less benign force was at work. The old protections of checks
and balances had gone wrong. Those who dwelt around the
Galactic Rim became aware of this danger first. Pirate though
he was, he did all he could to warn those who would listen:
the fundamental cycle of birth, death and rebirth was being
threatened by this implosion's increasing rapidity. Everything
was happening far too quickly. According to those few wise
creatures who could sense the greater multiverse beyond our
galaxy, beyond our universe, we were facing nothing less
than the corruption and utter destruction of everything.
Cornelius knows that whatever it is which lies at the centre
of the universe, what we call a super-black hole, something
unimaginably dense and tinier than an atom, has become
erratic: the very thing which provided balance to the universe
was now unbalancing it. Captain Cornelius sought the
advice of every intellectual he encountered on his voyages,
frequently making piratical raids on alien fleets crossing
our Milky Way, not because he was greedy for wealth but
because he was desperate for information. Few were able to
offer him a sufficiently satisfactory explanation, even when
they themselves observed the phenomenon.
All Captain Cornelius knows concerns a legend - little
more than a rumour - about a stolen artefact taken from
what some identify as the Realm of Law. They insist it be
returned to the heart of the multiverse. If that is not done
then all living matter, all living things, the very stuff of life,
will be destroyed as punishment for that theft. There will be
no regeneration. There will be no multiverse.
The artefact takes many forms in our side of the universe,
identified as the Realm of Chaos. Some call it simply the
Regulator or, colloquially, the Roogalator. Others of a more
romantic disposition call it the Newtonium Staff or the
Cosmic Balance; the Balance said to sustain the equilibrium
of the universe.
Cornelius has heard that when the universe we know
vanishes at last it will be into Limbo, where it will not
regenerate. There will only be death, and those of us who
remain conscious will remain conscious at that frozen
moment of death, knowing our fate but never able to change
it. Time, of which space is a relative dimension, disintegrates
and intelligent order is lost.
Captain Cornelius stands on his bridge, his home galaxy
behind him, its light filling his sails with the solar wind, and
he stares into the deep, deep darkness ahead of him: the silent
and near-infinite reaches of intergalactic space, which reflect
the Dutchman's own desolate, inconsolable heart.
Other legends say that it is Cornelius himself who stole
the artefact and is doomed to know the consequences of
his action but never correct it. He knows guilt without end,
torment for ever.
A touch of the wheel, an order to his sailors, and the Paine
banks slightly against the infinite silence, driven by light,
into that barely endurable darkness. The heavy tides are
running. Time and space become erratic, insane. Dark tides
running, destroying everything we ever valued. A flume of
thousands of slain suns washes around his hull. Black suns
collapse and vanish. He must not risk his ship. He must find
some other way of reaching the centre. Dark tides are eating
the multiverse.
In spite of all threats and dangers, Ironface the Dutchman
is heading for the Hub.
Chapter 9
Dancing with the Galaxies
THERE IS LITTLE MORE alarming, on an ordinary day-to-day level,
than living and working aboard an old nuke-burning,
cadmium-dampened space-bucket in which our kind first
sought to conquer the stars. They make noises whose source
is untraceable. You see odd things. They seem to have a
will, even an imagination, of their own. Known as nukers,
the tramps are largely non-existent these days, but there
was a time when the galaxy was full of them, pounding
and battering new routes between the suns and mapping
not only the systems they found but describing previously
inconceivable horrors. On board as well as outside...
Amy had experienced only the sophisticated technologies
which allowed the TARDIS to manipulate her way through
time and her many dimensions which is somewhat naively
called 'space'. She had known not only wonder but also a
certain security being, as she was, the guest of a Time Lord.
Now, as she lay in a narrow bunk, having awakened in
something resembling a glass coffin, she wondered if she
shouldn't regret her decision to accompany the Doctor on
this adventure.
The ship they had picked up from Peers™ was a C-class
nuker, crewed by as slovenly a bunch of spacerats as ever
sailed between the stars, travelling from the water world
of Palahendra to Desiree, the 'rendezvous' world, where
merchants came to trade and have their ships repaired. The
cargo would probably be sold to representatives from the
mining planets of Outer Lavum Hestes where water was
quite literally worth its weight in platinum. In spite of this,
most captains would not waste their fuel or their time on
the water-trade, chiefly because such ships were always in
danger of attack by pirates who merely wished to restock
their own supplies and who could not care less whether the
old crates made it back to a safe berth. Many of the crew
quite happily moved between work on water-barges and
pirate ships, since pay and conditions were about the same.
