Doctor Who_ Unnatural History Part 32

He nodded, and slowly raised his eyes to the scene around them. The bell tower stood out against the sky, white and gold. Across the road, steam drifted upward from a heat vent, like the breath of a dragon sleeping under the ground.

'True,' he finally said, and she could feel some of the tension ease from his shoulders. He grinned suddenly, and it was as if the clouds had broken. 'It's funny. I only used to be able to have this sort of conversation with cats.'

She reached out and messed up his hair. 'Tell you what,' she said. 'If you end up stuck for a place to live, I could squeeze a spare bed into my flat.'

'Ah,' he said softly. 'But where would Fitz sleep?'

'Um. . . '

'Unless the spare bed is for Fitz,' he said thoughtfully.

'Oh, behave,' said Sam, giving him a mock slap in the arm.

Behind them, Professor Joyce cleared his throat.

Sam jumped away from him; the Doctor just turned, raising an eyebrow at the physicist.

'It's ready,' said Joyce.

Forty-seven seconds later, once the Doctor and Sam had bolted out of the door with the stabilising device, Joyce settled back alone at his workbench and methodically began to pack the exitonic circuitry away.

A few minutes later, the door to his office crept open. Joyce kept working, carefully, precisely, even as the slow tapping footsteps closed in and the shadow with too many arms crept over him.

'I was wondering when you'd get here,' Joyce said quietly.

The footsteps slowed to a halt behind him.

'I'm grateful for your patience, sir,' said the unnaturalist.

197.

Joyce stood and sauntered slowly over to the unnaturalist, putting his hands in his pockets, a burly figure beside the gaunt Griffin. 'I understand you've been making some trouble for the Doctor.'

'I'm sure you'll agree he's a singular specimen,' the unnaturalist said politely.

'Oh, quite so. Which is why we'd like you not to disturb him.' Joyce's face creased into a smile. 'And you know it's a good idea to listen to us. You'll earn your place in the next life that way.'

'He's one of yours?' asked the unnaturalist.

'Not at this stage,' said Joyce.

'But he's unique. There is nothing in the city to compare with him. Under our agreement '

'I don't think you're listening, son,' said Joyce. 'The Advanced Research Project's grants to your Society are contingent upon you providing us with appropriate biological data from your expeditions. And I wouldn't consider a dissected Doctor to be appropriate.'

Griffin gave a little bow, but he had that fixed look in his eyes. Joyce could almost hear his words bouncing off, unable to break through that wall of single-mindedness. He sighed.

Joyce stood over the unnaturalist and stopped just short of jabbing a finger into his chest. 'You're not to take the Doctor's biodata. Don't try to do it behind my back, because I'll find out. You're not to tamper with the concentration of his biodata at the scar, or any of the other exposed strands. And you're not to do to Miss Jones's biodata what I suspect '

'The scar?' interjected the unnaturalist.

' you plan on doing. Especially Especially the scar. Now, do I make myself clear?' the scar. Now, do I make myself clear?'

'Yes, thank you, sir,' said the unnaturalist. He'd suddenly gone all quiet, even humble. 'I believe you've told me everything I need to know.'

Chapter Eighteen.

Coming Unstrung.

They'd made it back to the scar with less than an hour to spare. The Bug had left skid marks as they'd rounded the corner into the alleyway, and now they were standing right next to the little twist in the air.

While the Doctor adjusted the stabilising device, Sam looked into the centre of the scar. You had to know where to look, the way the light just seemed to bend around it. . . In the middle of the glow, surrounding the twisted blue shape, she could just make out the fine, tangled patterns of the uncountable threads of the Doctor's biodata.

'I think I've got it. Stay back.' He reached out an arm and pushed her back to a safe distance. He levelled the little remote at the scar and pressed the biggest b.u.t.ton.

Nothing continued to happen.

'I think the rubber band broke,' Sam said.

'Oh, not again.' He rummaged in his pocket and produced a rubber band.

