by Doctor Who
But they didn’t. And she didn’t. And the noises stopped, from both bomb and screwdriver.
The Doctor was sitting up, waving a disconnected finger in the air in triumph.
Martha heaved a very big sigh of relief.
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∗ ∗ ∗
The adrenalin had been rushing around so much that, when it seeped away, I could have fallen asleep there and then on the floor of the secret laboratory. I had a real ‘end of story’ feel, a real ‘happily ever after’ – until I realised that it hadn’t and it wouldn’t be, because there were so many loose ends left that the whole event-pullover might easily unravel. Frank was still running about somewhere; I didn’t know what had happened to Tommy; and we might have to explain to people why the museum curator was currently unavailable.
‘I thought we’d had it then,’ I said.
‘Oh, there was plenty of time to chuck this one into an isolation field inside the TARDIS if it came to it,’ the Doctor said and tossed the egg-bomb onto the workbench. I yelped, couldn’t help it, even though I knew it was OK now, but the thing just rolled harmlessly along until it came to rest against a Bunsen burner. It might have been nice if he’d told me I wasn’t about to die – but then I remembered what had led up to this point, and realised that I’d deserved that terror. Because there was the thing, the big thing, the thing that knocked the ‘happily’
out of ‘ever after’ for good – the billions of creatures whose deaths I’d caused. The Last Ones. Genocide on a scale that was frankly incomprehensible. Now I didn’t have anything else to concentrate on, it threatened to overwhelm me.
I tried to tell the Doctor, who was now engaged in playing tug of war with Dorothea – she seemed to have taken a fancy to some of the wires poking out of Eve’s chest, presumably thinking they were skinny worms. But he didn’t let me get half of it out before he jumped up from the floor shouting: ‘My plan! I nearly forgot!’ He bounded towards the door, so I bundled up Dorothea and headed after him.
‘Where are we off to?’ I said.
‘Central computer. Eve’s office.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I –’ he tapped his chest importantly as he ran – ‘came up with the most stupendous plan that will sort out everything!’
‘But Eve said all the animals were dead. . . ’
‘Not if I have anything to do with it.’
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‘So what’s the plan?’ I asked eagerly.
‘No time, no time!’ the Doctor cried, racing ahead.
But it didn’t really matter to me that I didn’t know the details. The adrenalin was surging again. The animals weren’t dead – and everything was going to be all right.
159
THE I-SPYDER BOOK OF EARTH CREATURES
PARADISE PARROT
Psephotus pulcherrimus
Location: Australia
The male of the beautiful paradise parrot, a native of north-eastern Australia, can be recognised by its distinctive blue-green plumage, with striking black and red wings, tail and cap. The female’s feathers are duller although still attractive. Its diet consists mainly of grass seeds.
Addendum:
Last reported sighting: AD 1927.
Cause of extinction: competition for food from alien livestock; demands of the pet trade
I-Spyder points value: 500
So all I knew about the plan was that it involved the central computer in Eve’s office. But then, even if the Doctor explained, I’d probably have been none the wiser. I mean, I can set the DVD recorder, wire a plug and have even been known to fix the toaster, but the sort of technology we were talking about here was a little bit beyond me.
Don’t ask me how the Doctor knew the way from the secret lab to Eve’s office – he’s that sort of person. I wonder if Time Lords have a bit of homing pigeon in their ancestry too. Anyway, we reached it in super-quick time and the Doctor dashed inside, only to find Rix, Nadya, Vanni and Celia already there. They all looked a bit worried, which was perfectly reasonable.
‘Doctor!’ Vanni said (people do that, you know. It’s always ‘Doctor!’
Never ‘Martha!’ Same with villains. ‘Get the Doctor and the girl!’ Oh well, maybe one day it’ll be ‘Get Martha and the man!’ and he’ll know what it feels like to be the anonymous spare part. Not that I actually want to be captured by villains or anything, I should point out). ‘Do you know what’s going on?’ Vanni continued.
‘All the traces disappeared from Earth,’ Nadya said.
‘Goodness
knows what sort of mess there is down there. . . ’
‘So we came to find Eve, but she’s not here,’ added Celia.
