Doctor Who_ Set Piece - Kate Orman [66]
Kadiatu watched him for a full minute, listening to the sound of his breathing. Carefully, she took his wrist. His pulse was a complex double twitch, slow and steady. For some reason she was suddenly reminded of the first time she’d picked up a frog when she was a child – the cool skin, the knowledge that she was holding something inhuman.
She stood up and peeked through the door. The soldiers were gone; Thierry was sitting on the porch, drinking the dregs of the wine.
‘I’m going to Paris,’ she told him. ‘When will Nicolas next be here?’
‘He’s due at noon,’ said Thierry. He blew across the top of the bottle, making a mournful, echoing note. ‘ Et le Docteur? ’
125
‘Best to let him sleep,’ she said. ‘You’ve got to step down the dose, Thierry.’
‘You were the one who said he was dangerous.’
‘He’s going to work it out. He’s probably already worked it out.’
‘ Vraiment? ’ Thierry leaned back in his chair and squinted up at her. ‘Why has he not said anything about it?’
‘You don’t know him.’
‘And you,’ said the Frenchman, ‘are not getting to know him any better.’
‘Listen.’ Kadiatu raised a hand, counted symptoms off on her fingers. ‘Psy-chogenic amnesia, flashbacks, irritability, exaggerated startle response. He can’t remember what they did to him, but he thinks it’s going to happen again.
He has shell shock, Thierry. Post-traumatic stress disorder.’
‘ Ah oui, bien sûr. J’ aurais dû savoir ça immédiatement. ’
‘At the moment, I really don’t think he’s a danger to anybody.’
Thierry pulled his hat down over his eyes. ‘Best to let him sleep,’ he echoed.
But the kitchen was already empty, dust motes dancing in the orange light.
126
Chapter 11
Open Wide! Come Inside!
POLONIUS: What do you eat, my lord?
HAMLET: Worlds, worlds, worlds.
(William Shakespeare, Hamlet, non-existent folio) The TARDIS stood in a courtyard of the palace, humming softly to itself.
Ace fell against the warm, rough side of the blue box, pressing her cheek to it. She imagined she could hear the tune it was making, the gentle rising and falling of its engine pulse.
Akhenaten watched, dispassionately. ‘This was found at the same time you were,’ he said. She turned to look at him. ‘Yes, I have spies everywhere.’ He patted the TARDIS’ surface, gently. ‘I knew there must be some connection between this magical object and the foreign woman of Set.’
‘I thought his name was forbidden.’
‘Set is nothing more than a name. I have wiped him from the face of the Earth. Scratched out all the names and replaced them with my own. I will live forever and never be forgotten.’ He ran an incurious finger over the TARDIS’
surface. ‘What is this thing?’
‘This is – this is the ship of millions of years,’ breathed Ace. ‘I should have known, I should have known it all along. This is why I can speak Egyptian.
Why didn’t I see that before?’
Akhenaten shrugged. ‘We can put a great deal of effort into deluding ourselves, when our need for illusion is deep.’
She looked at him, awkwardly. ‘Don’t apologize,’ he smiled. ‘Take your ship and go.’ He strode away. Not afraid to turn his back on her.
The door opened for her, as she had known it would. Ace went inside the console room. The humming here was subliminal, like the sound of her own blood flowing through her body. She closed her eyes. The door shut silently behind her, cutting off the party sounds, the smell of dust and roasting flesh.
She leant her back against the inner surface of the TARDIS doors and sank slowly to the floor.
She felt heavy, the way you feel heavy when all the water has drained out of the bath. She felt as though she could lie down on the floor, the warm white stuff, draw her knees up to her chest and curl up and never, never get up.
127
It had been a long time since she had felt like that. She remembered coming home from the hospital, once all the papers had been signed and the phone calls had been made and her father was dead. Her mother had gone downstairs to drink warm tea laced with whisky.
Little Dorothy had curled on her bed, eyes open, listening to the