Doctor Who_ Return Of The Living Dad Part 41

'Albinex was acting under my orders,' he began. 'He far overstepped the boundaries of those orders. I sent M'Kabel to ensure that Albinex didn't harm the Doctor' but he failed.'

Silence for a bit. 'We've been planning this for nearly two decades.'

'That's why we got here in nineteen eighty-three,' sighed Benny. 'Not nineteen sixty-three, when you first arrived.'

Isaac said nothing. 'Don't stop now,' his daughter said. 'Go on. Tell me your plans. Gloat.'

Isaac said softly, 'When we learnt the nuclear missiles were finally going to arrive at Greenham Common, I switched on the transponder I kept from the Tisiphone Tisiphone.'

'And we followed its signal here. Into your trap.'

'We'd been trying to obtain the destructor codes for years. We knew that the Doctor had found them out. But we couldn't risk giving Little Caldwell away to UNIT or the Doctor.'

'My G.o.d,' said Benny. 'You knew about me. You knew I was his companion.'

Silence for a bit. 'Yes,' Isaac admitted.

'Ace told you.'

'No,' said her father. 'I knew long before that. Albinex has certain information...'

'You knew that I'd come looking for you, bringing the Doctor with me. You used me. My G.o.d, was Groenewegen part of your plan as well?'

'No!'

'Albinex's yacht was there when you fell into the wormhole,' she said. 'Was that part of the plan?'

'No,' said Isaac. 'Albinex told us that his ship had got caught up in the battle. He was trying to escape when his time drive malfunctioned, creating the wormhole.'

'Why Earth? Why nineteen sixty-three?'

'That had been the yacht's last warp coordinates. The Navarinos love Earth nostalgia. They were on a tour of the sixties.'

'Well. Now that you've tortured the codes out of the Doctor,' she said bitterly' 'what are you going to do?'

Another car wandered out of the mist, pulled up outside one of the cottages. Isaac said, 'In just under two hundred years, the Daleks are going to attack Earth. And we'll be waiting for them.'

'So that's why you want control of the nukes!' said Benny' turning around. 'You want to be able to fight off the Daleks!'

'No,' said Isaac. 'We're going to start a small nuclear war on Earth. Just a handful of exchanges' carefully controlled.'

Benny's mouth opened. No words came out.

'We have to keep the pace of weapons development going,' said Isaac. 'The Cold War is going to end this decade.

Within two decades, there'll be ma.s.sive disarmament, a move away from the military-industrial complex. There'll be peace on Earth. Then the Daleks will come, and find the planet practically defenceless.'

Benny found her voice. 'How many people are you going to kill?'

'No more than absolutely necessary,' said Isaac, and his voice was colder than the winter air.

Benny's mouth just hung open. Her father went on, 'For two decades, we've been collecting together a small army of aliens. Once our work here is done, we'll travel forward to twenty-one fifty-four and help with the battle against the invasion.

'Think about it, Benny.' He looked down at the cars.

'These people came here to pillage or conquer. Now they've made this planet their home. They're going to save the human race.' He turned to her, took her face in his hands, his gaze willing her to understand. 'What more can I do to protect Earth from the Daleks?'

Benny gasped, 'I've got another story to tell you.'

Claire

The sirens were screaming.

Bernice was seven. She was too small to understand what was happening. Only that her mummy was very scared.

Only that the sirens were screaming and they made her ears hurt.

Her mummy had picked her up because she couldn't run fast enough. She was banging against her mummy's shoulder as she ran. Her mummy was crying. There was a crowd - everyone was shouting and crying.

Bernice hung onto her doll's hand. Rebecca sort of flapped out behind her mummy as she ran. Bernice couldn't see where they were going because she was facing the wrong way. All she could see was Rebecca.

She screamed when she dropped the doll. She couldn't hang on because of the running and because the sirens were screaming.

Her mother ran through a door into a big room. The-room was full of grown-ups and children, all of them shouting and crying. Bernice put her hands over her ears when her mother put her down.

Her mother ran back out through the door, and it shut.

Bernice took her hands off her ears and threw herself at the door, screaming, 'Mummy!' She couldn't see how to open the door.

There was a big window in the door. She was just tall enough to see through it.

There were only a few people outside now. She could see her mummy, running back to where Rebecca had fallen down.

There was a flash so bright that it made her eyes ring.

The walls and the door rattled. She saw her mummy's bones for a moment, like in an X-ray. And then there was nothing.

