You're very lucky they had some spare seats from what I
heard, cit. Those lads will be singing, singing all the way.'
'All the way?'
'If I know them,' said the steward fondly, opening the
cowl. 'You won't be able to stop them.'
'I thought I heard a choir of angels in the distance,' said
Amy. She looked around the boarding lobby. 'Oh, this is
much better. Clean and tidy, at least'
'I think you'll find us very comfortable, ma'am,' said the
steward. 'You'll be with us for the next seven days, won't
you?' Getting off on Glub Glub, I understand.' He grinned.
'Sorry, ma'am, just my joke. Seaworld, I mean. A pity you
can't go all the way with us to New Llareggub. You must get
someone to introduce you to old Taffy Sinclair. He's a doctor,
too. And a plotsman. But he's also the choirmaster.'
'Oh, I'm not that kind of doctor,' the Doctor said hastily.
'Neither would he be, sir. You're with the Gentlemen,
I understand. You going to the black hole, are you? These
lads know all about black holes, sir. We follow all the big
Renaissance Re-Enactments we do, the lads on board. We're
all big Terraphiles here, sir. We have a lot of very good
amateur players. Any tips for a cit who might be thinking of
placing a small wager?'
'Oh, you'd be wise to bet on us.' The Doctor looked up
through the agitated, multicoloured sky as if he could see
their destination from here. 'The way everything's going, it's
more important than ever that we win that Arrow.'
Amy glanced at him, suddenly alert.
Chapter 15
Luxury Class
APART FROM MRS BANNING-CANNON'S occasional complaint about the
choir practising in the common rooms of the spacebus and
a bit of an argy-bargy between W.G. Grace and her chums,
who had accused one of the other players - Pavli-Pavli - of
licking their arrow flights during a friendly on the faded
artificial green provided by the bus, the journey was largely
without incident. Poseidon had experienced an horrendous
space tornado and was out of bounds to civilians.
Amy was sure Frank/Freddie Force and Co had been given
the slip, but the Doctor wasn't quite so optimistic. 'Once he's
after you, that one, he becomes a bloodhound. If I didn't
know better, I'd say he had somehow attached himself to our
hull and Lady Peggy had made them all invisible.'
'You're not serious?' Sitting next to him, Amy stirred her
kashions. She would have been glad to have a bit more variety
in her diet, wholesome as the food was.
They were feathering down against the huge, glowing
world of Pangloss. They would not actually land but had
arranged to meet the Gargantua here. As they swung round
into Pangloss's night side they spotted the mighty liner lying
along the line of the planet's twin rings, hardly visible at first
until their own reflected light suddenly struck her and made
her blaze like a star, all silver and rubies in the depths of
night
'Wow,' said Amy. 'Whenever I start to get blase, something
like that happens. Is she the Gargantua? Gosh, she's the size
of Earth!'
The Doctor smiled. 'Aren't you glad you didn't miss the
chance to go aboard her? Even if it's only for a few days.
I'm surprised she's here ahead of us. She wasn't supposed
to arrive until tomorrow, I thought I must have got the
schedules wrong.'
'It'll be good to take a shower,' Amy said, 'without
worrying about seventy miners queuing to use it after you.
Did you say they have showers en suite?'
'I think the A-class cabins have two,' he told her. But
that's only for the family apartments. Mr and Mrs Banning-
Cannon and their daughter are in one of those.'
'On a different deck to ours I hope.' She smiled.
'At least one removed. Probably twenty or so. I think it
says somewhere on our tickets.' He consulted his pocket-V,
then put it away, grinning. 'They're on Deck Four and we're
on Deck Hundred and Two!'
'Result!'
'Yes, that's six decks away from the B-Cs.'
'Six?' She shook her head. 'You're a whizz at maths, Doctor,
but even I know that four from a hundred and two makes a
ninety-eight''
'Think about it,' he said. T h e ship's a huge tube. She has a
hundred and ten decks.'
'Oh!' she felt like an idiot 'So the poshest deck is next to
the lowest economy?'
'Not exactly.' He seemed puzzled. Something about
the massive planet had intrigued him. Then he turned his
attention back, watching as their tender swept gracefully
around the golden ship while she drifted into dock.
Her wonderful nouveau baroque stylings made Amy gasp
in delight.
'They're the G-class. The most up-to-date ships in the
galaxy. Safe, luxurious even on the cheapest decks. Nothing
spared. Planets bought and sold to pay for them,' the Doctor
told her. 'There are five of them in all. Commissioned by
Meng and Ecker. Built by Mhuta and Shang. Fitted by Jon-
Jon Coolart & Co. And we get to travel free.'
'Free? How come?'
'M&S - Mhuta and Shang - are one of our sponsors.
