Doctor Who_ Return Of The Living Dad Part 15

He repeated the process with the sugar. She watched, leaning on the counter, not daring to say anything. No problem, wait until he was ready, move the conversation around in gradual steps until she could ask a few carefully chosen questions. Mention her room in the TARDIS, that sort of thing.

He began to stir the dark fluid, slowly. 'Dad?' she hazarded.

'Yeh,' he said, without looking up.

'Do you think you're going to find Ia Jareshth?'

He didn't react. No, he did react, but on the inside. G.o.d, she thought, he's like one of those stiff-upper-lipped Academy teachers, never showing a flicker of humanity to any of their students.

But she couldn't imagine any of them trying for the thirty-eighth time to recapture a cup of coffee they'd had in Mexico three years ago. Not those cardboard cut-out lieutenants.

She still hadn't told him about s.p.a.cefleet.

Her father stopped stirring and stood back a little, contemplating the steeping coffee. He looked at the clock over the stove. 'Five minutes,' he said. 'I don't know. If she's not here tomorrow night, they're going to have to leave without her.'

'Do you think she ran?'

Isaac made a little waving gesture with the metal spoon.

'She'll be a d.a.m.ned fool if she doesn't run right back.'

'Dad,' blurted Benny, 'did you have anything to do with the TARDIS going missing?'

He raised a blond eyebrow at her. After a moment he said, 'He left you here to find out.'

'No he b.l.o.o.d.y didn't,' she said. 'Answer the question.'

'No,' said Isaac, 'I didn't have anything to do with it.'

'Had it occurred to you,' said Benny, hoping the relief didn't show in her voice, 'that you and the Doctor might have a mutual enemy? Someone who took Ia Jareshth and and the TARDIS?' the TARDIS?'

He tapped the spoon against his chin. 'It doesn't make sense,' he said. 'If they knew about us, they'd raid the place.

This is more like cat and mouse.'

'They who?'

'UNIT, or the British or American military. Or Department C19, or the secret service, or the CIA. Conceivably the KGB.'

'It would have to be someone who knew what they were looking for,' said Benny. 'Knew what the TARDIS was.'

'Exactly,' said her father. 'I tend to discount the military, who are kept very much in the dark about these things, and the KGB, whose information on extraterrestrial incursions outside the Soviet Union has never been very good.'

He took out two coffee mugs and a big silver tea-strainer, and put them on the counter. 'It is possible that they're trying to avoid upsetting the American military with an outright raid so close to their base. Though they could always use the usual "nuclear terrorists" claim to hush it up. I think it might be a good idea to send Albinex to see a few of our... friends.'

'What if it isn't any of them?' said Benny.

The Admiral poured coffee through the strainer until his mug was almost full. 'It would be very embarra.s.sing if someone was abducting aliens from Little Caldwell,' he said.

It took her a moment to realize that he meant it as a joke.

'Listen,' said Benny. 'There are some things I need to tell you.'

He took a drink of the coffee. 'Close,' he said, and looked at her.

'Um,' she said. 'I don't know what you'll think about this.'

He waited, patiently. Not unconcerned, not pretending to be unconcerned, just open.

'Well,' she said, 'firstly, I'm not a professor. My twentysixth-century credentials are fake.'

He nodded, taking another mouthful of the coffee. 'Why is that?' he asked.

'Um,' said Benny again. 'All right, skipping over some important details, I ended up at s.p.a.cefleet Academy. But I went AWOL and lived in a forest for a year.' The corner of his mouth tugged up. 'Well, they shouldn't have taught us wilderness survival in the first term. Anyway, skipping over more details, they caught me and drafted me.'

'And you went AWOL again, and became an archaeologist through experience.'

She nodded. 'Hang on,' she said. 'How did you know that?'

He put down his coffee cup. Dorothee told me.'

Benny's jaw dropped open. When she regained control of her faculties, she said, 'Ace was here here?'

'In the seventies,' he said.

'Why didn't she tell me?' Benny said. She hung onto the counter. Did she know - did she know it was you you? Why didn't she tell me?'

'She wanted to,' he said softly. 'She wanted to. Perhaps she just hasn't found you yet.'

'I should've realized she'd come here,' said Benny. 'A twentieth-century epicentre of weirdness like this. Ace. My G.o.d. And she told you all about me.'

