The Coming of the Teraphiles

by Michael Moorcock

  the equaliser and left his team considerably better off. With

  the rain thundering down and everyone hurrying for the

  pavilion's shelter, the teams would play again with more

  or less equal strength now that Argentino was out of the

  shooting at least. He would be whacking, given the chance,

  when fresh targets were set up in the morning.

  Gathering under the deck's roof, the teams and spectators

  had temporarily forgotten the game as they watched the

  great, brilliant blue sun seem to rock across the bloody

  horizon, back and forth, forcing some of the watchers towards

  the bathroom facilities, unable to hold the contents of their

  stomachs down.

  Amy had been told by the Doctor about the first signs

  of the 'Ghost Worlds' beginning their orbit through the

  multiverse, but she had felt he was talking about a dream or

  a story. The reality was more spectacular and more terrifying

  than anything she had expected.

  The rain stopped as suddenly as it had started and a

  delicious scent of wet grass and wild flowers filled the air. The

  black cloud passed and the remaining clouds were purple,

  breaking occasionally to let shafts of blue sunlight spear their

  way to the ground. Pitchmen hurried to put a force field over

  the whole grounds and turn up the heat within to begin

  drying the pitch. This had to be done gradually to ensure

  that there would be a proper spring to the turf when they

  played again.

  Then everything within the pavilion started to shake. Amy

  wondered if this was an earthquake, and the Doctor laughed.

  He had that wild look he got in his eye when something big

  was about to happen. Something dangerous.

  "This is it! This is it!' He was exultant. 'You'll probably

  never know anything like this ever again. Make the most of

  it, Amy Pond! Here we go!'

  Through the windows she saw the purple clouds pass

  and the sun shiver and shake in the sky, beginning to spin

  like a monstrous Catherine wheel; the Doctor assured her it

  was only an illusion. Many of the watchers threw themselves

  to the floor, a few muttering prayers to whatever deity they

  had just rediscovered. Lightning began to run across the

  ground outside, crackling and shouting. Off in the distance

  they saw the village dairy explode and go up in smoke as if

  under attack. Then the lightning ran back exactly the way it

  had come and poured up a massive tree on the far side of

  the pitch, not harming it but causing its branches to glow

  and flicker as it formed a beautiful golden halo and slowly

  faded.

  'I doubt there was anyone in the dairy at this time of the

  evening.' The Doctor's tone was intended to be reassuring.

  Amy was not altogether reassured.

  'Is there any chance of getting off and back to the ship?'

  she asked.

  'None at all,' he told her. 'The Ghost Worlds are moving.

  Sideways through time and space. Enjoy it, Amy. The shift

  won't be this spectacular every time, not once the orbit is

  established.'

  'You told me people were lost in these orbital changes. Did

  you mean killed?' Her voice rose and fell with the wind. She

  watched as the trees began to dance, their branches bending

  down to the ground and then sweeping gracefully up, coming

  together before they spread out again, as if synchronised. A

  huge oak suddenly split and cracked all the way down the

  middle, falling apart in two perfect pieces. 'I think that is

  what you meant,' said Amy quietly.

  There being no difference in their luck whether they stayed

  in the pavilion or went to the pub, a group of them agreed to

  make a dash for it. As soon as the rain stopped they set off

  along a relatively level road into the village.

  The landlord of the Blue Barsoomian was pleased to see

  them. 'It's going to get chilly if what I've heard is true,' he

  said. 'I came here as a settler twenty-five years ago. Bloody

  agent told me Miggea was "shifted out" - whatever that

  meant!' He winced as the ground trembled again.

  Rubbing his hands together, for all the world like a TV

  game-show host, the Doctor looked around. 'OK,' he said,

  'what does everyone say to a good old-fashioned singsong?'

  Bingo came to stand beside Amy and put a comforting

  arm around her shoulders. 'I know the words to "My World

  Fell Apart When I Fell In Love With You".' he offered. He

  thought for a moment, then cleared his throat. 'Perhaps not,'

  he said.

  In the end Amy remembered a song Mr Thompson in

  the village had sung. When he'd heard her accent, he'd even

  bought her a CD of Harry Lauder and a bunch of other early

  twentieth-century music hall performers singing their best-

  known numbers:

  'I belong tae Glasgae, good auld Glasgae toon,

  Oh, there's somethin' the matter wi' Glasgae,

  She keeps goin' roond an' roond!

  Ah'm only a common old workin' man

  As anyone here can see,

  But when ah git lit oop on a Saturday -

  Glasgae belangs tae me!'

  The Doctor took down the big menu board on the bar and

  turned it round, using a bit of chalk to write the words out

  in Universal, which most of them knew. Of course hardly

  anyone had the faintest idea what the song was about, but

  they were glad to learn it, since that was better than trying

  to puzzle out the Ghost Worlds, where they were going, and

  what would happen.

