Doctor Who_ Relative Dementias Part 10

'What about all those poor people?' wailed Connie, stopping in the doorway and looking back.

'Let's just get you out first,' Ace said as calmly as she could.

'Then I'll come back for the rest. OK?'

Connie nodded uncertainly, looking back to Jessie in the corridor for rea.s.surance, before following her.

With a sinking, sickening feeling grasping at her stomach, Joyce cast a last look around the chamber of horrors and set off after the others.

As the Doctor padded down the corridor, he could hear the tatters of dreams, muttered grumbles, the occasional sob. All neatly boxed up in those little rooms, locked away out of sight.

He scanned the plaques on the doors: The Iris Room The Iris Room, The Rose The Rose Room Room, The Violet Room The Violet Room. One door, however, bore no name. He paused at it and saw that it was slightly ajar, a thin, cool breeze blowing through the gap. Opening it he saw a small staircase that led into darkness, both up and down. He remembered what Ace had said about her conversation with Claudette: the treatment room not to mention this mysterious Mr Sooal was up those stairs.

His feet tapping gently on the stone, he made his way cautiously up to the darkened landing where he stood in silence for a few moments, breathing in the musty air. Moonlight slanted in through a window set at the far end of the corridor, and, as he listened, he heard music from one of the rooms off the corridor the sad strains of a woman singing opera. La La Traviata Traviata. He paused and pressed his ear to the door, but all he could hear was the music: Addio de Pa.s.sato Addio de Pa.s.sato, the heartbreaking goodbye to life from the opera's heroine, Violetta. The Doctor found his throat tightening as he was caught up in the haunting strings and woodwind, the tremulous voice. Non lagrima o fore Non lagrima o fore aura la mia fossa... neither tears nor flowers will my grave have. . aura la mia fossa... neither tears nor flowers will my grave have. .

He felt a twinge of guilt, eavesdropping on such personal sadness. Necessary it may be, but not very nice. From what Ace had said, this must be Sooal's room. He knew he ought to confront him, ask him face to face what was happening. But, just now, it seemed wrong. He felt like he was listening in on a funeral, on some private grief.

He turned away from the door. Later. Later.

The treatment room, then. There were three other rooms one was empty and smelled of dust and damp as he opened the door a crack. Even in the faded ivory light from the landing window, he could see that the second one was tiled white, clinical like the cellar laboratory. He dosed the door behind him as he fumbled for the light switch. Pale orange light flared from the spotlamp in the centre of the ceiling, casting a cone of b.l.o.o.d.y light downwards onto a chair, much like a dentist's. But this one, he noted grimly, had leather wrist and ankle restraints.

He ran the tips of his fingers over the headrest, noting the control panels that spread out from the chair's arms and the tray of decidedly non-terrestrial, air-powered hypodermics. He picked one up, sniffed it cautiously, and set it back down. As his gaze swept around the room, he noticed a clipboard hanging on the door of a large store cupboard: dates and times of treatment sessions, patients' names, all scribbled in an odd, angular handwriting. Most, it seemed, as he riffled through the pages, took place at night. Perhaps coming back here for a look in the wee hours wasn't such a clever idea.

Aliens curing Alzheimer's disease? Maybe he'd become cynical; maybe this was just some philanthropic creature who'd decided to come to Earth to do good. But then why was the atmosphere around Graystairs so cold, so dour? And then, of course, there was the fleshsuit tank in the cottage. His eyes flicked to the wrist restraints again.

He heard a noise from down the corridor and quickly moved to the doorway, flicking out the light.

An elderly woman, looked somewhat dazed, was being helped along by two younger men. One of them Bernard?

had shown the Doctor in earlier; the other was unfamiliar, with sandy hair and a grim, tired face. There was only one place they could be coming.

Steve wished they could wait until they got the residents into the treatment room before giving them the sedative: dragging them, half-dazed, up those stairs was a pain. But Doctor Menzies insisted, said they might be disturbed by the treatment room, the dentist's chair. So redecorate the treatment room, Menzies or at least move it downstairs.

Norma was one of the better ones at least she didn't turn into a bag of bones as soon as she'd swallowed her tablet, not like some of them; at least she could still bear her own weight.

Flicking on the light, Steve helped Bernard swing Norma into position, letting her slump down in the chair. Her eyes, unfocussed, tried to take in the tiled room. But with a thin sigh she closed them and her breathing became slow and deep.

'Norma's under,' Steve said, checking the dock on the wall.

'Come on that's us done for tonight.'

