Doctor Who BBCN14 - The Last Dodo

by Doctor Who

  Funny how your polite, twenty-first-century, law-abiding habits are hard to break. Could I bring myself to nick a packet of crisps? Not at first. And then I reminded myself that thanks to this museum I’d been nearly shot and nearly eaten, to name but two incidents, so the least it owed me was a packet of cheese and onion. So I had one, with some salt and vinegar to follow, and bother the cholesterol. I did venture a sniff at a packet of sausage and marshmallow, obviously the in-flavour of the future, but chickened out. They turned out to be a hit with Dorothea, though, who crunched the savoury-sweet snack down with every indication of enjoyment.

  She was halfway through the crisps when she suddenly stopped, and put her head to one side. Listening? Birds must have ears, mustn’t they, it’s just you can’t see them. Yes, of course they have, there’d be no point in all that chirping otherwise. Anyway, after listening for a few moments, she waddled to the end of the trolley, pushing on the child seat as if trying to propel the whole thing forward – but owing to physics she couldn’t, of course.

  I lifted her out, hardly daring to breath. Surely my plan wasn’t actually working?! Was she really ‘homing’?

  She waddled off, and I followed eagerly.

  Through the door, down a corridor, down another corridor. Then she stopped outside what appeared to be a plain white wall and 137

  started scrabbling at it with her beak. I listened. There were definite squawking sounds coming from the other side of the wall. Dorothea probably hadn’t been homing, she’d just been following the sounds.

  ‘Just.’ Well, it was good enough for me. But how to get in when there didn’t seem to be any doors at all. . . Not for the first time, I wished I had a sonic screwdriver of my own.

  Then, suddenly, a section of the wall slid back. I don’t know who was more surprised, me or Frank.

  Frank. There you are, always go with your first instinct. ‘You’re supposed to be locked up!’ I cried.

  He took a couple of steps back. ‘Yeah, right. Ain’t built a place yet that can hold me.’

  ‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

  He shrugged, defensively. ‘Just nipping out for a – well, you know.’

  There, planning advice for anyone thinking of installing a secret laboratory with secret doors – make sure it’s got a loo. If Frank had done that, he’d probably be free to this day. ‘That’s not what I meant,’

  I told him, and before he could stop me I’d pushed past.

  If I was going to find any answers, this looked like the place to be.

  Martha gazed around the room, fascinated. Unlike the grotty warehouse where they’d found the rhino, this was a gleaming laboratory, much more in accord with her ideas of what places should look like in the future. There were benches covered with test tubes – about the only scientific equipment that even medical Martha recognised among the vast array of gizmos and gadgets. Behind a desk was a bank of screens, the images too small for her to make out at a distance. There was a variety of creatures, at a variety of life stages, including a pen of dodo chicks, next to a pen of dodo adolescents, next to a pen of fully grown Dorothea lookalikes. Dorothea herself waddled over and rubbed her beak against the wire mesh, eliciting a flurry of flapping feathers and squawks in return. The far wall contained a couple of metal doors solid with bolts – snarls and roars gave Martha a clue as to what could be found behind them.

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  She’d been right: all those identical animals on Earth, they were clones.

  And then she got it, and a rush of relief swept through her: ‘Those animals you were selling off – they were clones too! You weren’t destroying the Last Ones.’ (She fought down the little accusatory voice inside that said: ‘Not like you. Not like you did.’) ‘That’s why there were those double entries on the warehouse computer.’

  He curled his lip. ‘Well, duh. Obviously.’

  ‘Well, duh, Mr Sarcasm.’ Martha put her hands on her hips and regarded him pityingly. ‘So how come the original animals have been disappearing from the museum, then? It’s not as though you need to hide them from the purchasers: no one from Earth’s going to turn up here and realise they’ve been fooled. No one would have suspected anything was going on if it wasn’t for that.’

