“Young Jack is having a pop at the Professor,” said Omally. “He is definitely working some kind of a flanker.”

A look of perplexity had crossed Professor Slocombe’s face. He cast about for a reason, but none was forthcoming. A gentle tap at his elbow suddenly marshalled his thoughts. “There is one outside and one by the machine,” said Edgar Allan Poe.

Professor Slocombe nodded.

“May I ask the purpose of the game?”

“It is a challenge match between the hostelry known as the Four Horsemen and our own beloved Flying Swan,” Professor Slocombe replied telepathically.

“Then may I ask why you allow your opponents the edge by having their missiles guided by a spirit form?” A smile broke out upon Professor Slocombe’s face which did not go unnoticed by John Omally.

“He’s sussed it,” said John.

Professor Slocombe leant close to the ear of Young Jack. “Have you ever heard me recite the rite of exorcism?” he asked. “I have it down to something of a fine art.”

Young Jack cast the old man the kind of look which could deflower virgins and cause babies to fill their nappies. “All right,” said he, “we will play it straight.”

“That you will never do. But simply chalk that one up and be advised.”

“Forty-seven,” bawled the adjudicator, who was growing hoarse.

“Unlucky,” said Professor Slocombe.

“The Swan need sixty-eight.” The Swan got it with little difficulty.

Lombard Omega ran up and down the flight deck, peering through the plexiglass portholes and waving his fists in the air. “Where’s it gone?” he ranted at intervals. “Where’s it fucking gone?”

His navigator punched all he could into the console and shrugged repeatedly. “It just isn’t there,” he said. “It’s gone, caput, finito, gone.”

“It must be there! It was fucking there when we left it!”

The navigator covered his ears to the obscenity. “It honestly isn’t, now,” he said. “There’s a lot of debris about, though, a veritable asteroid belt.”

“You find something and find it quick,” growled his Commanding Officer, “or you go down the shit chute into hyperspace.”

The navigator bashed away at the console like a mad thing. “There’s no trace,” he whispered despairingly, “the entire system’s dead.” He tapped at the macroscopic intensifier. “Oh no it isn’t, look, there’s a signal.”

Lombard was at his side in an instant. “Bring it up then, you wally. Bring the frigging thing up.”

The navigator enlarged the image upon the three-dimensional screen. “It’s on Planet Earth,” he said. “A triangulation and a ley image, the constellation of the Plough surely, and look there.”

Lombard looked there.

“One third up from the base line of the triangulation, a beacon transmitting a signal. The coordinates of an approach run, that’s where they are!”

“Hm.” Lombard stroked his Hollywood chin. “The bastards have moved closer to the Sun. Wise move, wise bloody move. Take us in then. Earth full steam ahead. Lock into autopilot, the beacon will guide us in. Anybody got a roll-up?”

Omally rolled a cigarette as the Professor joined them at the table. “You found them out, then?” he asked between licks. “I don’t think we’ve entirely got the better of him,” the old man replied. “He’s a trick or two up his sleeve yet, I believe.”

“I won’t ask what that one turned out to be.”

“The Swan lead by one game to nil,” croaked the adjudicator. “Second game on. Horsemen to throw.”

As this was a championship match, by local rules, the losing team threw first. Young Jack ran his forked tongue about the tip of his dart. “Straight and true this time, Professor,” quoth he.

“With the corner up,” the old man replied.

Young Jack flung his darts in such rapid succession that they were nothing more than a triple blur. They each struck the board “straight and true” within the wired boundaries of the treble twenty, which was nothing more nor less than anybody had expected. The grinning demonologist strode to the board and tore out his darts with a vengeance.

“I should like very much to see the fellow miss once in a while,” Pooley told the Professor. “Just to give the impression that he isn’t infallible.” Professor Slocombe whispered another Latin phrase and Young Jack knocked his pint of mild into his father’s lap. “Thank you,” said Jim, “I appreciated that.”

Archie Karachi was throwing for the Swan. Dressed this evening in a stunning kaftan, oblivious to the damage wrought upon his kitchen, he was definitely on form. Archie had a most unique manner of play. As a singles man, his technique brought a tear to the eye of many a seasoned player. Scorning the beloved treble twenty, he went instead for bizarre combinations which generally had the chalksman in a panic of fingers and thumbs. On a good night with luck at his elbow he could tear away an apparent two hundred in three throws. Even when chalked up, this still had his opponents believing that he had thrown his shots away. Tonight he threw a stunning combination which had the appearance of being a treble nineteen, a double thirteen and a bullseye, although it was hard to be certain.

The degree of mental arithmetic involved in computing the final total was well beyond the man on the chalks and most of the patrons present. When the five hundred and one was scratched out and two hundred and fifty-seven appeared in its place nobody thought to argue.

“I admire that,” said Professor Slocombe. “It is a form of negative psychology. I will swear that if the score does not come up in multiples of twenty, nobody can work it out.”

“I can,” said Omally, “but he is on our side.”

“I can’t,” said Pooley. “He pulls his darts out so quickly I couldn’t even see what he scored.”

“Ah,” said Omally, “here is a man I like to watch.”

The Four Horsemen’s most extraordinary player had to be the man Kelly. He was by no means a great dartsman, but for sheer entertainment value he stood alone. It must be understood that the wondrous scores previously recorded are not entirely typical of the play as a whole, and that not each member of the team was a specialist in his field. The high and impossible scores were the preserve of the very few and finest. Amongst each team, the Swan and the Horsemen being no exception, there were also able players, hard triers, and what might be accurately described as the downright desperate.

The man Kelly was one of the latter. When he flung a dart it was very much a case of stand aside lads, and women and children first. The man Kelly was more a fast bowler than a darts player.

The man Kelly bowled a first dart. It wasn’t a bad one and it plunged wholeheartedly in the general direction of the board. Somewhere, however, during the course of its journey the lone projectile suddenly remembered that it had pressing business elsewhere. The man Kelly’s dart was never seen again.

“A little off centre?” the player asked his fuming and speechless captain.

His second throw was a classic in every sense of the word. Glancing off the board with the sound of a ricocheting rifle bullet it tore back into the assembled crowd, scattering friend and foe alike and striking home through the lobe of Old Pete’s right ear.

The crowd engulfed the ancient to offer assistance. “Don’t touch it,” bellowed the old one. “By God, it has completely cured the rheumatism in my left kneecap.”

Lombard Omega scrutinized the instrument panel and swore between his teeth. “I can’t see this,” he said at length. “This does not make any fucking sense. I mean, be reasonable, our good world Ceres cannot just vanish away like piss down a cesspit in the twinkling of a bleeding eyelid.”

The navigator whispered a silent prayer to his chosen deity. It was an honour to serve upon the flagship of the Cerean battle fleet, but it was a hard thing indeed to suffer the constant stream of obscenity which poured from his commander’s mouth. “We have been away for a very long time,” he ventured. “More than six thousand years, Earth time.”