Doctor Who_ Interference_ Book One - Lawrence Miles [116]
‘There’s something else,’ the man in the circle repeated. ‘Don’t you see? There’s some other force. Tying us together. You and me. Sam and Sarah. Something’s forming links between us. Links that shouldn’t be there.’
The Doctor considered this. ‘Force’ was a big word. He started sunning through all the possibilities, and he couldn’t help putting the High Council at the top of the list.
‘Faction Paradox,’ the man said, out of the blue.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Faction Paradox. You… know them?’
The Doctor shook his head. ‘Obviously something from my future. Perhaps we’d better not talk about this.’
‘But that’s it. Don’t you see?’ The man was getting excited now, flapping his one good arm and nodding his head like a lunatic. ‘They change time. That’s what they’re good at. They change history. They even change their own.’
‘I really don’t think –’ the Doctor began.
‘You haven’t heard of the Faction yet,’ the man burbled. The Doctor could hear the bubbles in his throat, and hoped it wasn’t blood. You won’t do. Not until your next regeneration. That’s when the rumours start coming in from Gallifrey. Except…’
The man broke off. The Doctor thought about saying ‘except what?’, but decided against it. Patience, he told himself.
‘Except that I’ve just told you about it now,’ the man in the circle concluded. ‘You see? I remember going to Peladon. I remember going to Quiescia. But I don’t remember this. I don’t remember being where you are now.’
‘Oh dear,’ said the Doctor. ‘These Faction people. You think they’re interfering with our timeline, is that It?’
‘I think so. Maybe not deliberately. Maybe just a side effect. Where’s your TARDIS heading?’
‘We’re going back to Earth,’ the Doctor said. ‘Sarah’s idea.’
‘Good. Good. Make sure you get there. You might get… diverted.’
The Doctor started rubbing his chin. ‘So they can divert TARDISes. That really is grossly irresponsible.’
‘Not the TARDIS,’ the man said. His voice was getting weaker now, and the Doctor wondered how long it’d be before the equation finished its work and this entire passageway vanished from the Ship again. ‘You might get diverted. We might get diverted. Our timeline. Our… history. Don’t forget.’
‘I won’t,’ said the Doctor.
The man in the pattern finally managed to nod properly.
‘Hold on to your shadow,’ he said. Then his eyelids dropped down over his eyes, and his head rolled to one side, as he fell into sleep again.
The Doctor stood there for another minute or so, watching the man sleep. Then he turned away, and walked back along the passage, towards the point where he knew the little wooden door would be waiting for him. When he finally stepped through the doorway and back into the smoothness of the TARDIS corridor, the light didn’t hurt his eyes at all, and he thanked the ship for thinking of these tiny details. He kept walking once he was back on board the TARDIS he knew, not even turning round to see whether the door was still there.
Which meant that he was already heading towards the console room when he heard Sarah screaming. A primal, animal kind of scream, the sound of an ape descendant seeing something her species had been afraid of since day one. A giant‐maggot scream. A dead‐body‐in‐the‐cupboard scream.
And Sarah wasn’t a natural‐born screamer. A shouter, yes, but not a screamer. So that was when the Doctor broke into a run, and when he knew for certain that the man in the darkened passage had been right, that something really had been changed for the worse.
* * *
There was blood on Sarah’s hands. It was wet and it was sticky and she had no idea whose it was, even though she knew where it had come from.
Half an hour ago, the TARDIS had left Quiescia and the Doctor himself had pottered off into the depths of the Ship, warbling to himself in his usual cod‐opera singing voice. Sarah had gone to her quarters, changed into the clothes she’d mentally labelled ‘comfortable’, and fifteen minutes later she’d been back in the console room. Peering at the controls, to make sure they really were heading back to