THE EIGHT PERIS 1/1 TTR, the author's Peri arc by Paul Gadzikowski Bits of this work may derive from properties of the BBC, Fox, Paramount, et al., but it's non-profit and in no way intrudes on their markets. THIS TIME ROUND concept by Tyler Dion, after Kielle From some angles she looks like Sally Kellerman and from some Loretta Swit. She has on a floor-length gown of purple velvet with long sleeves. There is a cape of similar material around her shoulders; it is lined in flaming red silk. A four-inch-wide golden ribbon hangs from her right shoulder and goes down through the valley between her more than ample mammary developments to her waist. On it is spelled out REVEREND MOTHER EMERITUS. A golden crucifix, a full nine inches long, hangs from her neck, the chain also going down the valley of her bosom. The same legend is spelled out in diamonds and rubies on the crucifix. REVEREND goes down the vertical piece, and MOTHER and EMERITUS runs along the members. In her right hand, the lady clutches the age-old symbol of the shepherd of a religious flock, the shepherd's crook. She enters This Time Round and addresses Adric: "I'm Reverend Mother Emeritus Margaret Houlihan Wachauf Wilson, R.N., Lt. Col. US Army Medical Corps (ret), of the God Is Love In All Forms Christian Church, Inc. I'm here to perform the wedding." "Hiya Hot Lips," says Adric. -- Even for this occasion the Doctor(s) can't be pressed into ... well, into pressed clothes. None of him will wear a tuxedo. However, each of him has been cajoled into a black-and-white version of his usual outfit. Now all eight are lined up in front of the mirror in the tavern's men's room. Superman is their best man. He watches them primp and expresses some confusion: "So Peri is marrying all eight of you?" "We're all the same person really," observes Doctor Four, straightening his snow-white eighteen-foot scarf. "Yes, but *you*'re incarnated eight times over," Superman objects. "How's the ceremony going to work? ...How's the *honeymoon* going to work?" "Oh, use your head!" Doctor Six snaps as his collar snaps. "If the laws of Time are so easily disregarded by *me* in this place," says Doctor One, "then just this once ..." -- The guests are all seated at tables. There's a buffet set up against the back wall for the reception; both Harry and Adric will be behind the bar and almost all the girl companions will pull an hour shift waiting tables. But that's for later. Now Hot Lips is standing at the midpoint of the bar, directly across from the bottom of the stairwell in the opposite wall. To her left and in front of her is the line of Doctors, and to their left is Superman. Hot Lips signals to Steven at the upright, who begins banging out something akin to the bridal march. Peri descends the stairs on the arm of the Brigadier. Then Peri descends the stairs on the arm of Colonel Potter (well, Captain Potter - he's in a Starfleet uniform). Then Peri descends the stairs on the arm of Merlin from "King Arthur in Time and Space". Five more Peris are given away by Jean-Luc Picard, Rupert Giles, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jor-El and the present author. The Peris line up each matched with a Doctor, Superman passes out eight rings, and Hot Lips begins reading the vows. The lineup from Willis' "Mystery Psycho Theatre 3000" series are sitting in a row in a dark corner of the tavern by the stairs. As the Peris pass, Diane whispers to the others, "The fanfiction she's been in, and she still wears white ..." -- As the eight happy couples stand in the receiving line, one of the received couples is a female robot and a short man in big round glasses and a bow tie. "Newton and Monica Dexter," the man introduces themselves to each Doctor-and-Peri. "We were married in the Dailies too," adds Monica each time. "Fancy!" says each Doctor. -- Amongst those who waited until after the first rush at the buffet table, an old man with a beard and Doctor Four's scarf and an Alan Alda lookalike in a STAR TREK movie uniform both reach for the bowl of cheese Ritz Bits sandwiches at once. "Merlin, 'King Arthur in Time and Space'," the old man introduces himself. "Captain Hawkeye Pierce of the starship Enterprise-A, 