Doctor Who_ Human Nature Part 10

Let them, the voice inside him said. Hang me, cut me down, spread my blood on the field. End my life. I'll return.

With a great rush, the boys threw Timothy out of the window. The rope unreeled after him, and then snapped taut.

They piled to the window and gazed out. Far below, Tim's body hung limp, swinging in the breeze, his arms dangling by his sides.

'He doesn't seem to have grabbed the noose...' Merryweather whispered.

'No,' Hutchinson agreed, his face absolutely still. 'He doesn't.' Then he yelled with sudden violence: 'Reel him in, for G.o.d's sake! Before somebody sees him!'

Benny and Constance stood outside the little red-brick museum. Benny was busy throwing stones at one of the windows above, not wanting to ring the little bell on the front door.

'So you are a friend of Mr Shuttleworth,' Constance whispered. 'I know him by reputation. He has some a.s.sociates who are very active in the Labour movement, and they've been supporting our cause. Oh, there he is!'

Alexander, clad in a bath-robe, had angrily pulled up the window and glared down at them. 'What the devil? Oh...' He broke into a smile. 'Pardon my Greek. Be right down.'

They waited, crouched behind the hedge, for quite some time. Finally, Benny pulled out her watch and glanced at it. What's he doing in there?'

'He boasts, people say, of his several lady friends. Mr Shuttleworth seems to share Mr Wells' opinions on free love. What do you think?'

'Erm, I'm certainly opposed to paying for it. Should I feel nervous about staying with him?'

'Oh...' Constance seemed to consider for a few moments. 'Well, I have never heard of him doing anything actually improper.'

'What do his girlfriends say?'

'I haven't met any of them. He's apparently very circ.u.mspect.'

From the other side of the hedge there came the sound of tapping footsteps. Benny and Constance crouched down further.

Of course, it was just at that moment that the door opened and Alexander, now in smoking-jacket and trousers, stepped out on to his doorstep. To his credit, he didn't even glance in the direction of the fugitives in his garden, noting Bernice's anguished hand signals out of the comer of his eye. Instead he smiled at the young nurse who was standing in the road beside his gate, her head turning this way and that as if sniffing the breeze. 'Good evening, nurse. Can I help you in any way?'

The nurse turned and looked at him suspiciously. 'No, no, I was merely waiting for somebody. Perhaps you may have seen her. A lady of around my age in a checked skirt, perhaps in a state of some disarray.'

'Would she be...' his gaze flicked down into the garden, 'muddy?'

'Yes, that's her. She fled from the blaze at the hospital. I've been sent after her.'

'Yes, I was wondering what the to-do was over there. Is everybody all right?'

'Oh yes. A blanket caught fire, and it spread. The fire brigade quickly extinguished it. Now, I must hurry you. Where did you see the lady?'

Benny sneezed.

Alexander sneezed. 'Still a chill in the air. Sorry. I saw her pa.s.s this way about an hour ago. She went, erm, that way...' He gestured vaguely down the road. 'She was running.'

'Thank you.' The nurse lifted her skirts and dashed off in the indicated direction.

Alexander glanced down into his garden. 'You can come out now,' he called softly.

'A policeman I could understand, but how does one end up being chased by a nurse?'

Benny patted his shoulder as he showed her in.

'Wouldn't you like to know?'

Smith leaned back in his chair, his arms behind his head. His writing was getting better. He hadn't wanted to go to bed when he came home. He was so full of emotion and energy. He felt reborn. He'd gone straight to his desk and started to scribble page after page of his children's story. He was rather proud of it.

The Gallifreyans eventually made a wonderful world for themselves, with towers and cities, lords and ladies. The inventor watched over them and advised them on and cities, lords and ladies. The inventor watched over them and advised them on how best to make their world as civilized and law-abiding as the England that he'd how best to make their world as civilized and law-abiding as the England that he'd left behind. left behind.

But as time went on, he became discontented with the place. The Gallifreyans had taken his ideas far too much to heart, and they'd become boring and stuck-in-the-mud. He invented a way for them to start another life when they died, and gave taken his ideas far too much to heart, and they'd become boring and stuck-in-the-mud. He invented a way for them to start another life when they died, and gave them another heart, hoping that this would make them joyful and happy. But they them another heart, hoping that this would make them joyful and happy. But they were just as dull, and now they lived longer. Worse than that, they no longer had were just as dull, and now they lived longer. Worse than that, they no longer had children, so there was n.o.body noisy around the place to ask questions. children, so there was n.o.body noisy around the place to ask questions.

