Doctor Who_ Ghost Light - Marc Platt [54]
‘Ecosphere data assessment completed. Amendments to original subject fields required.’ Impossible! The Earth was far from the ship’s prescribed course. Either Control or the Survey Agent had disturbed the ship’s perceptions and caused some minor error in its location relays. They would be severely punished once this was rectified.
Light was Light. Who or what it was, it never stopped to recall. Who knew where its work had started? It was not to be found on its catalogue. Record all life — perhaps it had thought of its directive itself. Species were what it recorded, not what it was! Every species, every subspecies and every variant was noted and neatly, logically recorded.
It must know every change, every variegated mutation.
The catalogue must be complete and up to date, but why did it never stop? It needed just one hiatus, a few moments to catch up; time to breathe, time to think. There was no time to waste: there were corrections and amendments.
Never a moment to halt, to combat the weariness that layered and dulled the play of energetics that was his mind, was Light. The screen reiterated, ‘Location: Earth.’
One of the dominant creatures of this planet was approaching. Light regarded her, a tall and proud specimen in black. The form that the Survey Agent would have taken might not be dissimilar to this. Mrs Pritchard bobbed and held out a silver platter upon which a card rested.
Was this a challenge? Light had no need to examine the card to understand its purport.
‘From Mr Josiah, sir. An invitation to dinner,’ said the housekeeper.
So the Survey Agent was well established. Had Light not seen it already? It contemplated a response while Mrs Pritchard waited, stoney-faced, lit by its lambent aura. It watched a beetle drop from a curtain rail and lie on its back, legs waving helplessly. It nodded in agreement.
‘Dinner will be served at half past eight, sir.’ Mrs Pritchard bobbed again and departed, leaving Light to its facts and figures on the screen above.
‘Location: Earth,’ the screen stated again. Light’s energy droned angrily.
A moment later a maid entered the hall carrying a tray and large soup tureen. She stopped short as she caught Light’s eye.
‘Come child, I have need of your services.’
It beckoned and she drew near, trustingly returning his gaze. Since the ship’s conclusions were nonsense, Light must find out where this place was for itself. The maid knelt as if to receive benediction, staring up into Light’s cold angelic face. The tray began to rattle as Light enfolded her in the cloak of its aura.
The distant clatter of a fallen tureen echoed through the night chorus of insects. Ace grabbed the Doctor’s arm.
‘What was that?’
‘Just our imaginations,’ he said. They had not gone much further, and there was still no sign of Control. The place crawled with all manner of life.
‘The energy from Light’s ship is doing this,’ she said.
The Doctor took a deep breath. ‘Yes. Invigorating, isn’t it?’
‘No.’
‘Why? What does it remind you of?’ He saw he was about to get a piece of her mind, so he undercut her flow.
‘All right, all right. What happened to you here in a hundred years’ time is none of my business.’
‘I thought it was a haunted house,’ she protested.
‘It is.’
‘I got frightened, that’s all!’
‘Of course.’
‘I was only fourteen!’
As he looked at her with deep affection, she understood that he was trying to apologize.
The Doctor took the key to the TARDIS from his pocket and offered it to her. ‘You can always wait for me.’
‘That’s the easy way out,’ she said sharply.
‘Well, come on then,’ he said, but she was too fascinated to hear. The passage was engendering a lure of its own. She heard shadows whispering and scrabbling as they clustered in the corners. She froze. ‘Doctor? Did you ever have one of those nightmares where you couldn’t move?’
No answer: he had gone.
She felt the raw energy of hatred fixing on her, making her the eye of its storm. There in the shadows, it was watching her; the core of all the rotting rot in rotten Perivale. This was where it all started