Doctor Who_ The Blue Angel Part 2

Compa.s.sion had drifted off into a bit of a trance.

Not many laughs there, Fitz thought, not for the first time. Under the lights, bright and oddly unlike any kind of natural lighting at all, her skin seemed different from everyone else's. There was a peculiar cast to it. She had her auburn hair tied back and was wearing an outfit that the Doctor had suggested a glittering, gauzy affair that didn't look too out of place in the... whatever century it was supposed to be.

Fitz looked at the Doctor languid, yet alert, propping his chin on one palm and wondered again if all of these adventures were just something the Doctor had made up for them. This was too much like outer s.p.a.ce to be real. There were even great slabs of gla.s.s in the walls with the stars swirling and s.h.i.+fting by.

'Doctor,' Compa.s.sion said suddenly, 'I think I'm fed up now. Waiting around. I think I want to know what's happening now.'

She blinked solemnly at him.

Idly the Doctor flicked at his cravat. She was urging him, quite politely, into action, with a rather determined undertone to her voice. (What a peculiar voice, too, Fitz thought.) But she also sounded as if she didn't want to offend the Doctor.

The two of them were playing out some kind of power game. And Fitz Kreiner, once again, was just the spare p.r.i.c.k at the wedding.

They were joined by Timon, the security guard.

Fitz wanted to laugh at his tight-fitting security guard's outfit, his gold badge of insignia, the bright-blue blaster gun holstered at his hip.

'Timon,' said the Doctor smoothly, with a warm smile. 'We've been missing you. Is the captain ready to see us again?'

Timon flinched at the Doctor's overfamiliar tone. 'Second-in-command Garrett is waiting for you on the bridge.'

Compa.s.sion was straight on her feet. 'Good. The sooner we '

'Sorry, ma'am. Just the Doctor was asked for.'

Her reply was scalding. 'Just the Doctor?'

'He is the leader of your... delegation, is he not?' enquired Timon.

'He is not,' retorted Compa.s.sion. 'I '

The Doctor b.u.t.ted in. 'Ah, we're all equals here, Timon. All for one and... um... so on. Wherever she goes I go. And so does Fitz.'

'Not necessarily,' said Fitz, but he stood, nevertheless, and straightened up his layers of garments, in which he had been sitting slumped. He got a sudden flash of envy at the Doctor's easy elegance. He thrust his hands in his coat pockets and found a number of half-smoked Woodbines and was pleased.

'Very well,' Timon sighed. 'Perhaps you can all help with this situation.'

'I'm sure we can.' the Doctor grinned, and looked at his two, rather nonplussed companions as they followed him from the pastel-shaded, potted-plant haven of the recreation deck.

Chapter Four.

He Met Her That Afternoon...

He met her that afternoon in a cafe in town.

This was the extent of their involvement these days. Perhaps every three weeks or so they would get together for a longish lunch in this upstairs cafe with its whitewashed walls, scrubbed wooden tables, its pitchers of iced water and its home-made ice creams.

In recent months it had become a somewhat busier place. Less calming, because of the advent of the computer terminals. It was now an Internet cafe and neither the Doctor nor his friend, Sally, could approve of that.

Today she was waiting at their usual table, bang in the middle of the s.p.a.cious back room, gazing out over the town through louvred shutters. Such windows, they had often said, ought to look out upon a much more picturesque town. Bell towers and pretty churches; a green slow-surging river. Instead, a market town, grey munic.i.p.al buildings, car parks and endless exhausting traffic.

Still, they made the best of it. These regular lunches were, after all, an attempt to rekindle and reflect upon their youth a youth spent together. And it was, perhaps, the force of that nostalgia that transformed the venue for both of them.

He shrugged himself out of his long green coat and hung it where the waiter told him.

They knew him in this place now. He rubbed his hands warm and ruffled his long dark hair back into order.

She hadn't seen him yet. She was feeding her Jack Russell brown sugar lumps from the bowl on her table. The dog had a chair all to himself and the Doctor smiled to see Sally talking to her pet, and listening, as if he could reply.

She looked like a smart, professional woman. Perhaps forty chic in a cream linen suit and silk blouse. Her hair was glossy and dark and she was smoking as she concentrated on feeding and communicating with her dog.

There was just a hint of eccentricity about her. Her notebook was open on the table, as it always was, with the black pen uncapped beside it.

