Doctor Who_ Infinite Requiem Part 5

Tilusha flinched. The bus chose that moment to jolt, and she came closer than was comfortable to the leather-jacketed youth behind her. He gave her a hard stare. She took a breath of the stale air and longed for release.

The bus was ascending to the edge of the city. It slowed to pa.s.s a parked lorry, and just before it started up again, Tilusha happened to look through the tiny portion of smeared and spattered window that she could see. Hurrying along the pavement was the little man in the white suit and the paisley scarf.

42.Tilusha felt her heartbeat quickening, and then, before she could even see it coming this time, the nausea again, the feeling that there was something taking over her body and she did not have the power to prevent it.

Tilusha closed her eyes and hung on grimly.

Where was he hurrying to, the little stranger who had said, 'Remember me'?

And why did she suddenly have an overpowering urge to grab the toothless old man by the throat and demand to be told all of his secrets?

Tilusha lurched forward. The bus was approaching her block of flats. Somehow, her thumb came firmly into contact with the request stop b.u.t.ton.

Suzi Palsson s.h.i.+vered as she stood among the orange seats of a huge ice auditorium. It was still and abandoned, like the rest of the Banksburgh sports centre where she and Shanstra had taken refuge, and its vastness, together with the biting chill of the air, made it seem like a vault of ghosts. High above her, girders meshed around a plexigla.s.s circle revealing the night sky. Inert vidscreens, dull and black, were cl.u.s.tered around the edges of the rink like watchful sentries.

Shanstra, wearing nothing on her feet, had walked out on to the ice and now stood at the centre, marvelling at its construction. She turned, her dark cloak rippling, and smiled at Suzi across the whiteness. 'All this is ours,' she said in her intoxicating voice. 'It seems to be no one else's home.'

The alien woman's tones echoed through the auditorium. Suzi s.h.i.+vered, zipped her jacket up a little further, and decided that she felt even more horribly alone.

Shanstra threw back her head and laughed. The peals of rich, dark laughter ascended to the girders of the roof, whispered around the seats of the auditorium. She strode forward on the ice, her hair unnaturally black, her eyes the green of gemstones from a spectral mine. You have no fears, You have no fears, said her internal voice to Suzi. said her internal voice to Suzi. Do you not know yet what I can give you? Do you not know yet what I can give you?

Suzi, uncertain, sat down.

Shanstra seemed to glide to the edge of the ice, and the night, with all of its beauty and horror, was in her hair and voice. She reached out a spindly hand and plucked the locket from Suzi Palsson's neck. Suzi, reacting quickly, reached for it, but she was pacified by the kindness and warmth in Shanstra's eyes.

Calm, child. Let me tell you what I see. And I will share it with you.

The memories contained in the locket, the history it had floated through: Suzi now knew that all of this was rus.h.i.+ng into Shanstra by some sort of induc-tion. Slowly the wounds opened once more, and scenes from Suzi Palsson's life were splashed across her conscious mind in the most vivid 3-D colour.

She closed her eyes, and saw what Shanstra was seeing.

43.Every vidscreen in the arena sprang into flickering life. Colours slowly resolved themselves, and Suzi saw the screens growing, pictures billowing out of their frames and into her mind.

Centre stage was the locket. It was held in the hand of a tall young man with ruffled dark hair and a slightly concerned expression. Despite his relative youth he had a greying fringe, and his eyes smiled from creased hollows. He was talking to Suzi.

'Colm,' she whispered.

It was as if the ice-rink had darkened and become a blue-lit auditorium where her life was to be re-enacted.

'I can't change anything, Suzi.'

The image spoke. It spoke spoke to her. Shanstra was there, watching, although her eyes were closed. Suzi felt their minds touch. to her. Shanstra was there, watching, although her eyes were closed. Suzi felt their minds touch.

The image of Colm Oswyn, whom Suzi had loved, moved closer to her, shaking his head. 'I can't change the way I feel. It's not something I have any control over.'

Suzi wanted to scream at him, to tell him that she had managed to convince herself that she loved him, to trick her feelings, simply by not a.n.a.lysing them.

It seemed unfair, when they split, that he chose to apply logic. It had never mattered before.

So, this is guilt.

The voice was Shanstra's, lulling and intoxicating as before, but to Suzi's horror it issued from the mouth of Colm Oswyn. The mirage illusion, memory, she did not know what to call it grew in size.

You might be able to have him back, after a fas.h.i.+on. If I find you cooperative.

Mad thoughts were coursing through Suzi like the whisky she had drunk earlier. It couldn't happen. Colm was dead. She knew, because she had seen him die, and furthermore Like cold water hitting her subconscious, the clarity of the everyday world slammed back in, jolting Suzi upright. It was as if her reflexes had been stimulated with a hit of caffedeine or adrenalin, and she saw everything brightly, clearly. The crisp white of the rink, contrasting with the darkness of Shanstra.

