Doctor Who_ Halflife - Mark Michalowski [117]
‘Tain has centuries of experience and memories that we will not give up, Doctor. Your species has a strange attitude to age and experience – this is something else I learned from Trix. You value the unknown potential of the future over the solid existence of the past. You would rather an old person died – taking with them all their years of experience, of investment in them –
than a small child. A child has comparatively few memories, fewer resources invested in it. They can be replaced much more easily than an old person.
And yet you shed more tears for the death of a child than of a grandparent.’
‘Potential,’ said the Doctor angrily. ‘We shed those tears for what that child could become, what she or he could accomplish. Tain may be old by human standards, but his choice to start again has made him a child, a new individual.’ He took a step towards Trix, holding his hands out to her. ‘Can’t you see 210
that? The potential in Tain for the future is vastly more important than his past. Who knows what he could achieve? Let him go, Reo – let him go into the future, instead of chaining him to the past.’
Trix nodded, as if she understood, and for a moment, the Doctor wondered if he’d got through to her. But his shoulders fell as she continued: ‘And he will accomplish all of that with us, with his family.’
‘I was afraid you’d think that,’ said the Doctor, jamming his hand into his pocket.
In one swift, fluid motion, he pulled out Trove’s weapon and launched himself across the chamber at Trix.
But she wasn’t there any more. As he slammed up against the rubbery wall in surprise, he remembered what Fitz had said about Trix’s acrobatics. Trix –
or Reo, he supposed – had moved so fast that he could hardly see her blurred shape in the dim, waxy light. He turned, wedged one foot against the wall behind him, and propelled himself with all his energy back towards where she now stood, only to see her step neatly and swiftly aside again as he reached her. Something heavy thumped across his neck and he fell into the pool of darkness at her feet.
Fitz was squatting on the grass beside Calamee, his arm draped across her shoulder. She’d stopped crying now, and had laid the little figure of Nessus on the grass beside her. Even Sensimi seemed to have found some sort of compassion in her: she’d gone over to the Palace Guard and was clearly telling them to leave Fitz and Calamee alone for a while.
‘It’s my fault,’ said Calamee quietly, her voice cracked and sore. She stared down between her knees.
‘How can it be your fault?’
‘If I hadn’t been so stupid – following the Doctor, thinking how exciting all of this was. . . If I’d just gone home with Nessus, he’d still be alive.’
‘Don’t be daft. If you’d just gone home with Nessus, God knows what might have happened. Trove might have had Tain by now, and we might all be dead.’
She looked into his eyes. ‘You don’t believe that any more than I do,’ she said flatly. ‘Trove would have just taken Tain away, and it would all be over.’
She shook her head. ‘I only wanted a little excitement, Fitz. Something a bit different.’
‘I know.’
‘I hate this place, this planet. I hate everything.’
Fitz said nothing.
‘I really envy you,’ Calamee said after a pause, snuffling back more tears.
‘You get to travel all over with the Doctor, see things I’ve never even dreamed of.’
211
‘Believe me, it’s overrated. You wouldn’t believe the number of times we’ve been shot at or locked up or beaten. There are some good bits, yeah, but they’re smothered in lots of not-so-good ones.’ He glanced over at the tree, the only access, as far as he knew, to Tain and the Doctor. And Trix. ‘But if I don’t find out what’s happening down there, there may not be any good bits ever again.’ Fitz scratched his head and looked around, wondering if he could use the Guard’s guns to shoot his way in. But thinking about the levicars, where the Guard were still mooching around, he had another, better, thought.
The Doctor awoke, face down, the rubbery texture