The Inn of the Sixth Dan

At the very end of Time is the vast Star Palace of the Sombre Warrior, the final haven for all those significant through history. Alas, the Warrior has cheered up, and retired to farm bees, nominating Tom, Two-Dan $mith (sic) as successor.

Tom finds this convenient—he is on the run from the Financlia (sic) Police—but also inconvenient—the End of Time is under threat from the multi-limbed quadrillipods, engineering geniuses and proud inventors of the thousand-button keyboard, who have eaten everything else in the multiverse, and are now intending to break into the Palace, and finish off the rest.

Tom has to repel the invasion, and with nothing to help him—the Star Palace being dedicated to peace, harmony, and shower units that don’t go cold when someone flushes the loo—he has to do it alone. From the End of Time, everything that came before it is readily available, though. If Tom can travel backwards in, let’s say, a clapped-out Time Cylinder, he might be able to collect something environmentally unfriendly and loud to use against the intruders.
While the continued existence of the multiverse is in the balance, retired private investigator, the Magus, has a seemingly unrelated and simple task of solving an attempted murder. Motives could include the sale of faulty methane-powered undergarments, or worse: his client is refusing to pay his TV licence. It seems the influence of the Galactic Broadcasting Hypocrisy is extending in every direction, and they have become even more powerful than the modern parking juntas.

But how are the GBH, the murder attempt, the kidnapping of the Magus’s soulmate, a day in the life of a dung farmer (a doku-mentary), and Mrs Tuesday, the eternal tea-lady, linked to the invasion?

Trust me, they are, and ultimately can everyone pull together to save the destruction of the End of Time, and every single thing that came before it?