Doctor Who_ Father Time Part 9

'Help what?'

'Tell us where people are going wrong. Stop pollution, end wars.'

Miranda looked thoughtful. 'That would be much better,' she concluded.

The Doctor shook his head. 'If they were going to do that, they'd have landed, surely? They've not tried to make contact with us. It's almost as if they are monitoring us, or searching for something.' A thought struck him. 'Perhaps they are UFO-spotter spotters.'

Miranda giggled.

The phone rang, but the girl on the other end had dialled the wrong number.

Debbie put the phone down and went back to giving Barry his tea: bacon, eggs and chips. She sat opposite him. He had his copy of the Star Star, she had her book. She didn't like reading at the table, but it was better than talking sometimes. Their house was very cold, because Barry didn't like wasting money.

'What's that book?' Barry asked.

'I got it from the library. It's about chess. I'm looking for hints. I need to get into practice again if I've got any chance of beating the Doctor.'

'I don't want you to see him again,' Barry told her flatly.

'He's teaching Miranda Dawkins. I'll have to see him.'

'He's weird. I bet he listens to Kate Bush.' He held up his paper to show what had led him to that conclusion. It was a picture of a young woman with staring eyes and not much on.

'Instead of ogling her, you mean?'

'Yeah. If you want to put it like that, yeah. There's something wrong with him. I mean, look at that.' He decided to follow his own advice and returned his attention to his newspaper.

Debbie felt a little sad. Barry didn't know it, but he was right. There was something wrong with the Doctor, or rather the world he'd found himself in. A place, where if you were different, or if you showed just the slightest imagination or kindness, people looked at you suspiciously and... she'd kissed him, and just for a moment, both their problems had gone away.

She looked at a photo of the chess game. It was an old photograph, colour, but that odd, watery colour that old photos have, as though they weren't sure whether to be black-andwhite or not. Two men, bending over a chessboard, surrounded by people in fifties suits, and women in those tailored dresses and hats they used to wear. It reminded her of her childhood, just a few years after this photo had been taken.

Debbie looked again.

One of the men was wearing a long black frock coat. He had a mane of dark hair, and sad-looking eyes, and seemed to be looking straight at her.

She checked the date of the photograph. The caption said it had been taken in Stalingrad in 1951. Four years before she had been born, and on the other side of the Iron Curtain.

And if it wasn't the Doctor... then why was he wearing the Doctor's coat?

Mr Cosmo welcomed the Doctor as he entered the newsagent's. A couple of the children recognised him and said h.e.l.lo.

'The usual, Doctor?' he asked.

The Doctor nodded, handing over his money. 'Make it half a pound, would you I'm running a bit low.'

Mr Cosmo smiled, and shook a few more jelly babies out of their jar.

The Doctor was looking down at the Evening News Evening News laid out on the counter. laid out on the counter.

'Are you reading about that man at the hospital? A very strange business.'

A man with a broken leg had vanished from his hospital bed and had managed to get out of his plastercast. There was a photo of the empty bed on the front page, the plastercast hanging from the traction gear.

'You seem a bit down today,' Mr Cosmo told the Doctor. 'Is it the weather?'

The Doctor seemed to force himself to smile. 'No, I like the snow. Those two, out there, do you recognise them?'

Mr Cosmo peered out of the window into the gloomy evening. A young man and woman were sitting on the wall on the other side of the road. They wore similar modern clothes, and Mr Cosmo thought there was something sinister about them. The young man seemed to be playing with a camera not taking photographs, just checking the back and fiddling with it.

'They were there yesterday,' one of the boys told the Doctor.

The Doctor didn't seem surprised.

'Are you sure, Daniel?' Mr Cosmo asked. 'I don't remember them.'

'They were,' Daniel insisted.

'And they were in the park yesterday,' Stephanie piped up. 'They were on the swings and wouldn't let us on.'

Mr Cosmo looked over to the Doctor. 'They could be tourists, Doctor. There are quite a lot of people in the village at the moment. They may be here because of the UFOs.'

The Doctor hadn't taken his eyes off them. 'They may indeed.'

The children started looking out of the window. 'We could ask them,' one suggested.

'No. Remember, don't talk to strange men,' Mr Cosmo advised.

The boys and girls all nodded or voiced their agreement. The Doctor was heading for the door.

'Where are you going?' Mr Cosmo asked.

