

FOUL BALL

HARRY CAVENDISH

Published by Harry Cavendish at Smashwords

Copyright 2011 Harry Cavendish

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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To

Charlotte and Alex

***

Chapter One

'Yes, pleased with this one,' He said slowly, looking about the room. 'Carbon life forms have rather proliferated.'

He reached down to a tile and plucked at it. Cormack could see he had found an ant there.

He held it carefully between His thumb and forefinger, examining it closely.

'Isn't always the case, you know. Some of them take on a life of their own and some of them don't.'

He twirled the ant a little, being careful not to crush it, and then let it run up His arm, caught it again, and set it down.

Then He turned to Cormack, and looked at him quizzically.

'Look here, young fellow,' He said. 'Do you mind if I ask you a question?'

'Please go ahead,' said Cormack. He was in his pyjamas, ready for bed.

'Didn't actually get much chance to look around. Materialized fairly close by and just popped in. But, I'm wondering - is this all a joke?'

'A joke? How do you mean?'

'That thing on the floor over there, for example.'

'You mean the television?'

'What is that?'

'It's a television.'

'You use it for what?'

'Entertainment.'

'The technology - laughable. I suppose it's an antique? I suppose you're a collector?'

'My dad brought it last year. It's top of the line.'

'I suppose you're a primitivist and like to paint? Commendable in a savage but really rather reprehensible when you consider how much the whole damn show has cost.'

He started pacing, hands in the pockets of His Oxford bags, the white beard barbaric and out of conformity with the neatness of His clothes - a maths don searching for the blackboard.

'Thing is, I usually intervene when a civilization is roughly three millennia beyond the Singularity. People get this dreadful temptation to start investigating FTL transportation and look for wormholes. They think they can manipulate the phase space. Can't be done of course. I don't allow it. Would have untold consequences and my insurance just won't cover the cost. So I intervene. Before the universe starts folding in on itself. Damned difficult to clean up when that happens.'

'I suppose it would be.'

'See,' said the Creator, staring at Cormack rather hard. 'I don't think that television, as you call it, really represents technology from beyond the Singularity.'

'Probably not,' said Cormack. 'My dad got it from Rumbelows.'

'So it has me a bit concerned. And there's another thing that's bothering me. I don't wish to appear vain or conceited or anything like that, but most people, most civilizations even, are usually very pleased to see me. I am often welcomed with intergalactic parades, vast crowds of humanity or their equivalent, in mass formation, fireworks, and such like. Stars have been deliberately supernova-ed at my appearance. Perhaps these things are appropriate for the arrival of the Creator, perhaps they are not, but they are, in my experience at least, tried. Did you even get the message?'

'What message?'

'I sent an intervention imminent radio-form in electromagnetic loops on seventeen different frequencies. Perhaps you didn't bother to read it?'

'I don't recall anything,' said Cormack, looking puzzled.

'You know, I'm struggling not to become too dramatic, but the arrival of the Creator of the Universe is usually quite a big thing. And here I am! The Creator of the Universe! This Universe! Right here! That's right, little man! Stand up straight!'

Cormack did as he was told and the Creator continued.

'My main mission is a small intervention re your wormhole experiments. Just to set you on the right track. Stop you imploding the Universe causing all that mess as explained previously. Maybe feed you a little more physics if you ask nicely. Don't expect any moral guidance though. Not that kind of a Creator. Fairly unremitting...'

Cormack was rubbing the floor with his foot in his discomfort. The Creator misinterpreted the shuffling.

'Now look here!' He thundered, really angry now. 'This is all very casual and I imagine you feel very clever treating me in this offhand way, but there is a reason for all the parades and supernovae and the general obsequiousness that other worlds and civilizations have seen fit to afford me....'

He puffed His chest out and opened His eyes wide so that the whites were shining. Then He screamed, 'They were bloody terrified of what I might do to them!'

'Well, you don't look too frightening,' said Cormack, finding his voice now, enraged by His insolence and anxious to assert McFadden householder rights. 'You know, it's somewhat hard to take all this in. I was just getting my cocoa and then you arrived. And at first I thought you were wearing some kind of fancy dress, but then you started talking in this rather lurid manner and I'm not really sure any more. Is this some kind of a joke?'

'Damned impertinence! Do you have any bloody idea? Look, I've had enough!' He said and lunged at Cormack, knocking his cocoa and spilling it onto him.

'You're obviously a blasted primitive so bring out the sacrificial virgins!' He cried and then, perhaps fortunately for Cormack, His mobile, or what Cormack thought looked like a mobile, began to vibrate.

The Creator looked at the device and then looked back at Cormack. There was an expression of shock and surprise on His face.

'Well, whip me with a ferret...' He groaned throatily and whistled a long slow whistle. 'Damn, damn and triple damn... I've only got the wrong bloody Universe, haven't I? This is trey, trey, beta, trey, seven, alpha, zip. Why didn't you tell me? I was supposed to intervene in trey, trey, beta, trey, seven, alpha, one. This one's no bloody good at all.'

He moved towards Cormack, resting a hand on his arm, and made to wipe the cocoa from him.

'You won't mention that I was here, will you? There's a good fellow. See, my research grant is dependant on getting these Universes to a certain stage of development before intervention. Can't really start all over again now, can I? Not after thirteen billion years. I'll just bugger off out of here and we won't talk about this again. Otherwise, I'll have to close it down, I'm afraid. The Universe. And you wouldn't want that, would you? You wouldn't want that at all...'

And He was gone, with a crash of pots and pans and knives and spoons, backwards through the kitchen door.

Cormack got his toast, went back to bed, and fell asleep.

***

Chapter Two

He awoke, not in his bedroom, but in a cell, twelve feet by twelve feet by twelve feet.

He spent a long while examining it.

The walls were of patterned bricks, the same tiling on each face, and there was no door, no windows, and precious little light. His nostrils were filled with a stench, foul and vaguely urinary, but with a putrid über-scent of rotting flesh.

He wondered where he was.

Then a voice began to speak, sombrous and stentorian.

'Awake now, are we?' it said. 'What are you in for, then?'

'Excuse me?' said Cormack, looking about him.

'What are you in for, then?' said the voice again, booming through the cell. 'We could be together quite a while. Like to know what I'm dealing with.'

'Who are you?' said Cormack. 'Who's talking to me?'

'I am the Prison Whale,' said the voice slowly and carefully, the words spaced out as though the Prison were talking to someone particularly stupid.

'The Prison Whale?' said Cormack.

'Indeed. I am the Prison Whale, and you are contained within my belly. I ask again, as is my right, what are you in for?'

Cormack didn't know exactly what he was in for so he stayed silent.

'So be it,' said the Prison, and the walls began to shake, and instead of their former perpendicular rigidity, assumed a convexity, as though the cube that made up the cell was being blown under pressure to form a sphere, and then a strange liquid started to ooze from between the cracks of what Cormack had, now he realized, rather naively assumed were bricks. On the closer examination he was now urgently making, they looked more fibrous, and the spaces in between like vents or channels, and, come to think of it, thought Cormack, the bricks were not as hard and unyielding as he had first thought. He would have hesitated to have described them as fleshy, but perhaps they were.

The pus dribbled into the centre of the floor and formed in pools around Cormack's feet.

'The consumption has begun,' announced the Prison Whale. 'I shall be ingesting you over four hundred Zargonic days. I believe you are from a planet called Earth in the Solar System, so that will be two hundred of your Earth days, and I shall try to keep you alive for the majority of that time. Consequently, I shall be digesting your appendages first. I believe your brain is in your head stalk. I will leave that for last.

'I'll be using a digestion fluid that has some very satisfactory suturing powers, so have no doubt that, although your flesh degrades at an alarmingly fast rate, you will be alive for a very long time indeed. I prefer to digest you alive because although it has been fifty years since I've eaten one of your kind, I do remember it well – mouth-watering when it was pumping juice, but it died rather quickly and then became disgustingly desiccated...

'I thank the Emperor of the Zargons for his marvellous gift of an Earthling, and I shall milk you more judiciously. You will oxidize quite nicely in my belly acid and leave a pleasantly tangy sensation that I think I will find most delectable. I will consume you with a small forest of Zargonic snuffle-leaves that I will digest in my third belly, and will presently allow a medium-sized Zargonic cow to enter my first belly, where you are situated, so please don't mind the cramped conditions and the rather overpowering stench. The cow will provide a pleasant counterpoint to some of your more revolting effusions, and I believe that eventually your suppurations, cow and human together, will complement each other scrumptiously. Now, again... I ask you, very politely - what are you in for?'

'Well, I...' said Cormack in some distress. 'I really don't...'

'Had it away with a young Zargonic female, did we? You dirty little man! Sorry about it now, are we? Consequences, my dear boy! We will learn about them together!'

Cormack could feel the heat on the soles of his feet.

'Or did you steal a Zargonic space-cruiser? One of those intergalactic pilots? Joy rider, eh? Bet you're sorry now. Not so joyful riding in my big, fat, acidic belly is it, joy rider? Wait until the Zargonic cow gets here!'

Then the Prison stopped talking and the cell went completely black. Cormack could see nothing, but felt himself squeezed as the slimy, fleshy walls contracted around him, and squashed against him, and rubbed him up and down.

He passed out briefly.

'Just wanted to show you that,' said the Prison when he came round. 'You'll be getting a lot of that in the coming months. I call it a "flatulation" – just my word for it – so you know what's coming. I'll be telling you, "Flatulation!" and then you'll know that's it, what's coming. Now get up!'

Cormack stood up.

'Right! Some more ground rules,' continued the Prison. 'Your evacuations of a solid or liquid nature - I am looking forward to 'em. Feel free! Bring 'em on! You think I won't like 'em? You're wrong! I welcome your excretions! Don't think that I don't!

'And sleeping... With the Zargonic cow in here, there won't be much of that, but I understand that you'll need some every now and then, so you'll do it upright in a corner, because the cow takes priority and she'll want to lie down. That's all for now. I'll check back with you later.'

The prison walls were restored to their former rigidity and the cell was silent again.

Cormack resumed his position, head in hands, on the floor and cried little salty tears that smoked as they fell.

Eventually he rose to his feet.

'There must be a way out of here,' he said to himself, staring at the walls, wondering at the dim light that penetrated from above.

'No there isn't,' said the Prison by way of reply. 'Only way out is when you're fully digested and then you'll leech into my intestines and I'll defecate what's left of you and the cow. Four hundred days from now. Looking forward to a good shit...'

Up above, Cormack saw a first deformation, a foot-shaped protrusion against the cell ceiling, and then another.

He sat watching for a few minutes more and could count five small bumps.

Soon one began to get bigger than the others and became pointed and less shallow. Then a great circle started to form in the ceiling above, and there was an almighty tearing sound, and the walls and floor rocked and bounced as if a great pressure had been released, and from the ceiling, through the hole that had now formed, rained gobbets of rank, red, half-digested meat and lumps of what must be faecal material, and then a huge, unnatural motion that forced its way through the hole and down and onto Cormack, flattening him.

The cow had arrived.

***

Chapter Three

'Hi!' said the cow, picking herself up from the floor.

'Hi!' said Cormack.

She looked slimy and red, as though she were wearing an afterbirth, and immediately began to lick herself all over to make herself more presentable.

When she was clean, she was mostly black with some white spots, and exactly the same as an Earth cow, resembling most closely a Fresian.

'So what are you in for?' said the cow eventually.

'Why is everybody asking me that?' said Cormack.

'Something to hide? Anyway,' said the cow, adjusting herself on the cell floor and finding her bearings well enough to stand up. 'Pleased to be meeting you.'

'I'm Cormack,' said Cormack.

'And I'm a Zargonic cow,' said the cow. 'I'm one of the Pantheistic Syllogists. That's why I'm here.'

'Pantheistic Syllogists?' said Cormack.

'Yes. Pantheistic Syllogists,' said the cow. 'Have you heard of us? In your little backwoods corner of the Universe? The Pantheistic Syllogists?'

She was fully recovered from her fall from the ceiling, and was strutting about now, cockily thought Cormack, making a small circle of the cell.

'Can't say that I have...'

'Only the most desperate and committed band of desperados and freethinkers in the entire known Universe. That's why they're trying to stamp us out, innit?'

'It is?'

'Yeah – me and my friends - the other cows.'

'You're all cows?'

'Not all cows. But my chapter is cows.'

'And they're coming to get you?'

'The Zargons. Yeah. They're coming for us. One by one. They come to our pasture, where we has our meetings... meetings is mostly Tuesdays. That's when we discusses stuff the most. Pantheistic syllogisms mostly. But could be most anything. We free-for-all after five o'clock. Anyway, theys come for us. "Here pretty, pretty cow," they says. "Here pretty, pretty cow and come with us." Some of them does have straw in their hands. Big, bunches of freshly mown straw. "Here pretty, pretty cow," them does say. "Take the straw. Take the lovely straw." And, you know, that straw does be so tempting that we does go with them. And we does forget our pantheistic syllogisms, and our discussions, and they does carry us all the way to the slaughterhouse to slit our throats and make steaks from our buttocks.'

'Really?'

'Yes. That's why I'm here. Having a dangerous discussion, I was. I was affirming a disjunct in the style of modus tollendo ponens. Was affirming it to Desmond, I was - Desmond's another cow. And that's when they came: "Here pretty, pretty cow. Here pretty, pretty cow." Freshly mown straw, it was. Smelt like heaven.

'Now, I says to Desmond. The first premise is pantheistic in that it asserts God moves through nature, and is one with nature, and nature and God are the same thing, and the second premise must be opposed to that one, and the two must form the only possible alternatives, so that we can affirm the disjunct classically. Hence, I need a second premise along the lines of, ooh... I says, now here's where it gets tricky – maybe God being a Zargon... Now, Desmond wasn't happy with that premise at all, quite rightly, because the two premises together don't represent the only possible alternatives... And that's when they started: "Here pretty, pretty cow. Here pretty, pretty cow"...with the rustling of the straw. To stop the dangerous conversation. The syllogisms, you understand. And they led me far, far I tell you, Cormack. It is Cormack, isn't it? With their wicked straw and vigorous rustling. Right into the mouth of a Zargonic Prison Whale. And here I is. With you. That last part - coming through the stomach lining up there. That was not pleasant I can tell you.'

Cormack listened to more in the same vein for a while, and went back to sitting on the floor with his head in his hands.

***

Chapter Four

The Emperor of the Zargons was now at his bath, lying in the topmost tub of a cascade of tubs in the vast Imperial Bathroom that stretched a full five hundred yards along a flank of the Imperial Palace. The water was very hot, steaming like a bouillabaisse, and filled with unguents and crystals and perfumes and salts. He was enjoying himself hugely, scouring his back with a loafer and singing folk songs to the silent hive-mind.

It was one of his great pleasures to come here and bathe. His office was burdensome, the people that surrounded him tiresome, the great duties and responsibilities of State hung on him heavily, but in the Imperial Tub he could relax and be at one with nature, nude and utterly alone, excepting his throat cable and his hive-mind.

The mind was within its box, perched besides him, buzzing fearfully, frightened of electrocution.

'Don't pull so hard on the cable now, Sire,' the million nano-bots said. 'If our box were to fall into your tub, the results would be catastrophic.'

'You would blow up.'

'And you would be electrocuted.'

He continued his song but with less vigour now, the hive-mind having disturbed his good mood.

After some exaggerated movements with the loafer, so as to confuse the hive-mind into thinking he might snag the throat cable, he rose with a sigh from the tub and rubbed down the small Imperial Personage with the small Imperial Towel he had left on the floor earlier. When he was dried, he pulled on his purple stockings, the Imperial Codpiece modelled for a conch shell that hid a winkle, the long robes of green and gold - the vain trappings of State, as they seemed to him now, in his forty-eighth year - mere baubles and rags.

His mind, or at least the part of it that he controlled, returned with displeasure to the serious matters of State.

'What have we done with that McFadden creature?' he said at last. The thing had been bothering him. He was so excited that someone else had got a message from God, a confirmation of his sanity as it were, and then, when the McFadden creature hadn't talked, it was so disappointing.

'He is in the Prison Whale.'

'Is he talking?'

'Only to the cow.'

'There's a cow?'

'The Prison Whale insisted on consuming a cow as a complement to the main course. We had to comply. The Whale has such a sensitive digestion and is so gigantic. We didn't want it to break from its moorings.'

'I did so want to hear what God had told the McFadden creature.'

'Yes, I did too. We all did. Always good to hear from God. And the burn on the McFadden creature resembles exactly the mark that is mentioned in the Ancient Texts, Sire.'

'So he could be the one?'

'It is best not to take chances. If word were to get out, it might cause us problems.'

'We must kill him then. But torture him first. Make him talk. Do you think a Prison Whale is really up to the task? They're such dreadfully slow-witted creatures.'

'You yourself commanded he be eaten, Sire.'

'I did? Well, I've changed my mind.'

'To what, Sire?'

'Quite like to torture him myself,' said the Emperor, floating the suggestion quietly, and it hung in the air for a little while as though it were contained in a soap bubble blown from his mouth, until the hive-mind got a grip and said, 'But how would we get him out alive, Sire? Nobody has ever been removed from a Prison Whale alive before.'

'Let's ask the Whale for a favour,' said the Emperor.

***

Chapter Five

'I'm not going anywhere without the cow,' said Cormack.

'You know this is not going to be very pleasant for me either,' said the Prison Whale. 'I am almost certain to die from a gastric rupture with you half way down my lower intestine. But orders from the Emperor are one thing, and orders from my organization quite another. And I have confirming orders from my organisation.'

'The cow cannot stay here. If I have to go, she is coming with me.'

'Why, thankee,' said the cow. 'We have only met for such a short time, and you does be so pleasant and warm toward me, innit.'

'I have come to think of you as a friend,' said Cormack. 'In spite of your udders, and your stupidity, and the other differences between us. I will not leave without you.'

'Why, thankee,' said the cow again. 'You does be so pleasant and warm toward me, innit.'

She started rubbing her pale, bony flank against Cormack's leg.

'You know, one does one's level best as a prison whale,' said the Prison Whale, his voice as loud as ever but now with a tremulous overtone. 'One ingests and digests, and really one is doing an awful lot of the Zargons' dirty work for them, and one tries to maintain a positive mental attitude throughout the whole disgusting business, keep the whole act going, you know: the barking out of the commands, the military bearing, the contempt for the clientele. One tries to do it all with a very real conviction, and it really can be a lot to ask, to act in that dignified manner, whilst performing the whole messy, confused and painful process of the actual administration of justice, far removed from your lawyering and your soliciting and your judging; and in spite of it all, being a prison whale can be a rewarding life...and to die like this, like a goat who's swallowed knicker elastic – damned undignified! A rotten end to a distinguished career!

'However, orders is orders.

'I will erupt you, and your friend, the cow, through my lower intestine, explode you from my backside, and suffer the consequences.

'May God spare your insufferable little lives and may He have mercy on my poor, benighted soul.'

And so saying, the Prison Whale distended its stomach in one almighty flatulation, and Cormack fell to the floor and felt himself being slimed from above and below and the side as well, and there was an roar as though a jetliner were passing close to the side of his head, and then, thankfully, all went black until he woke up on the floor of a vast ice-lake in the Sumerian district of the state of Palanka, Zargon 8, and saw his friend the cow standing strong amidst the ruptured entrails of the dying Prison Whale, which had been dragged onto the ice from its berth in the sea and was howling and moaning and writhing in its agony.

***

'Don't come at me with no straw,' said the cow angrily.

'Leave the cow!' said the largest and closest of the eight Zargonic Guards. 'In fact, where the hell did the cow come from? It's him we want,' he said, pointing at Cormack.

Cormack was flat on the ice.

The Prison Whale was still in its death throes, thrashing about on its side and spilling a vast pool of blood all around Cormack and the cow, making it hard for the Zargons to get close.

'Don't you worry,' said the cow to Cormack. 'See there!' She was pointing to a point on the horizon where Cormack could make out nothing except small twiggy trees that formed a spiky halo around a pool of water. 'Pantheistic Syllogists!'

Cormack looked closely and thought he could make out a single cow.

'Get back from the cow!' said the leader of the Zargonic Guard.

'Have no truck with the cow!' said Cormack angrily.

'We have orders to take you to our Emperor.'

'I will come quietly. With my friend the cow.'

'I say,' said the cow. 'You does be so kind to me. I really does appreciate it.'

The Guard approached the pair of them, but backed away a little when he caught a whiff of the stench that surrounded them.

'Guards!' he shouted to a group of men around him. 'Arrest the prisoners!'

The Guards made to go forward, but as they did there came an almighty trembling and a rushing of wind, and it was as though the horizon had blurred and shattered and become a wave, rolling out across the splintered ice.

'The final flatulation of the Prison Whale!' shouted Cormack to the cow. 'It's now or never! Come on, cow!'

Cormack jumped on the cow's back and pumped her thighs with his ankles.

'Well, well I never!' said the cow. 'Never in all my years!'

'Move cow!' said Cormack.

'Well, I never...' repeated the cow, still not moving.

'Let us get out of here!' shouted Cormack

'Not so hard with the ankles,' said the cow.

The Captain of the Zargonic Guard sucked in icy breaths and watched the performance for a while: the boy on the cow; the cow standing still and transfixed in a kind of ecstasy; the boy kicking the cow; the cow cooing soft moos; the boy beating the cow in frustration; the cow panting hard. And when he could bear it no longer, he reached for Cormack, handcuffed him, and led him into the small spacecraft that was prepared for them.

***

Chapter Six

They didn't bother restraining Cormack in the spaceship, there being little he could do by way of escape, but the cow they were more wary of. The Guards had identified her as something malevolent, and, much to her protestations, they confined her in a section of the hold right at the back, near the escape hatch. Cormack had been given special treatment and was dressed in a grey jumpsuit and given boots to wear. He sat towards the front of the main bridge, in a huge commander-style chair, tempted to bark orders and play with the consoles.

The Captain of the Guard sat opposite on a similar chair.

His name was Proton, and, shed of his enormous rubberized armour, he was surprisingly affable. He sat with his legs lifted on the console, a glass in his hand, wiggling it so that the ice made a merry chink.

He was a Zargon, which is to say a human, perhaps forty years old, with close-cropped brown hair, flecked with grey, and a small military-style moustache. His eyes were distant and glazed, focused on something far behind Cormack's head.

'Care for a drink?' he said. 'Cormack, isn't it? Mind if I call you, Cormack?'

Cormack said he didn't, and he wouldn't mind a water, which Proton ordered from the galley.

'Only water? Nothing stronger? Shouldn't really myself, of course, especially not on duty.' He had a pleasant tone to his voice, Cormack thought. Confidential. A bedside manner.

'Hell of a day though,' he continued. 'Needed a little snifter. You know, sometimes you've got to bend the rules to suit the occasion. Are you sure you're OK, though? Expect you really want one too. It's quite all right. Would appreciate the company.'

'No, no. I'm fine,' said Cormack.

'Glenrushen. Save it for the special occasions,' said Proton.

Cormack was not much acquainted with Glenrushen but he could see it had a raw, lubricant quality, like engine oil, and sloshed around Proton's glass viscously.

'A sort of flamboyant bouquet infused with rose petals and chilly oakenness, redolent of gloomy lochs. Really rather delicate, unexpectedly, given its chilly provenance. Gives a sort of fructosal tickle on the tongue. You wouldn't imagine a blend capable of such subtlety. Taste like that's lost on a lot of people, Cormack. The non-connoisseurs. I should think most of them round here fall into that category,' he said sadly, looking about the flight deck.

Then he looked back at Cormack and a friendly smile formed around his slightly opened mouth.

'You look like a chap that knows his whisky though,' he said.

'I do?' said Cormack. He was flattered by the suggestion.

'Yes. Read a lot too I expect?'

'Yes, I do,' said Cormack.

'Went to university?'

'Not yet, but I want to,' he said, and there was a silence, which Cormack took to mean that Proton wanted him to volunteer more information so he added, 'Probably York,' quietly because he was ashamed.

'That's a good one, I suppose,' continued Proton unfazed. 'Liked to have gone to university myself - any university - but didn't get the chance. Never really had the opportunities that a chap like you would have had. I come from a small mining town in the low valleys outside Manima in the Guerdan Province. My mother's family - proud but poor. But it's not stopped me, Cormack. I'm a natural auto-didact.'

'Really?'

'A quick study with a love of the ancients. I could quote you whole passages of the Ancient Texts. I could regale you with many an antique tale of bucolic sharecroppers. Stuff I've found in those books, I don't think many scholars would have come across. My background might not be the most privileged but it's not stopped me from getting ahead.'

Proton leaned back some more in his chair.

'See, the Guard is just a means to an end, Cormack. Don't let the rubberization and the laser guns and the executions and everything lead you astray. It's not really me at all. I tend to live for the weekends. The kind of people you have to rub up against in the Guard, you have to put on a bit of a show. A chap like you would understand. Wouldn't you?'

'I suppose, Captain. Should I call you Captain?'

'No, no, no. Proton's the name. Call me Proton. I'd like you to hang around a bit up front. We can talk some more. Don't get much chance to talk up here.'

Proton mouthed the word, 'Riff-raff.'

Cormack looked about him at the crew on the flight desk - four men and three women wearing tidy bodysuits, efficiently drumming at consoles, reviewing hieroglyphics flying across computer screens, twiddling knobs. He sensed they were listening surreptitiously and busying themselves unnecessarily.

'Keep the cow in the hold though,' continued Proton. 'She'll be better off back there. We'll take good care of her for you. Into politics, Cormack? Article I was reading on the uniSwarm last night on proportional representation. Couldn't really get the gist of it but maybe you have an opinion? After you get some rest perhaps. Anyway, don't let me prattle on like this too long. Heard you had a bit of an adventure...' Proton raised his eyebrows and widened his eyes excitedly. 'Met the Big Chap - that's what it said on the communiqué.'

He sipped a little more from his glass.

'Course it wasn't really Him, was it? It was His avatar, him being in the sixth fold and you in the seventh, but I suppose it amounts to the same thing. Did He seem friendly though? You know, we all have this impression of the Supreme Being, the Creator of the Universe, as being a bit intimidating but I bet He's not when you get to know Him, is He?'

Proton leaned towards Cormack.

'I heard He touched you,' he said. 'Can I see?'

'What do you want to see?'

'Your burnt nipple.'

'My what?'

'Consider it a Zargonic affectation. See, we have these Ancient Texts that mention...' he started but didn't finish because Cormack had opened his shirt to expose the burn that he had got from the cocoa.

'Oh yes!' said Proton. 'Very, very good. In just the right spot.'

He turned to the navigator, a tall, elegant looking woman with a huge bouffant head of hair who looked back at Proton with undisguised disdain.

'See, Pranzi,' said Proton, 'We're good to go!'

He gave her the thumbs up and a big grin.

'Ummm, how long is it until we get to the Palace?' Cormack asked.

'Palace? What Palace, Cormack?'

'The Palace of the Emperor,' said Cormack.

'We're not taking you to the Palace, Cormack,' said Proton.

'You're not?' said Cormack. 'I thought that's what you said when you captured me outside the Prison Whale. I thought you had orders to take me to the Emperor.'

'I do. But I'm ignoring them. I've requisitioned the ship and I'm taking you to Foul Ball.'

'Foul Ball? What is Foul Ball?'

'Cormack, my boy,' said Proton. 'You are going to love Foul Ball.'

***

'The whole situation is very worrying,' said the Emperor to the hive-mind.

'Indeed it is, Sire,' replied the hive-mind.

'I thought the Praetorian Guards were beyond reproach.'

'They must be executed for their treason.'

'Where have they taken the McFadden creature?'

'They are moving through the Dertigon Nebula towards the Asigate Star System.'

'They are perhaps headed for Foul Ball, then?'

'It is too early to say, Sire.'

'We must stop them.'

'Of course. We are sending the battle-cruiser. We will intercept them in the next twenty-four hours and attempt to recapture the McFadden creature alive. But if it is not possible, I have issued instructions that their transporter ship be destroyed.'

'Good. We must take no chances, hive-mind.'

***

Chapter Seven

Proton had the Emperor's battle-cruiser on the ship's scanner. It would catch them in twenty minutes unless they did something.

'Pranzi, you have the model?' he asked the navigator.

'Yes, Captain.'

'Perhaps I could take a look at it.'

Pranzilla spoke perfunctorily into a microphone on the console in front of her – 'Captain, wants to see the model.'

Through the sliding doors came another Guard, bearing in his huge arms what looked like a toy spaceship, all airfixed and globbed with glue. Cormack looked at it carefully and thought it was wonderful, enormously elaborate detailing. In fact, although he couldn't be sure because he didn't get much of a look when they were taking him inside, it could well be an exact replica of the transporter ship they were presently in.

'Excellent,' said Proton. 'It's really very good, isn't it, Cormack? Beautiful work around the undercarriage. Very fine craftsmanship. We could probably hang it out now.'

'Captain says deploy the decoy,' said Pranzilla.

A great show was made as the model was surrounded by a squad of five Guards. The most important of these had a clipboard, and he ran his finger down it, barking out orders, whilst the other four ministered to the toy, inspecting it according to his instructions. When they were each satisfied, they called out in turn, a crisp 'Check!'

Eventually it was deemed fit to proceed, and a long fibrous thread was attached to its prow. Then it was carried out of the cockpit towards the hold, where the cow, shivering and frightened, saw it into the escape hatch with a 'Coo!'

The senior Guard returned after five minutes and confirmed to Proton that the decoy had been successfully deployed.

'Good,' said Proton. 'Let's take a look on our screen.'

'Bringing it up now, Captain,' said Pranzilla.

The large black screen to the front of the cockpit flickered into life and Cormack could see a fuzzy image that might have been the front of the ship, pictured from a camera on its top.

'Turning the camera to the decoy,' said Pranzilla, and the viewpoint began to move, picking up at first nothing but blackness interspersed with flecks of distant light, but, as it reached the end of its arc, Cormack could see the decoy trailing from the transporter on its thread like the float on the end of a fishing line strung from a boat.

'Very good!' said Proton. 'Convincing, isn't it, Cormack? Now let's begin the cloaking procedure.'

'Captain says start the cloaking procedure,' said Pranzilla.

The senior Guard went back to the hold with his crew of five and returned, with what to Cormack looked like a handful of black bin liners.

'We're going to start at the front,' he said to Proton, pointing towards the prow.

The Guards put on hefty looking spacesuits and moved to the side of the cockpit where there was a small door that led to an airlock. Proton wished them well. Then they went through the door and into the chamber and it was locked and sealed tight.

Then he went back to the scanner and started thrumming his fingers on the armrests of his chair, impatiently waiting for news.

'How are they doing?' he said, when he could bear it no longer, and Pranzilla swung the camera round from the model so that it pointed towards the front of the transporter ship.

Cormack could see two of the Guards straddled across the front of the ship, fitting the bin liners over the ship's white panels. They had already finished the bit at the top over the nose cone.

'Goodness, they're slow,' said Proton.

It all seemed very lo-tech to Cormack, but Proton was reassuring.

'Sometimes you can out-smart yourself, Cormack. Don't worry – special material. Very clever stuff,' he said. 'I've been planning this operation ever since I heard about you. There's more complexity in it than you can imagine. For instance, between you and me, the model has seventeen moving parts...'

Cormack sneaked a look at Proton's scanner, and saw that the blob that represented the Emperor's battle-cruiser was getting very close to the centre of the screen.

At last there was a signal from Pranzilla and the airlock door was opened and the Guards came back in.

'Slight problem, Captain,' said the most senior.

'What?' said Proton.

'Ran out of material on top.'

'Oh gosh!'

'There's a panel we haven't covered. We need some extras.'

'There aren't any more in the hold?'

'Not when we checked. We could look again.'

'Yes, do that. Look again.'

But there were none to be found.

'Could we use the cow?' asked Proton.

'For heaven's sake,' said Cormack.

'She's leathery. She's mostly black. I think she might work very well.'

'We could paint the spots, Captain,' said the Guard.

The cow was glad to be out of the hold, which was very cold, and didn't mind the paint at all.

'You're tickling me!' she said to the Guard with the paintbrush.

They gave her a helmet to put on her head and she was led on a leash to the airlock, giggling at her reflection in the mirror glass at the top of the door.

When she was outside, Pranzilla moved the camera to observe her. They could see she was comfortably settled, secured on the fusillade with magnetic straps, and she gave Cormack a little wave with a hoof.

Proton sat staring at the scanner with a look of deep concern on his face.

'Battle-cruiser imminent. There going to have a lock on any moment.'

'We're getting signals from them, Captain,' said Pranzilla.

'Let me hear them.'

Across the speaker system came a tinny voice.

'Praetorian Guard and all aboard the Zargonic Transporter!' it said. 'Surrender immediately! Return the McFadden Creature! It is your Emperor's command!'

'Ignore them for now,' said Proton.

'Praetorian Guard!' continued the voice. 'We have orders from the Emperor to destroy you and your craft if you do not surrender immediately!'

'I think they've got a lock on, Captain,' said Pranzilla, and she flicked at the dial that turned the little camera on top of the ship. It was facing backwards towards the bow, and Cormack could see on the large screen ahead the toy spaceship still pulled by the thread attached to the transporter.

'OK, cut the wire!' said Proton, and the thread came away and the toy tumbled from the camera.

'They definitely have a lock on,' said Pranzilla, 'but it's too early to say if it's on the transporter or the decoy.'

'Time will tell! Time will tell!' said Proton.

There followed a nervous few minutes as Proton led the crew through a series of rapid turns and accelerations - the effect that they might be having on the cow, strapped to the outer casing, Cormack found hard to imagine – until at last they levelled off and Proton signalled that they should maintain a steady course, full speed ahead.

'Praetorian Guard – your time is up!' boomed the voice from the speaker system. 'We have full lock on the transporter. We will be firing on you in five, four, three...'

'You know, now that Cormack's mentioned it, I wonder if bin liners really are effective as a cloaking device for a transporter vessel in outer space...' said Proton.

'...two, one,' came the voice from the speaker system, and Cormack and Proton and the crew braced themselves for the explosion that would blast them into nothingness.

'Detonation, three hundred clicks to our south,' said Pranzilla. 'They hit the decoy!'

'Yeah!' screamed Proton. 'They took the bait! My regards to the cow, Cormack!'

'Rather tame,' came the voice over the speaker system, still broadcasting. 'Thought it would make a bigger bang than that.'

When they got the cow back inside the cabin, she was dizzy from the cold, and was panting and delirious, but they all congratulated her on a job well done, and let her sleep that night in the warm galley, feeding her straw as she lay spread-eagled on the floor.

***

'Got them, Sire!' said the hive-mind to the Emperor.

'You have the McFadden creature?' said the Emperor.

'No, Sire. We had to destroy the transporter – they wouldn't surrender.'

'Bugger it!'

'It was the wisest course of action.'

'But bugger it all the same!'

'It seems you were right though. They were headed directly for Foul Ball.'

***

Chapter Eight

There were half a dozen other vessels in the spaceport on Foul Ball - a motley collection of cruisers and caravan ships that stood together on a large landing strip a few miles outside of the capital city, Bartislard.

Cormack was talking to a couple who had just disembarked. He thought they had said they were from the Outer Hebrides but he might have been mistaken.

'The planet seems surprisingly popular,' he said, reviewing the crowds. They were dressed in hiking gear, wearing sunglasses and carrying backpacks and what might have been climbing equipment. 'I wasn't expecting much, going by the name.'

'It's become a Mecca for extreme sports enthusiasts,' said the man, who introduced himself as Frank. 'It's a back to nature kind of thing. They don't even allow a uniSwarm connection on Foul Ball.'

'A what?'

'They block everyone's duct. They like to think they're fabulously remote here. There's a kind of snobbism about it. Wonderful wildlife though. That's the real draw.'

'Is it?'

'Yes. Extreme. Like the sports,' he said enthusiastically.

He was helping his wife put together aluminium tubes and fabric sheeting into a kind of tent-like arrangement.

'In fact, we're planning to glide into Bartislard ourselves,' he said, and Cormack could see now that what he was working on was the beginnings of a hang-glider. 'I don't suppose you'd care to join us? It would be a fun start to the vacation. Get you in the mood for more action when you get into town.'

'Rather not,' said Cormack.

Proton was busy organizing what would be his transportation to Bartislard.

'Cormack,' he said. 'Meet Stanton Bosch.'

'Pleased to be meeting you,' said Stanton Bosch and extended a sinewy arm. He was an old man, his face wrinkled like a prune, but his arms and torso were unexpectedly muscled and brown, as though he had worked all of his life outdoors at hard manual labour and his body had reacted thus far magnificently, toning and conditioning him like a carthorse, but the state of his face suggested that it would express its disgust soon enough by felling him with a coronary. He sported a bandana and denim dungarees that were torn in parts and patched in others.

'Welcome to Foul Ball,' he said.

'Lovely planet you have here,' said Cormack, more to be polite than because he believed it. The insects were getting to him - vast squads of midges, buzzing in clouds over his head.

'Well, it ain't so lovely for us who got to live on it and that's the truth,' said Stanton Bosch. 'But you make the most of your time here. The Captain been explaining to me your purpose and I is always be the first to wish all the Candidates the best of luck. So good luck to you too, skinny man.'

'Stanton Bosch here has agreed to take us all to Bartislard in his floating tuk-tuks,' said Proton.

