69 - The Tomorrow Windows
2024-12-08
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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
1
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.
4
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
6
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
8
摘要：
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There'sanewexhibitionatTateModern`TheTomorrowWindows'.Theconceptissimple:lookthroughaTomorrowWindowandyou'llseeintothefuture.You'llget`TheGistofThingstoCome'.Accordingtothepresspack,theTomorrowWindowsexhibitionwillbringaboutanendtowarandsuffering.Whichiswhysomeonedecidestoblowitup.Investigatingthis...
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分类：外语学习
价格：10玖币
属性：249 页
大小：741.27KB
格式：PDF
时间：2024-12-08
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