Doctor Who_ Deep Blue - Mark Morris [89]
Max looked dubious. ‘It’s not like any infection I’ve ever seen before.’
‘It’s a new strain,’ Mike said vaguely. ‘We’ve got experts working on a cure for it right now.’
Max looked at him for a moment longer, then shrugged. ‘If you say so. Come on, let’s see to your friend.’
He led them out of the vestibule and into a corridor whose widely-spaced doors were linked by viewing windows. The windows looked into medical research laboratories, most of which contained equipment and apparatus whose purpose Mike could only guess at.
‘How many people have you got up here?’ Mike asked.
Max raised his eyebrows as he thought about it. ‘I’d say around two hundred.’
Mike whistled as Max turned right at the end of the corridor and pointed ahead. ‘There’s a kitchen and dormitory along here. A real home from home. It’s where the doctors sleep when they haven’t got time to go home, when they’ve got experiments and stuff they need to keep an eye on. That’s where everybody is.’
A murmur of conversation drifted to meet them as they drew closer. They passed several more labs, these ones full of people. Most of them were patients in dressing-gowns, who were standing or sitting around - talking, reading books and newspapers, playing cards, drinking tea. There was a kind of Blitz spirit in evidence, a sense of pulling together, of cheerfulness in adversity. If Mike had been wearing his uniform rather than his civvies, he had little doubt that many of the older men would have been saluting him as he passed by.
Max led them into the dormitory area, containing around a dozen beds, all of which were occupied by the more serious cases. Most of these patients were asleep, though several were groaning in pain. Some patients were lying on the floor between the beds, draped with spare blankets, heads propped by ‘pillows’ of bundled-up dressing-gowns and other articles of clothing. Others were sitting with their backs to the walls and their knees drawn up, looking dazed or shell-shocked.
Doctors, nurses and some of the more able patients were moving between the beds, offering care and comfort where they could. Mike spotted Charlotte sitting beside a cadaverous old man who was lying on the floor like a bundle of sticks wrapped in blue and white pyjamas. With one hand she was supporting his head as he raised it, and with the other she was holding a transparent plastic cup, from which he was taking small sips of water.
Mike wanted to call to her, but thought it inappropriate.
Instead he turned to Max and Tegan and held up a finger.
‘One moment. I’ve just seen a friend of mine.’
He crossed to her and waited until the old man had finished drinking and Charlotte had lowered his head carefully back down to the floor. Then he said, ‘Hello, Charlotte.’
She looked up, startled, and her face broke into a grin.
‘Mike!’ she exclaimed. What are you doing here?’
He gestured across to the Doctor slumped in the wheelchair, behind which stood Tegan looking tense. ‘I’ve brought an injured friend here for treatment. The whole town is under attack.’
The grin slipped from her face. ‘I know. What’s happening to everyone, Mike? What’s making them change like this?
Like my dad did?’
‘It’s a long story,’ Mike said, and quickly changed the subject to avoid having to tell it. ‘How’s the baby?’
Charlotte touched her stomach and glanced quickly around, evidently not wishing her pregnancy to become public knowledge. ‘Fine, as far as I know.’
‘And your mum? How’s she?’
‘Well, she’s alive at least. She’s over there.’
Mike looked across to where she was pointing and saw a woman sitting against the wall with her face in her hands, so still that he was not sure whether she was awake or asleep.
‘Is she -’ he began, but was interrupted by a blurted word from Max:
‘Jesus!’
Mike turned and saw that whilst he had been talking to Charlotte a little group had gathered around the Doctor. As well as Tegan and Max, there was a doctor who looked young enough to be fresh out of med school and a nurse who looked old enough to be the young doctor’s mother. It was