Doctor Who_ The Gallifrey Chronicles Part 19

'Translation: no. I used to think I was. I used to get home and still have a bit of life in me. Went out, had boyfriends. All three of them ended up dumping me after a month or two, and then saying it wasn't anything to do with me.

Every time, I thought it was going well. I was telling them everything, and falling in love. I was reading the signs, I thought. Giving them more than they wanted. So why. . . ?'

The Doctor looked as if he wanted to put his hand on her shoulder. He looked her in the eye.

'Most people don't have lives like that,' the Doctor said.

'You're joking,' Rachel hissed. 'Everyone has a life like that. Everyone I know, anyway. We try to pretend we don't, we try to pretend it's like an advert and that if we buy a new pair of shoes, or some DVDs, or a wedding ring then we'll be happy for the rest of our lives, but before we're even home we feel more guilty than we did, because we spent all that money. So we just get on. And none of us talks about how effing miserable we are all the time, because when we do it feels so self-indulgent and self-centred and so petty. So we go out and get hammered and try to lose ourselves for just one evening, or we pray to a G.o.d we know deep down doesn't exist. But the vast majority of us, the vast majority of the time, just sit at home glued to some television show we don't even like that's showing us nothing, scared that the plane we can hear above us is about to fall out of the sky, or that the water's polluted or that some idiot we didn't even vote for is going to get us all killed, or we 109 just worry that next month the overdraft will finally run out. Because that's the world.'

'No,' the Doctor said simply.

'No? That's it, is it? "No."' She turned to go.

'There are marvels out there, Rachel. Domed cities, rocket s.h.i.+ps, Tech-nicolor jungles. Walls built with time itself. Smiling robots, flying women, reptile kings. People who look like every animal you can imagine, and quite a lot you can't. Seas of diamond water, landscapes carved from ice and gold.

So much music, so much laughter. Ingenuity races that can pluck a star from the heavens and place it in the palm of their hand. False G.o.ds and their games, machine minds with such purity of thought. But despite all that, this Earth is the most wonderful place in the universe.'

She turned round.

'Yeah, because speed cameras and cancer '

'"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." I heard that line the very first time it was delivered. All of us, every single one of us in that audience, listened to Burbage and knew the truth of it. I've spent a lifetime here, and there's so much more than even I have known. Have you ever seen a whale's tail-fin breaking the surface of the ocean, or the sun rise over the Great Wall of China? Have you walked with ten thousand people around you, all heading the same way? Have you sat in a forest with your eyes closed, surrounded by sound? Have you listened to Bach or sipped Chateau Yquem? Have you seen an insect's eye through an electron microscope or stood on the roof of a castle's tallest tower? Have you swum in a moonlit lake? You could have done any of that without me, Rachel. Think what you could do with a TARDIS. Yes, there's villainy on this Earth, but there's heroism that is far, far more than a match for it. However dark it seems, there is always more light. If you need help getting to the light, I will give you that help.'

'You want me to have faith in you?'

'Only charlatans ask for faith, just before they ask you to give them your money or die in their name. I can let you find the truth for yourself. All those things you said. You don't want to be right. You want to look at the universe with opened eyes. You've just been waiting for a chance, one spark to show you the way. Let me out of these chains, and I'll let you out of yours. I'm the Doctor I can make you better. Come with me, and let's go on adventures.'

Rachel took one step forwards, then stopped dead.

'Nice try.'

She started to leave.

'Rachel?' the Doctor pleaded.

110.

She turned round. 'You nearly had me going there. You're the worst of the lot of them. You killed all those people. You're Doctor Death if you're anything.

Trying to get my hopes up. Manipulating me with cheap. . . emotional c.r.a.p.

You think I'd solve all my problems if I saw a whale? You've got no idea.'

'I. . . did what was right, I'm sure of it,' he told her. 'I've. . . I've created more than I've destroyed.'

'Are you sure about that?' Rachel asked. She went away, closing and bolting the door behind her.

'I wish I could remember,' he said. 'I know that if I did I could show you '

He shook his head, which was full of that sense again, that black shape just out of view, that scratching in his mind. He wasn't free of it.

'I know what I did!' he shouted out, frustrated. 'I saw what I did!'

The Doctor was back in the cellar.

111.

There is no society on Earth where there is a clear distinction between the living and the dead. On first hearing that, one rebels. Where is there room for ambiguity? A man is alive or a man is not. But every culture has its tradition of ancestor wors.h.i.+p and a belief in ghosts. Almost every religion preaches that there is some form of an afterlife, and many faiths claim that communication between the living and dead is possible. Across the world, there are tales of men who are the undead and living dead, like zombies and vampires. There is a belief that people can return from death to life the only dispute seems to be whether everyone can, or just the especially virtuous. Even though these beliefs appear universal, we might dismiss some or all of them as superst.i.tion.

However, modern doctors are far less clear about the point where life begins or ends than they would have been even a hundred years ago.

It's not always even a question of blurring a boundary between two opposite states. A number of African cultures divide the population into three const.i.tuencies: the living, the sasha sasha and the and the zamani zamani. The sasha are the gone-but-not-forgotten. There are those alive that met them and can figuratively 'bring them to life' for others. When the last of their con-temporaries dies, a person becomes zamani, or truly dead. Even then, they have not ceased to exist, they are simply in a new form, and are revered.

Transcript from The History. . . of Death The History. . . of Death, BBC Four doc.u.mentary, first broadcast 2007

Chapter Seven.

The Edge of Destruction

There were about twenty people in the pub, not counting the landlord, the barmaid, Fitz and Trix.

