Doctor Who_ Halflife - Mark Michalowski [100]
The Trojan did indeed interfere with my repair procedure.’
178
‘And would this interference possibly have resulted in the Doctor’s newfound toilet mouth?’ asked Fitz.
‘The Trojan was relatively indiscriminate in its interference,’ said Tain. ‘It seems that there has been an interchange of personality traits.’
‘So the Doctor got the swearing,’ said Fitz with a certain amount of relief.
‘What did I get?’
‘Impetuosity, curiosity,’ said Tain after a few seconds. ‘A certain coolness of disposition.’
‘Hmph!’ snorted the Doctor. ‘Hardly a fair exchange.’
‘Too right,’ agreed Fitz. ‘I get the short end of the stick yet again. Have you any idea how tiring it is being you?’
‘Can it be reversed?’
‘Easily,’ Tan said, ‘but it will take time.’
‘And I take it that’s something we don’t have much of.’
‘Do we ever?’ sighed Fitz.
Trix eyed the console warily. A single red light burned steadily in the top left-hand corner. Was that just the ‘standby’ light, or was the whole thing working? And what did ‘the whole thing’ do when it was working, anyway?
She guessed that it was some sort of communications device. But why so many buttons, and why the joysticks? Maybe Trove was partial to a spot of aircraft simulation computer gaming when he wasn’t hunting for mysterious devices and sending out distress calls.
‘Now that we’re here,’ she said, ‘it would be a shame not to press something, wouldn’t it?’
She saw Tannalis eye the device sceptically.
‘You’re probably more familiar with this kind of thing than me,’ he said, taking a step away from it.
‘Eh? Just because I’m not from Espero doesn’t mean I have any more of a clue about this than you, you know. Look – it’s just buttons. Nothing fancy: no wires to go into your head, nothing more advanced than you seem to have around here already. Probably.’ Although, of course, Trix couldn’t swear to quite what might happen if she actually pressed one of the buttons.
‘Oh bugger it,’ she said suddenly and decisively, and touched one of the flush, oval buttons. A blue one. Her lucky colour. Or was that green? She knew it was the colour of her eyes, but there were times when she forgot what colour they were supposed to be.
Nothing happened.
Green it was, then.
She pressed one of the three green buttons she could see.
179
‘Is this thing actually plugged in?’ she asked aloud, peering under the desk for a power cable.
‘Look!’ hissed Tannalis, tapping her arm.
She looked back at the device: one of the screens was now active. It showed a dark image that took Trix a couple of seconds to understand. It was an aerial view of some bushes. It wasn’t until something moved that she realised that, in among the bushes, there were two people. The image weaved and slewed about a bit, as though whoever was holding the camera couldn’t keep it perfectly steady.
‘Sensimi!’ gasped Tannalis, touching the screen. ‘That’s Sensimi, I’m sure of it!’
‘And if that’s Sensimi,’ said Trix, ‘who’s the other one, the other girl?’ She squinted at the murky picture, wondering if one of the controls was for brightness, but none of them bore a recognisable TV brightness symbol. ‘Trove must have a surveillance camera following them,’ she said. ‘Flying overhead. Maybe there’s some way we can warn them that he and Alinti are on their way.’
She waggled her fingers over the console, suddenly realising in a ‘D’oh!’
flash, what the joysticks were for: they must be for controlling the camera.
They were tiny little things, and she took hold of them both gently for fear of snapping them off, and waggled. Nothing happened to the picture on the screen – but they both heard a tiny tap from somewhere else in the room.
‘What was that?’ Tannalis whispered. Trix shrugged, and waggled the joysticks again. She pressed a button, and the second screen sprang into life.
But the picture was totally black – no, hang on. There was a thread of light
– a thin, blurry strip bisecting the screen. As she moved the joystick below it again, the position of the fuzzy line moved, spinning