'Oh, my goodness,' said Clara. 'The circus! The zoo! The donkeys!'
'The hunt,' said the Doctor, opening his hands.
Clara glanced around the office desperately. There was a large works cupboard in the comer. As she opened it, a harsh hot wind blew down into the room, and a rattling noise filled their ears. The large space was completely filled with rubble.
'What's that?'
'Lift shaft,' said the Doctor. It was full of collapsed metal equipment. 'Can you climb it?'
Outside the office on one side, the lion threw back its ancient head and roared. On the other, another disc smashed the one remaining glass window, and Clara caught a glimpse of flashing silver.
Clara glanced at the lion and back at the Doctor. 'You know, he reminds me of someone.'
'Up!' said the Doctor sharply, as Clara pulled herself onto the oily metal chain.
They managed to climb two floors up the lift shaft before it became impassably blocked by machinery.
'There must be another lift,' said the Doctor.
Clara pushed up the hatch, and they both leapt out to run across the floor.
'Careful,' shouted the Doctor. 'It might be rotten.'
But Clara had made it as far as the middle of the floor, then stopped stock still.
The red velvet curtains bloomed with flowers of rot. The famous Wurlitzer organ lay in pieces, scattered amongst the vines that trailed across the famous sprung wooden dance floor; the gilded balconies crushed and collapsed one on top of the other.
'The tower ballroom,' said Clara reverently.
The Doctor had made it to the end of the floor already, and was opening up the opposite shaft with his sonic. 'Come on, Clara!'
'I always... when I was a little girl I was too shy. But I always wanted to dance on this floor. I always dreamed of it. Of coming back here one day../
'You can't go home again/ the Doctor said. 'But you can get shot at by a bunch of overbred chin-free maniacs, if that helps.'
Clara wasn't listening; she was caught in a spell. She moved a step across the floor, then another, then looked up at him. 'Can you dance?'
The Doctor paused in exasperation. 'No, of course I can't dance! Come on, get climbing!'
'Never mind/ said Clara, sadly, as she followed him out and up.
The exterior lifts had long collapsed to the bottom, and the only thing to be done was to climb up and out, scaling the struts of the tower itself, hand over hand. It was frightening and exhausting, as they got higher and higher, and Clara looked out over the black water as far as she could see, and down, over her ruined town; and across, to where she saw great tall electrified fences, wild animals roaming the abandoned streets, the endless jungle and great lakes beyond, and above, a thick blanket of cloud, keeping in the oppressive heat, the sun blazing just beyond.
A hot wind swayed the tower, and the Doctor's foot slipped, but he managed to grab back on. The noise, however, startled a great company of parrots, who rose in the air, squawking wildly, and the Doctor and Clara heard the noise of the hunting horn, as the birds attracted the silver ships, which came rushing up towards them, bumping each other in their hurry. They felled a couple of the beautiful birds, but their real target was the Doctor and Clara themselves, who ducked underneath to attempt the far more difficult job of climbing up the inside. After two agonising floors of this, they reached a small platform with a service ladder, and started to move at full tilt, as the noise of connecting discs jarred their way up the metal structure.
They reached the trap door to the top viewing platform just in time, as one disc sliced through a cable, and an entire section of the ladder peeled off the side of the building and clanged its way a hundred metres below, smashing through the ballroom roof.
They found themselves in a high room lined with heavy glass that hadn't yet cracked: for the first time since they'd landed, Clara realised, there was power on. The room hummed with it. There was a central console with a large connecting wire that shot straight through the ceiling - the aerial.
The Doctor ran to the computer.
As soon as he touched the keyboard, immediately the alarm went off:
'NO GUESTS! NO GUESTS! NO GUESTS!!'
And from the dim shadows in the tiny control room at the top of the Blackpool Tower appeared another hideous half old lady, half robot; this one in a huge floral day dress covered in a stiff blue nylon tabard. Her face was more metal than the other's; the little skin left on it was dried and fraying off, like old leather.
