Doctor Who_ The Room With No Doors Part 7

'You didn't allow for the temperament of the natives,' said Penelope, adjusting her gla.s.ses.

'It's a bad time for the country,' said the Doctor. 'Though we'd have had an even rougher time of it if we'd arrived next century. . . '

'The Tokugawa era, yes,' said Penelope. 'But back to the reason for your arrival.'

'How old are you?'

'Twenty-seven. Do please tell me more about why you've come here.'

The Doctor smiled. 'I'm being interrogated,' he said.

'Forgive my curiosity,' said Penelope. 'After Mr Mintz, you are only the second time traveller I have encountered. He says that you make minor adjustments to history. You do not merely investigate, you interfere.'

'If there's something out of place here, I'll put it right.'

'I see. And precisely what gives you the right to do that?'

'I am am being interrogated,' said the Doctor. being interrogated,' said the Doctor.

'Please,' said Penelope. 'Don't sidestep the question. Are you some sort of cosmic policeman? To whom do you answer for your actions?'

'Myself, mostly,' he said.

'And if your actions leave a situation worse than when you began?'

That shaft struck home. His eyes were suddenly deadly serious, searching her face. 'If you arrived in your time machine,' he asked, 'and someone was about to, exempli gratia exempli gratia, murder a child, would you stop them?'

'Of course I wouldn't. I have no right to interfere with the flow of history.'

'Ah. That's the easy answer. But what might you really do? If it came to the crunch? I'm going for a walk.'

He slipped out of the door without looking back. Penelope watched him go, wondering why he didn't take a light.

Chris and Joel had been heating sake over the firepit for an hour. Penelope had muttered something about the cat that swallowed the cream and had gone out half an hour ago, carrying the big torch with her.

42.'So,' said Chris, filling his fourth or maybe fifth cup of the rice wine, 'is this just a holiday for you? Or are you going back to work for the Admiral?'

Joel's gla.s.ses were round mirrors reflecting the flickering fire. 'I haven't decided yet. Thirteen years is a long time.'

'Sounds like you were looking for a way out.'

'No,' said Joel. He took a mouthful from his cup. 'It's good work. The underground railroad has spread all over the planet; I've lost count of how many stranded aliens we've helped out. It'd be easy to spend a lifetime doing that. I think the Admiral even wants me to follow in his footsteps. Take over when he's too old to be running around, dodging the CIA.'

'Yeah, but don't you ever get the urge to go do something else?'

'I nearly walked out after the time we helped that Lalandian group. They'd been killing and eating people for weeks before we tracked them down.'

'What did you do?' Chris spilt warm sake over his hand as he filled another cup.

'We fixed their ship and sent them home,' said Joel. 'They'd chewed up about twenty human beings. Swore blind they weren't on safari they were just stuck and running out of supplies. I nearly walked. Isaac talked me out of it in the end.'

'What if,' said Chris, 'what if, though, you didn't feel like you were up to the job any more? If, you know, like, something happened and it was your fault. . . '

'The weirdest thing,' said Joel. He put down his sake cup with exaggerated care. 'You have to remember not to tell him this. The weirdest thing was when I met the Doctor. Back in '87.'

'Four years after we were there. . . Hey, did he make a surprise visit and not tell me?'

Joel shook his head. He leant on Chris's shoulder and whispered into his ear. 'It wasn't the same one.'

'Whoah,' said Chris. 'Whoah, whoah.'

'Yeah,' said Joel. 'When he saw me he gave me this look and said, and I quote because I remember this word for word, "Second chances are rare. Be careful not to do something you'll regret later. And this conversation never happened."'

'Did you ever find out what it meant?'

'Not yet,' said Joel. 'Not yet.' He tipped the sake flask upside down. 'No more.'

'We better go to bed then,' said Chris.

The Doctor moved through the blackness, cat-silent, holding the rainbow egg in one hand. He had recalibrated it to work in flavours instead of colours. He 43 was following a trail of limonene through the streets of the village. He could hear the peasants breathing in their sleep.

He stopped beside a hut, brushing his fingertips over the surface of the ovoid. He accessed the recording of Penelope's temporal aura. In this mode, it was lemon crush with an edge of battery acid, mouth-wateringly intense.

Whatever it was he'd come to find, she was saturated with its essence.

a.n.a.lytical Engine, indeed!

He followed the trail into the forest, just a little way. The air was sharp and cool. Distantly, a bird cried out.

Penelope's time machine was a converted hansom cab, a dark shape amongst the trees. A horseless carriage, thought the Doctor. He pulled open one of the doors, smelling leather and machine oil.

There were seats for four, one of which was taken up with a weight of machinery, like something escaped from a Victorian textile mill. The Doctor climbed up into the cabin, pulling out his flashlight, and examined the vehicle's workings.

