Christmas on a Rational Planet

by Lawrence Miles

  Because the little grey room had been perfect in every way. Eight corners, four walls, straight lines, hardly any furnishings. The room only changed its nature when the sun rose or fell, but even the shadows had a mechanical precision to them. Catcher remembered staring at a blank grey ceiling, hour after hour and day after day. Watching the shadows stretch and shrink in the corner above the bed, until the corner had finally unfolded and the Watchmakers had revealed themselves to him in full for the first time.

  Their messenger was there, in the corner of the room and in the angles of his head. The Majestic Clockwork Machine-age Hermes. The clockwork began to turn, and he knew his Reason, and his Reason was to remake the world IN OUR IMAGE.

  Months later, the surgeons had tried to take him out of the room and carry him back to the family home. He remembered trying to dig his nails into the floor of the grey room. Trying to dig his way into the structure. AND? And to stay there.

  Matheson Catcher reached the far end of Hazelrow Avenue and found himself staring up at his house. A less rational mind, he told himself, would have seen no pattern or logic in the shape of the building. But he could see it. He could see the workings of the machine. OH YES.

  ‘You’re not going anywhere, vermin!’

  Adjudicator Volsted Kornbluth Cwej – or, as young Christopher called him, Dad – was a giant of a man, and when Christopher looked up at him, he seemed to stretch all the way to the Luna Sierra. His jaw was firm, his teeth clenched, a look of absolute determination etched across his proud and chiselled face.

  ‘He’s gotta be a cop! Waste ‘im!’

  On the far side of the Overcity Four Shoptronic Mezzanine, two figures scurried away from the bank, weapons glinting in the afternoon sunlight. The bank was easily recognizable from the large sign marked ‘BANK’ that hung above it. The bank robbers were easily recognizable from their pug-ugly faces, their (illegal) snub-nosed plasmode blasters, and their working-class accents.

  Young Christopher gasped as the plasmode shots rang out across the mezzanine, but they spittanged harmlessly off the plastic body-armour that Dad wore even when taking his family out shopping.

  ‘But, Dad! They’re getting away!’

  Volsted Cwej looked down into his son’s wide and trusting eyes, then noticed the red plastic robo-frisbee in the boy’s hands.

  ‘Not to worry, son. Here, let me borrow that.’ He took the frisbee in his strong and experienced hands, weighed it up for a moment, then hurled it across the mezzanine.

  Whumf! went the frisbee as it thumped the first robber’s head, knocking him senseless. Fwang! it went as it rebounded off the man’s skull, spinning into the legs of the second thug. Oopf! he went as he fell onto the mezzacrete, and his gun clattered harmlessly out of his reach.

  ‘Curses!’ exclaimed the robber. ‘Foiled again!’

  The robo-frisbee zinged back into the old Adjudicator’s hands. With a grin, he passed it back to his son.

  ‘Gee, Dad,’ said young Christopher. ‘I wish I could be like you.’

  Volsted Cwej laughed affectionately. It was one of those great family moments. ‘You will be one day, son. Why, there’s been a Cwej in the Oberon Lodge of the Adjudication Service since, oh, I-don’t-know-when. Yes, my boy, law and order is certainly in our blood.’

  Flash of light. Glint of the present. Tumbling memories.

  ‘Here,’ said a voice with a strong Spaceport Seven Overcity accent. No, not Overcity Seven. French. ‘In the corner. Look.’

  Chris shook his head, made a ‘bwwwlllwwwllww’ noise with the spare air in his cheeks. Marielle Duquesne was crouched in the corner of the room with the brass roundels. The room was back to normal, and none of Interface’s manifold eyes were present.

  ‘Christopher?’

  ‘Er, right. Sorry. Just had a memory.’

  ‘A...?’

  ‘A memory. Like there was something important I’d forgotten. Er. What is it?’ Chris joined her in the corner. The wall there was scratched and chipped, as if something large and savage had tried to take a bite out of it. Chris squinted. There in the wall was a hole, only a little larger than the rest of the indentations. With a start, he realized that it was a tiny mouth.

  ‘Cwej,’ it squeaked. ‘Cwej.’

  ‘Interface?’ He sounded more concerned than he’d meant to.

