Doctor Who_ Companion Piece - Mike Tucker [35]
`W e are in a crisis, Doctor:
Del Toro was standing behind the Doctor. He was flanked by guards.
`The Magellanic Tsar has invaded the outer systems in support of the blasphemous claims of the devil-fish Brrteet'k who calls himself Celestine VI. W e are in the middle of a war zone.'
He took a pistol from somewhere inside his vestments.
`This ship is directly under threat, and the last thing I need is a Time Lord criminal running about my decks dressed as a priest. Take those robes of
The Doctor did as he was told. Del Toro raised the gun to the Doctor's head.
`Consider this a summary execution; he said.
to his quarters opened. 'How are you, my dear?'
`I'm all right, Father Julian. How are you?'
`Just old, my dear. Come in, come in.' The old man ushered her in and closed the door. 'How are they treating you? Did you get the food?'
`Yes. Thank you, Father.'
`I tried to get del Toro to move you from the prisoners' quarters, but I cannot persuade him, I'm afraid:
`It's OK, Father. It's not the dungeon, it's . . . me. The Doctor thinks they're doing something to my mind — my memories — to make me a Catholic.
The old man rubbed his chin and blinked sympathetically.
`If it is possible: he mused, 'I don't know . . . but if it were, then certainly I should rely upon del Toro to do it. Nobody in Rome would stop him.'
Cat bit her lip.
`My poor child . . . '
He placed a light, cold hand upon her cheek. It felt frail, and trembled slightly, but Cat sensed the warmth with which the gesture was meant.
`Guess I'll have to hope the Doctor gets it together. He's a bit flaky at
the moment.'
`From my limited understanding,' said the old man, 'his soul has been through a great trauma. W e humans can but imagine what it must be like to have thirteen souls.'
`Is that what the Doctor has?'
`So Saint Yxtryl of Mars taught. He was burned as a heretic, of course, but subsequently canonised. Quite where he stands now, I'm not sure.
`Thirteen . . . Sometimes it seems hard to cope with one.'
Cat sat down heavily on the old man's bed.
`W hen I first joined the Doctor, he took me to a place where billions of creatures swirled around a newborn star in a huge crystal cloud, singing with a single voice. He told me that it was a gestalt — a single being made up of billions of different parts. Billions of souls . . . ' She looked up at the Patriarch in confusion. 'Or one soul with billions of bodies?'
Father Julian gave a shrug. 'I'm no expert on the xenomorph theology.'
`The priests, back home, they used to tell me that pets didn't go to heaven. All the cats and dogs and fish and budgies, they had no souls:
`They are just animals.'
`Yes, but they were alive, brimming with life, and over the last few years I have seen so much life — in so many different forms!' Cat leaned forward. 'Just before we came here, the Doctor and I met a race of insects called the W ierdarbi. Apparently that's all they were once — insects, mindless and primitive. But someone, some higher being, changed them, gave them speech and intelligence, turned them into something new, made them more than just animals. In doing that, did he give them souls as well? Did he become God in doing so?'
Cat sank her head into her hands. 'I just don't know any more... Everything is so confused!'
`You should lay the burden before the Lord. Become as a child in his sight, believe now as you believed when a child. W here was the burden back then, eh?'
`W hat do you think happens when you die, Father?'
`One hopes to ascend through purgatory, carried forward on a life led in the bosom of Christ, spurred on by the intercessions of the Blessed Virgin and the Saints, and ultimately to enter the Gates of Saint Peter and dwell alongside He who died for our sins:
`I don't know if I believe that. It sounds nice, but then, there's the other place.'
`Hell?' The old man smiled. 'Unlike many, I do not believe the dungeons of the Evil One are overflowing. I fear he has little to