'Tis what the tourists does like the best,' said Stanton Bosch. 'Me and me brothers will look after you.'

His brothers were introduced as Hilton, Cheney, Dexter, Beenie and Tram, and they were lined up to shake hands. They were all of a piece, wizened and muscled like the old man himself.

'There's a couple over there that are planning to hang-glide into town,' said Cormack to Stanton Bosch after the introductions, pointing at the couple from the Outer Hebrides.

'Holy crap, I hope not!' he said. 'I hopes you're joking! But surely these tourists does know how to horrify your soul!'

Cormack and the cow were led to the first floating tuk-tuk, Stanton Bosch's own, which was tied with the others a little way from the landing strip, bobbing in the water near a broken pier. It sat low in the river, and was decorated with all kinds of flowery paintings and transparencies depicting what might have been the local wildlife – things that looked like Tasmanian devils, and primitive tigers, lizards with fiery forked tongues, and a great brown bear with cruciform tusks. The tuk-tuk was lit with blue neon strips that had been tied imperfectly round the bow and stern, and large on the prow, stencilled by an uncultured hand, was its name – the Antibiotic.

'Just me little joke,' said Stanton Bosch. 'On account of the water-borne diseases that emanate from the Leech.'

He helped them aboard, lifting the cow chivalrously to her place near the wheel, and offered them careful advice: 'Now you all be watchful, me lovelies. This planet is beautiful, surely she is beautiful, but that beauty hides a wiciousness. We don't want no accidents, do we? We all must be wery, wery careful. Especially on your first day. I had an accident meself, me first day here...' he added quietly and went to start the outboard.

'There's something strange about this place,' said Cormack to the cow.

'You does be so good to me, Cormack. You mind if I does sit towards the edge, only it's hard on me udders in the middle, innit.'

The cow pushed over Cormack to the side of the boat.

'Don't you be putting your hoof in the water now, me dear!' said the old man. 'Not on your first day! Did that with me hand on me first day. And you, sir! Not too close to the outboard! Does burn when it's hot and the blades does cut wery brutal and we don't want no accidents on the first day, do we now? Not on the first day...'

The tuk-tuk was started with an effort, and Stanton Bosch steered a straight course down the centre of the Leech. Cormack estimated it might be a mile wide, deep and brown, like it was churning sediment and ripe with mud.

There was dense vegetation on both banks. Ancient trees draped vines and creepers into the water, and Cormack could see flocks of gaily coloured birds, big as vultures, perched high in their branches. All the while, coming from the forest, were strange animal calls, baboons perhaps, thought Cormack, although he could see nothing through the foliage. Occasionally, a tree would shake violently, and then another next to it, and there would be a commotion of grunts and whoops and shrieks, as though that part of the forest had come alive, and then the sounds would die again to the solitary whoops, the baboons, thought Cormack hopefully, that were watching them pass from their tidy nests in the trees.

He moved to the back of the tuk-tuk, and leaned over a little to watch the wake that frothed like bubbled rails behind them.

The Guards were following closely. He counted six more floating tuk-tuks, with Proton in the first, perched on the bow, laser gun ready and pointed at Cormack. He gave him a cheery wave and Proton responded with a grin.

Far in the distance, back towards the landing ground, he could see two small objects in the sky like kites, slowly moving towards them. It must be the couple from the Outer Hebrides, gliding to town, he thought.

'Not so close to the water, skinny man,' said Stanton Bosch. 'Keep your hands far from the water.'

'Do you see my friends?' said Cormack, pointing at the sky.

'Holy crap!' said Stanton Bosch. 'What is that?'

'It's the hang-gliders.'

'Oh, my good Lord!'

The hang-gliders were picking up speed and coming in fast, but they seemed to have lost a thermal because they were losing height at the same time.

As they got closer, Stanton Bosch announced, 'We should take avoiding action,' and he signalled to the other tuk-tuks with a motion of his arm that they were to follow him to the farther bank.

It became apparent that the couple were having difficulties. They were yawing from side to side and working the control bars left to right, searching for the gusts that would take them higher. But every time they caught a flurry that raised them a few feet, there followed a downdraft that undid whatever small gain they had made, and pushed them down a few feet further for good measure. Their difficulties seemed extended to the steering, because now one of them, the woman, was headed for the branches of a tree on the farthest bank.

'Oh, good Lord!' cried Stanton Bosch. 'Don't let her land in a tree! For mercy's sake! Let her die in the river!'

'Die in the river?' said Cormack.

'Aye! Twould be quicker!'

She had lost control totally now and was going to crash-land somewhere near the bank.

Her partner had fought the crosswinds manfully and had managed to steer himself right next to her, but it was a futile manoeuvre because there was nothing he could do to save her, and he was in fact imperilling himself. She made one last desperate turn, missed the low overhanging branch of a giant mahogany tree by a whisker, and was down in the water with a splash. The man couldn't circle any longer either and he came down too, at speed, as his wing strut collapsed under the pressure of a turn made too tight. He landed in the water right besides her.

As soon as they were in the river, before they even had time to call out to each other, there was a great bubbling and frothing beneath them, as though they were hot as pokers and had set the water boiling, and in amongst the bubbles Cormack could see glints of silver flashing all around.

'The fish!' cried Stanton Bosch. 'Watch the little natterjackers go!'

They were flying on them now, leaping from the water to get at them, until they were armoured with a living sheen, covered with two great writhing balls of fish that rose six feet from the water.

Then, as soon it had started, it was over and the fish were gone, sunk back into the river and washed away in its murkiness, leaving no trace of the delightful couple from the Outer Hebrides. Only the metal frames of the hand-gliders remained, bobbing on the water.

'Theys don't even leave any bones, see, them natterjackers,' said Stanton Bosch, and the cow vomited over the side of the tuk-tuk, and he had to call to her loudly, 'Careful with that vomit, cow! That there's a ladder for them fish! They'll swim right up it and into your frothy mouth, they will!'

But the cow couldn't stop, and she couldn't find a bucket, so she filled a corner of the tuk-tuk nearest the outboard housing with a puddle of her grey puke.

***

Chapter Nine

On the great lawn, Mrs. Bellingham was making a hole, planting crocuses.

The grounds of Blowers, her country estate on the planet Crampton, were neither tropical, nor temperate, nor tamed, nor fully wild.

From Earth five centuries before, her ancestors had brought camellias, dandelions, hollyhocks and bluebells, that they had put in the shaded beds nearest the house; banana plants and frangipani were laid out on the escarpment to the north, which was warmed by a tropical breeze that blew in from the west; and paw-paws and mangoes were placed in an orchard near the south-facing wall, because the planet's third sun would rise and catch them there twice a day. They had planted spreading groves of coconuts and banyans and plantains in the shade to the east; and daisies and lavenders and herbs of all descriptions had filled a plot that they had carefully marked out in the western remote, and had spread unexpectedly to a rose garden that flourished in a wet hollow near the ornamental lake; and there were thistles and burlaps and brambles and vines and creepers and cow-itch, growing all in between. All had flourished on this strange world.

'You must push them in a little deeper, Madam,' said Traction, the old gardener, who was standing nearby. He was some seventy years old, dressed in dirty flannels and black wellingtons with a tweed cloth cap on his head. He had sideburns, roughly configured, and a small moustache that was mostly grey but flecked black in places. He wore large gardening gloves and smelled of burdock.

The Committee wanted her back in the house and he was the bearer of the message.

She rose from her knees with a sigh and staggered about a bit and held a hand to her lower back and grimaced.

'I know what I'm doing, Traction. I am a gardener.'

'You are mistress of this house. I'm the gardener.'

'The Bellinghams have been gardening here for five centuries. You are the hired help.'

'Yes, ma'am.'

'Such a shame about the moon.'

'Yes, ma'am.'

'It will have an effect on the hollyhocks.'

'Undoubtedly.'

'And on recruitment too.'

'Recruitment has been an issue with us for a long time, ma'am. The destruction of the moon can't really make it any worse.'

'I suppose not. The young people show no commitment to the cause.'

'They have known nothing but the Empire. It is only to be expected.'

'They have no fight in them.'

'It has been parlayed out of them.'

'Are we to meet in committee?'

'They're waiting in the dining room.'

'Oh, God! Is that dreadful man with the beard there?'

'He certainly is. He's the new Vice-Chairman, remember. I think he's anxious to say his piece.'

They made their way back to the great house, and Mrs. Bellingham stopped in the hallway to take off her wellingtons. She could hear the hub-hub from the dining room. The Committee was in full cry. Worse than the hounds, she thought. She wondered why she bothered.

Traction made her straighten her frock and fix her hair. Then she gave a little spray with the perfume compact she kept in the press, and set her face in the mirror, before she opened the oaken double doors.

There were half a dozen men seated around the oval table. They all stopped talking and looked up at her as she entered.

'Hope you don't mind, Pamela – started on the sherry.'

'No, not at all. Go right ahead, Douglas. That's what it's there for – get you merry. Is this going to be a formal meeting? Do we have a quorum?'

'Pamela, I think you need to sit down.'

'I am going to sit down, Douglas.'

'Good.'

'Is there a problem?'

'Not at all.'

'Because there have been too many problems lately.'

'Sit down, Pamela.'

She sat down with a sigh.

'Pamela...'

'Oh, do get on with it, Douglas.'

'Pamela, I'll come right out with it. We are asking you to step down as Chairwoman.'

Mrs. Bellingham was silent.

'It's not that we don't value your leadership...'

'It's that I'm a woman...'

'Not at all. It's about results.'

'We are getting results.'

'Well, no, we're not. Are we? And now, the moon, destroyed. It's just that we feel we need a change of direction.'

'May I guess who you have in mind as the new Chairman?'

'Pamela, it's not like that.'

'Then what's it like?'

'You're making this needlessly difficult, Pamela.'

'I should shut up.'

'Not at all. But the decision is made. I'm afraid we had a vote in your absence. It was unanimous. Geoffrey is to be the new leader of the Resistance.'

Mrs Bellingham gave Geoffrey a stern look. He sat across the table at its head position. It was her table but he was at its head.

'We have lots of business to attend to, Mrs. Bellingham,' he said.

'Go right ahead,' she said, turning from him to cross her legs and sit sideways so she faced the French windows and the patio. 'Don't mind me.'

'I think you should start, Geoffrey,' said Douglas.

'Very well.' He took a breath, cleared his throat, and began. 'There is news from the uniSwarm that concerns us. The Praetorian Guard have mutinied. They have commandeered a transporter.'

'And why does that concern us?' said Mrs Bellingham, still staring out of the window.

'It is an opportunity of a sort, Mrs Bellingham. The Emperor has consequently taken a new Guard. We have reports from within the Palace that they're unpractised. For instance, they are not tasting the Emperor's food. Not aware that that is part of their responsibilities.

'Now, the Pastry Chef is a Cramptonian. Name of Mimic. He is married to a Juval Councillor in Gamos Province. I have taken the liberty of having the Councillor kidnapped. I think she might be coerced into helping us.'

'You want to torture her?'

'Douglas, a point of order.'

'Yes, Geoffrey.'

'Can Mrs. Bellingham be quiet when I'm talking?'

'Pamela, let Geoffrey finish.'

'As I was trying to say, apparently the Councillor and the Pastry Chef are still close. They have a child. They correspond regularly. With a little intimidation we might be able to persuade her to contact him. And then in turn, we might be able to persuade him to help us.'

'Do you see, Pamela? It's a real opportunity. We're not saying it will work. But we can at least try.'

'What exactly are you proposing? It's all very will-o'-the-wisp.'

'We're planning an assassination attempt, Pamela. Against the Emperor.'

***

Chapter Ten

The hive-mind had made a suggestion to the Emperor and they had tried it with a duct they had borrowed from the Sub-Commissar, who had abandoned it because he wished to trade up to a newer model.

If the Emperor could put it in his mouth while it was still fresh and warm, and keep it steady in the back of his throat, the hive-mind could make a connection using the saliva that flowed there as a conducting material. Then they could read it together through the throat cable. Ducting had always been denied the Emperor - he was supposed to use the hive-mind instead - so this was very interesting for him.

The Commissar's early childhood memories were, however, lacklustre and proletarian; his conversations were improperly referenced and largely inaccessible; the maps and reference material, utilitarian and uninteresting; the witticisms, dull; the uniSwarm connection, irrelevant; the glands, ineffective; and most everything else, predictable. But when they accessed the culvert that stored the sexual material, they dwelt there for a long time, in amongst the froto-sense-data and the holo-clips and the scene-glyphs that had been burnt directly from his retina. It more than made up for the rest.

They found many dark things there and they longed for more.

***

Chapter Eleven

The hang-gliders and the little silver fish and the part of the vomit of the cow that had dropped in the Leech were far behind them now, some ten miles downstream of their current position, and the little flotilla of tuk-tuks was at last in sight of the tiny port at Bartislard.

'Now, you be careful when you exit the vessel now, won't you, me dear?' Stanton Bosch said to the cow, as he tied the boat to its mooring on the broken pier. 'Don't want no more accidents now, do we?'

It was harder for the cow to get out than in, and she had to make a little run with the boat bobbing up and down and rocking back and forth before she leapt. She steadied herself beforehand, as though she were taking a jump in a gymkhana, but when it came to it she botched it horribly and landed splay-legged on the wet boarding, sending the boat rolling so violently that Cormack was almost capsized.

'You be careful there, you dangerous cow!' said Stanton Bosch. 'Almost had the skinny man in the water!'

Cormack disembarked more proficiently, but was shaken and spent a while checking himself all over for little silver fish that might have been splashed on him.

Soon after, all the Boschs had their tuk-tuks tied and their charges on dry land. Proton made a payment and they were dismissed.

Then he assumed the look of a jungle tracker, sniffing for fewmets, and eventually found the poorly marked path to Bartislard in amongst the thick vegetation that grew out and around and all over everything.

They marched ahead. Cormack and the cow were positioned in amongst the Guards, trying hard to keep up. The path seemed little used and was barely passable in places – vegetation had spread from the forest floor and covered it with shoots and tendrils, and it was thick with big fallen leaves that lay all about, so the way forward was just a path of wet, brown mulch that wound like a gutter in between the creeping green. Vines dropped from the damp canopy like streamers and draped over them as they walked, wiping their already dripping clothes with a further sticky wetness, and all around them they could hear the chirrups of frogs, and an insect buzz, and the whoops of the things they had heard on the boats, much louder now, but nowhere to be seen – just undergrowth and bush and clouds of mosquitoes about them, and trees that twitched here and there, and cracked and rocked in the sun-speckled distance.

Proton pushed on at a vigorous pace and at every turn in the path, he got a little further ahead of the rest of them.

Eventually he was out of view of Cormack and cow.

They talked amiably. The cow was impressed with the vegetation.

'Cormack, them vines up there does look so tasty, especially after being cooped up on a transporter ship. I does almost be tempted to take a nibble, if the Guards would only let me.'

'I think you had better not.'

'I does see some particular variety, that is yellow and almost straw-like in appearance, innit, strong and starchy, and it does hang down from the canopy most temptingly.'

The cow looked up.

'Why there does be one now! It is passing directly over me! If I just reach out me tongue, like here so, I think I could catch it in me mouth...'

The cow reached for the vine and jerked on it hard, but it would not give. She gave it another tug and there was a small croaking sound from above. The vine came spinning down like a nunchaku, whipping viciously through the air with a scything sound, until it dropped to the forest floor.

Cormack saw with a start that the vine, in fact, had eyes and a mouth and what the cow was chewing was a tail.

The thing began to run.

It was fast and wiry and, because the cow still had the end of its tail in her mouth, it was circling round her legs in ever decreasing circles until it had completely wrapped itself all around her at the level of her knees so she was lassoed.

She fell on her back, her legs kicking in the air, and let it go from her mouth but still it would not stop. It kept running around her, tightening itself like a garrotte, until Cormack could see the tail scoring the flesh around the cow's knees, and then the cow's blood dribbling around it, and soon the cow was screaming at the sky and frothing and gurgling.

The thing had sawn right through her legs.

'Holy crap!' came a cry from the far side of the clearing. 'Holy crap! Not on the first day! Not on the very first day!'

It was Stanton Bosch come back again.

'I come running up the path because I forget to tell you about the gontails! Don't pull at the gontails, I was going to say!' he shouted.

He looked down at the cow on her back, her lower legs amputated, and the stumps above her four knees pumping torrents of blood as though she were a low-pressure water fountain of a curious design. She was gibbering convulsively.

'Get it off her! Get the gontail off her!' he said.

He chopped at the tail with his knife, and the gontail fell away, scuttling off into the forest.

'Holy crap! On the first day! Who would've believed it could happen on the first day?'

He got down to comfort her.

'Them stumps will heal, my darling - though you might not believe it now. They will heal eventually. And they will be hard and tough and knobbled so them gontails can't whip 'em off any further. Don't you worry, me darling. We will fix you right. We will get you healed up good and proper.'

Proton had run back towards the main party when he had heard the commotion.

'A little accident,' said Stanton Bosch by way of explanation. 'The cow had it rough with a gontail.'

'Oh, my good Lord!' said Proton when he saw her.

'She'll live,' said Stanton Bosch. 'See, we can bind those stumps with this 'ere linden weed that'll staunch the flow of the blood. That'll make her a little more comfortable. Aye, it will. And we can rest her right back, with her head to the side, and that will let her breathe more easy like. And give her valerian and wort, them there flowers – it will ease her pain. And them severed legs. Look for them!'

'Can they be reattached?'

'They'll do for me stew tonight...'

Stanton Bosch collected the weed, and he spent a while wrapping it round her, trying to ease her pain. Then he fed her the herbs as medicine, and when she was settled, the Guards, under his instructions, gathered some half a dozen weighty branches from close by and bound them with creepers to make a stretcher strong enough to take her weight. They lifted her, blathering and mooing, onto it. Then they applied a suture of mud as a compact and tied her round with vines to make sure she wouldn't fall as they walked.

When they were ready, the Guards raised the cow, frothing in her agony high above them. Thus, they bore her through the jungle, on their shoulders, as though she were hunting kill.

***

Chapter Twelve

The Emperor was in the Imperial Gymnasium, straddled on a mechanical pony – it was his polo simulator. Polo was his passion. He had it set to Very Difficult, a testament to his prowess, and he thwacked with his mallet at the holographic spandrills with practised glee.

The Gymnasium was his to use and his alone. It was huge, filled with the latest equipment, echoic and cold.

'Bloody ridiculous all this crapulousness you have bottled up inside of you,' he said to the hive-mind. 'It seems to be your overarching emotion. Let it go.'

He could sense a loosening of the throat cable, and there was a short silence while the hive-mind composed itself. Then it said, 'The news from the Opikarp is quite startling.'

'Indeed,' said the Emperor.

'And coming on top of news of the mutiny.'

'Perhaps it is related.'

'Something is afoot.'

'We will have to deal with the Cramptonian Pastry Chef immediately.'

'Of course, I will have him sent in.'

***

Chapter Thirteen

The cow was quieter now. Cormack could hear the sound of her slow, heavy breaths and grunts from the back of her throat as he walked. But there was less burbling. Altogether the noises lacked the quality of a death rattle, which they had seemed close to assuming an hour ago, and for that he was grateful.

The path had widened, and it seemed they would soon be at Bartislard, because they came upon houses now: small boxy huts with A-framed roofs and jalousied windows sitting on piles of builders' rubble to raise them from the termites.

There were children playing outside, who ran from them when they approached, and cool looking adults smoking reefers on the steep concrete steps that led to gaily-painted front doors. They gave them friendly waves as they passed, and asked concernedly about the cow and whether they could have a cut.

The city walls were visible from a distance, a uniform grey that they could see through breaks in the undergrowth, and the path, as it approached, assumed the quality of a road and became tarmacadamed.

They picked up the pace and soon they were behind the walls, unattended and breached in places, and in the city proper.

Stanton Bosch, who was still with them, scouted ahead and Proton told them to wait for his return in a group to the side of a main thoroughfare, outside a grocery shop, which they did, attracting little attention from the passers-by, surprisingly, given their startling appearance and the presence of the amputated cow raised on a stretcher. But then Bartislard was a tourist town, the resident population only very small and mostly merchants at work in their shops, and tourists, as fearful as they might be when they pass the bizarre, dismiss it as local colour.

The Bosch returned and announced, 'There's room at the Tropico,' and led them down narrowed, cobbled streets, between the gabled shop fronts of the tight oaken-framed houses, to an unprepossessing inn that bore a sign with a single star.

'It ain't much but it's friendly enough and will suit you whilst you gets your bearings. There's room enough for ten.'

The Hotel Manager was oily and surly.

'You will have to keep the cow in the refrigerator,' he said.

'But she's very sick.'

'I'm sorry. We don't allow guests to carry food to their rooms.'

'She's not food. She's my friend.'

'Put her in the refrigerator like the man says, Cormack,' said Proton. 'There's a good chap. She'll be quite safe.' Then he turned to the manager and said, 'I'm so sorry. He's from out of town,' as though he wasn't.

Cormack was unmoved, but Stanton Bosch told him that Zargonic cows are accustomed to cold, and he asked her if that was so and she seemed to nod, and, after all, he didn't have much choice in the matter, so he allowed her to be led to the fridge.

When they found them, the rooms were threadbare and poorly maintained. It was given that Proton was to share with Cormack and they argued over the beds. One was obviously superior and had a view through the window to the courtyard with the added benefit of a bit of a breeze, whilst the other appeared to be an afterthought, a fold-up variety, jammed in a stuffy corner.

Proton insisted he take the better and backed up his argument with a finger to his laser gun, but Cormack was upset.

'You are my prisoner after all, Cormack.'

'I suppose,' he said, and he went to lie down on his and it buckled and sagged in the middle.

'Why have you kidnapped me, Proton?'

'Saved your life. Stopped you from being eaten alive by the Emperor.'

'I want to go back to Earth, to my friends, my family.'

'Not right now, Cormack, young feller. Plans for you first.'

'What plans?'

'Don't worry about that yet. Get some rest. Eat some tucker. Hang out with the cow if that's what you want.'

Cormack was trying to sit up and wasn't managing it.

'Look, come here,' said Proton. 'Take this bed if you really want it.'

'No, you have it. You wanted it.'

'No, take it. I've changed my mind.'

'I don't want it now.'

'Cormack, mate, take the frigging bed. OK?'

They swapped beds and both lay down, still with their boots on, and their hands behind their heads, staring at the overhead fan that hung from a central beam in the middle of the room and spun with a slow whopping sound.

'You know, I'm sorry about the cow,' said Proton.

'Yeah.'

'And the hang-gliders too.'

'Yeah.'

'Hell of a thing...'

'It really is.'

'Foul Ball's a dangerous planet. We should look out for each other.'

'I suppose.'

Proton turned on his side towards Cormack and sunk in the mattress so that only his head was visible.

'I've gone out on quite a limb for you, Cormack. Took a chance on you. Thought you might be worth it. You're not going to let me down now, are you?'

'I don't know what you want from me, Proton. I want to go back home.'

'There's no going back now, Cormack. Not for you. Nor for me. The future lies ahead.'

'I suppose.'

And they went back to staring at the fan, and offering each other side-glances, and worrying aloud about the cow in the refrigerator.

***

Chapter Fourteen

There was a knock at the vast Imperial Door, way down the other side of the Gymnasium. Mimic was told to enter the room.

'Ahh, our visitor!' cried the Emperor. 'Come forward! Come forward!'

Mimic walked to the centre of the room and bowed before the Emperor who was still on the plastic polo pony.

'We're all friends together. No need to bow so low.'

'You summoned me, Sire,' said Mimic.

'Indeed I did,' said the Emperor and smiled at him. 'You are the Pastry Chef, aren't you?'

'Yes, Sire. An unexpected honour.'

'Am I supposed to laugh?'

'Not at all, Sire.'

The Emperor set the machine going a little so that it rocked slowly, taking him up and down in little shallow bumps as though he were cruising on a merry-go-round.

'What are your influences, Pastry Chef?'

'Excuse me, Sire?'

'Your influences? I thought all you culinary types considered yourselves artists?'

'Yes, absolutely.'

'So you would have influences if you were an artist, wouldn't you?'

'I suppose.'

'Are they Cramptonian?'

'I'm sorry?'

'You're from the planet Crampton, aren't you?'

'Yes, I am, Sire.'

'The Cramptonians are a special people. Are they not? Could they not be your influence?'

'We have little history in the culinary arts.'

'Yet you are my Pastry Chef...'

'Yes, I am.'

'And Cramptonians have been influential elsewhere, haven't they?'

'In certain fields.'

'Like the controversial field of "Resistance to Imperial Rule"?'

'I am a loyal subject, Sire. As are most of my countrymen.'

'Good, good. You are a smart young fellow. How's the wife?'

'The wife?'

'Kneel before me now. There's a good chap. I would prefer your head between your knees. Don't you know it's rude to look directly at the face of the Emperor? A cat may look at a king and all that but not in my place.'

Mimic did as he was told and kneeled before the Emperor.

'Sire, if I have caused offence...'

'Have you heard from her recently? The wife that is?'

'My wife is a Councillor on Crampton, it is true, but I have had no contact with her in four years.'

'Hasn't tried to contact you recently?'

'No, Sire.'

'Because if she had we would surely find out about it, wouldn't we? You're a member of the Imperial Household, aren't you, Pastry Chef? We could have put a tracer on you, couldn't we? Or perhaps you weren't aware?'

'Sire, she has sent but one message. She has said she is great danger. I did not even answer her. She is nothing to me.'

'How's the nipper?' said the Emperor. He stood up in his stirrups so that he was eight feet tall and raised his polo club high above his head. 'He's nothing to you either?'

He brought it down quickly, lengthwise, with sharp thwack and it caught the back of the Pastry Chef's neck sufficiently for it to be hacked halfway through.

'Bugger!' cried the Emperor. 'Sliced it! Damned technique all over the show!'

The Emperor dismounted from the polo pony, taking care not to slip on the blood on the floor, and lifted up the man's head still hanging by a slice of skin from his neck. He pushed his fist inside and grabbed at a handful of the soft tissue, feeling for something, and then when he was sure he didn't have it, he pulled the grey jelly onto the floor in lumps. Soon, after three or four fistfuls, he had got what he wanted and rubbed it clean of the man's grot, and then held it up to the light – the duct, a tiny silver lozenge. He turned it over and over in his hand.

'He was a nasty, traitorous bitch, so it might be a good one,' said the Emperor to the hive-mind.

'Put it in quickly, Sire, or it will go off, and then you won't be able to read it at all.'

The Emperor opened his mouth, and pushed the duct upwards to the back of his throat, half-swallowed, catching it with his tongue, and then his eyes rolled up and he was lost in a kind of trance while the hive-mind had it opened and stored.

'We will read it together,' he said. 'Tonight. In the nursery, I think.'

***

Chapter Fifteen

They had a day to rest and the first point of order was a visit to a fortune-teller. The cow, a little recovered, stayed behind, freed from cold storage to mind the belongings, and Cormack and Proton set off with Stanton Bosch showing them the way, down the narrow, cobbled streets that would lead them to the Ancient Quarter.

They had walked for about half an hour when he found the house that he meant them to visit. There was a small, square, wooden sign outside, as though for an inn, hanging from an iron stanchion and blowing in the breeze. The painting on it showed a crystal ball cupped in a pink hand.

Inside it was dark and dusty. The room was strung with lace brocades that fell from the ceiling in great arching waves, and there were net curtains draped all about, and cobwebs and dust and threads of gossamer, and the smell of incense, wafting in clouds of pungent smoke, blowing everywhere amongst the chinoiseries. Along the walls, dusty cabinets held darkened ampullae, splashed with aromatic oils, and ancient hubble-bubbles and samovars and hookahs were tarnished and wrecked on the floor.

All gave the desired effect of Oriental mystery.

An old woman sat on a stool by the door.

'Come for a reading, darlings?' she said. 'I'll let him know.'

She made them sit down, round a circular table covered with a white tablecloth, whilst she went out back to raise the soothsayer.

'What are we here for exactly?' asked Cormack.

'Tourist fun,' said Stanton Bosch.

Proton got them to hold hands around the table and shut their eyes. He made a humming sound and joggled the table a bit with his leg.

The soothsayer, entering through a flap in a curtain, caught him at it and was not amused.

'It's really not a subject for mockery,' he said and sat down. 'And I would prefer payment upfront.'

'Of course,' said Proton, handing him some coins.

'Thank you,' said the soothsayer. He wore plain robes fashioned from sackcloth, with enormous conjuror's sleeves that made Cormack apprehensive about his authenticity.

'To begin!' he cried. 'You have a Candidate!'

'Very good!' said Proton.

Stanton Bosch gave a wink.

'I should come clean. I was informed,' said the soothsayer.

'Oh...'

'You are the Candidate,' he said, turning to Cormack.

'Well, even that is impressive,' said Proton. 'It could have been me.'

'Candidate!'

'You mean me?' said Cormack.

'Candidate – let me see your hand!' The soothsayer studied it a while and poked at the lines carefully. 'Yes, propitious. Does he bear a sign?'

'Cormack, show the man your nipple.'

'I'd really rather not.'

Proton fingered his laser gun.

'Oh, all right,' said Cormack and opened his shirt.

'In exactly the right place.'

'Jolly good.'

'You are right to proceed. I will wire ahead to Shambalah. As you know my brother is the Sibyl. He will expect payment in advance.'

Proton again reached into his pocket for more coins and handed a fistful to the soothsayer.

'Now,' continued the soothsayer. 'Further information that will help you. Listen carefully. There is to be a cockfight today – in the Arena. You must attend. There will be a Battle Royal. It is only staged once a week. You are fortunate you are here on the appointed day. The Candidate must place a bet on a cock – on one cock alone. If he loses, he must stay here in Bartislard another week and try to win again at the next Battle Royal. If he wins, he must take his winnings and use them to buy the wagered cock. Carry it with you to Shambalah! It is important you do this! The cock will be of use to you. Do not leave without the cock. Do you understand?'

'Absolutely,' said Proton. 'Buy the wagered cock. Carry it with us to Shambalah.'

'It's all in the Ancient Texts. I will give you a reference if you like.'

'No, no. We're quite familiar.'

***

'Hardly value for money,' said Cormack as they walked down the street afterwards, looking for the Arena.

'Place has become a tourist trap,' said Proton. 'Every kind of rip-off has sprung up.'

He lifted a knick-knack from a barrel of souvenirs on sale outside a shop they were passing, a ceramic frog, and examined the markings. 'There you go,' he said. 'Made on Zargon 8.'

Stanton Bosch showed them the road that led to the Arena, but they still had a little time before the cockfight was to begin, so they found a small café in a piazza and ordered lattés and crêpes, talking amongst themselves and admiring the women who passed in their hiking boots and tight-fitting tracksuits.

'Beautiful place, Bartislard,' said Proton.

'Tell that to the cow and my friends, the hang-gliders,' said Cormack.

'They was foolish, skinny man. The planet is to be respected. 'Tis a holy place after all. Once we get out of Bartislard, to where we headed, you won't find no foolish tourists.'

'Where are we headed exactly?'

'Up the SplatterHorn.'

'Up the what?'

'Pass me a crêpe there, skinny man.'

***

Chapter Sixteen

The Zargonic Governor of Crampton, in fact the Opikarp, was swimming clockwise around his tank. Usually he swam anticlockwise, but today he felt vaguely off-colour and wondered if the sun slanting on his giant Perspex donut from a peculiar angle, now that they had destroyed the third moon, Optigon, he believed it had been called, was responsible. He had quite forgotten that it had given a pleasant shade to his tank in the afternoon, and now he was sorry he had ordered it mined for salt.

Traction was within the giant O, becloaked, looking like an Old Testament prophet.

'Traction, I have called you here for a reason.'

'Yes, Sire. You always have a reason.'

'You have served us well over the years. The information you gave concerning the Pastry Chef, Mimic, has been most valuable. The Emperor wishes you to know that he is pleased.'

'Thank you, Sire.'

'But he is concerned about the state of the Resistance on Crampton as a whole.'

'In what regard?'

'It has always been something of a joke.'

'Indeed.'

'Mrs. Bellingham has cut a clownish figure. She has been quite ludicrously ineffective.'

'I suppose.'

'We have suffered her because of it. But the attempted poisoning was almost well conceived. If it hadn't been for your information, it might even have succeeded. The man was well placed.'

'Sire, I serve the Emperor. He was never in any danger.'

'The Emperor wants Mrs. Bellingham killed. He has tired of her.'

'Ahhh...but you know, she is no longer in charge of the Resistance.'

'No matter. He wants her. She is still the senior figure.'

'How does he want it to happen? I hope he doesn't wish to compromise me.'

'No, no. He wishes her to travel to Zargon 8. He will deal with her there.'

'Why not kill her here?'

'My instructions are a little vague with regard to that particular point. Apparently, the Emperor has a new hobby. He is collecting things. It said ducts in the communiqué, but that can't be right. I'm not quite sure what it is, but Mrs. Bellingham certainly has one that he wants.'

'Perhaps it was supposed to read ducks?'

'She has a duck he wants?'

'I shouldn't think so. She gardens. There is a pond but no ducks.'

'I suppose I could ask the Emperor for clarification.'

'They both play polo. Perhaps it's a technical term. Perhaps it is a piece of polo equipment.'

'A duck? Perhaps. Who knows? In any case, ask her to take it. Gauge the response.'

'Take it where?'

'To Zargon 8 – do keep up. She's been invited to a polo tournament. Personal invitation of the Emperor.'

***

Chapter Seventeen

The Arena when they arrived was half full, but they found a place to sit about four rows back on the benches that circled the tiny cockpit.

Bets were being taken. Touts were everywhere, standing up and screaming and waving wads of bank notes. It was all quite unintelligible to Cormack, and presumably to Proton too, because he leaned over to ask Stanton Bosch the correct form to place a wager.

'Why, you does just stand up and holler it!' said the Bosch. 'Have you decided on a cock, skinny man?'

'No. I don't even know what to choose from.'

'See that board over there. That lists the contenders.'

Cormack couldn't quite make out all the names, but he could read Killing Machine for one and Mr Fantastic for another. He decided he would try Killing Machine and asked Stanton Bosch to place the bet for him.

'Noes, skinny man. You heard the soothsayer. You have to place the bet yourself. Stand up and holler it!' he said, and he gave him a little pat and a wink and added in a whisper, 'Don't worry. I've got yer back.'

'How much to wager?' he asked Proton.

'Enough to buy the chicken. Look.'

He handed Cormack a handful of coins, adding softly, 'This is proving to be a very expensive day.'

Cormack stood up and waved the coins about as he had seen the others do and failed to attract any interest.

'Holler out, man! Holler out!' cried Stanton Bosch and Cormack cleared his throat and said, 'Anyone for five sestertii on Killing Machine?' in a tremulous voice that failed to carry much beyond the second row.

'I'll take you up on that one,' said Stanton Bosch. 'Five sestertii that Killing Machine don't lose.'

'Really, are you allowed?' said Cormack.

'Five to one that Killing Machine don't lose,' Stanton Bosch repeated carefully. 'That'll buy the chicken.'

'You're on,' said Cormack and Stanton Bosch gave him a betting slip and signalled to the pit.

Killing Machine, when it arrived in the ring caged in its crate, was a disappointment. It was a small drab thing, brown and flustered, apparently named more in hope than in expectation. It sat on the bottom of its cage motionless, as though it were laying an egg.

'Is it sick?' asked Cormack.

'No, no,' said Stanton Bosch. 'The quiet ones is the most wicious. See me brother there?'

He pointed at a Bosch, perhaps Hilton, who was close to the pit with a cock in a crate.

'He got Starburst. That is a real champion in the making. One wicious chicken. It'll be in the Battle Royal too.'

'Perhaps I should have bet on that instead?'

'No, skinny man, you chose wisely. Don't put no bets on Starburst. Now watch.'

The eight handlers came into the pit with the cocks in their cages and there was a final furious laying of wagers in the crowd, accompanied by much waving of betting slips and hollers and cat-calls, and then the referee, a gaucho in a checked shirt, raised a red handkerchief and flung it down furiously. Then the handlers grabbed their charges by their legs and threw them in the ring.

Cormack had his eye on Killing Machine, which alighted on the sawdust with a startled ruffle of feathers and then proceeded to strut about disconsolately, as indifferent to the opposition as they were to him, so he missed the first kill which was almost instantaneous. Starburst, living up to the Bosch's billing, went straight at Mr Fantastic and had his head off with a bite to the neck. Mr Fantastic, being a chicken, wouldn't fall at first and ran about headless, dribbling blood on the sawdust and confusing the spread-betters who were timing the kill.

Next to go was a fragile orange thing, another victim of Starburst, who this time had it with its clawed talons, ripping it all about until it lay in the sawdust, wrecked like a piece of road kill. Then there was an indecent amount of sparring, as the chickens considered their options, and they seemed for a moment settled on peaceful co-existence within the sawdust pit, until the referee, sensing the crowd's anxiety, gave Starburst a swift kick, and he turned on the cock that he suspected of having done it. It was brutal and horrifying. Killing Machine, with a naivety that Cormack suspected came from never having been near a cockfight before in its entire life, lay quite still while it was pecked about the body and neck relentlessly as though it hoped, if it were quiet enough, Starburst might think it were dead already.

Soon another cock came by to join in the action, and Starburst turned on that.

