Doctor Who_ Father Time - Lance Parkin [118]
The Doctor flailed, got a punch in, but Ferran didn’t even feel it. Ferran grabbed the Doctor’s hair at the nape of his neck with one hand, headbutting his face. He grabbed the Doctor’s wrist, twisted it back, pulled his arm out, chopped it at the shoulder.
The Doctor collapsed, coughing.
He was lying alongside Debbie’s body. Her eyes were open, staring straight at him. He reached out, touched her face. It was the only movement he could make. He tried to summon the effort, but just couldn’t.
‘So now we discover the truth,’ Ferran hissed. ‘You don’t fight because you can’t. Because you know you would lose. And that great mind, all that experience, all that wit, all that learning. It’s useless.’
He lifted the Doctor’s head, then slammed it into the floor.
The Doctor sagged. Ferran toyed with the idea of breaking his neck, but decided against it. He settled for breaking a couple of ribs.
There was a flicker and the lights came back on to their normal levels. Humming and buzzing as the ship’s systems came back on stream. Ferran seemed imbued by the power himself. He took a deep breath, as though he was absorbing the light.
Ferran knelt next to the Doctor, leaned over him, his breath hot on the Doctor’s face. ‘Things have changed since your time. People have evolved. We know that there’s no such thing as law, no such thing as politics, no such thing as science, no such thing as religion, no such thing as philosophy, no such thing as civilisation. There is strength. All else is there to increase or justify strength, or to keep others weak. The universe just doesn’t work the way you think it does. It never did.’
The Doctor didn’t move. He hadn’t moved for a while, now.
Ferran lifted him up, easily, then dropped him on to his daughter’s bed. He recovered the knife.
‘You are nothing. Goodbye, Doctor.’
There was a familiar figure in the doorway.
‘Ah, Deputy, glad you could join me. Better late than never.’
She moved into the room, gracefully.
Ferran stepped back, showed off his handiwork.
‘That’s the Doctor?’ the Deputy said, betraying surprise. She crossed the room to the bed, then bent over him, touched his neck, then each of his wrists. She parted his swollen eyelids with her fingers, stared into his eyes.
‘He’s dead,’ she said, no feeling in the words.
Ferran took a step forward. ‘Dead?’
He looked at the Doctor’s body, then at his Deputy. ‘Partially?’ he said, ‘His kind can...’
The Deputy looked up. ‘He’s dead.’
Ferran considered the news for a moment. He felt empty. Although the Doctor had died by his hand, he still felt robbed. What had his last words been? He struggled to remember. ‘Where is his daughter?’ he asked, finally.
‘I don’t know. I brought her back here, then –’
Ferran held up his hand. ‘We need to find her. Come with me to the flight deck. Now the power’s back, we’ll soon locate her.’
He glanced back at the Doctor. ‘This could still be a trap. Get someone here to secure the Doctor’s body.’ He stepped over Debbie’s corpse. ‘And to dispose of his companion’s.’
The Deputy nodded, then reached for her communications mic and whispered a few commands, before joining the Prefect in the corridor. ‘Can you smell smoke?’ Ferran asked as they walked the short distance to the lift.
The Deputy shook her head. ‘I’m surprised you can smell anything at the moment. Did the Doctor do that to you?’
Ferran dabbed at his nose with his finger. He already knew it was hot, and sore. The bone was broken and, no doubt, there were a few bruises. Nothing that wouldn’t mend.
The lift door hissed shut and they started moving up to the flight deck.
The Deputy stood impassively at his side. She was a beautiful creature, perfection itself. But she was nothing compared with her original. She had none of Miranda’s fire.
Well, the first step to strength, the first rung on the