Doctor Who_ Left-Handed Hummingbird - Kate Orman [91]
Perhaps, the Doctor is thinking, he is really the reflection. A two‐dimensional image, thin as a scrap of paper bobbing on the breeze.
He sits on the end of the diving board, cross‐legged. He is wearing a red velvet dressing‐gown. The deep wound in his chest is almost healed, though there will be a scar in the bone where the knife‐point turned. A scar over the heart. His face is like paper, the colour of his eyes standing out sharply. Blue energy sizzles in his fingertips.
It isn’t even death he’s facing. Her features he knows from a hundred, a thousand encounters. He’s felt her sleeve brush past him again and again. He remembers the morning he woke up and realized he had lost count of how many people he had seen die. He had promised himself he would not forget them, not one.
He knows what it’s like to lie back in her cold arms and let her hands come up over your face, touching your mouth…
But this, not even to die, to be erased. Ashes to nothing, dust to nothing. Live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful empty space where you used to be.
* * *
Time to unpause the tape. Take your seats for the final act! Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard the Royal Mail Ship Titanic!
* * *
Sunday, April 14, 1912
7.30 pm
Second Wireless Operator Harold Bride scribbled rapidly on a piece of paper, listening intently to the pattern of dots and dashes that thumped in his weary ears. The irregular rhythm resolved itself into letters, into words, a pithy message, a series of numbers.
‘Jack,’ he said, ‘it’s another ice warning. It’s the Californian – she’s spotted three bergs.’
Jack Phillips grunted a response without pausing in the message he was sending. ‘Better take it up to the Captain.’
‘At this rate, we’ll never be finished,’ muttered Bride. He stuffed the message into his pocket and headed for the bridge.
The First Wireless Operator sighed, looking despondently at the pile of paper in front of him. The passengers thought it was a jolly game, sending all these telegrams, as though the wireless radio were some sort of toy. He and Bride were desperately trying to catch up with the backlog of frivolous personal messages. It wouldn’t be until they were in touch with Cape Race in Newfoundland that they could relay the bulk of them.
Bride was right. If they kept being interrupted like this, they’d never get any sleep.
* * *
8.33 pm
Cristián’s stomach lurched, and he closed his eyes, putting a hand against the wall to support himself. He felt ill.
The boat was steady as a rock, except for the inaudible thrumming of the engines he could feel through his feet and fingertips. The room they were in smelled of metal and rust, and distantly of cold air and sea‐water.
Cristián felt ill because he was terrified. He couldn’t get his mind off it for a moment. He tried to remember the pattern of breathing.
He was startled as the Doctor switched on a torch, waving it at random about the room. After a moment the Time Lord got out his pocket watch and pointed the torch’s circle of white light at its face.
‘It’s not here,’ said the Time Lord.
‘Where are we?’
‘Cargo room. Right at the front of the boat.’ The Doctor shone his torch on crates, trunks, a vintage car. The TARDIS had obligingly turned itself into a large featureless box, the better to blend in. ‘I’d wanted to arrive on the Wednesday, while she was still in the Channel. No such luck. We’ve got about three hours before the Titanic has its close encounter.’
Cristián closed his eyes again. ‘How do you know the codex isn’t here?’
‘The same way that you do.’
The Doctor was right. He would know if he came anywhere near such a large knot of Blue. ‘What happens when the iceberg hits?’ he asked. ‘Does the ship blow up?’
There was amusement in the Time Lord’s voice. ‘The Titanic brushes against the berg, and it dents the starboard bow side, pushing in the metal plating and popping the rivets. The ship takes nearly two hours to sink.’
‘Oh. That gives us a bit of extra time.’
The torch beam danced across Cristián