Doctor Who_ The Stone Rose - Jacqueline Rayner [49]
‘Yes, there has!’ Rose insisted. ‘You called him by his name. You must know who he is.’
‘I think you must be mistaken,’ said the creature. ‘I have done no such thing. No doctor was ever here. Ask anybody.’
Rose laughed disbelievingly. ‘There’s no one to ask! The Doctor’s gone, Vanessa’s been rockified and you’ve just slurped up Ursus like a cat with a saucer of cream! Look, who – what – are you anyway?’
The little creature clacked its beak. ‘I am a GENIE,’ it said.
Rose gaped. ‘A genie?’
‘Indeed. A Genetically Engineered Neural Imagination Engine.’
‘A what?’
‘A GENIE.’
‘Do you mean – you can’t mean – I mean, you’re not a being that grants wishes…’
‘You are incorrect. I am not not a being that grants wishes.’
‘Pardon?’ said Rose.
‘That is to say, I am a being that grants wishes. That is the function for which I was designed and built.’
‘By Vanessa’s dad?’
‘Salvatorio Moretti was my primary creator, yes.’ Rose was starting to piece it all together. ‘And so when Vanessa wished she lived in ancient Rome…’
‘I granted her wish. Placed her in the correct time frame, gave her appropriate language abilities and clothing. It took a considerable amount of power to do so, but I was lucky enough to be at that time in a place which possessed extensive energy reserves. It is fortunate that she never sought me out and required me to return her to her previous abode, as I fear I would have had some difficulty acquiring the necessary energy.’
Rose was still trying to take all this in. ‘I don’t think Vanessa knew anything about you. She had no idea how she got here.’
‘Ah,’ said the GENIE, suddenly sounding slightly embarrassed. ‘Although I had to accompany my wisher in order to facilitate the transfer in time, I fear a slight miscalculation on my part led to us being separated on arrival in this era. However, considering the fact that I had succeeded in forming a working theory of time‐travel and then almost instantaneously engineered a way of putting it into practice and transporting us not only over two millennia in time but several hundred miles across space, I think such an occurrence barely even counts as an error.’
‘Yeah, the Doctor tries to claim that too,’ said Rose. ‘It doesn’t wash with him either.’ A lump suddenly came to her throat, thinking about the Doctor. She tried to distract herself again. ‘And Ursus!’ she said. ‘He wished something about creating beauty in stone. He probably even mentioned wanting to use his hands to do it. But he didn’t mention anything about sculpting or skill with a chisel, so you went ahead and sorted it however you liked.’
‘It’s hardly my fault if people fail to be sufficiently specific. Anyway, he didn’t seem to mind,’ commented the creature.
‘Well, no, because he was obviously a psycho‐nutter,’ said Rose. ‘But, you know, just because someone says “I wish” doesn’t mean they expect a totally literal interpretation of –’
And then her stomach dropped as a scene from earlier forced itself into the front of her brain. Her legs threatened to give way and she hastily sat down. Then she realised she was sitting on Vanessa and stood up again.
‘I said…’ she began, but couldn’t bring herself to go on. She took a deep breath. ‘I said, “I wish you’d never come here.” I said it to the Doctor and you…’ She shook her head fiercely. ‘What am I talking about? This is mad. Genies are myths, something from the Arabian Nights, and I don’t believe in you or your wish‐granting thing.’
The GENIE drew itself up, little scaly monkey paws gripping on to the side of its cardboard box.
‘Try me!’
‘All right, I will!’ said Rose defiantly. Then she hesitated. ‘Hang on. Do I only get three wishes or something? Because if – if – it’s true, and I’m not saying I believe it is, I don’t want to waste them all.’
The GENIE sighed. ‘I will continue to grant wishes so long as I have sufficient power to do so. However, limiting wishes is in no way a bad idea. I may have to consider it. Otherwise my resources will be constantly drained…’
‘OK,’ said Rose, thinking hard. ‘Something really