Doctor Who_ Sleepy - Kate Orman [45]
The boy thought about it for a moment. ‘Turn around again,’ he said.
The Doctor stayed where he was. The boy was half a head taller than he was, would probably keep growing until he was over six feet tall. Assuming DKC didn’t crumple him up and throw him away. Or he wasn’t gunned down by aliens or humans on some airless world.
Or worse, shooting clerks and raping farmers, trampling their fields beneath his laser-reflective boots. He might grow up, but he’d be locked in at the age of seventeen, a little boy’s eyes looking out of a murderer’s face.
It was obvious the child hadn’t killed anyone yet. It was a good thing he wasn’t going to start today.
The Doctor turned around.
The Yemayan sun — Yemaya proper, in fact — was just peeping over the tops of the trees, colouring the low clouds a seashell pink. If the colonists were careful with it, this was going to be a beautiful place to live.
Benny, meanwhile, was having hysterics.
Roz grabbed hold of her and shook her, one-handed.
Will you stop that!’ she yelled.
‘They can’t just do that!’ shrieked the younger woman.
‘They can’t just shoot him!’
The troopers watched, faintly embarrassed. ‘Listen to me,’ said Roz. ‘I’m a nurse. Just breathe deeply and slowly.’
She glanced at Byerley, hoping she sounded vaguely convincing.
‘But he hasn’t done anything!’ Benny burst into tears.
‘They can’t, they can’t!’
Byerley helped Roz lift the woman onto the examining bench. She batted at their hands, pathetically.
‘I told them he was my uncle,’ she whispered, between the tears.
‘Do you want me to slap you?’ said Roz, loudly, covering up Byerley’s muttered, ‘They know.’
Dot was watching from the floor, bewildered. ‘He’s up to something,’ Benny managed, between screaming. ‘Didn’t you see the look on his face?’
‘What now?’ whispered Byerley.
Forrester gripped Benny’s shoulders. ‘Get yourself under control,’ she said loudly. ‘We don’t want to make the soldiers nervous.’ She glanced around at Turquoise.
‘For goodness’ sake,’ said the lieutenant, ‘don’t you people have better sense than to try and conspire in front of a telepath?’
‘All right,’ said White. ‘Stop.’
The Doctor smiled. ‘I knew you couldn’t resist,’ he said.
He turned back. The trooper was haring it across the field, back to the dome. Colonel White was standing there, wearing reflective armour and a poker face.
He was in his fifties, with a moustache the colour of snow. He was six feet tall, broad and muscular under the angular armour, his gloved hands folded on his chest. There was a flash on his breastplate, a blue dot surrounded by a blue circle. The DKC logo.
‘I was hoping you’d offer some information in exchange for your life,’ said White.
‘You also panicked. You weren’t expecting an alien.’ The Doctor tilted his head on one side. ‘And you weren’t told Dione-Kisumu is responsible for the contaminated vaccine. I hope you’re not going to be tedious and pin the blame on me?’
‘I’m not making any decisions until I have all the facts,’
said White. ‘In the meantime, here are a few facts for you.
You don’t have any human rights. I could have you tortured to death, with absolute impunity. Or shot on the spot, as you already know.’
‘You’d better send someone who knows what they’re doing. I thought that poor boy was going to burst into tears.’
‘I didn’t want someone who’d kill you easily. I wanted you to have a chance to think about it.’
‘Think about this.’ The Doctor stepped up to White, looked up at him. ‘Someone carefully added a genetic time-bomb to the vaccines you sold these colonists. You’ll find out all about it when you do your medical tests. And you’ — he waved a finger under White’s nose — ‘you weren’t informed about it before being sent on this mission. Why? Why was that DNA tampered with in the first place? You won’t find any of the answers you want here. They’re all back home on Dione.’
‘That’s irrelevant,’ said White.
‘Is it?’ The Doctor stepped back, eyeing White, his back to the rising sun. ‘Is it indeed? You’re not here to investigate this at all.’
White wasn’t interested. ‘You