'A clockwork time machine,' he said, after a few minutes. 'How quaint.

Come up here, I want to talk to you.'

'Sir,' said Penelope from outside, 'remove yourself from my cab, or I will be forced to take steps.'

He turned. She was holding a musket rifle, fuse burning, the barrel carefully pointed at the ground. 'Do get down,' she said.

The Doctor got down. 'I can't even see a power source,' he said, pocketing his flashlight. 'How does it work?'

'It moves through the fourth dimension,' she said. 'I have adapted a miniature a.n.a.lytical Engine to make calculations. My equations are based on Riemann's metric tensor.' The Doctor laughed. 'It works,' bristled Penelope. 'My presence here is all the proof you ought to require!'

'You're a scientist.'

'I am,' said Penelope, moving the tip of her musket in small agitated circles. 'And one who is very weary of being constantly patronized. At least this machine is the work of my own hands.'

'But is it?' The Doctor took out the rainbow egg, and recalibrated it with his thumbnail, watching as the slick of colours spread over its surface. 'Your horseless time machine isn't the primary source of the temporal distortion.

Look.'

He tossed her the egg. Penelope caught it with both hands, and suddenly realized that she wasn't holding the musket any more.

The Doctor licked his fingers and quenched the smouldering fuse with a pinch. He said, 'There's something else here, an intermittent but powerful 44 source of temporal fluctuation. Unless I miss my guess, it's the power source for your time machine.'

'My machine has its own source.'

'That mutated Tzun battery?' He shook his head. 'It generates enough power to run the Engine, but nothing like the amount needed to actually distort the dimensions. Without a real power source, your conveyance is nothing more than a toy.'

'Which distant century are you from?' Penelope held the egg close to her face. 'Is your arrogance pure egotism, or do even the greatest scientific advances of my age seem like the dabblings of children to you?'

She threw him back the egg. He plucked it from the air with one hand.

'Miss Gate,' he said, 'I think I've misjudged you.'

She folded her arms. 'I see. You hoped to goad me into some sort of admis-sion.'

He smiled. 'Are you what you seem?'

'Apparently,' she said, 'I'm even less than what I seem. I'm not even an inventor.'

'Whatever your invention's capabilities are, temporal displacement isn't one of them.'

'If Riemann's equations are not the method, then I shall be fascinated to discover what mechanism is capable of propelling a vehicle through history.'

The Doctor leant on the carriage. 'Why time travel?' he said. 'Why did you want to create a time machine?'

'For the scientific achievement,' she said, 'and so that I could explore. Imagine paying Shakespeare a visit '

'Been there.'

'Or Marco Polo. '

'Done that.'

'Or Richard the Lionheart.'

'Bought the postcard.'

'If you do not cease bragging,' said Penelope, 'I may kick you in the shin.'

He laughed and pa.s.sed her back the musket.

45.The Room With No Doors Chris opened his eyes. He was in the Room With No Doors.

h.e.l.l. This was h.e.l.l. This was where you were sent to be punished for everything you'd done. For everything you hadn't done. This was Justice.

Buried forever in a box, in the dark, alone, because you ought to have been the one who died, you ought to have been the one who was a hero, you ought to have done better, been better, you're never good enough and you'll never be good enough again!

'I'm sorry!' he screamed at the blank walls. 'I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!'

But his voice echoed back at him, and no one answered him, no one came to let him out.

Because he deserved to be there.

And he knew it.

'For Christ's sake, snap out of it!'

Chris opened his eyes. Joel was thumping him on the arm. 'I'm awake, I'm awake!' he protested.

'Yeah, and so's everyone else, I bet.'

Joel clambered out from under the blanket and slid open one of the doors.

There was no sign of the Doctor or Penelope.

'Moonlight stroll?' joked Chris shakily.

Joel pushed the door shut. 'That must've been a doozy of a nightmare.'

'Occupational hazard.'

'I bet.' Joel had lit one of the small lamps, throwing yellow shadows over his face. 'Do you want to talk about it?'

Chris said, 'Did you ever meet Liz Shaw?'

'Yeah,' said Joel. 'I did, once. She came to ha.s.sle the Admiral about something or other. Nice old lady.'

'I killed her,' said Chris.

Joel looked at him. 's.h.i.t!'

'I don't mean literally,' said Chris. 'If it hadn't been for me, she'd still be alive.'

47.'Oh,' murmured Joel. 'Occupational hazard.'

'Yeah,' said Chris. 'Come back here I'm freezing to death.'

Joel wriggled back under the covers. 'This is embarra.s.sing,' he mumbled.

'Watch your elbows,' said Chris. 'Embarra.s.sing?'

'Circ.u.mstances force me into bed with a gorgeous blond from an exotic future,' muttered Joel, 'and it's you.'

'Thanks,' said Chris. 'I think. What'd you say?'