Don't Panic Page 26

  These grenades, which were small, red and spherical, and varied between minor incendiaries and nuclear devices, were detonated by impact—once their fuses had been primed by being struck by a bat. Finally, all preparations were complete, and with no warning at all the forces of Krikkit launched a massive blitz attack on all the major centres of the Galaxy simultaneously.

  The Galaxy reeled.

  At this time, the Galaxy was enjoying a period of great harmony and prosperity. This was often represented by the symbol of the Wicket Gate—three long vertical rods supporting two short horizontal ones. The left upright of STEEL, represented strength and power; the right upright, of PERSPEX, represented science and reason; the centre upright, WOOD, represented nature and spirituality. Between them they supported the GOLD bail of prosperity and the SILVER bail of peace.

  The star wars between Krikkit and the combined forces of the rest of the Galaxy lasted for a thousand years and wreaked havoc throughout the known Universe.

  After a thousand years of warfare, the Galactic forces, after some heavy initial defeats, eventually defeat the people of Krikkit. Then they have to face…

  THE GREAT DILEMMA

  The unswerving militant xenophobia of the Krikkitas rules out any possibility of reaching any modus vivendi, any peaceful co-existence. They continue to believe their sacred purpose is the obliteration of all other life forms.

  However, they are quite clearly not inherently evil but simply the victims of a freakish accident of history. It is therefore impossible to consider simply destroying them all. What can be done?

  THE SOLUTION

  The planet of Krikkit is to be encased for perpetuity in an envelope of Slow Time, inside which life will continue almost infinitely slowly. All light is deflected round the envelope so that it remains entirely invisible and impenetrable to the rest of the Universe. Escape from the envelope is impossible until it is unlocked from the outside.

  The action of Entropy dictates that eventually the whole Universe will run itself down, and at some point in the unimaginably distant future first life and then matter will simply cease to exist. At that time the planet of Krikkit and its sun will emerge from the Slow Time envelope and continue a solitary existence in the twilight of the Universe.

  The Lock which holds the envelope in place is on an asteroid which slowly orbits the envelope.

  The key was the symbol of the unity of the Galaxy—a Wicket of Steel, Wood, Perspex, Gold, and Silver.

  Shortly after the envelope had been locked, a group of escaped Krikkitmen had attempted to steal the Key in the process of which it was blasted apart and fell into the Space Time Vortex. The passage of each separate component was monitored by the Time Lords.

  The ship containing the escaped Krikkitmen had been blasted out of the sky.

  All the other millions of Krikkitmen were destroyed.

  The Doctor and Sarah go to Gallifrey to try and find some answers.

  The Doctor is furious with the bureaucratic incompetence of the Time Lords. The last component of the Wicket to emerge from the Space Time Vortex was the wooden centre stump which materialised in Melbourne, Australia in 1882 and was burnt the following year and presented as a trophy to the English cricket team.

  Only now, a hundred years later, have the Time Lords woken up to the fact that every part of the Wicket is now back in circulation and should be collected up and kept safely.

  The Time Lords at first refuse to believe the Doctor’s story that the Krikkitmen have stolen the Ashes of the wooden stump. They say that every single Krikkitman was accounted for, and they are all safe.

  “Safe!” exclaims the Doctor, “I thought they were all destroyed two million years ago!”

  “Ah well, not exactly destroyed, as such…” begins one of the Time Lords, and a rather curious story emerges.

  The Krikkitmen, it seems, were in fact sentient androids rather than mere robots. The difference is crucial, particularly in war time. A robot, however complex, is basically a programmable fighting machine, even if an almost infinitely large number of response patterns give it the appearance of intelligent thought.

  On the other hand, a sentient android is taught rather than programmed, it has a capacity for actual initiative and creative thought, and a corresponding slight reduction in efficiency and obedience—they are in fact artificial men and as such protected under the Galactic equivalent of the Geneva Convention. It was therefore not possible to exterminate the Krikkitmen, and they were instead placed in a specially constructed Suspended Animation Vault buried in Deep Time, an area of the Space Time Vortex under the absolutely exclusive control of the Time Lords. And no Krikkitman has ever left it.

  Suddenly, news arrives that the Perspex stump has disappeared from its hiding place. The Time Lords are forced to admit that the Doctor’s story may be true and tell him the locations of the other components of the Wicket.

  The Doctor and Sarah hurriedly visit the planets where the other components are stored.

  First, the Steel Stump. They are too late. It is gone.

  Second, the Gold Bail. It is gone.

  Third, the Silver Bail… it is still there! If they can retrieve it the Key is useless and the Universe is safe.

