Doctor Who_ Sleepy - Kate Orman [54]
She did not touch the weapons, standing at the bench in the bright TARDIS light, her eyes sweeping back and forth over them.
After a few minutes she reached down and picked up a katana. Probably authentic. Goddess knew how old it was —
subjectively or objectively. She held it out, moving the blade in tiny circles, feeling the balance and weight. Cut it through the air in a short arc, then a longer arc.
It had been a long time. It would take some practice before she’d be confident. But then, her accuracy with a sword couldn’t be any worse than her aim with a blaster.
It had suddenly occurred to Benny, warming milk on the camp stove in her bedroom, that the man who’d been burned to death hadn’t had a funeral.
She hadn’t even caught his name, but it made her profoundly melancholy as she watched the milk, making sure it didn’t form a skin. She supposed the Dione-Kisumu troopers had just zipped him up in a plastic bag and dumped him somewhere.
In a miniature community like the colony, everyone would have known him. He probably had immediate family. Kids, maybe.
She was wearing a frayed dressing-gown two sizes too large for her, with a cat embroidered onto the pocket. Wolsey was already curled on the end of her bed.
She put a saucer of warm milk down for the cat, who hopped off the bed and lapped at it happily. Benny sat down on the bed with her mug of warm milk, gazing despondently at the nutmeg on the surface.
There was a knock at the door. ‘It’s open,’ said Benny, unnecessarily.
Roz pushed it all the way open. She was wearing a white uniform so spotless and bright it was almost painful to look at, with a red cross on the shoulder. Strapped to her side was a
— sword, for goodness’ sake.
‘I’m just about to examine the insides of my eyelids,’ said Benny, taking a sip of the milk. ‘At some length.’ Wolsey stretched and jumped down, rubbing against Roz’s legs.
The Adjudicator looked down at the cat, suddenly seeming awkward. ‘This one’s yours,’ she said.
She put the sword down on Benny’s desk, and went back out.
Benny looked at it from the bed. Wolsey chirruped, and jumped up beside her. She rubbed him under the chin. ‘I think,’ she told the cat, ‘that I’m going to need this sleep.’
Chris had been dozing on the gurney when the Doctor came in. He blinked awake, leapt up, trying to look as though he were ready for action.
‘Can we talk?’ said the Doctor.
So Chris sat down. The Doctor pulled up the chair, looked up at him.
‘Are you okay?’ Chris said. ‘Are Benny and Roz okay?
How about Byerley? And Cinnabar? And Zaniwe and Jenny?
And...’ He trailed off. The Doctor was looking at him, Looking with a capital L, with a Look that made the little hairs at the base of his skull curl. ‘What is it?’ he breathed.
‘The voice kept calling you,’ said the Doctor. ‘Over and over, becoming louder and louder. Then what happened?’
Chris folded his arms, leaning back against the wall. ‘I thought...’
‘What did you think?’
‘I followed the voice. I went into the forest with a flashlight. When the flashlight ran out, I kept going, through the dark.’
‘What did you think?’
‘I got to the temple, and I... I suppose I must have stayed there for hours. I don’t know when the ‘thopter came, but it was bright, maybe noon.’
‘What did you think?’
Chris put his hands on his face. ‘I thought that the Turtle wanted me to go to the temple and that She would kill me when I got there and then I would have done what She wanted and She would stop calling me all the time and that I couldn’t get out of it and that it was my fault anyway because I hadn’t told anyone and that She would just kill me and then it would be over—’
The Doctor had grabbed hold of his wrists, pulled his hands away from his face. Chris nearly cried out at the touch of those alien blue eyes. ‘What?’ he begged, ‘What do you want? What do you want?’
‘You went to the