There's a full-size Tournament court on board. You name it.
Nutcracking. Arrers. Jesting.'
'Jesting? What? Joke-telling competitions?'
'Um. Maybe I mean Jousting? Quintain, where you have to
charge at a straw man with your lance and try to make sure
he doesn't swing round with that long arm of his and knock
you off your saddle. That's harder than it looks. Everyone's a
bit rusty at the mounted events because there was no chance
to practise until now.'
'They have horses here?'
'Of course not! We use centaurs.'
'I can see why Mrs Banning-Cannon was fed up, if this is
what she's used to.' Amy gazed wide-eyed at the Gargantua.
'She's as big as - I don't know - the Moon?'
'Roughly the size of four moons. In volume. Shell last
for ever.' He shared Amy's pleasure in the glowing golds
of the Gargantua' s exoskeleton, the brass and platinum
pipes curving and curling to form a tight bailiwick between
hulls and the infinite galaxy-splashed blackness of eternity.
Nothing in the known universe could kill her. 'Even if she's
badly mauled by something or drawn into a star, shell live.
She's been through five suns and still come out in one piece
with all functions unharmed. Five suns, two of them ten sols
strong! She can survive anything!'
And black holes?' asked Amy. 'What about those?'
The Doctor made a face. 'Maybe even one black hole. But
I think it would be risky to bet on two.' He was peering past
the ship at the planet hanging in space behind it A huge,
dark disc. And he frowned. That's funny. If I didn't know
better I'd say that Pangloss was deserted.'
'How can you tell?'
'Light. No reflected light, even.'
'And that means...?'
'Could be anything. Maybe nothing. I'll c
heck the gazetteer
on my V. Hmm. Nothing. Tourist world specialising in
architecture from the Third Islamic Empire. Soft stone
sculptures. Nothing much a gang of asset-strippers would
need.' He tapped his head. 'Very strange.'
He pointed as a tender emerged from the gates, tiny beside
the massive ship. 'Here comes the Transfer Officer. Well ask
him.'
As the TO came aboard the Doctor introduced himself,
wanting to know what had happened.
'Difficult to say, Doctor. We arrived on schedule to find the
entire planet deserted. Actually a desert! Nothing growing.
No sign of a battle of any kind. No messages we could capture.
We had agents down there. Vantul, Malli, Poshnam. All good
friends. Gone. Together with the rest of the population. Dust.
That's all that's down there now.'
'Really? Nothing living?'
'It's as if she's been sucked dry of every bit of energy. I
called it all in, of course. We haven't been here more than
half a day. There should be a path but we haven't traced it
through if there is one. I wouldn't be surprised if something
or someone has made a corridor for itself, eating up planets
as it goes. Maybe dark flow grazing? But I've never heard of
anything like it this close to the galactic Hub. We only had a
handful of passengers due to be getting off here. They're in
very poor shape, I fear. In shock. A lot of questions we can't
answer. We have plenty of empty berths, of course, because
there were over a hundred bookings to the Tournament in
Miggea, and your berths haven't been resold. We can only
hope whatever it was isn't going anywhere else on our
course.'
Gravely the Doctor took all this in. He was very thoughtful
when he talked to some of the other passengers. The Gargantua
was continuing on course, making her way to Miggea. She
would then take on new passengers and return, keeping the
same course which had brought her here, though she would
bypass Pangloss. The IPC was sending a team to investigate.
With luck, they would discover what had happened. It
usually turned out to be a disease or a big comet, a natural
phenomenon. Sometimes, however, they had no way of
finding out the cause of something like this. Space was full of
these mysteries. Many would probably remain unsolved.
Amy voiced what he was probably thinking. 'Anything to
do with Frank/Freddie Force and Co?'
'Could be. But did he come out this way? I don't know.
But this looks like one of his attacks. The whole thing stinks
of a matter clash.'
'Well, he was going in the opposite direction to us, wasn't
he? That means he's probably already failed to find the hat
- or whatever was hidden in the hat. He'll have given up,
surely?'
'That makes sense,' said the Doctor.
But his frown did not lift. He remained in this mood for
some time. Only when they were enjoying a tasty dinner
in the elegant restaurant with its murals depicting all the
peoples of the galaxy did he manage to cheer up. The few
former inhabitants of Pangloss were keeping to themselves
and had no wish to discuss what had happened. Some of
them had elected to wait in a capsule until the IPC arrived.
By the time the Gargantua was on her way to Miggea, all talk
was of the Tournaments and how the teams would do.
Amy certainly hoped that what had happened to Pangloss
was a fluke. She wasn't sure she could take another pirate
attack. She supposed the decision of the Gargantua' s officers
to make light of what had happened was the right one.
