Down (novel)

Down
Main character(s):	Bernice Summerfield
Featuring:	God
Main enemy:	The SSSSSSS, !X
Main setting:	Tyler's Folly, 14 January 2593
Key crew
Publisher:	Virgin Books
Writer:	Lawrence Miles
Cover by:	Mark Salwowski
Release details
Release number:	66
Release date:	2 September 1997
Format:	Paperback Book; 31 Chapters, 311 Pages
ISBN:	ISBN 0-426-20512-X
Virgin Bernice Summerfield New Adventures
← Previous	Ship of Fools
Next →	Deadfall

Down was the sixty-sixth Virgin New Adventures novel. It featured a reappearance of the People, who were introduced in Ben Aaronovitch's The Also People.

Publisher's summary

Mankind expects pain. However it seems to outsiders.

Tyler's Folly: a colony world on the unattractive side of Earthspace, a planet wracked by earthquakes and crawling with off-world bodysnatchers. When the local authorities pull a bedraggled Professor Bernice Summerfield out of the ocean in an off-limits 'quake zone, they naturally want to know what she is doing there... but the professor can only mumble something about woolly mammoths and sabre-toothed tigers.

According to Bernice, the planet is hollow, its interior inhabited by warring tribes of cavemen and strangely unconvincing prehistoric monsters. Some dark and ancient god rules this underground kingdom -- albeit a dark and ancient god with a penchant for thirties pulp adventures and Saturday morning action serials.

Can Bernice's claims be true? Is Tyler's Folly really under threat from an ageless subterranean horror? And why does so much of her story revolve around the utterly amoral alien known as !X...?

Chapter titles

• Prologue: The Worldsphere
• Reality
• Chapter 1: 'The Nightmare Begins!'
• Chapter 2: 'The Travellers from Beyond Infinity!'
• Chapter 3 'The Beast from Below the Waves!'
• Chapter 4: 'The Return of the Chrome Crusader!'
• Chapter 5: 'Peril from the Dawn of Time!'
• Chapter 6: 'Attack of the Death-Nazis!'
• Reality
• Chapter 7: 'Escape to Horror!'
• Chapter 8: 'Escape to Horror! (Slight Return)'
• Chapter 9: 'Expedition of the Damned!'
• Chapter 10: 'Eve of Exposition!
• Chapter 11: 'Doomed!'
• Chapter 12: 'Down, Down, Deeper, and Down!'
• Reality
• Chapter 13: 'Dirigibles of Death!'
• Chapter 14: 'The Caverns of Creeping Neurosis!'
• Chapter 15: 'The Horror! The Horror!'
• Chapter 16: 'Where the Wild Things Aren't!'
• Chapter 17: 'The Primordial Soup Dragon!'
• Chapter 18: 'Unholy Cathedral!'
• Reality
• Chapter 19: 'Slaves of the Machine God!'
• Chapter 20: 'The Time that the People Forgot!'
• Chapter 21: 'Countdown!'
• Chapter 22: 'The End! (Or Is It?)'
• Reality
• Chapter 23: 'The Curse of MEPHISTO!'
• Chapter 24: 'Reality!'
• Epilogue: The Worldsphere, and Other Wonderful Places

Plot

During the formative years of the Worldsphere, God isolated every single member of the People who were "Truly Crazed" onto their own continent, the si!Cera!ca ri!Qisla. Over time, all but one were cured. The last of the Truly Crazed, si!Xist-i!xatl-iVa!qara, was essentially cut off from the rest of reality. During this time, !X warped his reality into a hellscape to suit his own twisted desires.

One day, a member of the Department of [Entirely Optional] Corrections named Fos!ca visits !X's reality. Initially, !X simply torments Fos!ca - such as by showing her a dead duplicate of herself - but stops once Fos!ca reveals that she has been sent by God to accompany !X while he investigates a planet (with God choosing !X due to the treaties of non-interference signed by the People).

On the planet Tyler's Folly, Bernice Summerfield is dragged from the ocean in an off-limits "quake zone" near McClure's Atoll and thrown into jail. An RSF officer named Pupp is perturbed by the prisoner, as she asked what to "the commander" while being dragged out of the sea - making Pupp assume that she is an agent of the Earth Empire. Before interrogating Bernice, Pupp pulls the files of the St. Oscar's University expedition to the planet - revealing that Bernice was (officially) accompanied by two students from the Neuro-seismology Department. After Pupp leaves, his "chunkputer" mysteriously turns itself on and scans through the files that Pupp accessed.

Once in Benny's cell, Pupp tries to get Bernice to admit that she is an Imperialist agent by picking apart the story she told when she was first thrown in jail - that Tyler's Folly is hollow and has a thriving ecosystem within it. Though Bernice does not break down, she does agree to tell the "whole story".

