‘So they’ll feed themselves,’ she said to the Doctor one evening when he returned from his work.
He sat beside her in his mud-spattered suit, gazing out over the new allotments. ‘We’ll see,’ he said. ‘Now they know what they’re doing, Deukalion will take people home in the ship. They’ll spread the word, get everyone working . . .’
‘But will it work?’ asked June. ‘Are people going to starve?’
The Doctor smiled sadly. ‘It’s not our problem any more,’ he told her. ‘There’ll be more food here than they need for themselves. But this whole area is lacking in tin, which they need for making bronze. So they’ll have to trade with other people.’
‘So the different kingdoms work together,’ said June.
‘If they’ve got any sense. But you know what people are like. There’ll be arguments and wars soon enough.’
June looked round at the people chatting and laughing, helping each other at the cooking fires.
‘But it’s not our problem any more,’ she said softly.
‘They have to do this for themselves,’ the Doctor told her. ‘No more interference. We can’t wrap them in cotton wool.’
‘So we’re done here,’ she said.
‘As soon as you’re feeling better,’ he said. ‘But yeah. Then we should be off.’
They held one last party up on the high rock. Cecrops dished out the wine, Aglauros and Pandrosos danced around the fire. They ate from wide clay bowls. The older bowls were painted with spindly octopuses and dolphins, but they’d also fired new pottery that showed an emblem of bulls’ horns and a stick man flipping over a bull’s back. It had become a symbol of their freedom.
Deukalion plucked at a five-stringed lyre and sang the story of their fight with the masters. The Doctor laughed when, in this version, it had been Deukalion’s own idea to build the Cutty Sark. But June felt distant from it all, not sharing their excitement. Cecrops and the others assumed she still felt her wound and edged round her with care. But the Doctor leant in to whisper in her ear.
‘Ready to go?’ he asked.
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘It’s harder the longer we leave it.’
He nodded. Then Cecrops grabbed the lyre and, a little unevenly, sang an old song from Earth’s history, a pop song she sort of knew about a starman waiting in the sky. To the others’ surprise, June sang along until the Doctor asked her to dance. Slowly, carefully so as not to strain her stitches, they zigzagged back and forth in front of the fire. June kept expecting to feel sudden pain, but it did not come. Deep down she knew she’d been well for days. She’d been stalling to stay just that bit longer . . .
They crept away before dawn, tiptoeing down the wooden steps from the rock and out through the door of the stockade. Moonlight glinted eerily over the new allotments, a breeze tickled at them as they ran. The Doctor held his sonic screwdriver out in front of them, ready for any lions.
‘It’s better this way,’ he said. ‘I’ve never liked goodbyes.’
But as June and the Doctor reached the TARDIS they found their friends waiting there.
‘We couldn’t let you just slip away,’ said Aglauros, her arm round Cecrops’ waist. June felt she could leave them to their lives now, could let them tell their stories, each time writing her and the Doctor out of history that little bit more. She felt even more itchy to leave them to get on with it.
‘We wanted you to have something to remember us by,’ said Deukalion. And he handed over a great amphora, painted with a somersaulting stick man.
‘Thank you,’ said the Doctor.
They variously shook hands and hugged. Cecrops sniffed back silvery tears.
‘You’ll be OK,’ June told him.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘And if the crops fail we’ve got that last bracelet. Magic up some supplies.’
‘Not much juice in it,’ the Doctor warned. ‘You probably only get to use it once.’
‘We’ll be fine,’ said Cecrops.
June leant up to kiss him on the cheek, then reached forward to whisper in his ear. ‘Athens,’ she said, ‘made its money from trading olives and olive oil.’
He kissed her back. ‘Good tip.’
‘What was that?’ asked the Doctor as she joined him at the door of the TARDIS.
‘Nothing,’ she said sweetly.
He scrutinised her for a moment then turned back to the others with a grin.
‘Well, bye then,’ he said. ‘Best of luck.’
The Doctor closed the door and hurried to the dais of controls. Soon the great engines shuddered into life, the central column heaving with power.
