Doctor Who_ Ghost Ship - Keith Topping [2]
Time, it is often said by those who know about such things, or claim to, looks after itself. I was still thinking about the circumstances that had drawn me into the web of mystery and intrigue in the Capitol. This twisting bridle path of morbid self-analysis was abandoned, and suddenly. The TARDIS was dematerialising.
I sat bolt upright in plain surprise. I had expected to drift aimlessly for a good while longer.
Subsequently I would, on many occasions, regret not instantly leaping from my chair and resetting the location controls for somewhere else. Somewhere specific. Or anywhere but the place to which the TARDIS had actually brought me. But my lethargy and gloom needed a tonic. That was certain. And in those following seconds, when I rationalised that a single random element may have been lust what the metaphorical doctor ordered, fate sealed itself.
The TARDIS had delivered me to the most haunted place on Earth. I realised this only with hindsight, of course. And hindsight, as well as being dangerous, is also something in which I never indulge myself lightly or wantonly.
For hindsight is a luxury of those who never have the need for the velvet embrace of adventure.
Ah, sweet adventure. It shall surely be the death of me.
The wood-panelled console shook and juddered, perhaps in anticipation of what would happen next. It trembled like a nervous mouse approached by a predator. I wondered, briefly, as I always did at such times, to which planet or satellite, in which constellation, in which galaxy I had been delivered. The computer did little to enlighten me, which, again, was not unusual. 'Location unknown' it told me in lurid green symbols. The air was breathable at least.
The scanner, likewise, told me nothing that I did not already know, showing only a bare patch of white painted wall. Without another thought as to the consequences, I operated the door mechanism and prepared to find out to just where in the universe I had been delivered.
It was just another day in a different place.
My life in microcosm.
Taking a deep breath, as I always did on such occasions, I stepped outside.
CHAPTER ONE
ONCE UPON A
MIDNIGHT, DREARY
What is a ship but a prison?
ROBERT BURTON, DEMOCRITUS
I HAD NEVER CONSIDERED MYSELF A NAUTICAL COVE. I FELT THE motion long before my eyes had become accustomed to the dull, funereal light. It seemed that I had come to a gloomy and mournful place, which was never, frankly, a good sign. The trace of a smile formed itself, if only for an instant, upon my lips. The old girl knew me only too well, it would seem.
But what manner of place was this?
Within seconds my senses had felt the vibration of engines that caused the movement of the floor beneath my feet, heard the shunting of distant, well-oiled pistons and the hissing of compressed steam, both smelled and tasted the atmosphere that was thick with the pungent, caustic aroma of sea salt, and seen the opulence that surrounded me.
I was on a ship.
A grand, majestic, ocean-going ship.
Through a porthole to my left I looked out to see a huge and sad-faced moon hovering mere inches above the crashing waves, casting a languid and rippling silver shadow upon the surface. It was such sights as these that had convinced the mariners of the ancient past that if one were to sail too far to the east or the west from the known world then one would reach the ends of the Earth and fall off into the endless chasm beyond.
And a magnificently imperious conceit it was, held proudly as scientific fact in the hearts and minds of all men of learning and wisdom, good men these, and some desperately bad ones as well. Until, of course, that rotten old spoilsport Ferdinand Magellan led an expedition that circumnavigated the globe, and everybody suddenly knew so much better.
I hate it when that happens, don't you?
Are you never tempted by the lie, my friends? Simply to accept what everyone else believes and never to question with your head what your heart knows full well to be true?