Doctor Who_ Transit - Ben Aaronovitch [114]
The Minister for Probabilities didn't resolve at all but remained a curtain of shimmering light.
Since the frame of reference was generating images from his own imagination the Doctor felt that his brain was long overdue a good spring-cleaning.
The Doctor was glad that he wasn't going to meet the Minister for Gratuitous Nightmares.
'Court in open session,' said Probabilities. 'His Majesty presiding.' The voice was neutral and genderless.
'Download the utility Fred,' said the King.
Node Thirty-Six - The Border
The fearsome Reds on the border were reinforced by a platoon of cautious Yellows and a squadron of long-range Blues.
Left on their own the explosion of Aces had begun to impose their own frame of reference on reality. To their eyes the fearsome Reds were slowly transforming into Daleks and the Yellows into Cybermen. When the squadron of Blues arrived they took the form of clowns with sinister smiles.
The Aces stopped their agitated bouncing around the node and gathered in a knot at the opposite end of the node. The fearsome Reds were too simplistic to react but the more sophisticated Blues felt a trace of unease.
The Aces broke from their huddle and spread out into a ragged line facing the Primary Colours. They hefted their silver deodorant cans from hand to hand and smiled in a disconcerting manner.
Something bad was coming.
The King's Buffer
The node suddenly expanded, elongating in the horizontal until the walls were shrouded in darkness. The ceiling flattened out into an expanse of oak panelling and the Doctor feit his heels click on cold marble. Columns thrust suddenly out of the floor, growing upwards until they merged with the ceiling. They were smooth sided in the Tuscan style with inset diffusion strips in spiralling candy stripes. The floor had the unmistakable shot neon pattern of cultured marble. The Doctor recognized the style of whole ensemble: late Terran Empire. The dominant architectural style of the twenty-sixth century.
Benny's epoch.
The King was staring at the Doctor. The brilliant quartz throne darkened and became carved teak. His eyes went from bloodshot to burning red.
There was a booming sound from the shadowy far end of the audience hall, like huge double doors being thrown open. A rectangle of white light lit the darkness. A human figure threw a long shadow down the aisle of light that ran from doors to throne. Jackboots clicked on the marble as the figure walked towards the Doctor.
This is all getting needlessly theatrical, thought the Doctor.
'Behold the utility Fred,' said Probabilities.
The figure walked from the darkness and into the light of the candystripe diffusion strips.
'Hello Benny,' said the Doctor.
She was dressed in a uniform of electric blue and a peaked military cap. Gold epaulettes widened her shoulders, gold and scarlet frogging crisscrossed a chest heavy with medals. She wore jackboots polished to a mirror finish. The cap badge caught the Doctor's attention. It didn't gel with the rest of the comic opera outfit. The wrought-silver design was of a sword crossed with winged Venus, the badge of the Terran Space Navy.
The silver was tarnished and blackened as if by fire. Absurd because death in space came in expanding globes of superheated plasma. Only a child would think otherwise.
Remember your father, Benny, thought the Doctor. The ties of kith and kin, your stupid, irrational, human hope. Fred's weakness.
'I'm not Benny,' said Benny/Fred. 'At least not in any significant sense.'
'You kept her form though,' said the Doctor.
'Once I'd tried her on,' said Benny/Fred, 'I liked her so much I kept the body.'
'It wasn't the body that attracted you.'
'No,' said Benny/Fred. 'It's her mind. The complexity of her motivations, the interlacing of intellect, emotions, instinct, learned behaviour. It's quite ...'
'Bracing?'