Doctor Who_ Sleepy - Kate Orman [25]
‘Cleaning up,’ wrote Benny on her notepad. ‘Want to wait?’
«For God’s sake, speak English.»
Benny made a face as Dot turned back to the transcription. The deaf woman traced a long finger over the sketch of the symbols from the top of the temple. «Do you recognize these?»
Benny was writing, ‘No, do you?’ when the drone spoke up.
«Yes, I do. I want to do this one piece at a time. Starting from the beginning.»
Benny frowned, putting down her notepad. Dot tapped her finger on the first of the symbols. She put her right hand on top of her left hand and flicked her thumbs forwards, once, again: «Tortoise.»
Dot smiled tightly at Benny’s surprise. «T-U-R-T-L-E,»
she fingerspelled, just for emphasis.
‘But the Turtle cult wasn’t discovered until next century,’
said Benny out loud, involuntarily. ‘How can you—’
«I’ve written an encyclopedia on Exxilon culture and its derivatives. Haven’t you read it?»
Benny stared at her, long and hard. Dot held absolutely still, glaring back at her. The drone hummed awkwardly, trying to read her body language.
Benny deliberately turned her back, looking at a chart on the wall behind her, and said, ‘We only study your encyclopedia in lectures on the history of archaeology.’
«If you’re from the future,» said the drone, «why didn’t you simply bring a translation back with you?»
Benny turned around again. Dot was still absolutely rigid, but a single tear was meandering down her cheek.
‘You heard me,’ said Benny.
«I did not,» said the drone.
Benny picked up her notepad. ‘SICKBAY’, she wrote in huge letters.
Dot collapsed back in her chair, almost knocking the drone aside. «Who has done this to us?» she signed, convulsively. Her fist clenched as she moved her index finger in a tiny circle, over and over. «Who? Who?»
Chris Cwej sat by himself in the common area. Burning.
Couldn’t get the canopy open saw the wall coming up managed to get the emergency release to work and jumped free got caught in the blast.
There were two men sitting at the next table, talking heatedly. ‘Look, it would only be a temporary measure.’
‘Oh yes? And if the changes are permanent?’
Are you saying we should just let telepaths walk around?
With no way of knowing who they are?’
‘You tell me. You tell me what comes after making them wear an identity marker. Sewing patches on their crukking clothes?’
‘It’s nothing like that.’
‘And what about you? I hear your boy is a psychokinetic now. What kind of marker do you think he should wear?’
‘That’s different!’ The man’s voice jumped an octave. ‘We deserve to know who might be reading our minds.’
‘Yeah, and we deserve to know who might be able to scramble us up from the inside. Even accidentally.’
‘You son of a—’
The insult was cut off by a fist.
But Chris wasn’t listening to any of it.
The fireball blasted the flitter into fragments. They rained down around him as he rolled and rolled.
Burning.
Chris!
He got up and got out of the common area as the fight burst out behind him.
Someone put their hands over the Doctor’s eyes. ‘Guess who.’
He sat back from the medical computer. ‘Ah... the Terrible Zodin?’
‘Nope.’
‘The Priestess Enheduanna.’
‘Try again.’
‘Bernice Summerfield in a silly mood?’
She gave him a hug. ‘How’d you guess?’
‘How was your field trip?’
‘Fun. It was fun. I took pages of notes. Dot SmithSmith thinks the temple’s from the Turtle cult. It’ll be quite a find, if that’s the case.’ Benny’s cheerful grin shut itself off. ‘She’s gone and caught the bug, though. She’s livid.’
‘I know. She was in here half an hour ago, railing at Byerley. I can’t say I blame her.’
‘Why? What did Byerley do?’
‘No, no, he was just the nearest target.’ He sat back from the computer and looked up at her. ‘She doesn’t care for the idea of being “cured”. Her family tried to have a cybernetic audio system implanted in her skull. She got a court order against them to stop the surgery. She was eight years old.’
Benny puffed out her cheeks. ‘No wonder the SmithSmiths were happy