Doctor Who_ Infinite Requiem Part 3

He forgot how it had begun the usual round of disparaging remarks about choice of partners, he supposed. And now, he was pinned up against the trivia machine with Phil Tarrant's rancid breath in his face and Phil Tarrant's sinewy hands round his collar as a result of having made a little joke. A little comment about Tilusha having a bit of fun when Phil wasn't around.

'Have you ever had your nose broken?' Phil's square, thuggish face was distorted, like squashed plasticine. 'I kind of believe in giving people new experiences, like.'

Only, of course, Barry realized as his alcohol-addled brain worked overtime and his bowels slowly loosened, it hadn't just been that little joke; he'd gone a bit too far and suggested that Tilusha might have achieved her condition from another source. And that had been rather too much for Phil Tarrant.

Barry cursed his stupidity. His adversary was a renowned one. Nervy, squat and muscular Phil, with his firm white teeth, cropped hair and black eyebrows that met in the middle, had vented his spleen on others before, in ways that had required extra cleaning staff to be called in the next day.

'Hey. None of that here.' The landlord's hand was strong and firm on Phil's shoulder.

He dropped Barry, who slid gratefully against the wall. Phil squared up to the burly landlord, before relaxing his gritted-teeth expression.

'Why don't you go home, Phil?' the landlord suggested.

'Yeah,' Phil muttered, casting a spiteful glance in Barry's direction once more. 'Reckon I just might. Don't really care for the company round here any more.'

He turned on his heel and slammed out of the pub. The door swung to and fro several times after his departure, and several audible breaths were released.

Barry got to his feet, rubbing his neck. He didn't like to think what the poor bint had coming to her now. Still, he thought with considerable relief, at least it wasn't him.

The Doctor strode into the main console room of the TARDIS, put his hat down on the time rotor and plugged the temporal disruption monitor into its socket on the console.

Bernice watched, intrigued. 'Any more thoughts?' she asked tentatively.

'Plenty.' The Doctor nodded, and pointed to the monitor screen, where the view outside was clearly displayed. 'That white car there, it's a Polo. I 26 want you to get the number.' He put his hat back on, nodded to himself and headed for the door again. He stopped, just before the door, and gave Benny a rea.s.suring smile. 'If you wouldn't mind, that is.'

She spread her hands. 'It'll pa.s.s the time, I suppose. Are you turning into some kind of intergalactic traffic warden now?'

'No, I leave that to the Time Lords. Meet you in the park in ten minutes.'

And he was gone.

'The park,' she said. 'Right.'

Benny hoped that the Doctor wasn't in one of those moods where he left all the explaining until after the event. She liked to know whom she was fighting and why, especially these days.

She took her notebook and a pencil from her waistcoat pocket. 'Car numbers,' she said despairingly, addressing her remarks to the TARDIS roundels.

'He'll be asking me to go train-spotting with him next.'

It was difficult for Nita Bedi to persuade her mother, who was after all her chaperone and guardian, to let her have five minutes to talk to Tilusha Meswani. As far as Mrs Bedi was concerned, the girl had disgraced the entire family and should never be seen again. Nita, though, was a kindlier soul and more inclined to believe in redemption.

She had to look twice around the marble lobby, not realizing at first that the smart young woman sitting by the potted plants was her cousin. They exchanged smiles, squeezed hands, but then an unspoken sadness pa.s.sed between them and Nita let her grip weaken, awkwardly.

'You won't be able to come to the dance. They won't welcome you, Tilusha.'

The older girl was visibly angry. 'You think I don't know that?' Her voice echoed around the vast lobby, and she lowered it slightly. 'Nita, I know everyone's against me. But the only way I can get myself free of him is if someone will help me.'

'No,' Nita said quietly. 'First you need to help yourself. First you need to want want to be free of him. Not to keep going back like you have done before.' to be free of him. Not to keep going back like you have done before.'

Tilusha raised her eyes. 'Are you going to help me?'

Nita looked away awkwardly. She paced up and down, a brilliant splash of blue and yellow silk against the whiteness. When she looked back at her older cousin it was with a coolness that belied her youth. 'Your parents did the right thing. He's not a good man for you. You should know that '

'You're just prejudiced. You just don't like him because he's from a different background.'

'No!' Nita's voice surprised them both. 'I don't know how you can dare to say that. I yes, all right, I can't stand Phil, and you know why? Because he enjoys hurting you, Tilusha. He treats you like a little plaything. And I can't 27 bear to see that happening!' There was silence in the lobby for a moment.

'I've got to go,' Nita said quietly, and turned back towards the staircase.

'Hope you find someone there.' Tilusha's voice was resigned, hoa.r.s.e, the voice of bitter experience.

