56 - The Book of the Still

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The Unnoticed are bound to keep themselves isolated from all history, or face a

complete collapse from existence.

The Book of the Still is a lifeline for stranded time travellers – write your

location, sign your name and be instantly rescued. When the Unnoticed learn

that within the book someone has revealed both their existence and

whereabouts they are forced into murderous intercession to ﬁnd it.

Fitz knows where it is, but then he’s the one who stole it. Carmodi, addicted

to the energies trapped in frequent time travellers, also knows where it is. But

she’s the one who’s stolen Fitz. Anji, alone on a doomed planet, trying to ﬁnd

evidence of a race that has never had the decency to exist, doesn’t know

where anybody is.

Embroiled in the deadly chase, the Doctor is starting to worry about how

many people he can keep alive along the way. . .

This is another in the series of original adventures for the Eighth Doctor.

The Book of the Still

Paul Ebbs

From a story by Paul Ebbs and Richard Jones

Published by BBC Worldwide Ltd

Woodlands, 80 Wood Lane

London W12 0TT

First published 2002

Paul Ebbs 2002

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Original series broadcast on the BBC

Format c

BBC 1963

Doctor Who and TARDIS are trademarks of the BBC

ISBN 0 563 53851 1

Imaging by Black Sheep, copyright c

BBC 2002

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Mackays of

Chatham

Cover printed by Belmont Press Ltd, Northampton

For my son Christy, and for Sherry and Steve.

For contributions way above the call of duty; hugest thanks to

Zoe McAden, Karen Hellstrom, Backrubslut, Gary F. Russell, Bill B. Baggs and of

course Richard ‘Where is he now?’ Jones

Massive, Mr Equator-like love & thanks, (in no particular order) to

Mum, Dad, Justin Richards, Terry Barker, Stuart and Sam Robinson, Gareth

Preston, Bruce Robinson, Rob Shearman, Lea (no Aitch!) Hays, Jeremy Bement,

Alistair Lock, Jon de Burgh Miller, Martin Day, Mark Clapham, Lance Parkin,

Jonny Morris, SBJ, Dave Stone, Paul Leonard, Nick Walters, Derek Handley,

Dean Rose, Rick Brindle, Nev Fountain, Michael J. Doran, Graham Burke, Robert

Smith?, Mark Eldridge, Jac Rayner, Shaun Lyon, Lighthope, Joe Medina and

everyone at Everlasting Films. MarkyD, FanzineEditor, Kevin Hiley and all the

Time-Talk Crew – see you Sunday at 8pm!

Contents

Epilogue 6

Obligatory Spectacular Opening 8

Oatmeal and Water 17

Before All That 25

Visiting Times 33

A Diﬀerent Quality to the Rain 41

This Never Happened 44

Dream Time Error 56

And What Are You In For? 65

Escape. Switch 76

I Don’t Do This 85

Leaving Without Saying Goodbye 95

Resonance Corridor 105

Snatching Defeat From the Jaws of Victory 115

Bad Guys Wear Black Hats 123

Mob Dynamics 130

Danger: Unexploded Planet 138

Contact High 146

Contents 5

Bollywood or Bust 153

The Burglar’s Excuse-Me 159

Still Point 165

Learning to Dance 171

With One Bound He Was Free 177

I Was a Canary for the Unnoticed 183

Entry 3756 189

Coming Down to Earth 194

Are You Out of Your Mind? 200

Sunburn 204

Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun 215

Mind Bomb 223

Dancing 234

Prologue 244

About the Author 248

About the Other Author 249

Epilogue

‘Epilogue? At the beginning? Style-over-content gross-out, compadre.’

‘It’s a story about time travel; dreck like this happens all the time. . . He’s all

about style. You don’t remember who I was. You don’t remember what I contained.

You don’t remember what I’ve lost.’

Money is not the root of all Evil. Subjectivity is.

Describing anything as bad is dependent on where you were standing at the

time. That’s the universal constant.

Don’t you dare accuse me of facile relativism. Don’t you dare. You’re the one

who mentioned ‘evil’ and so of course I’m going to say this, because I’m not

some vacuum-eyed ‘Nothing is real’ kid from the twenty-third Church of the

Copenhagen Interpretation. I know what I’m talking about. I know because

again and again my head’s been roughly twisted to stare at the consequences

of actions before the events that caused them took place. You probably think

that time travelling is a glamorous escapade, all heartbeats, breathlessness and

big chandeliers. It isn’t. It’s a three a.m. trawl through the cat litter of history

using your bare hands as shovels. Have your sensibilities put through that, call

me facile again, and we’ll ﬁnish this conversation.

So in the meantime, who shall we say is evil?

Who shall we put down as the villain of ‘The Book of the Still’?

Is it the man who snatched away from me the only pure thing I could ever

know? The man who steps on to your life like he needs somewhere to wipe

his feet? Who writes indecipherable grafﬁti on the bones of your existence?

Treating your timeline as a real-world representation of the universe’s own

built-in obsolescence. . .

You know who I’m talking about. Yes, he’s a pretty, pretty boy, and yes, he

arrives like a shiver in your life, with his goose-pimple eyes and heart-string

lips. When you get close to him he smells of rice paper and rainy days. Well,

he did when I met him. By the time we parted, the smell was of orange groves,

freshly printed books and an illegal backstreet autopsy. The mere fact that he

can change the way he smells seemingly at will, should have warned me off in

Epilogue 7

the ﬁrst place. By the end, it got to the point where I didn’t want to have to

look at him at all. Being delight wrapped up in velvet and having a dining room

made of chocolate are no real substitutes for someone mundane that doesn’t

leave behind a trail of wrecked planets and bad cases of heartbreak.

Someone like Fitz. Although I could easily see Fitz as responsible for what

happened to me, in the way that you might put the blame for a burglary on a

housemate who left the door unlocked rather than on the burglar. But I won’t,

because I loved him so much. And whether he liked it or not, he loved me as

well.

I don’t narrate the story that follows. This means that the Doctor will prob-

ably look like some sort of hero, until about halfway through anyway. It also

means that I will probably come out as a selﬁsh bitch who gets everyone around

her killed or abused. I tell you I’m not.

I’m not.

I just did some bad things for the right reasons.

Actually, that’s a lie. I did some right things for very bad reasons. Bugger it,

I don’t know why I did half the things I did. Repentance is an effort I’m not

willing to make right now.

There used to be so much in my life, so much to look forward to, a heady mix

of expectant euphoria and certain destiny. Then I almost reached the moment

when the reason for my existence would self-actualise – and he stole it.

This is a political broadcast on behalf of the Injured Party.

What this isn’t, is a treatise on the nature of heroism. I don’t care what you

think of me in the end. Everything that was ever important to me has been

excavated and at the moment there’s nothing left for anyone to care about.

That may sound hollow but then, so am I, now.

Hollow.

Your natural reaction may be to slap and shake anyone who writes about her

own emotions in goddamned italics. I know that before this started I would

have, so I can’t really blame you if you do.

I don’t know if you’re buying this. After all, I don’t know where you’re stand-

ing.

Stand to attention. Stand up straight. Stand still.

I’m Carmodi Litian. I don’t know who you are.

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摘要：

TheUnnoticedareboundtokeepthemselvesisolatedfromallhistory,orfaceacompletecollapsefromexistence.TheBookoftheStillisalifelineforstrandedtimetravellerswriteyourlocation,signyournameandbeinstantlyrescued.WhentheUnnoticedlearnthatwithinthebooksomeonehasrevealedboththeirexistenceandwhereaboutstheyarefor...

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56 - The Book of the Still

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