The Coming of the Teraphiles Read online

  Not a few were academics from all over the galaxy. These

  chose to immerse themselves in alien cultures and so learn

  through experience.

  A rather disproportionate number of Tourists were Judoon,

  whose rhinocerid appearance made them particularly suited

  for the whacker's armour. Generally the Judoon had a taste

  for the more warlike sports of their home world, which

  had banned some of them for fear of exterminating their

  entire population and planet. Nukeball, for instance, was

  played only illegally and then on a few remote Rim worlds.

  Occasionally a distant exploding star system would indicate

  a somewhat Pyrrhic win.

  While Mr B-C had no objection to holidaying on his own

  company's worlds and thus keeping the money, as he always

  liked to do, in the family, nor to indulging his wife's every

  whim in the matter of hat collections or other foibles, he was

  unhappy about her choice of suitors for his daughter's hand,

  whom his wife had insisted on parading before him. For one

  thing he saw most of them as employees or at least customers

  and as such harbouring notions of furthering their fortunes

  by becoming his son-in-law. He did not understand that the

  very thought of such a union caused most eligible candidates

  considerable collywobbles. For another, he had already

  picked out his nephew Hamlet Tarbutton as his personal

  choice.

  Young Ham had the advantage of being as putty in his

  uncle's hands, not too bright and possessed of a large fortune

  of his own from Mr B-C's chief rival, his sister-in-law, the

  big boss of Earthmakers™ Inc. who specialised in remaking

  and restocking worlds in the image of legendary golden

  ages, including The Glory That Was Rome, The Marvel of Mogal

  India, The Beauty of Buffalo, The Gods of Ancient Greece and so

  on. The merging of two such mighty empires would become

  inevitable if Ham could be persuaded to pop the question

  and Jane to accept. It would also banish his monetary losses

  in a flash. It is fair to say that had he known Flapper had set

  her sights on an untitled amateur archer, whom she had met

  only six days earlier at a Higher Tea put on in their honour by

  the local Squire and who was even more impoverished than

  Bingo Lockesley, he would have given the nearest supernova

  a run for its money. Happily for the fate of this particular

  bit of the universe, Flapper had not yet been able to force

  her heart's desire to pop the question and had resorted to

  persuading young Agincourt's best friend to pretend to be

  sweet on her, thus, she perceived, stimulating the object of

  her affections to be spurred on by jealousy instead, it seemed,

  of moping about in the bulrushes like a pining frog.

  Another circumstance which had caused Flapper's

  paterfamilias to descend into a glumness as deep as Hari

  Agincourt's was the new hat his wife had bought for herself on

  the previous day and which she had announced she intended

  to wear at the next day's Garden Party at Lord Sherwood's

  but given by the local bigwig, known as the Omar of Notts,

  by way of a farewell ceremony to which both Gentlemen and

  Tourists had all been invited. This had put Mr B-C in an even

  poorer mental condition than usual.

  It is not unfair to say that his default state was generally

  that of a Spanish bull, who, already in a blood-maddened

  rage, has taken exception to a toreador waving a silly red silk

  cape under his nose. Save where the sole fruit of his loins was

  concerned, he was inclined to regard the galaxy's younger

  billions as decidedly inferior specimens. The inhabitants of

  this particular world he considered especially unworthy, not

  only lazy but vacuous, a planetful of wasters. To be asked

  for his daughter's hand by one of them would be harder to

  swallow than a whole Gouda cheese washed down with

  a pint of malt vinegar, and he should know because he

  had attempted this feat in earlier and happier days as the

  family's prodigal. So his wife's tendency to millinerophilia

  was in comparison a cooing dove and a balmy breeze to Mr

  B-C's soul. Except, that is, for the most recent outbreak of

  her maniacal ability to pick and purchase the largest, ugliest

  and most expensive hats in the known universe and, he

  suspected, beyond.

  This he was still brooding upon as he lay back in his chair

  and listened to the restful twang of the yew and the calming

  thump of the oak. Until now he had known neither rest nor

  calm. On the previous day, Enola Banning-Cannon had

  returned to their hotel apartments followed by two sturdy

  bots carrying between them a monstrous hatbox.

  When opened, the box revealed the most stomach-turning

  confection of poisonous colours, ebony, feathers, gauze,

  ivory, bits of silver, gold and presumably platinum wire plus

  a whole shower of precious stones mined from the bowels of

  a hundred planets, four multifaceted gems resembling eyes,

  the whole more than adequately arching over its generous

  brim of about a metre and a half around his spouse's head and

  bearing an uncanny likeness to a Shummyunny, the predatory

  arachnid occupant of Perseus IX, which was actually the

  creature of nightmares. Certainly of Mr B-Cs nightmares.