'Sausages!' it said, starting to slowly raise its hand with the circular launcher. The silver pods surrounded the glass control room, buzzing back and forth and laughing. One was filming from a tiny device.
'Now that,' said the Doctor, typing furiously, 'would be a terrible last word to hear, wouldn't it? I mean, even "blood sausage" might have worked a bit better.'
He continued working feverishly on the console as the robot landlady advanced despite Clara's best efforts to kick at her swollen ankles in the sheepskin slippers.
'Doctor!'
Clara was back to back with the Doctor now, looking over his shoulder.
'Leave me alone,' said the Doctor, huffing in frustration. 'I need to do this... stupid computer...'
'Yeah I know,' shrieked Clara, as the hand rose higher and the scent of old breakfasts and popcorn and Rothmans filled the space. 'But you've left the Caps Lock on.'
'Oh yeah,' said the Doctor tutting. He typed some more, and suddenly the humming noise stopped, and the robot landlady abruptly powered down and collapsed onto the floor.
Clara let out a sigh of relief that turned to a yell of fright - as she saw through the glass walls the four silver pods surrounding them lurch, and then, suddenly, drop out of the sky.
'They're falling!'
The Doctor paused. For a barely an instant.
Then, with a sigh, he took out his screwdriver and planted it into the circuit, where it connected up the overhead power again.
'I think I've had a fall,' said the woman, querulously.
Clara looked at the Doctor, who shook his head tersely, typing with one hand. Instead, she peered out of the windows. The silver ships had juddered to a halt, and now were descending slowly and gracefully, round and round the tower, like a fairground ride, until they gently reached the ground and came to a halt. The lion leapt out of the booking office window to have a sniff about. The men's bravado did not extend to them getting out of their pods.
The Doctor complained about his bumt-out screwdriver all the way back down the endless climb and halfway across the ballroom.
Clara took one last look around. 'So no one will ever come here again?'
'I've sealed the fences and put in a skynet,' said the Doctor. 'These hunting grounds are closed.'
'I could never come back here anyway,' said Clara with a shudder, looking at the thick dust covered in their footprints. Motes floated in the air, lit by the hole in the ceiling that let in the sunlight, the whirling ghosts of dancers forever departed.
'Things decay/ said the Doctor. 'But remember, Clara, this isn't a fixed point. It doesn't have to be like this.'
Clara nodded glumly as they crossed the once pristine floor.
The Doctor looked at her stricken face. 'So maybe I do dance,' he said quietly. 'A bit.'
She looked at him.
'Obviously,' said the Doctor. 'You don't infiltrate the deadly French court without mastery of the gavotte.'
'The gavotte?' said Clara. 'Is that the only dance you can do?'
'No,' said the Doctor. 'Also, the quadrille. Take it or leave it.'
He knocked his blackened screwdriver several times hard against his boot, until it emitted a tiny peep and beam of light, and directed it towards what was left of the organ, which started up, creakily, painfully, its old programme, a very slow, mournful version of 'We Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside' in a minor key.
Clara put on her bravest smile as he reached for her hand.
The li
on had long gone by the time they got down to street level and marched the chastened men to the perimeter fence. The Doctor saw Clara desperate to ask questions, and halted her with a look.
'Don't/ he warned gently. 'And you,' he said to Triss. 'If I hear of you treating your wife with a fraction of the contempt with which you treat the rest of creation - and I hear everything - I will happily bounce you off that tower myself, do I make myself understood?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Good boy. You can go.'
They stood on the beach, throwing pebbles in the water. The Doctor looked at Clara. 'You need to work harder in your own time, don't you think? Educate all those millions of children of yours? It's not fixed... yet.'
Clara nodded. Then she looked up at him. 'You do know they're not actually my children? I just teach them?'
The Doctor ignored her, and spoke on, gazing out at the sea.
Suddenly he was almost knocked into the surf by a donkey launching itself on him, licking his face like an overgrown dog.
'Hey!' he said. 'Hey, Meghan! How are you? How are you, girl? There you are.' He scratched behind her ears and she rubbed her head against him adoringly. Then she got down on all fours.