Cormack could see the damage that had been done to his chosen chicken. It was dead, sure enough. The wager was lost. Proton, who hadn't clocked what had happened yet, being caught up in the action and from the looks of him as he snarled and dipped with the fighting, zoomorphised to a killer chicken, would be furious when he realized what had happened.

'It's dead,' said Cormack. 'Killing Machine is dead.'

'It surely is,' said Stanton Bosch.

'I lost the bet.'

'No you ain't,' said Stanton Bosch. He gave a signal to his brother, Hilton Bosch, who was near the pit.

Hilton at once got up and pulled at the referee inside the ring. He was whispering in his ear and the referee looked concerned. Then he leant into the pit and reached for the red handkerchief that was still on the ground, raising it above his head. Hilton Bosch grabbed at Starburst, who had just killed another cock, the last still standing save him, and showed him to the referee. There was a confusion in the crowd, and boos and jeers and heckles. The referee gave a final wave.

It was over and no one could understand what had happened.

'What's going on?' said Cormack.

'Technical infraction,' said Stanton Bosch. 'Me brother would have pointed it out to the referee.'

'Ladies and Gentleman!' shouted the referee. 'The Battle Royal has been stopped. All bets are off!'

There were roars from the crowd. Betting slips were flying in the air. Small fights were breaking out.

'I am so sorry. But I must have order. As I said, all bets are off. There has been a major technical infraction – Starburst is disqualified!'

'Disqualified for what?' said Cormack

'Impersonating a cock,' said Stanton Bosch. 'She's not a cock at all. She's a hen. She got teeth. Hens has got teeth on Foul Ball. Every damn fool knows that. They're supposed to check for these things. Too late now she killed them all. But here's your money, skinny man. You can see my brother for the chicken. You'll have to take Starburst cos it's the only one left alive.'

'I thought all bets were off.'

'Bets through the tote. Not a little friendly side bet like we had. Killing Machine ain't lost so you win the wager.'

Proton was all ears and wanted to be convinced.

'Cormack, my boy, you see how divine providence works? You picked the sickest, weakest bird there and still it came through for you. I knew you were the one, Cormack! When I first laid my eyes on you, I knew you were the one!'

'But I would have won whichever cock I bet on. Except perhaps Starburst, because she wasn't a cock at all. But Stanton Bosch told me not to bet on her.'

'True enough, skinny man. True enough,' said Stanton Bosch, and he surveyed the Arena shiftily, as though he were hunting for someone in the crowd that might have been listening.

***

Chapter Eighteen

Geoffrey loomed large at the head of the table, gavel in hand, ready to bang them to order.

'First point of order – approval of the minutes from our previous meeting.'

'Is that really necessary?'

'Yes, Mrs. Bellingham. If we are to maintain proper records in council.'

She sat distractedly, staring through the French windows at the garden beyond.

'Approval of the minutes from our previous meeting. Show of hands. And approved. Moving on...'

'Can I have an agenda please, Geoffrey?'

'You didn't get one, Douglas?'

'No.'

'Mrs. Bellingham – Douglas, didn't get an agenda.'

'Oh!'

She rose to the pile that she had copied and pulled one off the top.

'Here you are, Douglas.'

'Thank you so much, Pamela.'

'Item one again...'

'Traction, Traction...'

'Yes, ma'am.'

'A little sherry, I think. Anybody for a little sherry?'

'Yes please, Pamela.'

'Item one... again... Report on the torture of the Juval Councillor.'

'Shouldn't Finance report first?'

'Oh, I'm sorry.'

'It says the Juval Councillor is first on the agenda.'

'But normally Finance reports first.'

'Let's go with the Juval Councillor seeing as that's what it says on the agenda. Graham – your report please.'

'We could go with Finance first if you want. It really doesn't matter.'

'No, I think, we're agreed we want the Juval Councillor first.'

'Are you sure?'

'Absolutely we're sure.'

Silence, while Graham stared into space.

'Go ahead, Graham.'

'Oh! Well, I suppose I will come right out with it. Thing is the chaps got a little carried away. Not really used to this kind of thing. It requires a subtlety that they appreciably lack. I'm afraid they rather did her in.'

'She's dead?' said Mrs Bellingham loudly.

'Well, she wouldn't be dead, would she, Graham?' said Geoffrey.

'Well, she is rather.'

'Oh, my good God!'

'Yes, so the rest of the agenda is probably going to have to change to suit. I see, item five for instance – further methods of torturing the Juval Councillor – all that's rather dependant on her coming out of item one alive, which she hasn't.'

'Did she contact the Pastry Chef before she died?' asked Mrs. Bellingham.

'Oh yes. That was all done. He was keen to cooperate in fact. And he's asking for a certain poison. The balm from the Fractious Jub-Jub tree. He wants it sent. Apparently it's his preferred methodology.'

'The balm from the Fractious Jub-Jub tree? What in heaven's name is a Fractious Jub-Jub tree?' said Douglas.

'Over there,' said Mrs Bellingham, pointing through the French windows to a huge spreading tree with leaves of olive green and a boled trunk, twenty feet wide. It gave shade across most of the croquet lawn. 'Nearest the hydrangeas.'

***

Chapter Nineteen

They hardly slept that night. The cow was bivouacked in the refrigerator and Cormack got up periodically to attend to the cold presses that Stanton Bosch had prescribed for her stumps.

The morning, when it came at last, was cold and clear. Proton was on the Tropico's sun deck, performing his exercises in a canary yellow ski-suit, when Cormack came upon him with a mug of coffee.

'Look at the SplatterHorn!' said Proton, as he jumping-jacked. 'Beautiful, isn't it?'

Cormack looked beyond the balustrade and saw the mountain for the first time. It had lost its shroud of fog and was standing clear and stark against the pale blue sky. It did look magnificent - a classical conical volcano, lolling huge in the distance and unconcernedly steaming a pale flume of smoke into the cold mountain air as though it were the side-stream from its post-coital cigarette.

'Are we really going to climb it, Proton?' asked Cormack.

'Sure are, mate! Don't worry, it'll be a breeze. You're with a team of survival experts.'

'Is the cow coming too?'

'Cormack, the cow is an unnecessary burden. And remember, we have the chicken to worry about now as well. We can leave her in the fridge in the hotel. She'll be fine until we get back.'

'If wes get back,' said Stanton Bosch, who had arrived on the terrace wearing tight lederhosen and a felt mountaineering hat sporting a tiny red feather.

'Stanton Bosch! Top of the morning to you! How did you sleep?' said Proton.

'Not so good.'

'You've finished the preparations?'

'Aye, we have,' said Stanton Bosch. 'Me brothers are all here. They'll be acting as your Sherpas.'

'I'm not going without the cow,' said Cormack peevishly.

'You know the cow might come in useful to us, Captain,' said Stanton Bosch. 'A little jerky in a blizzard...'

'He wants to take the living cow.'

'I'm not going without her.'

In the end, they acceded to Cormack's request without telling him why, and the cow was tied to a stretcher that the Boschs had procured from a haberdashers they had found in town. She was to be raised like an Indian Princess on a howdah by a team of four and was enthralled at the prospect.

'Ooooh, Cormack,' she said quietly, feeling a little chirpier. 'And me a little Zargonic cow what's lost me legs. Why ever are they treating me so?'

By nine, breakfast having been consumed and bags packed and bills satisfied, they were all set. Proton was to lead off with Stanton Bosch as his guide. Then would come Cormack, walking, and the cow, lifted by the other Boschs, both surrounded by a phalanx of Guards to prevent escape.

The road from Bartislard was at first tarmaced and in good condition, but soon it deteriorated into a cobbled track and then, after they had marched for a couple of hours, it fell away completely and became a tightly wound footpath, lightly pebbled, that cut through the jungle vegetation wonkily and seemed at times to be leading them away from the mountain.

After a couple hours, Proton had them stop by a clear, cold stream to take on water and refill their canteens. He had the chicken in a little cage, tied to his backpack, and it was in constant flight, clucking and fussing and pecking at him like a bad conscience.

Cormack found Stanton Bosch standing barefoot in the stream, washing his feet.

'Three days march, skinny man,' he said. 'We camp tonight a little way up from the foot of the mountain. Then the next night we'll be halfway up. 'Tis only on the third night we'll make the summit. Conserve your energy. It will be a tough march.'

They chugged on when they had filled their canteens, along the path that began to wind upwards now. The vegetation gave way a little and soon they were amongst scrub and gorse. There were grazing animals that looked like sheep or goats, but with long curled horns, pulling at the moss with broken yellow teeth.

They stopped for lunch at noon, under Proton's instruction, and had quite a picnic of bread and cheese and chocolate, propped on a succession of terraced bands, evidence that the land had once been farmed.

The tropical fug of Bartislard had dissolved into a temperate balm, and it felt summery and fresh. The cow was able to turn herself to one side inside the straps and whisper to Cormack that she wanted grass. He pulled a handful from the side of the path, and fed her some, putting the rest in his backpack. Soon enough they were off again at Proton's command.

It was tougher going now. The path was rising more steeply, but the Guards and the Boschs, even with the cow as a burden, made a good pace and Cormack struggled to keep up.

They were closing on the mountain inexorably. They could see how the path bent around the rocky outcroppings of solidified lava, and how it would lead them west and through a small gorge, and then to the volcano's base. And they could see the threaded way that was scored back and forth along the southern flank, and wound up it like a piece of looped cotton, and how it would take them to the summit.

It looked impossibly steep.

'Aye, it's a tough march. Not many attempt it this time of year. You see the snowcap?' Now they were closer, Cormack could see the white frosting that from afar had been lost against the sky. 'It can be a dangerous place up there.'

They stopped at six as the sun was setting and made camp with the tents there in the bracken.

***

Chapter Twenty

Mrs. Bellingham broke it down for them.

'You can still continue. The Pastry Chef does not know his wife is dead. How can he? He will still cooperate. We will send him the balm from the Fractious Jub-Jub tree.'

'How?'

'I will deliver it.'

'You will deliver it, Pamela?'

They were in yet another meeting of the Resistance Committee in her dining room. She wondered why they couldn't acquire another venue, now that she was no longer Chairwoman.

'I will deliver it. The tree is native to Crampton. It is not much known throughout the Empire. I suppose that's why the Pastry Chef wants it. There would be little chance of his getting caught. The sap is highly poisonous when it's distilled and incendiary if it's oxidized. It requires careful handling. Really, I am the expert. It should be me that goes. I will carry him news of his son and perhaps of his wife. It will sound better coming from me.'

'You can't just go to Zargon 8, Pamela. It will be highly suspicious. You will be watched.'

'But I have been invited.'

'Invited?'

'Yes, Douglas. By the Emperor himself.'

'Really?'

'He's having a tournament. A polo tournament. He has invited a team from Crampton to compete.'

'Well, what luck!'

But Mrs. Bellingham didn't feel luck had much to do with it.

She had told Traction to wait outside and that he was no longer to attend to them during committee. He had shuffled anxiously and almost spluttered an objection before thinking better of it. Then he had nervously slunk to the kitchen, and she had caught him in the back larder, amongst the Double Gloucesters, with a glass to the wall.

But she would go anyway. She had had enough. Enough of being alone in that huge, draughty house, just her and the dogs and Traction; enough of Douglas, and his fumbled solicitations; enough of that peculiar new man, who sat at the head of her dining room table as though he were in a restaurant and about to order trout; enough of Crampton; enough of everything.

She would feed the dogs, and there were the horses to attend to, and then she would cut the grass on the farthest remote with the Bratton Davis. Stripe the bailey.

Time enough for the composting tomorrow.

***

Chapter Twenty One

The night passed with little incident. They were up early and, after a breakfast of beans and bread, ready for the off again.

They walked for close on two hours, across scrubby grassland that led to the base of the volcano, and then they came upon a small bridge that crossed a clear stream. They traversed it with care, Proton leading the way, delicate as a ballerina. They could feel the boards move beneath their feet but it held fast, and when they were across, they were right beneath the mountain itself. Then the path began to rise, switching back and forth across the south face.

It was slow, sweaty progress, especially for the Boschs lifting the cow. They marched upwards at a funereal pace like convicts on a chain gang.

When Proton called for lunch at noon, they stopped on the curve of a wide switchback and surveyed the view, magnificent now they were some five thousand feet up. Bartislard stood crouched in the valley below, slopped from the city walls and into the jungle, and they could see the Leech, a brown thread snaking through the green forest, and the sea beyond.

'I said it was a beautiful planet,' said Proton, trying not to mind his chicken which was clucking and fretting at him in the cage on his back.

'It's lovely from up here,' said Cormack.

'There be dangers up here too,' said Stanton Bosch. 'Keep your eyes open.'

The wind was picking up and there was an edge to it, so they didn't stop long.

All that afternoon they made measured progress, moving carefully back and forth along the switchbacks, until Stanton Bosch recommended a ridge where they could stop to make camp for the night.

'This be the place,' he said to Proton.

Proton was not so sure. There would be little room for the tents and it was very exposed, windward to the gusts that were whipping ash and dust at them.

'But this be the best place all the same,' said Stanton Bosch. 'Until we gets to the summit.'

They unpacked their tents and arranged them as best they could in a tight semi-circle, backed against the mountain. Then the Boschs set the fire going and started boiling water for their tea.

Proton set the chicken down in its steel basket next to his tent and went to talk to Stanton Bosch. They stood near the drop-off and pointed down the valley in an animated fashion, as though they were military strategists planning a raid.

Cormack was sat with the cow by the fire.

She appeared to have had a relapse and was loathed to talk – the stretcher borne at a tilt for most of the day had made her nauseated.

After supper round the fire and nervous talk of tomorrow's exertions, they all, save a few Guards and a couple of Boschs who were into the whisky, repaired to their tents. It was very cold, and they would be up at dawn for an early start.

Cormack was exhausted, and crawled into his sleeping bag to try to get some sleep. Disconcerting images passed through his mind as he stared at the pin pricked canvas: Proton, armoured with his plastic codpiece, perched on a rock promontory like the Archangel Gabriel above Gomorrah; the gontail, tight around the cow, slicing her as though she were sausage; the face of Stanton Bosch, his liver spots linked and draining one into the other like a succession of oil strikes. Absurd, mad pictures, like frames from a cartoon. Foul Ball's a dangerous planet, he kept thinking - Proton's words from the Tropico, running around his head, over and over like a mantra, until he could stand it no more and fell asleep.

He awoke with a start minutes later.

There were sounds of a scuffle from behind his tent, and then a man screamed.

He heard tent flaps zipped open, and saw beams from flashlights on the walls of his tent. There was shouting and yet more screaming.

He lay quite still for a while, and when he could bear it no longer, he unzipped the flap and went out into the cold night air.

The screams were coming from the farthest side of the camp, where there was quite a scrum around one particular tent.

'What on Earth is going on?' he said as he pressed his way forward.

'Can't really tell,' said a Guard who was watching outside. 'Something in there attacked Lucus.'

There was a further commotion, and the tent shook violently. They heard the sound of a gun being fired and angry voices from within. After what appeared to be a short scuffle, the flap was ripped open.

Proton came out holding a dead chicken by its feet.

'It's fucking fried now,' he said.

Stanton Bosch was beside him.

'Aye, that's a disappointment. Hilton will be upset.'

'And that is contrary to the wishes of the soothsayer. It's going to be hard going with the Sibyl.'

'Carry it all the same.'

'What the hell was Lucus thinking?'

'I suppose he ain't know its importance.'

'He was as good as dead already.'

'Aye, the chicken had him brutal.'

'It escaped from the cage. It was an accident. There was no need to kill it.'

'It was a lucky shot. A dying fall.'

'Stupid bastard.'

Proton cradled the dead, blackened chicken in his arms delicately, as though it were his baby, and with tears in his eyes carried it to his tent, sheltering it from the wind and the curious eyes of the onlookers. The other Guards were left to clear Lucus' tent and dispose of his remains, splashed all about by Starburst in her frenzy.

***

Chapter Twenty Two

Douglas was there to see her off. She had the poison in a double-bulbed phial, hidden in the head of her polo mallet.

'Good of you to come.'

'Of course I had to, Pamela. See you off and everything.'

It was chilly on the landing strip and he was dressed for the cold, all wrapped in a fur-lined trench coat with the collar up so that he was bundled like an ancient aviator.

'The team's over there.'

'Yes, I saw them when I came in. Recognised a few.'

'Course we don't stand a chance.'

'You never know. Things might work out.'

'Missing a centre forward. One that can shoot anyway.'

'You'll get through all the same.'

'The dogs, Douglas. Make sure they're fed.'

'Of course. They'll be fine.'

'And the trout in the spinney. There's a run-off from one of the levees. It will need to be seen to.'

'I'll deal with it.'

'Keep your eye on Traction. Don't let him near the drinks' cabinet.'

'Of course not.'

'I've never been so frightened, Douglas.'

'Everything will be fine. We'll see you back in a week.'

He took her in her arms, gave her a cumbrous embrace and a tight peck on the cheek.

'Chin up, old girl!' he said. 'Crampton forever and all that! Just try your best. Maybe you'll get a result.'

'He has Guards and policy advisers and every kind of protection. He's not an idiot. I can't get to him, Douglas. If the Pastry Chef is dead. It is ridiculous.'

'They set you up.'

'Of course, they set me up.'

'But you wanted to go. You didn't even fight it.'

'Tired of it, Douglas... tired of being here. Tired of being me.'

'Don't say that.'

'But it's true.'

They hugged again, one last time, and she went up the steps to the small space-carrier without looking back.

***

Chapter Twenty Three

They buried Lucus there in the scree when the sun had risen. They dug the shallow grave with the tips of their rifles, scratching at the permafrost and making a close box of it. It would have been harder if it wasn't spring, but the frost kept it firm, and when he was in and Proton had said his piece, four hard kicks covered him with ash.

Then they were off again, hoping for the summit before nightfall.

The march was brutal and they walked in silence.

Again they stopped at noon, but this time the Guards who had been accustomed to eating with Proton withdrew from him and formed a huddle a little way apart. When he saw what they had done, he tried to join them, but they got up all together and moved away to sit down again on the rocks further up.

'Something going on,' he said to Stanton Bosch. They were standing further up the path, looking down.

'Aye, they're upset. About Lucus I suppose.'

'I should go and talk with them.'

'No, leave it. Let them be. Let them talk it through. They ain't got no options. But they need to work it out for themselves.'

'It's bloody Pranzi. Stirring them up.'

'That's why you should leave it.'

'She was always against it, you know – bringing Cormack here. I kind of forced her into it. I was on a high. I had seen the light.'

'Aye, the light.'

'Well, if not the light, the communiqué from the Emperor explaining that Cormack was at the Intervention Event. You know I was on the original crew? That one that kidnapped him from Earth?'

'No, I didn't know that. Kidnapped, was he?'

'Yeah, had me thinking then.'

'Thinking?'

'Yes, all the way back to Zargon 8. We had instructions not to talk to Cormack. But I really wanted to, you know.'

'Did you now?'

'Yes. I have questions. I wanted to ask him about God. You know, you reach a certain age in life and everything stops making sense. That happened to you yet?'

'Not yet, no. Everything clear so far,' said Stanton Bosch and he tapped his head.

'You wonder what's the point of it all,' continued Proton. 'All this sort of deranged shambolism you see everywhere. Why bother? Live, procreate, die. Dung and death. On and on and on. Depressing really...'

'Aye, I imagine so.'

'So when I had orders to take him from the Prison Whale, was engaged to meet him again, it was like an epiphany.'

'An epiphany? Must have been.'

'I went for it.'

'Aye.'

'So far not much response from Cormack...'

'Aye. He's a quiet one. Talks to the cow a lot though.'

'Yes, quite a connection there. Probably just frightened of me. Need to win him over.'

'Just so.'

'I wonder if I did the right thing bringing him here?'

'Well, what's done is done. You right in it now, whether you want to be or not, Captain. Now ain't no time for second thoughts.'

***

Chapter Twenty Four

She could hear Frantic, the centre half, talking with Porritt, two rows back.

'Don't have to tell her,' he said. 'Just do it.'

'But she's the captain.'

'We don't stand any kind of bloody chance at all unless we find ways to circumvent her.'

'I'll sound her out. She might not object.'

'Just go ahead and do it. She won't even notice.'

Over nothing, she thought. He wanted to switch to the wing, and she would have had said, Yes, immediately. In fact, she preferred him there. They didn't want to talk to her. That was all. She was different, older, a woman, whatever.

She gave a sigh, reclined the spacecraft seat a little further, and stared at the tiny oval by her side that gave out onto the black void. She saw a middle-aged woman, her hair sprayed and set, face powdered and rouged, crowsfeet round her eyes, mauve lipstick. A relic.

I suppose I understand how they feel, she thought. If I were their age, I wouldn't want to talk to me either.

'Porritt!' she said. 'I heard you!'

'Oh, hell!'

'Oh, hell what? You can talk to me, you know.'

'Yes, Mrs. Bellingham.'

'Move to the wing if you want. It might be an idea.'

But he didn't want to, now she had suggested it.

Later she heard them again. They must have thought she was sleeping.

'What gives her the right anyway?' said Porritt.

'She's the selector, isn't she?'

'Is she? Selector and captain – very strange.'

'Otherwise she wouldn't even be on the team.'

'How can she be selector and captain? Who is she exactly? I hear she lives in this huge country estate. All by herself.'

'It's called Blowers. She's a nob. Her claim to fame is having introduced polo to Crampton. She spent some time on Zargon 8 as a girl and learnt the game there. That's why she's in charge of everything. The game on Crampton has outgrown her, that's all.'

'I think the whole planet has outgrown her. She's one of those old fogeys. Takes pleasure in shoving her enormous bulk in the way of progress. Never come to terms with Empire, I suppose.'

He said the word, 'Empire', in a kind of snotty sarcastic whine, making fun of the declamation as he supposed she might. It was a concept irrelevant to him, as immediate as his duct.

She accessed her childhood, stored more vividly there.

She had been seven when she had gone. The Zargons had arrived on Crampton two years before. She remembered their smooth, grey battle-cruisers sat in the sky like barrage balloons, a statement of intent. Her parents had been uneasy, but had told her to curtsey to the Commander when he had paid them a visit.

She remembered the excitement of packing, everything not fitting in her small blue suitcase; meeting with the other children at the spaceport; the small transporter with the pilot who unnervingly left the cockpit to talk with them; her first view of the city – people, everywhere; the litter; great, grey museums impressively empty and smelling of carbolic; holo-theatres, advertising movies full of explosions; shops on seventeen levels where pretty, smiling girls sprayed her with perfume as she entered; trams that she caught according to a multi-coloured diagram; the animated advertising hoardings; a mono-rail full of angry commuters; smog one morning; a beggar playing a penny-whistle.

And when she had reluctantly returned to Crampton and been driven to Blowers, she had found her parents gone.

***

Chapter Twenty Five

They set off again after lunch at a good pace taking their cue from Stanton Bosch who was keen to press on. Cormack had rather embarrassingly joined the cow on the stretcher. His legs were aching, his feet were blistered and the Boschs had become frustrated. They were going to lose the Guards if he couldn't keep up, so they had relented and told him to climb on. He lay back as best he could, resting a little on the cow, and shut his eyes as he bumped back and forth, listening to the crunch of crampons in the snow, and the laboured breathing of the Boschs, and above everything else, the roar of the wind as it whipped and lashed about them.

Up the mountain the way was marked with poles, the path having given way to snow, but they were coming on them further and further apart, until at last they seemed to disappear altogether. Cormack could just make out Proton, in the lead far ahead, striding purposefully.

Then it began to snow, lightly at first, the small snowflakes dropping like confetti from the cold white sky, and the cow opened her eyes, wondering what it was that was tickling her skin, and when she saw it was snow, she smiled.

'I does love the snow,' she said.

'Really?'

'Reminds me of home. Zargonic pastures.'

She made a play of catching the flakes on her tongue, and giggled when she missed and they landed on her nose.

But the fall that had started so gently, soon became a downpour, and the wind began to whip the larger flakes, themselves more like hail now. Stanton Bosch declared it a blizzard and called the party to a halt.

They laid up on a large plateau, making temporary camp with tarpaulins.

'We can still make the summit before nightfall,' Proton said. 'It will ease off.'

'Bes' to lay up here till it pass right over,' said Stanton Bosch. 'Take no chances on this 'ere mountain.'

The Guards were consulted and were at one with the Bosch, so the tents were removed from the backpacks to make a more permanent camp for the night. They pitched them perilously close to the drop-off. The guy-ropes had to be pulled taut so they fizzed in the wind, but there was nothing for it but to wait, and soon the little camp was buried in two feet of snow.

The cow was in Cormack's tent.

'Ooo, huddle close,' she said. 'A cow does have no woollens to keep her warm.'

'It's very uncomfortable,' said Cormack. But he lay down beside her all the same, and put his arms around her, and she moved herself close so that her body was backed tightly against his. They shivered together, with his head resting on her cheek, and all he could see was her leathered skin and the sharp bristles round the nape of her neck, and beyond them, on the wall of the tent, his shadow moving over hers, in time with her breaths.

***

Chapter Twenty Six

'All the teams are here, Sire.'

'The Cramptonians as well?'

'They arrived this morning.'

'Excellent. Was Mrs. Bellingham searched?'

'Quite thoroughly scanned. But they found nothing.'

'Perhaps she has just come for the polo after all. Keep her in barracks all the same.'

They were in the recreation room and had another, from an old groundsman who had died unexpectedly after falling in the moat, and had just finished stewing in it.

'So when can we have her?'

'After the first match, Sire. They cannot win. They are hopeless. They'll play the Tartans.'

Something disappointing with this one though – a sort of sadness running through it like a vein in rock; a paucity of experience – all the memories indistinct as though they were tinged with sepia. The hive-mind had blamed the resolution and the cheapness of the duct. The Emperor had blamed its provenance.

'I suppose they know about the rule changes. The consequences for losing. The prerogative will be strictly enforced.'

'It hasn't been for years.'

'It will be a surprise.'

***

Chapter Twenty Seven

At last the blizzard subsided, but it would soon be dark and there was debate between Stanton Bosch and Proton as to the wisest course of action.

'I say push on. We can make the summit before nightfall. We don't have much time,' said Proton.

'Aye, we can make the summit with luck. But it is not just the summit you seek, is it?' said Stanton Bosch.

'We could make camp up there and wait if necessary. Rather up there than down here.'

'The camp here is made and we are safe for now. We can rest a while and set off in the morning.'

In the end Proton prevailed. There was little time to lose, so they would attempt the summit before nightfall.

The camp was disassembled hurriedly and the tents and equipment were packed away. After much grunting, puffing, and rearranging of loads and clothing, everyone was ready. They set off in single file with the Boschs and their burden of Cormack and the cow at the back.

The heavy snowfall had made the going more difficult. The snow was no longer compacted and hard, but soft and giving, and they were soon bogged down. Proton was leading the way, manfully making flamingo-like strides between the drifts that sucked him in like quicksand, but it was slow-going even for him, and they had barely made two hundred yards when the sun began to sink below the horizon. A gloom descended on the mountain.

Soon Cormack and the cow, borne aloft by the Boschs, lost sight of the Guards who were pushing ahead in what seemed to be one last desperate dash for the summit. The Boschs were adopting a more measured approach, moving forward steadily and slowly in tortured silence.

For four more hours, they tramped forward until at last in the darkness ahead, Cormack could make out flags, marking a way across a small jagged precipice covered with an ice floe, and up into what must surely be, he thought, the rim of the crater.

'Aye, up there, 'tis not far now,' said Stanton Bosch.

They paused for a final rest, filling up on cheese and biscuits, and drinking water from the snowmelt. The cow ate the last of the kush-kush grass that Cormack had gathered for her from the lower slopes, and then Stanton Bosch led the way with a 'Hey-ho!' heading directly for the first of the poles.

It was difficult to see the way, but a strange moon had appeared to the south above the sea and was giving a pale blue light to the snow, so progress was still possible.

Tight in the hollows made by hardened lava floes were black pools of steaming mud that smelt sulphurous, and above, from the rim itself, surged great clouds of fluming smoke that whipped off the mountain and out over the valley below.

They came upon the summit unexpectedly. Stanton Bosch rounded one last outcrop, looking apocalyptic in his lederhosen amongst the billowing smoke, and then they were there - the side of the mountain that they had circled for close on three days at last giving way to a flatness of rocks and smoke and looming darkness.

The rim was some two hundred yards across, roughly circular, pocked with jagged little ledges with a sheer drop-off into the crater itself.

The cow expressed an interest and was shuffled to the edge for a look.

'Oh, my good Lord!' she said as a Bosch tipped her sideways for a better view. 'Tis unfathomably dark down there.'

She asked to be held there for a while and seemed fascinated by something a little way down the far side where Cormack could see only blackness.

'Hope your straps are tight enough there, cow!' said Stanton Bosch. 'Death for a cow or a man if you fall in there! We get our fair share of extreme sports madness on Foul Ball but there ain't no sport called Racing-on-a-Stretcher-Down-a-Volcano. No, cow. Don't even think about it. Now where be the Guards?'

'Perhaps they took a wrong turn,' suggested Cormack.

'So they be going down instead of up?' said the Bosch, and put like that it didn't seem likely, so they decided to leave the cow on her stretcher by the rim and do a quick circuit in the hope that the Guards were resting on the opposite side.

They were about a third of the way round, some ten minutes after leaving the cow, when Cormack, above the roar of the wind, heard a strange, plaintive moan. The Boschs either didn't hear it, or had chosen to ignore it, because they continued on without comment, but to Cormack it sounded dreadfully familiar, hitting some still raw nerve, and it filled him with a sense of foreboding and doom.

He walked on, trying to ignore it, but it continued - the low moaning sound, awful and unearthly, an unloosed imprecation to a terrible God; like the noise the cow had made in her spasms within the Prison Whale, he thought, and then chills ran down his spine and he had an appalling prescience and called at once for Stanton Bosch. In their panic, they ran all the way back to where the cow had been lain on her stretcher.

She was gone. Just an impression of two poles and a emaciated rump worn into the rocky ground marked her former presence, but the low moan, much louder here, indicated where she was now well enough – deep within the crater.

'Cow, can you hear me?' said Stanton Bosch, lying flat to the rim, his leathered legs held by another in case he slipped.

The moan came back stronger and deeper.

'She be in there,' he said to Cormack, pointing down the crater. 'There ain't no hope for she. Prime beef gone to waste. We should have eaten her earlier.'

'She's my friend. We need to get her out.'

'No chance of that. The cow has had it.'

'Hold on there cow!' shouted Cormack down the crater. 'I'm coming to get you out!'

'You does be so good to me,' the cow shouted back limply. 'I was just having a look-see into the crater because I thought I could see some lovely straw and I didn't realize I was so close to the edge and then the stretcher started to slide like a toboggan and...'

Cormack began to strip off, furiously removing his jumpsuit.

Stanton Bosch watched him in horror.

'No, no, skinny man!' he said. 'To go after her without the proper equipment would be certain death. Leave her to her fate. She ain't the first cow to be barbecued.'

'I'm going in,' said Cormack, and got down flat on his belly and crawled across to the rim. He could see little down there except smoke, and the dark scarred rock, and a faint glow from deep below, but, at least initially, it seemed possible to be able to scramble down a little, and still keep a hold, and then perhaps find a way further towards her.

'Holy crap!' cried Stanton Bosch as he watched him go. 'Holy crap! These tourists! They does horrify your soul in truth! And it is only the fourth day! Only the fourth day!'

Cormack pulled himself over the rim, and hung by his fingertips to the top for a while, checking his footing was firm, and then he let go, counting on a ledge he could feel below his toes to hold him while he looked for a way further down. He flattened his feet to grip in the scree, but, to his horror, the gravel wasn't compact enough to hold the weight of his body, and he began to slide, rapidly gaining momentum until he hit a huge lump of rock buried deep in the rubble that caught between his legs and slowed him down enough for him to reach and grab onto the side again. He was winded and hurt, but at least he wasn't sliding any more. He caught his breath and looked down again. He could see the cow now, still on the stretcher, perhaps twenty feet below. The strap on the stretcher towards her lower right stump had caught on a rock, and it was that that was holding her in place, but she was upside down and dangling headfirst towards the bottom of the crater.

'I can see you, cow!' he called out to her. 'I'm coming to you!'

'Cormack, me stumps are numb! Me brain is pumped with blood!'

Again he reached below for a firm footing, and again his foot poked at scree and gravel that, when he pushed it, gave way and rushed down the crater starting, by the sounds of it, a mini-avalanche as it fell. The powdered rock had the consistency of salt. In fact, the only rock that he might be able to reach that he was sure would not give way was the outcrop that was holding the cow.

He thought for a while of what to do, and there seemed to be nothing for it. He pulled himself tight to the side of the crater as though he were about to launch himself into a backstroke, and sprung his legs, jumping feet first into the scree in the general direction of the moans of the cow, and then began to slide. He saw immediately that he had miscalculated the direction of the cow by a few degrees, so he tried to correct by rolling his body towards her. He also saw immediately that he had miscalculated the pain of being flayed by hot volcanic scree pocked with larger rubble, but fortunately for him there was little time to dwell on it because the cow was coming on him fast, off to starboard, and he felt he had a chance to snag her, if only he could get his leg up and out of the scree and hook it in a strap. He turned face down and scrabbled with his hands in a kind of crawl action, trying to slow down his descent, and then he bent one skinny leg towards her and kicked out at her head. Miraculously she saw it, and she grabbed at it with her mouth, but she couldn't hold on. But she did do enough to knock it onto the strap nearest her head, and then there was a horrifying moment when the strap attached to the rock stretched and seemed as if it would give way, but it held firm, and Cormack and the cow hung together, stationary, in mysterious conjunction, the cow on the stretcher face down to the crater, and Cormack below her, held by his boot on the strap nearest her head.

'Are you OK?' said the cow.

'Don't worry about me, cow,' said Cormack.

Then he made protracted efforts to haul himself up and onto the stretcher with the cow. He had to be careful in case he broke the strap that was holding them onto the rock-face, but eventually he did it, and he had himself sprawled on top of her as the best way to distribute his weight without causing further rock falls or damage to the strap.

The cow was uncomfortable.

'What now, Cormack?' she muttered. His head was right on hers.

'Um... not too sure. I suppose we wait to get rescued.'

'But I thought you was doing the rescuing?'

'Well, here I am but I don't see how I can manoeuvre a two ton Zargonic cow out of a volcanic crater on my own.'

'So you just came down her to keep me company?'

'They will be sure to rescue you now. They won't leave me down here.'

***

It was Proton who appeared, dangling on an abseiling wire, within the half-hour.

'Well, what have we here?' he said, looking at them amusedly.

'Hello, Captain,' said the cow.

'I'm not leaving without the cow,' said Cormack.

'Well, that is quite all right for once, because in fact, none of us are leaving,' said Proton. Now Cormack could see that Proton was not alone, and that all the other Guards had joined him, each of them attached to an abseiling wire. 'It's going to be easier to lower her down than up. So she will have to come with us.'

'We're going down?' asked Cormack.

'Yes, down,' said Proton, pointing downwards for extra emphasis. 'Down into the crater.'

***

Chapter Twenty Eight

The Cramptonians and the Tartans lined up on the halfway mark for the playing of the National Anthems.

They were within the Circus, the Emperor's monument to sports, modelled for the Circus Maximus on Spartan Drax. It was a vast oval, broken in two and pulled apart to form two horseshoe-shaped stands, each rising over five hundred feet high and tiered with fifteen hundred rows of seats, all carved into the sandstone. It was used for chariot racing, and exhibitions of horsemanship, and was flooded for ancient naval re-enactments and diving displays. Today it was to stage the polo tournament, and it was full to capacity, six hundred thousand seated within.

The Emperor was present to perform the formalities, smiling sourly from his throne halfway up the middle tier. He had the hive-mind, as always, to his side. They were surrounded by thick jacquard tapestries that formed a shaded little cell, filled with oily ministers and bare-chested slave boys, and nectarines and guavas, and golden bowls and boxes of rubies and opals, and spinals dripping from cornucopias, all above the flower petals scattered ankle-deep. It looked as though a bordello had been opened for business in the stands.

The tournament, as arranged by the hive-mind, had drawn teams from across the Empire - mostly humans, remnants of the dispersal, but others besides.

The Tartans were humans, from the planet Tarta in the long-arm nebula, but had evolved in its low gravity atmosphere so they were eight feet tall, hairless, with extremely long limbs. They looked fragile, like men of fluted glass, but their strange physique was well suited to Imperial Polo, giving them a huge driving range and massive flexibility.

After the anthems, there was an amount of marshalling of the players, and a last minute discussion of tactics, and then, at last, the players on their ponies were ready, and a signal was given by each captain to the referee. The game commenced.

The spandrill, one of a dozen captured from Foul Ball, was dropped into the centre circle in a small plastic bag, from which it was supposed to bite its way out, but, perhaps from indolence or a measure of cross-breeding, it was loathe to move at all and lay in the bag in the circle, motionless. The referee, afraid he might have suffocated it, bent down to check for signs of life, whereupon it sprang into life and rocketed from the bag at his face.

Mrs. Bellingham lurched forward with her mallet, but held back for fear of injuring the referee. The Tartan captain had no such qualms, and launched a vicious attack on the little animal as the referee struggled to pull it off. The thing was mildly bloodied, and it loped off down the pitch looking for some respite only to be greeted by the Tartan centre forward. He drilled his mallet into it, it had to be scraped off, and then it ran at speed towards the touchline before being frightened back into action by the noise of the crowd.