  These said creatures were inclined to fill him with a mixture

  of nausea, dizziness and an irresistible tendency to race into

  the world cawing like a rook and tearing off all his clothes

  until he had located a small, dark space into which he could

  lock himself and give vent to his inevitable diarrhoea. He

  had barely been able to control himself when, suspecting his

  dislike of a confection squatting on her head like a spider

  poised to leap, she had ordered it back in its box saying she

  was humouring him now, but -

  'I shall of course be wearing it for the Earl of Lockesley's

  Garden Party.'

  'I thought you said he was a Lord,' murmured Mr B-C

  before the rest of her meaning had sunk in.

  'He's both. And more. The bluer the blood, I gather, the

  more names and titles you're allowed. Anyway, I intend to

  make a splash at Castle Lockesley Hall tomorrow. I've heard

  these titled types like to sport spectacular hats at important

  dates in the social calendar. This is the biggest event after

  the Three Legged water-ski race held in Aquarius every

  spring. My hat, I have every confidence, will slaughter all

  opposition,'

  And then the shock hit the elder Banning-Cannon. And

  he reeled. In fact he reeled several times as he tried to find

  breath.

  'Urk,' he said in tones of absolute panic.

  She had no trouble understanding this. Nor did she have

  any difficulty in shaking her head and repeating her intention

  to sport the hideous concoction at the next day's farewell

  ceremony.

  'It shall be worn,' she announced firmly. 'It is a Diana

  prize-winning original. It's called Variations on a Theme by

 
Aristophanes. A classic title, Diana herself assured me.'

  Glowing bright red before fading to a rather delicate

  mauve, Mr B-C had threatened and been ignored, begged

  and been greeted with a sniff of disdain. He had wept, only

  to be spurned contemptuously by this belle dame sans merci.

  He had reminded her of his phobia and been told to pull

  himself together. He had warned her that he would become

  the laughing stock of the entire galaxy, and she had retorted

  that it was probably no less than he deserved. He had offered

  bribes, only to be reminded that his recent losses on the plan

  to turn Sculum Crux into one vast rose garden measuring

  light years across had made him for the time being somewhat

  dependent on her fortune.

  His plans for financial recovery, he had told her miserably,

  would probably be scotched for ever if he was to be seen

  mewling like a baby and tearing off his clothes while heading

  blindly for the Earl's nearest ornamental rain barrel. This she

  had pooh-poohed as nothing less than emotional blackmail.

  She had paid a great deal of money for her hat, an original

  creation, she reminded him again, of the immeasurably

  fashionable Diana of Loondoon, and she knew it would make

  her costume the talking point of the Season. Which, he knew

  full well, could only be good for his business.

  He answered darkly that if there was to be a talking point at

  all it would come a poor second to the anecdotes concerning

  his running about naked giving impressions of rooks and

  badgers which would lead to his irrecoverable ruin. What

  was worse, assuming he would be admitted back through

  the doors, he would become the laughing stock of his club,

  the Senior Oligarch's.

  Her advice to him was to take a pill. He reminded her

  of the dozens of doctors he had seen and how no pill had

  yet been made that would do the job apart from one which

  produced symptoms even more dramatic than the original

  condition. He tried pathos:

  'I couldn't bear to have Jane see me like that!'

  'Then make sure you control yourself!'

  Stem threat:

  'Enola! For the sake of both our great families and their

  future, you shall not wear that hat tomorrow!'

  'Urquart! I shall!'

  This exchange was elaborated along similar lines for some

  while until Urquart Banning-Cannon played his trump card

  (or at least the only card he had):

  'In which case,' he had announced, drawing himself up

  to his full one and three quarter metres, 'I shall be unable to

  accompany you. I am already feeling queasy. By tomorrow

  afternoon I expect to be running a high fever and be confined

  to my bed.'

  To which she had replied:

  'Balderdash!'

  And allowed a silence to follow which clearly let it be

  known the argument was over. Then, wordlessly, this

  Boadicea of the boardroom rose and walked determinedly in

  the direction of the refreshment pavilion.

  Now, he thought dumbly, only suicide could save him. In

  which case he was in a horrible double bind. Jane, under no

  circumstances, should carry that stigma. Daughters of self-

  murderers rarely married well in his social circles. He loved

  her above all else and all others. He must consider another

  strategy. And, as he sat in apparent half-slumber, a solution to

  his problem slowly began to germinate in his close-cropped

  head.

  At which point a lanky, beaky, Harris tweed-jacketed

  individual wearing a rudely laundered grey-striped shirt

  and a small, not to say dowdy, maroon bow tie flung itself

  across his field of vision and snatched an arrow from the air

  just before it landed a few inches from his nose. The lanky

  individual then fitted the arrow into a bow he carried, drew

  back the string, aimed for the wotsit, hit it squarely in the

  centre before the bewildered gaze of the Judoon whackit

  keeper, and uttered a triumphant, if mysterious cry.

  'Three hundred and eighty! Howzat?'

  Chapter 3

  Red

  'AND WHO MIGHT YOU be?' Mr Banning-Cannon was unaware that

  this apparently young man had become pretty well used to

  that question and knew, if nothing else, how to answer it

  concisely.

