Doctor Who_ Peacemaker - James Swallow [16]
Martha grinned. ‘Sounds like a dating service.’
‘Private investigators and bodyguards, actually,’ he told her. ‘The Agency is still around centuries from now, in hundreds of solar systems. They had a bit of a rep back in the West, y’see. They always got their man.’
‘I thought that was the Mounties.’
‘Yeah, them too. But I get the feeling the old psychic paper could tell Sheriff Blaine I was President Grover Cleveland himself, and he’d still give me the bum’s rush.’ He finished working the controls and stood back, staring at the screen. ‘There. That should do it.’
She moved so she could see what he was doing. The screen showed a topographical map of the local area, with clusters of dull yellow dots that had to be people, shifting around like glowing ants.
‘What’s this?’
‘Psychic resonance scan,’ announced the Doctor, tweaking a dial to fine-tune the display. ‘Looking for telepathic waveforms or esper field projections. Any abnormal phenomena.’
‘Like mind control? Is that what you think is going on around here?’
He blew out a breath. ‘Small community, unfriendly natives, weird happenings. In my experience it usually adds up to the same kind of thing. Sometimes there’s an alien thingy buried under a church or giant cockroaches on the prowl or –’ He broke off. ‘Well. Let’s just say, I’m covering all the bases.’ The scanner gave off a desultory ping and his face fell. ‘Eh? That’s not right.’
Martha tensed. ‘You’ve found something?’
‘No. That’s just it. I haven’t found something. Anything.’ He frowned and walked away, over to the panel where the brown medicine bottle was standing. ‘Curiouser and curiouser.’
‘So what’s making Nathan and the other healed people have those nightmares?’
40
The Doctor picked up the bottle and studied it closely. ‘I have no idea.’ A crooked smile appeared on his lips. ‘Isn’t that interesting?’
Martha made the face again. ‘The word I would use is disturbing,’ she said firmly. The Doctor was so fascinated by anything out of the ordinary, but sometimes he needed reminding that normal people were caught up in it. ‘If that potion is as fake as you say it is, then something freaky is definitely going on here.’
‘There you go, straight to the heart of the matter as usual,’ he nodded briskly, slipping the bottle into his pocket. He pointed at her. ‘So, on the spot, then. Pop quiz, Doctor Jones. You’ve got your patients, you’ve got your mystery symptoms. Grab your stethoscope and tell me what’s next.’
She hesitated, following his suggestion. Martha thought it through, as if it was a problem case turning up at the Royal Hope Hospital where she studied. ‘Examine the patient. Determine the nature of the illness. Look for vectors of infection. Make a diagnosis.’
‘Bingo!’ called the Doctor. ‘So what we need to do is –’
A sharp double knock at the TARDIS doors sounded out, stopping him in mid-speech. He twirled the monitor and tapped a button so the screen displayed an image of the scene outside. Over his shoulder, Martha saw Jenny Forrest standing in the alleyway in the fading daylight. As she watched, the schoolmarm knocked on the doors once again. Jenny looked concerned.
‘Company!’ said the Doctor. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’
‘We can’t let her inside!’ retorted Martha. ‘She’ll never get her head around it!’
‘You did.’
‘Yeah, but I’ve seen lots of sci-fi movies! She’s just a –’
‘A what? A nineteenth-century yokel?’ He eyed her. ‘Prejudice can cut both ways, you know. Just because these people don’t know what a cell phone or the internet is, it doesn’t mean they’re dumb.’
‘It’s not that,’ Martha said hotly. ‘I just think she’s got enough to deal with without having to handle the whole dimensionally transcenden-tal thing.’ She gestured around at the control room.
41
‘Hmm. Good point,’ he agreed, slipping his long coat back on.
‘Come on, then.’
Jenny admitted defeat and walked away from the odd blue shack, back down the alleyway toward the street. Perhaps Mr Vogel in the general store had been mistaken about seeing Martha enter the little outhouse. She resolved to