‘So we did it?’ June asked him as he worked. ‘History is back as it should be?’
‘Oh yeah,’ he said easily. ‘With no more alien tourists, a new age is about to begin. One not of Gods and monsters but of extraordinary human beings. Your lot, the historians, call it the age of heroes.’
But something in his eyes disturbed her.
‘You’re sure?’ she asked him. The Doctor didn’t look round, his eyes fixed in concentration on the controls.
‘Doctor?’ she said, a chill going through her.
He shrugged. ‘We’ll go and see,’ he said. ‘Once I’ve found you a pair of shoes.’
TWENTY-THREE
THE SUN BLAZED down on them as they stepped from the TARDIS. June took the Doctor’s hand and led him up the perfectly regular steps of the gleaming new theatre. Men in beards and simple tunics went about their business, not even sparing the two visitors a glance.
From the top of the theatre, in the shadow of the high rock, they could look back on the bustling city of Athens. Smoke curled from white, blocky buildings. There were temples and statues and all the noise of a busy community.
June marvelled at the sight. She’d studied this place, she had read all about it, and she almost felt she had been here before. Her eyes picked over the details: lines of clothes hung up to dry, children playing in the fields.
‘It’s not quite at its height,’ the Doctor explained. ‘But this is Athens booming. Its citizens living the good life.’
They made their way along the path leading round the rock. A pungent whiff reached them from the market down the hill. They could hear men in the market, making grand speeches, arguing philosophy and politics. June wanted to go and investigate but the Doctor held on to her arm.
‘Let them work it out for themselves,’ he said. She realised he’d heard her whispering to Cecrops.
‘I only meant to help,’ she said.
‘It’s cheating,’ he told her. He glanced round. ‘Funny,’ he said. ‘I can’t see any women.’
June squinted. ‘There’s one, over there.’
Sure enough, there was a figure putting out some washing. She wore a shapeless all-in-one black outfit, covering her head and arms. ‘Ancient Athenians had some funny ideas about women,’ said June. ‘The respectable ones wore the veil. It’s funny, it makes it look more like something from the Middle East than the cradle of the West.’
The Doctor nodded. ‘Women get the vote eventually,’ he said.
‘In Greece?’ she said. ‘You know when?’
‘Um,’ he said. ‘No.’
‘1952,’ said June. ‘You’re on my turf now,’ she laughed. ‘I’ve studied this bit.’
‘And what do you think?’
June stared at him. She struggled to find the right words. ‘It’s not what I expected,’ she told him at last. ‘I thought I would see it and then it would all make sense. But it’s just as complicated and strange as before.’
‘Yes,’ he said, taking her hand. ‘It’s better than a lot of other places from this period of history. And it’s heading in the right sort of direction. But . . .’
‘But,’ said June, ‘it could do better.’
‘Yeah,’ shrugged the Doctor. ‘You don’t like it?’
She grinned. ‘I love it. Wouldn’t want to live here. And it’s still a bit of a shock. But I want a look at the Parthenon.’
‘Done,’ he said.
They continued round to the place which had once been a stockade, the entrance to the high rock. A soldier with a round shield and golden shin pads stood severely in their path. The Doctor fussed in his suit pocket and produced his wallet.
‘Hello,’ he told the soldier. ‘We’re come to inspect the Acropolis.’
The soldier nodded. ‘Tourists, are you?’
‘Er, yeah,’ said the Doctor, surprised.
‘Trade is our lifeblood,’ the soldier explained. ‘There’s no fee, though we would ask you to remember the local gods on your way back out.’
‘Right,’ said the Doctor. ‘Good tip. We will.’
The soldier took a step back, letting them pass. ‘I hope you enjoy your stay.’
The Parthenon took a bit of getting used to. June and the Doctor boggled in front of the enormous temple, in the spot where future tourists would one day pose for photos. The roof and columns and all of it had been brightly painted in red and yellow and blue. The statues wore gaudy make-up, their bare skin brilliantly pink. June struggled to make sense of the sculptures running high above the columns. It took effort to pick out the details in all the sumptuous colour and paint work. But there, at last, she could see rows of horses marching in parade. She knew the procession of old, having seen the same stones, bereft of garish colour, in the British Museum.
