Doctor Who_ Unnatural History Part 11

He leaned his face on the gla.s.s of the window. Rain was just beginning to bead on the outside of the gla.s.s, running down in chaotic lines.

What was he going to do if there were no leads at Berkeley? He'd think of something. He'd have to think of something.

The Doctor moved over as someone sat down in the seat next to him. He sighed, leaning his face against the cool gla.s.s. San Francisco slid past, its colours glowing in the rainy weather. Tarnished, thought the Doctor. Not as beautiful as it once was, but still beautiful.

The man who could save the TARDIS was out there, somewhere. And the Doctor was going to find him.

He glanced up at the pa.s.senger sitting next to him. It was a pepper-haired gent in a grey tweed suit. The man's craggy face lit up.

'Oh, h.e.l.lo, son,' said the man, in a Scots rasp. 'Are you here for the s.p.a.ce-time anomaly too?'

'The thing about the Doctor is, he's got that unique ability to look you in the eye and lie like a dog,' said Fitz. 'I've always admired that.' Then he froze.

'They're moving,' he said, and Sam nearly spilled her tea.

He'd already paid the bill. They'd been sitting there for a quarter of an hour, with a cooling pot of clear green tea. Trying to pretend they weren't watching the street.

The door jangled as they pushed through it, making her jump. 'We'll need a taxi,' said Fitz.

74.'No,' said Sam. 'Look.' Four of the grey men had formed a little knot, and were walking up the street to the intersection.

'Come on,' said Fitz, but she was already walking.

The men turned the corner, joined the crowd of pedestrians flowing down Jackson Street. Fitz and Sam stayed well back.

'I can't see,' protested Sam.

'I can,' said Fitz smugly, looking down at the top of her head. 'They've split up making themselves less conspicuous. Now they've '

He stopped, and Sam nearly b.u.mped into him. The crowd streamed around them as Fitz turned his head back and forth, pulling off his sungla.s.ses.

'What is it?'

He didn't say anything, just started striding down the hillside. Sam was almost jogging to keep up, weaving in and out of the crowd.

She nearly walked right into a three-humped camel.

The animal raised its lumpy head to look at her dolefully down the length of its nose. She hadn't even seen it until she was nearly standing on its foot. The camel was laden with dozens of small leather bags, like a bizarre, organic filing system, slung between its three slender humps. It smelled like dung and straw and joss sticks.

A tall woman in an embroidered cap and gown stepped out from behind the camel, gathering its leash in one hand. She glanced at Sam over the top of an expensive pair of sungla.s.ses, eyes bright in her dark face.

Then she and the camel were swaying down the hill, just part of the colourful crowd.

Sam was still staring after them when Fitz made his way back to her. 'They're gone.' He looked bewildered, hair sticking out in all directions. 'They just. . .

melted into the crowd. I just couldn't see them any more.'

Sam stared down the hill, into the constantly changing cast of thousands.

She shook her head. 'b.u.g.g.e.r it. Let's go back and see if the van's still there.'

It wasn't.

The Doctor ordered a pot of Darjeeling. The man in the tweed jacket ordered a cafe latte. 'Have a m.u.f.fin as well,' he said, but the Doctor just shook his head.

'Go on, son, they're marvellous. Marvellous little place, this. And you look like you've had a shock. You need the complex carbohydrates.' His voice had the amiable growl of an old bear who'd long since settled comfortably into the zoo.

'I'll be all right,' said the Doctor. 'Really.'

75.They had a window table in the little cafe, a view looking down the hill into the Bay. A stuffed alligator hung from the ceiling on orange ropes, its dead eyes glittering like rubies. There was a pleasant buzz of conversation, a rich smell of coffee and pot-pourri. The Doctor relaxed back into his chair, stirring his tea.

'Did I mention I'm back at Berkeley?' The man had a neatly trimmed white beard and creases round the corners of his eyes from squinting. There were patches sewn on to the elbows of his suit jacket.

The Doctor smiled. 'I'm surprised they let you back on to the campus.'

'Oh, they don't know it's me.' The man's eyes sparkled. 'I've changed my name again. I'm Professor Daniel Joyce these days freshly arrived from Ithaca, New York, where I had a distinguished and totally illusory career in the Cornell University physics department. It's amazing what having a few friends in the right places can do for you.'

'Joyce,' echoed the Doctor. 'It suits you.'

Joyce beamed. 'Besides, all that fuss was nearly twenty years ago. No one will remember me.'

'How goes the Project?' asked the Doctor.

'Still plenty to do,' said Joyce mildly. 'I'm a little worried about this anomaly of yours, though.'

'You can't just blame me for it,' said the Doctor.

'It's not exactly my my anomaly. . . '

'I think you'd be surprised,' said Joyce.

Before the Doctor could ask what that meant, the waiter arrived with a m.u.f.fin. Joyce smiled and took the plate, setting it down on the table. There was a shadow just inside the cuff of Joyce's sleeve, the hint of a tattoo.

'So it's all going swimmingly,' said the Doctor. 'I'm glad someone's life isn't peppered with hiccups.'

Joyce smiled ruefully. 'We had to throw out half of our readings from yesterday.'

'Oh? Why was that?'

'There's a power source somewhere that's interacting with the scar,' grumbled Joyce, 'and we can't pinpoint it. Actually, I wondered if you might know something about that.' He gave the Doctor a pointed look.

The Doctor sat back in his chair. 'You can't locate it? With your technology?'

'Don't be c.o.c.ky, lad,' said Joyce. 'The best equipment in the universe won't help you if you don't know what you're trying to find with it.'

'I might be able to help you,' said the Doctor.

76.'With what? Without your TARDIS, you don't have anything more sophisti-cated to work with than a needle and thread.'

