‘Understood, sir.’
‘Not even me. Do you still understand?’
‘Why am I doing this, sir?’
‘Because the future of Planet Earth depends on it,’ said the Doctor and the line went dead. McGillop look down the corridor, where he could still see us walking away, and whoosh—
I was back in the Black Archive. I looked at the counter. I’d been gone for less than a second (well, not really gone, but you know what I mean).
‘All you have to do is leave this planet,’ the real Kate was saying.
‘Fine, we’ll go. But we’re taking all this equipment,’ said Copy Kate.
‘So you can burn us up from space?’
‘No, to stop you shooting us down as we leave.’
‘We won’t.’
‘You’ve done it before. Why should we trust you?’
‘You invaded us. Why should we trust you?’
‘We have a problem, then.’
‘A mutual problem.’
‘But not for much longer.’
‘For exactly a hundred and nineteen seconds, I fear.’
‘I fear also,’ said Copy Kate, with the saddest smile.
I looked at you. So it was the Doctor who moved the painting here, I said.
Are you thinking what I’m thinking?
By definition, you said. If the Doctor has found the ability to place himself inside the painting—
Do you remember that you never finished that thought? There was the most tremendous sound of shattering glass and the front of the painting exploded into the room. The air was suddenly filled with a strange, screaming, zooming noise, which made you scared just to hear, followed by a low drumming thunder, so deep you could feel it in your tummy, and then a spinning blue tunnel blasted like the beam of a searchlight through the picture frame, swirling and howling as it filled the room. I shaded my eyes and looked down the tunnel. I could see, silhouetted against the kaleidoscope of tumbling blue shapes, three men striding out of the painting, towards us.
I have the most stupid feeling that there might have been a tear in my eye, which you probably think is silly (or maybe you don’t, of course, being me). But, you see, I knew what it meant. It’s hard to describe, but I knew, even then, that everything was going to be absolutely fine—like it was suddenly Christmas Day, and Santa Claus was landing on the roof. I also knew I wasn’t UNIT’s number one tactical asset any more.
We were no longer in the absence of the Doctor!
Do you remember any of it, Petronella? I think it will start getting tricky now, because of what the Doctor did to us all. But I hope you can remember those three men climbing out of the painting and just striding into the room. I knew, straight away, they were all the Doctor. I’ve studied him all my life, but that wasn’t the reason: you could just see it somehow. The Doctor and the Doctor and the Doctor!
There was the one we met today, all goofy and adorable, with his bow tie and swirly hands. And there was the one with the tight (!!) suit and the Converse. My mum saw a photo of him once, and told me that she would (which was a bit gross, wasn’t it?). And there was another one I’d never seen in any pictures. The mysterious extra Doctor! It was like finding a secret Top Trumps card that no one else knew about! He was very different from the other two. Sort of older and more crumpled. When he looked at you it was like he was grand and frail at the same time. It was still him, though, there just wasn’t any doubt. He wore a bandolier round his chest, which I thought would be difficult to replicate, so I’d probably be hitting the antique shops.
‘Hello,’ they all said.
‘I’m the Doctor.’
‘I’m the Doctor.’
‘I’m the Doctor.’
Honestly, I could hear my tattoos cheering (apologies for those, by the way).
‘Sorry about the mess,’ said the old one.
‘And the showing off,’ said a voice. I looked round to see Bossy Munchkin Clara Oswald climbing out of the picture too.
‘Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, what in the name of sanity are you doing?’ said Doctor Bow tie. (He said it to the wrong one, but I suppose when there’s three of you in the room, you stop worrying about that sort of thing!)
‘There’s a protocol for when this place is breached—’ began real Kate.
‘I know all about your idiot protocol,’ said Doctor Converse. ‘I just never thought anyone would be idiot enough to activate it.’
‘The countdown can only be halted at my personal command, there’s nothing you can do.’
The Doctors all looked to the numbers on the wall. We had a bit over a minute. I’d read every file there ever was on this man—I knew he’d keep going to the last second, just for dramatic effect.
