by Doctor Who
There was no reply to her knock.
‘Hello,’ she called brightly. ‘It’s Tina!’
Something in the mechanism of the Grey Door clicked and it started to open. Tina reflected that back home dangerous things were kept behind locked metal doors, in case people wandered into them and got electric shocks or something. But that couldn’t be a significant reflection, so it vanished somewhere in her misty, contented head.
The Grey Door swung open, just a crack.
‘Hello?’ called Tina. ‘Not absolutely sure what I’ve been sent here for, actually.’
69
A slimy grey hand with six fingers and a thumb slipped around the open edge of the door and beckoned to her.
The hand gave Tina a wrong-feeling. Her heart started to beat faster and she got a kind of runny sensation down her arms and legs. She’d never felt it before. But she knew it was wrong, so she tapped a general all-purpose relaxing code into her popper pack and felt better straight away.
The hand beckoned again and Tina walked closer to the door.
It snatched her by the shoulder and pulled her inside.
Tina had a really bad wrong-feeling about this. She couldn’t see much inside the Grey Door, as it was very dark, and then the owner of the hand bit into her side and she got a very, very wrong pain-feeling.
She had enough strength to reach for her popper pack, which sent a soothing balm into her head, and the pain-feeling evaporated. She guessed she was about to be terminated and wondered why. But it seemed pointless to concern herself with this, so she let the question go.
‘I’m fine,’ said Tina. ‘Everything’s fine.’
The last thing she saw in the filthy dark were three skeletons arranged neatly against a wall as if they were sitting cross-legged, with their skeletal hands on their knees. They still had their name badges on: PEDRO, MARIA and SUZY. It looked quite comical.
Then the owner of the hand held her steady, opened its huge mouth and bit her head off.
Week 2
Das’s Journal
This was the week I discovered there was much more to this world than Bromley. I asked Jack if I could fly in one of the planes, so he used the Internet and the credit card to buy tickets for us. (I never thought I would be confident enough to fly, but I saw Will and Grace fly in a plane on television, and they were not struck down by the gods for their presumption. This reassured me.) 70
We hired a taxi to take us to the airport. I thought that planes just flew around Bromley, but the drive took a long time and I realised that Bromley is only a small part of the world. There are many other towns, such as New York, Taunton and Riyadh. I wanted to fly to my favourite town on television, Balamory, but Jack said it was not possible.
During the drive we saw grass and trees, but the humans have cut most of them down and put their car-roads over them. Many humans consider this a bad thing, apparently, but I think it was very wise of them and really livens things up. I sat in the back of the taxi and ate lots of crisps. Jack has given up trying to stop me eating fatty made-things. I eat them not only for the pleasure but because I know the gods will see this time of plenty and curse it, so it’s a good idea to eat them while we can. Jack says this is superstition, which is the word he uses whenever he doesn’t understand something obvious. He thinks he’s much cleverer than he actually is.
The airport is a place of many people. We waited for a long time and then we showed our passports – another one of the identity cards they have here – to a woman who let us on to the plane. (Jack used magic empty paper instead of a passport, which said my name was Das Dimitru and that I was from Romania. I told Jack that he was mistaken about my name, as it is just Das, and that I came from the tribe, but he didn’t understand.)
The plane was comfortable and I watched television. Jack told me that the film we watched, about Spiderman, was a story, but the word
‘story’ doesn’t seem to translate.
‘Right,’ he said, ‘right now we are flying on a plane. That’s true?’
‘Obviously,’ I said.
‘What if I said, right now we are fighting elephants?’
‘You would be mistaken,’ I said.
He pointed to the television and said slowly, ‘A story is mistaken truth. Spiderman is not real, he’s an actor.’
‘Actor’ is another meaningless word.
‘You can’t have mistaken truth,’ I replied. ‘A thing is either true or mistaken.’ But I don’t think I got through to him.
