BBC Cult - Printer Friendly Version
Lungbarrow - Chapter Twenty-three

Page 1
  

Old Mole

Innocet dabbed at the Doctor's forehead with his scarf. He was propped against the wall and was still shivering.

He opened an eye.

'All right,' she said. 'I accept that you were nowhere near the House when Quences was murdered.'

'We all saw me. I could have come back.'

She shook her head indignantly. 'Snail, you were driven out. Glospin drove you. All this explains away many more things than you will know. But to steal a TT machine.' He closed his eyes again. 'That wasn't really the mythical Hand of Omega,' she continued.

'You're the classicist. You tell me.'

'It's a legend.' She glanced up at the racks of coloured tubes around the room. 'There are at least a dozen different versions of the story, but their interpretations depend on the social and spiritual needs of the times in which they were written.'

'And the authors who wrote them,' added the Doctor. 'But there are no tides without a moon. Nor towers without foundation.' He took another rice cake from his pocket. 'Badger? The Hand of Omega.'

Chris, who had been drowsing, sat up sharply as Badger lumbered forward.

Page 2
  

'In The Triumphs of Rassilon,' rumbled the tutor, 'the Hand is the stellar manipulator that Omega forged for Rassilon. It is the key that opened the burning gate of Time. And the Other stole the Hand away.'

'Dramatic licence,' said the Doctor. 'And a very simplistic view.'

'It's much the same in The Record of Rassilon,' said Innocet. 'The Hand of Omega creates the Time-Sun that shines on Gallifrey. But in The Book of the Old Time, the Other plots to overthrow Rassilon, and flees when he is defeated. The Hand pursues him forever through eternity. Whichever way you interpret it, it symbolizes the people's rejection of superstition. The reign of the Gods ends and we learn to fend for ourselves.'

'Correct,' said Badger. 'This period is called the Intuitive Revelation.'

'Excuse me for asking,' said Chris, 'but what's all this stuff about genetic discrepancies on your birth certificate?'

'Not very relevant,' the Doctor said. 'Rice cake?'

'Sorry, but it isn't easy to ignore things, not when half the thoughts in my head aren't my own.'

'That evidence is sub judice.'

'I tried to protect you,' said Innocet. 'Glospin was set to report all his theories, but I stopped them from reaching the Capitol.'

Page 3
  

The Doctor nodded. 'Thank you, Cousin. I hope he didn't take it out on you.'

She tested the weight of hair on her shoulders. 'Glospin was ill. He collapsed with a massive double hearts seizure, shortly after the House was buried. When Quences died, Glospin was already bedridden.'

'I saw that,' said Chris. 'Arkhew and I dreamt it.'

'Satthralope nursed him through his regeneration. There were complications and no medical help. It took him many, many candledays to recover.'

'How convenient,' the Doctor complained.

Innocet tutted. 'He is over three hundred years older than you.'

'And only on his third generation.' The Doctor sniffed at his rice cake, grunted and thrust it back in his pocket.

'One more question,' said Chris. 'Why do all your Cousins call you "Wormhole"?'

The Doctor gave a groan of irritation.

'Not all of us,' said Innocet.

'Why don't you take a turn around the library?' snapped the Doctor. 'I'll stay here. Then you can discuss me at length!'

Page 4
  

Owis scarcely believed his luck. He had just discovered a new and brightly patterned woollen garment. And now a bowl of dried magentas was sitting unguarded on a kitchen table. They were supposed to improve with age, so after six and a half hundred years they must be. . . well, only one way to find out.

A hand cracked down on his shoulder.

'Did you hear that noise?' said Glospin. 'Like a machine?' Owis shook his head and wondered what Glospin was up to in the kitchen.

'In the old days,' Glospin continued, 'they'd cut off the fingers of anyone who was caught thieving. One by one. Snip, snip. Wormhole always talked about the old days. If he ever became Kithriarch, I expect he'd bring them back.'

Owis pulled his hand away quickly.

'Never mind,' Glospin added. 'He isn't Kithriarch yet.'

A smile slowly creased across Owis's face. 'Bet you he never is.'

There was movement. A Drudge emerged through a cloud of steam. It hissed and gestured angrily at them.

'Supper soon,' said Glospin and watched Owis scurry away. 'So don't be too long about your business.'

Page 5
  

The Doctor sits quietly, listening to the voices of his friend and his Cousin, coming from the depths of the library.

Badger, his oldest friend, stands like a sentinel beside him. The House is quiet. But there are sorts of quiet other than calmness. Sometimes before a moment of unexpected fear or violence, the wind drops, the birds fall silent and a hush of reverence for what will happen settles across the world.

A ripple spreading backward across time from an in-escapable event.

In her room, Satthralope coughs dryly. No food, only dregs and parings are left for the Otherstide supper. She waits in her chair for what the approaching moment will bring.

Jobiska, her frail bones aching, lies with her head in the fireplace, a telescope to her watering eye. High above, at the distant top of the chimney, she sees the sky change from white to black as a rain cloud hurries across.

In his glass-lidded casket set on the Loom of the House, Ordinal-General Quences can be seen sleeping, still as a corpse, until the time comes for his resurrection.

A tafelshrew, nosing about on the casket lid, is startled by the repeated echo of a growling engine. The creature darts for cover through a tiny black crack in the glass where, experience reminds it, it cannot be seen.

A grey figure in a long robe flickers along a passage on the third level. Old and angular. Shadows swirl in a cloak around him. Satthralope sees him in her mirror. The cold gruel spills from her shaking bowl.

Page 6
  

The Doctor sat and watched the library door.

