by Adam Roberts
THE SONTAGANS
A fearsome sect of fanatics whose life is dedicated to the writing of Susan Sontag.
Dr WHOM PAYS, TRIBUTE TO Dr WHO
Who could forget the roll of acting honour, the range of genius that embodied Dr Who for generations of eager viewers?3 Deathless their names shall be; never shall their glory fade; they shall not grow old as we who lack the capacity to regenerate our bodies via some frankly implausible cod-biological strategy shall grow old. Let us list them here, names as familiar to us as the names of our own families, in an if-you-will roll of Who-honour. Whonour, indeed:
Patrick HartweLL. Hartnell. Hatywell. Or was it William? Hmm. Not that it matters: nobody can remember him these days anyway.
Patrick Troughton. He was short. He wore a natty black jacket, black moleskin trousers. He had black hair, black eyes. In fact, as I recall him to memory, he had grey skin. That can’t be a good sign, can it? Medically I mean? Let me put it this way: if I woke up one morning and looked in the shaving mirror and saw that my skin had gone literally grey , I’d get down to the GP pretty sharpish, let me tell you. ‘Here!’ I would say. ‘What are you going to do about this? My entire dermis as grey as gunmetal, and my eyes, previously a rather fetching blue, gone all black. I want to know what you’re going to do about it, that’s what I want to know. And don’t try giving me some brush-off prescription for a “special medicated cream” that we all know is just plain moisturiser, that’s not going to fly with me, sonny. I want specialists from all over the world congregating to discuss this astonishing dermatological development, from off-pink to grey in one night. I want high-tech treatments.’
Anyway, the point here, the point, is that nobody can really remember Troughton either.
Jon Pertwee. Sean Pertwee’s dad, you know. Curly white hair, red velvet jacket, no ‘h’ in his first name. That’s what was memorable about him. Obviously most people called ‘John’ are happy enough to carry the h. But not ‘Jon’ Pertwee. I mean, what’s that supposed to prove, anyway? That’s some strange affectation, right there: like he’s saying ‘oh, oh, I can afford to buy this crushed velvet jacket and to drive about in a personal hovercraft but I can’t afford the h for the middle of my first name’. Is that what he’s saying? Because, let me tell you, personal hovercrafts are both extremely expensive and frankly unnecessary. If he can afford that, he can sure as dammit afford the ‘h’. Why can’t he drive a Cortina, like everybody else? Or else that other Ford car, the one with the three gears and the single windscreen wiper, the one with the SFy-name, what was it called? I find that kind of behaviour despicable. Like those aristocrats who go around in really tatty tweed trousers with saggy crotches and holes in the knee, ‘Oh look at me, I’m rich enough to put all my children through Eton but I’m too poor to buy new trousers.’ It makes me sick, I don’t mind telling you. It makes me actually nauseous with fury. I may have to go and have a little lie down, right now.
Tom Baker. Now we’re talking! This is the real Dr Whom material. Big booming voice. Scarf. Getting off with one of his beautiful assistants in real life. That’s what we’re looking for. And now he’s doing Little Britain voice-overs. Am I the only one to think that this is something of a come down, really?
Peter Davidson. The problem I have (I’ll be frank) with this sort of name is that it slips about in one’s memory. Don’t you think? Is it Peter Davidson, or David Peterson? Either is as good as the other, frankly. A name should have more fixity, more memorability, or what’s the point of it? Jack Johnson, John Jackson, Russell David, David Russell, who could ever tell them all apart? No. Either you want completely non-interchangeable forename-surname combos, something like Jim Czccrych, or Alexander p, or else you want to short-circuit the whole process by calling yourself Robert Robertson, or something. There’s a small sort of genius in the latter strategy, of course. And, now that I’m on the subject, why was Robert Robertson never asked to play Dr Who? He’d have been brilliant. ‘Ahhhh, now that the Daleks are defeated, I can promise the peoples of the Earth their continued survival and prosperity, and—this round of applause.’ You see what I mean?
