the Doctor. 'I doubt if it would be possible for people like
us to do this under any other circumstances. The heart of it
down there is the black hole which represents the centre of
our multiverse and all black holes and universes everywhere
to quasi-infinity, although there is, paradoxically, no centre
to the multiverse and yet countless centres. But that's what
began to go wrong millennia ago...'
'When t'Roogalator were pinched,' muttered Captain
Abberley. 'Some damned fool got in there - don't ask how
- and stole that beam from the fulcrum which regulates the
Great Balance. I'll thank thee not to ask me, because I can't
explain it. But that's t'form it takes for us.'
'Because this isn't just physics we're talking about.'
The Doctor's eyes gleamed with fascinated curiosity. 'It's
metaphysics. It's the only way we can understand reality.
And both are represented by mythology, by legends, by
the shamanistic power of humanity to tell a story that is
an absolute lie beneath which hides an absolute truth. Life
and Death, Law and Chaos, Matter and Antimatter. What
a species! A poem creates a formula. A formula becomes
material. And so it goes on. And now one of us must do his
duty.'
'And shoot that arrow into the very heart of the black hole,'
said Captain Abberley. 'Probably up to me, eh?'
'I don't think so, captain,' said the Doctor. 'I'm the one
who got us into this. I'm the one who has to shoot it.'
'Correct me if I'm wrong,' said Captain Abberley. 'I've seen
what happens to anyone who goes into the Schwarzschild
Radius. Wouldn't it be instant death, lad, to shoot that arrow
down there?'
'Not necessarily,' said the Doctor. He bent to pick up a
long coil of rope which Captain Abberley had brought on
deck. He tied one end of the rope to a capstan. 'See, if we can
shoot the arrow accurately enough and ensure a minimum
reaction, we just might be able to haul me back up.'
'Doctor! You can't!' Amy was genuinely scared. 'I don't
care what happens. You just can't risk it! I'm a pretty good
shot. Why don't I —'
'No,' Bingo shook his head. 'You couldn't do it, if you'll
forgive me saying so, Amy. And you're just not that good an
archer, Doctor. I've watched you. Admittedly you're a very
solid shot, but not a great one. And you won't know your
bearings once you're over the side. I'm sorry.'
'I've got a handy recognition chart in my wheelhouse.'
Captain Abberley frowned. 'But given as—'
'Well, it's my idea and I'm going to be the one who does
it.' The Doctor took off his coat. He was shaking a little. He
handed the bow and the arrow to Captain Abberley. 'Hang
on to these for a minute. I'll need to check that chart just to be
certain. Did you say I'd find them in the wheelhouse?' At the
captain's nod he ran up the short companionway.
A sudden menacing rumbling erupted from the region of
the black hole. The swirling stars shivered briefly. Thin black
threads were tightening around the multiverse.
The Doctor seemed very tired as he disappeared up the
steps.
'Bingo! ' Amy's voice was a scream of anguish.
The Doctor came barrelling out of the wheelhouse. He saw
exactly what had happened. His voice joined hers. 'No!'
Bingo was climbing slowly and deliberately down the
rope, the bow of Diana slung over one shoulder and the
Arrow of Artemis clutched firmly between his teeth. He had
a fixed, deliberate look in his eyes and only looked up once
when Amy cried 'Bingo! No! Come back!'
He made a muffled response which might have been
'Sorry, old thing,' and then coiled the rope more firmly
around his left leg. He continued to inch down, his image
wavering and growing suddenly larger, then smaller, while
Amy continued to call to him and the Doctor shouted at him
not to be such an idiot.
Only he wasn't an idiot, as they all knew. They watched
him as he seemed to lose his hold on the rope for a moment,
the arrow dropping from his teeth only to be caught by an
to keep moving bit by bit into position.
With Amy and the others still calling out to him, he seemed
to fumble with the bow as he hung there in his impossible
position, almost lose it, fumble with the arrow, trying to slot
it to the bowstring, look up once more, his eyes saying so
much more than he had ever been able to say in words.
Amy bent and grabbed hold of the rope, hauling on it.
'Bingo! Don't!' Captain Abberley stepped forward to help
her.
Down below them, Bingo looked up again shaking his
head. He was having trouble keeping the rope twisted around
him as he struggled to fit the arrow to the strung bow.
The Doctor grabbed at the rope to help Amy and Captain
Abberley, then shook his head, dropping his hands and
leaning over the rail to watch Bingo who was now drawing
the bowstring to his cheek, his eyes narrowed, fixed on the
target, the very centre of the black hole.
Captain Abberley had given up. There seemed to be tears
in the old space-dog's eyes. He turned his head away.
