So Vile a Sin (40 page)

They poured out of the Nexus. Everyone the Doctor could have been at that moment in time.

Crack clink crack.

Chris put his face in his hands. It was all a bit much.

When the storm was over, he looked up again.

Just the one Doctor was standing in the middle of the room.

The Grandmaster were gone, along with their tables and their fingerfoods.

The Doctor wore a Paisley waistcoat. He was looking at his pocket watch.

‘Is it you?’ breathed Chris. ‘It is you. The real you.’

‘Yes,’ he said, staring at the watch. ‘The alternative Chris helped me hide in there.’

‘Hide in there?’ Chris stared at where the Nexus had been. ‘So who was that?’

‘That,’ said the Doctor, ‘was a Doctor who hadn’t worked out what to do. Luckily, he had me up his sleeve.’

301

‘Come on,’ said Chris. ‘We’ve got to get back.’

The Doctor closed the pocket watch with hands that Chris suddenly could see were shaking. ‘In there,’ he said. ‘From that vantage point. From inside the Nexus, you can see everything.

Every possibility, each choice that’s made, every outcome.’

‘We need to get back,’ said Chris. ‘We’d better go give Roz a hand.’

The Doctor just tucked his pocket watch away. His eyes had a terrible, blank look. He didn’t move.

‘Oh no,’ said Chris, in a tiny voice.

He ran for the lift, but he knew it was already too late.

Valhalla

The dome loomed above them. Walid’s cutters were leaving them the hell alone, this close to his private ecosystem. All the fire was coming from the Rim.

Vincenzi was screaming at them to lie down every dozen steps.

The shells and smart bombs whistled overhead, looking for their head signatures, confused by the mimetic armour. Usually.

In the shelter of a small crater’s rim, Roz asked Vincenzi, ‘This isn’t bloody working, is it?’

He was pulling together a throwaway grenade launcher, hands moving in a blur over the parts. ‘No it bloody isn’t,’ he said.

‘We’ve lost half the company. We can’t fight our way in with this few soldiers.’

Roz peered over the rim of the crater. The fire was blossoming out of a single point on the Rim. Another missile launched silently into the air. She traced its course with her eyes, heading for the
Victoria
. So far she’d taken three hits from the ground-to-orbit defences.

‘I’ve got an idea,’ she told Vincenzi.

‘I’m open to suggestions, ma’am,’ he said.

‘We don’t fight our way inside. We change objectives. That GTO station.’

‘Keep talking,’ he said, sliding the grenade into the launcher.

‘Advantages,’ said Roz. ‘Surprise. They’re expecting us to get into the dome, not to try and grab a heavily armoured outpost.

Munitions. If we gain control of the post, we can attack their 302

ships with their own weapons, give the
Victoria
a fighting chance.’

‘Better than that,’ Vincenzi said. ‘We can bring in the rest of the troops under cover of fire from the Rim. We’ll have the numbers we need. Big problem is, we’ll probably all be killed getting up the Rim to the station.’

‘We’ll be under their line of fire.’

‘True, but their foot soldiers will have the advantage.’

‘All right,’ she said. ‘Either we all get killed trying to break in through an airlock, or we all get killed trying to hit that GTO

station.’

‘You lead,’ said Vincenzi.

Roz switched her comlink back to broadcast. ‘Listen up!’ she said. ‘We’re going to switch objectives. Repeat, we’re going to change objectives. We’re going to take the GTO station at the top of the hill. You can’t miss it. Do not attempt to penetrate the dome. Do not take any additional risks. Do not attempt to draw fire. The aim of the game is to get to the top alive.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Acknowledge.’

‘Yes, ma’am!’ came the voices, one after the other. ‘Yes, ma’am! Yes, ma’am!’

Roz glanced back at Vincenzi. He nodded, bulky helmet tipping as though he was bowing.

‘Follow me,’ said Roz. She jumped over the rim and started running.

And went up the hill into history.

303

Epilogue

Transcript of the Eulogy presented by Adjudicator
Christopher Cwej at the Funeral of the Honourable Roslyn
Sarah Inyathi Forrester

The first… the first time I ever heard of Roz Forrester was when I was at the Academy. There was a famous story about her. I later found out it was true.

