Genocide by Paul Leonard

Author:Paul Leonard [Leonard, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General, Science Fiction, Media Tie-In
ISBN: 9780563405726
Publisher: BBC BOOKS
Published: 1999-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

Rowenna felt a wave of dizziness run over her as hope drained out of her system. 'You mean we're gonna die anyway?'

The Doctor didn't reply immediately. He stood up and began pacing around the trunk of the alien tree, glancing at it curiously. 'Chronon-wave asynchronous transmission. Didn't think anybody was still using that,' he muttered. 'Trouble is –' Suddenly his face brightened. 'Yes! That's it! Because to feed its organic nature it draws from the energy in our universe, it can only force a divergence in time, not rewrite it from the start. Therefore when it tries to force a new universe into creation it's borrowing energy from ours – and that will create a rift! No wonder the vortex is unstable!'

'Doctor,' Rowena interjected, more concerned for herself and Julie than for the vortex at this precise moment, 'how long are we gonna live?'

The Doctor glanced at her. 'Oh, don't worry. Prions take a long time to kill. They have to change your brain chemistry.

Whoever designed this thing intended it to spread through the food chain. Anything that dies of this and gets eaten will pass the prions on to the scavenger. If that gets eaten when it dies –' He stopped pacing, stared at the horizon, transfixed with anger. 'This could wipe out the whole mammalian population of the planet! Whoever did this didn't care about anything –'

Rowenna swallowed, felt her body shaking.

For the first time the Doctor seemed to notice her distress. He walked over, crouched down, put his hands on her shoulders, gently straightening her body to a more comfortable position against the thorn tree.

'It's OK, Rowenna,' he said.

She wondered again how he knew her name.

'You won't die yet. I promise you that. When we get back to the TARDIS I can give you something to rebalance your body chemistry. You'll live as long as you ever would have done. And Julie will too.'

He stood up, began pacing around the tree once more.

Rowenna noticed that Julie's eyes had opened, and the colour on her skin was better. She tried to shuffle over towards her friend, using her arms as levers, but tipped sideways and lay helpless on the ground.

'Dammit!'

To her surprise, Julie stood up, swayed, stretched, and then walked over to her. 'Who's he?' she asked, indicating the Doctor. Her voice was rusty with the after-effects of fever.

Rowenna bit back her pain. 'Jo's friend. The one that works miracles. You were dying a minute ago.'

'I don't feel too good now.' Julie brushed some of the flies away from her face, then knelt down and pulled Rowenna upright again.

'Where's Hynes?' she asked.

'Hynes? I –' Julie moved aside, and Rowenna realised that their captive wasn't where he should be.

'Doctor!' she called. 'Hynes has gone!'

The Doctor wandered round the tree, looked around for a moment. 'Oh, don't worry,' he said. 'I shouldn't think he's gone far. There aren't many places to go at the moment.' He frowned. 'A shame. I was going to ask him what he knew about this virus.

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