Doctor Who: The Blood Cell (3 page)

On The Prison we have a lot of alarms. None of them are good news and all of them sound like lost souls shrieking. This wasn’t the particular agony of the ‘Prisoner Escape’ alarm, but it was still fairly shrill. We’d been hearing it a lot recently.

Bentley knocked abruptly on my office door and then entered. ‘Systems Failure,’ she announced in capital letters. We both knew this already, but Prison Procedure stated that the Governor had to be informed. I nodded, and stood.

We both walked swiftly through to the Control Station, where Custodians slid silently between terminals. Screens showed every cell, every corridor, every area of The Prison. A giant map of the whole asteroid glowed. In theory it should be showing where the systems failure was, but instead it was partially obscured by an icon that read ‘UPDATING … UPDATING …’ Most unhelpful.

The Prison diagnostic system had been put in by a separate contractor to the one who had provided the tablets and the TransNet. By all accounts they hadn’t got on well with each other, and had done an equally shoddy job.

I looked at Bentley moving swiftly between the Custodians and accessing verbal updates from her fellow human Guardians. If only everything in life could be as efficient as Bentley, I thought. Perhaps a little warmer. Just a shade. But she was everything you could hope for in a crisis.

The truth was there was very little we could do. These systems outages were growing increasingly regular and there was no explanation. If this latest one proved true to form, they’d pass in anything between three and five minutes and then it would be business as usual. But while the alarms sounded, it was up to Bentley and her team to ensure that no core systems were affected. She’d tasked some Custodians to try and work out the root cause, but so far they’d
reported nothing. Instead, they’d become expert at riding these emergencies, reallocating resources on the fly to ensure the locks did not fail, the containment grid was maintained and the environment system stabilised. This sometimes meant the evening meal was undercooked, the gravity a little light or the air slightly stale. So far we’d not had to make any huge sacrifices.

Late one evening, Bentley and I had sketched out some Emergency Protocols. Or rather, I’d made some suggestions, and she’d listened and then said ‘If I may …’ and corrected them all. But we were prepared. Just in case it got worse and the power drains couldn’t be switched easily around. It hadn’t been an easy conversation. We’d agreed that we’d have to enact them if the systems failure reached seven minutes. That would be the end. A blinking red clock timed how long the current outage had been.

The Prison Map glowed ‘UPDATING … UPDATING …’ and the clock read that four minutes had passed. Bentley continued moving with quiet efficiency. Custodians continued to slide antenna across panels, reporting on further failures and the smaller successes of reallocating resources.

The clock passed five minutes. I noticed the human Guardians looking at each other nervously. An element of panic was creeping in. Most of the time, we can forget that we are on a rock in deep space
artificially made to contain life. When the systems work, then we put the fragility of our existence from our minds. But suddenly it springs back up during an alert, and we remember that, if the power fails completely, that’s it. We’ve a limited supply of oxygen. Even if we called for help, even if that help set off from the HomeWorld or the nearest colony immediately, then there’s very little chance of it reaching us before the air runs out. We’re all of us, prisoners and guards, already buried in our tomb.

The clock passed five minutes and fifteen seconds. A horrid first. I wondered if I should say something calming or encouraging, or do something that smacked of lunatic normality, such as making myself a cup of tea. I wouldn’t drink it. It would just be there for show. Your Governor is not panicking. He is drinking tea. He is calm. So you can be too.

The clock reached five minutes and twenty-nine seconds. A new and rather formidable record. I could see Bentley looking at me, trying to get my attention. But I stared ahead. We had ninety-one seconds before we had to start making terrible choices. Let’s enjoy the ninety-one seconds as best as we could. If we survived, the decisions we took would be on our conscience forever.

At five minutes and forty-one seconds, the Prison Map suddenly cleared. ‘SYSTEMS NORMAL,’ it reported. The alarm stopped. The red went out of the
light.

Suddenly it was awfully quiet, apart from a collective breath of relief and a slight sweaty tang of panic to the air.

‘Well done, Bentley,’ I said. ‘Well handled.’ As if she had somehow averted a terrible crisis. The truth, the terrible, frightening truth, was we had no idea what was going on.

