69 - The Tomorrow Windows

2024-12-08 2 0 741.27KB 249 页 10玖币

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There’s a new exhibition at Tate Modern –

‘The Tomorrow Windows’.

The concept is simple: look through a Tomorrow Window

and you’ll see into the future. You’ll get ‘The Gist of Things to

Come’. According to the press pack, the Tomorrow Windows

exhibition will bring about an end to war and suffering.

Which is why someone decides to blow it up.

Investigating this act of wanton vandalism, the Doctor, Fitz and

Trix visit an Astral Flower, the show-world of Utopia and

Gadrahadradon – the most haunted planet in the galaxy. They

face the sinister Cecces, the gratuitously violent Vorshagg,

the miniscule Micron and the enigmatic Poozle. And they

encounter the doomsday monks of Shardybarn, the warmongers

of Valuensis, the politicians of Minuea and the killer cars of Estebol.

They also spend about half an hour in Lewisham.

This is another in the series of adventures for the Eighth Doctor.

The Tomorrow Windows

Jonathan Morris

Contents

Prologue – The Story of Easter 4

Gadrahadradon 6

Froom-Upon-Harpwick 8

Shardybarn 11

1 The Museum of the Future 14

2 Two-Dimensional Villains 28

Valuensis 40

3 Only God Can Save Us Now 43

Gnomis 60

4 Future Plans 62

Estebol 67

5 The One-Second War 69

Minuea 93

6 Changing Planets 97

Nimbit’s Story 105

Vorshagg’s Story 110

Question Intonation’s Story 115

CONTENTS 2

Micron’s Story 121

Poozle’s Story 126

Space 127

7 Mostly Worthless 129

8 Autogeddon 140

9 Going Postal 159

10 The Selﬁsh Memes 179

[planet’s name] 194

11 Election Day 197

12 The Tomorrow Peephole 220

Epilogue – This Island Earth 243

Acknowledgements 246

About The Author 247

For Douglas Adams

Prologue

The Story of Easter

Imagine you are on an island. The ocean lazes out before you, a stretch of

glass-glinting blue, The sky is clear and the overhead sun bakes your skin.

Palm trees rustle in the breeze and the grass plains ripple like a second

sea.

The people of the island are thriving. The trees offer syrup, the ground

provides cane and the ocean provides porpoise. You gaze out over the

cliff-drop and watch as a canoe lunges on to the beach. Its crew leap out,

shouting, hauling the vessel and their laden nets. Around them, children

run and splash in excitement.

The islanders’ huts rest in the shade of forest. There are barely half a

dozen buildings, constructed of woven-together wood, fragile but func-

tional.

Time passes. Over the years, the population grows. Huts become vil-

lages and palm trees are felled. Squinting out to sea, you make out twenty

boats or more.

Black clouds thicken on the horizon. The wind snatches at your cheeks.

Thunder grumbles and cracks. Day turns to night and the ocean seethes

like a snake nest. Waves explode into foam and boats smash upon the

rocks. Crops are ripped from the earth. Huts fold and collapse.

The day after the hurricane, the people of the island decide to build a

god.

It takes them many months to carve the god. It has the face of an is-

lander, with almond eyes and narrow cheeks. To bring the god to the

cliff top, the islanders lop down more trees and create runways, the statue

trundling upon trunks slick with sap. More trunks lever the statue on to

its platform. The ingenuity of the engineering is awe-inspiring.

More years pass, and another cold breeze snaps against your skin. An-

other death-black cloud scrubs out the sun. The seas rip and crash. More

canoes are lost, more ﬁshermen, more huts, more crops.

PROLOGUE – THE STORY OF EASTER 5

The islanders realise their folly. Their god has not failed them – they

have failed their god. To make amends, they must build a second god.

Night becomes day becomes years and the statue is joined by another,

and another and another. They appear, popping into existence along the

cliff, one by one. They stand in a silent chorus, each facing the rising sun.

Still the storms come. The islanders split into opposing tribes, each

blaming the others for their gods’ failure. Each faction creates its own god,

and another and another. Each one is bigger than the last and requires

more resources.

