Doctor Who_ Christmas on a Rational Planet - Lawrence Miles [121]
‘Ak. Cac. Watch,’ croaked a prone figure on the other side of the room, but everyone ignored him
Then a man appeared at Christopher’s shoulder. Marielle had never seen him before. He was the Doctor. She didn’t even notice the contradiction between those last two thoughts.
‘Chris,’ the Doctor said. ‘Listen to me. This may be very important. The memory you had, out in the desert. About your father. Where did it come from?’
‘What?’ Christopher’s expression was blank. ‘It’s just... a memory. I don’t know.’
The Doctor seemed agitated about something. ‘Please, try to concentrate. When was the first time you had that memory?
The first time today, say.’
‘Today.’ Chris started to nod. ‘I was in a room. In the TARDIS. With brass bits in the walls. And the interface.’
‘Interface?’
‘The TARDIS interface. I was talking to the interface... and the memory came... for the first time...’
Suddenly the Doctor was on the other side of the room, vanishing through a doorway and into the depths of the ship.
The Negress looked at Chris, then at Marielle.
‘What was that all about?’ she asked.
The Doctor stormed past more nineteenth-century furniture in the corridors, but ignored it. As soon as he entered the room with the brass roundels, one of the walls opened up a lazy eye.
‘Interface!’ barked the Doctor.
‘Ah,’ said a mouth set into a brass roundel. ‘I did believe you to be unaware of my existence...’
‘Don’t insult my intelligence.’ He began to pace the room, hands behind his back. ‘Are you in touch with the TARDIS?’
‘I suspect that I am the TARDIS, in part. That is to say, the TARDIS has been employing me as a mouthpiece. And it bloody hurts, and all, as my new personality might put it. Do you know how big the ship’s psychosphere is...?’
The Doctor waved the complaint aside. ‘Ask her what she knows about False Memory Syndrome. Ask her what she thinks she’s doing putting memories into people’s heads.’
The mouth frowned. ‘Oh. I see.’
‘The Carn... the force out in the desert was right, for once.
Nobody as apparently well-adjusted as Christopher should have a memory like that rolling around inside him. Somebody planted it. Popped the memory into his cerebellum. Somebody with telepathic faculties. Or with telepathic circuits.’
‘You guessed, then.’
‘It wasn’t difficult,’ the Doctor scowled. ‘And the historical slip was clumsy. Bank-robbers in the thirtieth century?
Pitiful!’
‘Please, don’t blame the TARDIS for that. The historical records in the data banks were made by – excuse me – by a bunch of doddery old Time Lords with their heads stuck halfway up their... whatever it is Time Lords have at the bottom end. Funny, the data banks don’t talk about Time Lord anatomy much.’ The voice was swinging uncertainly between its usual cultured tones and a rough London accent, as if it had two personalities and wasn’t sure which it should be using.
‘Though I fail to understand why you’re angry. We saved the universe, surely?’
‘The TARDIS has no right to play with the minds of its passengers!’
‘No?’ The mouth twitched at the corner. ‘Please, Doctor, consider the situation. The "force" in the desert, as you describe it, wanted to create an irrational universe. Yes?’
‘Yes, yes.’
‘And who has the most to lose from that? Consider what the TARDIS represents. The ship is the ultimate expression of reason. Its heart is made of mathematics, its architecture the very model of order.’
The mouth tried to shake its head, with predictably disastrous results. ‘I... it... couldn’t take any chances. It couldn’t allow the rational universe to be threatened. Besides which, any personality the TARDIS might have developed has largely been modelled on your own. To put it bluntly, if you’re an interfering old stoat, it’s not surprising that the ship is as well.’
The Doctor stopped pacing and pulled a face. ‘I’ll thank you not to lecture me about how the TARDIS works.’
‘Why? I must surely have a better idea than you do...
‘Hah!’ exclaimed the Doctor. ‘Interface, I command you to shut down. Priority