‘It’s barking mad,’ said June, gazing around in wonder.
‘It looks like it’s all as it should be,’ said the Doctor.
A young man in a tunic came over to them. ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Have you visited Cecropia before?’
June blinked at him. ‘Cecropia?’ she said.
‘Yes,’ said the young man. ‘Sorry, what do they call our city where you come from?’
Before June could respond the Doctor stepped in. ‘It’s got a few names,’ he explained. ‘But I thought you called it Athens.’
The man smiled. ‘Yes, we sometimes call it that. Did you want a look at the goddess Athene?’
He led them inside the temple. Light stole into the dark space through specially made gaps in the ceiling. Scented smoke curled from braziers placed at regular intervals. June felt a thrill of excitement to be inside the incredible place.
Athene gazed down at them from an ornately carved pedestal at the end of the temple, a huge statue of ivory and gold. She stood tall, in a long tunic and breastplate, an elaborate boars’ tusk helmet over her head, decorated in gold. In one hand she grasped a spear, in the other she held out a small, winged creature, as if offering it to those who looked on. June took a step forward to get a better look and gasped at the image painted on the goddess’s breastplate.
‘The gorgon Medusa,’ their tour guide explained.
But June recognised only too well the green skin and black eyes.
‘It’s one of the Slitheen,’ she said.
‘Looks like it,’ said the Doctor. ‘Caught up in the history of the city, now. Part of the songs they sing.’
‘Medusa turned people into stone,’ said the tour guide, sticking to his script.
‘I don’t remember that bit,’ said June.
‘And then she saw her own reflection and turned to stone herself,’ said the Doctor. ‘Have you not seen Clash of the Titans?’
‘No,’ said June. ‘I mean, yes, I’ve seen the film. But I don’t remember the Slitheen turning anyone to stone.’
‘Well,’ said the Doctor. ‘Stories can get mixed up together when you tell them for long enough. Have you not seen Sherlock Holmes Versus the Titans?’
June sighed. ‘You made that up,’ she said.
‘Maybe I did,’ said the Doctor. He turned to the tour guide. ‘Tell us about Cecrops,’ he said.
‘Ah,’ said the tour guide, pleased to show off his expertise. ‘The first king of Athens. Half-man, half-serpent, he invented marriage and did away with blood sacrifice. He lived in a three-roomed house here on the Acropolis. And his daughters – Aglauros, Pandrosos and Herse – were turned to stone by the Medusa.’
‘What?’ said June, horrified.
‘Well, that’s one story,’ said the guide quickly. ‘It could have been Hermes that did it.’
The Doctor took June’s hand. ‘It’s a thousand years since we left them,’ he told her. ‘They were always going to be long dead.’
‘How can you say that?’ she said, tears tracking down her face. She felt awful for her earlier, stupid jealousy. ‘After everything we’ve been through together, we left them to some terrible fate.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said the Doctor. ‘But we don’t know what really happened. It’s just an old story now.’
Yes, thought June, desperate for anything to cling to. It was only a story. ‘People don’t get turned to stone in real life,’ she said.
‘No,’ said the Doctor. ‘That’s silly.’
‘Um,’ said the tour guide. ‘You can see them if you want.’
The Doctor turned to him. ‘See who?’ he said.
‘The stone people,’ said the tour guide. ‘They’re in a cavern under the Acropolis.’ He grinned awkwardly. ‘It’s called the grotto of Aglauros.’
June insisted on seeing the grotto. They made their way back round the side of the Acropolis, past the theatre with the TARDIS on its stage, and into the wide-mouthed cavern where June had first rescued the Doctor, what seemed a lifetime before.
Their tour guide led them inside, bearing a flaming torch since electric light had not yet been invented. They passed statues and votive offerings – the guide explaining that the cavern attracted its own religious cult.
They emerged into an open space, three large figures looming out of the darkness. The Doctor and June approached them warily. Firelight danced over the bare stone – the statues had not been painted. They were expertly sculpted, life-size creations. June could see why people thought they had been living beings magically transformed into stone.