The irony the mockery, even was not lost on Nita. She hurried up the stairs without looking back.

The sounds of Indian music and laughter rippled down the stairs towards Tilusha. She did not need to go in. She knew what she would see: shy young men, eager and colourfully dressed young women, all from a life she had left behind. And for what?

She turned around, headed back towards the exit.

There was a little man in a crumpled cream-coloured suit reading the notice-board. He raised his hat to her as she went past.

Tilusha Meswani frowned, wondering if she should know the man, and where she had met him before.

She stopped in her tracks.

She felt a tingling in her spine.

She let go of her handbag and it hit the floor, scattering the contents: coins, lipstick, a bus timetable.

She dropped to her knees, with her mouth wrenched open and her hands across her stomach.

Mouth open. Hands across stomach.

Dimly aware of the little man turning, as if in slow motion, and running to her side. And she screamed. And screamed and screamed.

Bernice looked at her watch.

She sighed, shifted position on the wooden park bench. At least it had stopped raining, but that didn't make the city any more attractive. The park was a hopeful sign, but it still looked as if its visitors were not familiar with the concept of the litter bin, and seemed somehow to be an afterthought. A lake, little more than a large pond, was home to a few optimistic ducks. The trees' leaves were green, but they sat in the shadow of two huge blocks of flats.

Bernice allowed her eye to wander over the buildings. She saw balconies br.i.m.m.i.n.g with washing, the occasional satellite dish thrusting up into the sky, looking for bright fantasies to colour the dreary world, to break out from the neighbours above and the neighbours below and the neighbours to every side.

Looking for the stars, where there were no dogs and no acrimonious disputes and no corners smelling of urine. Bernice knew her twentieth-century social 28 history, and there were many colonial buildings of her own time which were not too dissimilar.

'Sorry to keep you waiting.'

He seemed to have appeared on the bench with no sound or warning. The Doctor, still looking vaguely absent, unsettled. Benny knew that look.

'I got the number,' she said. 'Is everything all right?'

'No,' said the Doctor. 'Things are very bad.'

'Nothing new. Why are we here?' No answer. 'Doctor, I'll give you your car number in exchange for an explanation about why exactly you want it and what we're doing here.'

Solemnly, the Doctor produced a paper bag full of stale fragments of bread.

'Feeding the ducks,' he said, and pa.s.sed the bag to Benny.

29.

4.

Don't Need No Thought Control

Far across time and s.p.a.ce, dusk was falling in the citadel of Banksburgh on Gadrell Major.

The sky was patterned by searchlights, whirling as if on an infernal dance floor. Buildings burned. The silver tanks of the Phracton flamers coursed the alleyways through the destruction.

Suzi Palsson had worked something out about the flamers, something pretty important. Anything that got in their way was destroyed. Everything else was ignored. And so getting the woman who called herself Shanstra to somewhere safe had not proved that arduous.

They moved swiftly in the gathering darkness, Shanstra swathed in a fake velvet cloak which Suzi had looted from the nearest boutique. The woman seemed to understand and accept the need for haste and silence. Suzi had taken them through the backstreets, into Corporation Boulevard with its stag-nant fountains.

Suzi, a former member of the Banksburgh Women's gravball team, was equipped with a pa.s.s key for the sports centre, and so getting into the foyer had not been a problem. Inside, the key let them move around with surprising freedom. One gla.s.s door had not yielded, and so Suzi had kicked it in with unaccustomed verve. They had found themselves a plush, abandoned office for refuge.

Suzi, settling herself on the mahogany desk, saw only now how impressive Shanstra was. She had to be two metres tall, possibly more. Her mane of hair was so dark it seemed to repel light, and the face it framed was somehow beautiful and hideous at the same time. It was high-boned and oval, but too long to be comfortably attractive, while the nose was little more than a fold of skin with two holes in it. The most beautiful thing about Shanstra was her mouth. It looked as if it could encompa.s.s every language, every action a mouth was required for. The lips were full and shone like the skins of nectarines, unblemished. It was like a clownish stripe of red across the bottom of her face, a larger-than-life advert for some wonder product. Suzi could not take her eyes from Shanstra's mouth.

The woman was looking around like a blind person who had just regained the power of sight, stroking the air with her hands and looking unblinkingly 31 at every detail.

'This is your . . . residence?'

She had spoken. Not inside Suzi's head this time, but in the real world. It was a voice like burgundy, deep and rich and satisfying.

Suzi could not help laughing. 'My what?' She pointed to the window behind the desk. 'I had an apartment in the third precinct, on Argolis Avenue. It's a pile of dust now, I expect. I tell you something, I'm not going back there to find out.'

