Doctor Who_ Return Of The Living Dad Part 46

He grabbed hold of it and scrambled up. He had to be out of here before they got their wits together and came after him. All of them. Isaac. The Doctor. The Daleks!

He hauled himself into the airlock. He gawped at the very dead Ogron on the floor. He snarled at Ms Randrianasolo, and reached for his gun.

'Take this, you militaristic patriarchal b.a.s.t.a.r.d!' she yelled, and knocked him flat with a telepathic stun-bolt.

'Hmm,' she said, looking down at the unconscious Navarino. Not very non-violent. But satisfying.'

33 Thank you for the lovely present

A messy bed in a messy bedroom.

Joel appears in front of the camera' sitting on the bed.

'Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad. It's New Year's Eve, nineteen eighty-three. It's about -' he looks at his watch '- ten-fifteen p.m.

'Okay, I've got to finish off this letter. Everybody's leaving tonight, so this is my last chance to get 'em all on tape. So I'll be going around and doing a bunch of interviews and other fun stuff.'

Joel reaches for the camera. Static for a few seconds, and then:

A cafe full of people, some standing, some sitting. The camera is moving down a set of wooden stairs, held unsteadily on someone's shoulder. 'Okay!' Joel says loudly.

'Introductions. First, this is Admiral Summerfield.'

A short, blond man looks up from behind the counter. He is wearing a black military jacket of some kind. He gives a small smile. 'And Tony.' A taller, bearded man in a red T-s.h.i.+rt smiles and says 'Hi'. 'I've told you a bunch about them, so, here they are. Admiral, where's Graeme?'

The blond man rummages behind the counter for a moment. 'Here you are, son,' he says. Joel's hand appears in frame. Isaac pa.s.ses him something, and he holds it up in front of the camera. It's a white plastic spatula, glued down the middle. 'The Doctor put him back together with some of my aeroplane glue. So he's fine.'

The camera swivels round to cover one of the coffee shop's tables. 'Please, no autographs,' says an English voice, belonging to a woman in her thirties. On the table in front of her is an empty coffee cup, a battered exercise book, and a large pile of yellow stick-on notes. She pretends to hide behind her fingers. The rough-chinned man with her smiles at the camera.

'Okay,' says Joel, 'this is Jason Summerfield-Kane, and this is Bernice Kane-Summerfield. Say h.e.l.lo to my folks.'

'h.e.l.lo to my folks,' they chorus. Jason buries his face in his hands while Benny waves at the lens.

'And what are your plans?' says Joel, in his best interviewer voice.

'We're off back to the twentysixth century tomorrow,'

says Benny. She peels another of the yellow notes from the book. 'I've got to finish my degree. But we're planning to visit.

A lot. With our son... when he comes along.'

Jason grins, showing off his gold tooth. 'We'll have to work on that one a bit,' he says, wiggling his eyebrows.

Benny, blus.h.i.+ng under the camera eye, gives her husband a look. 'So long as a certain someone doesn't lose the boy again.'

Jason smirks. 'I suppose I'm lucky Benny came back, after having a chance to sleep with the Doctor.'

'You're not still still going on about that!' says Benny exasperatedly. 'It was about as erotic as hugging a gasping fish.' going on about that!' says Benny exasperatedly. 'It was about as erotic as hugging a gasping fish.'

'Oh yeah?' says Jason. 'Well' there was this time that I met this -'

Benny puts her hand over the camera lens. 'This isn't suitable for parents.'

Joel pulls back. 'And next we have Christopher Cwej and Roslyn Forrester, who I'm not supposed to tell you much about except that they're from the future. I guess C19 will cut out any bits of this tape which contain stuff you shouldn't know, anyway.'

The large, muscular man with the fair hair waves enthusiastically, while the short black woman just smiles in amus.e.m.e.nt. At first you might take them for an odd couple.

But their familiarity is of a different kind, the easy comfortableness of two old, good friends.

'Tell us your plans for nineteen eighty-four,' says Joel.

'Well,' says the woman, 'I plan to put a telescreen in each home and control your every thought.'

Chris groans. 'We're leaving with the Doctor, of course,'

he says. 'After we see the new year in. We had a great time.

Everybody here is really cool, Mr and Mrs Mintz, so don't worry about a thing!'

'That would certainly rea.s.sure me,' comments Roz, 'if my son fell through a crack in time. Tell me, Mr Cwej,' she says, turning to her friend, 'what do you think about fatherhood?'

