Doctor Who_ The Infinity Doctors - Lance Parkin [3]
Someone had told him once that rain was nothing more than falling droplets of water, and how interesting could they be?
The clock tower in the Old Harbour was tolling Four Point Five Bells, he could hear it even through the Citadel walls. It was the mid-point of the night, traditionally the time when the vampires and the other ghosts of dead immortals walked in the lands of the mortal men.
Over the sound of the rain he could hear footsteps.
‘Who goes there?’ Raimor intoned wearily.
‘It is me, Peltroc,’ an eager voice called out. Peltroc was a youngster, not even eighty years old. Raimor envied him his lined face and greying hair. Complications with his last regeneration meant that Raimor’s physical form was a great deal younger in appearance than he would have liked. Most members of the Chancellery. Watch wore younger bodies than the Gallifreyan norm, but Raimor’s new body was barely past puberty. There were promising signs: a receding hairline, the first traces of worry lines developing on his forehead, but it would almost certainly be a century before he’d be comfortable with his appearance. The way you look shouldn’t matter, but it did, and no one took him seriously any more. He was wondering whether he could fill the intervening decades before this body matured with a spell in Traffic Control.
Peltroc always joined him at this point. Those who weren’t in the Watch might have questioned why it was that some sections of the weekly patrol required one Watchman, yet others required two or three. But each route had its own tradition, and tradition had served Gallifrey well. There had been the Watch long before there had been Time Lords, and there were ten million years’ worth of history coded in the traditional routes. Some reminded of great disasters: the storerooms of the Endless Library were searched every night, ensuring that there would never be another Biblioclasm. The chambers of the High and Supreme Councils were ritually sterilised before each session, even a quarter of a million years after the Blank Plague had been eradicated. Triumphs were remembered, too: ceremonial marches every month retraced the victory parades that had followed the wars against Rigel, Gosolus and the dozen or so other worlds that had launched attacks on Gallifrey since the time of Rassilon and Omega. Then there was the wreath-laying at the tombs, cenotaphs, memorials and monuments all around the Capitol, to remind that the present had not been built without casualties.
As they set off on their patrol Peltroc was full of his boyish enthusiasm, as ever. ‘It’s raining again.’
Raimor affected a surprised expression. ‘Is it? I didn’t notice.’
‘It’s rained a lot recently.’
Raimor saw a whole night of similar banter yawning in front of him. ‘And what do you put that down to?’ he asked dolefully.
Peltroc considered the question. ‘Could be the aliens,’ he offered. He wasn’t rewarded with a reply, so he spent a couple of seconds refining the answer. ‘It didn’t rain so much before they came on the scene. Perhaps it’s Rassilon’s way of telling us to keep ourselves to ourselves, let them sort out their own problems.’
The boy wasn’t right, Raimor knew that, but his theory certainly had its attractions.
‘Rassilon’s Rain,’ he snorted. ‘I like the thought of that.
Just think, Peltroc, up there are two battlefleets, heading this way. A hundred warships on each side. It’s madness. It’s sure to lead to trouble. There’s the paperwork more than anything else.’
‘I heard that there’s a fair few on the High Council that would agree with that. You talk to a Time Lord, he’ll tell you that he’s not happy.’ Peltroc sniffed.
‘The President used his casting vote, though. So the alien fleet will arrive at dawn.’
‘But the aliens themselves won’t be on Gallifrey until tomorrow night, will they?’
‘Didn’t you read the briefing? The aliens arrive at dusk.
Nine Bells precisely. They’ll spend the day before that in orbit sorting