Cold Fusion - Lance Parkin [81]
Instead she pulled her skirt and blouse on over what she was already wearing. Once she was wearing her jacket, she pulled back the curtain and picked up her mug. Adam was standing. He was shorter than Tegan had thought: and thin. He had picked up a black fur coat and draped it over his arm. He opened the door for her.
Together they walked along a long wood-lined corridor that must have run the length of the ship. There wasn’t a window in sight. Tegan found herself wondering where all the droids and holograms had got to. She got the sense that they were deep in the bowels of the ship. She had a dim recollection of the outside: a vessel the shape of Noah’s Ark, the size of a cross-Channel ferry. She couldn’t hear or feel the snow, but wasn’t missing it. Inside here it was cooler than she would have liked, but it was comfortable enough. She hadn’t quite finished her drink.
‘I remember where I’ve seen you before,’ she told Adam as she supped the dregs. ‘You were at the Imperial Hotel.
In the restaurant.’
‘You were sitting on your own,’ he replied. ‘I’d have come over and bought you a drink, but I was waiting to meet a couple of people. They didn’t show.’ They passed through a small anteroom, possibly a little chapel: there were benches and a crucifix hanging on the wall. Beyond that was a heavy door. Once again, Adam opened it for Tegan. She stepped through into a room with a fire in the comer. The Doctor was sitting in a high-backed leather chair, lit by the glow of the fire. There was a chart in his lap, and he was studying it through his half-moon glasses.
Quint was hunched over a table, consulting a ream of maps. Behind them, Patience was lying on a bench, covered with a fur blanket. She was deathly pale.
‘The nearest hospital is the Nightingale Facility,’ the Doctor told Quint. ‘An hour or so from here with the wind behind us.’
‘That’s in hostile territory. The heart of the warzone.’
The Doctor looked up at Adam. It was clearly the first time they had met. They studied each other carefully. ‘Hello again, Tegan,’ the Doctor said. ‘I take it this is Adam?’
Adam nodded graciously.
‘As in “notorious leader of the Adamist terrorists”?’
Adam nodded again. Tegan shifted away from the young man without realizing she had done it. ‘You’re a wanted man, Adam.’
‘And so are you, my friend,’ Adam responded. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you. You are the famous Doctor who has been travelling the planet looking for ghosts?’
It was the Doctor’s turn to nod.
‘Found any?’
‘One or two,’ he said warily. ‘My friend is very ill – I must get her to a hospital with or without your help.’
‘I know. We’ve already changed course.’
The Doctor thanked him.
‘She is the Patient?’ Adam asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Have you found out anything more about her?’
‘I have communed telepathically with her, twice now but although she is telepathically adept her thoughts are still fragmented, unreliable. It’s like a dream: I can only half-remember what I saw, and my own memories are mixed in now for good measure.’
‘Surely you must have enough clues to be going on with by now? How did she arrive?’
The Doctor paused, considering the question. ‘Doctor, are you all right?’ Tegan asked.
‘We must hurry,’ he said.
‘How did Patience arrive?’
‘In–’
The Doctor paused as he reached the top of the plateau.
Doctor, are you all right?’ Adric asked. ‘We must hurry,’
he said.
‘What is that Machine?’
‘It’s–’
The cavern floor was damp, it glistened with water. The scientists had laid duckboards down from the research dome to the machine, and had programmed a drone to paint a white line marking out the route. Roz Forrester felt exposed walking along them, but it was the quickest route, and this way her boots didn’t get wet.
A group of scientists were setting up some scaffolding along the side of the Machine. They hadn’t seen her. There were two options here: act as if you own the place or sneak past. Roz was just at home doing either, but some instinct made her choose the latter. She checked the cavern floor