The guy who came after Peter Davidson. Curly hair. Don’t recall the name. He doesn’t seem to have the curly hair any more, judging by his appearances on TV nowadays reminiscing about his days playing the Doctor. But that’s no crime. Baldness is not a crime. Arson, that’s a crime; not baldness.
The guy who came after the guy who came after Peter Davidson. Don’t recall his name either. I’ve got ‘Baker’ buzzing around in my head, but that might just be because Tom Baker made such a deep impression in the role. Sylvester Baker, was it? Incidentally, and whilst we’re on the subject of Tom Baker, I’ve a question: do you think that Tom Baker ever went up to his own mother and sang the Boney-M hit single ‘Ma Baker’ when that hit the charts in the mid-1970s? M-m-m-m-ma, Ma Baker, she carried a gun - because if it had been me, I definitely would have done. That would have been hilarious. Of course, since my mother is called Roberts, and since there’s no song ‘Ma Roberts’, I’ve never had the chance.
PauL McGann. Given that there are about four hundred McGann brothers, all of whom work in TV, and all of whom look exactly alike, I’m rather proud of myself for being able to remember the one who played the Dr for that crappy Americanised one-off TV-film. But since he can’t even be bothered to turn up on TV nowadays to reminisce about his days playing the Doctor I think we should throw the tarpaulin of historical forgetfulness over him, nail it down at the edges, and neither mention nor even think about him ever again.
Christopher EccLeston. Oh, everybody loves Christopher Eccleston. They love him as a serious actor, and they loved him as Doctor Who. How could they not? He completely abandoned the fey, curly-headed, southern English weirdness and instead played the character as an out-of-work northern builder on e. Leather jacket. Big chunky leather jacket, and a nose apparently borrowed from a much much larger face. That’s Eccleston.
I mean, I know he’s a highly respected actor and everything, but he has ‘Eccles’ in his surname. It’s the main part of his surname, for crying out glaven. How can anybody take him seriously? Would you take me seriously if I were called ‘Adam Doughnutton’? NO, you would NOT.
Casanova guy. I can’t tell you how much my wife wishes to enjoy carnal relations with the actor playing the new Doctor Who. I can’t tell you because my eyes mist up with furious despair at the very thought. Curse him. Curse his perfectly shaped features and his trim body. Curse him to all bejiminey.
Who will follow in these illustrious footsteps? The Doctor has only twelve regenerations, after all, so there can be only thirteen actors given this ultimate honour. Or else he has thirteen regenerations, so there can be only twelve actors who - no, that can’t be right. So: the team here at Dr Whom offer up our suggestions as to whom (ahem!) might be waiting in the wings to take on this esteemed role.
Doctor Who 11: Tom Hanks. He would be a brilliant choice. He could even change his name to ‘Tom “Dr” Whanks’. Which is something I suggest he do because it is a cross between ‘Who’ and ‘Hanks’ and for no other reason. What I mean is, I’m suggesting Hanks should play the part because he’s a very versatile actor, and is a big star to boot. He could pull off the Dr, don’t you think? He could easily pull him off. Easily slip into that role.
Doctor Who 12: Boris Johnson. It’s the part Boris was born to play. And, can I just add, with respect to what I said a moment ago about Tom Hanks, that I only meant to compliment Mr Hanks on his range and technical expertise as an actor. The whole ‘whanks’ thing . . . obviously, now, I rather wish I hadn’t coined that particular portmanteau word. It literally didn’t occur to me that people might read it as a variant upon ‘wanks’. The thought never crossed my mind. It would have been monstrously disrespectful of me to suggest that, should he ever accept the BBC’s invitation to play Who, fans or people in general would start calling him ‘Dr Whanks’. The thought of that would, I’m sure, act as something of
a disincentive. And I’d hate to think that I’d played a part, howsoever small, in disincentivising an actor of Tom’s stature from taking up an iconic role like Dr Who.
