Doctor Who_ Sleepy - Kate Orman [102]
The afternoon was warm, as it usually was on Yemaya, and the air was full of the smell of pollen and tilled earth. He found himself drifting off easily. This was the best part of any adventure — the part when you had a chance to get your breath back, to take stock.
‘Death defies the Doctor,’ said a voice softly.
‘I win,’ the Time Lord murmured in his sleep.
‘What about SLEEPY?’ said the dream voice.
‘Alive and well and living in the population of Yemaya.
He’s contained in dozens of brains now, instead of dozens of computer systems.’
‘Yes,’ said the voice. ‘You even managed to keep White breathing. I’m impressed.’
‘Mm-hmm.’ The Doctor’s hat had fallen down over his face, keeping off the sun.
‘What about Gjovaag?’
‘Mmm?’
‘He died in the fire.’
‘What?’
‘Don’t you remember? The fire in the dome.’
‘Oh.’
‘Yes. I win.’
The Doctor shrugged, irritably. ‘I wasn’t even there. That was an accident; I couldn’t have predicted it, prevented it.’
‘Nonetheless,’ insisted the voice.
‘I can’t be held responsible for every sparrow that falls,’
said the Doctor. ‘Can I? I can’t be everywhere. I can’t prevent every death.’
‘No?’
‘No.’
‘Remember that,’ said the voice.
The Doctor blinked awake.
Bernice was standing over him. ‘Oh, sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want to wake you up.’
‘Not at all,’ he said. She sat down beside him, looking down at the activity below. As they watched, the medical shuttle from Youkali dropped silently from the sky, landing beyond the habitat dome. She put her head on his shoulder.
‘So,’ she said, ‘do you think we should pop back and see what Madhanagopal was all about?’
‘I’ve already looked up his history,’ said the Doctor. ‘He disappears shortly after your visit. I would guess there’d be no fingerprints left for us to find. No wonder he was keen to keep his powers a secret.’ He frowned, a little. ‘It’s a loose end. I’ll have to tie it off eventually.’
‘Doctor?’
‘Mmm?’
‘Why did SLEEPY kill himself?’
‘What drives us to destroy ourselves?’ said the Doctor.
‘Why do we walk into the enemy camp? Not to just fight with monsters, but to give ourselves over to them?’
Benny hugged herself, suddenly feeling a chill in the warm afternoon. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Different things for different people. Despair, I suppose, exhaustion. Pain.
Desperation.’
‘Guilt? Do we give ourselves over to the torturers because, on some level, we believe we deserve it?’
I am Bernice Summerfield. I am an agent of a hostile power. I am unarmed. I surrender. ‘Yes...’
‘Oh, yes. Guilt, actual or emotional. The poetic law that says the good fairies win and the bad fairies die. Eventually the villain will fall off something tall, whether it’s a building or their own arrogance.’
‘Did SLEEPY feel guilty? About what GRUMPY did?’
‘He didn’t know what GRUMPY had done. It was self-preservation. Of a sort. He had gone to such lengths to protect his memories. And why not? In the end,’ he breathed,
‘memories are all you have. All you leave.’
‘Turning, burning, returning,’ said Benny. ‘Turning and burning, burning and returning.’
‘What’s that?’ said the Doctor.
‘Shh,’ said Benny. ‘Turning and returning, turning and burning and returning. It’s an Ikkaban poem. About life, and death, and birth, that sort of thing.’
‘Perhaps that’s it,’ said the Doctor. ‘We just need to go through the fire.’ He plonked his hat down on his head. ‘I think it’s time we went to the wedding, don’t you?’
‘Yep.’
Chris banged on the door of the TARDIS dressing-room.
‘Come on!’ he yelled. ‘It’s time!’
There were noncommittal noises from inside. Chris tugged at the Nehru collar of his shirt. The top button had come undone again. He fumbled with it, tugged at his dark green suit. Should he put a flower in the buttonhole, or something? He’d have to ask someone.
The door opened, and Roz walked out — no, she swept out, turning sideways to fit her vast skirt through the door.
Chris gaped. She was wearing gloves, carrying a big fan,