'No. You can't let him!' Amy still held the rope trying to
pull Bingo back in, but the Doctor moved suddenly, grabbing
it from her hands and then dropping it to the deck.
'Too dangerous now,' he said. 'We'd kill him and everyone
else.' And he sat down suddenly with his head in his hands.
'What an idiot!' He was berating himself.
'Look! Look, Doctor!' Amy clutched the rail, her other
hand pointing.
Wearily he hauled himself upright and joined Amy and
Abberley at the side. By some trick of the dragging chasm, they
could all see Bingo, his feet spread wide in the nothingness
of all-space, the bowstring pulled back with the gleaming
newtonium Arrow of Artemis long and silver and bright,
ready to shoot, the ebony and ivory bow curving deeper as
he took careful aim along the shaft.
Then, framed by a dark aura, Robin Lockesley, Earl of
Sherwood, let fly.
The arrow left the bow. It flew straight for the middle of
the black hole. As it flew it grew longer and longer still until
it was no more than a slender rod of silvery light, growing
thinner and longer until it touched, then pierced the exact
centre of the black sphere.
Without thinking, Amy made a dash for the rail, grasped
the rope again with every muscle straining. It slackened...
Weeping, she pulled at the rope, hauling it in, but all was
gone, gone into what the Mercurian poet Stark called the
lake-of-the-gone-forever. Arrow, bow and archer. Alive for
eternity. Dead for eternity. Conscious for eternity. All gone.
The little steamboat bucked and swayed. The Doctor's
attention shifted and he ran back to the wheelhouse, this time
to help Captain Abberley keep the boat in order. The rope
&nbs
p; itself writhed and twisted like a dying snake until, running
back down to shove Amy into the comparative safety of the
wheelhouse, the Doctor pulled at its tightening knots. The
rope now threatened to drag them into the chasm after Bingo
and the Arrow of Law.
'That should have been my job.' The Doctor produced a
knife and cut the last knot. Suddenly the ship righted herself,
already chugging away from the mooring. The Doctor joined
them in the wheelhouse.
'Probably should have been your job, Time Lord,' said
Captain Abberley. 'But yon youngster were right. He was the
only really decent shot amongst tha. Besides, there's tons of
Bingos in the multiverse. And only one Doctor.'
Chapter 28
The Multiverse Restored
TRAILING CLOUDS OF BRILLIANTLY coloured steam, her engines coughing
and screeching, the paddle-wheeler thundered out of the
pastures and horizons of the Second Aether into the glaring
crimson peace of Ketchup Cove. Captain Abberley gave a
decent impression of Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen,
with his grubby white cap on the back of his head, an oily rag
in his hand and a huge grin on his lips.
Amy's eyes told Flapper what had happened to Bingo.
'I'm so sorry,' said Amy. 'Bingo was going to make Hari a
lord or something, and you were going to have some land
and be rich...' But, before Flapper could tell her that their
fortunes were nothing to the loss of old Bingo, Amy felt her
eyes welling with tears. Then Flapper cried with her.
In fact, there were many emotions expressed that night
when the Doctor came back into the pavilion to attend a
wake for Bingo. The Doctor proudly told them that dear old
Robin 'Bingo' Lockesley had saved Creation, good and bad,
sweet and sour, ugly and beautiful, the whole of it from the
centre to the Rim, top to bottom, side to side. In short, the
quasi-infinite was no longer under threat of an early death
and/or transfiguration.
'Well, good for Bingo,' said many of his friends, sipping
thoughtful shants. As well as feeling sorry for their departed
captain, they were now worrying how they were going to get
off the Ghost Worlds and back to their various homes. They
had all assumed that the Gargantua' s tenders would simply
return them to the mother ship, if necessary with the Doctor's
help. It wasn't a particularly cheerful prospect, dying of old
age on a primitive planet with only the most basic health and
entertainment programmes.
Amy had guessed it first. They were now stranded in
Miggea, experiencing the system's constant shifting through
hundreds and thousands, possibly millions, of alien universes
until such time as the orbit returned them to their starting
point, which could well be after many of them were dead,
there being no sophisticated cryogenics here. The locals,
accustomed to isolation, were prepared for the experience
and, apart from the nausea accompanying a shift, had few
changes to worry about. This added to the teams' overall
gloom and rather spoiled the pleasure of a game well played
and won, saving the multiverse from oblivion.
'I mean, it was no fun making that first transition.' Uff
Nuf O'Kay sipped a moody pint. 'I have a weak stomach as
it is. The thought of a thousand more is pretty unbearable.'
He watched without regret as a feline of some sort appeared
through one wall and sauntered past him into another. 'It's
not every day I envy a cat's abilities.'
