Doctor Who_ Earthworld - Jacqueline Rayner [84]
He stood up, signalling that the meeting was at an end. The knights stood up, too, and all left the room – except Lancelet.
‘You may go now, good Sir Knight,’ said the Doctor.
152
EarthWorld
With the deepest respect, oh Marlin,’ said Lancelet, obviously not meaning it at all, ‘I do not take my orders from you: I take them only from my liege. I will await his instructions.’
‘I assure you, I speak with his authority!’ insisted the Doctor.
Lancelet shook his head. ‘I do not doubt your word. Yet I would hear it from the King himself.’
The Doctor looked flustered. ‘Sir Lancelet. . . ’
Anji rose to her feet. ‘Sir Lancelet,’ she echoed. He turned to her. ‘I would not presume to give you an order, Sir Knight, but instead I ask you to grant me this request: that you will leave me to greet my husband alone.’
Lancelet stared at her – a hurt-puppy-dog look that he was trying not to show.
These things seemed so human! Finally he nodded. He moved over to Anji and took her hand. ‘As My Lady requests,’ he said, kissing it. He nodded again.
‘Marlin. . . Squire Xernic.’ He turned back to Anji and looked her straight in the eye. There was pain there, she knew it! Then with no more words he left the room.
‘Phew!’ Anji sank down on a chair.
‘Well done, Anji!’ said the Doctor. ‘Very quick thinking. We can hardly get on with what we have to do with a load of knights looking over our shoulders!’
‘The thing is,’ said Anji, slowly, ‘I’d swear he was really feeling things. He looked so hurt. How can something that’s not a person react like that?’
‘He’s not real, Anji,’ said the Doctor. ‘The positronic brain is a wonderful thing. A simulation of life.’
‘So. . . ’ said Anji, thinking about this, ‘there’s no way of telling if a person is real or not?’
‘Well, there are hints, suggestions – the amount they blink, that sort of thing.’
‘But you can’t tell from their reactions, the way they act?’
‘At this level of sophistication, not usually, no. Especially if they think they’re alive. They can’t tell any differently.’
‘But surely that means –’
But just then Fitz arrived with the President.
The triplets had been locked up in the same cell they’d put Fitz in. They didn’t seem that bothered. They’d lit candles all round, and sat up Elvis’s corpse in a corner with its finger up its nose. Asia was wearing the headphones from the Memory Machine, and the other two girls were gathered round it watching its screen and eating sweets. They didn’t even glance up as the Doctor and Fitz looked through the door grille.
Nights at the Round Table
153
The Doctor gestured at Hoover and his guards to stay outside, and unlocked the door. He walked in. ‘Hello,’ he said.
Asia looked up. ‘Hello. You’re the Doctor,’ she said. She gestured at the Memory Machine. ‘We’ve watched some of your adventures.’
Fitz, standing in the doorway, tried desperately to catch her eye, and give her a pleading ‘Don’t tell him anything!’ look.
‘That’s right, I’m the Doctor. We’ve actually had quite a long chat together, you and I, but you wouldn’t remember because you were electronic at the time.’
She thought about that for a second. ‘You met some of our androids?’
‘The ones back at the palace. Your substitutes. They were very good. You must be very clever at making things.’
‘Don’t speak to us as if we were a child,’ she said, pouting at him.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘The thing is. . . I’ve brought your father to see you.’
The other two looked up now, frowning. ‘Father never comes to see us,’ said Africa.
‘He doesn’t care about us,’ sighed Antarctica. ‘Not since Mother died.’
Fitz tried half-heartedly to stop the President entering the room, but he pushed past. There were tears in his eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ Hoover said, kneeling down beside the triplets. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’
They looked at him as if he were a curious insect. ‘Are you?’ said Asia.
‘Yes! Yes, I am!’
‘Prove it.’
He looked up at her,