Doctor Who_ Cat's Cradle_ Warhead - Andrew Cartmel [24]
The small man had walked deeper into the maze of tilted shelves and piled books. He was a small figure already, moving away in the streaks of neon and moonlight in the big dim space of the library. ‘Let’s talk,’ said Bobby Prescott, following him, moving fast, catching up.
He was about an arm’s length away from the Doctor when the Doctor – the small man – turned and said, ‘Destruction of the temples. Time for a new god. They always do this. The killing and the violence. It seems to be a necessary part of the process for them. Tell me –’
The little man swung around and stared up at Bobby Prescott. You couldn’t see the man’s eyes in the darkness, just the pale shape of his face and dark shadows under the brows. ‘Don’t you sense any of that?’ said the little man. ‘Don’t you feel it around you in places like this?’ He moved impatiently away from where Bobby Prescott was standing, further into the dark aisles. They were in the centre of the library floor now. The centre of the building had been designed like a broad well shaft. You could look down from a circular railing to the basement level, or up at circular balconies diminishing with distance on each of the floors above. A bright oblong of moonlight came through the burst skylight at the top of the shaft, lighting up a section of wall. On the chalk white surface you could see a bold dark scrawl of spray‐painted graffiti, stretching for metres above the wreckage of the library:
What’s the point? We can’t read anyway.
‘That was sprayed up there during the riots,’ said Bobby Prescott. ‘When this place finally got it. Like the library at Alexandria. You heard of that?’
‘Yes,’ said the man.
‘They burned that one, too. But look up there. Notice anything?’
The little man stood waiting, silently staring up above the dark well of the library basement. Bobby Prescott couldn’t tell if he was listening or not.
‘Whoever sprayed that up there got the punctuation absolutely right,’ said Bobby Prescott. ‘They put the apostrophes where they’re supposed to go. The bastard could write. And that means they could read. They understood what all this meant.’
Bobby Prescott turned to one of the piles that peaked halfway to the ceiling and sloped down into scattered volumes, individual books, one almost touching his foot. He picked it up.
‘They knew what it meant. And they still helped destroy it.’ Bobby Prescott’s voice was thick with emotion. He could hear himself getting louder. ‘So of course I know what you mean.’ He was shouting now and at last the little man was turning around, looking at him, paying attention to him. ‘You mean this place is like a church,’ said Bobby Prescott, letting his voice go quiet again. ‘And now the church is dead because the religion is dead.’ He let the book drop out of his hand. He’d checked. It was quite unsalvageable. ‘It was killed by people who didn’t believe in god.’
‘Do you believe in gods, Bobby?’
‘My god was books.’ Bobby closed in on the little man. ‘Books I could escape into. Books that were doorways into other worlds for me. You know about those kind of doorways?’
‘Yes.’
‘Like going through that wardrobe into Narnia, right? I started reading those books when I was four. I learned fast. They said I was something special. The librarians. They taught me in their own time. In their lunch hours. That was one of the first books. I went through that wardrobe. I found the lion and the witch.’
Bobby Prescott leaned in close to the Doctor, his breath warm on the Doctor’s face.
‘I rode on the quest for the rings of power. I went out into the desert with Kit and Tunner and Port. I’ve stayed in a house in England called Howard’s End. It had a roof that kept the rain off my head. Even when there wasn’t a real roof and the real rain was soaking me to the skin. Do you understand?’
The Doctor nodded.
‘I’ve been down every corridor in Gormenghast. I’ve been on the road with Dean