Doctor Who_ Set Piece - Kate Orman [89]
more often, more easily. Would there come a time, Kadiatu wondered as Benny struggled in slow motion, when she saw everything at this unnatural speed, when it took her a week to have a conversation?
She let reality wind back up to normal. It would only take a moment to kill Benny in any case, a flick of the wrist that would snap her neck. ‘Do it!
Why don’t you do it!’ the woman was shouting trying to turn to look at her assailant. ‘It’ll just be another dead body!’
‘Don’t you judge me,’ growled Kadiatu. ‘Don’t you dare judge me. You have no idea of what’s going on. No idea at all.’
She let go of the woman’s hair. Benny stayed still in a half-crouch, but she couldn’t stop the words. ‘You’re killing people!’
‘Our roles are reversed.’
‘Is that it, then? Are you possessed by some alien? By Ship?’
Kadiatu rubbed the back of her neck. ‘Not possessed. One of Ship’s posses-sions. But not any more.’
She backed away, giving Benny space to straighten up. ‘You’ve made some kind of deal with it, haven’t you!’ said Benny. ‘You’re killing people for it!
Killing children!’
Kadiatu looked at the little girl, floating in her vegetable womb. ‘She died of starvation. I bought the body from her mother. The money might keep maman alive, if she survives the Semaine.’
‘Why?’ insisted Benny. ‘What for?’
‘Ship showed me how its technology works because it needed help from a time traveller. It downloaded so much stuff into me, so much information.
And then it put something in my neck. Around my brainstem. So it would know what I was doing.’
‘A bug?’ said Benny, horrified.
‘I can talk to you now,’ said Kadiatu, ‘because I’ve killed it. Ship built this lab so I could work on solving its time travel problem. We built the littleboy; we anchored the rifts so the Ants would emerge on Earth instead of the middle of space. But that turned out not to be as efficient as taking spacecraft.’
‘My father disappeared in space,’ exploded Benny.
Kadiatu just raised a hand. ‘Shut up,’ she said. ‘I don’t have long to talk. I also created a virus specific for Ship’s tissue.’
‘Did it work?’
‘I injected myself with it. I’m full of virus. It killed the implant. I should kill you.’
‘Why?’
‘If Ship catches you, it’ll know everything you know.’ Kadiatu raised a hand.
Benny flinched, backed up against the bench, trying to look her in the eyes.
173
‘I didn’t think it would be like this,’ said Kadiatu. ‘I didn’t think it would be so complicated.’ She lowered her hand, slowly.
Benny breathed out, hard. ‘Why did you do it, then? Why build a time machine?’
‘Why do you travel with him?’
Benny pushed her sweat-soaked fringe out of her eyes. ‘To see the universe.
But you always get caught up in something along the way. There are always Ants to spoil the picnic.’
‘The Ants exist because of me. That’s why I have to destroy them, destroy Ship.’
The fear had gone from Benny’s face. ‘I want to talk to you,’ she said.
‘Properly.’
‘There’s no time. There’s never been any time. They’ve always been watching.’
‘What is it they want?’
‘Ship wants to carry out its program. It wants to process everyone.’
‘Everyone?’
‘Everyone.’
‘ Everyone? ’
‘Everyone.’
‘But why? What’s the point?’
‘There is no point. Ship’s just running on automatic.’
There was a soft puff of air. Benny whirled. There was an Ant standing behind her.
Kadiatu picked her up and hurled her at the wall.
Benny rebounded from the spongy stuff and rolled onto the floor. The Ant scrambled over the bench at Kadiatu, its forelegs rearing up. She grabbed them, wrenched them apart. She was tired of fighting. She couldn’t be bothered to fight. But she had to keep up appearances.
The Ant’s antennae reached for her face. She let the itching in her brain build until it filled her up, static blotting out everything.
The Doctor had his distant face on. Ace found herself peering into shadows and straining her ears. The enemy was listening. But they weren’t in the shadows. They were lodged in the Doctor’s shoulder, over his collarbone. He was