The Ghosts of N-Space - Barry Letts [84]
Max had sunk to the ground and was sitting with his back against the pump, which he’d found by touch. He rested his elbows on his knees and covered his eyes once more.
‘You’ve blinded him, by God,’ said the Brigadier.
‘Si,’ said Mario. ‘That will learn him to tingle with a Verconti.’
292
‘What I don’t understand,’ said Sarah, brightly, as she came back into the control room of the TARDIS after changing back into her own clothes, ‘is why he lost his arm.
If he’s immortal, then surely any part of his body must be too?’
The only way that Sarah had been able to cope with her feelings was to put them on hold. She knew quite well that the distress she had suffered earlier when she thought of the fate awaiting her silly young friend was as nothing compared with the grief she felt once it had happened.
The present moment! she thought bitterly, as she pulled the sodden muslin off her back. None of it made sense. She was travelling back – no, forward – to a time when the present would be a hundred and fifty years and more away from the moment of Louisa’s death, yet for her it would always be as immediate as if she had watched one of her school friends go under a bus.
There was a job to be done, she thought, holding her face up to the hot shower to let it wash away the physical and emotional dregs of the last few hours. The Doctor and she had both screwed up. Twice. As proponents of the interventionist school of time travel, they’d make pretty good road sweepers.
293
They’d only got one more chance, she thought, as she thankfully pulled on her jeans. It was bad enough this Vilmio person turning out to be immortal; if he managed to get control of all the fiends – sorry, teacher – N-Forms as well…
‘What did you say?’ said the Doctor, abstractedly. He was up to the same tricks at the control panel as he had been when they set off for 1818 the last time. Sarah resolutely closed her mind to the uprush of feeling the memory brought, sat down on the bench and repeated her question.
‘His arm? Well, you’re right in a way. The cells themselves – or rather, the organs the cells comprise – they do become immortal; infinitely self-healing. So whatever damage is done to the body by physical trauma or by pathogens or whatever will be repaired. But we’re not talking about magic. If any part is lost entirely, it can’t be regrown like a lizard’s tail.’
Oh yes, that was another thing.
‘Talking of lizards,’ Sarah went on, ‘what was all that about Orobouros? He was the dragon, wasn’t he?’
But the Doctor was immersed once more in his calculations of the ETA of the TARDIS. ‘Mm?’ he said.
‘You said “Orobouros” just before we both took off like scalded pussy-cats and saw…’ She couldn’t go on.
294
The Doctor laid down his clipboard and came over to her. He sat down beside her and took her hand. She looked up at him.
Perhaps he was lying, back there in N-Space, she thought. Perhaps he can read my thoughts at this very minute.
‘She isn’t dead, you know,’ he said. ‘What made Louisa special can never die.’
‘I saw her die,’ said Sarah, ‘and so did you.’
‘We both saw her body die. But Louisa’s moved into N-Space, that’s all.’
‘Don’t you see, Doctor? I knew what was going to happen; I could have stopped it. She’s a ghost – one of the people you yourself said were lost souls – and I could have saved her.’
Sarah’s tears could be held back no longer.
‘It’s all my fault,’ she said.
295
Twenty-Three
‘I’m sorry,’ said Sarah, blowing her nose hard. ‘It was just the thought of her going on and on and on…’ There was still a little catch in her voice.
After a little pause, the Doctor spoke very quietly, ‘I was once travelling through the mountains on Gallifrey with my old teacher,’ he said. ‘We’d been going for days; and it had been pretty hairy at times, what with blizzards and