One part of her started to shriek hysterically, while grown-ups she didn't know picked her up and tore her away from the window in the door, dragging her deeper into the shelter.

Another part of her understood, in a scary, cold way, that her mummy was gone now, blown up by the Daleks. But it was okay, it was going to be okay, because her daddy would come home and look after her.

30 Father makes good

Isaac went back into the shop and went behind the counter to make some coffee. He dropped the cup on the floor and knocked over the cafetiere. He sat down on the floor, holding a silver spoon in one hand.

Benny did not follow him inside. He sat with his back to the sink cupboard. Sh.e.l.l-shocked, he thought. I'm sh.e.l.l-shocked, but I have to pull myself together. I have to keep functioning. I can't stop now' not for any reason.

Isaac was backing away. Why was he backing away, almost scrambling across the floor? He looked up. The Doctor stood over him, barefoot, still wearing the pyjamas.

The Time Lord absently righted the fallen cafetiere. 'How much longer are you going to sit down there? We've been waiting for half an hour.'

'Half an hour?'

'Benny decided it might be best if we left you to have a think,' said the Doctor. He was holding something. Isaac saw that it was the transponder from the Tisiphone Tisiphone. 'I gather this is how you brought me here. Clever.'

He dropped the transponder' and Isaac caught it, instinctively.

'Your army is growing,' remarked the Doctor. 'There must be a few dozen vehicles out there now.'

Isaac turned the transponder around in his hands. He lifted the hatch that hid its power switch. 'Just a little b.u.t.ton,'

he murmured. His voice sounded hoa.r.s.e, like that of someone who'd been crying. 'I push this little b.u.t.ton, and it all starts. The whole chain of events. One thing after another...

until all those lives end.'

'Surprising, isn't it?' said the Doctor. 'How important a tiny event can be. Or how unimportant. That's the thing about changing history. You have to be able to tell the b.u.t.terfly that causes the storm from the b.u.t.terfly that's merely pretty. But the hurricane isn't inevitable. There's still time to change the road you're on.'

'I don't believe you,' said Isaac. 'I've considered all the possibilities. I've had twenty years to think about this.'

'Twenty years to try to talk yourself into it.'

'I've got the strategy all worked out,' said Isaac. 'I've had it ready for some time. The codes give me control over every missile on Earth. I can send them precisely where they need to go... there'd be less deaths than the Daleks will cause in twenty-one fifty-four... so many deaths... I know just where the missiles will fall, who will retaliate and who won't.'

'Not so easy, is it? To erase her. To erase the future that gives birth to her. Now that you've met her.'

'No,' said Isaac, 'I want Bernice to be born into a future without the Daleks, without the constant fear of the Daleks...'

'You simply can't predict the future that accurately,' said the Doctor. 'What if one of the missiles fails to launch or explode? What if, instead of embracing nuclear development, humanity is so disgusted by the carnage that it abandons the weapons forever? The future is a kaleidoscope. To human eyes... besides, it's clear Albinex is following an agenda of his own.'

'Is he?'

'His time ship's engine doesn't work,' said the Doctor. 'It shattered the day he came to Earth. There's no way he could take your army forward to fight the Daleks.'

Isaac let the spoon fall from his hand. It clattered away across the kitchen floor.

'You do this sort of thing all the time,' he said. 'This isn't any different to what you do.'

'True.' The Time Lord looked down at him. 'But then' I'm the Doctor.'

'Albinex wanted to kill you,' Zak said.

'Albinex has gone nuts,' said Ms Randrianasolo. She leant on the counter. 'He wants to kill all of us.'

The Admiral looked pale, shaken. It was the shock of someone suddenly bereaved. Ms Randrianasolo frowned and put a hand to his forehead. It was cold and bright with sweat.

'You don't understand,' said Zak. He shook his head slowly. 'In all these years, you've looked into so many minds, hundreds of alien minds. You've never read my mind.'

'Of course not,' she said. 'Though... there have been times when I wanted to.'

His eyes met hers. She was taken aback by the terrible sadness she saw there. 'What's happened?' she pleaded.

'There's something you have to know,' he said simply.

He bowed his head. She sensed him dropping his mental defences. Gently, she reached in, just to the surface of his thoughts.

And stepped back. And slapped his face.

He didn't say anything as she ran up the stairs.

The door jingled. M'Kabel came in, holding his clipboard.

He'd abandoned the hologram for the time being.