Doctor Who_ So Vile a Sin - Ben Aaronovitch [73]
The Doctor rapped on the sphere with a knuckle. It chimed like a champagne glass. ‘Now we’ve got that out of the way,’ he said,
‘why don’t you tell me why you brought me here?’
The sphere flared with light, the images beginning to solidify.
They showed scenes from the planets the Empress reigned over, flashing in rhythm, like a slide show. Hundreds of images. A waterfall on the Skag world. A great oxygen factory on Lacaille 8760. A citadel on Sense-Sphere. Solos. Japetus. The Androzanies. The images pulsed steadily.
‘This is who you are, isn’t it?’ said the Doctor softly. ‘Your body’s kept alive while your mind is slaved to Centcomp. The computer runs your Empire.’
The images stopped, the sphere’s surface a rich luminous black.
‘It’s true, isn’t it? You can see into every corner of the Empire you’ve built over the last century and a half. You can watch every planet as its population is killed or enslaved, its resources ripped free. You can see every act of genocide.’
‘I like to watch.’
The Doctor jerked back at the voice. ‘I hope you enjoy it,’ he said, very quietly. ‘It’s all you can do.’
‘Yes.’
He breathed on to the surface of the globe, wiping away an imaginary speck. The Empress’s skull face rested on the glass inside, looking at him with hollow eyes. ‘It seems like a fair exchange,’ he said.
‘Explain.’
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‘You have absolute power over the human-occupied area of this galaxy. You’re an insane, genocidal lunatic whose random word can kill a million people. In exchange for which –’ He waved at the globe.
‘So what did she say to you?’ said Genevieve.
I love you.
‘Nothing in particular,’ said the Doctor.
I’ve been dancing with you for centuries. Always dancing so fast, my love, a flashing, flickering movement just out of my reach.
I am the first Empress. I contain the memories of every President of Earth. Downloaded into me, or rather the bloated mass of records I have access to. Oh, I know you destroyed so many traces of your existence. You went to great lengths to cover your tracks through our history.
But I followed your dance. A sighting here, a paragraph in a military report there… I reconstructed some of what you’d destroyed, and guessed the rest, imagining what you had done, what you might have done. What clues you might have left for me to find, your partner in the dance, distant in time but always watching, watching.
Did you know I was there? Did you know a pair of sunken eyes and an electronic mind were staring, wherever you went, whatever you did? You must have known, my love. Must have known that the records were what it was all for. The lives you saved were nothing – they would end anyway. The places you saved would be built over, forgotten. Only the records remained.
Only I was left. Watching, watching.
That’s why I wanted you here. That’s why I was delighted, overwhelmed with grief and joy when I realized you were here, here at last, in my space, in my time, in my grasp.
You’re the outsider, you see. That’s what the dance was all about, always – the free agent interacting with the soldiers, with 171
the ministers, with the corporate raiders and the spies, but coming away untouched, still free, never part of the system.
You’ve got no alliances. You don’t belong to any faction.
There’s nothing you want here, no intrigue you’re involved in, no blackmail you’re entangled in. You can act freely. You’re alone in that, my love.
That’s why I wanted you here. You have nothing to gain or lose by ripping out the power cords and destroying the backup systems and smashing open my life-support globe and watching me, watching, making sure that I die.
‘She did ask me to end her life, though.’
Genevieve was surprised. ‘Is that going to be your defence?’
‘Everyone wants to know who I was working for. They’ve asked a lot of questions about Duke Walid.’
‘I’m not surprised. He’s very high on the list of possible successors.’
‘I’d advise him not to take the job, if I were you,’ said the Doctor. ‘You don’t have to be crazy to work here… She suppressed the security systems while we