Bernard grunted as they left the room. 'I'll be glad to be back on days,' he said grumpily. 'This place is too creepy at night.' He glanced back at Norma, drowsing fitfully, and closed the door behind them.

Inside the store cupboard, the Doctor irritably pushed aside a couple of hanging labcoats. Squeezed in between cardboard boxes and two slim filing cabinets, he was grateful to hear the receding voices and the closing of the door. He gave it another minute, just to make sure, and then cautiously opened the door.

Flopped in the dentist's chair, arms folded in her lap, was Norma. He listened to her breathing for a moment.

'Norma... can you hear me?'

Her lips moved silently. He took her hand and closed his eyes. Moments later, her eyes flicked open and she stared at him, a curious frown on her face.

'Just a message from Joyce,' he said.

'Who are you?' She s.n.a.t.c.hed her hand from his.

'I'm the Doctor.'

'You're not Doctor Menzies. Or Doctor Kale. Have I seen you before?'

She struggled to sit up in the chair.

'I'm a good friend of your daughter. She asked me to come and help.'

'Help? Help what? What's happened to Joyce?'

'That's what I'm here to find out.'

'Something's happened to her.' It was a statement. Norma's eyes narrowed as she tried to remember...

'When did you last see her?' asked the Doctor.

Norma shook her head, confused. 'I... I can't remember.'

She closed her eyes slowly, swallowing painfully and looked up into the Doctor's eyes, her own suddenly so full of fear. 'Help me,' she said. 'Please... help me.'

The Doctor couldn't bring himself to nod, couldn't bring himself to make a promise that he wasn't sure he could keep.

He'd done that before. He couldn't do it again.

'Just close your eyes,' he said. 'Close your eyes Norma, and try to tell me what you can about Joyce, about the last time you saw her.'

'I was... in my room. Yes... and she came to see me. But there was someone else there first, someone else with Megan.'

An expression of distaste mingled with fascination pa.s.sed across her fine features. 'He's... he's all white. Pale. Red eyes no, pink.

He's a... what d'you call them... Albanian?'

'An albino?'

She nodded. 'Yes, he's... one of those. He's smiling at me, coming towards me. He has something in his hand. He's telling me that it's just a little shot. "Part of the treatment," he says.'

She shuddered and tried to pull her hand away from the Doctor's; but he held firm.

'What now Norma?'

'Then he says something to Megan something about... a woman? Tracy Chambers? Stacy Chambers?' Norma's voice wandered away with a sigh. 'I'm too tired... too sleepy...'

'Try to stay awake, Norma. I need you to tell me what happened next. And about this woman.'

She shook her head. 'Sleepy... too sleepy.' Her head wobbled unsteadily, her chin drooping down towards her blue bedjacket.

The Doctor shook his head. Norma had been too far under the influence of the sedative she had obviously been given. He held her hand firmly and dosed his eyes. 'Wake up Norma,' he whispered.

Seconds later, she gave a little jerk and opened her eyes. She smiled apologetically. 'Sorry, I must have nodded off.' For a moment, she was disorientated and then she suddenly remembered that they'd been talking about Joyce. She s.n.a.t.c.hed her hand from the Doctor's again. 'What's happened to Joyce?'

'Nothing, hopefully,' the Doctor said. 'And I'm going to make sure it stays that way.'

He knew he could have hypnotized her again, had another go. But not now. From down the corridor came the sound of a door opening. He looked down at Norma and, on a whim, pulled his fobwatch from his pocket. He pressed it into her trembling hand. 'A present from Joyce,' he said simply.

He crossed to the door of the treatment room and as he cracked it open he heard Norma quietly talking to herself. He looked back to see her, eyes closed and palms pressed together around the silvery liquid shape of the watch.

'Lord I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep...'

Connie and Jessie were still in shock which actually made it easier to chivvy them along the corridor to the transmat. They seemed happy that someone was making decisions for them.

This was clearly all too much for them to take in although Joyce was struggling to get a grasp on it all herself.

'I'll go through first,' Ace said. 'Joyce, can you make sure Connie and Jessie go through OK and then follow them?

There's a chance that the place will be crawling with staff when we get back, so you need to get Connie and Jessie to safety, and you need to find the Doctor. Tell him what's happened that there's a transmat in the cellar that leads to a s.p.a.ceship. Got that?'

Joyce nodded, still bristling slightly from being ordered about.

'Right see you on the other side.' With a deep breath, Ace took a couple of steps forwards and vanished. Joyce winced as Jessie gave a shriek.

