'That was an eloquent speech you made to Nepath about reopening the mine, using machinery,' Stobbold said after a while. 'It was good of you to think of us, of the wider picture.'
At first the Doctor did not answer. He did not even indicate that he had heard. But eventually, he drained what remained in his glass with a single swallow. He held up the glass and twisted the stem slowly between his thumb and forefinger, letting the light spin off it. 'Not that it will make any difference,' he said. 'Does it worry you,' he went on slowly, 'that we live in a deterministic universe?'
'You think that whatever is going to happen will will happen, despite what we may do and say?' Stobbold asked. 'Like the mine?' happen, despite what we may do and say?' Stobbold asked. 'Like the mine?'
'What do you think?'
'I think that's a very simplistic view,' Stobbold said. 'I think that God moves in a mysterious way.'
'Like evolution, you mean?' There was the glimmer of a smile on the Doctor's face.
Stobbold smiled too. 'You are surprised to find a man of the church accepting so easily what Darwin propounds?'
'I'm sure it wasn't easy.'
Stobbold's smile froze. 'No,' he said quietly. 'No it wasn't.'
'Do they remind you of the snow?' the Doctor asked.
Surprised out of his brief reverie, it took Stobbold a second to respond. 'Does what?' he asked.
The Doctor gestured towards the fire. 'The sparks. See how they rise, carried upward on the hot air? They twist and turn, they collide and fall. Completely random.'
'I see. You are comparing the way the sparks rise in this manner to the way that the snow is falling outside? The way the flakes twist and turn, the way they too collide at random.' Stobbold nodded. wondering where this was leading. 'Yes, I agree there are similarities.'
'And differences, of course. One up, the other down. One hot, the other cold.'
'One destroying, the other creating?'
'If you like.' The Doctor set down his glass on the table beside the chair. He leaned forward, his eyes glittering as he fixed Stobbold with an unsettling stare. 'But Newton told us over a hundred years ago that this is not random at all. Given an understanding of the forces that are acting of gravity, of convection. of friction with the air, of opposing forces when the particles collide we can predict the path of any particle.'
'Yes,' agreed Stobbold slowly. 'I suppose so.'
'And if we can predict the path of any particle, we can predict the path of every particle. And we know then how and when they will collide, what changes in their velocity and direction will ensue until the next collision.'
'Well...'
'Expand this notion further and we can predict the motion and life of any particle of any kind anywhere. Forever.' He leaned back in the chair, his face creased into a frown. 'Doesn't that scare you? The notion that we live in a clockwork universe?'
Stobbold considered this. 'You are saying, I think, that God set things in motion according to His plan. But that if Newton is correct, then we could predict that plan.'
'Yes.' The Doctor's response was a harsh whisper.
'Which in turn means that there is no place for free will in the universe. Everything is pre*ordained. Predestined.'
'As you said, like the sparks, like the snow,' the Doctor said quietly. 'God moves in a mysterious way.'
Stobbold pulled himself to his feet and fetched the decanter. He refilled first the Doctor's glass then his own. He set the decanter down in the hearth. He had a feeling they would need it again before the night was out. 'It seems to me,' he said as he settled back into his chair, 'that you are considering the human spirit to be composed of, what shall we say, Newtonian particles? Atoms?'
'You think the soul is exempt from the laws of physical science?'
'I hope so, indeed. If that is not the case, tell me Doctor, how can you live with the universe?' Stobbold took a sip of the warm sherry. It was viscous and sticky, sweet and cloying. 'It was you yourself who preached the dangers of mechanisation to Mr Nepath this evening. Are you now saying that we have already lost our individuality, our free will?'
It was the Doctor's turn to consider now. He blew out a long breath before he answered. 'No. No, I hope that is not the case. My feeling is that we have a lot to learn yet, that there is more to life than Newton.'
'Indeed.'
'After all,' the Doctor added, again smiling, 'if our wills were not free would we ever be permitted to doubt that they were?' With that he lapsed into silence again.
'An interesting discussion,' Stobbold said when it became plain that the Doctor was going to add nothing further. 'For myself, I have always found the difficulty not to be whether I may take decisions at all, but in taking the right ones.'
The Doctor nodded. 'With free will comes responsibility,' he said. 'And that is what I believe Nepath and Lord Urton have failed to appreciate.'
'Conscience comes with consciousness?'
'Well put,' the Doctor said. 'Well put indeed. There is a Newtonian order to the decisions we make. Each decision breeds another which twists and turns on its way, colliding with other decisions and affecting them, affected by them.' There was an edge to his voice now, an encroaching, rising passion. 'Thus conscience doth make heroes of us all. So Luther interprets his stomach cramps and his misgivings, and he nails his own conscience, itemised, to the door of Wittenburg church. A decision taken. He makes his stand.' The Doctor's expression was one of intensity again, one side of his face shadowed from the firelight by the wings of the chair. 'He can do nothing else.'