No point, as they used to say, alarming the shadies and
frightening the phonies.
Chapter 16
Dark Tidings: The Tsunami of Time
THE WHOOPS OF JOY with which the Gentlemen greeted their first
sight of the Tournament Court reflected the general mood
of everyone who had suffered the more spartan amenities of
the various ships used to get them back on course.
The court was the latest in artificial environments, with
grass indistinguishable from the best natural turf, a beautiful
quintain run which could easily be turned into a jousting alley,
a full-length arrers pitch, broadswording mats, quarterstaff
grounds, nutcracker enclosures and all the other facilities
required to put on an entire set of practice rallies, with the
Tourists there to play against while each team got the other's
measure. Wearing practice 'pads', a full suit of which could be
slipped over one's ordinary clothes, they could play all day.
The Doctor was a bit of a dark horse and was being kept
back as much as possible so that rival players would not
be able to judge all his skills. He spent more time on the
nutcracker enclosure than anywhere else. He knew he might
be weak in that area. Almost as soon as they had boarded, he
was down in the 'pegs', carefully swinging his sledgehammer
to hit practice nuts designed to register the most feather-light
strikes. Although the Arrer - the beautiful silver Arrow of
Artemis - was awarded principally for the final whackit
match, all scores in the games played were taken into
consideration and there were too few really good nutcracker
players for any team to ignore this aspect of the 'Renaissance
Rally', as the V-commentators liked to call it. In another part
of the court, Judoon quarterstaff aces were having at it with
loud snorts of triumph or grunts of effort, while centaurs
galloped up and down the quintain course, narrowly missed
by the swinging arms of the target or 'man'.
Amy watched from the bleachers with an especially
critical eye for the archers. She had tried a bit of archery as
well as hockey at school and felt that the Gentlemen, though
strong on bats, were still a little short of really good bows.
Bingo, of course, was an astonishing shot, but after that the
Doctor and Hari ran him only a fairly close second. She had
known nothing of the games involved in a Renaissance Rally
before the Doctor began his crash course, but now she had
all the expertise of a valuable punter, a punter, in fact, of
the best kind, who believed in their own ability to outplay
every professional and make far better decisions than the
interstellar referees brought in to judge the matches.
She was filled with the excitement building now all over
the ship. While audiences were discouraged from attending
the early practice games, they were banned altogether from
the later ones for fear they might gain advantages for use
when wagering. Amy, however, was understood to be the
Doctor's nutcracker trainer and had been issued with an
official Terraphile Re-Enactment Society pass to all practice
events. It was clear to her that the teams were well-matched
and that there was little between them. It was going to be
tough to win that all-important Silver Arrow. Why was it so
all-important? The Doctor himself still did not seem to know br />
why he needed it.
Meanwhile, during their time off, Hari Agincourt,
reassured by Bingo that their home planet was in the bag
and an earldom on the horizon, continued to woo Flapper
Banning-Cannon, who was relieved that at last there were
no more spaceships for him to admire and identify. She was
glad, of course, that he had hobbies. A man with hobbies
could be trusted and you always had an idea what to buy
him for his birthday or a Mass-X holiday. While she thought
she could never get thoroughly involved in ship-spotting,
she felt that life on Notts (or whatever Bingo chose to call
it) would probably keep him busy enough, and she rather
liked the idea of learning some of those games. She was not
a great lover of cities. Hari shared her taste for the rural life,
so that wasn't a problem. Now all she had to do was get him
to pop the question and hope that Pop continued to smile as
benignly on their potential union as he seemed to be doing
at present.
To his relief, Bingo Lockesley was beginning to find
Amy's company relaxing. Not that she wasn't already the
easiest girl in the world to get on with. The tension had all
been his. He hadn't known how she felt about him. At least
he could now breathe without his chest constricting. He no
longer felt his body tie itself into small, tight knots of the kind
that would baffle the most dedicated boy scout, whenever
Amy hove into view. Like Hari, he looked on the prospect
of the future with this angel and it was good. Jolly good, in
fact. Of course, he hadn't asked her and she hadn't shown a
great deal of interest in settling down to a long and restful
life at Lockesley Hall, but he thought there was a more than
fifty-fifty chance of her helping him pick suitable dates and
banging the posts, as the quaint old expression had it when
it came to traditional marriages, preparations for.
Life had become pretty idyllic now they were settled
aboard the mighty Gargantua, a ship designed to instil feelings
of tranquillity and wellbeing in its pampered passengers
and almost guaranteed to turn the least likely of shipboard
romances into something permanent and beautiful (or so it
said in the brochure). Hari told Bingo that one of the regular
travellers on the monster ship had told him that there was
some sort of relaxing scent the owners put through the air