Doctor Who_ Earthworld - Jacqueline Rayner [53]
The President frowned and looked up slowly, as if noticing the Doctor’s presence for the first time. He didn’t look at the Doctor as he began to speak.
‘Elizabethan was from one of the first-wave families of New Jupiter – a direct descendant of an important Earth family. They were geneticists, and Elizabethan had followed the family tradition. It was a good match, but it wasn’t just that. I. . . I was very fond of her. There was only one problem – she could not fulfil the most important duty of a presidential consort. For a long time, she bore me no children. You understand, the succession is of vital importance.
The crown must stay with those appointed by Earth to rule – we cannot risk it falling into the hands of the un-Earthly masses.’
Elvis Lives!
97
‘Of course not,’ said the Doctor.
‘After some years, much as I. . . cared for her, I feared I would have to put Elizabethan aside and take a new wife, to ensure the succession. However, to our great delight, at last she bore me an heir. In fact, three heirs. Beautiful children, Asia, Africa and Antarctica. Oh, you’ve met them, of course.’
‘Not exactly.’
Hoover was already back in the past. ‘It was then that Elizabethan changed.
She – she worried about our children, I think. Why? I don’t know exactly why.
She sensed, even then, that they were not ordinary girls, I suppose. She didn’t talk to me about it.
‘We decided early on that the girls should be kept from the public – for their own safety. Daughters of the President – a prime target for the dissidents of our society. Kidnap, assassination. . . ’
‘A useful fiction,’ said the Doctor. ‘Actually, of course, you had noticed the children’s antisocial tendencies and didn’t want to risk letting the people see them, as it might prove a public-relations disaster. However, isolating them only exacerbated the problem to an insane degree. The obsession with Earth, for example – forcefed your views, were they? Allowed nothing but books and films about Earth for entertainment? Until they started making their own, of course. Tell me about the androids.’
Hoover took a deep breath, and shook his head unhappily. ‘Androids. The early settlers used them when they first came here. Common to use them for the heavy work. Drones and so forth. Some of the senior families brought humanoid replicants as servants. We used those for the girls. The only. . .
people they saw were their mother –’ he stifled a sob – ‘and my chief technician, Hanstrum.’
‘And you?’ enquired the Doctor.
Hoover looked slightly ashamed. ‘And me,’ he agreed. ‘Sometimes.’ The Doctor said nothing. ‘I have a planet to run!’ the man cried. The Doctor still said nothing. He only looked. After a moment, Hoover continued. ‘The girls are brilliant technicians – they inherited their mother’s scientific skills. They liked games. They wished – well, they wished they lived on Earth, not New Jupiter.
They modified the replicant androids to play their games; be their friends. Act out their fantasies, pretend they were on Earth. And so when the EarthWorld people contacted me –’
‘Yes yes yes,’ interrupted the Doctor. ‘That’s not what I asked you. What happened to your wife?’
‘They killed her.’
98
EarthWorld
‘The triplets did, yes, but how? Why?’
‘ “Why?” You expect me to understand what goes on in those girls’ minds?
Let me tell you. . . ’
‘Doctor.’
‘. . . Doctor, that those girls are mad! Not responsible for their own actions.’
‘Really? Nature, not nurture, you’re saying?’
‘They’re not normal! They’ve never been normal! Are you saying what they did was my fault? We had hoped there would be improvements as they grew older – their mother said she was making progress with them. But then they killed her. . . I had no choice, I had to keep them locked up.’
The Doctor laughed, quietly. ‘Not that you succeeded, in the end. . . And I haven’t laid any blame. I was just interested to hear what you had to say on the matter, that’s all. You don’t seem to be very aware of the reality of the situation.
Not very perceptive at all, in fact.’
Hoover