'Oh no,' said the Doctor. 'No. No. Definitely not.'
Clara smiled. 'I think she wants to. You should roll up the bottom of your trousers so you don't get wet.'
The Doctor gave her a look.
'Ooh!' She felt into her pocket and pulled out the pink plastic hat she'd grabbed from the console. 'And here. Stick this on!'
'No hats!'
'Stick it on!' She reached up and put it on for him.
'I don't want...' Meghan had already nudged herself underneath him, and got to her feet, lifting him up. 'I don't...'
But it was too late. Donkey and Time Lord were already proceeding at a stately pace through the shallow waters against the twisted wreckage of the pier. Clara, giggling, watched them splashing away in the light of the huge pink setting sun, as the Doctor gently rubbed the donkey's ears and, when he thought he was unobserved, planted a very quick kiss on the animal's head.
A LONG WAY DOWN
The TARDIS turning upside down was unexpected. Immediately a growly voice echoed around its walls. 'Clara, what are you doing?' 'Clara, what are you doing?' 'Clara, what are you doing?' 'Clara, what are you doing?'
Clara had been buried in lost scrolls in the South Library, where the light was the gold of Alexandria. The TARDIS-given ability to read in any language sometimes seemed to her as wondrous as any galaxy they could visit. She looked up from the floor, gathering the scrolls.
'What was that? Why did we loop the loop?'
'Small asteroid disturbance.'
'Asteroids can't do that to the TARDIS!'
There was a pause.
'Do you need help?' Clara asked tentatively.
'NO!'
There came a longer pause.
'Maybe.'
Clara entered the console room. To her surprise, the TARDIS door was open. Outside, a spiral galaxy floated like a jewelled shell. They were balanced on the tip of the atmosphere of a large brown planet. She moved forward carefully.
'Where are you?'
Even protected by the TARDIS's own atmosphere, she could feel the VAST emptiness of space.
'Why isn't the force field on?'
The voice resounded around the room.
'Because force fields are for custard-loving poltroons... and also I was just about to put it on when the asteroid hit...'
She dashed to the console - but it was too late. Through the door, she could just make out a tiny figure plummeting below her, flipping around, head over heels. Beneath him was something that looked like... a window box.
'YOU DIDN'T...'
'It could happen to anyone.'
'But window boxes are really UNCOOL! And surprisingly suburban.'
'I like them.'
'You've had thousands of people in this thing and nobody's ever fallen out before.'
'Not by accident.'
Clara looked around. The TARDIS was just under orbiting height at the very tip of the atmosphere of the desolate-looking planet. They were miles up. But at TERMINAL VELOCITY...
'Right, we're coming to get you... Aren't you cold?'
'No.'
Clara raised her eyebrows. 'You sound cold.'
'Actually, I'm boiling hot with embarrassment at the stupidity of your question.'
'Didn't you once tell me you used to have a scarf?'
'It LOOKED STUPID.'
'How long can you breathe for?'
'Oh, long enough to feel the annihilating pain of impact, don't worry.'
Clara got up and headed to the console. 'Can you set a quick trajectory for - you know, just beneath him?'
The TARDIS wheezed unenthusiastically.
'Sorry. Please,' said Clara. 'But if we're twelve miles above this planet, that gives us about...six minutes? So shall we get moving?'
The TARDIS's time motors fired up.
'No! It's pointless going back in time, because if we miss him we'll create a right mess. Just go down! Like a normal ship!'
The TARDIS stubbornly refused to move. Clara sighed and looked at her watch.
'This isn't a time problem! Except we don't have much. So just go down - really, really fast. Please?'
But the motors were already wheezing. The TARDIS shimmered, then reappeared, next to another TARDIS. Clara looked out of the first TARDIS just in time to see the Doctor, holding what appeared to be a window box full of delphiniums, leaning curiously out of the second door.
'Stop!' she shouted.
'What?' he shouted, twisting back - just as the asteroid flipped the TARDIS again, causing him to fall.
'Nooo!'
