Doctor Who_ Halflife - Mark Michalowski [120]
‘Good!’ said Fitz. ‘Now all we need to do is to learn how to fly this little baby properly.’
It was obvious, really. He had a choice: let Trix and Tain live, or stop the Gaian wave and save everyone on Espero. How difficult could it be?
Reo was away somewhere inside Tain, getting rid of the Trojan, but she could be back at any moment. The Doctor found himself edgily glancing around the chamber, expecting Reo to extrude a tentacle or something to snatch the mind-rubber from him. He could wait until the last possible moment, until Reo surfaced again, before using it. By then, hopefully Trix would have resumed breathing on her own. But what if Reo was doing something that would make Tain immune to the mind-rubber?
He hated this, this indecision. He didn’t do indecision. He knew that, despite the amnesia. He was the Doctor: he always had the answer, always pulled something out of the bag at the eleventh hour. Maybe Calamee had been right when she’d said that ‘the Doctor’ wasn’t a name but a job title. And perhaps it was a job he was no longer suited to. Maybe it was Fitz’s turn to have a go.
Snap out of it, he told himself brusquely. This was Fitz talking, wasn’t it?
Not him. It was Fitz – or the bits of Fitz that were in him – that was clouding his judgement now. It had to be. Was Fitz really this indecisive? Or was it him? The Doctor rubbed his eyes with the ball of his hand, feeling a headache developing. What would Fitz have done? What would the Doctor have done?
For a moment, he didn’t feel like he was either of them, just a confused rag doll cobbled together from bits of other people. He remembered the dream he’d had – the patchwork man that he’d been under the duvet. What was that all about? It brought back memories of Scale’s camera obscura and the images it had shown him, the strangers who had seemed, somehow, familiar. As if operating under its own volition, his hand dug around in his jacket pocket and closed around the tiny, tingling fragment of ice that lay there. Almost 216
with dread, he pulled it out. Lying in his palm, glowing coldly and softly, was the viroid that Madame Xing had given him.
There, wrapped in fire and fear, was the key. The key to him. Everything that made him the Doctor. A lifetime of memories, just waiting to be unlocked.
And maybe, buried somewhere in them, was what he needed to know: if he’d encountered the Makers before, perhaps his memory held some clue as to how he could deal with Tain, how he could save Trix. It was a slim and insubstantial chance, granted – even if he’d met these Makers before, even if he’d been in a situation like this, even if, if, if . . .
‘Doctor,’ said Tain edgily and with some strain. ‘I’m trying to distract Reo internally, but she is rapidly gaining access to my sensorium and memories.’
He glanced up from his history, sparkling in the palm of his hand. ‘She’ll know what we’re planning, is that what you’re saying?’
‘And she may find a way to stop us. Please. . . Use the device.’
He looked at Trix, wrapped in alien flesh, a caterpillar in a cocoon. Or a fly, caught up in a spider’s web. He could feel their threads even now, stroking softly against his skin. Oh what a tangled web we weave. . .
‘Oh, not again,’ he sighed, suddenly aware of a buzzing in the claustrophobic confines of the chamber. A tiny speck darted around him, careering out of control into the wall and then bouncing back towards him. It orbited his head unsteadily, as though drunk. He raised a hand to shoo it away. But it somehow managed to evade him, and headed straight for his ear. As he weaved to the side to avoid it, he felt sure he heard a tiny, tinny little voice saying his name.
‘It’s me,’ said the voice, growing louder as the fly buzzed back towards him.
‘Fitz.’
The Doctor felt the chamber contract around him, like