Doctor Who_ Halflife - Mark Michalowski [122]
‘Reo!’ said Fitz loudly from the fly, clinging unsteadily to the Doctor’s hair.
‘Or whoever’s in the driving seat now. Can you hear me?’
‘Yes, Fitz.’
‘Will you let the Doctor go before you leave – and Trix, too? If she can.’
‘Of course. I am not malicious.’
‘And. . . I have a very unhappy girl here. Calamee, the Doctor’s friend. Her pet – her friend – Nessus, was killed. The Doctor said that his DNA’s been fiddled with – was that you, was that Tain?’
‘I don’t know,’ replied Reo. ‘I cannot access Tain’s pattern storage area yet.’
‘It must have been,’ cut in the Doctor. ‘Why, Fitz?’
‘As a gesture,’ answered Fitz through the fly, ‘would you allow Tain to remake him one final time, Reo?’
‘He is just an animal,’ said Reo, her voice bemused.
‘Not to Calamee, he’s not. Please?’
‘Fitz,’ cut in the Doctor. ‘Is this really the time –’
‘Please, Doctor. For Calamee. You owe it to her. Reo and Tain owe it to her.’
The Doctor glanced at Trix.
‘Well, Reo?’
‘As I said, I cannot access Tain’s pattern storage area yet.’
‘Then let Tain do it. Reo, you have control of him now. There’s nothing he can do to harm you, is there? Not now. Think of it as a goodwill gesture: your people have done enough damage here, haven’t they?’
There was a considered pause. The Doctor felt his stomach tighten. He didn’t understand why Fitz was wasting time on this, but something told him that it was the right thing to do. Probably his Inner Fitz, he thought tiredly.
‘Very well,’ said Reo finally.
He let out a quiet breath.
‘Tain?’ said the Maker.
‘I’m here,’ came Tain’s voice, blurry and indistinct, but definitely him.
‘Calamee would like you to remake Nessus for her,’ said Fitz’s tiny fly-voice.
‘One more time.’ Fitz paused. ‘I imagine you have his mental patterns stored, don’t you? Along with mine and the Doctor’s, I expect.’
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‘I have all of them, yes. I can do as you ask.’
‘Thanks, Tain,’ said Fitz. ‘If you access my memories, you’ll know how important this is to me. Please remember me to your people when you go. Will you do that? And please make sure that there’s no mix-up.’
‘Eh?’ said the Doctor to the fly.
‘Just remember Tain. OK?’
There was an odd stress to the sentence that the Doctor didn’t understand.
‘I will. . . ’ said Tain slowly. ‘But. . . ’
‘Just do it, Tain. For Calamee.’
There was a heavy silence as a small bump formed in the wall at the side of the Doctor. Slowly, it began to swell. In moments, Nessus’s head had formed, like a tiny, hairy boil. It was extruded towards him, the neck and shoulders following. As more of the body emerged, the Doctor reached out to take the weight, feeling how light the little creature was. It twitched in his hands. One arm, then the second, popped free of the wall, and then, suddenly, the whole mokey was lying in his arms. The Doctor felt a surge of unexpected joy: he’d been a midwife to the creature’s birth.
Sticky, gummed eyelids opened, and Nessus looked up at him and smiled.
And then, slowly and deliberately, one tiny hand reached into the Doctor’s palm, grasped the mind-rubber, and pressed it against the wall of the chamber.
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Chapter 27
‘Now you’re just showing off.’
The room shuddered and convulsed and Reo screamed out: ‘What have you –’
before cutting off suddenly.
All was silence and stillness, thunderous and black. The ceiling of the chamber sagged downwards alarmingly, the wrap of flesh that encased Trix flopped open and she toppled forwards. Around the perimeter of the chamber, half a dozen tiny puckers relaxed and rivulets of grey, milky fluid dribbled half-heartedly on to the floor.
‘No!’ yelled the Doctor, almost dropping Nessus.
Tain had tricked him. Somehow he’d programmed Nessus to use the device to commit suicide – and all because of Fitz’s sentimentality. Damn Fitz! Now Trix would die and it would all be Fitz’s fault.
The Doctor stared down at the little creature in his arms, and wanted to fling it at the wall.
‘If Trix is dead. . . ’ he growled angrily, setting down Nessus none too-gently, and lifting up Trix’s head.