'To talk to them,' the Doctor said firmly.

'This is hopeless. We can't just expect the Last One to '

'h.e.l.lo there,' the Doctor said. 'I'm the Doctor.'

The strange man and woman looked nervously at each other.

'h.e.l.lo,' they chorused back, finally.

The strange man stood up, the strange woman stayed where she was.

'Don't you have names?' the Doctor asked.

The woman's smile flickered. 'That's Rum.'

The man waved weakly at him. 'This is Thelash.'

'Delighted to meet you,' the Doctor said. He looked Rum up and down. 'Are you waiting for someone?' he asked.

'Just enjoying the view,' the man a.s.sured him, digging his hands in his trouser pockets and circling round the Doctor.

The Doctor turned his back on Rum and faced his partner. 'Have you come far to be here?' he asked.

Rum couldn't help sn.i.g.g.e.ring, until a glare from Thelash silenced him.

'Not really,' she replied curtly. 'Yourself?'

The Doctor's expression didn't change for a moment, then he broke into a smile. 'You tell me.'

'We're just seeing the sights,' Rum told him.

The Doctor waved his hand at Rum's camera. 'And taking some pictures?'

'That's right,' he said. 'Can we take yours?'

The Doctor straightened up, turned his head. 'This is my best side,' he told them. 'You know, on some places on this planet, the people think that taking a photograph captures someone's soul.'

'Is that right?' Thelash asked.

There was a flash of light, and a whirr as the instant camera expelled the picture.

Rum shook the picture to dry it. 'An excellent likeness,' he declared, flas.h.i.+ng it at the Doctor.

The Doctor checked his pocket watch. 'I'm afraid I've got to be going.'

'I hope we'll see each other again soon,' Thelash said, holding out her hand.

'Thank you.' The Doctor shook her hand, but watched her suspiciously.

'I told you it was him,' Rum hissed when the Doctor had gone. 'He's rumbled us. I'm sure he recognised us.'

'I knew it was,' Thelash agreed. 'This changes things.'

He gave a nervous moan.

'There's no need to be such a coward,' she announced. 'He didn't try to stop us.'

'You still think it's a coincidence he's here?'

Thelash considered her answer. 'Yes. Perhaps he's just following up the UFO reports.'

'But what do we do?'

'We'll have to tell the Prefect.'

Rum thought for a moment. 'We could just send Mr Gibson after the Doctor. He's dying to kill him, you can tell.'

'Absolutely not.'

'Why not?'

Thelash spelled it out slowly, as if she was talking to a stupid child. 'Because Mr Gibson is not subtle in his methods. He's going to kill the Doctor for what he did, and there's bound to be collateral damage.'

'What did the Doctor do?'

'It doesn't matter but we have to keep those two apart.'

'Whatever you say.' Rum broke into a grin.

'I don't know what you've got to smile about,' she told him.

He rooted in his trouser pocket and pulled out a small plastic case. He opened it up. Inside were three cubes, each a little bit bigger than a sugar cube, with s.p.a.ce for another.

'These,' he announced, 'are nukes.'

Thelash's eyes were wide open.

'Relax,' he said, stretching the word out. 'They're only little nukes. Mini-nukes. Enough to atomise a building, but that's all. Not that it matters to us, but there would only be minimal fallout.'

He turned the plastic case over and tapped the back.

A display panel lit up, a network of red circuitry with a large red dot in the middle.

'Press this, and boom! It's so clever the bomb reads out the five-second countdown, but there's nothing you can do if you hear it, unless you've got this box. It's war surplus. Genuine antiques. I forget the name of the race that used them. Those chaps with all the tentacles.'

'Ingenious, I'm sure. What has this got to do with the Doctor?'

Rum smiled. 'Well, while you were dazzling him with your charms and sparkling conversation, I slipped one of the nukes into his coat pocket.'

Thelash looked over at the receding figure of the Doctor.

'Press it!' she ordered. 'We're out of range.'

'No way!' Rum shouted. 'We'll use it if we have to, and only if we have to.'

'He could find it. You've just handed the Doctor a nuclear weapon. He'll find a way to use it against us. He does that sort of thing.'

'Oh, he's so overrated.' The man tapped at the control box. 'It's got a light sensor on it. I've set it so if he takes the bomb out of his pocket, it'll blow up.'

Thelash bit her lip. 'I'm still not sure.'