Doctor Who_ Return of the Living Dad - Kate Orman [63]
‘But mother,’ she had said, ‘what you do is wonderful. No one could do this with implants or AIs.’
‘This is not what I did when I was in Spacefleet,’ the old woman had said.
Madagascar was half a millennium away.
She pushed open the door.
The room was a study, most of the time. There were bookshelves, a painting, a big wooden desk and chair.
There were books all over the floor, and the painting had been smashed, a web of lines radiating from a circular hole in the glass. M’Kabel sat on the chair on the right side of the room, hologram off, holding his wand in his lap.
Woodworth was sitting as far away from him as she could manage, which meant on the desk, in the corner, knees drawn up to her chest and arms wrapped around them. Her hair and eyes were wild. ‘You’re human, aren’t you?’ she stammered. ‘Get me the hell out of here!’
‘How’s it going?’ Ms Randrianasolo asked.
‘Slowly,’ said M’Kabel.
‘You’re human — you’re not one of this army of monsters!’
‘Army?’ laughed Ms R. ‘You can count us on the fingers of your hands.’
‘An army,’ repeated Woodworth, ‘covering the countryside. How can you leave me in here with that thing?’
‘Don’t mind M’Kabel,’ said Ms Randrianasolo. ‘He’s a big softy.’
‘He’s been doing things to my mind!’ Woodworth scratched at her forehead, compulsively. ‘I’ve told him everything I can, everything I can think of. He made me. He made me.’
‘So you want to get out?’ asked Ms Randrianasolo.
‘Yes!’
‘I don’t know. I think maybe we should cut you up when we’re finished.’
Woodworth just stared at her, the scraped stare of someone who’s been panicking for hours.
‘It was people like you who forced my mother to become a psychokinetic,’ said Ms Randrianasolo. ‘The drugs were still in her system twenty years later when she conceived me.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I joined the military because I thought I could do some good. But it was all about making money. For the weapons companies, or the drug companies. And I was an asset. With a credit value. They weren’t going to let me leave any more than they were going to let Mum leave. Except when her powers started failing. Then they threw her out, threw her all the way back home.’
Woodworth just shook her head.
‘So I think we should cut you up. When we’re finished with you, and you’re not worth anything anymore.’
M’Kabel stopped her in the doorway. ‘Now do you see why the Admiral didn’t ask you to do the mind-reading?’ he said gently.
‘Yeah.’ She glanced back at Woodworth, who had buried her face in her arms. ‘It wouldn’t have been a good idea,’ she said.
Roz was making lunch in the cottage’s kitchen. She’d had enough twentieth-century experience now to recognize the different foods and appliances. She was slicing mushrooms when Chris came into the room.
He looked faintly bewildered. The top button of his pyjamas had come undone, revealing the fine golden hairs on his chest.
‘Morning,’ he said. ‘What’s up?’
‘You are, at last,’ she said. ‘Nothing much is going on. If there’s any news or they need us, they’ll telephone.’
‘We ought to be out looking for the Doctor,’ said Chris.
‘And Jason.’
‘Yeah,’ said Roz, ‘well, you’ve got concussion, I’m babysitting you, and Isaac’s in charge and he says we’re not going anywhere. Ow, frag!’
‘You okay?’ He reached automatically for the hand she’d managed to slice instead of a mushroom.
She snatched it away from him. ‘Sit down or something, okay?’ she said.
‘Look,’ said Chris. ‘It was an accident. I’d been hit on the head. Not that I’d have to be hit on the head before I’d kiss you, right, but I didn’t mean to.’ Roz was staring at him, Pressing a tissue against her cut thumb. ‘It was just a kiss, anyway. I mean, you’re old enough to be my mother. Not that you’re that old. We’re friends. It didn’t mean anything, right?
We could kiss again right now and it wouldn’t matter.’
They stared at one another, aghast, for about thirty