Doctor Who - Bernice Summerfield - 02 - Dragon's Wrath by Justin Richards

Author:Justin Richards [Richards, Justin]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780426205081
Amazon: 0426205081
Publisher: Virgin Publishing
Published: 1997-06-15T07:00:00+00:00

a three-dimensional model of the Dragon, like the model she had already made of the other two

Dragons, and then she could compare the models. With three sets of data, she could begin to

decide how best to present her case. The trick was to start off as if she was endorsing Nusek’s

claims, and get so far before anyone realized otherwise that they could not stop her.

An hour later, armed with an optical disc, Benny returned to her cabin. ‘Just tidy up when

you’re done,’ she told the guard without a trace of a smile as she left. As she locked her cabin

door she could imagine him still standing, cables in hand, wondering where best to start to sort

through the Heath Robinson arrangement of baffles, lasers and power amplifiers.

Feeding the disc into her console, Benny was in buoyant mood. She had the evidence. All she

needed to do now was to present it. And she reckoned if anyone could talk their way out of

Nusek’s machinations then Bernice Summerfield was that someone. She whistled a popular tune

from the late twentieth century as she set up the projection fields and watched three Gamalian

Dragons shimmer into existence round her room. A few adjustments, and the images floated

towards one side of the room, merging, coalescing, becoming one.

Benny sat back and looked at her handiwork. A single composite Dragon turning slowly in the

space above her bed. She clapped her hands together, and walked round it. Then she dived

through the image on to her bed, turning on to her back so she could see the Dragon again. The

wing tips were perfectly aligned, the tongue a single fork of fire licking out of the blur of the

mouth, the tail curling and rippling behind the creature.

Blur.

Ripple.

Benny leapt from the bed and stared at the hologram from inches away. The mouth was

blurred. Just very slightly. And the tail was rippling, the scales shimmering as the models inter-

acted and set up an interference pattern where they did not perfectly match.

She swore, considered, and swore again. Then Benny scrambled for the console. She punched

up a series of readings, measurements, proportions. Three columns of figures scrolled slowly past

her finger as she traced the line between them. The first two matched exactly, but she knew that.

They were the readings for the Dragon she had found on Dellah and the one she had switched it

with in Nusek’s archive.

But the figures in the third column were slightly different. Very slightly, sometimes by a few

microns, sometimes as much as a millimetre. But the amount did not matter – they were not

identical. That was enough.

She slumped back on to the bed, and stared at the Dragon revolving above her. Her mind was

racing, working through the possibilities. But there was only one that fitted.

The two Dragons Benny had modelled first had matched exactly. But the third, the Dragon

found on Stanturus, did not. And that could only mean one thing. Benny and Nicholas had been

wrong. The Dragon, the original Gamalian Dragon, had not been removed from the archives,

copied, then put back. Two copies had been made, and one of the copies had been returned to the

archives.

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