Part 29 (1/2)
There would be millions of people with nowhere to live, no food to eat.
Millions would die. As we stood on that plain of gla.s.s, beneath the full Earth, I could see Jason thinking hard about those that would survive.
About how they would eat, where they would live. About how they would live. I knew he had seen one world die from a blow such as this. I could see he did not want to watch another die.
In preceding years movement of people from one area of the Earth to another on this scale had been impossible for many reasons. Now it was essential. I watched the Earth silently, understanding that it was a new world I was seeing emerge from the birth trauma of Agent Yellow. I could see Jason wondering if the people of this new world would learn and grow and live ... or fail to learn, and die.
That was one question I knew the answer to. In broad terms, only, of course, but nonetheless I had an answer of sorts. But then I was from the future and he wasn't.
It was just one more way in which we were different. I left him there to find out what I already knew.
Or thought I knew.
As for the rest of it, nada. Why did we divorce? I have no idea.
Was it because Jason lied to me about loving me, or because I lied to him about my pregnancy? Was it because the Earth survived, or because the Cthalctose died? Was it because I wanted him to kill me, or because he was able to do it?
I didn't even know if I wanted a divorce, or if we should give our relations.h.i.+p another go, thrash it out, try to make some sense out of it. I think I wanted both things at the same time, if you can imagine that. Oh G.o.d. It's all so d.a.m.n complicated.
I asked the Doctor about it later and he was about as unhelpful as I'd ever heard him be.
He said, 'I have walked in Eternity. And Eternity weeps:' I've thought about what he said for years, but I still don't know what he meant.
I shook my head. 'Nah.' I turned once again to enter the TARDIS. As I stepped over the threshold, I tossed the Bible idly onto the lunar surface.
As far as I know it's still there, a lone sentinel in a plain of gla.s.s watching over a world that might as well have been made by the hand of G.o.d himself.
A thought struck me as I turned away from Jason to enter the TARDIS, and I tilted my head up for one last look at this new world, fresh from its birth pains. I thought about Noah, I thought about the Astronomer Royal. I thought about the death of a world, the birth of another, the transformation which bridged the two.
And the Ark. The Ark that represented a beginning and an ending, both at the same time. I thought about that too. And I took from my pocket a tiny Bible, a doodad Jason had given me while we were on our honeymoon. I think he stole it from a hotel room. I flicked the pages idly, wondering: we had started out looking for one Ark and we found another. Along the way we remade a world. Destiny or coincidence?
I will rain upon the Earth forty days and forty nights; and I will destroy every substance that I have made from the face of the Earth.
I shut the book slowly, thoughtfully. What if...
Dedication.As well as being in memory of me dear old Dad, this book is also dedicated with special love to my Mum, June Mortimore; and in acknowledgement of selfless courage to Jonathan, Joanne, Andrea, Steve, Eileen, Maureen, Phil, Angela and Andy, Sheila and Bill, Lisa, Wayne, Sam; Cynthia and Stan, Lin and Les, Flossie, Mavis and Bob, Shane and Donna and the staff at St Margaret's, Rita and Pip, Ann, Andy and Mark, Tony, Gwen, Sue, Bob Bone and the Darts Club, Richard Evans of the Royal Liverpool University Hospital, Liz Friend from the Greenwich Support Team, Ron Southard, Chris Paice and Brian Hume, Gina, the Lewisham Direct Team Building Works, the medical staff and radiographers at the Maudsley and St Thomas's, the Marie Curie Nurses, the staff at the Greenwich and Bexley Hospice, and everyone else who was kind enough to offer support to us all when we needed it the most?