Doctor Who_ Wetworld - Mark Michalowski [37]
He reached into his pocket, pulled out his spectacles and put them on. ‘Now. . . let’s have a look. . . ’
Almost elbowing Ty aside, he took a deep breath and began typing on the virtual keyboard, projected onto the glass surface of the table.
‘I didn’t know it could do that!’ exclaimed Ty as a single small screen suddenly grew to take up most of the surface of the table.
‘It can’t,’ said the Doctor without looking at her, adding in a whisper: ‘But don’t tell anyone – it’ll invalidate the guarantee. Oooh – look at that! Now that is interesting.’
He stood back proudly and folded his arms.
The vast tabletop screen was filled with an assortment of strange, clumpy shapes, rotating, swirling, joining up with each other and forming long chains before breaking apart and reforming.
‘I feel like I’m back at nursery school with you, Doctor,’ Ty said tiredly. ‘But at a guess –’
‘Oh, an educated guess, surely, Professor.’
She ignored his flattery. ‘At a guess, I’d say we were looking at protein synthesis.’ She glanced up at the Doctor for confirmation. He just raised an eyebrow. ‘That,’ she said, tracing a long, twisty thread,
‘is RNA, yes? And it’s controlling the manufacture of these proteins.’
She reached out and dabbed at three or four other images.
‘Go on,’ the Doctor said approvingly. ‘And what’s RNA for?’
‘Ribonucleic acid is involved in the replication of DNA, the chemical that codes for the construction of living organisms,’ she said, as if she were quoting from a textbook.
‘And what else has RNA been implicated in?’
Ty frowned, watching the kaleidoscope of images in front of her.
‘Not memories, surely?’ She looked up at him in disbelief. ‘But that idea was discredited on Earth decades ago.’
‘We’re not on Earth any more, Toto,’ the Doctor reminded her with a grin.
Ty didn’t understand, but suspected the Doctor was taking the mickey out of her. She turned back to the display table.
‘So. . . you’re saying that these proteins and this RNA contain memories? Those things in the otters’ nests are implanting memories into the otters?’
‘Not just memories,’ the Doctor said gravely. ‘And not just the otters.
These are the results from Martha.’
Ty’s eyes widened.
‘But why? Is this connected with the otters’ braininess?’
The Doctor took off his glasses and twirled them in his fingers.
‘When you catch the otters, they’re dim but violent, and after a couple of days they turn clever and friendly. These proteins are just what you’d need to stimulate aggression – and suppress intelligence.’
‘So it’s not that the otters are actually getting cleverer,’ said Ty, struggling to keep up with the speed of his train of thought, ‘but that they’re just returning to their normal level of smartness? The proteins have been holding them back, and once they’re gone. . . ’
The Doctor nodded.
‘In the meantime, they’re creating an allergic reaction in Martha’s body.’ He pursed up his lips and narrowed his eyes. ‘But as to why. . . ’
He turned suddenly. ‘The other skeletons that I heard you’d found: have they been given a good going-over?’
Ty nodded. ‘They were all people who disappeared during the flood.
Dental records are pretty clear.’
‘Causes of death?’
‘Impossible to tell from the skeletons – I assumed they drowned.
But they all have holes in their chests or their heads – different sizes.
Some the size of a fist, others just pinpricks.’
The Doctor chewed thoughtfully on the arm of his glasses.
‘Sounds to me like someone’s been experimenting. Someone. Or some thing.’
‘Experimenting?’
‘Experimenting with human bodies – working out how they work, how to get inside them.’
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ty hug her arms to herself tighter.
‘We really could do with understanding why, what those slimy little pets of the otters are up to.’ His eyes lit up and he grinned. ‘You know what we need to decode the RNA and the proteins, don’t you?’
Ty shook her head.
‘What we need is the most advanced biological computer I can think of.’
‘Here?