'T*R*E*K'." They each take a handful of Ritz Bits and turn to face the festivities. "Twenty-five years of cartoons and fanfiction sure generate a hell of a lot of wedding reception guests." Merlin nods. "I see quite a few like yourself who are M*A*S*H- or 70s sitcom- characters dressed as *other* characters." "The TRAPPER JOHN MD, WKRP and MARY TYLER MOORE people dressed for 90s STAR TREK are from the same continuity as me. Most of the rest are M*A*S*H characters inserted into other stories back in the 70s." "But not all. I see Eeyore dressed as Doctor Johnny Fever, and Barney Miller and Ross & Rachel with a Motie ..." "Funny he never did that to DOCTOR WHO with something else," Hawkeye muses. "Then he could cross T*R*E*K with THAT mixture, and make T*R*E*K versions of his WHO/TREK crossovers." "His writing time isn't already spread thin enough for you?" -- Doctor and Peri Two circulate. "This would be the table where all the people who receive Paul's story announcements by email are sitting!" Doctor Two announces. This isn't much of a guess, as it's the only table of non-'Round regulars who aren't obviously crossover characters. "Except for Doug Killings," the author's wife answers Doctor Two. "He's at the a.dw.c authors table." "Most of us have appeared in the Dailies," adds the author's brother. "During periods when they were about their readers," says the sister-in-law. Peri recognizes one of the guests. "You were Faith's lawyer!" The man with the mustache nods. "On a.t.bvs and a.t.bvs.c I'm known as Riddler." Doctor Two recognizes the three Bills from Chicago. "And you three fellows were the founders of the Howard Foundation!" "There was someone else ..." Peri tries to remember. "I know! Paul named two Enterprise-D security guards Roberts and Morris in 'Conspiracy of the Daleks' [http://www.sff.net/people/scarfman/dailies.htm#cii]." "And gave them M*A*S*H character faces," the author's mother explains, "because he only knows Rob from alt.tv.mash." "Is Mr. Morris atending?" the Doctor asks. "He's off meeting all the M*A*S*H-variant characters ..." says the stepdaughter. "There he is!" the stepson points. "With the K*A*R*T knights." -- "Happy to be here?" the brother-in-law asks. "I'm happy to be anywhere," says Henry Blake. -- "'TTR is for not having continuity,' he always says," grumbles Doctor Nine, watching the eight happy couples dancing the first dance. "Then he restricts his only romance to only canonical me's." "You're still the current Doctor in his real fanfiction," Buffy points out. Doctor Nine's visiting the BUFFY/ANGEL cast's table. "You see more of him than we do." "He unsubscribed from a.t.bvs.c some months ago," explains Giles. "Supposedly it was time constraints," adds Xander, "but actually it's more that a guy can only tolerate a certain percentage of Buffy/Spike slash in his BUFFY fanfiction." "Some months ago?" repeats Doctor Nine. "Perhaps it'll have slacked off after the Valentine's Day episode when Joss made his feelings on that subject known?" "It takes more than countercanonicity to discourage those S/Bers," Buffy mopes. "It's only charity that we refrain from calling them B/Sers," says Willow confidentially. "Yet," murmurs Giles, "it always seems to be mentioned that we do ..." -- "Okay, Brad," says Doug Killings at the a.dw.c writers' table, "*I* get to appear in this story even though it was scripted to be drawn because Paul knew me in the 80s - but how could you have been on-panel when Paul's never seen what you look like?" "Well, Doug,", drawls Brad Willis, stretching his arms behind his capped head in his Lennox coveralls, "now y'all know what author-insertion fanfic is good for ..." Doug dumps his beer on Brad. "Now you know what author-insertion fanfic is *bad* for." "Hey, it's Number One who's cursed, not me!!" Brad sputters, though nevertheless suddenly sporting a red pigtail and filling out the coverall in a manner more expected of, say, Hot Lips. -- Radar O'Reilly goes to the bar for another grape Nehi. He finds he's already there. He's there with pointed ears, wearing a Romulan civilian tunic, ordering an Altair water. He's there in armour, shield and lance, ordering a mead. He's there in a