Christmas on a Rational Planet

by Lawrence Miles

  It was still linked to the TARDIS. The amaranth was sucking the raw data out of the ship’s systems, working its way through the Doctor’s historical records, rebuilding Woodwicke according to the lore of the data banks. The sphere was forcing history to happen, faster than history wanted to go. Around them, roaches bred in their millions between the paving-stones as their own little corner of New York went through half a century of expansion in under a minute. Roz blinked, and by the time the blink was over, the world had turned and they were standing on a battlefield.

  The council of Woodwicke was no longer in session. The walls of the meeting hall had split open in a most unscientific manner, and four gnarled, spindly figures had stepped out of the woodwork. Their faces had been like African masks, and their breath had smelt like boiled flesh. The bark-gods had tied the councilors to their chairs, or, rather, the chairs had obliged their new wooden masters by growing tendrils with which to hold down Mrs Wilson and Mr Van DeVanter.

  Only Mr Wolcott had escaped, pushing his way through the screeching doors and out into the rain. Now he slipped and stumbled away from the building, listening to the cries of the townspeople around him, not being able to see most of them for the dirty water blowing into his eyes. Obscene shapes were copulating in the gutters, and there were things in his head. They’d been memories, once, but now they had wide and gaudy wings. Something grabbed Mr Wolcott by the shoulders.

  ‘Moths,’ he yelped. ‘Things like moths. In my skull.’

  ‘Shhh, man,’ said a voice. ‘Damnation, you’re all right.’

  ‘In my skull.’ Mr Wolcott looked up, peering through the rainwater. There was a face in front of him. Thick-set. Square-jawed. Dark hair plastered across wide temples. A birthmark in the middle of the forehead, but it was shrinking.

  ‘Erskine? Erskine Morris?’ whimpered Mr Wolcott.

  The face nodded.

  ‘In my skull,’ Mr Wolcott told him. ‘Like moths, huge –’

  ‘Wolcott. Look at me, man. Concentrate. Look into my eyes.’

  Mr Wolcott did so. The moths stopped beating their wings.

  ‘What do you believe in?’ asked Erskine Morris, in an almost supernaturally calm voice. ‘What do you really believe in?’

  Even if there’d been somebody around to ask him – a faithful companion, perhaps, or a curious bystander at the very least – the Doctor probably couldn’t have explained how he knew where to find Catcher’s house. Perhaps he’d spent so long playing in the dark places of the universe that he’d become like an amaranth himself, always knowing where to find the chaos, always bringing his own kind of order. Perhaps that was it.

  ‘Sorry, was it a faithful companion you wanted, or a curious bystander?’ queried one of the shadows of Hazelrow Avenue.

  ‘Quiet,’ said the Doctor.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ asked another. ‘We can’t just leave the Doctor there.’

  The Doctor pulled his hat down over his eyes as he walked, rain-water collecting in tiny pools across the brim. Not just water, though. Something else, mingling with the rain. H2O– X. Hydrogen, oxygen, and anarchy.

  The homeworld of the Time Lords, according to Professor Thripsted’s excellent volume Genetic Politics Beyond the Third Zone, can best be described as ‘stagnant’. Born into a society where change comes once in every heliotrope moon, each new generation finds itself forced to devise increasingly elaborate rites and ceremonies, in order to disguise the crushing banality of life on a planet cut off from the rest of history.

  ‘Him? The Doctor?’ asked the first shadow.

  ‘Well, that’s who the doors through,’ answered the second. ‘There outside was came no one else. Ben, do you remember he tracking room said in the what?’

  The sky was still dark over Woodwicke, and getting darker. The sky over the horizon seemed perfectly ordinary, though, reassuringly muddy. It was as though the darkness only wanted Woodwicke. For now.

  ‘Ben, do you remember what he said in the tracking room?’

  ‘There’s no such thing as magic,’ the first shadow replied.