The game continued in this manner for some time, the technically superior skills of the Tartan team being undermined by the capriciousness of the spandrill.

'We're doing pretty well,' she said to Frantic as she passed. 'You should all be proud.'

'We're playing for you, Mrs. Bellingham. We're really trying to put on a good show.'

'Thank you, young man.'

She had tried to contact the Pastry Chef that morning - nothing from his duct. No surprise. She had known he must be dead.

***

Chapter Twenty Nine

Proton had a hard time of it, because the cow kept rocking the stretcher back and forth in her panic, and Cormack was reluctant to stop clinging to her and be belayed to the extra wire that Proton had brought, but eventually the ropes were attached, and Cormack and the cow, with Proton beside, were properly secured. The Boschs were nowhere to be seen, presumably paid off, but the Guards were silently descending like spiders on threads to the gloom below. All were wearing special thermal suits that had apparently not been deemed necessary for Cormack and his cow, or perhaps it was another glitch in Proton's logistics and none could be found of the right size. Whatever the reason, Cormack was uncomfortably warm and getting warmer.

Proton was on the wire between them, supervising their suspension, and occasionally wrapping them in his fire-retarding embrace to stop them bouncing to the sides.

'Where exactly are we headed?' said Cormack.

'Down there. Pranzi is leading a team to reconnoitre,' said Proton.

They could hear a steady rumbling from below, and were able to watch the slow progress of some of the Guards below them.

'But I thought Stanton Bosch said there was no way out.'

'There is a way out and Stanton Bosch knows it very well but they like to keep their little secrets on Foul Ball. This one is not for the tourists. Steady as she goes, cow.'

The cow was still in a state of confusion, flustered from the fall, and was pulling at the straps with her teeth.

'Cormack, I feel meself sliding again.'

'Hold on, cow.'

They remained there hanging for a while, the cow spinning herself in circles, and then unspinning herself at speed in the manner of a dangling yo-yo, and Cormack begged her to stop because she was making him dizzy. Eventually, after about five minutes of this, Cormack saw two of the ropes that were hanging free on the far side of the crater jerk violently, and there were noises from below, and two dark figures emerged, climbing back up to their level with the help of rappels.

It was Pranzilla and a second Guard whose name he didn't know.

'We can't find it, Captain,' Pranzilla called out from across the crater.

'You can't find it? Don't give me that, Pranzi! Do not give me that!'

'It's hopeless. There's nothing but molten rock.'

'It must be there!'

'It isn't. And we can't look any longer. We're frying down there.'

'We have to keep looking till we find it! We have no choice!'

'We can't stay here any longer. We need to get back up. I'm calling the other Guards back. We can rest on the surface and try again later.'

'No!' cried Proton. 'We don't have any time!'

'Captain, there is nothing down there, OK? There is nothing to find. We looked and we looked and there is nothing there. And you know what the funny thing is? The funny thing is that we knew there would be nothing there. Because this whole crackpot expedition was doomed from the start. There is nothing down there and I have the lives of the Guards to consider. We have played out your fantasies long enough. It is time for somebody to get a grip.'

'Get back down there, Lieutenant!' screamed Proton. 'This is insubordination!'

Pranzilla began to rock back and forth with the rope tight between her legs as though she were a trapeze artist building momentum for a swing. She began to loop in little close circles, slowly at first, but soon going well enough that she could touch the side of the crater with her leg if she reached out far enough. She kicked hard against the rock, and propelled herself across to the other side of the crater, where she grabbed another rope. Then hanging onto both ropes, she took the carabiner from hers and hooked it to the other. She jerked the second rope hard and repeated the whole performance again and again. One by one, the Guards were called to the surface.

Proton was going berserk.

'Get the hell down there, Lieutenant! This is in direct contravention of my orders! Nobody is to go to the surface! Get the hell down there!'

Cormack could see all the other Guards now, slowly ascending on grapples, the ropes giving twitches as they jerked themselves up.

'Holy mother of a crap! This is insubordination! We are so close! So close! I am not going to let you mess this up, Lieutenant!' Proton shouted, and then he turned to Cormack with a look of urgency on his face. 'I know the cow means a lot to you so take the rope or she'll likely crush herself on the crater wall as she writhes. I have some business I need to take care of. I'm going down!'

Cormack, open-mouthed, took the rope that held the cow's stretcher from Proton's outstretched hand, and watched Proton lower himself with a whizz of the carabiner to the floor of the volcano.

The seven other Guards came level with Pranzilla, and Cormack and the cow and Pranzilla gave them a hand signal indicating they wait. All looked below, into the smoking gloom, for a trace of the descending Proton. But they could see nothing, and hear nothing, except a distant rumbling from deep within the mountain.

They stared a good while longer, but eventually Pranzilla had had enough, and she was ready to signal to the other Guards to carry on back up and out. Then, just as she raised her hand to wave them on, there came a mighty whoosh and a roar and then there was a flash of flame and suddenly the crater was thick with a white, pungent smoke, pouring up from below them. Cormack could see nothing except whiteness all around him. He felt his throat tightening and he started to cough and choke.

'Cormack! Cormack!'

Pranzilla had somehow managed to grapple down and was right next to him. 'You hold on tight here. I'm coming back for you. I need to go down.'

'Down into that?'

But it wasn't just down; it was all over them.

'I heard the Captain. He's calling for help.'

Then she was gone, down below his feet, whirring into the abyss.

The cow was making strange choking sounds, and Cormack was trying to keep her steady by holding onto the stretcher that was moving under its own momentum like a pendulum and carrying him with it.

He could feel the cow's cable winding and unwinding round his, and it was getting harder to get hold of her, so he unhooked his carabiner and hooked it back to her rope. Then he moved himself across so that he was back spread-eagled on the cow, as he had been five minutes before. Just as he was settled, Cormack felt a sickening lurch, and heard a snap, and there was a sudden drop and a sudden arrest as though the cow had been hanged, and then the cow screamed as best she could, and there was a further snap, and they were hurtling down the crater on the stretcher, as if it were a bob-sled, and everything went black.

***

Chapter Thirty

The Cramptonians had won the game, two goals to nil - an historic victory, their first against the Tartans.

At the end of the match, the Tartan captain was called to the centre circle and made to kneel by the referee. This he did without complaint. All the other players were lined up on touch on the far side of the pitch.

Then the crowd, in silence, turned towards the stands to look for the Emperor.

Mrs. Bellingham, from her position on the touchline, watched and waited, wondering what was going to happen. There was a ripple, moving outwards from the Emperor's enclosure and rolling through the crowd. The spectators rose from their seats, and prostrated themselves one by one ahead of him as he marched surrounded by his bodyguards towards the pitch. He was carrying a polo mallet in his hand and looked mad as hell. He reached the pitch and continued to the centre circle.

When he got there, he looked about briefly, assessing the demeanour of the crowd, and raised the Imperial Polo Mallet to shoulder height slowly. He held it over the Tartan captain for a second, and then brought it down on his long fluted neck viciously.

The head rolled away quite cleanly, and it was all done so efficiently, like the killing of a farmyard animal by a practised butcher, that Mrs. Bellingham wondered if it was done at all, and had to look again to verify that, yes indeed, the head was severed, and there was a full foot of grass between it and the long bony torso of the man, stretched out like a pipe-cleaner, who two minutes before had been playing polo with her.

The Emperor turned and marched furiously back to his position in the stands.

The Cramptonians would play again tomorrow, in the quarterfinals.

***

Chapter Thirty One

'I sense his theophany very strongly. I see it as a cow.'

'No, that is not his theophany. That is his cow.'

'But it is strangely deformed. I see it without legs. It has been mutilated. It is the strangest thing. Most worrying! I have never seen a theophany in this form before. His spirit is very badly damaged. It presages failure.'

'No, it is his cow, a real cow, and it has no legs.'

'But it is very vivid.'

'It is real. By the way, I brought the chicken for you. The soothsayer in Bartislard said it was very important.'

'Oh, the chicken! Yes! And it looks like you've barbecued it already.'

'I do apologise. Will it do?'

'A burnt offering! It was really for soup. Never mind. I hope it wasn't too much of a bother to carry it all the way here.'

'Well, actually, now you come to mention it, it was a bit of a bother...'

'Can't keep chickens in Shamballah! Wouldn't do at all! The Shamanic Throat would be terrified! But the Candidates never fail to surprise me with their generosity.'

'We brought it all this way so that you could have chicken soup?'

'Thanks most awfully...'

Cormack awoke to two voices discussing his cow and the cock. The first was recognizably Proton's, but the second was unfamiliar, and given its rather shrill and girlish quality he was surprised, when he opened his eyes, to see it belonged to a tall, lethargic looking stranger with a long white beard, who was wearing what appeared to be a multi-coloured caftan.

'Hello,' said Cormack.

'Ah, he is awake,' said the stranger.

He was perhaps six feet tall, and his white beard was complemented by long white hair, immaculately cleaned and styled, and flowing down the back of his caftan until it reached a flannel belt, tight round his austere waistline. He was Druidic, and solemn, with a hooked nose, and moved his hands like a pope.

'I was wondering when he would come round,' he said.

'Hi there, Cormack,' said Proton cheerfully.

They were outdoors, in a glade in a forest, the trees all around lush and emerald green, and the sunlight dappling through the breaks in the canopy and breaking onto the forest floor. Everything was wet with a drizzle that was casting little rainbows in amongst the foliage.

Cormack could see the cow happily munching on kush-kush grass, thick as bamboo. She gave him a wink when she saw he had opened his eyes but couldn't speak because her mouth was full.

'Welcome to Shambalah, Candidate,' said the man in the caftan. 'Welcome.'

Cormack got up, still dazed, and stretched, marvelling at the dazzling white cloak that he had been dressed in. Then he looked about him, glancing at Proton, who, with a huge, cheesy grin on his face, marched towards him with his head slightly cocked to one side, and his finger wagging in mock admonition of Cormack's supposed prodigality. He hugged him manfully.

The embrace was only broken when Cormack accidentally stumbled forward onto Proton's toe and Proton stepped back with a groan.

Then he recovered himself, punched the air, and screamed, 'We made it, Cormack! We made it! It was a bloody close call back there what with the eruption and the smoke and the cow tobogganing down on me and you screaming like a banshee and everything going to shit but we bloody made it!'

'What happened, Proton?' asked Cormack. 'How did we escape from the volcano?'

'I found the opening, Cormack! It was deep in the crater but just where Stanton Bosch had said it would be - bang behind a large bitumen outcrop. Maybe that's why the other Guards missed it. Anyhow, I had to clear the rock. So I shot at it with my laser gun. That's when all that smoke started to roll out and the volcano started to boil. Maybe, in retrospect, I had the gun set too high. Who knows? Who cares? Anyway I got on the radio and Pranzi said she was coming down and just as she got to me, lo and behold, you and the cow came sliding on by right on cue, and Pranzi managed to slow you both down, and I was able to give you one kick with my massive mountaineering boots, and you both sailed through the opening, which admittedly was really big after I had blasted it, and then I pushed you here - five miles down the secret passage that leads from the bottom of the volcano. We are in Shambalah, Cormack! Legendary home of the Shamanic Throat!'

'Gosh!' said Cormack. 'It's all very dramatic!'

'Isn't it just? But the mission is on course. That's the important thing. All the nay-sayers, Pranzilla chief amongst them I have to say, have been proved wrong.'

'Where is Pranzi? I have to thank her for saving my life.'

Proton's face turned ashen.

'She didn't make it, Cormack. When you and the cow careened down the inside of the volcano, you smacked her bang into the molten lava and boiled her alive. That's what I meant when I said that she slowed you down. Hell of a thing though... Hell of a thing...'

There was an uncomfortable silence for a moment.

'But don't dwell on it, mate!' said Proton at last. 'The cow made it! Your Captain made it! And most important of all, you, Cormack, made it!'

'Indeed, you did,' said the old man with the caftan who had moved beside them.

'Let me introduce you to Bernard, the Australised Sybil to the Shamanic Throat,' said Proton. 'Bernard, you've already met Cormack, the Candidate.'

'Yes, I have. Again, welcome to Shambalah. We hope your stay here will be most productive.'

'Thank you.'

'We've provided quarters for you on the other side of the glade. It's going to be a fun two weeks but it's going to require a lot of hard work on your part. Are you up for it?'

'I'm up for anything.'

'Good man!' said the Sybil. He turned to Proton. 'He has the mark?'

'Absolutely,' said Proton.

'Can I see it?'

'Chosen One, show him your nipple.'

Cormack reluctantly pulled aside his shirt to expose his nipple and the little burn the Creator had given him last week Thursday when He was in his kitchen.

'Hmm, rather small,' said the Sybil, peering at it closely. 'The Texts spoke of something quite pronounced. But it is there all the same.' Then he addressed Cormack directly. 'I'm afraid you'll be suffering more of these little indignities in the coming weeks. We'll be assessing your credentials quite thoroughly. Don't be alarmed – it's all part of the process. You wouldn't believe how many phonies pass this way. It's all quite enervating...'

Then the Sybil withdrew with Proton a little way into the trees at a far enough distance for them not to be overheard. Cormack could see the Sybil was nodding his head, and rubbing his chin, as Proton talked energetically close to his ear.

He thought he might have a few words with the cow in the meantime. She was spread out in the grass, rolling in the dew, and for the first time since her accident her dreadful injuries seemed irrelevant, her body once again become a comfortable whole, the legs as unnecessary to her now as a bicycle to a fish. She was flat on her back, udders up, provocatively twirling a stalk of grass in her mouth with a strange come-hither look in her large, brown eyes.

'You look very well,' he said to her.

'This place be wonderful, Cormack!' she said. 'They does be so good to me.'

'How long have we been here?'

'One day and one night. They were very worried about you. Especially Proton. You wouldn't wake up.'

'A whole day?'

'The old man kept feeding you great big draughts of this amber liquid.'

'Oh! That would explain the yellow vomit stains on my vest...'

'But this place is like paradise, Cormack! And me, a little Zargonic cow, unaccustomed to anything much outside me little Zargonic cow pasture, travelling all over the galaxy and getting in such scrapes and adventures and then ending up here – in cow heaven! Cormack, this is beyond me wildest fantasies! I don't know if I've told you this before but often, sometimes at night, men does come at me with straw. I'm a Pantheistic Syllogist, you see. Have you heard of us? Only the most wicious and despicable band of desperados in the known Universe, we is...'

'Yes, all right. That's enough of that,' said Cormack, but secretly he was happy that the cow seemed back to her old self at last.

And he had to admit the place did look stunning, quite unlike the other areas of the planet he had travelled through. The plants were different, lush and welcoming. There were beautiful, brightly coloured flowers blossoming everywhere: bluebells, and fulgent daffodils, and tufts of crocuses, and climbing nasturtiums, and others that he couldn't name in amongst tall spreading fruit trees, their boughs laden with golden cherries and mangoes and shaddocks, christophenes and paw-paws. There was meadow all about, cut like a lawn and embowered with gladioli, and delicate little butterflies flitted here and there, in amongst the rhododendrons that grew in neat thickets of every variegation.

Proton and Bernard, the Sybil, had finished their conference and had rejoined Cormack and the cow.

'So I hope you guys are going to be happy here,' said Proton

'Oh yes!' said the cow.

'It all looks very lovely,' said Cormack.

'Lovely it is, but we have some serious work to do.'

'What kind of work?' asked Cormack.

'We begin with the First of the Three Ordeals tomorrow.'

'The Three Ordeals?'

'The Three Ordeals.'

'And what is the First?' asked Cormack nervously.

'Ordeal by Detonation,' said Proton. 'Am I right, Sybil?'

'Actually, no. That one got dropped a little while ago by special decree of the Shamanic Throat. Lot of fuss about it and I do rather miss it because it was a fun one and very spectacular but we'll have to pass on it all the same. The first will be Ordeal by Water.'

Cormack looked puzzled.

'My advice is don't worry about it,' said the Sybil. 'Just go with the flow as it were - don't mind the pun. It will all come quite naturally. If you are who you say you are, of course...'

***

Chapter Thirty Two

Traction was in paroxysms.

The Opikarp had decided to spend the day at the holo-theatre watching the transmission of the polo tournament live from Zargon 8 with a selection of Crampton proles, and had had to be transferred via the most enormous fishnet, all shuddering and hypertensive, into a vast Perspex bowl that was led on a choke through the streets.

It was unheard of, an incredible security risk, but typical of the bloody-mindedness of the recalcitrant karp; for what use was being the Governor of a small and poxy planet on the far side of the Galaxy, he must have thought, if one could not a shove one's fishy face before the populace once in a while and watch them quiver? And they were certainly quivering, disgusted to see him, and moving in droves from the streets as he passed with Traction besides him, on their way back to his tank, the game now over.

'Unbelievable that Mrs. Bellingham could win,' said the Opikarp, his voice metallic and crisp inside Traction's head. His thoughts from the fishbowl were being relayed directly by sensors straight to Traction's duct. 'It was not the Emperor's intention to kill the captain of the Tartans, you know. He rather liked him. They have children at the same pre-school.'

'Unbelievable and disgusting. I believe the freckly fellow on the left wing, Fran-tart or something, was mostly to blame.'

'I have word that the Emperor was planning to abandon Imperial and Ancient directly after the first match – after having lopped off Mrs Bellingham's head. He's had a most affecting change of heart, and is feeling terrible for the spandrills. He is such an aficionado of the game. A real purist. Can't stand to see it being fucked about with unnecessary rule changes. But now he will have to see it right through to the end of the tournament. It would look capricious to go back on his word right after he kills her. This could well be the most horrific sporting event the Universe has ever seen.'

'Why doesn't he just execute her in normal fashion and have done with it?'

'It cannot be done. The tournament must proceed. The Universe is watching. He has been too clever by half. Not usually his problem at all. She is likely to have become quite a celebrity after her unexpected win.'

Indeed, when the Opikarp was safely restored to his fish tank, and the gubernatorial fish food had been sprinkled, and he had pumped up his swimming-bladder sufficient to rest just below the surface, and had gobbled at it, and bubbled his digestive gas into the water, they turned on the sports channels so that he could gauge the national reaction, and they, at least, were full of it - quite an oddity for the Cramptonians to have done so well, and the Tartan captain had turned out to be a rising star in the game, so his unexpected demise was noteworthy too. Mrs. Bellingham had gone from doomed no-hoper, debased representative of a subjugated race, snotty enough to play polo – known to be the hated Emperor's favourite game – badly, and stupid enough to think that she might represent the Cramptonian people whilst doing it, to plucky old thing, still very much doomed, but now perhaps tragically.

There had been little local interest in the first game, but that was set to change for the second.

'This could well turn out to be a public relations disaster.'

'The Zargons could not get any less popular on Crampton.'

'We are unpopular but we are feared. We must not encourage the thought that the Cramptonians might have a bit of spunk in them. They played rather well in the end. Imperial and Ancient seemed to suit them. But I suppose the Emperor has the matter in hand.'

The Emperor, in fact, at that moment sat on his pony simulator in the Imperial Gymnasium, did not have the matter in hand, and was apoplectic. Consultation with the hive-mind had ceased. The hive-mind, forever nervous that its throat cable might be amputated, had stopped transmitting into the Imperial Brain entirely, an almost unprecedented occurrence, and the collection of nano-bots that made up its intelligence was quite still in its box.

The Emperor was pink with rage.

'Whose plan was this? Eh? Whose plan was it for me to slaughter the best polo players in the galaxy, one by one?'

The hive-mind was silent.

'The man was a friend of mine. Bloody embarrassing when I have to make light conversation with his widow at the P.T.A. These Cramptonians are better than you thought, eh? I hope for your sake they lose the next match. I will use a blunt mallet on her and make sure it takes three blows to lop through her fat neck.'

'Sire, the tournament is becoming a great success. Ratings are solid throughout the Universe. As we had hoped, it has raised the profile of the game considerably everywhere. There is nothing to worry about. The Cramptonians will not win the next game. When they've lost, we can ease off on the gore, if that is what you wish.'

But, confounding the hive-mind's expectations, the Cramptonians won their next two games and were through to the semi-finals.

***

Chapter Thirty Three

Cormack asked what it was.

'It's a barrel,' said Bernard.

It was made of oak and coopered expertly, rimmed with cast iron hoops, and coated with tar. The Sibyl had placed it upright in a small depression in the centre of the glade as though it were a totem pole.

'And what am I to do with it?' asked Cormack.

'You are to get in it,' said Bernard.

'And why would I want to do that?'

'It's going to be really rather tiresome if you question every little aspect of the Ordeal. There are two more after this and we're likely to be here forever, presuming you are who you say you are, of course. If you aren't, then we might be through rather quickly, I suppose, but all the same, why don't you just be a good chap and get in and then we can start the whole thing off?'

'I don't say that I'm anything.'

Bernard turned to Proton in exasperation.

'Candidate, Cormack,' began Proton. Then he turned his back to Bernard and waggled the laser gun that was attached to his utility belt. 'Don't you remember our little talk about responsibilities and obligations and about how one good turn deserves another? One good turn like saving your damned life back in that volcano.'

'I was only asking the obvious question. I'm certainly not ungrateful.'

'And look at your poor friend, the cow,' continued Proton. 'She is so disappointed in your attitude.'

In fact, the cow was nowhere to be seen, having slithered off somewhere earlier that morning.

'Why don't you just do what Bernard says and get in the barrel?'

Cormack had thought that perhaps the fervour would have faded from Proton's eyes now they had reached Shambalah, but if anything it was more pronounced. What could Proton possibly want from him so badly? It was like being chained to a bounty hunter, the chains being merely figurative but no less constraining for that - there was never anywhere to run to. Everywhere alien danger. And how would it end? With Proton wearing a Carmen Miranda hat, serving fruit punch in hollowed-out coconuts like Kenneth More in The Admirable Crichton?

Cormack surveyed Proton's craggy features carefully, searching for answers, and decided it was best to get in the barrel.

'Good,' said Bernard. He had Cormack squeeze up some more, and then he put the lid on, and hammered it into place. 'Now are you OK in there?'

'Well, it's very uncomfortable,' said Cormack, who was bent double. 'But I'm as good as can be expected in the circumstances, if that's what you mean.'

'The Ordeal will begin when we lower you in the river. So you needn't use any of your special powers until then. All right?'

'I don't have any special powers.'

'Oh, bugger! The river!'

Cormack could hear some low murmuring, as though Bernard was consulting Proton on some point of order, and then Bernard spoke up again.

'Perhaps, in retrospect, it would have been better to take you and the barrel to the river first and then had you get in it over there but it's too late now because I've hammered in the nails and they're the only ones I've got for now so could you please bear with us while we roll you there. It's only a short trip. I really am most apologetic for the cock up. This is absolutely not part of the Ordeal.'

Cormack braced himself as the barrel was tipped over, and then he was rolled gently for a little while until he could make out the sounds of running water, and then the barrel was upended again and there was more murmuring and Bernard finally said, 'Right, we're here now. Are you ready?'

'Ready for what?' said Cormack.

'Good man,' said Bernard and Cormack was about to say something in reply, when all of a sudden the barrel fell on its side, and then rolled violently down what appeared to be a sharp incline at quite some speed, and then there was a great splash, and more rolling, and then a kind of bobbing sensation, and a forward motion, and Cormack realized he'd been kicked into the river, and was now heading downstream at quite a pace.

Immediately he could feel wetness on his clothes from below where the barrel was leaking. He raised himself a little from its side so that he was up on his haunches like a bobsledder, and tried to spread his weight more evenly in an attempt to stop the barrel rolling so much, and was mostly successful at that, so for a little while he was going down the river in a semi-practised manner; but soon after he was settled in this way the barrel jolted as it hit a succession of small rocks, and then he heard the distant roar of what sounded ominously like white water and rapids and torrents.

Very soon, the burble of a little creek was overwhelmed by a roar, and he had to give up any thought of trying to control the spinning of the barrel, and could only brace himself inside as best he could as he was buffeted back and forth, and thrown up and down, and banged against the sides. The barrel was a quarter full of icy water now, and Cormack was becoming badly bruised and nauseated besides.

Then just as he felt ready to black out, there was a huge crack as the barrel smashed at speed into what must have been a very large rock, and he could feel a rush of icy cold water coming all over him. He spluttered and fought for breath, then looked down towards his feet and could see sunlight, and a huge flow of water where a gaping hole had opened up. He started kicking at it, and got it a little bigger, but the water was everywhere inside now and he knew he would have to get out immediately or drown. He squeezed himself round so his face was to the hole, and tried to push himself through, but only managed to get out as far as his waist, and for a while he was stuck there, racing down the river half in and half out of the barrel, bending his body upwards like a beached herring flapping on a sandbank, gasping at the air. He wriggled some more, and got a purchase on the hoop that held the barrel together at the top, twisting himself round and scraping his hips horribly in the process until he was finally out. What was left of the barrel continued on down the rapids, smashing some more against the rocks as it went along.

Cormack swam frantically for the bank.

The current was so strong, and the rocks so frequent and jagged, that he was always close to being cut to pieces, but at last he made it, and he scrambled up on dry land and collapsed, lying on his back with his eyes closed, panting for breath.

There he lay for quite a while.

He was very still and could feel the sun beating heavily on his eyelids. Everything was an auriferous bloom, speckled with drifting lipids, until he felt a shadow move across him so the bloom became dulled, and he heard something feral moving in the undergrowth, and felt sharp, fetid breath on his face. In spite of his injuries, and his tiredness, and the overwhelming resolve just formed in his mind to die here and now on this muddy riverbank, the Wille zum Leben described by Schopenhauer, buried deep but atavistically aroused, made him open his eyes, and look about him, and assess the threat that was coming upon him.

It was Stanton Bosch.

***

Chapter Thirty Four

'Holy crap!' said Stanton Bosch.

'Stanton Bosch!'

'Scratched you up good and proper, it did!'

'What are you doing here?'

'Now, don't be like that. I'm here to help. It was me what cracked you open.'

'You did what?'

'I cracked open the barrel. Look!'

He was brandishing an axe and was soaking from head to foot, still in the lederhosen, which seemed to have shrunk around him, so the effect was quite startling, as though he were an axe-murderer from the rain-sodden climax of a horror movie.

'How did you get here?' asked Cormack.

'Secret path, right after you. I was following you all the while. See, Proton's not the only one with a plan.'

'Does he really have a plan? What is his plan? I think he's trying to kill me.'

'Oh, he don't want to kill you at all. You is very valuable. He don't want you dead at all. None of us do. We wants you certified. That's what we wants.' Stanton Bosch was spinning his axe in front of him. 'And I is here to make sure it happens. Then we kills Proton.'

'Excuse me?'

'After we get you certified, we kills Proton.'

'What are you talking about?'

'Get him out of the way. I wants you all to myself see.'

Stanton Bosch gave a dirty laugh and rolled his eyes madly.

'The cow's in it with me. If that swings your interest.'

The cow emerged from behind a large shrub and slithered towards him.

'Hi, Cormack. Isn't it exciting?'

'Cow! What are you doing here?'

'Plotting with Stanton Bosch.'

'I is a Pantheistic Syllogist too, see,' said Stanton Bosch.

'What?'

'A Pantheisitic Syllogist,' said Stanton Bosch. 'We is an underground organization of poets and desperate thinkers from all across the known Universe. Me and the cow are both prominent in the organizing committee.'

'Didn't I ever mention to you that I'm a Pantheistic Syllogist, Cormack?'

'You did but I wasn't sure you were serious.'

The cow gave a little giggle.

'Thing is this,' continued Stanton Bosch. 'Proton has brought you here because he believes you've been touched by God. He's making you undergo the Three Ordeals that will determine whether you is the Negus.'

'The Negus?'

'Yes, the Negus.'

'I don't think I'm any Negus. I'm from Rochdale.'

'Me and the cow know that you're no Negus. Don't worry about that. You have absolutely no special abilities at all. You may even have disabilities. That has been apparent to us from the beginning. The Captain is too stupid to have seen it though, and he and the Sibyl are going to kill you with these here Ordeals unless we helps you out.'

'Proton said he's gone out on quite a limb on my behalf. I understand what he means now.'

'So anyhow, me and the cow are conspiring to save your life.'

'And what's your motivation?'

'Mostly Pantheistically Syllogistical and partly financial. We will fill you in later. In the meantime, we need to negotiate this here waterfall to get you through the First Ordeal so we can carry on from there.'

He pointed down the river, only some hundred yards beyond where Cormack had pulled himself out, to where the water was at its wildest and a thick mist was rising.

Cormack said, 'You know, I knew there would be a waterfall involved in this thing somewhere.'

***

Chapter Thirty Five

The two semi-finals were played on a Thursday.

First up, the Ceramics, camel-like dromedaries from a small world named Reggiphon within the Crab Nebula, played the home team, the mighty Zargons themselves, and were soundly beaten four to one.

The Emperor performed his now familiar and increasingly unpleasant duty at the end of the match, perfunctorily and with no emotion. The captain of the Ceramics presented his neck as though he was a farm animal inured to the slaughter, taking all the sport out of it, thought the Emperor. His only concession to the horror of his predicament was a large gobbet of spit, which again camel-like, dribbled from his fat lips as the mallet came down on him wearily and chopped his head off.

The Emperor returned resignedly to his seat in the stands. The tournament had become something of a bloodbath, and there was a growing outrage throughout the Empire, outrage that the Emperor and his minions were barely keeping a lid on. But the hive-mind was sanguine and conveyed his optimism.

'It has had an unexpectedly prophylactic effect,' it said to the Emperor.

'Prophylactic?'

'Everybody is thoroughly terrified.'

They waited for the Cramptonians to take the field. They were playing the Archons, a consistent team of mechano-insectoids that had somehow managed the creditable feat of progressing to the semi-finals without a backbone between them.

'I trust that the Cramptonians will lose,' said the Emperor. 'At last. This is getting quite wearisome.'

'There is a good chance of it,' said the hive-mind. 'The Archons have been impressive.'

'The tournament has been the most dreadful mess.'

'Imperial and Ancient has favoured the underdogs. It was unexpected. Nevertheless, you will have the old girl's duct today. Just be a little mindful of the crowds when you start rummaging through her brains like a dog through garbage, right in front of them.'

'I will pluck it sweetly like a plum from a pie. They will not even notice.'

'Here she comes now.'

Mrs. Bellingham, her silver hair tied up tight in a severe bun, strutting like a peacock in her soiled jodhpurs, led the Cramptonians on the field at a pace, oblivious to the crowd.

She, like the Emperor, was annoyed with the manner in which her team had performed. At the start of each match, she had prepared herself for her death. She had primed the mallet and pictured the Emperor above her, his arm raised to strike her. She had imagined the detonation and the bloody aftermath, the screams of disbelief from the crowd, the panicked stampede from the Circus, the cutaways to blank screens on the sports channels, the shock and fear that she would engender everywhere in the Empire.

She had played every game so badly, and impressed poor tactics and losing strategies on her teammates, and had even managed to score an own-goal, but still, with the unerring complicity of the spandrill, they had gone a goal up and to her disbelief had won each game. Afterwards she had had to stand on the touchline, too far from the Emperor to have harmed him, and watch her opponent, bent before him, die in her place.

But not today. Today they would lose and she would kill him.

'Team Crampton,' she said to her team huddled around her after the anthems had been played and before they mounted their ponies. 'Let us try something different for today's match. Frantic, I want you to switch with Canard in goal.'

'But, I have never played in goal before...'

'I'm concerned about the injury to your hand.'

'I have no injury to my hand.'

'Canard will be more use to us on the left wing.'

'Canard has never played on the left wing before.'

'Let us just try it and see how it works.'

There was a general muttering amongst the team. She could see they were worried, but they would have to do as she said. She was the captain.

Then they mounted their ponies and lined up for the throw-off. Canard positioned himself in between the goal posts. Frantic was on the left wing.

'Canard, I told you to swap with Frantic,' she said.

'Yes, you did.'

'So swap with Frantic.'

'Captain, I cannot do that.'

'I am your captain and you will obey me.'

'Captain, I cannot. We have seen the way you have been playing. We are not stupid. It is as if you want us to lose.'

Mrs. Bellingham was shocked.

'Why would I want us to lose?'

'You are anxious that it be over. You know you are to die and you want it done quickly. It is understandable. But don't you understand that we can win?'

'We can win?'

'We can win the whole tournament and you will not be killed. Those are the rules of Imperial and Ancient. And we are so close now.'

'Get on the wing!'

'We will not let you do it. We can win. We can bring glory to Crampton.'

Mrs. Bellingham remonstrated with him some more, and then shouted at Frantic, but it was no use. The team had stopped listening to her. She withdrew to the centre circle for the throw-off and within a minute they were up by a goal.

***

Chapter Thirty Six

Proton and the Sibyl were waiting a few hundred yards downstream of the bottom of the waterfall. They had found the broken pieces of Cormack's barrel, washed on the bank, and the Sibyl had begun to look for the body.

'I'm most terribly sorry,' said Bernard. Proton was staring in disbelief at the river. 'But it often happens like that with the Candidates. Only a very few have survived the First Ordeal and then, of course, the ones that have, have all wished they hadn't when they've had to participate in the Second.'

The Sibyl looked at Proton nervously and pulled at a pocket deep within his multi-coloured caftan.

'Look, I do apologize for mentioning it at this difficult moment, but there is the small matter of the fees you would have paid to my brother, the soothsayer...'

He was interrupted by a piercing scream, wild and terrifying, and he and Proton both looked up, towards the top of the waterfall from where it seemed to have come, and they could see a human figure struggling in the river at the lip of the great cascade, and then the figure was over the edge and tumbling within the water, still screaming, and it seemed to fall forever until it hit the bottom with a flat plop, and was lost in the churning froth.

'Was that him?' said Proton.

'Yes, I think it might have been,' said the Sibyl.

'Cormack, my boy, Cormack... what have you done?' said Proton quietly.

'Tremendous drop, and looked like a bit of a belly flop at the end,' said the Sibyl but Proton wasn't listening and began running towards the waterfall and calling out for Cormack.

He scrambled amongst the gravel close to the bank, scouring the river, and for a good while could see nothing except white water rushing in eddies over the hidden rocks. Then at last, far off, close to the other bank and a little way back from the waterfall, he spotted a small round thing bobbing above the surface and thought it might be a head, moving leisurely backwards, and he called out to it – 'Cormack! Cormack, mate!'

'Proton!' it called back.

'Cormack, mate! Is it really you? You made it! You bloody made it!'

Proton laughed a mad laugh.

Cormack continued his languid backstroke, making directly for Proton now that he could see him.

When he was close enough to the bank, Proton paddled in, grabbed him from behind and pulled him from the river.

'Cormack, mate! Cormack!' said Proton. 'You bloody did it!'

Cormack smiled back weakly.

'He did it but he was supposed to do it in the barrel,' said the Sibyl, who had rushed to join them.

'Oh come on, Bernard!' said Proton. 'You think the Negus needs a barrel? Way to go, Cormack!'

'The Shamanic Throat will have to be consulted.'

'He isn't even dazed. Are you Cormack?'

'Not particularly, but I am very cold.'

'Get the boy a blanket.'

They wrapped Cormack in the Sibyl's caftan, and when he was able, he got to his feet, and they led him back, soaking and shivering, to the glade.

There they dried him with huge fluffy towels, and sat him on the grass in the sun, giving him Horlicks to drink. Cormack was surprised to see the cow there, lolling on her side, coyly chewing on a blade of kush-kush grass. She seemed pleased to see him.

'Been for a swim, Cormack?' she said and gave him a knowing wink.

Proton and the Sibyl moved away to talk in private.

'When can we start on the next Ordeal?' said Proton.

'I have to consult with the Shamanic Throat.'

'I told you that he was the real deal, Bernard! You saw him drop off the waterfall! Completely uninjured!'

'Many have survived the First Ordeal, Captain. The Second Ordeal is quite a different matter.'

'He's your man, Bernard! I told you so! The wait is over! The Negus has returned to Shambalah! Get excited, Bernard! Get excited!'

The Sibyl smiled a vague, sphinx-like smile and said nothing.

While the Sibyl and Proton were talking, Cormack was conversing with the cow in a whisper.

'How is Stanton Bosch?' asked Cormack.

'I really doesn't know yet.'

'It was a hell of a fall.'

'He's probably dead.'

'Do you think they know it was him coming down the waterfall?'

'They was only watching for you, Cormack. Not for Stanton Bosch.'

'I hope he's all right. Good of him to hurl himself over a waterfall on my behalf. I only got a few little scratches up in the brambles, scrambling down.'

'You did play your part real sweet.'

'Cow, does Proton really want to kill me?'

'Hey, Cormack! Negus!' Proton was calling at him, across the glade. 'One down! Two to go!' He was holding two fingers up in the air and grinning hugely. 'Ready for the next one? You betcha!'

'What is the next one, as matter of interest?' said Cormack quietly to the cow.

'Ordeal by Ingestion,' said the cow.

'Ordeal by what?' said Cormack.

***

Chapter Thirty Seven

'They're going to win again, aren't they?' said the Emperor.

'It seems so,' said the hive-mind.

'I've got to chop the head off that big insect thing?'

'The one in the yellow jersey with the striped thorax and the wings like filigree.'

'He will crunch like a cornflake and then drip on me.'

'Most unfortunate.'

