Big Bang Generation

by Gary Russell

  ‘So I am the only one who remembers any of this?’

  ‘You are a Lord of Time. That is your role. However…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘There were six other beings at the eye of the time storm. If we erase their participation in bringing you to our attention in the first place, it would create a paradox. Without them, you would not have arrived, changed time and saved the universe, so to erase them would stop that happening. They too will be aware of what they did, if nothing else.’

  ‘Good,’ the Doctor said. ‘Bernice Summerfield is my friend and I would feel very unhappy if I thought I had somehow stolen part of her experiences and her life.’

  ‘We shall not meet again, Lord of Time. That is as it should be.’

  ‘Will you return to the universe? Return to live, feel, see, experience? Have a mojito?’

  But before he got an answer, he was elsewhere.

  The smell. The sticky floors. The broken neon sign flickering.

  ‘Oh no,’ he muttered. ‘The White Rabbit. On Legion. Great.’

  14

  Pressure Off

  ‘Oh, so you decided to come back, then.’

  The Doctor looked at Keri the Pakhar and beeped her twitching nose. ‘As if I’d leave you behind on a godforsaken place like Legion.’

  ‘You left me on Tugrah.’

  ‘Ah. well, yes, all right, but—’

  ‘You left me on the Azure Moon of Gald too.’

  ‘That was ages ago. You have a good memory—’

  ‘Then there was that time you left me in jail on Kolpasha.’

  ‘Blimey, you really can hold a grudge, can’t—’

  ‘I seem to recall an incident on Nefrin where you said, and I quote: “Keri, I’ll be back in five.” I, of course, took that to mean minutes. Maybe hours at a push. Not years. Guarding that Eternity Capsule took a lot of time and energy, yeah!’

  The Doctor sighed. ‘I got held up. There was a planet, an invading horde of Scarrions, an under-trodden village and a party. Well, a lot of parties. Well, it was just one long party really…’

  ‘That lasted five years?’

  ‘I left early. It went on for about eighteen.’ The Doctor put a glass of fizzy water in front of her. ‘But I’m here now. Ready to take you away from all this.’

  Keri pointed at the bar of the White Rabbit. ‘You met the guy who used to own this place, yeah?’

  The Doctor shook his head.

  ‘You should. You’d like him. Reminds me of you. Duplicitous, underhanded, talks too much about absolutely nothing, wears terrible clothes and flirts outrageously.’

  ‘I don’t flirt. I have never flirted. I’m not sure I know how to flirt without making a fool of myself.’

  ‘Another thing in common with him, then.’

  Bernice Summerfield and Peter walked over. ‘Hey, Keri,’ said Bernice. ‘Nice to see you again.’

  ‘It’s been a long time.’ Keri smiled. ‘Missed you. Sorry you got lumbered with this old fraud.’ She waved towards the Doctor. Then she smiled at Peter. ‘Last time I saw you, you were a tiny puppy, yeah?’ She looked at Bernice with a querying look on her face.

  ‘Baby,’ Bernice said. ‘He was a baby.’

  ‘Baby, yes, of course.’

  Peter leaned forward and gave Keri a quick kiss then grabbed Bernice’s arm. ‘Mum, I have to go settle a dispute between Crazy Hank and Toothless Bob over a Land Crow.’

  Bernice considered this information. ‘You know, I think I’d pay good money to see those two scrap.’ She kissed Peter’s forehead. ‘See you later.’

  Peter looked at the Doctor.

  ‘What?’ the Time Lord asked. ‘What’s that look for? I know that look. That’s a look that says I’ve done something wrong. What? What have I done wrong now?’

  Peter reached behind the bar and brought out a thin metallic stick, twisted and almost snapped in half.

  ‘Yours, I believe. Apparently, a pretty peeved Kenistrii left it here before heading home.’ He slapped it into the Doctor’s palm. ‘Don’t leave advanced Time Lord tech on my planet, thank you.’

  The Doctor looked at his broken sonic screwdriver. ‘Sorry Peter,’ the Doctor heard himself say, like a teenager being told off by an old man, rather than the other way round.

  ‘See you round, Doc,’ Peter laughed and headed out of the bar.

  ‘Where are Ruth and Jack?’ the Doctor asked. ‘I like Ruth and Jack.’

