Part 8 (1/2)

71.A few seconds later he stopped and looked around. No one moved. No one even flinched. Petra was standing beside the pile of flesh. The young girl was staring at her arm, her face a mask of pure horror. Around them, people were staring at the cracked gla.s.s, pointing and ducking.

Around Tie Rack people had scooped up some of the gla.s.s, and a man was running away, stolen ties trailing behind him. He had dropped one and it was floating to the floor.

Except that it was not. It was just hovering in mid-air.

Nothing was moving at all - like a tableau.

He looked around in satisfaction. His internal body clock reckoned that he had about six hours. He would give it a boost in four. Then another three hours later. That should give him time to sprint up to c.u.mbria.

It was cheaper than a British Rail ticket, and he did not need to queue.

'What a wonderful library this is!' The Doctor was sitting atop of a set of library steps, about six rows off the floor.

Beside him, two candles flickered what little light they could give across the pages of the ma.s.sive leather-bound book he was studying.

Carfrae stood, her arms folded, at the foot of the steps.

'That's all very interesting, Doctor,' she said, 'but it hardly helps Si and me set up an Ex-Area, does it?'

'What? Oh yes.' The Doctor slammed the book shut and accidentally extinguished the candles. 'Oh, dear. Sorry.'

Simon heard him fumble about and eventually strike a match to relight them. He s.h.i.+vered. 'b.l.o.o.d.y cold in here, Doctor. Still, it's secluded enough.'

The Doctor shoved the book under his arm and gleefully hopped off the steps as if he were two feet off the ground, not seven or eight. Without breaking a stride, he landed and wandered to another set of shelves.

'You can learn a lot by reading, you know,' he said. 'I mean, how would Homer have given us The Iliad Iliad if he hadn't been well read? Mind you, he got it wrong. I was there.' He beamed at the two students as if the secrets of the 72 if he hadn't been well read? Mind you, he got it wrong. I was there.' He beamed at the two students as if the secrets of the 72 universe had just been shared out in equal portions and they should give him a round of applause.

'Homer probably couldn't read, Doctor. Or write.' Carfrae shook her head. 'They say he dictated the whole thing.'

The Doctor wagged his finger. 'Well, there you are then. I mean, if he'd done it himself, he wouldn't have got it so wrong. Education - that's the important thing. And you get more education out of reading books than a university could teach you in a lifetime.'

'Yes, thank you, Doctor. Well, if you've quite finished rubbis.h.i.+ng our education system, perhaps you could tell us what you found so interesting in that book.' Carfrae gave Simon a look that suggested she thought the Doctor was insane. Simon smiled an agreement and slipped the book out from under the Doctor's arm. He began flicking the pages.

'Looks like a family biography. The people who built this house perhaps?'

The Doctor nodded. 'Very good. Now what are the pages made from?'

'Paper?' suggested Carfrae but Simon was frowning.

'Papyrus?' he ventured.

The Doctor shook his head. 'A bit too modern I think.'

'Papyrus, modern? Oh, come on, Doctor. It's one of the oldest types of paper on Earth.'

The Doctor pulled a book out of a shelf, ran his fingers over the leaves and replaced it. He hummed and hahhed until he spotted a pocket-sized, red-covered one. 'Ah. That's more like it.' Without reading it, he dropped it into one of his frock-coat pockets, causing one of the covers to poke through a tiny hole in the st.i.tching and make it wider. 'No, Mr Griffiths. It's not papyrus. It's not from Earth either. Try tearing a page.'

Simon grunted. 'Always taught to treasure books, not rip 'em up,' he murmured. And then frowned. 'I can't. It won't even fold or bend.'

Carfrae reached for it. And likewise failed to even crease a page. 'This doesn't make sense,' she said.

73.The Doctor took it back. 'Strange texture, too. It's not polymer nor crystalline. In fact, its molecular structure is rather bizarre - half of it is stable and half unstable, but the actual fractions are in a constant state of flux. Ever seen anything like it?'

Simon shrugged. 'I don't even understand what you're talking about!'

The Doctor began flicking through the book. 'Of course not.' He stroked a page with the tip of his finger. He held it up for them to see. 'Look at my fingertip. Notice anything?'

'Dust?'

'Paper cut?'

The Doctor sighed. 'Oh dear me, no. Stare hard at the tip.'

'It's a bit difficult in this light, Doctor. Move the candles nearer.'

'Oh, never mind,' said the Doctor. 'I'll tell you. My fingertip is probably three or four months younger now than the rest of my hand.' He beamed as if that explained everything. Simon and Carfrae looked back blankly and he deflated a little. 'Reverse tachyon-chronons. If you put this under an X-ray, it'd probably heat up, and put it under a spectrograph and - well, it'd cause enough feedback to break the machine. Time is flowing backwards and forwards over it in the same way air moves around an ordinary book.

Preserves it for, oh, roughly speaking, an eternity.'

'You what?'

'It's time-protected, Simon. A neat trick known only to a few races in the universe. Well, two that I can think of actually. And one of them is only a legend.'

Carfrae tried to form some words and then breathed deeply. She tried again. 'The book is extra-terrestrial?'

'Oh, golly, no,' said the Doctor. 'It's merely been coated in RTCs. It looks as if it was made in about 1895.'

'Victorian,' said a voice from the door. It was Peter.

'Doctor, the old woman on the stairs. She was dressed in a Victorian dress, I'm sure of it.'

'So what?' asked Simon.

74.'Possibly nothing,' said the Doctor. 'Possibly something.

Who knows? But it'll be fun finding out. Now, shall we go back to the Ex-Room with our little find?'

'Hang on a mo,' said Simon, 'I want to know more about that book. And the aliens that wrapped it in your TCRs.'

'RTCs actually,' corrected the Doctor. 'I like an enquiring mind as much as the next me will. Probably. But now is neither the time nor place. Peter, did you find Polly or Ben?'

Peter shook his head, and added that Kerbe hadn't been too helpful when asked why the Ex-Room had been locked from the outside.

'He wouldn't be. I think poor Herr Kerbe is a little out of his depth right now. The less he can try and explain - and therefore fail to do so - the better for his peace of mind.'

'He's a bit naffed off about the mess I made of the lock though,' Peter said, grinning.

'I'll bet. Still, that'll teach him,' said Carfrae.

They were back in the Ex-Room by now and the Doctor pulled the door to behind them. 'Trouble is, it doesn't shut properly now. We won't be soundproofed.'