In the Xan Burrosa market of Dellah, two Neuro-seismology students named Ash and Lucretia discover a mysterious glass-like object that was pulled out of the oceans of Tyler's Folly after an earthquake. While they try to buy the object, a mysterious bald man with a Germanic accent attempts to buy it out from under them but fails to do so as he has none of the local currency.

A week later, Bernice wakes up after a party to a call from Ash (who met Benny at one of the professor's lectures on Mars) inviting her to look at the artefact she found. On arriving at the Neuro-seismology Department, Bernice finds that the two students have cut open the object and found a diary written in by the legendary explorer Nils Kryptosa detailing his final voyage. Though Benny assumes that the diary is a fraud, she finds it odd that someone would construct such an elaborate fraud. Lucretia leaves for her room to get her research scratchpad but is overwhelmed by feelings that something is wrong before she is knocked out by a mysterious figure and kidnapped. After Lucretia goes missing, Bernice and Ash begin looking for her. The Goll security of Tyler's Folly refuse to help them and they find no trace of the man who sold Ash and Lucretia the object from Tyler's Folly. As such, they are forced to travel to the watery world. The two travel to McClure's Atoll (where Kryptosa supposedly entered into the world beneath the surface of Tyler's Folly. Unbeknownst to them, they are not alone on Tyler's Folly.

Meanwhile, !X and Fos!ca warp into the orbit of Tyler's Folly in a bathosphere - which begins "falling" towards the planet. During this planetfall, Fos!ca tries to avoid the last of the Truly Crazed and jumps at every little noise. Once the bathosphere falls into the oceans of Tyler's Folly (presumably near McClure's Atoll) where they are noticed by an explosive shellfish and a giant squid. To escape being destroyed by the giant squid, !X pulverises the beast's pupil using the bathosphere's suspensor fields. Shortly after this, the bathosphere begins moving uncontrollably as it gets caught in a gravitational anomaly. This gets noticed by a mysterious creature living in the depths of Tyler's Folly.

Presumably at the same time that Benny and Ash make planetfall, Lucretia awakens and finds that she has been tied up with her only company being her own reflection. She begins to talk to her own reflection but is noticed by her captors (with one of these captors having the same accent as the mysterious man from the Xan Burrosa market) who knock her out again.

Though Benny and Ash hear the bathosphere making planetfall, they ignore it and begin exploring McClure's Atoll. They find various inscriptions in "grave-robber script" in the tunnels beneath the Atoll before a 'quake rips through the tunnels - trapping the two women underground. Ash hears a figure moving through the tunnels. Once this figure comes into view, it is revealed to be the pulpzine hero Mr. Misnomer. Though shocked that Misnomer is seemingly real, Benny simply regards it as "stupid". This leads Mr. Misnomer to swear at Benny - shocking Ash, as within the pulpazines Mr. Misnomer never swore. Due to this, Mr. Misnomer reveals that he has been alive for over seventy years (though he only looks to be fifty, at least according to Bernice) after he punches a chunk of the rock wall away with his bare hands. He also reveals that he visited Tyler's Folly due to a subconscious desire to defeat evil which led him to the planet. As he looks through the cave walls, Misnomer notices an odd symbol that sits in front of a cluster of rocks. While Misnomer disturbs the rocks, Benny realises that they block off a gravitational anomaly but is unable to stop him before the rocks collapse and the three travellers are sucked into the gravitational anomaly.

After some time spent in the gravitational anomaly, the bathosphere is nearly killed - with its form said to "resemble a corpse". Fos!ca is unphased by this as she discovers that !X has gone missing. Though this (and the thought of leaving Tyler's Folly once the bathosphere is repaired) calms her for a brief moment, she realises that God will not let the two of them leave without investigating the planet.

Bernice awakens in a mysterious garishly-coloured jungle with a "mutant blood-sucking dragonfly" attached to her body. On realising that said dragonfly is feasting on her body, Benny is sent into a berserk state but is unable to kill the dragonfly. She is saved by Mr. Misnomer, who believes that the gravitational anomaly brought the two of them into an enviroment sitting underneath the surface of Tyler's Folly (something that Benny refuses to believe, instead postulating that the gravitational anomaly somehow transported the three travellers off-world). Bernice also notices that Ash is missing. As such, Benny and Mr. Misnomer decide to begin wandering the mysterious jungle.

The two soon come across undeniable proof that they are within a subterranean environment, as they find the edge of their section of ground. The sight of this makes Benny realise that they are within a dyson sphere similar to the Worldsphere. While near the edge, the two see a pterodactyl flying overheard. Though Mr. Misnomer ignores this, it is revealed that the pterodactyl is being used by a mysterious group known as "the Eldest" as a living surveillance system. The Eldest discuss the intruders into their domain - stating that one of them is a figure from their "prophecies" and that the rest will soon be slain, as they are unknowingly in "sabre-tooth territory".