When the old man came through the wood, his dark cloak was billowing slowly around him in the spectral wind. The ornate hilt of a double-bladed dagger stuck out of his chest. Blood was still running down his robe.

'Angels and ministers of grace defend us,' said the Doctor.

'Well?' replied the Ghost. 'Is that all? No apologies?'

'For having murdered you?'

'For wrecking our plans.'

'Your plans, Quences, not mine.'

'Everything I have worked for. The work of thirteen lifetimes.'

'Which has probably turned to dust by now, thanks to Satthralope.' The Doctor directed the beam of a gun-shaped scanner at the Ghost. 'Better be careful, Quences. Your ectoplasmic levels are dangerously low. One might almost call them non-existent.'

The Ghost sat down in a chair without denting the dusty cushion. He studied the Doctor sadly. 'Over the centuries, this miserable House has produced nothing but servants and petty clerks. But you were different. You had a mind, and a cunning one at that. That's why I prepared your way.' The dagger hilt in his bloody chest had a fascinating way of bobbing up and down as he spoke.

Page 7
  

The Doctor sniffed and glanced at Badger, who seemed oblivious of their conversation. How discreet he could be. 'You didn't do so badly, Quences. Ordinal-General of the Brotherhood of Kithriarchs is a fine achievement.'

'Oh, yes. A hard-won, hard-fought position. But you could supersede that by far.'

'And be the Family's first Cardinal? I don't think so. I failed my chapter certificates in officiating and legislating. I failed them rather miserably.'

'You failed them deliberately. Most of your results were calculated to barely win you a pass.'

'Well, what do you expect?' complained the Doctor. 'As soon as you arrive at Prydon Academy, they drum everything you know out of your head and replace it with years of lectures on the viability of panotropic racking systems.'

'No need to stop at Cardinal. You alone in this miserable House can achieve true greatness of power.'

'I know I could.' The Doctor strolled across to the darkened window. He looked at the Ghost's reflection in the glass. 'That was why it was such a relief when you disinherited me.'

The old man was trembling. 'I had such plans for you. Not for the House or that squirming lizard of Satthralope's, Glospin. But you. My successor.'

Page 8
  

'You picked the wrong person, Quences. I had plans of my own.'

The Ghost rose angrily from his chair, his cloak slowly swirling. 'Still no apologies for keeping us waiting?'

'Why? What are you going to do? Change your will? If anyone can find it, that is.'

'By law, my wishes cannot be flouted.'

'Try telling your Family that. And tell me who really murdered you.'

'You did, Doctor. I saw you.' Tears of ectoplasm welled in his ghostly eyes. 'I didn't expect that, I confess. But I was going to die anyway, so my arrangements were already made.'

'What arrangements?'

'Find out for yourself. You escaped once, but, now you're back, my plans can be realized at last.'

The Ghost turned and headed out through the closed door. 'That's right,' called the Doctor. 'Troop home to a churchyard or whatever wayward spirits do here on Gallifrey. See if I care.'

Quences's sepulchral voice echoed up from the cellarage. 'Find the will, Doctor. Find my will.'

Page 9
  

'The others call him "Wormhole" for the same reason that I call him "Snail".' Innocet had walked Chris through the towering racks of tube books until they reached the far wall.

'You're not obliged to tell me,' he said.

'It's nothing for him to be embarrassed about. Just a slight. . .' She paused. 'Just a slight physical defect.'

'Yes?'

'A small convex protuberance on his abdomen. It's shaped like the curling shell of a snail.'

Chris was puzzled. 'But that's only his navel. His belly button. Left over from his umbilical. Everyone has one of those.'

He opened the front of his coloured shirt. Innocet looked away in embarrassment.

'No, they do not,' said the Doctor peering at them through some empty racks. 'Not around here.'

'Sorry,' said Chris and buttoned his shirt.

Innocet was staring through the racks at the Doctor. 'Who are you? Was it really the Hand of Omega that came to collect you?'

Page 10
  

'I'm your Cousin, Innocet.'

She put her hand to her face. 'I don't know what to believe. Your thoughts tell me that a legend reached out and snatched you back into the forbidden past. If it's true, what damage have you caused?'

The Doctor rounded the corner and faced her. 'If I was there, then I was part of it.'

Her eyes hardened. 'And you abandoned us to all this. How far back did you go? For all we know, you could have... you could have become the Other himself.'

'Don't be ridiculous. You know I always wanted to travel.'

'And perhaps you did come back to murder Quences.'

The Doctor growled. 'Why? Because he disinherited me? Perhaps I was glad to get away from the place! Perhaps I am a nasty alien, with nasty, progressive un-Gallifreyan ideas, infiltrating your terribly important Family!'

'Doctor,' said Chris gently. 'I'm the only alien here. But Arkhew recognized you as the murderer.'

The Doctor stalked away between the racks. 'I need to find the will!'

Page 11
  

The others followed him back to the reading area where Badger was waiting. The Doctor ignored them. He seized the library door and pulled it open.

Owis sprawled through it, landing at his feet.

The Doctor watched as Innocet helped her Cousin up. 'They told me,' Owis whispered to her, his eyes firmly on the Doctor. 'They told me who he is. Does that mean I'm going to die?'

'Don't be so foolish,' she snapped.

'Owis,' said the Doctor. 'Who killed Arkhew?'

The podgy Cousin gave a squeal and ran out through the door.

Badger lumbered away in pursuit.

Innocet rose to her full stature, dwarfing the Doctor. Her voice was tight with bitter anger. 'You must be glad that none of your other important friends are here to see this.'

The Doctor's hands folded and unfolded themselves. 'Some things are better kept in the Family,' he said.

Innocet walked out. The door slammed itself shut.