‘The daughters of Cecrops,’ said the tour guide reverently. ‘At least, that’s what the legends say.’
But June knew better. ‘It’s Mamps,’ she said. ‘And Leeb and Cosmo.’
‘Yes,’ said the Doctor, amazed. ‘And pretty good likenesses, aren’t they?’
But as they dared to get closer, the statues didn’t look quite so perfect. The stone looked rough, as if the statues needed one more go with a chisel. June put out a hand to stroke the rough, glistening surface. She jumped as a droplet of water splashed down on the back of her hand. She looked up. A stalactite hung above her head. She dodged a second drip of water as it fell from the stone spike. The droplet spattered against Mamps’s stone thigh.
She turned to the tour guide. ‘Did you really think these things were princesses?’ she asked him.
‘Well,’ he grinned at them. ‘It’s a good story, isn’t it? Better than when they all live happily ever after.’
‘You,’ June told him, smiling, ‘are such a boy.’
‘OK,’ said the Doctor, stepping back from the controls. ‘Just as I promised. Back the moment we left.’
June felt cold, watching the controls, not wanting it to be over. ‘Can’t I stay?’ she asked in a quiet voice.
‘You’ll miss your train home,’ he told her, nodding at the rucksack parked under a chair. ‘And there are people waiting to see you.’
She nodded, reaching for the bag that contained so much of her old, real life. And felt a spasm of pain from the wound in her gut. Perhaps it was best that she left while still in one piece.
Something pinged on the dais of controls. The Doctor blinked in surprise and checked the instruments. Alien lettering scrolled across the screen.
‘What does it say?’ said June, coming over.
‘Um,’ said the Doctor. ‘You remember those aliens trying to blow up the Acropolis?’ he said.
‘You called in the authorities,’ said June. ‘The space police.’
‘Yeah,’ said the Doctor. ‘But it turns out those aliens are sp
ace police themselves.’ He read over the message again. ‘Investigating a case of tax fraud,’ he said. ‘But that doesn’t make any sense. Why would they want to blow up the Acropolis?’
June considered. ‘Maybe they weren’t really blowing up the Acropolis,’ she said. ‘Maybe they were doing something else.’
The Doctor nodded slowly. ‘They did say they had the best of reasons.’ His eyes opened wide. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Of course.’
He suddenly dashed across to the TARDIS doors and flung them open.
‘What?’ June called after him, but he’d already run out into the daylight. He called something back at her, but the only bit she caught was the word ‘causality’.
June dumped the bag back under the chair and followed him.
June closed the door of the TARDIS and hurried up the ruined steps of the theatre after the Doctor. Above them, fat noisy tourists milled about on the top of the Acropolis, the same ones who’d asked her to take their pictures. June held her sore gut as she leapt up the uneven stairs, sweat beading on her brow.
The grotto seemed smaller than it had been just a moment before, two and half thousand years previously. Rocks crowded the gravel pathway as she hurried to catch up with the Doctor. She emerged into the open space where she’d first had to rescue him, but the Doctor was nowhere to be seen. Electric light shone brightly from the walls, but she still could not spy him.
Then he jumped out from beside the silver sphere that lurked behind the heap of explosives, piled high around three stalagmites. In his hands he held the wire with the tiny sphere hanging from the end.
‘It’s not a bomb,’ he told June quickly, as he held the sphere between his fingers. ‘Well, not as such. This thing focuses all the energy. It makes a lot of heat in a confined area, plus a few little chemical tricks.’
‘Great,’ said June. ‘But should you be doing that?’ The tiny sphere in his fingers had started to glow.
‘Um,’ said the Doctor. ‘All I did was take off the lock that I’d put on it. It’s doing everything else itself.’
With a start, he dropped the wire with the sphere on it, waggling his fingers in pain. The sphere steamed with energy, glowing brilliant pink. He glanced back at the larger sphere, banging his hand against it. Apart from the sound, it didn’t do anything.
The Slitheen Excursion Page 16