Doctor Who_ Sleepy - Kate Orman [51]
He gave her a smile as she set the bowl down in front of him, and she smiled back, involuntarily.
The lieutenants and their colonel ate in silence. The Doctor glanced at the cutlery, and wondered if playing the spoons might be taking it a bit far.
If they were listening to him at all — that is, if they were taking any notice of him telepathically — they might hear his mental humming. If they listened more carefully, they might recognize the tune as a fugue in G minor. Bach, nice and fiddly, with four voices going round and round. He’d met the composer after sawing his way very badly through the cello line of a chorale in Leipzig. Johann had been so irritated he had invited him to dinner in order to tell him off.
Being around this many highly trained telepaths made him a little nervous. He needed to make sure he didn’t give anything away. And by this stage there was a fair bit to give away. How much longer could he keep White convinced that everything was running smoothly?
He had got to know Cinnabar’s AIs very well indeed during the day, communicating with them in short bursts of typing, in between all the tedious paperwork that the Company’s testing required. They had abbreviated, cartoon personalities, limited fields of interest. But he hadn’t had to persuade them to help him against DKC — they were opposed to the invasion, actually angry.
They knew everything that was going on. BAR B ran the colony’s entire sensor net. The first thing the troopers had done was to install cameras wherever they didn’t plan to leave guards, so BAR B had a view of almost every part of the habitat dome and the area immediately around it.
CONNECTICUT had been monitoring communications between the troopers and the ship — though of course the ones who really mattered, White and his lieutenants, weren’t using electronics. WATCH OUT! had been helping the Doctor access the colony’s records, tidying up any fingerprints he left behind while he made alterations. The Company personnel, of course, weren’t taking any notice of them at all — they were just three of hundreds of programs that helped keep the base operational.
The AIs reminded him of something. Eyes, watching, not there when you turned around...
Fish came next, with honey carrots. The western cuisine was White’s choice, presumably. The Doctor ate the carrots (flavoured yeast, but well-camouflaged) and stared rather despondently down at the fish (genuine). It stared back at him, glazed and melancholy.
He had to find out what was in the forest, calling. And he needed a clear opponent; he needed someone or something he could weigh up. White and his tedious troopers were just
— just wandering monsters. Incidental to the plot. He needed a villain.
It wasn’t a simple matter of following the beacon back to its source. It was so raw, so loud, that when you got close it was a roar of gibberish coming at you from all sides. You couldn’t pinpoint a single source in that telepathic hurricane.
The troopers had finished their search for the missing people. Of the eight colonists who’d made it outside the dome, two had made it to the temple, and one had broken her leg on the way. It was such an obvious candidate, not so much a Turtle as a herring. Poor Chris Cwej had gone there expecting to be consumed by some ancient terror.
But the other colonists had spread out, all moving generally north-east, but in very different directions. One was still missing. Possibly she’d found the beacon. More likely she’d simply died of exposure, and the Company ‘thopters simply hadn’t found the body yet.
His eye hurt.
The waiter cleared away the dishes and disappeared.
White looked at the Doctor for the first time, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. ‘Dessert,’ he said quietly.
The officers put their hands on the table in front of them.
Yellow closed her eyes; the others only lowered their lids, like meditating monks, focusing on nothing.
And bang! the air was full of electricity, like the humming of