Doctor Who_ So Vile a Sin - Ben Aaronovitch [74]
‘Did they attempt resuscitation?’
He used a fire extinguisher to shatter the thick plastic of the globe. The Empress had been pounding uselessly on it from the inside, jerking and thrashing in her supporting fluid. The signals travelling into her withered body were turning into chaotic pulses. She hung in tubes and wires, half strangled, her flesh coming apart at the seams. When he broke the glass she was pushed out in a rush of green fluid, her limbs ripping on the plastic.
‘No.’
‘Goddess knows how many of them would have done it themselves, given the know-how,’ said Genevieve. ‘Come to think of it, why didn’t she just kill herself?’
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‘A very good question,’ said the Doctor. ‘Perhaps she couldn’t.
Perhaps she couldn’t work out how. Perhaps she couldn’t bring herself to do it. I don’t know. I do know she couldn’t bring herself to order someone else to kill her. It had to be given. Like a gift.’ He took off his hat and turned it around in his hands, looking as though there were a lot more to say. ‘I haven’t told any of the others this, you know.’
‘Why are you telling me?’
‘Why are you asking me?’
‘Perhaps I want to help you,’ said Genevieve.
‘You’ll lose your bet,’ said the Doctor.
‘Perhaps I’m just curious. I met another Doctor recently, another the Doctor. I wondered if there was some relationship.’
‘Where was this?’
‘Earth.’
‘I’m so spread out.’ said the Doctor, cryptically. ‘Even that far.
I wonder…’
‘I suppose it was an omen. The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.’
He wasn’t listening. ‘I wonder what she expected to happen.
What she meant to happen to me.’
‘Ever have the feeling that you’re missing something?’ asked Genevieve.
‘Have you ever woken up,’ said the Doctor, ‘and looked out of the window at the world, and thought, today anything could happen, today I could be anyone, today everything is possible?’
‘You are him,’ said Genevieve.
‘At the moment,’ said the Doctor, 'I’m just one of me.’ He put his hat back on. ‘She’s not finished with me yet.’
I love you. Come dance with me. Let’s make history.
The Imperial Supreme Court was like a cross between Parliament and an amphitheatre. Concentric circles of high-backed black seats, solemn (but comfortable), arranged around an oval space at the bottom. Seats for Supreme Judges and Cybertranscribers looked down on the lowest point in the courtroom, a brightly lit square.
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The Doctor was marched into the courtroom, in heavy chains he suspected had been recreated from records of the Middle Ages. He couldn’t quite march with his legs shackled, but he did manage a cheeky, casual amble, looking around the courtroom.
Despite the dimness, he made out Duke Walid, recognizing his face from the homework he’d done aboard the Hopper, sitting in front of news reports with a tub of butterscotch swirl. The Duke had dark hair, a moustache, and one blue and one brown eye.
Very high up the list of successors indeed, as Genevieve had said.
There she was, sitting beside him.
Europe’s Duke Armand would be there somewhere as well, and every member of the Imperial Council, eager to be part of this historic (though tragic, of course) occasion. According to Genevieve, they weren’t even broadcasting it. Everything was being kept hushed up until they’d got a verdict and a sentence.
After that the media would have open slather.
The Doctor looked up into the fierce white beam. It was supposed to hide their faces from him, he supposed, so that he could see only outlines.
A voice boomed out from somewhere in front of him.
‘Doctor. On this day, the fourth of June 2982, you are hereby charged with the malicious, deliberate and wilful murder of Helen the First, Divine Empress Gloriana, Ruler of the High Court, Lord of the Inner and Outer Worlds, High Admiral of the Galactic Fleets, Lord General of the Six Armies and Defender of the Earth. What plea do you wish to enter?’
The Doctor glanced up at the Absolute