  It is worshipped as a sacred relic on the planet of Bethselamin. The Bethselamini are predictably a little upset when the Doctor and Sarah materialise in the chamber of worship and remove the Sacred Silver Bail. The Doctor cannot stay to argue the point but gives them all a little bow just as he is about to leave the chamber, thus fortuitously ducking his head at the precise moment that a Krikkit bat swings at him from the open door.

  They have arrived.

  A pitched battle ensues in which the Bethselamini are rather forced to conjoin on the Doctor’s side.

  During the battle, the Doctor finds his way into the Krikkitmen’s Pavilion, where he has to fight for his life. Just as a death blow is apparently about to be struck, the Doctor, half dazed, falls against a lever, and the Krikkitman slumps forward, paralysed.

  The Doctor has inadvertently switched them all off.

  The battle is over. The Doctor is incredulous. If it is possible simply to turn them off then they can’t possibly be sentient androids, they must be robots—so what were the Time Lords talking about? Why weren’t the Krikkitmen destroyed?

  The Bethselamini are recovering. Sarah seems to be slightly dazed, staring into the face of a paralysed Krikkitman. She soon recovers. We gather (though the Doctor doesn’t notice) that she may have been hypnotised.

  The Doctor dismantles one Krikkitman to examine its interior. He discovers that it is cunningly disguised as an android, but that in all crucial respects the circuitry is robotic, a fact that anyone making a thorough examination would quickly notice. Unless, of course, he didn’t want to look very hard…

  The Doctor and Sarah return to the Tardis. The next step is clear. If the Krikkitmen are merely robots after all, then they must all be destroyed at once. So—off to the Deep Time Vault.

  Sarah points out that they shouldn’t leave the Pavilion and paralysed Krikkitmen on Bethselamin, but take them back to Gallifrey for safe keeping and/or destruction.

  The Doctor complains that he can’t do both things at once. Sarah’s bright idea: if the Doctor will preset all the controls in the Pavilion and guarantee that all the Krikkitmen are now absolutely harmless, then she will take them back to Gallifrey and wait for him there.

  Nothing basically wrong with that, says the Doctor, and agrees. What he doesn’t see is that while his back is turned for a few moments Sarah quickly and quietly switches a few of the Tardis’s controls, whilst a foreign intelligence flickers briefly though her eyes.

  As they leave the Tardis, Sarah surreptitiously hangs her hat over a panel of lights.

  The Doctor sets the controls of the Pavilion, and rather reluctantly leaves her to it.

  As soon as she is alone, Sarah completely resets the Pavilion controls, and it dematerialises.

  The Do
ctor watches the Pavilion leave and then returns to the Tardis. Whilst he is setting the controls, he notices that one or two of them are in the wrong position. With a momentary frown, he resets them and dematerialises the Tardis.

  It is clear that the journey into Deep Time is immediately complicated, and actually requires the active assistance of the Time Lords on Gallifrey.

  Eventually the Tardis materialises in a large chamber full of life support sarcophagi. The chamber is clearly just one of a very large number.

  He leaves the Tardis. He passes Sarah’s hat, but fails to notice that underneath it a bright warning light is flashing. After he has gone a hand picks up the hat. Under it a lighted panel reads, “SCREENS BREACHED: INTRUDERS IN TARDIS”.

  The hand is Sarah’s. Keeping carefully out of sight, she follows the Doctor out of the Tardis.

  The Doctor has passed through into the next chamber. Sarah goes to a large control panel set in the wall of the chamber, and carefully, quietly, moves a switch.

  Krikkitmen are coming out of the Tardis.

  The Doctor has opened a sarcophagus and is examining the internal workings of the Krikkitman within it.

  Not far behind him another sarcophagus begins to open…

  The Doctor is intent on his work. This Krikkitman is also quite definitely a robot.

  A voice says, “Hello Doctor”. He starts and looks up. There in front of him is Sarah Jane. Around them are several dozen functioning Krikkitmen. All the sarcophagi are opening.

  A bat swings and connects with the back of the Doctor’s head. He falls.

  He comes to, lying in the Tardis, surrounded by Sarah and the Krikkitmen.

  “You should be on Gallifrey,” he says to her, “how did you get here? The Pavilion isn’t a Tardis machine, it can’t possibly travel into Deep Time.”

  Then he catches sight of the flashing panel which Sarah’s hat had previously obscured and the penny drops. He struggles to his feet and presses a button. A wall drops away and there behind it stands the Pavilion. Inside the Tardis.

  “So that’s why the switches were off. You lowered the Tardis’s defence field, and then reset the Pavilion’s controls so that instead of going to Gallifrey you materialised a few seconds later inside the Tardis. In fact I gave you all a free ride into Deep Time,” says the Doctor.

