Doctor Who - Downtime Part 36

The power turned back on the Intelligence. Systems failure.

Malfunction at Server. Its computer body shut itself down.

Confined to Travers's broken shape, it pitched over onto the ground.

Faces of hatred. Chanting of the Earth mantra. It writhed under their onslaught.

'Nowhere to go! Nowhere!' It had slammed the door on its escape route.

It sank back. The ghost of a wind blew strands of web against its body.

A figure stood on a balcony above.

Travers's head lifted towards her. 'Victoria,' it whispered.

She returned its cold glare, dismissing it from her life and her world.

The head slumped down on the ground. Its eyes watched a single ant making its way across the concrete. The Intelligence tried to put out its will, to take a new shape, but it had no strength. It was exhausted. It was time to let go.

The Brigadier opened his arms wide to embrace Kate. As she clung to him, they heard a thunderous roar from above.

The sky funnelled in on the body of Travers an inverted pyramid of energy and web that boiled downwards, emptying into a smoking mummified coc.o.o.n where he lay.

Finally the energy blazed down into a single locus and collapsed into nothing.

'Dad,' whispered Kate, still holding on tightly.

There was a cloudless night sky overhead. The air seemed cleansed. Without the glare of city streetlamps, the stars were clear as an infinite number of crystals.

The Brigadier took a long breath of the rich night air as he hugged his daughter. 'It's all right. It's gone. This time it's gone for good.'

There was a clatter of footsteps on the square.

'Brigadier?' called Sarah in the dark. She embraced him like a long-lost uncle.

'Miss Smith,' he said, both embarra.s.sed and delighted. 'I knew there was someone I could rely on. Have you met my daughter?'

Around the square, the dazed students of New World University were picking themselves up and staring at the spectacular sky.

Lights were moving on the walkway above the square.

A group of blue-bereted soldiers carrying torches was descending to the concourse. At their head was an officer in combat fatigues.

'It's Brigadier Crichton,' Sarah murmured.

Lethbridge-Stewart nodded, waiting until his replacement reached ground level before letting go of Kate and going to meet him.

'Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. Thank G.o.d. Are you all right, sir?' Crichton saluted like a junior officer. He was plainly exhausted.

'I'm surviving, Crichton. Against all odds.'

Crichton nodded wearily at Sarah. 'There's still a lot of things to clear up. It's been a mess.'

Lethbridge-Stewart edged one of the dead silver spheres with his foot. 'How many?' he asked quietly.

'Too many.' Crichton looked at the smoking body of Cavendish, lying face down on the concrete. 'I'll need you for the enquiry.'

'Of course, old chap.' Lethbridge-Stewart glanced over to where Kate was talking to Sarah. 'Family,' he confided.

Crichton looked surprised. After a moment he said, 'I'll deal with this end. Do you need transport?'

Lethbridge-Stewart smiled. 'No, no. I think I have somewhere to stay.' Quite unnecessarily he added, 'Carry on, Crichton.'

He walked slowly back to his daughter.

There was a moment's silence.

'Well, just like old times, eh?' exclaimed Sarah. She punched the Brigadier affectionately. 'And I still don't know what's going on!'

A wave of euphoria swept over them all. What losses there had been could not overshadow the things that had been saved.

The Brigadier wanted to think about that later. He picked up his gun from the ground and pocketed it. But not in the same pocket as the photograph of his grandson.

He took Sarah on one arm and his daughter on the other.

'Someone else can clear up tomorrow. Let's just go home.'

From the balcony above, Victoria watched them leave together.

She s.h.i.+vered. Lights swung to and fro on the dark campus below. Torches and headlights. There were several fires burning in little pockets of red glow.

It was all gone, all smashed. She had nowhere to go now.

No one to talk to. Her emotions had run dry.

In the aftermath of occasions like this, the Doctor had always slipped away in the TARDIS, leaving more questions than answers. But what could she do? Would that take away the hurt?

'Victoria,' her father said disapprovingly, 'to take no responsibility for our actions is both malodorous and impious.'

Sometimes her father could be priggishly self-righteous.

