Doctor Who_ Interference_ Book Two - Lawrence Miles [133]
‘You feed the goose,’ the Doctor concluded. ‘Teaching the universe to save itself. Reminding your audience what it’s capable of, and leading the way by example. Is that what you’re saying?’
‘I never wanted to save the universe,’ I.M. Foreman insisted. ‘I’m not for the universe. I’m for Gallifreyans. I’m for Bandrils. I’m for Martians. I’m for man. But the universe can look after itself, I should think. Always has done so far.’
‘You’re just playing with words,’ the Doctor protested. ‘By feeding the goose, you are breaking the bottle. You’re applying a force that’ll cause the bottle to be broken, but you’re doing it from the inside. That’s cheating.’
‘That’s philosophy,’ I.M. Foreman said, somehow resisting the temptation to go ‘nyah nyah nyah’ at him. ‘All philosophy’s “just playing with words”. It’s all a question of the message you want to send. The signals you want to give out.’
‘Hmm,’ snorted the Doctor. ‘Then what about all the trouble on Dust? You didn’t want to get directly involved, but it was your fault the Remote attacked. Just by being there, you caused interference.’
‘I think that’s the idea,’ said I.M. Foreman. ‘Don’t you?’
The Doctor obviously didn’t have an answer to that. So he just stood there and sulked. I.M. Foreman took his hands again, in the hope that it’d make him feel better about himself.
‘Now you can answer a question,’ she said. The Doctor cocked his head at her, so she kept talking. ‘Your travelling companions. Like Sarah Jane. Like Sam.’
‘Yes?’
She felt that smile tugging at the edges of her mouth again. ‘Do you ever get… urges?’
It was hard to describe exactly what happened to the Doctor’s face at that point.
‘I’m only asking because of the state your body’s in,’ I.M. Foreman told him. ‘There’s a lot of material in your biodata I don’t think I recognise. And I think some of it looks a lot more human than it’s supposed to.’
‘Sometimes,’ said the Doctor.
Suddenly, all the character had gone out of his face. He’d stopped acting, the way he usually did only when he was asleep. For once, he was telling the absolute truth.
‘Only since I regenerated into this body,’ he added, a little too quickly. ‘It started after the change. It wasn’t an urge, as such. It was just a feeling that… there was something missing. That there was an element to my life I’d been ignoring.’
‘Love?’ suggested I.M. Foreman. The word sounded flat and stupid in Magdelana’s mouth.
The Doctor shook his head. ‘Romance, I think. The excitement of being close to someone. The need to exchange ideas on a more personal level. To be able to tell someone what you really believe. To express things in ways that make sense only if you’re attached to another… well, if you’re attached.’
‘But not Sam? I mean –’
‘No. It wouldn’t be fair on her. It wouldn’t be fair on any of them. I come with a lot of baggage, you know that. Time Lords come fitted with all sorts of inbuilt features. All sorts of protocols, all sorts of defences. And I’m more complex than most. I can’t afford to let anybody get too close, not even another Gallifreyan. Certainly not a human being.’
‘But the rules are different with me, is that what you’re saying?’
‘You’re Foreman’s World,’ said the Doctor, with a gesture that came perilously close to being a shrug.
So it’s true, thought I.M. Foreman. He thinks of me as his equal. Not because of my mind, though. Let’s be honest, I’m probably smarter than he is by now. No, it’s because of what I represent. I’m as complex as he is, and he knows it.
‘And this body didn’t bother you?’ she asked.
He didn’t look as though he wanted to talk about it. ‘I knew you weren’t Magdelana as soon as I saw you. I knew Magdelana didn’t live in that body any more. Not full-time.’
‘I didn’t mean that. I meant the way it looks.’
The Doctor seemed thrown by that. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said.
‘It looks so old.’
‘“Old”?’ he repeated, looking her up and down but obviously not getting the point.
‘Never mind.’
The Doctor nodded, clearly still not understanding, and slipped his key into the lock of the TARDIS. I.M.