Doctor Who_ Companion Piece - Mike Tucker [28]
Had she lost it all? The belief? Had she ever really believed it? She remembered it now as fact, not as faith, and it didn't seem to suit her at all. She wished Father Julian would come and visit.
Finally her boredom overcame her fear of the dark and she plunged into the gloom.
Every slight shift or groan of the ship in flight set Cat's nerves on edge. She strained to hear the terrible sounds of torture.
Nothing.
She went further, deeper into the bowels and workings of the ship.
`Hello?' she called out timidly. 'Is anybody down here?'
They must be going through some sort of turbulence. The distant clang of the hull sounded to Cat like ripping metal. Like the roaring of some great machine. Screams carried on the wind .. .
She froze. That was it — the sound.
She edged out around a bend in the corridor. She wasn't sure she could go any further.
A scream again; chilling, more of a drawn-out whine of agony. It didn't sound human.
And then, over the industrial grind and the unearthly screams, another voice. Human. Male. And singing.
`All things bright and beautiful . . . '
Accompanied by a low groan of pain and despair. Cat felt sick.
She forced herself forward into the gloom, following the nightmare sounds.
`All creatures great and small . . . '
The corridor ended in a door — not locked. Slowly she turned the handle, inched open the door and peered into the black slit.
`All things wise and wonderful . . . '
It was the hold. The cacophony was coming from the back, up towards the roof.
As Cat walked slowly forward, the tumult died down, collapsing into a dying groan of machinery that drowned out everything else.
`The Lord God . . . '
Cat could see light at the back of the room. A grille, set near the ceiling. She could see a pair of feet through it.
. . . made . . . '
She edged forward in the sudden, unnerving silence. On the far wall of the cavernous chamber hung a cross, huge and black, wires and tubes snaking down from it through the deck-plates of the ship. Cat stared up at the cross, goosebumps on her skin. There was something not right here. Something twisted.
Eyes on the cross and not on her feet, Cat tripped on one of the plastic container crates that littered the dark room. The box tipped, spilling out its loose consignment of chains.
`W ho's there?'
A light — a torch — shone through the grille, and into Cat's eyes. She froze.
`W ho are you?' a man's voice asked.
She didn't reply.
`It's all right, I'm not going to hurt you.'
`I'm Cat Broome,' she said timidly.
She could just make out a young man clad in blue overalls, squatting, peering down at her.
`Actually, we've met before,' he said.
`W e have?'
`In Saint Saviour's Cathedral, in Braak. You were asking me about Father Julian.'
`That's right! But you were dressed as a priest then.'
`I am a priest,' he said. 'But there are other ways to serve God, off one's knees.'
`W hat are you doing up there?'
`Repairs. Maintenance. W hen we met in the cathedral, I was merely visiting — as a tourist, you might say. I've been wanting to see Saint. Saviour's for years. I remembered you because of the question you asked me about Patriarchs. I used to get confused about them as a child.'
`Really!' exclaimed Cat. `Me too! I sort of used to mix them up with the — '
' — Old Testament Patriarchs; the priest cut in.
`Yes!' exclaimed Cat. 'How did you know?'
`Me too,' he grinned. 'I'm Father O'Hearne. But please call me Paddy. Are you a prisoner?'
`I suppose so. They're calling me a witch.'
`Oh dear,' said Paddy.
`I'm not, though.'
Paddy leaned forward, his face close to the grille.
`Between you and me, I'm not sure I believe in witches.'
In an undistinguished chapel on one of the lower decks, a man knelt at prayer. He was further from home than he had ever dreamed of being, in the presence of sorcery and murder and the Holy Inquisition. He was being taken to Rome to