Doctor Who NA13 - Deceit by Peter Darvill-Evans

Author:Peter Darvill-Evans
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-07-13T01:06:30+00:00

Part Five

POOL

Bernice could hear the Doctor’s voice. At first he sounded distant, as if he was calling to her from the basement of a big house, but he came nearer very quickly and suddenly he was shouting in her ear.

‘Do try to snap out of it, Professor Summerfield. I’d like to think that at least one of my travelling companions had a functioning intelligence.’

He sounded tetchy.

Bernice opened one eye. She couldn’t identify what she could see. The main thing was, it wasn’t rotating. She was lying on her back. The floor wasn’t moving. Maybe she wasn’t going to die, after all.

‘To experience one transmat journey may be regarded as a misfortune,’ she said. ‘To experience two within the same day is no less than a catastrophe. If I try to sit up, do you promise that you’ll keep the world still?’

She closed her eye again before she levered her body upright, reasoning that the movement of her head would produce more than enough sensory input for her brain to cope with.

She still wasn’t going to die. In fact, sitting upright, she almost had a sense of balance. She opened both eyes.

Francis and Elaine were sitting in front of her, huddled together. It wasn’t clear who was comforting whom. Elaine was pale, her eyes rolling independently. Francis sat clutching her, rigid with fear.

The Doctor had wandered along a shadowy corridor.

Bernice could see him tapping his umbrella on the floor, pretending to study the walls, and glancing back impatiently as if he couldn’t believe that his companions were still unable to follow him.

‘Where are we?’ Francis said, in a desolate voice.

‘Doctor,’ Bernice said, standing, ‘why don’t you come back here and answer some questions while I make sure no bits of my inner ear got left in the transmat.’

‘We’re on a space station, Francis,’ the Doctor said.

As he stepped back into the circle of dimming green light issuing from the door of the transmat booth he looked for a moment like some bizarre demon that Francis had summoned.

‘An artificial world, in the sky above your planet.’

‘Are you sure, Doctor?’ In Bernice’s experience, space stations were constructed from prefabricated metal units, bolted together and strung with bulkhead lights and systems ducting.

The corridor that led from the transmat booth had a tiled floor, and plastered walls covered with a mural that Bernice felt she might be able to understand after three or four big glasses of strong rum.

‘You mean – like the moon?’ Francis said. His imagination had apparently overwhelmed his fear. ‘It’s as if we’re in the moon?’

‘Very good,’ the Doctor said. ‘In fact – what does the Arcadian moon look like?’

Francis was perplexed for a moment. ‘It’s – it’s just the moon. Shiny. Sparkling. But not round like the sun. Jagged at the edges. Like a badly dented silver coin.’ He seemed pleased with the analogy. Elaine had recovered enough to nod her agreement.

‘That’s probably where we are then,’ the Doctor said, also pleased with himself. ‘We’re in the moon.’

‘Point of order, Mr Chairman,’ Bernice said.

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