He conducted all this in the utmost secrecy, and when the Boddah was resting after his colossal act of invention, Ogmishlen struck his master stroke.
He started the clocks. He spun the planets and dropped the rain. All across creation, creatures came alive mid-stride, swallowing on half chewed mouthfuls, striking keyboards with hands designed to be eternally poised. Memories kicked in with split second acuity.
The universe came to life without realising it had just been created.
It would be fair to say that the Boddah, awaking, was a little vexed.
In fact he was furious. Apoplectic.
His masterpiece was ruined - all its component pieces were busily traipsing around rearranging themselves. Undoing the mess that Ogmishlen had caused was going to take a long, long time.
Long story short: Boddah cast out Ogmishlen and bent his mind to the task of tidying reality.
He was going to have to start small, and work upwards.
He started with a prophet and a pen.
Abrocabe Zindatsel had heard the story of creation, of Boddah's masterpiece and Ogmishlen's infamy, countless times.
The first occasion had been when Sianne visited his bed on that first night. They'd sat until the early hours, him listening to her nervous explanations. It all made sense.
It wasn't his fault he was wealthy. It wasn't his fault his parents had amassed a gigantic fortune whilst others starved and died. Everything he'd ever done; every petty ruthlessness, every liberal interpretation of legality, every minor stab of guilt: it wasn't his fault. It was never supposed to happen.
Existence, as cruel and miserable as it was, was never meant to get out of hand.
That night, Sianne had told him that there was beauty in a frozen moment. There was purity to a static thing. Guilt and evil and hardship: they had no place outside of time.
And then she told him the story of the creation and it all made sense. And Abrocabe had awoken happier than he'd ever been in his life because suddenly, in a flash, nothing was his fault.
The Boddah's works had been soiled. A frozen instant of beauty had become a cavalcade of pettiness and abasement.
Since then, Abrocabe had done his homework. He'd immersed himself in the lore of Boddihsm, finding different accounts of the story, extracts from the Book itself. It was called The End of Time, and when he arrived on Splut Mundi with his army of wives, it was the first thing that Abrocabe sought out.
"Many new arrivals like to see it," the fat man who had adopted the role of tour guide announced, scurrying through the whitewashed city. "I think it's to do with doubt. They... they wonder if they're going mad. They think they could be making a mistake. Seeing the book itself, it... it's like vindication."
Abrocabe nodded, lengthening his stride.
The guide pushed through a beaded curtain in an open courtyard of fortified stones. A weird sculpture - like an inverted teardrop with a flat top - dominated its centre. Abrocabe was so taken with its intricate patterns and whorls that he completely failed to notice any danger, until he was well and truly in it.
All around the perimeter of the courtyard, bustling across crenulated battlements, an army of robed men and women trained weapons on Abrocabe's head.
The fat man hadn't even slowed. He turned with a quizzical glance, wondering where his charge had gone.
"W-what's the meaning of this?" Abrocrabe demanded. His long nose was trying to crawl out of sight behind his head.
The guide appeared confused. "The guards? Oh, simply a precaution. The book is a prize worth protecting, yes, and the prophet's quarters are near here. We are naturally keen to ensure his safety."
"You expect an attack?"
"Goodness, no. But does the Book not teach us to be cautious? Did not Ogmishlen strike from the Boddah's side?"
Abrocabe conceded with a nod, uncomfortable. He'd discharged his legion of bodyguards before departing for Splut Mundi and it was a little late to change his mind now.
At the far edge of the courtyard was a small doorway with a hallway beyond. At its end, surrounded by devotees, was the Book.
It hung suspended between grav-engines, subtle fields delicately turning its pages. The heads in the crowd tilted with the movement, like spectators at the slowest ever tennis game.
Abrocabe sunk to his knees, filled with devotion.
"Behold," the fat man whispered, touching his forehead. "The prophecies of Boddah."
