Doctor Who_ Time and Relative - Kim Newman [41]
Something inside the contraption burned out. Golden fire-arcs leaped between the pipes. The eyes of the cherubs blazed, and trickled liquid metal.
All the ice ...
... crackled, fighting Grandfather's machine, but the pull was irresistible. Cold Knights stumped to the gateway of the Yard, then shivered into inanimate snowflakes. The snow tornado funnelled down into something the size of an ice-cream cone, sucking in more and more of swirling ice-chips.
The sun broke through the clouds.
It was only late afternoon.
The machine collapsed with a burst of turquoise energy. Zack, quiff straightened into a Bride of Frankenstein frizzy perm, was hurled away from the keyboard. John, Gillian and Malcolm huddled low, to avoid flying bits of mechanism.
Grandfather stood in the middle of it all, pleased.
Later —
Water dripped around the junkyard. A thaw was beginning.
'There,' said Grandfather, holding up a diamond-shaped lump of ice. 'The Cold is in here. It has withdrawn its animus. It was stretching itself, trying to inhabit all the ice in the world straight away. In a month or so, perhaps ... but it was impatient. The whole of its Intelligence is here. Pretty thing, isn't it?'
'And now you'll make a rocketship?' asked John. 'To send it to Pluto?'
'What? Um, no, of course not. What ever made you think that? I'll just pop inside for a moment. I shall be back directly.'
He stepped into the Box.
'I still don't think calling the coppers will help,' said Zack.
The Box shifted. It dematerialised then materialised again, seeming to waver but not disappear. In between, Grandfather went to Pluto in the Far Future. He claimed an uneventful trip, but I later checked the log and saw he needed five goes to get there, hopping around the solar system and the centuries, and more than a dozen shots to get back to Foreman's Yard an instant after departure.
Grandfather popped out.
'What was that noise?' asked John.
'Too complicated to explain, boy. The Cold is on Pluto. I think it has seen reason, and will thrive in the new environment. It has no major competitors there. Your species can get on with what it does best, making a racket and squabbling.'
'And releasing beat records and painting sunsets and making gonks.'
He was caught up sharp.
'Yes, Susan, indeed. I feel a strange, I don't know how you'd put it, satisfaction. Why didn't I ever think before of this meddling? Perhaps for the first time, I feel free of them. Quite a case can be made for it. I should experiment further along these lines. A great many matters throughout space and time might benefit from a little discreet shove in the right direction. The Dark Ages, for instance ... '
'Grandfather,' I scolded.
'Too much, you think, Susan? You're probably right.'
Tuesday, April 3rd, 1963
No school today. Or the rest of the week. And then it's the holidays. But after Easter, it'll be back to normal.
It's still cold, but sunny.
I tested a couple of snowmen. They're empty of intelligence.
The electricity is back on, and the gas and water and the BBC. A lot of people died in the 'cold snap', but no one is mentioning the Cold Knights. Grandfather and I aren't the only people on the planet who remember selectively.
Grandfather, at least, is remembering a lot.
By breaking the rule of non-interference, he seems to have dispelled his own fog-patches. I'm frustrated that it doesn't work that way for me.
I don't think I ever believed in the rule.
It was just something written into my brain with all the other stuff I've spent my time on Earth discarding. Grandfather stayed in the Box, but, despite qualms, he let me go to School. He must have had a reason for that.
I think he was using me to test the human race, sending me out among them to make a decision for him, to think through a problem he was too old to tackle by himself. If so, it was a close