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‘Tommy’s in the infirmary, but no one knows how he was hurt,’ said Rix.
‘And Celia went to see Frank in detention but he wasn’t there,’ Vanni finished.
I stood there, trying to think how to explain it all to them in ways that would not get me into a lot of trouble, but the Doctor got there first. ‘To take your points in reverse order,’ he said, ‘Frank’s on the loose somewhere, sabre-toothed tiger, Eve’s indisposed –’
‘And an android,’ I put in helpfully.
‘– and I’m here to clean up the mess for you.’ He sat down at Eve’s computer and started to tap away. I envy that. Put him in front of any futuristic machine and he’s there straight away, he doesn’t even have to search for the on switch.
‘An android?’ said Celia, as this interesting and probably rather surprising fact seemed to finally penetrate. ‘What do you mean, an android?’
The Doctor didn’t look up from the screen. ‘Looks like another can-didate for a dictionary. Android: humanoid automaton. Martha, you could give that dictionary you were going to buy for Eve to Celia instead, seeing as Eve won’t be needing it, what with being a humanoid automaton an’ all.’
Celia got all huffy at that, not that I entirely blamed her, so I did my best to explain to her and the other Earthers what it was all about.
Not that that amounted to much more than ‘we know she’s an android because when her chest exploded it was full of wires and no, she probably won’t be back at work for a while’.
Just as I was stumbling to the end of my inadequate explanation, the Doctor turned away from the computer in frustration. ‘Bother,’ he said.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘Password protected.’ He looked at the Earthers. ‘Anyone know Eve’s password?’
They shook their heads. ‘Bother,’ he said again.
It didn’t seem like that big a deal to me. ‘Surely you can work it out,’ I said.
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He looked at me pityingly. ‘It was set up by an android who has an android’s sophisticated electronic brain. She won’t have used the name of her first pet or her favourite TV character, it’ll be some im-mensely complex and unguessable formula of hundreds of symbols.
It’ll take hours, days even, to workout.’
Needless to say, I felt crushed. ‘Would Frank know it?’ I suggested, trying to make amends for my stupidity. ‘He’ obviously been working closely with Eve.’
He grimaced. ‘Maybe. But Frank’s bound to have made his escape by now. He’ll have found out that his protectress has gone all explody, and got off planet before anyone decides to tick him off for all the attempted genocide.’
I felt crushed again. But Vanni said, ‘How? There aren’t any tourist ships due for hours.’
‘And he can’t teleport off,’ put in Rix. ‘He’d need to gel his pendant back off Tommy first.’
We all looked at each other. ‘Tommy!’
We were all set to race out of the door, but Nadya waved a hand to stop us. ‘It’s all right,’ she said, ‘Frank won’t know where to find him.
Why would he think of looking in the infirmary?’
Ah. ‘Um. . . ’ I said, trying to run through my most recent conversations with Frank in my head. Surely I hadn’t mentioned it. Or ha
d I?
Oh bum, I was fairly sure I had. . .
‘Martha?’ said the Doctor.
‘Sorry,’ I replied, answering the implication.
We all raced out of the door.
Martha headed the charge from Eve’s office until she realised she had no idea where the infirmary was and therefore fell back to let Rix lead.
The others would probably have overtaken her anyway; she was still carrying Dorothea and so speed was not currently her strong point.
She wished she hadn’t abandoned the shopping trolley earlier.
What this all meant, though, was that she reached the infirmary a few seconds after the others, and so she was the last to see that they were already too late.
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Tommy was lying in a bed, conscious, and hooked up to monitors that were giving out reassuring beeping sounds. These were all good things. What was not good at all, however, was that standing over the recumbent man was Frank, a determined look on his face. There was a great big holdall at the ex-Earther’s feet, bundles of notes sticking out of the top. His ill-gotten gains.
‘Tommy!’ shouted Rix, making to rush forwards, but Frank yelled
‘Stop!’ He’d got a new gun from somewhere, and it now swivelled round to point at Rix.