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Jack showed me forests and snowy lands from the plane window and asked if I was homesick, which was annoying because I was learning to play a computer game called F-Zero and rather enjoying it.
We arrived in New York and drove in a different kind of taxi to our hotel, where we lived for a few days. Jack explained the different kind of money used by Americans, and then we went out and saw things like a giant stone green woman with an ice cream in her hand. We ate food at many different restaurants, although sometimes you have to use a knife and fork. I have to say, cutlery ranks with socks as one of the most pointless things made by humans. What did the gods give you hands for?
Jack was, if anything, even more popular in New York. He made friends with lots of people.
We went to see some people playing music. It was much like it is on television, with everyone packed in and lots of electrical noise. I was a bit nervous at first – it reminded me of the place I first arrived back in Bromley – but I danced in the middle of the crowd and drank lots of fizzy cola. Then we went to a place where you only hear the music, which is made by a man in a corner, electrically, with two black discs and a special hat.
A human girl started dancing with us. She looked very happy and told me her name was Stephanie. I asked her if she’d like to dance with Jack too, but she said he was too good-looking, she preferred her men a little rougher and I had a very interesting face. I suddenly realised she fancied me and didn’t know what to do. Now I’ve been here a while I can tell the difference between different humans, but their low voices and the way they rush and jump about all the time aren’t very attractive. And they all have very ugly little noses. So I told Stephanie I was what she would call a Neanderthal, and that I came from the past in a time machine, and for some reason that really put her off and she hurried away.
The next day we got the plane back to London. Our trip to America was fun, but the thought of Stephanie keeps coming into my mind.
Jack will leave in another two weeks so I must make friends. And I would like a mate.
72
Captain Jack Harkness’s Data-Record
In his old life, Das lived with the Neanderthal folks back home round a fire in a forest and his world extended about twenty miles at most.
I realised he had to get used to the idea that this world’s bigger than that.
I guess the Doctor must have felt the same when he took Rose for her first spin in the TARDIS. And when you’ve travelled, and left a trail of devastated hearts behind you, through as much time and space as I have, one planet in one period becomes a wee bit confining. I had to get away from the British weather anyhow and Das seemed to like American shows the most, so I chose New York.
He’s picked up so much and taken it in his stride. When I told him the Earth was a sphere and revolved round the sun, in a solar system at the edge of a galaxy, in a universe of infinite galaxies, he just nodded and said, ‘Uh-huh, that makes sense.’ He got the Internet in seconds, and learned how to use a knife and fork right away, even though he thinks cutlery is stupid. But when I try to tell him for the thousandth time that Mrs Slocombe is not a real person, he looks at me as if I was the primitive.
My history’s not as good as it should be either. Whenever and wher-ever I travelled before, I’d make a good study of it before setting off.
I knew the London Blitz inside out. But though this is only sixty-odd years ahead, there are some things I goof up. We were halfway to the Brooklyn Poisson-o
-Rama on the subway before I remembered it wouldn’t be built until the collapse of Inter-Bank. And Inter-Bank hasn’t even been built yet.
Also, people here have no idea what’s going to last from their cul-ture. You come back and expect them to be grooving along to Van der Graaf Generator and reading Shena Mackay novels. But no, it’s all U2
and The Da Vinci Code, whatever they are. I spoke to a girl the other day who’d never even heard of Sparks. Wake up, people!
While I’m talking about girls, which is so rare, I can report that Das met one in a club. Or she met him. Some women just get turned on by short, stumpy, hairy guys, I guess. Being Das, when she did the 73
‘Hi, who are you?’ routine, he went and told her the truth. Still, if he ever does find a girlfriend, the fact that he’s got no waist and talks like Minnie Mouse might scare her off. If only he’d showed up on the planet Celation. They sure aren’t so fussy there, as I shudder to recall.
74
The Doctor disentangled himself from Quilley. ’ ‘Your time engine, would you take me there?’
