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ramshackle huts that form the whitewashed city. It spread from horizon to horizon: a morass of identikit architecture with a bulging temple at its centre. It was hardly the sort of splendour he was used to.
    Still. Sacrifices would have to be made. That was, after all, the whole point.
    His wives disembarked behind him, variously stepping or slithering as their biology allowed. At his last count there were somewhere in the region of two thousand, five hundred of them - mostly female. In the field of romantic entanglement, Abrocabe had two advantages over most males: First, as a Xangrebbian - a species sporting a dextrous spinal cord, a long and manipulative nasal protrusion, and various other prehensile assets - he was blessed with the ability to pick his conquests with impunity. And second, as one of the most colossally rich individuals in the galaxy, it seemed ludicrous to waste time and effort on emotional pursuits when he could simply pick a face from a catalogue and marry its owner.
    This sort of willy-nilly decadence had been a defining fixture of his life until, one night, the Lottery Ritual provided him with Sianne Grunjohki - wife number 1067 - as his chosen bed-mate.
    The nocturnal acrobatic exertions that he anticipated never materialised. When he awoke the following morning it was not to find crumpled sheets and interesting scratches, but to a complete spiritual reawakening.
    Sianne, it transpired, had occupied her time in Abrocabe's harem by seeking spiritual improvement. Using his library and twenty-four hour high-speed 'net access, she'd discovered, researched, and immersed herself in "Boddihsm". That night, the 'pillowtalk' had been a decidedly serious business.
    As he liked to joke to friends: he'd welcomed her into his room as an unfeasibly wealthy gigazillionaire subspace tycoon with hedonistic tastes, and he awoke a new man.
    The attraction to Boddihsm was this:
    Nothing you had ever done mattered.
    Like many of the galaxy's most affluent individuals, Abrocabe kept in his quadravalvic heart a tiny secret. In a cosmos packed to the back teeth with peasants, peons, pilferers and poverty, where ninety-three per cent of sentients recorded their quality of life as "snecking unbearable," where all the unpleasant reminders of life's arseholish tapestry were smeared across news channels, it was hard being inconceivably privileged. The sensation at the back of Abrocabe's subconscious was this: guilt.
    And Boddihsm had stamped on it until it was gone.
    Behind him, Sianne slipped her arm around Abrocabe's waist and nuzzled against the back of his neck. "You've done the right thing," she said, smiling. "Coming here. Bringing us."
    "Mmm." A group of boringly-dressed acolytes was hurrying up from the little city to meet the new arrivals. "I know," he said, flashing a diamond-dentured smile in her direction. "It's just going to take some... Getting used to."
    The rest of the harem had come to see the wisdom of Boddah's Way without much persuasion. The simple fact was that with Boddah, you couldn't lose. Everything was excused. Everything was out of your hands.
    Everything, put bluntly, was a cock-up. Discovering that one had no personal liability in the dreadfulness of the galaxy, that nothing you had ever done was your fault, had a sort of comforting charm.
    Boddihsm was the fastest growing religion in the galaxy, appealing with a special urgency to the rich and the famous. It was an urgency that was steadily increasing.
    The call had gone out to the faithful: Come to Splut Mundi, it said. Bring everything you own. Liquidise every asset. Bring it all.
    The leader of the welcoming committee - a fat man in a grey robe who until two weeks ago had been the CEO of the largest multiplanetary weapons manufacturer in existence - dipped his head. Abrocabe - and every one of his stupendously beautiful wives - echoed the movement.
    "Welcome," the man said, beaming. "Welcome, faithful ones! Hail to the Boddah!"
    "Hail!" the harem