Doctor Who_ Interference_ Book Two - Lawrence Miles [29]
Lost Boy grabbed Kode’s arm, and twisted it behind the boy’s back. Kode screwed his face up.
‘Oh, leave him alone,’ Sarah said. ‘He’s harmless. Look, his hired help’s not going to do anything.’ Sarah nodded at the scanner, at the prone form of Lost Boy’s big brother, sprawled across the floor of the old building. The Ogron seemed to be in shock, rather than dead. Even from here, you could see his massive chest going up and down, in heaving Ogron snores.
Lost Boy paused, then let go of Kode’s arm. Kode promptly fell over.
‘Thanks,’ he mumbled.
‘You could be useful,’ Sarah said. ‘You know all about Remote technology, don’t you?’
‘Well, yeah.’ Kode started to pick himself up, and it was only at this point that he seemed to notice his surroundings. He looked bewildered. Not at the size of the ship: the actual architecture didn’t seem to phase him at all. But the look on his face…
‘Can you hear it?’ he hissed.
‘Hear what?’
‘It’s so fast. It’s faster than Anathema. The signals in here. There’s so much going on, it’s…’
Sarah crossed her arms. ‘Never mind that now. We need to find the Doctor. We know he’s in the area, somewhere. We have to steer the TARDIS to him. The problem is, getting the coordinates.’
Slowly, Kode began to shake his head. ‘No. The TARDIS says… there are too many places to look. It can’t home in on the Doctor. He’s shielded. All Time Lord biodata’s shielded. Some kind of… security measure.’
Sarah was genuinely surprised. ‘The ship’s talking to you?’
‘Of course it’s talking to me. Doesn’t it talk to you?’
Sarah considered this. Sam had suggested that the receivers didn’t give the Remote orders at all: they just gave the aliens raw material, and let them interpret it as they saw fit. That being true, Sarah could easily imagine how Kode might think the ship had something to say to him.
‘There’s another way of finding the Doctor,’ she pointed out. ‘He’s got a piece of technology on him. A piece of Remote technology. From Llewis’s office. A focus, the Doctor called it. I slipped it into his pocket when I met him.’
Kode looked blank. ‘I don’t understand. When did you –’
‘It doesn’t matter. Just ask the TARDIS if it can home in on the focus.’
‘Yes,’ Kode said, without a pause. He tapped his ear. ‘Our technology’s screened as well, but we can use my receiver to tune in to it. We’ll have to make the receiver part of the TARDIS, though. It’ll take a while to do the rewiring.’
Now, that was curious. Kode had said ‘we’. Suggesting that the mission to rescue the Doctor was now his first concern, as well. Presumably, he was starting to act on the signals the TARDIS was giving him. The TARDIS cared about the Doctor’s wellbeing, so now Kode did, too. While he was here in the console room, anyway.
‘Fine,’ said Sarah. ‘You start work. If you need any tools… well, you can ask the TARDIS where to find them, can’t you?’ She glanced at the corridor entrance, where the two soldiers still lay sprawled out on the tiles. ‘Meanwhile, we’ve got to find somewhere to put these two.’
Lost Boy seemed agitated by this. ‘I stay here,’ he said. ‘Guard Kode.’
‘That’s all right,’ Sarah told him. She nodded towards the pretend Volkswagen. ‘I won’t be needing your help. I don’t think I can resist this.’
* * *
He was woken by the sound of screaming. That happened sometimes. It was the other prisoners, in the other cells, although frankly he was starting to doubt whether those other cells actually existed. All of this was probably an illusion. The result of some terrible mind-probe experiment or other.
No, no. That couldn’t have been right, or he’d have escaped by now. This was real. Too brutal to escape from, too random. That was what he’d told… the other prisoner, whatever his name had been.
Three! That was it. He’d been here three days now. Good grief, was that all? Surely the other prisoners didn’t lose track of things