Doctor Who: Lungbarrow (15 page)

His mouth twitched and his face coloured noticeably. 'That is not a consideration.'

'What do you mean?' she said. 'How can it not be a consideration?'

'Are you implicating him in this also?'

That shocked her. 'Of course not! He did not know. I care for him and chose to be with him. Don't you have feelings?'

He stared fixedly at her as he fingered the edge of his carved desk. 'The Castellan's pedestrian duties extend only to the security within the Capitol. The crime you have committed is not within his aegis. It affects the whole security of Gallifrey in its relation to the causal nexus of the Cosmos. And that is our concern.'

'Then you are answerable to President Romana.'

'Another friend of yours, of course.' He smiled his serpent smile again. 'Yes, she makes an admirable figurehead.

But she does not command the overwhelming support that she likes to imagine.'

'Take away this barrier. Or are you afraid to be in the same space as an unGallifreyan savage?'

He rose from his chair and came to the edge of where she guessed the barrier to be. 'Why were you trying to contact the Doctor today?'

'He is my friend, too.'

'Yes?'

'Yes. But I do not use him as you do.'

'Explain that accusation.'

'You use the Doctor whenever you have something you don't want to blunt your own knives on.'

'Does it occur to you that he might be our friend also?'

'No,' she said. 'I learned that the Time Lords were all-powerful, but you have no honour in your dead rituals.'

His smooth indifference seemed to crack a little. 'Madam, as an other-worlder with scarcely a history of your own, you know nothing of our provenance. The planet Gallifrey was powerful when the flower of the Universe was barely unfolding. Our society is steeped in the traditions of a thousand millennia. It is our greatest duty to revere and maintain our past.'

'In my world, the old are revered for their counsel. But if the old vines cling too tightly, we cut them back to let the young growth through.'

'Barbaric,' he said. 'You know nothing.'

'I know that if I ever do see Andred again, I wil have forgotten this meeting. But I will fight you for my memories.'

He laughed. 'You are unhappy,' he said. 'Just answer one more question, madam. You say that the Doctor is your friend. You certainly have travelled with him, so I would guess that you know him better than most. Perhaps almost as well as the President knows him. But can you say who he is?'

61

'What?' she said.

'The Doctor's identity?'

She was mystified. 'He is the Doctor. He is a Time Lord. And he has... he
had
a Family at the House...'

'I know what you were searching for on the panotropic network,' he said. 'But what about the Doctor? Who is he really?'

She shook her head. 'He's a wise man. A shaman. No, he is more than that.' For a moment, she was uncertain. In her memories, there was an excitement and wonderment, a sense of danger that the thought of the Doctor always aroused. But she had always accepted him; never questioned his identity. Finally, she knew her answer. She understood the Doctor's secret. He could not and must never be tied down, pinpointed or categorized.

'He is a mystery,' she said with the utmost reverence.

From somewhere close in the Capitol, there came the deep boom of an explosion. The office shook and the sky went black.

62

Uninvited Hosts

'Going somewhere?'

The voice brought Innocet up short. 'Cousin Rynde,' she whispered as she saw him slide out from behind an arras.

'You startled me.'

'You're out late,' he said. 'Or is it so late that it's early now?' Even in the gloom, his face was grubby and had an oily sheen. His eyes bulged like the pale eyes of a lantern fish. He looked uncommonly well fed.

Innocet knew that Rynde hoped she was engaged on il icit business. She pulled her cloak around her. It barely fitted over the heavy coil of hair on her back. 'I'm surprised to see you in this part of the House,' she said.

He edged up close to her and growled, 'Someone's been thieving from my shrew traps.'

'Your traps?' She pulled away as politely as possible. 'I thought that Cousin Maljamin caught the tafelshrews for the Drudges.'

'He used to.'

'What's happened to him?' said Innocet warily. The prophecy of the rogue card cast a shadow across her thoughts. Anything erring from that usual wearisome burden of candleday-to-candleday life in the House now filled her with foreboding.

'Gone. He's gone away,' said Rynde.

'What? Like the others?'