  Eventually the sun set -

  And set again -

  And again -

  And again -

  'I'm getting fed up with this,' said Amy sternly and stepped

  towards the nearest window as if she intended to admonish

  Miggea for its erratic behaviour. 'Oh, gosh!' she exclaimed.

  'Oh, everybody! Come and look at the stars!'

  In the soft darkness of the skies over Miggea the now-

  familiar constellations had never been more beautiful.

  Everything was magnified and somehow sharper. The

  distant suns appeared to have been scattered like precious

  stones and metals over black velvet. Shimmering rubies,

  sapphires, emeralds; gold, silver, milk jade and onyx swirled

  in a magnificent pavane. You could hear the music swelling.

  No one attempted a rational explanation for this miracle;

  they simply stood in awe and watched. The constellations

  marched this way and that as if in celebration of Creation.

  They were closer, larger, brighter. The Doctor, who had seen

  so much of the multiverse, shook his head in amazement. 'I

  think we're still moving. The stars aren't. They only seem to be changing their positions. We're going from one level of the

  multiverse to another. That's what we're seeing. And we're

  keeping our atmosphere, our positions around Miggea. It's

  happening!'

  Amy understood. 'So - do you mean we're moving through

  all the alternatives in the multiverse?'

  'I don't think Miggea's orbit takes her through every

  alternative, only a relative few really - maybe thousands? A

/>   few million at most. Time determines the nature of space,

  you see.'

  They heard more deep rumblings, saw deep green

  flashes.

  'We're actually orbiting the black hole. We've no business

  existing, yet we do exist. I don't know how time relates

  to space here. Not really. Especially where gravity's an

  important part of the equation. But this isn't an aberration.

  I think all aspects of the multiverse have systems like this at

  their centre. It's part of that grand design, that logic we find

  so hard to grasp. Wheels within wheels. A quality of gravity

  that's barely begun to be examined. Gravity within gravity?

  Like electricity, we know it happens but we don't know how

  or why. We can learn how to use it because that's what we're

  good at. Yet - I'm not sure —' He shook his head.

  'What, Doctor?' Urquart Banning-Cannon lifted his pewter

  shant to his lips. 'What aren't you sure about?'

  'I think we're going to have to play these matches through,

  for a start. And then we might learn a bit more. I think we're

  heading for the centre - no, I don't mean the centre, do I? I

  mean a centre. There's more than one. I should have realised

  that. Yet each centre represents the other, just as each aspect

  of the multiverse represents the other. And each affects the

  other! It's beautiful! What a machine! I doubt if you could

  easily make a model of this. But maybe you could. Self-

  similarity. The part represents the whole. There's really

  no such thing as size, not in the way we've been taught to

  understand it.

  'That's why these rituals are so important, see? Why we

  have to play the game or do the dance or say the prayers or

  whatever it is, yeah? I think we should try to keep things

  as ordinary as possible. So the clocks don't represent cosmic

  time. It doesn't matter. We stick to our rules. Our regulations.

  Our rituals. And that way we might just restore it all. Of

  course, there are the games to play. They're important. No,

  really, they are. Play the game. Win the prize. Do what we

  have to do. And the rest will follow logically. I don't mean by

  our logic but by the logic of the multiverse. What a privilege,

  eh? We can't let the multiverse down, can we?'

  'It's the strain, poor beggar,' said the landlord of the Blue

  Barsoomian.

  Outside, the stars continued their dance and the thunder

  boomed, the lightning flashed. The great ritual dance of the

  multiverse, driven by some unreasoning intelligence that was

  both Law and Chaos, Matter and Antimatter continued...

  'I think we need to get to the Second Aether,' said the

  Doctor. 'Miggea will take us there. And then well know

  what to do.'

  'But will you have the means of doing it, Doctor?' Mr

  Banning-Cannon smiled as he raised his shant to his lips.

  'I know. That's why I think we have to play on through. At

  least it'll help us pass the time,'

  They had not predicted the rain which came as a result of

  their passage through the scales of the multiverse. Neither

  had they anticipated the pain or the sickness. More than once,

  as the colours of space melted and merged and the star that

  was Miggea blazed scarlet, they doubled up with appalling

  cramps, forced to abandon momentarily the game on which

  so much depended. 'Pain stopped play,' as the Doctor had

  it. Then there were the bloody blue screams which seared

  their way through their circulatory systems, as if they were

  attempting to warp them into entirely different creatures.

  The blue screams affected the Judoon more than the

  humans, and they seemed ashamed when even the smallest

  moan escaped their brutal snouts. It was sound, it was colour

  and it was something else, maybe scent. Nobody could easily

  describe it, nor the bubbling mauve 'fizz' associated with

  phasing from one scale to another, which took over their

  muscles and made them good for something other than their

  original purpose, causing exhilaration.