Finally, he could take no more of it. He took one of the police boxes and headed back to Earth. The Gallifreyans would chase him, he knew, because he'd broken back to Earth. The Gallifreyans would chase him, he knew, because he'd broken one of the laws that he'd invented. one of the laws that he'd invented.

But he'd decided that being free was better than being in charge.

There came a clatter from the window. He hopped up and opened it, and was surprised to see an owl sitting on a low branch outside, regarding him with disdain.

'h.e.l.lo,' said Smith. 'And who are you?'

'Woo,' said the owl.

'How do you do, Mr Woo?'

'Who.'

'Who? You, Woo.'

The owl, looking as fl.u.s.tered as an owl can get, opened its wings wide and flapped up into the air. Smith flinched and the bird flew past him through the window, settling on the mantelpiece of the cottage with a proprietorial air.

'Oh no,' Smith sighed. 'You can't stay here. There's no room. Why do you want to stay in a house, anyway?'

The owl didn't say anything. It just closed its eyes and turned its head away.

Smith looked at it for a few moments, wondering if he should try and lift it outside.

The claws looked rather fierce for that. Finally, he just spread some newspaper under the mantelpiece and left the owl to sleep.

He returned to his writing table, and was just about to pick up his pen again to edit what he'd written, when there came a knock at the door. 'Could you get that, Merlin?' he asked the owl. No reply forthcoming, he went and opened it.

The door was slammed out of his grip.

Something dark launched itself through the gap and landed on his chest, pinning him to the floor.

'Silence!' it hissed.

Smith frantically reached for a poker that stood by the fireplace, but the lithe dark figure snapped a hand out. It caught Smith's fingers and wrapped them in its own gloved fist.

It wrenched Smith's left hand up to face level and the little schoolteacher caught a glimpse of glittering eyes and white teeth under the brim of the hat.

'Pleased to meet you, human!' snarled Serif. Then he bit the end off Smith's little finger.

Benny and Constance sat in the little back bedroom of Alexander's rooms above the museum. A heavy curtain hung over the small window. When Alexander had popped out to make the tea, they'd heard footsteps going downstairs.

Unfortunately, the window was on the wrong side of the building to see who might be leaving.

'I'm getting positively used to hiding,' Constance sighed, leaning her head on Benny's shoulder. 'I wish, sometimes, that I could change the way I look, just magically transform into a bird, or a cat. Wouldn't that be wonderful, to change what you were just by thinking about it? Wouldn't you like to do that?'

'Not really.' Benny was wondering if this place had a bath. The mud was dropping off her and getting the bedclothes dirty already. 'I just want to be me and do that as well as I can.'

'But you could get into any dress you liked or be a man for a day and go out carousing.' She started to twirl the ends of Benny's hair absent-mindedly. 'You could do whatever you wanted. This sullied flesh could melt and resolve itself into a dew.'

Benny rubbed her brow, wondering why everything in her life seemed to happen at exactly the wrong time. She plucked Constance's hand from her hair and patted it comfortingly. 'That's a lovely idea, but it doesn't help me at the moment. Right now, I need to find this object I'm looking for.'

'Well, if you know who's got it, then in the morning you can just go and get it off them, can't you? I know all the back ways and side roads. With my help, it won't be hard at all.'

'I suspect it may not be as simple as that, but, yes, I'll meet you in the morning and you can give me some idea of the territory.'

Alexander bustled back in with glee, handing them each a mug of steaming tea.

'Goodness me!' he exclaimed. 'What excitement! Why was that nurse after you, do you think?'

'I have no idea.' Benny took a long swig from her mug. 'I don't know any nurses.

Perhaps she's another one of this lot who are hunting me.'

'As you say. I mean, terrible for you, being pursued, but this is dreadfully exciting.

Oh, I say, it's only just occurred to me. Bernice, you're wearing trousers!'

'Many people have already noted that, Alexander. I don't suppose you've got a bath, have you?'

'Oh yes,' said the effervescent curator. 'By sheer chance, I, erm, already had the boiler on. Was going to have one myself, after my lady friend had left, but your need is greater.'

'Wonderful.' Benny drained her mug in one lengthy gulp. 'Now, Constance, will you be all right getting to your own lodgings?'

'Of course.' The young woman finished her tea and stood up. 'I shall see you here at eleven, and then we shall reverse the roles we have so far played. Your persecutors shall be the prey, and we the hunters.'

'You know,' said Benny, 'when you say things like that, you almost make me feel confident.'