More trees are felled. The quarry is hollowed out.

Your attention turns inland, and you are surprised to see that where

once there was forest there now stand a few skeletal palms. The huts that

remain are battered. The people’s bodies are wasted, their skin seeping

with disease.

Another year passes and the forest is reduced to one lone tree. The

other palms have been cut down, to repair the huts, to replace the lost

canoes, to trundle yet more gods to the cliffs. The people have become

desperate. They weave canoes of grass and reed but they prove too fragile.

Without the shelter of the forest, the village is abandoned.

The tribes split and split again, and wars rage. They ﬁght and what

they kill they cannibalise. You hear a crackling ﬁre and smell sweet roast.

Glistening meat is scraped from a charred skull and devoured.

A blink of an eye and the ﬁnal tree has vanished. Where did it go?

To forge spears, to transport a god, to build a canoe? You stare in disbe-

lief. Surely it should have been obvious that by destroying the forest, they

were destroying their means of food, of shelter, of survival, of escape, of

salvation? What madness must have possessed them?

The tribes ﬁght until there are few left. And those that remain turn their

anger on their gods. They smash out the eyes, demolish the platforms,

they topple the statues. The island that remains is scorched and barren.

You stand and stare out to sea where two hundred statues once stood.

Now the idols are half buried among the grasses that ripple. The islanders

have gone.

Now stop imagining. You are on an island.

Gadrahadradon

Astrabel Zar caterpillared his way out of his sleeping bag and clicked on

his torch. He sat upright, his head scraping against canvas, tugged on his

jeans and laced up his boots. Bottles tlink-tlinked as he crawled to the

ﬂap. The sound disturbed his snoring companion, Sheabley McMung, but

as Sheabley had spent the evening necking Absynthzo like a gill-glott, he

responded merely by moaning an indignant burst of song.

Astrabel had also been gill-glotting the Absynthzo. It had seemed very

agreeable at the time but now a difference of opinion had arisen. His

mouth felt like the inside of a vacuum-cleaner and his brain had delegated

all responsibilities to his bladder because it seemed the more lucid part of

his anatomy. It knew what it wanted, and it wanted it now.

He struggled out into the grim blackness. Above him, cumulonimbus

steamrolled across the sky like apocalyptic icebergs. Thunder tolled. As-

trabel clambered to his feet and waved his torch around him. Its wraithlike

glow illuminated a gloopy trail down to the ruins. Astrabel closed the tent,

buttoned his coat and tripped over a guy-rope.

It hadn’t been his idea to come here for a holiday.

He’d only said ‘yes’ to Zoberly Chesterﬁeld because he couldn’t make

no’ sounds in the vicinity of her cleavage. She was irresistible – cherry lips,

a habit of laughing at everything she said and breasts that seemed to be

formulating an escape attempt from her brassiere. The next thing Astrabel

knew, he’d landed face down in a puddle of mud with half a tent around

his left leg.

Disententing himself, Astrabel ambled down the path, following the

dancing halo of his torchlight. He was busting, but he wouldn’t be able to

relax if he was within sight of the camp. He felt like he was being watched.

So instead, he waded through the bracken and ducked beneath the dead

trees. And all the time, he did his best to ignore the grey ghosts that drifted

around him.

The path toppled into the columnated ruins of an abbey and Astra-

bel half slipped, half plunged down the steps. The monastery walls had

GADRAHADRADON 7

crumbled, leaving high archways.

The question as to why anyone should come to Gadrahadradon for

a holiday weighed upon Astrabel’s thoughts. He remembered leaﬁng

through a brochure:

‘Gadrahadradon – The most haunted planet in the galaxy.’

It certainly was haunted. In the derelict central hall, Astrabel found

himself amid a congregation of ghosts. They were composed of thin mist,

one moment coalescing into recognisable bodies and faces, the next rip-

pling away like reﬂections in a pebble-struck pool. They opened and

closed their mouths, but made no sound.