  When a good whack was scored, then came pleasure,

  glowing through them from feet to face, all gorgeous blues,

  the colours of the sun. They could not witness it for what

  it was, a rapid scale change in which everything on Flynn

  and everywhere else under the Shifter star's influence shifted

  upscale (or was it down?) from the star and planets to their

  ship, their bodies to their smallest possessions, the atoms of

  the air they breathed.

  Those few like the Doctor who understood the

  mathematical theory knew why this happened to them but

  not how to describe it, nor how to stop it, only that resisting

  the process generally caused death. Once again the Doctor

  was forced to resort to his old admonition to 'go with the

  flow', even if that flow caused him to writhe and pulse with

  uncontrollable tremors. How they played so well when

  remembering and anticipating these horrible sensations

  they also could not begin to understand, but play they did,

  perhaps because their instincts told them that the ritual and

  replication involved in the game could bring resolution and

  an ending of the pain.

  Once Amy saw a spoon and a cup on a table shake, crack

  and appear to tear as something in their constitution failed to

  match the scale which made them either too big or too small

  to be seen. The Doctor had told her that this could happen to

  anything or anyone failing to shift in concert with the indigo

  sun.

  But then there were the pleasures the Shifter brought when

  enjoying food or a shower or some other pleasant physical

  sensation which became hugely intensified. Sometimes they

  could not exchange so much as a word without experiencing

  ecstasy; at other times the same sensations translated into

  agony.

  Trailing the Visitors by 97 for 12, the Tourists did

  everything they could to save the game but they had very

  little left and, when the Cairene Dodger was taken 9 for 22,

  they were forced to acknowledge defeat. The Visitors would

  play the Gentlemen for the Silver Arrow of Artemis.

  The final match of the tournament opened on a golden day

  when countless planets filled a sky with glorious reflected

  light and seemed to be jostling to get a view of the match

  between those old rivals.

  Captain Bingo decided to put Hari Agincourt in to defend

  the wotsit while a Judoon fast archer went up against him.

  Both players were on top form, and Hari kept his ownership

  of the wotsit firmly against arrow upon arrow, hitting high

  sixes and tens, until he looked like a distraught hedgehog,

  with shafts sticking from every part of his well-padded

  armour. The Judoon did not break down his defence until

  just before teatime, when an arrow, whacked for six into the

  lower screens, was caught smoothly before Hari saw it out

  of the comer of his eye and rammed by the keeper deep into

  the 180 quarter causing a huge wave of applause from the

  Gentlemen's su
pporters. At teatime, Hari was congratulated

  by the Tourists for a fine score which they promised to even

  up.

  After tea, they put Parker, the half-canine whacker, in

  as defender, indicating a more aggressive strategy against

  Je'I'me Polucks, which kept the game in their hands but failed

  to advance by the time change of wotsits was called. The rain

  came on again just before the planet began to grumble and

  struggle beneath their feet.

  The Gentlemen had a good deal to celebrate, even though

  their ears felt as if they were swelling from the inside, and a

  rapid thump-thump-thump reminded Amy of a pneumatic

  drill going off right next to your head. Fortunately all this

  subsided and the sun returned to its usual colour just in time

  to offer them an astonishingly beautiful dusk.

  That evening, looking around the crowd in the Blue

  Barsoomian, the Doctor opined that everyone was beginning

  to look the worse for wear, though he was proud of them

  all for their resilience and determination. 'I sometimes forget

  that it's not just humans who have kept going through all the

  various disasters the universe has sent. I'm honestly amazed

  at how well all these species perform under duress. Victory

  tends to be bad for the character if it's too easily won. Know

  what I mean?' He stuck his tongue out suddenly, his face

  contorted in disgust. 'This tea is rubbish, isn't it?'

  'Made by a Ringai,' Amy said with a nod towards Mrs

  Aramone in her pretty false head and retaining glasses. 'And

  if there's one thing a Ringai can't do, it's make a decent pot of

  Darjeeling. Even when you give them second flush to make

  it with.'

  The Doctor was laughing. 'Is this the wisdom you intend

  to take back to Earth with you some day?'

  She shared his amusement. Bingo strolled over, attracted

  by the ordinary domesticity he'd spotted. 'Dashed good bit

  of playing on Hari's part, eh? You two seem to be enjoying

  yourselves.'

  'We were talking about the tea,' Amy told him.

  'Ranjun, isn't it? Not a patch on Darjeeling. I say, I wish

  the weather was a spot more predictable, don't you? Almost

  impossible to know who to put in from hour to hour. I was

  thinking of a Judoon before lunch tomorrow and then see

  how we go. What do you think, Doctor?'

  For a while they discussed the merits of the various players

  until it became obvious to the Doctor that Bingo really wanted