Doctor Who_ Christmas on a Rational Planet - Lawrence Miles [94]
Song
The creature – nobody could have called it a man, surely –
was dressed in the shredded remnants of a dark blue jacket and pantaloons, the scraps pinned to its body with tiny nails. Its chest was a skeletal cage filled with rubble, and its face was a single layer of skin pulled across a broken skull.
Its face...
‘Penley,’ Erskine gurgled. ‘Isaac Penley.’
The other Renewalists looked at each other, confused eyes concealed by sackcloth masks. Walter Monroe cleared his throat.
‘Obviously, a creature of Cacophony,’ he spluttered. ‘We must do the only rational thing and –’
‘Rational?’ thundered the Doctor, and Erskine suddenly found the little man’s finger pointing directly at him. ‘You don’t even remember the meaning of the word. This man, for example. What is his crime?’
‘He bears the mark of Cacophony,’ harrumphed Monroe.
‘You mean the little dragon-shaped birthmark on his forehead? Personally, I think it’s quite fetching. I had a tattoo a lot like it, a few lifetimes ago.’ The Doctor faced Monroe, and sniffed disapprovingly. ‘I certainly find it more appealing than that extra finger of yours.’
Monroe’s hand darted into his pocket. The other Renewalists began to murmur, and some of those at the back of the crowd seemed to melt away into the shadows.
‘Mr Penley,’ said the Doctor, pointing to the monstrosity with the end of his walking-cane. ‘Perhaps you’d tell these gentlemen who did this to you?’
‘Who... did wha’ to me?’
‘This.’ The cane touched Isaac’s left leg, and it clanged like a bell. ‘This . "surgery".’
Isaac swallowed. Erskine heard rusted nails scrape together in the creature’s throat.
‘Ca,’ he grunted.
‘Cacophony!’ exclaimed Monroe, pointing an accusing finger and having ten others spare. ‘As I thought! Creature of havoc!’
‘Oh, do shut up,’ said the Doctor.
‘Ca,’ Isaac groaned. ‘Catcher.’
A muted cry of alarm ran through the crowd.
‘Catcher,’ nodded the Doctor. ‘Interesting, wouldn’t you say? Bearing in mind the man’s apparent dedication to reason.’
‘Reason!’ snapped Monroe.
‘Oh, very well, Reason. The figure-head of your society may be suffering from a touch of woodworm.’ Erskine never saw the Doctor turn, but the next thing he knew, he was looking down into a pair of eyes that seemed to contain whole worlds. ‘I don’t think we’ve been introduced.’
‘Morris,’ Erskine said formally, only remembering that he was tied to a trellis when he tried to shake the Doctor’s hand.
‘Erskine Morris.’
‘Hmmm. Tell me something, Mr Morris. Answer me a simple question.’ The eyes were staring. Oh, God, they were staring. ‘What is it you believe in?’
‘Reason,’ said Erskine, automatically. Walter Monroe opened his mouth to speak, but the Doctor – without even turning around – raised a hand to silence him.
‘No, Mr Morris. What do you really believe in?’
‘I...’
Erskine’s jaw froze. Monroe, at the bottom of the unlit bonfire, was staring up at him with expectant eyes. Expectant slits, anyway. The surviving Renewalists were clustered behind him, waiting for instructions. Beyond that...
... beyond that, Woodwicke was burning. Burning in the rain.
Erskine met the Doctor’s gaze.
‘Freedom, alcohol, and security,’ he declared. ‘Sitting out on the street on a Sunday morning, pretending to read a book.
Waiting for the damned priests to walk past and knocking their bloody hats off with pebbles.’
It was his voice. His voice. The first time he’d really heard it since he’d been in Catcher’s labyrinth. The Doctor raised an eyebrow.
‘Then let that be your purpose,’ he said.
Around them, the madness seemed to shrink back a little.
On the nearest trellis to Erskine’s, the owner of the third eye found the organ sinking back into his forehead. The six-armed man’s new appendages began to pull themselves into his body.
The Doctor turned to a speechless Walter Monroe, and smiled.
‘It’s a strange kind of sanity,’ he said. ‘But it works.’
Roz leapt under the stone canopy and behind the row of columns that fronted the bank, pushing Daniel ahead of her.
An energy wave shredded the front