  Probably the most extreme ‘rite of passage’ among young Time Lords is the game commonly known as Eighth Man Bound. This game is played only by the neonates of the Time Lord Academy, students who have been imprinted with the genetic codes that allow them safe passage through the vortex, but who have not yet gone through the decades-long rituals of graduation. It is never played by Time Lords of those ‘newblood’ Houses for whom a change of body is as trivial as a change of fashion, and who come straight from the loom with a secondary heart. Eighth Man Bound was described by one House Kithriarch as ‘the most repulsive and irresponsible pastime it is possible to imagine’, and the game is said to claim the lives of up to fifteen Academy students each macrosemester.

  ‘Something about... "this old body of mine is wearing a bit thin". And I said, there’s no such thing as magic. Are you listening?’

  The street stayed solid as the Doctor approached Catcher’s house, as if responding to his will. In those places that must have been on the edges of his vision, shadow-puppets and cave paintings were scratching themselves onto the walls of houses.

  ‘I’m listening,’ said the Doctor.

  ‘There’s no such thing as magic,’ repeated the shadow. ‘You said so yourself. Remember?’

  Eighth Man Bound is played by an ‘Initiate’, who sits at the centre of a circle of his Academy classmates, the circle being known as ‘The Inquiry’. A suitable ambience is created, usually with a simple symbiosonic generator. The Inquiry then attempts to create an identity crisis in the mind of the Initiate; a common tactic is to repeatedly chant the Initiate’s name, until that name becomes meaningless – perhaps even horrifying – to its owner. The Initiate’s personality is violently dissected, his memories questioned and disassembled. Occasionally drugs are used to affect his psychological state.

  The Doctor nodded. ‘Of course I remember. I said it on the Avalon colony, just after I’d been attacked by a fire-breathing dragon. I said it again at Devil’s End. And again on the prairies of Pakha.’

  ‘ "This a bit old body wearing of mine is thin". So he gets himself a new one? Do me a favour! And d’you still believe it, Doc? D’you still believe what you said about the magic, now that you’re older, and there’s a hundred planets where they reckon you’re a top-of-the-range sorcerer? Now that you’ve taken your first steps towards Merlinhood, like?’

  The Doctor sighed. ‘You’re very tiresome.’

  ‘Leave it aaaahht, Duchess! He really is a witch-Doctor, isn’t he? You fabricated us, remember?’

  ‘Only as a convenience.’ The Doctor indicated the darkness around him. ‘If I don’t give some form to this... madness... then I’ll probably lose my mind. And, frankly, I’ve given the Valeyard enough escape opportunities as it is.’

  ‘Is that all we are to you, then? Just "form"? Just shadows? Just things that help you get a grip on reality? Is that all any of us ever were? Do me a favour. Stone the crows.’

  In most species, the Initiate’s experiences in the circle would be enough to trigger a nervous breakdown. However, Time-Lord bodies are tailored to rebuild and regenerate themselves in times of crisis. The stress of the Eighth Man Bound ritual causes chemical reactions in the Initiate which fool his biology into thinking that something has gone very, very wrong. As The Inquiry’s inquisition continues, the Initiate’s body enters a state of flux, its genetic structure becoming unstable and preparing to regenerate.

  ‘Cor blimey, Duchess, we’re in a right old state and no mistake.’

  ‘Stop it,’ said the Doctor, stopping in front of the door to Catcher’s basement. ‘You’re embarrassing me.’

  ‘Accidentally pricking yourself with infected needles at precisely the right time. Being snatched from the jaws of doom by stupid twists of fate. Serendipity and synchronicity. NOTHING IS RANDOM, AND NOTHING IS LEFT TO CHANCE. Going to bother knocking? Leave it aaaaaaaahhht!’

  The tric
k of Eighth Man Bound is for the Initiate to keep himself in this state of flux for as long as possible, balanced ‘between bodies’, as it were. While a Time Lord is in this state, there is an unusual rapport between his conscious mind and the genetic data that has been programmed into his body. For a few brief moments, the Initiate will glimpse his biological destiny, seeing snatches of his own future regenerations. Eighth Man Bound is a game of exploration, in which the Time Lord – deprived of his original identity – goes in search of the alternative identities he may one day possess.

  The Doctor reached out for the door.

  ‘Ironic, isn’t it?’ a shadow suddenly said. ‘I mean, the way you gave up your umbrella just when it would have been useful.’

