Doctor Who_ Father Time - Lance Parkin [37]
He activated the device. The Doctor’s memories appeared in the air in front of him in a ghostly bubble, one after the other, arranged into a semblance of order. Fire and madness and bombing and cobbled streets, and colour and a succession of faces. Debbie saw herself as the Doctor saw her. She was surprised how pretty she looked.
The Prefect was behind him, impatient for the answer.
‘The Doctor didn’t offer any defence to the mindeater,’ the Prefect said, a little surprised. ‘Not like last time.’
Once again the Prefect was ignoring her.
‘I don’t think he has been to Falkus yet,’ the Deputy said. ‘He has clearly not mastered the psychic defence techniques he demonstrated there or he would have used them.’
‘Then...’ The Prefect leaned over the Doctor’s inert body. ‘Then we have destroyed him before our first meeting?’ He looked up. ‘Is that possible?’
The Deputy nodded. ‘Most temporal theory was lost, but such things appear in some of the apocryphal records.’
She understood the words they were saying, but found it difficult to piece everything together. She knew what ‘destroyed’ meant, though. ‘The Doctor’s dead?’
The Prefect shook his head. ‘Merely braindead. His memory has been wiped.’
‘Is that... is that what happened to him before?’ she asked.
‘Before?’ the Deputy asked, checking the data.
‘A hundred years ago. He lost his memory.’
‘No... oh, I see.’ The Deputy stared at the display for a moment. ‘That was quite a different process.’
‘But he’ll be all right?’ Debbie asked.
‘No,’ the Prefect told her, pulling himself away. ‘He will remain like this –’ he tapped the Doctor with his foot again – ‘for the rest of his life. If you don’t feed him, that shouldn’t be more than a few weeks.’
Debbie was too shocked to reply.
The Deputy turned to the Prefect. ‘I have the information.’ He squeezed a control on the device and the image of a typed form appeared. ‘He consulted her medical record yesterday. The address appears on it. Note that it confirms she has two hearts.’ The Doctor had been in a storeroom, Debbie saw. With a pretty nurse who was making eyes at him.
The Prefect nodded, pleased. ‘Let us end this,’ he said.
The Deputy followed his leader from the room, the door swishing shut behind them.
Debbie knelt over the Doctor. He looked peaceful.
She wondered what would happen to her. The Prefect seemed utterly indifferent to her. If they were going to kill her, they had just missed the perfect opportunity. Perhaps they’d take her back to their time, make her a servant, give her the veil and the long skirt.
Or perhaps they’d just push her down the ramp and abandon her to Barry.
One thing was for certain – the Doctor wasn’t going to help her escape.
The Doctor’s eyes snapped open.
‘I thought they’d never go,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Shall we escape?’
* * *
The Prefect watched the Deputy making his preparations.
He was a craftsman, a connoisseur. Every weapon he selected was a replica of a human device from this century, reconstructed from historical records and stored here in the ship’s armoury. They would do this properly: they wouldn’t dishonour the warriors of this time by using weapons a million years more advanced than those of their enemies.
The Deputy meticulously removed the weapons from their storage compartments and found a place for them on his body. A spring-loaded knife concealed up his sleeve, a larger blade in a sheath in his boot, a pair of throwing knives on his belt, alongside a samurai sword. Knuckledusters, a garrotte, a cosh, half a dozen grenades, all finding places in pouches on his flak jacket. Then the guns: a pair of automatic pistols on his belt, one on a leg holster, one tucked into the small of his back, and spare clips for each of them. Finally, a stubby machine pistol, which hung from its shoulder strap, and a bandoleer that contained the rounds of ammunition.