Doctor Who_ Earthworld - Jacqueline Rayner [88]
Leave it, then.
NO, THIS IS INTERESTING. I THINK – YES, I’M SURE I KNOW WHAT THIS
IS. IT’S A DELETED FILE.
But it’s still there?
DELETING SOMETHING DOESN’T NECESSARILY DESTROY THE ACTUAL
DATA, JUST THE LINKS TO IT. IT COULD BE HIDDEN DEEP INSIDE STILL, WITH NO ONE KNOWING IT’S THERE. THE TRIPLETS HAVE GOT RID OF
THIS, NOT REALISING IT’S STILL EXTANT AT THE BOTTOM OF THEIR MACHINE. I WONDER WHOSE MEMORY IT IS.
Doctor, you said it’s not polite. . .
AREN’T YOU CURIOUS? I AM. JUST A QUICK LOOK, SEE WHOSE IT IS AND
THEN OUT AGAIN. AH! THAT’S DONE IT I’M. . . JOHN – I KNOW YOU WANT
TO HAVE CHILDREN. SO DO I, OF COURSE, MY DARLING. AND WE WILL, I PROMISE YOU WE WILL. YOU WOULDN’T REALLY PUT ME ASIDE, WOULD
YOU, JOHN MY LOVE? I PROMISE YOU, I WILL BEAR YOUR CHILDREN.
Asia gasped. ‘Mother?’
The other two ran over to it. ‘What is it? What’s happened?’
160
EarthWorld
‘They’ve found Mother in there. Mother’s memories.’
‘But. . . they can’t have!’
‘Why not?’ asked Fitz.
‘We never kept them,’ said Antarctica. ‘We never kept any of our early experiments. We didn’t really know how to access the data then, we were too young.’
‘The Doctor says they’re down there!’ Asia insisted. ‘ All our deleted files could be down there! All our early experiments. Do you realise what this could mean?’ She was shouting now. ‘There might be enough of Mother’s mind in there to restore her!’
In the clutches of a guard, unnoticed, Hanstrum shivered.
Doctor!
HMM, INTERESTING. YOU KNOW WHO THIS IS?
I think I can guess. The President’s wife. The one in the coma.
YES. . . FASCINATING, ISN’T IT? I’M GOING BACK IN. I WANT TO SEE HOW
CLEAR THE PRINT IS. HEY, HERE’S ANOTHER ONE. I WONDER WHOSE THIS
IS. COME AND HAVE A LOOK WITH ME.
Oh, all right, I’ll look. It’d better not be another psycho, though. Oh! Elizabethan. Elizabethan, don’t do this to me. . .
‘You copied your mother’s memories?’
Asia smiled indulgently. ‘Of course we did, Father. We had to practise on someone. Mother and Hanstrum let us copy their voice prints for our experiments, but we decided to take their memories too. Our techniques were very crude, though. . . Didn’t really know what we were doing. Deleted most of the stuff because we didn’t know what to do with it. We’ve matured a lot since then.’
‘Hey! What d’you think you’re –’ Fitz had launched himself at Hanstrum before his conscious mind had really realised there was anything going on. His mind seemed to be watching it all in slow motion.
It went something like this.
Asia was talking to her father. Everyone was listening.
Hanstrum was listening the most intently of all. He grabbed a gun from one of the guards.
Fitz dived at him, knocking him back, but –
Hanstrum shot at the machine.
The machine exploded.
Being Other People
161
The Doctor and Anji, strapped to either side, fell back silently.
Asia screamed.
She was thrown back, back across the room, and her scream died as the explosion did. As she did.
Africa and Antarctica began to scream, and didn’t stop.
Fitz ran to the Doctor first. He was vaguely aware of the guard grabbing Hanstrum and the gun dropping to the floor, and of frantic shouts to shut off the power. But all he cared about was the Doctor. After everything, everything the Doctor had been through, he couldn’t die on this insignificant planet for no reason, through some stupid guy shooting at some stupid machine.
But there was a pulse. A double pulse. And he was breathing OK.
Satisfied, he moved on to Anji. Xernic was kneeling beside her, and Fitz saw that he was crying. But he looked up and said, ‘It’s all right. She’s alive.’
Africa and Antarctica were still screaming. It was clear they didn’t have to check for a pulse to know that the two of them were alone now. Fitz tried to imagine what it must be like to have a part of you ripped away like that, but he couldn’t. But then he remembered how the triplets had killed a lot of people, himself almost included, and didn’t feel sorry for them at all.
The screams were dying down now into a hysterical, breathless sobbing.
They’d