Doctor Who_ Return Of The Living Dad Part 40

You need someone with a few more years left in them.'

'Hey, c'mon,' he said.

'You need someone as... as happy as you. As optimistic.'

He held her tighter.

'You're good for me, Chris,' she whispered. 'I need you.

Don't you ever doubt that.'

The Doctor was dreaming that Death had come for Benny, and he had to protect her, make her wake up, but he couldn't move. He was pinned in place while those hollow eyes watched his companion, his own half-frozen body sucking the heat out of her, the tears dried on her cheeks.

Death leant in close. He could taste the empty flavour of her breath.

She became Roz Forrester.

She had pulled open the door of the van, just enough so that she could squat beside the vehicle and look at him. Chris was standing behind her, looking nervous.

Beside him, Benny was crammed into a narrow sleeping bag. She was breathing normally, fast asleep.

'I risk your lives,' he murmured. 'I keep you in the dark.

I've even lied to you. And you stay with me.'

'I'll never leave you, Doctor,' said Chris. He sounded as though he was about to cry. Benny stirred in her sleep, murmuring.

'Doctor,' Roz said. 'Are you dying?'

'No one escapes time's arrow,' the Doctor said hoa.r.s.ely.

Chris looked at him in astonishment. 'Do you know, I had always a.s.sumed I could beat chance and choose the moment to die. I imagined I'd rise out of the ashes of regeneration and laugh, "I meant to do that." But that's not going to happen. I'm not going to be in control. Surrounded by strangers. Helpless.'

's.h.i.+t happens, Doctor,' said Roz. She took his hand. 'But we'll always be there to shovel you out. You're not gonna die alone.'

'Not today,' breathed the Doctor. 'This isn't the day.'

Chris grinned. Roz smiled warily. 'Can we move you? It's very exposed here, and we're freezing our buns off to boot.'

Albinex won't bother us again,' said the Doctor.

Tomorrow is his day.'

They didn't know how to take that. But he couldn't keep his eyes open. Not even when Roz turned to Chris, and they put their mouths together.

The second time the Doctor woke up he was wearing warm pyjamas. There was a cat asleep on top of his feet.

He looked up from the bed. He was in his room back in Little Caldwell. It was still night. He wondered if his watch had survived the long dive into the lake.

Isaac was sitting in the chair next to the window. The small blond man turned to look at him as he stirred. Nelson meowed a complaint and hopped off the bed.

'What are your intentions towards my daughter?' said the Admiral, with one of his tiny smiles.

'How did you find me?'

'Your ghost-detector,' said Isaac. 'It was Benny's idea.

Are you well? What did Albinex do to you?'

'He used that poor creature - the "ghost" - to try to get the codes from me. She would have died if he'd continued.'

'He used her? How?'

'Oh' he tried whatever he could think of. He's not much of a torturer. But you don't have to be competent to do the work...'

'So what did you do?'

The Doctor looked at Isaac and said' 'I gave him the codes.'

'You did what?'

'They're a decade out of date,' said the Doctor. 'He'll invade USAF Greenhorn Common in his ridiculous electric flying shoe, find that the codes don't work, and give up in disgust.'

'Ah,' said Isaac. 'But you see, M'Kabel will be able to extrapolate the new codes from the old.' The Doctor nodded, as though to himself. 'He's been studying the nuclear weapons computers since the seventies. Human technology is child's play to him, amusing puzzles.'

'The thing I can't understand,' said the Doctor slowly, 'is what Albinex really hopes to accomplish. His claim about returning to Navarino as the glorious conqueror just doesn't ring true.'

'Perhaps,' said Isaac, 'he believes he's working for the greater good.'

'The greater good,' smiled the Doctor. 'I used to work for the greater good, you know. But the hours were bad and the conditions were worse.'

'It takes courage to do something terrible because it's the right thing to do,' said Isaac. 'To save more lives than are lost. To see the big picture of history.'

'It takes even more courage to realize that you've made a mistake,' said the Doctor, 'and to give up a plan you've been working on for twenty years. I don't think Albinex has that courage. The question, Admiral Summerfield, is: do you?'

Isaac stood up and walked over to the bed.

'How long have you known?' he said.

'My,' said the Doctor. 'That was a good guess, wasn't it?

What now?'

Will you listen to my plan?' said Isaac. 'Give it a fair hearing?'

'No,' said the Doctor. 'I'll do whatever I can to stop you.

And if you want to stop me, you'll have to kill me.'

Isaac looked at him.

'Although at this very moment,' said the Doctor, 'it may not be the best idea.'

Slowly, the Admiral turned to the doorway.

'She's been there since we began to talk,' said the Doctor gently. 'I don't think she wanted to interrupt us.'

Benny didn't even look surprised. She was leaning on the doorframe, one hand pressed to her forehead. When Isaac tried to meet her eyes, she turned around and walked away.

The Admiral glanced back at the Doctor. 'I ordered Albinex not to hurt you,' he said.

'Don't mind me,' said the Time Lord. 'I think you'd better go and talk to your daughter.'

Dad's Army

It was time. The phone calls had been made. The signals had gone out.

In Porthmadog, two stranded Chameleon scouts took the car and the likenesses of a young married couple, moving eastwards.

In London, a lonely Sirian boarded a train going west, moving invisibly through the late-evening crowds.

In La Baule, a Sea Devil pod waded ash.o.r.e, following a flas.h.i.+ng light held by a shaking human.

A group of former soldiers rendezvoused at a flat in Rickmansworth. All of them had been discharged from UNIT on psychiatric grounds. They left their guns behind and climbed into a car.

In Reykjavik, a sleek Procyonian robot moulded itself a human-looking exterior and boarded a jet.

In Liverpool, a Vardan downloaded himself from the phone system and walked through the darkening streets, looking for a taxi.

Deep in the Australian outback, a Caxtarid put down the only telephone in town, stepped outside the pub, and activated her teleport module.

They were specks on a map, wheeling inwards. From the safehouses in Berks.h.i.+re and Wilts.h.i.+re and Hamps.h.i.+re, from a motel in Maryland and a hotel in Holland Park, they came. An army of the aliens and the alienated. Heading for Little Caldwell.

Meanwhile, in s.p.a.ce

A lone satellite, slick and black and invisible to eye and radar alike, continued its circular slide around the Earth.

Waiting for the signal.

29 The quick and the dad

Benny stood on the covered verandah, looking down into the street. The sun was coming up' a pale light filtering through the mist.

The cars had been arriving for half an hour. The engines had woken her up, sending her wandering through the house, wondering what the fuss was about and whether the Doctor was all right. And to the doorway of the spare room. And the inevitable' the unavoidable revelation.

The door bells jingled behind her. She didn't turn around, watching a Volvo parking outside the post office. She couldn't make out the driver. They were all staying in their vehicles'

patient shadows.

'You expected this.'

'Of course I expected it.' She didn't look at him. 'I was awful to Jason before our wedding, waiting for him to s.h.a.g someone else behind my back. It's some sort of deep Freudian thing. I expect the men I love to betray me.'

'Ever since Simon Kyle.'

'Ever since my father promised to come back and didn't.'

'The Doctor won't listen to me,' said Isaac, after a beat.

Will you?'

'I can't stop you from talking,' she said.