  A Krikkitman announces that the entire Krikkit army has now been revived—all five million of them, the Vault has been shifted out of Deep Time into normal space, and they must now go to release their masters on Krikkit.

  He orders the Doctor to transport the Tardis to the asteroid which holds the Lock.

  “And if I refuse?” asks the Doctor.

  “I will kill myself,” says the hypnotised Sarah Jane, holding a knife to her own throat.

  The Doctor complies.

  As soon as the Tardis materialises on the asteroid, Sarah slumps over. She is of no further use to the Krikkitmen. When she comes to, she can remember nothing since the battle in Bethselamin.

  The Krikkitmen have reconstituted the Ashes into the original stump shape, and reconstructed the Wicket Key.

  They bear it before them out onto the surface of the asteroid.

  The Doctor explains to Sarah that there, in front of them yet totally invisible, is the star and single planet of Krikkit. It has remained invisible and isolated for two million years, during which time it has only known the passage of five years. In another direction, they can see the great Dust Cloud that obscures the rest of the Galaxy.

  A very large altar-like structure rises out of the surface of the asteroid. A Krikkitman climbs up to and pulls a lever. A perspex block rises up out of the altar. It has deep grooves carved in it, evidently designed to hold the upright Wicket. The Wicket is inserted. Lights glow. Power hums. In a scene that would make Kubrick weep like a baby, the star slowly re-appears before them, with its planet tiny, but visible, in the distance.

  All the Krikkitmen turn to face the awe-inspiring sight and together chant, “Krikkit! Krikkit! Krikkit!”

  In that moment of distraction, the Doctor grabs Sarah and makes a dash for the Tardis. They escape leaving that small group of Krikkitmen stranded on the asteroid. The Doctor explains that there’s no point in trying to fight the robots now that they’ve all been released. Their only chance now is to go to the centre of it all… Krikkit. The Doctor is palpably scared stiff: Krikkit is about the most dangerous place that anyone other than a Krikkita could possibly go to. And they’ve got to go and make them change their minds…

  They land on the planet…

  Picking their way carefully through the back streets of a city, they suddenly inadvertently walk into a main square and come face to face with a large number of people.

  There is stunned shock on all the faces…

  After a few seconds on both sides, a howling cry starts up in the crowd—of pure animal fear and hatred. The Doctor and Sarah run for their lives with the crowd in hot pursuit.

  They duck down a side street—and suddenly find themselves ambushed from in front. They are knocked senseless…

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I owe a debt of thanks to all who helped with this book—not only those who gave interviews, who helped with the research, who made suggestions, but also to the people who made it easier for the book to be written by lending computers, making coffee, or just being nice at the right time.

  Thanks especially are due to:

  Alan Bell, Simon Brett, Kevin Davies, Jacqui Graham, Paddy Kingsland, John Lloyd, Geoffrey Perkins, and Cliff Pinnock for interviews above and beyond the call of duty.

  Hitchhiker librarian and unpaid archivist Terry Platt, and ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha, the Official Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Appreciation Society (www.zz9.org).

  Wendy Graham, Ian Pemble, John Peel, Richard Holliss (who once started writing it), John Brosnan (who once started editing it), Roz Kaveney, Bernie Jaye and Nick Landau, Igor Goldkind, Peter Hogan and all at Titan, Ken Burr and Julian Marks at Rapid Computers, and Eugene Beer at Beer-Davies.

  Two women with the same name: Mary Gaiman, my wife, who transcribed interviews fairly cheaply and put up with me for nothing; and my late grandmother, Mary Gaiman.

  Finally, the man without whom this book would have been highly improbable: Douglas Adams, who never made any jokes about how late I was with the manuscript.

  Neil. 1987. Late.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Neil Gaiman is the celebrated author of books, graphic novels, short stories, films, and television for readers of all ages. Some of his most notable titles include the highly lauded #1 New York Times bestseller Norse Mythology; the groundbreaking and award-winning Sandman comic series; The Graveyard Book (the first book ever to win both the Newbery and Carnegie Medals); American Gods, winner of many awards and recently adapted into the Emmy-nominated Starz TV series (the second season slated to air in 2019); The Ocean at the End of the Lane, which was the UK’s National Book Award 2013 Book of the Year. Good Omens, which he wrote with Terry Pratchett a very long time ago (but not quite as long ago as Don’t Panic) and for which Gaiman wrote the screenplay, will air on Amazon and the BBC in 2019.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and all extracts from the works of Douglas Adams are copyright © Douglas Adams 1987–2002 and used by permission.

  Copyright © 2009 by Neil Gaiman

  Cover design by Amanda Shaffer

  ISBN: 978-1-5040-5628-1

  This edition published in 2018 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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