  ‘Thank you for pointing that out,’ the Doctor hissed. ‘Almost as if you wanted to get wet. And you are very wet, Doctor.’

  The Doctor looked down at his hands. Perhaps he was looking under the skin. Perhaps he was just inspecting the state of his own DNA.

  Naturally, there are risks. A young Time Lord may trigger an actual regeneration, a great disgrace among neonates. If he remains in flux for too long, his identity may be permanently lost; his body may attempt to rebuild itself randomly, causing a lethal genetic ‘spasm’.

  ‘How much longer can you stay out in the rain?’ asked the shadow. ‘How much longer before your genetic big end goes?’

  The Doctor pushed at the door.

  ‘Ben, do you remember what he said in the tracking room? Something about... it isn’t any drier indoors, you know.’

  The name Eighth Man Bound was coined by students of the Arcalian Chapter, and honours one of their number who managed to ‘fake’ his first six regenerations, discovering the natures of his first seven bodies, but never quite unleashing the Eighth Man. Though this record has never been broken –

  ‘So he gets himself a new one? Do me a favour!’

  The door opened.

  Though this record has never been broken, it is rumoured that one student of the Prydonian Chapter did successfully equal it. Though this student later denied ever having played a game as ‘reckless and irresponsible’ as Eighth Man Bound, those who knew him claim that he wouldn’t have been able to resist playing it at least once. Curiosity, they say, was always his downfall.

  ‘You’ve played this game before. This time, however, the rules are slightly different. Ben, what are we going to do? We can’t just leave the Doctor there.’

  ‘Him? The Doctor?’

  The Doctor stepped through the door.

  Had you asked him later in his life – six regenerations and at least as many centuries later – he would have pointed out that even if he had played the game, the knowledge of his future that he gained from it would have been useless. He would never have been able to predict what his third body had looked like, for example, because he would never have been able to predict the unusual circumstances under which it had been obtained. Would he?

  The Doctor’s vision flickered and blurred as he entered Catcher’s cellar, and everything went dark for a nanosecond or two. A minor side-effect of cross-dimensional engineering, he told himself, his brain adjusting itself to the sudden change in environment, the same kind of ‘glitch’ he noticed every time he walked in or out of the TARDIS. Inside the house, there wasn’t any rain, but that didn’t mean it was dry. The shadows had ceased to be.

  One never forgets one’s first regeneration. Particularly not if one has rehearsed it well.

  The battlefield was a wide open plain, and there was nothing on the horizon in any direction, no buildings or mountains or landmarks of any kind. There was mud on the ground, and night in the sky.

  And there were armies. One to the north, one to the south, rolling forward like thunderheads. Roz and Daniel were standing in the exact spot where the two sides would meet. Roz estimated that they had about forty seconds before the forces collided.

  ‘This is history,’ said Daniel. ‘Isn’t it?’

  Roz frowned. ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘Don’t know.’ Daniel shook his head. ‘I can remember lots about the Revolution, as well, but I was a baby when the shooting stopped. It’s like I’ve got a feel for it. Like I was born to it.’

  Roz looked down at the amaranth. Still turning. ‘Daniel, listen to me. This is the future. Except that it isn’t. This is... kind of like a stage-show of the future. The amaranth’s making it happen, but it’s not real. Not really real.’ She squinted at one of the approaching armies. She could make out mounts, probably horses, and hear the beat of their hooves.

  ‘That doesn’t mean they can’t hurt us, though,’ she concluded.

  ‘What happened to the town?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe we’re still in it. Maybe it just got bigger. At least we lost Forrester-the-sequel.’

  The armies thundered on, and the soldiers rode into view. Their bodies were smooth and shapeless, like melted lumps of obsidian, riding on skeletal horses with bleeding lips. Roz looked from north to south. Their flags and uniforms were in tatters, but one side was wearing blue, the other grey.

  ‘Sheol,’ said Forrester. ‘The Civil War.’

  ‘What war?’

  ‘The Civil War. I know this from the simcords. Halfway through the next century. The nineteenth century.’ The horses’ hoofs threw up dust-clouds that smelt of gunpowder. If the soldiers had possessed eyes, Roz would have been able to see the whites of them by now.

