Doctor Who_ Christmas on a Rational Planet - Lawrence Miles [66]
Their messenger was there, in the corner of the room and in the angles of his head. The Majestic Clockwork Machine-age Hermes. The clockwork began to turn, and he knew his Reason, and his Reason was to remake the world IN OUR
IMAGE.
Months later, the surgeons had tried to take him out of the room and carry him back to the family home. He remembered trying to dig his nails into the floor of the grey room. Trying to dig his way into the structure. AND? And to stay there.
Matheson Catcher reached the far end of Hazelrow Avenue and found himself staring up at his house. A less rational mind, he told himself, would have seen no pattern or logic in the shape of the building. But he could see it. He could see the workings of the machine. OH YES.
‘You’re not going anywhere, vermin!’
Adjudicator Volsted Kornbluth Cwej – or, as young Christopher called him, Dad – was a giant of a man, and when Christopher looked up at him, he seemed to stretch all the way to the Luna Sierra. His jaw was firm, his teeth clenched, a look of absolute determination etched across his proud and chiselled face.
‘He’s gotta be a cop! Waste ‘im!’
On the far side of the Overcity Four Shoptronic Mezzanine, two figures scurried away from the bank, weapons glinting in the afternoon sunlight. The bank was easily recognizable from the large sign marked ‘BANK’ that hung above it. The bank robbers were easily recognizable from their pug-ugly faces, their (illegal) snub-nosed plasmode blasters, and their working-class accents.
Young Christopher gasped as the plasmode shots rang out across the mezzanine, but they spittanged harmlessly off the plastic body-armour that Dad wore even when taking his family out shopping.
‘But, Dad! They’re getting away!’
Volsted Cwej looked down into his son’s wide and trusting eyes, then noticed the red plastic robo-frisbee in the boy’s hands.
‘Not to worry, son. Here, let me borrow that.’ He took the frisbee in his strong and experienced hands, weighed it up for a moment, then hurled it across the mezzanine.
Whumf! went the frisbee as it thumped the first robber’s head, knocking him senseless. Fwang! it went as it rebounded off the man’s skull, spinning into the legs of the second thug.
Oopf! he went as he fell onto the mezzacrete, and his gun clattered harmlessly out of his reach.
‘Curses!’ exclaimed the robber. ‘Foiled again!’
The robo-frisbee zinged back into the old Adjudicator’s hands. With a grin, he passed it back to his son.
‘Gee, Dad,’ said young Christopher. ‘I wish I could be like you.’
Volsted Cwej laughed affectionately. It was one of those great family moments. ‘You will be one day, son. Why, there’s been a Cwej in the Oberon Lodge of the Adjudication Service since, oh, I-don’t-know-when. Yes, my boy, law and order is certainly in our blood.’
Flash of light. Glint of the present. Tumbling memories.
‘Here,’ said a voice with a strong Spaceport Seven Overcity accent. No, not Overcity Seven. French. ‘In the corner. Look.’
Chris shook his head, made a ‘bwwwlllwwwllww’ noise with the spare air in his cheeks. Marielle Duquesne was crouched in the corner of the room with the brass roundels.
The room was back to normal, and none of Interface’s manifold eyes were present.
‘Christopher?’
‘Er, right. Sorry. Just had a memory.’
‘A...?’
‘A memory. Like there was something important I’d forgotten. Er. What is it?’ Chris joined her in the corner. The wall there was scratched and chipped, as if something large and savage had tried to take a bite out of it. Chris squinted.
There in the wall was a hole, only a little larger than the rest of the indentations. With a start, he realized that it was a tiny mouth.
‘Cwej,’ it squeaked. ‘ Cwej.’
‘Interface?’ He sounded more concerned than he’d meant to.
‘Cwej. Please. Listen. Have been to. The heart. Heart of the ship. Trying to get me. Out. Out of the way.’ It made an