Doctor Who: The Triple Knife

by Jenny T. Colgan

  I turned to him. ‘That actor is meant to be playing you? You’re Loki?’

  ‘Credit where credit’s due, that’s all I’m saying. I was there. And he’s a ham.’

  ‘You’re a ham,’ I pointed out. ‘Also he’s very good-looking.’

  ‘Do you really think so?’ said the Doctor, brightening up.

  ‘Anyway, that’s not the point,’ I said, and explained that someone had messed with the dimensional calibrator.

  He turned ashen immediately and leapt to his feet.

  ‘Is that bad?’

  ‘Bad? It’s… River, of course it’s bad. It’s like pulling a thread… you can’t just tinker with a dimensional calibrator…’

  And just as he said this, something started to shift. Just a very tiny amount, hardly at all. Blink and you’d miss… suddenly, there were two Lokis. And two tables. The great fire suddenly subdivided into two fires, catching a passing server, whose sleeve caught fire. She screamed.

  Then there were more tables, and more, with people crowding out.

  ‘We have to get them out!’ shouted the Doctor, beating out the girl. ‘It’ll start to fold in on itself.’

  Terrified staff were running in from secret doors all over the place, trying to get the crowds to muster and leave by the great doors.

  I went to the great door. But as it opened I saw it opened not onto the outside, but instead into another great hall, with another Loki and another set of terrified people, trying to leave by another door, and yet another beyond. It had become an endless hall of mirrors.

  Worse: the great fire that had caught the serving girl, had now caught the tapestries. The flames were ripping up the walls. Not just in our hall, but in every hall.

  ‘It’ll collapse in on itself,’ shouted the Doctor, ‘and leave nothing but the fire! We have to get these people out of here!’

  The fire was licking at the straw roof of the great hall, even as the people were now cowering under the tables.

  ‘Shield maiden,’ said the Doctor, looking straight at me.

  I looked back at him and nodded, and ran to the door. I pressed the carved wooden rose, and then we were down below, with staff running here and there in panic. We ran straight through the kitchen, where the mead was already beginning to bubble worryingly, and on to the dressing room.

  ‘Sister Valkyries!’ I shouted. The girls were cowering in the corner; their horses beyond whinnying and stamping in distress. The dimensional folding was happening here too; the stables went back and back and back.

  ‘Now we go save them!’ I shouted, holding up my sword.

  They looked at me, astounded and terrified.

  The Doctor didn’t waste a moment, and swung himself onto the back of the nearest horse. I heard him whisper, ‘What’s your name? Oh, sorry, I forgot you’re a robot.’

  Then I followed suit. I turned to the girls. ‘FOR WE ARE TRUE VALKYRIES,’ I hollered at them, ‘AND YOU WILL FOLLOW YOUR BRUNHILDE!’

  And, astonishingly, they mounted their own horses and followed us.

  Then we were off; clattering through the kitchen; bursting through the door into the great hall. The horses knew what they were programmed to do, and in that vast space, they took off, their wings flapping. It was the most astonishing feeling. I glanced over at the Doctor, who grinned back at me; he was enjoying it as much as I was.

  We circled the hall, then he broke through the smouldering hay into the starry night beyond and I followed.

  Below us the great palace of Valhalla was an endless city now; rooms upon rooms upon rooms; an Escher jumble of the near-infinite.

  Except behind us, up flew the other Valkyries through the roof; bold and strong and fearless; and from every other roof in every other iteration flew a line of Valkyries too; and we all banked sharply and flew down, scooping up the people in our own version of the great hall; one by one, or two by two, or in the case of a particularly small family from Junveres, seventeen by seventeen; we lifted them onto the backs of our winged horses, flew them up through the flaming roof under the great white winter moon and set them down gently on the great golden fields of Freyr the harvest goddess, beneath the bright freezing stars.

  Just as we rescued the very last of the people from the great hall, the Doctor shouted, and I raised my sword in the air for everyone to stop. There was a vast, teetering silence from the herd of horses in the sky; even the hordes of frightened people in Freyr’s fields held their breath.