‘I suppose you’ll want to see if it’s as good as yours,’ said Quilley.
‘You might feel envy if it is. Even simmering resentment.’ He looked excited as he led them out.
The Doctor turned to Rose. ‘We have to know what’s powering their engine, and how Das got into it,’ he told her. ‘And there’s another thing bothering me.’
‘What’s that, then?’ asked Rose, but the Doctor could see Quilley trying to listen in on their conversation as they walked along and indicated that they should remain silent for the moment.
Rose nodded – she got it. The Doctor didn’t want to raise in front of Quilley the possibility that after their first journey the people of Osterberg, like Das, would not be able to travel safely through time back to their home. The thought raised so many complications in Rose’s mind that she decided, as the Doctor apparently had, not to worry about it yet.
Quilley led them to a middle-sized hut in the centre of the settlement. Inside was a bizarre machine. It looked at first sight like some 75
kind of steam engine. It consisted of a thick metal tube about six yards long with handles and levers down one side and what looked like a large piston hammering away at one end. It made a dangerous-sounding, insistent rattle. Steam hissed from one end at intervals of a few seconds.
Quilley gestured to it with a flourish. ‘Rather impressive, don’t you think, Doctor? I bet you’re feeling impressed.’
‘Impressed at how rubbish it is,’ said the Doctor, staring in horror.
Quilley looked puzzled and then laughed loudly. ‘You’re being sarcastic, aren’t you? Marvellous!’
The Doctor bent down to look more closely at the machine.
Rose joined him and whispered, ‘He’s getting on my nerves.’
‘He’s not had anyone normal to talk to for years,’ said the Doctor.
‘He’s probably really lonely.’
A cloud of steam blew into their faces and they stepped back.
‘A time machine that runs on steam?’ queried Rose. ‘I can’t accept that.’
‘You accepted Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. They’ve got the strangest technology I’ve ever seen,’ said the Doctor. ‘Do you want me to explain to you how it works? Only take about five years.’
‘I think I’ll skip that, then,’ said Rose.
‘And I need a proper poke at it if I’m going to switch it off without blowing us all to smithereens.’ He produced the sonic screwdriver from his jacket.
‘And is that gonna take five years?’ asked Rose.
‘Might seem like it,’ said the Doctor. He looked up at her. ‘Why don’t you investigate our other little mystery: what that creature was?’
Then he went ‘ooh’ at a particular bit of weird technology at the base of the engine and stooped down to examine it more closely.
Rose nodded. ‘It might just be a bit more exciting than sticking my head into a colander.’
‘All right. Find one of those stingers of theirs and look after yourself.’
Quilley glanced at his watch. ‘Reddy will be going out to the Neanderthals in a few minutes. He’s our surface observer. Goes up to study 76
the Neanderthals and humans at close quarters. You’ll find him by the steps.’
‘Won’t he mind me going with him?’ asked Rose. Then she realised.
‘Of course he won’t. He’ll just go “Yeah, fine, whatever.”’
‘You’re learning,’ said Quilley. ‘You could stab one of the idiots in the back and they’d just say, “Yeah, fine, whatever.”’
‘But be careful,’ said the Doctor, over the whirr of the sonic screwdriver. ‘Won’t be the same up there. It’s a wild world.’
‘You usually tell me not to wander off,’ pointed out Rose.
The Doctor smiled at her. ‘Go on, wander off. Just don’t expect rescuing.’
‘So long as you don’t,’ said Rose, and hurried away before he could change his mind.
Reddy was the man the Doctor and Rose had seen eating the baguette on the surface. ‘Sorry I ran when I saw you,’ he told Rose as they ascended the steps from the town. ‘I had a moment of wrong-feeling and didn’t know quite what to do. I thought you were probably from the human cave.’
‘You steer clear of the humans, then?’ asked Rose.
