Doctor Who_ Last Man Running - Chris Boucher [89]
‘That is odd,’ the Doctor agreed. ‘Clothing and simple weaponry like knives and spears appear to be included in the process. Maybe the system interprets them as part of the organism. Theoretically, since it seems able to build from the atomic level, there should be no limit to what can be duplicated, but there obviously is. The machine must have been designed to work that way.’
‘What machine? Where? What is it?’ demanded Pertanor.
‘It’s not so much what it is,’ the Doctor said, ‘as what it was.’
‘Very well, then,’ Kley said. ‘What was it?’
‘It was the Lentic,’ Leela said.
The Doctor nodded. ‘Have you heard of the Empire of the Lentic?’
‘Should we have done?’
‘I’m not sure when they are in relation to you,’ the Doctor mused as he searched through the pockets and pouches of Monly’s uniform fatigues.
‘ When they are?’ Rinandor asked looking down at him.
‘Interesting,’ the Doctor said, examining coins and small personal items which were identical to both versions of Monly and in identical pockets. ‘The machine’s scanning must be automatic, immediate and thorough, but quite undiscriminating.’
‘When?’ Rinandor repeated.
‘The Doctor rubbed the surface of the coins. ‘These deconstruct more slowly.’ He looked up at Leela. ‘What about the knife you took?’
Leela handed him the knife. ‘It has not changed,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ the Doctor murmured thoughtfully as he examined it.
‘Of course it might just be your original blade.’
Leela’s expression darkened. ‘I should not have surrendered it.’
He handed it back, and began returning the items to the pockets and pouches where he had found them. ‘Perhaps you didn’t,’ he said absently. ‘In a way they were you. So in a way you were surrendering it to yourself.’
‘You know that is not true,’ Leela said. ‘Making excuses will not help me or change what I did.’
‘I’m patronising you again, aren’t I? It’s a difficult habit to break.’
‘Did you say when they are, The?’ Rinandor asked again.
The Doctor got to his feet and smiled. ‘Ri Rinandor, my name is not The Thedoctor. I am simply known as the Doctor.
Leela and I are not from your system. We are in fact –’
Belay lunged forward through the others. ‘Aliens!’ He had stopped whispering to himself and was looking at Leela in disappointed amazement. ‘You’re aliens. But that’s not allowed. You can’t take a contract duel if you’re an alien. You originate out-system? Crumbling balls of crap, the Guild won’t even allow training offworlds.’
There was a moment’s silence and then Pertanor giggled.
‘Does this mean we’re not going to be rich after all?’
‘If we back her we could lose everything,’ Belay sniggered.
Before long they were all laughing hysterically.
‘Belay’s knack of seeing right to the heart of a problem is why he was chosen for the mission,’ Kley choked.
‘Do you think we should arrest them now, Investigator Belay?’ Fermindor chortled. ‘Or should we simply report them for contract violation and let them off with a standard warning?’
‘I’m going to wake up soon and this is all going to have been a horrible dream,’ Rinandor laughed.
‘All of it?’ Pertanor protested.
‘The sex’ll have to be pretty special to compensate for what’s happened up to now,’ she hooted.
‘Living up to that will be a definite nightmare,’ he howled.
Leela listened to the laughter and the jokes that were not funny and saw the fear that was in the faces and the movements. She hoped the Doctor understood that this was the way frightened people sometimes acted, and that he was not expecting these investigators to be of any help. Even warriors might break and run in a place like this, and they were no kind of warriors. She had seen warrior initiates, children, who were better prepared to face unknown dangers.
She watched the Doctor smiling at them and nodding. He was not joining in the laughter but he was leading it, encouraging it. And he was wasting time.
‘Doctor,’ she said. ‘What about Sozerdor?’
He leaned close and murmured, ‘Smile, Leela.’
Leela frowned. ‘I am not afraid.’
‘They are,’ he whispered. ‘They’re absolutely