Sam stared at it open-mouthed. 'I thought I was joking,' she said.

He grinned 'You were; so was I' and zinged the rubber band past her ear.

Then he went back to staring at the mangled s.p.a.ce in front of him. 'It'll only take a little while longer. Just hold on.'

'I am holding '

'Hold on,' he repeated softly, and she realised he wasn't talking to her.

She looked up at the slice of sky visible above the alley. The streamers of cloud were converging from all sides on a point directly above the scar. They twisted, bent down, went out out somewhere, and more and more of the clouds followed the same path. somewhere, and more and more of the clouds followed the same path.

Slowly the scarred s.p.a.ce began to glow, the dark orange of barely molten steel. The rumble of the Wild Hunt was growing in her bones, closing in from all around. And with a grinding whoosh of air being pushed aside something began to come together.

199.

At first all she had was the idea of something being there. One by one other ideas attached themselves to it. Blueness. Squareness. Solidity. Call-here-for-help-ness. It was pulling itself together out of pure concepts, lines, squares, cubes, wood, paint, gla.s.s. The air was full of a whirring, grating sound.

And the Wild Hunt swept up, and she braced for the disloc ation when it hit with staggering force of a hurricane pushing her towards the scar one step then another wave kept hitting over and over her head the sky was glowing orange scar inches from her face now pulling her 'No!' shouted the shouted the Doctor and he switched off the device and crumpled back against the front b.u.mper of the Bug, staring with horror.

The police box gave a final metallic shriek and crumpled back into the scar.

'Sorry,' whispered the Doctor. 'I'm sorry.'

She ran to him. He was shaking. 'It doesn't work,' he gasped. 'Just was pulling the TARDIS out. Not healing the scar.'

'And without the TARDIS there '

'It's not working working,' he blurted, even more frantic than before. He looked away and screwed up his face, trying to think. Or maybe trying not to think.

The Kraken comes, thought Sam. The Kraken devours the scarred s.p.a.ce-time. The scarred s.p.a.ce-time contains the Doctor's biodata, the fabric of his being.

She was scared to broach the subject, for his sake. 'When the TARDIS does break down. . . '

He tightened up as if he'd been cut.

'. . . how likely is it to seal off the scar as it collapses?'

'Don't know. I don't know.'

So, if he made this sacrifice, he'd have to do it without even knowing whether it would make a difference. She wondered if she'd ever have the nerve to try, knowing that. She watched him pushing the heels of his hands into his eyes, as if trying to grind a fresh answer out of his brain, and figured she'd never dare.

200.

And wondered about the man who'd given them the device, and said he'd almost wished the Doctor's old banger would pack up for good.

'The pulses weren't even this strong or this frequent before I put the TARDIS there. I've just aggravated it,' the Doctor muttered. 'There's no time, no time. . . '

The endless cascade of thunder had faded back to a constant low rumble, the glow was down to a dull orange again, but the storm abated only a bit.

She could almost feel the light and sound regrouping, preparing for the final a.s.sault.

Then came the slow, measured footsteps.

He was behind the scar, behind the orange glow. He was an outline, a silhouette, a huge spider with arms that stretched into impossible dimensions.

Fingers reaching for them even as he neatly folded his hands in front of him.

With his sombre face, his dark, old-fashioned clothes, he looked like something out of d.i.c.kens. An undertaker, come to take them under.

The Doctor buried his head back in his hands for a moment. 'Oh, not another another one.' one.'

He wasn't moving and Griffin was almost on them. Sam pushed herself to her feet, now, before she had too much chance to think about it, and put herself in the unnaturalist's path. 'Sorry,' she said from what she hoped was a safe distance. 'The Doctor's busy right now. You'll have to take a number, behind the Kraken and the TARDIS and '

She felt fingers brush across her skin, suddenly shove her aside. She stumbled sideways out of his path. By the time she got her balance, he had almost reached the scar. 'Wait! Don't!'

