by Doctor Who
Rose quickly got up to speed with what was troubling him. ‘With humans? Humans finished them off?’
The Doctor nodded. ‘And they might do it again if we don’t get him out of there.’
Rose looked back through the window. The Neanderthal man’s face was frozen in a kind of silent fear. He was plainly terrified of the people round him. She turned to the Doctor again.
‘I’m human,’ she reminded him. ‘We’re not all the same.’
The Doctor smiled. ‘Yeah, you do get nice ones. Now and again.’
Weronika considered her English to be fairly good, but she was finding it hard to keep up with the hushed conversation among these doctors, none of whom belonged to the hospital, and military men.
She’d reported the patient’s unusual qualities to Sister, who’d referred it to one of their doctors, who’d taken some photos and X-rays and 19
emailed them off somewhere. About twenty minutes later the order came through to evacuate and all these strangers had turned up.
Weronika had hung around the patient and nobody had bothered to dismiss her. She guessed she just wasn’t important enough. None of the new arrivals had taken any interest in her either. Their attention was fixed on the patient. They kept looking at him, shaking their heads and muttering a word she didn’t recognise. Neanderthal.
She’d sedated the boy and watched the immobile terror fade from his eyes.
Now she stood back, fearing for him.
Something told
Weronika that whatever he was, and whatever these strangers decided, it would not be good for him. She had a feeling of powerlessness. She wanted to shoo them all out and simply care for him, but she didn’t dare.
Suddenly the door of the isolation ward burst open and a man dressed in leather jacket and jeans, with severely cropped hair and eyes that blazed with blue fire, and a startlingly pretty young female nurse burst in. Just as Weronika had distrusted the other strangers she felt an immediate liking and trust for these two; it was as if a sub-conscious signal somewhere in the back of her mind had been tripped.
She just knew they were good people.
‘Hello,’ said the man confidently. ‘Sorry I’m late. I’m Dr. . . ’ His eyes swivelled round the room and lit on the bedside table. ‘I’m Dr Table. I’m the country’s leading expert in severe acromegaly, and just by taking one look at that man I can see that he needs my help, and if you’re thinking he’s some kind of Neanderthal throwback you are so wrong, but it’s an easy mistake to make and I won’t hold it against you, so if you’ll just hand him over to me I’ll get it sorted out and give him the best possible care and attention.’ The words rushed out of him in a tone that was warm, casual and authoritative all at the same time. Before anybody could get a word in, he started to speak to the nurse who was with him. ‘Nurse Tyler –’ he turned to Weronika and grinned, and it felt like the sun emerging from behind black clouds –
‘and you, please put him on a trolley.’
Weronika found herself obeying as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
20
As she and the other nurse lifted the boy onto a trolley, she heard one of the doctors give a sigh of relief that was almost pained.
‘Acromegaly,’ he said. ‘Of course.’
‘Yeah,’ said the stranger, ‘it’s a tragic debilitating condition and I, Dr Table, am the greatest expert in treating it. So you can just call off all these silly soldiers and let me help this man. I’ve got an ambulance parked outside, so. . . ’
By this time he was already following Weronika, Nurse Tyler and the trolley out into the corridor and towards the lift.
‘See?’ he said brightly, addressing Nurse Tyler. ‘Told ya. So relieved when someone comes in with an answer and sets their minds at rest.
Doddle.’ He shot a glance over at Weronika and read her name badge.
‘Hello, Weronika. How’s Krakow? Haven’t been to Wawel since I slew that dragon, about thirteen hundred years ago.’
Weronika found herself smiling back.
As they entered the lift, she found herself wanting to scream, I don’t know who you are, but take me with you! She looked over at Nurse Tyler and thought, If you’re his friend – I wish I was you.
He pressed the button for the ground floor and the doors closed.
Then he took the hand of the boy on the trolley. ‘You’re gonna be all right, mate. I’m the Doctor. And I’m not one of Them. I look like one, but I’m not, OK?’
