The Coming of the Teraphiles Read online

  less benign force was at work. The old protections of checks

  and balances had gone wrong. Those who dwelt around the

  Galactic Rim became aware of this danger first. Pirate though

  he was, he did all he could to warn those who would listen:

  the fundamental cycle of birth, death and rebirth was being

  threatened by this implosion's increasing rapidity. Everything

  was happening far too quickly. According to those few wise

  creatures who could sense the greater multiverse beyond our

  galaxy, beyond our universe, we were facing nothing less

  than the corruption and utter destruction of everything.

  Cornelius knows that whatever it is which lies at the centre

  of the universe, what we call a super-black hole, something

  unimaginably dense and tinier than an atom, has become

  erratic: the very thing which provided balance to the universe

  was now unbalancing it. Captain Cornelius sought the

  advice of every intellectual he encountered on his voyages,

  frequently making piratical raids on alien fleets crossing

  our Milky Way, not because he was greedy for wealth but

  because he was desperate for information. Few were able to

  offer him a sufficiently satisfactory explanation, even when

  they themselves observed the phenomenon.

  All Captain Cornelius knows concerns a legend - little

  more than a rumour - about a stolen artefact taken from

  what some identify as the Realm of Law. They insist it be

  returned to the heart of the multiverse. If that is not done

  then all living matter, all living things, the very stuff of life,

  will be destroyed as punishment for that theft. There will be

  no regeneration. There will be no multiverse.

  The artefact takes many forms in our side of the universe,

  identified as the Realm of Chaos. Some call it simply the

  Regulator or, colloquially, the Roogalator. Others of a more

  romantic disposition call it the Newtonium Staff or the

  Cosmic Balance; the Balance said to sustain the equilibrium

  of the universe.

  Cornelius has heard that when the universe we know

  vanishes at last it will be into Limbo, where it will not

  regenerate. There will only be death, and those of us who

  remain conscious will remain conscious at that frozen

  moment of death, knowing our fate but never able to change

  it. Time, of which space is a relative dimension, disintegrates

  and intelligent order is lost.

  Captain Cornelius stands on his bridge, his home galaxy

  behind him, its light filling his sails with the solar wind, and

  he stares into the deep, deep darkness ahead of him: the silent

  and near-infinite reaches of intergalactic space, which reflect

  the Dutchman's own desolate, inconsolable heart.

  Other legends say that it is Cornelius himself who stole

  the artefact and is doomed to know the consequences of

  his action but never correct it. He knows guilt without end,

  torment for ever.

  A touch of the wheel, an order to his sailors, and the Paine

  banks slightly against the infinite silence, driven by light,

  into that barely endurable darkness. The heavy tides are

  running. Time and space become erratic, insane. Dark tides

  running, destroying everything we ever valued. A flume of

  thousands of slain suns washes around his hull. Black suns

  collapse and vanish. He must not risk his ship. He must find

  some other way of reaching the centre. Dark tides are eating

  the multiverse.

  In spite of all threats and dangers, Ironface the Dutchman

  is heading for the Hub.

  Chapter 9

  Dancing with the Galaxies

  THERE IS LITTLE MORE alarming, on an ordinary day-to-day level,

  than living and working aboard an old nuke-burning,

  cadmium-dampened space-bucket in which our kind first

  sought to conquer the stars. They make noises whose source

  is untraceable. You see odd things. They seem to have a

  will, even an imagination, of their own. Known as nukers,

  the tramps are largely non-existent these days, but there

  was a time when the galaxy was full of them, pounding

  and battering new routes between the suns and mapping

  not only the systems they found but describing previously

  inconceivable horrors. On board as well as outside...

  Amy had experienced only the sophisticated technologies

  which allowed the TARDIS to manipulate her way through

  time and her many dimensions which is somewhat naively

  called 'space'. She had known not only wonder but also a

  certain security being, as she was, the guest of a Time Lord.

  Now, as she lay in a narrow bunk, having awakened in

  something resembling a glass coffin, she wondered if she

  shouldn't regret her decision to accompany the Doctor on

  this adventure.

  The ship they had picked up from Peers™ was a C-class

  nuker, crewed by as slovenly a bunch of spacerats as ever

  sailed between the stars, travelling from the water world

  of Palahendra to Desiree, the 'rendezvous' world, where

  merchants came to trade and have their ships repaired. The

  cargo would probably be sold to representatives from the

  mining planets of Outer Lavum Hestes where water was

  quite literally worth its weight in platinum. In spite of this,

  most captains would not waste their fuel or their time on

  the water-trade, chiefly because such ships were always in

  danger of attack by pirates who merely wished to restock

  their own supplies and who could not care less whether the

  old crates made it back to a safe berth. Many of the crew

  quite happily moved between work on water-barges and

  pirate ships, since pay and conditions were about the same.