  ‘They’re down at my little underground base in the mountains, reprogramming EOIN, the computer that runs the place You’d like him. He never gives anyone any cheek.’

  ‘When’s the wedding?’ Keri asked. ‘I might hang around for the wedding, yeah.’

  ‘I thought you wanted to go home,’ exploded the Doctor. ‘I mean, you just said—’

  ‘If I relied on you to get me home, or back here for the wedding, we’d end up in the eighty-sixth century or taking a sky train to the Planet of the Hats.’

  ‘Have you been to the Planet of the Hats?’ asked Bernice.

  ‘No,’ sneered the Doctor. ‘There’s no such place as the Planet of the Hats.’

  Bernice and Keri looked at one another, shocked. ‘He’s never been to the Planet of the Hats!’

  ‘With the Brown Derbys!’

  ‘And the Stingy Brims!’

  ‘The rebellious Cloche!’

  ‘The warring Homburgs and Pillboxes!’

  The Doctor stood up. ‘If no one’s going to have a sensible conversation…’

  ‘The Planet of the Hats is a real place,’ Bernice said seriously.

  ‘It’s not.’

  ‘I did a story there during one of their wars,’ Keri said. ‘I was embedded with the Gainsboroughs. It was quite scary.’

  ‘Hair-raising, even,’ Bernice added. She leaned down and hugged Keri. ‘Thank you for everything you did for us,’ she said.

  ‘Everything I did? I don’t know what you’re talking about, yeah?’

  Bernice looked at the Doctor. ‘Keri, too?’

  ‘Everyone other than us, Kik the Assassin and Globb I believe.’

  ‘Well, believe me, it was invaluable,’ Bernice said. ‘Wasn’t it, Doctor?’

  ‘Invaluable. Essential. Very grateful.’ He nodded.

  ‘Well, I have no idea what either of you is going on about, but either way, if Legion will have me,’ Keri said, tapping her leg in its cast, ‘I think I’ll stick around till this repairs itself.’

  ‘Be lovely to have you here. Get the guy who runs this place to give you his spare room. Tell him I insist,’ Bernice said.

  ‘I’ll do that.’

  The Doctor squeezed Keri’s shoulder as he started to move away. ‘If you’re sure?’

  ‘Absolutely. Take care, Doctor. Deep down, you’re a good man. If you look hard enough.’ She winked. ‘But I’m never ice skating with you again, yeah?’

  The Doctor allowed Bernice to lead him out of the bar and into the street outside.

  Neon signs were reflected in the muddy puddles that were growing larger in the rain.

  ‘You notice how it always rains when we’re together,’ he said. ‘Never met anyone else who I can guarantee no matter what places I go, it’ll always be raining with.’

  ‘We need your TARDIS.’

  The Doctor looked shocked. ‘My TARDIS! It’s in Sydney. Hundreds of years ago!’

  ‘No, it’s not. It’s over there. Believe me, no one else leaves a 1950s police box lying about.’

  The Doctor followed her finger. Sure enough, the TARDIS was parked under an awning for a tattoo parlour.

  ‘The Ancients of the Universe must have shot it back here, to its last landing before this all started,’ Bernice said.

  ‘How nice of them,’ he said. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘More a question of when. Come on.’ And Bernice led him inside his ship.

  —

  About forty miles north of Legion City was a plateau that few people wanted to visit. Dark, co
ld and inhospitable it was, of course, exactly where Professor Bernice Summerfield had decided to do a bit of digging.

  Jack and Ruth were examining some strata in the rocks about half a mile away.

  Peter was in the distance strategically placing some low-level explosives to clear some rubble.

  Bernice looked up. She stopped, chewed on her lower lip for a second, then shrugged. ‘Hullo,’ she said eventually.

  ‘Hullo,’ called another Bernice. And next to her, a tall greying man. Somehow, she knew instinctively that it was the Doctor.

  ‘Future-me, or past-me that I’ve forgotten for some reason?’ Bernice called to the newcomers.

  ‘I’m really not sure about this,’ the probably Doctor person said.

  This other Bernice shushed him. ‘Past. Not quite sure how long. Probably breaking the Laws of Time if I tell you. But then casually breaking the Laws of Time is why we’re here.’