To Weronika’s astonishment the boy looked right back at him and said, in a high girlish voice that she hadn’t expected at all, ‘OK.’
‘Come on, come on,’ said Nurse Tyler, thumbing the lift button again.
An alarm started ringing. The Doctor’s face fell.
‘I know it’s wrong of me,’ said Nurse Tyler, grinning at the Doctor,
‘but I’m actually pleased that didn’t work.’
Weronika pushed open the lift doors and started pulling the trolley out and round a corner. She could hear urgent running footsteps under the alarm.
‘This way,’ she called back to them. ‘The service lift!’
The Doctor caught up with her and gave her another of his devastating smiles. ‘Two nice humans!’ he cried inexplicably.
21
Weronika’s heart fluttered with excitement. She felt she had never been more alive.
They helped her drag the trolley into the service lift.
The doors of the service lift opened onto the draughty, empty corridor leading up to the kitchens. A back door was covered by a large metal grille. Weronika leaped ahead and pulled it open with one mighty heave, and the others pushed the trolley out into the forecourt that gave onto a back street. The alarms were still clanging away and Nurse Tyler had to shout to make herself heard. When she did, she used another word Weronika had never heard before. ‘The TARDIS is round the front!’
Booted feet were rushing towards them across the tarmac. The soldiers were running round and would be on them at any moment.
The Doctor clicked his fingers, looking about for inspiration. ‘We need another distraction.’
Nurse Tyler bit her lip. ‘No way!’
‘It doesn’t have to be that kind of distraction,’ said the Doctor. He turned to Weronika and pointed to the right, in the direction of the oncoming soldiers. ‘Weronika, you’re a good woman, lie to them!’
Then he grabbed the trolley and set off around the left side of the building at an incredible speed, with Nurse Tyler following.
Weronika knew she had only seconds left with these strange, wonderful people. ‘Who are you?’ she called after them desperately.
‘You’ll never know!’ the Doctor shouted back, without turning. ‘But you’ve helped me save a life! That’s a good day’s work in your job!’
And with that he was gone around a corner – a second before the soldiers arrived in the forecourt.
Weronika pointed back through the doors into the hospital corridor.
‘They’ve gone inside again!’ she shouted.
The soldiers pushed past her and swarmed into the building.
Weronika sagged against the wall. She felt that her life was never going to be as exciting again.
Fortunately the soldiers had all run round to the back of the building, 22
summoned by the alarm. The Doctor and Rose sped across the road before anybody in the crowd of startled onlookers could stop them.
The trolley slammed into the police box doors of the TARDIS. The Doctor already had the key in the lock and was hustling the Neanderthal to his feet. He bundled him inside and made to follow.
Rose grabbed his shoulder. ‘What about Jack?’
They heard a wild whooping as the naked Jack ran towards them across the road. Rose looked away.
‘Distracting enough?’ he asked as he joined them.
‘Please just put something on!’
cried Rose as they entered the
TARDIS.
Rose coughed and pointed to their guest. ‘Shall I make him a cup of tea or something?’
‘We don’t wanna frighten him any more,’ said the Doctor, coming over. ‘You never stew the bag. Whip it in, whip it out, that’s you.’
He knelt down and smiled at the Neanderthal. ‘He’s been sedated but that’ll wear off.’
‘He looks terrified,’ said Rose.
The Doctor was suddenly serious. ‘Culture shock. Stranded in a world where nothing makes sense. We’ve gotta get him back home as soon as possible.’
Rose whispered to the Doctor, ‘Now he’s in the TARDIS, can he understand us? Can he talk?’
She was referring to a property of the TARDIS that entered the minds of its occupants, changing them so they could understand any language, spoken or written, as if it was their own.
‘Of course I can talk,’ said the Neanderthal.
23
Rose jumped. His voice was very loud and high-pitched, almost like a parrot’s.