‘Yeah. They do odd things, so I move away,’ said Reddy. ‘They behave strangely for no apparent reason. Part of my interest is to find out why.’ He handed Rose one of the speaker attachments from a pack slung over his shoulder. ‘The noise makes animals go away, but the humans have got used to it and they don’t go away any more.’
A few minutes later they were striding through the woods. Rose couldn’t help tensing up at the thought of the ferocious animals that were lurking in its canopied depths, but Reddy, of course, was unconcerned, walking quickly and nonchalantly along a route he seemed to know well.
‘What about the Neanderthals?’ asked Rose. ‘What are they like?’
‘Nicer,’ said Reddy. ‘Obviously they’re still a bit strange, quite like Refusers. And their voices are very loud and high. Their language is very easy to grasp if you’ve had the linguistic interest patch. Have you?’
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‘Yeah, sort of,’ said Rose.
‘But they don’t seem to have as much wrong-feeling as the humans and they don’t talk as much.’
‘Right, so they do actually get bothered about things?’ commented Rose.
It was the first time she’d really spoken to one of the Osterbergers and, like the Doctor before her, she found their passivity disturbing.
She was getting nothing back from Reddy, none of the usual non-verbal signals that give you an unspoken, almost instinctive, reaction to a new person. She realised how terrible it must have been for Quilley living among these people. On her travels with the Doctor she’d met robots with more personality. She thought back to her killingly boring science teacher, how his monotonous drone of a voice and empty stare had almost made her weep in frustration on hot summer-term afternoons, pen doodling aimlessly in the margins of her rough book, and realised what a beautiful, unique human being he had been compared to these jolly, pre-programmed, plasticised people.
‘It’s quite interesting,’ continued Reddy. ‘But how anybody can live like they do – the humans or Neanderthals – I do not know. Not being in control of yourself, it must be horrible. And they do this thing called violence. It’s a bit disturbing when you first see it. You’ll need combo 221/8 to get used to it.’
Rose said, ‘And we don’t have violence where we come from?’
‘Of course not,’ said Reddy lightly, expressing nothing more than mild surprise at the obvious oddness of her question. ‘Why disagree when you can party?’
Half an hour later they had travelled from the ragged edge of the woods, over the bleak grassy moorland and into the sprawling, densely packed forest the Doctor had identified as the likely hom
e of the Neanderthals when the TARDIS had arrived. The fresh smell of pine almost took Rose’s breath away. She felt an illogical and quite embarrassing urge just to hug one of the huge, ancient tree trunks in all its lovely knottiness. The forest was like something out of a shampoo advert: impossibly green, impossibly haphazard, impossibly dark and mysterious, with vents of light peeking through the leaves 78
to make lattice patterns on sudden bright outcrops of daffodils and bluebells. It made her feel strong, alive and young, as if she could do anything here. She suddenly understood why people used to believe in fairies. There was real magic in this place, and as she and Reddy trampled through the bracken she wouldn’t have been surprised if a gnome had suddenly popped its head out from under a toadstool.
There was a rustling from up ahead. Reddy took her by the arm and gently pulled her down behind a fallen trunk. ‘Look, there’s some violence now. Best to keep away when they’re doing it. You’ll be interested.’
Rose could just make out the figures of two Neanderthal men about 200 yards away. She realised Reddy would have enhanced eyesight and hearing, much better than hers. For all she knew, he might be able to zoom in on the scene.
The Neanderthals were, as far as she could tell, almost identical to Das. They carried long spears and were standing over the body of a freshly slain pig, shouting in their parrot-like voices and pushing at each other. After a few minutes one of them pushed the other to the ground, slung the pig over his shoulder and lurched off deeper into the forest.
‘Peculiar, isn’t it?’ observed Reddy, shaking his head as he got up.
‘Just a bit of a squabble,’ said Rose. ‘You should see Saturday nights where I come from.’
Reddy showed no interest in this remark, simply taking Rose’s words at face value and not bothering to ask where she came from.
