‘No, it isn’t mine,’ she said, trying to sound calm and normal. ‘Is it yours?’
‘It belongs to some friends of mine,’ said the stranger, carefully, his eyes still not moving from her.
‘It’s a very strange book,’ said Clare.
‘I’ve got some very strange friends,’ he said. ‘And very careless.’ A thought seemed to strike him. ‘Strangely careless…’ He looked into the distance and then suddenly snapped back to her. ‘Why did you take it?’
‘I didn’t take it,’ said Clare.
‘I know,’ said the stranger.
Clare sighed. ‘Look, come on, what is all this about?’
‘What’s what about?’
Clare indicated the book. ‘That. This book business.’
The stranger seemed almost afraid to touch the book. His fingers hovered hesitantly over it. ‘Have you read it?’
‘I can’t,’ said Clare.
‘You can’t read?’
‘No – I mean, yes, I can read, but – the writing looks more like an explosion in a spaghetti tree.’ Suddenly the questions blurted out of her. ‘Where does it come from? What’s it made of? Why did it make the spectrograph blow up?’ She indicated the tea-towel-covered machine in the corner.
‘May I inspect your spectrograph?’ asked the stranger. Clare nodded and he strode over and whipped the tea towel from the machine. He whistled. ‘That book did this?’
Clare nodded. ‘This book did that.’
The stranger looked between her and the spectrograph and seemed to come to a decision. He smiled suddenly and unexpectedly, with teeth like two rows of great gleaming tombstones. ‘Hello, I’m the Doctor,’ he said, extending a hand.
‘Clare Keightley,’ said Clare, shaking it.
But what she was thinking inside, rather oddly, was Well, of course you are.
Chapter 20
THE PROFESSOR WAS right about the Type 40 design, thought Romana. The kitchen was a good five minutes’ walk down the twisty white corridors from the control room. What the Professor didn’t know was that the Doctor was quite appallingly cavalier with the pedestrian infrastructure of the TARDIS, casually deleting, creating and rearranging the interior space like a deck of cards as the whim took him. It was a good job she had such an incredible memory or the journey might have taken much longer.
Romana returned to the control room with a pint of milk. She crossed to the console and was about to open the door to rejoin the Professor when a thought struck her. She called, ‘K-9?’
The mobile computer, shaped roughly like a dog, whirred into view from beneath the console. His eye-screen glowed enthusiastically. ‘Mistress?’ he asked keenly.
Romana knelt down and patted him on the head. ‘Do you want to come out and be useful? This doesn’t seem to be just a social visit after all.’
‘Affirmative, Mistress,’ said K-9. ‘My function is to assist you,’ he added, perhaps a little put out at being left behind in the TARDIS all afternoon.
‘Well, you can tell me how old this milk is for a start,’ said Romana. She tore off the golden foil top (which read Express Dairies 1886) and held the contents under K-9’s super-sensitive scanner nose.
K-9 sniffed. ‘This milk has been in the stasis preserver for only thirty years relative time. It is perfectly fresh.’
‘Good,’ said Romana. ‘Come on, I’ll introduce you to the Professor.’
She threw the big red lever that operated the main doors and K-9 followed her out of the TARDIS. ‘I got the milk,’ she called – and then she saw the old man lying curled up beside the sofa, his eyes open, staring blankly. His skin was horribly white, his head thrown back, mouth open, his features twisted in pain and shock.
‘Professor!’ cried Romana, rushing to his side.
This time, thought Chris, he was going to get some answers. This time he wouldn’t stand for any eccentricity or vagueness or strangeness, or even any wanton police-box-related bizarreness. He was going to march straight into Professor Chronotis’s rooms like a man and get the whole truth about this damned book business like a man would. Oh yes, this time would be different!
He parked the bike in the quad and nodded to the porter.
As he marched purposefully and in a very direct, masculine and no-nonsense manner indeed through the corridors to Room P-14, he almost collided with a stern-looking bloke who wore tight jeans and a shirt unbuttoned at least two buttons more than necessary, who for some reason was carrying an old carpet bag.
