Doctor Who_ Interference_ Book Two - Lawrence Miles [57]
SAM: No. It has to be here. You wouldn’t understand.
[SAM gazes around the studio, and nods.]
SAM: When I was little… this building was important. They broadcast whole worlds from here. Everything that was good, everything that was special, came from places like this. And it’ll be like that again, soon. When we’re finished.
DONOVAN: If everything works.
SAM: It’ll work. We’ve got the equations on our side.
DONOVAN: The what?
SAM [waves the question aside]: Did I ever tell you about my father? He died the same day as the old King. The same day the Royal Family finally gave up the ghost. ‘I’ll live to see this country turn into a republic.’ That’s what he said. And he did. Just for a couple of hours. He always was political, my father. He thought everything would get so much better, once the royals were out of the way.
DONOVAN: Didn’t work out, did it?
SAM: No. No, it didn’t. It’s politics, Donovan. All the parties, all the corporations. All the same. Little packs of animals, doing whatever the chief gorilla tells them to do.
[There’s a silence. DONOVAN doesn’t seem to know what to say.]
SAM: They’ll make the same mistakes again. More gorilla packs, more power blocs. In twenty years’ time, we’ll be on the brink of war, just like we were in the old days. Nothing will have changed. That’s why we have to do this, Donovan. That’s why we have to start broadcasting.
DONOVAN [still embarrassed]: I know. Look, I wasn’t arguing. I just mean… I don’t see how it’s going to work, OK? Even if we can transmit to everyone –
SAM: But I’ve seen it work. Back when I was your age. The Remote… they were aliens…
DONOVAN: Aliens? You mean, like –
SAM: Like the Cybermen. Yes. No politics where the Remote came from. No corruption. No lies. Wasn’t what you’d call a perfect world, mind you, but only because of the people who’d built their transmitter systems. We’re going to do things differently. We’re going to do things our way. The Remote were right, you see. Their world was stronger than ours. It just needed… fine-tuning.
[SAM seems to find this funny, and starts laughing. The laugh turns into a terrible crippling cough. DONOVAN edges closer to her, presumably wondering whether she needs medical help.]
SAM [recovering]: I’m… sorry. The lungs again… just goes to show… seventy years of a healthy vegetarian diet, and this is how my body pays me back for it.
DONOVAN: Are you going to be OK?
SAM: I’ll live. You know why I turned vegetarian? It wasn’t a question of principles. It was just disgust. I was ten years old, and one day I worked out that ‘lamb’ was the same thing as ‘lamb’.
DONOVAN: Er, what?
SAM: You know what the English language is like. Lots of words mean more than one thing. I suddenly figured out that ‘lamb’ the animal and ‘lamb’ the food were the same thing. Never ate meat again. Except for a bacon sandwich in 2009, and that was only because… I’m sorry, what were we talking about?
DONOVAN [slightly thrown]: The… plan. Can we call it that?
SAM: I’m sure we can. Don’t worry so much, Donovan. There are too many of us for it to go wrong. Besides… look what we’re ready to sacrifice.
DONOVAN [uneasily]: Erm… ourselves?
SAM: More than ourselves. More than our families. More than our whole species. I know how history’s supposed to work, and we’re putting a… a spanner in the works, if you like. We’re doing just what the Doctor did, all those years ago. We’re sacrificing the timeline.
DONOVAN: I don’t get it. The Doctor –
SAM: It’s not important. We just have to remember. What somebody told me, a long time ago, when I needed to make sense of the world. We’re bound to keep making the same mistakes, unless we take away the system that helps us make those mistakes. It’s not enough to get involved in politics. You understand? We have to get rid of politics. To get rid of all the monkeys in suits who want to give us orders. To get rid of the corruption, and the lies, and the petty power structures. To get rid of all of it.
DONOVAN: Sam?
SAM: Yes?
DONOVAN: We don’t stand