Doctor Who_ The Algebra of Ice - Lloyd Rose [73]
‘I don’t know,’ Brett said casually, looking around for some place to tap his ash.
‘Perhaps you’re a sociopath.’
‘It’s certainly a possibility.’ Brett fetched a pin tray off the chest of drawers and sat down again.
‘Though even for a sociopath, ending all life on this planet is rather extreme.’
‘You should know.’
‘It wasn’t my home planet I was destroying.’
Brett smiled again. ‘Well, it’s early days yet. They say the second crime is always easier.’
‘Whereas this is your planet,’ the Doctor continued, as if Brett hadn’t said anything. ‘Everything else aside, when it goes you’ll go.’ Brett shrugged. ‘What is this – suicide by annihilation?’
‘You know what the philosopher said: “Life should not be, and the only good is the passage from being to nothingness”.’
‘Yes, I’ve read Schopenhauer, thank you. He didn’t kill himself, or anyone else.’
‘No, he held on, didn’t he? People do cling to life; it’s all they have.’
‘And they have a right to it.’
Brett raised an eyebrow. ‘What a silly thing to say. They want it, I agree, but there’s no right to life. It’s not written down in some cosmic book.’
‘So you think you have the right to obliterate it all.’
‘No I don’t. I’m just going to do it. Eventually it will happen anyway: heat death of the universe and so on.’ He smiled again. ‘Like the centre of Hell, the centre of life, is ice. I’m only speeding things up.’
‘Because you hate life?’
‘Because life is unforgivable.’ Brett crushed his cigarette in the pin dish. ‘The complexities and, indeed, wonders of human existence are possible only because they are supported by gobbling selfishness. Mozart should not have writ-Chapter Eighteen
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ten music; he should have been working to alleviate suffering. Da Vinci should never have painted, Shakespeare should never have written, Einstein should never have worked out his incomprehensible theories of reality. Everything we call culture is based on a dereliction of moral duty. No journalist should write, no architect should build, no teacher should instruct, no vintners should make wine. No miner should take home his pay and enjoy his family, no garbage collector should buy himself a beer, no nurse should take a hot bath at the end of her shift, no child have a pet, no reader lose himself in a book. They all stand in blood. And there’s no “salvation” from some postulated good society. Every civilisation, from the villages of Africa to the hideously complicated structures of western Europe, rests on cruelty, and is corrupt.’
‘No, you’re not a sociopath,’ said the Doctor. ‘You’re a saint.’ Brett laughed.
‘ “Kill them all; God will sort out His own.”’
‘Except that there is no God.’
Unwillingly, despite his revulsion, the Doctor was impressed. This was nihilism so complete it achieved a perverse visionary grandeur. Pure darkness is, after all, pure. ‘So the fabled Shining City on the Hill will shine because it’s made of ice. I think I’ll stick with being over nothingness.’
‘Unless it’s expedient to do otherwise.’
‘The death of billions that allows many billions more to live isn’t quite the same as the death of billions with all lives, everywhere, lost.’
Brett shrugged. ‘It hardly matters now, does it?’
‘I stopped you before.’
‘Yes, and that was very, very clever. But you weren’t handcuffed to a bed then.’
Good point, the Doctor thought glumly. ‘I don’t believe they have the power to come through. Even without my interference.’
‘You may be right. That’s where I need your help.’
‘Now who’s being silly?’
Brett smiled. ‘Touché.’ But he still unlocked the handcuff, twisted the Doctor’s arm up behind him, and shoved him out the door.
Unwin’s computer station was set up on the lower level of a bunk bed. He had to hunch uncomfortably over the keyboard, which he was doing when the Doctor and Brett came in. The Doctor raised his hat.
‘Mr Unwin, I presume.’
Unwin started. ‘He’s all right,’ he said to Brett in some disbelief.
‘Yes, he’s a sturdy chap.’
152
The Algebra of Ice
‘Hello,’ said the Doctor. ‘I