Doctor Who_ Return Of The Living Dad Part 32

She reached out put a hand on his sleeve. 'I hope Albinex can be talked out of it,' she said. 'It's so hard, going up against someone who used to be your friend.'

'Yes...' he said.

'I understand,' said Benny.

'Do you?'

Simon Kyle

'I haven't told you how I ended up in s.p.a.cefleet,' said Benny.

Isaac folded away the last of the letters. 'You said you were sent to the Academy as an orphan.'

'There's more to it than that. A lot more. I want to tell you about Simon Kyle.'

Isaac listened.

'The first time I saw Simon I was asleep between two of his tortoises,' said Benny. 'That was his form of rebellion, keeping animals. The Academy was strictly no pets. So he sneaked out of bounds and built himself a tortoise hutch in the forest.

'They were reconst.i.tuted Galapagos tortoises, three of them' and they were beautiful. You probably saw them on Life on Earth Life on Earth.' Isaac nodded' smiling slightly. 'The hutch was over the hill from where I was living' in a lean-to made out of tree branches' right near a river. The funny thing was' I thought I knew every inch of the forest' but I never even noticed the hutch. It was that well hidden. Simon was even better at sneaking around in the greenery than I was.

'So I guess I might never have met him at all if it hadn't been for the storm. It rained for two days' solidly. I had wet weather gear that a couple of friends had smuggled out to me, but the shelter I'd built was bashed to bits, and the river flooded. I ended up wandering around in the dark, in rain so thick I couldn't see anything, and I literally stumbled across the hutch.

'Simon found me there the next morning when he skipped a cla.s.s to check if his tortoises were still alive. He got a h.e.l.l of a fright - there was this plastic-wrapped, soaked, half-frozen woman lying in the corner of his hutch, dead to the world or possibly just dead, wedged in between two annoyed-looking reptiles.

'He'd heard about me, of course - I had a bit of a reputation. The Academy had sent out sort of half-hearted search parties looking for me, but half the time they were people I knew who pretended not to notice me, and the other half of the time they were so bad at Wilderness 101 they couldn't find me anyway.

'He helped me put my shelter back together. I remember... he wasn't handsome, really, but he had one of those faces you'd never forget. He had freckles and a wicked laugh. He was always cracking jokes, terrible puns. I'd be laughing so hard I'd stuff my fist in my mouth in case there was a search party nearby.

'He was completely unafraid of being caught. This was opposed to me, who was obsessed about covering her tracks and moving her camp regularly. I don't know what the heck I planned to do with myself, but I knew I wasn't going back to the Academy.

'I was sixteen years old.

'Simon was eighteen. He... we fell in love. Or at least I did. He used to smuggle me news and supplies all the time, and then one night he stole this whole roll of bedding, dragged it up the hill to my shelter while I was trying to sleep on the pile of leaves I'd collected.

'Anyway...'

'Did he tell them where to find you?' said Isaac' softly.

'It was a bit more complicated than that,' said Benny. 'We both got caught, while we were down at the river one day, fis.h.i.+ng. A bunch of troopers in uniform came out of the bushes and we both ran like h.e.l.l. Smack into another bunch of troopers.

'I don't know whether Simon planned that, or whether he accidentally gave himself away when he was sneaking out one day, or whether it was just that our luck had run out. My luck.

'I thought they were going to shoot us. I thought the troopers in the forest would shoot us, and then when they just dragged us back to the Academy I thought they'd court martial us and then then shoot us. In the end they just separated us and knocked us around a little bit. shoot us. In the end they just separated us and knocked us around a little bit.

'They chucked us into a holding cell together for about half an hour when they were done. We pledged eternal love and swore that we'd never give any evidence about one another, not even if they tortured us.

'They offered me leniency if I'd testify against Simon. I was so proud of myself when I said no.'

'The Prisoner's Dilemma,' said Isaac.

Benny said levelly, 'It turned out Simon had been keeping a journal of everything we'd been doing. Everything.

They didn't find it: he'd hidden it too well. He handed it over to them in exchange for reduced discipline.'

Isaac closed his eyes.

'I didn't even tell them about his tortoises. I wish I had, because he didn't either, and the poor things eventually starved to death.

'I checked a few years ago, just before I met the Doctor.

Cadet Kyle is a Captain now.

'All the things I wanted to say to his face still bubble up in my mind, sometimes, if I wake up at night, or when I sit down on gra.s.s or leaves... I never got the chance to say any of it, of course. I never will. For months afterwards it was like I had this constant inner dialogue where I was scripting what I'd say to him if we ever met again. I wanted to put it behind me, but I couldn't get it out of my head.

'The monks helped a bit, after I crash-landed on their planet. They did this strange meditation' where one of them pretended to be him, and I could call him a liar and a traitor and tell him how I would never trust him again and didn't love him anymore because he'd shown me that he didn't love me.

