Doctor Who_ The Banquo Legacy - Andy Lane [93]
‘We’re not all as indestructible as perhaps we once were,’ the Doctor was saying in a low voice to Kreiner.
‘The Artron inhibitor?’ he asked. Again his words meant nothing to me. I have made some slight study of forensics since the events I now recall, but I must confess that I am still no more enlightened as to their meaning.
The Doctor was nodding. ‘It inhibits the block-transfer equations that make reconstitution and regeneration of the outer plasmic shell possible.’ He looked across at the crumpled form of Simpson lying in the churned-up snow. ‘And speaking of regeneration,’ he went on, ‘if you want a more extreme example…’
We were all following his gaze, so we all saw. We all saw Simpson move. Was that a groan of pain? I could not be sure, but certainly he moved his arm. A faint, almost pathetic gesture. At once the Doctor and Kreiner ran over to where he lay, leaving me to support Susan as she staggered after them.
The Doctor was already kneeling beside Simpson’s broken form when we got there. ‘Thank goodness,’ he was saying. ‘There is still time, you know. Still a chance. Just tell us where you’ve hidden the inhibitor and you should be able to pull through. To regenerate.’
I assume he was trying to make the man feel better. It was obvious that Simpson was dying. I was surprised he still had any life left in him. His constitution must have been far, far stronger than it appeared. A trickle of blood ran from one of his empty eye sockets and dripped into the crystal snow.
Simpson, I think, in those last moments, was aware of it as well. Even though he was obviously delirious, obviously talking nonsense, he knew it was the end. ‘You know I can’t do that, Doctor,’ he half murmured, half gasped. ‘There’s too much at stake here. More than just a life.’
‘Several lives,’ the Doctor corrected him. There was a tone of admonishment in his voice that seemed quite out of place in the circumstances. ‘We’re beyond games now, beyond debate, beyond the lies to get me arrested so you could carry on in peace.’
‘You have to tell us,’ Kreiner said, and his tone was even more severe than the Doctor’s. ‘Where the hell is it?’ For a moment I thought he was about to reach down and haul the butler up by his lapels while he shouted at him. ‘Tell us!’
There was a trace of a smile on Simpson’s face as he stared blankly up at us. The pain, the shock of his sudden violent blindness must have somehow anaesthetised him to the fact he was dying. Or perhaps there is at that stage an acceptance, a calm, that overwhelms one. ‘You work it out,’ he croaked. I could hear the blood in his throat. ‘You’ve read Borusa, just as I have.’ I consider myself well read, but I had never – have never – heard of the author.
‘Oh, big help.’ Kreiner said. He stamped in the snow and slapped his hands together with cold and frustration.
‘How did you find us?’ the Doctor asked suddenly. ‘And if you knew we’d be here, why just the one of you?’
I was neither following nor appreciating the conversation. Under the circumstances. But I let it run its course. It was evident that it would of necessity be short-lived.
‘We didn’t know you would be here.’ Simpson’s voice was weakening, cracking. ‘But we know where you have been.’
‘Ah!’ The Doctor’s eyes widened. ‘Quantum extrapolation.’
‘With a probability matrix to prioritise the random choices.’ I could hear the blood in his throat. He coughed, his whole body contorting with the effort. ‘But even so there were several hundred times and places you might turn up.’
The Doctor seemed surprised. ‘You covered them all? Then you must be spread pretty thin. One agent at each nexus point. Waiting and watching, scattered across the universe and down the years. On the off chance as it were.’ He glanced up at Fitz. ‘If nothing else, we’ve got them worried,’ he said levelly.
‘You too’, Simpson croaked, ‘have things to worry about.’ There was a dry rasp from his throat that might have been a laugh. ‘I have waited for you here for a hundred years.