My comm blipped. It was a call from Level 7. Reluctantly, I took it, knowing it would be the Oracle.

The Oracle’s fat face filled the screen, jowls wobbling as he shook his head from side to side.

‘Oh dear,’ he purred. ‘That was a close one, wasn’t it?’

One of the few things that Bentley and I could agree on was a hatred of the Oracle. Everything about him irritated. Considering neither of us had any physical contact with him, he was still somehow repellent. His hands were everywhere. They always filled the screen, playing an invisible keyboard whenever he spoke, fluttering, rising and falling.

The Oracle liked to do only two things in life – to predict the future and to say ‘I told you so’. His predictions very rarely seemed to actually come true, but then again, they were always so nebulous in nature that he could claim anything after the event.

He did so on this occasion. ‘Didn’t I tell you there’d
be purple vibrations ahead?’ he said, throwing his fingers up above his hair and then letting them drift down to his chin. ‘Well … I would call a nearly six-minute system failure decidedly purple. Wouldn’t you?’

He pursed his lips and waited for a response. The annoying thing about the Oracle was that we needed him. Without him, there’d be no one to take care of Level 7.

The Oracle gave up waiting for a reply and leaned back, building his fingers into a steeple and then a cathedral, ‘I shall tell you this one thing, my friends, there are solid purple times ahead. You mark my words.’ He cut the terminal.

I went back into my room, to calm down, to relax, to mull, to try and plot out the future, to try and think of something. My tablet had reset to the view of Prisoner 428’s cell. He was stood there, staring out at me again, impassive. One eyebrow was raised, curiously. As though he was waiting for something. Could he be behind it all, I thought, shuddering.

I switched off the tablet, the ghost of that stare remaining on the screen for a moment. What did he know, I thought? What did Prisoner 428 really know?

The girl. Visitors to the Prison are rare, but we do get them from time to time. They hire private shuttles – occasionally from the HomeWorld, more often from one of the more dismal colonies, and they fly all the way out to us. There’s a landing pad. We never use it ourselves. The pad was specifically designed to be isolated from the rest of the prison. We knew the visitors would come.

Sometimes a whole family will turn up. A mother and father, a husband, some children. Sometimes they’ll stand on the landing pad crying. Sometimes they’ll stand there silently. Waiting.

There are no regulations for dealing with visitors. The Protocols merely state that, regrettably, prisoners are not allowed visitors. As a courtesy, the first time they come, I will always go out to the fence that separates the Landing Pad from the rest of the prison. The fence is little more than a symbol of the seventy-three systems that cannot be breached between the
Landing Pad and the Prison. Like everything else, if I so choose, under ordinary measures I can deactivate seven of those systems, to allow them to pass me objects. Such as, say, a petition. Usually it’s a petition. Letters and presents for prisoners aren’t allowed. Also, I cannot give the visitors anything. Even I can’t access all seventy-three systems. Even I can’t let someone innocent pass from inside the Prison to outside.

As I said, the first time someone visits, I will always go out to them. It seems humane. Sometimes they’ll stand there clamouring and shouting through the fence. Sometimes there are placards. Sometimes just one of them will step forward and quietly speak to me.

‘Do you know who I am?’ I will ask them. They always do.

‘We would like to speak to ,’ that’s how the best of them will go. I will politely reply that, sadly, that isn’t possible.

‘But we were promised TransNet communications with them,’ they will insist. ‘We have not heard from them since their arrival. We simply wish to know that is well. We love them. That is all.’

I will nod gravely and then reply: ‘I can assure you that is absolutely fine and receiving approved treatment. The TransNet network is not currently operating at sufficient bandwidth to
allow communications between prisoners and those on the HomeWorld. I can assure you that the problem is not at our end. I would recommend you raise this with the HomeWorld authorities. I am told that the current difficulties are caused by solar wind.’

They always look at me in an odd way when I say that. But it’s what Bentley has told me, and I have to trust her.

They’ll then ask if they can pass me letters for their loved ones. I will apologise and explain that communication over TransNet is all that is allowed for. I’ll tell them I’m trapped by Protocols. They’ll look at me in a funny way again. And then ask to pass me a petition full of hope and indecipherable signatures.

