Doctor Who_ Lungbarrow - Marc Platt [93]
'The Gallifreyans are sad people,' Leela said. 'There are no true children on their world.'
'Oh, the Loom business,' said Dorothée. 'I never understood that. I mean, if you're born, surely you're born as a kid.'
Leela shook her head. 'They are all born from the Family Loom as full-grown adults. They are like children at first and have to learn like children. Andred calls that time brainbuffing. He says the things they live with in the House are deliberately big, so that they feel as if they have been small.'
'Hang on,' said Dorothée. 'So you're not a Time Lady at all.'
Leela had begun to prowl around the room, studying the ancient weaponry, guns and swords, that hung from the walls. 'My tribe live on a world far from here in both space and time.' She hiked up her robe, climbed on to a chair and pulled an angular knife down from its harness.
'Tribe?' grinned Dorothée.
The chair squirmed, there was no other word for it. Leela jumped clear and landed, catlike, next to Dorothée.
'And be careful of the furniture,' she warned, hefting the knife in her hand. 'It can be as fierce or cunning as any beast in the forest.'
They both froze at the sound of scraping footsteps.
They simultaneously pulled each other behind a large cabinet as something very tall stalked into the room.
Chris watched the Doctor trying to leave the library. Every time the Time Lord got near the door, the tables and chairs jostled viciously into his path.
142
The Doctor said nothing. Chris couldn't exactly read him like a book. Instead, he was a captive audience as about a dozen intertwining texts were forcibly jacked into his head. Maybe he was getting used to it; he was beginning to separate the threads and focus on any one at a time.
'Suppose I did come back to murder Quences and then wiped my own memory. Would that account for all this twitchiness? Do I or could I ever have had a doppelganger Cousin? No, no, no. The Loom always weaves at random on the basic template. You can never choose what you look like. The chances of a double are infinitely remote.'
This was against a background of thoughts that included the reciting of a historical text in what sounded like pigbin Orculqui, singing along with some sort of operatic heroine, pomming along with a honky-tonk jazz band, rehearsing a speech on the cultural dynamics of the planet Blue Profundis in the twin-sunned Sappho System and a list of ingredients for home-made trumpberry wine.
'Arkhew never said it was me. Perhaps Arkhew recognized the murderer as someone else. Perhaps he went and confronted them and then got spiked.'
Chris said, 'How could Arkhew recognize someone else when the murderer looked like you? Who else was there?'
' Is there no privacy? ' complained the Doctor's thoughts, but out loud, he said, 'Innocet saw someone leaving the room.'
'She said it was you,' said Chris. 'Unless you think she had a hand in killing Quences.'
'I can't read her mind.'
'But she can read yours through me.'
The Doctor gave up talking altogether. 'Why does she carry her guilt around in a long plait on her back? I don't know what she would have done if she thought Quences threatened the House. It's an extreme situation. And then there's Glospin.'
'He was at death's door, remember?' interrupted Chris. 'But I'd give a month's credit to nail it on him. And what about Satthralope?'
'Will you stop interrogating me as if I'm the number-one suspect?'
'You are, Doctor,' apologized Chris. 'Both for Quences's murder and Arkhew's.'
'I've been framed! / Nothing of the sort!'
Chris shrugged. 'If this was Overcity, you'd be wired up in the termination cell by now.'
The Doctor tried to reach the door by ducking under the table, but it deliberately crouched to block his path. One of its clawed feet grabbed the tail of his