‘Sorry,’ she said. She held out her hand to him and smiled. ‘I’m Rose. What are you called?’
‘Das,’ he said. He stared at her, his eyes narrowing. Then he said very slowly, ‘This is the future, isn’t it? A time to come.’
‘Yeah,’ said Rose. She turned to the Doctor. ‘How’d he work that out?’
‘You think I’m stupid,’ Das went on. ‘Your lot always think we’re stupid. This must be the future. And it’s full of your people. So where are my people?’
The Doctor shared an uncomfortable look with Rose. He smiled at Das, but for him it wasn’t very convincing. ‘You’re going home, pal.
That’s all that matters.’
Captain jack returned to the control room, this time wearing a tight-fitting pair of black plastic trousers and a white T-shirt cut off at the arms.
Rose rolled her eyes. ‘It’s a Village Person.’
‘I can take it all off again if you like.’ He then became serious, holding up his wrist device and pressing a button. A cone of light shone up from it, filled with a dizzying array of algebraic symbols and a tiny hologram of Earth. ‘I’ve reverse-traced the distortion from the rip engine. We should end up right back where he started from.’
‘Which is when?’ asked Rose.
‘Just when you’d think,’ replied Jack. ‘He left Bromley on Wednesday 24 May in the year 29,185 BC. And shouldn’t we be asking him how?’
Das took the lead from Jack. ‘I was following Reddy, one of your people. He kept coming to the forest, bringing strange made-things.
Like that, kind of.’ He pointed to Jack’s wrist device. ‘Ka said he was from the future. He went to a strange tree. He opened it and I followed him inside. To a strange cave, full of made-things. Then suddenly I was in this world.’
Jack sighed. ‘Time travellers with a dirty rip engine at one of the most delicate points of human history. That’s insane.’
24
Rose smiled at him. ‘So you mucking about in time is OK, but anyone else is irresponsible and mental?’
‘I knew what I was doing,’ said Jack defensively.
Rose recalled their first encounter with Jack in 1940s London and couldn’t help saying, ‘Yeah, you who almost destroyed the human race by accident.’ But she was much more interested in Das. She couldn’t quite get her head round the lucid way he had spoken. ‘Chatty, isn’t he?’ she whispered to the Doctor as he returned to the console and started punching up the coordinates for their journey. ‘He’s coping pretty well.’
‘You coped pretty well in the year five billion,’ he reminded her.
‘Much bigger gap. And he’s practically one of the family.’
‘I want to go back, but I must know about the future,’ said Das.
‘Where are my people?’
‘I can’t answer your questions,’ the Doctor called over. ‘You’re going back home. Just try and forget today. It was only a mad, bad dream.’
Das stood up. ‘We’re going back to the forest? You can do that?’
‘Yeah,’ said the Doctor. ‘I promise. Easy as pie.’
With that, he tugged the lever that operated the engines, and gave a smirk and a wave at the crowd on the scanner screen as the TARDIS
dematerialised. Then he looked at his watch, checked a dial on the console and said, ‘Should be there in about ten minutes, Das.’
The green column at the centre of the console began to rise and fall with its customary wheezing sound. The floor juddered under them.
Rose took the opportunity of the general din of take-off to lean close in to the Doctor and whisper, ‘We killed them? Humans wiped them out? That’s what you said. But he’s. . . just like us.’
‘So if he wasn’t, it’d be all right?’ said the Doctor evasively.
‘You know what I mean, Doctor.’ Rose shuddered. ‘That’s disgusting.’
Before the Doctor could answer, Jack cried, ‘Hey!’
The Doctor and Rose whipped round from the console.
Das had fallen to the shaking floor of the TARDIS. At first Rose thought he had merely been knocked off his feet by the turbulence of 25
the dematerialisation. Then she saw that he was bathed in an eerie green light. . .
. . . and that he was dissolving.