'Clara, what are you doing?' came a fading voice as he dropped once more down through the top atmospheric layers.
'So I'm still just plummeting down here to an early grave quite happily/ came the first Doctor's voice. 'Not that early, to be fair.'
'Oh no!' said Clara. She ran to the console.
'SEE!' she said. 'Messing about in time, nothing but trouble. Go and rescue both of them, and sort this out. IN SPACE.'
The TARDIS ignored her completely, and started once more to remove itself in time. Clara lunged for the handle, but could only move it halfway. Together, they tumbled over, dematerialising and rematerialising at a rate, lurching from side to side. Clara kept a tight grip on the handle, staring beyond the door. She caught sight of yet another Doctor, falling, his coat billowing behind him, and another TARDIS, hurtling round and round; presumably them from several instants before. She let go of the console and rushed to the door, popping her head out then pulling back in sharpish, only just avoiding getting knocked out as several boxes of delphiniums came hurtling past.
'Only/ came the deep tones, 'I can start making out certain topographical features. Like fifteen tiny pebbles and a mouse's back garden. But don't worry about me/
'THE TARDIS WON'T BEHAVE/ shouted Clara in desperation. 'It won't do what it's told.'
They lurched diagonally several hundred feet.
'What, it isn't doing anything?'
'It is, but it's doing the wrong thing!'
The TARDIS continued to dematerialise and rematerialise. Now there were over twenty TARDISes hurtling through the air; Doctors were falling like raindrops.
Clara glanced down at her hands. She was still carrying one of the scrolls of Alexandria. Desperately, she hurled it out of the door.
'Can you catch that scroll?'
'What, in case I need something to read?'
The TARDIS lurched and whirled on, and suddenly the sky was filled with dancing, wheeling TARDISes, tumbling flowers, falling Doctors, passing asteroids and hundreds and hundreds of flut-tering scrolls. Clara saw herself fall straight past, like Alice, a surprised look on her face.
'Oh NO!' she said, banging her fists on the console. 'Why? Why are you doing this?'
The TARDIS jum
ped another millisecond. Clara pushed down again on the lever but the gears ground together. It let out a deep noise and descended a little. Not fast enough. Nowhere near fast enough.
'The nice thing about certain death this way,' came the Doctor's voice inside the TARDIS, 'is it's been really good fun having a bit of a fly before I went. Always wanted to fly. As long as I don't dwell on what's approaching in forty seconds' time, this is actually delightful.'
'Clara what are you doing?' The voice was now a chorus. 'Clara, what are you doing?' 'Clara, what are you doing?' 'Clara, what are you doing?' 'Clara, what are you doing?'
Clara jumped up on the console so she could have more traction on the lever, pressing her entire weight down on it.
'GET DOWN!!!!!!'
Something gave, and the lever pulled down all the way, and suddenly the TARDIS was dropping like a plummeting lift. She tried to steer, but it was impossible. She lost her balance and tumbled back, but fell and rolled across the ground to the open door. Then she stuck out her hand and caught a passing scroll. The ground was coming up fast to meet them, as they dropped past all the other TARDISes and other Doctors. She couldn't think about them. She could only think about hers. They were getting closer. The ground now filled her vision beneath her, brown, vast, and very very solid. They were too late.
'Spread yourself out!' she shouted down. 'Spread yourself out!!'
She turned off the force field, then - as soon as she spotted him skydiving, his coat billowing in the wind - she stood up, braced herself in the TARDIS doors, and dived out. She did not dare look up, but concentrated entirely on making herself as streamlined as possible, hurtling like an arrow through the sky to reach him. She grabbed his coat as they tumbled around together towards the earth, at first fumbling, and then holding on, and managed to unfurl the scroll to form a canopy above their heads as he looked at it, and said, 'Seriously?' And then, for the first time, he saw above him, saw what was raining down on top of them, and his mouth fell open.
BANG the first of the window boxes hit the ground, as the makeshift parachute slowed their descent hardly at all.
Doctor Who: The Triple Knife Page 13