Briskly the Doctor made his way towards her, the bare wooden boards creaking pleasantly as he stomped along.

What did she call that Jack Russell again? Something ridiculous. He should remember. He'd bought it for her when it was a puppy, quite some years ago. He never thought she would get so attached to the irritable, straggly-looking thing.

You're having mozzarella?

Why not?

I couldn't eat it.

Oh, one of your little prejudices. Why ever not?

Because, Sally, I believe they make it from the curd of buffalo milk.

Don't be ridiculous.

It's true!

You make things up.

That's true, too. But they definitely use buffalo milk.

I'll ask Canine. He'll know.

Canine. I forgot. I knew you called him something silly.

It's not silly. It's what he is.

Anyway, he can't talk.

He can talk to me me.

Funny that I can be so intolerant of other people's eccentricities. I mean, that afternoon Sally started to get on my nerves. Maybe it was just that we were getting bored with raking over the past. There are only so many times you can go over the old days. Yes, we had some laughs and we got into some sc.r.a.pes, but do we really want to churn them over endlessly?

As I recall, however, that afternoon we did try to move on to other topics. These were no more entertaining though. The awful thought crept up on me: perhaps Sally and I had outgrown each other.

I talked a little about my private Doctor, and told her about my medication and how my Doctor even phones me in the dead of night. Sally seemed singularly unimpressed.

She wanted to talk about her writing. She wanted to talk all about her plans.

But you always hated science fiction. I remember giving you books, forcing them on you, years ago. In the 1970s. You just laughed at them. Said you didn't need your mind expanding, thank you very much.

Oh, well. I was younger then. I knew my mind, I thought.

Michael Moorc.o.c.k, Brian Aldiss, J.G. Ballard, Edmund Cooper, Edgar Rice Burroughs... I bought them all for you!

It was like you could see something in them that I couldn't. I just couldn't get the hang of that stuff. Stepping into other worlds. Other lives, other dimensions, what-have-you. I didn't want to know there were alternatives. When I was that young, I didn't like to know anything that wasn't real.

They were books, Sally. Of course they weren't real.

I mean realistic. With realistic things happening in them.

Oh, that.

Anyway, the point is, my taste has changed. Those kinds of books seem realer to me now.

I suppose, especially after the lives we've lived.

Exactly.

And she liked the way he would throw back his head and laugh. He'd let his hair grow much longer. There was something almost carefree about him. He wasn't knotted up with anxiety as he had been in recent years. She was starting to remember why she enjoyed being with him. She felt a surge of enthusiasm again for their friends.h.i.+p. A daring spark of desire.

The waiter brought more coffee and soon she was reeling with too much caffeine. The waiter brought some sausages for the dog, left over from lunchtime. Canine wolfed them.

So I ditched the thing I was already writing. My novel. My realistic novel. I'm saying 'realistic' like it was a dirty word now, aren't I?

You haven't ditched it! Sally... you've had that on the go for years...

And it wasn't going anywhere. I'd outgrown it. I started writing this other thing. It's almost done.

Can I see some of it?

That's what's in the bag. A present. It's the whole thing so far. I'd love to know what you think.

You haven't given me anything in years.

I lost a lot of confidence.

You?

Absolutely. But now... I feel like I could write anything. Take my characters anywhere. It's freed me up. Well, you'll see.

What's it about?

That's hard to explain in a few lines.

You'll have to. For the blurb on the back...

My agent says she's already got publishers worked up about it. On the strength of the first few chapters. But wait till they see the rest... It's quite mad.

Tell me about it.

It's in two parts. The first half is a story about an arid world. A desert world ruled by a Queen who sits in a vast jar of jam. Don't laugh.

I'm not!

And the second half of the book is wintry. Like today. It's about an everlasting winter and a city of gla.s.s that travels through s.p.a.ce. This city comes to our world and rests just inside our atmosphere. It is ruled by a G.o.dlike being called Daedalus... and he invents these Corridors a labyrinth of pa.s.sageways through s.p.a.ce and time...

Who's the hero of all this?

There's a woman. But you're in there, too.

I am?

Someone a bit like you.

Write about what you know, eh?

The woman is called Iris and she can travel anywhere in the cosmos in a red double-decker bus...

Sounds like my kind of woman.

Oh, really?

Iris, did you say she was called?

A joke, really. She's like this woman who lives next door to me.

Also called Iris?

Yes... but, Doctor, what's...?