Meanwhile, Ash (who landed a great distance from where Benny and Mr. Misnomer ended up) evades a sabre-tooth tiger by hiding in a herd of mammoths who are visiting a lake to "relieve" themselves. While Ash nears the lake, a sea monster emerges from the lake - scaring the mammoths away. Though Ash assumes it to be a plesiosaur at first, it is revealed to be a vehicle of some sort after a hatch opens up in its body. From out of the bowels of ship come members of the SSSSSSS, a group of interstellar neo-Nazis. On seeing these forces, Ash flees before she can be noticed and finds the bathosphere. While investigating it, she is knocked out by !X.

Meanwhile, Benny and Mr. Misnomer talk about dyson spheres and the People before they are caught in the stampede of mammoths fleeing from the lake. Once the mammoths flee past them the duo are found and shot at by SSSSSSS soldiers before being captured. Bernice is brought before Kommander Katastrophen and Doktor Fetisch while tied to an operating table with electro-clamps. Katastrophen reveals that they are the ones who kidnapped Lucretia and that they intend on forcibly taking "genetic samples" from Benny.

Pupp pauses the story for a brief moment due to his disbelief about a submarine cruising through the waters of Tyler's Folly disguised as a sea monster. Benny reveals that the submarine was retrofitted with a warp drive - allowing it to warp directly into the interior of Tyler's Folly while avoiding even a glimpse of its surface. Though frightened by the thought of this, Pupp presses Benny further - leading Benny to facetiously invite Pupp to use mind probes on her. From this, Pupp begins to believe that Benny was implanted with vital Imperial secrets and that her story is nothing more than a smokescreen for said secrets. Before Pupp can find out more, he is called out of the room by his constable who reveals that they found two more offworlders. Due to this, Pupp has his constable record more of Benny's story while he leaves.

!X begins to strangle Ash but before he can kill her, he is found by Fos!ca. Though !X nearly strangles his captive to death, he lets Ash go then leaves the two behind. Fos!ca tries to console Ash but fails due to the vast gulf between their two cultures.

Some time before Benny and Mr. Misnomer were captured, Lucretia was moved into an airlock which had been converted by the SSSSSSS into a makeshift cell. As Lucretia sits on the floor, the SSSSSSS soldiers move Mr. Misnomer (who Lucretia does not immediately recognise) into the same "cell". After the submarine shakes, Mr. Misnomer smashes his jailers and begins a "prison" break - taking Lucretia as his companion. Around the same time, the submarine's power goes out. Due to this, Benny breaks out of her clamps and runs into a wall in the darkness before rushing out of the room as Katastrophen shoots at her. Shortly after this, the sub shakes again. Katastrophen calls the bridge who reveal that the submarine is being bombarded with explosive shellfish.

After noticing that !X has gone missing, Fos!ca and Ash discuss the "mission" that God gave Fos!ca and !X along with their ship (which may or may not be alive, though Fos!ca doubts this). Unbeknownst to them, they are being watched by !X from the shadows. Once their conversation stops being interesting to him, !X stops watching but feels the presence of another intelligence nearby his own body. Within their chamber, the Eldest are shocked by the fact that !X has seemingly noticed them. Around this time, Fos!ca notices that the bathosphere has seemingly repaired itself right before "something large, hairy and roughly man-shaped" drops out of the jungle.

While trying to reach the airlock, Benny is accidentally hit with a rifle by Lucretia. Once the three reunite, Mr. Misnomer begins a plan to wipe out the SSSSSSS forces but is interrupted by Benny, who proposes that they simply leave out of the airlock (as the SSSSSSS's submarine has most likely taken enough damage from the exploding shellfish to force it to surface). Once outside of the submarine, the three find themselves in a chamber inhabited by "Gugs" (one of the two "cultured" tribes documented in Kryptosa's journal). Bernice attempts to communicate with them but fails as the Gug language is only comprised of a singular word - Gug. During this communication, one of the Gugs says "We'll be right back after this short break" then reverts back to only saying "gug". Shortly after this, the SSSSSSS forces emerge from their submarine and fire on the Gugs. Though it seems that the Gugs will be slaughtered, they use exploding shellfish to strike back at the SSSSSSS soldiers. Despite seemingly having superior firepower, the SSSSSSS soldiers lose their battle with the Gugs - with half of their soldiers dying from explosive shellfish. While surveying the aftermath, Katastrophen notices the three escaped prisoners. He attempts to get them to return into the submarine but fails as Bernice is pointing a rifle at him. Due to this (along with their failure to win a battle with cavemen armed with makeshift explosives), Bernice is able to convince Katastrophen to join into an alliance with her. The new alliance emerges from the cavern onto a rock ledge. While there, Benny learns from Katastrophen that the SSSSSSS are looking for the "Pool of Life" - the mythical source of Aryan blood which is supposedly kept within a hollow world which is said to be guarded by the "Tribe of Lillith" (a name which is mentioned within Kryptosa's journal). Shortly after this, the SSSSSSS bring out one of the Gugs and attempt to interrogate him in an attempt to find the Pool of Life. Though this largely fails, the Gug scrawls out something after being extremely frightened by the sight of a nearby plateau. That thing is a name, "MEPHISTO".