'Don't know about that. He just took to sitting in his chair and losing interest. Wouldn't talk. Wouldn't eat. Wouldn't even give me a game of Drat. That's when I knew things were real y turning windy. Twice I found him in the corner of his room trying to dig a hole. I think he thought he was a shrew as well. And then he disappeared. That's all.'

Still facing her with a grin, he ambled backward along the passage.

Innocet felt the weight on her shoulders. Sometimes her burden was unbearable. It was still growing. Against her better judgement, she set off after Rynde. 'You should have restrained him,' she called. 'You should have known he might go away.'

Rynde had reached the staircase leading down to the disused phrontisteries. He spat down the stairwel . 'Why should I?' he said. 'Maljamin wouldn't have stopped me. We do things differently in the North-by-North-East wing.

Not the same as you grand galleriers. He just went the same as the others. No fuss. Anyhow, he might be happier as a shrew.'

'You should have told me,' she scolded. 'You know I keep the tal y. You must be the last one left in your wing of the House. Soon there'll be no one left at all.'

He scratched his head through his oily hair. He had dirty fingernails. She couldn't abide dirty fingernails. She seemed to remember that he had once worked as some sort of food technician to the Time Lord gentry at the Capitol.

'You're just worried there'll be no more dinner,' he sneered and started down the stairs.

'Be careful, Cousin. Something dangerous is happening,' she cal ed after him. 'There was an omen in the cards.

And you must have heard the clock.'

'Superstition!' said Rynde. 'I'm more worried about my traps.'

63

She started down the stairs, struggling with her robe on the big steps. 'Have you seen Owis and Arkhew?' she called.

'Together? Owis doesn't count, does he?'

She reached the landing, quite out of breath. 'Of course, he counts.'

'Oh well, in that case I defer to your superior wisdom, Cousin. I saw both of them three candledays ago in the funguretum. Glospin was with them too. They were gambling for something. When I asked what, they just laughed and said the highest stakes.' He shrugged. 'Why? What have they done to you?'

'I'm worried that they may have passed on, gone away like Maljamin.'

Rynde gave a rasping guffaw. 'Arkhew might. He's always been on the edge. But you won't get rid of Owis. Not if there's still food about.'

'I must find them,' she said. 'I know something dreadful is going to happen.'

'Don't jump at your own reflection, Cousin. It might only be Satthralope leering out at you.' He laughed again and held up a something furry and dead. 'Feeling peckish? Anything to offer in exchange?'

'Certainly not,' said Innocet, pulling her coat around her.

Rynde leered and stuffed the animal in one of his many pouches. 'I'll tell them if I see them.' He sauntered off down the passage, a knotted string of dead shrews dangling and dancing down his back.

***

But the latch stayed jammed.

At least it shut Glospin up for a minute.

While Chris tried to force the metal door, there had been a barrage of questions. Who was he? Who had sent him? How did he get in? He ignored most of them and was non-committal over the rest. This man cal ed Glospin, doing solitary inside a stove, was an ID/unD: undeciphered. He could be a different Gallifreyan with the same name. Or that same evil bastard of a Gallifreyan he'd encountered in his dream, only with a different body on: a total body bepple. The Doctor could regenerate, Chris knew that. His body just seemed to be something he went about in. So maybe the process came naturally to the rest of his race as wel .
De rigeur
, as the simpering select class of the Overcity would say.

'Are you some sort of guard?' began Glospin again. His eye was squinting sideways through the grating.

Chris snorted. 'You could say that.'

'Thought so. The clothes don't fool me.'

'I'm off duty,' said Chris.

'How did you get in? Down the chimney?'

'Hardly.' Chris had found a rusty pan handle and was trying to jam it into the door.

'Which Chapterhouse? You can't be Prydonian - your face is too honest.' He gasped in sudden pain.

'What is it?' said Chris.

'My legs! No circulation. I can't move in this thing. Get me out of here!'

64

The pan handle buckled in Chris's hands and tore one of his fingernails. He yelped in pain and stuck the finger in his mouth.

'Get me out now!' Glospin snarled.