But this consideration had not been regarded as a
drawback to the Gentlemen. Their match in Miggea was
more important than life itself, and Mr and Mrs Banning-
Cannon, whose considerable luggage was stowed wherever
it was relatively safe against mould, rust, buckling plates and
popping rivets, had known nothing about the existence of
such ships, until the moment they stepped aboard and asked
where their suite might be. The laughter greeting this request
was tribute to the many times the story would be told over
and over again in the disgusting dives and low 'pessy' joints
scattered across those parts of the galaxy still permitting the
passage of such vessels as the Kl-32. The best this ship could
offer by way of luxuries were a working fire extinguisher and
a couple of toilets which did not threaten to suck you out into
space whenever you pressed the Flush button.
Mrs B-C's first action had been to threaten the captain
and then, when this did not work, to complain to the Doctor,
accusing him of being in league with the 'scum' to fleece
them of their hard-won billions. The Doctor had gravely
promised to register their complaint as soon as they reached
'civilisation'. Then he had suggested they freeze themselves
for the duration, which they had declined to do because they
feared they would be robbed in their sl
eep.
Their daughter Jane had been perfectly sanguine about
this method of travel and had used the confined quarters to
get to know Hari better. Hari had warmed a little but still
believed that she was playing fast and loose with his and
Bingo's emotions, though he no longer saw Lord Sherwood
as his enemy, merely as a fellow dupe of a heartless siren of
the spaceways.
With his friend bonding thus, Bingo at least attempted to
set matters straight but was feeling so guilty about his part in
making them lose their flight on the Gargantua that it seemed
obvious to Hari that he was lying, though perhaps for noble
reasons.
'Look here, old bean, I never intended to flirt with Flapper,'
Bingo had begun after their fourth day on board, 'she merely
suggested that I give her a ride on one of our punts. Her
object, if you must know—'
His boyhood chum had responded frostily. 'Oh, I'm well
aware of her object, old man. I assure you I have no intention
of stepping between you. Let nobody, I hope, call me a duck
in the mango. Or do I mean "mangey"?'
'Hari! You must believe there is nothing between myself
and Miss Banning-Cannon. My heart, I assure you, belongs
to quite another person, quite as beautiful - in fact even more
beautiful - um, no, that sounds wrong - but anyway, another
equally stunning girl.
At which Hari had raised a sad, silencing hand. He
suggested they drop the subject, go into the larboard
companion way and try those new shots he had been talking
about long before the Banning-Cannon party had turned up
on their home planet.
In the moaning semi-darkness of the companionway,
the two friends shot and caught 'safety arrows' almost
automatically, neither able to continue the kind of
casual conversation which was normal to them in these
circumstances. Crew members would pause and watch them
for a moment or two, sometimes commenting on their game
before continuing about their duties. The steady 'twang' and
slap of an arrow shot and an arrow whacked was soothing
as the horrible old tub ploughed through the void at speeds
once considered impossible, catching the currents of time
itself and using them as all such ships did, to cross the great
distances from one star system to another.
Wandering past the patched conduits and re-riveted plates
of the bulky tanker, Amy found it hard to get used to the idea
that this ship operated on technology that had once been
innovative and magical but was now as outmoded as the first
aeroplanes seemed to her. She wondered what a person from
her own time would have thought of the machinery. Perhaps
they would have dismissed it as magic, some kind of jiggery-
pokery, an illusion. In spite of her own direct experience, in
spite of having already seen many strange and wonderful
things, she still had the occasional feeling of being in some
sort of Alice in Wonderland dream. She smiled to herself.
If there was a Queen of Hearts on board then she could be
heard at this moment up in the control room.
'I demand to see the captain! Don't be insolent to me, young
man. I could have you and your entire operation crushed into
nothing!' Mrs Banning-Cannon had not stopped complaining
since they had seen the ship drifting in shallow space and
waiting for their tug. The captain, a ruggedly handsome
young centaur called N'hn, at least sixteen hands high at his
withers, had greeted them with a yellow bag of sweets in
his big hand, his safety harness slung casually around his
waist and his working overalls undone to the chest. He had
been amused to see the passengers trooping aboard his ship
and made a mock bow to Mrs B-C, offering one of his com
sweets. 'Weren't we at school together?'
Since then Amy had watched the centaur enjoying himself
at Mrs Banning-Cannon's expense. What Amy realised and
Mrs B-C did not was that Captain N'hn had nothing to lose.
