Doctor Who_ Halflife - Mark Michalowski [27]
‘Xing’.
‘That was quick,’ the Doctor said.
‘Madame –xing has been expecting you for a while,’ said the man.
‘Has she now?’ The Doctor peered behind the man, as if Madame Xing might be hiding there. From nowhere, the man produced a softly glowing sphere, the size of a small egg, and placed it delicately on the table in front of them. The Doctor raised an eyebrow.
‘ That’s Madame Xing?’
‘No, Doctor. I am Madame –xing.’
Calamee looked up from the light and saw that someone else was sitting at their table. The really disturbing thing, the thing that took a few moments to register, was that their table was no longer in the bar.
48
Chapter 7
‘To lose one set of memories may be regarded as a misfortune.’
Where, previously, there had been a slightly tatty restaurant, there was now a small. . . parlour, the Doctor supposed would have been the right word to describe it. Or perhaps library.
They were still sitting at a little table – Calamee included – but the table was now covered by a black-and-white checkerboard-patterned cloth. Overhead, a cluster of brilliant white spheres, the size of marbles, orbited around each other at dizzying speeds, like the one that the man – who appeared to have disappeared – had placed on the table. It was like an illuminated model of a classical atom. But despite the movements of the spheres, the light that they cast stayed curiously constant.
The rest of the room was, the Doctor thought, rather fetching: shelves of books lined all six walls, stretching up into the darkness. It reminded him of something, some other library he’d been in. He could smell the must and the knowledge, and took a deep, deep breath, a memory tickling the edge of his thoughts.
‘Wow,’ murmured Calamee at his side, who’d clearly only just registered what had happened. Her eyes were wide as she stared around. ‘Have we just. . . ?’
‘I expect so,’ said the Doctor blithely. ‘Nice trick, Madame Xing. Is this all real?’
‘It is as real as anything,’ Madame Xing answered. The figure now seated at their table was completely swathed in black: a deep hood hid whatever face lay within, and black gloves covered her fingers. Her voice was distinctly feminine, although there was an odd, mechanical edge to it, as though augmented by machinery.
‘Very Zen.’ The Doctor paused and frowned, still unable to make out what lay beneath the cowl. ‘ Have we met before?’
‘Not yet,’ Madame Xing answered. ‘When you remember me, then we will have met.’
‘Right. OK. Ask a silly question. I take it that Father Roberto managed to contact you, then?’
‘He will do, yes.’
49
The Doctor noticed that one of the spheres of light had detached itself from the cluster above their heads, and was orbiting him, curiously. It paused every now and then near his face, and then darted away sharply, before returning.
‘What’s it doing?’ asked Calamee in an awed whisper.
‘Payment for my services. Recording,’ answered Madame Xing.
‘Recording? Me?’ The Doctor felt suddenly uncomfortable. ‘Why?’
‘You mentioned Zen,’ she said. ‘If a tree falls in a forest and there is no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?’
‘Hmph,’ snorted Calamee. ‘Of course it does!’
‘How do you know?’ asked the woman.
‘Because it has to, doesn’t it?’
‘But how do you know?’
‘Laws of physics. It can’t not make a sound, can it?’
‘How do you know?’
‘I think,’ cut in the Doctor, realising that this could go on forever, ‘that Madame Xing means that there’s a theory that nothing can be said to definitely exist without being observed. Quantum physics: the act of observation collapses the wave function of an object to make it real,’ He frowned. ‘So you’re recording me. . . why exactly? To make sure I exist?’ He pulled a puzzled face.
‘Your memory. . . ’ she said, ignoring his question.
He felt the hairs