Doctor Who_ Original Sin - Andy Lane [120]
The Doctor stepped forward into the room. ‘I should have guessed,’ he said.
‘Interstellar Nanoatomic ITEC. An obvious anagram of International Electromatics. Your Freudian slip is showing.’
Tobias Vaughn stood up, the multicoloured light from the desk reflecting from his metal body, casting rainbow highlights across the room and onto 203
the side of the TARDIS. Behind him a red glow filtered in from the wall-wide window.
‘You’ve no idea how refreshing it is to see a familiar face, Doctor,’ he drawled in that plummy, affected, once-heard-never-forgotten voice. ‘Even if it won’t be around for very much longer.’
204
Chapter 15
‘I’m Shythe Shahid and this is The Empire Today , on the spot, on and off the Earth. Martial law is in effect across the Earth. Initial reports are that the Imperial Landsknechte and the Order of Adjudicators are deploying in force to ensure that the provisions of the Imperial Proclamation are enforced. And as the riots spread further, and damage to property tops thirty trillion Imperial schillings, we ask: are we listening to the death knell for humanity?’
Bernice slammed her fist into the control console. It sank in up to the wrist.
‘It’s no good,’ she said, fighting to extract her hand from the spongy surface.
‘I can’t get any of these controls to operate.’
‘Not like that you can’t,’ Powerless Friendless snapped.
It occurred to Bernice that the Hith navigator had become a great deal less willing to tolerate other people since he had regained his memory. He reminded her more and more of Homeless Forsaken Betrayed And Alone, and the resemblance kept sending small pangs of memory through her heart.
Homeless Forsaken was dead, and she didn’t want the same thing to happen to Powerless Friendless – or Daph Yilli Gar, as she supposed she ought to call him.
‘We’ve been in and out of these control cells for the past hour,’ she said. ‘One step ahead of the bots and several steps behind any idea of how to turn the engines on. You were the navigator, Powerless Friendless. Can’t you remember anything about this vessel?’
‘I told you,’ Powerless Friendless snarled, ‘my memories are still in pieces.
Dantalion did a good job. He’s managed to put most of them back together again, but there are still a lot of holes. The most important one is: I can’t remember how to turn the engines on.’
‘But you operated the comm system.’
‘The comm system is different!’ he shouted, and immediately flushed grey in shame. ‘I’m sorry, Bernice. What I meant was, I have no problem remembering how to operate the comm system. My memories in that area are intact.’
Bernice frowned. ‘Hang on,’ she said, ‘if the engines are off, and emitting icarons, how come the comm system and the gravity generators still work?’
‘Organic capacitors,’ Powerless Friendless said. ‘It meant we could still call for help if there was a power failure.’
205
‘Makes sense,’ Bernice said. ‘It was an experimental ship, after all.’ She sighed, and glanced around the tiny room. ‘But that doesn’t explain why there are so many control rooms.’
‘So we don’t have to see each other,’ Powerless Friendless explained. ‘Hith are solitary creatures.’
She nodded. Something moved in the corner of her vision. She turned, ready to run, but it was only Krohg wandering across the floor.
‘This is like doing a jigsaw puzzle without the picture on the box,’ she said, turning back to Powerless Friendless. ‘Let’s try again. How much can you remember about the engines?’
Powerless Friendless rippled in the Hith equivalent of a shrug. ‘Only that the control nexus goes over there.’ He pointed to a puckered area of panel.
Bernice walked over and examined the area. Tiny veins seemed to terminate in cilia that jutted upright like stalagmites.
‘Like all good jigsaws,’ Bernice sighed, ‘there’s a piece missing. Come on: let’s check some of the other control cells for this nexus thing. I don’t suppose you can remember what it looks like?’
As she spoke, she touched the area of wall that operated the door. The muscle-like sheet swept back, revealing a large