26
The Doctor leaped onto the TARDIS console, flattening himself across it and jabbing at a panel on the opposite side. ‘No, reverse, reverse!’ he shouted. ‘No. . . ’ He shot an anguished glance over at Das and then pressed about seventeen buttons at once, using fingers, feet, whatever he could. If Rose hadn’t been so anxious she would have clapped at that.
The TARDIS gave an almighty shudder – even by its normal standards, Rose thought, as she was first flung to the floor and then back to her feet and waltzered the other way, that was volcanic. She heard the joints of her knees and elbows crack. Then she grabbed the rail and held on as the huge, ancient machinery somewhere deep in the bowels of the TARDIS shrieked in agony. She saw something black and white whiz past her and realised it was Jack. The TARDIS gave one last resentful wail, as if it was shouting at the Doctor, How dare you do this to me! and then the column settled with a deep percussive rumble.
Rose lifted her head, brushed the hair out of her eyes and let herself drop to the floor. She looked over at the spread-eagled, white-gowned figure of Das. He was out cold, but the eerie glow had faded and he 27
was back to solid reality once again.
She gazed up to see the Doctor stroking the console. ‘I am so sorry,’
he whispered to it soothingly.
‘Don’t I get a bit of attention?’ she said, hauling herself up by the rail.
The Doctor leaped down from the console and stroked her arm.
‘You’re gonna be all right,’ he said in the same cooing tone of voice.
Rose pulled her arm away. ‘No. Save it for your dashboard.’
‘I’ll have a bit if there’s any going,’ called Jack. He did a cartwheel and sat up smiling. ‘Crash test training. A perfect fall.’
‘Then you don’t need it,’ said Rose. She nodded to Das. ‘So what happened there?’
It’s the time distortion,’ said the Doctor gravely. ‘I used the fast return. We’re back in Bromley, the library gardens.’
Jack picked Das up gently and lowered him back into his chair, which was thankfully bolted to the floor. ‘The rip engine must have polluted every cell in his body. He can’t time-travel again, poor guy, or the vortex pressures will just tear him apart.’
Rose felt a pang of concern. ‘What, he can’t go home?’
&
nbsp; The Doctor didn’t reply.
‘There’s gotta be a way round it,’ continued Rose. ‘Bring out some of your gadgets. Can’t the sonic screwdriver do something?’
The Doctor stood over Das and looked down at him sadly. Rose noticed he was deliberately not catching her eye. ‘No gadgets for this. His cellular structure’s been flipped like any time traveller’s, like yours or mine, but without the protection we get from the TARDIS –or anything like it.’
‘If we try to move him, he’ll disintegrate,’ said Jack.
‘So? We don’t need to travel in time. Let’s just take him to another planet,’ suggested Rose.
‘Any journey in the TARDIS causes time ripples,’ said the Doctor. ‘I can’t. And just out of interest, which planet would you suggest?’
Rose knew that little sparks of rudeness like that were just a cover for when something had upset or was worrying him. He was looking anywhere but at her, or at Das. ‘So he’s stuck here on Earth, in this 28
time, for ever?’ she asked. She put herself directly in front of the Doctor, forcing him to look at her. ‘What have you promised, Doctor?’
The Doctor caught her eye at last, and just for a moment she saw something that looked small and helpless in there.
Then he snapped back to life, heading for a storage locker built into one of the walls. ‘We’ve gotta go back, Rose, find out how he got here.
It doesn’t change that.’
Rose trailed him. ‘Hang on. He’s gonna have to stay here, live here?
What are you gonna say to him?’
The Doctor opened the locker and started rooting in it. ‘Well, I’m gonna have a lot to sort out,’ he said after a while.
Rose sighed. ‘So it’s me that’s gotta tell him.’
‘You’re a closer relation,’ said the Doctor without looking up.
‘Half an hour ago you said he was frightened and alone. Now you expect him to live in twenty-first century Bromley like that was nothing.’