‘Glad you could join us. Tommy doesn’t want to tell me where my pendant is, however much I promise to hurt him. But I reckon he might have second thoughts if I promise to kill all you lot instead.’
Nadya’s hand had been creeping towards her own pendant, but she suddenly screamed as a laser beam shot past her neck, exploding a vase of flowers on a cabinet behind her. ‘Don’t do that, Nadya,’ Frank continued, as chrysanthemum petals rained down on the ward. ‘In fact, it’d be a good plan if you all took off your pendants and threw them over here. And if I see any fingers near buttons, then I shoot, and it won’t be a warning shot.’
The Earthers unhappily did as he instructed, tossing their pendants at Frank’s feet. The gun never wavering, he bent down and gathered them up, pushing them in his pocket. ‘Now, Tommy. . . ?’ he said as he straightened up again.
‘You killed them! The quagga, the bluebuck, everything! And you expect me to help you escape?’ growled Tommy from the bed.
‘Duh!’ said Frank. ‘I’ve just been explaining that. Because if you don’t, I’ll kill all your friends here, one by one.’
‘I’m more a sort of acquaintance, actually,’ put in the Doctor. ‘No offence, Tommy.’
Frank sighed. ‘All right, all your friends and acquaintances here.’
‘And, not that I’m really the one to judge or cast aspersions on anyone’s relationships, but the thing about work is that you get flung together with people out of necessity rather than choice, so I wonder if some of the people here would be better described merely as colleagues rather than friends. . . ’
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‘Fine. All your friends and acquaintances and colleagues here.’
The Doctor nodded. Then stopped. ‘Hang on, hang on, my fault, but when you come to think of it, friends and colleagues are by necessity acquaintances too. So really, you could just say “acquaintances” and that covers the lot. Save some time.’
Frank gritted his teeth. ‘Shut up!’
‘Righteo.’ There was a pause, then the Doctor added, ‘Wait a mo, I’ve forgotten what it was you were going to do to the friends and acquaintances and colleagues in the first place.’
‘I was going to kill them!’ yelled Frank.
‘Ah, yes, that was it. Knew it was something like that.’
Martha couldn’t help smiling, despite yet another threat of immi-nent death. The Doctor really did have a Grade A in Annoying.
But maybe this was her chance: on with the nasty cop, nice cop rou-tine. Or rather, irritating cop, reasonable cop. She put down Dorothea and walked towards Frank with her hands outstretched to show she was no threat. ‘Frank, I reckon we can work this all out,’ she began, but before she could continue Frank had grabbed hold of her extended arm and yanked her towards him. The Doctor started forwards but stopped hurriedly as Frank jammed the pistol against Martha’s ear.
He smiled. ‘Tommy, tell me where my pendant is, or Martha loses her head.’
‘Frank, no!’ cried Celia.
‘Didn’t know you cared,’ Martha muttered. But if Celia could persuade Frank to put down the gun, then Celia was her new best friend and no mistake.
‘You don’t want to do this, Frank. You’re a good man, really, I know that. You just. . . lost your way.’
‘Sheesh, Ceel, and I was just getting used to the idea of never hearing your moaning voice again,’ said Frank, dashing Martha’s hopes.
‘After Martha, you’re next. Hey, I may even shoot you first, just to make sure of a bit of peace and quiet.’
Whimpering, Celia retreated. Frank waggled the gun and raised his eyebrows questioningly at Tommy. ‘Well?’
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‘Just tell him, Tom!’ called Nadya. ‘The authorities will pick him up anyway.’
Scowling, Tommy nodded. He reached across to a drawer in the bedside cabinet, opened it, and pulled out a pendant.
Frank’s face showed a mixture of triumph and annoyance. ‘You mean it was there all the time?’
Tommy shrugged, holding out the teleport device. ‘Drawer wasn’t even locked.’
Frank took the pendant, maintaining a stranglehold on Martha while he examined it closely, then he nodded and hung it around his neck. One-handed, he began to programme it with coordinates.
Martha tensed as the final digit was inputted. Surely he’d just zap away now, make his getaway. . . But he didn’t. Instead, Frank put his free hand into a pocket and pulled out a small white sphere.
