Doctor Who_ Set Piece - Kate Orman [98]
Kadiatu came towards Ace. Her face was contorted in horror and fury.
‘Come on!’ Ace shouted again, edging towards the rift. ‘Come and get me!’
‘Between!’ gasped Kadiatu.
Ace understood.
She stepped between Kadiatu and the rift.
With an inhuman roar, Kadiatu ran at her.
Ace flung herself aside at the last moment, and Kadiatu, turning her run into a jump, leapt through the hole and vanished into the light.
Ace tried to pick herself up, crawled to the wall, scrabbled at the rough surface until she made it to her feet.
‘She’s gone,’ said Ace. ‘She jumped.’
‘Not stabilized,’ said the Doctor. ‘. . . might . . . anywhere! I hope she has a soft landing. Sorry we couldn’t . . . ’ He coughed sharply.
‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘We can’t save everybody.’
‘Never . . . ’ His voice broke. ‘Thanks for . . . ’
‘Let’s get the hell out of here.’
There was a sudden wash of energy. Benny leapt to her feet as the basement filled with it and was suddenly empty, echoing. She blinked spots out of her eyes.
The Doctor and Ace stumbled to a halt. They were clutching one another in an awkward A-frame hug. Both of them were covered in blood, mostly the Doctor’s, deep orange-red. Benny put her hand to her mouth at the sight of the flower growing from his shoulder.
He turned eyes on her which were horribly green. ‘Benny,’ he wheezed, ‘Ace is hurt.’
Abruptly, he collapsed, Ace snatching at him as his knees gave way. She fell with him, unable to support his weight any longer.
192
Bernice was beside them in a second, catching the Doctor and gently lowering him to the stone floor. He gripped her hand with bloody fingers. Ace, on her knees, took his other hand.
‘ Adieu, ’ He coughed. ‘ “Adieu,” dit le mourant au miroir qu’ on lui tend, “nous ne nous verrons plus . . . ” ’
Then he stopped breathing.
Benny’s agonized eyes met Ace’s for a moment. She bent with pain, her fringe hanging down over her face, pressing his limp hand to her heart.
Ace just sat there, cross-legged, looking at the flower. It spasmed, started to wilt, suddenly turned completely grey. She reached down and plucked the dead thing from his shoulder. Its roots came away easily, limp and slick with blood.
Almost immediately, he coughed and took a deep breath. ‘Thought so,’ said Ace weakly.
The Doctor’s eyes fluttered open. They were already changing back to their natural blue. ‘That feels so much better,’ he sighed.
Ship’s mind was made of bric-a-brac, bits and pieces from thousands of stolen minds. As piece after piece of the living vessel died, its collection of junk began to shake loose.
There was Sedjet’s memory of the view from the top of the Great Pyramid, unravelled from the knot of Ship’s group mind.
There was Ms Cohen’s terror of hyperspace, a sharp sliver of emotion split away from the gestalt.
The junk tumbled from Ship’s closet, faster and faster. There were memories of childhood and battle and sex, someone’s talent for the harp, someone’s taste for chocolate, someone’s faith in their god and someone else’s faith in the scientific method. A sunny day, a teddy bear, a hospital ceiling, a Draconian marriage, a school play, the Shi’wod dancing ritual, onion soup. Distilled moments of humanity and a hundred other species, blowing away into the Vortex like streamers of light.
The jagged, ragged remains of Ship rolled, convulsed, burst like a balloon, and were carried away on the wind into oblivion.
193
Chapter 17
Exit the Warrior
Heroing is one of the shortest-lived professions there is.
(Will Rogers, 1925)
Benny spent the night on the roof, watching Paris ripping itself apart. Someone, she thought, ought to stay on guard.
She wished she knew the names of the buildings. Huge palaces, museums, libraries – set ablaze, one after the other, great columns of smoke rising and spreading to blot out the brilliant stars.
At about one in the morning, the entire dome of a building was blown off, with a crump! even louder than the cannons and shells. Nicolas’s house seemed far from the action,