‘We shall study this,’ said the Mantodean. ‘We shall learn how to reverse the damage it has done, and we shall revenge ourselves on the Quevvils!’
The Mantodeans began to crowd round, legs and feelers reaching out to the disruptor, suggesting this thing or that thing to try. Rose whispered, ‘So can I go now?’ and began to back away again without waiting for an answer. They were all distracted. She should really leave before they began to, for example, notice her again.
Wonderfully, the power loss had affected all the doors, all the traps and puzzles. She felt elated at first, thinking it was going to be a cinch getting out. But of course it wasn’t. The power loss had affected all the lights too. The more she thought back to those hours wandering the maze of tunnels, and that was with the Doctor to guide her . . . and how on Earth was she going to get over all those pits and things in the dark? She was fit, and she was athletic, but she wasn’t, much as she’d like to be, Wonder Woman.
She’d thought the adventure was over, but perhaps it was just beginning.
TWENTY-ONE
With indecent haste, while everyone was still trying to come to terms with things, the Doctor had dashed about removing all the control disks, and then sorted out the teleport system back to Earth – ‘Can you fix it?’ Robert had asked, cringing that he was making the Doctor sound like Bob the Builder – but ‘Yes, I can,’ was the reply, ‘it’s on a separate circuit, no worries.’ And the Doctor had zapped everyone back to Earth. He’d then proceeded to smash the teleport controls with a large spanner.
Robert – who had begged, pleaded and behaved like a total brat to be allowed to stay with the Doctor – got a bit panicky, but the Doctor assured him he’d allowed enough time for everyone to rematerialise on Earth before he destroyed the teleporter.
‘You’ll just have to go home in my spaceship,’ the Doctor told Robert.
And Robert wasn’t going to argue with that.
Rose was inching her way very, very carefully down a very, very steep slope, when she heard someone crying. ‘Hello?’ she called out. ‘Is there anyone there?’
The crying stopped, choked off. ‘Hello?’ said a woman’s voice. ‘Oh, I’m here, I’m here!’
Rose scrambled down the rest of the way. Her night vision was getting better, and she thought she could just see the dim figure of a woman. ‘I’m coming!’ she called.
‘Stop!’ the woman called back, turning towards Rose in a panic. Rose scrambled to stop her feet carrying on forward of their own volition. In the dark, she’d not noticed the pit in front of her.
She grabbed the arm of the woman. ‘Thanks!’ she said. ‘I’d have gone right in!’
It looked as if the woman half smiled. ‘Don’t thank me yet,’ she said. ‘I think we’re trapped.’
Rose turned round. Behind them was the steep slope. Hard enough to slide down. Impossible to climb up. In front of them was the pit. And there was no other way out.
The box might say ‘Police Public Call Box’ on the outside, but the Doctor told him that was just for disguise. It was quite a disguise! Because inside, inside the spaceship . . .
Robert thought his eyes were going to explode as he tried to take it all in.
‘This is your spaceship?’ he said. ‘Really? It really belongs to you?’
‘Uh-huh,’ said the Doctor casually, but he gave Robert a huge grin. ‘Brilliant, isn’t it?!’
‘And you and Rose . . .?’
‘Travel round the universe doing good deeds, yeah. Well, and having a bit of fun. Sometimes.’
‘So she’s really . . . like, your assistant. Like Robin, or something.’
The Doctor snorted. ‘Assistant? Rose, right? She travels with me. In my time machine. You’d think I’d be the boss, yeah? Yeah, right. There’ve been times I wouldn’t’ve minded one of them little silver boxes, I tell you – it’d make things a whole lot easier . . .’
But Robert was no longer listening. His attention had well and truly been caught by something at the beginning of the Doctor’s rant. ‘Time machine.’
The Doctor snorted again, but he was grinning again too. ‘Yeah, yeah, I can take you to the furthest corners of the universe, I say, to infinity and beyond, and everyone’s always, oh that’s nice, that’s good, but as soon as I mention it travels in time as well . . .’ He flicked a switch on this amazingly bizarre-o giant glowing mushroom in the middle of the fantastic control room. ‘Rose was just the same. And talking of Rose . . .’
