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‘You’ve decided,’ Mathara said, primly.

‘I’m ready if you are,’ Fitz told her. Which was a profoundly stupid thing to say, under the circumstances.

* * *

9

Definitions

(Sam learns a thing or two about the Remote, while Alan Llewis just gets the picture)

shadow mask n. a sheet of perforated metal positioned next to the phosphor‐dotted screen in certain colour television sets, the holes positioned so that each of the three electron beams can strike the appropriate phosphor dot, resulting in the required mixture of colour in the image.

– Dawson’s English Dictionary, 1993

* * *

‘There’s a word they’ve got in Haiti. It’s in your English dictionaries, but the people who write the dictionaries never understand a thing, so according to them it’s just another word for ‘spirit’. But it means more than that, if you can read between the lines. And if you don’t understand the word you’ll never understand the Remote. Are you with me, Sam?

‘The word is “loa”. Lo‐a. It’s not hard to remember, so keep it in mind.

‘You know about voodoo? No, maybe you don’t. Where you come from, they teach you that voodoo’s some kind of backward death cult, like one of those African religions you get in old RKO movies. Y’know. Where all the black men have got bones through their noses and stick pins in little dolls of people. You never get to hear about the history. How the whole religion started, how the Haitians needed something to hold their culture together when they were being ripped to bits by the Europeans. Voodoo was behind the biggest slave revolt in human history, did you know that?

‘Shh. This is important. Wait and see.

‘Voodoo’s an active religion, that’s the point I’m making. It’s a political religion. Now, a lot of cultures believe in spirits, one way or another. But most of the time the spirits are on a different level from ordinary people like you and… well, like you. I mean, look at that Christianity thing you’ve got down on Earth. You’ve got your messenger angels, but they’re stuck up there in Heaven. They don’t mess around with humans unless there’s a crisis on.

‘The loa, though… the loa are different. The loa walk right next to you. They don’t spit on you from up in the clouds, not like the angels do. Ever seen a voodoo ceremony? No, you wouldn’t have, a nice C of E girl like you. The way those voodoo people act, you’d think the loa were right there in the middle of things, dancing along with the priests and the priestesses. Well, maybe they are.

‘The loa aren’t your average bunch of gods‐from‐above, that’s what I’m saying. They’re not untouchable, and they’re not infallible. They get drunk and they get angry and they have good days and they have bad days, same as the rest of us. They’re real, but they’re not‐quite‐real. They’re here, but they’re not‐quite‐here. Ready to get involved at a moment’s notice, if you know how to get in touch with them. If you were a voodoo priestess, you’d be calling on the loa to help you break into animal‐research labs and free the rabbits, or whatever it is you do. You don’t worship them, not like you worship gods. You talk to them. Like friends. Like companions. And they talk back.

‘No, I haven’t forgotten about the Remote. I’m coming to that. Trust me.

‘Thing is, the same patterns turn up all over space‐time. Don’t ask me why, but they do. I mean, I’ve heard of at least a dozen places where they think your friend the Doctor’s the Devil himself, just because their life stories have got so much in common. Anyway, Earth isn’t the only planet with voodoo cults, that’s the thing you’ve got to remember.

‘You know that already, though, don’t you? There was that run‐in you and the Doctor had with Faction Paradox, about… how long ago now? Four years? Five? And just a couple of months ago, in San Francisco. When the Faction’s people wanted to get their claws into you, but the Doctor wouldn’t let them. Not that you’d remember much about that. Let’s be honest, you weren’t yourself.