Doctor Who BBC N07 - The Stone Rose

by Doctor Who

  The Doctor didn’t answer.

  ‘It won’t, will it?’ Mickey said, furious. ‘It won’t grow back magically like yours did. You’re going to bring her back with chips off and a hand missing!’ The Doctor thumped the table. ‘It’s better than no Rose at all!’ he shouted.

  Mickey looked a bit scared. But after a few seconds, he nodded.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I guess it is.’

  As they made their way back to the sculpture room, the Doctor heard Mickey mutter, ‘I just hope she agrees.’

  It was the end of the day and people were beginning to drift out of the museum. There were a couple of tourists wandering past the rows of stone heads in the sculpture room, but no one else was near Rose.

  The Doctor held up the small phial with its few drops of precious, life-giving liquid. Hand steady, he took a deep breath. And then his hand turned and the potion poured on to the statue.

  Nothing happened.

  No blush of flesh to the cheeks. No ripple of cloth or flutter of eyelashes.

  The Doctor just stared.

  ‘How long’s it take to work, then?’ Mickey asked.

  ‘It’s not going to work,’ said the Doctor dully. ‘It’s too late. She must have been stone too long.’ He paused. ‘It’s over.’

  Mickey wouldn’t accept it. ‘That’s rubbish. You’ve got a time machine. Oh, I know all that laws of time stuff, you can’t stop it happening, but you can find her earlier. Change her back then.’

  The Doctor shook his head, frustrated and angry. ‘Don’t you see?

  If I changed her back then, then this –’ he gestured at the statue –

  ‘wouldn’t be here now! That’s why I couldn’t find her back in Rome. I 106

  was never meant to find her! There’s nothing I can do!’ He flung out his arm, hand brushing against Rose’s face.

  He looked again at the statue. And he went mad.

  Mickey watched in alarm as the Doctor ran to the TARDIS, yelling

  ‘Oh, please! Oh, please!’ at the top of his voice. A moment later he emerged from the ship, carrying Rose’s denim jacket.

  The Doctor held it up and shook it.

  Out fell a purse, a hankie, a packet of mints, a mobile phone and an earring.

  He retrieved the earring and held it up to the statue.

  ‘It’s the same one,’ said Mickey.

  ‘She forgot to put it back on,’ said the Doctor. ‘So Rose – the real Rose – is only wearing one earring. But the statue has two. That means this. . . ’ He let it sink in. ‘This isn’t Rose. This is just – a statue.’

  He pulled himself together. ‘I’ve got to go back and find her.’ He stared at the glass phial. There was the tiniest hint of liquid still in the bottom. ‘This had better be enough. . . ’

  Mickey’s face was shining with relief. But a thought struck him.

  ‘Hang on, though. How did this statue get to be here, then?’

  The Doctor grinned. ‘I’ve got an idea about that. Do you believe in gods?’

  Mickey looked bewildered. ‘No.’

  ‘Well, right at this moment I do,’ said the Doctor. ‘I think Fortuna here is smiling on us. Come on. I need you to give me a hand here. . . ’

  They’d just finished when the security guard came rushing back in.

  ‘Time for a quick getaway, I think,’ said the Doctor. He pushed Mickey towards the stairs and then dashed for the TARDIS.

  ‘You will get her back, won’t you?’ Mickey yelled. ‘You can bet on it!’ cried the Doctor. But as he shut the TARDIS doors behind him, he muttered to himself, ‘I’ve just got to make a quick stop on the way. . . ’

  And then, some time later, the Doctor arrived in Rome some time earlier.

  107

  Rose gasped, as if someone had thrown a bucket of cold water over her. She spluttered awake, dazed and confused.

  She had shut her eyes for a second and when she opened them again she was in a completely different place. This wasn’t Ursus’s workshop; this was. . . leaves. She could see leaves. Branches. Trees.

  This was a wood. And she was standing next to something with wheels. . . Car? No. Penny-farthing bicycle? No. A wooden cart!

  And there in front of her, something tall, thin – a person – definitely not Ursus. A great big grin swam into focus. The Doctor!

  She stumbled forward and enveloped him in a huge hug. ‘Boy, am I pleased to see you!’