Roz was on patrol one day, with her partner, when they saw a man throw a ditz off a walkway. He’d gotten bored with his alien pet. When they confronted him, he said he’d never owned a ditz, and even if he did, what kind of lunatic would do that to their own pet?

There was no way to prove what the man had done. But Roz demanded to see his ident. He didn’t have an implant, but a plastic ident. When he handed it to Roz, she ate it. Then she arrested him for not carrying any identification. (
Murmurs
) When he told the judge what she’d done, the judge wanted to know what kind of lunatic would go around eating idents. (
Murmurs,
laughter
)

When Roz told me that story, she said she’d done it because she liked animals. But I don’t think that was the underlying reason. I think it was because she loved justice. She couldn’t let him get away with it. It wouldn’t be
fair
.

304

For Roz, justice wasn’t an abstract concept, some kind of ideal.

It was her job, day in, day out, whatever we did, wherever we went.

I don’t know whether there’s a place where we go when we die. I don’t know if Roz believed there was one. But if… if there is a place like that, and it isn’t a fair place… it damn well will be once she’s done with it. Thank you.

Extract from the Diary of Bernice Summerfield-Kane
Dear diary, I’m afraid I’ve neglected you for a few days. It’s been very busy here. Roz Forrester is dead.

Coming to visit Jason and I, was exactly the right thing for Chris and the Doctor. They both desperately needed a rest, in mundane surroundings, and you can’t get much more mundane than our current residence – a rental academic house on Youkali, one of the Institute’s new residences.

It’s pleasant and airy – always lots of room on newly colonized worlds, especially one that’s been declared a no-go zone for development while we archaeologists pick over it. A considerable improvement over the tent Jason and I were previously stationed in. The romance of roughing it fades in the memory after a few good soaks in a real bath.

Ostensibly they came here to let us know about Roz. They really came here because they need to sit around somewhere safe while someone cooks them dinner and listens when they need to talk. They need looking after.

Chris gave me one of the recordings of Roz’s funeral. I don’t know why the Doctor didn’t invite me and Jason. I suppose he had other things on his mind. (The Doctor
always
has other things on his mind, of course, but this time he was actually
distracted
by them.)

Jason could have watched the recording, too, but when I slipped the left playback lens into my eye he decided he’d rather let me tell him about it later. He took Chris down to the pub (well, the Tent of Ill Repute, run by a bunch of Lalandian pirates from the Rim).

In the mirror, I had one brown eye and one green one.

305

Chris says most people from his time period have a tailor-made viewing lens which matches their eye colour. Maybe Jason thinks the one I’ve got in is a public-access lens, or something.

Characteristic late-twentieth-century squeamishness about bodily fluids.

Yellow stick-on note:
I suppose it’s terrible to think about your husband that way, as though he’s a subject in an anthropological study. I seem to be thinking about this whole thing, Roz’s death, the funeral, everything, as though I’m observing from outside. I suppose I am. I wasn’t there when it was all going on, when she died or when they buried her. I left that kind of adventure behind a long time ago. Now I just watch recordings.

I put in the other playback lens and sat down in one of the beanbags in the lounge. I thought I’d be confused, try to walk into a wall or something, but I was still aware of the room around me even though I could see the funeral. Like watching television, I suppose, my brain had no trouble sorting out which image I was focusing on.

All those people, all that colour and noise… I wonder if Roz would have been proud, or annoyed, or faintly embarrassed. Of course, the funeral is more for the survivors than the deceased, a release of emotion, the chance to acknowledge death and move on.

The voice-over (it was only later I realized I was hearing it through my eyes) says that Roz was being buried near her nephew and niece. Sixteen and fourteen. That’s unspeakable. At least Roz chose to be part of the violence, instead of just being caught up in it and spat out again.

The end result is no different.

There’s a hole in the ground, in the middle of a patch of bare soil. Chris and the other pallbearers put the bier down in front of it.

Chris’s eulogy has me in tears. It doesn’t seem to affect the viewing lens.

306

Chris lifts Roz up from the bier, wrapped up in a prepared animal skin – the voice-over calls it a
kaross
. She looks tiny in his arms.

