Doctor Who_ Transit - Ben Aaronovitch [110]
The Popeye subset suddenly ceased to exist.
Was that Fred, wondered the Doctor, or did the system contain predators of its own?
Find Bernice.
The Doctor reached into his mind and pulled out Bernice's memories. He sifted through them, looking for something strong and emotional. There, it was a simple child's doll but it practically stank of guilt. He looked into his own memories for something that could track her but rejected the Cheetah people. The Doctor suspected that his memory was too accurate for the Cheetah people to be reliable. Instead he came up with a lugubrious-looking bloodhound.
Fusing the bloodhound with the doll created an inelegant mess but it would probably get the job done. He created a baker's dozen and sent them bounding out through random pathways.
He watched them fan out on the map, ricocheting from node to node. The ones going roughly east and west spread out into the distance, their traces getting fainter the further out they went. The ones going north seemed to have locked on to something but kept bouncing off an invisible wall. Their repeated attempts to cross this wall built up a picture on the map. A semi-circular line that divided off most of the north.
The Doctor chose a north-facing roundel and floated through. As he crossed the threshold he felt a strange sense of separation as if he had left something intangible behind. A quick mental inventory found nothing missing.
The Doctor pressed on. He didn't have time for introspection.
Node One
There was an unpleasant sensation like a ghostly caress, as if she had walked through a spider web. Then she floated free inside the first node, There was a laminated card in her hand, identical to the instructions that had come with the pressure suit on Mars. The letters at the top of the card blurred briefly and became her name.
Dear Kadiatu, she read. You are now entering a world of sensory illusion. In practical terms you have just become a very complex piece of software that happens to think it's a person called, the blurring effect again, Kadiatu. Don't ask me what happened to your physical body. I haven't got the faintest idea. I have provided a frame of reference with which I hope you will feel comfortable. Think of it as a front-end interface, it should allow you to move around. Try not to get attenuated and be careful, this is the most dangerous place you have ever been.
The card dissolved between her fingers.
There was a hissing sound above her.
A hatstand floated horizontally above her and to the right. A cat was perched precariously at its middle. It was a large animal, half a metre long with glistening silver fur as if it had been dipped in mercury. Its eyes were slanted shards of refracted light.
The cat hissed at Kadiatu again, showing sharp white canines. Bands of green formed around its shoulders and rippled down its body until they formed a ring at the end of the cat's tail.
Kadiatu bared her teeth and hissed back.
The cat recoiled, it had obviously not been expecting that response. Its ears flattened and the tail twitched from side to side.
'Such a small cat,' said Kadiatu. 'Where I come from the cats are as large as men and as fierce as tigers. They assume the form of women and walk the paths of the forest in search of prey.'
The cat yawned, feigning indifference.
'Well, little sister,' said Kadiatu, 'do you belong to the Doctor?'
The cat stiffened, its eyes blazing with green light. I am my own cat, the eyes seemed to say. I belong to no man.
'Well then, little sister. Shall we hunt him anyway?' Kadiatu asked the cat.
The cat wiped its face with a paw. Considering.
'Perhaps not,' said Kadiatu. 'Perhaps you should leave this to me.'
The cat stopped its wash and stared at her, green and silver chased themselves