As Abrocabe watched, the ancient pages opened a new chapter, complete with a half-page illumination. It showed a man, naked and smiling, rising into the waiting arms of the Great Boddah, whilst below Ogmishlen the reality devil drunk streams of money, growing ill with his avarice.
The chapter was titled:
THE SIGNS OF THE END.
Wulf's mood wasn't improving. He felt like the whole universe was against him and worse, didn't have anything sharp with which to teach the universe to go pick on someone its own size.
The halfworld Sebraxus tumbled out of view on the rear scanner, its semi-spherical surface flipping to reveal the cauterised cross-section. It was said that if you stood on the rim of the halfworld and stepped over the edge, the sudden change in directional gravity would drive you insane (in between haemorrhaging every organ in your body). It was also said that halfworld's existence was physically impossible, that its structure should collapse beneath its own weight and that its molten core should freeze. This was used variously as proof for two different hypotheses: 1) that whichever ancient alien weapon had bisected the planet was truly a formidable piece of technology, or 2) that scientists talk a load of old guff. Like so much else, it was also often cited as incontrovertible evidence for the existence of God, but nobody took that too seriously anymore anyway.
Wulf couldn't give a flying fagwort for the halfworld, its uncertain geostability or its theological ramifications. It was behind him, that was all that mattered.
The helmet wouldn't come off.
The bloody helmet wouldn't come off!
Add to that the ignobility of being drugged, forced into ridiculous clothing, narrowly missed by a hypervelocity monofilament flechette, chased by security through the hotel complex, successfully stealing a one-man starcraft only to discover its AI was configured to speak some incomprehensible alien gobbledegook and, to top it all, getting shot at by the Sebraxus police during a fraught escape.
The last tenacious police cruiser, which had moments before succumbed to the storm of chaff mines, voidcharges and hair-rising sprints through asteroid fields that were traditional in such predicaments, had succeeded in snapping off a final volley of twinkly megadoom fireballs shortly before its fraggage. In the ensuing chaos Wulf had not only succeeded in jettisoning his last remaining fuel reserves, but had fallen for the oldest trick in the book when the AI, not prepared to risk obliteration at the hands of a horned psychopath, offered him an "EJECT" option.
Which ejected only the giggling AI itself.
To suggest he was therefore in something of an ill temper would be a truly colossal understatement.
He was heading away from the only habitable planet in the sector in a damaged - no, snecked - starskivver, losing fuel fast, without a navigating AI or any clue where he was going, in a helmet with a pair of big snecking horns. It would be hard to imagine things getting any worse.
Then the craft's engine cut out.
Then the lights died.
He was seriously considering opening the hatch just for the brief, fatal opportunity to shout "you bastard!" at the universe, when he noticed a single holoscreen that was still lit. The communications panel. Clearly somebody up there - and certainly not one of the cthuloid deities adorning his boots - still liked him.
He snatched at the transmitter and depressed a sequence of buttons. On the holoscreen, the corresponding characters flickered into existence:
T... H... U... M... B...
The universal symbol of the hitchhiker.
He broadcast it as widely as the diminish
ed (and failing) power of the craft would allow, and sat back to wait.
After an hour, when playing "I spy yet again" was losing its appeal and the oxygen was going stale, as it became increasingly obvious no one would be picking him up anytime soon, he huffed and grabbed the transmitter again. This time the destination-codes he entered had been memorised long, long ago.
A brief crackle, then a voice:
"Chief Harvey, here. Who's this?"
Cold fingers fiddled with a dial. An unintelligible signal filtered through a stolen broadcast speaker into the dark bedcell. Scrambled.
The fingers drummed against the armrest of a steel frame chair, then lifted to flip a switch on a small unit. The device's misshapen plastic shell and rat-tail of exposed optics gave it a homemade and illegal look that it thoroughly deserved. The descrambler circuits alone had cost a small fortune.
(Not that he'd paid for them, of course. It never ceased to amaze him how many people just gave him things. All he had to do was ask. Slowly.)
The blurred signal changed, betraying the voices below the hiss. Even across the immeasurable tracts of the void - their stellar distances warped by the fabric of subspace - the deep growl of the voice he'd been seeking was immediately recognisable.
