Doctor Who_ Sleepy - Kate Orman [47]
Prelude...
Chris slept like a lump for four hours. They left him on a gurney in the Other Room. Dot stayed with him, sometimes smoothing the fair hair out of his eyes, holding his hand.
He woke up in dim light, exhausted.
CHRIS!
‘Oh Goddess,’ he said hoarsely.
11 Turtle Fugue
They were bringing the colonists in, one by one. Byerley said a few words to each one, his anger spilling out. Sometimes they looked at the troopers’ guns, as though they couldn’t quite believe their eyes.
The Doctor sat at a terminal, entering records. Roz had forgotten how quickly he could type, fingers literally moving too fast to follow. Checking the colonists’ names against the records, name after name: Makola D, Chadwick M, Chadwick V, Groenewegen S, Beeks V, Balekili A.
Her job was to hand Byerley things when he needed them, to fetch and carry. Occasionally to hold a child’s hand or talk an adult down from hysteria. She had to improvise all of it. She would have made a bloody awful nurse.
And she was trying to think about nothing, to fill up her head with old nonsense, advertising jingles, dirty limericks, childhood memories. She had no idea how effective it would be against the lieutenant’s telepathy, whether he was even bothering to read her mind. Would she even know it if he did?
After two hours, she was exhausted.
She watched the Doctor’s monitor over his shoulder. His hands seemed to be jumping all over the keyboard, as though he were randomly choosing which button would be hit by which finger. Or as if he were typing two things at once, like someone playing a fugue. She wondered when —
He was typing two things at once. The main window was filling up with medical details and gene sequences. There was a much smaller one in the corner of the screen, just large enough for a couple of words at a time. The same words over and over again, in Xhosa: Roz, if you can read this, say ‘coffee’.
‘Urn,’ said Roz. ‘Would anyone like some coffee?’
No-one took any notice of her. The lieutenant was talking to one of the four troopers who were keeping the queue moving; the colonists were too cowed to answer.
All right so far.
Stay near me, shielding me, typed the Doctor. I’m adding you Chris Benny to colony’s records. Roz saw the little row of icons across the bottom of the screen: Cinnabar’s artificial intelligences were quiet for once.
‘What about you?’ Roz asked.
‘None for me, thanks,’ said the Doctor, his eyes not leaving the screen. White knows I’m an alien, it’s a bargaining chip. Doesn’t know about TARDIS. You Benny back in time. More details later. Go along for now.
He closed the window with a punch of a button. Roz looked up at the lieutenant, was startled to see him looking right at her.
After a moment his gaze moved, looking around the room. Had he heard?
Inexplicably, there was a tune running around inside her head. She didn’t recognize it. She guessed the Doctor probably would.
She went to check Chris.
‘Okay, everyone,’ said Benny. ‘Mr Francis says, “Sit down!”’
The children obediently sat down. Well, except for the ones who stayed standing up, or kept running around. Benny sighed and waved Mr Francis at them. ‘If you don’t sit down,’
she shouted, over the excursions and alarums, ‘Mr Francis won’t tell you a story.’
There were nearly a hundred kids in the colony. About fifty of them qualified as children in the eyes of Dione-Kisumu: older than one, younger than thirteen. The others were left with their parents. Benny still wasn’t quite sure how she’d landed the task of looking after them. Four troopers had herded the screaming, sobbing mass out to the hydroponics dome.
They’d done something to the main door so that it wouldn’t open from the inside. Benny hoped there wasn’t a fire.
On the other hand, it wasn’t as though there wasn’t plenty of water about. The dome was full of plastic pipes and troughs. Tiny robots scurried about, testing pH and nutrient flow. Their lights winked and flashed as they reported back to the central computer. The younger kids kept trying to eat them.
The troopers