  ‘Really?’

  The Doctor stepped forward. ‘Yes. Apparently so. It’s why I’m here.’

  ‘I thought he’d add gravitas, you know, make you realise that you need to listen to me. To us.’

  Bernice nodded. ‘Makes sense I guess. Although this could be a temporal trap.’

  ‘It could be indeed. But let’s face it, I’ve got this far based on instinct. And something about this feels right. Or interesting at the very least.’

  ‘What if I told you, Benny,’ the Doctor said, ‘that digging here would be catastrophic?’

  ‘I’d say, “Hell, really? Here?” in a pretty sarcastic voice and then say, “But I’m listening” and suggest you carry on.’

  Other Bernice stepped forward. ‘It’s an instruction from you. Future you. Future-future-me, in fact. I have to make sure you don’t dig anything up here.’

  ‘What sort of anything?’

  ‘That would be telling,’ the Doctor said. ‘Let’s just say something is buried here that needs to stay buried for the sake of the universe.’

  ‘Don’t be melodramatic,’ Bernice snorted.

  ‘I’m not.’ He looked at Other Bernice. ‘Do I sound in the slightest bit melodramatic?’

  ‘No, not at all. You just sound dour and Scottish. That’s about as far from melodramatic as you can get really.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He paused. ‘Dour? How am I dour? I’m the very epitome of party spirit.’

  ‘Yeah, if the party is in a funeral home and the spirit is one of the dead. Aaaanyway…’ Other Bernice looked back at Bernice. ‘You need to pack up, go home, forget this place. Please.’

  ‘Why?’ Bernice looked around the plateau. ‘It’s hardly the most threatening place on Legion. I mean, I’ve been to Madame JoJoJos on a Wednesday night. Now, as bars go, that’s a scary place!’

  ‘Oh, I know!’ Other Bernice clapped her hands. ‘Remember that night with the Wurlitzer and the Frogspawn Twins of Adaga III?’

  ‘Oh my god, yes!’

  ‘And then—’ Other Bernice started, but the Doctor interrupted.

  ‘Yes, well, that’s all great and fun sounding. Now can we please get back to what we need to do here? Bernice, pack your bags and go home now.’

  Bernice just laughed at his tone. ‘What am I? Six? Or worse, still travelling with you? I need something better than that, Doctor. If that’s truly who you are.’

  Other Bernice stepped closer, but not close enough to touch. ‘Remember when we were six. Remember Mum saying that if ever we needed to really trust in something, really believe in something, we were to remember her telling us this? Well, I’m thinking about that moment very strongly now. A chain of events starts with you digging here that a lot of Laws of Time-breaking has managed to avert.’

  ‘And believe me, Bernice,’ said the Doctor, ‘you, I, Peter…many others barely got out of it. You have to believe me. Believe in yourself, quite literally. Leave this place and never come back.’

  Bernice stared at the Doctor. His earnest face, those eyes, oh, always with those eyes…No matter how many times the face changed, the eyes stayed the same – weary, experienced, genuine. The Doctor she had loved for years, just as anyone who knew him did. Damn him. She turned to see if she could spot Jack and Ruth. They were little more than specks in the distance…

  She turned back to Other Bernice and the Doctor.

  They were gone.

  Of course they were.

  She had just made a decision. Time had already been rewritten, and things would unfold in a different way in the future and presumably the past.

  Peter was at her side. ‘I planted the explosives,’ he said.

  Bernice looked at him. ‘Honey, go double them. Instead of uncovering this site, I want to bury it, make sure no one can ever try digging here again.’

  ‘But…’

  Bernice stroked his ears, kissed his forehead. ‘Just do it, yeah?’

  Peter smiled and hurried off.

  An hour later she, Peter, Jack and Ruth were watching as the whole area vanished in a massive eruption of fire and rock – Peter smiled at his handiwork.

  ‘You enjoyed that, didn’t you?’ Ruth said, nudging his ribs.

  He nodded. ‘Drinks on me, guys.’

  They started back to their little shuttle ship, the Irverfield, and then back to Legion City.

  As they got into the shuttle, Bernice turned and caught a glimpse of a tall blue box on the horizon. She blinked, but it was gone.