Fitz was the only support act, but he wasn't going on first. A girl called Emma and a lad with a fiddle were playing for about half an hour before him and the same length of time after him, with his turn giving them enough time for a breather. They played every month, and the regulars loved them. He'd been told to keep his set to about ten minutes, which Fitz worked out meant three songs. This was two more than he'd planned for, and he wasn't sure what to do about it yet. He'd lubricated his thinking cap and vocal cords with a little beer.

Emma had a good voice. They hadn't had a chance to talk before the gig Fitz had cut his arrival a bit fine. She was young, sort of all right, but nothing on Trix. She was singing folk songs, but with a bit more energy to them than normal. He'd been told her stuff went down well here. The song he'd written probably could count as folk, if you fiddled the figures a little.

His turn came racing round. He took his place where Emma had been standing, the applause for her merging into his welcome.

Fitz lifted his guitar.

'Good evening,' he said, confident. 'My name is. . . ' He hesitated, unsure what he should call himself. He'd played a couple of places in the Sixties, called himself Fitz Fortune. It had a good ring to it, but. . . 'My name is Fitz Kreiner. I'm going to sing three songs, if that's all right.'

All twenty people nodded enthusiastically. There weren't many of them, but they were all keen.

Fitz smiled. He knew already that they'd like this one. 'I call this one "Contains Spoilers", and I warn you that it does, indeed, contain spoilers.'

He made a show of tuning his guitar, although it was already as tuned as it was possible for a guitar to be. Then he began his song1. song1.

The crowd were soon tapping their feet and cheered him at the end.

'OK,' said Fitz, 'this is a Beatles song. You won't remember but, trust me, the Fab Four brought the house down at Live Aid with it. This is called "Celebrate 1The lyrics to Fitz' song are on page 231 231 115.

the Love". One, two, three. . . '

Rachel found Marnal in the garage unlocking the door of the TARDIS.

'Is it OK if I come with you?' she asked.

Marnal looked curiously at her, then stepped aside to let her in. He followed, the doors whirring smoothly shut behind them.

'Were all the buildings bigger on the inside on Gallifrey?' she asked.

Marnal gave a cold laugh. 'A few were.'

'Such as?'

'The Towers of Canonicity and Likelihood.' He looked down at her. 'You wouldn't understand.'

'If you told me how it was done, would I understand that?'

Marnal had reached the console. As he started working the controls, checking the progress of the recalibration, he was clearly considering her question.

'Yes, I think so,' he conceded after a moment or so. 'Imagine a sequence.

Start with a point, then a line, then a square, then imagine a cube, then imagine a TARDIS.'

Happy with what the instruments were telling him, Marnal continued on his way, heading for a door in the back wall.

'I think I get it,' Rachel said. 'When you go into a TARDIS, you don't go forwards or backwards, you don't go up or down, you don't go from left to right. You go in a completely different direction, one you can't travel on Earth.'

Marnal turned, smiling. 'Yes, that's certainly one way to put it.'

He opened the door. On the other side a long, wide corridor raced off far into the distance. The walls, floor and ceiling were all spotless and white.

Rachel could see other corridors branching off it. Every so often, there were doors white ones, naturally. The walls had a circular pattern embossed on them. It was all brightly lit, although there were no apparent sources for the light.

'I've just been talking to the Doctor. He says he remembers something.'

'What?'

'He said something about the back wall of the TARDIS.'

'It doesn't have a back wall.'

'It must have.'

'A fully functional TARDIS is practically infinite.'

'Is infinity ever really a practical size?' she asked.

'No,' Marnal admitted. 'Even a Time Lord setting out in his youth and walking every day of his life with a minimum of rest could only get so far.'

'I thought you were immortal?'

'The Doctor and I can live for a very long time, replacing our bodies every thousand years or so as they wear out sooner, of course, if we meet with 116 an accident. We have a limited number of bodies. We can regenerate twelve times, after the death of our thirteenth body, we die. Even then '

Rachel cut him off before she had to endure the whole lecture. 'Why make your s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps so big, then?'

Marnal shrugged. 'There are legends that the first Time Lords were true immortals. But I think the reason is that a TARDIS and its operator are linked.

All our minds have hidden depths, areas we will never consciously explore.

That seems to go double for the Doctor.'

He strode down the corridor. After thirty or forty yards he stopped and looked around.

'You don't know where we're going?' Rachel asked, as gently as she could.

'No,' he answered. 'I'm looking for the power room. It usually isn't very far from the entrance.'

'What does it look like?'

'A power room can look like anything. Its distinguis.h.i.+ng feature is that there will be what looks like an iron ball the size of a house in it.'

'That's pretty distinguis.h.i.+ng.'

Rachel opened the nearest door and stepped through it.

It was a lad's bedroom. Small, with an unmade bed with a radio and broken clock built into the headboard. The sheets were almost as crumpled as the piles of jeans and underwear. An old record player sat on a chair, surrounded by a variety of LPs, CDs and what looked like square blocks of transparent plastic. There was a bedside table piled with a few books and knickknacks topped by an empty champagne bottle.

Rachel trod on a discarded bra. She guessed this wasn't the Doctor's room.

'This isn't it,' Marnal told her, rather redundantly in the circ.u.mstances.

'How many rooms are there?' she asked once they were heading back along the corridor.

'Countless numbers.'

They'd walked some distance down the corridor and reached a wall that blocked their way.

'The power room is clearly down another corridor.'

'This is weird,' Rachel said. She wasn't talking about the cigarette b.u.t.ts all over the floor.

Marnal was staying a few feet back from the wall. 'Can you hear that?' he asked.

Now she could, and she took a step back. 'A scratching noise. There's something trapped behind there. I think we should get the Doctor.'

117.