‘I’ll tell what we can do about it,’ said Doctor Converse. ‘We can make you both agree to halt it.’
‘Not even for three of you,’ said Kate.
‘You are about to murder millions of people,’ snapped Doctor Old.
‘To save billions more,’ said Kate. ‘How many times have you made that calculation?’
‘If you’d never had this stupid, dangerous collection in the first place—’
‘Irrelevant!’ shouted Kate. ‘I repeat: how many times have you made that calculation?’
The Doctors all looked at each other, and there was something awful in their faces.
‘This is not a decision you will ever be able to live with,’ said Doctor Converse. (When he said that, I noticed Doctor Old glancing at him, and there was a look in his eyes that was so big and so sad, I almost went and hugged him.)
‘Well then,’ Kate replied, ‘lucky thing I won’t have to. Doctor, how many times?’
The Doctors looked at each other. I knew the answer they were going to give. Never! That’s what they didn’t want to tell her. Maybe because they didn’t want to seem superior, or as though they were judging her, but if being the Doctor counted for anything, I knew that—
‘Once,’ said the Doctor.
The floor swayed at my feet. What did he say?
‘Once,’ he repeated. It was the Bow Tie one talking. I wanted him to stop, because what he was saying could not be—could never ever be—true. ‘Once, long ago, I did exactly what you’re about to do now, and told myself it was okay.’ Stop talking, I wanted to scream, shut up, shut up, shut up. ‘It turned me into the man I am today. And I’m not even sure who that is any more.’
‘You tell yourself it was justified. All the time, every minute, you tell yourself that.’ It was Doctor Converse now. He was all blurry, and my eyes were stinging. ‘But it’s a lie. What I did that day was wrong. Just wrong.’
I wiped my eyes on my sleeve. A few feet behind Doctor Converse, I could see Doctor Old. He had put a hand out to support himself on the wall, and his face was turned away. He looked weak suddenly, and I wondered if he was crying too. As I watched, he sort of crumpled into a chair, and held his head in his hand. Remember I said you could sort of tell he was the Doctor? Well, it was strange, because suddenly that wasn’t true any more.
‘So, anyway, here’s the point,’ said Doctor Bow Tie. ‘Because I got it wrong, I’m going to make you get it right.’ Suddenly he was all lively again, like nothing he’d just said mattered. ‘How long have we got, Doctor?’
‘Oh, about forty seconds, Doctor,’ said Doctor Converse. ‘Shall we get started straight away, or have a cuppa first?’
‘Nah, let’s get it done now, Doctor, we can spin it out to fill up the time.’
I looked at the clock. They didn’t have forty seconds, they had about thirty. Were they lying on purpose to make it more dramatic?
‘Assets, Doctor?’ said Bow Tie.
‘Well, incomparable genius, screwdrivers of varying sizes, and of course, the light fittings.’
‘Ah, yes, the amnesia light fittings. We can work with that, can’t we, Doctor?’
‘I should say so, Doctor!’
Oh, try hard and remember this bit, Petronella. In exact unison,
like they’d been practising, they pulled out two chairs at the end of the table, sat themselves down, banged their feet, one at a time, on the table top, and then leaned back and beamed at us all. The clock on the wall kept flicking the time away, and they were deliberately wasting it, just to show off. It was so ‘Doctor’ I almost forgot about what they’d just told us.
Across the table, the two Kates were staring at each other, as if they each expected the other to do something about this, but neither had a clue what.
‘Now then!’ said Doctor Bow Tie. ‘Let us tell you what’s about to happen.’
Kate stepped forward, like she wanted to protest, but couldn’t think of anything to say.
‘Any second now, you’re going to stop that countdown, both of you, together!’ said Doctor Converse.
Copy Kate stepped forward too, but nothing came out her mouth either.
‘And then you’re going to negotiate the most perfect treaty of all time.’
‘Safeguards all round, completely fair on both sides.’
