Doctor Who_ Sleepy - Kate Orman [28]
The scrapbook was a bizarre mix of clippings — different newspapers, different languages, different centuries. In true Doctor-ish style, there didn’t seem to be any logical order to any of it.
A lot of the stuff was hard copy — newsfax, printouts of Web pages. There was the occasional article that had been copied out in the Doctor’s elaborate longhand, and even more occasionally something had been scribbled down in what she assumed was Gallifreyan.
There was a big red circle drawn in marker around the clipping about Yemaya. It was printed out from some commercial news agency on Earth. There was no picture.
The headline said, INFANT COLONY UP IN FLAMES.
The rescue ship had found only a small group of survivors. They weren’t named. They babbled about mysterious powers, about unexplained explosions and fires that started by themselves. Their domes had been razed to the ground. There was nothing left of the colony but a wide circle of charred earth.
Thing was, the disaster should’ve happened two days ago. They’d already diverted the river of history. Possibly they could just walk out of here and leave the colonists to sort themselves out.
But the Doctor had found himself a mystery. You know, Roz told herself, if you ever need to distract him, just tip a box of jigsaw pieces onto the floor. Like that Chinese story where they make the ghost count all the grains of rice. He won’t be able to move until he’s found out what the picture is.
Benny was wearing a white summer dress when she went to Dot SmithSmith’s office. Zaniwe grinned at her from the filing cabinet. ‘That’s great! Are you looking forwards?’
‘I can’t wait. I just hope they can get through the ceremony without Byerley actually falling asleep.’
‘Poor boy, he’s frazzled.’
‘Well, Cinnabar managed to make him lie down. He ought to get a few hours’ kip before the wedding. In the meantime, I’ve got something for you.’
Benny handed Zaniwe the Doctor’s partial translation of the poem. ‘Hey, this is great! Dot’s run out of steam. She’s got the grammatical structure sorted out, but we just don’t have enough words. Here, take a look.’
She tapped at the keyboard of Dot’s desktop computer, spun it around. The screen had three columns: Benny’s transcript, a literal translation, and an English rendition:
In the ?Queen’s temple
The young men are ?screaming
Their voices like the rain.
‘Well, that’s cheerful,’ said Benny.
‘Those lines are the core of the repetition,’ said Zaniwe.
‘You can see them repeated, in different orders, here, and here, and here... And of course the question marks mean we’re not completely sure. That round symbol indicates royalty — we’ve guessed “Queen”, because it seems to be a
“she”.’
‘The Doctor says the Ikkaba used to immolate themselves voluntarily,’ said Benny.
‘Euw,’ said Zaniwe. ‘Good thing they’re not still around, then.’
Chris and the Doctor strolled a little way away from the habitat dome. A cool breeze was blowing. The Doctor pushed his hands into the pockets of his jacket.
Chris tugged awkwardly at a tight strap on his armour.
He supposed the Doctor was making sure they were out of earshot — and out of telepathic range.
You would never know the planet was falling apart.
People worked in the fields, hovertractors burring as they ploughed and planted. A large group were constructing a new dome, like a barn-raising party. Two kids were flying a huge, rainbowcoloured kite. Out here, you didn’t see the whispered conversations, the panic in the infirmary, the arguments and the nervous looks.
That was why Roz was making sure they both kept their armour on, and their blasters charged. Oh, the colony had its own security — but twenty part-time officers with stunners weren’t going to make much of a difference if things really flared up.
The Doctor was headed for a wide open space, bounded by three wide circles of charred and melted rock. The colonists had been planted by an interplanetary