Doctor Who_ The Gallifrey Chronicles Part 12

'And it doesn't buy you happiness.'

'Oh, it doesn't hurt, trust me.'

'I'm not sure I can settle back into an ordinary life.'

69.'Then be extraordinary.' She grinned. 'Do you think the Doctor will manage?'

'Oh,' said Fitz, 'I'm sure he'll be fine.'

It was difficult for the Doctor to judge, but from the footsteps it sounded as though there was only one person upstairs, and that it was someone who was quite light. A woman? Possibly. A little early to a.s.sume that it was the blonde he'd seen watching him in the TARDIS.

He hadn't crashed around the place, but she might have heard him. It wouldn't be easy to get away from the house unseen. Besides, he had business here.

It would also be a bit rich for someone who'd stolen his TARDIS to complain about a little trespa.s.sing. The Doctor straightened up. He was in the right here. . . or not so very far into the wrong.

He strode from the library and up the stairs, heading for the source of the footsteps. Right at the top of the stairs was a bathroom with an open door that revealed a cheap, green suite that probably thought it was 'avocado', not 'snot'.

The house was clean, but cluttered. The carpets were thick with dense, rather unaesthetic patterns. The next room was full of boxes of all shapes and sizes. In a house where every room was a junk room, this was the junk room.

'h.e.l.lo there,' the Doctor said to the woman he met in the next room along.

It was a spare bedroom, and she was lying face down on the neatly made bed reading a yellowing science-fiction paperback. There was a pile of them on the small bedside table.

She jumped up and shouted something. It was only then that the Doctor realised she was wearing tiny headphones and had been listening to a portable CD player.

'I'm not going to hurt you,' he said, holding his hands up. 'I'm the Doctor. I believe you have something of mine?'

The woman was young, a little p.r.o.ne to puppy fat. The jeans and unflat-tering blue top she was wearing looked like workclothes, not something she'd wear from choice.

'How did you get in here?' she asked nervously.

The Doctor smiled. A fair question, but not one he was going to answer.

'You first. I saw you watching me. I can tell you recognise me, and you have my police box.'

She glanced down and behind the Doctor, to his left, and didn't even realise she was doing it.

'The garage,' the Doctor concluded, without looking round. 'The first place I should have looked.'

70.'Are you reading my mind?'

'No. Would you like me to?' He smiled. 'You don't have anything to be afraid of, I wouldn't harm a fly. Not unless it was a particularly wicked one.'

He stepped into the room.

'Stay back!' She was almost shaking.

The Doctor took a step back. 'Is this your house?' he asked. 'Do you live here with your parents?'

'How old do you think I am?'

'What a terribly rude question to ask a lady. Twenty-seven.'

'I'm thirty-three.'

'Really? You really do seem younger. You still live with your parents, though, don't you? Not here. This doesn't seem like your sort of house.'

'You don't even know anything about me.'

'No. But this is very clearly a spare room. The bed hasn't been slept in; I doubt those dusty old pictures are the ones you'd choose to put up; there's nowhere to put your CDs or books; from the marks on the gla.s.s you've tried to open the window but gave up because you don't know how to; that old wardrobe hasn't been opened for years; your book, bag and keys are on the floor there; there's no dressing gown hanging on the back of this door, and you've not taken your shoes off. All of which is suggestive.'

'You're Sherlock Holmes, are you?'

'No, but as I was just saying, I met him a few '

The young woman was trying very hard not to look over his right shoulder.

A floorboard squeaked behind him.

The Doctor saw something in the corner of his eye.

The world filled with crackling green energy that surged through him, filling his body with agonising pain for a moment. Then he collapsed into the dusty, thick carpet.

71.One particularly obscure text from the period comes close to fulfilling the criteria listed, but does not in all honesty provide much to discuss.

Published in 1899, Marnal's Journeys or the Modern Crusoe Marnal's Journeys or the Modern Crusoe purports to be the diary of a traveller from a distant, highly advanced civilisation, washed up on the sh.o.r.es of 19th century England. The conceit is a clever one while Defoe's Crusoe was stranded from 18th century European civilisation on a desert island, Marnal is similarly forced to subsist in the purports to be the diary of a traveller from a distant, highly advanced civilisation, washed up on the sh.o.r.es of 19th century England. The conceit is a clever one while Defoe's Crusoe was stranded from 18th century European civilisation on a desert island, Marnal is similarly forced to subsist in the 'primitive' culture of Victorian England. Unfortunately, the novel is let down by the preoccupations of its narrator: Marnal expends many thousands of words deriding the culture he finds himself in, but references to his own background are maddeningly opaque and inconsistent. It is as a worldbuilding exercise that the text's unknown author (the book is credited to the fictional Marnal) fails, denying him or her a more signifi-cant position in the history of fiction by neglecting imagination in favour of heavy-handed satire. The premise of the novel may seem like science fiction, but the content is more mundane.