  ‘Cwej. Please. Listen. Have been to. The heart. Heart of the ship. Trying to get me. Out. Out of the way.’ It made an unpleasant squelching noise that sounded like a multi-dimensional cough. ‘The dark. Dark. Monsters. In the dark.’

  Chris knelt down by the side of the mouth. ‘Do you know what’s causing it?’

  The lips let out another cough. Longer, this time, more rasping. Chris had seen simcords of human soldiers dying of metacarcinogens that ate away the lungs, and their death– rattles weren’t nearly as bad. ‘Someone. Listen. Please. Someone on Earth. Using the. The chaos. To remake the world.’

  Interface’s voice had changed, Chris noted. Despite the fractured sentences, there was a pleading quality to it that seemed almost human. ‘Someone on Earth? You mean a human being’s doing all this?’

  ‘Hu. Human. But. Somebody. Somebody else controlling. Controlling him Very old. Very old. Mani. Mani. Manip.’

  ‘Manipulating him?’ Chris was nodding like a mad thing, trying to remember all the details. ‘Like some evil meta-dimensional force or something? Like an old enemy of the Doctor’s?’

  Marielle was looking at him strangely again.

  ‘Nnnn. No. Old. Older. Than Doctor.’

  ‘Who? Who’s responsible?’ demanded Chris.

  ‘Ca,’ said Interface.

  ‘Ca,’ it tried again.

  ‘Ca,’ it screeched.

  Then the corner turned to dust, the mouth’s lips disintegrating, white marble flecks cascading down the wall.

  ‘Damn,’ said Chris.

  Marielle looked irritated. She was almost cute like that. ‘Did that mean anything to you?’ she asked.

  ‘Not a lot. We’ve got some clues, but we still don’t know what’s happening to the ship.’ Chris shrugged, and stood. ‘Still, it’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.’

  Marielle looked blank.

  ‘It’s an expression,’ Chris explained.

  ‘Oh,’ said Marielle.

  ‘Of course, this is all my fault,’ the man in the white suit said cheerily.

  Beth-Ann Wolcott hardly knew what to say. ‘Really?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Of course, blame is as relative as time itself. You could say that the creator of the universe was at fault for starting off the whole process. However, the creator of the universe never really understood the concept of responsibility, and seldom acknowledges complaints.’ He twiddled his walking-cane thoughtfully.

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Consequences. You never know what you’ve started.’ He looked out of the alleyway, watched the masked men run past on Paris Street. ‘It’s the bloodlines that worry me the most. I may have affected my companions more deeply than I like to admit. Genetically. Bernice’s children will be born with a little piece of Time Lord in them.’

  He smiled sheepishly. ‘Not that you should take that too literally, of course.’

  ‘Well, no. Of course not.’

  ‘Timothy Dean would have introduced almost unthinkable quantities of Time Lord DNA to the human species. Christopher must have planted several family trees by now. Ancelyn may have spread innate abilities throughout mankind that aren’t even supposed to be possible in this universe. And then there was Jo. Poor Jo. I sometimes wonder if her dynasty ever... well, too late to worry now. Eleven-thirty already. Half an hour until Christmas Day, and we can all open our presents.’ He straightened his jacket, slung the cane over his shoulder, and stepped out into the rain. ‘Things to do. Amaranths to locate. People to see about dogs.’

  ‘Wait!’ Beth-Ann Wolcott called.

  The man stopped, turned, and gave her a quizzical look.

  ‘Yo
u just saved my life,’ she said.

  ‘Yes. They were going to burn you as a witch, you know. That’s rationalism for you. Sometimes, even I don’t feel ready for life on this planet.’ He licked a finger, held it up, thought for a moment.

  ‘This way, I think,’ he said. And then he was gone.

  The basement could almost have been alive. Stepping into it, there was an unaccountable feeling of familiarity, as if Catcher had been in a place like this before; a room where the walls seemed to expand and contract as if they were breathing, where the passages were filled with strange and hateful organic sounds. Even the dais looked more like a growth than a construction, something sick and fungal and cankerous.

  And the Watchmakers were there, lurking in the labyrinth, waiting for him. IS THIS WHAT YOU CALL REASON? No, it isn’t; I didn’t do this. ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO BE IN CONTROL? Yes, yes, I am in control, of course I am. The nausea grew worse as he crossed the room, stepping over the bumps and the pools that were spreading across the floor, DON’T TREAD ON THE CRACKS OR THE BEARS WILL GET YOU HA HA, but wherever he looked the place was CONTAIN IT coming apart, there was nothing but raw chaos flowering I HATE FLOWERS and it was just like the jungle THE GARDEN the garden all over again.

