Doctor Who_ The Room With No Doors Part 12

'No,' said Mr Cwej. 'I think he just came back to life.'

The three of them turned to look at the shrine.

'What is that thing? Whatever can it be?' breathed Penelope.

'Whatever it is,' said Mr Mintz, 'I think it likes us.'

Penelope s.h.i.+vered. 'Think about it,' Joel said. 'It saved the Doctor, it scared off the samurai, it somehow healed Kame. . . The villagers are right. It is is protecting us.' protecting us.'

'But why?' said Mr Cwej, his frown deepening.

The gate creaked open again, and the Doctor slipped back into the village.

The headman had been waiting for him. They conferred for a few moments.

The Doctor came up the hill towards the other time travellers, navigating around Kame and his small crowd of admirers.

'Right,' said the Doctor. 'Gufuu Kocho has had a bit of a change of heart.

Now he wants us round for tea.'

'Ah,' said Mr Mintz. 'The honeymoon phase.'

'Are we going?' said Mr Cwej 'I am,' said the Doctor. 'I want you to stay here, in charge of things.'

'Oh no!' said Mr Cwej.

'Oh yes,' said the Doctor. 'I'm to pop over to Gufuu's court for a friendly chat about local politics and not meddling in things one does not understand.

I need you here to keep an eye on Schrodinger's Cat.' He nodded at the shrine.

70.Mr Mintz said, 'Doctor, can I come with you?'

The Doctor peered up at him with such intensity that Mr Mintz almost jumped. 'All right,' he said, after a moment. 'Get your things together we're off in ten minutes.'

Mr Mintz beamed and ran up towards the house. Mr Cwej watched him go, looking forlorn.

Chris put his head around the door of the house. The Doctor was fis.h.i.+ng through his little satchel of packages.

'Listen,' said the Adjudicator. 'Is this really a good idea?'

'Gufuu Kocho wants more information about the so-called kami kami,' said the Doctor. 'If I tell him the right things, he might lose interest in it.'

'No, I meant leaving me here in charge.' He took a deep breath. 'I don't think I can do this.'

'Nonsense,' said the Doctor. 'You've handled far wore difficult situations than this.'

'That was before.'

'Before what?'

'Look,' said Chris, 'I don't want to let you down. Why don't you take me with you? Penelope and Joel can keep an eye on things here, and the village is pretty well protected.'

'One of us should be with the pod at all times,' said the Doctor. 'The headman has far too much faith in the thing. Joel's very experienced with the uncanny, but only in one small area and time. And Penelope's overwhelmed.

It has to be you.'

'What if I freeze up again?'

'I wouldn't leave you behind if I didn't think you could manage.' The Doctor tucked a small packet into his pocket and headed for the door.

'Before you go. . . ' said the Adjudicator helplessly. The Doctor turned back to look at him. 'Kame,' said Chris. 'Do you know what happened to him?'

'No,' said the Doctor.

'Well, don't you think you should talk to him at least?'

'Would that I had time,' said the Doctor hurriedly. 'Right at the moment, people coming back to life are the least of our troubles. It's people being killed that I'm worried about.'

'So what are you going to give the daimyo?' said Chris. 'Not jelly babies this time.'

'Tea,' said the Doctor. 'I'll see you in a day or so.'

That afternoon the farmers went back to their neglected fields. Kame patrolled the surrounding lands on horseback, spoiling for a fight. The headman, Son-71 chou, posted lookouts all over the place, even enlisting some of the children.

If any more samurai showed up, this time they'd have plenty of warning to get everyone inside the gates.

Chris wondered just how much protection those gates would be against something more than samurai. Anachronistic weaponry, for example. Or demons.

He spent an hour walking around the village, taking stock of its primitive defences. There were hills behind and a river to the east, offering some protection from soldiers on foot or horseback. The pine forest was a problem, offering a place to hide attackers or villagers? He decided to send a few farmers out to look for a good bolt-hole in the woods, just in case. With provisions.

The fence went right around the village, a rough ma.s.s of tree trunks and thick branches, tied together with dried vines and odds and ends of rope.

According to Sonchou, it had helped repel a small band of brigands a few years ago, the farmers stabbing up at the attackers with sharpened bamboo poles as they tried to scramble over the top. He wondered if they still had the poles.

Chris sat on a step outside the shrine, chin resting on his fist. They could make a few preparations now, but the truth was they didn't have a cat's chance in h.e.l.l not against a decent number of samurai, and definitely not against demons. Aliens. Whoever.

What they really needed was a stone fence. Of course, it might be a bit difficult to whip one up this afternoon, in time for the next lot of armed madmen.

The samurai b.u.t.terfly and Plum wouldn't be deterred by the various shocks they'd had. That pod was just going to attract more and more attention.

He sighed. It was just one catastrophe after another. At least so far no one had died, except Kame, sort of.

Oh great, now he was counting corpses. Great.

He realized that Penelope was standing next to the well, watching him no, she was looking up at the shrine behind him, wringing her hands. She was doing pretty well, thought Chris, for someone who'd chucked herself in the deep end of time travel. She hadn't died of future shock, or past shock, or freaked out or anything. Maybe it hadn't had time to sink in yet.

She noticed him watching her and stepped up. 'I wish to make myself useful,' she said. 'At the very least I can help defend the village.'

'If we have to,' said Chris. The Doctor would be looking for some way to avoid fighting. Something really clever that no one else would have thought of. . . He sighed. 'Where's your time machine?'

'Still hidden in the forest,' said Penelope.

72.'You'd better get some villagers to help you bring it inside the fence,' he said. 'In case we do get attacked.'

