Doctor Who NSA20 - The Pirate Loop by Simon Guerrier

Author:Simon Guerrier [Guerrier, Simon]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2010-12-25T06:01:18+00:00

‘Yes,’ said the Doctor. ‘That’s the problem, isn’t it? You’re struggling to make sense of it. The whole starship is.’

‘What?’ said Martha. ‘The starship is thinking?’

‘Well, yeah,’ said the Doctor. ‘Kind of. We can have the philosophy later, but basically it responds to stimuli the best way it can, just like the rest of us. And sometimes we think about it and sometimes we just respond.’

‘You mean it’s like breathing,’ said Martha. ‘You can control your breathing consciously, but mostly you don’t really think about doing it.’

‘That’s true of the Balumin, too, dear,’ said Mrs Wingsworth. ‘Although my cousin Sandy makes a great kerfuffle about how you should always control your breathing. She was into all that sort of thing: crystals, coloured smoke. . . ’

‘I can hold my breath,’ said Archibald proudly. ‘For when we go swimming.’

‘I think we’ve established the analogy,’ said the Doctor impatiently, always eager to get back to the mystery. ‘Now, this ship is going round and round in circles, isn’t it? So every day’s the same and no one dies for good.’

‘It’s a time loop,’ said Martha. ‘Like in that film, Groundhog Day.’

‘Huh,’ said Archibald. ‘Groundhogs are bad. They take our stuff.’

‘Yes, it is a bit like the film,’ said the Doctor. ‘Just without all the dancing at the end. And it’s not a complete loop. Things don’t all go back to the beginning at midnight, they jump back bit by bit. Which suggests the loop is broken somewhere. And we kind of skip over the gap.’

‘That’s bad, isn’t it?’ said Martha, seeing the look in his eyes.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘A closed loop just runs and runs for ever. But with a gap in it, every time it goes round there’s something a bit different.

You have a scar, you don’t have a scar. The badgers come back with new earrings.’ He grinned. ‘See it didn’t try to make another TARDIS

key. Probably couldn’t understand it. But anyway, all the time it’s making things better again, it needs energy. A lot of energy.’

‘But how?’ said Martha. ‘What’s keeping it all together?’

85

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