Doctor Who_ Sleepy - Kate Orman [18]
Heck, she hadn’t even brought any booze.
‘I’ve even got the knack of this bloody tent,’ she said out loud, pushing it back from the opening at the front. It obligingly accordioned back until it was only a foot long, leaving the rip still visible. She picked it up, tipped it to get the last of the water out, and hung it on the tree.
Zaniwe handed her a lukewarm cube, still in its wrapper.
She tugged at the plastic, and a small burst of spinach-flavoured steam escaped into the chilly morning air.
‘So what’s a nice girl like you doing on a frontier world like this?’ said Zaniwe.
‘Oh, we just dropped in,’ Benny obfuscated. ‘We travel a lot. And the Doctor’s always poking his nose into other people’s business.’
‘I am glad you are here.’ Jenny was perched on a rock, breaking off little pieces of crumbly cube in her fingers. ‘It is just surprising to encounter travellers this far out.’
Change the subject. ‘What made you decide to come here?’
Zaniwe laughed. ‘We were bored. It’s very boring being stuffed into a three-metre-by-three-metre flat. It’s very very boring to have a degree in xenobiology and no aliens to study.’
Jenny said, ‘We have a plan. It is not legitimate to name a species after oneself. Therefore, as we classify Yemaya’s flora and fauna, we will name them after one another.’
Benny giggled. ‘You could really make it big,’ she said, ‘if you can study the planet’s previous inhabitants.’ A sudden thought hit her. ‘You don’t suppose they’re not previous at all...’
Jenny looked around at the trees. Zaniwe shook her head. ‘Come on, those ruins are ruins. Even from the photos, it’s obvious that they haven’t been in use for a long, long time.’
Make no assumptions.
‘I’d better try and patch up this tent.’
As she walked back to the tree, her boot collided with something. She looked down, then squatted.
It was a long, sharp rock, sticking up like a blunt shark’s fin from the soil. ‘I think,’ she said, fingering the edge, ‘I’ve found out how my tent got holed.’
There was something odd about the rock. She tugged at it, and it came away from the soil easily. It was heavier than she’d expected.
And there was writing on it.
Benny stared at the red shapes behind the dirt. She brushed at the stone with her fingers, trying to make it out more clearly. This was going to be one of the easier archaeological discoveries ever made.
‘What is it?’ said Jenny, coming over to take a look.
‘Ye gods and little fishes,’ said Benny aloud.
Jenny peered at the piece of rock. No. The piece of metal.
It said, in faded letters, DO NOT.
4 The Queen’s Temple
The Doctor had been awake all night, but that was normal for him. One good night’s sleep could last him a couple of weeks.
Byerley was not so fortunate. Cinnabar had dispatched Cwej and Forrester to remove her fiancé bodily from the lab and bring him home. Now she was watching the Doctor finish off their research, typing so fast on the little medical computer that she could barely follow.
‘Do you think you’re going to be able to find a cure?’ she said.
‘I’m not sure. Yet.’ He tapped the computer screen, and a DNA diagram appeared. ‘The lab work’s done. We’ve sequenced the virus. I’m hoping we can use what we’ve learned about its genetic code to build our own virus. One which switches the latent genes back off again.’
‘Fighting fire with fire.’
‘Yes. But look here. That code takes up only this much of the virus.’ He pointed to the diagram.
‘That’s only about a quarter. What’s the rest of it for?’
‘We’re still trying to work that out. This sequence particularly worries me.’
Cinnabar peered at the sequence as though it meant something to her. ‘What is it?’
‘It codes for part of the protein coat of the common cold.
The part which allows it to attach itself to human cells.’
She was going to make a joke, when she realized what he meant. ‘Then it could be transmitted the same way as a cold. Through the air.’
The Doctor nodded. ‘We’ve been able to isolate the actual protein. The gene’s only