In the dark, the man with cold fingers twitched his thin lips.
"Being stuck out here," the voice was wheezing, "in der life-or-dying-soon situation, with der air running out, so yes Harvey, I am just thinking to be saying hello."
"Haw, you dogs! Always pulling at my legs!"
"Is serious, you no-brain! Need to speak to Joh-"
"Hey, it's kinda spooky you called, come ta think of it. Got a message for you."
"No! Need to speak t-"
"Yeah, here it is. Here we go..."
There was a soft click.
"Hey Wulf," said a new voice.
The man in the dark stiffened, fingers clawing the chair's armrests. "Alpha..." he whispered.
"Listen, big guy," the recording continued, unaware of its eavesdropper. "I figured you'd check in with the Doghouse at some point so I left the message with Harvey. Hope everything's going okay with the, ah... convention thing.
"Thing is, old buddy, I've had a lead on a case - a big case - and look, I could do with your help. I know, it's bad timing, but... Wulf, there's a lot of creds in this one, enough to make that Gumption bloke's cheque look like loose change."
The voice paused, taking a deep breath, then: "It's Grinn, Wulf. I've got a lead."
The man in the dark bedcell, hunched over the speaker like some hungry vulture, sneered.
"Wulf, I need you to leave the convention. Make an excuse. Anything. There's a guy called Koszov, he's a professor - little bloke, big glasses. He's mixed up in this somehow, so you got to lean on him hard as you can. He's at the Mariachi Hotel on Kostadell Zol. I figure that's about a day's ride from where you are, and I'm heading in the other direction. Look," the voice became apologetic, "normally I wouldn't do this, buddy. You're on a job, fair and square. But I haven't got time to come cantering out there to find this guy. I've got another lead to follow.
"If you find anything, send a subspace comm to the SwanDive Travelstop. Write that down. It's on YoCassok. I'll be able to pick up a message tomorrow, maybe the day after."
The man in the dark cocked his head. "What's on YoCassok, Alpha?" he whispered. As if in reply, the recording blurted:
"Can't say much about it now, big fellah. There's someone there I got to see. An old friend of the agency. Fill you in later."
In the background, much further away from the mic, someone with a whiny voice slurred: "Heh, heh... Yeah, sh'right. I jusht bet you will."
The recording died with a zip. The man in the dark leaned backwards in his chair, steepling his fingers.
"Hey, Viking?" Harvey's voice piped abruptly from the speaker, filling the silence. "You get all that? Sounds like ol' Alpha's scored himself a hot tip."
"Why are you listening in?" Wulf's growl was angrier even than usual, not helped by the wheeziness of his voice. "Is dere no privacy left?"
"Not in this world, pal. Just getting all the papers ready. Lotsa invoices, job this big. Nice fat percentages all round."
"Just you making sure it stay der secret, worm-man. Don't want any else peoples getting in Johnny's way. Don't think I be around long enough to help him."
"Hey, yeah," Harvey's voice returned to its conversational smarm-tones. "You were saying something about dying soon? You want me to tell anyone?"
"No... hhh... no need to, to...hhh..." the voice tailed off.
"That's a negatory then, right?" said Harvey.
The man in the dark narrowed his eyes, listening closely. He'd never considered himself particularly sentimental, especially when there was a contract in the offing, but the opportunity of a live performance of "asphyxiating-viking" was too good to miss.
Out of nowhere came a loud hiss, like an airlock opening too fast, then, bizarrely, voices.
"Sneeeeeckin' hell," said one. "That, my friends, my geeza sneezas, is one big skangetanker."
"My bruvver's bigger, Cheez. Swear it. Arms like caaaaaaamels."
"Check out 'is hat, skevridah. Loodikruss horns - nahahah."
"Photo needed. Kodak opportunity. Photo, photo, photo. Stories to tell the bird, mate. Picked up a hitchy en route en croute onna boot."