While in the jungle, !X hears Fos!ca and Ash fleeing from several of the man-shaped figures before they find him. Though Fos!ca wishes to reason with them using her skill in primate psychology, !X uses a tree branch to impale one of the pursuers before smashing in the skull of a second pursuer with a rock. During this, !X notices that the pursuers are hideously deformed. The sight of such violent deaths begins an existential crisis in Fos!ca. In an attempt to scare off any future attackers, !X beheads one of the corpses and puts its head on a pike. This sickens Ash (leading her to analyze the works of Mr. Misnomer in her head) and furthers Fos!ca's existential crisis. Despite this, the two of them follow !X after he travels deeper into the jungle. As !X, Fos!ca, and Ash travel deeper into the underground, the gravitational anomaly (which supplies the inside of Tyler's Folly with its own psychic field) begins to affect the light put out by the inside sun - making it look like the sun is setting. Fos!ca looks directly at the sun using a second retina implanted into her eye and then looks at !X. What she sees is so horrifying to her that it blinds her in that eye. Around the same time, she and Ash begin to hear a thumping sound - presumably, natives thumping drums - as they trudge deeper and deeper into the jungle. As Fos!ca trudges deeper into the jungle, she succumbs further and further into paranoid thinking and begins to scream. Presumably while Fos!ca screams, Ash gets lost in the dark - a horrifying thing for her due to her fear in the dark. While stumbling through the dark, Ash finds !X - who is meeting with what he calls "his people".

While feigning to plot a double-cross with Mr. Misnomer, Benny scans a nearby rock using a stolen palmtop in an attempt to find out if it has been "fiddled with". These scans reveal that the rock has absolutely no electrons within it. Shortly after this, an expedition to the nearby plateau begins. Among their number is the Gug captured by the SSSSSSS who is used as a hostage by them to scare off any future attacks by other Gugs. Unbeknownst to any of the members of the expedition, they are being watched by the Eldest through the eyes of nearby Gugs. Though the "Angriest of the Eldest" wishes to kill every member of the expedition, the others agree to wait for nightfall to make any move. As "darkness" falls, the expedition sets up camp on Katastrophen's orders. The SSSSSSS soldiers build a campfire and pretend to be drunk while Mr. Misnomer smokes (which leads to him discussing the nature of addiction with Lucretia) and Benny begins to write in her diary. While doing this, she notices Katastrophen attempting to spy on her using a tiny airborne surveillance device. After making said device flee, Benny writes about the hollow (metaphorical and physical) nature of Tyler's Folly before throwing her pen off the side of the mountain. After his probe returns to him, Katastrophen meets with Benny and attempts to her to ally with him due to a shared creed as archaeologists. Benny refuses even this, largely due to the SSSSSSS (or "Sods", as she calls them)'s nature as Neo-Nazis. Around this time, the Eldest begin their attack on the expedition. While examining rocks, Doktor Fetisch is the first to notice this assault - as he is found by an ape sent by the Eldest.

In a memo sent to Pupp, a behavioural analyst named W. Bicknel psychoanalyzes Benny. He finds that Benny completely believes her story but frequently exaggerates (stating that Benny would describe a two-meter high sabretooth tiger as a three-meter high sabertooth). He also finds that her body language is filled with odd quirks. Appended to this memo is a transcript of an interview given to Pupp's constable, Aposta. This interview describes the assault on the party. During the assault, the apes used weapons that encased the victim in a fluid used suspensed-animation units (essentially, a freeze gun). During the interview, Benny becomes more and more nervous. This is due to how Mr. Misnomer reacted to the assault - by firing indiscrimanently at the apes, who looked extremely shocked and scared at this. This interview ends after Pupp enters and reveals that two of Benny's associates have been found (though he refuses to reveal who they are).

Ash and Fos!ca are dragged to a clearing made by the gravitational anomaly and tied to sacrificial altars by !X's "people" (a group of Gugs mutated by close proximity to the anomaly). Though Fos!ca assumes that !X will save them, !X arrives holding a weapon made by the Tribe of Lillith and has one of "his people" sacrifice both of them. Right before Ash and Fos!ca are sacrificed, !X kills his own "people". He reveals that the sacrifice was a strategy to show his own beliefs on the nature of violence and the complacency of the People. He frees Fos!ca and enters into the anomaly with her - leaving Ash tied to a slab below him. As !X floats towards the surface of the sun, he encounters various beings whose bodies have been warped by the gravitational anomaly. Close to its surface, he finds a liquid being which attacks him. !X quickly dispatches the lifeform before meeting several other liquid beings who ask if he is a messenger from MEPHISTO.

