Planet of the Whybrowmen
Here’s a top tip for you: never let more than a dozen Whybrowmen gather together in one place.

And here’s why:

Whybrowmen are thin, frail, pale-skinned humanoids with bald pates who walk in a hunched, scurrying, furtive manner. Their heads are like inverted tear-shapes with pointed chins and shiny white domed craniums. Above their tiny, glittering black eyes, their magnificent eyebrows sprout and curl in the shape of question-marks; hence, Whybrowmen. They are simple creatures who exist seemingly to mill around aimlessly, eat berries, sleep, and mutter ‘miminiminim’ in soft, droning tones. They reproduce by transferring spores between their genital areas with their profuse eyebrows.

I ended up on their planet in the company of Phulorg J’Hoox, a decommissioned, retired space bollard who had tagged along with me to ‘see the universe.’ Imagine a dark blue cone about eight feet tall, with two glowing red eyes at its apex – that was Phulorg J’Hoox. Of course, during his working years as a space buoy, Phulorg had been a dark blue cone about eighty thousand feet tall with two glowing eyes at its apex, but on retirement Phulorg had been ‘cut down to size’ in order to be able to interact with other life forms.

There was a small colony of offworlders on the Planet of the Whybrowmen, mostly human settlers who farmed the land and co-existed peacefully amidst the scurrying, muttering indigenes. There were a few invalided Ogrons, a kibbutz of Raxacoricofallapatorian refugees, and a couple of disgraced Draconians, but apart from the odd drunken brawl, everyone rubbed along together pretty well.

With my TARDIS disguised as a wardrobe, Phulorg and I lodged in the planet’s only hotel, the ironically-titled Whybrow Hilton. (Well, I say ‘we’, but only I stayed in our room; even though drastically truncated, Phulorg weighed a ton, far too heavy for the weak timber floorboards of the hotel, and so had to stay in the car park, but he didn’t mind). On asking the hotel manager, an ancient, whiskery Valethske called Reynard, about the Whybrowmen, he told me that they were completely harmless, but that I should avoid letting too many of them gather together – no more than a dozen should be allowed to congregate at any one time. In fact, many of the offworlders – the Ogrons particularly – acted as Whybrowman ‘herders’, tasked with keeping the pallid creatures apart. When I asked why this was, Reynard growled, ‘Pray you never find out,’ but refused to explain any further. I asked around but even the oldest resident, one of the disgraced Draconians, Kuhat, didn’t know. ‘It isss jussst the way of thingsss,’ he told me. Fair enough, I thought. Shouldn’t be a problem.

But I hadn’t accounted for Phulorg.

On the first morning we went for a wander in the meadows. It was a sunny day and the bucolic landscape was very pleasant and restful. Whybrowmen scurried everywhere picking berries and muttering ‘miminiminim’. They were very cute and endearing creatures.

The sight of them seemed to amuse Phulorg. ‘Habba wabba Skagga – looka funna lidda menna!’ he rumbled in his deep, bassy voice.

‘Yes,’ I laughed, but then I frowned. All the Whybrowmen in the vicinity had stopped what they were doing, gone quiet, and were all now staring at Phulorg with their black button eyes, their querulous eyebrows all a-tremble.

‘Wabba pabba?’ uttered the retired space bollard, stopping in his tracks.

And then suddenly all the Whybrowmen scampered towards Phulorg, muttering ‘miminiminim! miminiminim!’ and throwing themselves at his elephantine feet. Some of them began to run around him like red indians around a totem pole and still others threw themselves up against his thick shiny blue hide.

‘Dabba babba Skagga!’ cried Phulorg. ‘Wabba fabba gabba habba?!’

It was a bizarre sight – but then I remembered the warnings about the Whybrowmen. There must have been at least two dozen swarming around and over Phulorg. I stepped forward, shouting and waving my arms, and was soon joined by the two Ogrons, Urrgh and Orrgh, who began to beat the Whybrowmen off (steady) with big pointy sticks. Soon all the creatures had been dispersed, but they remained at a distance, staring back at Phulorg and chanting ‘miminiminim! ‘miminiminim!’ much more loudly than usual.

