Doctor Who_ Interference_ Book One - Lawrence Miles [25]
His neck was turned towards the window wall, with his cheek pressed against the dirt. So the first thing he saw, once he’d worked out that he could see, was the other prisoner.
The man wasn’t moving. He sat curled up in the corner, his arm drooping across the floor by his side.
‘How are you feeling?’ the man asked. Quietly.
‘Can see,’ Badar told him. He experimented with the sentence a little. ‘I‐can‐see. See.’
The man smiled a little. ‘Good. You were talking in your sleep, you know. I didn’t think it was a good idea to wake you.’
‘Talking.’ Badar tried to nod, but his head was in the wrong position, and besides, moving his neck was too much like hard work. ‘Who. Who‐are‐you?’
‘Friendly,’ said the man.
‘New prisoner? New?’
‘Yes.’ He looked around the cell. ‘New to this place, anyway. Quite an old hand at being in prison.’
‘Escape? You said. Open the lock. Escape.’
The man nodded. ‘We’ll do it. Don’t worry . I could escape for England.’ He thought about that for a moment. ‘Or Scotland. Or Wales, at a pinch. It’s all a question of timing. Don’t forget, we have the advantage.’
‘Two hearts.’
‘Ah. Did I say that?’
Again, Badar failed to nod.
‘Sorry,’ the man said. ‘Well, yes, that is an advantage. Not one that’ll help us much right now, though. What I meant was that we have technical expertise on our side. The guards are hired thugs. They don’t know anything about locks. Or the probability of breaking locks. And they certainly don’t know as much as I know about countersecurity measures.’
‘Two hearts,’ Badar repeated.
The man didn’t seem to know what to say. ‘Yes. Well. Maybe you’d better forget I said that. It’ll make things easier.’
‘Want to know,’ Badar said.
‘Really?’
‘Idea.’
‘Erm…’
‘It’s‐an‐idea.’
The man frowned. Against the blur of his face, the frown stood out as a sharp black line. ‘I’m not sure I understand.’
‘Ideas. Matter.’ Badar tried to get up, to pull himself off the floor and lean against the wall. He wasn’t sure if he succeeded. The room spun, turning into a jumble of grey walls and yellow light. ‘This. This. Body. It hurts. Ideas matter.’
‘Ah,’ said the other prisoner. ‘I see. You’ve been here a long time, haven’t you? Nothing but this cell, the guards and the courtyard. The sun comes up. They hurt you. The sun goes down. That’s all you can think about right now.’
‘Hurts,’ said Badar. Meaning, ‘yes’.
‘Ideas matter. They can do what they like to your body, but they can’t stop you thinking.’
‘Hurts,’ Badar repeated. Again, meaning ‘yes’.
‘All right. Yes, I’ve got two hearts. And I can stop myself breathing for several hours at a time, as long as I don’t move about much. And my normal body temperature is thirty‐six and a bit degrees. Is that enough for you?’
‘Advantage?’ said Badar.
The man didn’t seem to know how to answer. Badar forced some more words out of his lungs.
‘Two hearts. Advantage? Two hearts. Twice as much. Twice as much hurt.’
‘You mean twice as vulnerable? You could say that, I suppose. On the other hand, you could say I’m half as vulnerable. Biology’s like any other science. It’s all relative.’
‘Can be in love with two women,’ Badar said. ‘Two at once.’
The man looked startled. ‘Good grief. Do you know, that had never struck me before? I’ve never even thought about being in love with one woman, let alone two. Well, not much.’
‘Advantage?’ Badar insisted.
The man nodded vigorously. ‘Yes. Yes. Any advantage, no matter how small, is an important advantage. One tiny genetic improvement can put you in control of everything.’
‘Two hearts? How?’
‘Well… evolutionarily speaking. In the long term.’ The man leaned forward, as if he were about to impart the most important piece of