While Mr. Misnomer fires on the apes, Lucretia trips and lands on Kommander Katastrophen (who has also fallen due to an old leg injury). By telling her a story about his time spent in the Hell Camps of Darvilleva-Q, Katastrophen is able to convince Lucretia to carry him. The two stumble through the jungle until they sight the adjacent plateau - which is inhabited by a group of humanoid beings which evolved biological flaps in their arms allowing them to glide through the air. As the two watch, a "dirigible" built from the body of a still-living lizard floats overheard. As Katastrophen and Lucretia watch the blimp, three apes warp right in front of them. Katastrophen tries to attack them but is stopped by Lucretia. A fourth ape warps in right as a "ladder" emerges from the dirigible. Once in the dirigible, Lucretia is driven nigh-catatonic with fear due to a teleporter within its bowels. This fear, dubbed "molecular vertigo", started due to educational broadcasts Lucretia watched as a child and is founded from her belief that teleporters kill their users instead of simply duplicating them. While Lucretia is in this catatonic state, Katastrophen tells her that the two of them need to escape. As Katastrophen begins to formulate an escape plan, the apes (who reveal themselves to be members of the Tribe of Lillith) receieve their message from the Eldest. The revelation that the Tribe of Lillith are "subhumans" existentially disturbs Katastrophen and he attacks them before dragging himself and Lucretia (whom he thinks is asking to use the transporter due to her nigh-catatonic state). On activating the machine, the two are broken down into their component pieces. The original "Lucretia" and "Katastrophen" cease to exist and duplicates are formed.

Mr. Misnomer - dragging Bernice alongside him - enters into a frozen cave (presumably frozen by the apes' freeze-guns). While navigating the caves, Mr. Misnomer fires at any apes that he sees. Bernice tries to get him to stop shooting at the apes (claiming that they are the Tribe of Lillith) but Misnomer refuses to do this. Using a stolen freeze-gun as a light, Mr. Misnomer and Bernice descend deeper and deeper into the caves. Bernice begins to talk about the cave feeling artificial before Mr. Misnomer accidentally angers a nest of bats. While the bats attack them, Bernice notices that one of them is staring her in the eyes. Unbeknownst to Bernice, the bats are being used as surveillance devices by the Eldest - who are shocked when they find out that Bernice is aware of something using the bats. As such, they command that every human left alive is to be brought to "the cathedral". While being attacked by the bats, Benny briefly goes unconscious and has a vision of an afterlife filled with various versions of herself who died in teleporters. On returning to consciousness, Benny finds herself and Mr. Misnomer being carried by members of the Tribe of Lillith to the dirigible. Once inside of the dirigible, Benny is healed using bio-engineered leeches before being brought before the Eldest.

While still tied to the slab, Ash hears the call of the Eldest - who plan on bringing her to the cathedral all on their own. After being freed by the Eldest, Ash is brought onto the dirigible that the Eldest are using. By this time, Ash has become extremely aware of all of the secrets held by Tyler's Folly and MEPHISTO and is alarmed by nothing going on within the planet. Once Bernice and Mr. Misnomer join Ash, they discuss what MEPHISTO means with the Eldest of the Tribe of Lillith. According to the Eldest, the Tribe of Lillith are descendants of the Gnostic Lillith - the mythical first woman before Eve. They also believe that Lillith was driven away from God's control by MEPHISTO. On hearing this, Bernice claims that it is a collection of "human symbolism" that the Tribe have adapted into their own culture without any knowledge of its context or origins. After this talk, the Eldest have some of their servants spray a hypoallergenic acid on the walls of the dirigible. Soon, the sun - the home of MEPHISTO - comes into view. As the dirigible enters into the sun, it is "swallowed" by the sun and its crew are liquified. Instead of dying, their nervous systems go haywire and merge - causing horrifying hallucinations. Everyone on board screams.

Out of existential anger and grief at her own death, "Lucretia Scannon" beats "Katastrophen" after recovering from a fugue state. After recovering from her anger, Lucretia notices that she and Katastrophen are in a large cavern of smooth black rock. Lucretia then briefly shuts down to mourn for her past self before Katastrophen notices a large pool of thick pink liquid - the Pool of Life. As the two watch, a humanoid figure is formed from the pool. This figure proclaims itself to be the lost archaeologist Kryptosa. On discovering that the figure is Kryptosa, Katastrophen and Lucretia ask him how he ended up within Tyler's Folly. Kryptosa states that he visited the planet before its colonisation to film a documentary on the archetype of the Inner World but his memories are vague and he is (at least partially) unaware of his true nature as a liquid being within the Pool of Life. One thing that he is absolutely certain of is that he never wrote a journal. Shortly after this, Kryptosa dissolves so that he can "rest" and the two intruders to the Pool of Life are left alone for a brief moment before a horde of Tribesfolk materialise into the cave.