The vivid orange of the spectators' seats.

'That will do,' said Shanstra. 'For now.'

Tilusha was sure the kick inside had redoubled its force now. And she felt very nauseous indeed.

One by one, she ascended the steps to the perilous blue door of the flat. She was uncomfortably aware that, once she got in, it would be difficult standing her ground. She just had to hope that Phil was not in too violent a mood.

44.She approached the door and turned the handle.

The door was ajar.

Decisively, she shoved and the door, propelled by her force, flew inwards and slammed against the paintwork of the hall, scattering shards across the threadbare carpet.

Tilusha's body was shaking, but this time she had told herself that there was no going back. And so she had to keep that promise. She kicked out with one sensibly shod foot and hooked the door back, slipping into the narrowing crack as it closed, then pressed herself hard against the wall of the hallway.

She stood there in the dimness for a few seconds, breathing in the odours of beer, cigarettes and stale cooking.

She heard a movement in the living room.

She braced herself, ready to kick out again.

And then, with a terrifying, totally unexpected wrench, the child seemed to grab her from inside and claw at her stomach.

A taxi driver who was later questioned by the police about an incident at Westbrook House Flats was to report that he had, at about five-thirty p.m. on the day in question, deposited two rather agitated young ladies at that very building.

He estimated that they were in something of a hurry, and he noticed that they only just had the correct change between them. He remembered them very well. One was in her early thirties, with short dark hair that fell over her eyes, and she wore an expensive-looking waistcoat and leather boots. The other was younger, twenty maybe Indian, with a sharp face, large eyes, and decked out in all her regalia as if the taxi driver speculated, off to one of those big weddings or something. After paying they hurried across the forecourt of the building at such a pace that he thought they must be running to prevent some terrible crime or tragedy. But, well, it wasn't really for him to say, and you got all sorts in the back of a cab. There was one time he'd had that Harold Chorley bloke from the BBC . . .

Phil Tarrant lurched out of the lounge and looked down at Tilusha Meswani.

He saw that Tilusha was doubled up, apparently in pain. He smiled. He was going to enjoy putting her in her place this time.

'Someone told me,' Phil said hoa.r.s.ely, supporting himself on the banisters, 'that they knew things about you. About what you do when I'm not around.'

Tilusha did not respond.

He snorted with laughter. 'It wouldn't surprise me. You probably think you need other men. G.o.d knows, half the time the only way I can enjoy myself is by imagining you're someone else.'

45.Tilusha was breathing heavily. She started to raise her head, her dark hair glossy but dishevelled in the evening light.

Phil blinked, and struggled to get a hold on what he was saying. He seemed to have lost the thread, which annoyed him, and so Phil Tarrant did what he normally did when faced with frustration. He lashed out.

He grabbed Tilusha Meswani, who shared his bed and carried his child, by the lapels, and hauled her up to face him. His teeth were like a dam, glittering, ready to burst and unleash torrents of anger and hatred.

'Where have you been, b.i.t.c.h? Where have you been been?'

Tilusha lifted her head. Her eyes, as they looked up to meet his, were bright, clear, and filled with the light of pure emeralds. 'Many places,' said a voice which was not that of Tilusha Meswani.

For a moment, Phil Tarrant stared with bloodshot eyes at the woman before him, his face registering incredulity, rage, horror. Then he pushed her away, swung back his fist and hit her as hard as he could across the face.

Tilusha reeled.

A pair of hands slipped under her arms, caught her.

The Doctor, supporting a half-falling, half-standing Tilusha, looked beyond her into the hallway at her attacker, and his face was suffused with a dark and timeless fury.

Seconds later, the whole place seemed to shatter.

Bernice could feel a tingling in her head. She wondered if it was tinnitus from the loud pneumatic drill of the roadworks outside in the street, but she did not have much time to stop and contemplate the matter, because she was leaping up the stairs of a fire-escape three at a time.

Bernice got to the top of the clanging stairway just before Nita and hit the corridor beyond at a run. She was not really sure what she was doing, but Bernice Summerfield had never been one to stand by when she knew someone was suffering, no matter how irresponsible it might seem.

She was aware of the younger woman keeping pace behind her. Benny found two fire doors at the end of the corridor, and heard Nita shout at her to head right.

She emerged on to a communal landing, stone-floored and featureless. Her footsteps echoed down a large, ugly stairwell, and in front of her was the door, gaping wide, of number 22, the flat they were looking for. Nita hurried up behind her.

'So,' Benny said, 'do we go in or what?'

Nita opened her mouth to answer, just as a whirlwind seemed to erupt from the flat.

