Down (novel)

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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

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 pulverizes 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 realizes 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 realizes 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 realizing 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 realize 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 recognize) 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).

Characters

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" civilizations. 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

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 illegalize 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

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.[1]

Continuity

External links

v • e
Virgin Books New Adventures
Seventh
Doctor
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
Bernice
Summerfield
1997
1998
1999
  1. ↑ Sci-Fi London Interview
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