Doctor Who: Salvation by Steve Lyons

Author:Steve Lyons
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi, epub
Tags: Science-Fiction:Doctor Who
ISBN: 9780563555667
Publisher: BBC Worldwide
Published: 1999-01-03T10:00:00+00:00

Joseph sat on a grey marble step, one hand idly stirring a gentle stream, which he knew instinctively to have been his own contribution to the restored interior of the church. ‘It is done?’ he asked.

‘It is,’ said Dennis. ‘The men of war will come here.’

‘Do you think they will listen to us?’

‘If they will not, we shall destroy them.’

‘How can we justify such an act?’

‘It will be as they expect. We have a difference. If negotiation cannot overcome it, then war is the logical recourse. To the victor will go the argument.’

‘But war is wrong, is it not?’

‘If the humans think this, then why do they practise it so vigorously?’

‘I asked that question too,’ recalled Joseph. ‘I am not certain of the answer.’

‘There has always been a God of War,’ said Dennis softly.

‘Has there? I do not recall.’ Joseph held his head in his hands and felt the familiar pain of confusion. ‘Why are my thoughts so fragmented? You tell me we are gods to the people of Earth, and yet I know no such thing. Is it not wrong to set ourselves up above them, to judge them, to shape their destinies?’ His gaze strayed to the window and its stained glass depiction of the Patriarch.

‘It is their choice to make.’ Joseph recognised the rich, booming tones. The all-father had manifested himself. He turned and prostrated himself at the Patriarch’s sandalled feet. ‘The humans make their own gods. If it were not for their deep desires, we could not exist.’

‘Yes. Yes, I feel that. And yet there are those who would resist us.’

‘Then we must convert them, for such is the will of the majority.’

‘It is?’

The Patriarch’s voice deepened and took on the tone of thunder. ‘Can you not feel them, boy? They surround this church in vigil for our attentions. Open your mind and heart to their hopes, their longings, their prayers. Tell me then that they would wish us to leave this world. We cannot exist without them, it is true, but nor can they exist without us.’

And Joseph felt it.

He touched the mind of Sylvia Blake, ground down by a life of poverty, pregnant with a child she could not afford by a man whom she despised. Joseph knew he could help her; knew too that she regarded the gods as her last hope. He heard the thoughts of Mark Turner, abandoned by friends and family. He had contemplated suicide and was here on a final, desperate search for a reason to continue. Joseph emoted with Libby Daniels’s concern for the animals that were being led to slaughter the world over.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.