There’s a moment where he hesitates at the edge of the hole. I wonder what he’s thinking. That there must be some last-minute reprieve, that the woman in his arms will suddenly struggle and curse? Is he thinking about the augmented soil of the Reclamation Zone going to work on her, turning her into itself, the healthy grass growing out of her transformed body?

Maybe he’s thinking about the time he and Roz huddled together next to the fire, beside a Berkshire lake on a freezing winter night.

Maybe he’s thinking about how hot it is in his armour.

He looks up, suddenly. The POV swivels after a moment, following his alarmed gaze.

Chris warned me about the Doctor’s collapse, but it didn’t soften the shock. Even the last few days, getting used to the pale figure in the wheelchair, didn’t stop me from jumping out of my chair, ready to run to him as he folded up and fell to his knees.

Maybe my brain wasn’t as good at sorting out the real from the recording as I’d thought.

They’d edited in some close-ups from another POV, which only adds to my disorientation. Chris is trying to help him up, gripping one of his arms, while he clutches at his chest with the other hand and insists on talking to someone who isn’t there. You can’t make out what he’s saying, the POV couldn’t get close enough.

Some medical staff arrive after a couple of minutes. Chris lifts him up on to a stretcher, and follows as he’s carried out of shot.

He looks dead. The voice-over assures you that he later recovers.

After that, the funeral rolls on like a juggernaut. One of the pallbearers kneels down and puts Roz into the hole.

There’s a pile of loam next to the grave. The other pallbearers pick up shovels and fill in the hole.

The voice-over tells me that the area will be sown with seeds; within a week, Roz’s grave will be indistinguishable from the rest of the savanna, just like the graves of Somezi and Mantsebo. And 307

I wonder how she’d feel about that, and I realize I didn’t know her nearly as well as I thought I did.

I took out the playback lens, and decided that I needed a drink.

The Doctor and Chris have been here for a week, since Monday. I watched the POV recording on Tuesday morning, not brave enough to face it on that first night. I spent the rest of Tuesday having little weeps and baking scones with currants in them.

Apparently there were lots of happy endings as well. The Empire’s in good hands with Leabie, he reckons: she’s going to do a lot for the Ogrons and the Earth Reptiles and Jeopards and all the other oppressed peoples. Genevieve was rescued by one of the rebels, Simon Frederson, and Vincenzi and Sokolovsky are generals or something now.

Chris’s mood changes a lot, especially as he tells all the little stories from their adventure. Gods, diary, I had forgotten how
young
that young man is. He was terribly stiff-upper-lip when he first arrived, then later on he was crying his heart out while Jason fidgeted and I sat next to him and held his hand, and the next morning he was almost cheerful.

He’s not going to get over this for a long time. He’s going to think he’s got over it, and find out he hasn’t.

The Doctor… I don’t mind admitting it, diary, the Doctor scares the hell out of me.

Chris says he seemed OK for a little while after the heart attack. He spent some time in the TARDIS infirmary, waving little medical machines over himself. He spent some time in the conservatory, sitting among the plants.

He slept. A lot. That in itself is worrying.

After a while he spent all his time sleeping.

He wakes up from time to time. He said hello when they first arrived. Then he just dozed off on a sofa while we were eating cucumber sandwiches and talking. Chris carried him up to the guest room and put him to bed.

308

Jason wandered over to the tents and found a Caprisian dealer who had a battered wheelchair for sale. We spent the morning fixing it up.

Each morning and afternoon we’ve wheeled the Doctor out into the sunlight. I hope it does him some good. There’s a sort of back yard, a half-hearted garden which Jason and I tinker with from time to time. There’s a lovely view, looking down the slope across a stream and into the jungle. The weather is cool, so we tuck a soft blanket over his legs.

I can see him from the window as I write this. He looks positively ancient.

I’ve tried talking to him. Sometimes he comes out of it for a while, says hello. He knows who I am, and where he is, but he just isn’t
interested
.

Diary, it’s as though he’s run out of steam. He’s got nothing left he wants to do, and no energy left to do it. He’s just waiting to die.