Doctor Who_ Sleepy - Kate Orman [72]
‘Who makes the memory RNA?’
Benny’s eyes opened.
‘I don’t think I’m going to get much sleep on the way back either,’ said Roz.
The Doctor walked through the forest, his hands clasped behind his back. There was nothing but foliage for miles around him, the smell of flowers and leaves, rain-soaked soil.
The drone remained silent, trailing along after him and scooting under the odd branch. He was enjoying the brief moment of peace.
White’s training in telepathy had been military, brutal, cursory. He knew how to use his powers only to command his troops, or to extract information. He had no finesse, no style.
He didn’t even notice when the Doctor slid around his defences and took a snapshot of the contents of his conscious mind. He was too busy pretending to be some sort of psychic vampire, grabbing hold of an obvious and painful memory, wrenching it loose.
If the situation hadn’t been so serious, the Doctor would have found White funny.
But the Colonel was nervous. The Doctor had been right: he had no orders; he couldn’t work out what was going to happen.
And the life of every person on the planet depended on his decisions. It wouldn’t do to have someone nervous in that position.
They had to resolve this, and soon; he couldn’t wait for Benny and Roz any longer. Receiving orders from DKC
would smooth White’s ruffled feathers — but what would the orders be? A scorched Yemaya policy?
So he followed the voice shouting DOCTOR! DOCTOR! , deeper and deeper into the woods.
Madhanagopal was on his third cup of coffee. He sat in his office with his back to the door, staring up at Saturn’s rings.
Sometimes he reached out for those dancing rocks with his mind. He could stretch that far, at a pinch, though even his power was too weak to do anything at such a distance.
But he could feel the surface of the stones, their coldness and weight.
The others were going to kill him.
Possibly literally. If there was something La Fraternité didn’t approve of, it was publicity. And the ladies had not only made off with rather more information than they ought to have, but had his latest RNA flowing in their veins in the form of delivery viruses.
It was as though they had planned the entire expedition.
It was as though they were agents of one of the Brotherhood’s enemies.
And GRUMPY, as usual, was less than forthcoming.
He’d had a good look inside their heads, that was certain, but he was keeping himself to himself. He wouldn’t even say where they came from.
Madhanagopal sighed, resting his coffee cup on his knee. No matter how he tweaked the computer’s personality, it — well, it had a mind of its own. Its identity evolved by itself, Spontaneously, unpredictably, like a human, of course.
Sometimes he felt like a tired father with a troublesome teenage son. It wasn’t very professional, surely, anthropomorphizing something which was an anthropomorphization to begin with.
It must have been GRUMPY they had been after — the Brotherhood’s latest experiment. And one of its most successful. But why? How could they have known the machine’s significance? And how had they escaped? It was like magic.
The Brotherhood, if they were in their usual paranoid mood, would blame it all on le Docteur.
If only he had been able to make them understand.
Everyone deserved to have their psi potential realized. That was what the RNA created by GRUMPY would ensure, distributed in vaccinations, medicines, transfusions... In their natural state, with their powers blocked or barely noticeable, people were barely human. They couldn’t hope to understand what they were missing until it was done to them. For them.
He brought the small videophone into view, keeping his hands folded on his chest. Saturn and its rings soothed his mind, so immense and cold, unmoved by any of the little troubles of the human race.
The phone hovered levelly at head height, to his left. He input the long number, waited patiently while his call was routed through a dozen satellites. He could make up a story, cover the whole thing up. But what would be the point? If the others