Doctor Who_ Interference_ Book Two - Lawrence Miles [55]
What the Faction hadn’t mentioned was that this new biodata had a peculiar side effect when introduced to human subjects. To wit, it made them incapable of breeding naturally. It probably hadn’t been programmed to have that effect, but Fitz knew the biodata had been copied from the files of the Time Lords themselves, so presumably the information had been corrupted somewhere along the line. The people of Anathema hadn’t figured it out until eighteen months after the Faction had left, when Fitz himself had asked why he no longer seemed to have much of a sex drive, and the more scientifically minded colonists had run a few experiments. Fitz had expected some kind of outcry when the results had come through. He’d expected the Remote to turn their backs on the Faction’s techniques, to hate Mother Mathara for taking away their prospective children.
But nobody had cared, much. And – this was the killer – Fitz hadn’t cared much either. What did it matter? He’d lost most of his life anyway, so what difference did it make if he couldn’t pass on the family curse?
Now he stood in one of the sub-buildings of the transmitter tower, the largest of the white polymer domes he’d helped plant there. The place where the remembrance tanks were kept. Mother Mathara had said that the equipment might be useful in an emergency, but that sounded like bull to Fitz. The cult had known, right from the start, that the Remote would lose their breeding potential. It was all part of the great plan.
There was no one else around, so Fitz crossed over to the nearest of the tanks, and peered through the glass panel.
Biomass. A big pink lump of it, just about the right size to be sculpted into a human being. Only the tank next to it was currently in use, the systems regrowing a woman who’d fallen from the top level of the tower. At least, her friends said she’d fallen. Fitz was convinced she’d jumped, but it hardly mattered. The ‘remembered’ version of her would be happier, the way her friends thought she’d been. She wouldn’t jump again.
‘Stop it,’ said Fitz.
‘Stop what?’ said Tobin.
‘Lurking,’ said Fitz.
In the doorway, Tobin crossed her arms. ‘I’m not lurking. I’m just standing here. You’re lurking.’
Fitz looked up at her, and turned on his best ‘earnest’ expression. ‘Can I ask you a question?’ he said. ‘I’m warning you now, it’s going to be a serious one.’
Tobin looked suitably unimpressed. ‘I’m not interested in your personal problems, code-boy. I’ve told you.’
‘How are you going to remember me?’
‘I don’t know. Shallow. Annoying. Good at your job. Reasonable human being, but nothing to get excited about. Why?’
‘I’m not like that, though,’ Fitz protested. ‘Just think about it. I’m an alien here. I haven’t been able to talk to anyone since I got pulled out of the Cold on Ordifica. Not properly, anyhow. Nobody here really knows what I’m like.’
‘That’s not my fault,’ said Tobin. Fitz had a nasty feeling that this was as sympathetic as she got.
‘This machine’s going to turn us into stereotypes,’ Fitz told her. ‘You know that, don’t you? We’ll get simpler and simpler every time we’re remembered. To you, I’m just someone who’s good at his job, and who gets on your nerves. I don’t want to get pigeonholed like that.’
Tobin tutted. She had a tut that could cut through cheese. ‘There’s always someone who says that, isn’t there?’ she said. ‘There’s always someone who says he doesn’t want to be pigeonholed, or classified, or summed up. Look, face facts. There’s so much information in the universe, we’d go mad if we couldn’t pigeonhole things. We wouldn’t know where to start. We wouldn’t be able to make any sense of the culture. Don