‘Sorry,’ said Chris, internally chastising himself for not sounding very manly at all.
The bloke barged past him brusquely without a word.
Chris reached the door of the Professor’s room, braced himself and knocked. Time for some common sense!
‘Professor Chronotis!’ he called.
‘Who is it?’ said a voice that wasn’t the Professor’s.
Chris decided to push straight in, in a no-nonsense, common sense manner.
‘It’s me, Professor,’ he started to say – and then stopped.
The Professor lay motionless on the floor, his face contorted in an expression of terrible pain, his hands twisted like claws. Leaning over him was the most beautiful woman Chris had ever seen. Her classical, almost aristocratic features were framed by long fair hair the colour of ripening corn, and she was dressed in a straw hat and a delicate lace ensemble. All she needed was a parasol and she could have stepped straight from the beach of a Boudin canvas. Though she was clearly deeply distressed at whatever had befallen the Professor, she retained an air of poise and dignity. Immediately, she made Chris more nervous than any woman ever had before, including Clare. Strangely, in the instant way the human sexual instinct works even in moments of distress or wanton bizarreness, Chris realised he didn’t actually find her attractive, more – awesome.
And, even more strangely, she wasn’t the oddest person in the room, if the other occupant of the room could be described as a person, which Chris severely doubted.
At the woman’s side, somehow looking equally concerned, was a metal box about three feet by two feet with ‘K-9’ emblazoned on its side in what somebody had obviously thought was a futuristic typeface. From the front of the box sprouted what was clearly meant to be a head, with a glowing red screen for eyes, a snout with a nozzle at the end and two miniature radar dishes in place of ears. It sort of looked, a bit, like a dog. It even had an antenna for a tail and, for a campy finishing touch, a tartan collar.
All this flashed through Chris’s mind in a second as all hopes of common sense for this day finally vanished. Lamely, and very unmasculinely, he found himself asking, ‘What’s happened?’
The girl gave Chris no more than a quick glance before turning back to the Professor. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. She bent over and listened to the left side of his chest and then, strangely, checked the right side as well. She straightened up. ‘I think he’s dead,’ she said despairingly.
‘Negative, Mistress,’ piped a tinny voice. It took Chris a moment to realise the sound was coming from the metal dog-thing. With an electrical whirr, a long slim probe extended from its eye to the Professor’s forehead. ‘He is alive but he is in a deep coma.’
Chris had so many questions. But they were pushed to the back of his mind by the sight of the Professor’s prone body. He had seemed such a nice old man. So he just asked ‘What’s happened to him?’ again.
This time it was the dog-thing that answered, its radar ears twirling furiously from side to side. ‘Processing data,’ it said.
Suddenly the girl stood up and fixed Chris with a suspicious glare. ‘Do you know him?’
Chris almost stepped back a pace, and then actually did. This woman was a bit terrifying. ‘Hardly at all,’ he spluttered. ‘He just lent me a book.’
‘A book!’ she exclaimed. ‘We’ve been looking for a book! Are you Young Christopher Parsons?’
Chris flinched. ‘Yes,’ he admitted in a small voice. He felt, under the girl’
s steely glare, that he was confessing to bigamy, genocide and the drowning of especially cuddly puppies.
‘Well, have you got it?’
‘Got what?’ stammered Chris.
The girl rolled her eyes. ‘The book!’
‘No. I left it back at the lab. You see—’
She interrupted him. ‘So why isn’t the Doctor with you?’ Her gaze was suddenly less fierce. Now she seemed worried.
Chris blinked, more confused than ever. ‘I didn’t know that the Professor was ill.’
‘No, the Doctor,’ the girl said with peculiar emphasis.
Chris was totally stumped now.
Suddenly the dog-thing piped up again. ‘Mistress. The Professor has been subjected to psycho-active extraction.’
The girl knelt down to address it. ‘Will he be all right, K-9?’
‘Physical prognosis fair,’ said the dog. ‘Mental prognosis uncertain.’