  He might have been there for hours, and he might have been screaming, or crying, or just forgetting to blink on time. He might have done any number of things before he noticed that the sphere was missing. He might have, but it was impossible to say; his memory was no longer the shape he thought it should be. The gift, the Watchmakers’ gift, OUR GIFT, was gone, removed from the crystal column at the heart of the dais, and the screen was on fire, and pictures were running down it like melted wax. An image, taken from the basement’s memory. A woman – the diabolist woman – standing here, in his very own home, IN OUR TEMPLE, stealing the sphere...

  She had come. For him. That was why she was here in Woodwicke, obviously. To destroy his work, OUR WORK, and take away his Reason.

  And the next thing he knew he was running through his labyrinth, along passages that turned in circles and ate their own tails, until, finally, he was in a room that hiccuped and giggled. A store-room, Catcher was sure, although he no longer recognized its shape. Reaching into a melted trunk that seemed to swallow his arms up to the elbows.

  He felt something solid in the trunk. Cold, stable, metallic. The weapon was still there, where he’d found it on the day the labyrinth had been created, when he’d tried mapping out every inch of the cellar and the sheer size of it had done strange BUT ENTIRELY REASONABLE things to the insides of his head.

  He pulled his hands out of the trunk with an almighty squidge, grasping the object of his affections in both hands and pressing it against his ticking heart. Now he was ready. At last, the final battle against Cacophony could begin.

  There was a large pile of wood on the corner of Eastern Walk. Isaac Penley didn’t stop to see where the wood had come from, but he suspected the worst. He remembered the stories he’d heard from France when they’d had their Revolution, about the barricades they’d built across their roads; scraps of furniture, old carriages, even parts of houses, tipped out onto the streets. He imagined the same thing happening here in Woodwicke. Or worse. The homes of the diabolists looted, the contents carried out onto the roads and burned.

  Did ‘contents’ include the occupants? And how many diabolists were there in the town, anyway? If what Mr Catcher said was true, there had to be dozens. Isaac tried to guess which of the people he knew might be the guilty ones, but no names sprang to mind.

  Two of the Renewalists – Isaac didn’t recognize them, not in their hoods – were climbing the woodpile. Right up on top of the heap, something was burning, blue flames hissing in the rain. Isaac looked away, and tried to slide into the shadows on the other side of the road, so as not to be noticed by the masked men. He wasn’t sure why he did that. Wasn’t he a member of the Society? Wasn’t he supposed to be on their side?

  When he finally arrived at Catcher’s house, the basement door was ajar, and Isaac concluded that the house had been left in a hurry. He shivered (though that was as much to do with the rain as anything), finally deciding not to enter. Mr Catcher was obviously not at home. But where else might he be?

  ‘Hold on.’

  ‘Where are you? What happened to the room?’

  ‘It went. The TARDIS is finished. Hold on. My hand. There!’

  ‘I can’t feel you. Christopher?’

  ‘I’m holding on –’

  ‘Christopher, that isn’t me!’

  ‘What? Oh, Sheol, I can’t believe I just touched that. Uck. Marielle, look. Look up. Can you see the chest of drawers? Can you see me?’

  ‘No. The clockwork things... oh, Christopher, they’re laughing. I can hear them laughing.’

  ‘Marielle, can you see the drawers? Look, up here. Nice drawers. Nineteenth century, I think. Uh. Sorry. Ahhh!’

  ‘Christopher? Christopher!’

  ‘Marielle, listen. If you see any holes...’

  ‘Holes? But there’s just the dark –’

  ‘Yeah. Holes in the dark. Don’t go near them, Marielle. I think... I think they’re holes into the vortex. Look, don’t ask about the vortex, okay?’

  ‘I can hear them. Oh, Christopher... there are so many of them, on the other side of the holes. There’s a mind... Dieu, it’s so big, but it’s shut into a cube...

  ‘Marielle! Ignore them! Just ignore them!’

