‘Yes?’ Bott said.
‘What?’ Bill asked.
The man was holding something. Something he had taken from his pocket. It was rectangular, and looked like it was made of translucent plastic or glass. ‘I was wondering if I could pop this behind the stone?’
‘Why?’ Bill asked.
‘What for?’ Bott wanted to know.
‘Well, actually it’s to impress a friend of mine. A young lady,’ the man confided. ‘Then I’ll come back later, and find it again. As if by magic.’
‘Behind our stone,’ Bill said.
‘This stone we’re about to put in,’ Bott added.
‘That very one,’ the man agreed.
‘How will you get it out again?’ Bott asked. ‘We’re not having you messing up our work you know.’
‘This is serious stuff,’ Bill said. ‘Not some parlour trick. This stone’ll be in place till it crumbles away and needs replacing again.’
‘And that won’t be for a hundred years, give or take.’
‘With the slow decay you get from the osmotic rendition caused by the barrier.’
‘So, I’ll need to come back in a hundred years?’ the man said.
‘Afraid so,’ Bott told him.
‘Near enough,’ Bill agreed.
‘Right. OK. Fair enough.’ The man beamed at them. ‘I’ll do that then.’
Bill and Bott looked at each other. Then they looked at the man, who was still grinning at them with satisfaction.
‘Sure?’ Bill asked.
‘Absolutely.’
‘Positive?’ Bott checked.
‘Hundred per cent.’
‘Is that glass?’ Bill asked.
‘Sort of,’ the man told them.
‘It’ll scratch,’ Bott told him.
‘Wrap it in a bit of cloth,’ Bill suggested. ‘There’s some down there by the cutting tools.’
The man wrapped a piece of cloth round the glass box or whatever it was. Then he pushed it carefully to the back of the hole Bill and Bott had cut in the wall. He stepped back to allow them to fit the new piece of stone. When they’d finished, the hole was closed, hiding the small bundle of cloth.
‘Thanks.’
‘No problem.’
‘Don’t mention it.’
‘See you in a hundred years.’ The man paused in the doorway. ‘Oh, and if you could make like you’ve never seen me before, that’d be a big help.’
‘With impressing the young lady?’ Bill said.
‘Amongst other things. I’m cheating a bit by being here really. Tell you what,’ he said as a thought occurred to him. ‘Don’t sneak on me, and I’ll put in a word for you with the Galactic Alliance.’
‘You’re with the Galactic Alliance?’ Bill was impressed.
‘Didn’t think they operated in this sector,’ Bott said.
‘All a bit hush-hush,’ the man told them. ‘But we’re always on the lookout for reliable agents.’
‘What do we need to do?’ Bill asked.
‘You can rely on us,’ Bott assured him.
‘I know,’ the man said. ‘Someone will be in touch. And they will give you a special code, though they won’t expect you ever to need it.’
‘Sounds like work for work’s sake,’ Bott grumbled.
‘And we know all about that,’ Bill said.
‘You will need it though,’ the man went on. ‘It’ll be important, really important. And when I ask you for it, I want to hear that release code loud and clear, understand?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Bill and Bott said together.
‘Er,’ Bill said, ‘release code for what?’
But the man had gone.
Moments later, a breeze blew the dust across the floor as Bill and Bott worked on the next section of wall that needed repairing. If there was a strange sound accompanying it, a sound like reality itself splitting open, then Bott’s drill was making so much noise they didn’t notice.
A hundred years later – give or take, more or less – a little girl in a hidden room concealed behind the wall of a castle corridor slipped into a restless sleep.
A looking glass hung on the wall opposite the bed. Reflected in it, another girl slept restlessly, mirroring the real girl. Both turned together, breathed together, and finally woke up together.
Both girls pushed back their blankets and walked towards the mirror. Each raised a hand and pressed it to the glass, just for a moment.
‘I miss you,’ the little girl said.
‘I know,’ her reflection answered. ‘I miss you too.’
‘You’ll always be there, won’t you?’
‘Always. I’m the girl in the mirror.’
The girls went back to their beds and were soon sleeping again. In the morning, perhaps, they would remember the brief waking in the night.
Or perhaps, after all, it was just a dream.
Acknowledgements
As ever, I am indebted to many people for their help and encouragement. Especially to Stephen Cole for his dependable and excellent structural editing, Gary Russell for keeping me honest and focused, and Steve Tribe for keeping me consistent and on schedule. Also, everyone at BBC Books for their unerring support and enthusiasm, especially Albert, Caroline, Nick and Mathew.
And, of course, huge thanks to Russell T Davies and the Doctor Who writers and production team for providing such wonderful toys for me to play with.
Also available from BBC Books
featuring the Doctor and Rose
as played by Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper:
THE CLOCKWISE MAN
by Justin Richards
THE MONSTERS INSIDE
by Stephen Cole
WINNER TAKES ALL
by Jacqueline Rayner
THE DEVIANT STRAIN
by Justin Richards
ONLY HUMAN
by Gareth Roberts
THE STEALERS OF DREAMS
by Steve Lyons
Also available from BBC Books
featuring the Doctor and Rose
as played by David Tennant and Billie Piper:
THE STONE ROSE
by Jacqueline Rayner
THE FEAST OF THE DROWNED
by Stephen Cole
THE RESURRECTION CASKET
by Justin Richards
THE NIGHTMARE OF BLACK ISLAND
by Mike Tucker
THE ART OF DESTRUCTION
by Stephen Cole
THE PRICE OF PARADISE
by Colin Brake
Also available from BBC Books
featuring the Doctor and Martha
as played by David Tennant and Freema Agyeman:
STING OF THE ZYGONS
by Stephen Cole
THE LAST DODO
by Jacqueline Rayner
WOODEN HEART
by Martin Day
FOREVER AUTUMN
by Mark Morris
SICK BUILDING
by Paul Magrs
WETWORLD
by Mark Michalowski
Also available from BBC Books
featuring the Doctor and Martha
as played by David Tennant and Freema Agyeman:
Wishing Well
by Trevor Baxendale
ISBN 978 1 84607 348 9
UK £6.99 US $11.99/$14.99 CDN
The old village well is just a curiosity – something to attract tourists intrigued by stories of lost treasure, or visitors just making a wish. Unless something alien and terrifying could be lurking inside the well? Something utterly monstrous that causes nothing but death and destruction?