Chris inched towards them. He couldn’t contain himself any longer. ‘Is that a robot?’ he asked, pointing at the dog-thing.
The girl didn’t look up. ‘Yes.’
Feeling suddenly bold, Chris knelt down opposite the robot. ‘A robot dog?’ he ventured. ‘Called K-9? That’s quite funny, isn’t it? K-9, as in canine. Quite clever.’
‘Yes,’ said the girl, impatiently, as if this wasn’t the time to discuss such trivia.
Chris tried to rationalise it all. Unfortunately the rationalising part of his brain had been worn down by trying to rationalise that book for most of the afternoon, so after a few idle thoughts about how far the Japanese were taking the science of robotics, it gave up. ‘K-9,’ he said weakly. ‘Neat.’
The girl looked thoughtful. Gently, she touched the Professor’s forehead. ‘K-9, did you say psycho-active extraction?’
‘Affirmative, Mistress,’ K-9 replied. ‘Someone has stolen part of the Professor’s mind. His attempts to resist have caused severe cerebral trauma. He is weakening fast.’
‘Can I get one thing clear,’ said Chris, raising a finger. ‘Is this all for real?’
The girl sighed. Then she turned to him with a sudden encouraging smile. It was like the sun coming out from behind a black cloud. Chris instantly felt he would do anything for her.
‘Do you want to make yourself useful?’ she asked.
‘Well, if I can,’ said Chris, nodding vigorously.
The girl pointed to the police box. ‘Go and get the medical kit from the TARDIS,’ she said, as if that was the most normal sentence in the world.
Chris stopped nodding. ‘The what now?’
‘Over there,’ the girl said, pointing to the police box again. ‘First door on the left, down the corridor, second door on the right, down the corridor, third door on the left, down the corridor, fourth door on the right…’ She hesitated as if trying to remember.
‘Down the corridor?’ suggested Chris for want of anything better to say.
The girl nodded. ‘White cupboard opposite the door, top shelf.’
Chris got up and then realised there wasn’t another door in the direction she’d indicated. He didn’t want the girl to think he was stupid but he needed some clarification.
He attempted a jaunty laugh. ‘For a moment,’ he said, ‘I thought you were pointing at that old police box.’
‘I was!’ shouted the girl. She gestured urgently. ‘Please, get it!’
Chris decided that things couldn’t actually get any weirder than they already were and pushed into the police box.
Suddenly things got even weirder.
Instead of the small dark cupboard he’d been expecting, he stepped into a large white circular room, about as big as a middle-sized restaurant. At the centre of the room was a hexagonal control console, each of its six upward-slanting facets covered with levers, buttons, dials and switches, the functions of which he couldn’t even begin to guess at. At the centre of the console was a tall glass column that contained an even more intricate unit that pulsed with a reddish light. The room was illuminated by concealed wall-lights that poured a gentle golden glow from behind ornamental circular panels ranged in a regular pattern around the walls. The room was alive with subdued energy, an even hum of power. It smelt, thought Chris, rather like a country church, with all those associations of great age and ancient tradition.
A wooden hat stand stood incongruously in one corner, with a large chequered cape and a long, oatmeal-coloured frock coat thrown casually over it. In a recess next to it was a large shuttered screen. On the other side of the room was another door, which was slightly open, revealing beyond what looked like a mile of similarly patterned white corridor.
Chris whipped round in shock – and saw, instead of the police box doors through which, he reminded himself, he had definitely entered, two much bigger white doors made of whatever material the rest of the room was made of. Through the doors he could see the awesome girl and K-9 crouched over the Professor.
Chris dashed back through the doors. He’d never been literally agog before, agog with eyes popping and jaw juddering, like Tom when he sees Jerry launching a disproportionately spectacular act of revenge.
He turned back to point at the police box, which was still clearly a police box, and one that he could see all the way around. ‘I-I-I-I-I-,’ he stammered.
‘Hurry up!’ barked the girl, as if his reaction was incredibly petty and tedious.
