Doctor Who_ Sleepy - Kate Orman [52]
The five of them were in intense telepathic rapport, trading information, asking and answering, fast and pure.
Eating the news, as the Maasai would say. Yellow’s lips were moving, meaningless shapes, as her speech centre struggled to keep up.
The Doctor could imagine what it would be: nothing personal, no part of their own essences. They kept their professional work cordoned off in a separate section of their brain. At this moment, they let that section open, exposed it to the light. Everything they’d done today, everything they’d seen or heard, draining into White’s own memory, compared, sorted, catalogued and filed.
It was over in a moment, the tension snapping, fading to nothing. White took his hands off the table, looked a question at the Doctor.
The Time Lord shook his head. ‘You haven’t asked me why the missing people left the dome,’ he said.
I’m not interested,’ said White. ‘But tell me about the temple. What made you think that was where the escapees were heading?’
‘There just aren’t that many landmarks in the area,’ said the Doctor, drumming his fingers on the table. ‘And I’m afraid their imaginations wrote more into the site than is really there.’
White nodded. ‘Tell me, Doctor, what are your funeral arrangements?’
The Doctor stopped drumming.
‘I was just wondering,’ said White. ‘It must be difficult to know where you’ll end up. Who you will be with when you die.’
‘To tell you the truth,’ said the Doctor, ‘it’s not something I’d given a great deal of thought to.’ The Colonel was watching him intently. ‘I suppose I had... assumed I’d be in the hands of my enemies.’
‘There must have been so many of those.’ ‘Tell me,’ said the Doctor, ‘what is it you want from me?’ You’ve already guessed. White’s voice was cool inside his head. I want your eyes.
‘I beg your pardon?’
I want everything you’ve seen with them. All those enemies. All the friends. All the different worlds you’ve visited. All the places and times. I want to go travelling with you, travelling through your memories.
The lieutenants had not heard. White took a deep breath and said, ‘The testing is going to take at least another day, though the colonists are being very cooperative.’
The Doctor was still staring at him. ‘Have you shot anyone yet?’
‘No, but I don’t imagine it’ll be much longer before we do.
There have been plenty of rebellious thoughts, now that the initial shock is wearing off.’ The trooper had returned with coffee. ‘Perhaps it all seems like the scurrying of ants to you.
Human beings quarrelling amongst themselves.’
The Doctor was sitting absolutely still, his voice quiet in the darkened room. ‘If you kill even a single person, you’re going to answer to me for it.’
‘And what if it’s you?’ said White.
As though either of them was joking.
Perhaps — for the time being — the Doctor had his villain.
12 Thin End of the Cwej
Benny was snoring in the bath when Wolsey came in, nosing the door open. The air was still steamy, the floor moist where water had sloshed over the sides of the bath.
Wolsey hopped up onto the side of the tub and dipped into the water, drinking tiny pawfuls of the warm stuff, luxuriating. His previous owner hadn’t let him do this, chasing him away indignantly with a soggy loofah. Benny even let him drink out of the tap.
The human’s arms were hooked over the sides of the bath, a massive, deep metal tub. She and the others had been away for days; Wolsey had had no-one but his food machine for company. The thing squeaked about on a pair of oversized wheels, moving at random around the white corridors. He had to find and catch it if he wanted something to eat. This did not amuse him.
Now Benny and Roz were back, which was halfway there. They weren’t paying him sufficient attention, however.
He inched around the tub and stuck his nose in Benny’s damp hair. She still smelt faintly of alien soil. He meowed in her ear.
Benny opened her eyes and made a face at the tabby.
‘Fancy a