The dark man swirled in and out of Smith's vision, a fluttering phantom above him.

Pain was shouting distantly. Smith clutched his hand, astonished at the new shape of it. That was the thing about taking a wound, the unreasonable fact that a bit of you had gone.

Serif had chewed on the finger thoughtfully for a few seconds as Smith had screamed, and then swallowed it. He put a hand to Smith's temple, and suddenly the little schoolteacher found that he couldn't scream any more. Some part of him wanted to reach down the creature's throat and take the lost part of him back, but most of his thoughts were consumed by a sickening, flattening, terror. He noticed, as his vision swirled randomly around the room, that the owl seemed to have gone.

Perhaps he'd only dreamed it. Serif spent several minutes just sitting on his chest, concentrating. Finally he spoke.

'I can taste who you think you are. Laylock did his work well. You are full of nanites, and if I had eaten more of you, they would start affecting me. This person you have made for yourself is quite fascinating. Shall we dig a little deeper?'

The gloved hand again touched Smith's scalp.

He and Serif were standing on a shale beach beside a cold sea at night, watching the beam of a lighthouse cycle round and round in the mist. 'This is the home that you fled?' Serif asked.

'Aberdeen, yes.' Smith took a deep breath of sea air and looked at his hand. It was whole again. 'Who are you? What do you want with me?'

'You don't know where the Pod is. I wonder if it has been destroyed. Laylock is sometimes very fallible, and on occasion... untrustworthy. If the Pod has failed, we may at least discover some important information about you. I know they have a lighthouse on a place called Gallifrey,' Serif murmured. 'Tell me, does Aberdeen have defences?'

'A sea wall, that's all. To stop the flooding. There's no soldiers here. Nothing special about the town at all, except for the rock - '

'Ah yes, the radioactive granite, so conducive to mutation.'

'No, the rock with "Greetings From Aberdeen" written through it. Very tasty.'

Smith glanced up at the headland above the beach. 'Oh my G.o.d! Verity!'

Serif followed his gaze. A young woman with a moon-like, innocent face was staring down at them from the sh.o.r.e.

'Ah, so there is beauty in truth. Who is she?'

'A girl. We used to be together. Now we're not.'

'What does she mean to you?'

'She's what I'm always just missing. We met here once. We were very different, from opposite sides of town.'

'Are some of the citizens of Aberdeen better off than others, then?'

'You could say that. There's a poor house, run by the Church. That's where I was brought up.'

'Really? What was the name of your teacher? What did he tell you of the sea wall?'

Smith opened his mouth, and suddenly found himself convulsing. He fell to the ground, his hands grasping frantically at the pebbles. It was as if something huge had given way inside him. 'No! No!' he shrieked. 'Can't tell!'

He reached out a hand piteously as the woman on the sh.o.r.e turned and walked away. 'Verity!'

'So you know there are certain things you should not say. Interesting.' Serif raised his gloved hand and clicked his fingers.

Smith found himself back on his own living-room floor again, paralysed. The pain flooded back into his finger. He struggled to breathe, and managed to gasp regular, shallow gulps of air as Serif got up and wandered over to his bureau. 'You've been writing fiction,' the dark man whispered, picking up a page from Smith's story and glancing at it. 'In fiction, we reveal our deepest unconscious thoughts. Would it be of any use to me to read this? You may speak.'

'Unconscious?' Smith gasped. 'How can thoughts not be conscious?'

'Hah! What a primitive world this is you've found for yourself. Why, these humans must think of themselves so simply, as straightforward animals who think and do, decide and set about. Well, I know better, and so should you, as that deep-set defence mechanism I just uncovered indicates.' He squatted back down beside the p.r.o.ne teacher. 'My name is Serif. Unlike my fellows, I have specialized in matters of the mind as well as the body. I've often had cause to unpick the programming of a personality, rewrite certain aspects. I do this by regressing the subject right back to the moment of birth and then working forwards. In your case, of course, that's not really appropriate. However, we can make some progress. In doing so, we may learn all sorts of incidental things about dear, ripe Gallifrey along the way. Do you think that's how we should proceed?'

Smith snarled a response. A vast roaring of blood filled his ears and the pain from his finger was terrible, as if some healing machine was trying to start its work and failing. That failure was filling his senses with agony, and he couldn't decipher what on earth his a.s.sailant was saying.

'It was a rhetorical question,' Serif told him, and placed his hand back on Smith's head.

Smith stared at the woman whose head lay on his shoulder, her straight, backcombed hair warmly touching his skin.