Doctor Who_ Christmas on a Rational Planet - Lawrence Miles [5]
refused to let the skeleton be exhibited in public?’
‘God rest his soul. Yes. We have many skeletons like this one, or fragments of them. Shortly before his passing, His Holiness decided that all such relics should be interred here upon their discovery. The Collection is, after all, a repository for those things which we feel it would be... inappropriate ...
for the general public to see. The discoverers of the bones are usually easy to pay off, their treasures brought here from around the world.’
‘I do not quite understand.’ The woman’s voice was strained, and Catilin guessed that she was trying to keep her
‘sensitivity’ under control. ‘Why such secrecy? Why should you keep such things from the eyes of the people?’
Catilin frowned. ‘Those few men of reason who have examined them claim that the bones are older than one might expect. More than six thousand years old, which, according to the holy scripture, would seem to be older than the age of the Earth, as created by our Lord. In death, then, these creatures accuse the scripture of fraud. Naturally, it does not do for such accusations to be made public.’
Duquesne was silent for a while, and Catilin wondered if he should continue with his half-hearted guided tour. And then;
‘This will not last forever,’ she said.
‘Mademoiselle?’
‘The Vatican cannot be in every place at once. Discoveries will soon be made that your "fellow Cardinals" will overlook.
The public will see all these things, which you have hidden from them for so long. Reason dictates it.’
‘Perhaps. Though even reason would fail to answer many of the mysteries in the Collection, I’m sure. There is a skeleton of a man in our vaults that was found side-by-side with one of these great reptiles, while Cardinal Roche claimed to have seen the corpse of a creature that was halfway between man and fish, refuting both science and the book of Genesis.’
Catilin nodded contemplatively. ‘However, if there’s one thing I refuse to argue with, it’s the Age of Reason. At least, not with the French.’
‘A good Catholic not arguing with reason? Unthinkable!’
Catilin had asked for that, of course, but he let out a loud sniff anyway, as if mortally offended. She’d touched a nerve, it was true. The Vatican couldn’t hold off the Age of Reason for much longer. Since His Holiness had died, the Church had been under the thumb of the bastard conqueror Bonaparte, and the world knew it; that was why the woman was here, come to survey the Collection for the ‘little Emperor’, just as they’d survey all the Vatican’s secret treasures, from the Library of St John the Beheaded in London to the living specimens of the Crow Gallery in Southern Africa. Something vast and raw and new was forcing its way into the world, Catilin reflected, ripping up the traditions and the establishments, replacing monarchies with revolutionaries and revolutionaries with short French megalomaniacs. New rulers. New religions. A new century on its way.
Catilin suddenly noticed that the woman had moved on and was standing, frozen, in front of an ancient scrap of parchment, covered with tiny dancing figures.
‘Primitive art,’ Catilin told her. ‘Hundreds of years old, though the fabric is of unknown manufacture. The illustration is of Shango, a god of lightning. Thought to be the only pictorial representation of the deity in existence –’
But Duquesne wasn’t listening. Her eyes had become glass baubles, her face flushed red as if she were about to burst into flames, her attention fixed on the little figure of Shango as he danced in front of the oblong ‘magic box’ with which, according to the parchments, he travelled a mystic triangle between the Earth, the sky, and the future.
‘ Caillou,’ Duquesne said, her voice reduced to a croak.
Catilin opened his mouth to ask her what she meant.
But she’d fainted dead away.
PART ONE
STATE OF INDEPENDENCE
‘The first century began with the year 1 AD and ended with the year 100 AD. Hence, the twentieth century began on January 1st 1901 and will end on December 31st 2000 AD.