Doctor Who_ Christmas on a Rational Planet - Lawrence Miles [92]
There were two other bonfires-to-be outside the King George, each topped by a Renewalist who’d fallen from grace.
One of them had begun to sprout two extra pairs of arms. The limbs were pink and stunted, ending in blunt, misshapen digits. The other was the man with the third eye. They were struggling as Monroe called forth the men with the torches.
Struggling? Damnation, what was the use of struggling?
‘Reason has made its judgement,’ gargled Monroe as the first of the torches was passed to him. The fire was brighter than faith, and the rain didn’t seem to diminish it at all. ‘These ones bear the mark of Cacophony. They have been judged unfit to lead the world into the new and glorious age of science.’
The congregation began to sing a hymn in binary. Erskine found himself singing along.
‘We give up these unworthy souls in the name of the future,’ chimed Monroe. He bent down, and Erskine noticed that he’d grown an extra finger on his right hand. That used to be the sign of witchcraft, didn’t it? Still, no one else had noticed, so it probably wasn’t important. The torch touched the bottom of the trellis.
‘ Stop! This! At! Once! ’ said a voice, and everything stopped. Everything but the rain.
Erskine looked up. Two figures stood there, in the very centre of the Renewalist congregation. One of them was a man in a horribly dirty white hat and jacket, his hands outstretched, his face the very image of the wrath of God. The other...?
Erskine felt the bile rise in his stomach.
‘I’m the Doctor,’ said the man. ‘And this is my friend, Isaac. I think we’re just in time to stop you doing something extraordinarily stupid.’
‘No,’ said Christopher Cwej.
The Carnival Queen looked surprised, and the look revealed entire lifetimes of experience.
‘No,’ Chris said again. ‘I don’t swallow it. What you told me doesn’t make sense. How could anyone just reach into themselves and pull out their irrational bits? I mean, let alone a whole species...’
– Is there a problem, Christopher?
‘It doesn’t make sense! Magic and everything. It’s not real.
It’s just superstition.’ That’s what the Doctor said, anyway, he thought. But he didn’t say it.
– Superstition. The Carnival Queen laughed. – Haven’t you ever wished that someone would call you, and believed that it was your doing when they did? Haven’t you ever crossed your fingers for good luck? Or believed, just for a moment, that when you cheered on your favourite sub-quantum-para-football team, your wish was what made them score the winning goal?
Chris shrugged. ‘Well, yeah. Everyone does that, though.’
– That’s superstition, Christopher. And in that moment, she sounded exactly like Marielle Duquesne. – No, don’t think about that, Christopher, please.
‘But that’s silly.’
– No. That belief, that every little coincidence means something, that somehow you’re in touch with everyone and everything, that you know the universe and the universe knows you... that belief is what keeps your entire species alive.
It’s what lets you carry on, in the face of the random, senseless pain of reality. Do you have a sense of justice? A sense that somehow, sometime, there has to be a happy ending and a way of tying up all the loose ends?
‘Well... yeah.’
– Superstitions. Superstitions that make civilization possible. Superstition... the Watchmakers say it as if it’s a dirty word. They forget, or try to forget, that everything becomes meaningless without it. Hopes. Loves. Faiths. Little superstitions. Little necessities. Your race isn’t a creation of the Watchmakers, Christopher. Your people aren’t people of clockwork. And even the Doctor could never think of a rational reason why murder is wrong. Try asking him about Zebulon Pryce some time. See how long it takes him to change the subject.
‘No. No, I still don’t trust you.’ She was smiling at him still, and Chris felt like blushing. Whenever she spoke, something tickled the insides