CHRIS DECIDED TO break the silence. It was hard to think of anything worth saying to Clare in the face of the incredible events of the last few hours, and he’d have to choose his words carefully to avoid another argument. He was tempted to observe that it was odd how some days turned out, but realised that would just sound incredibly trite. Then he considered launching into a detailed and no doubt pertinent reappraisal of what their experiences might mean for science, but something told him that Clare might murder him before he could get to any particularly juicy bits of insight.
So, as the universe might soon be coming to what might as well be an end, he decided to say, ‘I love you.’
It was surprisingly easy once he’d made the actual decision. His lips were ready at last to form the first of those three little words. Here goes –
‘Chris,’ said Clare, breaking the silence. ‘There’s something very strange about Professor Chronotis.’
Chris’s moment was lost. ‘Why single out the Professor?’ he asked instead, surprised and disappointed at how easily he’d given up. He looked anxiously towards the door. ‘And who knows what’s going on out there? Aliens, time travellers, ghosts, tin dogs, they’re all odd.’
‘Perhaps we can find out what’s happening,’ said Clare. She got up from the sofa and examined the control console. ‘There should be a scanner, and we could throw out an external line.’ She drummed her fingers on the edge of the panel.
‘I don’t like getting left behind,’ continued Chris. ‘I mean, just because we come from Earth doesn’t give everyone the right to be patronising to us.’
Clare selected a control on the panel.
‘I wouldn’t,’ Chris advised, jumping up to guide her away from it. He looked down at the maze of instrumentation, shaking his head. ‘Admittedly, all this does make us look a bit primitive. I don’t have even the faintest idea how it all works.’
‘I have,’ said Clare, and pressed the control.
Immediately there was the whirr and tick of hidden hydraulics, and a small screen extended from the control console. The screen showed a large, empty red-walled hallway.
Chris blinked. ‘You have?’ He looked between Clare and the screen. ‘Yes, you obviously have.’ A thought struck him. And it would explain so much! ‘Of course! You’re from another planet!?’ he spluttered.
Clare rolled her eyes and punched him on the shoulder. ‘No, you berk, I’m from Fallowfield. Now listen, I need to tell you something. About the Professor.’ She frowned and drummed her fingers on the panel again, as if trying to catch a fading thought.
‘Go on, then,’ urged Chris. ‘Tell me.’
Clare tapped the screen. ‘The image translator is bussed into the real-world interface. It reads off the exact N-space coordinates.’
Chris coughed. ‘That’s what you needed to tell me?’
‘No,’ said Clare after a pause, as if she was fighting some block of confusion in her mind.
‘It was something about the Professor,’ prompted Chris, a little worried. Clare was many things but she was not a scatterbrain. He blinked. And she was not a technical expert. She knew what she needed to know about the apparatus used in her field. But nothing beyond that. When he’d tried to interest her in his little proton accelerator, she’d turned up her nose and suggested they go to the pub.
He realised Clare was staring at him, as if willing him to ask the right question. He’d often had that feeling from her, but this time she seemed almost desperate.
‘What you’re trying to say is that the Professor’s been teaching you how to work his machine?’
Clare frowned. ‘Yes. No. He… he didn’t teach me. He showed me.’ She glanced between the control panel and Chris’s concerned face. ‘Chris, it all just sort of – appeared in my head. Like the Professor barged in the front door of my mind and shuffled my thoughts about. Suddenly I understand it all. But I don’t understand how I understand it.’
Chris sighed with relief and patted Clare on the shoulder. ‘There there, Keightley, it’s just these TARDIS machines of theirs,’ he said confidently. ‘They let us understand any alien languages we might come across. The Doctor explained it. They rearrange the thoughts of their passengers automatically. It’s nothing to worry about.’
Clare groaned. ‘Don’t be stupid, Chris. I think I know the difference between a simple extruded telepathic circuit’s field of operation and psycho-active addition.’
Chris licked his lips. A thought, a very uncomfortable one, was forming at the back of his own mind. ‘Clare,’ he said slowly, ‘did you just say psycho-active addition?’ He thought back to the aftermath of the sphere’s attack on the Professor.
Clare shrugged. ‘Yes.’
‘And such a power would be the opposite of psycho-active extraction, I guess?’
Clare nodded. ‘Obviously.’ She blinked and shook her head. ‘But I don’t know how he made me know that it’s obvious.’
‘I think I’m just beginning to understand,’ said Chris. It was all adding up about Professor Chronotis. The book, the miraculous return from the dead, and now this –
He made decisively for the door. ‘Wait here!’ he ordered Clare.
‘No way,’ said Clare, very aggressively.
And then she said, ‘All right then,’ very agreeably, as if she was a completely different person.
It looked as if she was surprising herself. Probably, thought Chris, she was – and this was all confirming his theory.
Chris hovered at the door. ‘I’ve got to go after the Doctor. You’ll be safer here.’ He sneaked the door open.
‘That’s fine,’ said Clare. ‘I must stay here. Look after the old place.’
Chris nodded slowly. Then he turned and set off decisively into Shada.
And Clare, who hated being left behind, turned with a smile back to the scanner and began to search for an external line sub-routine on the image translator as if it was the most natural thing in the world.