  He yelped. ‘Ow!’

  She’d forgotten she was holding a spear. ‘Sorry,’ she said, grinning.

  She took off the uncomfortable helmet and shook her head to clear it.

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘Rose Tyler, warrior queen?’

  ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘I’m planning on popping home and rampaging through Colchester.’

  ‘Ah, I know you wouldn’t say “Boo-dicca” to a goose,’ the Doctor replied, and she groaned.

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  ‘Yeah, but, look, how’s this work?’ she said. ‘Last thing I remember. . . ’ She fell silent.

  The Doctor looked a bit sheepish. ‘You got turned into stone,’ he said. ‘Sorry.’

  The memories flooded back. ‘I knew,’ she said. ‘When he showed me the statue of Tiro, I knew.’ She shivered.

  The Doctor smiled sadly, sympathetically. ‘Don’t think about it any more. And Tiro’s going to be OK. I’m going to rescue him, in, ooh, a day or two.’ Rose wrinkled her brow and he explained.

  ‘That’s the beauty of time travel. I’ve arrived back a few days before I left.’ He handed her the now-empty phial. ‘There you go. One miracle restorative. Roll up, roll up! Does your head feel like it’s full of rocks? A drop of our potion will sort you out. Ladies, does your husband receive all your loving comments in stony silence? Give him our amazing remedy and he’ll be a new man in no time at all.’

  Rose grinned. ‘So where did that come from, then? And where’s Ursus? Did you sort him out?’

  ‘Don’t really know. Somewhere around and not yet.’

  ‘You’re lost without me!’

  He tucked his arm through hers. ‘Don’t I just know it? If anyone ever asks me what sort of friend you are, I tell them: Rose Tyler? I’m lost without her. Rock-solid, that’s what she is.’

  Rose growled at him, but it turned into a laugh halfway through.

  ‘There’s another thing I don’t understand, though,’ she said when she’d stopped laughing. ‘How’s this all fit in with that statue in the British Museum? I mean, look at me!’

  The Doctor did so. ‘Helmet, spear, oh-so-noble profile – Minerva, unless I’m very much mistaken,’ he said. ‘Tell you what, though, that outfit’d go down great at parties. Or you could be a Minerva-gram.

  Any red-blooded – or blue-blooded, or green-blooded – male would love a Minerva-gram. And the great thing is, if any of them get out of hand, there you are with a weapon handy!’

  Rose stopped him. ‘Yeah, but who is Minerva?’

  ‘Who indeed? Some say –’ The Doctor caught Rose’s stern eye and decided to cut out the more elaborate explanation. ‘Goddess of war 110

  and the arts, patron of artisans.’

  ‘“War and the arts”?’ said Rose. ‘What, like, “Say you like my painting or I’ll invade your country”? Anyway, my point was what happened to all that Fortuna stuff?’

  ‘Well –’ began the Doctor.

  He didn’t get a chance to explain. There was a sudden cry from behind them. Rose made to run, but the Doctor held her back. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘It’s only Vanessa.’

  The girl was walking towards them, a look of total shock on her face. She was staring at the Doctor as if he were a ghost.

  ‘How. . . how did you get here?’ she said. ‘You can’t possibly have got here before me.’

  ‘You of all people should know that anything’s possible,’ said the Doctor. ‘Rose,’ he continued, turning to her, ‘let me reintroduce you to Vanessa, who is not an astrologer or a Roman slave, but a girl from
the year 2375.’

  ‘Blimey,’ said Rose. ‘And I thought I was a long way from home.’

  She turned to Vanessa. ‘What you doing here, then?’

  ‘Trying to get home,’ said Vanessa.

  ‘But how d’you get here in the first place?’ asked Rose.

  ‘Yes, I’d be interested to know that too,’ said the Doctor.

  ‘But

  Vanessa keeps avoiding the question. She seems to have something to hide.’

  Vanessa looked as if she was about to burst into tears. ‘I don’t! I just. . . you just wouldn’t believe me. You really wouldn’t.’

  ‘Go on, try us,’ said Rose. ‘Can it really be any worse than us going around thinking you’re connected with what’s going on here?’

  Vanessa flushed. ‘But. . . I think I might be.’