And that he'd just used me to have fun, because enjoying himself was all he cared about. And that I didn't want to hear his rationalizations. And that we'd obviously never really been friends at all.'

Benny stopped and ran a hand over her forehead.

'Anyway,' she said, 'that's what happened with Simon Kyle, who was my best friend and my first lover. So yeah, Daddy. I understand. A little bit.'

She realized that Joel was standing on the staircase, hovering uncertainly.

'Oh,' he said, realizing he'd been spotted. 'Look. Um.

Admiral, there's something you'd better see.'

The tape begins with a blast of unfocused movement' as though the camera was switched on before its operator was quite ready.

Suddenly it cuts to a figure, looming close to the camera, a dark blotch against a lighter background. The figure does something to the camera, and the brightness increases.

The figure steps back into shot. It's Albinex. He backs up and sits down, so that his head and shoulders appear in the frame.

'h.e.l.lo, Admiral,' he says. 'Firstly, I want to apologize for this. It's not the sort of thing I usually get up to.'

He folds his arms, a little awkwardly, as though he's a bit embarra.s.sed about the whole thing. 'But I'm very determined.

I warn you, don't get involved. This is between the Doctor and me. Don't try to interfere.'

He sits back, and the automatic focus on the camera adjusts to follow him. 'This message is really for the Doctor.

You already know what I want. I can a.s.sure you that I'm not going to use the destructor codes for any destructive purpose.'

('Suuuuure,' says Joel.) He pauses for a moment, as though realizing the contradiction he's just presented. 'I can't tell you my actual plan, of course,' he goes on. 'But I can tell you that I'm not going to stop at anything. I need those codes.'

('Cut to the chase,' says Benny.) 'I've got your TARDIS, of course, but that didn't seem to be enough to persuade you. So now I've got something else to bargain with. Come with me.'

He gets up from the chair, obscures the camera as he picks it up. A blast of static as he switches it off. Then: A shaky close-up of something - someone. The camera zooms out, wobbling from side to side.

A hand-held shot of a young woman, unconscious, lying on a concrete floor. She's dressed all in black. She's half curled, as though sleeping uncomfortably. Her breathing is slow, but obvious.

('Oh my G.o.d,' says Benny.) She looks as though she's in her late teens. She looks terribly vulnerable, lying there on the floor.

The shot goes wild. After a moment, we see Albinex, who's presumably holding the camera at arm's length, with some effort. 'I'm going to add a location at the end of this tape,' he says, his voice echoing off concrete walls. 'Doctor, come alone. Let me emphasize that. Come here by yourself.

I've got scanning equipment - I'll know if you bring any of the Admiral's crew or your companions.

'I won't hurt you. I won't hurt her. All I want are those codes.'

('But she's too young!') The camera swings again. A final shot of the sleeping girl.

('But she's too old. She'd only be thirteen this year') The image cuts out' to be replaced by a miniature map, with a longitude and lat.i.tude. The image cuts out' to be replaced by a miniature map, with a longitude and lat.i.tude.

('Maybe he's managed to get his time engine to work just a little.') a little.') The map cuts out in turn. It's been dubbed over the top of that last image of the young woman.

'Dorothee,' breathed Jason.

'Ace,' said Benny.

26 Demons

Joel climbed out of the van and aimed his boot at the side of the engine. 'Why won't the stupid thing start!'

'Because I removed the rotor arm,' said the Doctor'

strolling into the garage.

They were about the same height, but, as the Doctor shot a glare at the van and its inhabitants, Joel suddenly had the impression of being looked down on from a great height.

The Doctor opened the sliding door in the side of the van. 'Everyone out,' he said.

Isaac's voice silenced the cries of protest. 'We can't let you go alone,' he said. 'It's too much of a security risk.'

'A security risk?' said Benny.

'If Albinex captures you he might be able to learn the destructor codes,' said Isaac.

'I very much doubt it,' said the Doctor.

'Nonetheless,' said Isaac. 'At the same time, we can't let Dorothee become a casualty. So we'll rescue her, protect you, and capture Albinex.'

No more troubles,' said Joel.

At least, very few,' sighed the Doctor. He took his handkerchief out of his pocket and unwrapped the purloined rotor arm. 'I expect I can modify your hologram projectors to mask your biosignals.'

All right!' said Joel, pulling the bonnet open.

Albinex hadn't gone far. The Doctor's hand-drawn copy of the video map led them to a nearby small town. They parked the van at the back of a shop and walked the last couple of kilometres.

'What is it?' said Roz.

'A community centre, according to the map,' said Ms Randrianasolo.

'h.e.l.l,' said Roz.

'Albinex won't have chosen somewhere with a lot of witnesses,' said the Doctor, frowning.

'See the scaffolding?' said Roz. 'It looks as though the place is under repair.'

Isaac was consulting a handscan. 'I'm reading two humanoids, in different parts of the building. It must be them.'