Doctor Who_ Set Piece - Kate Orman [84]
Kadiatu was rummaging through Thierry’s desk, having wrenched it open, snapping the lock with her fingers. ‘It’s a sick ship.’
‘Not ship-shape?’
‘There is a virus going around.’
‘Well,’ said the Doctor, ‘to the vector belong the spoils.’ He unwrapped another barley sugar.
‘There were power fluctuations. Some personalities broke free from the gestalt. They were suicidal, attacking Ship’s systems. The ones which couldn’t be reintegrated were destroyed.’
‘Mm. They can’t have been very well integrated in the first place.’
Kadiatu shook her head. ‘Ship was only designed to hold a few hundred minds. There must be several thousand packed in there now.’
‘How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?’
‘They’ve had to stop gathering more subjects while they sort out the problems.’
164
‘Good.’
‘Cold storage is empty. Ship’s slaves have started on one another.’
The Doctor bit down on the barley sugar with a crack.
‘Ship manages,’ said Kadiatu, ‘to keep an eye on everything regardless.’
She turned, held up the hair at the back of her head with a gesture that might have been casual. The Doctor walked idly across the room, glanced at the skin on the back of her neck. No scar – but a blur of displaced cells where the surgery had been healed. Sonics? Nanotechnology?
‘Oh yes,’ he concurred, ‘a finger in every pie.’
‘Ship likes to keep track of its components.’ She tapped him lightly on the collarbone.
‘Yes. The walls have ears. Literally.’
‘Your post-traumatic stress disorder. You faked it.’
The Doctor hesitated. ‘Yes. Of course. I didn’t want Ship thinking I was still dangerous. Yes.’ He pushed the heel of his palm into his collar bone.
‘You don’t want to go back there.’
‘I’d have to be dragged back.’
Kadiatu nodded. ‘We understand one another, then.’
‘Yes,’ said the Doctor. ‘I think we understand one another.’
‘Good. I’ve got to run some errands and clear Thierry’s things before the Versaillais arrive. I’ve put the pieces of the Ant back in the basement.’
He stopped massaging his shoulder. His eyes were distant, distracted. She knew how he felt: the constant pain made you unfocussed, panicky. ‘Sorry you had a wasted journey.’
‘Aren’t we all.’
‘They’re about to have a war here, aren’t they?’
‘They’ve already had one, actually.’
Ace was sitting on the stairs of Kadiatu’s basement. ‘But this whole place is in a state of siege. There’s war in the air, it’s gonna happen soon. How soon?’
The Doctor put down the piece of Ant he was examining, carefully laying it alongside the others on a blanket. He seemed rather small in the enlarged basement, sitting cross-legged in the dust, his bag of barley sugars to one side.
He got out his pocket-watch and flipped it open. ‘Tonight, as a matter of fact. One of the city’s gates has been left completely unguarded. Someone will spot this pertinent fact and signal the army outside.’
‘Hmm. They’re not very organized, are they?’
‘Within a week, there’ll be nothing left of the Paris Commune. Except memories. Parisians will be shouting Vive la Commune again in 1968.’
‘Why’s it called a Commune, anyway? Are they Communists?’
165
The Doctor picked up the Ant’s head, turned it around slowly, pivoting the antennae in their joints. He was working by lanterns. Ace wondered how he could see clearly enough. ‘Socialists. The “Commune” is the government elected by the Parisians. It isn’t the first Commune, nor the first time Paris has broken away from the rest of France, but in fact, similar rebellions have happened all over the country. At any rate, you’re right, they’re tremendously disorganised. Too much enthusiasm and not enough forward planning. The Versaillais are going to march in here and shoot at anything that looks even vaguely red. Semaine Sanglante.’
‘How many people?’
‘About twenty-five thousand.’
‘More than the Templo Mayor.’
The Doctor had pried open the robotic head, was poking around in the circuitry inside. ‘It’ll be especially dangerous for unaccompanied women. Milk-women will be shot