Doctor Who_ The Room With No Doors - Kate Orman [103]
‘Right,’ said the Doctor. He ducked behind a tree and started rolling up a missile of his own.
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210
Psychokinetic sat by himself, wings and legs folded, watching the villagers pick through the remains of their homes.
The other Kapteynians were helping to lift beams and clear away ruined timber and thatching. Only three dwellings had survived the fire, though that was enough to house the survivors until new huts could be built. Mikeneko and Gardener were inspecting the damage to the crops, which was not as severe as they had first thought.
Psychokinetic pecked at the ground nervously, tasting soot, It was possible they might survive the damage he had done to them.
Gardener kept insisting that it wasn’t his fault. Its memories of his time in the cryostasis pod were sharp as crystal. From his point of view, it had been years of confinement. Years of panic. His powers lashing out erratically, sometimes sensing his environment, sometimes desperately trying to interact with it.
And he couldn’t even help them. Gardener insisted he do nothing until he recovered his health – no one knew what strange side effects his time in the pod may have had. And, now he was out of the supercooled environment, his psychokinetic ability was barely enough to lift a worm, let alone shift charred beams and ruined tatami.
He closed his eyes, slowly becoming aware of the movement around him.
Felt the mass of the timber, the strength of the humans’ muscles, acceleration, gravity, velocity, force. It was a pale awareness after the cold intensity of the pod.
He did not see the beam that began to fall from the front of one of the ruined houses. He felt it, felt it come loose and willingly jump into gravity’s arms, oblivious of the fragile creatures that were beneath it.
Psychokinetic opened his eyes. The humans were shouting in surprise and then in relief, two of them cowering under the beam he was holding up.
A beam that weighed as much as three Kapteynians.
‘You’d better get out from under there,’ he said shakily, ‘because I think I’m going to faint.’
Chris and the Doctor were pushing a massive snowball along the ground.
‘That’s enough,’ Chris decided. ‘Now for stage two.’
They made the second tier by rolling up a smaller ball and slapping stinging-cold handfuls of snow on to it, until it formed a lumpy sphere, about the right size.
‘Got some questions for you,’ said Chris, as they gingerly lifted the second snowball into place.
Chris’s look was thoughtful, but it wasn’t the faintly worried, puzzled look he’d worn for too long. ‘Fire away,’ said the Doctor, feeling himself relax.
211
‘OK. Firstly, why didn’t you get Joel to tell you what wow, this sounds weird – about the eighth Doctor?’
The seventh Doctor smiled, patting the snowball into shape. ‘I don’t want to know,’ he said. ‘I really don’t. I’m not going to try to plan for it, live in constant anticipation.’
‘Kame calls that dying isagi-yoku,’ said Chris. ‘Without reluctance or hesita-tion.’
‘When it happens, it happens.’ The Doctor shrugged. ‘Death’s the one door you can’t close.’
‘Which brings us to the other thing,’ the young man said shyly. ‘You see, after I passed my last Adjudicator exam and joined the force, I had to fill out this huge form, and one of the questions was about next of kin. In case I was killed in the line of duty.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said the Doctor. ‘If anything ever happens to you, I’ll make sure your family is all right.’
‘Actually,’ said Chris, ‘I was thinking about you.’
‘I think we can make the head just by packing on handfuls,’ said the Doctor.
He rolled a small snowball and patted it down into place. ‘Like this.’
Chris frowned, but started scooping up snow.
‘Anyway,’ said the Doctor, ‘I see I completely failed to teach you anything about manipulation.’
Chris laughed. ‘I did con Psychokinetic into contacting Penelope, though.’
‘Oh yes. Penelope told me about the “explosive”. Very clever.’
Chris had a pocketful of small stones. Now he gave the snowman a crooked smile and two beady eyes. The Doctor found a pair