Doctor Who_ Christmas on a Rational Planet - Lawrence Miles [61]
There was a shocked silence from the council.
‘I am in control!’ insisted Catcher. ‘Do not suggest that I am in any way behaving irrationally.’
But they were just staring at him, not knowing what to say.
Four confused and alarmed people stood aside as Catcher stormed out of the hall with awkward, mechanical steps.
Half a wardrobe floated past, spewing out tartan jackets and brightly coloured greatcoats that looked like they’d been made for gigantic toy soldiers. Duquesne sat on the edge of an overturned bookcase, which rested on a section of flooring that drifted aimlessly on a sea of darkness. There was still a ceiling overhead, but the cracks were visible even in that.
She didn’t want to be here. She didn’t want to be within a million miles of this terrible place. Pushed in one direction by the Shadow Directory, pulled in another by the candle-flames that flickered up and down her spine, spirited across the world by politics and lightning-gods... did everybody live this way, she wondered, or were there people who could actually choose the kind of world they lived in?
‘OK, how about psychometry? Can you do that?’
Christopher Cwej sat on a nearby mound of dictionaries, with one of the books open in his hands. He was flipping through words beginning with ‘psy’ to see what kind of ‘cool psychic powers’ Duquesne had. She wasn’t familiar with any of the words, and kept telling him so.
‘Psychometry is where you touch something and know who touched it last,’ Cwej explained. ‘Like fingerprints, I suppose.
Back at the Academy, they said that some primitive planets had judicial systems based on psychometry. They said it was all a load of bull. But I think they might have had a kind of grudge against psychics. Oh well.’
‘Do you know where we’re going?’ Duquesne asked, looking down as another crack appeared in their island.
‘Er. We’re floating the right way, I’m sure. OK, what about psychokinesis? That’s a good one.’
Duquesne shot him a dark glance. She was trying to keep on good terms with him, but he was starting to irritate her. If he keeps this up, she thought, I’ll have to do my job.
The idea made her grimace. I do not wish to be like a chirurgeon, she thought. I do not wish to put my faith in the killing lessons. I do not wish to let the Directory steal my soul away.
‘What about the secret passage?’ she asked, trying to distract herself.
‘Oh. That.’ Cwej shut the dictionary. ‘I don’t know. The Doctor said once that every good library should have a secret passage. It’s kind of traditional. I suppose there must be one in the TARDIS library. I suppose that’s what Interface meant.’
Duquesne still wasn’t sure who this interface was, but she pressed on. ‘And you don’t know where in the library to look for it, I take it?’
‘No. And if I did, we probably couldn’t get to it.’ He indicated the other islands floating alongside them with a wave of his hand, inadvertently throwing the dictionary over the edge and into the darkness. Duquesne was sure she heard mechanical jaws start chewing on it down below. ‘And even if we could find it and get to it, we don’t know if it’d still lead anywhere. That’s the trouble with all this multi-dimensional transcendental stuff –’
He broke off.
‘Is something wrong?’ Duquesne asked, patiently.
‘Can I just take this opportunity to say something?’ Cwej grinned. ‘I’m still brilliant. Think about it for a second.
Suppose you’re a Time Lord. Suppose you can build things like TARDISes, right? And you’ve got a library. Where d’you put the secret passage?’
Duquesne sighed. ‘Not knowing what a "Time Lord" is, Christopher, I couldn’t say.’
‘Pick a book.’
‘Pardon me?’
‘Go on. Shut your eyes. Reach into that stack of books over there, pick one out at random. It’s just a hunch, all right?’
Anything to keep him happy, Duquesne thought. She did as he said, letting her fingers find a large but surprisingly light novel which bore the title A Passage to India. She