'No.' Isaac put down the cooling cup of coffee. 'I stopped her. It was good to know you were alive, that you were all right. But I couldn't know too much. Not too much.'

'You're just full of surprises, you know that?' said Benny.

Bridget and Ms Randrianasolo were walking up ahead, talking about what the peace camp was going to do when the missiles arrived. Jacqui walked with Roz, her boots squelching in the cold mud. She was only a bit shorter than the black woman - actually, they were about as tall, because of the pompom on the top of Jacqui's woolly hat.

'What do you think about the camp?' asked Jacqui.

Forrester didn't look at her, concentrating on not slipping In the mud. 'I've seen hundreds of protests,' she said.

'You must be kind of an expert then.'

'I'd never really thought about it like that,' said Roz.

'Chris said you and he used to be police. In the future.'

'That's right.'

'So was it your job to stop protesters?'

'If it wasn't a legal protest.'

'Like painting the planes,' said Jacqui. 'Criminal damage.'

'I suppose so.'

Jacqui laughed. Roz glanced at her. 'Sorry,' she said.

'It's just funny how you get arrested for stopping nuclear bombs and not for blowing them up. We need police who arrest the people with the bombs.'

'Right, thanks for that,' said Roz. 'Now let me ask you something.'

'Why do you take part in the protests, when you know the future? You must know the base is going to be decommissioned eventually, and that World War Three never happens.'

'Oh yeah,' said Jacqui, 'but the Admiral says that the future could change if something happens. Anyway, I couldn't just do nothing.'

'Why not, since you know the outcome anyway?'

'Well, because, doing nothing is like saying it's okay,'

said Jacqui. 'I hate it when people do that.' She stepped over a fallen tree limb. 'Here's the next camp.'

'Three down, two to go,' muttered Roz.

The Doctor had stayed in the pub to think. He ordered a lemonade and sat by himself in a booth, tapping his fingers on the table and scowling.

He'd told Benny he wasn't going to get involved here.

That this was Isaac's territory. And yet merely arriving had precipitated so many events. He should have dropped her off and come back in a month!

A young man brought him his lemonade, smiling. The Doctor took a long drink. There were two basic possibilities regarding the TARDIS. One, that Isaac had decided to hide her away as a sort of hostage. Two, that that was a panicky move which didn't suit what they'd seen of the Admiral at all, and that someone else had taken the old girl. Someone who knew just what she was, and had been watching the village.

And if they'd been watching the village, they might have taken Ia Jareshth while they were about it.

They were facing a common enemy, and they were so busy mistrusting one another that they'd missed the chance to work together.

The Doctor kicked himself mentally. He'd promised himself not to make that same mistake again. He had to get back to the village, talk to Isaac - if the Admiral would accept his help.

The only thing was, he didn't seem to be able to get up.

He slumped against the wall. 'Oh, for goodness' sake,'

he murmured.

A blurred face swam into view. 'h.e.l.lo, granddad,' it said.

'Have you fallen off the wagon again?'

He tried to fend off two pairs of strong hands as they lifted him out of the booth. Someone clucked their tongue.

'And before lunchtime, too. Don't worry,' they told someone else, 'we'll get him up to our room. He can have a little lie down. Won't you, granddad?'

It wasn't far back to Little Caldwell from Greenham Common.

The problem was that Joel had panicked and driven the car down a side road, and now he had no idea which way he was going.

The helicopter buzzed him again. Joel yelled involuntarily at the sheer noise noise of the thing. He slammed the accelerator Pedal down hard, skidded as a tyre went into the mud, dragged on the steering wheel. of the thing. He slammed the accelerator Pedal down hard, skidded as a tyre went into the mud, dragged on the steering wheel.

He was so terrified that his brain felt like a superconductor, colder than ice and running at ten times normal speed.

This was what they wanted - to force him into some obscure spot so that they could grab him without witnesses. If they wanted to kill him, they'd be shooting at him right now.

He could radio for help. But even if he could take his hands off the wheel for a moment the chopper would only hear the message. He had to get back onto a main road, drive away from Little Caldwell.

Two minutes later he lost control and slammed sideways into a tree.

Luckily, it was the other side of the car.

'So much for that brilliant plan,' he gasped, his whole body resounding with the shock of impact. His ears rang in the sudden silence - and then the chopper was behind him, its blades booming as it slowly came down.