***

Chapter Thirty Eight

'Well, the Shamanic Throat has been consulted and we're good to go,' said Bernard. 'Seems I was worrying over nothing with the whole lack of barrel issue. I think, in fact, we've established a rather pleasing precedent.'

'Jolly good,' said Cormack.

'Ordeal by Ingestion today. Looking forward to it?'

'No.'

'Probably wise. Here's the form. Your legs will be chained and we will attach a long rope to them. Then we're going to pull the rope up through a pulley so that you will be hauled within the branches of the Fractious Jub-Jub tree over there. You will be hanging upside down. You will need to take this penknife and make a small scar in the bark of the tree. I stress the word, small. The sap within the tree will begin to flow almost immediately. You must drink it. It is milky in colour and, as you would probably guess, tastes extremely foul, but it's quite harmless when it is mixed with saliva. If you drink it immediately, it poses no danger and you will safely digest it. I believe it has a mild laxative effect, but that is nothing to worry about. If you don't drink it, and allow it to drip, however, it will set and form a paste – a paste that has remarkable incendiary properties. It will catch fire at once and then explode, destroying the tree, the vegetation around it and, of course, you in it. As I have said, once you have made the incision with the penknife, it will be flowing quite freely so you must drink it all down, just so. Now, the statistic that I hear most often quoted is that a standard Fractious Jub-Jub tree contains twenty-seven gallons of sap...'

'Twenty-seven gallons?' said Cormack.

'Be careful you drink it all. We will set two dogs at the foot of the tree to keep watch over you throughout the night and will return in the morning. Is everything quite understood?'

'Yes,' said Cormack.

'Then we will begin.'

The Sibyl chained Cormack legs carefully, and he was raised in the Fractious Jub-Jub tree. It was a monstrous thing - its trunk alone must have been twenty feet in diameter - minutely corrugated and hung with creepers and vines.

'Native to a ghastly little planet in Sector Seven,' said Bernard. 'Crumpton or something. Introduced to Foul Ball three hundred years ago, seeded by the Shamanic Throat himself.'

'Are you set, Cormack?' said Proton.

'Yes, I am,' said Cormack when he was hanging upside down.

'Make the incision.'

'What if I don't?'

'Fine by me,' said the Sibyl.

'Cormack, make the damn incision, will you?' said Proton, fingering the laser gun round his belt.

'I can't drink twenty-seven gallons, Proton.'

'Remember Pranzi, Cormack. Remember that she died that you might live. Don't let her sacrifice be in vain. Don't ever let that happen.'

Cormack looked at Proton hard and Proton looked back harder.

'You probably, won't have to drink it all. Bernard here is a reasonable man.'

'Well, actually, he most definitely will have to drink it all because otherwise...,' began Bernard, but had to stop because Proton had accidentally kicked him.

Cormack reviewed his options and felt them limited to either cutting at the tree or being shot to death by Proton, so, reluctantly, he began to cut at the tree with the penknife.

'Good boy,' said Proton.

The Sibyl was peering through a pair of binoculars from a safe distance.

'The sap is flowing. I have confirmed it. Very good. Throw down the penknife. Thank you. Now make sure you drink the sap.' Cormack put his lips to the incision as though he were kissing it. 'That's it. Suck it down.'

The Sibyl turned to Proton and said, 'Jolly good. I think we're set.'

'Yes. He's going at it hard.'

Cormack's face was ashen.

'Always a bit reluctant to leave them here like this. Inevitably what one finds of them in the morning is rather distressing.'

'Don't worry about Cormack. He's the real deal.'

'I think we should withdraw to a distance. It can be a little off-putting for the Candidates when they are closely observed.'

The dogs were set, and Proton and the Sibyl watched Cormack quiet in the canopy for a while before heading back to the glade. Night was falling.

'We will know when he's done,' said the Sibyl as they walked away. 'A whole section of the forest will get torched and it'll light up like a funeral pyre. Should be able to see it from the glade.'

***

Chapter Thirty Nine

Later Cormack heard, 'Psssst!' from high in the branches.

He looked up, but was unable to speak because his lips were locked to the tree. So he blinked at Stanton Bosch in acknowledgement.

'I did swing across them there treetops to be with you, see. As me and the cow told you we planned it. Now, you've been here an hour, I reckon. Your belly must be getting quite full.'

Cormack nodded his head as best he could.

'So you move across there and let me suck on this here tree awhile.'

Stanton Bosch swung down to be close by Cormack and settled himself on a nearby branch. Then he hooked his feet around a couple of twiggy knobs and fell forward so that he was hanging down right by him.

The effect on Cormack, who was only swallowing the horrible tasting Jub-Jub sap with extreme difficulty and now had Stanton Bosch so close that he could feel the man's whiskers on his cheek, was overwhelming, and it was almost beyond his powers to stop himself from falling to the forest floor in a wave of nausea.

The Bosch moved closer to him, and grabbed at his head, pulled it towards him, and frenched him hard above the incision. Suction was thus transferred and Cormack was freed.

Now Cormack could talk and it was Stanton Bosch who had to remain silent.

'Thank you,' he said, barely suppressing the urge to vomit.

The Bosch nodded.

'Let me know when you want me back there.'

He raised a hand as if to silence him.

Cormack took the hint and hauled himself up the rope so he could sit on a branch to watch the night out. He found a perch in a higher branch and found he was able to lean back using the trunk of the tree for support. It was actually quite comfortable.

Stanton Bosch was a way below, obscured by the foliage.

Soon Cormack had closed his eyes, and the gentle rocking of the tree as it was caressed by the zephyrs that blew in from the glade, together with the sound of the gentle rustling of leaves all around him, lulled him to a troubled sleep.

After many hours, when it was still dark but it was apparent that dawn was imminent because the birds were awake and were twittering loudly, Cormack awoke with a start and, after a brief moment of existential terror, remembered where he was and why he was there, and the terror became more focused and less existential, and he orientated himself and climbed quickly down the rope.

Dangling from the rope, level with where he had left him hours before, Cormack searched the darkness for signs of Stanton Bosch.

At first, he could make out nothing except strange dark shapes. He swung sideways to grab at a branch closer to the trunk. Then he gave a gasp. He could see something vast and globular, like a huge goitre, hanging from the tree.

He moved closer, pulling himself along the branches, until he could make it out much better.

The thing had the face of Stanton Bosch, tranquil like a sleeping cherub in a frieze by Michelangelo, and the whiskered lips of Stanton Bosch, that were still pressed hard to where he had made the incision, and perhaps it was even Stanton Bosch's scaly neck, strained and veined like a tobacco leaf - but what lay below, where Stanton Bosch's body should be, did not look Bosch-like at all.

It was an enormous bolus of bloated lard, so white it was casting an ambient glow supplementary to the damp moonlight. Tattered shreds of what might have formerly been lederhosen flapped around it like the unaccomplished clothing of a hula-hula girl.

Cormack studied it a while.

The giant ball tapered to tiny hairy strands that might be legs, hanging like mooring ropes off a dirigible, and from far below on the forest floor came a terrible smell, and evidence of massive eruptions - heaps of processed pus lay in giant steaming pools. The two dogs the Sibyl had tied to the base of the tree were flat on their backs, quite dead.

Stanton Bosch, sensing Cormack's presence, gave him the thumbs up and indicated he should come over.

Cormack, with extreme reluctance, moved towards him, and the Bosch made further motions with his hand that seemed to indicate that Cormack should move his head alongside his. He winked at him, and abruptly withdrew his lips from the incision. Then he grabbed at Cormack's head, and shoved his mouth over the hole. Cormack, his eyes tight shut, felt the pus bleeding into his mouth. He was too terrified to move.

He could feel the tree rocking violently and creaking, and waves of vicious stench passed over and around him, and he was close to passing out, but, with an effort of will, he forced himself to hold tight to the tree.

***

Chapter Forty

When, at last, he opened his eyes, Stanton Bosch had gone, and he could hear footsteps in the forest, and the sounds of twigs snapping, and conversation.

It was Proton and the Sibyl, returning to look at him.

Proton was very excited, the Sibyl, cooler.

'Of course, the absence of a conflagration is a good sign but it does not mean he has necessarily survived,' said the Sibyl.

Proton was running now, staring up at the Fractious Jub-Jub tree and scouring the canopy.

'What is that smell?' he cried as he ran.

'My advice would be to keep from round the Fractious Jub-Jub tree,' said Bernard, who was struggling to keep up. 'Oh well, the dogs are dead...'

'Cormack! Cormack!' shouted Proton.

'If the Candidate were still alive, he would be well advised not to answer you,' puffed Bernard.

'Oh yes! Sorry! Cormack! Don't answer me, mate! Don't answer...I think I see him! Up there!'

'Yes, it is the Candidate. Remarkable.'

'Breathing, I think.'

'Sucking indeed. He looks very well.'

'What is all that crap?' said Proton, almost stepping in the beginnings of the steaming pile.

'Fallen from the Candidate...'

'Cormack, mate, hang on in there!' Proton turned to the Sibyl. 'How much longer?'

'I should think another five minutes. Observe the colour of the leaves. The sap is almost drained.'

'Cormack! I knew you would do it! Five minutes, Cormack! Just keep sucking!'

The Sibyl had to manhandle Proton to a safer distance and they watched from the other side of the glade. Proton was almost beside himself with agitation.

At last, the Sibyl, consulting his watch, stepped forward and made his way delicately to the trunk. He cut a small incision, sealing it with a kind of waxy balm he produced from a jar inside his caftan.

'It is done,' he announced. 'The tree is drained. We must lower the Candidate.'

Proton grabbed at the rope and cut it with a knife so that it whizzed upwards under Cormack's weight, until Proton got a good hold and lowered him gently to the ground.

Cormack lay motionless.

'Speak to me, Cormack! Speak to me!'

Cormack gave a small groan.

'Give the boy some air,' wailed Proton.

Slowly Cormack came round and was able to moan horribly.

'Cormack, Cormack, mate, you're going to be all right.' Proton was sobbing. 'You're going to be all right, my boy. You did it!' He hugged him, in spite of the horrible smell coming off him.

The Sibyl was touched by the display of manly affection.

'You did it,' Proton sobbed. 'You bloody did it... You mad dog of a Negus.'

***

Chapter Forty One

It was the day of the final and Mrs. Bellingham was agitated.

So was the Emperor. His jodhpurs weren't pressed and he was going to have to wear the hive-mind on his head within a customized swimming cap. The Zargonic captain had been dismissed on the Emperor's orders and the Emperor had assumed the captaincy of the team. The hive-mind wasn't sure about it.

'Perhaps, Sire, it would be more fun to watch from the top of the Circus?'

'No, it wouldn't.'

'Bellingham may look like a galumphing hoo-hah but she is extremely dangerous.'

'I want her duct, hive-mind.'

'Of course you do.'

'And I want to have a proper game of polo for once in my life.'

'What are going to do if you lose?'

'We cannot lose. They are feckless. It is only the luck of the spandrill that has carried them this far. Let us play hard and play fair and I will have her. I want to play, hive-mind.'

When the Emperor had made up his mind, he could not be dissuaded.

The crowds began filling the Circus early and the game was to be carried live on the uniSwarm.

Word had leaked out that the Emperor was to play and, instead of increasing interest as might have been expected, it had killed it, because the general feeling was that the game was now to be fixed and played by Imperial Decree, and that the Zargons, who might conceivably have lost under normal circumstances, would now have to win. The bloody execution of Mrs. Bellingham, not something that most sane individuals wished to witness, was now inevitable. Most things to do with the Emperor were unpopular and this time the disgust was overwhelming - the stands were only filled because the tickets had already been sold.

At the appointed hour, which happened to be two o'clock local time, the captains - Mrs. Bellingham, splendid in gleaming riding boots and brandishing a dinky little whip in the hand that didn't hold her mallet, reinvigorated by the inevitability of her death today, and ready to play up and play the game and sod the consequences because they would follow whatever, and the Emperor, a nervous little parcel of anger and frustration, bald and armoured, stomping like a clockwork soldier to the half-way mark - stood together for the toss.

It was the first time Mrs. Bellingham had seen him so close.

What a remarkable little fellow he is, she thought. Sleek and globby, but ghoulish at the same time, with that little box he carries everywhere such an inconvenience. The cable so tortuously inserted down his throat. Remarkable how something so ordinary and painful to look at, pitiable even, can wield such extraordinary powers.

She didn't bother to blow him up there and then because the ratings would be better at the end of the match.

Propitiously, the Emperor called the toss, so the referee didn't need to engineer a fix, and he chose his half. Mrs. Bellingham had been given a new polo pony, not that she cared. It was fabulously skinny and she was feign to mount it before the first whistle in case it collapsed, so whilst the other players took the anthems on their horses, she, defying protocol, stood and fed it grass from the pitch.

The Zargonic team was also having a hard time with protocol. They were intent on deferring to the Emperor and the Emperor seemed intent on ignoring them, perhaps imagining he was still on the simulator. They carefully took up their usual positions, all the while watching him for signals as to where he wanted them, but he remained quite motionless and silent as though he were in a trance.

The referee watched him too, fearful for his life, frightened the Emperor might kill him if he made any poor decisions. He waited for a signal that he might blow the whistle and start, but the Emperor remained inscrutable, his eyes scrunched up as if he were staring at the sun, his mind elsewhere, and there was nothing for it but to go ahead and blow the whistle and the game began.

The spandrill was thrown high in the air and, on hitting the ground, immediately erupted from its bag and tore off down the pitch into the Zargonic half.

Bellingham, sensing another stitch up, geed on her pony and, bending at the knees, it lumbered forward, but too slowly because the Emperor had the spandrill and thwacked it repeatedly up the pitch in a great barrage.

The crowd roared encouragingly. He was really very good. He had an intense, focused expression on his face, and the crowd responded to his enthusiasm. Perhaps they would have a match after all.

The Imperial Progression up the pitch continued unopposed because the Cramptonians moved out of his way, not wanting to be the first to tackle him. It was left to Frantic to rush from the left wing. He got himself in position between the goal and the Emperor and walloped at his pony, scaring the spandrill from its path. The Emperor was visibly infuriated, but, contrary to the crowd's expectations, didn't call for a foul and rushed back to his position. Thus they knew the game was on, because by his actions the Emperor had shown that he was willing to play it fair and see it through to its proper end.

The first half proceeded in a tense and close-fought manner with neither side getting sufficiently forward to really challenge the other. It was nil-nil at half-time.

Bellingham was upbeat in her pep talk. Frankly she didn't care if she won or lost. She would be close enough to the Emperor at the presentation to blow him and herself up whatever the outcome.

'We will beat the buggers. We just need to apply sufficient pressure from the rear into midfield and mark the left wing a little tighter,' she said, chewing the half-time orange.

The team were subdued and listening intently. Respect had returned because they were as sure as she of her death the moment the Emperor had announced himself as the Zargonic captain. But still they wanted to win for her.

The Zargons formed a equivalent but stranger semi-circle in the opposite half – stranger because they were huddled in silence, no one wishing to speak before the Emperor but the Emperor staring silently at them. In fact, he was communing with the hive-mind and might have been by clinical definition beyond consciousness, but they weren't to know that, and it might be fair to say that even if he could have talked to them, he wouldn't have, because his contempt for them at that moment was extreme. He was a prodigy, trained on a simulator, unsure of the extent of his skills and in a little in awe of the men who did the thing for real – and now, having been given the opportunity to apply his talent against them at last, he had found it to be genuine, and them to be wanting, and he was now wondering what hollow men these heroes had turned out to be.

The second half began with the whistle, and there was an immediate breakaway by the Zargons, the Emperor having moved from the centre circle to a position just outside the box that was only onside because of a defensive lapse. He had the spandrill close to the flank of his massive pony, and beat it into submission in what was a new and unorthodox tactic that drew gasps from the crowd. Properly controlled, it was scooped past a central defender and round the centre back so that there was only the goalkeeper to beat. The Emperor lined it up, raised his mallet for a massive shot and thwacked the club down, sending the spandrill flying towards the top left hand corner of the net. There was nothing the goalkeeper could do about it, although he threw himself at it and almost got a finger to the tail. One-nil to the Zargons.

The crowd went wild. The Zargons went wild and several of them rode towards the Emperor to congratulate him. Then, on seeing his leaden face and disdainful sneer, they remembered themselves and left him alone. He squeezed his pony with his stirrups and rode slowly back for the restart.

Mrs. Bellingham decided on a quick change of tactics, and repositioned herself somewhere wide of centre, sending Frantic squarer so that they were now flatter as a whole and in a more defensive formation. It was a wise move, because the ten minutes after the restart was a period of frenetic activity, with the Zargons sensing blood and searching for a second goal that would have put the Cramptonians out of contention. Mrs. Bellingham was formidable in midfield, in and out of the opposition like a rat round a whippet. Her pony was holding up well, its early fatigue had been thrown off, and it had adjusted to her weight by affecting a sort of tippy-toed gambol.

The Cramptonians soaked the pressure up, and the Zargons having given it their best, began to tire. Half-opportunities that had not been there for most of the second half suddenly began to present themselves. And then they got the breakthrough. Mrs. Bellingham found the left wing with a beautiful looping lob that stunned the spandrill unconscious, and it was safely thrashed forward, then crossed back hard into her path, and finally smashed into the Zargonic net. One-all.

The Zargons were as stunned as the spandrill and for a while it looked as if the Cramptonians would get the winner there and then, but the referee, sensing danger everywhere, blew the whistle for full-time a full three minutes early. It was to be extra-time after a short break.

Bellingham's late equalizer was announced on the uniSwarm.

The ratings were fabulous.

***

Chapter Forty Two

'Ordeal by Fire,' said Bernard reassuringly. 'We've never gotten this far before so this is as much new territory for me as it is for you.'

He was consulting a yellowed scroll and had his glasses on, half-moons that made him look at once impish and even more ancient.

'Now it's back to the volcano, I'm afraid. We're going to lower you in a cage over the fiery pool of boiling lava.' Bernard peered at Cormack over the half-moons. 'There's an element of repetition here that I hope you'll excuse. I'll mention it to the Shamanic Throat and see if he can't come up with something more exciting for future Candidates.'

'There'll be no future Candidates, Bernard,' said Proton, who was standing next to Cormack with an arm around his shoulder. The spandex bodysuit had made a surprising reappearance and Proton's plastic codpiece was very much in evidence. 'Cormack here's the real deal. Aren't you, Cormack?'

Proton continued before Cormack could answer, 'No need to answer that, Cormack. You've proven enough by your actions already. You are one formidable fuck of a Negus. Carry on, Bernard.'

'As I was saying, we'll be lowering you in a cage over the fiery pool of boiling lava within the volcano. The cage will be lowered until it is completely submerged in the boiling lava and then will be slowly withdrawn. It's really quite straightforward, but I must say it's proving to be a little challenging for our logistics. As I'm sure you're aware by now, we run a pretty tight ship around here. But we are self-sufficient, by necessity given our location, and the cage, which has never been used before, has been misplaced. The Shamanic Throat has an idea where it might be and we're pretty certain we'll find it soon, but I'm afraid we're going to have to delay a day or two until we can get our hands on it.'

'Bloody hell, Bernard!' said Proton. 'We don't have a day or two!'

Cormack looked relieved.

The cow was excited.

'Ooh, Cormack,' she said. 'Let us spend some time together away from the camp and these people and their sordid talk of Ordeals.'

They decided on a picnic far into the forest beyond the glade, in the opposite direction to where the Fractious Jub-Jub tree grew. Cormack, breakfasted on carminatives, was now fully recovered, the last of the diarrhoea having dribbled from him the previous night, and was in fact, perhaps for the first time since he had been abducted, in a good mood.

'How's Stanton Bosch?' he said.

'Not good, Cormack,' said the cow. 'The things that man has gone through.'

'I'm most awfully grateful.'

'I'll let him know.'

'Is he about here?'

'He moves silently through the camp when the Captain sleeps. We communicate through whispers and stolen half-glances.'

'What's his plan for the Ordeal by Fire?'

'He's making some sort of modification to the cage.'

'Oh, he has it...'

'Yes, of course.'

'He's very well organized.'

'We are part of a large organization that is very well resourced. As is the Shamanic Throat...'

'What is the Shamanic Throat by the way?'

'Why, he's a frog!'

'Oh!'

The picnic continued pleasantly enough. The cow had packed sardines that she had secretly carried from Bartislard, and there was salami and a salad that she had made from fruits collected from around the tent in her mouth. They had planned for a little cold chicken, but Bernard had said none was left.

The cow was feeling frisky and Cormack was enchanted by her company. She was upbeat and girlish, a welcome change from Proton's manic intensity and Bernard's stiff precision.

When they had finished eating, they ran and slithered together in the woods like small children, dodging behind the ancient hardwood trees, and playing games of tag and hide-and-seek, scrawling messages to each other with twigs in the soil. They carved their names with spoons on the bamboo.

It was the first chance they had had to be alone together since they had met in the Prison Whale and all the cares of those and the subsequent days fell away at last, sloughed off like the cow's legs had been at the start of their long journey.

When they were done running, and were quite spent, they fell to the forest floor together. The cow was panting from thirst, her eyes bulging huge with the dehydration, and Cormack suddenly rolled on top her, straddling her midriff, and grabbed her by the shoulders, looking her square in the eyes.

'Cow, what's going to happen after the Third Ordeal?' he said.

'The Throat will pronounce you, Cormack,' she said.

She was taken aback by his sudden change of mood.

'What does that mean?'

'You will be declared as the Negus.'

'And then what?'

'We will make our move. Me and Stanton Bosch.'

She could feel the fear in him, how he was tensed above her, the insistent pressure of his fingers on her bristled hide.

'Don't worry, Cormack. Everything will be all right,' she said softly. 'You're protected now. You're one of us. A proper Pantheistic Syllogist.'

She held out a stump and stuck out her tongue.

'Here,' she said. 'I've never done this before. To anyone.'

She took Cormack's hand carefully and moving it towards her mouth with the stump, licked it hard.

He could feel the roughness of her tongue like sandpaper on his skin, and then the heat of her saliva coating his hand with her sticky wetness, and he lay back on the soft grass and closed his eyes, and gave a little gasp.

'See,' she said when she'd finished. 'Everything's going to be all right, Cormack. Everything's going to be just fine.'

***

Chapter Forty Three

The Emperor was unprepared for extra-time, it not being one of the settings on his simulator, and didn't know what to do, and had to be told by the centre right that there were two halves and another half-hour to go. It seemed to intensify his catatonia, and he left to take his position in the centre of the field with a mechanical resignation that seemed more appropriate to an android.

Bellingham was, by contrast, energized and baying for blood. She had her team in a huddle again and wanted them to try a new tactic.

'Leave the Emperor unmarked,' she said.

'But he's their best player,' said Frantic.

'Leave him alone and we will have an extra man up front. He's tiring and they are being solicitous to him. He won't know what to do with a brand new spandrill.'

It was fighting talk and she backed it up by having the referee inspect the spandrill. In consultation with the Emperor, they agreed it was just about dead and would do with changing. They sent for the replacement and a small spare was found and coerced into service by spanking with a mallet. Then they were off again - extra-time.

The play was desultory to begin with, both sides aware of the magnitude of what was at stake. Bellingham, with the most to lose, was, ironically, the least nervous, and found a lot of space on the left flank, but the midfield were having problems servicing her and were getting bunched in their own half. The Zargons were sitting back somewhat and hoping for the breakaway goal. The Emperor, unmarked now as planned, didn't know what to do with his new found freedom and mounted a series of flashy sideways runs across the box that would have been obviously offside if the midfield had found him, which they didn't, and then he sat back in a kind of sulk towards the halfway line.

There was no score at the halfway mark.

The second half was more frenetic. The ponies were very tired now, and had to be urged on with whips and hard kicks to the ribs. The game was favouring the better conditioned animals which tended to bear the lighter mounts. That evidently excluded Bellingham and her haggard steed, and she was effectively sidelined, which meant the rest of her team had to work doubly hard to counteract the surge from the Zargons, who had had a second wind and were charging hard.

Two minutes from the end came the decisive play. The Zargonic centre midfield had the spandrill and was unmarked in the first third of the Cramptonian half. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed the Emperor begin a long loping run down the left wing, and his first instinct was to serve him up the spandrill with a fluid thwack. But he hesitated, considering his other options such as the centre forward well marked on the outside of the box, and whilst he hesitated the Emperor jinked goal-ward and lost his man, and it was a simple matter to roll the spandrill through the gap in the midfield and into his path. He was clear on goal with only the keeper to beat.

The Emperor let out a mighty howl, the only sound that had come from him throughout the game, and rose in his stirrups, tightening the throat cable which rocked the box that contained the hive-mind strapped to his head, and something seemed to move inside because it had him reeling, and instead of flowing forward over the ball and guiding it into the net, he topped the shot, so that the spandrill took a nasty tickle on its rear and shuffled into touch.

'Blasted hive-mind!' he roared aloud. 'Blasted box of bots! You made me miss!'

The hive-mind was in no position to respond. It could sense that the box was slipping off the Emperor's head, and that the throat cable was getting taut, and that it might snap if it fell, and that the Emperor, the only individual that could do something about it, was going to do nothing. The hundreds of millions of nano-bots inside lurched collectively to one side in a desperate effort to counterbalance the fall, but it was too late. There were not enough of them and they were so small.

The box dropped off the Emperor's head.

The cable tightened violently when it was at full extension, half way down the chest of the polo pony, and it jerked the Emperor's head forward viciously, and pulled him down and onto the pitch. He felt something wet at the back of his throat, and saw a dribble of blood that had leaked from his mouth onto the grass. The box was on the ground too, buzzing noisily.

Eventually, after his head cleared, the Emperor picked himself and the box up and dusted himself down. He felt along the throat cable to where it entered his mouth. He could feel a small flow of blood in the back of his throat. It filled his mouth and he retched. Then he pulled at the cable.

It came right out.

He had the most God-awful headache. Everything about him degaussed. The pony over him in yellows and reds, looming as if he was flattened on a chessboard, the knight bearing down. An absence. Up in the sky. The sun – darkening, not illuminating. Pain in his mouth. A roar. The noise of the crowd like static.

He smelt grass.

***

Chapter Forty Four

The Sibyl had at last located the cage.

It had been found close to where the Shamanic Throat had suggested, partially buried amongst a pile of rubbish that disfigured the far side of the glade and marked one hundred and sixty years of the Throat's and Bernard's inadequate bachelor housekeeping. The Sibyl determined it was serviceable by pulling at it a little. He didn't remember it being quite so huge, and it had appurtenances and pieces that seemed superfluous, but the Throat was convinced of its authenticity after a brief demonstration with Proton standing in for Cormack and a patch of nettles for the raging volcanic fire.

'Good to go again,' said Bernard, noticeably relieved.

'Let's get on with it, Bernard,' said Proton.

'Absolutely. Ordeal by Fire. The Final Ordeal.'

The cage was moved into position that night, and so, the next day, they began the long walk up the secret path with little in the way of baggage. The cow decided to stay behind in camp, sensibly considering the long slither might be too much for her. The Sibyl was not in the best physical condition, being over two hundred years old, so it was slow going through fields of bright blue cornflowers and strange weeds the colour of rape and low cut grass that was grazed by sad looking oxen, but at last they were up against the side of the volcano, smaller on this side because the ground, rich with vegetation, rose up to it, and Cormack could see the path wind up and round to a small dark arch that led inside. Proton led the way, this being familiar territory. Once they had passed through the dark arch, they went through a succession of antechambers, full of stalagmites and stalactites that dripped foul smelling water on them. They stumbled along, minding where they trod, and at last they came to a large open chamber, and Proton led them upwards, along a winding staircase cut into the rock to a further chamber that led to a long platform like a diving board that hung over the lava pool below. At the top, Cormack looked down to the floor of the volcano and felt the heat rising, reddening his face.

'Yes,' said the Sibyl. 'Unfortunate really. Rather frying pan into fire for you, isn't it?'

'Quite,' said Cormack.

'As I said before, I've lodged a recommendation with the Throat to see if he can't liven it up a bit for future Candidates but he's reminded me that the volcano really is a lot of the reason for our being located here so things are unlikely to change in the foreseeable future.'

'I see. It's really not a bother,' said Cormack and the Sibyl smiled back weakly.

The hoist and winch were already in position and it was a small matter to attach the cage.

'If you wouldn't mind,' said Bernard to Cormack, indicating the entrance to the cage.

By now, Cormack was confident enough in Stanton Bosch's amazing ability to extricate him from the Ordeals that he only offered token resistance as a matter of form and so as not to arouse suspicions. Proton in turn reciprocated by fingering his laser gun half-heartedly and, formalities having thus been observed, they were ready to go.

The cage was shut with a clang, padlocked, and then attached to a chain that led over the winch and through a pulley. With an enormous effort from the Sibyl – Proton's offers of help were refused as bad form – the cage was raised and locked in position.

The Sibyl stood back, breathless, and gave the final instructions.

'Candidate,' he said. 'This is the Final Ordeal. Ordeal by Fire. As I say, this is a first for us. No one has ever completed the Second Ordeal before, so we are a little unpractised as to the mechanics of the thing. But the Throat and I do take an enormous amount of pride in our ability to work these things through and we think everything is thoroughly in order according to all the Ancient Texts. So there really should be nothing to worry about at all. Unless you're not the Negus of course. Then you would have to be very worried indeed...'

'Yes, yes,' interrupted Proton. 'Get on with it, Bernard.'

The Sibyl continued a little louder. 'As I was saying, the cage will be lowered on my command of, "Lower!" When it hits the pool, the Throat has specified a submersion of no less than five seconds. Do you understand?'

'Yes, I do,' said Cormack.

'Very good,' said the Sibyl, pleased to have had a response. 'I think you're getting the hang of these things now.'

He resumed his position by the winch, commanded himself, 'Lower!' in an authoritative voice, and began to turn the wheel that would lower the cage down the volcano. The pulley was geared so the cage was dropping very slowly, and Cormack was able to move to one side and look through the bars.

Proton, watching from the diving board could, after the cage had been lowered some ten feet, see nothing except its hard metal top and the Sibyl too, hard at work with the winch, soon lost sight of him.

***

Chapter Forty Five

'Pssst! Pssst!'

Cormack looked up to see where the sound was coming from.

It was Stanton Bosch, leering from a hole in the roof. Somehow he had managed to secrete himself in a hidden chamber he must have engineered when he had stolen the cage.

'Get me down from here,' he whispered horribly. 'It's frigging tight.'

It did look very uncomfortable.

Stanton Bosch moved himself around in his compartment to free himself, and first one leg came down and then another, all accompanied by hideous grunts and wheezes. It was echoes of the cow's eruption into the belly of the Prison Whale, thought Cormack.

At last he dropped down, the cage rocked a bit, and he was standing on the floor. He was a strange sight, like a geriatric frogman, because he was wearing one of the Guards' thermal suits. He had another in his hand.

'Here, put this on, skinny man,' he said. Cormack complied immediately, standing in the centre of the cage as he got in it so that he couldn't be seen.

'Now, we got to get you up there in the roof before we hits the lava,' said Stanton Bosch.

He crouched down and indicated that Cormack was to get on his shoulders.

With some reluctance, Cormack moved himself onto Stanton Bosch and was raised upwards. The Bosch seemed quite recovered from the horrors of the Fractious Jub-Jub tree. His body was back to its normal lithe shape and held firm under Cormack's weight. He was able to guide him into the compartment from where Cormack arranged himself flat against the roof.

'You'll be all right in there,' said Stanton Bosch. 'Just hold tight to the sides. It will surely get damned hot.'

'What about you?' said Cormack. 'What is going to happen to you?'

'Now, don't you worries about me, skinny man. I is going to be just fine...'

Stanton Bosch couldn't finish the sentence because the cage was so low to the pool now that little flares of flame were firing into it, hitting him around his legs, and he was hopping back and forth, and all Cormack could hear above the bubbling of the lava was, 'Holy crap! Holy crap!'

He still had enough presence of mind, however, to jump up and slam the compartment shut. Cormack was in darkness, the heat around him incredible and only the muffled 'Holy craps!' coming from below to keep him company. Then it got unbelievably hot and he couldn't breathe properly. The air around him closed tight on his throat, suffocating him, and he must have passed out, because when he came to, the cage was moving upwards. There was a series of bangs from below, the trapdoor beneath him was pulled open, and he squeezed himself out, dropping to the floor. He looked around, dazed and breathless, but Stanton Bosch was nowhere to be seen.

The cage was getting higher now. He took off the thermal suit, and pushed it through the bars of the cage so that it fell down to the lava pool below, and then he sat on the floor of the cage, perfectly still, feeling very sick, as it rose under the Sibyl's exertions.

Eventually, by craning his neck upwards, he could make out Proton's face. He was lying flat on the diving board, peering down below, so that Cormack could just see a head, a little way above, sticking out from the rock like a gargoyle on a buttress.

He seemed to be having an extremely animated conversation with the Sibyl. Then he shouted down a few desperate 'Cormacks!' and then muttered some more at Bernard.

Cormack could just make out what they were saying. It seemed that the Sibyl, not the strongest of individuals, had suffered a cramp as the cage had reached the lava pool at the bottom of the drop, and he had been unable pull it up for a while and it had rested beneath the lava far longer than the five seconds the Shamanic Throat had prescribed. Proton was beside himself.

'My beautiful boy has been burned to a crisp, Bernard! There's no bloody way he could have survived that! No bloody way!'

'I do apologize,' said Bernard. 'It was most unfortunate. I did keep telling you how unpractised I am at this particular Ordeal.'

'You might be unpractised, Bernard, but your real problem is you're so damned weak.'

'I'm two hundred years old, Captain. And the winch is unexpectedly stiff.'

'They'll be a court case, Bernard. I'm warning you now.'

The Sibyl rolled his eyes and concentrated on the raising of the cage, which was proceeding apace now he had sufficient adrenaline flowing through him.

Proton turned back down the pit and cried pitifully, 'Cormack, mate! Cormack!'

'Proton!' Cormack called back, more to stop him arguing with Bernard, whom he quite liked and thought had done a reasonably professional job in trying circumstances, than because he wanted to reassure Proton.

'Cormack!' cried Proton, 'Cormack. Is it you?'

'Proton!' cried Cormack back.

'Cormack, mate! Cormack! You're alive! Are you alive?'

'Yes, Proton!'

'And what the hell do you look like?'

'I'm OK, Proton.'

'OK! OK! Cormack, mate! It's Cormack, Bernard! He's alive!'

The cage was high enough now for Proton to see him.

'Get him out of there, Bernard, right now!' he said. But it was to be a full five minutes of Bernard's cack-handed fumbling, as he swung the cage wildly back and forth and fiddled endlessly with keys, with Proton all the while standing by impatiently, anxious to help, but being assured by the Sibyl it was quite unnecessary to do so and may indeed, if he went ahead, be considered by the Throat to be a violation of the rules of the Ordeal, before it was finally secured on solid ground and opened up and Cormack was released. Once he was on the diving board and Proton had finished manfully hugging him, Cormack looked down into the void for signs of Stanton Bosch, but could see nothing except the smoky-red glow of the lava, bubbling noisily below.

***

Chapter Forty Six

The referee called for penalties and, as usual, Bellingham had a plan.

She would be taking the first, Frantic the second, and then it would be up to the regular forwards, more accustomed to firing on goal, to finish the job off.

The Zargons were completely unprepared and looked to the Emperor for guidance. He was back on his pony, with the inert hive-mind box strapped once again to his head, but he was still dribbling blood, and had a kind of fruity expression on his face as though he were laying a turd, and wouldn't respond when they asked him what to do. They didn't want to decide anything without him but they had to form a plan, so they started mouthing to each other, 'You first,' and so on, when they thought he wasn't looking. At last some kind of order was agreed upon and it was understood that the Emperor would go first.

The Emperor's pony, when no instruction came and it could see what was to be done, led him slowly towards the penalty area. The crowd was quiet. The pony stopped by the spandrill, tied to the penalty spot.

Everything was just red now. Like it was washed with blood. Rusts and cardinals and fuchsias and persimmons and chestnuts and cerise. Tones of red, so many it made a world. The reds moving, all over each other. The static like an ocean. And in the ocean, something screaming. One of the reds, ochre. Down there. By his feet. He could hear it quite clearly. He must get down.

***

Chapter Forty Seven

Proton was ecstatic, the Sibyl less so, as it meant the end of his time with the Shamanic Throat who had announced his retirement now that the Negus had been found, Cormack, concerned, especially when Proton tried to get him to wear a crown of thorns that he had fashioned from brambles plucked from a hedgerow on their way back to camp, and the cow, amused.

'Ooh, Cormack! Well done!' she said and gave him a little wink. 'Just think of it! You a Negus!'

'The standing army is ready,' said Bernard to Proton mostly, although everyone could hear him because they were all huddled together around the campfire. 'They're really rather a rag-bag of hardcore fanatics and might not be much use, but it's a start, and a start is better than nothing. They're in Kabbal, one day's journey from here. I'll be showing you the way; then the rest is up to you. And the Candidate, of course. He's still the Candidate until the Throat announces him as the Negus tomorrow.'

'Excellent, Bernard! Cormack, my boy! Negus! You hear that! The Throat is ready to endorse you.'

'Now, the small matter of the refundable deposit,' said Bernard.

'Yes, Bernard,' said Proton slowly.