I’ve never understood petitions. People you’ve never heard of want you to do something. There’s nothing I can do about it. I look after the prisoners, in accordance with my own conscience and the Protocols. By all means, send your petitions to the Homeworld Government. Perhaps they’ll surprise us all by releasing someone, or just order me to accord someone extra privileges. But they never do.

I explain to the visitors patiently, and, I hope, kindly, that if you hand me a petition, I will simply scan it and send it by appallingly slow TransNet relay back to the Government. The uplink they have on their shuttle is undoubtedly much faster. But they insist I take it. Perhaps it makes them feel better, as though the long,
expensive journey has been worthwhile. If so, then it’s the least I can do to take it, and to look at them seriously and gravely. They never quite look back at me.

That’s how a good interaction goes. Sometimes they even thank me for my time before they go away. I’ve had training to deal with the less ideal scenarios. Sometimes they scream at me. ‘How could you? How can you live with yourself?’ they shout. But then, those are questions no one can answer. We do what we do and we can live with ourselves. Somehow. That’s the only answer anyone can ever give.

Anyway, that’s a broad summary of how a typical first visit goes. The one where I have the courtesy to greet them.

The other times they come I generally leave them out there. Procedures say I only have to meet them once.

They stand there. They wave their placards. They peer hopefully through the fence. No one comes out to them. And, eventually, they go away.

They rarely visit a third time.

The girl, though. The girl would be different.

She arrives without any fanfare, she’s just standing there on the launch pad. Curiously, the Defence Array hasn’t picked up any approaching shuttle. We’ve not even properly had time to turn on the landing lights.
But that’s all right, because she doesn’t appear to need help landing her shuttle. She’s just arrived, like a spell was cast.

She’s also not properly dressed. Not a spacesuit, not even a flightsuit. Just an old-fashioned jumper and a neat, quaint skirt on her small, determined frame. She’s even wearing a band in her hair. I remember people like her. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a Vintager. I thought they’d died out with Old New Earth. She reminds me curiously of Prisoner 428. The same sense that she’s here, but that she doesn’t belong.

Of course, I can guess she’s come to see 428.

In accordance with Protocol, I went out dutifully onto the landing pad. She was waiting for me. She wasn’t holding up a placard or a lot of tiresome pieces of earnest petition. She was just sat on a lump of rock, reading an actual paper book. When I reached the fence, she affected not to notice for a bit, just carried on reading, her nose wrinkled slightly as she turned a page. Then she folded down the page (on a priceless artefact! I hated her just a little), slid it into a pocket, and looked up at me with a smile. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Just got to a good bit. So … Hello.’ She smiled, politely. ‘How can I help you?’

‘I’m the Governor here,’ I said, already a little discomposed. ‘It’s more how I can help you, isn’t it?’

‘Well, if you say so,’ she shrugged. Her patient smile made her face even prettier.

‘You are with 428, aren’t you? The Doctor?’

She nodded.

‘Would you like to see him?’

She nodded again.

‘Well, I’m afraid that’s not possible.’

‘Ah,’ she looked serious, her hand thumbing the book in her pocket. ‘I have come such a long way. And it would really be a good idea if you could let me see him.’ And there we were. Back on familiar ground.

‘Are you a relative. His daughter, perhaps?’

She laughed at that, a full-on, throaty, horrified laugh. ‘Never tell him you just said that. He’d kill you.’

I frowned. She mentioned 428 killing, but almost casually. As though she was unaware of the full horror of what he had done. Or was wilfully ignoring it. I tried not to let it get to me. ‘Are you, then, perhaps his … wife?’

She frowned then, her face clearly doing ‘Oh, come on’. Sadly, I knew the type. ‘My dear, I am sorry for you. You’re unfortunately not the first to turn up here in your predicament. Perhaps you saw the Doctor’s face on the TransCasts, or read about his trial, and you fell in love with him.’ I ignored the squeaking protesting noises she made. ‘You’re here because you’re infatuated with him, and you believe that, if you only met him, you could reform him. I know
what you’re here to do.’ I shook my head sadly. ‘You’re here to save him from himself.’