Doctor Who_ Combat Rock - Mick Lewis [58]
‘Eat it, Pieter.’ the headhunter said with no emotion in his voice.
The missionary remained where he was, standing in his own living room with the night pushing through the shattered window, and silence outside on the streets of Agat, as if the town had been deserted.
‘You know I never eat it, Julius. You know that.’ A deliberate attempt to remind Julius of their former closeness, but if the headhunter understood the missionary’s intention, he gave no sign of it.
Father Pieter continued: ‘You remember how many times I tried to warn the townspeople against it?’ He was trying to make the situation as mundane as possible, to make it safely everyday instead of surreally lunatic, and maybe then Julius could revert to his old, cheerfully pragmatic self. But even as he spoke, something was beginning to dawn on him, and the realisation filled him with a bitter new horror. ‘Brain deteriorating elements in it, Julius... and I thought you listened to my advice.’
‘I am Papul after all, missionary. I could never follow you in all things.’
‘It’s affected you, hasn’t it, Julius?’ Father Pieter’s voice grew more excited and anxious as he seized upon the only possible explanation for the madness that had consumed Agat.
‘You ate the fungus and it’s done something to your mind!’
The headhunter lifted the axe as if thoughtfully. The green quartz stone was firm in the hollow crook of the wooden head. ‘Maybe that’s why we succumbed to faith in your... God so easily.’ He dropped the fungus. Now he was rising from the armchair and advancing slowly on Father Pieter.
The missionary retreated against the living room wall. The door was not so far that he would not be able to make it if he sprinted, but the headhunter was easily the most agile of the two. There was more chance in appealing to the man’s reason and intelligence. And faith had always been the best tool.
‘Why are you afraid, missionary?’ the headhunter said, and now he was drawing a rope from beneath the body-mesh.
‘Don’t you have your God to call upon? After all your words of glory, do you then fear meeting him?’
In three rapid strides he was upon the missionary, seizing him by the back of the neck and steering him towards the armchair, flipping a loop of rope over him and pushing him firmly down into the seat.
It didn’t take him long to tie Pieter to the armchair, and although the missionary tried to resist, he was old and weak, and the headhunter was young and very strong. There was also the axe, and Father Pieter could see by the glint in Julius’s eyes that he would not hesitate to use it.
So he let himself be tied to the chair. But he wasn’t finished yet.
‘God loves you, Julius. He loves all of us, despite our sins.
If you stop what you are doing, I can help you. It’s not too late:
Julius finished his work and stood back. ‘ Does he love you, Pieter? Does he really?’
The headhunter and the missionary faced each other in silence for a few moments. Agat was unnaturally quiet. No footsteps on the boards, no joyful shouts or angry curses. Not even any screams. The town had died.
‘Do you even know why you are doing this, Julius?’ Pieter said, when he could bear it no longer. ‘You’re an educated man...’
The headhunter nudged the fungus on the floor with his bare foot. ‘We’ll just have to find you something else to eat.’
He crossed to the wine cabinet behind the armchair, and opened it.
Father Pieter tried to crane his neck to see what his guest was doing. The cabinet doors closed again and the headhunter re-entered the missionary’s field of vision.
He wasn’t holding a bottle of wine.
The curator had already knocked a hole in the temple of Father Tomas’s severed head. He tilted the head to show his work to Pieter.
‘Can you appreciate the craft involved? Instincts, you see.
We are