She walked away from the balcony and across the dark terrace.

She heard the carp swis.h.i.+ng their fins in the pool. They needed feeding. The garden needed tending.

Let someone else do it.

She could already make out the shapes of the ziggurat buildings. There was a pale light in the eastern sky.

A new dawn.

An old world renewed.

33.

Old Worlds For New he helicopter rose out of the brown water. It swung in the T air, hoisted on chains. Water cascaded from the flooded fuselage. The Brigadier could hear the crane creaking.

In a feat of virtuoso flying, the pilot had managed to ditch the damaged machine in the Great c.o.ker Ca.n.a.l. The only official injury had been to one corporal who had sustained what was claimed to be a broken arm.

'Well, I saw it,' Sarah told the Brigadier, 'and it looked more like bite marks to me.'

Lethbridge-Stewart had written enough press statements in his time to know not to trust them. He was delighted, however, to find that Sarah had lost none of her charming ebullience and could still worry at a problem like a ferret after a rabbit. To be honest, he was glad of her company today, even if she did twitter just as much as he remembered.

'And there was another body on board, you know. One of the frogmen told me. Not a victim of the crash, either. He said it was burned out from the inside. Sounds like what happened to Cavendish, doesn't it?'

'You must get very bored with D-notices,' the Brigadier said. 'You never got to report on any of your involvement in UNIT activities.'

She shrugged wistfully. 'I signed the Official Secrets Act.

Anyway, you always paid well to keep me quiet.'

'Rather better, I recall, than we paid our Scientific Advisor.

But don't tell him that.'

'Did he have a bank account?' she asked. 'I bet he never used it. He's owed me a tenner for about twenty years.' Her mobile phone trilled. He heard her talking to someone rather acerbically. She seemed to have trouble getting a word in edgeways. 'Yes, I'm fine... Yes, of course... K9, can I say something, please? Look, I'm sure you have... Yes, well done... But do we have to go through this every time...? K9, I'm warning you! K9...! Pets Win Prizes! Pets Win Prizes! ' '

A pause.

'That's better. Actually, I do need some information...'

The Brigadier, bemused, watched a group of squaddies pounding across the far side of the campus. The pyramid on top of the main university building was broken like a dead volcano.

There was no sign of any Chillys. He reckoned that Social Services would have their work cut out dealing with the poor saps.

He thought for the first time in two days about the school.

Someone would have to pay for the damage to the cloisters.

He would have a word with Crichton.

He supposed the affair had ended positively, but only by the skin of their teeth, he felt. The sacrifice of Harrods and Danny would prey on his conscience for ever.

Sarah had put away her mobile and was watching him.

'Penny for them, Brigadier,' she said gently.

'I have an appointment. Let's walk,' he said and set off along the towpath.

She took his proffered arm. 'We've just been trying to trace your car for you.'

'Oh? Probably towed away, I shouldn't wonder.'

'Well, there's no record at the moment; apparently the police computer is still down. Maybe it's still where you left it.'

He frowned. 'Where do do you get your information from, Miss Smith? This friend of yours? Is he some sort of hacker?' you get your information from, Miss Smith? This friend of yours? Is he some sort of hacker?'

'More of a retriever really,' she grinned. 'It's an old joke. It keeps him amused.'

Still perplexed, he looked out over the ca.n.a.l. Sunlight dazzled on the water.

'I retire from Brendon soon. I've been teaching there for twenty odd years some of them very odd. Readying people for the world. I'm just not certain it's the world I know any more.'

'Of course it is, Brigadier. Last night, it felt as if we claimed it back.'

'Perhaps,' he said and walked quietly. There were things that they both knew and that could go unsaid.

In the distance, he saw a boat moored to the bank in an unlikely spot as if it had just washed up there.

He stopped for a moment. 'That Vice Chancellor woman.'

'Victoria Waterfield?'

'Still no trace her of her, I take it.'

'I've been meaning to ask you about her. Both she and you were involved in something called "The London Event".'

'Good Lord. You got that from your retriever friend again, I suppose.' He sighed. 'I knew I'd come across her somewhere before.'