Astrabel watched the ﬁgures. A family in pseudo-Victoriana

whooshed by. A man cloaked in funereal black lifted a box camera. Three

fat businessmen appeared for an instant, and then a breeze caught them –

and they dispersed, their bodies swirling through each other. The planet

was a Damogran Circus of ghosts, thousands of them, ﬂitting in and out

of existence as though reality were a double-exposed ﬁlm.

To begin with, it had been very unnerving. Astrabel had used up sev-

eral jmegs on photos of Sheabley and Zoberly pulling mock-terriﬁed ex-

pressions as the phantoms passed through them. After a week, though,

and the wind, and the cold and the rain, Astrabel was bloody sick of the

ghosts. They never did anything. They just ﬂoated about, chatting silently

among themselves.

Astrabel gripped his torch and made his way down to the crypt. The

most well-preserved part of the ruin, it offered shelter from the storm. The

thunder faded as Astrabel stepped into the cobweb-draped darkness.

Thankfully, there were no ghosts here. Astrabel pocketed his torch,

unbuttoned his trousers and, with a thankful groan, began to empty his

bladder against the wall. A liquid not far removed from Absynthzo pitter-

pattered upon stone.

Relieved of distractions, Astrabel’s mind wandered through the events

of the past months. He remembered sitting his Theoretical Ultraphysics

exam. Sixteen hours of reading questions where he only understood one

word in four.

As he shook away the last drops, Astrabel’s thoughts turned to the

future. He didn’t have one. His life would, he decided, be a bitter journey

to an unmourned grave.

Astrabel zipped up, turned to go, and his life changed for ever.

Froom-Upon-Harpwick

The bastards were all sitting down. Prubert Gastridge swore under his

breath as he took his bow. Under the spotlight his forehead prickled and

droplets dripped to the stage. He counted to three and heaved himself

upright, dabbed his eyebrows with his handkerchief and beamed at the

audience. Their applause rang in his ears, a roaring, whooping monster of

sound. Sod that, thought Prubert, I deserve a standing ovation.

He’d given them everything tonight. He’d ﬁnessed every ﬁnesse. He

had nuances coming out of his ears. Every gland he possessed had served

the performance. It had been the best Captain Hook of his career.

Prubert’s thoughts turned, as always, to the bottle of Lochmoff’s Ultra-

blend that would be waiting for him in his dressing room. After a couple

of glasses, he wouldn’t be capable of either receiving or giving a standing

ovation.

Down came the curtain and down came Prubert’s smile. This was

hardly the acme of his career, was it? Panto. Bloody Peter Pan. Bloody

Peter Pan at the Princess Shevaun. A theatre that could do with a complete

renovation or, even better, a wrecking ball. Peter Pan at the end of a star-

pier in orbit around the seaside resort of Froom-Upon-Harpwick. Seaside

resort? Hospice, more like.

‘Did you see that wobbly on the front row?’ gasped Tinkerbell to ev-

eryone in particular. ‘Eyes glued to me knicks. Thought he was going to

have a coronary.’

‘Don’t say that,’ muttered Smee. ‘Makes a change when we don’t have

any casualties. Once we came back after the interval to half a house.’

Prubert followed Peter down the bulb-lit corridor to their dressing

rooms. As she closed her door, she shot Prubert a black look for gazing

at her undercarriage during her ﬂight to Neverland. Prubert gave her his

most affable smile. He had no notion of her name. Apparently she’d ap-

peared in a soap opera from one of the Antipodean systems. For her, this

would be as good as it got. ‘Gather ye photo spreads while ye may.’ In

a few years her looks would fade and she’d discover she had nothing to

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There'sanewexhibitionatTateModern`TheTomorrowWindows'.Theconceptissimple:lookthroughaTomorrowWindowandyou'llseeintothefuture.You'llget`TheGistofThingstoCome'.Accordingtothepresspack,theTomorrowWindowsexhibitionwillbringaboutanendtowarandsuffering.Whichiswhysomeonedecidestoblowitup.Investigatingthis...

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69 - The Tomorrow Windows

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