  ‘There are so many. Some of them are singing. Singing in the... vortex? Yes. And there’s a man. Spread out through time. He says he was tricked. And there’s something like a worm, or a snake. Creatures... planets... trapped in loops of time. And there are ships. Ships, lost in the vortex. Christopher –’

  ‘Ignore them! Marielle, don’t go near the holes. Shit, the drawers just fell apart.’

  ‘The clockwork things... they’re falling apart as well...’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Falling apart... cogs and gearsprings... everything is... apart...

  ‘Marielle? I’m trying to reach you. Hang on, Marielle.’

  ‘Marielle?’

  ‘Marielle?’

  The King George public house made Daniel Tremayne think of a butcher’s store. The roof of the building had been torn open across its length, the edges made jagged by the splintered wooden beams that had once arced smoothly overhead. It was like looking out through the ribcage of an animal carcass.

  The pub had been murdered by the Revolution.

  No wonder it made Daniel think of a butcher’s store.

  Forrester was standing by a hole in the wall that must once have been the doorway, watching the muddy thoroughfare outside, stepping away from the gap whenever anyone passed by. ‘The Doctor could be half-way across history by now,’ she muttered.

  Daniel didn’t even bother to shrug. He just sank further back into the corner, scraping his backside on a sharp fragment of rubble.

  ‘Two-to-one we’ll end up having to clean up the mess ourselves. Well, that’s my life for you. Wiping the sick off the furniture on a cosmic scale ‘ There was a roar of triumph from a street nearby, and Forrester squinted through the rain to try to make out what was going on. ‘This shouldn’t be happening, Danny-boy. It’s a disruption. An anomaly. And I hate anomalies, especially when I’m partially responsible for them. This place offends my instinct for law enforcement.’

  And under her breath, she added, ‘What’s left of it.’

  Daniel just grunted. Forrester turned to him. ‘You’ve gone quiet all of a sudden. Aren’t you going to ask me when you can get out of here? You haven’t shut up about it all night.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t make any difference. Too late now.’

  ‘Because you got involved?’ Forrester scowled. ‘You’re sorry you saved my life, is that it? Thanks, Dan. Thanks a lot.’

  Another grunt. Daniel couldn’t think of any other answer. He saw himself picking up the rock on Eastern Walk, lifting it over t
he hooded man’s head, seeing the blood drained out of Forrester’s face, bringing the rock down. He thought of the story of Cain and Abel. The whole course of human history, changed by a rock. What kind of world is this, that’s made out of pebbles?

  Then there was a low chiming, like the echo you hear after the ringing of a church bell. Forrester was reaching into the pouch that had been stitched into her shawl, the thin material stuck to the shiny suit underneath by the rain. The sphere she’d taken from Catcher’s place was in her hands.

  The sphere was spinning. Very gently, very slowly, whistling as it turned. Daniel saw surprise on Forrester’s face.

  ‘What now?’ she growled.

  He knew the layout of the King George well enough. The crack in the western wall had been just big enough for him to slip through, though he’d had to duck as he’d moved along the narrow passage inside, where the structure had collapsed in on itself and created a cramped alleyway of stone debris and shattered timbers, with the Watchmakers shouting CLEAN IT UP! CLEAN IT ALL UP! whenever he passed a pile of rubble or a misplaced beam. Now he was by the arch that led into the saloon area, the rain going pitter-pat-pitter-patter-pat in obscene random formations on the roof, NOTHING IS RANDOM AND NOTHING IS LEFT TO ACCIDENT, the left side of his head arguing with the right side, SHE IS AN AGENT OF CACOPHONY AND YOU KNOW IT, rain forming words, OH the glory, grammatic order out of nature’s chaos, and THESE ARE OUR WORDS and PICK IT UP! PICK UP THE BROKEN RAILING! walking with a clank-clankity-clank like the pitter-patter-pat. KILL HER. Remove her. REMOVE HER. IT IS NOT KILLING if you remove an agent of Cacophony REMOVING CHAOS FROM THE UNIVERSE ignore the sayings and the superstitions of the witch-women.

  She would simply have to UNDERSTAND THAT SHE HAD TO BE REMOVED in the name of Reason IN THE NAME OF REASON but obviously, she wouldn’t understand. Women simply DO NOT do not have minds capable of understanding RATIONALIST PHILOSOPHY which is why witches are witches and therefore must be burned. REMOVED. Removed.