Doctor Who Eighth Doctor Adventures 29 by Frontier Worlds (Peter Anghelides) (v1.0)

Author:Frontier Worlds (Peter Anghelides) (v1.0)
Format: epub

‘The operation will kill me,’ the Doctor said plaintively. Zziiiizzzzz! ‘And this is a problem in what way, precisely?’ ‘You’re a cold character in more ways than one, Temm Sempiter. No pulse, low body temperature. You’re obviously more at ease with machinery than with people. Like that robot of yours on the weather platform.’ ‘Right,’ said Sempiter emphatically. He put down the cruel implement and looked around the room. ‘I really am going to gag you.’ ‘And that mechanical budgerigar in your office,’ the Doctor continued, gabbling as fast as he could. ‘What’s that called?’ Sempiter tore off the sleeve of the Doctor’s discarded shirt, and tested it for strength. ‘The canary doesn’t have a name. It’s a machine.’ ‘Of course,’ said the Doctor, rolling his eyes theatrically. ‘Giving it an identity would make it more real. And real things have feelings, real things can feel pain and loss. As you did when your parents died, Sempiter.’ He watched Sempiter for a reaction. ‘As I will when you cut into my flesh.’ ‘Your loss is my gain.’ Sempiter advanced with the shirtsleeve. The Doctor wriggled his head aside. ‘No, you’ll lose the chance to discover what Dewfurth told me. . . er, told us. . . about the alien vegetation on the mountainside. They’re called Raab. Mmmph!’ The shirtsleeve was stuffed into his mouth. It tasted of sweat and blood. Oh well, he thought, I gave it my best shot. Sempiter slowly pulled the strip of shirtsleeve out of the Doctor’s mouth, like a conjuror producing flags of many nations. ‘Yes, you mentioned that name before. What are the Raab?’ The shirtsleeve had soaked up the spit in his mouth. The Doctor smacked his lips together a few times, and licked them before he spoke. Then he briefly explained about the Raab, trying not to lose Sempiter’s interest with too much detail, but all the time struggling behind the chair to release his wrists. ‘Do you know how terribly risky it is to use the Raab? You thought you could splice that genetic code into your own, and prolong your lives. And now you’ve seen what it’s done to your colleagues over the years: Mozarno has no mind, Dewfurth became suicidally depressed. . . ’ ‘So what’s my problem?’ smiled Sempiter indulgently. The Doctor stared up at him, wondering how to respond to this challenge. ‘It was Shar Mozarno who saw the possibilities from our analysis of the alien tissue,’ said Sempiter. ‘He conducted all the early analyses, he was brilliant, definitely a good hiring decision. Even if he’d known what could happen to him, I think he would still have taken that personal risk. And why not? After all, we’d handcuffed him to the company by making him one of our prime 112

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