Doctor Who_ Sleepy - Kate Orman [91]
Doctor, said the computer, can I ask you something?
‘Yes?’
Am I a good person?
The Doctor raised an eyebrow.
I can’t remember anything I did before coming here. You must know some of my history. Am I a worthwhile person?
Am I good or evil? Do I deserve all this?
‘If you’re looking for a moral judgment,’ said the Doctor,
‘I’m afraid you’re asking very much the wrong person.’
Who can I ask?
The Doctor put his hands into his pockets. ‘You’ll have to ask yourself. Once you’re feeling yourself again.’
A repair team were just starting work on the shuttle’s damaged engine, laser torches flashing as the air filled with a scorching smell. The Doctor strode away from the excavation.
Chesinen caught his arm as he went past. He looked up at the young woman.
‘Tell me something,’ she said. ‘Do you have us wrapped around your little finger?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘White said that. He said you were running the show.’
The Doctor laughed softly. ‘Had I been present at the Creation, I would have given some useful hints for the better ordering of the universe.’
‘What?’
‘If anyone’s running this show,’ said the Doctor, ‘it’s SLEEPY. Why don’t you go and talk to him?’
Dot had been through every room in the house. She couldn’t call out, but it didn’t matter, of course; Kylie wasn’t going to answer a call. If she wanted to be found, she would have got into the TARDIS with her parents.
Dot sat down on the sofa and put her head in her hands.
Peter and Simone had been beside themselves. She’d gone with them to the hydroponics dome. It had been madness, complete chaos, children and parents running everywhere, gradually sorting themselves into little knots.
Peter had found Kylie, gone into hysterics. Dot stood with her sister, who was quietly sobbing. She was astonished when the younger woman turned and buried her face in her shoulder. She couldn’t remember the last time they had touched one another.
Zaniwe had come over, a small girl riding piggyback with her hands clasped on the African woman’s chest. «I thought you must be dead,» she signed.
«They just locked me in a room and left me there,»
signed Dot around Simone’s quaking body.
Zaniwe made a disgusted motion with her hands.
Simone untangled herself from her sister, knelt down with her husband and child. «You don’t understand,» Dot signed. «All of this is my fault.» I deserved it, don’t you understand?
«Don’t be crazy. How could you be responsible for all this?»
Dot just shook her head. «There’s a way off this planet,»
she said. She looked down at her family. «We have to get everyone out of here. Will you help me get them into the Doctor’s vehicle?»
«Done,» Zaniwe had said. And out loud, ‘Right, Heather, we’re going for a ride in a spaceship!’
That had been last night. Dot had spent twenty angry minutes in the infirmary, rummaging through drawers and cupboards in search of her translation drone. At last she’d dug it up from under a pile of DKC paperwork, hard copies of their medical reports. The batteries were flat. She spent another ten minutes trying to find some spares in her office.
Everything was out of place, her computer full of DKC files.
Was there any place those barbarians hadn’t left their mess?
She shoved the batteries into the drone, furious. Almost immediately it flashed brightly and printed out a message, the short piece of paper curling into her hand. We’re missing Kylie; come to the TARDIS! Zaniwe.
When she got there, Jenny was going over a printed list of the colonists’ names. The long line had dwindled to fewer than a hundred people, carrying whatever they’d managed to grab. Mostly kids. It didn’t look odd to her at all that they were piling into a box the size of a cupboard. Strange.
Peter and Simone were shouting at Jenny. Zaniwe signed, «They went back to their dome to get the family photos. Kylie ran off into the bushes. They’ve been searching for her for hours.» They looked it, dishevelled and exhausted with long panic, twigs and leaves in their hair