Doctor Who_ Christmas on a Rational Planet - Lawrence Miles [43]
The clanking things were lurking in the cracks and the corners, but then they were lurking everywhere. Chris remembered his family taking him to the EarthDoomWorld exhibit on Overcity Three-Point-One, where he’d been thrown out by guides in unconvincing Star Patrol uniforms because he’d refused to find the animatronic alien monsters frightening. Those monsters had been the same as the ones now loose in the TARDIS, staying in the shadows because they knew they were scarier that way, because what they really were wasn’t nearly as terrifying as what they might have been. Chris reasoned that as long as he stayed out of the corners, he was safe.
Out of one eye, he watched Marielle, sitting on a dislodged piece of masonry nearby. She claimed to be an innocent bystander who’d entered the TARDIS by accident, but she was too calm, too... professional?
Marielle looked up at him. Chris attempted a smile.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.
‘Perfectly well, thank you. Christopher.’ She tried to smile back, then looked away, turning her head to the left so that the burn on her cheek wasn’t visible to him.
Chris decided to take a risk.
‘How are you feeling really?’ he asked.
Marielle was silent for a while. She didn’t make eye contact.
‘My spine still feels numb,’ she finally announced.
‘Your spine?’
Marielle nodded. ‘It has been painful since I came near your machine. You said the ship can, ahh, speak with minds?’
‘I don’t know about that. It’s got telepathic circuits.’
She nodded, though it was clear she didn’t really understand. ‘Then the ship may be communicating.’
‘Communicating?’
‘With me. With my body. Through my nerves.’
‘I don’t get it,’ said Chris.
Then she was looking at him, deep-set eyes peering out of a painfully thin face. Chris could see rough, badly treated skin on the other side of her pale make-up.
‘I have the Sight,’ she said, and a quiver in her voice suggested that she didn’t want to take the last word very seriously. ‘And I think your TARDIS does, too. Or something much like it.’
‘Cacophony,’ said Monroe.
‘Cacophony,’ agreed one of the other Renewalists.
Erskine Morris looked to the burning remains of the church, across the street from where they stood at the back of the mob. The archway collapsed as he watched, showering the damp stone steps with sparks.
‘Look,’ he said, then realized he didn’t know what to say.
‘Look,’ he tried again. ‘Surely... the thing in the church...
maybe Catcher had something to do with it... oh, sodomy.’
Monroe shook his head. ‘Cacophony,’ he spluttered, with utter conviction. The same tone of voice you’d normally use to talk about Federalists or Whigs or Republicans, or any other sane and ordinary thing. ‘As Mr Catcher said. The days of the great battle for Reason are beginning, mmm?’
‘You know what Peter McLeod told us?’ drawled one of the other Renewalists. ‘Old Catcher’s met with the council.
They’ve put him in charge of the whole thing, McLeod reckons.’
‘It’s a clear matter of duty,’ Monroe concluded, reaching into the inside pocket of his brass-buttoned jacket. Erskine realized that he was reaching for his hood, the scrunched-up sackcloth unfolding like a handkerchief.
‘The African,’ Monroe announced. ‘The so-called witch-woman. She was seen running from the church. Reason dictates that she must be a diabolist. Agreed?’
There were shapes in the orange-tinted darkness.
‘Ben, what are we going to do?’ Polly was saying. ‘We can’t just leave the Doctor there.’
‘Him? The Doctor?’ replied Ben.
‘Well, that’s who came through the doors. There was no one else outside.’ There was a pause. ‘Ben, do you remember what he said in the tracking room? Something about... "this old body of mine is wearing a bit thin".’
‘Ah yes,’ said the Doctor. ‘One never forgets one’s first regeneration.