Doctor Who_ The Tomorrow Windows Part 10

00.05.

'He will be here. Any time in the next. . . two seconds '

54.A blinding white light filled the room, banishing all shadows, and Jadrack gasped. Grigbsy turned, expecting to meet his maker, and as he turned, his skin boiled from his face. The blast transformed Jadrack, and the cathedral of the holy prophet Moop, and the town in which it stood, to a fine radioactive dust.

55.Gnomis The lavatory wall was swaying so Astrabel put out a hand to steady it.

He shook, zipped and ambled over to the basins. As he washed his hands, his eyes drifted up to the man opposite him in the mirror. He resembled his father, but fatter, his cheeks blushing with burst veins.

When had he grown old? The years had pa.s.sed so quickly. It had been good, though. The flamboyant meals. The Award for Outstanding Ingenuity Award for Outstanding Ingenuity.

The Life/Time Achievement Award Life/Time Achievement Award. The uproarious weddings, the entertaining divorces, the gratifying funerals. The Award for Most Envied Git Award for Most Envied Git.

He had more money than he knew how to spend, and the more he tried to get rid of it, the more it kept coming back. He'd drunk the finest Frux Frux Jeune Jeune and tasted the most expensive women. He'd insulted President Drim Larbolla, he'd goosed Triffany Swimsmet and snubbed several minor pontiffs. and tasted the most expensive women. He'd insulted President Drim Larbolla, he'd goosed Triffany Swimsmet and snubbed several minor pontiffs.

He'd danced like a madman and puked like a goat.

He was at the top of his profession. He'd straddled it like a giant, the water of. . . something beneath his feet. The water of progress. Where was he again? He was at the top of his profession. He had been single-handedly responsible for every scientific breakthrough of the last forty years. He was respected among his peers, and they hated him for it, and Astrabel loved being hated for it because he hated his peers, and they knew he loved being hated for it and that just made them hate him for it even more.

Implications of Reductive Casual Loops? That was one of his. That was one of his. Probability Probability N-forms? N-forms? Knocked off in an afternoon. Knocked off in an afternoon. Interst.i.tial Time Induction? Interst.i.tial Time Induction? Still in the bestseller lists and being adapted as a musical. Still in the bestseller lists and being adapted as a musical.

Yes, he'd had a good life.

Except he was a complete fraud.

He knew almost nothing about Theoretical Ultraphysics, and had only pa.s.sed the exam on the second attempt. Ever since, he'd bluffed his way through his career. He blagged his way through lectures, just reading out the notes, refusing to answer questions afterwards.

His feet skidded as he headed for the door, and he grabbed the hand dryer for support. He could hear his heartbeat in his ears. He didn't have long left.

He had one last thing to do before he died.

Straightening his shirt, Astrabel returned to the party. Banners proclaiming 'Happy Retirement Astrabel Zar' were suspended over his friends, family and 56 were suspended over his friends, family and 56 colleagues. The Professor for Specious Inference, Grath Fuggl, gave Astrabel a flute of champagne and a look of pure hatred.

Astrabel wove his way over to his wife, Zoberly Chesterfield. How he loved her. She was as beautiful today as the day he'd first set eyes upon her. The plastic surgery had been worth every penny. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were still formulating their imminent escape attempt.

Astrabel kissed her, half on her mouth, half on her cheek. 'Have to go.'

'Go?'

'Booked a flight,' he said. 'First cla.s.s. To Gadrahadra. . . to Gadrahadra-hadra. . . to Gadrahadradon. Firs' cla.s.s.'

'But, Bel darling, why leave now?'

Astrabel attempted to tap the side of his nose and missed. 'It was on Gadraha. . . it was there tha' it all happened. It all happened all happened. When I was a student. You were there.'

'I remember.' She smiled. '"The most haunted planet in the galaxy".'

'Tha.s.sawun.'

'Darling,' she led him out of the bustle of the party, 'I've been speaking with Dr McBrummity, and he thinks. . . this trip might be too much for you.'