  Then, with a huge creaking noise, one, then another, then another hall folded into itself completely, like a house of cards, one by one by one, until they had all collapsed; folded themselves up and completely disappeared, leaving only the bare ugly network of tunnels and subways of Asgard™ beneath.

  The crowd cheered as we set down the last of the rescued and dismounted, but the Doctor had no time; he was scanning the faces.

  ‘Who did this?’ he demanded. ‘Who? Because people work really hard for their holidays, and you’re just… you’re just spoiling everything.’ He stalked the hordes. ‘Have you any idea how much we need a holiday? I’m travelling the universe and she’s in PRISON.’

  Everyone stared at me and I pretended to be very busy and distracted.

  ‘… and I bet you all have the same thing. Just one day. To get away from your normal routine. To remember how much you love your family. To escape that feeling that everything is collapsing around your feet. And then it collapsed around your feet. And I think somebody here is responsible…’

  There was suddenly a bolting figure from the back; a bright flash of blue, taking off towards where the tunnels began.

  We turned and ran, chasing it. So did Postumus, who had reappeared, and moved remarkably fast on those long limbs of his.

  Beneath the tunnels, everything was dank and utilitarian. We followed some very swift running feet.

  ‘This way!’ shouted Postumus, whose ears were pricked up. We followed him, the pathway twisting and turning and getting deeper.

  Suddenly I clanked against something, and I nearly tripped. My leg was caught. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ puffed Postumus. ‘That’s the monorail. For the transportation pods.’

  ‘The what?’ I said. But it was too late. Already, I could see a gleam of light ahead, as one of the little pods was heading straight for us.

  ‘Get into the side, River!’ shouted the Doctor.

  But I had seen something – something just ahead.

  ‘It’s blue!’ I shouted. ‘Get the guy! He’s blue!’

  I couldn’t move my leg. The train was coming closer and closer. It didn’t appear to have a driver.

  ‘Go on!’ I shouted. ‘Get him!’

  But the Doctor stopped running and turned back towards me; they both did. And both Postumus and the Doctor instantly gave up their quarry and came towards me and, with an extremely ungracious 1-2-3 HUMPH, quickly pulled me out of my boots. The Doctor heaved me first and rolled with me to the left side; Postumus made a dive to the right and, to our utter horror, didn’t make it in time.

  The white pod rolled past and over him, and, just underneath it, we saw one little paw, lying limp on the rail.

  We dived back down to the track. Postumus was lying, eyes shut. His legs were horribly mangled. I stroked his very soft fur. Then I looked up.

  At the end of the passageway, there stood a tall blue, humanoid shape, outlined in the lights.

  I leapt up and pulled out my sword. ‘And now,’ I shouted, ‘I believe you harmed a friend of mine.’

  I stalked up the tunnel, sword trained on his chest.

  As I drew closer, however, I noticed something. The figure wasn’t trying to escape or attack. And yes, it was tall: but it wasn’t a man. It was an overgrown child; it was the teenager we had noticed earlier; his gadget dangling from his fingers. Also, he was crying.

  ‘I didn’t mean it,’ he sobbed, his mouth a wobbly line. ‘I didn’t mean it, but…’

  ‘I’ve got a pulse!�
� shouted the Doctor, as I led the boy back down the tunnel at the tip of my sword.

  ‘And I’ve got a miscreant. Did you just perform mouth to mole?’ I said.

  ‘It’s not so bad once you get used to it,’ said the Doctor, wiping his lips.

  Postumus’s eyes began to flicker.

  ‘What… what happened…?’

  I stroked his nose. ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘You’ve hurt your legs. But we’ll get help.’

  He nodded. ‘They won’t hurt,’ he whispered. ‘Do you know, they’re actually augmented legs.’

  ‘I absolutely hadn’t noticed,’ I whispered back, and he smiled.

  And then, thankfully, the ambulance arrived, and transported us back to the central base.

  All the lights were on in the control room, screens showing a rapidly emptying park. Postumus was propped up. Caius was marching up and down in front of the boy, who was apparently called Tomith, and his quivering parents.

  ‘What on earth were you thinking?’ he was shouting. For something that looked like a beaver, he was actually quite scary. ‘You killed people! You nearly killed my staff! You could have killed everyone in that hall.’