‘And the key to the perfect negotiation …’
‘… is not knowing what side you’re on.’
They slammed back their chairs, and then they both leapt up onto the table. They spun their screwdrivers in their hands, then aimed them at the light fittings.
The Kates looked at each other, bewilderment in their faces.
‘For the next few hours …’
‘… until we decide to let you out of here …’
‘… no one in this room will be able to remember …’
‘… if they’re human …’
‘… or if they’re Zygon.’
Both screwdrivers buzzed, and both Doctors laughed.
It was such a funny thing, because nothing really seemed to happen. The lights just got brighter for a moment, everything went a bit milky, and suddenly there we all were, just standing like we had before. For a moment, I wondered if something had gone wrong. But when I looked at you, I realised I couldn’t remember which of us was which. (It’s an odd feeling, writing this—remembering not remembering.) One of us was a Zygon and one of us was a human—but I didn’t know who was who, and I could tell, by the look in your eyes, you didn’t know either. Then we both looked to the timer on the wall, just as it clicked to zero.
‘Cancel the detonation!’ shouted two Kates at once.
The next few hours were as strange as you can imagine. You must have bits and pieces of it in your head, I would think. The two Doctors prowled around like prison warders, as all six of us sat at that table, and oh, how we negotiated. The Doctor was right, of course: if you’re given the job of dividing something in half, but aren’t told which half you’re going to end up with, you make an extra special effort to get it right. He knew we were only cruel because we were selfish and afraid—so he used our fear and selfishness to force us to be kind.
Now and then I’d see one of the Doctors pause by a shelf, and pocket something, or zap it with a screwdriver, or pull out a power pack. I wondered if the Black Archive would ever be quite such a problem again.
The other Doctor, the old man, just stayed where he’d crumpled into his seat, his head still in his hand. He glanced at me once, and I swear his eyes were wet. Which one was he? Where did he come in the numbering?
We had a chat, you and I, during one of the breaks, and I suppose that’s really what I want to talk about. I was saying that if I was a Zygon with an active hologram shell, did that mean my shoes were holograms, and if so, how did I clean them, and what if I picked up the wrong pair at the bowling alley. You laughed, and the laugh turned into the dreaded wheeze. I reached for my inhaler, and passed it to you. And we both froze, of course. Because that meant I was the human one, and you were the Zygon, and the secret was out. I wondered if everything was going to fall apart in that moment. But you just smiled, pressed your finger to your lips, and took my inhaler. It was rather fun to save the world together, over something so small and silly.
‘You look a bit sad,’ I said, a few minutes later. ‘At least I think that’s my sad face. Is that my sad face?’
‘I like being you,’ you said, with one of my shrugs, when I’m trying to say I’m basically fine but I’m really not. ‘I suppose I’m going to have to stop now.’
And that’s when I realised something very important. Oh, Petronella! We are not the same!
You just stirred and mumbled there. I don’t think you’ll be asleep much longer, so I’d better hurry up and get this written. Once we’d hammered out a sort of treaty—ten hours, it took—the Doctors zapped the lights again, to restore our memories. This time, it knocked us all out, and I’m afraid (no offence) the humans all got better quicker than the Zygons. So here I am, writing by your bedside.
I learned a lot today, Petronella. The Doctor has always been my hero, but it’s silly and wrong to expect him to be a hero every day, because that’s not the truth about him. Just as I know I can never be with McGillop, because he thinks I’m a princess and that’s not the truth about me either. I’ve never understood why people want to be loved like that, because you’re bound to be a disappointment in the end. But if we’re not heroes, or princesses, I suppose we can do a bit better with what we’ve got, can’t we?
I said we’re not the same. Here’s why. All my life, every day, I’ve wished I was someone else. I’ve wanted to be Kate, or Sarah Jane Smith, or Amy Pond, or anyone really. But you’re a shape-shifter, you’ve been lots of other people—and you want to be me. I think that makes you a much better Petronella Osgood than I am.
