Doctor Who_ Halflife - Mark Michalowski [124]
And, bizarrely, a small hole – like the blowhole of a whale – had formed in the mokey’s head. It opened and closed in time with Trix’s breathing. He was acting like an iron lung for her.
And the weirdness didn’t end there. As Nessus continued to keep Trix alive, he untangled one arm and it stretched out to the wall of the chamber – and vanished into it. Moments later, the floor twitched beneath him, and a low sighing noise issued from all around.
‘Tain?’ he asked cautiously, and reached out to touch the wall. ‘Can you hear me, Tain?’
‘Yessssssssss. . . ’ came the reply, infused simultaneously with a heaviness and a triumph that made the Doctor grin.
‘You’re back?’
‘So it would. . . seem.’
‘So where are you now?’
‘In my own body – and in the mokey.’ There was almost a chuckle in Tain’s strengthening voice. ‘This is. . . very strange.’
‘What about Trix – will she be OK?’
‘Soon. I will maintain her until her body remembers how to breathe.’
The Doctor sank back against the wall and there was a long pause.
‘We have much in common,’ came Tain’s voice eventually. ‘Now.’ There was something in the way he said it that spoke of loss and of sadness.
‘Now?’
‘I understood Fitz’s message eventually – but I almost ignored it. The impli-cations were. . . profound.’
‘You’re losing me, Tain.’
‘My first reaction was that Fitz wanted me to recreate him, re-embody him.
But that made no sense. It was only when I examined Fitz’s memories, his memories of being remembered – of being recreated in a new body – that I realised he meant for me to re-embody myself.’ Tain paused thoughtfully. ‘And I almost didn’t.’
‘Why?’ The Doctor looked at his fist, clenched so tightly around Madame Xing’s key to his past that his fingers had turned white. He didn’t know whether he should be hearing this – second-hand rumours of a past he knew nothing about and wanted even less to do with.
225
‘I have lived for over eight hundred years,’ said Tain. ‘Nothing, I admit, compared to you. But you at least should be able to imagine the memories, the information I have stored over those centuries. My neural structures are not as compact as yours. Do you know how big my brain is?’
The Doctor held his hands out a foot or so apart and looked hopeful.
‘It is the size of your body.’
‘Now you’re just showing off.’
‘In order to copy myself into Nessus, I have had to discard most of my memories.’
The Doctor felt something tight grip the pit of his stomach: he never had a conscious choice in his own amnesia, even though he had made a conscious choice not to go chasing after his lost memories. If they came back, then fair enough. But Tain. . . Tain had had to actively dump most of himself, just to keep himself and Trix alive.
‘And you got all that from Fitz’s stored personality?’
‘Not all of it – I suspect that some of it came from you.’ Tain paused again.
‘But perhaps we’ll never know. I had to discard all I had recorded from you and Fitz.’
The Doctor didn’t know what to say. Perhaps Tain couldn’t count on the Doctor’s using the mind-rubber. But the new Nessus could so easily have used the thing on himself and wiped out Tain forever.
‘You remember that I said I needed evidence that you’d changed your ways, Tain? Well. . . ’ He patted the walls of the chamber. ‘I think you’ve just acquit-ted yourself perfectly.’
Fitz heard Sensimi calling for him before he saw her. She and her father had gone for a wander and he wasn’t sure where they were.
‘Fitz!’ came Sensimi’s voice again, louder. She sounded excited, and it grated on him: didn’t she know what had just happened? He dragged himself wearily across the grass, down into the hollow, Calamee close behind. Pushing through the bushes, he came to a puzzled halt at what he saw: flowers, everywhere – huge, day-glo swathes of flowers, gushing from every bush and branch. And even as he watched, more were appearing, like some bizarre and wonderful time-lapse film. It made the sight of Nessus’s body, still cradled in Calamee’s arms, all the more pathetic.