  ‘Happy landings, Doctor,’ she said quietly. ‘Till the next time…Whatever face you may have…’

  Endnote

  So, it’s all Steven Moffat’s fault, you know. And I couldn’t be more grateful to him!

  I cheekily asked him if I could do a novel with River Song. He said no, so that it couldn’t be contradicted by (or more importantly contradict) anything that may potentially happen with River and the Twelfth Doctor one day on the tellybox. And quite right too. ‘But,’ he said, ‘put in Bernice. I like Bernice, you should bring her back.’ And nothing brought a smile to my face more than that idea.

  Not that long ago, myself and my sometime writing partner Scott Handcock had a fun couple of years doing Benny adventures on audio CD for Big Finish Productions. (A round of applause to them for saying yes to all this too, by the way.) We devised a new ‘family’ for her, bringing back her son Peter and creating Ruth and Jack. (The audios also featured the lovely Irving Braxiatel, but he was off doing some supply run for the White Rabbit or something equally dodgy with an Ikerian soft-furnishings merchant or a Surlioid spaceship dealer and wasn’t available to take part in this adventure.) Scott and I stopped doing these after sixteen thrilling stories, but I truly love these characters, especially Benny, and so it took very little provocation (well, OK, none at all) to bring them all back together for this yarn, set some time after their last audio adventure.

  I have to give a nod of the hat to those fine actors Lisa Bowerman, Tom Grant, Ayshea Antione-Brown and David Ames who brought Benny, Peter, Ruth and Jack to life so well. I heard their voices in my heads as I wrote each line of dialogue, and, if you’re familiar with the audios, I hope you did too.

  Finally a little yaaay too for the marvellous Peter Capaldi, who makes writing dialogue for his Doctor such a joy to do.

  This book was mostly written in the spring of 2015 in Australia. Where it was actually autumn, moving towards winter. It gets very confusing for a poor feeble-minded Brit living down under try to understand these weird seasons. And don’t get me started on the idea of celebrating Christmas Day in 70-degree heat on a beach. It’s weird. Lovely. But dead weird…I have to say, if you’ve never visited the country, especially New South Wales, do yourself a favour and do so. It is amazing. Visit Sydney, of course, but I can’t hype the breathtaking Blue Mountains enough. A day there is a day you’ll never forget…

  Una McCormack

  ISBN 978-1-101-90583-8

  The Grail is a story, a myth! It didn’t exist on your world! It can’t exist here!

  The city-state of Varuz i
s failing. Duke Aurelian is the last of his line, his capital is crumbling, and the armies of his enemy, Duke Conrad, are poised beyond the mountains to invade. Aurelian is preparing to gamble everything on one last battle. So when a holy man, the Doctor, comes to Varuz from beyond the mountains, Aurelian asks for his blessing in the war.

  But all is not what it seems in Varuz. The city-guard have lasers for swords, and the halls are lit by electric candlelight. Aurelian’s beloved wife, Guena, and his most trusted knight, Bernhardt, seem to be plotting to overthrow their Duke, and Clara finds herself drawn into their intrigue…

  Will the Doctor stop Aurelian from going to war? Will Clara’s involvement in the plot against the Duke be discovered? Why is Conrad’s ambassador so nervous? And who are the ancient and weary knights who arrive in Varuz claiming to be on a quest for the Holy Grail…?

  An original novel featuring the Twelfth Doctor and Clara, as played by Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman

  Trevor Baxendale

  ISBN 978-1-101-90579-1

  I do hope you’re all ready to be terrified!

  The Phaeron disappeared from the universe over a million years ago. They travelled among the stars using roads made from time and space, but left only relics behind. But what actually happened to the Phaeron? Some believe they were they eradicated by a superior force…Others claim they destroyed themselves.

  Or were they in fact the victims of an even more hideous fate?

  In the far future, humans discover the location of the last Phaeron road – and the Doctor and Clara join the mission to see where the road leads. Each member of the research team knows exactly what they’re looking for – but only the Doctor knows exactly what they’ll find.

  Because only the Doctor knows the true secret of the Phaeron: a monstrous secret so terrible and powerful that it must be buried in the deepest grave imaginable…

  An original novel featuring the Twelfth Doctor and Clara, as played by Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman