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
The Coming of the Teraphiles Page 4