"You don't got a bird."
"Clam it riiight up. Sliced. Gutted. Melted."
The man in the dark frowned. Dying Vikings didn't generally sound so irritating.
"Checkit. Geez comin' round."
Wulf's voice sounded faint and bewildered. "W-what in der world?"
"Loooooooodikrus accent, steampunkah! Rads, bads, cads."
"W-why are you all being talking like der weirdoes?"
"Wulf?" Harvey's voice again. "Hey, Viking, what's going on out there?"
"Voices, onna, onna, onna, onna, onna raaadio, Cheez. Whozzit?"
"Givvim some room, geez. Let him stand, saahnd as a paahnd."
"H-Harvey? Dis is Wulf..."
"What's going on, big guy? Sounds like a party out there."
"I-I think they are being getting my hitchhiker signal."
"Thassit geez. Thassit, thassit, thassit. Original funk Samaritans, thassus."
"So you're not about to die then?" Harvey almost sound disappointed.
"No sneeeckin' dying round this place, this face, this ancient race, blud. Big sneckrider's coming on holidays."
The man in the dark flicked off the signal interceptor in disgust. He glanced down and scowled, noticing without surprise that he'd inadvertently crushed the armrests of his chair into misshapen steely twigs.
There was only one thing Stix hated more than competitor bounty hunters.
"Tourists," he hissed.
NINE
Oishallob M'Ollo slouched against the bar and drained a shot of cigarjuice, enjoying the stab as it scorched his throat. Old Gizzard's Liquorhouse might not have been the most salubrious of premises but they surely did serve the strongest baccydrinks on Nama's Moon.
M'Oloo ordered another from the barman with an energy-saving dip of his head and regarded the other patrons. Scattered around stained tables, only the most morose, intolerant and cantankerous xowpokes ever stayed in Gizzard's long enough to become regulars. Legend held that tourists had been known to spontaneously combust after walking in by mistake. M'Oloo could believe it.
The Great Xow migration, supposedly one of the 345.3 Wonders of the Galaxy, occurred once every decade and lasted three hours. During that short period over three billion mature xows, shaped and coloured like bus-sized turds, would rise from the swamplands of Nama Prime to streak en masse towards the local sun. Once the heat became intolerable they would explode, releasing countless spores - a few of which miraculously found their way back to the swamplands. This had been going on for millennia before the gourmets of the galaxy decided that the rarity of Xowflesh more than made up for its execrable taste.
So now at every migration the xowpokes would be waiting, hovbikes and harpoodoes at the ready, to snag a xow or three to tide their bank accounts over for the next few years. The upshot was that the average xowpoke was unemployed for 99.99658 per cent of their lives.
The crime rate on Nama's Moon was, it would be fair to say, astronomical.
M'Oloo nestled into his well-worn groove at the bar and raised another cigarjuice. He was feeling uncharacteristically cheerful. That evening he would be meeting Ziggig and the boys to divide their recently acquired earnings in a fair and democratic fashion, so he was anticipating a fun night of double crosses and friendly knife fights.
The saloon doors squealed. What little conversation there was - mostly the exchange of bored insults - halted, and booted footsteps crossed the floor. M'Oloo kept his back to the newcomer, sneaking a hand towards his knife. Caution paid, on Nama's Moon.
He watched a figure approach the bar from the corner of his eye, dipping his head in the universal gesture for "gimme a drink". The barman, M'Oloo couldn't help noticing, was grinning like a chezhir felinox. He risked a more substantial glance to the side, careful to avoid eye contact, and choked on his cigarjuice.
The newcomer was a boy, no older than seventeen. His attempts to look manly by thrusting out his chin and scowling, succeeded only in making him look constipated.
"New in town?" the barman sneered. Some of the other patrons were tittering, probably for the first time in their lives.
The boy nodded and perched himself on a xowhide stool, eyeing the cigarjuice bottle. The barman shrugged and poured out a shot, clearly as intrigued as the other patrons.
The kid downed the shot in one and almost died.
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