That’s a bomb!’ she gasped.
‘Well, duh,’ said Frank. ‘Funny thing, there’s me thinking all the bombs had gone off to Earth, but what do I find when I get back to the lab? Earth still lousy with life, RIP Eve – and a bomb on the bench.
Thought it might come in handy. Cos Nadya had a point there, thanks, Nard. The authorities might be after me. But not if there’s no one left to tell ’em about it. I just need to destroy the evidence. And you’re the evidence.’
‘You mean “witnesses”,’ said the Doctor. ‘Sounds like you could do with one of the Christmas dictionaries that were on offer earlier.
But I wouldn’t get your hopes up. I reckon you’re going on Santa’s
“naughty” list for, ooh, ever.’
But Frank wasn’t letting the Doctor get to him any more. ‘Fine, witnesses,’ he said. ‘Call yourselves what you want, you’ll be just as dead – and in so many pieces they’ll never work out how many bodies there are. And then I’ll be safely away with my servants and my grapes, right, Martha?’ He rubbed the gun against her neck. Martha didn’t say anything. She couldn’t take her eyes off the egg-bomb, as Frank primed the mechanism. It began to tick in time with the bleepings from Tommy’s monitors.
Bending down carefully, the gun still pointed at Martha, Frank 166
placed the bomb on the floor. ‘Enjoy your last thirty seconds,’ he said, and his hand reached for his pendant. . .
And so did Martha’s hand. ‘You enjoy it too, Frank,’ she said, yanking the pendant so hard the cord snapped. She flung the device to the Doctor and, as Frank yelled in pain, she knocked the gun out of his hand. He pushed her aside and she fell to the floor, but grabbed hold of his ankles as she did so, pulling him down too. ‘Quick, the other pendants!’ she yelled, and the Doctor, already on the move towards them, understood at once. He tried to grab at Frank’s overalls – but Frank had retrieved the gun, and an energy beam narrowly missed the Doctor’s head.
Martha froze as the pistol swivelled between her and the Doctor, both now lying on the floor. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I was going to try to get away with the bomb.’
‘Yeah, I’m sorry too,’ said Frank, hurrying over to pick up his pendant. ‘Sorry to spoil your oh-so-heroic sel
f-sacrifice. But you know what? You’ve inspired me. I’m not going to let you all die. I’m going to devote my life to good works.’ But Martha wasn’t listening. From her prone position on the floor she had seen something.
Dorothea.
The dodo had recognised the white sphere that Frank had rested on the floor. In among all the unfamiliarity, this was something she knew.
The dodos had gone over this again and again with Frank. He gave them an egg, and they were supposed to bury it. It seemed to her that Frank had once again given her an egg. So she should bury it.
But for a shattered vase of flowers, the infirmary room was stark and gleaming. There was a bed, a cabinet, a trolley holding equipment, and some monitors. Nothing that she could reach, nothing suitable for a burial.
But there was a bag. It was on the floor, and it was full of papery stuff, just perfect for covering up an egg. She waddled over to the egg and started to push it along with her claws, towards the bag.
With considerable effort, she used her great beak to nudge the egg the few inches up the side of the bag until it plopped softly into its paper nest. A few sweeps with the tip of her beak and it was fully 167
concealed.
I’ll give all my wodges of cash to the poor. . . ’ Frank was continuing. Then he laughed. ‘Yeah, right!’ He picked up his bag of money.
‘Seven – six – five –’ He pressed the blue button on his pendant – and vanished.
‘Four. . . three. . . two. . . one,’ said the Doctor.
There was a stunned silence as the Earthers, who had all been holding their breath, suddenly realised they were still alive and could let it out again. A grinning Martha started to explain, but as they caught on whoops and cries and laughs of relief drowned her out. Nadya hugged Rix, and Vanni hugged the Doctor, and Tommy managed to pull himself to a sitting position in bed and punched the air. Martha grabbed Dorothea and the two of them did an ungainly waltz around the room. Celia cheered the loudest of all – well, thought Martha, it’s like a messy divorce; it’s going to be the ex-partner who’s happiest when someone blows themselves to smithereens.