‘How are we going to find her, though?’ asked Robert.
‘Oh, the TARDIS’ll manage, now the force field’s down,’ said the Doctor. ‘I can’t quite work out why, but she seems to have taken a shine to that girl.’
And he pulled a lever, and the room was suddenly flooded with green light. ‘We’re off!’ said the Doctor. And Robert thought it was the most exciting thing that had happened to him in his entire life.
Rose was wondering if she could find a way of getting the sonic screwdriver to melt stone, so she could make handholds down the side of the pit, see if there were any exits at the bottom. It seemed a stupid, impractical plan, but it was the only one she had just at the moment, apart from the even more useless one about making a very long rope out of all their clothes. For a start, it almost certainly wouldn’t be long enough, for another, they’d then be running around in their undies, and for a third, the flimsy fabrics probably wouldn’t take the weight anyway. Shame it didn’t tell you on the little label inside – 100 per cent cotton, wash at 40 degrees, do not tumble-dry, able to support up to 500kg.
Rose’s new friend, whose name was Daisy, sat there quietly while Rose expounded her various schemes and theories. She still seemed rather shell-shocked. She’d asked Rose who else had got out of there, and Rose had told her about everyone she’d encountered in the stronghold. She hoped they’d all got out. Daisy didn’t think she knew any of them apart from Tim Breeley. ‘But then, I’ve been in there for a long time, I think,’ she said. ‘It stopped once or twice, but always started again.’
‘You were lucky,’ said Rose.
Daisy smiled sadly. ‘Lucky? Perhaps. But that was everyone? They got through people very quickly. So no one else can have survived from the time I went in. I . . . I hope . . .’ Tears were streaming down her cheeks. ‘It was so hard, just me and him, his dad didn’t want to know, it’s been so hard making ends meet, but I tried so hard . . . I loved him so much, and I know that teens are supposed to be difficult but he seems to resent me so much . . . But I’d have done anything for him, anything . . . And you try to protect them from measles and mumps and running out into the road and playing with matches, but you can’t protect them from things like this, things that you didn’t know about, things you’d never have believed were real . . .’
Rose sat down beside her and reached out for her hand. ‘You had a kid?’
‘My little Bobbles.’ She tried to laugh. ‘He hated me calling him that. “Mum,” he’d go, “my name is Robert” . . .’
Rose jumped. She’d been so stupid. The woman had only asked about people in the stronghold, she hadn’t thought to mention people back at the Quevvils’ base. Obviously Daisy hadn’t dared to hope he’d stayed there this long. ‘Daisy, it’s all right!’ she cried. ‘Robert’s –’
But she was drowned out by a sound that wasn’t just music to her ears, it was the most wonderful music ever, it was the greatest symphony ever written, performed by the best orchestra in the world. It was the sound of the TARDIS.
Rose had to grab Daisy, who had started to back away in astonishment and fear, forgetting – or no longer caring – that there was a very deep pit behind. And then, suddenly, there was the TARDIS in front of them, its flashing light banishing the darkness, banishing their fear.
The door opened. A young lad poked his head out – and saw Daisy.
‘Bobbles!’ she screamed. ‘Oh, my darling, my darling!’
The lad put up with her massive embrace with fairly bad grace. ‘Mum,�
� he said, ‘my name is Robert.’
Then the Doctor appeared, still the same as ever, grinning away. ‘Rescue party!’ he said.
He turned to Daisy, and seemed to be checking her out. Rose coughed, pointedly.
‘Is this your mum then?’ he said to Robert. ‘Funny, that. She’s not really how I imagined her from your description . . .’
Robert shrugged and made a face.
‘Hello,’ said the Doctor to Daisy, holding out a hand. ‘I’m the Doctor.’ She grabbed at his hand with both of hers, thanks pouring out of her mouth. It took a while for the Doctor to extricate himself. Then he turned to Rose. ‘There you are then. All right?’
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘I’m all right.’
They went into the TARDIS.
I couldn’t have done it without you, Robert. You really are special. You really are a Chosen One. Some might even call you a hero.
Thanks, Doctor. But it was nothing.
Oh, Robert. You were wonderful. You saved my life, truly you did. Doctor . . .
Yes, Rose?
Are you thinking what I’m thinking?
I think I am, Rose. Robert – would you do us the very great honour of staying with us? Travelling round the universe with us? Doing good and having fun. That’s what we do. That’s what the three of us will do.
You mean it? Really? Me, travel with you? With you and Rose? Being the hero, being the special one? Of course I . . .
But there’s your mum, now. Look how upset she was. And she’d know all about it. She might even want to come with you. You can’t take your mum on an adventure. That’s not how it works, that’s not right.
And the Doctor won’t ask you. And you can’t ask him, because you couldn’t bear it if he said no. You’d be so mortified, and ‘mortified’ does actually really mean ‘killed’ and you would have to kill yourself. And there’s only the two of you, you and your mum. And you couldn’t really leave her on her own. Not really.
Now the four of them were on their way back to Earth. Rose, the wonderful girl, seemed a bit quiet. He’d imagined her more happy, more bouncy. But then maybe she was, normally. Holding his breath, not quite believing what he was doing, he went over to her.
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘I’m Robert.’ Stupid, stupid! She knew that already!
‘Hello, Robert,’ she said, smiling and making his heart jump up and down like a yo-yo.
‘Are you . . . are you all right?’ he asked her.
She waved a hand. ‘Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. The Doctor’s got rid of all that stuff from inside me, all the bits that went inside my nerves.’
There was silence. Robert desperately tried to think of something to say, something witty and charming, something to show that he was perfectly at home in her company and perhaps they could be friends . . .
He still hadn’t thought of anything when Rose spoke again. ‘Well, maybe I’m not fine. You – you had one of those things stuck on your head, didn’t you?’
Robert told her that yes, he had. But not one that had been activated. Not one that had made him do things.
‘It was horrible,’ she said. ‘Not being in control. Makes you think, though. Makes you wonder if you’re going through life like that, anyway.’
Robert gaped. ‘But you’re going round the universe saving it!’
She shrugged. ‘Yeah, right. But I’m only Robin. And I don’t mean I have a thing for tights and underwear on the outside.’
Robert tried not to think of Rose’s underwear. But he remembered what the Doctor had said when he’d suggested the same thing.
‘Actually, I’m not even Robin,’ said Rose. ‘I’m more Lois Lane. He –’ she nodded at the Doctor, who was busy at the console – ‘gets to be the superhero. I get to be rescued.’
‘That’s what you think?’ asked Robert.
‘It’s what I know,’ she replied.
Robert grinned. ‘Funny that he doesn’t know it,’ he said.
Rose’s mouth fell open. ‘He’s been talking about me?’
‘Might’ve,’ said Robert, hardly daring to believe he was actually teasing the wonderful girl. ‘Might’ve said a thing or two.’ And still scarcely crediting his own courage in the face of extreme gorgeousness, he just laughed and refused to say any more.
They landed back on the Powell Estate, opposite the Chinese and the youth club, and Rose wasn’t a bit surprised. The place was deserted, though – the latest of late-nighters had gone to bed, and the early birds weren’t up yet. It was that depressing time in the early morning where the only people about were milkmen, police officers – and time travellers.
She explained to Daisy and Robert where they were. ‘There won’t be buses for an hour or two, I don’t reckon,’ she said. But Daisy said that was fine; they’d find a night bus, or they’d walk, or get a taxi, or something. Robert seemed to be about to protest, didn’t want to go, but Daisy stood firm, and only a minute or two after the TARDIS had landed, the two of them were walking away together, Robert shrugging off Daisy’s protective arm. Rose had suppressed a laugh, reflecting on how intensely irritating she had found her own mum only a few years ago. Well, and many days since, but in a different way. The lad had kept glancing back at her, and she knew why, so she smiled and waved goodbye.
They walked away together, the boy and his mum. Rose seemed sorry to see them go, so Robert kept throwing back looks, trying to reassure her.
But she couldn’t bear it, and came running after him.
‘Please don’t go, Robert,’ she said. ‘Please stay with me. With us. It’ll be great, the three of us together, being heroes out in the universe.’
And Robert wanted to stay with her, wanted to go back, wanted it more than anything else ever. But he knew he couldn’t. So he said, ‘I’m sorry, Rose. I’ve got to stay here. Got to look after my mum.’ He smiled. ‘Got to be a hero by myself, here on Earth.’
And although she still looked a bit sad, she smiled and said, ‘I understand. You’re doing the right thing.’
And he knew that he was.
He turned to his mum and said, gruffly, stumbling a bit over the words, ‘I’m glad you’re OK. I’m glad they didn’t hurt you.’
And she gave him a look full of sunshine, lighting up the world.
Then together, happy, they went home.
Rose stopped waving as Robert and Daisy turned the corner and disappeared from sight. She looked at the Doctor and sighed. ‘Suppose we’d better hang around till the morning then. Go and see everyone. Thank Mickey for saving the day, and all that. Make sure he’s given Mrs Burton her shopping basket back. Stuff like that.’
The Doctor looked horror-stricken. ‘Tell Mickey the idiot that he saved the day? What d’you wanna do that for?’
‘You said he did! You told me all about it!’
He shook his head. ‘No I didn’t. Didn’t say anything of the kind. I said he’d been of some slight use, and at least he didn’t muck everything up like normal.’
‘You could tell him that then,’ she said. ‘It’s high praise, coming from you.’
But he looked quite alarmed.
‘And then there’s my mum,’ she said. ‘I need to call the hospital, find out how she is.’
She glanced at Bucknall House, up high at her flat.
There was a light on in the window.
‘Mum said that Darren Pye nicked her keys!’ she said. ‘We’ve got burglars!’ And she raced off.
Rose let herself into the flat as quietly as she could. The Doctor was following on behind. Burglars didn’t stand a chance against them.
Light was coming from under the door to her right. Her mum’s room. She pushed the door open, ready to shout or fight or scream.
But inside there was just her mum, asleep. The bruises on her face shone brightly coloured in the illumination from the lamp, and Rose’s heart twisted.
She put up a hand to stop the Doctor coming any further, and padded softly over to the bed. But she must have made some noise, beca
use Jackie’s eyes flickered open. There was alarm in them for a moment, then relief and happiness as she recognised Rose.
‘Hello, darling,’ she whispered.
‘Hello, Mum,’ said Rose. ‘They let you out then?’ She hadn’t thought they would, not yet. Her mum had looked so awful. But the sense of relief, knowing it hadn’t been as bad as all that – it was overwhelming.
Jackie smiled sleepily. ‘Mm. Said I’ll be fine. Just take it easy.’ She yawned.
‘Go back to sleep,’ Rose said.
‘Will you still be here in the morning?’
Rose leaned over and kissed her mum gently on the forehead. ‘Dunno,’ she said. ‘But I’ll see you soon, whatever.’
Then, as Jackie’s eyes closed again, Rose crept out of the room.
The Doctor was making a cup of tea in the kitchen.
‘Mum’s asleep,’ Rose said, yawning herself. ‘Not a bad idea, I reckon. I’ve got my room and you can have the sofa.’
The Doctor helped himself to a biscuit. ‘Yeah, then maybe tomorrow we could go and feed the ducks in the park, or p’raps there’ll be a good film on telly.’
She gave him a hard stare. ‘So, you’re telling me you don’t want to hang around.’
‘’S boring,’ he said. ‘Who wants to do ordinary things like sleep, when there’s a universe to explore? What would you rather do, catch forty winks, or nip off to have a look at the moons of Jupiter?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, teasing. ‘Isn’t it quite cold up there?’
‘Somewhere warm, then!’ he said. ‘We could watch the building of the Great Pyramid, or investigate this rumour I heard about this mad scientist who tried to build asbestos robots to colonise the sun.’
And all of Rose’s tiredness fell away as he spoke. She looked out of the window as the sun rose upon another grey London day, and thought about the alternatives the Doctor was offering. And she realised that while she might truly be the mistress of her own destiny, sometimes there really wasn’t much of a choice.
‘Yeah, all right,’ she said.
So, arm in arm, they left the flat, and walked towards the future.
Winner Takes All Page 17
