Doctor Who_ Earthworld - Jacqueline Rayner [59]
Several Singalongs
107
He tried to dredge up the memory of one of the older songs from his time on Earth. He’d heard it enough times during the war. Yes. . .
‘It’s a long way to Tipperary,’ sang the Doctor, moving over to the bed, ‘it’s a long way to go. It’s a long way –’ ah, yes, press that button – ‘to Tipperary, to –’
touch wires – ‘the sweetest girl I know. . . Goodbye –’ adjust the frequency –
‘Piccadilly, farewell. . . where was it now? –’ hands faltering – ‘Aha! Farewell, Leicester Squaaaaare. . . It’s –’ twist – ‘a long –’ connect – ‘long –’ cut – ‘way to –’ feed wire – ‘Tipperary, but my –’ fuse together – ‘heart’s –’ charge up –
‘right –’ switch – ‘there! –’ power on. . .
The President’s wife’s chest began to rise and fall. The Doctor grinned, and squeezed his sonic screwdriver happily.
‘So, she. . . she was. . . real?’
‘As far as I can tell,’ said the Doctor, ‘the android components were introduced after she was dead. I’m sorry.’
‘But she wasn’t dead. . . ’
‘I’m sorry,’ the Doctor said again. ‘She was. The electronics resurrected her body, have kept her heart beating and the oxygen pumping through her veins, but she would have been braindead by then – just a shell.’
‘But you’ve resurrected her!’
‘No. I set the machinery in motion again to see how far the damage extended. But she’s just like –’ he looked round for inspiration, and settled on a grandfather clock in the corner – ‘like a clock with no hands. She’ll tick when you put the battery in and stop when you take it out, but she can’t tell the time.’
Hoover was quiet for a few minutes, thinking. Then he said, ‘Why would the girls do that to their mother?’
The Doctor shrugged. ‘To keep her alive? Or at least, a semblance thereof.’
‘It doesn’t make sense.’
‘Do you have the death penalty for murder? You seem to have for everything else.’
‘Yes.’
‘Then perhaps,’ the Doctor suggested, ‘that’s your answer. If she’s technically alive, it’s not murder.’
‘It doesn’t make sense,’ the President said again. ‘They wouldn’t think like that.’
‘And you know them so well?’ the Doctor queried.
Hoover didn’t answer. He stood up and sleepwalked down the throne steps, past the Doctor, and across the room to the grandfather clock. He stood looking 108
EarthWorld
at it for a moment. Then he reached up and violently wrenched off the hands.
He turned back to the Doctor, blood dripping from his fingers. ‘I can still hear it ticking,’ he said. Then, as if struck by a sudden thought, he turned back to the clock again, and grabbed hold of the slowly swinging pendulum. ‘Now I can’t.’
And scrunching his face up, he jerked out the pendulum, then strode out of the room.
‘You’re the power behind the throne, but you want a revolution?’
‘Not a revolution. My revolution.’
Anji looked at him. ‘Can I just check,’ she said, ‘that you’re not just telling us your masterplan before you kill us?’
He gave her a condescending stare. ‘No. Why should I kill you?’
‘My question was rather, why are you telling us this?’
Xernic was open-mouthed. ‘You sent us all that stuff? The gadgets and codes?’
Hanstrum was smug. ‘Yes. You’re surprised?’ He hadn’t answered Anji.
‘Well, I certainly am,’ Anji interrupted. ‘I admit I’m judging on more or less first impressions here, but you don’t seem the altruistic type to me. If the people overthrow Hoover, won’t you lose your job?’
He smiled. ‘But I don’t want Hoover overthrown, not now.’
Anji was surprised. ‘You don’t? Surely that’s what a revolution’s all about?’
‘If the President is overthrown, anything could happen. Anarchy would reign.
But if the President were to hand over the reins of power to a more suitable candidate. . . ’
‘Oooh,’ said Anji innocently. ‘I wonder who that could possibly be. Is