I need to be super-cautious. Can't have them getting

  their grubby little anti-hands on the TARDIS. Here - hold

  this...'

  She looked at the large piece of cable he had put into her

  hand. 'Just hold it?'

  'For the moment, yes.'

  'Maybe we wouldn't be so admirable if we hadn't had

  your help, Doctor. Ever thought of that?'

  'I don't need to.' He started changing the settings on

  his sonic screwdriver. 'I mean, I've seen the future, pretty

  much the whole of the future, and I've seen the alternatives.

  I see thousands of alternatives. Millions. Billions. That's my

  talent.' He sniffed modestly. 'One of my talents. One of my

  many talents.'

  'Is that why you seem so relaxed sometimes? Because you

  can see the whole universe and know what the odds are on a

  favourable outcome?'

  'Yes. Well. More or less. Sort of... Not really,' he decided.

  'More complicated than that. More sort of hit and miss.

  You humans can generally get yourselves out of your own

  messes. Sometimes you just need a bit of help. And you did

  - do - will do pretty well at pulling yourselves back from the

  brink before you disappear into nothingness. You wouldn't

  expect me to bet on a loser, would you?' He grinned. 'At your

  best you're not only smart, you're kind. And unlike most of

  the intelligent species I've come across, you have imagination.

  That's probably the defining characteristic of the human

  race. Even the Time Lords didn't have as much imagination

  as you lot. That's maybe what we value most in ourselves

  and others. At its finest it enables you to understand how

  someone else feels.'

  He shrugged, before ploughing on: 'Now the Daleks and

  all that lot - incapable of imagining a decent meal, never mind

  a different point of view or another species' right to exist.

  Imagination gives you conscience. I could go on. Or I could

  complain about what terrible sloths you are, taking for ever

  to learn the most obvious ideas. Always thinking you know

  what's best for people.' The Doctor turned the hologram this

  way and that, frowning.

  'Didn't you ever think you knew that?' She offered him

  the cable. He rubbed his chin as he stared at it.

  'Oh, in my younger days, maybe. When I was a much older

  man. I've made a lot of mistakes. A lot. Hiding the TARDIS

  from everyone might be one of them. But I'm going to do it

  anyway!' He grabbed the cable from her and disappeared

  under the desk again. 'Just remember-' he whistled a few

  bars of a tune '- Mood Indigo.'

  The Doctor clapped his hands. The hologram blopped and

  was gone.

  'So, who do you think pinched that hat?' He turned to her

  suddenly.

  'And then just dumped it? I don't know. A thief with a

  conscience?' She laughed.

  His chuckle came back up at him from the twitching

  darkness only he sensed at that moment. 'That rules out the

  Judoon, then!'

  'Seriously, do you know who did it?'

  'I know who was going to do it.'

  'Really!' She was intrigued. 'Are you going to tell me?'

  His smiling face disappeared and emerged slightly out of

  focus in a spot behind her.

  'You know I hate that,' she pretended to slap at him over

  her shoulder.

  'I know who had a motive. Mr Banning-Cannon.'

  'Sure, but you were down there with me when she went

  back to find her reticule thing. He was with her.'

  'True. But he could have got someone else to pinch it for

  him. So who was the last person to come down to dinner?'

  Another of those sudden searching looks.

  'I can't remember. His lordship? Bingo Sherwood,

  maybe?'

  'Got it in one, Pond.' He straightened his back and stood

  up.

  'But they'd have found it in his room,' she argued. 'The

  police made a thorough search.' She retaliated with one of

  her sideways looks. 'Are you teasing me, Doctor?'

  'I didn't say Bingo did it, and I didn't say he had a motive,

  but he was the last person to come down for dinner. Perhaps

  the last person in Mrs B-C's room. We both thought he was

  behaving a bit suspiciously.'

  'I said goofy.'

  'And I said flaky. These chaps aren't exactly bred for their

  brains. Would you send him off to steal an expensive hat?'

  'He's very cute, but I wouldn't trust him to pinch a penny

  bun from the baker's shop.'

  'So well rule him out...'

  ' . . . i n spite of him having the opportunity?' Amy was

  sceptical. 'Come on, Doctor, you're not telling me everything

  you know!'

  'Really, Amy, I am. I'm asking you questions in the hope

  you'll come up with an idea I've missed. We're pretty sure a

  hand-held anti-grav hoist was used, judging by the smell of

  bouncing tempelectrons. And whoever did steal it was able

  to dismantle it at their leisure.'

  'I get you. They weren't trying to pinch the hat itself, they

  were looking for something in or on the hat!'

  'That would be my guess. The people with the obvious

  motives wouldn't have had the time to do that.'

  'The whole castle was on the lookout for the hat,' Amy

  pointed out.

  'Exactly. So the thief or thieves were able, with the help of

  an anti-grav gun, to spirit the hat out of Lockesley Hall, get

  to a safe place, find what they wanted and then abandon the

  rest after putting it roughly back together.'

  'Then why was his lordship acting so guilty?'

  'I think because he was planning to pinch the hat but when

  he got there it had already gone.'

  'But it was huge. I saw it when they brought it in.'r />
  'That's pretty much what I've been worrying about, too.'

  'So? What's the answer?'

  'I don't know. It's been puzzling me.' The Doctor

  disappeared back under the console. 'The Arrow's safe in

  the time vault which will be sent to an unknown time in the

  future. Once the winners are declared...'

  'What are you doing now?'

  'I told you. I'm taking precautions. I'm hiding the TARDIS.

  I was tempted to try to bring everyone to Miggea with us,

  which would have been very stupid. There are too many

  unknown factors in all this. I think we're in serious danger.

  And if I knew what it was, I'd feel a lot better about using

  the TARDIS. Given the risks, it makes sense to keep it in

  reserve.'

  Amy nodded. Sagely, she hoped.

  First Intermission

  HIS SHIP IS CALLED the Paine, named for a hero of ancient times

  who suffered the fate of most heroes, dying poor and alone

  with half the people he'd saved hating him. She has turned

  away from the light of her home, the dwarf galaxy Canis,

  and, never travelling at less than whatever in that region is

  the speed of light, she gathers momentum and sets her sails

  for the main spiral of stars we call the Milky Way.

  Her captain, the Dutchman Cornelius, takes a deep breath

  of her rose-scented atmosphere, itself stolen from a long-

  dead galaxy, which encloses her in an envelope giving life to

  all on board and all that sustains life on board. Ultimately he

  is bound for Sagittarius, near the centre of those two hundred

  billion stars he knows as home. He understands, perhaps

  more than anyone, that something terrible is happening

  within the Schwarzschild radius. And what is that unseen,

  unimaginable power which remorselessly drags this galaxy

  and thousands of other galaxies towards what must be the

  centre of the multiverse. Dark tides ripping and running

  through the whole of perceived reality.

  Scientists in his home galaxy first noticed it. That each

  galaxy had a black hole into which matter was pulled had been

  understood for centuries. People had also known that their

  galaxy was in turn being drawn towards an even stronger

  source of gravity. Only a few, like Captain Cornelius, guessed

  why. Like all rational beings, he accepted that gradual cycle

  of regeneration, of universal life and death, as inevitable - this

  knowledge has existed for millennia - but of late some other