I think I’d like to be a better version. If the Doctor can’t always be a hero, we’re going to need a few more, right?
Dearest Petronella, if you like being me, why not just carry on? Stay. Please stay, be my friend and teach me, if you can, how to be you.
All my love,
Petronella Osgood (well, one of them)
FEED CONNECTING
FEED CONNECTED
FEED STABLE
PLEASE DO NOT LEAVE THIS BOOK UNDER YOUR BED AS IT GETS HUNGRY AT NIGHT.
There is a saying that if the ravens ever the leave the Tower of London, then England will fall. Lot of nonsense, of course. And anyway the real ones left ages ago. I’m afraid the ones there now are robot replicas. (Sorry, the tourist board asked me, and semi-retirement gets boring now and then.) But never mind birds—excellent theoretical physicists though they are—what about Osgoods? Since that day there have been two Petronella Osgoods on duty at the Tower, keeping the world safe. I truly think humanity might fall if either were to leave.
Serious students will know (and if you do not, it is my sadness to inform you) that one of the Petronellas died in the line of duty a few years later. No one has ever known which of them perished, and Petronella herselves is quite firm about never telling anyone. I say ‘herselves’ because another Earth resident Zygon took the fallen Petronella’s place, so that there could be two of them again.
All that matters is this: Osgood lives—and so long as the fangirls stand guard on the gates of humanity, so will we.
To this day, there are Zygons living among the humans, in peace—and, it must be admitted, in secrecy. Not ideal, but better than fighting. And Kate Lethbridge-Stewart finally has some first-class holiday cover. The Zygons find her a bit exhausting, though, and take it in turns to be her. The important thing is, you can never see any difference in the handwriting!
We now approach Chapter Seven. I hope that this volume so far has given you the skills you need to grapple with the questions of authorship you are about to encounter, as you embark on The Day of the Doctor.
(As usual, I’ll be here when you’re finished. And keep the noise down when you’re reading, I’m trying to wire up my webcam. With any luck, I’ll have a special treat for you.)
Chapter 7
The Day of the Doctor
At the table, negotiations had entered their ninth hour, and both Kates looked ready to flop face down. Clara noticed that
the Osgoods were taking a break with each other, and appeared to be sharing the same inhaler, which surely presaged well for peace on Earth. The two younger (older?) Doctors were wandering about the shelves, fiddling with things, and occasionally gossiping about some photographs of their various companions which they’d found pinned to a noticeboard. There had been an ugly period when they discovered a VHS tape of the movie Daleks: Invasion Earth and had insisted on watching it. They nearly derailed the negotiations by shouting, cheering and joining in, and then had spent the next hour calling each other Dr Who and talking like Peter Cushing. Clara had a sinking feeling that her Doctor might stick that way. ‘I love his bandy legs!’ he’d said, imitating Dr Who’s walk by making no apparent change at all.
‘I can tell!’ said the other one.
‘How?’
When they’d found a DVD of the other movie (‘Remastered!’) they’d tried to get the old man to join in, but he’d smiled, and waved them away.
Clara frowned, thinking of the smile. You can only really tell how sad someone is when they smile, she reflected. So as the ninth hour began, she made a cup of tea and went to sit with him.
‘You’ve been peeking inside my head again,’ she said.
‘I’m terribly sorry, yes, I have,’ I replied. ‘I will stop immediately, you must forgive me. Please understand, I would never look at anything personal.’
‘I know,’ she shrugged. ‘My Doctor does it too, sometimes. Usually in a crisis, though. Why were you doing it?’
‘I was looking for the Doctor,’ I admitted. ‘I wanted to understand him.’
‘But you are the Doctor.’
No, I’m not, I wanted to tell her. Instead, I said, ‘I came here to discover the man I would become. I found him in your mind.’
‘So that’s what this is all about? That’s why you showed up?’
‘Well done, yes. The boys seem to have forgotten to ask that question. The disadvantage of their permanent sugar high, one imagines.’
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