Doctor Who_ Cat's Cradle_ Warhead - Andrew Cartmel [3]
‘You see,’ said the Doctor, ‘it’s all a matter of assembling the correct weapon.’
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PART ONE: Assembly
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1
They had moved her to a new room two weeks ago. It was a private room, high up in the hospital, with a window. She knew what that meant. She tried not to dwell on the situation. Her aim these days was to keep her mind in neutral and sleep as much as possible.
It would be nice, she thought, if it could happen while she was asleep.
But it wasn’t so easy getting to sleep any more.
Her body was weak, and the medication should have helped. But her mind seemed sharper and more active than ever. She sketched out a dozen articles she would never write. Thought of subjects for a hundred more.
Finally she put a stop to that. Now when she lay awake at night she managed to think of almost nothing.
She lay in bed looking up at the neutral image of the ceiling, a colourless square that filled her vision. After a while her eyes created minor hallucinations for her, meaningless patterns of motion in the non‐colour of the ceiling shadow. If she kept her eyes still for a long time the images intensified. It was like watching a television after the test pattern faded, or a section of blank video with the sound turned off. The endless interference filled her field of vision and soothed her. There was a certain industrial beauty to the monochrome images. And it helped her to imagine herself as simply a machine that had failed. She stopped blaming herself and punishing herself in her mind and took comfort from this notion. The thing she was going through was just a terminal technical failure.
The thought even allowed her a little sleep, just before dawn.
That was the usual pattern of things.
Tonight was different.
Tonight she closed her eyes as soon as they took her supper tray away, the food uneaten but stirred around on the plate a bit to cheer up the nurse. And as she closed her eyes she went into a profound sleep that lasted for hours. She woke up just as suddenly, jolted out of a dream as if an electric shock had crossed her heart. She came up to consciousness with the absolute conviction that someone else was in the room with her.
She didn’t stop to question whether she might still be dreaming. She groped for the lamp on the bedside cabinet. Fumbling in the dark she knocked over a get‐well card and glass of water. A plastic fruit bowl went clattering off the hospital cabinet, spilling its contents. There was no fruit in the bowl, but she’d used it to hold her books and her computer. She heard them hitting the floor just as her hand closed on the light switch.
She had to close her eyes under the impact of the light.
When she forced them open they ached in the glare, tears forming. Her vision swam a little, but she could see well enough.
The man was sitting in the chair beside her bed. Sitting patiently, as if he’d been waiting for her to wake up.
‘It’s you,’ she said.
Her heart was still racing, but that was just the aftershock of whatever dream had woken her. She could already feel her pulse slowing. She was surprised at how calm she felt.
He looked exactly the way she remembered. Pale eyes, thinning hair. Indeterminately old. But no older than the last time she’d seen him. She almost laughed when she saw that he’d taken his hat off. Holding it in his lap. It seemed so solemn. A gesture of respect at the bedside of the sick. Why have respect for this, she thought, looking down at her thin body in the hospital bed.
‘Hello, Shreela,’ he said.
‘Hello. How did you find me?’
‘Your room number is on the hospital computer.’
That wasn’t what Shreela had meant, but she decided to let it pass. ‘You know, in a funny way I almost expected you