Doctor Who 13 - Simon Hoggart, star of Radio 4’s ‘News Quiz’ and EngLish comedic eccentric. It’s the part Simon was born to play. He could change his name to ‘Simon “Dr” Whoggart’, which works much much better than the whole ‘Tom Whanks’ thing, which I deeply regret, I really do, I’m most dreadfully sorry I mentioned that now. Sorry I ever brought it up. I really can’t apologise enough. Tom? Tom—if you’re reading this, please believe me when I say that I apologise, wholeheartedly and unreservedly, for morphing your name to ‘Whanks’, it was in no way ‘fair comment’ and was not intended to impugn your professional or personal integrity in any way. I hereby undertake never to repeat it. I’m appallingly sorry. I am.
1 Parodically Limited Company
2 PLEASE NOTE: Device fits most hands. If your hand is unusually large, small, or tentacular, please refer to manufacturers’ handbook/tentaclebook
3 The first ‘Who’ in this sentence does not refer to ‘Dr Who’ obviously. If it did, then the sentence would be saying that Dr Who could forget the actors who played Dr Who, which would be a strange thing to say. Although, now that I come to think of it, there may be something in that . . . as if to say, the archetype that is Dr Who need have no cognizance of the individual actors who have embodied him over the decades . . . but, no, on second thoughts, that would just be silly.
‘Never laugh at live dragons …’ This later became a proverb.
Antique Ape Saga
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Acknowledgments and Dedication
PROLOGUE
It happened every year and had done so without fail for three centuries. The parcel arrived, as it always did, and the elderly dragon regarded it with a more than usually grim expression. Believe me, you’ve never seen a face with a grim expression until you’ve seen a dragon face with a grim expression.
The parcel lay on his desk. He already knew what it contained, and knew the debilitating heart-sinking he would feel when he unwrapped it; but it couldn’t be avoided. First things first. He called a firedrake into his study. ‘Where are we over?’
‘Limbchopping,’ the servant replied.
‘Of course. Be so good as to leave the island. Fly down to the city, and ask Detective Superintendent Smaug to pay me a visit.’
The firedrake glanced at the desk, and saw the package. He knew what it contained, just as well as his master, and understood the gravity of his commission. He curled around in mid-air, wings beating a hummingbird rhythm, and flew straight through the main window.
‘You’ll find him in the main Police Castle,’ the old dragon called after him, although the firedrake didn’t need telling. It would not be the first time he had summoned the Detective Superintendent to attend the opening of one of these parcels. In mid-air the drake ducked and was gone.
Leaving the parcel on the desk, Helltrik Vagner went to the window to wait with the sort of patience that comes easy to a being half a millennium old. It was a pleasant afternoon in late summer. Light was slanting in from the empty west, as the sun – that great sphere of whitegold fire – bestowed its superb treasure upon the world with its habitual carelessness. To look down was to observe a great many white bobbly clouds, like Moomins, overlaying the distant landscape. But to look up and west was to see a great stretch of high cirrus, tinted pale tangerine, stretched like a wing of fire around the horizon.
Shortly, Helltrik watched in silence. He was, as you might expect with a dragon his age, large and gnarly, his once golden scales now going cream-coloured at the edges. Immediately below his window lay the western gardens of the Vagner floating island, Doorbraak. To say that the garden was well-manicured was both true and false. It was true in the sense that every hedge and flowerbed was perfectly trimmed and maintained; but false in the sense that ‘manicure’ is something one does to a hand. This garden was not a hand. It had no fingernails. It was, as I think I have mentioned, a garden. Broad lawns of blond, bristly grass were mowed to a perfect flatness. Ash, willow, elm were planted in rows, and small-leaved limes grew at the edge, overlooking the small wall and the mile-long drop. The trees cast fishnet shadow in the summer light. Smoke from a dozing dragon – another member of the large Vagner clan – spilled over the hedge like poured pollen. And as Helltrik watched this peaceful world, the unwrapped parcel sat on his desk, mutely accusing.
Soon enough there came the sound of something large in flight, and up over the edge of the island a very large-bellied, impressive-looking dragon appeared. Helltrik’s firedrake was flying by his side, although he hardly needed guiding. He flew straight over the garden, broad wings forcefully massaging the air, and alighted a little heavily on the stone of Helltrik’s personal balcony.