Seeking to find out more about Benny's story, Pupp visits one of the other offworlders held in custody. This turns out to be Ash - who is shadowed by a medic and Constable Aposta. Pupp tries to interrogate Ash but she tells the Officer very little. The medic (a young man named Cafferty) suggests injecting her with more Prozac-5166b and give her brain a rest. Pupp agrees to this. While the drugs begin to take effect, Ash thinks of the true nature of Tyler's Folly.

Once inside of the sun - an enviroment whose walls resemble a massive cathedral with huge stained glass windows - Bernice intuits that they are not within the true center of Tyler's Folly. Instead, they are within a gravity pocket outside of regular space-time. Around the same time, the Tribe warp Lucretia and Katastrophen into the dirigible. After being reunited with them, the "crew" of the dirigible notice something lurking within the center of the cathedral. This is MEPHISTO - a massive machine covered (or largely made out of) blue-grey biomass with some mechanical parts visible. On noticing its new company, MEPHISTO extrudes a simplistic face (a smiley face edited to look mischevious and devilish) and a voice begins speaking. At first, Bernice assumes that it is the voice of MEPHISTO but it is revealed to be !X after he emerges from the innards of MEPHISTO. After introducing himself, !X returns "Kryptosa"'s journal to Bernice. After Mr. Misnomer asks how he is tied to MEPHISTO, the machine begins to communicate directly with its new company. Its face becomes a massive screen and begins to tell its story in pictures.

According to MEPHISTO, it was a rogue member of the People exiled by God itself from the Worldsphere. After being exiled, MEPHISTO landed on Tyler's Folly and buried itself deep into the surface of the planet. The story is told through a video largely made up of religious symbolism - the exile of MEPHISTO is equated with the exile of Satan (as seen in Paradise Lost) while God is shown to be a figure composed of divine fire. According to Benny, this is the result of a cultural filter. She also postulates that the entire Inner World of Tyler's Folly is a representation of Hell, or rather the evolution of a subterranean Hell into the classical Inner World. After the video ends, !X states that his fellow visitors will merge with MEPHISTO and become nothing more than a part of its operating system. To help !X capture his "companions", MEPHISTO creates two robotic henchmen who promptly attack the assembled travellers. While being attacked, Mr. Misnomer begins punching MEPHISTO and finds its self-destruct switch - which he promptly flips.

Once MEPHISTO's self-destruct sequence is enabled, its robot henchmen stop working. The assembled travellers rush for the dirigible, where they encounter !X. Instead of trying to stop or kill them, !X allows them to enter into the dirigible. Ash tries to tell Bernice that the self-destruct is a sham but Bernice does not listen. As the dirigible flies through the sun, everyone's nervous systems go haywire and merge once again. Bernice attempts to look past the distracting hallucinations and gets a glimpe into everyone's minds (including Fos!ca, who never entered into the sun but has become "a part of the process" regardless) right before the countdown reaches 000 and MEPHISTO explodes. The dirigible escapes being destroyed in the explosion but is thrown out of control by the shockwave. The Eldest are killed after the ship jolts while their human company survives.

On recovering from the blast, Bernice realises that the dirigible is about to make a crash-landing. Due to this, she (along with Ash and Mr. Misnomer) make their way to the dirigible's controls. Though she has never seen the controls before, Ash finds that she instinctually knows how to use the controls. She and Benny fly the ship towards one of the craters leading to the surface and plan to jump out of the dirigible. Before they can do this, the creature goes berserk after they take their hands off the controls. Mr. Misnomer is able to get the dirigible back under control and decides to sacrifice himself to keep the dirigible under control long enough for Ash, Benny, and Lucretia to jump off the dirigible. While Mr. Misnomer takes control of the dirigible, Ash finds Lucretia standing over the dirigible's transmat intending to use it to escape. Though Lucretia tries to convince Ash that she is "already dead", Ash takes her away. Around the same time, Benny jumps off of the dirigible - landing into a gravitational glitch formed by the destruction of the MEPHISTO machine. Though she assumes that she will be killed by her proximity to the exploding dirigible, she is actually shunted out of the glitch and onto the surface of Tyler's Folly.

Once Benny finishes telling her story, Pupp returns to his office. On entering, he finds that everything feels different. Pupp boots up his chunkputer to file the interviews with the arrest record but discovers that there has been an integrity breach. As the face of Chairman Manx is replaced with the smiley face of MEPHISTO in a nearby portrait, !X walks into the room and attacks Pupp. Inside of her cell, Bernice begins to think over her story. It is revealed to us that Mr. Misnomer was nothing more than an invention of Bernice's mind to smooth over uncomfortable details within her own story - those being her own massacre of the Tribe of Lillith and Kommander Katastrophen sacrificing himself instead of Mr. Misnomer. While Bernice is thinking over her story, !X enters her cell. He tells her that the "MEPHISTO machine" within the core of Tyler's Folly was nothing more than a representation created by the Tribe of Lillith. He offers to tell Bernice the true story of MEPHISTO before killing her.