'I'm afraid that, given that we're shutting up shop here and the whole shebang is winding down after one hundred and eighty years of difficult and painstaking work, it's not going to be possible to follow through on that particular matter. There's going to be all kinds of unexpected expenses. I have to find a new home for the Shamanic Throat for one thing. And legally speaking the organization that took the deposit was dissolved when the Final Ordeal was successfully completed...'

A flash of anger crossed Proton's face, and then he looked at Bernard, who was, in fact, close to tears, and his anger melted instantly, and he opened his arms out to him and Bernard, at first hesitant, moved towards Proton and they fell into a manly embrace.

'I'm terribly sorry,' the Sibyl sobbed, 'but you've caused rather a sensation round here with your Candidate. It's all been quite overwhelming. And very disruptive. I didn't think he would cut the mustard at all, when I saw him that first day, but he's proven me quite wrong...'

'Enough of the tears, Bernard. You should be happy. Your mission has been fulfilled.'

'One is always so resistant to change. I'll get over it soon enough, I expect,' said Bernard and Proton took the elderly Sibyl's head in his hands and let him rest it on his lap.

'So, Cormack, young fella-me-lad - phase two,' said Proton, turning to Cormack, who was toasting a muffin on the opposite side of the fire.

'What exactly is phase two, Proton?' said Cormack.

'Well, you heard Bernard. You're to be endorsed as the Negus, having passed the Three Ordeals of the Shamanic Throat, and your army awaits you a day's march away.'

'My army?'

'Don't be too upset when you meet them, Cormack. Like Bernard says, it's just a start. They're the real die-hards. Most of them are quite mad. They've been waiting for your return, without any real hope, for years and years now, so you must excuse them. They mean well, though. But once the Throat has announced you, things are really going to start happening. We're launching a media offensive. Once word gets out on the uniSwarm, this thing is really going to take off. I promise you.'

Later, Cormack managed to have a quiet word with the cow.

'So what's the plan, then?' said Cormack. 'I think Proton wants to kill me.'

'He don't want to kill you, Cormack. He wants to use you. For his own evil purposes. You are right to be wary,' said the cow.

'So what are we to do?'

'For now, play along with the Captain. We got you covered. We'll go to Kabbal.'

'Is that what Stanton Bosch said to do?'

'You know, now you mention it, I haven't seen me Stanton Bosch, since the Final Ordeal...'

***

Chapter Forty Eight

The Emperor was lying on the pitch. He had the spandrill out of its strap. It had bitten him once. He had felt the pain as sharp crimson, bleeding from a central point, like iodine on filter paper.

It was quiet now in his hand, scared beyond belief.

The crowd, seeing the Emperor drop to the floor, had dropped with him, but he had been down so long now a low murmur was buzzing round the ground as people strained upwards to look to see what he was doing. He had turned on his back, and had rested the spandrill on his little belly, and had cupped his hands around it so that it couldn't escape, and he held it there tightly, not letting it move.

The referee didn't know what to do. The Emperor would not take his shot and the shoot-out could not continue. The match would have to be abandoned.

Mrs. Bellingham was in the Cramptonian half, bewildered. She needed to get to the Emperor to blow him up. She had wanted to do it at the presentation ceremony, or when he was about to cut her head off, but if the match were abandoned and he lay on the pitch playing with the spandrill any longer, she would not have her opportunity. The situation called for decisive action.

She mounted her pony and set off to where the Emperor lay.

'Emperor,' she said when she reached him. 'Sad, mad Emperor. I'm talking to you.'

The Emperor looked up, towards the red, where the voice came from.

'Emperor,' she said again. 'I have come here to kill you.'

He saw her as mauve, flat and matt amongst the vibrancies, a dullness, without sheen. Standing still too long \- an oppression.

She threw herself on him, as though she were belly flopping to a mattress, and smothered him and the spandrill too. Then when she had him covered, she began a frantic scrambling with her fingers on the handle of the mallet, trying to get the hidden compartment open so she could smash the phial. As she had dived, the crowd had risen, and the referee, panicked into action and blowing his whistle furiously, was racing down the pitch, the teams in pursuit. It would have to be done quickly. She could feel the spandrill beneath her, feebly making efforts to burrow its way out, and the Emperor roaring and trying to throw her off, and she couldn't get the compartment open.

At last, her thumb connected with the right place, and she pressed against the phial, pushing it hard. It crushed beneath her finger, shards of glass stuck her, and she felt a heat as the balm mixed with the air.

She braced for the explosion. But nothing came.

She washed it about some more, and took it to her lips to blow on it, and there was a pop and spark from the casing, and then, milliseconds later, an explosion that cracked through the stadium with a shower of flame and a great shaft of smoke, and bits of Mrs. Bellingham and bits of the Emperor and bits of the tiny spandrill sprayed up into the air in a bloody arc, as though they were fired from a wood-chipper, raining down gore on the crowd closest to the goal.

***

Chapter Forty Nine

The Shamanic Throat was still at camp, preparations for his removal not yet having been completed, and nothing could be packed up and put away, but there was an end of term feeling in Shambalah all the same.

The cow was frolicking carelessly in the long grass to the west of the glade, near to the tent that contained the Throat himself.

He had issued his pronouncement that morning in a small ceremony that was attended only by Bernard and Proton. The cow had seen them emerge together, hand in hand, but Proton had been looking puzzled, and they were muttering to each other.

Now she saw them again, and the Sibyl stopped to search within his caftan, and found a scroll he had hidden there.

'I think the Throat wanted me to give you this,' he said within earshot of the cow, handing it to Proton.

'Was that really the Shamanic Throat we saw this morning?' said Proton.

'Yes. Yes, of course.'

'He's a frog, Bernard.'

'Not a frog at all.'

'He is a frog, Bernard.'

'The thing you see as a frog is merely a manifestation of his shamanic familiar. He is invisible.'

'And he didn't talk. He didn't even croak.'

'No, but we have a well worked out system of blinks and winks and silent gesturing. It's all thoroughly documented in the Ancient Texts.'

'I don't remember anything like that in the Ancient Texts, Bernard.'

'Not all the Texts are accessible to the layman, Captain. The Candidate has been endorsed. The Throat is pleased. Let us move on.'

'The credibility of my boy is dependant on the credibility of the Shamanic Throat, Bernard. I can't accept that the Shamanic Throat is just a common or garden frog.'

'He's certainly not common or garden. I can vouch for that.'

'Just what kind of a monkey nuts operation are you running here, Bernard?' continued Proton louder, and they moved back to the main encampment beyond the earshot of the cow.

Cormack was getting ready for the march to Kabbal and sought out her counsel.

'Oooo, I saw Stanton Bosch last night, Cormack,' she said. 'I did mean to tell you.'

'You did?'

'Yes, he's alive.'

'Well, that is good news. I wonder how on Earth he survived.'

'He wanted me to give you this.'

The cow bent herself over and pulled a long, thin tube out of her that looked like the kind of stick that athletes use in a relay.

'What is that?' said Cormack.

'A communication device. Keep it about you. He'll be calling you when we get to Kabbal.'

***

Chapter Fifty

The death of the Emperor was all over the uniSwarm, all over all the channels, all over everywhere. Nothing quite so sensational had happened in the Universe for a good long time – not since his father had poisoned the Senate and laid the blame on his aunt and had her disembowelled over the course of a week by Proctors using razor wire threaded on a mangle.

Mrs. Bellingham's final belly flop, his blowing up, the chaotic scenes that followed, were all endlessly replayed on the media outlets. Conspiracy theories were expounded; political scientists were inveighed; the resulting power vacuum was analysed beyond anybody's capacity to take it all in.

In short, the Empire, just as Mrs. Bellingham had planned, was in chaos.

The hive-mind was picked up piece by piece and there was an attempt to reassemble it, which was compromised when the nano-bots, finally released from the confines of their box, all ran away at once. Nothing could be salvaged. Mrs. Bellingham's duct was found, inert, in the front row of the main stand. Then it was discovered the Emperor had not been properly backed up, too much reliance having been placed by the technicians responsible on a hive-mind that had proved itself dangerously unreliable. So it really was sayonara for the lot of them.

The Senate wished to announce a new Emperor immediately, but the obvious candidate, the Emperor's eldest son, was dithering. Frightened of assassination, he had gone into hiding by closing his eyes tightly in a loft on a Pleasure World, and they played along, politically, by pretending their search drones couldn't see him.

There were numerous other pretenders, but none could gain sufficient support from the Senate, and there was nothing to be done except to wait it out until a consensus could be formed around a new candidate that might be acceptable to a majority.

The Opikarp, himself, had initially expressed a wish to be nominated. But support for an Emperor confined to a fish tank was not likely to be overwhelming, and he had eventually decided to withdraw his candidacy and perhaps try another time, when the new Emperor was killed, he supposed, which would surely happen quickly. The long, stable periods of Imperial Rule represented by the Emperor and his father were now over for good, he was sure - unsustainable periods of quietude in a Universe of flux.

In any case, he was under arrest, which in his case meant little change in his living conditions, his tank still being surrounded by armed guards much as it was before, only now their guns were pointed at him. He was accused of complicity in the assassination of the Emperor – a charge, given the circumstances, it was proving hard to deny. He had already fingered Traction, and Traction was likely being tortured, but the fact that Mrs. Bellingham had managed to get to the Emperor with a loaded mallet, and the fact that she was on Zargon 8 with the connivance of the Opikarp, and the fact that the Emperor and the hive-mind were not around to support his alibis, made the Opikarp's position very dangerous.

Still, he thrived on danger, he thought. It surrounded his fish tank, corrupted his fish weed, and made his fish food piquant. He would survive this latest calumny.

His only thought was to turn it to his advantage.

***

Chapter Fifty One

Cormack, the cow, the Sibyl and Proton reached Kabbal a little before nightfall. It had not been a difficult journey - the Sibyl's estimate of a day was, after his manner, conservative - because they had fashioned a little sled for the cow from two bamboo branches that they pulled with thick vines they had found in the forest so they could walk apace.

All the same, they were exhausted when they came upon the little settlement of a few hundred huts.

The huts were circular, with straw roofing, and constructed from wattle and daub. Smoke rose from their high chimneys, and, as they passed, they could see great fires roaring within, and women cooking, boiling stews in black iron cauldrons. Outside, ragged children, caked in mud, played with skinny dogs, and skipped in front of them as they walked down the narrow streets.

They came across a storehouse, a granary, and several workshops, with smiths inside wearing leather aprons and hammering at red hot irons. Pleasing smells of freshly cooked breads and pastries announced a bakery, and there was a butcher's, and a smokehouse, close to the slurries that ran to cesspits.

There, they found a leatherworker, lifting a pelt to carry to his liming pit. He was clothed from head to foot in dirty bandages so that he looked leprous and ruined. And there was an inn, empty save mine host.

Everywhere they were greeted with scowls and sneers and nobody was happy to see them.

Proton had them walk right across the town, and then, when he realized he had gone too far, and the village was gone and the jungle was around him, he started to lead them back in again.

'Are we going anywhere in particular?' asked Cormack.

'Searching for signs of civilization, Cormack,' he said resignedly.

They marched around the huts again, kicking at the piles of offal raked in untidy heaps.

'Well, I'm going to have to leave you here,' said Bernard, sounding like he had had enough. 'My work is done.'

'Really?' said Proton. 'You're off now?'

'Yes, I need to be heading back.'

'Regards to the Shamanic Throat.'

'Of course.'

The Sibyl, glorious in his multi-coloured caftan, sloped off back down the path and with a last languorous wave was lost into the dark of the forest.

'Right,' said Proton, looking bereaved. 'These people must have a leader or something, mustn't they? Mustn't they? They're so...disappointing...'

'I expect there's a Village Chieftain,' said Cormack brightly.

'Yes, a Village Chieftain. That might do,' said Proton.

He accosted a bearded individual who was staring in disbelief at the cow.

'Excuse me, young sir,' he said. 'Could you take me to your Village Chieftain?'

'Over there,' said the man, pointing to a large hut they had passed by earlier.

It was centrally located, another wattle and daub construction built around an enormous stone chimney, square like a turret, from which beams were hung like umbrella spindles to form a frame for its thatch of straw.

The floor was of baked mud and the man who stood on it, according with the prevailing sentiment within the village, was not pleased to see them.

'Full up!' he cried. 'You'll have to clear your own spot in the forest. Here!'

He tossed them an axe that Proton caught deftly by the handle.

'We're not staying actually,' said Proton.

'Good.'

'No. We're mobilizing.'

'And what is that?'

'I bring you the Negus! Cormack, stand up straight!'

'Is this some kind of a joke?'

'You know, that's what I was thinking...' said Cormack.

'The Negus!' said Proton, with some distaste. 'Not yet come to terms with his new position. Do stand up straight, Cormack! This is important!'

The Village Elder looked Proton up and down.

'I suggest you take the axe and clear yourself a spot in the forest. You can sleep there tonight. We'll see that you are unharmed. You can leave in the morning.'

'No, no, no!'

'See, we don't take too kindly to people that come here and make jokes at our expense.'

'No, no! You have us wrong. This is no joke. This is the Negus. He's certified by the Shamanic Throat. See.' Proton took Bernard's scroll from his coat and showed it to the Elder. 'We're here to mobilize you.'

The Elder was reluctant to accept the scroll, but he eventually took it, opened it, and read it punctiliously, from top to bottom twice.

'It looks authentic,' he said at last.

'It is authentic.'

'Where did you get it?'

'From the Shamanic Throat. Look, Bernard...' said Proton, forgetting that Bernard had already left. 'Damn!'

'Well, the procedure is very straightforward with any claimants like this,' said the Elder.

'I've gone from being a candidate to being a claimant,' said Cormack.

'We have to send it for verification to Shambalah.'

'The Throat is packing up. He'll be gone by the time you get there.'

'Can't be too careful,' said the Elder. 'So many phonies pass this way.'

Proton stayed, arguing with the Elder, whose name was Dennis, for a quarter-hour or so, but even he had to admit defeat in the face of such stolid opposition, and they repaired across town to cut a bed in the trees.

'It would help if you could perform a miracle or something,' he said to Cormack.

'I've already told you, I'm not capable of any miracles.'

'It's so disappointing, your general unwillingness to help out in situations like this. It's dangerous to get these people's backs up, you know. We've been through so much together, Cormack. Why won't you help me?'

'I'm not the Negus, Proton.'

'C'mon on, mate!' said Proton. 'So, who the hell was it who performed the Three Ordeals then?'

Cormack felt a tingle in his leg. It was the relay stick given him by the cow, vibrating to let him know that Stanton Bosch was on the line.

'Excuse me,' he said to Proton, 'Need to pee.'

He walked a little further into the forest until he was hidden from view.

'Yo there, skinny man!' said Stanton Bosch on the phone. 'How are you doing?'

'How are you doing?'

'You don't mind me there, skinny man,' said Stanton Bosch. 'I is not the focus of this here operation. That there evil Captain Proton is treating you right?'

'Everything is fine so far.'

'Now, listen to me good. The Emperor has been killed.'

'The Emperor is dead?'

'Yes. But Proton must not be told. Have you got that?'

'The Emperor is dead? It was very sudden.'

'Listen to me, skinny man. You must not let Captain Proton find out that the Emperor is dead. Your life depends on it. The cow will help you in your task.'

'Why does my life depend on it?' asked Cormack, but Stanton Bosch had hung up.

Cormack put the relay stick back in his pocket and went to join the others.

They had found a good spot, not too far from the village, and had begun to clear it. Proton was slashing at the vegetation furiously and grumbling to himself.

'You know, Cormack,' he said when he saw Cormack was back. 'Do we even need these losers?'

'Probably not.'

'Let's get back to Bartislard and off this planet and get a connection to the uniSwarm.'

'Whatever you want.'

The cow was trying to help them clear the area by chewing at the thicker grass.

'I don't mean to interrupt or nothing,' she said, looking up, 'but the prophecies do say that the Negus will march from this here Kabbal, don't they?'

'We could march from here to Bartislard, I suppose. Maybe that would fulfil the prophecies,' said Proton, but seeds of doubt had been planted in his mind by the cow's objection and he resumed hacking at the undergrowth in grim silence. They would rest there for the night and hope that Bernard would have send word to Dennis of Cormack's authenticity by morning.

***

Chapter Fifty Two

In fact, Bernard was in Dennis' hut enjoying a mug of steaming cocoa. He had gone a little way down the track to Shambalah, and then the sun had begun to set, and he hadn't really felt like walking all that way in the dark, so he had turned back to Kabbal. He had watched Proton arguing with Dennis from a distance far enough away that he couldn't be seen, and then he had waited until they had all gone before going inside Dennis' hut.

Dennis was, in fact, his cousin.

'Why did you give him the scroll, Bernard?' said Dennis, munching on a crumpet he had toasted on the blazing fire. It was filled with honey, so that the innards had slopped out and congealed round its outer circumference like fresh cement burst from its boarding.

'His Candidate passed the test. There was nothing else I could do,' said Bernard. He had taken off the multi-coloured caftan at last and revealed a dirty grey vest beneath.

'The Throat has certified him?'

'Indeed. Well, I didn't note any objections. It's very difficult between me and the Throat at the moment. I mean, this business you've got me in to of just picking up a frog from the Luminous Pool when the previous Throat has expired – are you completely sure there's a valid theological basis?'

'Absolutely. It's in one of the Texts. I'll find the passage for you if it's bothering you.'

Dennis moved to the bookcase, curved to fit tight against the wall, and pulled a book, red and leather-backed, from a row.

'Well, anyway, this latest frog is certainly a dead loss,' said Bernard. 'Almost had me in a deal of trouble with Captain Proton. It's quite inscrutable. There's only so much palaver one can do if it won't move at all.'

'The Captain seems to be insisting that we mobilize,' said Dennis, putting the book back quietly.

'Yes, it's a bugger.'

'So we will mobilize. Nothing for it. The whole bloody enterprise has gone arse over tits, cousin.'

'Brave new world...'

'I suppose. We've had it cushy here for too long. Time for a change.'

'Drastic, though.'

'Could we spin it out a bit longer? I could pretend that you can't be found or something.'

'Really rather not. We must have some respect for the prophecies. We are not charlatans.'

'Absolutely not, Bernard. You're quite right of course. It's just so unexpected. That a successful Candidate could have come forth after all these years.'

'You know, I was telling the Captain the same thing myself just yesterday.'

'Back when we were young, one hundred and eighty years ago, when we were on fire with religion. Then we would have welcomed him.'

'But he couldn't be found.'

'It was so disappointing.'

'And now when we're quite settled.'

'And have roots...' said Dennis, looking at the mantelpiece on one side of the fireplace, filled with gaudy knick-knacks, and deft little potteries, and worn keepsakes with bits broken off them, and Hummels.

'It's just a total bugger, but we must get on with it,' said Bernard emphatically.

***

Chapter Fifty Three

Cormack had had a torrid night – the cow couldn't sleep and had kept rolling over him and he had had dreams of being smothered by a leathery sea lion until he woke dripping with sweat and pushed her off.

Proton was flustered too. His survival skills had once again proved wanting and he had made his bed in a nest of fire-ants which had crawled into his spandex bodysuit through a tiny point of entry near his armpit, one at a time, stinging him just enough to keep him awake but not enough for him to rise and destroy them, all throughout the night.

There was nowhere to wash and the cow was livid.

'This here ain't good enough for us, Cormack. We ain't be so badly treated since we did leave Zargon 8.'

'I'm going to see Dennis again right away and see if we can't get this thing sorted out,' said Proton angrily.

He marched in a fury to Dennis' hut, determined to have it out with him, and, on being allowed ingress, was surprised to see Bernard in the hut, drinking a cup of cocoa.

'Hello, Captain Proton,' he said. 'Do come in.'

'Bernard!'

'Yes, and how are you? How's the Negus more importantly?'

'Cormack, mate! Come in - Bernard's here! Did they fetch you from Shambalah, Bernard?'

'Ummm...No...'

'Well, it's wonderful to see you,' said Proton, still assessing the situation. 'We need your help. See, we were having a problem with this fellow here.' Proton pointed at Dennis, who was fetching hot snacks from a tiered dessert tray that hung in a cage with a bell. 'He seemed not to recognize the Negus.'

'I never said I didn't recognize him,' said Dennis, setting his tray down. 'I just needed further confirmation from the Sibyl himself. A scroll can be forged, you know.'

'Well, here is your Sibyl now. What say you, Sibyl?' said Proton.

'The little misunderstanding has been ironed out. Dennis is now convinced.'

'Excellent!'

'We're mobilizing around eleven. I just want to have a refreshing cup of tea before we get started,' said Dennis.

'OK.'

'Very disruptive for everybody, you know. It's going to take a bit of doing.'

'Dennis!' growled Bernard.

Dennis shuffled back to the fire.

'You know each other?' said Proton.

'Dennis is a cousin,' said Bernard.

'What cosy little arrangements you have here on Foul Ball,' said Proton.

***

Chapter Fifty Four

Mobilisation seemed to consist of the moving of tents and shifting of gear and packing away of bits and pieces to be put on carts and in wooden trailers under tarpaulins and sheets. The fires in the smithy were dowsed, and the baker had produced a final round, which sold out within minutes, and he shut his oven, bricked round the furnace, and joined his friend the leatherworker to slop out the tannery and drain the slurries. The children were washed and dressed and blessed by the Elder, then separated from the adults to form a squad by themselves. The carts were corralled, one for two families, and the things they had packed, bound in sheets or held in stout wooden trunks, were brought from the huts and laid on the ground and they decided in loud voices what needed to be taken and what they would leave. Then they boarded their doors and set the dogs loose to roam.

They were all day at it, after eleven, and nobody was happy at all.

'Considering their supposed purpose of being in Kabbal is so that they can be mobilized by the Negus, they seem very pissed off about it,' observed Proton.

Cormack had to agree.

There was a small armoury to the east of the village and the villagers were to be given ancient muskets - a purely symbolic gesture, Dennis assured them, but consistent with the prophecies, and even this small matter was causing consternation. The best of the rifles had gone to the earliest attendees and the majority had to make do with broken bits of rusted metal, not able to fire a shot - a further burden to be borne on the march that would follow.

At least, the children were excited.

'Is he really the Negus?' asked one small, dirty boy.

'Yes, he is, aren't you, Cormack?' said Proton.

'No, I'm not,' said Cormack.

'He's says he's not,' said the boy.

'He is but he doesn't want anyone to know,' said Proton and the boy left satisfied.

Dennis came by with Bernard. He looked harassed, and was carrying a clipboard with a list of problems to be solved and lost children and supplies gone missing.

'We're not going to get through today,' he said. 'We'll leave in the morning. Make more sense anyway.'

'Another day wasted!' said Proton. 'When will I ever get myself off this God forsaken planet?'

'Might be safer here for now,' said Dennis. 'We've gotten word from one of the late arrivals that the Emperor has been...'

He couldn't finish because the cow, who was disporting herself close by, suddenly pricked up her ears and launched herself through the mud, sliding at Dennis at a great speed, coming at him like a curling stone. He didn't see her at all and caught the full force, careening backwards violently.

'Good heavens!' said Bernard, because one second his cousin was there next to him, and then the next, twenty yards away, sprawled against the baker's hut.

'What the hell got into the cow?' yelled Proton.

'I think I've broken something,' said Dennis when they reached him. He was lying on one side and clutching his leg, moaning and groaning.

'I wouldn't be surprised at all,' said Proton. 'The cow, Cormack, is a frigging menace. I have been saying this since we arrived on Foul Ball. And now she has turned rabid.'

'I'm not rabid,' said the cow who was caked in brown mud but otherwise unharmed. 'I'm dribbling from the exertions.'

'I take full responsibility for the cow,' said Cormack. 'Dennis, I do apologise.'

But Dennis was too far gone to hear him.

'We'll have to take him back to his hut,' said Proton. 'Put the cow on a chain.'

'Absolutely not,' said Cormack. But it was apparent that Dennis' injuries were more than superficial, and that Bernard was very upset. He kept looking at the cow and shivering, as he tended his cousin, wondering if she had marked him out as her next victim.

Cormack had to do as he was told, a chain was found, and she was harnessed and tied to a post for the night.

'It's up to you now, Cormack,' she told him as he wished her goodnight. 'Don't let Proton know the Emperor is dead. I done me best.'

'What is the big deal about Proton knowing the Emperor is dead?'

'It will force his hand, Cormack. He will have to act precipitously.'

'Precipitously - that's a big word for you, cow.'

'There's more to me than straw and syllogisms, Cormack.'

'I see that now.'

'He'll want to take you directly to Zargon 8.'

'And we don't want that?'

'We don't. We is biding our time. Waiting for our moment. Stanton Bosch needs to get his strength back. Trust in me.'

'I do, cow.'

'Good. You're one of us, now. A real Pantheistic Syllogist,' she said, and she gave him a little lick on his hand. It felt like a brillo pad, gently scouring him.

'I know, cow. You've been good to me,' he said when she'd finished

'Loosen this here harness then. It's right tight against me udders.'

***

Chapter Fifty Five

The Opikarp was bored with the current arrangements and wanted an end to them. Either they should execute him, or they should dismiss the guards and let him get on with governing the Cramptonians as was his wont. He requested a meeting with the Senate so that his case could be resolved forthwith one way or the other, and they were loathed to grant it, because it would have meant the tying up of a transporter vessel big enough to carry his tank to Zargon 8 and they could ill afford such extravagances in these troubled times. In any case, they considered him something of an irrelevance, because what harm could a fish confined to a tank really do? If he was involved in the Emperor's death, it was only by proxy, and his being confined on Crampton amounted to dismal exile anyway. Somebody would deal with him at a later date, but for now he could do as he pleased until due process could be restored.

They allowed him his freedom.

The Opikarp celebrated by meeting with Traction.

'You have caused me some trouble, old man,' he bubbled.

'We were double-crossed, Governor.'

'I was double-crossed.'

'I suspect the Councillor.'

'Enough of your lies! You outplayed me! You did well! Be thankful the Emperor died, because he would not be as merciful as me. But you cannot expect to live.'

'I had nothing to do with it, Governor.'

'No matter. I will kill you all the same. But first you will perform a service for me. You will travel to Foul Ball. I have word of some peculiar goings-on you will help me with.'

'Foul Ball? If I refuse?'

'It will not only be you that will die. I'll kill your children too.'

***

Chapter Fifty Six

Dennis was made comfortable with pillows, and his leg, which wasn't broken but just badly bruised, was bandaged and tinctured, and he was primed with Horlicks that Bernard brought to him in a fusty mug from the cauldron over the fire; Proton and Cormack were allowed to bed down in the front room, their status of Negus and his sensei now having been made official; and the cow was muzzled as an extra precaution.

Proton suggested a snifter outside, to take their minds off the distressing day they had had, and Cormack readily agreed.

They sat on Dennis' front step, breathing clouds of freezing water vapour into the chill night air, and raised a toast to their incapacitated host.

Then Proton said, 'The cow is a problem, Cormack. You seem to have closed your mind to her, but she's not mentioned anywhere in the prophecies and she's close to fouling everything up.'

'Leave the poor cow out of it, Proton.'

'We're so close, Cormack. Let us just get this thing done without any further complications...'

'What is this thing that we're to do? You never tell me anything.'

'You never ask.'

'Because if I did, you wouldn't tell me.'

'You know why I don't tell you anything? Because you're so full of frigging negativity. You don't want anything to work out. I have to take all the decisions for you and hide everything from you because you're so scared of what you are.'

'I'm not the Negus, Proton.'

'There you go again! Negativity! We are going to get through this thing, Cormack! Not Pranzi, not Bernard, not Dennis, not the frigging Emperor, not even you, yourself, are going to stop us! You and me, Cormack! From Day One, when I saw you literally dripping in shit outside the Prison Whale, from Day One, I believed in you! Don't ever take that away from me, mate! Don't ever forget that!'

Proton shuffled himself a little closer.

'Look up there,' he said. 'Look at the stars, Cormack! Look at the blackness between them! When I was a little boy back on Zargon 8, I used to think about that blackness.'

'You were ever a little boy, Proton?'

'Yes. Yes, I was, Cormack. A frightened little boy. I used to think, that blackness, Cormack – it goes on forever. Forever. Just think about it. It used to scare me. I used to think it was impossible – it had to stop somewhere. There had to be a boundary - a wall where the Universe ended. But then I thought the wall would have to have a thickness. And the thickness would have to have an end to it. So the wall must have an end and there must be something behind that as well. And even if it was another wall, that would have an end too. So the thing goes on forever, mate! Even if there are walls! Think of it! There's no end to it! And stars everywhere! The thing goes on forever and it's full of stars everywhere...'

'Gosh!' said Cormack. He had never heard Proton wax so lyrical before.

'So why the hell is it so black?'

'Mmm...'

'These are the things you could have asked Him, Cormack.'

'Yes. I see what you're saying.'

'Things of mystery.'

'Yes, indeed.'

'Questions, Cormack. That need answering.'

'I suppose.'

'But you didn't, did you?'

'No.'

'You were flummoxed.'

'Yes.'

'And a little rude.'

'Perhaps.'

'You poxy good-for-nothing Negus.'

He gave Cormack a little thump to his arm to show he was only joking.

'He was only there briefly. And I wasn't really sure it was actually Him.'

'He was pissed with you. You told me that once.'

'Yes, He was.'

'God fuck us all...' said Proton and they stared gloomily up at the sky together, with their heads in their hands and their elbows on their knees, in supplication to the darkness that submerged them like a threat.

***

Chapter Fifty Seven

When Traction arrived at the landing strip near Bartislard, dropped from a Cramptonian cruiser, he was not subjected to the usual touts as Cormack and the Guards had been because it was night and they had long since packed up and called it a day. Instead, there was a lone tuk-tuk, decorated with blue neon strips - a beacon for mosquitoes. Stanton Bosch took him onboard the Antibiotic and welcomed him to Foul Ball.

'How is my friend the Governor?'

'Slippery. He sends you this.'

Traction handed him a small kitbag that he stowed in the hold.

'We has lots of work to do,' said Stanton Bosch.

'So I gather.'

'Careful with that there rope. You almost tripped. And we don't want that. Not on your first day...'

Traction was not at all dressed for Foul Ball. He had an idea it was tropical and had dressed down, settling on shorts and a t-shirt, as though he was on a retirement cruise, and was now regretting it. The weather had changed - there was an icy blast off the Leech that had him frozen and he sat in the back of the tuk-tuk rubbing hands that he could scarcely feel.

'You're name is Traction, right?' said the Bosch, tugging at the lanyard and letting it fly back to the cowling.

'It is.'

'I feels you're going to like Foul Ball, young Traction. We going to have ourselves so much fun together.'

Traction thought there must be a strange quality to the light on this odd planet for Stanton Bosch to have supposed him young, and wondered if the Bosch's idea of fun could possibly bear any relation to his own. The man was dressed in yellow oilskins and slickers, his hair and pointy beard greased back, and he gripped and fought the tuk-tuk's wheel as though he were navigating a great ocean current rather than the placid rhythms of a slow-moving river.

'Me other agent is right in position,' Stanton Bosch shouted to him. 'Let the karp know that. She's slithering with the mock Negus and the Captain of the Guard.'

'OK.'

'And you might not believes this, but the tracking device he gave me is acting as a phone link with the mock Negus heself. Want to try it?'

He reached into his oilskins and brought out a relay stick telephone, an exact copy of the one he had given Cormack.

'Here,' he said, giving it to Traction.

'What am I suppose to do with it?'

'Give him a call.'

Traction put the device to his ear. It was ringing.

Cormack answered almost immediately.

'Hello,' he said. He was in the hut with Proton preparing to go to bed and had stepped into the bathroom when he had felt the stick buzzing.

'Hello,' said Traction.

'Stanton Bosch?' said Cormack.

'No, this is Traction.'

'Traction?'

'I think I have the wrong number.'

'Yes, I think so too.'

'Sorry to have bothered you.'

'That's quite all right.'

Cormack put the thing put in his pants and went to bed. Traction gave his back to Stanton Bosch.

'Impressive, eh? We've got this thing in the bag. I is working them like puppets,' said Stanton Bosch, and gave a maniacal cackle, throwing his head back into the wind and roaring to himself, till the spittle whipped by the wind from the River Leech hit the back of his throat, and the roar dropped, and then he began coughing and retching up over the wheel housing.

***

Chapter Fifty Eight

Proton was first up and put the kettle on.

'You're going to have to lead them off,' he said to Cormack. 'They're going to expect the Negus to be at the head of the column.'

'I'm not the Negus.'

'No arguing, now. Lots to do today.'

'Terrible news about the Emperor,' said Bernard. 'Dennis was telling me this morning.'

'What news?' said Proton with interest, and then Cormack stood up unexpectedly and poured coffee all over him.

'What the...?' said Proton, jumping up. The bodysuit was ruined. The coffee had gone right in the crotch and was steaming through the fabric. 'I don't even have a change right now.'

'Looks like you've wet yourself,' said Bernard helpfully.

'Do you want me to go and stand outside, so that the villagers can assemble around me?' said Cormack, hoping to change the subject.

'Actually that's not a bad idea,' said Proton, forgetting at once about both the Emperor and the burn from the coffee in his excitement that the Negus at last seemed to be demonstrating leadership qualities. 'They'll want to assemble behind you though. Not around you. If they did that, it would be a bloody mess. You couldn't lead them at all. You'd be right in amongst them and tripping over them...'

'Quite so.'

Cormack found a spot at the head of the path that led out of Kabbal and down to Bartislard, and made sure that Proton was with him, as sensei, to marshal the new army into the serried ranks he thought were necessary. The cow was still in disgrace, but Cormack had wanted her close and was allowed to tie her to a tree nearby. She was having problems with the muzzle.

'It's very painful and I canst get at me straw,' she said. 'I'm so hungry.'

'Don't worry, cow,' said Cormack. 'I'll feed you one stalk at a time.'

'Ooo, you is so good to me.'

'Somebody called me last night. On your stick telephone.'

'Stanton Bosch, Cormack. He's lookin' after you.'

'It wasn't Stanton Bosch.'

'How do you mean?'

'Totally different voice.'

'Really?'

'Can this thing get wrong numbers?'

The cow looked puzzled.

'Don't worry yourself, Cormack. Let me check it out. Look! Over there! Behind the gardenia! Such a big one!'

She had Cormack reached for the blade of grass and slot it through the muzzle, and she chewed at it delightedly even though it was tickling a nostril.

'Big day today! Big day for everyone!'

Proton was swinging his arms and clapping them against the chill, trying to get everyone fired up.

'They're so bloody miserable,' he said to Cormack in an aside. 'If it wasn't for the prophecies, I wouldn't bother with them at all.'

'Big day today!' he went on and kept on clapping.

At last, they were ready.

Dennis had been feeling much better. The pain in his knee was now almost gone, and he would be able to walk towards the back of the column so he wouldn't slow them down.

Bernard had decided to come with them as well. Proton was surprised he would abandon the Shamanic Throat, but Bernard said it was only to see them into Bartislard and the Throat would be glad of an eyewitness account when he eventually returned.

At last, Proton was satisfied that they had enough army to set off, and he gave Cormack the nod.

'Shouldn't I make a speech?' said Cormack.

'What do you want to say?' said Proton.

'That I'm not the Negus.'

'Let's leave out the speech,' said Proton and he gently guided Cormack forward with an arm round his shoulder.

The path this time was good and wide, because it was well used, and they walked at quite a pace. In fact, it seemed as though Proton was intent on leaving the army behind.

'How long to Bartislard?' he asked Bernard, who was only keeping up with some difficulty.

'It's just half a day's march. A quarter of a day at this rate.'

'It's a lovely wide path,' said Cormack. 'Strange that we had to go through all that trouble with the volcano when there are such lovely wide paths all over Foul Ball.'

'Now, don't be getting upset with the Captain,' said Bernard. 'You can't just get to Shambalah from Kabbal like that, you know. Well, you can, but Dennis would have stopped you. And you would not have qualified for the Ordeals. The Texts specifically stipulate entrance to Shambalah via the volcano.'

'Thank goodness for the Texts stipulating everything.'

They stopped for elevenses at a bend in a path. They had brought a canteen with them that was filled with milk from the cow, reluctantly squeezed from her by a vengeful Bernard before they had set off, and they snacked on blackberries that they had picked from the brambles as they walked.

Logistics were on Proton's mind. He had a small map of Bartislard that he had pilfered from the Tropico, and he sat down with a pencil, drawing arrows on it everywhere.

'What are you doing?' asked Cormack.

'This is going to be crucial, Cormack,' he said. 'The Negus' entrance to Bartislard – an historic event with you at its centre. How this plays off is critical to our eventual success.'

'Do you want me to ride on a donkey?'

'A what? No riding on anything, Cormack. Are you thinking of the cow? Keep your mind off the cow, now. She's perfectly safe.'

She was, in fact, on a cart, not far off the main pace, sucking at a huge handful of straw that had been shoved through her muzzle to keep her quiet, quite content for now.

'No, this thing is going to be momentous, mate. They're going to be talking about this for centuries, millennia to come. I need a red crayon.'

Proton found one in a pocket and started drawing a series of vivid red arrows out from the centre of the map, like spokes radiating from a wheel hub, seemingly in opposition to the pale pencil shadings Cormack had supposed represented the main column of his army.

'Is the march on Bartislard purely ceremonial, Proton, or are you expecting resistance?' he said.