  Frank looked slightly sheepish for a second, before covering it up with a defensive sneer. Martha suddenly felt sick. ‘Oh, I get it. Quick returns. It was taking too long for the animals to grow up – not enough fur on an infant for a coat, is there? So you started taking the originals.’ The sickness turned to anger. ‘How could you? Bad enough killing them anyway, but you were committing genocide again and again, for a few quid!’ Now the anger turned to contempt. ‘Shame you didn’t really think it through. You’re trying to be a criminal mastermind, but you’re obviously just one of those bungling amateur types.

  So callous you destroyed unique creatures for profit. So incompetent you practically put up a neon sign reading “criminal activity going on here”.’

  Frank stood up quickly and Martha’s first instinct was to step back, thinking he was going to hit her. But she held her ground, and he dropped his raised hand. ‘Like you’d understand!’ he yelled, causing a dozen dodos to scuttle backwards in alarm. ‘Agent Jones, all respected and seven-figure salaried, laying down the law to lesser mortals. How would you know what it’s like?’

  She almost laughed. When you’d been the only black female in your class, when you had a student loan that could cripple a small country, when you’d endured the sarcasm or shrieking of consultants every 139

  time you’d got an answer wrong, when your current idea of stability was to stay in the same time zone for more than an hour. . .

  ‘Yeah, that’s a good excuse,’ she said. ‘I’d use that when your case comes to trial if I were you.’

  His eyes narrowed in hate, and with a shock Martha remembered that she was dealing with someone who was willing to kill. She was catching it from the Doctor – let’s mock and patronise the bad guys, because what they can’t bear more than anything else is not to be taken seriously. Laughter wasn’t only the best medicine; it could also be the best weapon. But the thing to remember about the Doctor was that he was the Doctor. He got away with stuff. And she was still the student, still learning how this all worked.

  She’d forgotten that. And Frank had a gun.

  Try to calm him down, that was what she had to do. Try to paper over those hasty words, make him forget them. ‘Well, why don’t you help me to understand, then,’ she said. ‘You say I don’t understand.

  So tell me why you did it.’

  He shrugged. ‘Ever been to Kinjana?’ Martha shook her head. ‘Don’t blame you. It’s a pit. I knew that when I lived there. Had to get out, and I got a job here. Same body-type as Earth, so that’s where I got assigned. I could blend in there. And after a bit, I realised I could.

  Blend in. I could live there. I could be one of those stinking rich, not a care in the universe. I could wear silk and fur and eat caviar and cream, and be waited on day and night. I’d get women to peel grapes for me, and boys to shine my shoes, and no one would ever tell me what to do. That’s what I could have. And if a few stupid animals had to die to give it to me, then, duh – a few stupid animals would die.’

  ‘And a few people too? Tommy’s in the infirmary because of you, sliced up by a sabre-toothed tiger, and all so you can have shiny shoes and peeled grapes! And you know what? Most of the nutrients are in the skin, so you’d be the loser there.’

  Frank seemed unconcerned. ‘Yeah, right, people. Like I care. Even the other Earthers’d agree that people don’t matter – not next to their precious Last Ones. No one’ll blink an eye if I kill you – when I kill you, to stop you blabbing. I mean, losing one human don’t really matter 140

  when there are billions of others still around.’ The smile turned into a laugh. ‘Well, for now.’

  Martha didn’t have time to reflect on what he meant by that. She could see nothing but the gun. Nothing but the way it wa
s pointing straight at her. Nothing but the way it shook very slightly as Frank’s finger tightened on the trigger. . .

  The door crashed open. ‘Frank!’ Eve sounded astounded and furious. ‘Don’t kill her!’

  Martha had never been so pleased to see someone she hated. ‘Eve!’

  she cried. ‘Frank escaped somehow, he’s been cloning these animals and. . . ’ She tailed off. Eve was still addressing Frank.

  ‘I don’t want her dead, Frank. If she tries to escape you can wound her, but keep her alive.’

  Oh.

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  THE I-SPYDER BOOK OF EARTH CREATURES

  STELLER’S SEA COW

  Hydrodamalis gigas

  Location: Commander Islands

  This giant sea mammal can reach up to eight metres in length. It has thick grey skin and small, bristly forelimbs.

  Addendum:

  Last reported sighting: 1768 AD.

  Cause of extinction: hunting by man.

  I-Spyder points value: 1000

  Martha had been tied to a chair. It felt vaguely unreal, the sort of thing that happened to heroines in books or silent movies.

  She should be wearing an enormous frock, and Frank should have a pointed moustache.

  And as for Eve. . .

  ‘You really thought Frank here was behind the cloning?’ she said, leafing through a file and not looking at Martha. ‘He can’t even boil an egg, let alone manipulate DNA.’

  Martha tried to shrug, but it didn’t quite work. ‘Never judge a criminal mastermind book by its cover, that’s what I was always taught,’

  she said. ‘You, on the other hand, though – I should have guessed. The murderous tendencies, the callous disregard for life, that top with that skirt. . . ’

  ‘I had to do what I had to do,’ Eve said unemotionally. ‘The collection was losing money. Subscriptions, entrance fees, a few pounds spent in the gift shop – do you really think that’s a drop in the ocean compared to the cost of running this place?’

  ‘So you came up with a plan to make big bucks by selling stuff you couldn’t buy in the gift shop. The Last Ones.’

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  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Eve spat. ‘I, sell the most precious things in the universe?’

  Now Martha got it; just a subtle shift making everything fall in place. ‘Oh, right. Cos you’re the fanatic. But Frank here. . . ’ She turned to where the Earther was looking defiant. ‘That was your little sideline, wasn’t it? Your own cunning little idea to get a bit of extra cash. You couldn’t work the cloning bit, so you took the originals.’

  Back to Eve. ‘Weren’t you furious? I’d have been furious. You should have been furious.’

  ‘She was,’ Frank said miserably. ‘When she had me locked up, I thought she meant it. I thought I was gonna rot in prison.’

  ‘You deserved to,’ said Eve. ‘And you would have done, if my plans hadn’t changed, if I hadn’t needed an extra pair of hands again.’

  It was at that point that Martha remembered her original mission: to find out what the business with the sabre-tooths and the dodos and the eggs was all about.

  ‘So, this business with the sabre-tooths and the dodos and the eggs

  – what’s that all about, then?’ she asked, abandoning any thoughts of subtlety. Her time with the Doctor had led her to discover that villains really did like to tell you all their plans – well, they needed someone to boast to about how clever they were.

  ‘I really don’t think it’s any of your business,’ Eve said.

  Oh. Damn. Perhaps it wouldn’t be quite that simple.

  On the third sweep down the high street, the Doctor spotted the second dodo, still scrabbling hard in the shop doorway. Reluctantly recalled to the real business of the day, he brought the machine to a halt and said goodbye to Albert. ‘You wanna come for a spin round the galaxy?’ he’d asked. ‘Return the favour.’

  But Albert had shaken his head. ‘I’ve got a wife and kids!’ he’d said.

  ‘Wouldn’t catch me leaving them, no, not if you were offering me the whole universe.’

  And the Doctor, who had nobody, had nodded his head and said he understood.

  Albert drove off, and the Doctor waved goodbye.

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  The Time Lord wandered over to the dodo. To his surprise, it appeared to be ticking. The Doctor hadn’t encountered very many dodos over the years, but he was fairly certain that, as a rule, they didn’t tick.

  He got closer. The sound was actually coming from beneath the bird. Yes, there it was – the egg. The round, white egg that the dodo had completely failed to bury in the solid pavement. The Doctor leaned down, attempting to sidle his fingers near enough to extract the ovoid, but the bird reacted violently. Its hooked beak might look comical from a distance, but when the sharp point is threatening to skewer your digits to the path, it’s no laughing matter.

  The Doctor stepped back, and the dodo calmed down – but with an alert look in its eyes that told the Doctor to beware. He considered the situation. It seemed imperative that he examine that egg. On the other hand, having survived an encounter with a load of sabre-toothed tigers, not to mention a dinosaur attack, it would be fairly embarrassing to be mauled by a giant pigeon. If only Martha had still been around – she seemed to have a way with the things. . .

  The Doctor raised a finger in the air. ‘Ding!’ he said, indicating the metaphorical light bulb that had just lit up above his head. An idea!

  He hurried back to the place where Martha had first spotted Dorothea the dodo, and dived into the heap of rubbish that had spilled out of the litter bin. There, nestling in a triangular plastic container that had once contained cheese and pickle sandwiches, was an egg.

  Or rather, what looked like an egg.

  The Doctor picked it up, wiping off a smear of pickle with his sleeve.

  This one, too, was ticking.

  It was a bomb.

  The dodos were burying bombs. The Doctor breathed in heavily.

  And then, to top it off, another dinosaur attacked him.

  ‘Well, whatever your plans are, the Doctor will stop you,’ Martha said.

  ‘Yeah, right,’ said Frank, sharing a smirk with Eve.

  Martha turned to him. He was manipulating controls at the desk, glancing between them and one of the screens in front of him. She stared. The picture on the screen looked like a dinosaur. Not the one 145

  she’d seen briefly before leaving Earth, but one of the smaller ones from the shop’s TV screens – not that it really mattered; it still had lots of sharp teeth. And in front of it – a tiny figure, dancing around.

  A figure in a suit. A figure that might, if you squinted hard enough, appear to be holding a little wand-like device in its hand.

  With a desperate effort, she maintained her veneer of calm. ‘Eve, if you want to stop one more species becoming extinct, you’d better do something quickly.’

  Eve followed Martha’s gaze. The dinosaur was bearing down on the Doctor. She ran over to the desk and, pushing Frank aside, dived at the controls. ‘You idiot!’ she yelled at him. ‘The last of the Time Lords! The sole survivor!’

  Frank was spluttering in indignation. ‘But you told me. . . If anyone got too close. . . He’d found one of the bombs, he was going to examine it. . . ’

  ‘And what can he do?!’ Eve shouted, still pushing buttons. ‘He can’t stop us! But if you killed him. . . He is a Last One! The legacy of an entire planet, destroyed!’

  Under other circumstances, Martha would probably have enjoyed seeing Frank squirm. But as it was, she couldn’t take her eyes off the screen.

  The dinosaur raised a claw, preparing to slash down at the Doctor.

  And then it seemed to pop out of existence.

  An angry roar from behind one of the far doors suggested that the reptile had returned to base. An involuntary sigh of relief hissed out with Martha’s exhaled breath. She was still a prisoner. The Last Ones were still stranded on twenty-first-century Ea
rth. But as long as the Doctor was alive and free, she couldn’t help but believe that it would turn out all right in the end. Somehow.

  And then a word sank in.

  She realised what Frank had said.

  ‘ Bombs? ’

  The Doctor stared bemusedly at where the dinosaur had been. Its behaviour had not been what one usually expected of a giant prehistoric carnivorous reptile. Still, compared to the previous one, dealing with 146

  it had been a breeze, and he wasn’t going to complain about that. He had other things on his mind right now.

  He popped the sonic screwdriver back in his pocket and, shrugging, returned his attention to the deadly device in his hand. Holding it gingerly, he walked over to the electricals shop. The news reports still played across a dozen silent screens. China. India. America. Kenya, Iceland, France. Derby, Dundee, Durham. All across the world, there were dodos. All across the world, there were bombs.

  The Doctor walked back to the TARDIS. His instinct was to break into a jog, get there quicker, but while one was carrying a bomb. . .

  Better safe than sorry. Once into the control room, with the vulnerable world safely on the other side of a pair of impenetrable doors, he whipped out the sonic screwdriver and set to work.

  He’d hoped the ticking indicated a timer, something easily disarmed, but the realities of the mechanism made him hiss through his teeth in frustration. There was a timer, yes, but the charge also had a remote-control sensor; someone somewhere had their finger on the trigger and could set off the device at any time they liked, without having to wait for the timer to count down to zero.

  How many of these bombs were there throughout the world? He could try to gather them all up, but the trigger finger could tighten at any time – and may well do so if what he was doing was detected.