Doctor Who_ Christmas on a Rational Planet - Lawrence Miles [27]
‘Are you a man of Reason?’ Catcher asked.
Yes, thought Erskine. Yes, by Saint Buggery, but this isn’t a Reasonable world anymore, not like it was an hour ago. He glanced at the monstrosity, slithering in and out of the shadows on the far side of the room. But I am a rationalist, by Christ, and rationalism tells me –
It tells me –
Hades and copulation, what does it tell me?
And he realized – in a moment of terrible, all-consuming horror – that he couldn’t remember, that he’d probably never be able to remember ever again.
‘Yes,’ he said, flatly. ‘I’m a man of Reason.’ And he tried to ignore the abomination as it giggled like a little girl.
‘What about Chris?’
They gazed into the abyss; the abyss gazed back and giggled stupidly. Every now and then, a piece of furniture – a tea-chest, a Louis XV chair, or a hatstand – would drift past the fissure that had, in a previous life, been the TARDIS
doorway.
‘I said, what about Chris?’
Roz’s fingers dug into the Doctor’s shoulder. He looked up abruptly, and her face became paralysed in mid-scowl.
‘He’ll be fine.’
‘ "Fine"?’ Roz shook her head, shaking off the feeling that he’d been trying to hypnotize her. ‘What do you mean,
"fine"?’
‘Look.’ He returned his gaze to the wound in the side of the police box, which he’d jammed open with his walking-cane.
‘The architecture’s been scrambled, but the important systems are functioning. Oxygen, power and the laws of physics are still in evidence. Mostly.’
‘That’s what you always say, isn’t it? "He’ll be fine";
‘They’ll be fine"; "Don’t worry, they can look after themselves". Is that what you say to Chris about me, when I’m off in some bloody hole somewhere? "Oh, she’ll be fine..." ‘
The Doctor gave her another one of his looks.
‘All right.’ Roz forced herself to relax. ‘Do we go in?’
‘No. It might be dangerous.’
‘Dangerous? You just said –’
‘Amaranth.’
‘What?’
He held out his hand. ‘Amaranth.’
There was an embarrassed silence.
‘Ahhh,’ said Roz.
Another look.
‘Stop it! I haven’t got it, OK? It wasn’t around when I woke up here. It got lost in transit.’
‘Didn’t we all?’ The Doctor’s brow automatically went into
‘wrinkled’ mode. He grasped the walking-cane, and pulled it out from between the lips of the opening with an unpleasant popping sound. The side of the TARDIS immediately re-sealed itself.
‘Back to civilization,’ he muttered, turning and stalking back towards Woodwicke.
‘You’re sure Chris’ll be fine?’ Roz asked as she followed him.
‘Ah,’ said the interface.
Chris experienced a moment of total paranoia, during which he managed to convince himself that there were monsters hiding in the darkness. He performed what he took to be a 360-degree turn, checking for any sign of movement, but the blackness was absolute and he wouldn’t have been able to see a Chelonian if it had been standing two feet in front of him and waving (an image which stuck in his head, for some reason).
When he’d finished the turn, he was surprised to find himself still spinning, and realized that his toes were no longer touching the ground. The computer slipped out of his grasp, but he never heard it crash against the floor.
‘ Now what?’ he demanded.
‘A localized gravity failure,’ said the voice, nonchalantly.
‘Your interference has created minor disturbances in certain systems. First lighting, and now gravity. One moment, please.’
There was a pause, while the interface rooted around inside the bowels of the TARDIS. Chris kept spinning
‘Interesting,’ it finally announced.
‘It’d better be,’ said Chris.
‘Something else is creating disturbances. I don’t believe all of this is your doing. Ah. The artronics have cancelled themselves out. Wait. Yes. Yes, we’re safe for now. Can you hear me, Chris Cwej?’
‘I can hear you. Look, is there anything you can do to stop me spinning? I’m getting sick.’
‘No. But listen, please. There’s something wrong with the basal structure of the ship, an unknown element