Doctor Who_ Lungbarrow Part 38

'Happy name day to you,' joined in Chris. Leela, her mouth full, tried to follow the words and clapped the rhythm.

'Happy name day, dear...' (they glanced at each other) '...Doctor. Happy name day to you!'

They clapped him loudly.

'Thank you,' the Doctor said. 'Now al I need is my TARDIS back. Innocet, wil you help me?'

'I cannot trust you,' she said. 'Not any more.'

Satthralope smiled triumphantly. 'No, "Doctor". You will not be travel ing again.'

'I'm not bound by you. I was disinherited, remember? Wake up Quences and he'll confirm it.'

Looks of silent dismay flittered between the Cousins.

'Impossible,' declared the Housekeeper. 'He cannot be woken. Not until his wil is recovered.'

The Doctor rose and moved round to her chair. He planted a black data core on the table in front of her. 'There you are, Satthralope. This is Quences's will, stil sealed with the House crest. I found it where he left it. Now wake him up!'

Shouts of 'No!' from the Cousins.

She picked up the data core and turned it in her bony fingers.

'What are they so afraid of?' whispered the Doctor in her ear. 'Now you can restore the honour and respect of your beloved House.'

Glospin tried to push the Doctor away. 'Take no notice of him! He's as much a liar as he always was!'

'Afraid I'll get the lot, Glospin?'

'You'l get nothing!'

'Really?' said the Doctor. 'That's not what Quences's ghost told me.'

'Lies!' Satthralope clutched the data core tightly. 'Quences is not not dead!' dead!'

'Oh yes, he is,' said the Doctor. 'I murdered him. I came back especially. You ask Christopher Cwej. He's very perceptive about these things.'

Chris scrambled to his feet, but Jobiska suddenly gave a little scream.

Across the floor of the Hall lumbered a vast bearlike shape with curling horns.

'Badger!' exclaimed the Doctor.

Behind the avatroid, came an officer in scarlet uniform. He halted at the table, but did not salute.

'Captain Redred of the Prydon Chapterhouse Guard. I was returning to the Capitol, but there is a fault with your House's transmat booth.'

Leela pulled the Doctor aside. 'It is him,' she mumbled, her mouth full again. 'He was trapped in the transmat booth. He is Andred's missing Cousin.'

'He was talking to Glospin,' said Chris. 'On the Deathday.'

'What?' said Dorothee. 'You mean he's been trapped there all that time?'

162.

'Correct,' said Badger.

'Ahem,' said the Doctor.

'I released him,' Badger added.

'Hallo?' said the Doctor.

'We saw you in the mirrors,' said Leela to the robot. 'I'm Leela and this is Dorothee.'

'I am Badger,' said Badger.

Chris shook his head. 'But if he still thinks he's six hundred and seventy-three years ago...'

'Ouch,' said Dorothee. 'Someone else can tell him.'

'Excuse me,' said the Doctor. 'Sorry to interrupt, but was this another of your dreams?'

'I can't remember everything,' said Chris. 'They talked about a delivery. And money changed hands.'

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. 'Doing a little deal, were they?'

'Be silent!' shouted Satthralope.

Glospin had circled the table, smiling oleaginously. 'Captain, I suggest you wait in one of the antechambers.' He started to manoeuvre Redred away. 'Family business, you understand. Deathdays and al that paraphernalia.'

Satthralope smacked her cane on the table. 'What is the meaning of this?'

Redred turned. 'Am I addressing the Housekeeper?'

'You are, Captain.'

'Forgive me, madam, I understood you were indisposed. And I am due back at the Capitol.'

She eyed him curiously. 'This is the guard in the transmat booth,' she said to Glospin. 'Doctor? Did you release him?'

'I released him,' said Badger.

'He was delivering the Matricular transfer facility for Quences's mind,' b.u.t.ted in Glospin.

'And the summary edict,' said Redred, testily.

'Edict?' said the Doctor.

'The edict from the Chapter Council of Cardinals concerning the House of Lungbarrow, sir. An elderly Cousin called Glospin took the delivery.'

'But this is Glospin,' the Doctor said, innocently indicating his Cousin.

There was silence.

'It was definitely an old man,' said Redred.

Glospin glanced at Satthralope. 'An imposter! How can that have happened in our own House?'

The Doctor mimed applause behind Redred's back.

163.

Satthralope smiled charmingly. 'All wil be explained, Captain. Now, do you have a copy of this edict?'

'Yes, madam. A security copy held on my wrist-link.'

'Please play it aloud to us.'

Redred activated the device on his wrist and directed it into the centre of the Hall. Immediately, an elderly man in red and orange Cardinal's regalia s.h.i.+mmered into life.

'Lord Cardinal Lenadi,' whispered the Doctor. 'Head, as was, of the Prydonian Chapter.'

'The House of Lungbarrow,' began the Cardinal, reading from a parchment, 'having wilfully transgressed the First Article of Generation, in that it did knowingly create a new life in excess of its statutory Loom quota of forty-five persons, without reference to or consultation with the Central Population Directory, has been found guilty.'

Owis, who had been picking at his plate of mushrooms, started to slide under the table.

The Cardinal was frowning severely. 'Unless an appeal is lodged within five days, the aforementioned House of Lungbarrow and al its appurtenances will, under the ancient laws subscribed by the founding triumvirate of the New Time, be excommunicated from the Matrix and the Prydonian Chapter. Its name wil no longer be known.'

He rolled up the parchment and slotted it into the eye of an antique skull which was suddenly hovering before him.

'Five days pending,' said the skul with a grin.

The transmission finished.

164.

Chapter Twenty-eight.

Going Home

Shudders ran through the House of Lungbarrow. Its timbers s.h.i.+vered, down from its scaly roofs to the fibrous ends of its extending roots.

Deep in the flooded North annexe, there was a wel . Thoughts flickered like shadows in its depths. Voices whispered and cried out in anguish.

The voices were whispering to Jobiska.

She was fretting. 'Why don't they listen? No one listens.'

Come home then, they insisted.

'It's time then,' she said.

Yes.

She sighed and smiled. 'Time to go home at last.'

Always voices, thought Chris. Wherever I go, it's always someone else's voice in my head. Yemaya and Yemaya Yemaya and Yemaya and Yemaya creeps on this petty pace from day to day. and Yemaya creeps on this petty pace from day to day.

Maybe I'm bored with travel ing. Maybe it's time to stay in nights with a trashvid or just my thoughts, not other people's second-hand, shop-soiled, cast-offs. Let's go home and see the folks. Let's have a party and a singsong round the old joanna. (We don't have an old joanna. What is an old joanna?) Never mind, here comes that song again. Altogether now: Eighth Man Bound Make no sound...

'Cast out.' Satthralope sat in her place at the head of the table, turning the keys on her ring in a steady clicking motion. 'The poor, poor House.'

'The House buried us,' said Glospin. 'We had five days. I would have set things right as my first duty as Kithriarch.

But the House had to interfere.'

'No, it is not true. We are cast out.'

'Where are the rest of the Family?' said Redred. 'And where's the imposter who took the edict?'

'All dead,' said Satthralope, staring blankly ahead.

'Dead? How can they be dead?'

'No, not dead,' insisted Innocet. 'Just gone away.'

'Dead of shame,' said Satthralope.

The Doctor, slipping in beside her: 'If they were dead, the House would have replaced them.'

'You are dead,' she said, turning her keys.

165.

'Now you see me, now you don't,' he agreed.