'I know,' said Astrabel. 'I have to go. Crucial importance.' His eyes drifted up her body, lingering upon her curves. 'I shall miss you.' His eyes reached her face. 'Goodbye.'

Her lips parted in protest. Astrabel kissed them and turned for the door. 'If I don' come back. . . look after everything. And marry again. Marry Sheabley. . .

he's waited for you for forty years. You'll be happy.'

Astrabel gave Zoberly one last smile, then walked out the door.

57.

Chapter Four.

Future Plans

Charlton Mackerel was in his early teens when he realised there was something fundamentally wrong with the universe. It was, he felt, incompetent.

Not that gravity, magnetism and so on did a bad job. Rather, the problem lay with the people. People were, he realised, rubbish.

It was so annoying annoying. Charlton would spend long, restless nights mulling over his thoughts. He waded through the history books, and discovered that history was about people being rubbish. They made mistakes often for the best possible intentions, often with the most mitigating excuses but nevertheless they were stupid, lazy, and selfish, and got things wrong.

Charlton turned his attention to current affairs and was equally appalled.

The people in charge not only made mistakes, but made the additional mistake of not admitting they made mistakes. They declared wars for reasons that made no sense, but which no one noticed made no sense until after the war had finished. And the more mistakes the people in charge made, the less they admitted to them. All adolescents go through this stage. Some become cynical. Some join societies. Some distract themselves with drugs and s.e.x.

Some listen to miserable music. Some particularly nauseating adolescents even write whole novels about it.

Charlton Mackerel was different. He decided he would do do something. something.

One thing he'd learned from studying history was that he had not been the first person to realise that people were rubbish. However, everyone before him had made the mistake of believing that because people were rubbish, they needed to be told what to do. That struck Charlton as being a particularly rubbish thing to do.

No, he would be different. He would help people to help themselves. He would not tell them what to do, he would ask them what they wanted.

It was, he realised, very, very simple. So why was it so difficult?

Charlton grew up, and found himself in university, but he never forgot his dream. He listened to miserable but worthy music, joined some miserable but worthy societies, and went to parties where he met some miserable but worthy girls.

Two important things happened to Charlton at university. It would've been 58 three but none of the girls were interested.

Firstly, he enrolled in the Galactic Heritage society. He'd leafed through one of their leaflets and been gobsmacked.

Secondly, he discovered the secret of the Tomorrow Windows.

Who is Beatrix MacMillan?

The hot pattering of the shower makes my skin tingle. All of the misery of Shardybarn swirls down the plughole. I feel the water upon my forehead, my eyelids. I step from the shower, collect a towel, and face myself in the mirror.

Who do I see?

I see Triksie, the little girl. She was the girl who cried alone at night, listening for the squeak of floorboard. The girl who loved her father, who hated him. The girl who gathered conkers and took long walks along scrunching-leaf lanes. She was the girl who argued with her father. The girl who sat by her father's bedside, listening to his breathing become hoa.r.s.e.

That's not true.

I see Nat, the girl who grew up in Cambridge, who used to cycle alongside her mother. I remember the jingle of the bicycle bell. She studied at the university, English literature, all picnics and winding staircases. I remember my friend, Philly, and how we would argue into the night. I remember hugging her the time she was called downstairs to answer the phone.

That's all lies too.

Who else do I see? I see Mac, the girl who bunked off school at sixteen, smoking joints and drinking snakebite. She was the girl who spent every afternoon in the town precinct. Mac became an addict, and worse. She broke into houses. Stealing anything, videos, jewellery, anything. Until one night she found somebody home, and made a fatal mistake.

I remember how it felt as I heard the wail of police sirens.

I remember my mother in the hospital waiting room, her eyes filled with tears. Of shame, of anger, I can't remember. I can remember every moment of that dark, winding journey back from Oxford, every song on the radio, the headlights upon the vicarage gate.

My mother was never the same again. She never let it affect her. She died the following year. She's still alive. She remarried. She's in care. I never knew my parents.

I can't remember which story I'm supposed to tell. Remind me. Which parts did you believe?

I've spent so long trying not to remember, sometimes I can almost forget.