But the Doctor was on his feet, stomping towards the unnaturalist with an out-of-control anger on his face. 'Oh, go away!' he shouted. 'The sheer gall of it, expecting me to devote some of my precious time to stopping you. . . Why should I even have to bother bother? Don't you have anything better better to do with your life? Just go to do with your life? Just go away away!'

'I don't think so,' said the unnaturalist mildly. 'This is just what I've been looking for.'

The Doctor said, 'Don't even '

Griffin dipped into the wounded s.p.a.ce with his supple fingers and twisted twisted.

The Doctor fell back against the Bug, his head and shoulder smacking into the metal. His mouth and eyes were open, huge. A ripple went through his body, not a shudder, but a ripple ripple as though he was made from water. as though he was made from water.

He crumpled on to the ground and lay very still.

201.

Sam shot over to the Bug, ignoring Griffin, crouching down beside the Doctor. For a moment she didn't even want to touch him, in case the unnaturalist had done something horrible to him, twisted up the lines of his body into some new and hideous shape.

'Sam,' murmured the Doctor. She reached for his shoulder. It seemed solid, normal under her hand.

'Yes. . . ' Griffin breathed, 'I see it now. The scar was hiding it from me. But the nexus I was looking for was here all along.' He raised his voice slightly, giving a scientific lecture to the semiconscious Doctor. 'There are only two such points where all your biodata is open to me at once. Your actual place of regeneration, which remains a mystery to me. . . and right here.'

He produced from his pocket a small gla.s.s bottle, filled with a golden fluid that sparkled in the glow from the scar. Almost reverentially, he turned his back on them, raised it to the edge of the twisted s.p.a.ce.

'Don't,' said the Doctor. Sam could see him pulling himself together, straightening up against the side of the Bug, but he'd never make it to the unnaturalist in time.

Griffin paid him no mind. Slowly he began to unscrew the lid of the bottle, ready to pour its contents into the scar itself.

'You shall be. . . understood,' said Griffin.

Sam lowered her head and rammed him in the back.

The unnaturalist gave a thin scream, turning to grab her. Sam yelled back, smacking his face, and then punching it, and again, her hand singing with pain as her knuckles crunched into his skull.

She screamed and swore, kicking him, punching him wherever she could hit him. He staggered and fell, a bony, skinny body sprawling on the concrete. Sam dropped on to him, straddling his back, hitting and hitting, utterly panicked because at any moment he was going to reach for her with some of those hands and simply turn her inside out 'Don't touch her.'

Something in the Doctor's voice made Sam stop and look.

The Doctor was standing over them, wobbling slightly, aiming the stabilising device down at the unnaturalist's head.

'This thing can reshape s.p.a.ce-time,' said the Doctor. 'It's very useful for extradimensional repairs. So what do you think it'll do to the bits of your body that protrude into the higher dimensions, hmm?'

Griffin looked up at the Doctor. She hadn't even bruised him. Calmly he folded his arms beneath his chin, as though getting comfortable, and gave a 202 patient sigh.

'The bottle,' said the Doctor. She patted down the unnaturalist's pockets till she found it, then pulled out a small jar of golden liquid. But the Doctor had already found the bottle on the pavement behind him, where the unnaturalist had dropped it after he'd fallen. She looked from one of the bottles to the other.

The Doctor was looking intently at his bottle, the stabiliser still carefully aimed at the unnaturalist.

'What is it?' said Sam. She climbed off Griffin, stood up.

'Biodata in a bottle,' breathed the Doctor. 'Unless I'm very much mistaken.'

He tilted the bottle, examining the glittering, golden liquid inside. 'Think of it as a computer virus. Attaching itself to my biodata, copying itself, coursing out through each and every strand. Rewriting. Editing. Corroding away the bits our friend here doesn't care for.'

'So what's this one for?' she asked, hefting the identical bottle in her own hand. 'Is it a spare?'

'Oh, that one's for you,' said the unnaturalist.