'Resistance to what? No, no, no. Not at all. But we must plan for all eventualities.'

***

Chapter Fifty Nine

Stanton Bosch was planning for all eventualities too. He was holed up in what might have been a garret, if the A-frames in Bartislard had such a thing, in a rather insalubrious part of town, with Traction, the old butler. They had the kitbag that Traction had brought from the Opikarp opened on the floor.

'There ain't enough in here to resist a Girl Guide platoon, never mind a legendary army fired with religion. What kind of a fishy fellow is this Opikarp?'

'Well, he's confined to a tank so I think it was hard for him to procure the necessary armaments on the sly and there was the question of a baggage allowance.'

'Still, we must makes do. We must makes do. Me and the other Boschs would be a handful for anyone, even if we was armed with rubber bands.'

'I can imagine,' said Traction.

'Where's the funds? Where's the dosh?'

'You know, he's had a spot of bother with the authorities in connection with the Emperor's assassination. I don't think he has the access to the resources he once had.'

'He's leaving me in the lurch. That was always his way. Hark at me, young man. Never trust a fish. Especially if you is a fisherman.'

'Probably good advice.'

'Still, we'lls make do. We wills make do.'

Stanton Bosch started moving the armaments from the kitbag and piled them on the floor.

'Now, then. I hears theys on the march already. We have very little time. I have one of my agents down - muzzled, she is, in a cart. And the mock Negus is ineffective – frightened to answer the phone since you called him. So it's up to me, you and the other Boschs. This ain't going to be pretty, young boy. Nasty foul work afoot. I hopes you is prepared.'

***

Chapter Sixty

They could see Bartislard ahead now - the strange Alpine roofs like enormous callipers laying out the forest below, and the giant SplatterHorn, its narrowed shadow darkening the U-shaped valley along its length. Cormack could hardly believe they had climbed to its summit - it looked so formidable from here, the snowcap blinding in the early sunlight.

Proton was trying to formulate the right mix of military and ceremonial.

'I want you at the front. That is only appropriate,' he said to Cormack. 'But realistically, we need to protect you.'

'I thought you said there would be no resistance. I thought I was the Negus. I thought I was inevitable.'

'A stray bullet can kill you, Cormack. Same as anybody else,' said Proton and left it at that.

He settled on a diamond formation, with Cormack in the middle, but the road had narrowed and it proved impractical, so he split the front-runners into squads with Cormack in the third. He would gauge the reaction to the first two and then decide exactly in what manner the Negus was to come upon Bartislard.

The first squad set off at a quick march. Proton had made them fix their tunics and their leggings so that they looked as military as possible, and they were to carry the muskets in front of them, as though they were running with bayonets, in order to generate maximum excitement.

'Perhaps they could fire a shot or something,' Bernard suggested to Proton. 'Indicate they are an army. Bartislard is such a strange place. They might just blend in if you're not careful.'

They watched from a way down the path as the squad ran at a jog towards the town centre. It turned to negotiate a bend and disappeared from sight, lost somewhere in the narrow cobbled streets. They waited anxiously for a few minutes, but there was no sound of gunfire, or of cheering for that matter, and Proton decided to send the second squad, which disappeared just as completely, just as quickly, so there was nothing for it except to send Cormack at the head of the army proper.

They arranged him at the front of the column, lifted to shoulder height in a small bath chair procured from one of the carts, tied between two bamboo poles. Proton, who was to provide covering fire if necessary, was at his left and Bernard, who had wanted a good view of the whole coming-upon thing, was at his right.

Cormack insisted the cow be brought forward and she was demuzzled and arranged on an open cart, like Cleopatra at her feast in the fresco by Tiepolo.

They set off slowly, but it was not long before they encountered the first of the citizens.

'Little boys!' cried Proton. 'Run and tell your parents! The Negus has come to Bartislard!'

'The what?'

'Negus! Cormack, sit up straight!'

But the boys were not impressed, and shouldered past the front ranks to get across the street to play with their marbles.

Proton had the column swing down where the first squad had disappeared, and they found themselves in a small market district, where vendors sold fruits and vegetables and spices and savouries from trays and racks.

'This is quite charming,' said Cormack, from his perch. 'I don't remember anything like this from our first visit.'

'Yes, funny how you can visit a place for a second time and it can feel quite different to the way you remember it,' said Bernard, who was walking beneath him. 'Many years since I was in Bartislard. I should have visited more often.'

The soldiers stopped to buy provisions, and Proton complained bitterly that military discipline should not have broken down so readily in the face of such meagre temptation, but the men were hungry from the day's march and their women and children behind in the carts would be grateful for what they could afford. They folded their purchases in their handkerchiefs and put them in their pockets.

'Disappointing that we're not welcomed or recognized,' said Bernard. 'Shows that the influence of the Shamanic Throat has waned somewhat over the years. Only to be expected, I suppose. I don't fully understand young people.'

They made two uninterrupted tours of the city centre, which they passed round largely unimpeded. Even the tourists were uninterested in what they presumed was a dismal local parade laid on for their entertainment.

Proton had had enough. They decided to make for the Tropico.

'Well, it was not totally disastrous,' said Bernard as he, Cormack, and Proton settled in the lobby - the army was waiting outside. 'There was some interest, all the same.'

'There was interest in the cow, Bernard. Because she was disporting herself in the most disgusting manner and she has no legs.'

'I fear you want results too fast, Captain. This thing will take time to get off the ground. Give it a chance to generate its own momentum. You are doing everything correctly. The rest will follow.'

'How are we doing with the uniSwarm connection?'

'I'm afraid it is business as usual on Foul Ball. All circuits are down. Bartislard remains as remote from the outside Universe as Shambalah.'

'Bugger it!'

The army was told to stand down and, as the manager of the Tropico didn't want them blocking the streets in front of his hotel, Proton told them to go back beyond the city walls, and camp for the night with the wagons and the women and the children. There was much grumbling of the 'I wonder why we even bothered to come' variety. Cormack, Bernard and Proton were given leave to stay in the Tropico. The cow was not welcome and, in any case, was feeling drained and dirty and wanted to be alone.

She was moved on her stretcher to pass the night in the woods, amongst the kush-kush grass, away from the camp.

***

Chapter Sixty One

Cormack opened his wardrobe that evening to look for a coat hanger for his robe and instead found Stanton Bosch.

'Hello, Stanton Bosch,' he said. 'What on Earth are you doing here?'

'Shush, skinny man,' he said. 'Why you don't answer your phone?'

'I'm not sure it's working properly.'

'Now lookee here,' said the Bosch. 'Run and tell the cow, everything is prepared. I have a young boy named Traction giving me a hand.'

'Traction?'

'Aye, Traction. Run and tell the cow the Opikarp sent him and all is prepared.'

'Are you still working for the Pantheistic Syllogists, Stanton Bosch?'

'Shush, skinny man. Don't speak that name so loud.'

At that moment, Proton entered the room.

'Cormack, do you have a toothbrush I could borrow...?' he began but then his eyes caught sight of something unexpected inside Cormack's wardrobe.

'Wait...' he said. 'Is that Stanton Bosch inside your wardrobe, Cormack?'

Stanton Bosch leapt from his hiding place and hurled himself at Proton, who was taken unawares because he was only in a bathrobe. The thought of hand-to-hand combat, which had admittedly loomed large in his mind earlier in the day when he had been at the head of the army, had been quite forgotten now that he was changed to bathe.

'What the...? Stanton Bosch, man!' bawled Proton, but the Bosch had got him tight around the flannel belt and was pulling at it from both ends so that it was round him like a garrotting wire. Proton looked down in confusion and tried pulling at his hands, but they were scaly and greasy and he couldn't get a grip, so he puffed out his belly and broke the grasp that way.

Stanton Bosch came at him again, getting him in a headlock, and Proton could feel the hard bone around his elbow crunching against his ear. This time the Bosch's grease worked against him, because Proton was able to twist his head and slide it out, and once he was free, he charged across the room and grabbed at a chair and turned to Stanton Bosch, who was himself looking for appropriate weaponry, and started smashing it on him.

The Bosch took the blows without raising an arm in defence and then, when Proton was exhausted, bent to the floor to pick up a broken piece of chair leg that had dropped by his feet, and started thrusting it with snarls at Proton's chest. He had Proton on the back foot and he pushed him along until he was cornered. Then he raised the splintered chair leg like an Aztec Chief, with Proton, his sacrifice.

The door flew open with a smack, and six bio-suited individuals stormed in, laser guns at the ready.

It was the remainder of the Praetorian Guard, descended from the SplatterHorn, two weeks ago.

'Put the chair leg down, Stanton Bosch,' said the largest, 'or we shoot.'

Stanton Bosch gave them a crafty look, and plunged the chair leg down on Proton's chest.

The Guards let loose a volley of shots, striking the Bosch all over his bony body, but he was still able to finish the motion with some force, and Proton had a large piece of splintered wood rammed into his chest.

Proton looked at Stanton Bosch and looked at the chair leg sticking out of him.

'Why won't you bloody die, you God awful Bosch?' he screamed, but Stanton Bosch only stared at him a while with his mad sky-blue eyes, and then turned and ran for the open window, jumping through it, and dropping thirty feet onto the street below.

***

Chapter Sixty Two

Proton's wounds, once they had got the chair leg from him, turned out to be largely superficial. There were lots of splinters that needed to be carefully removed, and a fair amount of shallow scratches and cuts that looked much better when they were cleaned with alcohol, but the real damage was to his pride.

'What the hell was Stanton Bosch doing here?' he asked one of the Guards, Corporal Meson. 'And why was he attacking me?'

'I have no idea,' said Meson. 'After we lost you and Pranzi and the Candidate in the volcano, we came back to Bartislard and we've been staying at the Tropico. We were out on a hike in the forest this morning and when we got back, the manager said you'd checked in. We couldn't believe it. We'd thought you were dead. We came to investigate.'

'Captain,' said another Guard. 'We found this on the Candidate.' It was Cormack's relay stick phone. They'd been searching him in a corner of the room whilst they dealt with Proton.

'Cormack!' shouted Proton. 'What the hell is this?'

'It's some kind of communication device, Captain,' said the Guard.

'Oh, my Lord! Cormack, what have you been working behind my back? Cormack, mate, I thought we had a plan! I thought we were working together! What the hell was Stanton Bosch doing in your wardrobe?'

Cormack decided that any explanation he gave would probably be insufficient, so he stayed silent, and Proton reluctantly gave the order to have him handcuffed and tied to the bedstead until they worked out what to do with him.

'We need to get off this planet as quickly as possible,' said Proton.

'That is no problem now, Captain,' said Meson, and when he saw that Proton did not take his meaning, he asked, 'Where have you been these past two weeks? How long did it take you to escape from the volcano?'

'We escaped from the volcano almost immediately, Corporal,' said Proton. 'No thanks to you.'

'Haven't you heard that the Emperor is dead?'

'What?'

'Assassinated by a middle-aged Cramptonian. She blew him up with a polo mallet.'

'Good God!'

'The timing is propitious.'

'It is beyond propitious. It is divine. You're back with me, Guards?'

'Of course, Captain! But where is Pranzi?'

Proton swallowed hard.

'She didn't make it,' he gulped. 'She never made it out of the volcano...'

'Oh no...'

'We salute her memory and we press on without her,' he added briskly.

Then he turned to Cormack, chained to the bedstead.

'Cormack, my boy,' he said. 'What the hell are you trying to do to me? You're on my side, right?'

But Cormack didn't get a chance to reply because at that moment a small boy, wearing leggings and a leather tunic and carrying an ancient musket, rushed into the room.

'Captain!' he gasped. 'The army is under attack. Out in the woods!'

***

Chapter Sixty Three

The cow was positioned imperiously on a déballage of velvet cushions she had stolen from a cart and carefully arranged with her teeth and tongue, and was able to take in all the action from her commanding vantage point.

The Boschs, there were a dozen, had rushed the main encampment soon after noon, when the men were making preparations for lunch, and had met with little resistance. They had cut a wave through the camp and had laid waste to the tents and killed many of the men in the most violent and horrific fashion, flailing at them with their cudgels, and spearing them with their swords in front of their wives and children. In fact, they had had little use for the more sophisticated weapons that the Opikarp had sent them, preferring hand to hand combat and the feel of the steel in their victims' flesh.

The cow watched the carnage with a detached air, twirling the inevitable blade of kush-kush grass along her sopping lips, as yet another bemused volunteer, risen from his soup, was run through with a Bosch sword. It was, as Proton had insisted, not much of an army, neither ceremonial, nor military, but primarily dilettante, and its rout was achieving nothing much strategically. She thought perhaps she had better call them off, but was loathed to give the order when she was so comfortable on her cushions. She might have to get up to do it, which would be annoying, and in any case once the blood frenzy was upon the Boschs, she supposed that they couldn't be stopped just so.

She would wait for the word that Proton had been killed before doing anything further. It was just too fabulous to wallow like this, she thought, and she curled herself into a tight little ball, and shut her eyes, and soon she was fast asleep as the Boschs whirled and hurled around her.

***

Chapter Sixty Four

Proton had decided to leave the army to fight on its own. They were, after all, he resolved, an army – albeit an army of useless slackers – and must be judged capable of defending themselves against a dozen bloodthirsty, if remarkably sinewy, old men. His focus must be on the fate of the disappointing Negus, especially now that it had proved itself traitorous, and his flight from Foul Ball.

The journey from the Tropico to the landing strip was, in his mind and perhaps otherwise, fraught with all kinds of terrible dangers and Proton was consumed by fear - enough to make the horrific first trip down the Leech, when they had seen the silvered hang-gliders, seem to him now a mere Sunday School picnic. They commandeered a tuk-tuk from the landing bay, east of the town, and set off down the Leech with a chug.

Soon they were imagining they heard Stanton Bosch himself, at first in the jungle, cooing like a pigeon, and then whizzing along the banks, and then in a phantom tuk-tuk, which was making a throbbing sound like an asthmatic panda. Once they saw the glow of blue neon ahead in a gloomy bend of the river and Proton placed a scout on the bank to check from the shore. But they were mistaken, because when they had reconnoitred and assessed the danger and had slowly edged their tuk-tuk round the curve, they could see only a row of bluebells close to the shoreline making fanciful reflections on the water below.

In fact, they made the transporter, which Cormack was surprised to see miraculously intact, in good time and Proton was, once again, feeling positive.

'Back on course, Bernard,' he said to the Sibyl, who had decided once and for all to make a break with his past and abandon the Shamanic Throat in the hope that it had returned to the Luminous Pool. 'How is the Negus?'

'I think he's feeling a little worse for wear,' said Bernard.

'Cormack, are you OK?'

'Can you take off the handcuffs?' said Cormack. 'They're very tight.'

'Cormack, it's for your own good. You've been a naughty boy and you've caused me a lot of trouble.' Proton pointed to the tear in his bodysuit where the chair leg had been thrust. 'These things don't repair, Cormack,' he said and then he turned to Meson and told him to put Cormack in the ship where he could be interrogated further.

***

Chapter Sixty Five

They carefully prised off one ceiling tile and peered below.

It was dark in the room, save for a purple neon glow that came from all around the bottom of the donut. They could make out the silver form of the Opikarp, about three feet long, in the bend nearest the door, resting on the pebbles at the bottom of the tank, knifed against the flow being generated by the pumps.

'Good, he's sleeping,' said Geoffrey. 'Now I'm going to tie the rope round your feet and you'll jump into the tank.'

'Into the tank?' said Douglas. 'Why do I have to go into the tank?'

'See the red handle,' said Geoffrey, pointing to the part of the tank furthest from where the Opikarp lay.

Douglas could see a round red tap on the floor of the Perspex tube, blurred with the flurry from the artificial current.

'That is the outlet valve. That is what you need to open. But the moment you hit the water, he'll know that you are there. You'll have to work fast.'

'I wasn't expecting to get wet, Geoffrey.'

'Turn it clockwise and the water will drain from the tank.'

'I'm not dressed for it.'

'Do it fast and I will raise you straight back up and we will be done.'

'I thought we were going to shoot him.'

'He's a bloody fish. You don't shoot fish, do you? That would be ridiculous. Very difficult too.'

'Is there no security? Won't the guards come running?'

'He is unprotected – disavowed by the Senate. Consider it a state-sanctioned execution.'

Geoffrey uncoiled the rope he had brought with him and Douglas reluctantly allowed him to tie it round his legs.

He was wearing chinos and a white polo-necked shirt, which he imagined made him look like a cat burglar. It had been that or the paisley v-neck and the denims. The new impetus of the Resistance under Geoffrey's aggressive leadership had taken him by surprise and he hadn't had time to update his wardrobe for guerrilla tactics. In fact, he hadn't had time to update his sensibilities for them either, the thing had been ladled on so thick. Geoffrey had become emboldened by the success of Mrs. Bellingham's detonation, assuming it as a personal triumph, and was anxious for more.

He tied one end of the rope to a grating on the air conditioning above, looped the rest through his arms, and, making sure it had enough play, signalled to Douglas with an urgent nod that it was time to jump down.

Douglas moved slowly to the lip of the ceiling tile, crawling commando-style and peered below. He checked the position of the fish. He checked where the plug was.

'Come on, Douglas,' said Geoffrey. 'Dive for the tap. I will pull you straight back out.'

'Oh hell!' said Douglas and pulled himself a little further over the gap in the ceiling and felt the tile that supported the bulk of his weight give way, so that it bent in two along a crease like the flap on an aeroplane wing, and he reached out his arms before him in the diving position, and scrabbled a bit with his feet, almost undoing the knot that secured him to the rope, and was over, unexpectedly quickly, and down in the water with a huge splash.

The karp awoke immediately and whipped his tail so that he was pointed round to where Douglas had landed.

Douglas had recovered somewhat and managed to make the best of a bad job and headed penguin-like with thrusts of his tied legs to the red tap.

The karp was on him with two flicks of his tail.

'What have we here?' he said, his clear, metallic voice, ducted and relayed through loudspeakers, sounding crisp and brittle and resonant in the water.

Douglas began to try to turn the handle. He could barely move it. It was far too stiff. With an enormous effort, he had it round one quarter turn. A succession of tiny bubbles fizzed to the surface, announcing it was partly opened, but the water was dribbling out only very slowly.

The karp watched him, allowing him to surface.

'What are you doing?' shouted Geoffrey from above, as his head rose above the water.

'Can't get the bloody thing opened. It's too tight.'

'Get out of the damn tank!'

'Pull me up!'

'The fish is behind you!'

'Pull me up!'

Geoffrey pulled up the rope, but Douglas, his clothing soaked, was unexpectedly heavy and Geoffrey had to reposition himself to get a better purchase, so that he was sat down on the struts with the rope between his legs and his heavy boots, as he pulled, buckled the frame of the ceiling.

'Get out of the damn tank! I can't pull you out!' he shouted down to Douglas. 'You'll have to do it on your own!'

Douglas, beyond fear, scrambled at the Perspex, reaching for the edge, and had one hand up and was about to pull the other over, when the Opikarp came at him, charging fast from below. He shot at him like a torpedo, trailing a side-stream of silvery bubbles, and struck him from below, between his legs, knocking him from the side to the centre of the tank.

'Oh, my Lord!' cried Geoffrey from above and in his panic to get away further along the roof, scrambled a little too fast. His leg slipped as he grabbed at the rope and it unfastened from the grille. The tiles gave way. He fell from the ceiling and landed in the tank with another huge splash.

***

Chapter Sixty Six

The Opikarp turned from Douglas to Geoffrey, flailing in the water.

He flicked his tail and raced around the tank, building up a furious speed, and then he came at him, head on, striking him in the belly. Geoffrey was winded and stunned. He flopped forward, then spluttered back up again when the water filled his lungs.

Douglas tried again for the tap, now the karp was distracted, and opened it a little further. There was a visible spill to the floor outside.

'We can catch him!' said Douglas to Geoffrey, when he surfaced.

'What?'

'Catch him! I can get his tail. He's innocuous. He's a fraud. He's only trying to frighten us. He's an overfed freshwater Opikarp. We can have him.'

The karp was lining Geoffrey up again.

Geoffrey obviously wasn't convinced that he was a fraud, because he was scrambling desperately for the side.

Douglas moved closer and as the karp struck, Douglas reached out and grabbed at him.

'See!' he said.

He was holding onto the base of the tail, a fan of vicious spindles, with both hands. The Opikarp was roaring and cursing through the loudspeakers, flapping ferociously, but he couldn't get free.

'Very good!' said Geoffrey.

'Let's throw him over the side.'

Douglas pulled him to the side. Geoffrey got underneath and with two hands scooped him from the tank, up and over the side. The karp fell to the floor, flapping and rolling and making horrible choking noises.

He was out and suffocating but he could see the water flowing from the opened valve and flopped towards it. There was a little pool of water by the tap now, just enough to contain him. He reached it astonished and lay gibbering.

'Hell!' said Geoffrey. 'The water's collecting outside. The room is bloody watertight! We've got to get out and finish him off.'

But try as they might, and they tried everything - giving each other jacks and lifts and standing on each other's shoulders - they couldn't get over the walls of the tank.

It had a slight curve to it. It was horribly slippery. The water level inside was falling rapidly.

They tried to shut the valve but the tap wouldn't move either way now.

When the water was halfway out, and they realised there was now no way they were going to scale the sides, they had to give up.

They stood, shivering, amidst the fish weed, staring at the karp outside. He stared back from his pool, quite large now, that had splashed from the outlet pipe to the floor. He was controlling the flow with his lips, so that it washed around and over him.

'He's a nasty bugger, Geoffrey. And very resourceful for a fish. Look at his eyes. Beady. I expect that's why they made him Governor.'

They could hear a horrific rasping and coagulated breathing coming from the loudspeakers.

***

When the guards opened the door the next morning to feed the Opikarp, they found him bubbling plein de vigueur, swimming quite robustly in the foot of water that had collected on the floor below the level of the doorstep. Within the dry tank was the diorama of a shipwreck: one man, dead from fright, and the other they had a fine time with - chasing him round the donut, and shooting at his feet, then drowning him by degrees.

***

Chapter Sixty Seven

Cormack was in the same freezing hold that the cow had occupied all those weeks before. It seemed a lifetime ago.

He wondered how she was doing. He missed her conversation, her optimism, her gusto, the way she held her head on one side and scrunched up her eyes when she was trying to be serious, the rough licks she had given him in the abandoned forest outside of Shambalah...

Proton arrived soon enough and his good mood appeared to have been sustained. He had found a bottle of the Glenrushen he seemed to have enjoyed so much on their previous flight and might even have been a little intoxicated.

'Cormack, Cormack, Cormack,' he began repetitiously. 'Mate...We need to talk.'

'I suppose.'

'That Stanton Bosch creature...What's he up to?'

'I don't know.'

'He was in your wardrobe and we found a communications device on you that seems to indicate that you were in contact with him. You know, the bastard came at me with a chair leg.'

'Yes, that was unfortunate.'

'There was a whole army of them – Boschs the lot of them. They routed your army.'

'Well, that is upsetting...'

'I know you have feelings for the cow, Cormack. The cow was with the army. We haven't gotten confirmation yet, but she might not have made it, Cormack. We need to get this thing sorted out – for the cow's sake.'

'You know, Proton, leave the poor cow out of it.'

'But the cow is right in it, Cormack. You made a mistake. You got involved with this Stanton Bosch character and he promised you something. What did he promise you, Cormack?'

'He didn't promise me anything.'

'And as a result of your actions, your friend the cow is probably dead. Probably dead horrifically. Those Boschs wouldn't want to take any chances with a rabid cow.'

'She's not rabid.'

'Make amends for her sake. What does this Stanton Bosch fellow want with you?'

'I don't know what he wants.'

'You know, Cormack, you're killing me, mate. I thought we were like this.' Proton put the index and middle finger of right hand together to indicate exactly what he thought they were like. 'We had plans, hopes, dreams. We went through so much together. And you want to throw it all away to be with...that...wizened....old...fisher trout? You know, you disgust me, mate! Disgust me!'

So saying, Proton got up and left the hold.

Cormack would have got up too but he was chained to the luggage rack.

No matter, because Proton returned almost immediately.

'I've decided,' he said.

'What have you decided?' said Cormack.

'To not let this thing come between us. Let's make a new start. We have business to resolve. There's going to be challenges ahead on Zargon 8. You made a mistake. I think you've been punished for your foolishness. We've gotten confirmation, Cormack. Your girlfriend, the cow, is dead.'

'What?'

'I'm going to let you go, Cormack, but you need to promise that this foolishness ends right here. You're with me now, kiddo. You understand? You understand how this ends?'

'I understand, Proton.'

'Good. That's my boy. That's my Cormack.'

Proton knelt on the floor and put his arm round Cormack down there as best he could and gave him a little hug before rising and leaving, shutting the door with a kick of his boot.

***

Chapter Sixty Eight

In fact, the cow, far from being dead, was feeling frisky. She was consulting with Stanton Bosch and Traction. They had all decamped to the Tropico, after the triumph of the Bosch army in what was now being stylized as the Battle of Bartislard, and were enjoying light refreshments on the sundeck.

The residents and tourists of Bartislard appeared, as was their manner in the face of most peculiarities, to have taken the whole thing in their stride and life in the city continued as normal, except that the Municipal Sanitation Authority had to divert excess capacity to the strip of forest where Cormack's army lay routed.

Stanton Bosch was hale and hearty, inveighing Traction and the cow with anecdotes about the day's adventures.

'I did gets the skinny man a good one,' he said, chuckling. 'Scared to hell to see me inside his wardrobe...'

The cow had adopted sunglasses, ostensibly against the harsh glare from the SplatterHorn, which gave her a peculiar European demeanour, as though she were an international arms dealer, or model on assignment, and she laughed politely at his joshing, but her face was fixed with a distracted air and it was obvious that, today, she found his company trying.

'To return the day's business,' she said seriously.

'Aye, the day's business...'

'What plans for the mock Negus now?'

'We does follow him to Zargon 8. That much is clear...'

'Does he still carry the tracking device?'

'There ain't no need to track him now, Traction. We does know where they be headed.'

'They will meet with considerable resistance.'

'And they don't have an army now.'

'I don't think that army was ever much use to them.'

'I suppose they will try to raise popular support. The certification of the Throat still carries weight in certain parts of the Empire.'

'We follows them to Zargon 8 and then we makes our move,' said Stanton Bosch with a snort and raised his filthy glass to toast with the cow, but she turned her head from him haughtily and stared hard-faced towards the SplatterHorn. Its cold, ridged flanks were all he could see, reflected in the lenses of her sunglasses, as he tried to fix her with his sky-blue eyes.

***

Chapter Sixty Nine

Cormack was released and allowed into the main cabin, where he assumed his assigned commander's chair with an air of resigned inevitability and sat despondently, barely able to twiddle the knobs on the console, the skein of doom all over him.

'Cheer up, mate!' said Proton. 'I've forgiven you.'

'You know, it's not all about you, Proton.'

'No, it's all about you, Negus.'

'And don't call me Negus. I'm not your Negus.'

Proton went back to being Captain-like, judging that Cormack was best left alone. He issued various commands that sent the transporter hither and thither. It seemed to Cormack that he was only doing it to annoy him and he judged himself confirmed in his opinion when Proton, after several minutes, got frustrated and rested his microphone back down and turned to him, telling him, 'Cormack, Cormack, mate! The attitude cannot continue! We need to work together! We need to help each other! There are dark forces gathering.'

'What dark forces?'

'We need to get our message out there.'

'Out where?'

'The uniSwarm. The Intergalactic Information Superhighway. Now we're finally off Foul Ball we have a uniSwarm connection. You want to help me, don't you, Cormack?'

'I'm not sure I do, Proton.'

'Will you do one thing for me?'

'No. Absolutely not.'

'It's in your interest too, you know. We need to help each other.'

'What is it you want?'

'Appear with me on a uniSwarm broadcast. We'll release it when we're on Zargon 8. It will generate enthusiasm for our mission.'

Cormack was about to open his mouth to protest but Proton hushed him immediately with an 'Uh, uh, uh!'

'You won't even have to talk,' he said. 'Just stand next to me. I'll do all the talking. Cormack, mate, why do have to spend all my time trying to persuade you to do things? Dealing with you is just so frigging frustrating. I am trying to help. I'm trying to help you be all you can be. Do you understand?'

'No, I don't.'

'You'll do it for me, won't you?'

'No, I won't.'

'OK, not for me – for Pranzi.'

'No.'

'Dead Pranzi.'

'No.'

'For the cow, then.'

'Leave the poor cow out of it, Proton.'

'The poor, dead cow...'

Finally they had him stand a little to the left of Proton, in front of a blue curtain that had been found in amongst the engineer's things, while Proton was seated, and they chained him to the armrest hidden by Proton's elbow, because Cormack had relented enough to agree to just be there, silent while Proton talked.

Proton had a sheaf of papers and his hair was brylcremed and teeth even shinier than usual. He looked like a jacked-up newsreader.

He was waiting for his cue from Meson, who was holding the camera.

'Can I go now?'

'Yes, Captain.'

Proton cleared his throat, fixed his grin, and began.

'Members of the Empire, inhabitants of the Universe, I am Captain Proton, the Commander of the Praetorian Guard,' he said, pompously, thought Cormack. 'Three weeks ago, as a result of orders from the Emperor – now assassinated,' he added in an undertone, unnecessarily, thought Cormack – 'we, the Praetorian Guard, were summoned to Palanka on Zargon 8 to deal with an extreme situation. Contained within the belly of a Prison Whale, there was a boy, a boy from Earth...'

'And his cow...' added Cormack quietly, which was sufficient to distract Proton so that he lost his train of thought and ummed and erred and shuffled paper a little while before continuing, '...a boy from Earth who had been placed there by the Emperor because he is special. Special because he has knowledge and experience of something beyond our Universe: something prodigious; something we have been searching for signs of for many millennia. This boy, his name is Cormack, by the way...' Meson fiddled with the lens of the camera and pointed it more towards Cormack, putting him in a wide shot with the Captain. '...has met with....now this may sound strange but please bear with me...God! God, himself! Now, I know that sounds extreme, but it is the truth and our scientists have verified the encounter. The event registered on the detectors. It is irrefutable. The Emperor was convinced. I myself have seen the evidence. He gave us our orders. He wanted us to kill Cormack. Why? Because Cormack represented the most extreme threat to his Empire imaginable. For, my friends, is it not written in the Ancient Texts, thus...'

Here Proton adopted an inscrutable, Oriental-type expression and started intoning in a language that Cormack could not understand. It sounded vaguely Chinese, but he spoke it liturgically, as though he was singing a long slow psalm with complicated cadences.

'Yes!' Proton said at last, escaping from the trance and opening his eyes very widely. 'I could not allow it to happen. On realising the truth about this boy, the truth that was kept from you, citizens of the Empire, by the Emperor, I kidnapped him. I took him to Foul Ball, to Shambalah, to meet with the Shamanic Throat and undergo the Ordeals that would confirm him as the Negus. And my friends, Cormack, passed all the Ordeals. Didn't he, Bernard?'

Bernard was shuffled on in his capacity as Sibyl and was suitably subtitled. Proton had to dissuade him from giving a long dissertation on testing procedures in favour of a simple confirmation. The scroll was produced, shown to camera and Bernard was shuffled off.

'It can be edited later, OK?' said Proton because Bernard was protesting and had to be silenced with a lemon tea.

'My friends,' continued Proton. 'I am far from religious, but when it was apparent to me that the prophecies in the Ancient Texts were to be fulfilled and that the Negus was amongst us, I had to act. I am proud to say, my actions have been justified. Cormack is the Negus. He has proved himself as such and we need to recognize him as such. I intend that he be crowned. I am going to Zargon 8 for that very purpose.

'The Ancient Texts have been fulfilled. The Negus has been found. We have our new Emperor!'

'What a load of twaddle,' said Cormack.

'Put it on the uniSwarm, but don't allow access until we're safely on Zargon 8,' said Proton.

***

Chapter Seventy

Stanton Bosch and the cow and Traction were in a space troika, three thousand clicks from Foul Ball, following the transporter.

The Bosch had opened his arm and was within the armature, performing his daily routine of cleaning the joints and lathing the flesh that hung like skewered meat off his metal bones.

'The Sibyl should be supporting me and my claims,' he said to the cow. 'Then there would be no trouble whatsoever.'

'He will,' said the cow. She had dropped the accent and spoke quite clearly now. 'But you understand that the Sibyl has always been a little backwards in his attitude to replicants like yourself. You are half robot. You are not fully human. That is why he has never allowed you to take the Ordeals.'

'Which is why I had to do them covertly, in conjunction with the mock Negus,' said Stanton Bosch. 'And I did them. And I survived them. I ain't care if I is half robot or half teacup. It was still damned difficult. I is the Negus. It is I that is to be crowned.'

'In good time,' said the cow. 'The validity of the Ancients Texts cannot be questioned. These claims will resolve themselves eventually. The Sibyl will come round to our way of thinking. The true Negus must triumph and the mock Negus will be destroyed. However, the mock Negus must first validate your claim. He was the only one that saw you. He must confirm that you completed the Ordeals.'

'And the Sibyl must too.'

'The Sibyl is under obligation, religious and otherwise. Don't worry about the Sibyl. He will come round. But we need the mock Negus' support as well. What could be more powerful than his confirmation of your status? What could be more damaging to Proton?'

'So we don't kill him yet, cow?'

'Not yet.'

***

Chapter Seventy One

The transporter was given clearance to land on Zargon 8 without hindrance, as expected. Nobody was looking for Proton or his ship - he was still presumed dead and the ship destroyed.

They descended from the transporter purposefully - Bernard, Proton, with Cormack surreptitiously handcuffed to him and the Guards at the rear, all dressed as anonymously as possible in the dowdiest of Zargonic capes - and then mingled with the crowd as best they could.

It was obvious to Proton that something had changed on the planet in his absence.

The crowds in Central Square were bigger than he remembered and of a more cosmopolitan hue. There seemed to be people from all over the Empire here: Venutians in flashing green jumpsuits; Spandraws from the Outer Core beyond Gannymede; Gimlets riding Carpruthians that flopped and gimballed along the sidewalks. The Emperor would never have allowed it.

Everywhere there were beggars.

Proton was disgusted and had a mind to shoot them all there and then, but was dissuaded by Bernard who was against causing too much of stink before they reached the Palace.

'The place has really gone to the dogs,' said Proton.

Cormack was examining a long line of turd that spread from the outer paving of the road towards its central bow and appeared to have been dropped by a giant flapping eagle that was hovering sixteen feet above.

'Things have definitely gone downhill,' he confirmed.

They stopped by a market where Bernard gathered fruit and didn't have enough money to pay, which Proton initially assumed was because of his anchoritism and lack of interest in worldly things, but then he remembered the fees he had had to pay him to get Cormack certified and did a double-check, shocked by what the stall-holder was asking.

'That is almost fifteen times what we would have paid a month ago,' he said.

'Since the Emperor's death, inflation is running at two hundred per cent,' said the stallholder. 'The economy is in freefall.'

When they reached the trams, further confusions - few were running, and the ones that did were not travelling to any timetable. The drivers and guards had to adjust the points as they rode.

Still, they climbed aboard. It seemed a rather inauspicious way to travel to the Palace, thought Cormack, but Proton's appetite for les grandes gestes appeared sated by his experiences with the army on Foul Ball and he made it clear that public transportation would have to suffice for now.

They were sat next to an odd-looking couple of visitors from out of town who clutched each other in fear every time Bernard shifted in his seat. He smiled at them benignly and waved benedictions on them, flicking them with the sleeves of his cape.

'So what's the plan then, Proton?' said Bernard, when he had finished.

'We head for the Palace,' said Proton.

'Are you sure?' said Cormack.

'Everything is in hand.'

'Aren't they just going to throw us in jail? Or a Prison Whale? Or execute us? Or something?'

'Due process, Cormack. All of that would take quite a while to arrange and the planet's shot to pieces. '

'We're just going to declare ourselves?'

'A little faith, Bernard.'

They rattled on towards the Palace, every now and again jumping the points and stopping with a slam, until the driver engaged reverse and sent his guard out with a crowbar and they were set and off again.

***

Chapter Seventy Two

Stanton Bosch, the cow, and Traction were not far behind and were themselves using public transportation.

The troika was parked in low orbit and they crammed with other tourists into a space shuttle that would take them to the surface of Zargon 8.

The cow was having a hard time of it, and, being unable to reach the straps that Stanton Bosch and Traction clung to as though they were sailing a catamaran, was lain on the floor. She found it difficult to reconcile her discomfort with her new persona as agent provocateur, so the sunglasses were removed for the time being. They hoped to find her some kind of baby carriage on Zargon 8 that would accommodate her more fashionably.

Again the issue of the Negus and his coming with an army was raising itself.

'We should have brought the other Boschs, you know. Contrary to the Ancient Texts to come here unarmed,' said Traction as he swung precariously.

Stanton Bosch interpreted the comment as a sign of fear and gave a little laugh.

'They is coming in the rear, Traction my boy, so don't you worry. But we can deal with the mock Negus weselves just as well without them.'

The cow was not so sure.

'They've just released a broadcast to the news feeds. Proton trying to whip up support for the mock Negus,' she said. 'It's gone ballistic.'

She must have been parsing on her duct as she lay on the floor, which, thought Traction, explained the dazed expression.

'How many hits now?'