It's for me to decide who I am. I make up the backstories, I play the role.

On the inside looking out, I don't know who I am but isn't everyone like that?

59.Fitz sat in the dining room, waiting for the others, gazing out of the window at the rippling candyfloss clouds. He depressed the top of the cafetiere and poured himself some coffee.

A full-length Tomorrow Window had been placed against one wall. Fitz lounged back, watching it, considering another glimpse into his future. He'd seen himself getting married.

He'd seen his future wife. Tanned skin, hazel eyes and a 34DD chest. She'd been smiling a smile that Fitz could imagine falling in love with.

Or maybe he'd seen his daughter's wedding. No, too weird, don't go there.

Though if she was the daughter, the mother must've been pretty hot.

He was half tempted to take another look. What if he didn't see her this time? What if he saw the decrepit, forlorn, you've-turned-into-your-own-grandfather Fitz? What if he saw someone else? The windows, after all, only showed what was most likely to happen, they didn't show how to get there.

OK, he could do it as a process of elimination. 'Window, window, on the wall, if I leave the Doctor on the next planet, will I get the babe at all? No?

OK, what about the next planet? The planet after that?'

Fitz studied the gla.s.s pane, studied his own reflection. What he'd seen made him feel. . . unsure. Ironic, wasn't it? A vision of the future that makes you uncertain of your future.

He knew what made him nervous he'd been given something to look forward to. That had been one thing that his life had lacked all the time he'd been with the Doctor. He'd been living for the moment so long he'd forgotten to think beyond it. He'd never spared a thought about what he would be doing in a year's time, in ten years' time.

How do you go back, though? How do you adjust from saving planets to saving reward points? It would drive you mad, you'd always be regretting what you'd left behind, wouldn't you?

That was what Fitz had always thought, but now he realised that he was wrong.

One day, maybe soon, he would get a life.

He'd seen a world destroyed. Not for the first time in the last few months, though it had seemed like over a year, he'd seen multiple Earths, multiple universes erased from history. Of course, he'd saved worlds too, but somehow, that never made up for what he'd lost. The Doctor always had the nagging feeling he was in deficit. Indeed, it was that feeling that drove him on. He was seeking. . . redemption.

Shardybarn had unnerved him. He didn't like being powerless powerless.

There was always a way if you searched hard enough, always a way.

60.Is it failure when you can't hope to succeed?

One must never lose hope. Hope is the greatest gift of all. Hope is the spirit that drives on every living thing. The belief that tomorrow will be better.

Shardybarn. He knew the translation. 'The presumption that tomorrow will be as glorious as today.' Not, unfortunately, always.

He stretched out on the bed, his hands behind his head. Not sleeping.

He'd accomplished so much, he'd brought about so much good. He had defeated monsters and the monstrous. . . Sabbath, Silver, Ferran, the Kandy-man. . .

The Doctor twinged with momentary embarra.s.sment. He'd always preferred Jelly Babies to liquorice Allsorts, but. . . no, his memory must be playing tricks on him again.

Recovered and refreshed, Fitz, the Doctor, Trix and Charlton reconvened in the dining room. Coffee and digestives were provided. Fitz slouched back in his chair balanced upon two legs, the Doctor opposite. Charlton occupied the head of the table, stirring cream into his coffee. Trix remained at the window, gazing out into the eddying, cotton-wool mist.

'What happened to Shardybarn,' the Doctor said, 'must not happen again.

We were in a situation where we could achieve nothing nothing.'

'I thought '

The Doctor cut Charlton dead. 'You thought. . . you, Charlton Mackerel, have been very, very stupid indeed.'

'What d'you mean?'

'Fitz made an astute observation earlier.'

'I did?' said Fitz. 'I mean, which one? I make so many.'

'He asked why you didn't know Tate Modern would be destroyed. After all, you can predict the future. So why didn't you see it coming So why didn't you see it coming?'

Charlton looked around. 'I've been a little stupid, haven't I?'

'Yes, you have. After all, you have some idea of the potential of the Tomorrow Windows, don't you?'