The sudden intensity of the Doctor's short speech surprised Stobbold. He was not sure whether he was supposed to take it seriously or not, whether to react. How to react. 'Are you a theologian, Doctor?' he asked, suddenly aware that he had invited into his house a man about whom he knew practically nothing.
'Perhaps,' the Doctor conceded.
'Meaning you don't wish to say?'
The darkness had spread across the entirety of the Doctor's face now. A mask of shadows. 'Meaning I don't know,' he breathed.
Stobbold frowned. 'So, why are you here?' he asked. 'I understand that Professor Dobbs is a scientist. Mr Gaddis seems to be more of a humanitarian, if I can put it like that. But what is your interest in the fissure?'
'The fissure?' The Doctor's tone was once again light and easy 'What fissure is that?'
Stobbold caught his breath in a half*laugh of surprise. 'What fissure? Why the one that has opened across the moorland, across the old river bed. You must have seen it.' He paused, another thought occurring to him. 'I thought that was why you came here. You are with Dobbs and Gaddis, are you not?' He was leaning forward in his chair for the response, holding his glass so tight that the edges of the cut glass bit into his palm.
'I never met the gentlemen before today,' the Doctor confessed. 'Though they seem pleasant enough. This really is excellent sherry, you know,' he added as if the whole conversation had been cautiously edging towards soliciting his opinion on the matter. 'Thank you.'
'You're welcome,' Stobbold responded mechanically. 'So why are you here?'
In answer the Doctor leaned awkwardly to one side. Stobbold wondered for a second if he was about to topple forwards out of the chair. But in fact he was reaching into his jacket pocket with one hand, his other unwilling to relinquish the sherry. 'Because of this,' he said quietly as he pulled something out.
It was a cube, completely black, apparently solid. It was about two inches across each side. The surface seemed to be smooth, glossy, reflective. So black that it almost seemed not to have a colour at all. Stobbold could see his hand reflected in the cube, split across its surfaces as he reached for it. The firelight danced on its sides. But before his fingers closed on the thing, the Doctor tossed it suddenly in the air, caught it within his palm, and returned it to his pocket.
'What is it?' Stobbold asked.
'Someone on the stairs outside,' the Doctor replied. And Stobbold realised that he too had heard the sound. They both turned towards the door.
The hallway outside was in near darkness. The flickering light from the drawing room cut across the floor, deepening the shadows to either side. As they watched, another shadow a silhouette crept forward into the light, making its way across the opening towards the front door.
'Betty?' Stobbold crossed the room quickly. She was at the door when he reached her, already undoing the catch.
'What is it, my dear?' She seemed not to respond to his voice. He was aware of the Doctor emerging behind him from the drawing room, watching them. He turned his daughter towards him, feeling her slight resistance. Her eyes were open, but unfocussed, unseeing as he looked into them. Her dark hair was down over her shoulders, contrasting with the white linen of her night dress. As he turned her back towards the light from the drawing room, he caught sight of the chain around her neck. Her hand was at her throat, holding the figure of Agni. Like a talisman.
'Is she given to sleepwalking?' the Doctor asked. His voice was low, so as not to startle her.
'Not so far as I have been aware.' Stobbold led her gently back towards the stairs. 'I'll take her back to her room. Best not to wake her.'
'Yes.' The Doctor's voice seemed distant. 'I suppose so.'
She allowed herself to be helped up the stairs, Stobbold's arm around her shoulders. He guided her to her room, and she climbed into bed, pulling the covers back over herself. Her eyes closed, and in a moment she seemed fast asleep. An oil lamp was burning low in the corner of the room. She liked to have light as she slept. The glow permeated the room, ageing the white of the sheets, of her night dress to a pale yellow.
He sat beside the bed for a while, listening to her regular breathing, watching the covers move gently in response. She was so like her mother. So very like her. As he sat there, time was suspended, the world stopped. There was nothing but the two of them. Until the grandfather clock in the hallway jolted him back to the present, and Stobbold quietly, softly left the room.
Downstairs, in the drawing room, he found the decanter returned to its proper place in the Tantalus. The sherry glasses had been washed, dried and replaced in the cabinet. The fire was dying in the grate, embers glowing faintly amidst the dusty residue of the coal. Stobbold lifted the curtain and peered out into the night. Snowflakes were falling gently past the windows, twisting, turning, colliding apparently at random. Of the Doctor, there was no sign.
Chapter Seven.
The Fires of Hell By morning, the world was completely white. Professor Dobbs was aware of the covering of snow even before he opened the curtains. There was a brilliance, a brightness to the light that shone through the material. He had lived through enough winters to know instinctively what that meant.
It was eerie, seeing the morning mist hanging low over the white*shrouded moorland beyond the Rectory. Eerie, yet beautiful. Somewhere out there in that white wilderness was the fissure. A mystery. Since he was a child he had felt compelled to investigate the mysterious, to explain the odd. He had read Wilkie Collins when he was barely in his teens, moved on to Poe before he was twenty. A study of science had seemed an obvious progression, an outlet for his inquiring mind.