  Rose took a step back. ‘I’ve been telling everyone you’re one of the good guys!’

  ‘But I am! It’s just. . . Oh, all right, I’ll tell you everything!’ cried Vanessa miserably.

  She flung herself down by a tree. Rose and the Doctor sat nearby.

  ‘I am Vanessa Moretti, gamma daughter of Salvatorio Moretti of the Bureau Tygon.’

  111

  ‘Suddenly it all becomes clear,’ said the Doctor flippantly.

  Rose shhed him.

  ‘The Bureau Tygon is the main scientific research establishment,’

  Vanessa continued.

  Now the Doctor’s ears really did prick up. ‘And your father was working on time travel?’ he said. ‘Now why have I never heard –’

  ‘No!’ Vanessa interrupted his interruption. ‘He worked in AI.’

  ‘What, the film with that boy from The Sixth Sense in?’ said Rose.

  ‘Artificial intelligence,’ the Doctor told her.

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ she said, and gestured for Vanessa to continue.

  ‘He never mentioned anything to do with time travel. I mean, it’s not possible, everyone knows that.’ She smiled sadly, correcting herself. ‘Everyone thought they knew that. My father was working on some project – an AI project. He wasn’t very enthusiastic to start with, said it was just a toy, a money-maker. But he began to get more excited. I think it was close to completion when I. . . left.

  ‘He’d brought something home to work on that day – I don’t know what. But then he got called out. I’d been watching a vidcast on ancient Rome.’ She laughed ruefully. ‘I used to love history. But my caster packed up. I thought something was wrong with the power supply because the lights kept flickering, but I went down to see if the caster in my father’s study was still working and it was. There was a box on the side and I think it must have held whatever it was he was working on, but I didn’t look to see.

  ‘Anyway, I sat down to watch the cast. It was about the reign of Hadrian. About building the Pantheon and the wall and everything.

  Then I got a telecall from my friend Ariane. I was telling her what I was watching, and I said – I remember this, because it was the last thing I said – that I wished I lived back then.’ She began to laugh hysterically. ‘Can you believe that? Can you believe I said that? Live in a time like this! I must have been mad!’

  Rose reached out and took her hand, trying to calm her down.

  ‘Yeah, well, things never turn out how you imagine them, do they?

  It’s what keeps divorce lawyers in business.’

  112

  ‘And what happened then?’ asked the Doctor, more concerned about Vanessa’s story than her feelings.

  Vanessa swallowed her hysteria with a few hiccups. After a couple of goes, she managed to continue. ‘Then. . . Then the call went dead.

  The caster shut down. The lights went off. I felt like I was about to be sick. . . and then I was here.’

  The Doctor wasn’t satisfied. ‘There has to be more to it than that.’

  ‘Well, there isn’t!’ Vanessa insisted. ‘I didn’t have a clue what had happened. I thought. . . I thought I must be dreaming. Or hallucinating. Or someone was playing some elaborate trick on me. But after a few weeks I pretty much gave up on that idea.’

  ‘And you still don’t know how you got here?’ said Rose.

  Vanessa shook her head.

  ‘So why do you think you might have something to do with what Ursus is up to?’

  ‘There’s no such thing as time travel and yet here I am, thousands of years before my birth. It’s impossible to turn people to stone and yet it’s happening here. Two impossibles. . . ’

  ‘. . . don’t necessarily make a possible,’ the Doctor completed. ‘And anyway, time travel is perfectly possible, if far too advanced for your society.’

  Rose shrugged apologetically at Vanessa. ‘But turning people to stone. . . ’ she said.

  ‘Isn’t impossible either. We’re talking something extremely complex at a molecular level – not something that your average ancient Roman could have managed, true, but not impossible.’

  ‘So, not magic, then,’ said Rose.

  ‘Don’t be silly, Rose,’ said the Doctor.

  ‘Or petrifold regression?’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘My, you have been paying attention. Nope, that takes weeks.’

  ‘So. . . is Ursus from the twenty-fourth century too?’

  The Doctor shook his head. ‘Gracilis has known him since he was a child.’ He suddenly jumped up. ‘Ursus! Where is he?’