46.They were blasted backwards by an incredible shock wave and a burst of glittering radiance from the open door.

And then there was a terrible, dense silence.

47.

6.

Mind over Matter

In the Library and Archives of Banksburgh, Polymer, standing on an old-fas.h.i.+oned trestle table, rifled through box after box of diskettes. Trinket was picking rather less than half-heartedly through the rubble, and Livewire stood with her hands on her hips and watched them.

The library did not appear to have been subjected to direct sh.e.l.ling, but it looked as if it had received more than its fair share of secondary damage.

The mural of the original colony s.h.i.+p, which dominated the west wall of the reading room, was shattered and crumbling, while shelves lay like the fallen dead, their sacred disks scattered across the dusty floor. The pillars that held the vaulted roof were still intact, but Trinket was alarmed at the creaking sounds which every so often would ripple through the structure of the library.

Of their quarry there was no sign.

'She's not here,' Poly snarled, jumping off her table and crunching across the rubble.

'I know that,' Livewire said with her self-a.s.sured arrogance, her voice sounding out clear and strong, as if she was addressing her confidence to the library itself. 'I thought you might use some initiative to deduce where she had gone.'

Polymer squared up to Livewire, her fat jowls wobbling and her mouth drooping with petulance and frustration. Trinket, uncertain, squatted in the background and carried on moving the odd chunk of rubble. He did not want to get involved. He saw Poly shrug, which he knew was not a good move.

Livewire snorted with contempt and kicked the table from under one of the computer terminals. The screen wobbled and then crashed to the floor with a shower of dust and plastic that made Poly take a worried step backwards.

'Think!' Livewire ordered.

She had taken charge, Trinket remembered, when the oldsters had gone, because she believed that to be the natural state of things. She was the inven-tor, the innovator, the natural leader. She liked to take action, and she had an intellectual advantage over the other two, bolstering the validity of her plans by citing writers and revolutionaries whom neither of them knew. 'Better to come together,' she had once said, 'in one, single, decisive act of violence, then 49 to sit by and be pa.s.sive while violence takes over around you.'

Trinket knew her style. Whenever there was a hitch, Livewire, through practice, was most adept at making that seem the fault of one of the others, while claiming any successes as the fruits of her own resourcefulness and strong leaders.h.i.+p.

Trinket considered himself intelligent, shrewd even, but he was easily intimidated, and that was what Livewire appreciated both in a half-brother and in a subordinate. Polymer was more belligerent and challenging than Trinket, and hence more of a threat to Livewire, he fancied. Poly needed delicate handling, and to be given a false sense of her own importance. This usually satisfied her, partly because she enjoyed pus.h.i.+ng Trinket around, but mostly because she was stupid. He kept such thoughts to himself.

'Are any of these working?' Trinket gestured vaguely at the computer terminals.

Livewire folded her arms. 'You won't find out by speculating.'

Trinket looked down at his shoes. 'Action, boy, action!'

'How do we get to find out her log-in and pa.s.s code?' he asked despon-dently.

Livewire strode up to Trinket and took his chin in her gloved hand. She patted it, an affectionate gesture that neatly counterpointed the edge to her voice. 'You're supposed to be the hacker. You override them.'

Trinket, who was perspiring with fear, nodded.

Polymer had been watching the exchange with smug amus.e.m.e.nt, and now she let out an involuntary snort of laughter at the boy's discomfort.

'And you,' Livewire snapped at her, 'do something productive.'

Poly shrugged, and took one of the chunkiest paper volumes from the dusty floor. 'All right,' she said. 'I was just gonna sit here and devour a good book.'

She tore out the frontispiece of the tome, bit off half the page, and sat there on her pile of rubble, her broad jaw clunking ruminatively as she chewed the paper.

Bernice could hear the sound of her own breathing inside her head, echoing as if recorded and played back to her through headphones.

She was crawling on her hands and knees. The entrance to the flat was bouncing in front of her eyes or rather, four different versions of it were, so she hoped she was heading for the correct one.

She reached the door. Tentatively, she stood, using the door-frame for support, but her vision was still wobbly and tinged with red. 'Doctor?' she called.

She slipped inside the flat. There were various smells in there which she thought she ought to recognize. At least one of them was the odour of stale 50 beer, which brought several memories of the twentieth century back, and nearly did the same for her last meal.

There was a door leading off the hallway. She tried it.

A dish exploded against the wall by her head.

Inside the lounge, a whirlwind raged. She had a brief impression of a tall, beautiful woman standing at its heart and smiling, and at the edge of the tableau, hanging grimly on to his hat, the Doctor. Across the room flew papers like demented birds, crockery (flying saucers, said Benny's confused mind), a few ornaments. Videotapes rode the channels, unravelling themselves, and festooned the furniture.