As the Inner World of Tyler's Folly begins to fall apart and burn due to the destruction of the MEPHISTO machine, Kryptosa reforms from the Pool of Life and writes his last shooting script in his own mind.

Long, long ago - presumably before the birth of humanity, there lived a race of immensely powerful beings. Though they were extremely powerful, they actively avoided technology and sciences and instead worked in ideas. Due to their immense power, these ideas spread out across the universe and influenced various other worlds. One of these ideas was the dystopia (or more accurately, horror and "wrongness"). Though this idea touched most planets, it only took root within Tyler's Folly. Though the archetype had taken root, the planet remained largely formless until Kryptosa arrived on its surface. Shortly after arriving and influencing the planet, he was captured by the Tribe of Lillith and put into the Pool of Life to protect the planet from alien invasion. The Tribe of Lillith also engineered the surface of the planet to keep humans from noticing it (though this ultimately failed, as most of the surface was based around Kryptosa's memories of his homeworld, Ordifica). Several centuries later, God sent !X and he became a part of the process surrounding Tyler's Folly - the process known as MEPHISTO (short for Mankind Expects Pain. However It Seems To Outsiders). The destruction of the MEPHISTO machine did not end the process - it merely let it exit the "womb" of Tyler's Folly.

While !X tells the story to Bernice, Lucretia opens the door to Ash's cell. Lucretia reveals that the entirety of the station that they are being held in has gone quiet. She also reveals that she has been joined by Fos!ca - who followed !X. The trio soon realise that Bernice might be in danger. They find that !X has sealed Bernice's cell door and fused the lock. After telling his story, !X points a stasis weapon at Bernice's face and sets it to kill. At first, Bernice thinks that !X simply wishes to taunt her before killing her but she soon realises that he is serving as a part of the MEPHISTO process and is waiting for her to either attack him or accept death. Bernice grabs for the stasis gun and wrestles it out of his hands. Using a siege weapon "liberated" from the abandoned weapons stores, Ash breaks into the cell. She finds Bernice standing over the body of !X. Though at first it looks like Bernice killed !X, she reveals that she used the statis feature of the gun on him.

On returning to the Worldsphere with the stunned !X, Fos!ca speaks with God. God hints (though does not explicitly reveal) that he influenced events to make sure that the "birthing" of MEPHISTO happened properly - including bringing Bernice to a world that is interstellar neighbours with Tyler's Folly. He also says that he will return !X to Paradise. Meanwhile, on Tyler's Folly, Pupp's successor looks over the interrogation files and begins to think of ways of getting revenge on Professor Bernice Summerfield.

Characters

• Bernice Summerfield
• !X (aka si!Xist-i!xatl-iVa!qara)
• Kommander Ernst Katastrophen
• Lucretia Caroline Scannon
• Fos!ca
• Ashtaroth "Ash" Juliandis
• Quinton Pupp
• Frans Nils Kryptosa
• MEPHISTO
• The Eldest of the Eldest
• The Youngest of the Eldest
• Doktor Wilhelm Fetisch
• God
• The SSSSSSS

Worldbuilding

Archaeology and paleontology

• In the twenty-second century, it was discovered that the supposed dinosaur Archaeopteryx was actually a fraud created using pigeon bones.
• An Osgood-DeBono test is a test to measure the truthfulness of an artifact. It uses a "Realometer" and its system of measurement is a "Fact".
• Frans Nils Kryptosa was an archaeologist, explorer, and the "Meister of Natural Sciences" at New Heidelberg University who discovered various "lost" civilisations. Named works penned by Kryptosa include In Search of Ancient Mu and A Short Trip to the Centre of Creation.
• Grave-robber script is a type of hieroglyph used by archaeologists in the twenty-third century to mark objects due to archaeologists being regarded as essentially a criminal underclass in those times. Though its use is largely extinct by the 26th century, Bernice Summerfield has at least a competent understanding of it.

Books

• The SSSSSSS use at least 18 official hymns and the handbook Mein Pantz by Bernard Richtmanstances.

Food and drink

• Burnitser-Holtz is a brand of alcohol which is said to turn saliva black.

Law and order

• As !X is not part of the People's society he is not bound by the Time Lord-People Treaty.
• Due to protests from the Stellenbosch VI Nelson Mandela Memorial Commune, the members of the Republican Security Forces use body cameras to record their actions.

Literature

• Mr. Misnomer is the front-man of a series of extremely lucrative and influential pulpzines from the 2530s. His known enemies include "Dr. Harbinger" and possibly the "Nemesis Doomsday Engine" while known companions include "Binky Sharperton". Known pulpzines include:
  • Mr. Misnomer and the Fiend Without a Future
  • Mr. Misnomer and the Thousand-Fathom Horror
  • The Fall of the House of Mr. Misnomer
  • Mr. Misnomer verses the Queen of Xenophobia
  • Mr. Misnomer and the Underwater Bears
  • The Shadow of the Dying Ones

Locations

• !X and Fos!ca are of the People who live in the Worldsphere, both it and Tyler's Folly are examples of Dyson spheres.
• The Xan Burrosa market is a market on the planet Dellah. It is close enough to St. Oscar's University that students frequent it.

