Doctor Who_ Halflife - Mark Michalowski [121]
‘Fitz!’ he hissed at the fly as it made another dive-bombing run for his head.
He let it, and it crashed into his hair.
‘Doctor,’ came the little voice again, more distinct. ‘What the blue blazes is happening down there? Is that Trix I saw on the floor in a blanket?’
The Doctor didn’t correct him.
‘Yes, Fitz. Listen, I may not have long: I have to use the mind-rubber, Trove’s device, on Tain. It’s the only way to save him from whatever the Makers have in store for him. Trix was under the control of one of them, but now it’s transferred itself into Tain and is taking him over. I have to do it now.’
‘So what’s the problem? Do it!’
‘It’s not that simple – Trix is injured and Tain is keeping her alive. If Tain dies, Trix dies.’
Fitz’s next words were lost in a squawk of static.
‘Please, Doc. . . tor,’ came Tain’s slurred voice. ‘Use the device.’
217
The Doctor clenched his fists and punched the wall, hard.
‘I fail to see what that will achieve,’ said Tain. Only now the voice was subtly smoother, slightly lower in pitch: it was Reo. ‘I am in control now. It is done.’
His hearts sank. He looked down at Madame Xing’s gift and said ‘Is Tain dead?’
‘No, Tain is still here – I will maintain his personality until we return home.’
‘And then what? You’ll wipe him before you do whatever you’re going to do with his body?’
There was a blithe carelessness in Reo’s voice when she spoke.
‘That may not be necessary We may be able to restructure his personality, repair him.’
The Doctor’s shoulders fell. ‘You can’t just repair people, you know. They’re not like toys or machines.’
‘They are,’ countered Reo flatly.
‘Doctor,’ buzzed Fitz in his ear. He sounded like he was whispering. ‘What’s happening? What are you going to do?’
In one hand, the Doctor felt the solid weight of the mind-rubber. He could use it now, wipe out both Tain and Reo. Give Tain the release he wanted. And kill Trix. In the other was the lighter-than lightness of the viroid that might give him the knowledge to stop Reo some other way. He smiled ruefully at the irony: in one hand, enlightenment; in the other, oblivion. There are always choices, he’d told Tain. And he was the Doctor, wasn’t he? He always knew the answer.
‘Left or right, Fitz?’ he said quietly.
218
Chapter 26
‘Memories.’
‘What?’
‘Left or right.’
‘What the figgy pudding are you on about?’
‘Make a choice. I. . . I can’t.’
‘A choice between what?’ Fitz sounded angry and frustrated. ‘Between light and dark, I suppose. Between the past and no future. Between forgetting and remembering.’
‘Between what?’
‘Between forgetting and –’
‘Yes yes yes!’ snapped Fitz, suddenly sounding feverish. ‘I heard you. Listen
– don’t do anything. Nothing at all, you hear?’
‘What?’
‘Just do nothing.’
‘I don’t understand.’
Fitz gave a grunt. ‘Annoying, isn’t it?’
Fitz let the remote control fall to the grass between his knees and clamped his hands to his head. He rocked backwards and forwards, feeling Calamee’s hand on his arm.
‘What is it?’
‘Memories,’ he said through gritted teeth.
‘Not again.’
‘Not his, mine.’
‘I thought you’d got them back – don’t tell me you’ve got amnesia as well.’
He could hear the sigh in her voice.
‘You know how you forget things but don’t realise you’ve forgotten them till you remember them?’ He looked at her. ‘No, don’t answer that. It’s as though having bits of the Doctor’s personality in me is. . . bringing things back. Stuff from when I started travelling with him. Stuff from before he. . . well, from before.’ He shook his head in wonder and bafflement. ‘I don’t understand how I can have forgotten some of it – some of it’s really heavy. And now I’m remembering it.’ He gave a chuckle. ‘Boy, am I remembering it!’
219
∗ ∗ ∗
‘Doctor?’ came Fitz’s whisper in his ear. ‘How’s Trix – can she manage without Tain yet?’
‘How is Trix?’ the Doctor echoed the question to Reo. ‘She is alive.’
‘Can she survive without you yet, Reo?’
Pause.
‘No.’
Maybe Reo was lying. Maybe she’d heard the discussion between himself and Tain about