Doctor Who_ Set Piece - Kate Orman [54]
Employed to fetch and carry. What did you do with the pieces?’
‘I put them in the cellar. The key is on a chain around my neck.’
‘The padlock won’t stop a shell.’ His mouth was a tight little line. ‘About those men you killed.’
‘Don’t you dare lecture me!’ she hissed, almost forgetting to keep her voice down. ‘Don’t you lecture me. It’s your fault I’m here. If they’d come into the house, the basement –’
‘Why did you kill them?’
‘Desperate expediency,’ she spat.
He closed his eyes in the greyness. ‘You could have talked your way out of that situation. Bribed them, handed over the horses. You could have persuaded them. I could have persuaded them.’
Kadiatu said nothing.
102
‘You know what you are now, don’t you?’
Kadiatu said nothing.
‘All the years of your life it had never occurred to you there was something odd about never getting sick, or having to eat so much food. It’s possible that blind spot was built into your brain –’
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘– if you see what I mean. It would make the indoctrination easier.’
‘I’m some kind of experiment, aren’t I? All those modified supersoldier genes cooked up in the one organism, and then left with retired soldiers to grow up into – what?’
The Doctor was shaking his head. ‘It wasn’t like that.’
‘They didn’t even tell me. They died without telling me. Did anyone know about me? Were there others? Did I come with an instruction manual?’
‘No and no and no.’
‘I’ll never know,’ said Kadiatu. ‘I never know, when I react, whether it’s me or my genes.’
‘You can choose. You’re not a machine.’
‘I was designed, programmed. I didn’t kill those soldiers, the bioengineers killed them. You killed them.’
The Doctor sat back, leaning against the side of the cart, hands folded in his lap. ‘I’m not selling any alibis.’
‘I didn’t ask to be born,’ said Kadiatu. ‘It’s not my fault.’
The sun was low in the western sky by the time Bernice reached the tomb entrance. It was easy to spot when you knew what you were looking for; peasants had camped inside, leaving potsherds and charcoal all over the place.
Bernice smiled to herself, pushing aside a chunk of pottery with her toe. In another thousand years, this rubbish would itself become archaeology.
She made hand gestures until the handlers worked out they were supposed to stay outside. They sat down with their backs to the wall of stone, bundles at their feet. Bernice wished she could talk to them. She wished she had had the sense to throw a computer translator into her travel bag.
There were so many things that she should have done. If only it were possible to put yellow sticky labels over your life.
She slipped in through the narrow crevice and moved inside.
When she was sure the handlers wouldn’t see, she took a flashlight out of her pocket, rolling the circle of light rapidly around. The entrance to the tomb proper was a little distance ahead; probably a natural cave which had been enlarged with mallet and chisel.
There was more rubbish inside the antechamber, and the ceiling and walls were stained with soot. Peasants had been sheltering here ever since the 103
tomb had been unsealed and robbed, perhaps for thousands of years. There wouldn’t be any fancy artifacts or golden trinkets to please Bonaparte. Benny didn’t care, as long as the wall paintings were intact.
The entrance to the tomb had a low ceiling and narrow walls. She shone her flashlight inside. The roof was irregular, but the walls were smooth, and unpainted. She would have to go further inside to find what she was looking for.
She took off the Doctor’s hat and stooped under the lintel. Claustrophobia tried to take hold of her, the way it always did when she first stepped inside caves or underground chambers. She waited patiently for it to dissipate, listening to the sound of her breathing echoing off the stone.
Ahead, the passageway – which had probably once been filled with funerary goods – bent sharply to the right. She squeezed through and froze – where was that sound coming from?
She stood perfectly still, holding her breath.