'The best equipment in the universe '

'All right, point taken. I suppose you've been in worse sc.r.a.pes than this.'

'Much worse,' said the Doctor. 'Besides, I've got my toolkit.'

Joyce was shaking his head. 'If you can find the power source '

'Yes?' said the Doctor.

'I'll be happy to do you a favour in return,' admitted Joyce.

The Doctor took the shattered stabiliser out of his pocket and pushed it across the table. Joyce picked it up and turned it around in his hands. 'Still using masking tape,' he noted with amus.e.m.e.nt.

'Needs must,' said the Doctor. He took a long drink of the cooling tea. 'The advantage of that datagel is that it's very compact, but if you rupture the cell your computing power oozes out through the cracks.'

Joyce used a spoon to lever the device open, gingerly. 'Shouldn't be too difficult to replace it. I'll have my a.s.sistant whip up a new batch of goo for you.'

'Make it quick,' said the Doctor. 'The scar is a potential disaster for the city.

The longer it's there, the greater the danger.'

'Hmm. It's an ill wind that blows n.o.body any good,' said Joyce. 'Your anomaly has given the Project an opportunity to put its mathematics into applied practice. It's not often that you can study this sort of phenomenon within a bus ride of a decent coffee.'

'Not for much longer, I'm afraid,' said the Doctor. 'If you can fix it, that is.'

Joyce prodded at the goo inside the casing, and it wobbled alarmingly. 'It would have to be tonight of all nights,' he grumbled. 'My wife and I have tickets for the theatre.'

'This is important,' protested the Doctor.

'So's my night out with Anne. We don't get enough of them.' Joyce gestured with his coffee cup, warming to his theme. 'So's stopping them from mining uranium in Kakadu National Park, but I don't see you dropping everything and '

'Please, please.' The Doctor held up both hands, trying to block the flow of words. 'My TARDIS is trapped in the dimensional web.'

'And, if it breaks down normally, it seals off the scar. Problem solved '

' If If it breaks down normally. Do you want to take that risk?' The Doctor fixed his eyes right on Joyce's. 'You know what's going to come here if it doesn't.' it breaks down normally. Do you want to take that risk?' The Doctor fixed his eyes right on Joyce's. 'You know what's going to come here if it doesn't.'

Joyce was suddenly quiet, staring at the swirls in his latte.

77.Finally he wrapped the leaking stabiliser in a napkin and slipped it into his pocket. 'All right, all right. You're right, of course. This poor city has got itself wrecked far too many times as it is.' He glanced up sternly at the Doctor. 'But I don't work miracles any more. You'll have to come by tomorrow morning and see how far I've got.'

The Doctor's face broke open into a grin. 'Wonderful. Now I only need to worry about finding that power source, working out who's affecting my brain, what the Faction wants with me, why the little grey men want to grab me, and any other problems I stumble across in the city.'

'Should be child's play for you,' Joyce said, smiling. 'Now you finish that m.u.f.fin, and then I'll be off to glue this thingummy back together. Oh, listen.'

He rummaged in his pockets, took out a huge keyring. The Doctor looked at the cl.u.s.ter of keys. 'They tend to acc.u.mulate,' said Joyce, shrugging.

With an effort, he got one of the keys off the ring. 'This is the key to our house,' he said. 'The address is on the tag. If you need a place to stay '

'I don't think that will be necessary,' said the Doctor.

Joyce put the key into the Doctor's hand. 'You never know, son. I just want to make sure you know you have somewhere to stay. If you need to stay.'

The Doctor looked down at the key in his palm. 'That's very kind of you,' he said softly.

Sam and Fitz sat side by side on the wooden bench of a cable car, watching the crowds as they rattled up a hill. 'We're never going to spot them,' said Sam.

'They're too good at this.'

'How'd they do it?' said Fitz. 'Back in Chinatown, I wasn't sure how long they'd been there before I noticed them.'

'Let's hope our clever disguises are enough to fool them, then.'

Sam fingered the sleeve of his Hawaiian s.h.i.+rt. 'So is this what all the best-dressed guys are wearing in 1963?'

'Very funny,' said Fitz. 'I'm dying to get out of this thing.' Sam smiled and raised an eyebrow at him. 'And back into something less nasty,' he said hastily.

They got off the cable car on a corner. 'I know a short cut back to the hotel,'

said Fitz. He was playing with his lighter. He kept flicking the top open and knocking it shut again, or twiddling it between his index and middle fingers, as if he was practising a magic trick.

She dug out her pack of Benson and Hedges as they crossed the street. 'Want one?'

'Nah.'

78.'Go on.' She lit up, took a deep drag. 'You're itching for it.'

He shook his head, his lip curling. 'Just call me Nicotine Fitz.'

'Since when have you quit?'

'Well. . . ' His eyes were hidden behind the shades. 'Since I saw you you doing it. doing it.

All right?'

'Huh,' she said. 'So now I'm giving people sudden attacks of morality. Never knew I was such a poster child.'

'It just looks looks wrong. Some things are fundamentally against the nature of the universe,' he gabbled. 'Rain falling up. Suns.h.i.+ne at midnight. Sam Jones smoking.' wrong. Some things are fundamentally against the nature of the universe,' he gabbled. 'Rain falling up. Suns.h.i.+ne at midnight. Sam Jones smoking.'

'You actually liked liked her.' Sam grinned. 'Goody two shoes and all.' her.' Sam grinned. 'Goody two shoes and all.'

'Well,' Fitz said, 'on alternate Thursdays.' He put the lighter away and took a chocolate bar out of his s.h.i.+rt pocket and started playing with that instead.

'Maybe.'

They turned into a narrow side street choked with parked cars. 'I wouldn't have thought you'd go for the vestal-virgin type,' said Sam.

'Yeah, well maybe there's more to her than that.'