Doctor Who_ Camera Obscura - Lloyd Rose [49]
Sabbath’s eyes half shut, lazily. ‘Be careful, Doctor.’
‘Or what?’ The Doctor leaned into Sabbath’s face. ‘You’ll take, out my other heart?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘That’s all you can do to your opponents, Sabbath: kill them. You can’t persuade them to see the rightness of your ideas, because you don’t have any ideas, just this housekeeping compulsion to tidy up the universe.’
‘You’re beginning to irritate me, Doctor.’
‘Oh,’ said the Doctor, ‘you ain’t seen nothing yet.’ And, gripping Sabbath’s hand, he changed into a seal.
At least, where the Doctor had been, there was a seal, poking its sleek black face up to Sabbath, nosing at his mouth. It was kissing him! Sabbath stood up, and the seal hit the floor with a thump and a reproachful ‘Ork!’
Sabbath looked around. For an instant, he thought he was aboard the Jonah. Then he realised that this was a parody of his ship, arty and over designed, like a stage set. The copper walls were set with rows of round, non-functional rivets and hung with intricate but nonsensical gauges cased in shining brass. Wine-coloured velvet curtains framed mahogany shelves of leather-bound folios. There was a silly-looking, tinkling fountain and a dining table draped with a lace cloth.
‘Puerile,’ Sabbath said disdainfully.
He was answered by the boom of an organ that careened into a swirling frenzy of notes. With a long sigh, Sabbath crossed to a pair of double doors and pushed them open. The sound hit him like a wind: Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. The organ was an absurd construction with a fan of golden pipes and an oval mirror above the keyboard, in which the Doctor was smiling at him, though not very cheerfully. He stopped playing and turned on the bench.
‘You know, one of the things I don’t understand about you, Sabbath, is why, if you’re from the eighteenth century and points earlier, you act like someone who read too much Jules Verne as a boy.’
‘This isn’t particularly clever,’ said Sabbath, ‘but it is impressive. How are you doing it?’
‘Oh, that old devil biodata. I sort of surfed in on your nervous system.’
‘And this was the best you could think up?’
‘I’m not thinking it up, actually. I believe I’m dreaming. Or possibly remembering.’ The Doctor examined their surroundings. ‘Or perhaps this is a gloss, a sort of commentary on your style. A movie, wasn’t it? Not that you resemble James Mason. Someone else, I can’t quite get his name. Fat, pompous fellow who once had talent but ended up as a professional interviewee on talk shows. Oh,’ the Doctor slid his legs around to the front of the bench, ‘something else I’ve been meaning to ask: why is your ship called the Jonah? I mean, logically, shouldn’t it be called the Whale? Then you could be inside the whale. Orwell. Much more interesting writer than Verne.’
Sabbath stepped forward. ‘I want you out of my mind.’
‘Should have thought of that before you moved my heart into your body. This connection wasn’t my idea. In fact, I blocked it out for months. But now that I’ve realised it exists,’ the Doctor smiled broadly, ‘here I am.’
‘Get out,’ Sabbath said quietly.
‘Shortly. I don’t like it in here any more than you like having me here. It’s a nasty place. And so small.’
Sabbath took another step forward. The Doctor stood up, face set.
‘No more killing, Sabbath.’
‘Fine,’ said Sabbath agreeably. Just one exception,’ and he lunged for the Doctor. But in that moment, the ship lurched wildly, and he slid into the wall.
‘Time squid astern!’ cried the Doctor as he was thrown through the air.
‘What?!’
‘I mean – Oof!’ The Doctor hit the wall beside Sabbath. ‘I mean, giant time squid astern.’
‘What the hell is a giant time squid!’ Sabbath roared.
‘A big one,’ the Doctor assured him. ‘Very, very big. Look.’
He pointed. A huge black tentacle writhed past a porthole. Sabbath groaned.
‘Stop this!’ he yelled in exasperation. ‘You’re embarrassing yourself!’
The ship lurched again and the