  Tomith was staring at the ground, trembling. ‘I didn’t mean any harm.’

  ‘Oh, you didn’t mean any harm,’ said Caius. ‘You might have destroyed this place for ever, you know that?’

  ‘I was just hacking. Your security systems are so simple.’

  The bristles went up on the back of Caius’s neck. ‘They’re the finest on the market today!’

  ‘Well, they’re still terrible,’ said Tomith. ‘But I didn’t… I didn’t realise that would happen if you messed with the dimensional calibrator.’

  ‘A little knowledge,’ said the Doctor.

  ‘You know the sentencing in this part of the world for hacking?’

  One of Tomith’s triparents burst into tears.

  Tomith trembled even harder. ‘I’m so so sorry. I’ve got exams and everything back on Nurfer. I’m really, really sorry, Sir.’

  ‘You’ll be even more sorry when you’re on Death Row.’

  The parent now looked close to collapse.

  Tears ran down Tomith’s face. ‘I only wanted to mess with it a bit.’

  ‘Well, you messed with the wrong theme park.’

  ‘How old are you?’ said the Doctor.

  ‘Fifteen,’ said the boy, or that’s what the TARDIS translated for me.

  The Doctor raised his hands up. ‘He’s a child, Caius.’

  ‘He’s a criminal child.’

  ‘If I were you, I’d give him a job.’

  ‘What?!’

  ‘Sort out your security breaches once and for all. Poacher turned gamekeeper… No offence,’ said the Doctor, looking round at the assorted woodland animals. ‘Because it seems to me, Caius, you need a new perspective.’

  ‘But he’s going to be prosecuted…’

  ‘You have children, Caius?’

  Caius shrugged. ‘Yeah,’ he said.

  ‘And how do you think they’re going to feel when their dad loses his job for letting his park be destroyed… Or perhaps it stood up to a major test incident. And learned how to pass it… to make it truly secure.’

  ‘I could do that,’ gulped Tomith. ‘I could!’

  One of the triparents nudged another. ‘A job!’ they said in astonishment.

  The Doctor moved closer to Caius. ‘Could you send one of your own children to their death? For breaking the rules?’

  ‘They wouldn’t do anything like this.’

  ‘Is there anything they could do, Caius? That could make you send them to their deaths?’

  There was a long silence in the room.

  Then Caius waved his paws in a gesture of dismissal. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Postumus, can you handle it? If I promote you to Head of Security?’

  ‘When I get my new legs, I will,’ said Postumus, looking delighted.

  Tomith couldn’t believe his luck. A parent started singing a Pharax song of profound gratitude that wasn’t particularly welcome. And the Doctor gave Tomith a look.

  ‘You channel those enormous brains,’ he said severely. ‘Don’t you dare get in trouble again. Don’t you dare let your parents down like that.’

  ‘I won’t,’ stammered Tomith, in tears of relief now. ‘I promise, I won’t, Sir. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.’

  And he broke down again, and the Doctor ruffled his hair.

  Oh, and then it hit me like a rock in the guts.

  Not that it was any business of mine. But that was what he would be like as a father.

  And what do I know? Maybe he does it already. Maybe they’re out there and he turns up every morning to breakfast. Maybe he zips back in time and tucks them in every single night, a little millisecond late here or there from some tight spot; different face sometimes; they never mind.

  Maybe he’s their funny uncle. Maybe they are legion, woven across the sky; or maybe he has peered into every dark corner of the universe and decided he could never be so cruel as to bring an innocent life into it.

  Who knows, maybe some of them are mine.

  Although you’d think he’d have mentioned it.

  Outside, there was a small knot of disgruntled park visitors – everyone else had gone home, but they were still there, clamouring for compensation and calling it disgusting. Amongst them was the large lady, with little Mure, who was sitting on the ground, crying and wailing in utter exhaustion, ignored by his mum, who was shouting about her rights.

  ‘River,’ said the Doctor. ‘Give me your sword.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I like it and I want to keep it.’

  ‘Give it to me.’

