Doctor Who_ Sleepy - Kate Orman [3]
But no-one had come to his rescue in the hours he’d spent in a daze on the bathroom floor. He was alone here.
Someone had laid the evening meal out on the kitchen table.
He stood in the doorway, eyeing it. Had breakfast been drugged? Something in the food that suppressed memories?
Made him homicidal with regard to looking-glasses?
He circled warily around the food, pulling open drawers and peeping in cupboards. The old Chinese crockery still in its boxes, the chipped mugs purloined from the UNIT
cafeteria. Nothing was — out of its place. Alien. Except him.
He remembered his companions’ faces from the dream.
Chris scared and trying to be professional, Roz stern and cold, Benny shattered and trying not to show it. He wished he could see them now. Talk to them.
Tomorrow he would go into town. Talk to someone. But now, he was suddenly, overwhelmingly tired, and his hand hurt. So he went to bed, and dreamed about Benny.
She was sitting in a chair. She had fallen asleep sitting up, shoulders hunched. She was wearing one of her more tattered denim jackets, over a T-shirt that said Keep the Leap. Her trousers were ex-army khaki, an Aboriginal flag patch sewn over one knee.
He was so pleased to see her that he just watched her sleep for a while. Her dark fringe hung down into her face.
There were fine lines around her eyes, and her skin was tanned from the sunlight of a hundred worlds.
He tried to imagine thirty years from now. She’d make a fabulous old lady, full of stories and laughter. Maybe with some grandchildren. He’d visit, teach them origami and stargazing.
‘I’m getting sentimental in your old age,’ he said aloud.
She startled awake, trying to pull herself together, be ready for action. But he wasn’t struggling or yelling, just lying there, watching her. The air was still, only the machines disturbing the quiet, humming like insects. Out of a window, he could see a night sky.
In this version of the nightmare, there was no strap around his neck. He lifted his head, looked around the room.
It was a cybernetics lab, probably one dredged up from an ancient memory. Goodness knew he tried to edit his memories, keep the clutter in his little brain attic down to a minimum, but there were always more. And besides, you never knew which snippet of information might be useful.
‘Twenty-third century,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Looks like a colonial set-up.’
‘Are you thirsty?’ said Benny. She was carefully checking a series of monitors. He was aware of the electrodes on his temples and behind his ears, the weight of their short antennae tugging as he moved his head.
He nodded, so she brought him a squeeze-bulb of water.
As nightmares went, this one was very calm and simple.
Tedious, even. A Hoothi would probably come in through the wall in a minute.
When she took the straw out of his mouth, he said, ‘Have you ever thought about having children?’ She almost dropped the water. ‘Sorry,’ he said.
She hovered. ‘Cinnabar says it would be a bad idea to talk to you.’
‘Cinnabar? The moth or the mineral?’ Benny didn’t answer.
Some authoritarian symbol or other, no doubt. ‘I’m sorry.
I just can’t motivate the action in this nightmare while I’m tied to this trolley.’
‘Everything’s going to be all right,’ she whispered, sitting back down in the chair.
‘Can’t you let me up? Even for a moment?’ He pulled against the bonds around his wrists. ‘I’m very uncomfortable.’
‘Are you in pain?’
‘No. I just want you to untie me. Please.’
‘Stop it,’ said Benny.
‘I’ll die here!’ He thrashed against the straps, shouting.
‘You’re killing me!’ It didn’t sound like his voice — panic wasn’t his style. But she was grabbing his head to stop him smacking it against the trolley. She was crying; people were running in. ‘Don’t you understand? I’ll die here!’
The electrodes fizzed against his scalp. He convulsed as they tightened their