But who knows the real truth about the well? Who wishes to unleash the hideous force it contains? What terrible consequences will follow the search for a legendary treasure hidden at the bottom?
No one wants to believe the Doctor’s warnings about the deadly horror lying in wait – but soon they’ll wish they had…
Also available from BBC Books
featuring the Doctor and Ma
rtha
as played by David Tennant and Freema Agyeman:
The Pirate Loop
by Simon Guerrier
ISBN 978 1 84607 347 2
UK £6.99 US $11.99/$14.99 CDN
The Doctor’s been everywhere and everywhen in the whole of the universe and seems to know all the answers. But ask him what happened to the Starship Brilliant and he hasn’t the first idea. Did it fall into a sun or black hole? Was it shot down in the first moments of the galactic war? And what’s this about a secret experimental drive?
The Doctor is skittish. But if Martha is so keen to find out he’ll land the TARDIS on the Brilliant, a few days before it vanishes. Then they can see for themselves…
Soon the Doctor learns the awful truth. And Martha learns that you need to be careful what you wish for. She certainly wasn’t hoping for mayhem, death, and badger-faced space pirates.
Also available from BBC Books
featuring the Doctor and Martha
as played by David Tennant and Freema Agyeman:
Peacemaker
by James Swallow
ISBN 978 1 84607 349 6
UK £6.99 US $11.99/$14.99 CDN
The peace and quiet of a remote homestead in the 1880s American West is shattered by the arrival of two shadowy outriders searching for ‘the healer’. When the farmer refuses to help them, they raze the house to the ground using guns that shoot bolts of energy instead of bullets…
In the town of Redwater, the Doctor and Martha learn of a snake-oil salesman whose patent medicines actually cure his patient. But when the Doctor and Martha investigate they discover the truth is stranger, and far more dangerous.
Caught between the law of the gun and the deadly plans of intergalactic mercenaries, the Doctor and Martha are about to discover just how wild the West can become…
Also available from BBC Books
featuring the Doctor and Martha
as played by David Tennant and Freema Agyeman:
Snow Globe 7
by Mike Tucker
ISBN 978 1 84607 421 9
UK £6.99 US $11.99/$14.99 CDN
Earth, 2099. Global warming is devastating the climate. The polar ice caps are melting.
In a desperate attempt at preservation, the governments of the world have removed vast sections of the Arctic and Antarctic and set them inside huge domes across the world. The Doctor and Martha arrive in SnowGlobe 7 in the Middle East, hoping for peace and relaxation. But they soon discover that it’s not only ice and snow that has been preserved beneath the Dome.
While Martha struggles to help with an infection sweeping through the Dome, the Doctor discovers an alien threat that has lain hidden since the last ice age. A threat that is starting to thaw.
Also available from BBC Books
featuring the Doctor and Martha
as played by David Tennant and Freema Agyeman:
The Many Hands
by Dale Smith
ISBN 978 1 84607 422 6
UK £6.99 US $11.99/$14.99 CDN
The Nor’ Loch is being filled in. If you ask the soldiers there, they’ll tell you it’s a stinking cesspool that the city can do without. But that doesn’t explain why the workers won’t go near the place without an armed guard.
That doesn’t explain why they whisper stories about the loch giving up its dead, about the minister who walked into his church twelve years after he died…
It doesn’t explain why, as they work, they whisper about a man called the Doctor.
And about the many hands of Alexander Monro.
Also available from BBC Books:
The Encyclopedia
by Gary Russell
ISBN 978 1 84607 291 8
£14.99
Do you know what was playing on Cassandra’s iPod?
What was the name of Shakespeare’s lost play?
Where were the Slitheen planning to hide a tribophysical waveform macro-kinetic extrapolator?
There’s no need to search time and space – it’s all right here. From Autons to Anne Droid, from Cat Nuns to Canary Wharf, from Plasmavores to Pig Slaves… everything you need to know about everything you didn’t know you needed to know about Doctor Who.
Coming soon from BBC Books:
Starships and Spacestations
by Justin Richards
ISBN 978 1 84607 423 3
£7.99 US $12.99/$15.99 CDN
The Doctor has his TARDIS to get him from place to place and time to time, but the rest of the Universe relies on more conventional transport… From the British Space Programme of the late twentieth century to Earth’s Empire in the far future, from the terrifying Dalek Fleet to deadly Cyber Ships, this book documents the many starships and spacestations that the Doctor and his companions have encountered on their travels.
He has been held prisoner in space, escaped from the moon, witnessed the arrival of the Sycorax and the crash landing of a space pig… More than anyone else, the Doctor has seen the development of space travel between countless worlds.
This stunningly illustrated book tells the amazing story of Earth’s ventures into space, examines the many alien fleets who have paid Earth a visit, and explores the other starships and spacestations that the Doctor has encountered on his many travels…
Martha in the Mirror Page 17