Amy was still mourning Bingo and wondering if she were
not somehow to blame for his death, even though the Doctor
continued to reassure her that Bingo's act of self-sacrifice had
saved the multiverse. He had done the only sane thing, if
multiverse-saving was worth it.
Flapper felt guilty worrying about Hari's status while still
knowing a deep sadness at the loss of Bingo. Any agreement
Mr Banning-Cannon had made with Bingo was now
decidedly null and void. 'Although, of course, if it hadn't
been for Bingo there actually wouldn't be a future to worry
about.' But things still looked a bit on the bleak side. If they
were doomed to permanent exile on this provincial planet,
maybe all bets, so to speak, were off. They had better start
again, tilling the virgin earth of Flynn together. It took a lot
of energy, she reflected, to look on the bright side.
That night, the sky became layer upon layer of
complementary realities, one fitting into the other, one shade
colouring the next, one blazing aura into another and all
giving off a faint, distant noise, for sound actually travelled
through the space between the worlds of the Second Aether
while Miggea's planets had been soundless before the
terraforming.
Spiralling out in every possible direction and dimension,
the tapestry of worlds could scarcely be absorbed by the
human senses. Amy thought that the peace she discovered
in the presence of so many worlds was the most profound
she had ever experienced, precisely because those other
worlds were packed with life and people pretty much the
same as those she already knew. All life throughout the
millions of universes supported people and places much
the same as her own, given a minor difference or two. That
knowledge brought with it a sense of continuity. It meant that
somewhere out there, maybe, a good few versions of reality
away, all the other Bingos who had not taken part in this
singular adventure were enjoying a cup of tea after a long
day's innings, swapping bits of news with some lady friend
called 'old thing' and who called him 'dumb twerp' and with
whom he had an understanding.
Here on Flynn, where the most important game in the
history of existence had been played, both residents and
newcomers planned to club up and build some sort of
monument to Bingo. They would all remember when, looking
up into the sky where a black sun burned, they saw a long
slender silver lance slide into the place where the Balance
swayed, between Law and Chaos, Love and Hate and all
the other opposing forces that determined the existence of
Creation.
And, back in place at last, that good old Roogalator, the
regulator of the great engine of space and time and of all
the various abstracts which, thanks to our love of myth, so
quickly become actualities, resumed its steady movement.
The black tides no longer raced through the universe.
Shadowy harlequins and pierrots no longer danced upon the
ruins of countless realities. The multiverse could return to its
stately natural cycle.
That night, while the sky was filled with alien stars, the Bubbly
Boys, those spoiled and oily boys, jolly jacks all three of them,
bounced in to greet their old skipper Captain Brian Abberley
with whistles and song to show off who they still had trapped
in a fat pinky-grey bubble: none other than General Frank/
Freddie Force and his scowling Antimatter Men, who had
turned against their leaders for mistakes of judgement and
blamed this last ignominy on them as well. They raged and
quarrelled within the bubble, like varicoloured hamsters.
Time bends again, decided the Doctor. They shared invisible
Peggy's disgust for his failures and were glad General Force
had his reward, even if they had to suffer it with him. A sense
of justice now infects the multiverse. The Force twins and
their followers would soon begin the same arc across the
Schwarzschild Radius which Robin of Sherwood had made
when he restored the Roogalator, which could change its own
shape to preserve its existence, which maintained the order
of eternity, and which employed mortals in its and therefore
their own salvation. Now Force and Co were doomed to live
for ever in that moment between life and death.
The Doctor alone might have escaped Bingo's fate, but
he knew in his bones that the single shot down into that
constantly moving spiral would have been almost impossible
for anyone but Bingo to make. He had grown rather
philosophical over his half-shant of M&E Vortex Water and
decided he had better retire to bed. All that excitement could
put centuries on a fellow. He stood up and was about to say
'good night' when a fresh, piercing rumble filled the skies
and he joined the others running from the pub to see what
was happening.
A massive shadow blotted out the stars. A few spots of light
gleamed in that huge shape. Framed against the deep blue
disc of the setting sun it stood at anchor in the stratosphere,
menacing the world, no longer moving. Waiting.
Nothing happened. Another flush of bronze and silver
sparks erupted, faded, enough for them to think they might
have recognised the shape.
'Could it be what I think?' The Doctor's voice was low,
disbelieving.
Amy grasped his arm, as if afraid she would fall.
'It - it might be...' said Hari, equally unwilling to speak
his thoughts.
A cosmic pause.
'Well take a stroll to the landing field in the morning,' said
the Doctor. 'Mm?'
'Good idea,' said Amy.
Sure enough, when they got to the landing field next
morning, there she was, looking as if she had sailed down
from heaven, a faint mist rising from her decks and masts,