The centaur knew how to make his ship work and how to
find a crew for her. He had fought off many pirate attacks.
Most importantly, nobody else wanted his job. He drew some
satisfaction from that. It gave him a power the terraform
heiress could neither imagine nor ever desire.
Amy sneaked past them and carried on to one of the ship's
observation ports. Space was dark and silent; the nearest
spread of stars was a blur of silver in the faraway arm of a
galactic spiral. She had no idea where they were and didn't
much care. Some of the other passengers were nervous. One
or two were positively frightened, but Amy, who in the
TARDIS had never been able to look through an observation
port of this kind and see the reality of size and distance, was
far too fascinated to know even a shred of fear. After all, she
knew what it was to hang in space with only the Doctor's
hand keeping her from drifting off into the intergalactic
void.
But now, watching, she observed something she had never
expected to see. A swirl of darkness, like a smoke cloud
millions of miles across, was obscuring her view of those
distant suns, as if a great seven-fingered hand had reached
up, then turned and dissolved into streamers of thick, dark
gas. Those faraway stars which lay within the mass's coiling
compass were behaving like nothing she had ever seen.
Flickering, revolving, merging, separating, they performed
what looked to her like a kind of vast cosmic dance. The dark
drawing them apart, a magnificent formal parade of countless
suns moving to some unheard melody. Was this a common
phenomenon, something nobody had bothered to tell her
about because they were all so familiar with it?
Amy craned to see more. She had been told to look out
for the so-called Great Refiguration or the Conjunction of the
Million Spheres, when far more than that number of stars
and their satellite planets joined to perform a stately, galaxy-
wide pavane, behaving like sentient beings as they moved
in a series of complex diagrams heralding, it was said, the
rebirth of a universe. Everything in existence vectored to
that moment when the composition of Creation changed, so
some mysterious alien had once told her. She had no idea
what he meant. She enjoyed her own thrilling discovery of
new colours, the extraordinary distances covered by patterns
made by the sinuous black smoke.
She felt the tanker quiver and become still, quiver again,
grow still again. Was it, too, yearning to join the mighty
formation as it changed then changed once more as if shaken
in some titanic kaleidoscope?
Surely she was not the only witness? She turned and ran
back down a narrow corridor festooned with pipes and
wires which had come loose from their moorings. The ship
continued its subtle, almost sensual shuddering, and if any
o
f the regular crew were aware of it they gave no sign. Not
until the corridor opened up into a wider gangway did she
know that she was not the only observer. The captain, N'hn,
his huge, healthy equine body as full of delicate tensions as
his ship, stood beside the Doctor, staring through a long slot,
watching the streaming galactic smoke and the shimmering,
pirouetting stars.
'What is it?' she asked. 'Is it normal?'
'It depends what you mean by normal,' murmured the big
centaur.
The Doctor was rubbing his face, his brows drawn in an
attempt to remember something. 'I've never seen it this close
inside the Rim. Why would it be speeding up now? This isn't
the moment. It's not time to change.'
How old he looks now, Amy thought, and felt guilty.
'We've become used to it,' the Doctor went on. 'The
phenomenon which was most people's only proof of the
existence of a multiverse? Dark force! The dark tides! They
told of worlds beyond the arras of "space". That's what
we're seeing, much closer inside the Rim than anyone's ever
reported. Usually you need an OPR telescope to watch this.'
'Doctor! What is it?'
He turned at the sound of her voice. He still looked vague,
thoughtful. 'Oh, hello, Amy. Yes. You're watching what's
sometimes called the Dance of the Planets, but this is a Dark
Forces manifestation.'
'Dark Forces? You're not talking about Lucifer and the
armies of Hell are you?'
He laughed. 'I hope not. This is something that was
discovered in your own time - roughly - and was used to
prove the existence of a largely invisible multiverse. They
called those streamers "dark flow". Now they're known
as dark tides. They're moved by gravity, like ocean tides.
They seemed to come from nowhere and move at millions
of miles an hour, dragging whole galaxies with them. We
are all so delicately, so vulnerably connected.' He shivered. A
momentary chill.
Amy shook her head. 'I've no idea what you're on about.
As usual.'
The Doctor pulled a face. But it sagged into a lazy smile.
'Never mind. Think of it as a gravitational pull, only from
outside your galaxy. So strong that it's tugging galaxies
away while our black holes pull in the other direction. People
started to call them "the black winds", which is a bit poetic
but you get the idea.'