Chris found himself obeying. Despite this latest revelation, he could remember her directions as if she had deliberately implanted them in his mind. For all he knew, she had. He ran through the inner door and through the corridors as instructed, alternating between admiration for the capacity of the human mind to adjust to incredible new situations and screaming.
He found the correct door and poked his head around it into what seemed like a Victorian hospital ward, with plastic curtained-off alcoves. Chris hadn’t any energy left to be overwhelmed and so snatched open the locker and brought down the medical kit, a large metal suitcase-affair that was stencilled with a red cross. Then he hefted it up and ran back up the corridors, into the main room and through the impossibly not-matching doors that led to the Professor’s study.
He burst out to see that the girl had propped up the Professor’s head on a selection of hardback atlases. ‘Professor? Can you hear me, Professor?’ she was calling.
‘Mistress,’ said K-9 in tones Chris was sure contained a hint of sympathy. ‘His mind has gone.’
‘You said part of it, K-9.
‘Affirmative,’ said K-9. ‘But the part that remains is now totally inert.’
Chris dashed over and set down the medical kit. ‘Thank you,’ the girl said cursorily and opened it to reveal a bewildering array of bizarre-looking instruments, including a stethoscope with two chestpieces, a big box of very ordinary-looking sticking plasters and a large translucent collar that looked something like a neck-brace, all of it tangled up in a length of oddly striped bandage.
Working quickly and efficiently, the girl fitted the collar around the Professor’s neck and operated a switch built into its underside. Tiny green lights began to flash on the collar, with a beep rather like a hospital’s heart monitor. But instead of a single beep, the rhythm was a faint but steady beep-beep beep-beep.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Chris.
‘He’s breathing and his hearts are beating, so his autonomic brain is still functioning,’ said the girl. ‘This collar can take over those functions and leave his autonomic brain free.’
Chris was baffled. ‘What good will that do?’
‘He should be able to think with it,’ said the girl, looking anxiously down at the Professor. His eyelids fluttered, a tiny movement for just a second.
Chris shook his head. Now this was something he did know about. ‘Hold on, think with his autonomic brain? No no no. The human brain doesn’t work like that. The different functions are separated by…’
He trailed off as the girl looked up at him with an expression that was deeply p
itying, as if to say You can’t really be this stupid.
‘Unless of course,’ said Chris shakily, ‘unless, that is, unless…’
‘Yes?’ said the girl, like a schoolmarm encouraging a particularly backward pupil at the end of a long Friday.
Chris looked between the girl, the robot dog, the police box and the Professor. ‘Unless the Professor isn’t human?’
The girl smiled and extended a hand. ‘I’m Romana. And neither am I.’
Chris shook her hand and to his surprise wasn’t instantly transformed into a block of ice.
‘I am a human,’ he confessed. ‘Is that OK?’
Chapter 21
THE DOCTOR WAS nosing around the ruined spectrograph, examining the innards with the aid of a slender metal probe that occasionally whirred, buzzed and lit up. He had told Clare it was a sonic screwdriver. Clare had so many objections to that, but she pushed them to the back of her mind and got on with carbon-dating the book using her own equipment in the far corner.
‘Quite incredible,’ muttered the Doctor.
Clare nodded. ‘The book has no discernible atomic structure whatsoever, Doctor.’ No other man – or indeed woman – had ever reduced her to the role of lab assistant. For some reason, she found she didn’t mind. It felt perfectly natural to be handing him tools and test tubes and asking helpful questions, as if it was something that you just did with the Doctor.
He looked up from the spectrograph and pocketed the sonic screwdriver. ‘Simple pseudo-stasis,’ he said airily. ‘The more interesting thing is this.’ He tapped the spectrograph. ‘The book must have stored up vast amounts of sub-atomic energy and suddenly released them when the machine was activated. Now does anything strike you about that?’
‘A few things,’ said Clare. ‘What in particular?’
‘In particular,’ he said, ‘that’s a very odd way for a book to behave.’
‘I would have thought that was obvious,’ said Clare.
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