  But this consideration had not been regarded as a

  drawback to the Gentlemen. Their match in Miggea was

  more important than life itself, and Mr and Mrs Banning-

  Cannon, whose considerable luggage was stowed wherever

  it was relatively safe against mould, rust, buckling plates and

  popping rivets, had known nothing about the existence of

  such ships, until the moment they stepped aboard and asked

  where their suite might be. The laughter greeting this request

  was tribute to the many times the story would be told over

  and over again in the disgusting dives and low 'pessy' joints

  scattered across those parts of the galaxy still permitting the

  passage of such vessels as the Kl-32. The best this ship could

  offer by way of luxuries were a working fire extinguisher and

  a couple of toilets which did not threaten to suck you out into

  space whenever you pressed the Flush button.

  Mrs B-C's first action had been to threaten the captain

  and then, when this did not work, to complain to the Doctor,

  accusing him of being in league with the 'scum' to fleece

  them of their hard-won billions. The Doctor had gravely

  promised to register their complaint as soon as they reached

  'civilisation'. Then he had suggested they freeze themselves

  for the duration, which they had declined to do because they

  feared they would be robbed in their sl
eep.

  Their daughter Jane had been perfectly sanguine about

  this method of travel and had used the confined quarters to

  get to know Hari better. Hari had warmed a little but still

  believed that she was playing fast and loose with his and

  Bingo's emotions, though he no longer saw Lord Sherwood

  as his enemy, merely as a fellow dupe of a heartless siren of

  the spaceways.

  With his friend bonding thus, Bingo at least attempted to

  set matters straight but was feeling so guilty about his part in

  making them lose their flight on the Gargantua that it seemed

  obvious to Hari that he was lying, though perhaps for noble

  reasons.

  'Look here, old bean, I never intended to flirt with Flapper,'

  Bingo had begun after their fourth day on board, 'she merely

  suggested that I give her a ride on one of our punts. Her

  object, if you must know—'

  His boyhood chum had responded frostily. 'Oh, I'm well

  aware of her object, old man. I assure you I have no intention

  of stepping between you. Let nobody, I hope, call me a duck

  in the mango. Or do I mean "mangey"?'

  'Hari! You must believe there is nothing between myself

  and Miss Banning-Cannon. My heart, I assure you, belongs

  to quite another person, quite as beautiful - in fact even more

  beautiful - um, no, that sounds wrong - but anyway, another

  equally stunning girl.

  At which Hari had raised a sad, silencing hand. He

  suggested they drop the subject, go into the larboard

  companion way and try those new shots he had been talking

  about long before the Banning-Cannon party had turned up

  on their home planet.

  In the moaning semi-darkness of the companionway,

  the two friends shot and caught 'safety arrows' almost

  automatically, neither able to continue the kind of

  casual conversation which was normal to them in these

  circumstances. Crew members would pause and watch them

  for a moment or two, sometimes commenting on their game

  before continuing about their duties. The steady 'twang' and

  slap of an arrow shot and an arrow whacked was soothing

  as the horrible old tub ploughed through the void at speeds

  once considered impossible, catching the currents of time

  itself and using them as all such ships did, to cross the great

  distances from one star system to another.

  Wandering past the patched conduits and re-riveted plates

  of the bulky tanker, Amy found it hard to get used to the idea

  that this ship operated on technology that had once been

  innovative and magical but was now as outmoded as the first

  aeroplanes seemed to her. She wondered what a person from

  her own time would have thought of the machinery. Perhaps

  they would have dismissed it as magic, some kind of jiggery-

  pokery, an illusion. In spite of her own direct experience, in

  spite of having already seen many strange and wonderful

  things, she still had the occasional feeling of being in some

  sort of Alice in Wonderland dream. She smiled to herself.

  If there was a Queen of Hearts on board then she could be

  heard at this moment up in the control room.

  'I demand to see the captain! Don't be insolent to me, young

  man. I could have you and your entire operation crushed into

  nothing!' Mrs Banning-Cannon had not stopped complaining

  since they had seen the ship drifting in shallow space and

  waiting for their tug. The captain, a ruggedly handsome

  young centaur called N'hn, at least sixteen hands high at his

  withers, had greeted them with a yellow bag of sweets in

  his big hand, his safety harness slung casually around his

  waist and his working overalls undone to the chest. He had

  been amused to see the passengers trooping aboard his ship

  and made a mock bow to Mrs B-C, offering one of his com

  sweets. 'Weren't we at school together?'

  Since then Amy had watched the centaur enjoying himself

  at Mrs Banning-Cannon's expense. What Amy realised and

  Mrs B-C did not was that Captain N'hn had nothing to lose.