'Well, I -' He stops, peering at her. 'Er. You don't -!'

She smiles at him. He looks as though he's about to faint.

Roz turns and looks into the camera with a satisfied expression. 'Got him,' she says.

Static.

'Sorry about that,' says Joel. 'Had to change the battery.'

The camera moves around again and focuses on a small, dark-haired man' sitting at the table closest to the front of the shop. Admiral Summerfield has joined him. They are drinking coffee together.

The man reaches up to tip a hat that isn't on his head, and settles for a shy wave at the camera. 'This is the Doctor,'

says Joel, 'who's going to tell you how I ended up in nineteen eighty-three. Aren't you, Doctor?'

''Scuse me,' says someone behind Joel, accidentally jostling him as they squeeze past.

'We think the time distortion was caused by one of Albinex's attempts to repair his faulty engine,' says the little man. There's a definite burr in his voice. 'We're going to have to pop forward to nineteen ninety-three to see if anyone or anything else was displaced. It might have been a Fortean Flicker, or a natural phenomenon... stranger things have happened.'

'Absolutely,' says Admiral Summerfield. He raises his mug to the camera, as though toasting it. 'For example' the Doctor has just worked out how to make the best cup of coffee on Earth.'

'Okay,' says Joel. 'I'm nearly out of tape' so I better finish up now.'

The radio is playing loudly in the background. He sits back on the bed, knocking a half-empty cigarette packet onto the floor.

He arranges himself so that he's framed by the camera's point of view. 'I'm going to send this tape along to C19 tomorrow,' he says. 'If they do their job right, you should receive this the day after I go missing in nineteen ninety-three.

'We're going to pretty much keep on doing what we're doing. There are still going to be aliens who need help, not to mention plenty of humans who no one else is going to believe.'

The music on the radio cuts out, replaced by a shouted countdown. 'Ten!'

'So don't worry about me.'

'Eight!'

'I can't come and visit until I'm not there, if you see what I mean, but I promise I'll walk in a day or two after you see this tape.'

'Four!'

'Of course, I'll be kind of older... anyway, this thing's really about to run out. See you soon. Happy-'

34 The bits not on Joel's video

Benny stepped out into the cold air. It wrapped itself around her, soaking immediately through her jumper, refres.h.i.+ng and sharp.

Ms Randrianasolo was standing in the street, holding the ends of her woollen scarf, looking up at the Christmas lights hung outside the Pyramid. 'I found her,' she told Benny.

'How is she?'

'She'll be fine.' Ms R blew out a long, white breath. 'All Jacqui wanted was some acknowledgement of what had happened to her. No one she'd ever told had believed her.

So she told me' when I found her. And I believed her.'

'Come inside,' said Benny. 'It's freezing out here.'

Ms R shook her head. 'I can't come back,' she said.

'Listen' this is going to sound awful' but...'

'You can't trust Dad,' said Benny.

The black woman shook her head. 'I'd never be able to trust him again.'

'Try it,' said Benny. 'I've been down this path. You can build up the trust again.'

'I'd be wanting to peep inside his skull all the time,' said Ms R. 'And I can't do that. Besides. I'm just not a soldier any more. 'Where will you go?' 'The peace camp,' said Ms R.

'They could use another regular. I need some practice in non-violence. And I want to keep an eye on Jacqui until she's ready to move on.'

'Are you sure you want to do that? Really sure?' Benny leant on the rail, gazing down at the Malagasy woman. 'They won't listen, you know. They'll lie about you and put you in prison and beat you and... and even kill you.' She stopped, shuddering in the cold, not sure if she'd said too much.

'I know the history,' said Ms Randrianasolo. 'And I plan to be part of it.'

'You know the strange thing?' said Chris.

Roz was eating a pile of mince pies. 'What?'

'I realized that when we were on board the sky yacht, running around, I didn't worry about you at all. I just got on with the job.' Chris frowned. 'It's been bugging me. Why wasn't I thinking about you?'

'Nah,' said Roz. 'Same reason I can work with a red smear and a walking fish and just get on with the job. There's no room in the middle of a firefight to think about stuff like that.'

Roz glanced over to where Benny and Jason were sitting' holding hands. 'That's why Benny can't do this anymore. I guess... I guess that's why the Doctor doesn't have anybody.'