'It won't be any help as a means of escape,' she said sadly. 'I have attempted repairs, but it appears to be defunct.'

'Maybe we can think of something,' said Chris. 'Or maybe when the Doctor gets back, he can take a look at it.'

'He will only poke fun at it.' Penelope sat down on the well beside him, glumly cupping her chin in one hand. 'If Joel's machines seem miraculous to me, I cannot imagine what the far century from which you and the Doctor come must be like.'

'Oh, I don't know,' said Chris. 'I mean, att.i.tudes and lifestyles are different in different times, and the technology is always different, but people are still people. I mean, in your time there are very poor people, and very rich people, and lots of immigrants doing rotten jobs, right? Do you still have slavery?'

'Certainly not.'

'Oh yeah, that's the century before, right? Us neither, anyway. Maybe, after all this is over, we should go there. To the thirtieth century. You can meet my folks. I haven't visited for. . . it must be more than a year now.'

'Do you miss them?'

'Yeah,' said Chris, and suddenly discovered an overwhelming pang of home-sickness he hadn't been aware of before. 'Oh, yeah. What about you?'

'Not at all,' said Penelope. 'I feel certain my husband misses me. He will have difficulty working out the household expenses. He cannot add for toffee.'

'What about do you have any children?'

'Our son died when he was less than a year old,' said Penelope distantly.

'I'm sorry,' said Chris, which always sounded so stupid, but everyone always said it anyway.

'That was three years ago. I have been very busy since then.' Penelope shook herself. 'It would be a great pleasure to visit your century. But would the Doctor approve?'

Chris hadn't thought of that. 'I guess so,' he said. 'Why wouldn't he?'

'What if I returned to 1883 and published a paper about my future journey?'

she said. 'I don't dare to meddle in past history, but what about the affairs of my own time?'

'I don't know,' said Chris. 'These things are hard to predict, if you're not a Time Lord. But would anybody take you seriously?'

'Of course they wouldn't,' she said. 'I doubt I will be able to convince anyone I have made this journey, let alone its extraordinary details. But I feel I am ready to believe anything. Even turning back time to bring the dead back to life.'

73.The samurai had moved at a gallop for most of the morning. Around noon they'd stopped by a stream to rest and eat. Joel fell off his horse, found a patch of gra.s.s and collapsed on to it.

The Doctor dismounted and stood over him, eclipsing the sunlight. 'Bury me here,' groaned Joel. 'Just dig up the earth and pile it over me.'

'You'll be fine,' said the Doctor. 'A little saddle-soreness never killed anyone.'

'I haven't ridden this much since the Voltranons invaded and set up their internal combustion dampening field,' murmured Joel. He flung his arms over his eyes. 'Lord take me now.'

The Doctor smiled and sat down beside him, on his knees, j.a.panese style.

Joel peeked at him from beneath his arm. It was surprisingly hard to get his head around the fact that the Doctor and Chris were not any older. Especially Chris. Understanding it in your mind was one thing, but getting your hindbrain to accept it, after all those eons of life in linear time. . .

Maybe the Doctor did look a little olden Not so much in human ways, new wrinkles and grey hairs. But when his eyes caught yours, you got that dizzying sense of age age, of just how big the gap of years was. Joel thought of the Doctor he'd met in 1987, and wondered how much longer this incarnation had to go.

Did Time Lords feel their biological clocks ticking?

As for the human race. . . Joel rolled his head to look at the three samurai, watching them from a little distance. The kid met his eyes for a moment, and looked away.

'Was it really a good idea to bring your laptop computer?'

'It's been treated worse than this,' Joel told the Doctor.

'No, I meant, back to the sixteenth century.'

'Come on,' said Joel. 'None of these guys are going to learn the secrets of the silicon chip from it.'

'Hmm,' said the Doctor. The samurai were making a fire. 'What other anachronisms have you brought along?'

Joel lowered his arms. 'Nothing. The ol' anachronometer,' he said, indicating his watch. 'And my gla.s.ses. I guess you could count my clothes. Why?'

'I was just wondering. How's your j.a.panese etiquette?'

'Non-existent,' said Joel, watching the Doctor, who was rummaging in his pockets. 'Maybe you'd better leave me outside when you talk to the Emperor.'

'Daimyo. Perhaps,' said the Doctor. He produced a chocolate bar from his jacket pocket. 'Though if we don't teach you how to eat a j.a.panese meal properly, you're going to be living on these for a while.'

He threw the chocolate to Joel. 'Cheers, mate,' said Joel, in his best British accent. 'You guys at least had time to do your homework. I didn't know where or when the heck we'd end up.'

74.'I remember what that was like.' The Doctor smiled. 'How goes the cleaning-up-after-me business?'

'You know. Keeps you off the streets. Met Tegan Jovanka.'

'Oh,' said the Doctor.

'Yeah, she misses you too.' Joel unwrapped the chocolate bar. 'The usual crop of invasions the Cybermen were the worst of it. The b.l.o.o.d.y Ra'ashetani had another go in 1988. Eighty-eight was a b.a.s.t.a.r.d of a year, for some reason. . . and the government's so cagey about what it knows about extraterrestrials these days. A decade ago there were leaks everywhere. Now everything's under wraps.'

The Doctor sat cross-legged and planted his chin on his palm, looking glum.

Joel wondered what was going through his mind. 'Young Chris is a bit of a mess,' he said.

The Doctor glanced at him. 'He's resilient. He'll cope.'

'Ah,' said Joel. 'You left him behind for a reason.'

'I never do anything without a reason,' said the Doctor, 'or at least a rhyme.'