Doctor Who_ Empire of Death - BBC Worldwide [70]
`This is a place of remembrance; the Doctor said quietly. A tall circular case of glass and wood stood in the centre of the chamber. In it were several shelves, each with a variety of objects resting on them. He invited me to have a closer look at the cabinet and its contents. Inside I could see a collection of oddities, such as a book entitled The French Revolution, a scrap of tartan cloth and a badge emblazoned with the letters SSS. I did not recognise most of the items. But the last artefact stopped me short, partly from the shock of seeing it again and because it was so familiar. Roughly assembled on a black cloth were the fragments of Adric's broken star-shaped badge.
Àll of these - are they souvenirs?' I asked.
`Mementoes would be a more appropriate choice of word,' he replied. 'Those who travel with me are here for such a short time in the context of my lives. I choose to remember them all here.'
Nyssa looked again at the contents of the cabinet. 'What about Tegan? You haven't got anything here to represent Tegan.'
`Not yet' The Doctor walked around the cabinet to stand beside her. 'As a Time Lord I will live for hundreds, even thousands of years. The time my companions spend travelling with me is all too brief. But that doesn't make their lives, their achievements any less valuable or important to me. One day you will leave me Nyssa, just as all the others have done. And when you do, I want to remember you. I can't imagine anything more terrifying than forgetting all I have experienced and felt, all the friends I have known and the lives that have touched mine. So I keep this as a place of remembrance'
I understand his reasons for keeping such a place and told him so. I still could not help wondering what relevance it had to what he witnessed on the other side of the rift.
`When I regained awareness in that place, I wanted to believe what I was experiencing was real. The urge to give in to that reality was so strong, so powerful - but something rang false. It all felt like an extrapolation of my own thoughts and memories, just another remembrance' He pointed at the objects within the cabinet. 'It was like being inside that case, trapped. And the more I questioned the reality, the less real it became'
Another question occurred to me. How long before James reached Corra Linn?
The Doctor grimaced at this. 'What makes you think he isn't already here?'
* * *
Dr Kirkhope put another lump of coal on the fire before collapsing back into his armchair, drawing the well-worn shawl closer round his shoulders. The winter had been mild by Scottish standards, but the old physician felt the chill so much more these days, the cold seeping into his bones. No matter how many layers of clothing he put on, they never seemed enough to get warm extremities nor drive the dread from his mind. Ever since word had spread about the soldiers arriving at Corra Linn, Kirkhope had been haunted by the memory of what he had done.
Banishing that boy to the Lock had seemed the only solution at the time. The shock of hearing Morag's voice accuse him of murder and worse had unhinged his reason, or so he told himself. He panicked and in his panic sent the boy away as an act of self defence. So it had ruined one life, hut Kirkhope had saved so many in his decades of service to the people of New Lanark. Did not the greater good compensate for this one sin?
The doctor knew he was not alone in bearing this grief. James's father had moved away, taking his two remaining sons with him.
The last anybody heard was that the trio had moved to New Zealand in search