white tunic with a lightsabre at his belt, ordering something blue and milky. He's there about half his other heights with big bare hairy feet, and a length of rope wound around his waist for its easy transport. He turns and leaves before he finds out what that him's ordering. -- "Akili Tembo!" GrammarMan stops the upright elephantoid in the button-down shirt on his way to the bar. "I haven't seen you since we were both in Paul's high school Dailies. How've you been?" Akili shakes GrammarMan's hand with enthusiasm. "Well, I played with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for awhile. Then I was Dean of Intrumental Music at the University of Louisville. Now I'm in a jazz band. And I'm what I call the paid unscientific advisor to Infinity Labs." At one end of the stories email lists' table, the three Bills are talking with the Dexters. "So Moebius Labs is now called Infinity Labs," Bill the ukelele player. "And always was?" asks Bill the convention smof. "We always told him he needed to get other people's copyrights out of the Dailies' original character scenarios," points out Bill the former roommate. "We were even government-sanctioned - secretly, of course - in the 90s, for awhile," Newton continues his update. "We still maintain contact with the Interstellar Confederation against the day Earth's ready to join," Monica adds. At the other end of that table the representatives on Earth of that Confederation are discussing with the author's science fiction club the people at the first end of the table. "Akili and Monica?!" asks Joe. "Makes sense, kinda," says Aihok, a smooth-skinned alien about three feet tall with no nose or ears. "They're the only Terran non-humans in the Infinity Labs office." "We think that's why Akili formed his band," says Effex, a furball on legs about two feet tall, "- to go touring and get away from the Labs." "Does Newton know?" Jennifer and Duryea ask simultaneously. "If he does, he hasn't forced a confrontation," says Aihok. "You know," says Effex, "Paul's original idea for a 25th-anniversary story was to write that controntation and wrap up the stories of all us invented Dailies characters." "Why didn't he?" Linda asks. "Because Dailies are fanfiction now?" Susan suggests. "That's not the only reason ..." Effex notes, as two circulating party guests come up to the group: "Hello!" says the man. He's tall with black hair in a Roman cut, wearing what's almost but not quite a movie STAR TREK uniform. The woman with him has long red hair in a pony tail with bangs in front. "Sir Lancelot of 'King Arthur in Time and Space'. And this is Queen Guenevere." "We're in the novel-in-progress," Guenevere adds. -- "Paul drew cartoons for me for the dorm newsletter," says the author's college friend. "We're his wife's college friends," says the music teacher. "You kept in touch all this time?" says her husband the theological student. "No. I did a websearch for him when I got online because I wanted cartoons for a webzine. I sent him a limerick to illustrate and never heard back from him on it. "And now, in a black hole of recursive self-reference, I get the punchline in this Daily gag by way of apology." -- "I hoped in 'Party Favors' to get into this guy's stuff," complains Lydia from Willis' "Shock Value" series, "but at least the Bradleyard gives me more than one line in a story." Unnoticed as she grouses to Psycho Nyssa sitting next to her, a bouquet of flowers bounces off her head and into Nyssa's lap. -- "This is supposed to be Paul's party as much as ours," one Peri says, "but I haven't seen him since the ceremony." "Not one much for author-insertion, that one," says a Doctor. "He's always been that way," says the author's mother. "When he was a kid he'd talk about his *puppets* going on Hollywood Squares one day." "Okay," says T*R*E*K Hawkeye, "but are we going to let him get away with it now?" Amidst cheers and catcalls, the author is pushed into the corner of the tavern where a particular kind of elctronics equipment is set up. Recorded music starts as he is handed a microphone, and he squints at a video screen where lyrics are beginning to appear: "I'm a man ... without convictions ... I'm a man ..." FIN