  I grudgingly handed it over, and he took off all but a tiny rounded nub at the end with the sonic. Then he programmed something into it and handed it back to the child. Now, the blunt-edged sword played its own fireworks. He gave it to Mure, who stopped crying and we headed on back to the gates.

  ‘I’m just saying, I liked that sword,’ I said.

  ‘Sssh,’ said the Doctor.

  We got to the edge of the Rainbow Bridge. Everyone had finally left; we had the entire park to ourselves. The Doctor winked at something that must have been a camera, and suddenly, the night lifted entirely, and suddenly we were in a perfect, golden dawn, in a meadow, next to the empty bridge, wildflowers everywhere and the warm sun on our necks.

  ‘Picnic?’

  After we’d eaten, he lay back, sighing in contentment, his head in my lap, and started pointing out the inconsistencies in the sky system. I could have mentioned that he was criticising a replica of a wholly imaginary atmosphere, but I don’t think he’d have cared.

  Then he stopped in mid-flow and reached up, one of his fingers – they seem, through every iteration, to stay abnormally long; Time Lord fingers are always a dead giveaway – twirling up through the curls in my hair.

  ‘What are you thinking about?’ he said. ‘You look sad. I hate sad. It makes me itchy.’

  I looked down at him. ‘I know,’ I said, and I stroked his cheek. ‘It’s nothing.’

  ‘But you should still tell me, River-Runs-Deep. Shouldn’t you? Should you? Is this one of those things I always get wrong, like flowers are GOOD presents and trees are NOT GOOD presents? Mystery of the Universe right there.’

  ‘Mystery of the Universe,’ I said, breathing out and trying to let go of the idea of that extraordinary thing I yearned for; life that remakes life on and on and on.

  That no matter what the science tells you, the fact that something alive can grow inside you, something brand new and unique – even though it is made of the same mix of stardust and honey and hope as everything else that ever lived – is a mystery; that every baby is a piece of magic.

  ‘You don’t believe in magic, do you?’ I said, and he laughed.

  ‘No!’

  I shoved him off then and jumped up. ‘Well, that’s a shame, because the Great Wiagler is doing a private
show for us in five minutes, if you wanted to catch it.’

  ‘Ooh! I do!’ he said, scrambling to his feet. We started off in the direction of the beehive meridians.

  ‘Does he shoot fiery breaths across the sky?’

  ‘He shoots fiery breaths across the sky.’

  ‘Does he juggle dragon eggs?’

  ‘Yes, but they’re very ethically sourced.’

  ‘Will he let me choose the cards? Because, I have a system, right…’

  And we did have fun. It was brilliant. We laughed and ate far too much, and he didn’t even moan too much about the food, and we stayed up too late and I danced with Postumus on his new legs at the woodland staff celebration party under the three sickle moons and the Northern lights; and he got me back last night just before they sounded the alarms, and I lay on my cold stone bunk alone and thought what a fun family day out Asgard™ might make or could have made or was, one day.

  They say a psychopath cannot imagine the world any other way but their own. That their version of reality is the only one that matters to them.

  They are so wrong about me.

  ALL THE EMPTY TOWERS

  '"Kiss-me-quick-squeeze-me-slowly"?'

  'Yes! Hilarious. See?'

  '"Kiss. Me. Quick... Squeeze. Me. Slowly." Nope. Still nothing.'

  'It's just a joke.'

  'Is speed of central importance in these actions?' Clara fixed the Doctor with a look, which he ignored as he placed the pink shiny metallic hat back down on the TARDIS console without trying it on.

  'Fine, change the subject,' she said with a sigh. 'Shouldn't it be quick/y? Kiss me quick/y? Is it funny now?'

  'Never mind.'

  'Kick me quick. Now I can see how that might work. Kick me quick... appease me slowly.'

  Clara marched across the console room, doing her best to keep calm.

  'I just thought you might like to see where I'm from. That's all. My home. I thought you might like to visit it.'

  Once upon a time, she thought bleakly, you would have. And we'd have had such a wonderful time. And you'd have loved that damn hat.

  'A "black pool". Right. Good things very seldom come out of black pools in my experience. Oozing things do. Scuttling beastie type things.'