  ‘Is this the place where we die?’ asked Daniel. He sounded quite calm, not at all like the whining brat Roz had met earlier in the evening.

  ‘Pass,’ she said.

  Just a few yards away across the battlefield, the first of the mounted soldiers collided. Roz saw a great black charger bearing down on her, and she was sure the blob on its back looked like Abraham Lincoln. The armies met. Roz Forrester and Daniel Tremayne were caught between the philosophers and the barbarians.

  The Carnival Queen looked like she was meditating. She sat on one of the taller dunes, her legs folded under her body at unlikely angles, her eyes closed. Every few minutes, a new kind of smile would appear on her lips, then the sands would split open and a new gynoid would be born into the world. Each of the creatures looked completely different to the last, different in ways that Chris couldn’t quite get his head around. He’d once been told that the people of the New Eskimo Alliance had three hundred and eight words for snow. If he’d come from a culture that had three hundred and eight words for darkness, he’d probably have found it much easier to get to grips with the gynoids.

  Abruptly, the Carnival Queen opened her eyes. She looked almost thoughtful.

  – The Doctor, she said. – He’s coming. He doesn’t want to come, but he’s coming.

  Chris felt suddenly uneasy. She’d been in contact with the Doctor? How? Telepathy or something? Was she omniscient?

  – No and no.

  Chris tried to ignore that. ‘The Doctor knows you?’

  – Not personally. To him, I’m just a random piece of symbolism. She sighed. Chris was still having trouble deciding where the Carnival Queen ended and her words began. – Ahh, it could break a girl’s heart. But he knows there are some things in this universe – or outside it – that just aren’t scientific, and that upsets him, even now. He’s a true Watchmaker at heart.

  The Doctor a Watchmaker? Did that mean what Chris thought it meant?

  – Of course, he was bound to find me eventually. As soon as he started taking psychic skills seriously, I knew it wouldn’t be long. You can’t chart a river without visiting its source... thank you, Marielle, a very nice metaphor. I was hoping that the Doctor would lose his place and forget to tie up the loose ends after Yemaya ...

  Back in his own time, Chris had flown what they called ‘shrouded’ craft, ships that bent light around their hulls so that they became invisible to the naked eye. That was how the Carnival Queen talked, he thought; the laws of language just seemed to warp around her.

  ‘Hold on. Yo
u’re claiming to be responsible for what happened on Yemaya 4? You’re saying you made SLEEPY and GRUMPY and... er... everything?’ Chris suddenly felt he should be taking notes.

  – Don’t be silly, Christopher. Can you imagine me building a computer? Terrible Watchmaker machines. But what happened on Yemaya was a... a legacy of mine. A side-effect of the talents I’ve been trying to nurture. Still, none of that will ever happen, once history’s been taken apart. But that’s beside the point. One way or another, the Doctor became involved, as some agent of the Watchmakers always does. Which is probably a good thing in this case, non?

  ‘Why?’ Chris felt like he was back in the interview room on Ponten IV, where the young Adjudicators-to-be were shut in with a training robot and told to get a confession out of it. He remembered the sign on the wall: DO NOT BEAT THE ROBO-SUSPECT UNLESS IT BECOMES ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY.

  – Why? Oh, why anything? There were so many possibilities. Catcher might have punched enough holes in the world to set me free all by himself. Marielle might have found her way here even without your help. But as it happens, you and the TARDIS provided the key. Merci beaucoup, Christopher Cwej.

  ‘You mean you had all this planned?’ Chris remembered the robo-suspect again, the way the facial display would light up TILT if you hit it too hard, hard enough that it would have caused serious damage to a real suspect.

  – Planned? I never make plans, Christopher. These things just happen. Some plots create themselves. That’s the true wonder of Cacophony. Speaking of which...

  Another gynoid struggled through the spontaneous birthing process. Its shape was fuzzy and it wobbled alarmingly. It reminded Chris of something from a pornographic magazine he’d once found stuffed behind a cupboard in one of the TARDIS’s many guest rooms.

  – I can’t help feeling, Christopher, that you’ve had a depraved upbringing. Or do I mean deprived? Either way. Left to play with so many Watchmaker toys. Big guns and fast vehicles. You like to try new games, don’t you?