‘Sammy,’ said Helltrik. ‘Thanks for coming.’
Detective Superintendent Smaug came through the balcony door and settled his prodigious rump into an easy chair. He was no longer young, and the exertion of the flight had roughened the edge of his breathing a little. ‘Another one?’ he wheezed.
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘Same time of year, same thing,’ said Smaug, peering at the parcel. ‘Well – are you going to open it?’
‘I suppose I must,’ said Helltrik, heavily. ‘I dread doing so, even though I know what is inside – of course, because I know what is inside.’
‘Come on, Trikky,’ said the Detective Superintendent. ‘Let’s get it over with.’
Vagner took the parcel and, in a few easy gestures, tore its wrapping away. Inside was a narrow strip of leather, a spotted dark purple in colour, more than a metre long and shaped into a chevron at one end.
The two elderly dragons looked eagerly at it, as if hoping to read its pattern of pale purple mottles. But if such was their intention, they were frustrated. They both sat back, Vagner holding the limp strip in his right foreclaw.
‘There’s nothing very distinctive about it, this year,’ said Detective Superintendent Smaug. ‘It’s clearly from a mature beast, though.’
‘I’m never quite sure what we’re looking for,’ Vagner admitted, in a weary voice. ‘I mean, when we peruse them like this.’
‘Well – distinguishing marks, I suppose,’ said the policedragon. They sat in silence for a while. ‘I almost feel,’ the Detective Superintendent added, ‘as if we should open a bottle of firewater. Drink to it.’
‘Drink to it?’
‘Oh it’s poor taste, I daresay. But – well, it’s the three hundredth, after all! That’s quite a remarkable statistic: every single year without fail for three entire centuries. You don’t think we should mark the significance of that fact?’
‘I’ve never understood the hobgoblin hold whole numbers have over the minds of otherwise sane dragons,’ said Vagner. ‘My father wanted to host the largest party Scandragonia had ever seen when I reached a hundred. But why? It’s no different to reaching the age of ninety-nine, or a hundred and one.’
‘Come, come, Trikky,’ said Smaug, indulgently. ‘You don’t mean that. Three hundred is significant.’
‘Its significance,’ said Vagner, a little stiffly, ‘lies only in telling me one thing.
That this has been going on for far too long. I have become complacent. It’s time to act. Time to call in outside help, to get to the bottom of this once and for all.’
Detective Superintendent Smaug shook his equine head briskly. ‘There’s really nothing more the police can do, my friend. We’ve investigated as thoroughly as any police force can. We’ve in-and-outvestigated it. We’ve been all over it. It’s been all over us.’
‘I meant, somebody exterior to the police, Sammy.’
‘Oh!’ said Smaug. ‘A private investigator? Well, good luck with that.’
Helltrik sensed his friend’s grumpiness. ‘I’m not saying we can’t share a dram, old boy. What’ll it be? Firewater? Or shall we burn some sack?
‘The former, for preference. And I suppose you’d better hand that… that thing over to me. I’ll take it into official police custody, and lay it in the vault with the other two hundred and ninety-nine tongues.’
Vagner passed the item across. ‘Three hundred dragon tongues,’ he mused, as he busied himself at the drink’s cabinet. ‘All laid out together in a police vault. If only they could talk, eh? Three hundred tongues, and none of them capable of saying a single word.’
‘Being ripped from the mouth does tend to diminish the loquacious potential of the tongue,’ said the Detective Superintendent. He took his drink from Vagner’s outstretched claw.
‘But who is sending them, eh, Sammy?’ Vagner asked, sitting himself down. ‘Always the same thing, every year without fail. Such a grisly, horrible thing! Why are they sending them? To me?’
‘Where are they getting them from, is the question uppermost on my police mind,’ said Smaug. ‘Ripping them out of some poor anonymous dragon’s –bottoms’ he lifted his glass ‘up – mouth. Think of the draconic suffering! Three hundred tongues!’ He drained the firewater, and blew a sharp little red-orange flame.