  Rose shrugged. ‘How should I know?’

  113

  ‘He brought you here. . . ’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t really paying attention at the time,’ said Rose. ‘I was a bit too busy standing very still and having pigeons pooing on me.’

  The Doctor waved for her to be quiet. ‘Yes, yes, I know. . . But he wouldn’t have brought you here for no reason, just left you. . . And I was right behind, so I’d have seen him if he went back towards the road. . . ’ He was pacing about now, examining the ground. ‘Foot-prints!’ he cried after a moment. ‘Come on!’

  Rose scrambled to follow him as he set off, with Vanessa on her heels.

  ‘Couldn’t get the cart any further, that’s why he left you here,’ the Doctor said after a while.

  ‘You don’t say,’ said Rose. ‘What do you think stopped him?’

  They were weaving between trees, picking their way along paths that were barely there – or not there at all. She tried to clear the path with her spear, but brambles still tore harshly at her skin and clothes.

  The Doctor, spearless, still somehow managed to avoid them all.

  ‘I’m really not dressed for this,’ Rose muttered, thinking longingly of jeans and sturdy boots. ‘Ow!’ she exclaimed, as a branch stuck in her once-elaborately styled hair. She wished she’d kept Minerva’s helmet on. ‘Still, on the plus side, no one’s going to ask me to do any modelling looking like this. Or be a Minerva-gram either.’

  The Doctor carried on with his own train of thought. ‘He was probably planning to come back for you.’

  ‘If he could find his way back,’ said Rose. ‘Because I’m not sure I’m going to be able to.’ They seemed to have been following the trail for miles, even though they probably hadn’t been, and as far as she could see all the trees looked pretty much alike.

  ‘But where was he going?’ asked Vanessa.

  The Doctor – who didn’t seem to have so much as a hair out of place

  – came to a halt. ‘There, I think.’

  Rose peeked round a tree. There was a clearing in front of them, only a small one, but enough for there to be a break in the tree-top canopy overhead. Rose hadn’t realised how dark it had been among the trees until the sunlight hit her and dazzled her eyes. As they came 114

  back into focus, she realised what the Doctor had been talking about.

  In the clearing was a small stone building, a derelict husk with gaping holes in its walls.

  ‘What is it?’ she whispered. ‘Some sort of shrine?’ The Doctor nodded. ‘I think so,’ he said. ‘A very old one. Ab
andoned, obviously –well, by most people. You know, tomorrow is the Quinquatrus. I think Ursus is planning to hold his very own festival here.’

  There was a noise from inside the shrine: a scuffling sound.

  ‘Maybe not that abandoned,’ said Rose.

  They crept forward, silent as mice, and peered through a gap in the nearest wall. Rose and Vanessa both had to stifle gasps as the Doctor frowned at them to be quiet.

  Ursus was inside – but so was a woman. She was turned away, so they couldn’t see her properly, but Rose could tell she was clearly wearing a helmet and carrying a shield and spear. She reminded her of the picture of Britannia on the back of a fifty-pence piece, but something more than that. . . Ursus had dressed Rose herself in a helmet like that, made her carry a spear like that. That meant this woman too was dressed as the goddess Minerva. Rose grimaced – he obviously had some sort of art/war goddess thing going on, and she felt unclean at the thought she’d been a part of it.

  But then the woman turned and this time Rose wasn’t able to stop herself gasping. The light! The light that shone from the woman’s eyes! The beautiful, ethereal glow from her face! The way her hair swam out around her head in a halo, as though she were under water.

  This woman wasn’t dressed as the goddess Minerva.

  She was the goddess Minerva.

  Ursus was speaking. ‘I have created the most perfect work to honour you, at this time of your festival,’ he said.

  The Doctor nudged Rose. ‘That’s you!’ he whispered, rather insen-sitively she thought.

  She nudged him back and kept listening.

  Minerva nodded. ‘And you will be rewarded for your devotion,’

  she said, in a voice like honey and rose petals. ‘As long as you make offerings to me, I will give you what you desire.’

  115

  ‘I don’t think I want to watch this. . . ’ murmured Rose.

  There was another sound from the temple, a frightened baaa. Ursus was carrying forward a baby lamb.