Urrgh – or was it Orrgh – glowered at me and growled, ‘No browmen gather. You keep ware.’ He prodded my chest with a hairy finger. ‘Keep ware!’

Gagging at the fousty smell of the ape-like creature, I muttered, ‘Yes, yes, I know the rules. But the Whybrowmen seem attracted to my conical friend here… almost as if they think he is some sort of god. Like C3P0 and the Ewoks in Star Wars: Episode 6: Return of the Jedi.’

The Ogron spat fulsomely on the grass, I can only assume at the mention of this much-derided sequel.

After this excitement, things quietened down a little, though the Whybrowmen followed us, or more particularly Phulorg, wherever we went – except inside the hotel and its grounds, which they seemed to fear to approach. That was because, Reynard informed me, when the hotel was first constructed, any approaching Whybrowmen were mercilessly machine-gunned to death. That had not happened for decades now and the machine guns, though still in position, were empty; their presence alone enough to keep the inquisitive natives away.

What could have prompted such drastic measures? I thought. The Whybrowmen seemed so innocent and harmless.

I was soon to find out.

Later that day Phulorg went for a walk along the famed Floral Valley on the Planet of the Whybrowmen. (In case you were wondering, the planet had no other name – it was just called the Planet of the Whybrowmen.) The Floral Valley meandered for several miles, walled with sandy rock of all shades of red, and floored with, well, obviously, flowers. It was amazingly beautiful, and we wandered slowly along the valley, lost in admiration, myself reminiscing about my romances with River Song, Leela, Clara, Chancellor Flavia, Missy, both Romanas, Adric etc, Phulorg thinking whatever it is that a truncated decommissioned retired space bollard thinks. So wrapped up were we in our thoughts, and Phulorg concentrating hard to take care not to crush any flowers beneath his massive feet, that we didn’t see them until far, far too late.

The Whybrowmen.

They were gathered, in their hundreds, at the top of the valley walls on either side of us. It was like that film, Zulu. They stared down at us, their eyebrows trembling. As soon as we noticed them they started muttering ‘miminiminim’. This, uttered by hundreds of Whybrowmen, sounded sinister, like the engine drone of enemy aircraft.

‘Run!’ I cried, shoving Phulorg back the way we had come.

‘Nabba gabba Skagga! Abba cagga ranna!’

Of course he couldn’t. All he could do was shuffle along at a very slow walking pace. I prepared to leg it – but one look at those red eyes made me stop. How could I abandon the poor bollard?

And then the Whybrowmen began to descend in droves upon us.

‘Shit,’ I said.

‘Abba gabba gorba ooogagaa oooooooooog!’ cried Phulorg.

He was right. I staggered back as wave after wave of Whybrowmen hurtled down the sides of the valley and leapt onto Phulorg. It was like some massive mental game of pile-on. Soon the space bollard was submerged under a writhing mass of Whybrowmen. I watched in horror as the dome-shaped lump of Whybrowmen grew and grew in size, to ten, fifteen, twenty feet...

And then it happened.

A shuddering wave passed through the bodies of the Whybrowmen and a conical shape was ejected from their mass. It flew through the air, hit the side of the valley with a sickening thump and rolled back down, crushing some flowers. It was Phulorg J’Hoox. His red eyes were dim. He was quite dead, and lay in a bed of flowers, crushing them. And he had been so careful to avoid doing so when alive. Sorrow and anger coursed through my veins.

But there was no time to mourn, for something terrible towered over me. It was a gigantic Whybrowman, about thirty feet tall. Somehow, the hundreds of attacking Whybrowmen had merged together into one giant, gestalt creature! It looked like a normal Whybrowman, except the slant of its huge eyebrows made it look evil, and its mouth was a savage maw.

‘MIMINIMINIM!, it roared. ‘MIMINIMINIM!!!’

With one final glance at my deceased friend, I turned and ran, not caring if I trampled the flowers. I legged it back towards the hotel, both hearts thumping with the effort, feeling the ground shake beneath me as the Whybrowmonster lumbered in pursuit. As I approached the hotel, I saw Urrgh and Orrgh standing outside the front gate. On seeing me and the approaching creature they panicked and ran around waving their arms in the air. I shoved past them and skidded into reception, to see Reynard dozing at his desk.