He saw something of the same enthusiasm for the unexplained in Alistair Gaddis. Had his own enthusiasm, Dobbs wondered, been as uncontrolled, as unfocused? And if it had, was he now a victim of the constrained and straitjacketed thinking which he had so resented in his elders when he first started on his career, which he had so disparaged in his peers when he first joined the Royal Society?
Staring out now across the strange, pale horizon*less landscape where land and sky met in a misty blur, he found it hard to believe he had ever lost his wonder at the intrinsic beauty with which the world fitted together, the way that everything had its appointed place and could be explained by its context. He could feel the enthusiasm welling up within him, the excitement at being so close to taking another enigma, another oddity and slotting it into its proper place in the order of things. Of explaining the inexplicable.
Betty Stobbold had prepared breakfast, and Dobbs was surprised to find he was the last to rise. He ate quickly, kept company by Stobbold. The Doctor and Gaddis had already breakfasted and had retired to the drawing room.
'I shall be interested to hear your views on the fissure this evening,' Stobbold said over the toast. 'Today is my day for visiting, otherwise I might be tempted to join you on your little expedition.'
'You would of course be most welcome,' Dobbs told him. 'As would your friend the Doctor, of course. Your hospitality is much appreciated.'
'My friend...' Stobbold replied. 'Yes.' He finished his toast. 'You are welcome to stay as long as you wish.'
Normally Dobbs preferred to work alone, or in the company only of Gaddis who was by now used to his ways and methods. But he found himself genuinely delighted that the Doctor was able to join them on their first visit to the fissure.
The mist had lifted by the time they were ready to set off. Gaddis was carrying a satchel of equipment, and Dobbs wielded his favourite walking stick. The Doctor appeared unchanged from the previous night.
'So which way is this fissure?' Gaddis asked the Doctor as they reached the end of the Rectory drive.
'Which way?' He seemed surprised at the question. 'I have no idea. I thought you were the interested parties.'
'You mean you haven't seen it? Haven't been to look?' Dobbs was astounded.
The Doctor shook his head. 'I only arrived yesterday evening, like yourselves.'
'Oh.' Dobbs and Gaddis exchanged glances. 'I apologise, Doctor,' Dobbs said. 'I assumed, we both did, that you had been staying with your friend the Reverend Stobbold for a while.'
The Doctor's eyes glinted in the sunlight reflected off the snow. 'As a scientist, you should always question your assumptions,' he said. 'Don't you think?'
Dobbs frowned. 'Are you a scientist? Is that what you're saying?'
But before the Doctor could answer, Gaddis cut in. 'Shall we go back?' He suggested. 'Ask Miss Stobbold?'
'About our assumptions?' the Doctor asked in apparent surprise.
'About the location of this fissure.'
'Oh, I'm sure there's no need,' the Doctor said. He set off down the lane, heading away from the town. 'Stobbold said it was on the moorland, running across the old river bed.'
'And that is this way?' Dobbs asked as he caught up.
'Yes.' The Doctor hesitated. His breath hung in the air a moment as he seemed to consider, then his face cracked into a grin. 'That is my assumption.'
The Rectory was on the edge of the community. Only the church seemed to be further out of the town. They speculated at the way Middletown had grown, pulled towards the mine workings and the factories. A movement away from the church and towards modern industry, towards mechanisation. Before long they were crunching through the unbroken snow across the empty moorland.
'What's that?' Gaddis asked, shielding his eyes against the low sun.
Dobbs struggled to see what he was pointing towards. His eyes were old, and he was losing the sharpness of his distant vision. There was something, though. A smudge on the horizon.
'Stobbold mentioned that the fissure cuts across the old river bed,' the Doctor said thoughtfully. 'I would say that was a dam.' He turned a full circle as he looked about him, snow churning at his feet. 'This whole area is slightly lower than the surrounding land,' he observed. 'Another reason they could not expand this way, I would think.'
'The river?' Dobbs asked.
The Doctor nodded. 'I wonder why they built the dam.'
'Something to do?' Gaddis suggested with a smile.
'Not completely without merit,' the Doctor observed seriously. 'Providing employment would be a concern, I imagine. Good for morale to have such a large project ongoing.'
'But surely there would have to be some practical application,' Dobbs pointed out.
'One would assume so.' The Doctor clapped his hands together, though whether this was to ward off the cold or to signal an end to the conversation was unclear. 'This way,' he said brusquely and set off towards the distant dam.
'Well,' Gaddis observed after several minutes of silent progress, 'let's hope that when we do find this fissure we don't fall into it.'
'We won't,' the Doctor told him. He was a few steps ahead.
'Might be hidden in the snow you mean?' Dobbs said to Gaddis.
The Doctor did not break his stride. 'It isn't.'
'How do you know?' Gaddis asked.
'Because I can see it,' the Doctor told them.