Doctor Who_ Camera Obscura - Lloyd Rose [50]
‘Well, you shouldn’t!’ Sabbath flung him off. ‘This is pathetic!’
‘Surely not,’ the Doctor objected. ‘ “Tacky” perhaps. What Fitz might describe as “wankerish” – well, I suppose that means the same thing as pa‐’
Sabbath grabbed him by the throat. ‘Shut up!’
The Doctor gazed up at him limpidly. ‘It’s only a dream,’ he wheezed, then the ship lurched for a third time and threw them to opposite ends of the room. It also turned upside down.
‘Tell me,’ the Doctor gasped, untangling himself from the chandelier, ‘isn’t this situation so completely stupid that it’s beyond irony?’
‘Yes,’ said Sabbath grimly, tossing the organ bench off him.
‘Then how do you plan to deal with it?’
Sabbath lay catching his breath. ‘I suppose,’ he said after a moment, ‘that I can’t actually kill you in this particular situation.’
‘You can’t kill me at all. As long as my heart is beating in your chest, I can’t die. You’ve made me immortal. And without even writing a poem.’
‘It was not my plan,’ Sabbath said drily.
‘The doctrine of unintended consequences,’ said the Doctor. A gigantic squid tentacle crashed through the porthole. ‘And there’s another one.’
Water churned into the room as the tentacle thrashed wildly about. There was another tilt, and the Doctor and Sabbath again found themselves side by side.
Sabbath spit out water. ‘Isn’t it time for you to wake up?’
‘Er,’ said the Doctor apologetically, ‘I mis-spoke earlier. It’s not exactly a dream, really. More of what you might call an altered state.’
They were yelling over the crashing, water. The tentacle twisted and swiped towards them and they rolled away together into another heap. This time Sabbath landed on top, looking down at the soaked and dripping Doctor, into his depthless, alien eyes. ‘I mean it,’ the Doctor said, in a voice as cold as the water overwhelming them. ‘No. More. Killing.’ And with sudden, surprising strength, he thrust Sabbath away from him and into the coils of the monster.
Cold. Crushing. But mostly silent. Sabbath remembered that. He was struggling not to inhale water and to keep the coiling limb of the beast that had pulled him under from snapping his spine, but there was no sound. It made everything oddly peaceful. Deep, cold, infinite silence. And shadows. There was a little light, broken up near the surface of the water, not penetrating very far. Yes, he remembered that too, though he had been far deeper then, those centuries ago when other enemies had tried to drown him. And then, very slowly, he realised that he was deeper. The light was dim and small, far away as a star. It was a star. It was the sun, on that brilliant English day of his first death by water. He was sinking not just through the water, but through the years. It was his past gripping him now, trying to strangle him with memory, with old panic, and terror, with the fear of death...
Sabbath gasped. Cold filled his lungs. This was an illusion. He was not in water. He could not drown. The cold slid into his lungs. He choked. No! This could not – could not –
‘Wakey, wakey,’ said the Doctor’s voice in his ear. Sabbath flinched from its closeness. He opened his eyes. He was in his armchair. The Doctor was perched on the small chair opposite. They were both perfectly dry.
‘Well done,’ Sabbath said expressionlessly.
‘Do you really think so? I thought it was a bit cheesy myself. But thank you. By the way, don’t try it yourself. You haven’t the brain. I don’t mean the intelligence, I mean the brain. Yours isn’t structured for the job.’
Sabbath stared at the beautiful, unreadable face. The Doctor looked back pleasantly, sitting up straight, his slender hands resting on his thighs. His eyes were once more like what Sabbath was used to, whatever that was. Was there anything human at all in there? Or was it just a case of splendid mimicry? ‘Was that supposed to frighten me into doing things your, way?’
‘No,’ said the Doctor. ‘I did it because... There’s a twentieth-century