Doctor Who_Scratchman by Tom Baker

Author:Tom Baker [Baker, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, science fiction, General
ISBN: 9781473531734
Google: GdVbDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2019-01-24T06:24:31+00:00

FEAR OF LIES

I could tell my assembled audience of Time Lords was getting restless.

‘Flying castles! Giant insects!’ The muttering had become a hubbub and was nudging towards a brouhaha.

One revered Time Lord took to his feet, trembling with rage. He said the first words anyone had heard him say in four centuries: ‘The Doctor is a charlatan!’

There was a scattering of applause.

‘The Doctor has made this whole story up, just to frighten us!’ The old duffer was finding his voice again. ‘He’s invented it out of whole cloth, just to shake us down. I say we wipe him out now!’

There were cheers at that, and the beam of light intensified around me.

I struggled to keep to my feet. I looked up at them all, jeering away, at the Sword of Never crackling as it sliced down towards me, and, of course, at the inevitably solicitous face of the Zero Nun.

‘Surely my esteemed colleague is mistaken.’ Her smile was silken. ‘You haven’t made all this up, have you?’

‘You could check yourselves,’ I said. ‘Who would dare try and pull the wool over your omnipotent eyes, mmm?’

‘We could check,’ the Zero Nun averred.

‘You could,’ I repeated. ‘So, why don’t you?’

The crowd fell silent.

‘Because you’re afraid that you’ll find out it’s all true.’ I grinned at them all. ‘And that would be far more comforting to you, far less frightening than knowing that it’s all real.’

The treacle-tongued Nun glided forwards. ‘That’s not what anyone wants to think, Doctor, let me assure you.’ She stretched out a claw as if to reach through the brilliant light that held me pinned, to pat me on the arm. ‘All of us want only to reach the truth of what happened. And I’m sure that you’ll be able to provide us all with a convincing account of your actions, one that clears you completely.’ I wouldn’t have blamed her if she’d thrown in a wink at the crowd.

They all got her drift. ‘Quite so,’ a few of them harrumphed. Some thumped their perigosto sticks on the floor. Even geriatric sharks can sense blood in the water.

‘I’ll admit my story is outlandish,’ I said. ‘An entire world that exists only to mock me?’ I favoured them all with a severe expression. ‘The very idea. How absurd.’

That gave them pause.

‘Shall we continue?’

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