  The centaur knew how to make his ship work and how to

  find a crew for her. He had fought off many pirate attacks.

  Most importantly, nobody else wanted his job. He drew some

  satisfaction from that. It gave him a power the terraform

  heiress could neither imagine nor ever desire.

  Amy sneaked past them and carried on to one of the ship's

  observation ports. Space was dark and silent; the nearest

  spread of stars was a blur of silver in the faraway arm of a

  galactic spiral. She had no idea where they were and didn't

  much care. Some of the other passengers were nervous. One

  or two were positively frightened, but Amy, who in the

  TARDIS had never been able to look through an observation

  port of this kind and see the reality of size and distance, was

  far too fascinated to know even a shred of fear. After all, she

  knew what it was to hang in space with only the Doctor's

  hand keeping her from drifting off into the intergalactic

  void.

  But now, watching, she observed something she had never

  expected to see. A swirl of darkness, like a smoke cloud

  millions of miles across, was obscuring her view of those

  distant suns, as if a great seven-fingered hand had reached

  up, then turned and dissolved into streamers of thick, dark

  gas. Those faraway stars which lay within the mass's coiling

  compass were behaving like nothing she had ever seen.

  Flickering, revolving, merging, separating, they performed

  what looked to her like a kind of vast cosmic dance. The dark

  streamers flowed amongst them, bringing them together,

  drawing them apart, a magnificent formal parade of countless

  suns moving to some unheard melody. Was this a common

  phenomenon, something nobody had bothered to tell her

  about because they were all so familiar with it?

  Amy craned to see more. She had been told to look out

  for the so-called Great Refiguration or the Conjunction of the

  Million Spheres, when far more than that number of stars

  and their satellite planets joined to perform a stately, galaxy-

  wide pavane, behaving like sentient beings as they moved

  in a series of complex diagrams heralding, it was said, the

  rebirth of a universe. Everything in existence vectored to

  that moment when the composition of Creation changed, so

  some mysterious alien had once told her. She had no idea

  what he meant. She enjoyed her own thrilling discovery of

  new colours, the extraordinary distances covered by patterns

  made by the sinuous black smoke.

  She felt the tanker quiver and become still, quiver again,

  grow still again. Was it, too, yearning to join the mighty

  formation as it changed then changed once more as if shaken

  in some titanic kaleidoscope?

  Surely she was not the only witness? She turned and ran

  back down a narrow corridor festooned with pipes and

  wires which had come loose from their moorings. The ship

  continued its subtle, almost sensual shuddering, and if any

  o
f the regular crew were aware of it they gave no sign. Not

  until the corridor opened up into a wider gangway did she

  know that she was not the only observer. The captain, N'hn,

  his huge, healthy equine body as full of delicate tensions as

  his ship, stood beside the Doctor, staring through a long slot,

  watching the streaming galactic smoke and the shimmering,

  pirouetting stars.

  'What is it?' she asked. 'Is it normal?'

  'It depends what you mean by normal,' murmured the big

  centaur.

  The Doctor was rubbing his face, his brows drawn in an

  attempt to remember something. 'I've never seen it this close

  inside the Rim. Why would it be speeding up now? This isn't

  the moment. It's not time to change.'

  How old he looks now, Amy thought, and felt guilty.

  'We've become used to it,' the Doctor went on. 'The

  phenomenon which was most people's only proof of the

  existence of a multiverse? Dark force! The dark tides! They

  told of worlds beyond the arras of "space". That's what

  we're seeing, much closer inside the Rim than anyone's ever

  reported. Usually you need an OPR telescope to watch this.'

  'Doctor! What is it?'

  He turned at the sound of her voice. He still looked vague,

  thoughtful. 'Oh, hello, Amy. Yes. You're watching what's

  sometimes called the Dance of the Planets, but this is a Dark

  Forces manifestation.'

  'Dark Forces? You're not talking about Lucifer and the

  armies of Hell are you?'

  He laughed. 'I hope not. This is something that was

  discovered in your own time - roughly - and was used to

  prove the existence of a largely invisible multiverse. They

  called those streamers "dark flow". Now they're known

  as dark tides. They're moved by gravity, like ocean tides.

  They seemed to come from nowhere and move at millions

  of miles an hour, dragging whole galaxies with them. We

  are all so delicately, so vulnerably connected.' He shivered. A

  momentary chill.

  Amy shook her head. 'I've no idea what you're on about.

  As usual.'

  The Doctor pulled a face. But it sagged into a lazy smile.

  'Never mind. Think of it as a gravitational pull, only from

  outside your galaxy. So strong that it's tugging galaxies

  away while our black holes pull in the other direction. People

  started to call them "the black winds", which is a bit poetic

  but you get the idea.'