Footnote from an undergraduate essay, 1981

Chapter Five.

Deadly Reunion

The Doctor's eyes snapped open.

His back was burning. His nervous system felt like a bell that had just been struck.

He was in a bare, windowless room, one that felt like a cellar. He was tied to a metal chair with what felt like three-ply plastic twine. This sort of thing always gave him a terrible sense of deja vu.

The man in the blue blazer was standing over him.

'h.e.l.lo, Doctor. I am Marnal,' he announced, bowing his head a little.

'Delighted to hear it,' the Doctor replied.

'Don't you recognise me?'

The Doctor shrugged, as much as he could in his circ.u.mstances. 'I take it you're the person who stole my TARDIS, but beyond that, no.'

'The TARDIS is quite safe.'

'And you killed Samantha Jones.'

Marnal looked taken aback. 'No, Doctor, I had nothing to do with that.

Don't you know what happened to Ms Jones?'

'You'd be surprised at the things I don't remember.'

Marnal shook his head. 'I've been watching you for a while. I know all about your amnesia.'

'You know, I'd forgotten I even had that.'

Marnal wasn't smiling, not even one of those thin, cruel smiles. 'You were responsible for her death. If you hadn't met, she'd be twenty-five now. A graduate, working for an inner-city charity. Engaged to be married. She would live to be a hundred, a political activist until the day she died, dedicated to making her world a better place. Not just a guess, Doctor. I've seen the time lines overwritten as you met her, peeled them back to see the way things should have been.'

He paced around the chair. 'But that is a minor offence. It is the grand scheme of things that concerns me today. Would you like to save us both some time and confess?'

The Doctor frowned. There had been something odd about this from the beginning. Here was a man a being, let's not a.s.sume anything for the mo-75 ment who knew what a TARDIS was, and casually talked about time lines and wasn't of this world, but whose level of technology stretched no further than hiring a lorry and buying some rope. There was no sign of the young woman.

'You've done something terrible,' Marnal continued, 'and deep down you know you have. You might not want to face up to it, but you no longer have a choice.'

'I don't know what you're '

'You're a coward for not facing up to this sooner. Do I have to say the word, Doctor?'

The Doctor felt a shot of anxiety.

'Marnal. . .

all I know is that you shouldn't '

'You'll pay for what you did, Doctor. What you did to Gallifrey Gallifrey.'

Marnal was bent over the Doctor, watching very carefully for his reaction.

He clearly wasn't happy with what he saw.

The Doctor sighed. 'Look, sorry. If you really have been spying on me, then you'll appreciate that I'm tied up by some git with a grudge every single week.

So, if you'll excuse me. . . '

The Doctor stood up and handed Marnal the rope.

Marnal drew a nasty-looking pistol and shot him.

'He'll be able to track us down,' Trix a.s.sured him.

He shrugged. 'Aren't you enjoying yourself?'

'It feels like we're bunking off.'

'We quit, remember? By now he's probably found some new dolly bird and given her my room.'

'I hope for her sake he opened a window and changed the sheets first.'

They were in a large music store. Fitz had spent a good hour now just clacking his way through row after row of CDs. He was clearly irritated to be reminded about the Doctor, but quickly cheered up once he returned to his task.

'There's nowhere better than the future if you're shopping for music,' he said. 'Well, except for parallel universes. You think you've got all the Beatles alb.u.ms until you've been to a few of those.' He hummed a few bars of 'Little Girl'.

'You could pick all this stuff up online.'

'You're joking, aren't you? I'm still wondering how they get all the music on one little disc like this. Look: shiny. The record players here use lasers for needles, you know that?'

Trix smiled. 'I'd heard a rumour.'

'Can you think of anything cooler than that?'

76.She was going to have to explain iPods and HVDs to him gently, she could tell. 'We really ought to start looking for clothes for this evening.'

Fitz sighed. 'Yeah, OK. I don't like clothes shopping.'

'You surprise me.'

'If you've got a look, you should stick with it, yeah?'

'You've got a look, have you?'

He flapped his suede jacket and looked down at himself. 'Yeah. This is timeless. Cla.s.sic. Retro. Better than a frock coat. Did you even know what a frock coat was until you met him? It's like he's constantly off to a wedding.'

'The Red Fort, the place we're going tonight. . . it's not fascist about it, but it does have a dress code. Smart casual. You're about halfway there.'

'You always dress nicely,' Fitz conceded. 'I'll let you pick an outfit for me.

But I get a veto, OK?'

The Doctor's eyes snapped open.

He was still in the cellar, still tied to a metal chair, this time with what felt like home-made manacles.

Marnal was standing over him. The Doctor had been hit three times, the stun bolts forming a neat equilateral triangle on his left collarbone. He'd been conscious until moments before the third shot hit.