She untaped the gun from inside her jacket, then dumped both gun and jacket on the desk with her backpack. All she had in the world. She scowled.

Suzi approached Shanstra carefully, afraid of finding some electrical aura around her. She remembered how the dust and rubble had slid from that nakedness, leaving not a trace behind.

Shanstra loomed over her. She looked down, as if inviting Suzi to speak.

Suzi said, 'You used your voice.' It sounded feeble. There were a hundred and one things she was dying to ask this woman and You would prefer mental communion?

It was a surprise, and made Suzi take a step backwards.

'No,' she said. 'I mean, yes, but ' She was sweating. She decided that she would very much like a drink, and sidled over to the wall lockers to see if she could find anything.

There is no need to be frightened of me, Suzi. I am grateful. You are my friend.

I found myself in a strange land, weak, my powers latent. And you helped me.

Suzi had found an unopened bottle of whisky that looked like the real stuff from Earth. She looked at the label, and saw that it was fifty-year-old Laphroaig. She smiled. 'Yes. You see, I think I'm still pretty sh.e.l.l-shocked.

That's my world out there, Shanstra. And I don't know where you come from, but I don't think it's this world, is it?'

Shanstra's mouth performed a grimace or was it a beautiful smile? that made Suzi blush. Think it, child. I'll hear you. Think it, child. I'll hear you.

Suzi unscrewed the top of the bottle and drank a much-needed gulp. She slammed the bottle down. 'You mean I'm telepathic too?'

If that is what you choose to call it. The term is not one I use, but there are latent forces in all the early races, yes. latent forces in all the early races, yes.

What did she mean 'the early races'? Without realizing it, she had done as Shanstra bade her. A thought, lobbed between the beautiful-ugly woman's eyes. And it had hit home.

You, said Shanstra, caressing her mind. said Shanstra, caressing her mind. I am talking about you. I am talking about you.

Suzi swallowed, and the physical world seemed to drift, to take on a secondary importance. It was as if she had always known it to be a palimpsest, a perception.

32.Fascinating to find a highly developed sensitivity in such a primitive race.

Shanstra's hand was against her cheek, she could feel that much. Oh, you Oh, you are a myriad. A myriad, child! There are race memories, thoughts of violence, of are a myriad. A myriad, child! There are race memories, thoughts of violence, of a strong, all-pervading emotion that calls itself a strong, all-pervading emotion that calls itself For the first time, Shanstra frowned visibly, the pleats of skin like knife-cuts on her giant forehead. Then her brow brightened, and her eyes were burning with green again as they met Suzi's. It calls itself guilt. It calls itself guilt.

The mental exploration ceased. Suzi felt her body shot through with weakness, as if she had been retching with nausea. The room blurred. She tried to focus on Shanstra, and was rewarded with a pounding headache.

Shanstra spoke. 'A very human trait, this guilt, so far as I can perceive.

Attaching moral tags to actions, and then regretting them later.'

'Nothing can be that simple. I don't think you know what you mean. You don't understand humans.' Suzi, wary now, staggered to the desk and slumped into the padded chair. Her mercury-coloured hair was cl.u.s.tered in damp strands in front of her eyes. She pushed it out of the way. She saw the gun on the desk, and Shanstra beyond it.

Thoughts crowded Suzi's tired mind She had not forgotten the way Shanstra had dealt with the Phracton unit. The Phracton unit which had been going to . . . attack her?

There was something very unsettling about the way Shanstra ignored the gun no, was indifferent indifferent to it, as one would be to a cup or a waste-bin. to it, as one would be to a cup or a waste-bin.

Suzi tried to adjust to the strange events that had overtaken her. Outside, darkness had fallen. Banksburgh flickered with flame below them, and an uncertain future awaited it. She could not shake the eerie conviction that its future had something to do with Shanstra.

'Have you ever felt any guilt yourself?' asked Suzi softly.

'No, child.' Shanstra smiled. Her face glowed with the orange light of destruction from outside. 'Let me feel it now.'

And Suzi, who understood, almost without thinking, what she had to do, opened up her mind.

Shanstra's thoughts reached into her.

Trinket was beginning to have doubts again.

It had all been very well in the bunker, and Livewire had a persuasive at-t.i.tude, to say the least. But surely there had to be easier ways of getting a gun?

The tube-cars were still operational; that had surprised even Livewire. Poly had done something to the electrics and they'd got one of the sleek, bullet-shaped carriages back on line. The stations were all eerily still, so quiet they 33 could hear the lights buzzing. Trinket's mouth was dry and tasted foul to him as they hopped off the line at Corporation Plaza.