‘Reynard! It’s happened! The Whybrowmen! Phulorg!,’ I gasped. I was badly out of breath and collapsed across the desk. From the hotel gardens came the roaring of the Whybrowmonster could be heard. ‘MIMINIMINIM!!! MIMINIMINIM!!!’

The old Valethske straightened up, a gleam in his old, rheumy eyes. His fox-like mouth curled in a manic grin. ‘I have prepared for this day!’ growled Reynard. He reached beneath the desk, and produced something that looked like a space-age blunderbuss.

‘Rassilon’s Rod!’ I gasped. ‘A gravitic discombobulator!’

‘The very same.’ Reynard leaped over the desk with surprising alacrity, given his advanced age, and ran outside. I followed, somewhat reluctantly, fearing that the old Valethske didn’t truly appreciate the power of the weapon he brandished. Seriously, I’d seen moons brought crashing down by smaller models!

The Whybrowmonster was standing in the hotel gardens. It had both Ogrons in its fist. As I watched in horror, it bit the off Orrgh’s – or was it Urrgh’s – head and tossed the body aside. Urrgh - or was it Orrgh screamed terribly, expecting the same fate, but before the Whybrowmonster could bite his head off, Reynard, who was standing in front of the giant creature like David before Goliath, fired the gravitic discombobulator.

There was an immense THOOOOOOOOOM and all the air was sucked from my lungs. I was thrown backwards against the hotel wall. The Whybrowmonster exploded, and for a few moments it was raining dead Whybrowmen (and bits of Ogron).

Reynard strutted back into the hotel, gravitic discombobulator cocked over one shoulder. As he passed me, he growled, ‘That’s why you don’t let the fuckers congregate. Don’t let it happen again.’

‘I won’t,’ I gasped.

We spent the rest of the day clearing up and burning the dead bodies of the Whybrowmen, and the evening ended with an Ogron funeral for poor Urrgh and Orrgh.

Before I left, I had Phulorg J’Hoox’s body retrieved from the Floral Valley and erected as a memorial statue warning all visitors of the danger of letting more than a dozen Whybrowmen gather in one place.

So now you know, sweetieze, should you ever visit the Planet of the Whybrowmen.

LAIGH8TERZ XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
(Dr Skagra glorious glargzhem, Sat 21 Oct 2017, 17:24, 8 replies, latest was 6 years ago)

I'm not sure about this.

(Ooooh_cuntroversials_sockpuppet Make O/T great again., Sun 22 Oct 2017, 9:05, Reply)

It's quite simple, sweetie:
When on the Planet of the Whybrowmen, never let more than a dozen Whybrowmen gather together at one time.

HTH
(Dr Skagra glorious glargzhem, Sun 22 Oct 2017, 14:34, Reply)

Pour some petrol over yourself, then strike a match.

(dozers You big spazzer!, Sun 22 Oct 2017, 21:39, Reply)

Oooooh sweetieszzz
Just found out that the Planet of the Whybrowmen DOES have a proper name!

It's Pvuvatikchula.

So now you know!!!!

LAIGH8TERZXXZX!!!
(Dr Skagra glorious glargzhem, Wed 1 Nov 2017, 20:19, Reply)

It's nice that you've found an outlet where no one needs to be bothered by your shit.
Maybe celebrate by dying in a fire?
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Mon 6 Nov 2017, 10:30, Reply)

I'm on a break between novels
But have to start the next one soon after finishing editing the current one.

So sadly may not be using this particular 'outlet' much in future.

Cheers
(Dr Skagra glorious glargzhem, Mon 6 Nov 2017, 23:41, Reply)

I don't believe that you're really a woman.
mainly because women can't be doctors.
(Ooooh_cuntroversials_sockpuppet Make O/T great again., Sun 12 Nov 2017, 17:11, Reply)

I'm not really a doctor
actually

But I AM all woman

Sweetie

XXXXXXXXXX
(Dr Skagra glorious glargzhem, Sat 18 Nov 2017, 19:48, Reply)