Doctor Who_ The Room With No Doors - Kate Orman [83]
Penelope thought for a moment. ‘I suppose they must,’ she said. ‘We were able to understand one another perfectly.’
‘Find out,’ he said.
Penelope nodded and marched over to the birds, ducking a low-flying head on the way. The Roshi had ordered the monks inside during the bizarre attack.
Puzzled eyes watched her from nearby doorways.
‘Talker!’ she said. The bird didn’t take her eyes off the meandering drone she was watching, her weapon ready in her hands. ‘How is it I can speak your language?’
‘That’s easy,’ she said. ‘You must have a translation device.’
‘You have none of your own?’
‘Wish we did.’
Penelope went back across the courtyard. A flying head circled her lazily.
The component beneath its ‘eyes’ looked alarmingly like a mouth. She found herself tucking her hands under her arms to prevent it biting her fingers.
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At last the metal creature drifted away, and she strode back to Mr Cwej, who was still holding his bizarre confrontation. ‘They do not have translators,’ she told him.
‘OK, so how could you understand one another?’ Penelope realized the question was rhetorical; Mr Cwej was cogitating aloud. ‘Through the TARDIS?
It’d be a first. Should only be the Doctor and me. Something else, then.’ He glanced at her, his eyes flicking instantly back to the drone. ‘You haven’t gone and invented a translation machine, have you?’
‘No. You’re worrying me. It is as though some external instrumentality took it upon itself to facilitate our colloquy.’
Mr Cwej gave her a puzzled glance. The flying head dodged around the back of him, and he spun, ready to lash out at it. It kept its distance. ‘So who do we know around here who performs miracles?’
Who did he mean? The Roshi? The Caxtarid? Surely not.
She turned, slowly, to look at the pod.
‘If it’s got psychokinesis,’ said Mr Cwej, ‘it might be telepathic as well. And you were the one it reached out to in the first place.’
‘When it brought me here,’ she said, awed.
‘Have you experienced anything else weird? To do with your mind, or anything?’
They turned to look at each other.
‘Nightmares,’ they said, together.
The drone took the opportunity to make its escape.
‘You must sleep,’ said Penelope. ‘You have not slept for days.’
They were sitting on the floor of the empty meditation hall. Mr Cwej had been discussing defences and food with Kame and the Roshi for an hour. Now she had brought him her concern, and a bowl of rice.
He turned his cloudy eyes to her. ‘I can’t sleep,’ he said. ‘The Room is waiting for me.’
‘I know.’ He looked at her in surprise. She touched his arm, lightly. ‘But if you would lead us, you must eat, and sleep, or you will be in no fit condition to do so.’
He closed his eyes. ‘It’s waiting for me,’ he said again. ‘It’s all because of death, you see. The Doctor died because I wasn’t there.’
‘You cannot blame yourself. You must not! It was a terrible accident.’
‘That’s only half of it. I couldn’t kill Liz when she needed me to.’
Penelope didn’t know what to make of that. Mr Cwej opened his eyes. She was sure her face had drained of colour. ‘We were poisoned,’ he said dully.
‘She insisted I take half the antidote, and carry the rest to safety so that more could be made from the sample. Then she asked me to kill her.’
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‘To spare her the pain of the poison?’ He nodded. ‘And you could not. Who could face such a horror?’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘But you’re right,’ he said. ‘I have to put it aside, don’t I? I have to sleep. Even though it’ll be the Room.’ He looked at her with his dulled eyes. ‘She hated me because I couldn’t kill her. And then Imorkal did it anyway.’
Penelope thought for a moment. ‘What would you say to her if she had lived? If I were her?’
His eyes held hers. ‘Thanks. And sorry.’
‘All right,’ said Penelope. She got up.
He touched her hand. ‘Will you wake me up?’ he said desperately. ‘After four hours? No matter what?’
‘I promise.’
So Chris Cwej put everything aside. He put the pod and the siege aside. He put Roz aside. He put Liz aside. He put the Doctor aside. The living needed him, and he had