Chris stood back from the stove. He didn't like that tone. His immediate concern had knocked something vital to the back of his mind. 'Better tell me why you've been locked up in there,' he said.

He saw the eye shift past him to stare along the passage. There was new light coming in from somewhere.

'Chris, you're making enough noise to wake the House itself,' said the Doctor.

He came scuttling out of a different passage. He carried a lamp in one hand, his trousers were soaking wet and grey powder was streaked over his jacket. 'Time to move. The natives are getting -, He was shaking out his dusty hat, when he apparently realized that they were not alone.

He gave an oily smile and gestured the lamp towards the ceiling. 'Of course, there may be a few problems with damp, but the general structure is sound and it is, you will agree, a most advantageously appointed property with a delightful aspect overlooking the val ey.'

He met the stare of the eye at the grating.

'You!' whispered Glospin.

The Doctor blew the flame of the lamp out.

'It's
you
.' Glospin's voice was chilled with contempt.

'Gods of Purgatory, it
is
you!'

'Not necessarily,' said the Doctor, pulling down his hat to hide his face in the twilight. He laughed awkwardly. 'Have we met? No, I don't think so. So sorry. Must dash.'

Chris caught his arm. 'You can't leave him in there. He's trapped.'

'No worse than he deserves, I'm sure.' The Doctor yanked himself free.

'You!' accused Glospin. 'I'd know that ego anywhere. The bloody bile you have, slinking back in after everything.

After all this time!'

'I'm sure you're making some mistake.' The Doctor shot a sidelong glance at Chris. 'My client will explain everything.'

'Doctor,' said Chris, trying to stay calm.

The Doctor shushed him.

'Doctor, I know.'

'No, you do not know, Chris!'

Chris lowered his voice. 'Yes, I do. This is your home and your family.'

The Doctor stepped backward in shock. For a second, Chris thought he was having another hearts attack.

The magnitude of his statement slammed back in on Chris. The whispering, which had died in his head, erupted again in earnest. Sorry, Roz. There are things that should never get said to your friends. Sorry, sorry.

'Sorry, Doctor,' he mumbled.

65

The Doctor said nothing. His head shook a little as if he refused to accept the statement.

Glospin's eye in the stove had seen everything. His voice began to sneer. 'Did you think we'd al be dead by now?

That you'd left it long enough? Wait until they all know you're here!'

'Shut up!' said Chris.

But Glospin started to yel . 'It's him! He's here! Help me! He's come back! Drudge! Drudges!'

'Glospin!' shouted the Doctor. 'Is that you in there?'

Glospin went silent.

The Doctor stared in at the grating. Eye to eye. A long moment of recognition.

Then he turned back to Chris. His manner was quiet and grave, like that of a condemned man. 'Christopher, keep an eye out along that passage in case anyone else turns up.'

'Yes, Doctor,' said Chris. 'I'm sorry. When you want to leave...'

The Doctor nodded towards the passage he had emerged from.

Chris moved obediently away feeling the Doctor's eyes burn into his back as he went. He wasn't even halfway along the dark passage, when a wave of nausea broke over him. He stumbled against the wall, his senses swimming. As he went under for the first time, he heard Glospin and the Doctor start to argue.

***

Chris was looking at an airy room lit by orange sunlight... Beyond the window stood the tall towers of some unEarthly city. The figure of Glospin, the old man Glospin from the dream, stood between him and the view. Glospin was shouting at him and brandishing a document.

'... I discovered anomalies in your genetic codings!'

Chris felt a fury that he did not understand. It took over his every sense. 'Nonsense!' he heard himself say, but his voice was curiously old and felt like someone else's. He levelled a finger at the outraged Glospin and saw that he wore a jewel ed ring. 'This is some childish attempt to complete my severance from the Family. Aren't you satisfied, hmm? Why do you still insist on pestering me?'

'You certainly never belonged to Lungbarrow's Loom. Exactly who or what are you?'

'I'm your Cousin!', declared the voice in Chris's head. He raised his cane to strike at Glospin and they were soon brawling like schoolroom rookies.

With a crash, a black, coffin-like box shot through the solid wall.