Organisations

• SSSSSSS stands for Stella Stora Sigma Schutz-Staffel SturmSoldaten. They are the most ineffective Nazi group since the Outer Hebridean National Party.
• Notable groups within the People's society include the "Rare and Exotic Pollutants Interest Group" and "Tiny But Interesting Interest Group".

Planets

• Kryptosa was born on Ordifica.
• The Worldsphere is 17 galaxies from Dellah.
• The SSSSSSS' power base is a small sausage factory on Smarley's World.
• Tyler's Folly is a planet within the Cygnus Mortis constellation (the same constellation as Dellah, which is one of its interstellar neighbours). Originally purchased by a man named Jodecai Tyler (whom is the namesake of the planet), it is a watery world ruled over by a nigh-fascistic police state known as the Republican Security Forces whom are separatists from the Earth Empire. Its people (the "Tylerkind") have slight genetic differences to regular humans and use this to keep separate from the Empire.
• Thrapos 3 is a planet known for producing low-quality technology.
• Sarah-361 is a colonyworld whose population was ravaged by a plague. Due to this, its governing forces enacted various measures to unnaturally create a population boom (such as trying to illegalise celibacy) and enacting a form of eugenics to make traits "desirable in human beings" proliferate. Due to growing up on this world, Lucretia Scannon became extremely embarrased about her own body and usually wears a dufflecoat.

Psychology

• Teleportaphobia also known as "Molecular Vertigo" is described here as the fear of matter transmission.

Religions

• The Tashwari believe (or at least claim to believe) that their race was created by a group known as "the Seeders" who "walked the pathways of time before time itself was poured into being" and seeded Dellah with life using an object known as the Grail of Zzzztii.

Species

• Katastrophen is reminded of buffo frogs.

Vehicles

• The SSSSSSS submarine uses warp drive but goes through oceans between planets instead of space.

Notes

• The introduction of Down listed a web address (www.ndirect.co.uk/shebeen) stated to contain background material to the novel. Though the link is no longer active, the novel's glossary, footnotes, and appendices were archived here.
• Down re-introduces the People. This includes Ben Aaronovitch's unique pronunciations for their names; a full explanation can be found in the introduction to The Also People.
• The submarine was originally intended to be black, but after the cover artist rendered it as pink, Miles rewrote its colour.

Continuity

• PROSE: The Also People introduced the People and was the first meeting between Bernice and the People.
• Ordifica is mentioned in PROSE: Ghost Devices and seen in PROSE: Interference - Book One.
• Frans Nils Kryptosa was previously mentioned in PROSE: Beyond the Sun and PROSE: Ship of Fools.
• Students often return from Xan Burrosa with a counterfeit Martian "Spear of Tuburr". (PROSE: Legacy, GodEngine, COMIC: Ascendance)
• The planet Youkali is referenced. This planet was first mentioned in SLEEPY and later features in Return of the Living Dad.
• A constable remembers watching a vidcast of Summerfield testifying on Stanturus Three. (PROSE: Dragons' Wrath)
• Earth uses mind probes in cases of severe security breaches. (TV: Frontier in Space)
• Fos!ca thinks the Metatraxi are "famous" for eating their own parents. (PROSE: Alien Bodies, AUDIO: Crime of the Century)
• Bernice steals a Selachian palmtop from one of the Nazis. (PROSE: Killing Ground, The Murder Game, et al.)
• Bernice jokes the sequel to Down Among the Dead Men will be called "Fear and Sloathes in Las Vegas". (PROSE: Sky Pirates!)
• Ash recalls the President of Earth who served from 2536 to 2541 was female. (TV: Frontier in Space)
• Believing time travel would undermine the capitalism, the Time-and-Motion Lords prevented its development in human economic space, leading to the creation of the first official time machine being pushed to the 50th century. (TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang)
• Katastrophen notes transmat has been used since the 21st century. (TV: The Seeds of Death)
• For In Search of Ancient Mu, Kryptosa investigated Vo'lach Prime (PROSE: Ghost Devices) and Yemaya, (PROSE: SLEEPY) as well as "a dead world at the centre of the galaxy, which legends claim was the birthplace of the very first humanoid civilization". (PROSE: Dead Romance)
• Tyler's Folly and its continued status are later mentioned in PROSE: Alien Bodies, Beige Planet Mars, The Infinity Doctors, and Dead Romance.
• While talking about why she refuses to ally with Katastrophen, Benny mentions her torture at the hands of the Nazis. (PROSE: Just War)

External links

• Down at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• The Discontinuity Guide to: Down at The Whoniverse
• The Cloister Library: Down
• Down The Director's Cut by Lawrence Miles via Internet Archive - The Wayback Machine