Doctor Who_ Sleepy - Kate Orman [36]
‘Are you all right?’ Zaniwe came around the desk. He wasn’t crying — he was just sitting there. ‘I heard about the fire — that was incredibly brave of you, running in like that.’
‘Thanks,’ he said, his voice muffled. ‘Sorry.’ He looked up. ‘I just need to know if you finished translating that poem Benny found.’
‘I don’t know — Dot was working on it before she disappeared.’
Chris looked up. ‘You’re really worried about her.’
Zaniwe sat down behind the desk and closed her eyes.
She looked exhausted. ‘I don’t need telepathy to know what this is doing to her.’
‘Your brother,’ said Chris. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to do that—’
‘It’s all right,’ said Zaniwe. ‘I’m thinking about him because he reminds me of her.’ She reached for the computer screen. ‘Simeon could hear just a little bit. When he was about thirteen, he asked for an implant.’
‘What happened?’
‘He spent about the first month completely disoriented and terrified. I remember him crying, asking Mom and Dad to take it back out again; but of course it isn’t reversible. He just couldn’t stand all that noise.’
Chris nodded. ‘Yes. Yes, that’s what it’s like.’
‘He got used to it in the end, but it took him a year.’
‘And that’s how Dot feels now.’
‘It’s not just that. Simeon always said he was... someone else once he had the implant. He used to call it his
“reincarnation”. He was always terrified he would forget how to sign. It was crazy, really... yes, it looks like she finished the translation. Here, take a look.’
She spun the screen around. Chris scanned the words.
The smell of burning cedarwood reaches me, Cinnamon and rosewater.
I can never quite get it out of my clothes.
He bit his lip, nodding to himself, as though that was exactly what he expected to see.
‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ said Zaniwe.
‘I know where they’re going,’ he said cryptically. He got up and wandered out.
‘Chris?’ Zaniwe followed him into the darkened corridor.
But he didn’t look back.
‘Doctor,’ said Byerley.
‘Doctor,’ said the Doctor absently. He was huddled over a cup of tea, made from a teabag he’d dug out of a pocket.
When the Time Lord didn’t look up, Byerley glanced at Bernice, who was sitting in a corner of his office, her arms folded. She shrugged at him, ever so slightly.
‘I’ve got Dot sedated,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m very much afraid she’s going to be beyond my help. Unless there’s anything more you can tell me about her condition.’
He sat down opposite the Doctor and rapped his knuckles on the desk.
The Time Lord looked up at him. He didn’t seem to be drinking the tea, just clinging to it. His left eye was bloodshot, the vessels broken in a jagged pattern of scarlet on white.
‘She’s going to be the first of many,’ he said softly. ‘How quickly will DKC be able to get a ship here?’
‘If they send one from their base on Sunyata — that was our last stop before Yemaya — less than thirty-six hours.’
The Doctor went back to brooding over his tea.
‘Doctor,’ said Benny. ‘Three people have gone missing.
When we got back to base, we realized that Chinoi wasn’t with us. We checked, and two more people have gone as well.’
‘God,’ said Byerley, ‘if only we hadn’t lost our psychiatrist... I’ve got Zinkiewicz tranked in there as well. I don’t know what else to do with her. Poor woman, she just couldn’t get the pyrokinesis to stop once it had started — she nearly set the infirmary on fire.’
The Doctor wasn’t listening. ‘How many people have been hearing voices?’ he asked Benny.
‘That’s what Chinoi said.’ She didn’t look at him. ‘That he’d heard a voice calling his name. Do you know what’s going on?’
‘Where’s Chris?’
‘With Roz, I think. I’m not sure.’
‘Find out,’ said the Doctor.
Benny didn’t look at him as she went out of the office.
Byerley said, ‘This is it, isn’t it? The beginning of the end.’
‘It’s too elaborate,’ said the Doctor. ‘There’s too much detail for it to simply be an experiment. Not just the psi gene, but the memory RNA. Not just the powers, but the voices calling... It’s entirely