Through the gap in the treatment room door, the Doctor saw a man who fitted not only Claudette's description, but Norma's too: thin, nervous, pale skin, bald head. As he left his room, Sooal glanced up and down the corridor suspiciously. For a moment, the Doctor almost felt those albino eyes burning into him. And then the moment was past: Sooal looked at a small, greenish device in the palm of his hand and set off down the stairs.

But there was something else he'd noticed about him something that Ace hadn't mentioned. Perhaps Claudette hadn't noticed, or hadn't thought it was worth commenting on.

Something that he felt sure must be important. He slipped out of the treatment room and padded to the top of the stairs. He paused, momentarily, before silently descending the stone steps.

'What's happening?' demanded Sooal as he stood over the p.r.o.ne figure of Megan. She gave a groan and looked up at him. The right-hand side of her face was bruised, and there was dried blood under her nose. She was sprawled on the floor of the bas.e.m.e.nt kitchen at the foot of the rear stairs, like a broken toy.

'That little b.i.t.c.h!' she hissed, her voice distorted by her swollen lip. She touched it tenderly and winced.

'Who? What's been going on? I come down here to find out who's been disconnecting the processors, and find you taking a nap!' 'Who has? Where?'

Sooal gave a snort of disgust. 'Aboard the ship,' he said slowly, waving his datapad at her. 'Someone has been disconnecting the processors. We've lost three of them in the past half hour.'

'It's her! It must be!'

'So what happened?'

'She must have ambushed me hit me with. .' She glanced around, and saw a huge, cast-iron pan on its side on the floor, a few yards away. 'With that. It must have been her. Or her grandad.'

'What are are you wittering about? Who?' you wittering about? Who?'

'They came to look round yesterday a girl and her grandad.

Her name was Ace or something stupid, and she called him "the Doctor" a real dotty old duffer. I knew knew there was something odd about them. They vanished during tea Enid said she'd seen them wandering around.' there was something odd about them. They vanished during tea Enid said she'd seen them wandering around.'

Sooal's jaw clenched. 'And you didn't think to tell me about them?'

Megan glared back at him, clearly not intending to be intimidated by him. 'Why should I have done? I thought they were just a girl and her grandfather, looking around the place.'

'If you'd remember what we're doing here instead of acting out the comic role that you spend most of your time practising, then you'd have kept an eye on them.'

'It puts the humans at their ease and keeps them coming back. If it wasn't for me, you'd have no patients here. Perhaps you should take a few social skills lessons yourself no wonder you need to keep yourself hidden away in that attic '

She flinched as he raised his hand. But after a moment, he lowered it and turned away. 'I suggest,' he said, barely containing his anger, 'that you find them. I'm going to the ship to find out what's happened there.'

'And if they're on board?'

Sooal patted his pocket where the outline of a bulbous gun was dearly visible. 'Then I'll take a leaf out of your book, and try out a new role for myself that of executioner.'

In the laboratory, less than thirty feet away, Ace materialized in mid-stride out of thin air and dropped instinctively into a crouching position. She could hear voices through the doorway.

She stood aside, waiting impatiently for the others to follow her through the transmat. Jessie appeared next, looking even more bewildered than she had aboard the ship followed by Connie and Joyce. Ace toyed with the idea of telling them that it was all just a dream, but there wasn't time.

'Get them out of here, and find the Doctor we're booked in at your B&B,' she hissed to Joyce, jabbing her finger in the direction of the kitchen and pressing it to her lips. 'There's someone in there.'

'What about you?'

'I'm going back to see if I can revive some of the others now go go!' Ace pointed to the stairs.

Shushing Connie and Jessie, Joyce marshalled them together and herded them towards the stairs as Ace stepped back through the transmat.

On the other side of the transmat field, Ace listened to the ship creak around her, and wondered if there was anybody else other than the sleepers aboard with her. Perhaps there were weapons aboard that she could use to hold off any attackers. She shook her head. She ought to concentrate on waking the sleepers up and getting them out. Determinedly, she splashed off down the corridor.

From his position, three steps up from the kitchen, the Doctor listened with interest to Megan and Sooal's conversation. Nasty piece of work, he thought. Very nasty. And Megan wasn't much better not least because she'd described him as a 'dotty old duffer'. Perhaps he should take it as a compliment on his acting ability.

And what did Sooal mean by 'processors'? He could only hope that he meant data rather than food. As Sooal left the room, the Doctor heard a noise. From above him came the sound of footsteps, growing louder. He was trapped.