Doctor Who_ Relative Dementias - Mark Michalowski [54]
“Good – we need him. Without him we’ve wasted the last three years.” Something like that. I know the words themselves don’t mean much, but it was the way it was said – so cold, so calculating.’ Joyce felt the hairs on her arms stand out. ‘And something told me I should call someone – and obviously you sprang to mind.’
The Doctor smiled. ‘I’m glad you did. There’s something very wrong going on at Graystairs, you were right. What happened then?’
‘I stayed for a couple of hours, had a cup of tea, and then Doctor Menzies – one of the doctors up there – came in and said it was time for another treatment session for Mum.’ Joyce narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips. ‘He said I should come back tomorrow. I asked if I couldn’t call back in the evening, but he said he thought that Mum would be too tired after the treatment.’
The Doctor leaned forward in his seat. ‘And did he tell you anything about it? About what it involved?’
Joyce’s eyes slipped away from him in embarrassment. ‘I made a few enquiries, but the most I got out of them was that it was “new” and “revolutionary” and involved a new drug regimen that had already been trialled in Europe.’
‘And had it?’
Joyce felt herself flush. She didn’t know. Of course she’d meant to check it out; she’d planned to do some research into it, call in a few favours in Geneva; she’d even written the details out. But somewhere between thinking of it and doing it, other things had got in the way. Things that were obviously so much more important than subjecting her mother to a new and potentially hazardous course of drugs. Thank you for reminding me, Doctor.
She looked up to see him watching her, understandingly, and almost wanted to slap him. How dare he be understanding?
‘I know how it is,’ he said softly. ‘There’s never enough time, is there?’
She swallowed, her anger draining away as she realised he wasn’t just taking about her. After a few moments’
uncomfortable silence, broken (thankfully) by the sound of Mary sighing exasperatedly over yet another radio report on the Falklands, Joyce moved.
As the Doctor drank his tea she told him all she could remember of the last couple of days, starting with her visit to her mother’s room. He listened appreciatively, hmming and nodding throughout, but letting her finish her tale before setting down his cup. Telling it all out loud like that made it sound even more ludicrous than it already seemed – the pale man, being knocked out from behind, the spaceship – as Ace had insisted it was – the transmat and the numbers in her head. So ludicrous, in fact, that if the Doctor had suggested that it had all been a particularly vivid dream, she imagined she would have agreed with him.
‘It sounds like the ravings of a madwoman, doesn’t it?’ she laughed, a slight tremor in her voice. She suddenly remembered the metal nodule at the nape of her neck, and tipped her head forwards to allow him to examine it. As he looked at it he asked her how she was feeling generally.
Joyce gave a shrug. ‘I’d feel better if I knew where Mum was at the moment.’
‘I’m sure she’s fine,’ he said, touching the device. The words comforted her more than she expected. This most definitely was the Doctor. ‘Nevertheless, I need to go back there and find out exactly what that chamber aboard the spaceship is for. How much did you manage to work out while you were wired up?’
She shook her head and scratched her neck, feeling the unwelcome, though not painful, presence of the alien device. ‘I got the impression of complex calculations. It was so odd: I felt like I’d been sliced in two – one half performing calculations, the other half just watching.’ She gave a little shudder.
‘Perhaps some sort of parallel processing array,’ he murmured, sitting back on the arm of the chair. ‘Using human brains as the processors. I imagine it would be necessary to separate the processing functions from your conscious awareness to prevent you from introducing spurious data into them.’ He leaned forward again. ‘In your opinion,’ he said, ‘what was being calculated?