  'I,' said the young man, squinting down the field in a

  slightly self-congratulatory way to ascertain his score, 'am

  the Doctor...'

  Mr B-C regarded the newcomer with fresh eyes, rather in

  the manner of a besieged commander who, having given up

  hope of his fort being relieved and feeling a prophetic itch in

  the region of his scalp, learns at last that the 7th Cavalry, and

  maybe the 6th and 8th, are best friends with the Indians and

  everything's OK.

  'A doctor, did you say? Do you know much about Perseum

  Arachnophobia?' asked Urquart hopefully.

  'A bit,' the Doctor replied carefully. 'Why do you ask?' He

  saw that his score had been accepted so, flinging down his

  bow, settled into the lawn chair recently vacated by Mrs B-C.

  'That's it. Game over. We won. You were saying?'

  'Oh.' Mr B-C coughed and shrugged his shoulders. 'There's

  always the chance one might run into an expert. Just making

  conversation...'

  'I know what you mean,' agreed the Doctor. 'I'm constantly

  hoping for someone with a fresh subject or at least a new angle

  on an old one. I think it gets harder and harder to find as you

  get older. Seems like we have something in common,'

  But Mr B-C was already returning to his more familiar

  mental state.

  'I doubt it,' he said, now seeing little more than another

  skinny young wastrel, perhaps with designs on Jane like

  most of the inhabitants of this miserable planet. 'Unless

  you've done much terraforming.'

  The Doctor gave this some thought. 'Not recently. I've been

  in a war or two. Which is apt to change a planet's appearance,

  of course, though not usually for the better. That's your line

  of work, is it? Terraforming, I mean - not war.'

  'As a matter of fact we created this world. Moreover, my

  company owns the entire Peers™ concession. And quite a

  few others.'

  The young doctor did his best to sound impressed. 'You

  recreated the sports and all that?'

  'Well, my company did. Some of them. Broadswording,

  for instance. Here's my card. TerraForma™. You've probably

  heard of us.' Mr Banning-Cannon was glad of the distraction

  and even found himself warming a little towards the

  newcomer. He had a certain air about him, as of one not

  unused to authority. 'We're the second-largest firm in the

  business. And my wife Elona is the Tarbutton heiress. They're

  the largest.'

  'You've got a fair bit of power and experience between you,

  then. You don't do those literary worlds, I suppose? The free-

  ranging ones, where you get to play a serious part in Balzac,

  or Disney, or Austin, or Meredith, or James, or Lansdale, or

  Mieville, or Pynchon, or Mann, or Sin
clair, or Calderon, or

  Gygax, or Moore, or—'

  There was no sign of him stopping so Urquart cut in. 'I'm

  not much of a literary buff,' he admitted proudly. 'We're more

  practical. Engineering's my game. Or was originally. There's

  precious little demand for highbrow stuff, these days.'

  'I suppose you're right. I'm inclined to watch mostly non-

  fiction. And brush up on the rules, of course.'

  'You're with the local team?'

  'The Gentlemen. So... you suffer from phobias, do you?

  Frightened of spiders, is that right? Any allergies at all?'

  Banning-Cannon cleared his throat. 'Oh, not really. So

  you've been back home with a bunch of other whackers after

  winning a lot of local games. Which makes you eligible for

  the big games being held in Miggea. You and the Tourists are

  travelling on the Gargantua same as us, I understand?'

  'That's the plan. You're right about us already making

  the finals in Sagittarius. One more game to go, then we play

  either the Visitors or the Tourists. The Tourists will give us a

  run for our money. They almost beat us at that last friendly.

  We'll both be practising on the Gargantua. They say she has

  a full-size Tournament Court. We should all be in pretty

  good shape, everything being equal.' He waved to a passing

  Judoon who offered him a glance of hurt outrage as he went

  by, pulling arrows from his body armour.

  'Important tournament, I guess.'

  'Oh, yeah. The big one. And we all want to get our hands

  on the good old arrer. The Silver Arrow of Artemis is a legend

  in its own right!'

  Urquart Banning-Cannon let his thoughts drift as he

  worked out the publicity value to all the planets involved.

  He would call the office as soon as possible and tell them to

  play up the tournaments. He brought his attention back to the

  Doctor. 'What? Sorry. Taking it all in. So! You're competing to

  win, I hear, some sort of antique artefact which my wife will

  present? A rod of platinum imbedded with precious stones

  and stuff. The mythological Staff of Law owned by the Lord

  of the Bee Bee Sea of old Barsoom?'

  'An antique arrow, actually. Sometimes also known as

  the Arrow of Law, and the Silver Arrow of Artemis. Which

  would make it from Greece originally, I suppose. Dark Ages

  now, of course.' He fingered his little bow tie.

  'Sounds lucky.' Urquart's attention was already wandering