Doctor Who_ Ghost Ship - Keith Topping [29]
Then, it seemed to sink in that I knew who he was. He stood up from his table and came eagerly towards me, clearly delighted to be meeting such a fan. 'You've heard of me and my work?' he asked. 'How flattering.'
'Only what little I've read,' I replied as dismissively as I deemed appropriate. This seemed to deflate his ego. 'No offence,' I added, deliberately.
'Then you clearly have me at something of a disadvantage,' he said, rapidly losing any vestige of interest in me or my opinion.
'I'm the Doctor,' I told him. 'I'm delighted to meet a man of your immense reputation.' I held out my hand to him, but the scientist merely gave it a cursory glance and then turned away from me, wounded, snubbing my invited handshake. 'Time travel,' I continued. 'An impossible dream for many throughout the ages.'
'For those who have lived their petty lives in monochrome perhaps,' said Osbourne arrogantly, as he sat back down. He looked at me curiously.
'And, you're a doctor of what, exactly?'
'Oh, this, that and the other,' I told him, 'but, of particular relevance to this conversation, quantum and tachyon physics. Jelly baby?'
Osbourne ignored the question. He seemed to be weighing me up with his eyes, trying to decide which side of the fence I was on, so to speak. 'Where do you stand on the issue?' he asked, presumably meaning that he had not been able to decide for himself.
I shrugged. 'What is, was. What was, shall be,' I replied. 'Time is only a dimension. It's nothing to write poetry about.'
'And a dimension that can be conquered?' Osbourne queried.
'You do not conquer time,' I said, shaking my head and trying not to sound like the authority on the subject that I was. 'Time conquers you. It's an eternal and very unequal battle.'
'I like you,' said Osbourne, seemingly satisfied with my answer. 'Most of the people I meet are rascals, stupid idealists or absurd cynics when it comes to time. You seem to be none of those things. A black one, please,' he asked, rooting around in my bag of confectionery.
Oh, but that said so very much about the man on so many levels. 'On the contrary, that is not true in the slightest, I'm sorry to say,' I confessed. 'I am frequently all three. Sometimes simultaneously.'
Now he asked me a question that surprised me. 'Do you believe in God?'
I took far longer to answer this than I felt comfortable with. It was a question that I had been asked several times before, although never in anything like these circumstances. My answer was usually couched in riddles and abstract sentiments. I saw no reason to change the habits of a lifetime and replied with a question of my own. 'Do you mean as a spiritual and moral centre within the individual? As a concept to define whether free will is merely an illusion after all? As a theory to explain the delicious ironies of nature? Or as an old man with a white beard who lives in the sky?'
Osbourne thought about this for a moment. 'As a reality to the presence in which you find yourself,' he finally replied. 'I am become God,' he continued. 'I hold all the power of the universe at my fingertips. It's quite a humbling experience, as I'm sure you can imagine.' He paused for my reaction and, getting only a small exhalation of breath and a curious inclination of one eyebrow, he went on with his revelation. 'I once met a man who thought he could count a million angels dancing on a pinhead by using cosmic radiation and a big magnifying glass,' Osbourne said, straight-faced, his words again coming in rapid bursts of gunfire from his mouth. 'Spent decades trying to perfect the technique. It was his life's work. Poor chap, completely mad, of course.'
'Science and religion are often much closer than you might think,'I said after a moment. 'Look at it this way; nothing, light, then the universe. They're pretty