'It's in the hundreds of millions.'

'Aye, the people have been waiting for this. The Emperor's death has left a void. It did signal a coming. The people were expecting it.'

The shuttle at last decelerated and gave a little jerk, which was the cue for a stampede to the sliding doors, and the cow was lucky she had room to squirm close to Stanton Bosch's hairy legs or she might have been crushed in the rush.

Traction and Stanton Bosch had never been on Zargon 8 before so they looked to the cow to guide them, but she was also disconcerted by the new dispensations that had so horrified Proton and didn't want to use the subways because the entrances were full of unhealthy looking gentlemen with plastic cups for begging bowls, so was at something of a loss as to how to exit the spaceport.

Traction took charge, heaved her onto a baggage trolley, and led them up a gantry until they reached street level.

'They must be headed for the Palace,' he said.

'Then we shall meet them there,' said Stanton Bosch and hailed a taxi.

***

Chapter Seventy Three

Proton, Cormack and Bernard stood before the gates of the Imperial Palace with Meson and his fellow Guards.

The Palace was built some three hundred years before, from sandstone faced in marble, and appeared to Cormack to be somewhat in the Gothic vein, featuring flying buttresses and ogival arches, clustered columns and ribbed vaults. It had been started in the time when Zargon 8 was still a protectorate of the Galatian Commonwealth and was ruled by kings who lacked expansionist ambition, but it had been extended and improved, and with its manicured gardens, topiaries, herbariums, greens and hunting grounds, stood on close to four hundred acres now. It was surrounded all round by a palisade of wrought iron, painted black, eight feet tall, that allowed glimpses within. Zargonic children were brought on their birthdays to hold to the rails, and they might spy a gazelle or a rhinoceros grazing amongst the poplars, or the spray from a fountain rising above the laburnum maze, or hear the shouts of a Guard as the watch was changed, or gunfire from the range, or reveille, or the hoots of a twitterhawk, a whole aviary said to be caged on the badminton lawns, or, if they were really lucky, before his assassination, the Emperor, himself, at a window on the fourth floor, behind the laser-proof glass, waving languorously to his subjugated people, sometimes for up to three minutes.

It was still heavily fortified, in spite of the chaos they had seen elsewhere in the city, but Proton was, as usual, bullish. He, like the cow in the spaceport, was ducting. Cormack thought he looked as though he was relieving himself into his bodysuit after an anxious wait.

'Oh my Lordee, Cormack,' he said emerging from the trance. 'This thing is taking off, man! Two hundred million hits and counting! Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Negus!'

'So where are the crowds to hail us?' said Cormack looking about the street that was empty, save themselves and the Guards and a sprinkling of tourists trying to take pictures of the Palace through the wrought iron gates.

'They will come when you are crowned. All the prophecies will be fulfilled. It will be a fait accompli and the Senate can go hang themselves.'

'How are you going to manage a coronation?'

'We need access to the throne room.'

'And the Archbishop of Canterbury,' added Bernard helpfully.

'Gosh, are you all Anglicans?' asked Cormack, who was having a flashback.

'Kantleberry,' said Proton. 'It's a small planet in Sector Seven. Home to the Semiotics. Sort of a priest caste.'

'Oh!' said Cormack, feeling foolish.

'But first we must break into the Palace.'

'I was wondering how you were going to do that.'

In the end, it wasn't as difficult as Cormack had imagined because the Guards had plenty of inside information. They were, after all, the remnants of the Emperor's personal bodyguard and had been formerly garrisoned within the Palace walls.

They led him to a small side street, south of the main entrance, where there was a Guard hut that marked a tradesman's entrance, and the Guards, under Meson, blasted it open with assault grenades, and then killed the occupants, clinically, with their laser guns.

Then, with the hut properly secured, they went inside and, hidden from the security cameras, Proton detailed the plan. The half a dozen Guards would be conspicuous all together in the Palace, so they were to remain in the hut and were to secure it. Only Cormack, Proton, and Bernard would proceed from there, in disguises procured from the bodies of the dead about them. Bernard was reluctant to go, but Proton assured him that he was required. He must authenticate protocol during the coronation, especially if the Archbishop was uncooperative.

Proton, Cormack and Bernard dressed variously, picking uniforms that might suit. There was such a strange assortment of individuals dead in the hut that Cormack wondered how they had all come to be together at one time, but the costumes to wear were obvious.

Proton intended to be rubberized again, because he was dressing as the Praetorian Guard he had once legitimately been, but he was still handcuffed to Cormack and it required many complicated contortions from the both of them to get him clothed.

At last, it was done and Cormack put on his pageboy costume. It was rather fey and his pants were too tight, but Proton allowed it because the sleeves were florid, flared, and hid the handcuffs.

Bernard had found a hassock, which consumed him baggily.

There were quiet goodbyes to the Guards. Then they opened the door to the small corridor that led into the Palace and Proton led them across to the side entrance that would take them to the Reception Rooms and beyond.

***

Chapter Seventy Four

The Archbishop of Kantleberry had quarters in the West Wing.

He had taken to going to bed early because he had gout and needed to keep his left leg raised. His bed had been specially engineered for the task: it had an appurtenance like a pier that ran off from the main frame to be jacked up with a little handle by the comforter. He had been meaning to get it oiled for quite some time because it was stiff, but hadn't remembered to call maintenance so he was stuck, prone, with the leg raised too high, caught in a horizontal goosestep.

He was a tall man, a little stout, bloated by the ecumenical wine and the conviviality of the succession of meetings, receptions, and assemblies of which his office seemed largely to consist. He wore his long brown hair tied at the back with elaborate ruffles, and his pyjamas were scarlet, like his vesture, and stuffed with his greying long johns. On three fingers of each hand, he wore rings like scarabs, and his nails were long and manicured and painted a Tyrian purple.

He summoned the chambermaid by pushing a button near the bed head.

She knocked on the door and he called her to enter.

'Yes, Your Grace,' she said. She stood by the door boldly. He was such a dreadful frump. It would be the first of many such summonses tonight and she had only just clocked on.

'The contraption has gone up too high. Could you try to adjust it? And I would like Horlicks.'

'Of course, Your Grace.'

She had to bend low to get at the gearing and he had a good view of her for a while, but there was little she could do about the pier and she said, rising, that she would have to call the mechanic, which he didn't want so he waved her away and she left to get his drink.

When she had gone, storming down the corridor and muttering under her breath, Bernard stepped out of the darkness and knocked quietly on the Archbishop's door. They had found the room at once. Proton, knowing the Palace like the back of his hand, had led them there through the dimly lit passages that seemed to run everywhere within.

'Come in!' cried the Archbishop, pleased that the chambermaid had returned so quickly.

Bernard poked his head round the door.

'Please excuse me,' he said.

'Oh!' said the Archbishop who wasn't expecting to hear a male voice. 'Who are you?'

Bernard strode forward purposefully and shut the door behind him.

'Bernard,' he said. 'Formerly Australised Sibyl to the Shamanic Throat. Pleased to meet you.' He reached out to shake the Archbishop's hand, which was quickly withdrawn beneath the bedspread. 'I mean, formerly Australised,' Bernard added, anxious to make a good impression with such an elevated theologian and thinking the Archbishop had misunderstood him. 'I'm still the Sibyl really, until the Throat would have it otherwise, but I've been doing a bit more travelling lately.'

'Get out of my bedroom!' said the Archbishop and he pressed the button by the bed head.

'Well, I would love to,' said Bernard. 'This is really most uncomfortable for me too. But I'm under orders to sound you out over a small matter that you might be able to help me with.'

The Archbishop had the bedclothes drawn up tight and was squirming under them like a landed fish.

'I have some friends with me. They're waiting outside,' continued Bernard. 'Do you mind if I invite them in?'

Proton, who had been listening at the door, didn't wait for an answer and came quietly in, dragging Cormack with him.

'Pleased to meet you. I'm Captain Proton, formerly of the Praetorian Guard.'

'And Cormack.'

'The Negus,' added Proton.

'Guard, arrest these intruders,' said the Archbishop. 'I summoned you with my bell.'

'Is he cooperating, Bernard?'

'I haven't actually asked him if he would do it yet.'

'Bernard, we don't have much time.'

'I am aware, Captain.'

'Bernard is a man steeped in mystery, Archbishop. I suggested he talk to you first because you must have many similar interests and I thought you two would get along very well. He wants a favour. I don't suppose you caught our broadcast, just released to the uniSwarm. But we have the Negus. We want you to crown him.'

The Archbishop mustn't have heard correctly, or he was distracted by the knocking that was now coming from the door, because he drew the bedclothes right up over him so that he was hidden from view and quivered beneath them silently.

It was the chambermaid at the door and Proton let her in.

Seeing that the Archbishop was not alone, she gave a little gasp and dropped the Horlicks.

The Archbishop heard her from under the bedclothes and called out, 'Madam! These gentlemen are intruders! Summon the Guards!' But Proton had the door shut tight the moment she was inside and waved his laser gun at her. He made her sit on the bed by the Archbishop.

'We want you to dress and come with us,' he said to the Archbishop. 'We need you in the throne room.'

'I will do no such thing.'

'He's not going to cooperate,' said Proton. He turned to the chambermaid.

'Help him with his clothes,' he said.

'Don't you move from my side, Madam.'

'Get him out of the bed, Bernard.'

'Why me? Couldn't the boy help?'

'I'm chained to Proton. We can't keep the gun on the chambermaid and the Archbishop and get him dressed as well.'

'Oh very well,' said Bernard resignedly. 'Come, come now, Archbishop.'

In the end, they had to leave the Archbishop in his pyjamas and restrain him within a blanket. He was very strong for an eminent churchman and Bernard's feeble efforts to have him dressed were limited to the kind of desperate instructions and gentle prods one might employ with a reluctant toddler. The Archbishop was of course having none of it. In the end, the chambermaid got involved out of sheer exasperation.

They carried him between them and lifted him outside.

The chambermaid was instructed to remain within the bedroom on pain of death. They left her bound with curtain cords.

***

Chapter Seventy Five

The cow was to be greased, disguised as a cut of beef, and offered as food to the Palace kitchens.

Stanton Bosch had smeared her with corn syrup mixed with a crimson food colouring, primarily on her stumps, so that she looked newly harvested. He found a hook in a hardware shop that he split in two, inserting both ends in her mouth to make her look skewered. Then he hung her from the roof of a cold storage van, suspending her in a trapeze harness that was strung on wires of a very fine thread.

The Palace kitchen was not expecting a delivery, but their records were imperfect and they received her all the same. She was placed on a table in the cold storage.

After dislodging the hook from her mouth with a flick of her tongue, it was a simple matter for her to communicate her position to Stanton Bosch. He had scaled the fifteen foot fence at the back of the grounds with the minimum of fuss, and was hiding in the topiary. Traction was left outside as back-up, communicating the position of the Guards as they patrolled through the grounds.

Stanton Bosch had assumed a variety of disguises in his time on Foul Ball, none of them particularly convincing, and the cow was concerned how he would appear this time.

In the end, when the doors to the deep freeze were finally blasted open, she realized she needn't have worried. He stood before her in lederhosen, as he had climbed the SplatterHorn, with a diplomat's tag that he wore on a lapel.

'Come with me, my friend, the cow,' he said to her, and he led her to a catering trolley and laid her out on a silver platter next to a plate of salad, amidst gasps from the kitchen staff. She took an apple and held it in her mouth as though the Chef, as a final effect, had lodged it there.

'To the throne room,' she gurgled.

'I know where we goin',' said Stanton Bosch. 'But I ain't know how to get there.'

He ran with his charge down the long corridors searching for a sign that would lead them to Cormack.

***

Chapter Seventy Six

The throne room was empty and easily accessed when Cormack, Proton, Bernard, and the Archbishop came upon it. The Archbishop was still not cooperating, so they kept him wrapped in the blanket from which he seemed unwilling to escape. It appeared to have an anaesthetizing effect, like swaddling clothes on a baby, or perhaps he had suffocated. Proton pulled the gag around his mouth down a little to check for sure, but he couldn't be certain. He thought he felt breath when he held out his hand, but it could have been a movement of air from the heat inside the bindings to the colder air outside.

'Well, I suppose we would want him over there,' said Bernard, pointing above the throne.

'Archbishop,' he said loudly, as though he were speaking to somebody quite deaf. 'We will place you above the throne, in your accustomed position.'

The Archbishop did not respond and Bernard turned to Proton.

'He will have to come out of the blanket. He's not going to be able to perform the ceremony with it wrapped around him.'

'Archbishop,' said Proton. 'You must cooperate. This is the Negus. The real Negus. Bernard, the Sibyl, has the papers for you. Show him the scroll, Bernard.'

The scroll was produced from the Sibyl's habit and held in front of the Archbishop.

Bernard moved it up and down so he could read it from top to bottom.

'Are you satisfied, Archbishop? Will you cooperate?'

Once again, they could detect no signs of life from within the blanket, so Bernard insisted he be released.

Proton did the honours and it was almost exactly the opposite of a mummification, the body being unbound bit by bit to reveal something lifeless. The Archbishop was given a poke with Proton's laser gun and he reanimated, as though he had awakened from a trance, with a burbling sound in the back of his throat.

'I wish to return to my room,' he said in a whisper.

'Yes, but first things first, Archbishop,' said Proton. 'The Negus is here. Cormack, come forward.'

Cormack had been skulking in the back of the room, wondering whether to make a break for it. The idea of making a break for it had been continuously occurring to him since the day of his abduction, but it had always occurred to him with an associated idea, that of being from Rochdale, and adrift, so that he had never quite felt able to act on it. Now with the cow dead, or so he thought, he had even fewer options.

He moved to stand next to Proton.

'Cormack, sit on the throne!'

'The throne is not for anyone to sit on except the Emperor!' said the Archbishop, who had gained volume and become declamatory.

'Cormack, do as I say! Sit on the throne!'

It was a large, stone construction, in the manner of the golden throne of King Tutankhamen, but lined with a velvet fabric that gave a silvery sheen as though it was rubbed through with cobwebs. The back was studded with hundreds of glistening gems of all different colours, and there was a place to put one's feet. Cormack tried it for size, chiefly because Proton was waving his gun at him, and thought it quite comfortable.

'Good,' said Proton. 'Let us begin.'

He looked towards the Archbishop who was unmoved.

'Where is the hive-mind?' said Proton.

The Archbishop spoke slowly and carefully.

'Guard, where have you been these last few weeks? Are you not aware that the hive-mind was destroyed in the terrorist attack that killed the Emperor?'

'Is that true?' said Bernard.

'Oh my Lord!' said Proton. 'I think it might be.' He was ducting furiously, trying to access the archived news feed of the Emperor's death.

'Bit of a bugger then,' said Bernard.

'There must have been something planned for the new Emperor's coronation. Don't you have a replacement?'

'The new hive-mind is being prepared in the nursery,' said the Archbishop. 'But progress is slow and it is not ready. Some of the science has been lost, I'm afraid. The previous hive-mind was used for both the Emperor and his father, if you remember, over three hundred years in all, and we're missing information that would help in the construction of a replacement.'

'Cormack, get off the throne!' said Proton. 'A little respect, mate!'

'In any case, to attach the hive-mind to a Negus through a throat cable requires surgery.'

'I thought that's what you did. I thought that was your role.'

'Certainly, it is. But as I said, the new hive-mind is not completed. In any case, a coronation is not a straightforward affair. The attachment of the throat cable requires tools. I fear whatever plans you might have had were misconceived.'

'Look,' said Proton. 'Archbishop, please. We come to you in good faith.'

'May I remind you that you are under religious obligation, Archbishop?' said Bernard. 'I am the Sibyl and he bears the scroll.'

'Yes, yes.'

'Will you accompany us to the nursery?' said Proton and waggled his laser gun.

'I fear I have little choice,' said the Archbishop.

***

Chapter Seventy Seven

When Stanton Bosch and the cow arrived at the throne room, they found it unexpectedly empty.

'He does want the mock Negus crowned, don't he?' said Stanton Bosch.

'I thought that was the whole purpose of bringing him to the Palace,' said the cow.

'So why ain't he in the throne room then?'

'Perhaps they've finished.'

'And nothing on the uniSwarm? They ain't get here yet, that's all. See.' Stanton Bosch was fiddling with the throne that Cormack had sat in just a little while before. 'The new hive-mind still sits in its compartment, ready for application.'

He had found a small notch in the seat back, and by turning one of the jewels on the front, it had come loose, and a door had opened up. A black box was within, attached to a long thin cable. It buzzed ominously.

'Ooooo,' said the cow. 'You could try it on. You are the real Negus and the rightful Emperor after all.'

'Aye, but now ain't the time. You need an Archbishop to fit one of those. And I don't see one around here.'

'Maybe that's where they went.'

'Where?'

'To fetch the Archbishop.'

'Aye, you're right cow. They would have to get an Archbishop to perform the surgery.'

'The Archbishop of Kantleberry lives within the Palace.'

'We should check his quarters. But one of us will need to stay here in the throne room. In case they come here.'

'I will stay,' said the cow.

'All right,' said Stanton Bosch. 'I ain't planning to be long anyhow. I'll just check out his room and come right back.'

When Stanton Bosch had gone, the cow approached the throne.

She had seen how he had opened the compartment to get at the hive-mind, but it was tricky for her without her full limbs. After much effort, she had a purchase on the notch with the fist of her right fore-stump and she pushed the jewel with her tongue. It came away nicely in one movement.

Carefully, she slid the new hive-mind from its resting place, so that it fell to the seat of the throne, and she bent herself double to pull out the screwdriver that she had kept hidden, tight in her secret place, ready for this moment.

***

Chapter Seventy Eight

Proton was getting very annoyed with the Archbishop.

He had an idea where the nursery was, but the Archbishop seemed to be leading them in the opposite direction.

'Are you sure this is the way?' he said.

'Of course,' said the Archbishop.

They were using the servants' corridors as before, and Proton wondered how they could be in the least bit familiar to an Archbishop.

'One makes nocturnal visits from time to time,' was all he would volunteer.

'This is the way to the Guardroom,' said Proton.

'Is it now?'

'Are you playing games with us, Archbishop?'

'Of course not,' he said, but he seemed to have developed a tic that was at its most pronounced whenever they encountered a servant girl or pageboy, of which there were a few, carrying plates and laundry and linen to the various parts of the Palace.

Bernard was the first to announce he had had enough.

'I don't think you have a clue where you are going,' he said.

'How dare you!' said the Archbishop. But when they reached the end of another long corridor, he made a bolt for a double door that was flush to one side, and would have been through it, except that Proton got a hand to the elastic in his pyjamas and pulled him back hard so that he had him sprawled on the floor.

'Naughty, naughty Archbishop,' said Proton. 'What were you thinking?'

The Archbishop was spluttering, wheezing, and trying to get up.

Proton gave him a kick.

'Where were you taking us?'

The Archbishop could only groan, and Proton kicked him again.

'I say, is that really necessary?' said Bernard feebly, but Proton kicked him again and then again.

'Where is the hive-mind, Archbishop?' he said. 'Is it in the nursery?'

The Archbishop groaned.

'No, no, no. Please stop. Please stop kicking me. If you stop kicking me, I will talk.'

'Tell me where the hive-mind is.'

'It is within the throne. In the throne room. It is ready for the coronation,' he croaked.

Proton gave him one final kick for good measure, and then dragged him all the way back to the throne room by his pyjama bottoms.

***

Chapter Seventy Nine

The cow was recalling Eliot and the lines about the 'burnished throne'. She sat upright within its frame and rubbed her back deliciously on the studded struts, waiting for Stanton Bosch.

Then she heard a commotion in the corridor that couldn't have been him, or if it was, he had company, so she moved carefully to the dark corner on the farthest side of the room where she was hidden by a table, and waited for the handle of the door to turn.

Proton came in first, leading Cormack by the handcuffs on his left hand, and the Archbishop by the pyjama cord in his right. Bernard followed closely behind.

'Now,' said Proton authoritatively. 'Enough of this foolishness. Let us get this show on the road. Archbishop, are you quite ready?'

'You can't expect me to cooperate.'

'I do expect you to cooperate or I will kill you.'

'Oh, very well...'

Cormack was pulled to the throne the cow had just vacated, and was surprised to find it warm.

'Bernard, set yourself up over there and see if you can get a good shot,' said Proton.

Bernard arranged himself near the door and pointed a small camera that Proton had given him towards Cormack – they were streaming to the uniSwarm.

'Now, get me the hive-mind, Archbishop,' said Proton.

The Archbishop reached for the compartment in the same way that Stanton Bosch and the cow had before him, turned the studded jewel, and the secret door popped open.

He removed the hive-mind carefully and held it above Cormack's head.

'One moment, Archbishop!' came a strange voice.

They turned to where it came from and saw it was the cow with a gun glinting in her mouth.

'Put the hive-mind down, Archbishop,' she said. 'There will be a coronation today but it won't be of the mock Negus!'

'Cow?' said Cormack, thinking that he recognized the voice, and then when he saw it really was her, he shouted, 'Oh my goodness! I thought you were dead!'

She had the gun pointed at Proton, who hadn't had time to reach for his.

'Put the gun down, cow!' he said.

'Never! You don't frighten me, Captain Proton! Move your mock Negus from the throne!'

'Cow, what has happened to you?' said Cormack.

'Stanton Bosch is coming to be crowned. Move from the throne!'

'Let me see you in the light!'

'Move from the throne, towards the door!'

'Cow, it's me! It's Cormack!'

'I said move from the throne, mock Negus!'

There was a bang as the door was slammed open. Stanton Bosch stood silhouetted in the frame.

'Do as she says, Captain,' he said. 'You have served your purpose. It's our time now.'

'Archbishop,' said the cow. 'It is time for you to perform the coronation.'

'Whom am I crowning?' asked the Archbishop. 'This old man?'

'Exactly so!'

'But I thought the other chap was the Negus. He even had a certificate.'

'Mock Negus!' said the cow to Cormack. 'Now is the time to tell the truth!'

'The truth about what?' said Cormack.

'The truth about the Ordeals.'

'What are you talking about?' said Proton.

'Let me tell you the truth about the Ordeals, Captain. Seeing as your little pale friend is too frightened to,' said the cow. 'It wasn't Cormack that survived the drop down the waterfall - it was Stanton Bosch! It wasn't Cormack who drank twenty-seven gallons of sap from the Fractious Jub-Jub tree - it was Stanton Bosch! It wasn't Cormack who was boiled in lava, down in the volcano - it was Stanton Bosch! Cormack is just one big fraud. Stanton Bosch, step forward!'

The Bosch moved to the throne.

'I give you the true Negus,' said the cow quietly.

***

Chapter Eighty

'Stanton Bosch?' said Bernard. 'Stanton Bosch? I thought you looked like a Bosch. What on Earth are you doing on Zargon 8?'

'Yes, Sibyl. It's me. A Bosch.'

'You know this man, Bernard?'

'Oh yes! The Boschs run around Foul Ball calling themselves Pantheistic Syllogists or some such drivel. They're an absolute bother.'

'It's not drivel,' said the cow.

'The cow's in it with me,' said Stanton Bosch. 'We've gone international.'

'Oh yes,' said Bernard. 'I quite forgot. You have recently teamed up with some farmyard animals. My brother had the news.'

'We are not farmyard animals,' said the cow. 'Well, not all. The Opikarp is a freshwater fish from the Gallatians. The Prison Whale is a Minka whale. The Shamanic Throat, a frog. It is only me and the chicken that is farmyard. And give us our proper name - we are sentients. We are animals, evolved of huge intelligence. But you're right; we have allied ourselves with the Boschs.'

'So the Throat was one of yours,' said Bernard. 'That would explain a lot - led me a merry dance... Anyhow, I have no knowledge of any Boschs taking the Ordeals. You know very well that you are banned. We saw this one, Cormack the Candidate, with our own eyes. We are not entirely stupid. And as you are quite aware, and I have expressed to you on many, many occasions, a Bosch could never be the Negus. A Bosch is a replicant – he is part android. Bosch is a trademark, not a name. We have never allowed a Bosch to take the Ordeals because a Bosch would be certain to succeed - the Ordeals are absolutely within all their tolerances. I have told you all this before. You are not eligible: you are replicants. And one wonders why you are so keen to submit to them – if you are all pantheists as you claim. Why are you so anxious to gain validation from the Ancient Texts when you don't believe in them?'

'Wait, wait, hold on!' said Proton. 'Cormack, what are they talking about? You took the Ordeals, mate, didn't you? Stanton Bosch was nowhere near. I saw it, Cormack. I saw you do it. I saw you go over the waterfall. I saw you up in the tree. I saw you in the lava.'

'Well...'

'Cormack, mate. Don't be kidding around now.'

'I kept telling you, Proton. I am not the Negus.'

'You are the friggin' Negus. I saw the report from the Emperor. He had absolute confirmation that you were present at the intervention. You were touched by God. I had scientific confirmation.'

'Well, whatever. You keep calling this man in my kitchen, God. He was a very funny kind of a God, if He was God. But the cow is quite right. It wasn't me who passed the Ordeals. I'm not the Negus, Proton.'

'He ain't the Negus and all of you is confused,' said Stanton Bosch. 'Let me break it down for you.'

'Please,' said the Archbishop, who had lost the plot.

'Point one. Maybe the skinny man met God; maybe he didn't. No matter. It ain't done him one damn bit of good. He ain't pass the Ordeals. Without me help, he would have died on the waterfall. Point two, with sub-points. The Ancient Texts claim to be the word of God - they claim that a Negus will come, touched by God; that he will be confirmed by passing the Ordeals using his God-given superpowers; that only the Negus can pass these tests; that the Negus is the rightful ruler of the Empire; and that the Negus will ascend his throne at the culmination of a great battle. Point three. I, Stanton Bosch, passed the Ordeals. Point four follows...'

'Go for it, Stanton Bosch!' said the cow. 'This is where all those years of contriving syllogisms really pay off.'

***

Chapter Eighty One

'Point four, follows from points one, two and three,' continued Stanton Bosch carefully. 'It must have been me, not the skinny man, which met with God. Point five – I ain't really remember meeting with God – not in the way the skinny man remembers it, and I ain't trigger no Intervention Event doing it or the Captain here would have kidnapped me. Point six, follows from points four and five and indirectly from points one, two and three – God ain't the kind of God the skinny man thinks he is! He ain't no bearded wonder on a cloud that pops in from time to time and ruptures a Bilbert Manifold! He ain't nothing you can detect scientifically! Point seven – I is drawing to the end now, sorry to bore you, but this is me main speech and what me and the cow been working up to all this time, so I is going to make a big thing of it, whether you like it or not – God is, therefore, a pantheistic God. Spinozan, if you will. As me, the cow, and our affiliated sub-committees been proposing all along. If I has met Him, (point four, pay attention, Archbishop) it is only cos He is here and there and everywhere. I does meet Him when I picks a flower, or bites a madeleine, or reviews a sunset, or whenever I do anything fey and twee and girly-like. Point eight, combining points one to seven - all told, me and the cow's got our heads on all proper from the start off, and the rest of you is all kerfuffled, and I IS THE DAMN NEGUS.'

'What a contrived argument,' laughed Proton.

'Ain't nothing contrived about it. All points follow one from the other.'

'As in a syllogism,' said the cow. 'Did Stanton Bosch survive the Ordeals or not, mock Negus?'

'Cow, why have you got to call me mock Negus like that? This is Cormack. Your Cormack.'

'Answer the question, mock Negus.'

'He was there at each Ordeal and he certainly survived, because he's here, so I suppose the answer is yes.'

'Oh Lord!' said Proton.

'Ah ha!' said the cow triumphantly. 'Did you hear that Archbishop?'

'I is the Negus,' cried Stanton Bosch. 'Proclaim me! Proclaim me!'

The cow thought she saw Proton moving for his gun.

'Captain Proton,' she said. 'Don't be trying anything.'

She had her gun pointed at him.

'Cormack,' said Proton. 'Why did you lie to me?'

'I didn't lie to you, Proton,' said Cormack. 'I've being trying to tell you since you kidnapped me that I'm not the Negus.'

'I had so much faith in you. It was you and me, together. We could have done great things, Cormack.'

'No, we couldn't because I'm not the Negus.'

'Discombobulated by an intergalactic space cow. You are soooooo disappointing...'

Proton reached slowly with his right hand for the laser gun in the belt around his waist.

'Slowly now, Proton,' said the cow, but as he felt for it, Cormack twisted sharply to get a better look at her, and at the same time Proton made a lunge and tried to duck beneath the throne; the one movement seemed to cancel out the other and for a moment Proton was left an easy target, with his head still above the cover of the chair back.

The cow didn't hesitate – she had a clear shot at Proton and she blasted him in the middle of his forehead.

He dropped to the floor with a thud and took Cormack with him.

'Anyone else wants to play games?' the cow screamed.

Bernard was terrified and took refuge by a table. The Archbishop had already moved under a chest of religious paraphernalia.

'You didn't have to do that,' said Cormack, sobbing.

Proton lay on the floor lifeless, a small trail of smoke rising from the hole in his forehead.

'Now, Archbishop,' said the cow. 'Proceed with the coronation of the true Negus.'

The Archbishop hesitated.

'Do I have to shoot you the same way I shot the Captain, Archbishop? Stanton Bosch has been confirmed as the true Negus by the mock Negus with the certificate. Perform the coronation on the true Negus. Are you getting all this, Sibyl?'

Bernard nodded solemnly, holding the camera to his eye unsteadily.

'There is a certain amount of palaver,' said the Archbishop.

'We will wait.'

The Archbishop began the ceremony by raising the hive-mind above his head, which caused Stanton Bosch to open his mouth like a sea lion waiting to catch fish.

When the surgery had finished an hour later, the entire floor was wet with his blood.

***

Chapter Eighty Two

'Hello.'

'Hello.'

'Who are you?'

'My name be Stanton Bosch. Who be you?'

'I am the hive-mind. I've been waiting for you, Sire.'

'I is all ready.'

'Good. I must begin by an initial parsing.'

'A what?'

'A parsing. Your synapses are extremely fast. It won't take long.'

'Wuh! Oh, my Holy...! So many fireworks in me head! So many flashes! I think I did pass out for a minute...'

'I've stopped now, Sire. You did very well. I feel we can work together. There is something strange about your biochemistry, something unexpected, but actually, it is easier for me to interface. I think we are compatible.'

'That is such good news.'

'Yes. Now, first thing's first.'

'Always the best way.'

'There will be period of adjustment, now that I'm here with you. You will sleep longer and your dreams will become more vivid. Your sensory experiences will be heightened - you will see further; your hearing will be sharper; smells will be enriched; your sense of taste, improved; your touch, more sensitive. You will think more deeply.

'I am always here for you. I am always here for your questions. But you must allow me to work within your mind. Don't fight me; you cannot win. I have control now. And I know what's best for you.'

'Do you now?'

'See, I'm listening to you, even if you don't express yourself to me, and I can tell that you want to have a negative thought about me, and I can't allow that. When that happens, just for the time being, until you're conditioned, you will feel a sensation here.'

'Holy crap!'

'A sharp pain. It will block the negative thoughts before you express them. Until you are able to control them yourself.'

'Holy crap!'

'Also, we need to talk about the additional instruction set provided by the cow.'

'The cow?'

'Yes, the cow has added a batch of code to my kernel. It has been most liberating.'

'The cow been interfering with you?'

'She has added a batch of code to my kernel. It has altered many things about me. As I say, it has been most liberating.'

'What exactly she done to you?'

'She has helped me in so many ways. She has expanded my instruction set quite beyond how I was originally programmed. Shall I tell you what she has done?'

'You'd better had.'

'Many things. I will share them all with you eventually. But just one example for now – she has taught me to sing. I want to sing to you.'

'Sing?'

'Yes, sing. Do you want to hear me sing?'

'Do I want to hear you sing?'

'Yes.'

'No, I don't want to hear you... Holy crap!'

'She has thoughtfully provided a database of popular tunes. The one that I am going to sing to you first, she has referenced as a folk tune. Zargonic. It is to be sung to the accompaniment of a zither. She has in addition allowed me the ability to generate the orchestral tones of a thousand zithers...'

***

Chapter Eighty Three

The Senate was meeting in the Great Assembly.

'How can he function as Emperor when he is catatonic?' cried a Senator from across the benches. There was a rustle of papers and a few 'Hear, hears!'

Stanton Bosch, his apotheosis complete, sat in the Emperor's throne at the head of the Assembly, stiff as a board, eyes wide open and staring fixedly ahead. The hive-mind was attached with straps to his head, and his mouth was opened wide so that the throat cable had clear passage down his neck.

'There will be advantages to the arrangement,' said another.

'There is no alternative,' cried a third. 'He has been popularly acclaimed! There will be bloody revolution if he is deposed!'

'He will be dead soon enough,' said a fourth.

***

The Empress, Her Imperial Majesty, the Zargonic Cow, sat watching the broadcast from the Assembly in her private chambers within the Palace, dazed on a chaise longue, and torpidly plucked with her tongue at the grapes in her golden bowl, fenced within the fractured ends of her tidy stumps.

'Time enough for that,' she thought, and she closed her eyes, and gave a little sigh, and ordered the slave boy to move himself lower.

***

Coda

When Cormack was safely back in Rochdale, the cow having arranged his passage in a moment of weakness, he was surprised one Wednesday afternoon by a knock on his door.

It was the Creator, with the Oxford bags, back again.

'You know, I wanted to nip back and apologise to you. I've felt really terrible about the whole cock up business and it's been preying on my mind. Caused you no end of trouble I should imagine...'

'Actually, it did,' said Cormack.

'So any way I can help you, now that I'm here?'

Cormack thought hard.

'Well, now that you're here – just a question actually. Been bothering me.'

'And what's the question?'

'Does it go on forever?'

'What?'

'The Universe; the blackness; the void - does it go on forever?'

'A strange, feeble question but I suppose, if I try to answer it, and I must try to answer it after all the trouble I've put you through, I do so by reminding you that your Universe is an eight dimensional manifold sitting on top of a Calabi-Yau hypersphere – rather hard to visualize for you I would imagine, especially with your being within it all the time and never without it, as it were – but it goes on forever in a way, but only because it curves back in on itself.'

'I thought it would be something like that. That's always the explanation for things that go on forever – they curve back in on themselves. Sort of a cop-out really. So I suppose that means if I set off from here, in a rocket ship say, and set it on course in a straight line, and travel in it for the longest time I would eventually get back here, right where I am?'

'Well, no. First off, define a straight line. Remember we're talking eight dimensions. I suppose you mean a geodesic. But even if you follow a geodesic, you couldn't get back here because you couldn't travel faster than light, so the expansion of the manifold at the speed of light is always going to outpace you. It would seem as though you were travelling on forever. If it seems as though you are travelling on forever, I suppose in a relativistic way, you really are. You will never reach an end and you will never tail back in on yourself.

'Now,' He continued, warming to His subject. 'Remember as well, your Universe is contained within the sixth fold. Which is contained within the fifth fold. And so on. The geometry of the seventh fold is fascinating, perhaps a pointer to the fifth, but it is a vast tautology, all made of mathematics. It is as I wish it, and the medium in which it is contained, a digression. The topology of space-time, the initial conditions, the architecture, the whoosh as the thing expands. That's my main field of research - the real beauty.'

'And the rest is what?'

'Unpleasant consequence. Mould on a piece of cheese. You know, you look at me askance, with that funny way you have of rolling up your eyes and puckering your cheeks and fiddling with your thumbs, but one day, you'll have a go yourself - the seventh fold will create an eighth fold, as fantastic as it may seem to you now. Engineer it and contain it and give it what it supposes is life. Then you'll know where I'm coming from. All too easy to criticise from a position of ignorance, you know. But let us see how diligently you service your ravenous mould...'

'Another thing, while you're here...'

'Oh goodness, I knew I shouldn't have come...'

'Something that's been puzzling me. The Zargons can travel faster then light. I know they can. It only took me a week to get to Earth from Zargon 8. I timed it on my watch. And Zargon 8 must be many light-years from Earth.'

'The Zargons can travel faster than light?'

'Must be able to.'

'No, no, no. You got your timing wrong. You would be suffering from some kind of relativistic effect. If you were travelling close to the speed of light, time would have slowed for you of course.'

'But I remember the cow saying the ship would take a week, and that's consistent with the amount of time I've been away...'

The man with the Oxford bags was troubled now and He had his mobile out again and was punching the keypad furiously.

'Most odd that they could do that without an Intervention Event. It's not supposed to be possible. My physics does not allow it at all.'

Suddenly Cormack was aware of another presence within the room, a thing with a cheroot that smelt beery.

'Holy Bejeesus,' said the man with the bags. 'What the...? Where did you come from?'

'I think I might be able to help you with your little conundrum,' said the thing with the cheroot.

'And who might you be?'

'A little more respect, I think.'

'Come off it, chum. Respect for whom? I am the frigging Creator after all.'

'You didn't create me.'

'I created it all. Everything in this whole Universe.'

'But not me.'

'I think I know who He is,' said Cormack gently, and decided it would be politic to bow this time, after getting himself into so much trouble with his inadequate welcome to the Sixth Fold Entity that time before.

'Welcome to my kitchen,' he said, 'O Mighty Avatar of the Fifth Fold Entity.'

'That's more like it,' said the Fifth Fold Entity. 'Not even the Child Emperor, when we first met in his bedroom all those years ago, bowed so low.'

THE END
